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Izuku never thought his chest would hurt so much when looking at Shouto. When he thinks of Shouto, there is joy, comfort, warmth at the end of each memory, of each fantasy for their future, each gift of the here and now. Shouto is a pillar of strength, supporting the overwhelming weight on his shoulders and helping him have some space to breathe without it crushing the air right out of his lungs. Responsibilities, exhaustion, the aches that have burrowed so deep into his muscles he doesn’t think there’s a single moment he doesn’t feel sore; all of it ceases to matter when Shouto is next to him.
So how, why is it that he can look on into those mismatched eyes and feel nothing but pain? And the worst part is that Shouto doesn’t look like he feels anything, his expression blank, the blood smeared on his cheek almost black in the moonlight, fresh but not as much as what’s dripping from the dagger in his right hand. Izuku looks down for a moment and sees the angry red cuts all over his skin, peeking from under the gaping gashes of his tattered clothing.
When he turns his gaze back, Shouto’s head is tilted to a side, but not with the innocent curiosity or adorable confusion he’s used to seeing. Nothing about this picture is right. Everything seems out of place, so sickeningly wrong.
And maybe it has something to do with the almost invisible strings that Izuku isn’t sure he’s actually seeing connected to his every joint, wrapped around every limb, around his neck. Or perhaps it’s the eerie feeling that despite the desolate scene around them, not a single soul to pay witness to this exchange, Izuku still feels like they’re being watched. Eyes that aren’t really there burn holes into the back of his head and he senses the workings of someone behind the scenes, of a wicked smile under a hostile gaze.
Izuku shivers. It feels colder than the winds of a winter storm, colder than glacial rains soaking his skin right down to the bone or the ice Shouto creates with just a flick of a finger.
The air feels too stalled and Izuku can’t really breathe properly, his head feels light and his knees feel weak, but Shouto suddenly stalks forward, his movements almost as mechanic as his face is emotionless. It hurts. It hurts so much more than the new slash added to the ones already marring his body. It hurts almost as much as having to kick at Shouto’s stomach to keep him away, though not nearly as bad as how he hardly even blinks before going back to trying to cut him open.
Izuku tries his best to keep up, tries so hard to keep dodging and avoid countering, to just play keep-away for as long as he needs to, until he can find an opening to just immobilise him. But he’s so focused on Shouto’s impassive expression, on his dead and dull eyes, on his robotic movements that still hold a deadly precision and an even scarier strength. And it hurts to see him like that, it hurts to see no love, no joy, nothing. Not even anger, not even hate, there’s just nothing staring back at him.
Why? Why does he feel so dead?
One of his knees buckles beneath him and Shouto shows no hesitation. Izuku’s heart is beating fast and hard, the blood swooshing loudly past his ears and the sharp point of the knife hangs mere millimetres from his left eye. It trembles with the exertion of holding it back, Izuku’s own hands gripping Shouto’s forearm so tightly his knuckles are turned white, and there’s no give, no mercy.
The energy from One for All seems to fail him when he needs it the most, as if refusing to hurt Shouto, to hurt the one he loves the most in any way possible. Izuku feels like his world is crumbling just as much as the buildings, broken and barren, no longer standing before him, and his own strength fails him.
In one last desperate attempt, he swings Shouto’s arm to the side, sweeping his feet with his one free leg and by some miracle it works. Izuku pins him down, the blade sliding somewhere a little out of reach when Shouto’s arm hits the hard concrete and his grip on it loosens.
There are tears running down Shouto’s cheeks and for a mere second, Izuku feels relieved, only to realise those tears are his own, dripping one by one onto that blank face and leaving behind the tracks of his pain. Izuku doesn’t stop them, he lets them flow, blur his image of someone he loves so much looking so wrong, lessen the ache of having to see him like that so clearly, unblinking, unfazed, unbreathing.
“Shouto…” He calls, voice broken beyond recognition, trailing into a high-pitched cry that shakes his very being. “Shouto, please…”
There’s no response, not even an acknowledgement, not a single reaction.
Izuku’s heart is breaking so badly he can hardly feel it anymore. “Shouto… It’s me… answer me, please…”
Shouto doesn’t answer, Shouto doesn’t move. Izuku can’t feel his chest moving and his skin feels cold to the touch. The muscles are still twitching as Shouto struggles to escape his grip but there’s no pulse where Izuku holds on to his wrists.
More tears fall from the tip of Izuku’s nose, trickling rapidly from the corners of his eyes as he tightens the grip on Shouto’s arms. “Please… Shouto, I love you… Answer me…”
A knee hits his side and Izuku recoils with a gasp, their positions switching so that Shouto is now hovering above him, his hands pinned above his head by one of his while the other reaches back to the dagger. The world is nothing but a distortion of muted colours, the tears fat as they keep rolling down his temples.
Shouto drives the blade down towards Izuku’s chest. Izuku doesn’t stop him.
Pain shoots through Izuku’s veins and leaves his nerve endings tingling with a numb ache on the tips of his fingers and toes as he sits up suddenly with a gasp that breaks into a choked sob. His cheeks feel wet when he takes a shaking hand to his face while the other grips his shirt, right where his heart is jackhammering against his ribs, painfully. Izuku’s entire body is trembling violently and he can’t breathe around the heaving sobs and broken cries.
A hand rubs at the small of his back and Izuku nearly jumps out of his skin, turning stiffly to see mismatched eyes that both look a dark grey in the unlit bedroom, nothing but the soft streaks of moonlight peeking from between the clouds outside and trickling through the window. The dull sheen of those eyes sends Izuku’s heart into even more of a frenzy, panic taking over him.
He can’t breathe, there’s no air to reach his lungs no matter how deep of a breath he tries to take, and his tremors become even more uncontrollable.
Shouto sits up on the bed, scooting closer, his brows furrowing with concern and, even if that should be a hint that what happened earlier was not what was going on, his mind is still reeling and he crawls away, horror filling him, overflowing in the tears that keep coming without fail. Izuku hears his name faintly, but it’s hard to focus on it amidst the screaming inside his head, the ache that’s still rooted in his bones and strangles him with such an iron grip his cries make it sound like he’s dying. For a moment, he’s not entirely sure he isn’t.
Warm fingers interlace with his and Izuku jolts, staring at their joined hands as if they held any answers for all the questions he doesn’t even know he has. Shouto brings his hand up to his lips, kissing his knuckles gently, and he keeps gawking, like a deer caught in headlights, shaking with a fear that’s so hard to let go of even as he’s starting to get the notion of it being irrational. When Shouto leans away to flick the little lamp beside him on, Izuku’s eyes focus on the glow of blue and grey, the slow blink of sleep-heavy lids, and the image of a dead-eyed puppet starts to fade.
It’s not real.
“S-Shouto…?”
His voice breaks miserably, a mirror to the anguish still curling inside him, shattering his heart as quickly as it manages to stitch itself back together. Shouto doesn’t let go of his hand, bringing his free one to gently stroke his cheek before tangling his fingers in Izuku’s hair, pulling his head towards his chest. Izuku doesn’t shy away this time, simply lets himself lean forward, listening to Shouto’s steady heartbeat as soon as he rubs his face against him and lets go of his own shirt to embrace his partner.
“I’m here.”
The rumble of Shouto’s voice vibrates in his chest, another comfort Izuku holds on to for dear life, the long fingers carding through his hair soothing him, the hand holding on to his grounding him. He feels the cool warmth of Shouto’s embrace wrap around him, coaxing his heart to stop its frantic beating and start to slowly climb back down to less alarming rates. Izuku’s mind quiets, blood and sharp edges becoming fuzzy memories, the dull ache that spreads from his chest subsiding, if only a little.
He can only pull away once his body has stopped its incessant quivering, after Shouto’s warmth has seeped into his bones and drawn out that cold sting of petrifying terror that was holding his heart hostage. He’s still crying, that’s always the part that takes longer to control, emotions bubbling right at the surface, elicited by events that didn’t actually transpire but felt so real. Even if what happened wasn’t, these feelings are, this fear, this pain, this grief. Izuku can never stop himself from feeling. He never could.
“It’s okay,” Shouto soothes him, finally letting go of his hand to bring both of them to cup his face and wipe the tears away with his thumbs, “it wasn’t real. I’m right here.”
Shouto can’t possibly know what he was dreaming about, not the specifics anyway. But this isn’t the first time, likely won’t be the last, and they all seem to have something in common. Losing him.
He can pinpoint the exact moment the nightmares started, these ones at least, considering he had always been prone to waking up in cold sweats and with tears rolling down his cheeks. Yet the nightmares in which Shouto left him behind, by his choice or otherwise, life leaving his eyes every single time, those always left him so broken he had his doubts about whether he could pull himself back together. He’d never felt so scared as he did when Shouto was rushed to the hospital with his life hanging by a thread, never felt so guilty for him having to jump in front of a blow meant for Izuku, never felt so lost and alone as when he waited with baited breath for news on his condition.
The blood still stains his hands sometimes. He just has to look close enough to see it.
“Izuku, look at me.” Izuku hadn’t noticed that he’d actually stopped doing just that, the shame so great he can’t bring himself to meet his eyes for so long. He forces his gaze back. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t real. This,” he leans in and kisses him for little more than a second “this is real.”
Izuku brings his hands to Shouto’s neck and he can feel the faint scar that runs along it. His chest aches.
“I’m sorry…” He chokes on more tears, his body starting to tremble once again.
“Hey, hey… Izuku… it’s alright, I’m okay.”
Clinging to Shouto, Izuku cries into the crook of his neck, his lips brushing against the scar in feather-light kisses, as if that could somehow take it away, take the memory of that villain lifting his head by the hair and slitting his neck open right before his eyes. All because I couldn’t pay enough attention to stop the one trying to hit me.
“I’m alive because of you. It’s not your fault that I want to protect you. You saved my life, don’t forget that.”
“Shouto… Shouto, I can’t lose you…”
“I know, I’m here. It’s okay.”
Izuku lets himself keep weeping, melt into Shouto’s embrace and listen to the sweet nothings and reassuring words he whispers into his ear. If Shouto says them enough times, Izuku might begin to believe them, and he never stops until he’s certain he has. It’s okay, Izuku chants with him, he’s here, he’s alive, I saved him.
None of it was real.
Shouto’s lips on his temple are real, the cool breath brushing gently against his skin when he speaks is real, his fingers tangled in his messy hair are real. Shouto’s love pouring onto him is real.
By the time Izuku finally stops crying the sun is already peeking from the horizon, casting the room in a dim light that bleeds into shadows. He kisses Shouto, long and slow, his breaths still stuttered but much less ragged. He runs his fingers through Shouto’s hair, feeling the silky-smooth locks and scraping his nails against his scalp, revelling in the little shivers that run down his partner’s spine.
This is real.
They hold on to each other, Izuku more so than Shouto, affirming each other’s presence, feeling the warmth of their bodies against one another. Shouto’s weight on Izuku’s chest when he presses him against the bed feels real, Shouto’s tongue gently caressing his own as he tastes every corner of his mouth feels real.
This is real. This is right.
They should be getting up and ready for another day out on the field. Shouto lets Izuku hold on to him for just a little while longer. He’s thankful. This gratitude, this kindness... This is real.