Talking To The Moon (Slowed, Reverb)↲
Bruno Mars
"Talking to the moon, trying to get to you. In hopes you're on the other side, talking to me too . . ."
≡
"You know I was just joking, right?"
"Well, you should never joke about me getting naked in front of you."
If anything, Izuku would agree wholeheartedly that he was not, in fact, joking when he initially mentioned capturing Katsuki's essence in all his naked glory. For artistic purposes, he was rather elated to finally draw a portrait or two of the boy . . . naked. Broad shoulders varying with muscles, trailing down his arms, ending at his calloused hands. His chest. Stomach. Legs and his—
No! Bad Izuku . . . think about ceramic tiles and eggs.
Izuku shook his head harshly, his cheeks flushing pink as not-so-innocent images swirled through his head. One of the downsides to having amnesia and having your own mother fake your death is that he now knows all that he missed out on . . . everything he missed out on. It was taking a while for his body and heart to align themselves with his head—especially when it felt as though he were on a rollercoaster of emotions.
One minute he was cautious and wary of how he and Katsuki went about their relationship, considerate of the time that had passed. And the next minute he was . . . well, he was still the same fifteen-year-old who had a hard time controlling himself around the elder.
Fuck, why did he even say anything, to begin with?
Before he could even bring himself to thoroughly talk Katsuki out of his own idiotic suggestion, Izuku had been left speechless on the bed—the series of sketches in his book long forgotten. After taking a minute or two to himself, the freckled college student clambered out of bed, fixing the disarrayed sheets and pillows until they were to his liking. If he was going to truly take the time to draw the boy he needed everything to be perfect.
Albeit, aside from his nerves, he had to admit Katsuki's room was the ideal spot for creating a portrait. The controls on the lights allowed him to dim them as low as possible or as high as he'd like—a recipe for crafting the perfect amount of shadows and light sources. Quickly, the boy sprang from across the room to adjust said control, turning it down a few notches until the room was dimly lit. Still light enough for him to see what he was sketching.
. . . For artistic purposes of, course. Only for the sole purpose that the dim lighting would give the elder an ethereal glow, painting along the lines of his abs, face, legs—
Ceramic tiles and eggs. Ceramic tiles and eggs. Ceramic tiles and eggs—
He paused, listening with slight amusement as Katsuki clamored around in the bathroom. Laughing to himself as he heard a soft thud followed by a series of curses, most along the lines of son of bitch and goddamn counters. For the shortest of seconds, Izuku almost felt his anxieties ebbing away—that is until he remembered why Katsuki was in the bathroom. Getting undressed. Naked. No clothes on. Did he mention naked?
Honestly, if he were being candid, he was not sure why his nerves had spiked the way they did. After all, he was the one who proposed they have the drawing session in the first place—and if that did nothing for him . . . he had seen the male naked. Once. Okay, twice, which had taken place just mere months before his father came along and he got amnesia.
In spite of the years, this should be fairly easy, right?
Right.
With a sigh Izuku slowly walked down the illuminated hallway until he reached his own room, finding his easel and satchel in no time. His mind had subconsciously drifted back to a more artistic approach as he began envisioning a surfeit of poses, some drastic, others more simple. Drawing Katsuki over the past few months had been somewhat of a challenge—however, it was not enough to quench the thirst he held for more. Now was his chance to prove his abilities as an artist.
The mere thought had him shaking with excitement. All past troubles floating aimlessly in the wind.
Finding Katsuki still in the bathroom upon his arrival—while slightly worrying if the boy was alright—Izuku quickly set up his easel by the bed, arranging his pencils and papers accordingly. Eventually, after one final trip around the penthouse in search of a small stool to sit on, Izuku had successfully created a small space for himself to draw. With the door shut, lights dimmed low, and rain pelting heavily against the window and roof everything seemed to be in order.
Patiently waiting for Katsuki he had begun doodling on a scrap paper, testing out his pencils to make sure none of them needed sharpening. His eyes never glancing up when a small groan of the bathroom hinges echoed through the air.
That is until the elder cleared his throat.
Nothing could have prepared Izuku for what he saw next. It was rather evident the blond had . . . grown in certain aspects of his body. For artistic purposes, he inspected his model with vehement detail—careful not to leave one inch of his body unlooked. Only for artistic purposes, of course. The young artist was completely unaware of the blush proliferating across his face, reaching the top of his neck as he continued to stare.
It wasn't as if he hadn't seen people naked before, this should not have been affecting him the way it did. Fuck.
"Uhm, lay on the . . . the bed," Izuku instructed, eyes fixated on the place between his legs.
With a wide smile, Katsuki mock-salutes the boy, lying down where he was told. "And how exactly do you want me?" he knew what he was doing, albeit could you blame him? It was fun watching the boy get flustered. "After all, you're the artistic here,"
"Front facing me with your right knee bent upwards. You can rest your head on your hand if you want," Izuku sighed heavily, regaining his composure as he shakily picked up his pencil.
"Good?" Katsuki gazed at him with expectant eyes as he fixed his pose.
If there was anything Izuku had learned from this particular drawing session is that drawing Katsuki Bakugou naked was not only a blessing but a curse. Look but don't touch. And holy shit Izuku wanted nothing more than to touch him right now, tracing his muscles with his fingers. Maybe his mouth too—
Ceramic tiles and eggs. Ceramic tiles and eggs.
"Everything okay over there, Little Picasso?" Katsuki teased, innocently trailing a finger along his thigh. The little fucker—
Izuku swallowed thickly, shading the area of his upper lip as he slowly nodded his head. Dismissing the obvious curiosity and desire nipping away at his insides. It was an odd sensation that's for sure, for Izuku still had to live with two versions of himself within his head. The Izuku who was secretly an amnesic and who was inexperienced in just about everything regarding relationships and intimacy. And then there was Katsuki's Izuku . . . a whole other layer of himself he had no clue was lying dormant beneath the surface.
In a sense, he had been leading two live without his knowledge.
Part of him wished to spring from his seat, doing whatever he damn well pleased with the blond. And the other half was timid—visibly shaking, either from excitement or apprehension, at the mere thought of being naked in front of Katsuki. Of Katsuki being naked in front of him at the moment.
"You sure?" he raised a knowing brow, evidently pleased with his ability to elicit a reaction out of the freckled male. "It looks like you're sweating a bit. Want me to turn down the heat?"
The double-meaning behind his words drove Izuku mad, doing nothing to ease the war of fear and lust in his mind. Why couldn't he just get through this drawing session without any words being exchanged—why did they need to talk? Talking led to his inevitable train-of-thought, said train swerving down a track of uncertainty until it was enveloped by a cloud of darkness.
Fuck.
"I know what you're doing," Izuku commented, adoration blooming in replacement of his previous emotions. It was this specific part of this drawing session that Izuku was most looking forward to—drawing the boy's infinite amount of tattoos.
Arching his wrist, he allowed his pencil the trace the outlines of the bigger ink blotches painted across his skin. Delving back into them, in attempts to replicate their intricate detail. However, as he sketched said tattoos this prompted a question to form on the tip of his tongue.
"When did you get these?" Izuku asked softly, again, ignoring his conflict of mind.
"Hm?" Katsuki examined himself, "Get what?"
"The tattoos,"
With wide eyes, Katsuki mutters a string of incoherent phrases. His apprehension twisting away at his antecedent light-hearted mood. "Do you hate them?"
"Trust me—" his pencil dipped a little too hard into the paper, "—hate is not the way I'd describe my feelings for these tattoos. But you never answered my question, Kacchan,"
"I didn't get them all at once. But it started around a few months after you . . . well . . . is 'died' the right word?" he tilted his head slightly, searching his own mind for a better substitute for the word.
A chuckle left Izuku's lips. "I'm not entirely sure what the right word for any of this would be,"
"Someone should write a book about us," the blond quipped, "I'm sure it'd make a lot of money."
A smile broke out onto the freckled male's lips, his pencil softly shading in an area on the paper. "Yeah—I bet everybody who read it would call you a dumbass for not telling me about my amnesia sooner. I know I would have,"
Katsuki stiffened, going unnoticed by Izuku seeing as though he had already been rather still to begin with. He knew the other boy was joking, that much was clear by his tone of voice and breathtaking grin. Be that as it may, it did nothing to ameliorate the abnormal amount of guilt and self-deprecation he harbored—something that would take quite a bit of time to dissipate. For the young man had many regrets in life, not telling Izuku from the start was the biggest of them all.
He opened his mouth—seemingly conflicted as he battled with the apology that teased the tip of his tongue. But he decided against it, knowing the last thing Izuku wanted or needed was another series of apologetic words.
"I have another question," Izuku blurted out, flipping onto a clean page after he filled his former one to the brim.
"Of course you do,"
Taking his answer as a path to continue forward, Izuku cleared his throat. "Those songs that you wrote over the past few years . . . Were they about me?"
Slowly and deliberately, Katsuki mulled over the question. It was simple enough, a brief yes or no would suffice; but the tenor of it was one not to be taken lightly, it was something that required . . . so much more than Katsuki could give him. His mind had fleetingly transported him to the other day—remembering Todoroki's odd explanation for the two and the love they shared.
You look at him like he's the stars and you're just now seeing him for the first time.
"Izuku, every-fucking-thing I did was either about you or for you. There was not a day that went by that you weren't on my mind, like a song stuck in my head playing on loop for years. Everything . . . kind of revolved around you—I don't know if that's a good or bad thing but it's true," adoration and mirth danced in the blazing flames of Katsuki's red eyes. "You're my stars,"
Cambering his head to the side, without looking up from his paper Izuku hummed. "What does that mean?"
Katsuki chuckled softly, shaking his head.
Izuku's eyes snapped forward. "Keep still before I come over there," he threatened weakly, finally noticing the expression on the blond face. The expression he had been drawing for the past five minutes, still plastered on his face.
His mouth twisted into a content smile, lips full and peach-painted. But it was an open-mouthed kind of smile, teeth barely peeking through and eyes wide with . . . excitement? Fear? No—awe. As if he were staring at a sky full of angels, singing in a heavenly chorus just for him.
The blond's eyes lit up with an uncharted emotion Izuku had never seen on another person before, or perhaps he had and it was obscured beneath the hazy blanket of memories circulating through him. Those damned ruby eyes. Either way, the look sent jolts of energy through him, wreathing around his veins until they had been set alight with electricity. It was truly exhilarating.
"How many drawings have you done?" Katsuki questioned lowly after a few minutes, switching to a position that only gave Izuku access to his profile.
Soft strokes of graphite against the satin surface of paper filled the air. "Ten. Tilt your head to the left please,"
"How many more drawings do you want to do still?" Katsuki persisted, his upper lip overlapping with his lower for a split second. Eyes glancing at Izuku from the side with the corners of his mouth twitching. "Out of plain curiosity,"
"As many as I friggin' want," Izuku giggled, wrinkling his nose as Katsuki slid out of his pose. "You're not doing the pose I asked," he pointed out.
With his legs tangled together, Katsuki looks at him with expectant eyes. "How about now?"
"No,"
He rolled on his back, wrapping his nude body into a cocoon with the comforters. A dazzling smile lifting his lips upwards, the actions meeting his eyes in a volcanic eruption of gleaming vermillion red. "Now?"
Izuku bit back a smile of his own. "Nope,"
"Guess you'll just have to back up your words from earlier—" he slowly began unwrapping himself, "—I guess you'll have to come over here,"
Not needing to be told twice, Izuku scrambled off the stool; his sketches along with his clothes long forgotten.
—————❖—————
Despite the events that occurred the previous night, Izuku had awoken with a frown on his red-bitten lips. Hand slamming down on the empty sheets next to him, not a single tuft of blond hair in sight as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Much to his surprise, sunlight flickered through a blanket of gray clouds—it's warmth slowly ebbing away as the puffy mantles swooped over the sun.
His body ached and pulled as he sat up, albeit he welcomed the discomfort for it was only another reminder of what they did. Damn, he loved it. This sense of domestication and humbleness coursed through him in waves, suffocating him in a way he never thought possible: a good way.
With a sigh, he rolled out of bed, slowly slipping on a fresh shirt from Katsuki's closet. Izuku scoffed as the hem of the shirt reached his mid-thigh, the skinny frame of his body nearly disappearing beneath it. The soft susurrations of Katsuki's humming echoed throughout the penthouse, an unspecified melody Izuku found himself dancing to.
The boy was—in all his early-morning perfection—was placed at the kitchen, a soft sizzle of bacon and eggs crackling through the air. Concentration clear on his sharp and defined features, reaching the crest of his chiseled nose and fanning across the high slopes of his cheekbones. A blanket of nostalgia crept through the freckled male at the sight, thinking back to a memory he still felt did not belong to him.
"Kacchan, if you don't pay attention the pancakes will burn!" a young Izuku scolded as his boyfriend blessed him with hugs and kisses.
Katsuki pouted, a rare sight to see. "And if you don't pay attention to me my ego will burn,"
Stopping at the foot of the staircase Izuku leaned against the wall, a gentle grin brightening his face. "What're you humming over there, Kacchan?"
At the sound of his love's voice, Katsuki broke out into a wide smile, swaying his hips to his own humming as he slowly made his way over. Gently kissing the top of his head while whispering a small good morning.
"I've had this melody stuck in my head all morning," he grumbled, his hand placed on the small of Izuku's back—guiding him to the kitchen.
The younger remembered enough to know the precise cause of his frustrations. The revelation of his knowledge blossomed across his cheeks, turning into a blush. He always felt a tad bit triumphant whenever he realized the true potential his newly-found memories provided for him.
"No lyrics?"
Katsuki shook his head in disapproval, flipping the eggs with a spatula before scrambling them. "Nothing that sounds good,"
Wrapping his arms around Katsuki's waist, Izuku tucks his chin in the dip of his shoulder—rubbing circles into his arms. He knew how embittering it could be for the young song-artist whenever he could never think of lyrics for a song, much akin to when Izuku could never find the pencil to sketch with.
"So . . ." Izuku began after a few minutes of silence, ". . . about last night."
The blond went rigid fleetingly, relaxing his posture moments later. "Yeah?" the word drifted out apprehensively, wavering in the rays of uncertainty. His mind nearly instantly shifting to the worst of conclusions, had he regretted what they did? Had his love realized he didn't want to pursue a relationship with him once more?
"Well, for starters, I didn't know you were the type to leave the morning after," he teased, pulling a light chuckle from Katsuki's lips.
The longer the sentence flittered through the air the more Katsuki laughed, for Izuku could not be closer to the truth than most these days. For he was the type to leave the morning after, without so much as a call or text; not that he would ever do that to the freckled male. Still, the irony of the situation was quite hilarious to him.
"Do I get to understand whatever inside joke you have? I don't think what I said was that funny," Izuku commented idly, peppering his shoulder with kisses after Katsuki promptly shook his head.
"Anywho," he whistled, "You were saying? About last night?"
"Oh, right!"
Sifting back through the trail of events that occurred the night before, skimming past the drawings and sex, Izuku thought back to their conversation. He thought back to the awe-struck expression etched onto the boy's face, how his words trickled in velvet susurrations. Lulling him into believing the truth he spoke. The memory printed into his mind—painted with the finest of colors, rich and vibrant—never coated the evanescence that blocked most of his memories from years ago.
He would remember that look on Katsuki's face for the rest of his days. Just as he'd remember his words.
"You told me your friend said that you looked at me like you were seeing the stars for the first time," he recalled, "I just . . . what does that mean to you? Specifically,"
Katsuki, who had been lost in deep thought as he pondered the question, finally answered moments later. "Well, I think it means . . . I'm in a type of constant amazement when I'm with you. It's sound like a load of hallmark movie bullshit to me, but it's true—you never cease to amaze me . . . I don't want to look away or I think I'll miss something,"
And it was then, and only then, that his words brought upon a certain image within the forefront of Izuku's mind. A wilting rose. The petal cascading into a shimmering lake, blooming with life when its soft exterior hit the cold laps of water. That was the only way he could explain the feeling surging through him at the moment—a dying rose, the incarnation of beauty, being brought back to life.
That's what Katsuki did for him. Brought him back to life.
"If I'm the stars then your the moon," Izuku grinned, feeling the moisture of happiness building up at the corner of his eyes.
"The moon?" Katsuki hummed, "Why the moon? I'd like to think I'd be the sun,"
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah!" the blond spun around, his food on the plate long-forgotten. "It's the biggest fucking star there is—describes me perfectly."
With a roll of his eyes, Izuku shakes his head. "You can't see the stars without the moon. They correspond with each other, Kacchan. So, you're the moon,"
The winsome glint in the center of Katsuki's eyes had vanished, being substituted for a more serious and calculating. Another set of flames being sparked within the ruby irises of his eyes. It took Izuku a moment to realize what the look meant. Before he could question the elder, Katsuki lightly grabbed his wrist, pulling him to the large piano in the living room.
"Kacchan, what're you—"
The same melody from before began filling the air—being pulled from the keys on the instrument. Seconds later Katsuki's angelic voice had begun singing.
"At night, when the stars light up my room," he vocalized, "I sit by myself. Talking to the moon,"
His fingers ran deftly across the keys, eyes shut and he concentrated on the words floating aimlessly in his brain. Snippets of a riddle he had to piece together. "Trying to get to you,"
Katsuki's fingers hovered above the piano, halting with a crease furrowing between his brows. The next line hovered as well, staining the tip of his tongue with his own irresolution—what comes next?
"In hopes, you're on the other side," Izuku continued for him, "Talking to me too."
With a grin, the blond resumes his playing—adding softer undertones to the original melody he began with. Uplifting the tune with a newly-found passion. "Or am I fool, who sits alone, talking to the moon?"
The two laughed and joked as Katsuki continued his singing, stopping every now and then to write the lyrics down or get help from Izuku with it. The nostalgia of the predicament proving too overbearing as they sang, those same tears from before finally spilling over Izuku's cheeks. Yet a bright, dimpled, smile rested perfectly atop his mouth—brightening both his and Katsuki's day.
As minutes turned to hours the two finished the song, silently agreeing that it was the story Katsuki had mentioned earlier. It was the story of two boys separated but learned through love and patience that there was a path out there somewhere that met in the middle. That would one day reunite them. Upon that realization, Izuku had taken the liberty to sketch out a few concept designs for Katsuki's next album.
Which—with the guidance of Izuku—he named Wilting Roses.
Before the two could discuss matters further, a series of knocks sounded off at the front door. Reluctantly, Katsuki got up to answer it; finding his siblings and adoptive father at the threshold.
"Did you really think you could keep us from him for this long, Kat?" Ashido grinned, hands on her hips.
Hello Cricket Cultists!!
This is the last chapter. BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT. There will be an epilogue, as well as a bonus chapter . . . Because I love this story too much.
Anywho, I will be marking this as finished, but expect an epilogue in a few days--maybe a week since Christmas is coming up and I'll be busy. Are we excited?
What did we think of this chapter?
Rants/Questions/Anything? XD
Until we meet again!!! (cause we WILL meet again in this story)