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thetrashywritingwitch · 6 months

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Despite his parents' success in fashion and design, Katsuki just doesn't get it. That kind of visual creativity isn't something he naturally inherited like his quirk or how he annoyingly is the spitting image of his mother. It never seemed important. What benefit could he get out of art that would help him as a Hero? To him, jack shit.

Yeah, someone designed his suit and support items. Or rather, brought his shitty doodle idea to life. But that's their job, not his. He still remembers being scolded for folding one of his dad's client sketches into a paper airplane and sailing it out the second story window.

He barely remembers the middle school field trip to an art museum. Didn't pay attention to whatever the guide had to say, and didn't much care. Katsuki and his lackeys friends just joked around the entire time. All the weird, abstract stuff was ugly. All the realistic stuff was boring. No painting was gonna prove important to meeting his goal.

... However, it pissed him off that the stupid art classes he had to take caused him so much grief. He could easily get an A in every other class, but the string of B's in every art class from middle school up through UA felt like a stain on his good record. Why the hell did he need to draw vases and shit anyway?!

Katsuki Bakugo sucked at art, and he hated it. It was the one thing he couldn't figure out. He could study and memorize for a test, easy. He could practice and train to perfect his quirk, strength, and endurance. But all his drawings were rough and sloppy. His lines were shaky and uneven. Painting was messy, and if he fucked up, he couldn't easily erase it or start over like a math problem. Whatever, he didn't need to know this stuff anyway. Waste of time and energy when he had more important things to worry about.

So it comes as an uncomfortable shock when a friend sends him a DM of some art they found. "Hey it's you!! Saw this on my feed." And it's... Yeah, it's him. The tags at the bottom confirm it. Of course, his actual account wasn't tagged because he goes out of his way to actively avoid people begging for his attention so badly.

But it's weird. It's not some high impact action shot. Or copy of his unsightly mug screengrabbed from an interview. He's calm. Serene, almost. He never saw himself as "pretty" or whatever the weirdo fan clubs call him. He's got scars on scars and a scowl deep enough to reach the Earth's molten core.

He never considered the difference between how artists see the world vs how he sees it. Or how he sees himself. Is that why it never clicked? He lacks an ability that can't be acquired by training or studying harder than everyone else?

It makes him grimace.

Clicking your profile, he scrolls the gallery to see that it's all art. His portrait isn't the most recent, either. There's this confidence in the mark-making, like you know how it's gonna look before the brush hits the paper. And he knows something about confidence - that to back it up, you gotta work for it.

He knows the bubble of jealousy, too. But that's stupid. This stuff doesn't do him any good. It's not useful. It doesn't help him. So why does he absentmindedly push the "Follow" button before hiding his phone in his back pocket?

The notification ding vibrates your phone as you're eating lunch. Another spam text to block? Surprisingly, no. "New follower on Instagram: Dynamight_Official"

#bnha x reader #bakugou x reader #bnha headcanons #bakugo x reader #mha x reader #dont ask i've had artist au's in my head for many ages #living vicariously through this like no one's business lmaoooo #many thoughts probably too many

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ihni · 13 days

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Of fathers

For @harringrovesummerbingo, square B3, prompt "Gardening" (VERY loosely interpreted, also I never state it in writing that it takes place in summer but it does)

3K, mentions of child abuse, mentions of spousal abuse, mentions of infidelity.

(On AO3 here)

~~~

“She said I’m just like him.”

The words are quiet, muffled by the way Billy is hugging his knees and burying his face in the sleeves of his arms. The angry tears have stopped, but his eyes are still puffy and red where Steve can see them behind the curls hanging over his face. The redness matches the blue that is darkening under his left eye.

Steve, who has spent almost an hour – the whole time since his boyfriend showed up at his door, face bruised and tense – just holding him and pretending he didn’t see the tears or notice the hitched breathing, almost doesn’t catch the words. “What did you say?”

For a second, he thinks that Billy won’t repeat it. That he’ll be stubbornly quiet, or say that it was nothing and brush it off. It’s a relief when Billy unfolds a little where he’s sitting on Steve’s bed, before saying, more clearly, “She said I’m just like him.”

Steve frowns. “Who said that? And just like who?”

Billy sniffs and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “Max. And Neil.”

That has Steve moving. He sits down next to Billy on the bed and reaches out to stroke the hair out of his eyes – carefully, as to not cause any additional pain. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

Billy lets out a laugh that sounds closer to being a sob than anything else. “Oh she meant it. She was really mad.” Before Steve can speak, he continues, “And I don’t blame her. I was mad too. After Neil did this –“ He gestures at his face, “– I needed an excuse to get out. Told her I’d give her a ride to Sinclair’s house if she wanted. And then I did, but … I was so angry. And I just can’t keep my mouth fucking shut when I’m angry. I’m the kind of asshole who just have to take it out on someone.” He lowers his voice so it’s almost a whisper as he states, “She’s right. I am just like him.”

Steve bites his lip. Puts his hand on the back of Billy’s neck while he thinks of how to ask, rubbing his thumb in what he hopes is soothing circles on the skin he can reach. He decides that the best way is to ask outright. “Did you … hurt her?”

Billy flinches. Pulls out of Steve’s grip. “No! Not … not like that.” He deflates. “I didn’t hit her or anything.”

“What happened, then?” Steve asks, instead of What did you do? Because that would sound like an accusation, and Billy doesn’t need that right now.

“I yelled at her. She yelled back. I yelled more. Then I hit the dashboard. I … I scared her.”

“But you didn’t hurt her. You didn’t lay a hand on her.”

“One doesn’t have to lay a hand on someone to hurt them,” Billy protests, and well. He knows that from experience, Steve supposes.

Still. “You didn’t hurt her like that,” Steve insists. “You’re nothing like your dad, Billy.”

Surprisingly, that makes Billy bark out a laugh. He squeezes his eyes shut and new tears roll down his cheek. “You’re actually right about that one, pretty boy!”

As much as Steve wishes that this is just Billy taking his words to heart and accepting them as truth, he doubts that’s what’s happening. Billy looks too devastated for that. So he asks, “What do you mean?”

Again, he expects silence, or to be brushed off. And again – albeit after a long while – Billy surprises him by speaking.

“I mean that … Did you know that Neil isn’t my real dad?”

Steve’s eyebrows flies up on his forehead and his mouth opens, but he doesn’t know what to say to that kind of revelation. He doesn’t know what one is supposed to say in a situation like this.

“Are you … are you sure?” is what he goes with, and he immediately makes a face and wishes he could take the words back, because what kind of question is that? Luckily it seems that Billy finds his transgression funny rather than offensive, because he lets out a snort.

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“But you …” Steve starts. Stops. Figures, fuck it, and continues, “You kind of … look like him?” It comes out as a question, and Billy makes a face. Like he knows, and doesn’t like it. “Sorry,” Steve adds.

Billy shakes his head. “No, that’s … I do, that’s the thing.” His voice breaks, and Steve’s heart twinges. “I do look like him. Or, well …” He trails off.

He looks so small, hunched over on Steve’s bed, arms around his torso like he’s holding himself together. Like he had to learn to hold himself, because no one else would. Well fuck that, Steve is here now – Steve will gladly hold him.

He reaches out, slowly and carefully in case Billy reacts badly. When there is no reaction, he puts his arm around Billy’s shoulders and pulls him closer. With his free hand, he reaches for Billy’s hand. Billy not only allows it, but melts into it. Relaxes into the almost-hug, and lets out a breath as if he’s been holding it for a while.

There is silence for a while. Steve doesn’t mind it. He waits for Billy to speak, and is rewarded when, after some time, Billy takes a breath.

“My mom kept a garden in our first house, when I was little. Just a small one, like a couple of flowerbeds and some bushes, but she liked it.” A pause. “She liked watching things grow.” Another pause, and when he continues, his voice is strained. “Too bad that only applied to plants, and not her son.”

Squeezing Billy’s shoulders, Steve wordlessly offers his support. He knows that it takes a lot out of Billy to speak of his mother.

“She wasn’t very good at it, though. Which … yeah. Figures.”

Again, Steve says nothing. After a while, Billy starts again, with something that sounds like a non sequitur.

“You know how Neil was in the war?”

Steve nods, even though Billy can’t see it. Tries to keep up. “Yeah, Vietnam. You’ve mentioned it.”

“Right. Uh, well. Neil has a brother. Had a brother. Or, no, has, I don’t know, I guess he’s still alive. Probably.” Billy shakes his head as if to clear it. His voice is raspy. “Anyway, his brother – Roger – he wasn’t in the war. He’d hurt his leg in his youth and he walked with a limp, so he didn’t have to go. Or so my mom told me, anyway.” He swallows and throws a quick glance at Steve before looking away again. “He did many odd jobs, but one of them was apparently gardening. So he helped mom plant that garden at that first house. She went to him for tips, asked advice. That kind of thing.” He licks his lips. “When Neil was overseas, Roger … helped her tend to it.”

Steve sits quiet and still next to him, carefully not interrupting when Billy huffs out a breath and continues, “He … helped her with other things too, while Neil was away.” A significant look in Steve’s direction. “He wasn’t just there for the garden, if you know what I mean.”

It’s Steve’s turn to swallow. “Oh,” he says as realization dawns. “So … he and your mom, they …” He trails off, as if not wanting to say it out loud.

“Bumped uglies?” Billy snorts. “Yeah. Or … they must have, because when Neil got home … I mean. I was born seven months after Neil got back. Not nine. And like, I’ve seen my baby pictures.” He smiles, a little more real this time. “I was a fat baby. Way too big to have been born two months early, if you catch my drift.”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says, and entwines his fingers with Billy. “I get it.” Billy relaxes marginally; softens under his touch.

“Neil and Robert, they were close when they grew up. It was just two years between them – Neil was the oldest. And they … they looked a lot alike.” He shrugs. “Which is probably why Neil caught on, eventually. Because he’d always known that mom had had an affair when he was away. But he didn’t know with whom, she wouldn’t tell him, no matter how much he … how much he hurt her. And then I got older, and I started looking like him. But … he knew I couldn’t be his.” He takes a deep breath, bites his lip. Steels himself to continue. “And Robert, he was still around, yeah? To me, he was just Uncle Rob. He used to come around the house all the time, have dinner with us and watch the game with Neil just like usual … And he’d play with me. Bring presents for my birthday and Christmas, spend the holidays with us, and ....” He laughs, but the laugh breaks and he clamps his teeth together. Forces a smile. “And help mom with her garden.”

He quiets, but it’s not the kind of quiet where he regrets speaking; it’s not him snapping his mouth shut and going on the defensive, it’s not him getting up and leaving. It’s more like, he doesn’t know how to continue.

So, gently, Steve prompts, “I take it your dad … I mean, Neil … knows?”

A beat, then, “Oh yeah.”

“How did he find out?”

Billy leans his head on Steve’s shoulder. “I don’t know. Him and my mom, they were fighting a lot when I was a kid. You know.” Steve hums in agreement. Billy has let a few things slip. “But … there were a lot of fights, and they got worse. From one day to another, Uncle Rob stopped coming over. Neil was angry all the time, and he’d look at me like …” He trails off, but he doesn’t have to continue. Steve has heard about the way Neil treats Billy – he can imagine. “Anyway. He dug up mom’s garden. I remember that, because she cried about it. And then we moved to another house. Smaller. No place for flowers.”

He puts a leg up on the bed and pulls it closer by the knee; making himself smaller. Steve doesn’t think he realizes that that’s what he’s doing.

“The fights got worse, Neil got worse. Mom stayed with him for a couple of years after that, but … But then she had enough. She told me the truth before she left, about Rob and that he was my real dad, and said that she’d come back for me and that we’d go live with him –“ His voice breaks, but he clears it and follows through; “She said that she’d come back for me.”

Steve can’t do anything but hug him, and feels like crying himself.

“But she didn’t,” Billy finishes. Wipes at his eyes uselessly. “And Neil … He went mental when she left. Destroyed all her things, threw out everything that she hadn’t brought with her, anything that reminded him of her.” He shrugs. “Unfortunately I reminded him of her, too. And of … Uncle Rob, I guess. I never saw either one of them again.”

The question is burning on Steve’s tongue; Why didn’t they come back for you? But he holds back, because he imagines that Billy must have asked himself that same question a thousand times.

As if Billy hears the unasked question though, he adds, “Neil’s name is on my birth certificate. By everything that counts, he’s my father. So it was his right to move us, again. To another city. I don’t think he told my mom that he was going to do it.”

It sounds like he’s grasping for straws, but Steve will never say it out loud. If Billy prefers to believe that his mother looked for him but couldn’t find him, over the fact that his mom gave him up and left him with her abusive asshole of an ex-husband, then that’s his right. Whatever helps. Steve is not so cruel as to pop that particular bubble.

“He doesn’t know that I know.”

“He … What?”

“Neil. He doesn’t know that mom told me. No one is supposed to know.” And yet here Billy is, telling Steve. “If people found out, Neil would be disgraced. Having his wife cheat on him, with his brother nonetheless, and then for him to knowingly raise another man’s child? He’d rather kill …” Himself, Steve’s mind supplies. But what follows is, “… me.”

There are a lot of things that Steve wants to say to that, and to everything else he has just learned, but he doesn’t know where to start. And besides, it doesn’t seem like Billy needs to be prompted into speaking, this time. The words are running out of him like he’s been waiting to tell someone.

“He hates me. I know he does. He looks at me and he sees my mom, and he sees my real dad, and … I’m just this walking, talking reminder of that betrayal, and I know he wants me gone, but he can’t throw me out because everyone thinks I’m his son and no one can find out the truth. And I know that he hates me.” He keens and turns his face into Steve’s sleeve, wetting his sweater with his tears. “Max too. And she’s right to hate me.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” Steve says and turns so that he can pull Billy into a proper hug. “She’s young, and she’s quick to anger, just like you, but she doesn’t hate you.”

“Yeah she does. She said I’m just like Neil, and she’s right.” He lets out a sob. “I don’t want to be, Steve. I don’t want to be like him.”

“You’re not,” Steve says, shushing him gently. “You’re not, baby.” Billy’s crying speaks of heartbreak, of a hurt that goes way back and Steve is desperate with the need to soothe it; make it better, somehow. “Listen to me, Billy, you’re nothing like him. You’re feeling bad about yelling at Max, right? Well, do you think your da–“ He catches himself in time, “– Neil has ever felt bad about hurting you?”

“I don’t … I don’t know.”

“You apologized to me for hurting me in November, remember? And then you apologized to the kids, too, and you can apologize to Max for yelling at her today. Has Neil ever apologized to you?”

“No.”

“Do you think Neil has ever sat on a bed with his boyfriend, all messed up because he doesn’t want to be the kind of guy who hurts another person?”

It’s a bad attempt at a joke, but it works. Billy huffs out a wet laugh and sniffles. “Definitely not.”

“Well then there you go,” Steve says. He releases Billy from his embrace only so he can put his hands on either side of his face and turn him so they’re facing each other. He looks into Billy’s puffy eyes, and gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You’re not your dad, Billy.” When Billy opens his mouth to speak, Steve speaks over him; “Either one of them. You are yourself.” He combs his fingers through Billy’s hair, watching him closely. “You’ve been dealt a shit hand in life. But you’ve made it this far, and you’re trying to be better every day and …” His eyes are burning. “I’m so proud of you for that.” Billy swallows and blinks, another tear running down his cheek. Steve can’t help but lean in and press a kiss to it, tasting the salt on his lips. “And I love you, okay? You’re not alone anymore. You’ve got me.”

Billy lets out a sound that is half-laugh and half-sob, and closes his eyes as Steve rests his forehead against Billy’s. They sit like that for a while, eyes closed, touching and breathing the same air, until there are no more sobs; no more tears.

“I love you too.” Billy’s voice, when it comes, is low; barely a whisper. But they’re close enough that Steve hears it, close enough that he feels Billy’s breath on his skin as he speaks. “Thank you.”

Instead of saying that Billy doesn’t have to say thank you, or that Steve didn’t really do anything, Steve gives him another quick kiss – on his lips, this time – and leans back. He puts his hands on Billy’s shoulders and rights them both, and then gives a little smile.

“When are you picking Max up at Lucas’ place?”

Billy takes a deep breath and licks his lips, trying to put himself back together. “Quarter to seven. She has to be home for dinner.”

“Then how about you,” Steve says and points his index finger to Billy’s chest, “drive her home and use that time to … talk to her,” Apologize, he doesn’t say, “while I,” he points the finger back to his own chest, “order some pizza. And then you come back here and we’ll have dinner and watch some TV and you can spend the night.” Because Steve knows enough to know that Neil doesn’t really care if Billy’s home or not, after a fight that leave marks. Seems to prefer it when he’s not, actually. “How does that sound?”

It’s a testament to how far they’ve come, and to how much Billy has changed, when Billy just responds to that with a nod and a barely-there smile. Where he would once have refused to do what someone told him just because someone told him, and where he would have hated to be talked to as if he was a child, and probably would have acted out after his bout of vulnerability, now he just accepts it.

He accepts it because he’s grown. And because it’s Steve. And because they love each other.

“Sounds good.”

#harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #harringrove summer bingo #HSB2024 #neil hargrove isn't billy's real dad #i've had this idea stuck in my head for ages i needed to get it out

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