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When Shouto opens his apartment door, he’s immediately hit with a savory scent that makes his mouth water instantly. The first thing he sees is Izuku, who’s dancing around the kitchen to an upbeat 80’s song while Katsuki chops vegetables.
“You’re gonna be real sorry when I cut off my finger because you broke my focus,” the blonde warns, not looking up as he dices a carrot with near-professional precision. His words only serve to make Izuku smile wider and dance closer.
“You must be really off your game if a little dancing’s enough to break your focus,” he baits, making Katsuki huff and eye him with a smirk.
“As if. It’s you that’s distracting, not the dancing.”
Izuku grins and punches his shoulder lightly before tossing him an onion. “Save it for later, the soup needs you in your right mind.”
“I always am,” Katsuki claims, catching the onion with his free hand before slicing into it.
Shouto remained unnoticed, watching his boyfriends’ antics from the doorway with an amused smile, but he draws their attention when he shuts the door.
“Shouto,” Izuku greets, grin still plastered on his face.
“Finally back?” Katsuki asks, his smirk falling into an easy smile when he meets Shouto’s eyes.
“Yeah, my shift ran later than I was expecting. I had to help another patrol subdue a villain with a really strange quirk,” Shouto answers, setting his keys on the table next to him before crossing the room.
“What kind of strange quirk?” Katsuki asks as he pours the prepared vegetables into a pot already on the stove.
“It allowed the woman to animate and control dolls. She was managing a miniature army of them by the time I arrived.” Shouto rests his arms on the counter, watching Katsuki stir the soup. “She had stuffed dolls, Barbie dolls, a few of those old porcelain ones. She even had some hero figurines in the mix.”
Katsuki grins at that. “Did you get to fight yourself?”
“No, I didn’t see any that looked like me,” Shouto laments with a smile. “I did see a mini Kaminari running around, though.”
“Wow, what a quirk,” Izuku exclaims, and Shouto knows what’s going to happen next. “I mean, think of the implications. Did she have to do anything to activate the dolls first? What could she make them do? How strong were they? Is there a limit to how many she can control at one time? Did they—“
“Easy, nerd, he just got home,” Katsuki interrupts, and Izuku’s eyes go wide.
“Oh, sorry Shouto! Forget all that, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with—“
“I don’t think so, just about anything they could physically manage, stronger than they looked but not quite human strength, and if there is, she didn’t seem to reach it tonight,” Shouto rattles off. With that new information, Izuku loses himself in quirk analysis immediately, mumbling to himself about possible usages and drawbacks. Katsuki shakes his head at the sight.
“And off he goes. Hopefully we’ll get him back before dinner’s ready. Anyway, what was she trying to do?”
“She was terrorizing that mall we like to shop at. The one that has the giant toy store.”
“Oh, a place like that must be free ammo to her. What did she want with the rest of the place, though?”
“I’m not sure she really thought it through. I don’t think she was mentally stable. She yelled about a bunch of strange things during the confrontation.”
Katsuki hums. “You brought her down fine, though? No injuries?”
“Yeah, I just focused on incinerating the dolls while the others captured her. The whole situation was more of a nuisance than it was actually dangerous. They only called me in so they’d be able to let everyone back into the mall sooner. No one got hurt beyond scrapes and bruises.”
Katsuki smirks. “Good, because it’d be pretty embarrassing if you got beat up by some dolls.”
“Would that be more or less embarrassing than getting beat up by a raccoon?” Shouto deadpans, and Katsuki points his whisk at him, broth threatening to drip from it.
“That damn raccoon did not beat me up,” Katsuki snarls. “I was trying to get away from it so I wouldn’t get rabies, then the damn thing crawled on top of me when the sidewalk tripped me.”
“Whatever you say,” he surrenders with a barely-contained grin. “I’m going to go shower if you don’t need any help in here.”
“Fine, but be quick. The soup will be ready soon and you better not let it get cold.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Shouto promises as he walks toward the bathroom, patting Izuku’s shoulder fondly as he passes him.
Entering the bathroom and closing the door behind him, Shouto turns on the water to let it warm up and hangs a towel and washcloth over the curtain rod. He sheds his clothes in a pile on the floor before stepping under the soothing stream. The water runs over him for several seconds, warming him up and thoroughly soaking his hair. He pumps the shampoo that he and Katsuki share into his hand and lathers it into his hair, closing his eyes.
His thoughts return to the villain from earlier, and he wonders about the woman’s motive. He left the scene as soon as she was apprehended and the dolls were taken care of, not caring enough to stick around and question her when he was already going to be late getting home. But now, his curiosity has him wishing he had.
“You’re just like them,” she shrieked at the heroes trying to secure her, pointing at the group of dolls he was just about to take care of. “Just like them!”
One of them stepped closer, shifting into an offensive position. “Ma’am, I need you to release your control of those dolls now.”
“You’re all being controlled by more powerful forces, all of you. They won’t ever release their control. You’ve never been free, and you’re as blind to it as those brainless dolls!”
Shouto furrows his brow, trying to make sense of her claims. The police would question her to make sure, but it didn’t sound like she was trying to warn them about something in particular. Based on her demeanor, her claims seemed to be the result of nothing but sheer paranoia.
“You’re nothing but a vinyl husk,” she accused Shouto with a pointed finger when she noticed him trapping her dolls in a cage of ice, “a hollowed-out imitation of a person. You’ll do whatever you’re told because that’s what you dolls do.”
Shouto had met her eyes then, held her wide-eyed stare long enough for the other heroes to catch her off-guard and handcuff her. She screamed as they led her away, and Shouto just turned back to burn the dolls her quirk had not let go of yet. He barely considered her sharp words, not interested in whatever criticisms a crazed villain had to offer.
Now, alone with his thoughts, he stills. Was she really just spouting absurd accusations at anyone around her?
Or did she see something in him?
Flashes of childhood memories run through his head.
Endeavor, pulling him away from his siblings nearly every day.
Punching him until he gets sick.
Forcing his flames to be hotter, hotter, hotter until he learns to ignore the sting.
Shouto inhales sharply, and his blood runs cold despite the hot water soaking him. He untangles his fingers from his hair, water rinsing the leftover shampoo from his hands when he lowers them. His mind races through countless instances where he mindlessly obeyed his father, just as he had been trained to do. It makes him feel sick.
His mouth falls open when it hits him. She’s right.
Fuck, that woman was right.
As soon as Shouto developed his quirk, Endeavor started training him to be the perfect hero. His father saw to it that he never displayed any ‘trivial’ emotions. He taught Shouto to fight exactly the way he did and punished any actions that didn’t expressly fit that. He kept him isolated, even from his siblings, and ensured that he would never depend on anyone for anything.
The woman was right. He was treated like a doll that could be moved to sit any which way, dressed to look just right, and always had the perfect expression painted on. He didn’t fight it at all when he was younger, simply allowing his father to mold him any which way. It’s been years since Shouto lived under that man’s roof, but sometimes he still feels like he’s trapped under his thumb.
Right now is one of those times.
His legs must be weak, because the next thing he knows, he’s crumpling to the ground. His shins fold under him, his knees hitting slippery tile and sliding out from under him.
She was right. I’m a doll.
He sinks down onto his forearms and gasps for breath as hot water slams onto his back, no doubt leaving red splotches on his skin.
He made me into a doll. She saw what he made me.
With wide eyes, he heaves and wheezes and chokes, pressing his forehead to the tile before rearing back up. He grabs a fistful of the plastic shower curtain and tugs, like somehow it might comfort him if he pleaded with it. A strangled noise escapes him, and he thinks he must have a broken voice module. It would explain a lot.
No. That’s impossible. He doesn’t have a voice module, because he’s not really a doll. He knows he can’t really be a doll because real dolls don’t feel this much. Real dolls don’t fight their owners, and he did fight back against Endeavor eventually.
His family probably would’ve been happier with a doll, though. His father could’ve punched him as many times as he wanted, because dolls don’t throw up. When his mother threw boiling water on his face, his vinyl skin and synthetic hair would have melted away and he would’ve never reminded her of her husband again. Instead of raising him in their mother’s stead when she was still a child herself, Fuyumi could’ve played make-believe, making him rescue her stuffed animals from Natsuo’s villain figurines.
Shouto heaves again. Twisting around, he desperately fumbles for the temperature handle. When he finally grasps it, he yanks it to the right. Within seconds, the water shifts from being on the verge of too hot to uncomfortably freezing, even for him. A shuddering laugh escapes him, an automatic response to the tiny icicles raining down. The icy water shuts his brain off for the time being, and that makes it worth the discomfort. He finishes his shower at lightning speed, scrubbing soap into his skin until it’s red and skipping conditioner altogether.
He turns the water off when he’s finished and grabs his towel, but his disturbing thoughts return just as quickly as they left. Assaulted by the reality of his childhood, he freezes in place, holding the towel awkwardly. He begins to shiver as water drips from him. He lowers himself to the floor, leaning against the wall of the shower and draping his towel over him to trap whatever warmth he’s able to.
He feels so… wrong. Like he’s in a daze. His eyes won’t quite focus and he feels really small. He feels scared, too—partially from feeling so inhuman, but also from having such a huge reaction out of nowhere. He was perfectly fine ten minutes ago, but now he’s shaking on the floor of his shower. It’s equal parts pathetic and terrifying that he doesn’t know how to make it stop. He doesn’t know if he can.
He really just wants someone to hug him and tell him that everything will be okay and that he’s not just an inanimate toy, and he feels useless for wanting that so badly. He’s dealt with far worse than a panic attack—or flashback, or whatever the hell this is—by himself many times over. He’s perfectly capable of getting up from the bathtub, drying off, and getting changed.
So why can’t he move?
He continues to shiver as he tries to find the will to raise himself up. The hard tile is starting to hurt his back. His still-soaked hair is only making him colder. He feels something pull in his chest, and he bites down on the corner of his towel as a sob escapes his throat. Then another one forces its way out of him, and another. He shoves more of the towel in his mouth, desperate to muffle that sound he hates. His body, not used to this strange sensation, shudders violently as he bawls.
As much as he hates it, as much as he wishes he could sever this part of him permanently, he wishes someone would comfort him.
Somewhere outside the bathroom, probably still in the kitchen, Izuku laughs loudly.
Izuku.
Katsuki.
He doesn’t want to call them. He’s not sure he can form words right now at all, and that’s probably a sign that he shouldn’t ruin their good moods. But as selfish a desire as it is, he really wants them right now.
He opens his mouth, pulling the towel out just enough to test his voice. All that comes out is a barely-audible croak, and he mentally swears.
His eyes flit around the bathroom, searching for anything that might help. The first thing they land on is the fancy shampoo that Izuku swears is the reason his curls stay in such good shape. He practically falls over himself reaching for the bottle, and once he gets hold of it, he rips the shower curtain aside and throws it as hard as he can at the door. The bottle hits his target with a thud, crashes to the floor, and rolls across the bathroom. He stares at the door, willing his boyfriends to hear it over their music and investigate.
Several long seconds tick by, and Shouto’s face falls. Whether they didn’t hear the commotion or they decided not to bother checking it, it seems he’s on his own. For once, more than anything, he wishes that weren’t the case. He squeezes the towel around himself and bites down on it harder, tears threatening to fall again.
Then, someone knocks on the door with two short thumps. “Princess, you okay in there?”
Shouto’s breath hitches, his eyes snapping back to the door. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to say it.
“Princess?”
Please open the door, Shouto prays silently. He desperately tries to make some sort of noise, but all that comes out is a tiny whine that gets buried in the towel. He can see the shadow from Katsuki’s feet peeking through underneath the door, and hears Izuku murmur a question somewhere farther away.
“Hey, I’m coming in.”
Oh, thank God.
——————
Thankfully, Shouto left the door unlocked. Katsuki cracks the door and barely pokes his head in, not wanting to disturb his shower if he’s fine, but he throws the door open when his eyes land on him. His boyfriend is sitting on the shower floor shivering, looking up at him with wide, red eyes. Most of his towel is draped over his body, but the rest is balled up in front of his face.
“What’s wrong?” Katsuki wastes no time in asking as he closes the short distance between them. “Did that noise come from in here?”
Shouto nods, the towel moving with him. When Katsuki drops on his knees to face him at eye-level, he realizes that’s because part of the towel is stuffed in Shouto’s mouth.
“Did you fall or something?”
Shouto shakes his head and looks past Katsuki pointedly. Katsuki twists around to look where Shouto is, and his brow furrows when he sees Izuku’s shampoo bottle laying on the floor. Either Shouto threw it or it fell over there somehow, but Katsuki has bigger concerns right now. He looks back to Shouto.
“Oi, can you talk?” he asks softly, starting to have an idea of what might be going on the longer he looks at him. Shouto’s still for a few seconds before he shakes his head again.“Kacchan? Shouchan? What’s going on, is everything alright?” Izuku’s voice appears from behind. Shouto’s wide eyes flick over to Izuku then back to Katsuki, like he doesn’t know how to answer.
“He’s fine, nerd, at least physically. Right?” Katsuki answers, looking back to double-check with Shouto, who nods.
“What do you mean, ‘physically’? Is he not alright otherwise?” Izuku asks, drawing closer until he’s able to properly look at Shouto. When he does, he inhales sharply. “Shou, honey, what’s wrong?”
“Why don’t we get you out of the bathtub first?” Katsuki interjects, figuring they won’t get many answers with the state their boyfriend is in. “That sound alright?”
Shouto’s eyes soften slightly and he nods in response, pulling the towel away from his mouth. At that, Katsuki stands and leans over him. “I’m going to lift you up now,” he warns, positioning his hands underneath his arms. He raises Shouto to his feet and helps him step out of the tub, bearing most of his weight. Once he’s fully out, Izuku helps Shouto wrap the towel around his waist before disappearing into the hall for a moment. He returns with another towel and dries Shouto’s upper body before squeezing out his hair. Meanwhile, Katsuki presses Shouto up against his chest, letting his body heat warm him up. Shouto clings tightly to his neck like he’s hanging on for dear life, and Katsuki would find it cute if he wasn’t so concerned.
When Izuku decides Shouto is dry enough, he and Katsuki throw their arms under him to escort him to their shared bedroom, letting him distribute his weight between them. Katsuki guides him to the bed while Izuku breaks away to sift through Shouto’s dresser, pulling out a t-shirt, boxers, and sweatpants. The two of them help Shouto dress himself, Izuku holding the shirt up for Shouto to slip his arms through and Katsuki sliding the boxers and sweatpants over his ankles. While Shouto stands and pulls them up, Katsuki throws back the bedcovers and gestures for him to get in bed.
Shouto just stares at the bed. “I don’t—”
“Just get in, dumbass.” If it were anyone else, Katsuki wouldn’t believe that the first words to come out of Shouto’s mouth since they found him were in protest of getting in bed. Shouto grimaces, and Izuku crawls into bed from the opposite side, leaning against the pillows they keep piled on top and patting the open spot next to him. Shouto relents with a quiet sigh, though he quickly fits himself into Izuku’s outstretched arm. Katsuki pulls the blanket over the the pair then sits on top, facing them at an angle.
“Any better?” he asks Shouto.
“Much,” comes his slightly-hoarse reply. “Thank you.”
“Do you need a minute before we talk about it?”
“No, I can explain now,” Shouto answers with a shake of his head, though Katsuki isn’t blind to the fact that his hands reach for the comforter and start playing with the fabric. Izuku probably notices too, because he begins to rub his shoulder in small circles. “I was thinking about something that the villain I told you about earlier said to me. She said I was nothing but a hollowed-out imitation of a person, a vinyl husk like one of her dolls. That I just do whatever I’m told to because—” he lifts one hand from the blanket to form air quotes—“‘that’s what dolls like me do.’ Of course, I didn’t pay any attention to what she said in the moment, but when I thought about it more later, I realized she was right.”
Izuku inhales slowly, his hand freezing on Shouto’s shoulder. “What?”
“All my father cared about was shaping me into a number one hero.” His gaze settles near the bedroom door, unable to be so honest and meet their eyes at the same time. “He trained me to perform just like him, and he expected perfection. I gave him as close to that as I could. I never rebelled, at least not until I started at UA. He treated me like I was a doll that could be made to look and act however he wished, and I fit into that role well. Way too well.”
“You know that’s bullshit, right?”
Shouto meets Katsuki’s eyes. His disagreement is clear from the crease in his brow, but he lets him speak.
“You are the most rebellious damn bastard I’ve ever met, have been since the first day of high school.” He shifts to face Shouto directly. “Hell, your dumb ass refused to even use half your quirk just to spite the old man. Izuku had to go up against you himself before you quit that shit.”
The corners of Shouto’s lips quirk up in spite of himself. Katsuki’s signature blend of aggression and care tends to incite that reaction, and Katsuki takes it as a sign to continue.
“And there was no point in trying to fight him sooner, not when you were a literal child with nowhere to go. That would’ve just made things worse on both your siblings and yourself. You knew that, and you did the best you could until you had a chance to get out. Then you took that chance and never looked back. What kind of fucked-up doll would you have to be to do a thing like that?”
Shouto, who had sat up further while he talked so they were face-to-face, just stares at him.
“Kacchan,” Izuku murmurs, and Katsuki’s not sure if that’s a good ‘Kacchan’ or a bad ‘Kacchan’. It might be both—he knows that last line was kind of harsh. He waits for Shouto to have any kind of reaction, and after what feels like a lifetime, Shouto delivers, awarding him that small, intimate smile he’s come to know well.
“A pretty fucked-up one, I guess.”
He lets out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. “Exactly. So the far more likely option is that you’re just human. Wonderfully, stubbornly, painfully human.”
His boyfriend looks at him like he’s just hung the moon, and Katsuki’s not used to seeing that from a man whose emotions are usually kept under a strict leash. It’s painfully raw and makes all the mushy talk he’s not used to worth it.
“Kats’,” is all Shouto manages to say. Katsuki smirks at him softly.
“You’d make a shit doll, Halfie, but you do the whole human thing pretty well.”
Shouto doesn’t cry, but the way his face crumbles is similar. Whatever was holding his body upright while Katsuki talked seems to deflate and Katsuki, half-worried that Shouto will just keel over, opens his arms. Shouto immediately falls forward onto him, his head fitting perfectly into the crook of his neck. Katsuki rests his hands on his back, enveloping him in a hug. He lets out an amused huff when he looks over at Izuku, whose eyes are filled with tears. “You’re such an easy crier, ‘Zuku.”
“Yeah, yeah, I always have been,” he retorts with a wobbly grin, lying over Shouto’s back when Katsuki lifts his hands to invite him. Resting his cheek against Shouto’s shoulder, he wraps his arms around his waist. “We love you so much, Shouchan. Kacchan’s right, you’re wonderfully human. Perfectly human.”
“Our human,” Katsuki finds himself murmuring—which just might be the sappiest thing that’s ever come out of his mouth, and if it leaves this room his boyfriends will never hear the end of it—and it pays off when he feels Shouto grab his shirt in a fist.
“Thank you,” he hears him whisper. He doesn’t say anything in return, he just rubs his thumb over Shouto’s arm.
——————
Shouto smiles when Katsuki carries three bowls of steaming soup into the bedroom, two held in his hands and the third balancing precariously in the nook of his arm. Izuku, who had refused to leave his side even to help Katsuki finish dinner, jumps up to take the unsteady bowl from him. He hands it off to Shouto, then climbs back into bed and accepts his own bowl from Katsuki, who slides into bed on Shouto’s other side.
Izuku immediately takes a bite, then hums. “It’s delicious like always, Kacchan,” he praises. “This recipe is one of my favorites.” Katsuki just grunts in response, but Shouto sees him smile out of the corner of his eye.
“You know, Kats’ I’m not an invalid. We could have eaten at the table,” he decides to remind the blonde—who insisted on having dinner in bed tonight—as he takes a bite himself.
“Shut up, of course you’re not an invalid.” He eats a huge spoonful of soup before continuing. “Doesn’t mean we can’t eat a hot meal in bed once in a while.”
“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Shouto concedes, biting back a chuckle. Back at UA, Katsuki would drag everyone’s asses out of their rooms for dinner at least 3 times a week, sometimes more. He always cooked enough for all their classmates to have a plate and then some, but he only allowed them to eat it together in the common area. Their classmates began to call those evenings “family dinner night,” though it took Shouto several months to understand that comparison was meant to be positive.
Katsuki must have loosened up to eating away from the dining table after they graduated. Or maybe, as much as the man would hate to admit it even today, he never cared about the location so much as the company.
“By the way, what was that noise we heard earlier?” Izuku asks, pulling Shouto from his thoughts.
“Hm?” Shouto racks his brain until he realizes what he’s referring to. “Oh, I threw your shampoo bottle at the door to get your attention. Sorry about that. It’s not broken or anything.”
“Oh, you don’t have to apologize,” Izuku clarifies quickly. “I’m just glad you found a way to alert us. I know that isn’t easy for you when you’re struggling, so I’m proud of you.”
If Izuku is aware of how much his words make Shouto blush, he doesn’t show it, simply taking another bite of his food. Katsuki is less gracious, snorting when he looks over at Shouto’s beet-red face. To his credit, though, he keeps his mouth shut.
“Thank you,” Shouto replies as soon as he’s sure he won’t stutter. He wishes he was more used to praise falling from his boyfriend’s lips so easily after all these years, but he’s starting to think it’s always going to fluster him.
Oh, well. Little idiosyncrasies like that are part of what make him human.