Work Text:
I like you. More than I ever planned.
Shouto's fingers twitch, nails digging into the pencil he's holding. The urge to bring them to Izuku's face, poke his freckled cheeks, nearly overwhelms him.
Something—too many things—about Izuku make him want, an unfamiliar want that his body's evidently only reserved for bone-deep desires.
It does ache down to his bones, his muscles protesting his stillness, as if it just isn't right that he isn't moving, reaching, pressing closer to Izuku.
"So we both got the same on that one!"
Shouto startles out of his introspection, catching Izuku's nod at their notebooks, presumably with matching answers. A particularly cowlicky green curl bobs up and down and he turns and leans over the side of his bed to grab something.
"Mmm," Shouto hums, a second too late, but Izuku just squints at the next problem and mutters something to himself.
He glances down, scratching out what he thinks the first line of work should look like. Math doesn't come super easy to him, but this unit makes sense. He usually studies enough to force the concepts into his brain, no matter how mind-numbingly dull the topics are. Out of necessity.
Shouto's gotten good at forcing himself to do things he doesn't want to do.
Leaning his face on his hand, he dips his head down a little to let his bangs fall in front of his eyes, but not enough to obscure his view of Izuku.
Necessity tastes different, these days. Necessity tastes like the mint sting of toothpaste that he leaves too long on his tongue while listening to Izuku ramble in the mornings. Necessity tastes like the spare rice he pushes across the table, claiming he's too full to finish it all.
Necessity tastes like the dry inside of his mouth when his eyes catch on the dip of a tanned collarbone as Izuku leans further down to inspect his work.
“I dunno about this.” Izuku looks up from his scribbles, brow furrowed. “Can I see what you got?”
Shouto’s eyes slide down to his own page, realizing he’s barely done more than rewrite the problem. “Ah.”
He leans over and notices Shouto’s lack of progress. “Shouto! Not very top-student of you,” Izuku teases, prodding at his shoulder with a pencil.
“I suppose you’ll have to swoop in when a villain puts a gun to my head and tells me to integrate improper functions,” Shouto deadpans. He gets one of Izuku’s weird little chuckles at that, and internally reaches out to catch the sound between his hands like it’s a firefly.
“I’ll run you through what I think it is!” Izuku scoots over to better present his work, knee pressing against Shouto’s. “Can’t have you at some villainous Ectoplasm-sensei’s mercy, after all.”
He starts explaining the problem, jabbing at various parts of his paper with his eraser, and Shouto does his best to play at following along. In reality, his eyes have caught on yet another one of the Things about Izuku that make him want—his hands.
The twisted edges of his scars always flutter at the edge of Shouto’s attention whenever Izuku’s talking with his hands—which is most of the time. They’re as neat and surgical as Recovery Girl could manage, but they stretch unevenly all over his arms, various incisions to reach in and piece Izuku back together.
All that pain for Shouto to unite his two halves as one, he thinks, and yet Izuku has him completely undone with a wobbly smile and a gentle nudge. Shouto surreptitiously stretches his fingers out a little, trying to measure between Izuku’s misshapen ones, how they could fit together….
“Shouto?” Izuku’s paused in his explanation, round eyes and arched eyebrows and lip-caught-between-his-teeth all directed at Shouto in full force. He nearly wheezes from the impact.
But I never planned on this.
"Izuku." Shouto tries for a light, inquisitive tone, but his voice comes out too low and awkward and causes Izuku to glance up at him, concerned.
"Shouto? Everything okay?"
“Mmmngh,” he tries to respond in affirmation, but the muscle strain seems to have reached his vocal chords.
The warm press of a hand against his forehead blinks him out of his temporary stupor. Izuku’s eyes are squinted narrower now. “You feel alright—well, with your quirk, I guess traditional methods of checking for a fever are kinda useless, huh?”
“I’m not sick,” he manages, Izuku’s hand falling down to his lap. Shouto resists the urge to say something mortifying like wait no keep touching me . “It’s, well, you.” He inclines his head towards Izuku’s face, just a few centimeters below him.
Izuku smiles a little, bemused, rubbing at the corner of his mouth. “Something on my face?”
“Yes. No. You’re just—” Shouto tries to bite back his next words, but they come spilling out anyway. “You’re very. Overwhelming.”
“Huh?” Izuku looks surprised and a little hurt, and he tries to backpedal immediately.
“Not in a bad way! Just—you’re very—you make me.” He closes his eyes, accepting the hole he’s dug himself into. “Want. A lot.”
“...Want?”
Shouto nods, keeping his eyes closed and head bowed. “You, specifically.” Death’s sweet embrace should be something that can be summoned at will, right?
Nothing. He curls his fingers into the soft sheets below him, not daring to open his eyes and face the music yet. The bedspread rustles, mattress dipping in front of his crossed ankles.
Fingers tap on his chin, tilting it up, and he opens his eyes to Izuku’s, a little bit above as he kneels before him.
“What kind of want, Shouto?” Izuku murmurs, the flush on his cheeks belying his almost-steady tone.
He swallows, throat clicking as he tries to will his body temperature down.
“I don’t think I can… explain it.”
“Try me.”
“I think. I want to kiss you. The problem is,” he pauses. “I have to close my eyes for that.”
Izuku’s voice is a little breathier, shakier. “Why’s—why’s that so bad?”
“You’re very overwhelming,” Shouto informs him, matter-of-fact. “I don’t want it to stop anytime soon.”
And, definitively:
Necessity tastes like the inside of Izuku’s mouth, pressed against his, as if every atom in the universe was split in half between them and there’s nothing more whole and inevitable and right than this collision.
It couldn't have turned out better.