This story is not intended to promote or encourage actions/behaviors such as suicide, self-harm, abuse, violence, or substance abuse.
Izuku Todoroki
Insinuated into a cozy cavern of comfort, Izuku was nestled in Shoto's lap and hugged by both his lover's arms and the blanket ensconcing them both. The two had been watching a show involving two brothers—one of which was quite literally the son of Satan himself—demons, exorcists, and a plethora of exhilarating cutscenes, but Izuku's attention was enthralled by his partner. They'd only kissed once before, and truth be told, the kiss was inadvertent but serendipitous.
Izuku lifted his head from resting the side of his head against Shoto's temple. "Hey, Shoto?" His gaze was arrested by Shoto's heterochromatic eyes as the latter turned his head. "Um. I was wondering if I could..." Silence ensued for a split second before Izuku pressed their lips together.
Like warm fondue bathed in a fervent film of serenity, their lips sank into one. Shoto's reciprocated kiss was gentle, tender, and unhurried; his lips explored adagio with doting movements like silk. Eager yet trepidatious, Izuku nudged himself around on Shoto's lap to curl his legs around the latter's hips. Izuku laid his weight down against his lover while pushing Shoto's right hand into the back cushion of the couch. Warm, intermittent jets of delayed and hastened breaths clung to their noses and cheeks as Shoto surrendered and relaxed into the profound affection and reassuring weight of Izuku.
As the shorter of the two held fast his lover, the tramps of knocking parted their sticky lips of a creamy peach. Izuku released a sigh and headed to the front door, but no one was visible from the windows. He cracked open the door to reveal the downpour streaking through the air, but there was no one. Perplexed, he poked his nose further out the door, but as another round of knocking arrived, the world evanesced into a pool of ink that was swiftly split open by a blinding, rapidly expanding thread of light.
Izuku opened his eyes from his memory of his husband. Dull pats of the rain laughed beyond the walls of the house. Sitting upright on the couch, Izuku flicked off the television from watching the show he'd once watched the entirety of with Shoto.
Yet, another set of knocks arrived at the door. Izuku bit his lower lip and shuffled towards the leftmost window adjacent to the door. He canted his head to espy the figure standing on his porch, and mantled in the shadows of the night was none other than Shoto. After a year and a half, Shoto had returned home.
With quivering fingers from anxious desperation, Izuku unlocked the door and slammed it open to see his husband for the first time in over one year. The wind slashed through Shoto's dripping hair. Bullets of rain struck the water-saturated uniform Shoto wore. Shoto trembled from the bleak weather, but his countenance was like a rough boulder.
Tears rained from Izuku's magnified eyes as he hesitantly coiled his arms around his husband's frigid, rain-soaked body. "Shoto..." he gasped in a whisper while the deluge of jagged, jubilant emotions swishing through his chest began to pulsate. "O-Oh my God..." He squeezed Shoto a bit tighter to affirm that his husband truly was standing before him, but Shoto released a grunt of pain.
Izuku retracted his arms and stumbled back inside the house to allow Shoto inside, but as the taller of the two waded through the darkness, the saffron light spilling onto his dripping body revealed his empty eyes, his vacant yet austere expression, his facial scars, and his missing finger.
Once again, a familiar awkwardness pervaded the room, so Izuku stuttered, "W-Want me to bring you...um, some fresh clothes so you can shower?" He received a small nod. "Okay. I'll...be right back." He scrambled up the stairs for their room as elastic guilt and fear stretched through his stomach.
The last time he came back, Izuku thought to himself while gathering a set of Shoto's untouched clothing, I could still see some relief in his eyes. I could tell he was glad to be back. I knew he'd missed me. But...he looks so numb to it all. The war ended last week after so much damage had been dealt, but we were lucky. I'm glad our family was far away from it all, but I feel terrible for the families that were right in the line of fire...
Descending the stairs again, Izuku squinted his eyes a bit as Shoto rubbed around his left temple with a wince. With a harrowed gaze, Izuku handed his husband the fresh stack of clothing. Shoto began to walk off, but with fidgeting hands, Izuku stepped in front of Shoto.
"Move," Shoto growled with a fierce undertone of vexation.
"I just...wanted to know if I can do anything for you," Izuku whispered, but he was unable to lift his head to lock eyes with his husband.
Shoto pressed his frigid hand onto Izuku's shoulder, and Izuku shivered at the fact that he could feel where Shoto was missing his ring finger. "You can move out of my way."
"Shoto, what's going on?" Izuku plucked up the courage to meet Shoto's gaze, but not a spark flickered in the ashes of his eyes.
Forcibly shoving Izuku to the side, Shoto muttered, "It doesn't concern you—stay out of it." A droplet of water from his wilted hair plopped onto the bridge of his nose and slithered down to his lips, but he had no reaction to it.
Izuku shook his head. "Shoto, you're my husband. You just got back from a war. I'm worri—"
Tump!
With a gasp, Izuku blinked through his shock to find himself apprehended against the wall by the incomplete hands of his irate husband. "I said that it doesn't fucking concern you!" Shoto snarled like a wolf; his languished strength was still a commendable bite.
Izuku was admittedly terrified. Shoto was never one to lash out or ever cause physical harm to anyone in the family, yet the same man did not hesitate to pin Izuku against the wall and fulminate his disdain for Izuku's actions. Izuku could only stare at the scalding ire flaring up on the vacant vessel of war that was Shoto Todoroki.
With a grimace, Shoto released his husband and lumbered off.
He never acts like this, Izuku cogitated while heading up to their room with a shivering body from the paralyzing fear which consumed him. Shoto...is never violent. Not even when he got back from the last war he was in. Something happened... Something's not right, obviously. I'm concerned about how he's going to interact with the kids. Yuujin...isn't going to be happy. I can usually read Shoto fairly well, but I just don't know what's lurking behind his eyes. Is this temporary? Permanent? Something direct? The aftereffect or side effect of something? I feel like he's hurt. Like a wound on the inside never healed up, and now it's agitated. I feel bad for him. I want to help him, but I don't know how...
Later that night, Izuku's eyes scampered towards the sound of a rolling, rattling creak from the dresser he shared with Shoto. He turned himself over in bed to see Shoto standing in front of the dresser without a shirt to drape over the obtrusive scar cutting diagonally from the back of his shoulder to about the middle of his spine. Izuku silently observed his husband pulling a turtleneck down his ribs, but as Shoto began to turn around, Izuku snapped his eyes shut.
Tut... Tut... Tut... Tut. Tut.
The mattress squeaked a bit as a point of weight sank into it. Shoto hauled the rest of his body onto the bed, and with a sigh, he shifted towards Izuku. Then, like the soft tip of a feather, Shoto's lips brushed across Izuku's lips. Unable to resist the rapturing opportunity, Izuku cupped one hand around Shoto's cheek and the other at the back of Shoto's head. Yet, Shoto did not reciprocate from the second kiss that Izuku initiated.
Jabbed by the lack of affection that his partner would once always provide, Izuku withdrew himself from Shoto in time to see Shoto's lips moving. "I'm sorry," Shoto sighed with a flat, glacial voice. "I probably scared you before." Shoto seldom apologized, but whenever he did, it was always earnest—save for that night, because there was nothing in Shoto's expression but a slate of vacuity. "I didn't mean to. I probably had too much to drink."
Shoto never drank anything with alcohol in it, yet he claimed to have exceeded his own limits with drinking. Izuku was dubious—was Shoto lying or stating the truth?—and decided to inquire as to why Shoto decided to drink.
"It's okay..." Izuku replied, but the twist in his guts vehemently opposed his words. "But you were drinking? I thought you didn't like alcohol." He laid on his back and stared up at the minuscule speckles littered across the ceiling.
"I don't," he uttered candidly.
Well... Izuku thought while attempting to formulate a response. Uh, that's your answer? Talk about lackadaisical and agnostic about something you dug your own hole for. Well, maybe he has been drinking...which isn't a good thing. He'd need a strong, strong trigger to even accept a drink. He just doesn't drink—ever.
"Then...why were you drinking?" Izuku whispered, and immediately after his words had fled from his throat, he pressed the backs of the top row of his teeth against his tongue.
Shoto shrugged. "Why not?" He yawned and slipped his hand between Izuku's fingers.
"How much have you been drinking?"
"I don't know."
"Shoto," Izuku implored his husband, "please...just tell me the truth."
"I can't."
Izuku furrowed his brows and exhaled slowly. "If you've been able to get your hands on all this alcohol, you should've been able to feed yourself, right?" He wondered how Shoto would react to the assumption that Shoto had been able to procure abundant amounts of alcohol.
"Drinking is just as filling," Shoto slovenly replied with the unvarnished truth. "I'm not anorexic—I'd prefer alcohol over any food. It saves my rations for when they're needed most. Communications were cut in the middle of it. We weren't able to contact anyone by phone or anything—that's how far ahead they'd planned for. It was hell for some of our equipment and gear." His head tilted from side to side a bit.
With the sharp twist of his head, Izuku sat up and stared in perturbation and astonishment at Shoto. "Shoto, this is a serious problem... You can't keep drinking as much as it sounds like you are. Shoto, you know—"
"I do know," Shoto murmured with hollow words while closing his eyes. "But I don't care. It feels good. I can forget. Let go. Let the alcohol take over." He offered an enervated nod to himself as his voice diminished.
"What about when it's all gone?" Tears of solicitude and apprehension pricked Izuku's eyes, but a roaring ocean of silence crashed over his head as he awaited his husband's response. "Shoto?" Although his initial thought was that Shoto was attempting to evade the question by pretending to sleep, Izuku recognized the familiar breathing patterns Shoto had; Shoto had drifted off into his own repose, leaving his body as a quiescent, breathing shell.
Silent streams of saline silver slid down Izuku's cheeks. It was excruciatingly evident that Shoto was concealing a myriad of truths, and Izuku was convinced that at least one of those truths involved a hellfire of suffering, sorrow, and suppression. Agonizing scenarios proliferated in his mind like a disease. Izuku could picture his husband falling apart and stitching himself back together with alcohol to continue fighting on. He could also envision Shoto returning to slitting his wrists, attempting to kill himself, then realizing that suicide was not the answer, and resorting to drinking. The horrific possibilities seemed to thicken the creeks of diamond cascading from his eyes.
I know you're not okay, Izuku thought while tightening his grip around Shoto's hand ever so slightly, but you act like you are. Just because you're used to it...doesn't make it okay. It doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it any less harmful. Shoto, is this how much it hurts? Is this how much you hate yourself? Is this how much you want to escape? Please tell me before it hurts too much to bear, before the hatred culminates, before you escape and can't come back to reality... Shoto...I don't know if you realize it or want it, but what you're doing to yourself is killing you. Slowly... Softly... Subtly... How do I save you from succumbing to this war against yourself?