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Shouto's eyes hurt, and he hasn't slept.
Yesterday, though it doesn't feel like yesterday, he said an awful thing to his mother. His own fault, really. She was only worrying, asking if he had any wounds and if anything hurt and if he had gotten himself checked out. She was only scared he'd taken a hit to the head or some shrapnel to the shoulder. She was only being a mother—but Shouto was still bitter from all the people he hadn't been able to save in the battle the day before and he'd gone most of his life without her playing the concerned parent. He didn't need her to start now.
That isn't true, of course. Shouto's feelings about his mother are a lot more complicated than that, but in the end, he's missed her ever since she got sent away and he still feels like he misses her even though he's got her back and speaking generally, he's okay to let her fuss over each bruise and scrape in order to ease both their minds.
He's learned, though, that shot nerves tend to stomp all over rational thought and feelings, so in the heat of it, that's what he told her. He'd gone most of his life without her playing the concerned parent. He didn't need her to start now.
God, he hates himself for it.
He keeps seeing her face. She looked so guilty, so sad. It was a low blow, he knows, because both of them are still torn up over it. Her absence is one of those big, painful parts of Shouto's life that, despite all the therapy and the hugs on the cold hard floor of his mother's room, is still a bloody, pumping heart of its own, and he can barely touch it without feeling like he's bleeding from the inside. Something he can't bandage so much as swim in, wade through the chambers and ventricles and navigate through the valve; try to learn how to breathe while he's there. He's been getting better, slowly, but it's still such a raw part of him, and he knows, he knows, that it's the same for her.
How could he say that?
The room is getting lighter, bright enough that Shouto doesn't have to squint to see anymore. Everything is muted grey, blueprints for the world before the day starts and people wake up to fill them in. Shouto feels like he's stuck. His legs hurt because he hasn't uncrossed them in he's not sure how long, his back aches against the side of the bed, the floor is hard. His vision seems blurry.
He just keeps seeing his mother's face.
In the silence, he hears Katsuki shift behind him, the sheets brushing against each other. He settles and the silence resumes for another few seconds, before Shouto hears a kind of muffled tapping like Katsuki's feeling for something in the bed. Shouto, probably—he's usually wound around Katsuki like a fucking octopus. They always seem to get tangled together in the night, no matter where in the bed they start out.
It goes on for another moment before it stops, and Shouto guesses that's where Katsuki wakes up. He imagines Katsuki's brows furrowed when he doesn't feel Shouto in the bed, his eyes slowly opening, blinking to get the sleep out. He imagines Katsuki's face realising Shouto isn't there.
And then, "Shouto?" Katsuki calls, voice quiet and crackly. It disrupts the bubble Shouto's found himself in. Pop. The dawn slips through the crack in the curtain, but the room sits still. Shouto hears Katsuki move more, probably propping himself up on his elbows. "Shou?"
Shouto should call back, he knows. It's the reasonable thing to do. There's that note of worry in Katsuki's voice—but god, he's tired.
The noise gets louder then, which must be Katsuki sitting up. Shouto still doesn't say anything. The room is getting lighter. Colour starts to seep through the edges, but the walls are white. They still haven't been painted.
And Katsuki's crouching in front of him. He's still bleary-eyed and he's grinding his teeth to loosen up his jaw. His hair is sticking up in every direction possible. Pretty.
Katsuki lets Shouto notice him before putting a hand on his knee, heavy and warm. It's grounding, and Shouto suddenly realises he's been sitting here without a blanket. Like magic, like hot water running from the showerhead and the dirt from his nails swirling down the drain, Shouto's limbs unfreeze. He takes Katsuki's hand in his, resting them intertwined on his knee.
"There you are," Katsuki whispers, one side of his mouth quirked up in a soft smile.
"Good morning," Shouto says, voice scratchy, though it's hardly dawn. Doesn't make any difference to him, either way. He never woke up, and he's certain that just from looking at him, Katsuki knows that. He used to hate how easily Katsuki could read him. It's comforting, now; in the small ways, like how Katsuki knows what he's chosen from a restaurant menu before Shouto has to tell him, and the bigger ways, like how Katsuki knows when he's about to cry. And after that, how he knows when Shouto's all worn out and it's time to wrap up in blankets and body heat.
He wonders what exactly Katsuki's seeing in his face now.
The room is getting lighter. The shadows are slinking back to their corners like bleeding beasts.
"Mornin'," Katsuki says back. "Care to tell me why you're on the floor before sun-up?"
Shouto swallows, starts running his thumb up and down Katsuki's pointer finger. He's always so patient, with him. With his problems and the fog in his head. Even after all these years. It's almost like salt in the wound, because how does something that soft not hurt? How does he breathe in the waiting space?
"I keep thinking of Mother," Shouto says, near-silent. Katsuki gives up on crouching and sits down cross-legged, his other hand wrapping around Shouto's ankle. It's like he's trying to keep him on Earth.
Shouto almost doesn't want to say the next part. Katsuki doesn't know exactly what happened yet, just that something did. He can't help thinking that this is the thing that'll make Katuski turn away, no matter how irrational the thought. After all, his mother has been trying so hard. And Shouto threw it back in her face.
Katsuki deserves more credit than that though. Shouto trusts him more than that.
"It's okay, sweetheart," Katsuki mutters. "You're good."
Shouto breathes out through his nose and forces his jaw to move. "I told her... I was feeling upset and she kept fussing over me, wouldn't leave me alone. It got on my nerves and... I told her I'd gone most of my life without her playing the concerned parent. That I didn't need her to start. I told her that. God, I actually said that."
He feels like crying again. There's an ugly thing clawing at his chest, a kid with teeth and rage enough to bring hell with him and grief double the size. Shouto supposes he never lost those fangs.
"Hey, hey, look at me," Shouto hears and he realises he's been staring at the floor as he spiralled. A hand cups his jaw and brings his head back around, red eyes finding his. The touch is so gentle. Shouto feels like paper, balled up into a human frame. He feels like he might bruise.
"Shou, listen, okay?" Katsuki says. "Stop punishing yourself. You don't deserve it."
Shouto shakes his head defiantly. "Did you hear me? Did you hear—"
"Yes, I heard. Course I did. So you were feeling shitty and then you said something shitty. Everyone does it. You remember who I was in first year at UA, yeah?"
"But that's not the same," Shouto insists. "You know how tough that is for all of us. I said something horrible."
"So you apologise," Katsuki says, shrugging, like it's the easiest thing in the world. Shouto supposes he's built up experience, but—it can't be that simple. "Sure it can," Katsuki says. "You apologise, you explain, you take responsibility, and you let Rei make the next move. If you're both okay to move on, you move on. If you're not, you work on it together. It happens, sweetheart. It makes you normal. Not some fucking—monster. Or whatever you're thinking in that damn head of yours."
And logically, Shouto knows Katsuki's right. Hell, it's something Shouto used to tell him when he slipped up sometimes at UA.
"But what if she hates me now?" he asks, because that's the big fear. That all this work, and Shouto's gone and blown it. That he'll lose his mother all over again and that bloody, pumping heart will grow other bloody organs next to it that he'll cut into and flay open and never figure out how to stop. His mouth tastes like metal.
Katsuki looks sad. It makes Shouto sadder. "Baby," he whispers, and his hand strokes Shouto's cheek, brushes the bag under his eye. "She's your ma’. She loves you. She fought like hell to get you back. And, don't wanna' be harsh, but she knows what it's like to do something shitty when you're not thinking right. You really think she'll give all that up because of one bad thing you said?"
Shouto sighs. Slumps into Katuski's hand. It's so straightforward when Katsuki lays it out like that. Point A, point B, point C, you're fine, baby, breathe. One at a time and it all works out in the end.
He's right, like he usually is. The room is getting lighter. The sun will be up soon to feed the plants on their windowsills. Shouto and Katsuki are sat on the floor, and somehow, at the end of the night, they've managed to get tangled together.
"I'll go back to see her tomorrow," Shouto says. Katsuki smiles, and dips his head to kiss Shouto's knee.
"You'll do fine," he whispers. "I know it."
Shouto, despite his bloody, pumping heart threatening to branch out, believes him. He really does—because as Shouto's been learning to swim, Katuski's been the one giving him air to help him along.
"C'mon," Katsuki says, uncrossing his legs. "Let's get your ass into bed. Up." He grabs Shouto's other hand and pulls him up until they're standing. Shouto groans as his legs ache, finally straightened out after being stuck in one position for too long.
Katsuki, of course, notices. "Dumbass," he mutters under his breath but it's all fond, and Shouto lets himself be herded under the covers despite the light sneaking in through the curtains. Katsuki climbs in next to him, pulls the covers back up around their shoulders.
And Shouto's just about ready to go to sleep. It's only... He likes reassurance. And all the memories about his mother being gone for so many years, being left in that godforsaken mansion—he needs to be sure. He just needs to be sure.
"Katsuki," he whispers as Katsuki's getting himself situated on his back. He pauses and turns his head to look Shouto in the eyes.
"Yeah, babe?"
"I—I feel like if I look away, you might disappear."
Shouto thinks he sees Katsuki's heart break a little bit. He shifts back around and props himself up on an elbow, so he's hovering above Shouto's face. Close enough to lean up and kiss.
"Listen to me. You listening?"
Shouto can't help but laugh under his breath. "I'm listening," he says.
"Shouto, I swear to you, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be here for every birthday and every nightmare and every party you want to leave early. I'm going to be here when you take too fuckin' long to decide on food. I'm going to be here when we paint the walls and you inevitably knock over a can like a klutz. I'm going to be here when you get old, and I'm going to be here when our hero days are over. I'm going to be here when there's grey in your stupid hair. You're not getting rid of me."
Shouto inhales quickly, trying to catch air. "That's a lot," he says. "Sure it's not too much?"
"Course I'm sure. I'm here to stay."
And Shouto knows that, he thinks. An irrefutable fact. Somehow, Katsuki managed to get past all of his bones and his tissue and settle in the one unshakeable part of his brain where he won't leave.
"Okay," he says. "I love you."
Katsuki shakes his head like that's obvious. Shouto guesses that it really, really is. "I love you too, baby. Now go the fuck to sleep. You're killing me just looking at you."
Katsuki kisses him again, properly now, not like that peck on his knee, and the sun truly starts to creep in. They settle together in bed like muscle memory. Shouto doesn't hate himself so much anymore before he falls asleep listening to Katsuki's heartbeat through his chest.
Swimming is hard in rough waters —so Shouto floats for a bit instead.