Three days they had shackled him in the cold iron cuffs, kept in some make shift underground prison. Shouto had made no attempt at escape, was compliant as he could be, making himself as little of a threat as feasible.
The bite wound on his arm had been cleaned, but he could feel the heat that radiated from it, the dull throb of infection burrowing into his bones. In cold iron, he had no access to magic that would heal his wounds. He'd be fine though, it would be fine.
His friends knew the extent to which his body could endure. They knew how long he could go without replenishment. They hadn't bothered to feed him anything.
He knew he'd be fine.
But Shouto had grown accustom to regular meals, and regular drinking, and sleeping surrounded by the familiarity of home.
The absence of that comfort was sorely missed.
His friends strung Shouto up in the chains, snaking up his arms in a constricting grasp. The pressure on his wounded arm was awful. His shoulders and wrists were bearing nearly all his weight since his toes barely touched the ground. The magic manacles had been looped over a metal bar and anchored to the nearby wall. A dormant magic circle below him acted as a failsafe if he were to escape, not that he was going to be making an attempt. The suspension was likely a measure to prevent him from ruining the integrity of the magic circle below him. Or it could have just been torture.
The cold iron was merciless as it fried his flesh. He was probably only days away from it reaching the bone on his wounded wrist where Dynamight had shredded his arm subduing him. If it reached his bones, it'd definitely kill him.
Inasa was fairing better than him. He was still mortal, after all. That required regular rest and meals. His friends made sure his warlock got what was required.
Inasa wasn't magic dependent either. He had been fine before he'd met Shouto, and losing magic was not debilitating in the way it was for Shouto. His friends didn't bother to separate them other than the (likely) cold iron cage Inasa found himself kept him, though it might have been worse this way. In their current arrangement, Shouto could look over and see the openly concerned glances Inasa was giving him. Eyebrows pitched together, eyes squinting, bottom lip raw for being worried. He must have looked bad.
Shouto certainly felt bad. Besides the white noise of cooking flesh, he was dripping with sweat. Being suspended and bearing his body weight made each breath a laborious task. It was taking all his energy just to form short, coherent thoughts.
"Boss, how you holdin' up? You just say the word I'll work on bustin' you out."
It took a monumental amount of effort to raise his head and give Inasa a bland stare.
"We aren't breaking out, Inasa. We're cooperating."
It was silent for a moment, Inasa giving him that same worrying expression.
"But Boss, I don't know how much cooperating you got left in ya."
Shouto didn't say anything for a moment. The sizzling of his skin rang loud in the quiet of the room. Overshadowed only by his own ragged gasps of breath.
"I'll be fine." He said, unconvincing to his own ears. "Tell them anything they want to hear, except-"
"Yeah, yeah I know." His warlock said, waving off the constant reminder of the single piece of information he was not to reveal.
Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the rude blonde half-elf he'd seen working the bar in the tavern last week. He sneered at Shouto as he carried a measly meal meant for Inasa.
Shouto tracked the sloshing cup of water intently, unable to stop himself from licking his lips at the sight of the water.
The rude man scoffed, apparently watching for a reaction.
"Oh, is the A-Class pet faerie feeling a little thirsty?" He asked, reveling in Shouto's discomfort.
The half-elf grabbed the cup off the tray and lobbed it at him. It hit Shouto just below his scarred eye, splashing water across his sweat-drenched face. He barely registered the hit, the coolness of the water a welcome change from the ever present burn over the rest of his body.
"Thank you."
"Did those chains fry your brain fae pig? Aren't I pissing you off?"
"Not at all… I don't believe I could ever be upset with you. You gave me a gift greater than anything I have and will ever receive."
A name. The most important name he'd ever learned.
The mortal recoiled, thrown off and uncomfortable. "What are you talking about, monster? I never gave you anything."
Bakugou often spoke brashly like this mortal. His words never held that bite to them. This man spoke with genuine venom. Bakugou's thorned words were camouflage. If one took the time to focus, his real intention always revealed itself.
He missed Bakugou.
He missed the feel of warm, affectionate magic that always surrounded his mortal. Although Shouto could not call upon the magic bound as he was. He could still see it, languid currents that traced a greater universe, yet yearned desperately to go to Bakugou.
Shouto blinked back into focus at the sound of his name being called by Inasa. The half-elf mortal was gone. When he turned his gaze to Inasa the mortal's posture relaxed.
"You kinda zoned for a second there. Freaked that rude hero out enough to leave pretty quickly, at least." He was chewing on the meager piece of bread that constituted a meal as he spoke.
"Sorry I took your water."
Inasa laughed. "Please, looks like you needed repenting more than me."
"Replenishing," Shouto corrected.
Inasa liked the large vocabulary Shouto used around him, but didn't care to remember the meaning of words. It'd become a running joke between them, a game. Inasa's flagrant misuse of vocabulary versus Shouto's ability to decipher what he meant.
Somehow it was grounding. An interaction so comfortingly familiar it broke up, for a moment, the unrelenting force of pain.
They fell to silence again. Shouto concentrated on his breathing, counting his breaths. Make it to ten breaths, then make it to the next ten, over and over again to keep his mind focused on something other than the hurt.
"How long until you think they're actually gonna start questioning us?" Inasa said after a dozen rounds of counting ten breaths.
"Shouldn't be long, remember we're cooperating."
"Yeah, Boss. You said that already."
"Oh," Shouto said, sucking in a ragged breath as he shift in a particularly unpleasant way, "You're taking this allegiance change well."
Inasa shrugged, "I mean, if we're switching sides and I'm being honest. All I really want is to put King Endeavor and old fae families in their place. You were a good connection to them, and now that you want to fight along with the people taking a stand against Endeavor, that's even better for me. All those faeries can burn in the pits."
"Ah."
"Not you though! You aren't like Endeavor at all, and you've helped me so much over the years. I'm with you through the thick of it!"
"Inasa."
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Stop talking."
It was two more days after that conversation when Midoriya finally appeared.
Shouto was starting to lose it. He'd never contracted a mortal illness, but he knew his body was enduring a lot of physical stress. Without the aid of magic, his body was responding as if he were any other mortal. He was definitely running some sort of fever. The pain in his arm only got worse with every passing day.
The fever was a bad sign. If the mortals didn't provide him with some sort of replenishment or relief from the cold iron he'd probably die within the next day.
Perhaps that was what they wanted.
He had plenty of time to reflect on the battle a few days ago. He'd seen the wrought betrayal in Bakugou's eyes when his mortal realized who Shouto was. There was something heavy sitting low in his gut, weighing him down, that said this was what he deserved. Shouto would pay the dues of his betrayal, whatever they may be.
Whether it be pain, or torture, or death.
Shouto was alive for now, so all there was left to do was endure. Inasa continued to talk to him, which was helpfully grounding, but cohesive discussion was nonexistent. It was easier to think inside his own head though. Keeping track of their conversations only got harder as time continued on.
He continued to count. And count. And count.
When Midoriya appeared in front of him, it took him a full round of counting to realize it was not a trick. Midoriya was here. Midoriya was his friend. Midoriya was close to Bakugou who was not here.
"Deku… Hello. Where s'Kacchan?"
"What do you want with Kacchan?" He asked. Tone guarded, cold, unfriendly.
"Is he okay? Wounds were bad… back before."
"Oh…" Midoriya said. He was looking at Shouto. Staring and staring and staring, and maybe Shouto was no longer himself and Midoriya did not recognize him. "He's fine. Almost entirely recovered."
Shouto felt a tension ease out of him on a pained exhale. Bakugou was ok. The image of his mortal collapsing from that terrible wound had not left him since it happened.
To think his Bakugou was also a creature burdened by destiny. It seemed something had diverted from what Bakugou had expected to happen. Whatever it was. At least he was alive.
"That's the only question you have?" Midoriya sounded uncertain now, like he'd expected the conversation to go a much different direction.
Shouto blinked his eyes, trying to get his vision to focus, but the half-elf remained unclear. Shouto was unsure what he wanted from him.
"Oh, um, how are you doing? And everyone else. Kacchan was the only one I noticed."
"You don't have any questions about your treatment or why it's taken so long for anyone to talk to you?"
"I must pay my dues… like anyone else."
He was met with silence. So he continued. Trying to lift himself on his aching shoulders, but it just hurt, hurt, hurt.
He sucked in a wet gasp, letting the intensity of the pain clear his head enough to speak coherently.
"I've already instructed Inasa to be completely forthcoming with any details regarding King Endeavor's plans to bring ruin to the mortal realm. If you require it in my own words, I'll be happy to comply."
His flesh sizzled in a crescendo as he put more pressure on his binds. Forget days, Shouto assessed he might have hours left.
The pain would be excruciating. If he was lucky maybe he'd black out.
Shouto wasn't feeling lucky.
"Just like that. You don't want anything?" Midoriya asked him, face so blurred Shouto couldn't read his expression.
Shouto wanted-
"-Kacchan. Can I speak to Kacchan before I die?"
"Die?!" Midoriya's voice broke on the word, jumping octaves. "What? When are you dying?"
"Are ya stupid or something, hero? Look at him, you guys are killing him. He's gonna die from composure." Inasa helpfully supplied from his prison.
"What?!"
"He means exposure," Shouto supplemented, brain fever-fogged but still fluent in decoding Inasa.
And then Midoriya began muttering, words running too quickly for Shouto's fever addled brain to make sense of.
Then he was out of Shouto's vision. Muttering in Inasa's direction, but Shouto caught the last bit- "I'll see what I can do."
Shouto let out a full-body, wheezy sigh. Good, Midoriya was going to try to get Kacchan for him. He saw the figure of his mortal friend retreat and called out to him.
"Midoriya."
The mortal stopped dead, whipping around to face him. Even in the blur of his vision Shouto could register the tension in his stance, like he was getting ready for an attacker to come at him.
"Thank you. Thank you for trying to get Kacchan for me."
Faeries did not say thank you. It was rude, uncouth, unrefined, weak.
Mortals said thank you. When they were grateful. When they wanted to let someone know how much a favor meant to them.
Midoriya relaxed after a moment, fists dropping, posture shifting into something more natural.
"Just hang on a little longer."
Shouto seized as the cold iron finally made it to the bone in his wrist.
Shouto opened his eyes to a room that was, decidedly, not the prison Inasa and he had been kept in for the past several days.
His first thought was Bakugou Katsuki was in this room with him. Shouto could feel it in the magic.
His second thought was that he was still alive.
Shouto knew this place even if he'd never been in this room. Bakugou's home.
The magic was alive around him. After days without its comforting touch, to feel it move along his skin was a familiarity Shouto grasped on to. He could taste it on his tongue, feel it settle in his lungs like he was a drowned man taking his first breath of air.
His arm was wrapped and bandaged. Shouto didn't need to see it to know the infection had been cleared. He doubted it would even leave a scar.
His mortal was asleep in a chair next to the bed Shouto was laying in. Arms crossed over his chest and legs kicked up on a stool in front of him. He looked unharmed. Shouto would go as far as saying he looked well, even with deep set rings around his eyes like he'd been having trouble sleeping.
The magic shimmered in the early afternoon sun rays around him. Shouto watched quietly. He felt warm, and safe, and home.
Mortals were unassuming creatures. Imperfect and chaotic to a fault, but the Faewilde had never evoked the content peace he felt in this moment.
Bakugou Katsuki, and all the other mortals of this realm, were the reason he was changing destiny. In the quiet stillness of the room, there was nothing that had ever been more clear to him.
"You just gonna keep song-birding over there. The fuck are you so happy about?"
Shouto jolted as Bakugou spoke. One pretty red eye cracked open in a glare.
"You're awake."
"Be pretty shitty of me to be sleeping on guard duty."
"Guard?"
"Yeah, to keep you from pulling one over on us."
"I assure you, I have no plans to pull anything over anyone."
Bakugou scoffed at him, and it sounded like he was one degree of anger away from spitting on him.
Then the door was opening. A tired-looking man Shouto recognized as one overseer of the guild stepping in along with Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, and Midoriya.
There was a book in the man's hand, Aizawa Shouta was his name, that Shouto recognized. They wanted to bind him in a similar way Inasa once tried, and he felt an instinctual spike of alarm. Bakugou had said his family name in the dungeon, Shouto remembered, somehow they had figured out who Shouto was. With his true name, they'd be successful at completing the ritual. His will would be bound to whatever person or object they chose.
Aizawa brandished a dark lump of stone. "As punishment for plotting and attempting to execute a world-ending destruction event, the UA Guild will be taking appropriate measures to ensure such acts of terror cannot be committed again."
"Has Inasa informed you of the finer details of King Endeavor's plans?"
Aizawa nodded at him. His expression gave nothing away on his opinion of the continued wars mortals would be subjected to in the coming years. "We have begun questioning. You and your subordinate's cooperation and insights into the threat we face are the only reason we are not executing you, as would be the appropriate punishment for the crimes placed before you."
All the other mortals seemed to flinch at the admission, but Shouto only nodded his head. Aizawa took that as a cue to begin, tracing runes in the air and muttering an incantation while Uraraka, Midoriya, and Yaoyorozu provided support.
Shouto watched, ignoring the instinctual urges telling him to fight against this. He'd committed to this new path, and binding him would probably be the best way to subvert his prophesied harbinger status. But he could feel Bakugou's eyes on him bearing down in judgement. The distrust so unfamiliar it made his skin crawl.
"And with these words spoke, a connection will form,"
Shouto's attention went back to Aizawa as he spoke the final words in Shouto's native tongue, a method that would strengthen the binding on him to be nearly unbreakable. He couldn't help the snarling hiss that crackled over his lips.
"Todoroki Touya."
The spell fizzled with an anticlimactic wheeze.
"Oh, you don't know my true name." He said into the awkward silence that followed. There was a relief that followed in the knowledge that his name was still safe.
"I don't suppose you're feeling generous with your name?" The man said to him, and Shouto cocked his head as he felt long ingrained instincts claw against his ribcage at the prospect. He wouldn't be able to give it if he tried.
"You should know a faerie would never give up their name. Especially not to those not deemed worthy."
The man grunted in muted displeasure. "You brats can never make any of this easy. Alright, the name exists so we can find it."
His last statement was directed at the group he brought with him and they filed out, leaving him alone with Bakugou again.
"By All Might, you faeries think you're so slick." Bakugou said into the silence.
"What?"
"You think I don't know what you're doing? Stalling. Biding your time so you can break out and wreak havoc?"
"Kacchan, you can trust I have no plan on doing such a thing."
"Trust? Hah, fat fucking chance I make the mistake of trusting you again."
"The others seem to trust me enough at my word of the King's plans."
"That's fucking great for them. Unfortunately, I'm not a fucking fool. Trusting you is what got me sitting in a room on fucking guard duty for the guy who's been spending the last three years trying to end the world."
Silence.
"I was led to believe it was the path I was predestined to walk, but it is no longer the path I choose."
"Hah. I'll believe it when I see it."
"I am being nothing but truthful with you, Kacchan. You don't believe me?" After everything we've been through.
"I believe you're the sleazy fae fuck I thought you were when we first met, and you'd spin your words to whatever fucking angle you needed to get out of this mess," he spat.
His eyes were a cold, forced stillness Shouto recognized. One he'd seen on a faerie he once knew.
It was lost. It was desperate. It was a plea.
Bakugou took his silence as an admission to the truth of his statement and stood up, the chair and stool toppling over with the movement. He stomped to the door, and Shouto was suddenly overwhelmed. If Bakugou left this room now, after that. Something between them would break beyond repair.
Shouto decided.
Something was expanding rapidly inside him. Swelling up his throat and breaking loose ancient chains inside himself.
There was a storm rolling into this room. It was raising all the hair on his body, crackling in a tumultuous frenzy.
There were words forming on his lips with unwavering intent, the magic was vibrating around them, all his hair stood on end with staticky anticipation.
The roaring magic in the atmosphere had nothing to do with what he said next.
"Todoroki Shouto."
Bakugou froze. A deafening slam reverberated throughout the room as his hand hit flat against the door he was about to slam open. "What?"
"My name." Shouto said back, the magic rumbling with staggering pressure, far greater and more monumental than anything he'd ever felt.
Bakugou's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Shouto watched him turn the sounds of his name over in his mind and felt his heart shutter.
"Todoroki Shouto."
If the magic had been rumbling before, with the words spoken by Bakugou Katsuki everything exploded out in a thunderclap of energy. No ritual needed as the magic wedded a bond between. It dug hooks into Shouto's very soul, embedded so throughly it could never be removed, then snapped taught.
Shouto could feel how much more immense and awe-inspiring it was compared to whatever measly ritual Aizawa would have been casting on him.
"What the fuck is happening?"
Shouto's eyes shot up to Bakugou Katsuki in surprise. "You can feel it?"
That seemed implausible. Mortals didn't have a knack for feeling magic the way extra-planar creatures could.
"Feel it? What am I looking at?" He asked back, and Shouto could see that Bakugou was looking and he was seeing. Seeing a world that Shouto thought only he would ever witness.
"This is how I see the world."
He watched Bakugou reach out to the magic as it billowed around him with unrestrained affection. His fingers went right through it, but Shouto watched as he traced knowingly along the shape regardless.
"The magic loves you dearly," he said. "For the fae, names and words hold incredible power. I gave you my name willingly and when you said it, we completed a very old ritual. When the latent magic from the spell begins to dissipate, you won't be able to see this so clearly, but you might be able to feel it."
"You gave me your name because of the magic?" Bakugou asked, distracted by the overload of a world he'd never seen before.
It would be so easy to agree, but Shouto knew that was not the reason.
"I gave you my name because of who you are."
Two opposing halves, joined in harmony
Bakugou's attention was finally on him, fingers running along the spine of a languid trail of magic. His cheeks, already flushed, darkened even further. Shouto stared back, eyes steady as he allowed the mortal to find his bearings. After a moment Bakugou seemed to shake himself out of his head, averting his eyes quickly back to the magic.
"So what, you're bound to me now? Like what that ritual would have done to the stone."
"In a way. This is much more powerful, though. Look inside yourself. Do you trust me?"
Bakugou paused his wandering of the magic lines around them, and it looked like he was contemplating the words right down to the vibrations of air they carved out.
"I… I don't know what I feel."
Shouto nodded. "It may be overwhelming at first, but you'll come to understand it. I hope you will trust what I say next as true, without doubt."
Shouto waited until he held Bakugou's gaze.
"I give all of myself to you willingly — As a companion, as a servant, as a friend — for as long as time continues to press forward in its unrelenting march. Never again shall I allow your faith in me to waver."
Birth an oath of mortal fealty
Shouto knew then how wrong the King had been.
Destiny was already changing.
Bakugou Katsuki had not forgiven Shouto for being the harbinger of mortal doom.
After the bond was formed, Bakugou had left. Shouto had not been able to speak to him since.
Shouto was no longer bedridden and now was on lock down in Bakugou's home. Yaoyorozu had been tasked with building the wards to trap him in the home, and he doubted he'd be able to get out even if he wanted to.
Although it was Bakugou's home in name, his mortal hardly made himself known here. He avoided his home like it was plagued, only around when it was his turn on the guard cycle and even then he did not go inside, he did not speak, he did not listen.
The bond was there. A constant, thrumming heartbeat of the connection Shouto was intimately aware of, but since it had been forged, his mortal had distanced himself.
The rest of the mortals, his friends, were similarly wary. The only reason he was freed from the original prison was because the powerful bond had been confirmed by both Aizawa and Yaoyorozu. Aizawa had described that Shouto was essentially a chained beast with Bakugou in control of his leash, able to yank him back with a single word should he ever get out of control.
That was the nature of the bond. It was a choice that Shouto entrusted his name to Bakugou, and it was a choice if Bakugou used it or not.
His mortal never used the power the bond had over Shouto. Never commanded his silence, forced his banishment. Bakugou acted like their magical connection did not exist.
Yaoyorozu had looked at Shouto with open concern when she first saw him after it happened. She was not a mortal, and he could tell she saw vows and promises forged into his very essence for what they were.
She could read them. Shouto could feel them. She did not say anything.
The bond wasn't painful, but there was an itching anxiety caused by his separation from Bakugou.
It had done more than connect them. It was old magic, sacred and ancient, that stirred long dormant fae instincts. Behaviors coded within himself, long forgotten with time, had been reinvigorated by the magic.
Genetic memories from a time when the Faewilde was much more brutal and hostile, and fae creatures were vulnerable to the whims of violent magic and malevolent chaos without the protection of their families.
The bond told those old instincts Bakugou was his family now, and the magic reinforced it more deeply than his connection with any of his other fae brethren. Even now he could follow the soft relaxed tendrils of their bond as it lazily undulated around the nearest fae tear. Tempting him to chase after his mortal.
The urges were on his tongue, like a film caking the inside of his mouth — protect, possess.
But that instinct was being smothered by the same bond that had awoken it in the first place. Bakugou was clear in his desires, even if he didn't voice it his intentions rang through loud and clear. Shouto was to stay. He was not to do anything that attract undue suspicion. Play the part of the demure fae prince he'd seemed all along, all the while old instincts told him to sharpen the talons and fangs he'd been born with but never used.
A bitter unpleasantness stuck to Shouto's teeth as Bakugou continued to ignore him. This was a consequence of his own making, a reality he must reap with decorum.
That mindset did little to ward away the guilt, and regret, and shame.
He'd been nothing more than a mindless drone under the King's orders. Comfortable in his destined station of a doom bringer, content to hold the prestigious status of a friend among mortals. All the while blind to a plot unfolding before his eyes as his mortals gathered their strength to oppose a great evil. Not for some nameless mortal pariah that let a little power go to their head, but to fight against Shouto himself.
He wondered how the situation looked in the eyes of his mortals. How deep did the splintering wounds of his betrayal go? He wondered what there was that he could do to fix it.
The ancient grudge King Endeavor held against All Might was not one Shouto had any stakes left in. There was no benefit to wiping out mortals as collateral to a clash of titanic powers, which left Shouto with the conclusion he'd already reached nearly a month prior.
He was changing allegiances. A willing participant against a prophecy that the King believed in so assuredly Shouto was willing to bet the arch fae would not see the betrayal coming. The King had not called on him in the time since he'd been imprisoned, far too trusting that Shouto remained a pawn to his grand plan. That confidence would be his downfall.
Already Shouto's prophecy was being fulfilled — in a way that was least expected — the first stanza completed as he swore himself to a mortal so unlike himself.
Prophecies were rarely fulfilled in the way that's expected.
Natsuo had told him that before he was even half a decade old, and now all he could wonder was if his brother knew of the future he was now facing. He was so closely aligned with the fates, and divination was so far removed from Shouto's own expertise, he could only speculate.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at Bakugou's door. Shouto recognized the presence immediately, although it was unexpected after a complete cutoff from all contact with his friends.
"Deku, I'm surprised you're not out with Kacchan and the rest," he said, as amicably as he could manage.
He watched as his words hardened something within Midoriya, and the mortal looked up at him with a cool gaze.
"Why are you lying?" He asked, keeping his distance from Shouto as he stood by the door. Shouto wasn't aware of any lies he could be referring to. When Shouto didn't respond, Midoriya's anger seemed to boil over. "Names, Todoroki! I know you know my name, and who knows how many others."
The sound of his name on mortal lips had his reflexes pulling Shouto's lips back in a snarl, but that feeling was soothed almost immediately by the magic, by the bond. Although forged with Bakugou, it seemed to recognize other mortals Bakugou considered family, and Midoriya was not an enemy. No matter what his mortal professed so vehemently.
Shouto had been worried revealing he knew the names of his mortals would only seed further distrust. That they would see it only as a threat with everything else that had already occurred.
If Midoriya was aware, then there was no use in hiding it anymore.
"I know many of your full names, Midoriya Izuku. I have for a long time," he said, watching as Midoriya processed the information.
Midoriya was sharper than most beings he'd met, the whirl of his thoughts tangible in the quiet of Bakugou's home as memories seemed to lock into place and validate Shouto's statement.
"But you never stole them?"
"I never wanted to. I didn't want the power any of you possessed," Shouto said. The truth was the best he could offer in this moment.
"Why?"
"Without myself noticing, I stopped believing in the destiny I was born to fulfill."
Midoriya seemed to consider that for a moment. "Because of Kacchan?"
The nickname alone made the latent magic in the room shiver, and Shouto could feel his expression soften into a smile.
"I suspect my betrayal of King Endeavor began the moment Bakugou Katsuki and I crossed paths." He replied softly, though he knew all his mortals played a part in his change of ideals. "Magic loves destiny. Knowing what I do now about Bakugou, that he is another creature shackled by prophecy, it was only natural the magic drew me to him."
Midoriya made a disgruntled noise, hands coming up to tug at his wild green hair with a sudden burst of excited anxiety.
"Wait a second. 'From the moment you crossed paths?' 'The magic drew you together?' Like soulmates?!" Midoriya asked, and Shouto paused to consider the question.
They weren't connected like that, at least not at first. In hindsight, what drew Shouto to him was the reality Bakugou was a kindred spirit. Another being so inhibited by destiny the magic couldn't help but amplify and resonate around him.
"No," he said, feeling like a particularly confounding puzzle was slotting in place. "The magic that first made him so enticing… it was always just my own feelings, reflections of my own thoughts and emotions, strengthened only because Bakugou is also a creature whose existence is so interwoven in destiny."
He ran his tongue over his teeth, reluctant to continue with his theories even as Midoriya leaned in with that insatiable need for the revelation they were racing towards. "But..."
"For a faerie to willingly give their name to another is the deepest act of devotion we are capable of," Shouto said with an assured nod. "Our souls are now very much connected by the bond we share. A version of soulmates, I suppose, though I believe that had more to do with my intentions."
A clarity that he'd been on the cusp of for so long was finally making itself known. Threads tying together and connecting loose ends.
"I vowed to bind myself to him for the rest of my existence and I am an immortal being, so I have tied myself to him for a literal forever."
"Why make that choice?" Midoriya asked in the charged buzz of magic that hung between them. "You know Kacchan doesn't have a forever here."
That, at least, was a question easily answered.
"Because I wanted to." Shouto said, as resolutely as when he gave Bakugou his name in the first place. This had nothing to do with prophecies and divination. This was a decision made freely, and as he spoke his thoughts those final pieces completed the picture of something he had not understood for such a long time.
It was not the magic that loved Bakugou Katsuki so dearly.
"You care for Kacchan?"
It was never the magic.
"I love him."
The magic, louder and more joyous than Shouto had ever witnessed, sang.
The realization of his feelings for the mortal Bakugou Katsuki had gone unresolved. Besides Midoriya and Yaoyorozu, all the mortals of the UA Guild still avoided him like the plague. His friends were reluctant to discuss Inasa as well, though thanks to their pact Shouto took a little comfort in the fact his warlock was at least alive.
It was, as it always seemed to be when it came to Bakugou, when he least expected it that his mortal appeared before him.
Shouto was lying on the floor, flat on his back as he watched lazy motes of dust twinkle in the beam of late afternoon sun he was occupying, enjoying the basking warmth that enveloped him.
Bakugou had shattered the tranquil silence as he kicked the door in, stomping into the house and bee-lining for his bedroom. His mortal barely spared him a passing glance, scoffing when he saw Shouto splayed out on the floor.
Shouto scrambled to his feet. It'd been months since he'd seen his mortal. Bakugou wasn't even on his guard circuit anymore. This was an opportunity, a chance to fix their relationship. To show Bakugou that he'd changed from the faerie he was when he first arrived on the Mortal Plane.
Shouto followed Bakugou's trail to the bedroom, gazing in to see his mortal rooting through a chest as he searched for something.
"Hello," he said, best to start small and work his way up.
Bakugou didn't so much as grunt to acknowledge him.
Shouto cleared his throat, shifting his weight to try again. "I've wanted to speak to you for quite a while-"
Bakugou shoved past him, whatever he'd been searching for retrieved. He didn't look at Shouto, expression pressed in a nasty scowl, eyes straight ahead.
This was not how Shouto imagined this reunion going. He was short on time. He needed to tell Bakugou something, anything that would get him to stay, to listen.
He followed his mortal, an unusual rush of panic squeezing his chest as this chance began slipping away from him.
"Wait!" He said, frantic as he grabbed Bakugou's arm. His mortal did stop. This was it. This was the moment. "I love-"
"No!" Bakugou wrenched his arm free, spinning on his heels and properly looking at Shouto with incredulous revulsion.
He slapped his palm flat into Shouto's chest, pushing him back with a force that sent him stumbling.
"You don't get to fucking say that after what you did." He said, expression twisting with heartache and rage. "I don't want to hear that now. I don't forgive you."
"But-"
"I wish I never saved you from those shitty poachers. I wish I never asked for that summons. I wish I never cooked for you and offered my home to you and cared about you and I wish I didn't fucking know you."
"We can't change the past."
Bakugou's laugh was humorless.
"I was supposed to die there. I was supposed to kill you or your stupid warlock or something and strike a fatal blow in this awful fucking war and I didn't… Do. Anything." He was seething, sucking in heavy gasping breaths that looked painful to take and that shook his shoulders. "I was raised for this prophecy and I dropped the fucking ball. I failed. I fucking lost. Doomed the entire world, failed All Might, and for what? My feelings for some disgusting faerie that doesn't give two fucks about me?"
"I do ca-" Shouto reached out for him only to have his hand slapped away.
"Shut up! I'm done with your shitty fucking lies. I won't be poisoned by your words and your too pretty face ever again." Bakugou glared at him with an intensity that caught any words he was going to say in his throat.
"If I never see you again, it'll be too fucking soon."
Then he was gone.
The week after their fight was the worst of all the weeks he'd ever spent in the Mortal Realm. Worse than when he first arrived and didn't know how to take care of himself, worse than when he had to fight his own brother, worse than when he was dying in a prison.
The solitude was torturous. Left with only his own thoughts to repeat the disaster encounter over and over again. The awful broken expression on his mortal as he suffered through the reality of knowing what Shouto was, haunted his waking mind. Bakugou's words, a constantly looping mantra Shouto could not escape.
It felt like there was no coming back from this. He was being kept for his knowledge for now, for his insights into the Faewilde and King Endeavor, but Shouto had no doubt that once he ceased having value, they would kill him.
Bakugou might do it personally.
So it was a surprise when Yaoyorozu came knocking on Bakugou's door, deactivated the magic circle, and invited him out to lunch. (Caveat being a cold iron ankle bracelet and a sending stone that could alert Bakugou at a moment's notice if he so much as thought of stepping out of line.)
Shouto had assured all his mortals time and time again he had no plans of dissenting, but such assurances fell on deaf ears. Of his friends Yaoyorozu was by far the least perturbed by the unfolding of events, but she was also not mortal. She saw him and the situation from an angle Shouto knew mortals could not grasp.
That was the most likely reason he found himself seated across from her in the Sero family shop, a bowl of cold soba placed in front of him. He wondered if Sero had told his mother what had transpired. It was unclear by the way she acted now.
She continued to greet him with that comforting warm familiarity, no wariness to her gaze or tension in her stance. He was grateful for it. It was a comfort he'd been missing desperately over the past few months.
"So, Endeavor, Inasa said you have something we can use against him?" Yaoyorozu's voice brought him out of his thoughts. She was looking at him with a neutral but patient expression.
"How is Inasa doing? Are you treating him well?"
Yaoyorozu sighed, "He's fine, better than fine actually. I've never met a mortal so happy about being in prison."
From the little Yaoyorozu had shared with him, she'd been doing most of the interrogations with Inasa. It was also the reason she cited for taking Shouto out to the city today.
"I need a change of scenery," she'd said, and Shouto had been grateful to leave the home now rank with foul atmosphere.
Shouto could picture his warlock's blinding smile and booming optimism easily. The thought had an unwitting smile adorn his features.
"He's not so bad, you know, just a touch misguided."
"By you," Yaoyorozu said.
"By me," Shouto agreed. "And he's strong-"
"Because of your power."
"-despite my power." Shouto corrected, placing his chopsticks down and leaning back in his chair. "Besides, you know well enough I'm not nearly as powerful as I was thanks to the loss of my devoted followers."
Shouto was weak. The devoted power from his followers now gone as they were killed or renounced their loyalty.
"We disbanded your cult, Todoroki," she said.
"Semantics." He waved his hand at her, dismissing the comment. "My point being, he's not a bad guy and he could be a great ally. His goals align with yours as well. He wants to stop the King."
Yaoyorozu clapped her hands together. "Speaking of Endeavor, let's get back on topic."
He dropped the Inasa conversation, satisfied that his warlock seemed to be fairing fine for the moment, and warmed by the comfortable conversation with a friend. It'd been months since any of his friends had talked to him like this. Joking, casual, relaxed. He'd missed it.
Leaning forward, Shouto began recounting the information he had on the King that could help the mortals.
They sat in a comfortable silence together a while later, bowls emptied and stomachs full. Shouto felt like maybe his entire world wasn't falling apart for the first time that week. He basked in the feeling, eyes closed, slouching in his chair.
"The matter of Endeavor isn't the only reason I wanted to talk to you today," she said, enough apprehension in her tone to have Shouto cracking an eye open to watch her. "The other guild members, I don't think they truly understand the implications of what you've sworn with that bond."
Shouto remained relaxed in his position. "It doesn't matter if the mortals don't understand the depths of the vows that I made. I consider it an advantage. It is a connection to him that no one else can ever match."
Yaoyorozu was silent for a moment. "It seems more of a curse to me."
That got Shouto's attention. He pushed himself up to give the angel his full attention, a defensiveness tightening in the set of his jaw. Before he could get a word in, she was continuing.
"You are immortal. Bakugou is not." She said, spoken so plainly it stopped the contention on his tongue. "There will come a time where his soul will leave this plane, and you will be left with an emptiness inside that nothing shall ever be able to fill. You will feel the loose end of your severed connection for the rest of your existence."
Yaoyorozu was clutching a fist over her chest, expression skewed with an emotion more vulnerable and wrought than Shouto was capable of describing. "It will be an anchor that can never find purchase. An ache that will never ease. A constant pull towards nothing, where when you think she's finally in your grasp your fingers will brush nothing but a void."
"You speak from experience," Shouto said.
"It feels like a long time ago, but it hasn't even been twenty years," she said, a fond nostalgia clouding her eyes. "Her name was Kyoka, a drow elf and wizard of all things. She was so invigorating and creative, and she sparked a will to live within me that had gone out a long time ago."
Yaoyorozu took a steadying breath.
"Her mind worked like no other being I'd ever encountered, and it made me love her, and wizardry, and the Mortal Realm as a whole." When she looked up, she gave Shouto a pointed stare, and he felt the similarities in their stories.
"Celestial and Fae creatures are not the same, but I devoted myself to her in a way similar to yours…" Her expression turned somber again. "She died in combat, obliterated by a massive super monster resurrected by some great evil. There was nothing left to bury, let alone save…"
"That is a terrible fate." Shouto said into silence, unsure what he could say to such a confession.
Yaoyorozu choked on a half-hearted laugh, swiping discreetly at her eyes. "I tell you my story not to scare you, but in the hopes you learn from it."
"How do you propose I do so?"
"I've heard the Raven Queen is amicable to making deals for souls. Ensure that if he dies, he can come back again."
Shouto understood what she was saying, but he was content to have whatever time Bakugou was willing to give him and nothing more. He'd be happy for any attention from his mortal.
"I think you're getting ahead of the matter," Shouto said. "Bakugou can't even stand to be in eye line of me, let alone desire to defy death to be together."
"You know his name?" Yaoyorozu asked, the surprise clear. It seemed Midoriya had not let on to the other mortals of Shouto's knowledge of names.
"I have for quite a while."
"Then maybe you start there."
Another month had passed of absence from Bakugou, but both Midoriya and Yaoyorozu were putting effort in to try to get Shouto back into good graces with the rest of the mortals. His devotion to Bakugou being enough to convince both of them to give Shouto a second chance.
The cold iron security measure was unfortunate, but the exposure never lasted too long and once it was off the magic made quick work of the burns. Such a minor inconvenience was worth being let out of the lonely home that now juxtaposed his best and worst memories.
Sometimes he got out to help Midoriya with training, or pour over old fae texts with Yaoyorozu, or simply have a meal with his friends. When he was let out of Bakugou's home it was rare that any other mortals approached, most defaulting to giving him nasty glares and whispering derogatory things under their breath when they passed him.
It didn't bother Shouto that much. There was really only one mortal whose opinion held any weight for him.
Shouto expected his lunch, now five months since his betrayal, to go much like all the others.
"Boss!"
Shouto was pleasantly proven wrong.
It seemed Shouto's testimony to Inasa's good character was taken to heart by Yaoyorozu.
His warlock was beaming at him from where he sat with Yaoyorozu in the guild tavern. Toothy smile unmistakable and welcome, and the sight of him had a tension in Shouto's shoulder easing that had been unrelenting.
As Midoriya and he sat down at the table, Shouto adjacent Inasa and Midoriya next to Yaoyorozu, Inasa clapped an open palm hard against his back. The gesture was familiar, and he allowed Inasa to hit him as many times as he wanted, each thump lurching him forward with the force.
"I am more glad to see you than you can know," Shouto told him, and was pleased when the expected good natured laughter reverberated around them.
"I missed that fancy man talking of yours."
Shouto turned his eyes to his friends across the table. "What is the occasion to bring Inasa to our gathering?"
"We just thought you could use another friend," Midoriya said, a small smile Shouto learned to recognize as shyly anxious.
"Aren't you worried about the implications of others seeing Inasa and I together?" He asked.
"Actually, we think having Inasa around might actually help improve your image," Yaoyorozu said, sounding like having to say the words at all made her tired. "Inasa is incredibly charismatic. We've been chaperoning him around town for a while now and he's got an uncanny ability to win people over."
Shouto glanced at Inasa, who was now digging into a meat pie that the tavern cook had personally brought out to him 'on the house' for their 'favorite patron.'
"Ah." That was fair, Shouto did not have passable social skills even in the Faewilde.
"You know, I think they're being unfair to you, Boss." Inasa said around bites of his food. "They're, uh, defecating against you."
Yaoyorozu choked on her drink. Several other patrons also turned to look at them since Inasa had no concept of an inside voice.
"Discriminating," Shouto corrected, already used to Inasa's constant confusion of words. "I don't think it's that unfair. I am the prophesied Harbinger meant to end the world."
"Not anymore though," Inasa gestured at him with his cutlery. "You changed sides. That made it much easier for me, too."
"How so?" Shouto asked, Inasa's warm demeanor lulling him into a relaxation that made it easy to forget their surroundings.
"Turns out I sorta like you, Boss. Eventually stabbing you in the back to kill Endeavor was really weighing on my mind. I was losing sleep!"
Shouto couldn't stop the soft laugh that followed, a hand coming up to try to smother his smile.
"I'm honored I could help set this ethical dilemma to rest," Shouto leaned his cheek into his palm as he rested his weight against the table. "Sorry I challenged your view of faeries. I suppose I didn't fit in your box?"
Inasa beamed at him, spinach stuck in his teeth.
"I still hate Endeavor though, no matter how much I like you."
Shouto leaned in close to Inasa. "Between you and me, I don't much care for him either."
Someone cleared their throat and Shouto looked over to see his friends looking sheepish. Talking with Inasa made it easy to forget they weren't in a private room, discussing plans for ending the world.
Beyond them their conversation had retained an audience, though as he scanned the tavern those prying eyes and ears were quick to turn away.
"You two are good friends, huh?" Midoriya asked.
Shouto considered the question. "Inasa is the first mortal I recognized as a friend."
Inasa stuttered a slew of embarrassed sounds, leaning over to bump their shoulders together and confirm their 'good friends' status as well.
"Speaking of friends," Shouto said, trying to embody an air of casualness. "How is Kacchan?"
Midoriya and Yaoyorozu traded an unsubtle look of reluctance, and Yaoyorozu cleared her throat. "He's been busy… working, hardly ever around town anymore."
"Kacchan's having a hard time with everything…" Midoriya added. "I'd hoped you two would have been able to talk things through, but Kacchan's made himself so scarce it's impossible to get even a moment with him if we aren't on mission."
Shouto lowered his gaze, the now commonplace swirl of guilt weighing his head down. "Kacchan can't even stand the sight of me. I doubt he'd be willing to listen to anything I have to say. I don't know what to do."
"Why don't you just do what he did?" Inasa asked.
Everyone at the table turned to Inasa, who was now eating some sort of dessert brought out to him free of charge. When he noticed them staring, he paused. "Ya know, like, make him a meal or something. Isn't that what he did for you, Boss?"
"You know about Kacchan and Todoroki?" Midoriya asked, and Shouto suddenly felt on edge, like they were breaching a very dangerous topic.
Inasa blinked in surprise at the question, then his expression curled into a huge grin. "Yeah, of course. I'm his croissant!"
"Confidant," Shouto corrected.
"Yeah, yeah. He used to talk about you guys all the time, especially that Kacchan guy, though I only know you by crazy fake names like Pinky and Ponytail," Inasa said, and Shouto was getting overwhelmed by something he'd never felt before. A heart racing anxiety that had the blood rushing to his face. "He'd always ask me about mortal customs or go over things that happened with you guys that he didn't understand and stuff."
Both Yaoyorozu and Midoriya were looking at him with a soft expression. Yaoyorozu with her hands clasped together with an expression he'd once seen her wear while observing a litter of kittens, and Midoriya looked like he was seconds away from launching himself across the table to tackle Shouto with a hug.
Shouto wanted to bury himself in a hole and never emerge, but the best he could do right now was change the subject.
"I don't know how to cook," he said.
"Oh, I do," Inasa said, always reliable to follow where ever the flow of a conversation was going. "I can teach you if you want."
"And maybe we can help convince Kacchan to talk to you too?" Midoriya suggested. "Even if you guys don't make up I think Kacchan needs it too, a closure of sorts."
For the first time since the betrayal, it felt like Shouto might actually make amends with Bakugou.
Inasa made good on his word to give Shouto cooking lessons. Seeing as they were both beings that now had time in excess and Shouto was confined to a place with a well-equipped kitchen, there was little reason not to.
Yaoyorozu had been right about Inasa's presence helping Shouto's image. The mortals that didn't know him saw Inasa around him, relaxed easily, the familiarity Inasa had bled into Shouto's image as well. The ones he was close to before, his friends, were a little harder, but it'd been half a year since it was discovered he was Shoto, and even they were finally coming around.
Iida came by once, curious about faerie familial structures, since they were not well documented, and spent the afternoon taking notes as Shouto talked about faerie culture.
Ashido once knocked on the door with a basket of apples and said she'd heard he'd been learning to cook and wanted to know if he wanted to try his hand at baking. They spent a whole day making apple pastries.
Kaminari once barreled in to 'hide from the consequences of choices,' proclaimed loudly he didn't want to talk to Shouto, and said he was only hiding here because no one would think to check here. Shouto had left him to his devices, practicing cutting vegetables into uniform slices the way he'd seen Bakugou do so many times, and not even ten minutes later Kaminari was at his side chatting about everything and nothing at the same time.
Slowly, his mortals were trusting him again. That was enough to set Shouto's heart at ease most days.
Kirishima stopped by one night, rolling in a barrel of ale and challenged him to a drinking contest. There was no way a mortal would beat him in a drinking contest, dwarf or not, though Shouto was more than willing to grip tight to any olive branch his friends were willing to extend.
Somehow, word got out that they were drinking and Shouto found himself surrounded by all his friends. His family.
Except Bakugou.
Bakugou was hardly around anyone the last few months. Dynamight and he were taking back-to-back solo missions. He was burying himself in work. All Shouto could do was wait.
This went on for a little longer until finally, finally Bakugou appeared back in his life again.
Shouto was in Bakugou's kitchen, carefully putting the finishing touch on a lunchbox he'd been working on this morning and feeling fairly proud of the result. Recently Inasa stated he'd finally leveled up from creating dubious food to something that tasted decent. (Inasa'd actually been calling it 'devious' food, but Shouto eventually figured out what he meant.)
He felt it before it happened.
So long and so far apart, Shouto had grown accustom to the nagging pull the bond threaded through him. The moment that changed, the thrum of a distance rapidly closing, had Shouto's head whipped up to attention.
A moment later, Bakugou Katsuki was walking through the door. The magic had been so quiet these last few months, background noise because of his restraints and lack of intention, but in the presence of Bakugou it shone and sang and showered his mortal in adoration.
He looked different from even three months ago. His hair longer, skin darker from sun exposure, a heavy weight of weariness dragging down his posture — but his eyes were still sharp, his figure still imposing, his existence still unparalleled.
All Shouto could do was stare and revel in the feeling of a tolerated, achy yearning finally being satisfied. By all the powers that lorded over this world and every other one to come did he love this man.
"What is it?" Bakugou asked, his voice a growl and Shouto drank in his tone, a rich depth that tasted finer than any aged wine from the Faewilde. "Deku said I just had to be here ten minutes, and he'd never bother me about coming here again."
Midoriya was a good friend.
"Why have you stayed away?" From me.
Bakugou scoffed, arms crossing over his chest. "Why would I hang around someone who's waiting for the chance to stab me in the fucking back?"
The volleyed question surprised Shouto. Back when the bond had forged, it seemed like some aspect of their broken relationship had been mended, but the bond had done nothing for Bakugou.
And that hurt.
"You don't trust me… at all?" He asked, unsure and hesitant even though he knew this might be his only chance. "Even as the others, our friends, are starting to trust me again?"
Bakugou watched him for a moment, expression unreadable, not even a scowl to give away what was racing through his mind.
"Trust you?" He asked, voice quiet, even, controlled. "I was the first person to trust you and look where that got me."
Around them the magic shivered, creeping and hesitant, unwillingly to intrude.
"I let you in. I sought you out. I trusted you and I ruined everything."
"You didn't."
"I DID!" He snapped, fists balling at his side, stepping forward as the words exploded out of him. "I was raised for a destiny — a destiny I made so many sacrifices for — that I would have willfully abandoned for your stupid ass. I would have thrown it all away if you asked, because I'm a fucking moron. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I close my eyes and think of all the people out there still dying as this war goes on unfettered by my failed prophecy."
"Can I just say-"
"No! No, you cannot 'just say' anything!" Bakugou said, his eyes were so lost, shoulders shaking with emotion as he took another stumbling step. "Because that's what you fae monsters do. You spin your words and poison our minds so you can take whatever you want."
"Please, just-"
"That's what this bond is, right? Another trick? Another act to get me to lower my guard? It's all some big fucking game to get my name, right?" Bakugou asked, thoughts and questions tumbling from his mouth like he couldn't stop himself, closing the distance between them. "No matter what it is, I will not fail again. I will not let you hurt anyone else."
When Bakugou swung the knife Shouto was not prepared.
The only thing that saved him from having his throat cut open the barest stumbling hesitation on Bakugou's part when he realized Shouto wasn't going to be able to dodge.
Shouto jerked back, tripping over his own feet to avoid the knife, grabbing onto Bakugou's outstretched arm and taking them both down to the ground. Shouto landed flat on his back with Bakugou poised over him.
Bakugou recovered quickly. Straddled over Shouto's abdomen, he changed his grip on the knife, one hand on the hilt the other over the pommel as he changed his arc to skewer Shouto's neck instead of slice it.
Shouto barely managed to catch his forearms. Both their arms shook with the force they were applying, but they were in a stalemate.
"W-wait! Please, wait, Ka- Bakugou!" He said, the point of the knife just barely to his skin. "Bakugou Katsuki. Bakugou, wait."
Bakugou was staring at him, the pressure on the knife lifting by the slightest margin. He was breathing heavy, eyes frantic as his mind tried to process what he'd just heard.
"How do you… How long… How…"
"I've known since before all this," he said, tilting his head to try and gesture to the position they were in.
Bakugou's eyes widened, understanding coming with unrelenting force. "That night in the tavern, before we left to go after your cult so I could fulfill my destiny…"
"I know your name, Bakugou Katsuki. There are no tricks. There is no game. I will not take it."
"Why?" Bakugou asked, though Shouto knew he didn't have to say it out loud. Bakugou already knew.
Around him the magic enveloped them, soft, and sweet, and right.
Knife to his throat Shouto said, "Because I love you."
Bakugou Katsuki did not slice his throat open that day. He'd sat back on his heels and looked at Shouto in a way he hadn't seen in a long time.
The quiet had been unnerving, but Shouto had pushed a lunchbox into his hands and quietly told him he didn't need to say anything back.
Bakugou Katsuki left without replying, but he showed up the next day with an empty lunch box.
"This tasted like absolute garbage," he said, dropping the container on the table. "Next time I better taste some improve."
In an out, like a whirlwind, and Shouto couldn't say anything to him.
Despite his words, it sounded a lot like Bakugou was saying 'See you later.'
One meal and a heartfelt confession at knifepoint were not enough to fix what had broken between Shouto and Bakugou, but it was a start.
This was what he quietly told himself as he took laps around the empty home. Bakugou needed time to come around. It was unrealistic to think one painstakingly crafted meal and a confession felt with every fiber of his very being would fix their relationship overnight.
He could dream, though, often did.
Bakugou wasn't actively avoiding him, at least. Though Shouto was still confined to the home, sometimes his mortal showed up. Every day Shouto practiced his cooking skills, made little lunch boxes that would sit for the day and he would only eat once he was sure Bakugou wouldn't be visiting him.
Every time Bakugou came he'd try Shouto's food. Tell him a new thing that was wrong with it — 'It's too salty,' 'These eggs are burnt,' 'The rice is undercooked.' — though it was never the same thing twice, and tell Shouto he expected better the next time.
So Shouto did. He practiced and took Bakugou's notes to heart, and filled much of his time cooking. Unfortunately, he couldn't cook all the time. The egregious amount of food waste he was producing had quickly become unmanageable. Yaoyorozu had told him he was cooking the town out of their food stores and then had been rationed.
It left him with a lot of free time.
He wasn't bored, really. This was just a new way to bide his time. It was the absence of Bakugou that was hard to cope with. It was the carefully kept composure and impersonal distance Bakugou kept between them that left an aching indecisiveness in all of Shouto's actions.
There was the instinctual urge to chase after Bakugou that Shouto desperately wanted to give in to, even though he knew he couldn't. Even if he wanted to, Shouto was imprisoned in the house.
He was currently in the hammock strung up between the two rafters, practicing with his ice magic making crystalline figures and trying to make them dance like the Matron of the Winter house did.
Out of nowhere, there was a shift in the atmosphere. The tense pressure of the moment before a battle that had Shouto jolting up from his sitting position, ready to defend.
Then a prickle on his skin, a ghost of a magical touch before he was suddenly ripped from his lounging position with panicked urgency.
Protect.
The feeling set his teeth on edge as acidic panic sizzled down his throat.
The magic swelled around him and then Shouto knew he was no longer where he was.
This was not like traversing a fae tear. The magic had ripped him from one place to another, likely forging a new tear in its wake, and he was thrust into an unknown place.
He could feel the heat of Bakugou Katsuki's breath on the back of his neck, so close that if Shouto leaned back, they'd be pressed flush together.
The magic was torrential around them, screaming and singing and rejoicing with such vigor that it nearly deafened him to the words said next.
"Harbinger, so good to see you," Dabi said.
Shouto felt his lip pull back, an uncharacteristic baring of teeth as a snarl crackled in the back of his throat, body tensing as he tried to make himself bigger. Look more threatening. Protect the vital parts of the mortal behind him.
Dabi's arms were alight with blue fire, looking far worse than the last time Shouto had seen him just months ago. His white hair had been completely overcome by black, greasy locks. He was thinner, and not just in regard to his body fat. His whole skeletal structure looked like it'd been stretched, and pulled, and bent. His hands were curling too long, skinny fingers hooked with the starting of sharpened nails. Despite his elongated form, his skin sagged, trying to slough off his bones, clearly stapled to the flesh underneath to hold it in place.
The telltale symptoms of hagdom clearly in advanced stages. He was falling to corruption.
"I'm surprised to see you alive," Dabi said in Common. Shouto doubted he remembered Sylvan anymore. He felt his skin prickle with an intent so similar to his own, yet completely tainted as his brother peeled his lips back in a too-wide grin. "We thought for sure those stupid little mortals had done you in for good."
He started cackling; the flames surging as his volume increased. Shouto felt his skin bristle, "You knew about the other prophecy?"
The King hadn't been calling on him because of trust. He'd thought Shouto was dead.
A breath on the back of his neck — "Icyhot, how did you get here?" — pulled his attention away from Dabi. They were closer to each other than they had been in months, but there was no time to answer the question as Dabi let off a huge fire spell the moment he was distracted. Tendrils of sickly blue flames spidered out, and it was all Shouto could do to shield the two of them and hope the icy magic held out.
The ice sizzled as it met the brute force of Dabi's fire spell, succumbing to it without resistance. Shouto was so much weaker compared to the last he fought his brother, their power balance completely skewed in Dabi's favor. It set panic prickling along his limbs and the blood rushing to his ears.
He could not protect his mortal. Shouto grit his teeth, shifting to ensure he remained a physical shield as the bond burned set alight the unfamiliar protective urges.
His brother's laughter echoed around them in a dissonant harmony. The magic rattled against Touya's call for it, buzzing like bees defending a hive, biting at Shouto's skin as his brother took more than he should.
It scared him.
"Oi, don't fucking ignore-" as Bakugou's hand came down onto his shoulder Shouto wrenched around to face him, snarl crackling in a mouth that felt too full of teeth, fangs on full display, a taloned hand catching his mortal's wrist.
He must have looked nothing like his usual mortal facade judging by the way Bakugou's words caught in his throat and his eyes widened. Desperate for any edge in the battle, Shouto could feel his true form leaking through.
Shouto was certain he looked more monster than man. The opposite impression Shouto wanted to give his mortal as he tried to work himself back into his good graces, but he was hardly in a state to control it.
The threat of Dabi was driving all his senses haywire, the protective urge the bond was dredging up in him burned and froze him. His whole body was tense, waiting for the next sign of a threat.
Protect.
The magic guided his movement, his mind two steps behind as he released Bakugou's arm and spun to intercept an attack as Dabi emerged from the shroud of steam. Dabi had an elongated clawed hand outstretched, eyes wide and pupils blown out in feral exhilaration. Shouto barely caught him, ice encasing his arm to keep the faerie back.
"You're no match for me with all that devotion gone," Dabi hissed, smoke billowing out on his exhales. Despite one arm frozen over, Shouto holding it mid swing, Dabi lurched forward, neck stretching beyond what it should have been capable of with a series of sickening pops as he sunk his teeth into Shouto's right shoulder.
The bite burned as fanged teeth latched onto him.
Shouto growled. Dabi wasn't the only one with fangs.
He wrenched Dabi forward by his frozen arm, and sunk his teeth into the junction of Dabi's neck and shoulder. Black blood gurgled in his mouth, thick and sticky, causing him to reel back immediately.
Dabi was shrieking with laughter, teeth doubling down on Shouto's shoulder, and Shouto wondered how much of his brother was still left in that body.
Then Dabi was out of his space. Reeling back with a hiss of pain and a sizzling wound on his ribs.
Bakugou was brandishing a dagger, ducked under one of Shouto's arms, holding the dripping knife with a deep set scowl on his features.
"Get your head in the game, Shouto. You aren't Deku. We fight better at a distance," he said, pulling back when he realized how close they were.
Shouto blinked at him, trying to get his mind to catch up with everything that had just happened. Seeing Bakugou, really seeing him in this moment, hearing his name on Bakugou's tongue had those thought clouding urges subsiding.
Bakugou was nearly unscathed, using an efficient motion to clean the blade of his weapon before sheathing it in favor of his bow. Bakugou's eyes flicked to him only for a moment as he focused back on their surroundings, but Shouto saw it.
Trust. Unguarded for the moment as he leaned away to adjust his stance and change his weapon.
"We?" Shouto asked.
"Don't be fucking embarrassing about it," Bakugou said, but Shouto watched him tense and saw his eyes widen at something just over his shoulder and without looking Shouto summoned another massive ice wall, intercepting the brunt of another fiery attack from his brother.
His Bakugou was here. Safe. Together they stood a chance.
Shouto let out a foggy breath as the ice magic chilled him. Bakugou was giving him a once over, probably concerned about the frost beginning to blanket his left side. Out of the corner of his eye, movement caught Shouto's attention.
For the first time the sounds of a massive surrounding battle hit him. It was not Shouto and Bakugou here alone. Fighting was happening everywhere around them.
He could hear the chitter of creatures under the sounds of battle, the area still obscured by steam, maybe pixies or imps, that his brother must have brought as reinforcements. Shouto felt his skin prickle, but slowed by the aftereffects of two large bursts of ice magic he tensed for an attack as one creature closed in, but the familiar pain of claws never came.
Instead there was a thud, and when Shouto looked over his shoulder an arrow skewered all the way through the head of an unlucky imp. Bakugou had moved so fast Shouto hadn't even registered it.
He blinked in surprise, watching the agitated magic soothe as it ghosted around his mortal.
"We," Shouto iterated. A statement.
Bakugou grunted at him, red eyes meeting his for longer than a passing glance for the first time in months. "We."
There was a trill he couldn't suppress at Bakugou's confirmation, and Bakugou's eyes stayed on him a moment longer. A hard edge fell away, smudged by a much warmer look before they were ripped away to focus on the surrounding battle.
Shouto had known Bakugou for nearly four years at this point. They knew each other well, and it was obvious in their maneuvers they were accustomed to fighting alongside each other. The bond only seemed to strengthen the harmony between them.
There was no hesitation in their actions. Bakugou could recognize his movements as Shouto conjured spells, able to decipher what an attack was and where it was going, how to compliment it with his own offense or defensive motions.
Shouto could read Bakugou in kind, and the bond told him even more, whispered the intent of an attack before Bakugou even twitched into action. As Bakugou knocked his next arrow, it was already brimming with the enchantment of fire magic, denoting in the head of some half corrupted pixie in the next second.
Dabi had retreated for now, leaving them to thin a mob of creatures that only had numbers going for them, though even numbers mattered little in this moment. They stepped around one another, covering blind spots and recovery periods between attacks. Like they were together in a waltz rather than a bloodbath.
Shouto was enchanting arrows as they were loosed so they exploded in icy or fiery destruction on impact. Bakugou was intercepting stragglers that survived Shouto's heavy hitting attacks, making sure nothing closed in on them.
Perfectly synchronized.
Time slowed, as it always did for Shouto at the height of battle.
As the magic swirled and the bond hummed, Shouto could swear he could hear each beat of Bakugou's heart. A thundering reverberation of divination magic blindsided him a moment after. He faltered in casting his next spell, and then as quickly as it overwhelmed him, it was gone.
Dabi was there, claws tearing into Bakugou's chest. Long taloned-fingers easily bisected the leather breastplate, and sliced a terrible wound.
He saw Bakugou register what was happening even before the pain crippled him, a shocked raising of eyebrows, a tension in his whole body as he prepared for an unblockable hit, the flicking of his eyes to meet Shouto's even as Dabi's attack met its mark.
Then it was quiet. The world was a void.
A silence Shouto had only ever experienced once in his first century of life, right before the Matron of the Himura house scarred him with a magic so cold no piece of the infinite universe could fathom the impact.
Protect.
The magic commanded him forward and he obeyed without hesitation.
He sent a thick pillar of ice forward that collided squarely with Dabi's chest. It sent the hag flying backwards, chittering and giggling as it flew. The creature lurched up, returning the attack with a wave of fire.
Shouto charged forward to meet the blue fire head on, summoning his own fire magic to cut through the middle of the swell. Sucking in a breath, he could feel the magic vibrating around him, heeding his whims as he conjured ice beneath his feet to launch himself up and over the dwindling remains of the fire spell.
He could see the awful, wretched creature below him and called forth the magic again to rain hell down upon the hag in an unforgiving scourge. Dabi met the blast with his own, blue fire consuming the attack to nothing.
Shouto stumbled as he hit the ground, knees buckling on the impact, and he summoned another wall of ice to defend against Dabi's next blast of fire.
Possess.
He spun on his heels on fired off his next attack, unrestrained and undisciplined.
They met blow for blow. Each roaring blast of fire colliding with gargantuan force. The magic shrieked around them, clawing and tearing and crying.
As evenly matched as they had been on the mountain, though it should have been impossible for Shouto. Neither side relented.
Dabi laughed. The magic prickled his skin.
In this stalemate war
As they fought, Shouto dodged over uneven terrain. He did his best to keep his footing as he intercepted another wave of fire with his ice.
His lungs burned. The magic was needling against him. As he called it he felt a resistance that had never been there before, but he urged it forward, regardless. He needed to win.
He heard Dabi's dissonant screeching, followed his ears and lifted an arm, commanding the magic to hit the hag with another volley of ice-
Nothing came.
No, something responded.
Poison.
Corruption.
Dabi collided with him, knees to Shouto's chest as blue fire spewed from its back like wings.
Choking on black blood, Shouto hit the ground hard. Not as hard as he expected.
Underneath him were bodies. Imps, pixies, faeries, mortals. Dead from this lawless battle in this awful war.
Drowned in loss and ruin
Where was Bakugou?
"The King thinks too small, I think," Dabi said, fangs dripping saliva and bile as it leaned over Shouto. "He only wants to kill All Might, but I think we should rip all those silly little gods from the sky."
The creature sucked in an elated breath, pupils unevenly dilated, smoke seeping out from where the staples held its skin together.
"But first I think I'll get rid of all these pesky mortals," It said, a grin splitting up the sides of its cheeks. "I think I'll start with that one you're so fond of."
Protect. Possess.
The magic flared inside him. More of himself pushing through the veil between realms as he called upon his true faerie form.
Shouto would rip this rotten creature asunder. No matter the cost.
A Harbinger tips the scales
There was no recollection of the next several seconds. But the thing left behind of his brother was barely distinguishable as a faerie, hag, or otherwise. Torn apart, scattered, frozen, burned.
Shouto blinked. He was on his knees, elbows deep in black ichor and sinew. All he could do was stare down at the mush that was Todoroki Touya. He'd killed a named faerie, albeit a corrupted named faerie, but one that outranked him in their hierarchy. One that many had considered just a few hundred years away from being an arch fae.
He could already feel the power seeping into him, stolen through the utter domination of his brother.
The magic twinkled around him, as if rejoicing this fact. The buzz of divination rapidly retreating.
It was juxtaposed by a wet, gasping breath.
"Shouto."
The bond jolted him from his stupor.
Bakugou Katsuki was sitting up, holding a clawed wound on his chest, but not looking as if he was suffering from any sort of devastating, non-recoverable injury. He was looking at Shouto in surprise, but no sort of underlying fear, or distrust, or apprehension.
Shouto crawled the short distance between them, and went to immediately inspect the damage, but stopped short when he saw the mess of corrupted flesh coating his hands, and forearms, and torso, and thighs, in inky black.
His hands hovered in front of him uselessly, before he dropped them back to his side.
"You're okay," Shouto said.
Bakugou breathed a laugh. "Yeah, fuckin' somehow. That thing stumbled at the last second, messed up the hit so it barely cut me. Lucked out of a mortal wound, I think."
Any other moment in his life Shouto would have been embarrassed by the whine that keened from deep within his chest as he leaned in to rest his forehead against Bakugou's shoulder, but Bakugou's last words caught his attention.
'Mortal wound.' For the very first time Shouto realized the implications how what his mortal was. Of what Yaoyorozu was trying to warn him about.
That there would come a day when Bakugou's soul would leave these planes permanently.
That Shouto did not want to let him go.
"Hey," Bakugou's voice was soft, so close to his ear. His hands came up, cupping around Shouto's cheeks, guiding his head up so Shouto was forced to look at him, head held firmly in Bakugou's hands. "No whining. We just won a big battle."
Shouto didn't say anything. All he could do was stare at his mortal. Mortal. He leaned forward, ignoring the startled rise of Bakugou's eyebrows as he pressed their foreheads together.
"You're okay," he said again, letting the words wash relief through him.
Bakugou grunted, but didn't pull away or drop his hands from where they held Shouto's face.
"You've got fangs."
"I am a faerie. We are — as mortals are so fond of saying — monsters, after all." Shouto said as Bakugou traced his fingers along his upper lip. Moving slowly, feeling the protrusions of Shouto's fangs even as they recessed and were replaced by far more nonthreatening teeth.
"Somehow it's hard to remember you aren't human sometimes."
Shouto hummed, thinking back to their contradictory first meeting where Bakugou told him he was very much not convincing in his disguise.
"Does that change anything?" He asked, there was a nervousness running in his heart. Shouto could hear it in his voice, feel it in the magic. They were on a precipice here. The choice was in Bakugou's hands.
Bakugou considered him for a very long moment.
"We're okay," Bakugou said eventually, whispered in the dusty aftermath of a battlefield strewn with corpses.
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