♡ tags: afab + gn reader, highly suggestive so 18+ MDNI, showering, readers implied to be shorter than meguru but this is a timeskip so he can be 7ft if u wish, fluff.
♡ a/n: i haven't written anything in 2 years and this is disgustingly self indulgent. unfortunately this mans rotting my brain and i am weak. i wrote this in a daze
Through your light humming and the spray of water, the sound of a door flinging open rings clear through your apartment.
“I’m home baby!” Bachira’s voice booms through your home, the sound winding through the small space left open in the bathroom’s door, the thud of a bag and shuffle of feet following his words.
“Welcome home!” you call back, rinsing the last of the shampoo out of your hair.
You hear him do a little jog towards the bathroom, socked feet thumping against the floor, before his voice calls, “Coming in!”
That’s all the warning you get before your door is thrown open, the sounds of your boyfriend singing your name and the shuffle of his clothes bringing a small smile to your lips.
“How was your day, baby?” you ask, grabbing your bottle of conditioner and squeezing a bit onto your palm.
“Fun as always, I experimented with a few new moves,” he replies, excitement clear in his voice. “My shoulders are busted though, feels like they’re gonna fall off. I’m convinced it’s because you didn’t kiss them before I left this morning.”
You snort, rolling your eyes as you massage the conditioner into your hair, “Oh yeah, definitely, it couldn’t possibly be due to the rigorous training you do every single day.”
“Nope,” he quips, whipping the shower curtain open with a shit-eating grin, stepping in the stream of water in all his naked glory. “It’s not every single day, I get a break on the weekends.”
You hum in reply, lazily dragging your eyes down your boyfriend’s physique, the results of all his hard work. It’s all prominent muscle and compact strength, sharp, defined abs and a strong core, hulking thighs you’ve had the delightful pleasure of sitting on (and between), packing power you’ve seen used to launch countless balls precisely and ruthlessly across fields. The shape of him, embraced with golden sun-kissed skin from the summer sky, is made almost lewd with the addition of water dripping over his body, glistening and moist and trailing deliciously down to his co—
“Eyes up here baby,” he sings, stepping closer to your heating body and bringing his face lower to meet your gaze head-on, beaming at the hazy appreciation clear on your features. “You stare any harder and I’ll start getting shy,” he teases.
That snaps your eyes back into focus, and you snort incredulously, “Oh please, you haven’t known shame since you popped out of the womb. I could fill an address book with all the people who’ve seen your dick.”
He giggles and brings his hands to your hips, gliding over the wet skin, and pulls you slightly out of the water’s stream. “I’ll learn some just for you, baby.”
“Hmm, as long as you don’t suddenly start getting shy on me,” you hum, tipping your head to look at his playful expression. “You can have some shame with everyone else, though. In fact, I am requesting that you do.”
“Anything for you, honey,” he grins, pulling your chest flush against his and dipping his head to kiss you. It’s slow and lazy, wet with the lingering water on your face, his tongue licking your bottom lip like he’s savouring the feel of every crease beneath it. Bachira drags it out as he always does, but doesn’t escalate it, keeping it slow and steady as his hands slip over the soft curves of your body, caressing your waist, thumbing along your rib cage, dipping beneath the swell of your breast. Being out of the water and subjected to his teasing touches pebbles your nipples, and you release a sigh into his willing mouth. Your skin shivers, nectarous arousal gradually trickling into your gut, but there’s no urge to hasten the moment along. For a man always on the move, always looking for the next goal and next game to win, being the one Bachira slows down for is not something you take for granted. You savour every easy breath and satisfied hum he lets out against your lips and lean into his precious, languid warmth.
It’s only when his fingers lightly flick your nipples that you break apart, a string of spit connecting your lips, remaining close enough for your noses to touch fleetingly and your warm breaths to gather in the space between you. His honeyed eyes, typically bright and wide and wild, settle transfixed and heavy-lidded on yours, his gaze no less intense and singularly focused on you. It’s overwhelming sometimes to have all the world’s devotion directed sacredly at you like this, brilliant and irresistible and all-consuming. Bachira never goes halfway at anything, not at his football or his principles, and least of all you. He is persistently and overwhelmingly fierce with his adoration, an ebullient fire that never stops consuming. You’ve never loved the sting of a burn more.
“Getting a little handsy there, ain'tcha,” you murmur, thumbing softly at the grin that spreads on his lips.
“Jus’ playing with my food a bit.”
“Never learned your manners, did you?” you breathe, goosebumps rising on the skin of your thigh as it brushes against his dick, thick and slowly hardening.
“Think I just lose ‘em all with you,” he laughs breathily, the sound hanging adoringly in the steam as he rests his forehead against yours. “Missed you so much today. Every day. Wish I could pack you up in my training bag and take you everywhere with me.”
You huff, bringing your arms around his shoulders and tilting your head to the side, “You don’t think staying home would be easier?”
The words give him pause, eyes fixed on yours as he opens and closes his mouth. His eyebrows furrow. The heat of the moment dissipates as your boyfriend gives your question a genuine thought.
“I mean, yeah? But—well. What about practice then? I don’t think that’d be very productive to my progress and today was actually kinda huge in terms of breakthroughs, I was finally able to get a handle o—”
You burst into giggles at the bewildered expression on his face, torn up at the choice you’ve apparently forced him to make.
“I’m just playing, baby,” you grin back at him, squishing his cheeks and puckering his lips, cooing, “I’d never be so mean and make you choose.”
He heaves a dramatic breath of relief, planting his face on your shoulders and whining, “You’re being mean now! I almost had a heart attack.”
Your chest feels full to bursting with affection. “Aww, my little honey bee, my sweet baby angel, sorry for forgetting how fragile my sensitive darling is—”
He groans and shakes his head, and you delight in the pout you can feel pressing into your skin, “You’re a bully,” he mumbles, pressing impossibly closer to you, wrapping his arms tightly around your middle.
“I don’t know what you mean, I love you, sweetheart,” you laugh back at him, kissing the top of his dampening head.
His pout transforms into kisses along your shoulder as he hums, moving along the lines of your collarbones. “Yeah?” he breathes against your skin, lips curving up. “You love me?”
“Uhuh.” You indulge him, fingers playing with the hair curling at his nape. “Love you so much, Meguru. Makes me feel kinda crazy sometimes.”
You feel the soft smile he was pressing into your skin transform into a grin, his eyes no doubt twinkling and bright with delight. “It does?”
“It does,” you repeat, using your hold on his hair to pull his face up from where it rested against your collarbones. Just as you thought, his eyes glisten with infatuation, little crescent moons as he beams up at you with a dopey smile. Your breath catches in your throat at the stunning sight, profound adoration sitting in his faint smile lines and the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, earnestly dripping like syrup from his voice.
“I make you feel crazy? In love? Really?” he breathes, bringing his face close enough to yours for his warm breath to fan across your lips. “Say it again. Say it, I wanna hear it.”
And who are you to deny Bachira Meguru anything?
“I love you so much, baby,” you murmur, rubbing the tip of your nose against his damp cheek. “Always make me feel so crazy, so full of your love.”
“Again,” he tries to demand, but it’s a plea, you know. A supplication, a prayer to bear witness to the fire blazing with ardour in your chest, one that burns divinely for the man in front of you. His eyes are impossibly bright, drowning you in their sea of sunny reverence, and you know that he, too, would happily walk into the sting of your own flames.
✎ summary. the one time you let yourself be vulnerable
✎ ameris’ notes. i’ll get the studio ghibli pt 2 done eventually :’) also dw 🐨-anon i’ll get that cult story that happened to me done eventually x_x i couldn’t sleep and have been having tartaglia brain rot :/ based off of my—uh—genshin self-insert au lMAOOOO.
You glance over at the sleeping harbinger, his freckles peppering throughout his face. You admire the scars that decorate his skin, the strand of hair that’s lighter than the rest. Part of you screamed to leave, you couldn’t be seen with someone like him, nor him with you. But part of you wanted to reach out to him. Some would argue that you were weak.
Weak to reach out and lightly caress your fingertips against his freckles.
Weak to have him enter your heart so willingly.
Weak to have someone like Childe Tartaglia as your weakness.
But not many would say that you were brave enough to let a man like him into your heart that could be broken so easily. That’s been broken so easily.
“What are you doing to me,” you murmur, your eyes scanning over his long lashes and down to his slightly chapped lips.
Ocean blue eyes stared back at yours that widened with the sudden motion. Childe grabs your wrist before you can retract it and moves it back to his face, nuzzling into it and kissing your palm. The warmth of his breath dances along your skin You feel yourself grow flustered as his signature smug smirk appears on his face.
“Didn’t think I’d be awake?” he asks.
“I’m leaving,” you move to get up but instead Childe moves up to wrap his arms around you, pulling you back down under the warm covers. His hand is buried in your hair as he holds you into his chest.
You stay in comfortable silence with one another. Both of you know that you became unknowingly vulnerable in front of him, more so than before.
Childe simply runs his hands through your hair as you nuzzle into his firm chest. He gives you a light squeeze before rubbing his cheek against the top of your head, getting the smell of your sweet shampoo scent.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me either,” he murmurs, kissing the top of your head. His heart races and you can hear the thumping against his chest, as if it was trying to escape. And yet you feel comforted by it, knowing that he and you fell into the same pit with each other; for each other.
Ajax was weak for you, he knew in his heart that the other Harbingers and even the Tsaritsa herself would use you against him in a heartbeat. But he’s selfish. He’s weak and he knows it. To indulge himself in your love like this. But for you, he’d do anything to keep you in his life.
You had him wrapped around your finger and didn’t even know.
But he was prepared for the moment he’d have to let you go, to keep you safe.
Another line of sweat begins to bead along your hairline as the late summer heat stifles each breath you inhale.
“This was a bad idea,” you sigh as you lay on the blanketed ground on your back, eyes squeezed shut against the sun’s merciless glare and arms outstretched to their fullest extent as if asking for the wind to take you. You hope it does. At least then, you might not feel like you’re being cooked alive.
“‘S not that bad.” Atsumu yelps and twists his torso to the side when you swipe at him with a clammy palm. The red-orange haze of your eyelids turn blissfully dark when he leans over you, his body blocking the sun’s attack on your eyeballs. “Hey! Don’t be mean.”
“Shush, don’t move,” you mutter, gingerly sliding your eyes open to look at him.
“‘M breakin’ up with ya.”
“Weren’t you just rambling about our future kids this morning?”
He huffs pettishly, and your lips curve into a wisp of a smile. Atsumu’s golden hair encircles your vision, the sweat gathering in his roots rendering the gel he’d used to style it absolutely useless. The man in question grins down at you. The outer corners of his eyes crinkle as his cheeks bunch up, his tanned skin flushed strawberry red from the summer heat. Theoretically, he should look like an overripe tomato donning a shitty blond wig; anybody else would. But with a nimbus of sunlight and the clear blue sky as his backdrop, he looks frustratingly, maddeningly, beautiful. Nobody should look that gorgeous from this angle, you think. Or in this heat.
“Yer starin’.”
“No, I’m not.”
Atsumu’s beam grows wider when you instantly look away at his words, your gaze falling to the leaf clinging to the cotton of his shirt. You convince yourself that the sudden rush of heat through your face is because of the sweltering weather, rather than a manifestation of any sort of embarrassment.
“There’s no need to deny it,” he leans closer to you, noses briefly brushing as his smile turns smug. “‘M yer boyfriend, you can stare all ya want.”
You snort and tilt your head back, ignoring how it makes his gaze drop down to the column of your throat before it comes back up again, “thanks for the permission, sweetheart.”
His nose scrunches up at the nickname to feign displeasure, but you don’t miss the way his head drops a little to avoid your eyes, nor the way his fist slightly twists the blanket in its grip. You grin.
“Why don’t you take the food out, baby? I’m getting a bit hungry.”
You watch as Atsumu’s eyes widen, but before you can take a closer look he’s pulling away, turning his back to you and shifting to the basket of food you’d brought along. The sun wastes no time returning to its assault on your vision, and you hiss, bringing an arm up to shield your face.
Mentally, you curse yourself for giving in to Atsumu’s request (pleading) of an outdoor picnic. You need to start building defenses against those ridiculous pouts of his.
As he busies himself with plates of fruit and sandwiches, you push yourself up to your elbows and closer to him, squinting when you hear him grumble under his breath, “...don’t even remember the last time ya compliment me, then all of a sudden ’s ‘sweetheart and ‘baby’; wha’sat about?”
“Why, you don’t like it?”
You breathe a light laugh when he startles at the sudden proximity of your voice, head whipping back to see a teasing smirk adorning your features. He blinks rapidly and your smirk widens at the vermillion that spreads over his ears.
“No,” he blurts out. “I-I mean, yes, I don’t—do! I do, uh, I guess.”
You blink.
He buries a groan into his hands, and you bite down on an endearing smile. Affection blooms tender and warm in your chest, rich in adoration for the man in front of you. You watch as he lifts his face up, sweet with embarrassment, bottom lip jutting out the slightest bit, and do nothing as your fondness swells.
“‘S jus’ weird!” is what he finally settles on. “‘S like if Omi started callin’ me ‘Tsumu or somethin’.”
Your mouth falls open.
“Am I really so bad that you’re comparing me to Sakusa?”
“No! Tha’s not”—he flails his hands around—“yer fine! More than! “It’s jus' a bit weird, y’know, like, like—” he huffs an irked breath. “You know what I mean!”
Oh my god, he’s pouting.
You purse your lips, forcing a slow breath through your nose to stop the laughter struggling to burst forth. A beat of silence follows his words. Atsumu stares at you. You stare back at him. His eyebrows furrow the longer you stay quiet.
“What?” he finally says, his bottom lip jutting out further, “wha’s with that look?”
“What—what look?” you cough out, looking away and pursing your lips harder.
“That look!” He rudely points at you. “Yer tryin’ not to laugh! I know ya are!”
“I-I don’t—” you snort—shit—immediately covering your mouth with a hand, “I don’t know what you mean.” Your voice shakes with barely restrained laughter.
“‘S not funny!”
And the dam bursts. You double over in loud, boisterous cackles, Atsumu’s whines accompanying your glee in the background.
“It is so fucking funny,” you gasp, eyes twinkling with mirth.
Atsumu, fully pouting by this point, crosses his arms and turns his back to you once more in a childish attempt to ignore you. The sight makes you hiccup another laugh, that ball of adoration swelling to burst in your chest at the sight. You just barely suppress the “aww” that wants to slip out.
You’re still chuckling when you move forward to wrap your arms around his torso, pulling him back into your chest. Despite his earlier protests, he, unsurprisingly, offers no resistance whatsoever and falls easily into your arms. Settling your chin over his shoulder, you tilt your face and bury it in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of your body wash radiating off his skin like ripe fruit beneath the sun.
(“Whatcha think?” he’d asked cheekily the first time he used it, jumping onto your bed and shoving his arm under your nose.
“What—“ you’d jolted away, before the fresh fragrance hit your senses and froze you in your place. You’d swallowed, and carefully asked, “Is that—is that my body wash?”
“Yessir,” he replied, smirking his typical irritatingly attractive smirk. “How ‘bout it?”
You'd put on your best annoyed expression and lied through your teeth, “Stop using my things, moron.”
He never did.)
Blowing a raspberry into the golden skin, you grin, “Sorry, baby, you’re just too cute.”
Atsumu sinks further into your chest and tilts his head back to see you, “Meanie. Only kisses will save you from the doghouse now,” he puckers his lips for emphasis.
Your grin widens, and you cup his jaw to smack a big, noisy kiss on his lips.
L’s movements are careful as he shuts the bedroom door, his footsteps soft when making their way to your bed. you wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t already been hyper aware of your surroundings.
the faint padding of his feet stop when they reach your side of the bed. your eyes remain closed, your breathing deliberately slow and steady. the shift of fabric tells you he’s moving, but his feet remain in place. it’s utterly silent beyond the beating of your heart and the breaths you exhale.
he calls out your name. whispers, really, but it’s strikingly loud in the late night’s serenity.
you don’t respond, opting to try and continue feigning sleep.
“i know you’re awake.”
well, there goes that plan.
you slide one eye open, unfazed at the sudden closeness that greets you. his face is mere inches from yours, just shy of touching your nose, and you’re mildly surprised you can’t feel his breathing fan across your features.
“yes?” your voice comes out with a slight rasp.
he’s silent for a moment. for once, his eyes aren’t their usual size of wide round plates, and the permanently analytical glint in them is dimmer in the wake of your vulnerable state.
you’ve come to learn that L is always thinking. scrutinizing, learning, adapting. his mind is in a perpetual state of taking in all the information around him, new and old; reviewing, understanding, and filing them away into the deep crevices of his mind. it’s in his nature, just as intrinsic to him as your lungs expanding for a breath or your heart pumping blood through your veins.
(once, you asked him if he’s ever consciously had a moment of quiet, of his thoughts being as blank as a fresh canvas. he hadn’t answered for a long time, and you almost thought you were being ignored.
almost an hour later, his answer came simply, “yes.”
you couldn’t stop yourself from asking him what it’d been like.
a beat had passed, and then, “it was the most terrified i’d ever been.”)
even now, tainted with what can nearly be called exhaustion, you can feel it in the set of his gaze and the lines etched around his eyes, can see in the near imperceptible purse of his lips that he’s thinking of what to do; if his next words should be said.
he blinks once, and it's clear to you that he's settled on something.
"would you be opposed to having me sleep next to you?"
his voice is as monotonous as it usually is, but there's a certain tone of care underlying the syllables. you open both eyes fully when you realize that his toes are curling into the carpet underneath him in what you think may be apprehension.
it's almost juvenile in a way, and you barely prevent the corners of your lips from turning up.
you give it a few minutes, though you'd already made up your mind the moment he'd finished his words, before giving him a solid nod of your head.
his lips part subtly, and your gaze automatically drops down to them. he doesn't give you a chance to dwell on the sight, however, because then he's standing up and cautiously making his way to the other side of the bed.
he pauses for a bit upon reaching the mattress. you decide to help him out a little, turning around and pulling back the covers to showcase the empty space beside you.
slowly and carefully, he crawls onto the soft bedding. it's obvious to you when he rearranges himself into a curled position with his back facing you, a loose mimicry of how he normally sits in chairs, that he's not used to this—to being freely offered a spot in someone else's private space, to being wanted in such close quarters.
it paints a faint curve to your lips, and the desire to help him familiarize this feeling sparks something raw in the cavity of your chest.
you shift closer to his body, sliding the covers back over him to preserve the heat emanating from his form (you'd been pleasantly surprised when you first found out just how warm he can run).
his shoulders are tense when you make contact, your chest pressed against the solid lines of his back. your movements are nearly delicate when you bring your arm over him, wrapping it securely around his torso. his legs curl in the slightest bit tighter at your hold, like he's barely stopping himself from using them to trap your arms around his waist.
you adjust your grip, hand curling into the fabric of his shirt, and pull him even closer to your body. your legs tangle under the sheets, and you can feel the muscles in his back and stomach shift with every breath he takes. resting your chin just above his head, a content sigh leaves you when his hair brushes softly against your face. it smells impeccably clean like it always does, and you tilt your nose further downwards to inhale the fresh scent of soap and water.
L doesn't say a word, but the gradual relaxation of his body into your gentle hold speaks enough for you. his breathing is even, and you can just about feel his heart beating through your points of contact.
this silence is fragile, vulnerable, and you think this might be the acme of what intimacy is. you've seen it before, glimpsed pieces of this religion in the moments when he'd hand feed you a sweet and delicately thumb away at the corners of your mouth; when he'd gaze transfixed into your eyes as you purposely busied yourself to allow him this moment of undisturbed reverence; when he'd quietly wrap a hand around your wrist in the presence of others, a thumb tenderly massaging your pulse point to communicate with you in a hidden language only your skin can understand.
they're tacit confessions, uttered without a word solely for your senses to decipher, and this—this request to be near you at his most unguarded, defenseless, is the loudest he's ever conveyed them. this desire to have you witness the barest version of himself feels more sacred than the words of an old god.
you've already offered your heart on the altar of his hands and murmured your own prayers of fervent devotion; you suppose this was his way of answering your calls.
a check back out of your thoughts reveals that his breathing has slowed within the safety of your grasp, his body melding perfectly along the lines of your own. you slide your eyes shut, and exhale into the soft crown of his head; you swear you could find divinity in moments like these.
“You need to stop being so reckless. Next time I see you, you’ll be missing an arm.”
Izuku smiles, a small wry curve of his lips. A line of blood tracks straight down his forehead from a sizeable scrape where he’d been tossed face-first into a concrete wall by a villain. Crimson splatters with ashy dirt on his hero suit to form an ugly image of his night. A single look to his torso had given you more details than he’d told you. His expression scrunches into a wince at the sting of alcohol on his head wound. You feel no regret for dabbing the cotton pad slightly harder than necessary.
“And don’t bother apologizing,” you grumble under your breath, “You never mean it.”
You’re somewhat gratified to see that he appears a little sheepish from your words, at least.
“I am sorry for coming to you like this,” he murmurs gently, dark viridian eyes studying your features.
Your hand falters in its motions for a second. Sorry for waking you up late again, is what he means. Sorry for worrying you, sorry for letting you care for me. He’ll never apologize for his job, though. He’ll never be sorry for saving lives.
Touch easing up a little, you sigh and use your other hand to gently hold his jaw and tilt his head up. You aren’t sure what he sees in your face, but it makes his gaze soften and eyebrows furrow a little. He opens his mouth to say something, but you cut him off.
“Don’t,” you reply quietly. “Don’t apologize for needing me.”
He huffs a crude chuckle, slightly uncharacteristically mocking, “I pay a professional doctor with a healing quirk at my agency to do exactly this,” your eyes narrow, ready to snap back about wasting his time with an inexperienced nurse when he continues. “I came here ‘cause I wanted to see you.”
That stumps you silent. Your fingers twitch around the cotton they hold up, unmoving. Your eyes stay firmly on the broken skin, refusing to discover what expression he’s giving you. Throat dry, heart pounding almost painfully against your chest, you force the next words out into the air,
“Good… Don’t go anywhere else.”
He exhales a light breath through his nose. Stiffly, you remove the pad, now soaked through with blood, and throw it into the garbage can next to you. You rip open a new one to replace it. As you bring it back to his forehead, your eyes unintentionally pass over the rest of his features, where they freeze, captivated by the gaze he’s set on you.
When Izuku had trudged apologetically through your front door at half past two in the morning, you’d immediately taken him in by the bruised arm and trotted to your bathroom, pointing at the closed toilet seat with a clenched jaw. Obediently, he’d sat and you’d begun your work standing over him.
Despite this position, however, you barely tower over him as much as you might have liked. Though he’s sitting down, Izuku is still ridiculously big. Physically, his body is dense, compact with firm muscles and strong bones so that he’s always somehow still larger than you. This is only emphasized by the self-assured, unwavering presence he’s learned to carry with him throughout the years, his innate intensity filling out all the lingering space between you and crowding the air in your lungs.
This same intensity shines in the look he fixes on you, like he’s trying to sink into your thoughts to figure out what those words really mean. Like maybe, if he could peer into your mind, he’d finally be able to understand why every encounter with you feels as intimate as it does.
The air around you seems to hold its breath, afraid to exhale in fear of shattering this moment, one as sacred as the hush of a crowd contemplating their prayers. Without realizing, your eyes had dropped down to his mouth, the bottom lip swelling purple and red, pleading to be further bruised. The second you register his tongue flicking out to lick them, you snap your eyes back to Izuku’s. Your mouth dries at how low his gaze has dropped, too.
An eternity passes where none of you do a single thing. Slowly, naturally, you drift closer, heads tilting like two magnets split off a whole piece coming together again. His breath wafts warmly over your face, and even beneath your bathroom's shitty fluorescent lights, his eyes seem to glitter impossibly brighter at the proximity. Your nose brushes lightly against his, mind intoxicated with the heady, earthy scent of him surrounding your senses. It clouds your every thought, until your eyes are sliding shut and you’re closing the final centimeter between you—
And his phone rings.
The shrill noise startles you both apart. Your breathing picks up at the shock of being seized back into the present, away from this isolated space in time you had crafted for yourselves. In the cramped space of your bathroom, the ringing should be deafening to your ears, but the sudden blood rushing through your head overcomes its disdainful shrieks. You lower your head in a flimsy attempt to hide the embarrassment spreading through your cheeks, busying yourself with the first aid kit and forbidding yourself from even glancing at him. You have no idea what he's doing or how he looks, but the hard weight of his stare and the continuous ringing begin to make your hands clammy.
You’re desperately trying to get your breathing under control when you finally see his hands move in your periphery. Calloused fingers slip into his pocket for a moment before reappearing with a phone. He taps the screen and clears his throat.
"Hello?" His voice is rough, blunt edges of restraint scraping pleasantly against your ears, "Yeah, it's all good. I'll be back soon," a pause. "Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just… doing a quick round over the surrounding neighborhoods, making sure everything's quiet," another pause, then he laughs, a weak and strained thing. "Yeah, yeah, it is, so no need to worry about me. I'm not number one for nothing."
The words make you swallow dryly around the lump in your throat, fingers tightening their hold on the bandage in your hands. They're a reminder for what you'd almost stupidly forgotten: he is the number one hero. Before he is his, before he is yours, he is a hero that belongs to the public. It’s not a reality that could change simply because you wish it to, because more than Izuku may desire you, he needs to be the one to keep this country safe. He’ll wear himself down to the bone doing what’s been instilled in him to do since childhood, and has become intrinsic to who he is.
You can't allow yourself to long for him, not when you'd only receive the leftovers of himself that the people don’t want.
A few more things are said before he's murmuring his goodbyes. The call ends with a simple tap to his screen. Silence fills the air once more, frigid and still.
Then, he softly calls your name.
"Can… can we talk? Please? I—"
"There's nothing to talk about." Your voice strikes the air like a judge's gavel; rigid, resounding, final. With wooden movements, you apply the bandage on the cleaned wound and don’t bother giving him your usual double check to make sure everything has been tended to. You turn away and begin putting everything back in the kit.
"You're all done. I have to be at the hospital at six tomorrow." Please leave, please don't make this harder than it needs to be.
And maybe he thinks that this conversation would be better had another time, when you're both not carrying the weight of your exhaustion and the implications of what had almost occurred. Or maybe he's also realized what you'd foolishly forgotten earlier; that a relationship with half of a man is hardly a relationship at all. Whatever the reason, it renders him quiet and yielding. He gets up as you take your time putting everything away, and treads slowly towards the open bathroom door. He pauses beneath the arch, and you squeeze your eyes shut like a child trying to hide from the seeker in front of them.
A beat passes, then, softly, "Sleep well, Y/N."
Faint stars begin to twinkle in the artificial darkness you've created for yourself. Your ears strain to hear the final footfall of Izuku stepping out and the low echo of your front door falling shut. A shaky exhale pushes itself out of your chest. For minutes, you don't open your eyes, frightened of the reality that might stare back at you in the mirror.
You can't allow yourself to love a man that barely belongs to himself.
sometimes toge cant stop himself from thinking his cursed speech is.. an inconvenience. despite all the good it can bring—has brought—sometimes, when you're feeling particularly bad or laughing especially hard and doing that ugly little snort hes obsessed with, he feels a twinge of resentment towards the seal that sits burdensome on his tongue, because right to it lie three simple words you will never have the privilege of hearing fall from his lips.
he knows he can tell you he loves you in countless other special ways. he knows that your relationship is built on the understanding that your love too extensive to be compressed into the syllables of language.
but sometimes he craves the ability to simply... say what he means. he longs for the normalcy of it. the mundanity even. sometimes he mouths the words into his collar when hes looking at you and wonders if his tongue would feel as heavy without the seal. he wonders if the words would still get stuck in his throat as often without the barrier of his curse blocking it. he wonders what they'd sound like coming from him, what it'd be like to say it thoughtlessly. easily. to say it at all.
sometimes, he regards his technique as the curse it really is.
Osamu stares at his empty plate, tiny splotches of curry the only remnants left of his meal. You thought it'd be okay to allow yourself one last dinner together before speaking. You let yourself indulge in the sight of him enjoying his food, his soft cheeks bulging slightly with each spoonful, eyes bright the way they always are at a successful meal. You let the flavours of the broth seep into your tongue, gave yourself permission to taste his care and pride one last time dropping the curtain at the end of this long, tiresome show.
“Osamu, we can’t drag this out.”
Silence had followed your words. Moments of you looking at him, and him refusing to look back. You didn’t need to explain what this was. He knew.
“I,” you breathe, “I know you’d never say it. So I will.”
He doesn’t respond. His eyes remain fixed on the once sparkling white, now dirty plate. It gives you the courage you need to push through.
“It’s been months. Months. Of us trying to make this work, trying to salvage whatever’s left of this relationship, but you can’t—” your voice cracks, and your fists clench, “—we can’t keep hurting ourselves like this.”
“Why,” he finally looks up at you, and your chest caves in on itself at the crystals gathering along his waterline. “Why now?”
You understand what he means. Why now, when he’s finally started to get his life and restaurant on track. Why now, when you haven’t had a fight or arguments in weeks. Why now, when you haven’t done anything for the months leading up to this. You squeeze your eyes shut, ignore the salt tracking down your cheeks, “Because it'd be too late otherwise.”
“But we’ve—we’ve been doin’ okay lately, haven’t we?” he tries, desperately, foolishly, to stop the sandy grains of this relationship from slipping through his fingers. “We haven’t—haven’t fought, or—or yelled, or anythin’ like that. I thought"—his breath catches in his throat—“I thought ya still loved me.”
Your hand comes up to hide the ugly downward twist of your mouth and the shuddering sob that’s been building up. Because he’s right. You haven’t had any arguments for weeks, haven’t thrown snippy retorts or muttered curses under your breaths about the other. The skin of your relationship no longer struggles to hold your simmering bitterness at one another.
Instead, it sits undisturbed. The space that once held your feelings for each other now lies almost barren and void.
You preferred the noise of fights and slammed doors to the flat silence that had permeated your apartment.
“I do,” your voice is brittle with the ache that it carries, “Of course, I do. That’s why we have to do this.”
Because you do love him, a reckless, compelling love that has blinded you to try for him as long as you have, one that always leaves you sick at the mere thought of it. You would turn thief and rascal to entrench your devotion in his heart, and that is as much a fact as it is a weapon.
It is entirely because you refuse to lose this love that you know this needs to end. If you had let this continue, let the flickering flame of your feelings disappear with only a whisper of smoke to speak of it, this would’ve been easier to do. But it would’ve been the end of you, and the end of him.
You listen to his shuddering exhale, the gasping breath he inhales, and bite down at the palm over your mouth.
Selfishly, cruelly, you would feel this pain and force it onto him, over and over again, if it meant the chance of a different future for both of you, together.
