Chapter Text
“Aggressive!”
Eijirou Kirishima watched as his best friend Bakugou pivoted, blond spikes ruffling as he stormed the entire length of the room until he was right in his face.
“Dangerous?!” He spun again and stomped this time, taking a moment to kick the small wastepaper bin across the carpet. “Un-fucking-safe? ME?!”
Eijirou let out an involuntary laugh, but quickly pressed his lips together when Bakugou rounded on him, head snapping so quickly in his direction that he looked possessed.
“You think it’s funny?!”
“No! Dude, no! You know I think it’s dumb. It’s just, yanno, first year…you really prided yourself on being all of those things,” he held his hands up, palms facing outward in a show of innocence, “I shouldn’t have laughed. Sorry, man.”
Bakugou’s face scrunched up as he clearly waged some kind of internal battle before he deflated slightly, a long, annoyed breath forced from him. He plonked himself directly on the edge of Eijirou’s bed, huffing again.
Eijirou watched, waiting by the door of his own room as his bestie pulled several vile expressions, and then scrubbed a hand over one side of his face.
“It’s bullshit.”
“I know. I know it is, man,” Eijirou finally moved closer, bending to pick up scraps of paper and errant rubbish from across his floor, dropping each piece quickly into the bin before setting it back to rights.
“…I was gonna pick that up, you know,” Bakugou growled, the deep vibration in the back of his throat something he couldn’t have achieved more than a few days ago.
He’d begun his presentation.
As an alpha prime.
Actually, they didn’t even quite have a proper distinction for him in the medical field, he was a special-class, something like a ‘class 1 prime’, which Eijirou thought he’d have liked, given the whole ‘number one’ thing.
Apparently not, though.
“I might need special fuckin’ training to even be out around the public, let alone be a hero…that’s what they said anyway. Ughhh!” He threw himself back on Eijirou’s bed with a thump, forearms lifting to cover his face. “Bullshit.”
“Nah, dude, that’s fucked. Isn’t All Might a special-class prime? He never had any problems!” Eijirou opted to pull the chair from beneath his desk and sit, rather than crowd Bakugou.
The poor man was absolutely plastered with scent patches, and he’d clearly neutralised the hell out of himself too. Eijirou could barely smell a thing, and even what he could, was pretty much just what B had always smelled like. Eijirou had presented as an alpha in their second year, so he’d had plenty of time to get used to the whole ‘scent’ thing. Yesterday, Bakugou walked into the gym and hurled.
It had to be rougher for him.
Eijirou glanced at his sheets, chewing the inside of his bottom lip. How long had it been since he’d changed them? “Does…uhh…does my bed smell too strong for you? I can change it real quick–” he broke off when Bakugou moved his arms to shoot him a glare, before reaching to snatch up one of his pillows and bring it to his face.
“It smells fine, idiot.” He tossed it back uncaringly, and Eijirou’s eyes bugged out.
“You just up and sniffed it…” he wheezed weakly, “Bakugou, you don’t just sniff another alpha’s stuff…”
Another glare had him tensing, and Bakugou rose to one elbow, reaching for the pillow again. He pressed it right over his mouth and nose to take the most exaggerated huff of Eijirou’s scent, before lobbing the thing at him with force.
“What’s the matter? Gonna ‘posture’ at me? Do it, I dare you…” he growled, pushing up more until he was sitting properly.
“Can– can you even smell me yet?” Eijirou gasped, jaw hanging as he clutched camouflage cotton closer to his chest. Never in his life had another alpha done something like that. Admittedly his presented life had been pretty short so far, but still.
“Keep your hair on, I can’t smell shit right now. It comes and goes,” Bakugou grinned, and Eijirou gave a sigh of relief, slumping back in his chair.
“You had me going for a second there!” His heart palpitated a little in his chest, but he laughed it off.
The next day Bakugou seemed perfectly fine until halfway through last period. His pen clattered to the desk and he released a low, pained groan that had everyone, Eijirou included, switching their attention to him. Red eyes closed as he blew out a slow, steadying breath, shifting forward to bury his face in his hands.
They were shaking.
“Bakugou? Do you need a minute?” Present Mic asked from the front.
Bakugou stood without a word, chair clattering to the floor as everyone watched, silent and suddenly apprehensive as a strange kind of energy began pouring off of his skin. When he lifted his head Eijirou drew in a sharp breath.
His eyes were unfocused, almost crossed, as his mouth hung slack. His face moved until it pointed vaguely in Eijirou’s direction, and a thin line of saliva drooled out of the corner of his mouth, before he snapped it closed and shook his head violently.
“Fuck–” he grunted, thigh banging into a desk, and then another as he ambled from the room, gait sluggish, “back in a sec, teach,” he rumbled as he wiped his forearm across his chin, and the door snapped shut behind him.
“Shouldn’t someone go after him?” Midoriya asked, already pushing back from his own desk when several voices chimed in.
“Dude, he’s presenting, do you have a death wish?!”
“Kacchan wouldn’t hurt me–”
“Yeah, maybe not on purpose, but–”
“Midoriya’s right. He’s calmed down a lot the past couple of years.”
“Isn’t he a prime?”
“Isn’t he a special-class prime?”
“Has he even started producing pheromones yet? It might be fine…”
“Someone who can take a punch should go.”
“Everyone here can take waaaaay more than a punch!”
“Right, right. Someone who can take an atomic blast should go–”
Every set of eyes in the room settled on Eijirou.
“Hey, I was staying out of this!” He protested immediately, “give the poor man some space! He doesn’t need us being nosy, or bugging him. You all remember how much presenting sucked.” There were several more arguments before Pres Mic stepped in to tell them all to chill, and Eijirou finally gave in.
He lifted his hand and asked for a bathroom pass, and even though their teacher definitely knew he wasn’t gonna be using it for that, it was handed over promptly.
Eijirou found Bakugou in an alcove full of vending machines, a small travel-sized spray can of neutraliser discarded next to him on the bench, and a freshly cracked can of some sugary drink clutched in both hands.
“Stay back,” he warned without even looking up, before a shiver wracked his shoulders.
“You okay there, man?” Eijirou asked from a distance, and Bakugou’s face snapped up. And then he snorted a short, almost relieved laugh, averting his gaze to the nearest wall.
“They send you ‘cause I can’t rip a chunk outta you?” He guessed, and Eijirou chuckled, moving slowly to sit on the very end of Bakugou’s bench.
“Well, Midoriya was gonna come, but–”
“Tch, of course he was,” Bakugou scoffed, eyes panning to catch his again, “ain’t it bad for omegas to get near presenting alphas. Or…rutting. Whatever it’s called.”
“Dude, ain’t no way I’m gonna believe you don’t know what ‘rutting’ is. You had the same class as the rest of us last year–”
“Yeah, well, I never planned on presenting, so I didn’t give enough of a shit to pay all that much attention.” Bakugou slumped back against the wall after a long swig of his drink, offering it over afterwards.
Eijirou took it with a small thanks, sniffing at the mouth of the can before sipping. It tasted just as sweet as it smelled. Lychee? Guava? It was good.
Bakugou explained that his dad never presented, nor his grandparents on that side. He’d always just kind of assumed that if he was gonna get anything from his dad, it’d be that. He didn’t seem very happy that his mother’s genes had ‘won this round too, tch’.
He did seem pretty okay after another five minutes though, and they headed back to class just in time to catch the homework.
At the gym that evening Bakugou was not okay.
He decked Sato straight-out when the alpha tapped him on the shoulder, fought a couple of people that tried to get him to calm down, and then heaved right in an omega substitute teacher’s face when she came over to reprimand them all.
Which was pretty strange, even for an abnormal presentation.
Eijirou followed him back to Heights Alliance after finally dragging his ass away from the mess he’d made. They ate leftovers in one-sided grumpy silence, and finally got ready for bed.
…At 7pm.
Bakugou didn’t seem like he wanted to be anywhere near the common room though, so Eijirou suggested maybe a movie or something, so that he didn’t feel like a toddler going to bed before it was even dark out.
He set up his laptop and grabbed some snacks, and they settled sideways on his bed like they always did for movie-night.
It was great, and totally normal, even with Bakugou scratching at his scent patches and grumbling under his breath. When Eijirou assured him he’d be able to take them off soon, for the most part anyway, Bakugou simply rolled his eyes and flipped him off.
Near the end of the movie, Eijirou couldn’t hold it anymore, and excused himself into his en suite toilet to pee. The sun had set over the course of the past hour and a bit, and they hadn’t flicked on a lamp yet.
Which is probably why it took him so long to register that his best friend was laying on his bed when he walked out, eyes adjusting to the lack of light after flicking off the bathroom one. Not sideways against the wall as he always did, either, but along the length of it.
He opened his mouth, ready to ask if B was sleepy, when something in the back of his skull stopped him. He squinted, and in the otherwise silence of the room, heard a long, slow intake of breath. Muffled.
Bakugou’s nose was buried in Eijirou’s pillow, one hand lifting to grip the edge and smush it closer still. A rushed exhale through his slightly open mouth preceded another blatant huff of his scent, and Eijirou felt a full body shiver rip though him as he stared, utterly confused.
What…what was happening?
Bakugou’s eyes were closed, his brows pinched in what looked like pain but couldn’t be, because he didn’t stop.
“Fuck,” Bakugou pressed his face in harder, pulled it closer, turning on the bed until he was almost facing downwards, one knee shifting up as Eijirou watched his toes curl and the fingers in the pillow clench, “fuck–” he lifted his head briefly to pant, and his eyes had that glassy quality to them they’d had earlier.
Eijirou had never seen an expression like that on his best friend’s face before, and when he watched teeth sink into his innocent little pillow a moment later, it did something to his stomach. Twisted it, pulled it. Dropped the bottom right out of it.
He must have made a sound in his surprise, because red eyes snapped to him, and he could see just how blown the pupils were.
Should he harden to protect himself? Were they about to fight?
But Bakugou just kind of slow-blinked a few times, before tensing up solid and sitting bolt upright. “Shit. Gotta go–” he practically barged Eijirou out of the way of the door, slamming it, and then his own behind himself.
Eijirou simply shifted his attention from slammed wood to stare at his bed until his feet finally carried him over, curiosity suddenly an insistent mouth to feed until he reached out and picked up his pillow.
It was wet. Just a small patch, but, but that was Bakugou’s spit.
He should change his bedding, right? He should definitely change the pillowcase, at the very least.
Eijirou glanced quickly at the door, and then the wall.
Yeah. Yeah, he should most certainly change it.
His mouth was dry but he swallowed anyway, staring at their dividing wall as he slowly sank to lay where Bakugou had, pulling the pillow close to see if he could smell whatever had made the other alpha react like that.
It just smelled like him…but there was some kind of underlying…smoky sweetness that had his brows scrunching. Was that Bakugou? He sniffed again, eyes slipping shut without him meaning them to, as he pushed his nose further in. He only stopped when his thumb encountered wetness.
He jolted, tossing the pillow away from himself as he took several ragged breaths.
What the hell had he just been doing?
That was rude as hell! Not to mention insane. That wasn’t how a friend behaved at all, he should be ashamed of himself.
He stood to change his sheets, face hot.
The next morning Eijirou stood in the laundry room, folding freshly washed bedding when Bakugou barged in. They both stopped to stare at one another for a long moment, and Eijirou watched as pale ears slowly grew pink at the tips.
“I didn’t mean to be weird,” Bakugou finally said at length, gaze averting from the folded pile and the pillowcase very inconveniently pinched between Eijirou’s fingers. He dropped it quickly to the pile without folding it properly, a nervous laugh springing forth.
“Dude, no. It’s fine! It wasn’t–” but he couldn’t really say that it wasn’t weird, because it certainly hadn’t been normal either.
Bakugou swallowed, adjusting the basket on his hip. There was a tied black bag inside it, rather than the usual pile of washing. He caught the direction of Eijirou’s gaze, and the pink of his ears spread to his cheeks.
“Sweated through everything in the night. And no one needs to smell this shit, trust me,” his lip curled slightly in displeasure, and Eijirou snorted another involuntary laugh.
“Yeah, presenting sucks balls, man, but I’m sure it ain’t that bad,” he assured, smiling when Bakugou rolled his eyes and pouted. Though he’d obviously deny ever pouting in his life.
“On your head be it then, idiot,” he dumped the basket, opened a washing machine and then the bag, before pausing, “wait, did I stink up your bed too?” He asked, the question rumbling lowly all of a sudden as a frown dipped his brow and his gaze flicked briefly to Eijirou’s laundry.
“Huh?” Eijirou blinked as that smoky sweetness from last night filled the room and his head all of a sudden, but he shook himself out of it and waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, I was waaay overdue to change the sheets anyway. No wonder it messed…with…you…”
Bakugou pulled his own sheets and night clothes from the bag fully, and Eijirou took the scent like a punch to the gut and the nose at the same time. There was something dirty about Bakugou’s scent; like a filthy romp beside a campfire that ended with bloodied teeth and pregnancy, dirty.
He tensed at just how strong it hit him, and it didn’t go unnoticed.
“…told you it was bad.” That classic Bakugou ‘no I’m not gonna cry’ scowl and lip-wobble combination was all the slap Eijirou needed to move into action.
“It’s not bad,” he insisted loudly, turning to grab his own neutraliser detergent from beside his washing, offering it over as he continued, “it’s just strong, that’s all! You smell good, you’ll be a good alpha–”
He stopped abruptly when all the air in Bakugou’s lungs rushed out in a shocked exhale, watching as carmine eyes blew wide and surprised.
Crap, he’d just–
“Oh, what the fuck?” Bakugou whispered, trailing off as he lifted a hand to clamp over his heart. He blinked, clearly confused, “what the fuck did you just do?” He demanded quietly, and it was Eijirou’s turn to blush furiously.
“Uhh, nothing?” He tried, but winced when Bakugou shot him an incredulous glare. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “So, uhh, being called ‘good’ might hit a little…differently now. Sorry?” He explained sheepishly.
As if he’d accidentally called his best friend a good alpha.