Runnin' with the devil

Part 1

Holy shit, Shouto is glad he came out tonight.

"He always needs to make an entrance," Uraraka says, sounding vaguely relieved. Shouto stares up at the stage.

Oh, he thinks. "Is that Bakugou?"

"Yeah," Kirishima says, "that's Bakugou."

Bakugou, as it turns out, might be the hottest asshole Shouto has ever seen in his life. And that's saying a lot, because the music industry basically thrives off a culture of hot assholery.

He saunters on stage like everyone isn't waiting for him, stops to drag the blond guitarist down with an arm around his neck to grind his knuckles into the top of his head, passes by the bassist to bump her fist with his own, before finally striding to the drums to take a seat at his throne.

He picks up the sticks, twirls them round and around deft fingers, and for a second the whole club holds its breath.

Then he tilts his head back and howls out a yell, before ripping into the drums in the opening lick of the first song, and the world splits apart. The guitars shred, the keyboard wails, the bass pounds, the vocals tear it up, and underneath it all is the pulse of the kick drum and the crash of cymbals keeping time.

And Shouto lets it all take him.

He's never been to any kind of rock show before, period. Not underground, standing room only venues like this, or sold out arena concerts. He's never been to one of his father's shows, he refused to go. He's been to classical recitals and concertos, and loved the lushness of the soundscapes, the freedom of listening to the music in person. But this is different.

This sound is being strapped to the front of a freight train, it's the center of a storm, it's an explosion going off.

And the conductor, and the lightning rod, and the detonator, he's the one they came here to see.

Bakugou's hands are a blur as he beats on the drums like they've personally insulted him. But his sound isn't sloppy or unrefined—there's the sheer undeniability of overwhelming skill there, the perfect augmentation of the music, the accentuation of the rhythm. His teeth are grit and bared in an almost manic grin at times, almost like the effort of keeping the drums under his command is a power he can feel and harness. His arms gain a sheen of sweat, gleaming prominently under the stage lights, the contours of his straining muscles highlighted in the myriad of colors. They aren't the only thing straining. Shouto's borrowed jeans feel distinctly tight.

It's after the third song ends in a screaming crescendo that Bakugou finally notices his friends. Kirishima and Uraraka are jumping around so animatedly he could hardly fail to spot them, as close to the front as they are. His upper lip curls into a smirk, he rolls his eyes—and then he sees Shouto.

The sneer fades from his face. He stares, eyes sharp, lips slightly parted. Shouto finds it suddenly very hard to breathe. He also finds it very, very hard to look away, so he doesn't. He stares back.

"You guys rock!" the lead singer, Jirou, shouts. "Please enjoy the fucking show! We're Heartbeat Reverberation!"

Bakugou doesn't look away from Shouto as the next song starts. His expression melts into a smile, slow and wicked, before he slides his tongue between his teeth to wet his bottom lip. He only breaks eye contact when he starts to play again.

Shouto manages to take a very deep breath. Next to him, Kirishima and Midoriya exchange a glance.

"What?" Shouto yells over the music.

Kirishima claps him on the back. "Good luck," he yells back in reply.

Shouto doesn't know what this means. He's aware Bakugou keeps looking at him, now, and inevitably he is always looking at Bakugou. What if he's wondering who the hell Shouto is, the new guy hanging around his friends. Shit, what if he's annoyed by Shouto being there? If he had brushed off Kirishima coming, then maybe some nobody is even worse.