#thirdly: how fucked up is my body image that i hear that and immediately think they're all out of their minds

[depresseddepot]

trying to determine which parts of my relationship with sex are asexuality, which are trauma, and which are autism is like trying to have a conversation with three people talking loudly and all at once

[kbstories]

impression//expression

"It’s not like Kirishima had come all this way to U.A. to immediately break the promise he made to himself upon arrival.

It’s just that Bakugou is as feral as they come, and the moment Kirishima recognizes it’s fear he felt crawling up his spine that day, he makes it his personal mission to face it head-on until it’s gone."

(Or: Being friends with Bakugou Katsuki is anything but a linear experience. Kirishima Eijirou would have it no other way.)

Tags: Kirishima POV, Developing Friendships, Post-Kamino Arc, Hurt/Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Kiri Has A Dog Because I Said So

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Content warning for anxiety attacks and discussions thereof. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9.

***

Kirishima comes to sunlight shining on his face and an armful of Bakugou.

It’s not a sudden jolt of consciousness that alerts him of this. His brain comes online one synapse at a time with how all-around cozy he is, bundled up in comfortably warm covers with Bakugou’s head nestled in the crook of his neck, his arm wrapped loosely around Kirishima’s waist. In actuality, Kirishima slept so well it’s legitimately hard to get himself to wake up beyond lazily squinting an eye against that bright glare.

Which is why his first move is to pull the blanket up higher and snuggle closer to his Bakugou-shaped pillow. Bakugou, for his part, breathes something between a mumble and a sigh and slumbers on.

Out like a light. He’s onto something there, Kirishima muses. For a while, he lets himself drift to the calm two-step beat of Bakugou’s heart keeping time against his chest, the gentle tickle of Bakugou’s hair under his chin. Blissful oblivion nips at the edges of his mind; his body can’t quite get there, though, that pesky bit of awareness clinging to existence despite his best efforts.

Urgh, fine.

Kirishima blinks with a little more purpose behind it. His vision is blurred from overall drowsiness and the murky half-dark the blanket provides. Bakugou is easy to make out regardless, face slack and close enough Kirishima can see the minute shift of blonde lashes as he snoozes. It’s the residue redness around his eyes that nudges Kirishima’s brain to wonder and think and remember–

Blue fire. Unread texts. The hospital, Kamino Ward, All Might. Bakugou.

All at once, the sight of Bakugou passed out in his arms is anything but a peaceful one. It’s intimate in a way Kirishima suddenly feels uncomfortable with, not because he doesn’t like it – in his educated opinion, any day starting with cuddling is good by default – but because Bakugou is the least touch-y person he knows and this is crossing so many lines. All the lines.

Lines drawn by unspoken rules and implicit understandings Kirishima learned by sheer trial and error. All those other times Bakugou let his guard down around him seem like peanuts compared to this.

But… Bakugou is resting. Catching up on untold amounts of missed sleep, looking far more relaxed than Kirishima could’ve hoped for. Perhaps it would’ve been better to ensure he makes it to his own bed instead of sharing the pull-out couch; perhaps Kirishima shouldn’t have pushed when things are so fresh. Kirishima’s hands ache to move from between Bakugou’s shoulders yet letting him go feels wrong, too.

It was far too easy, last time. To sit there and bicker in class while Bakugou faded from view, mere miles away.

The dread roiling within him is familiar, as are the maybes and what-ifs that accompany it. It returns like an old friend, the thought of losing him to people who mistake his violence for villainy, who disregard the good shining at Bakugou’s very core in favor of the hurt his hands can cause. The brightest star in the sky, burning, desperate to be seen, to be acknowledged.

It makes Kirishima restless, this feeling – like the air is growing thin and the ground is about to collapse beneath their feet, and it’s up to Kirishima to get them out of there. His blood thrums with the need to fight tooth and nail to keep whatever is causing it away, to shield Bakugou until the shaking stops and the debris settles.

Kirishima has failed Bakugou once already. Not again, never again–

“Think any harder an’ your brain’s gonna melt.”

Kirishima’s heart nearly stops, then jumps into overdrive. A hesitant glance proves that, yup, that’s Bakugou stirring, right there. Bleary-eyed and still far too soft around the edges but awake. Kirishima isn’t ready for this.

He’s also dead. Super dead. Buried-so-deep-nobody-will-ever-find-his-body dead.

He swallows, any sort of greeting escaping his mind except a quiet, “Oh.”

Bakugou yawns and rubs at his eye, a gesture made clumsy with sleepiness. “Mm?” He props himself up, a hand laid flat on Kirishima’s chest. “Calm down, will ya? Your heart’s goin’ like crazy.”

There are no words to describe how impossible that is right now. “Um”, Kirishima says intelligently, and: “Sorry.” A little sheepish, since he can’t exactly help what his heart does (or his brain, for that matter).

He is on the verge of panicking, Kirishima notes dimly. That realization alone does little to chase away the half-formulated doubts threatening to choke him, that inkling of fear that’s on the brink of spiraling out of control. A moment later, he has to consciously unclench his hardened hands from the back of Bakugou’s shirt, which–

Ah. That’s what woke him up.

“Shit. S-sorry, I–”

There’s a frown on Bakugou’s face as he sits up. “Nothing’s goin’ on”, he tells him, calm where Kirishima can’t be. “’s just my room.” Just as deliberate, the covers are pushed aside to allow cool air to flow into their private niche of the world. Everything’s so bright, so–

“Kiri? Hey. Give me your hands.”

It takes considerable effort to focus on Bakugou’s voice. “Whuh?”

“Your hands. Like this.”

Bakugou holds out his own, palm-up. Kirishima does the same, staring blankly at his trembling, rock-hewn fingers. When Bakugou holds his palm, it’s with a touch Kirishima can barely feel. “Focus on this”, a low murmur followed by pressure to the meat of Kirishima’s thumb, faint despite the bones in Bakugou’s wrist showing from the effort. Bakugou slides it upwards and to the webbing connecting to his index, marginally more giving.

“You’re okay. Just breathe. Focus, right here.”

The touch shifts again, down to his wrist. Kirishima lets him do whatever, watching with a detached sort of fascination as his quirk relents. Bakugou’s thumb brushes over the spot where Kirishima’s veins are becoming visible again, the skin there thin and delicate. He digs in, an inch or two from his hand.

It’s a little rougher than before. Not unpleasant, just unexpected, and Kirishima’s fingers twitch. Bakugou’s lips press together. He does it again, notably gentler. “You with me?”

Kirishima hums. The question registers a moment later and he nods for good measure. “Yeah, I– It helps. This.”

“Mh.” Bakugou gestures for his other arm; he starts from his wrist and goes up to his hand this time, eyes on what he’s doing. “Pressure points are useful shit. You got one here”, a pinch to that spot between thumb and index, “and here”, a tap to his wrist. “Works best if it’s someone else doing it but you can, too.”

That sounds vaguely familiar. Perhaps something that came up the last time he googled it? Panic attacks used to be much more of an thing for Kirishima – before he hair-dyed and bench-pressed Red Riot into something more real, more than a distant daydream. More than a scared kid with shitty self-esteem.

(Life’s been manageable, since. Chaotic and distressing in a host of other ways as it swings back and forth between joy and disaster like fate’s cruelest pendulum and actually, it might be a bit of a miracle it took this long for his anxiety to make a comeback.)

Memorizing any new info is beyond Kirishima right now; he strong-arms his braincells to hold onto the term ‘pressure point’, at least. And if Bakugou is sharing, Kirishima figures it’s only fair to share back.

“The one I know is like, deep breathing? And, um. Talking through it. Counting things you can sense. What you see, hear, smell, and so on. It’s just…”

“Hard to do that by yourself, yeah.”

By this point, Bakugou is just brushing his thumb along the lines on Kirishima’s palm and that feels really nice, too. The image of his hands clawing up worn fabric is hard to shake off, though, making Kirishima’s stomach churn with guilt.

“Sorry, man. For waking you up, I mean. And freaking out on you. I didn’t hurt you, right? You’d tell me if I hurt you.”

It’s meant to come out with confidence, because Kirishima trusts Bakugou. It’s trusting himself that's the problem, sometimes.

A groan, long-suffering. “How many times…” Bakugou gives him a look caught between annoyance and fondness. “Kiri. First off, after yesterday, I have no fucking room to complain when it comes to– That. It happens, it sucks, it’s fine. It’s not your fault or whatever. Secondly–”

Kirishima almost chuckles at how pointed that one word is. He shelves the comment on his tongue for after the Bakugou Lecture he’s being treated to.

“I fell asleep on you. Which, my bad but also fuck you, I was tired and some fucking sap wanted to talk feelings at screw-this-AM. There’re no… scratches or anything, and you make an okay pillow for being a literal rock. So, we’re even.”

Kirishima does laugh at that. “I’m not a rock! Get your facts straight, bro.”

“And thirdly”, Bakugou continues with a smirk, “I just turned your hands into bombs, you dumb fucking rock. Either you let me spark it off you or I’m kicking you out to wash it off before that shit goes boom.”

“Spark off?” Head tilting, Kirishima looks at his hands. He doesn’t see anything but if Bakugou says there’s nitro, there’s definitely nitro. “Wait, is that what you do when you…?”

The gesture Bakugou does to let rapid-fire explosions flicker in his palms is easily copied, Kirishima has seen him do it countless times. The other rolls his eyes.

“Yeah. I got tired of getting it all over the place and wearing gloves twenty-four-seven is uncomfortable as fuck, I tried. Plus, burning shit is fun.”

Huh. Kirishima holds out his hands once more, a swift grin on his lips. “Sounds cool. One sparking off, please!”

Bakugou slaps them away immediately. “Use your quirk, dipshit. Or d’you actually wanna get ‘em blown to pieces?”

“Oh. Right.”

Everything under Kirishima’s elbow hardens in an instant. This time, Bakugou huffs under his breath and takes them between his palms. “Here goes.”

A flash, the familiar crackle of firecracker explosions – Kirishima braced himself for it to hurt a little despite Bakugou’s insane control over his quirk, and he does feel it. It tickles, mostly, the sensation of tiny bursts of heat rolling from his fingertips to his wrist a strangely soothing one.

Bakugou looks over his hands when he’s done, the tightness between his brows easing. Then he glances up to Kirishima’s face and sees the smile that’s broad enough to make his cheeks ache. The frown comes back tenfold.

“No.”

“Dude, yes. Do that again.”

“Nope. Fuck you, Shitty Hair, no.”

“You said it’s fun two seconds ago! Checkmate, I win.”

“Kirishima.”

Kirishima snickers until Bakugou’s palm presses against his cheek. It’s basically second nature to harden in time for the explosion to go by harmlessly and oh, this is so going to become a thing.

“It’s a thing now”, he informs Bakugou. “Can it be like our handshake? We totally need a handshake. What kind of besties are we withou–” A gasp. “Oh, oh, we can do the thing after training, too! I won’t even need to wash my hands. It’s fun and useful.”

Bakugou’s face twists. “What the hell? That’s fucking disgusting.” In one fluid movement, he’s out of their blanket nest and stomping off the couch. It would be intimidating… if not for his wrinkled shirt and sleep-mussed hair making it kind of adorable, instead.

“I’m done talking to you.”

“Aww, bro!”

Kirishima crawls half-way over the armrest only to catch a throw pillow – hah! – to the face. Another thud follows, turning out to be Kirishima’s phone tossed from across the room.

“Even mooched off my charger, ugh. You got a million missed messages. Take care of ‘em before your moms call the cops, bro.”

Bakugou's tone is practically drenched in sarcasm but Kirishima doesn’t care, he beams. Bakugou called him his bro and there’re simply no take-backs allowed on a declaration like that.

*

💪🏻 Kirishima Power 💪🏻

Mama K: Honey, are you awake yet? (received 10:10)

Mama K: Your mom and I are ready to come pick you up whenever. (received 11:20)

Mom: also let us know when we can start hunting your teachers for sport (received 11:22)

Mama K: No murder until our son is back, dear. (received 11:22)

Mom: mhmm sure (received 11:23)

aaaa morning!! (sent 11:38)

oh shit it’s almost noon hhhh (sent 11:38)

Mom: language kiddo (received 11:38)

oh crap** sry (sent 11:38)

Mama K: Welcome back! ❤️ (received 11:39)

hey mama ❤️ (sent 11:39)

ok so picking up is good!! we’re eating breakfast rn (sent 11:42)

well more like lunch 🙈 (sent 11:42)

Mama K: Okay! Now or later? (received 11:43)

ah, mitsuki is saying you two should swing by for tea so maybe in an hour? (sent 11:47)

and that the teachers are actually coming here?? later?? idk why tho (sent 11:48)

aside from, y’know (sent 11:48)

Mama K: Yeah 🙁 (received 11:50)

Mom: how’s katsuki holding up? (received 11:50)

umm ok. kinda. he looks tired as heck tbh and i’m not sure how happy he is about the teacher thing (sent 11:55)

it’s all a bit oof (sent 11:56)

Mom: hmm. anything we can do to help? (received 12:01)

def give him his space (sent 12:03)

and maybe don’t kill aizawa @Mom looking at u haha (sent 12:03)

Mom: bummer (received 12:06)

actually… one more thing? 👀 (sent 12:10)

Mama K: You want us to bring the big guns, huh? (received 12:12)

*

After the hellos and introductions and obligatory fussing over Kirishima – Mama gives him her usual forehead kiss, expertly avoiding his freshly-spiked hair, while Mom wraps him in her patented rib-pulverizing hug – the parents go inside, leaving Bakugou and Kirishima in the yard with…

“Riot.”

Kirishima grins and nods. He heaves the hundred pounds of tail-wagging excitement into a more comfortable position against his chest, big paws coming to rest on his shoulders. “Yeah! Isn’t he the cutest?”

“Your dog is called Riot.”

“Yup!”

Bakugou openly stares at Riot’s drooling smile. After a painfully long pause, he goes: “Okay.”

If all it took to make Bakugou speechless was an Akita with an unexpected (?) name, Kirishima would’ve introduced him to Riot ages ago. As it is, it’s taking all his willpower not to crack up at Bakugou’s expression. It’s like watching one of those ancient Windows computers suffer a system crash so severe even the task manager stops functioning.

Arms full of dog, Kirishima nudges him with his elbow. Reboot initialized. “But?”

Bakugou shakes himself a little. He gestures to Riot, or perhaps to Kirishima, or both? It’s hard to tell. “But… just, like… Why?”

Priceless. Kirishima silently vows to cherish this rarest of blessings in his memories for eternity. It won’t do to rescue Bakugou only to give him an aneurism the very next day. Setting Riot down, Kirishima pats orange-white hair off his borrowed clothes. The Akita immediately trots over to Bakugou to say hi. 

“I got Riot when I was really small, like six-ish? Seven? Something like that.”

Bakugou crouches and holds out his hand for a curious black nose to sniff. Kirishima sits down next to them, watching Riot take a deep whiff and promptly sneeze. Bakugou mutters something about explosives and dumb dog, be careful. Despite the forced casualness on Bakugou’s part, it’s clear he’s not used to being around dogs.

Still, he’s trying. Kirishima’s grin tempers to a soft, close-lipped smile at the sight.

“Back then, I only had a vague idea of who I’d wanna be. As a hero, y’know?” He reaches over to scratch Riot’s favorite spot at the base of his curled tail. It starts wagging immediately. “I was tossing around a few names and somehow Riot stuck. So, I tried it out on him and by the time I realized ‘Yup, that’s the one!’, he didn’t wanna listen to anything else.”

Riot pants at him, mouth wide. Kirishima boops his wet nose. “Yeah, I’m talkin’ about you. Stubborn dog.”

“You’re telling me your hero name got stolen”, Bakugou summarizes drily. “By a dog. When you were six.”

Figures that’s what Bakugou would get out of this. Kirishima snorts and shrugs.

“I guess? Riot – the hero, not the dog – existed way before the whole ‘Red’ stuff came along, ‘cause like… Crimson was out there, I knew he existed, but his philosophy was a bit beyond me. He wasn’t my hero yet, you feel me?”

Bakugou hums. “You weren’t a hero nerd yet. Just a space nerd.”

That startles a laugh out of Kirishima. He knocks his shoulder against Bakugou’s. “Exactly! See, you get me.”

“Shut up, nerd”, comes the predictable reply with a rougher knock back.

Eventually, Bakugou joins him in the grass, his knees propped up and elbows resting on them. Riot makes himself comfortable as well, sprawling on his side with his head resting on Bakugou’s thigh. The full might of pleading canine eyes look upwards. Bakugou squints. “The fuck.”

“He wants scritches”, Kirishima translates readily.

A beat, then Bakugou carefully rubs the knuckles of his index and middle finger in-between the white spots on Riot’s face. Riot huffs a content sigh and melts into the gentle touch.

“Hm. He’s soft.”

“Right? As a puppy, he was the softest and tiniest thing you can imagine. Wait, I might have pics on my phone. Gimme a sec.”

A bit of searching, and Kirishima taps on an old photo of him as a kid, pointy teeth flashed in an impossibly big smile as he hugs a chubby ball of brown fluff close to his face. Mama had dug it up from some dusty family album in a bout of nostalgia after Kirishima broke the news he’d been accepted to U.A.

“Behold: Baby Riot.”

Kirishima shows it to Bakugou. Only after Bakugou’s brows rise does he remember he’s probably never seen him with his natural hair color. Whoops.

Studying the photo for a moment, Bakugou continues to pet the adult version of Riot absent-mindedly. “He looks like a potato.”

“Wha–” Kirishima checks the photo to make sure it’s the same one. “Bakugou. It’s a puppy. It’s like, scientifically proven puppies are the one and only road to world peace. Hello? Nobody hates on a puppy, especially this one.”

Whatever face he’s making has Bakugou smirking, eyes sharp under a brow raised in challenge. “It’s got a weird shape and is brown. Potato.”

Kirishima whines. “Why are you like this? Riot, don’t listen to him, man. You’re the best.”

Riot has fallen asleep, oblivious to the outrageous claims being made in his presence. It’s better that way – the good, old boy deserves better than this slander.

Bakugou is looking down to the snoring dog, too, and something about it must soften even a prickly hedgehog heart like his because he sighs and grumbles: “He’s kinda cool. Maybe.”

Gotcha.

Kirishima pumps his fist in sweet, sweet victory. Nobody, not even the eternally grumpy, can resist the Kirishimas’ secret weapon.

*

On the way back home, Kirishima messes around with his camera until he’s managed a half-decent selfie of himself and Riot sharing the backseat of his parents’ car. A brief moment is spent hovering over his chat with Bakugou.

It’s the first time he’s opened it since– Since.

Baku 💣💥

[riot(s).jpg] (sent 16:58)

thanks for hosting me man 🐶 (sent 16:58)

dorm life, here we come!! (sent 16:59)

The tension in Kirishima’s chest is knocked loose as the ticks turn blue without delay, closing the gap to the ones from the lodge like it never existed. It unwinds entirely when, a handful of minutes later, Bakugou replies.

Baku 💣💥

idiot (received 17:05)

see you soon (received 17:05)

>>Chapter 6