When the Heart is Ash (I'll Savor Your Warmth)

Glacial Demise

"Natsu! You're finally here, yay!"

It is 9:30 in the morning. Shouto hardly slept at all last night, busy with ordeals like fighting his father.

"Traffic was bad, sorry."

Shouto stirs his cereal around, a mini wheat floating to the top after he presses it down. He tunes out of the greetings, listening for the heavy, harrowing footsteps that invade his life. His father hadn't seemed angry after they fought, but he doesn't want to talk with Endeavor right now. Nothing has changed in that prospect. Sometimes, Shouto would still like to pretend he doesn't have a father, or maybe he has a different one.

He hears them, and ducks his head down. Endeavor speaks, "Natsuo, I'm glad you-"

"Hey, Shouto!" Natsuo speeds past Endeavor with a brief scowl, before putting on the brightest of smiles. The expression is one Shouto thinks he must've learned from outside of this household. Even Fuyumi's smiles can't chock up to Natsuo's. They're always full of hesitance, as if she's waiting for everything to go wrong.

An arm wraps around his shoulders, Natsuo tugging Shouto close to his chest. "No 'hi'? Wow, and I thought we bonded the last time I saw you."

Shouto grunts out a small 'hello', and it prompts Natsuo to release him, sitting on the seat next to Shouto's. He leans into his space, though, clearing his throat and sparing glances to Fuyumi in the doorway.

"When are you leaving this hellhole?"

Shouto shrugs, "Whenever Fuyumi drives me. I think she might make me stay another night."

Natsuo sighs, "Sorry, Shouto. I'm not going to defend her but she only-"

"How can you two whisper when you're in a room full of family?"

Shouto flinches at her voice, ducking his head low again. Fuyumi makes him want to disappear, but her coldness brings him right back to the reality where she is the manipulator, and she is trying to help someone who does not want to be helped, and she is making his life a mess. It was a little shocking to hear that Endeavor doesn't like what she's doing either. But he's always been smart, Shouto's sure he sees how she's not really helping him. Hers is a plan that will 'bring the family together'. But the Todoroki's have never done well together.

Fire and ice like to extinguish and melt each other. Shouto doesn't know why everyone else in this family can't see that as he and Natsuo do.

"Are you saying you don't know what whispering is," Natsuo teases her, leaning back and patting Shouto's back, giving an unspoken confirmation that they'll talk later on. Shouto nods discreetly, giving his tacit agreement.

Shouto yawns as Natsuo goes to occupy Fuyumi. Nobody has said anything about his bruises, yet, nor their father's. Maybe it's habit to ignore them, but he sees the apprehension in Fuyumi's shoulders, and the way Natsuo is sneaking glances his way. He can't bring himself to care all that much, though.

Sleep weighs over him like a heavy syrup, dulling his senses and god does some rest sound good right now. He'd take painkillers for his headache and sleep, if not for Fuyumi's insistence that he join them at dinner. But it is too early to already excuse himself.

"Shouto!" Fuyumi calls from the living room, "Come on, so we can open presents!"

Shouto cringes at her loudness, but stands nonetheless. Passing through the hall, and into the living room, he can see Natsuo gawking over a big wrapped box with his name on it.

Shouto sits next to him, exhaling deeply to try quelling something of the pain in his head. The tension isn't as thick as it usually is, with them. Shouto hasn't sat with both of his siblings and father in a while, and he finds himself wishing that his mother were here.