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They weren’t always like this.
There was a time when Shouto used to be convinced that if fate looked like anything, it was a withered hand wrapped around his tender throat. That all that he was and all that he would ever be had been written in the stars, his very creation not an act of passion but of cold, cruel premeditation. And those same stars would keep shining their pale, uncaring light onto his future even after they burned out. (Because if fire had ever been enough ruin, Shouto wouldn’t be here right now.)
There was a time when he was cold and alone and more terrified of it than he had been raised to ever proudly admit. Because that was it. Pride. His father’s pride and his mother’s hopes and his own nameless, twisting, writhing desire for recognition. For something. For anything. For tangible proof that suffering could be an accomplishment.
Maybe—
Maybe that’s why Katsuki still likes to pinch his thigh and call him spoiled when they’re pressed too close together, all three of them tucked in the same bed. Because Shouto still can’t wrap his head around not doing anything to earn the things you want, to prove you were the one who deserved them most.
(Especially when you want them as desperately as he’d wanted—)
He made Izuku and Katsuki struggle, in the beginning. It was bad enough that father had always seen teaching Shouto barbarian customs as beneath his hopes and dreams of unifying the lands into one kingdom, and when Katsuki first pressed a hand-carved necklace into his hands with a muttered the nerd helped Shouto just said oh, thank you and started wearing it in public fully unaware he was very loudly telling the world he was engaged, claimed, and then three weeks later Izuku had to hold back a red-faced Katsuki by the cape while he yelled about mixed signals and fuckin’ make up your mind, we like you approximately three centimeters away from Shouto’s face.
It was, in short, a bit of a journey.
But now Shouto gets to have things he previously thought not only unmerited, but plainly impossible. When would he, as the third crown prince, as his father’s brightest burning hope, better than Touya who burned under the weight of his own fire, and Natsuo who didn’t know nearly enough about burning to lead armies and rule a kingdom, better than, born to be something besides himself from his very first babble in the cradle, have gotten to see the world and run his hand through the clear lake water riding on the back of a dragon while Izuku held his free hand tightly just in case with a sweaty palm, his cheeks dimpled from the force of his smile? When would he have gotten to pick perfectly ripe fruit off trees with their branches heavy with it (with life, with prosperity) and then pop it into his mouth only for Katsuki to pull him in by the fabric of his shirt and kiss the dripping sweetness off his sticky lips? When would he have gotten—
This. Two brave boys who love him. Who risked everything for Shouto, and then kissed every scarred bit of his body like a promise, like you, you, you. Like we want you more than we want it easy.
Sometimes, when he thinks of everything they gave up for him, Shouto wants to fall to his knees and beg for absolution. For forgiveness. To bare his neck for the sharp blade of Katsuki’s sword and say it’s okay, I deserve it.
Because tenderness without conditions feels like a stinging slap to the face when you grow up being told everyone wants what you have so you better earn it.
Katsuki would call him an idiot, probably. If he knew. He does so loudly and without any consideration for how you’re supposed to talk to a prince, for decorum and tradition, when Shouto lets fears worn by time, but persistent still, slip off his tongue like simple truths. And Izuku tends to get this look in his eyes, sharp and determined, this look that reminds Shouto he might have chosen a life of looking after ancient magic tomes, of arranging them alphabetically and lovingly wiping the dust off the covers, but he grew up beside someone like Katsuki. That he knows how to handle himself, how to do what needs to be done.
And he’d do it for Shouto.
Izuku kissed him first. That day a bit after the necklace incident, when they’d both snuck into Shouto’s bedroom after dinner, frantic with pleas—or, in Katsuki’s case, angry hissing that made Shouto want to ruffle his surprisingly soft hair and maybe press his lips to his forehead—for him to come with them, shrug off his whole life like a borrowed, ill-fitting cloak that only grows rougher and more uncomfortable with age and use, and just. Be Izuku’s and Katsuki’s instead of someone meant to carry the weight of a kingdom.
In retrospect, saying yes was the most selfish thing he had ever done, back then.
But Shouto had nodded and said, okay, I’ll come with you, and Izuku had just. Pressed forward eagerly, impatiently, and taken Shouto’s face into his hands, sealed his slightly chapped lips over Shouto’s.
He tasted like mint and kissed like Shouto was everything he could ever want. It was Shouto’s first kiss.
His first kiss followed immediately by his second, because Katsuki had huffed about dirty bastards who don’t play fair, and I liked him first, Deku, and then—
And then he’d touched Shouto with too much gentleness, and kissed him like they had all the time in the world for it. Like he meant to do it again and again and again. Like kissing Shouto was a goal to reach for. A skill to practice.
When he’s feeling happier than usual about the world being vast and the sky being endless and his own needle-in-a-haystack place in it, Shouto thinks maybe that was fate too. A kinder fate. Fate like—well, like the swords Katsuki tempers with his own flame. Sharp, but something you make yourself. Only capable of hurt if that’s what you use them for.
Because—
They needed him, maybe. Even if they could have been good together, could have been fine without Shouto. They needed him to be whole.
Shouto remembers the first time he saw them kiss. How tremulously uncertain they seemed about it. How whatever blooming thing that was already there before they became Shouto’s still stumbled. They wanted to touch, but too much lingered in the space between them. Too much time and hurt and what if what now how do I—?
He hadn’t done anything as tactlessly direct and uncouth as shoving them together the rest of the way, obviously, but—he’d wanted to, a bit. Had wanted to see the two people he loves most in this world (and however many others there might be, even if it’s too many to count in a single, fleeting lifetime) making each other happy. Especially when they had both so clearly been waiting too long for it. To be allowed to have each other.
So Shouto had stepped back, mouth curled up the slightest bit, and watched. Watched them meet in the middle, and share affection like they’d already had a lifetime of practice at it. Shouto supposes they did, in way.
(He’d told Katsuki he was lucky, at some point during the first few times they ended up a tangle of bodies touching each other all over with too much eagerness and too little experience. Labored breaths quieting down, he’d set this obvious secret free to flutter its clumsy wings in the naked space between skin on skin and pleasepleaseplease.
And Katsuki—
Katsuki had sighed, and flicked him right in the middle of the forehead, left Shouto no room to whine about it before calling him stupid.
At which point Izuku had obviously pulled him close just to press his lips to that same spot and then glare a little at his Kacchan over Shouto’s shoulder.)
It’s—nice. Being chosen by two people who, for better or for worse, were meant to belong to each other, and being told you’re the crucial missing piece. That they don’t work without you.
Oh, Kacchan and I drive each other mad, Izuku used to say airily during their first few days as guests in the castle. Like it was the kind of simple truth he had long since made his peace with.
And yet, for two people who self-admittedly drove each other mad, they sure liked to stick together.
Shouto doesn’t care what Katsuki says. It is lucky, to fit so easily between them. Not—perhaps not like winning an unskilled game of chance, but lucky still. To realize you not only get to keep your guiltiest fantasies tucked close to your chest like cherished treasures, but that you can speak them aloud at any second, and Katsuki will huff and Izuku will smile and they’ll both break their backs to give you anything. To give you everything. (Even the damn moon, Katsuki admitted once, warm face tucked against Shouto’s neck, close enough to whisper things he would usually keep tucked under the tongue.)
They love him. That single word feels too small, sometimes. Too simple to fit how—how belonging to the right person—the right people—alters you to the core.
Before them, Shouto never saw himself as someone made for gentleness. He knew, vaguely, in that same impersonal, matter-of-fact way that he knew the names of the constellations and which kinds of magic clashed too disastrously to attempt to use together, that he was considered beautiful. That beauty meant goodness, meant soft things, meant light and joy and little commoner children reaching eagerly for him because they didn’t realize yet that looks can deceive.
(How could they, when Shouto himself managed to forget he was made of ruin, sometimes?)
During the months they spent on the run, covering their faces and surviving on their magic and people kind enough to pretend they didn’t realize what they were all running from, Shouto had a lot of time to contemplate. Izuku and Katsuki were better at hiding, could temporarily alter bits and pieces of their appearance with their magic and take odd jobs in nearby towns. Shouto, though—
Even if he had been trained to focus on that kind of magic, he’d grown rather attached to his scars at that point. So while Izuku and Katsuki were out, Shouto would sit and wait for them and just. Catalogue his own body in mirrors and reflective windowpanes and even sometimes in surfaces of water.
Izuku found him like that once, well into his self-exploration. Hard, wet, flushed cock in hand, touching himself in front of their dusty inn mirror in their even dustier room and trying to see what they saw when they touched him like this, when they had him like this, what it was about the flex of his muscles or the arch of his body or the way his face would grow warmer and his mouth redder from worrying at it trying to stifle the desperation on his tongue that had them both almost feral with need come nighttime, holding him down and taking turns filling him up.
Shouto skillfully avoided an explanation by dropping to his knees and mouthing at the hard shape of Izuku’s cock through the fabric of his underwear, once the shame stopped painting them both red and unable to meet the other’s gaze.
It’s a little funny, in retrospect. How Katsuki will whisper filth into Shouto’s ear while tugging on his hair and tell him he was made for it, made to take cock, made to take Katsuki’s cock, but touch him like he’s precious, and Izuku cried the first time they made love and apologizes when he forces his head down and makes Shouto choke on it by accident because it feels really good I can’t help it, but knows how to get Shouto dirty, still.
Shouto’s not—
It feels silly. Too simple a worry for the shoulders of a prince, of a future king. Even if Shouto is debatably neither of those things anymore, birthright be damned.
But—
He wants them to know it. That they saved him. Taught him to love even the parts of himself that burned and those he once thought too cold to ever thaw with affection. That the sound of them bickering in the background about the best methods to surpass sickness and what their mothers used to do and if enchanted talismans are any good at all or if it’s just superstitious bullshit, Deku is Shouto’s favorite way to be lulled to sleep when his deceptively frail body grows too warm and unbearably sweaty and hurts all over.
And—
Now’s his chance to return the favor.
Katsuki jokingly refers to him as a war prize, sometimes. Says he’s meant to be looked at and taken care of and boasted about. Which is, of course, the nicest he’ll ever get about calling Shouto irredeemably useless at keeping himself alive without assistance.
But Shouto has been learning. Katsuki, hardly naturally patient even if he tries his best with gritted teeth when Shouto has been unwittingly tugging on his frayed nerves, doesn’t let him near his cooking space, and Izuku will eat charred food with barely a wince to sate those pesky needs of the body that he can’t surpass with sheer, unflinching stubbornness, so he’s hardly helpful there.
Shouto’s stubborn too, though. To a fault and disregarding his own needs, usually. But in the three months since they’ve settled here, a small town right at the edge of the barbarian lands, faraway enough that people respect Katsuki’s strength and not his title and they call Shouto’s looks striking but don’t tie them with the runaway prince of the largest kingdom seen in the last five hundred years, he’s had time to learn. To make himself useful in ways the situation demands.
Like—
Like pestering Ochako for cooking lessons and asking Momo to teach him how to make pomades for wound dressing and medicine that, with the right intent behind the enchantments uttered, could save their lives if they happened to need saving.
(Shouto hopes it doesn’t come to that. But if life has taught him one thing, it’s that it’s best to be prepared for the worst, to make a friend out of it.)
He’s adapting. He has always been good at it, but it’s a special kind of warmth to do it because you want to, and not because the only way you know how to feel comfortable is by making yourself fit in cramped spaces, reaping perverse joy out of the ache in your chest because hey, you’re alive, you’re thriving where others couldn’t dream of surviving, and yet—
It hurts.
(Shouto cried, the morning after. After the first time he was touched like a person instead of property—prized property, obviously, something to carve into living perfection, but property still—and Izuku’s cheery good morning withered on his tongue, and his face crumbled, and then Shouto had to swallow past his own embarrassment to explain that he was just. Still learning what love felt like after a lifetime of receiving it in controlled, sparse dosages.)
He doesn’t—
He doesn’t blame his father. Not really. Maybe all that ache wasn’t merited or written in the stars to make him stronger, to make him who he is, but—does it matter? Shouto is happier than he ever thought possible, content with pleasures as simple as watching a butterfly flutter its colorful wings, and the lines in his father’s brow will grow deeper, and his shoulders less adept at carrying the weight of his subjects’ hopes, and he will still not know how to gaze into a mirror without that familiar weight.
He’s a great man. Revered by many and feared by twice as many, probably. The common price of accomplished ambitions.
And while hatred is easy and well-worn and familiar, for all that it burned inside his chest for years and years and years, the heart is a funny thing, because with his burdens cast away, Shouto remembers the rest all too clearly. The man who first taught him how to use a sword to defend himself, who said you make me proud, son the first time Shouto won during one of their training sessions, even if it was mostly luck and tension-sharpened reflexes, who—
Who loved him, in the only way he knew how to love. By trying to make him strong, to make him worthy of his fate.
Well, fate is a funny thing too, then. Shapeless like water. Ever-changing. Shouto remembers an old saying he read in a dusty book in the castle library. He was maybe ten summers old, back then. Remembers asking Touya what it meant. That you can’t step in the same river twice, because the second time neither you nor the river are the same.
Touya laughed and ruffled his hair and summoned a small, brilliantly blue flame cupped in his palm, told Shouto to practice instead of worrying about silly things. Silly because what use is trying to understand the world when your job and your duty and your birthright are making it bend to your will? Making sure that will is sound enough to weigh the value of human life.
Shouto thinks he understands, now. Change is the only permanence, and it’s a good thing that growth is change, because the warmth in his chest keeps growing and growing and growing, and he’s made up his mind. He’s going to love them forever. Izuku and his sun-warmed freckles and Katsuki and his rough palms and how they both make space for him right in the middle like it’s as easy as remembering to breathe.
It wasn’t always like this, but Shouto intends to do his best to keep this particular flame everburning. He’s strong enough. He knows it. Is sure of it.
(Of course he is, with them by his side.)
…
There are, however—
Um. More mundane challenges. Challenges like opening a door while carrying a tray with bowls of homemade soup and ginger ale because, apparently, it’s useful at calming down upset stomachs.
Shouto wonders why people aren’t like that. Clearly labeled on their usefulness. It might be easier to navigate, that version of the world. But people are the ones doing the labeling, aren’t they?
And, of everything Shouto could be (prince, swordsman, runaway, war prize, useless, scared and lonely and—) he likes being Izuku and Katsuki’s best.
“Oi,” Katsuki says, voice even rougher than usual with his throat scratchy, “princess.”
“Shouto-kun,” says Izuku, looking vaguely miserable at his side in bed, a wet cloth over his warm forehead.
“I prepared food,” says Shouto, antsy about his questionable progress from times when he used to logically assume that all white cooking powders of similar consistency must surely be at least a bit interchangeable?
He winces.
Izuku, always ready to injure himself however the situation might demand it for Shouto’s happiness, tries to sit up a bit. “Oh good,” he says. “I’m starving.”
Katsuki sighs. “Did you at least remember to make mine spicier?”
“The texts on common illnesses I read through didn’t substantially back up any of your claims about an accelerated recovery rate,” Shouto points out.
Katsuki huffs. “Yeah, well,” he says, “those texts generally talk about humans. Magical humans, but still. I’m half dragon.”
“A quarter, technically.”
“Shut up, nerd.”
Shouto laughs. “Let him have it,” he says. “Your Kacchan wants to sound cool and impressive and beyond succumbing to such trivial things as the common cold.”
Izuku’s eyes widen in delight. “He’s, um, he’s your Kacchan too now, right?”
“Obviously,” Shouto says. “I made him his spicy death soup. We might as well get married.”
For some reason, the already-there sickly warmth on Katsuki’s handsome face grows firmer. “Oh, shut up,” he says, immediately followed by a fit of coughing. “You know what you are?”
Shouto arches a questioning eyebrow at him as he goes around the bed to leave the bowls of soup on their rickety side tables. “What am I, Katsuki?”
He’s heard a lot of answers, in the time since he’s met Katsuki. Spoiled. Clueless. A bastard. Even—even fuckin’ perfect and all mine, what are you going to do about it, your highness?
But now Katsuki says, “A goddamn tease,” and it stills Shouto with Izuku’s bowl still in hand.
“A tease?” he repeats. “But I have been informed this is commonly a word used when the person in question utilizes their sexual appeal in the eyes of others but doesn’t, ah, put out? I’m rather certain I put out. Potentially beyond what’s advisable considering how sore trying to take you both at once left me.”
“Oh heavens,” says Izuku, both palms over his face. Then, muffled through them—, “Kacchan, look at what you did! Now he won’t let us try that again.”
Katsuki tsks, bringing a spoonful of soup so red it looks vaguely worrying to his mouth to blow on it, “Didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “Course I didn’t, my dick’s gonna fall off because of you two one of these days. Mostly his spoiled pretty boy I-don’t-lift-a-finger-in-bed princely ways, though.”
“I cooked for you,” Shouto protests, mouth pursed.
“And you did a great job,” says Izuku encouragingly. Then, with a cheery sort of impending ominousness, “Didn’t he, Kacchan?”
“Yeah, yeah, he did,” says Katsuki. “Sorry for wanting to marry him.”
And—
“Marry?” Shouto repeats blankly. “But we’re already—”
What? We’ve made bigger promises than that? Than a flimsy ceremonial forever, as thin as the paper that vows get hastily scribbled on?
“That’s what that necklace means, idiot,” Katsuki hisses. “It’s a—a fucking promise. You know, a betrothal gift? C’mon, they must have taught you something in that giant castle.”
“But,” Izuku pipes up, “I want to marry him too. And—and you, Kacchan. Shouto just seems, uh, nicer to be married to. You know, because you and I were already—”
Predictably, Katsuki kicks him in the shin. “You deserved all the toys I stole from you when we were kids,” he says. “One pretty boy bats his eyelashes at you and suddenly your dick is hard and your common sense is gone.”
“I like his dick,” Shouto says, because he feels the need to clarify his stance in the matter. “Even when it’s soft. It’s kind of nice soft, actually. No immediate expectations.”
Katsuki’s laughter, when it takes even him by surprise, is decidedly a lot like a cackle. Shouto likes it. But maybe his issue is poor taste, because he tends to like all of Katsuki’s more gremlin-adjacent behaviors. “See?” he says. “He’s already complaining about a hard dick, all he needs to be a proper wife is one of those cute dresses with the frills.”
Shouto’s cheeks grow warm. There’s something comforting about picturing it, even if making a relatively edible bowl of soup for his sick partners is currently the pinnacle of his housewife abilities. Waiting for Izuku to come home from his newest self-imposed quest to track down a rare book while Katsuki carefully takes off his shoes by the door on a rainy evening so he won’t track mud into the house and says—well, maybe not honey, I’m home, because he would most likely rather die, but—
Something simple. Something like people suck, halfie or you’re not gonna believe this, sweetheart or maybe even I missed you today.
And then Izuku could maybe walk in on them bickering sat at the dinner table and kiss Katsuki’s cheek and Shouto’s forehead and ramble about how this time the paper was in perfectly preserved condition, and he even got a discount from the original owner, and isn’t that cool, Shouto-kun? with those bright stars shining in his wide eyes like always.
(Maybe—
Maybe Izuku’s the reason Shouto learned to love the night sky. Because when he looks at Izuku it feels like home.)
Shouto coughs. “We could do it,” he says tentatively. “Ceremonially, of course, I doubt anyone would legally wed someone who can’t even provide his full name, let alone an unprecedented three people who all want—you know.”
Izuku chooses this precise moment to loudly blow his nose into his handkerchief.
Shouto winces in sympathy.
“Oh,” he says, “we really get to marry you?” Apparently energized by the sheer flood of excitement, he grabs Katsuki by the forearm. “Kacchan. Kacchan, we really get to marry him.”
“Damn nerd,” says Katsuki, but his mouth twitches.
“But,” Shouto says firmly, “if we get married, I intend to take my wifely duties seriously. You’ll have to take better care of yourselves than this, or I’ll be very upset.”
Katsuki chokes on a spoonful of soup. “Holy shit,” he says, “he’s serious.”
Shouto tilts his head to the side in question. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve always been very diligent about my duties. So I’ll just have to apply that same seriousness to, uh, to engaging with hard dicks and procuring one of those frilly dresses Bakugou seems so preoccupied with. Isn’t that fair?”
“Shouto,” says Izuku solemnly, “I don’t know about Kacchan, but if you wear a dress, you’ll definitely have at least one hard dick around to, you know, engage with. Probably always. Like, at all times. Honestly not sure it’ll ever go soft again no matter how much or how diligently you touch it.”
“That’s sweet, Izuku.”
Katsuki makes a particularly affronted sound. “That’s sweet?” he asks. “I’m real sweet to you, and you just tell me to try harder.”
Which—
Is true, a little bit. But Shouto doesn’t think it’s unfair treatment as much as being considerate. Because loving two people the exact same amount doesn’t necessarily mean loving them the exact same way.
Izuku needs the encouragement, the assurance that he’s doing well. Shouto honestly doesn’t understand why Katsuki’s acting like it’s a hard concept to grasp when he’s the one who—well, he makes Izuku cry a lot in bed. Not—not even because he’s being deliberately mean. It’s fun to watch. How he’ll whisper something sweet in a low voice while nipping at Izuku’s earlobe or kissing his neck. How Izuku leaves worse scratches on Katsuki’s back when he’s fucking him than when he’s getting fucked, because he gets so overwhelmed and then Shouto has to take his teary face between both palms and kiss him slow while Katsuki huffs about useless nerds and pretends he’s above such things as accepting a small pause in getting fucked to watch his two favorite people kiss. (He’s admitted that. Without any alcohol in his system, even. That Shouto and Izuku are his favorites.)
And—
It’s different, when Izuku’s not there. Katsuki has his softer bits too. But he likes the chase. Likes remembering he earned what he has.
Shouto likes being chased, too. It used to embarrass him, in the beginning. Back when the touching was all trembling hands and eager mouths and being someone else’s still meant a chain around his neck as opposed to belonging, choosing someone to hand your mushy heart to.
Katsuki’s good at it, though. At being what Shouto needs. They argue more. A lot more. Maybe it’s just Izuku’s chronic incapability to refrain from avoiding conflict in any and every way he can think of, but having someone like Katsuki on the other end is a catharsis. Because—
Shouto does get caught up in his own head a lot. Touya-nii used to say he was like mom, before he ran off to search his own fate and left Shouto there in a castle too big at barely twelve years of age surrounded by people who tried, but could never understand. That he needed to redirect all that stray energy into something productive, because the intent behind the magic always matters. Because you know your magic, but it knows you too. Comes from the heart. And a turbulent heart does not a strong caster make. Or something like that.
So Katsuki is good. So Shouto needs it, sometimes. Arguing. Slamming doors and banging cabinets and saying the right thing to get under his skin, just enough to poke at the soft bits between Katsuki’s ribs. And then Katsuki will look openly wounded for maybe three whole seconds before the edge of his mouth curls up and he says something like oh, sweetheart, and—
That’s the bit Shouto still gets embarrassed about. That he likes it better like that. When Katsuki holds him down and tugs on his hair and stretches him just enough. Just enough to feel the stretch and the fullness along with the weight of him pressed along Shouto’s back, with his voice in Shouto’s ear managing to sound distinctly disappointed past the layer of vague disinterest while telling him what would your father say, princess? If he knew you spread your legs like a whore? But I don’t even need to pay you.
And the shame burns and burns and burns until—it doesn’t anymore, and everything is just light and airy and good and unimportant beyond Katsuki filling him up, up, up.
Sometimes—sometimes, when Shouto pushes too hard, he gets really mean. Makes Shouto get on his knees and fucks his mouth until tears run down his flushed face only to wipe them away with too much gentleness and cup his chin before whispering this is all you’re good for, baby into his mouth, tongue dipping inside like tasting himself on Shouto is all he could ever want.
He makes up for it, after. Runs gentle hands over the marks he left on Shouto and stops being so tense when Shouto meets his apologies with the assurance that he needed it, that it helped, that Katsuki did well.
So.
Shouto smiles. “You like it,” he says. “Putting in the extra effort. Don’t you, Katsuki?”
Katsuki huffs. “Wouldn’t put up with you if I didn’t,” he says. “Spoiled royal brat.”
“Aren’t you technically royalty too, Kacchan?”
“Shut up,” Katsuki hisses. “It’s not—it’s just a stupid title where I’m from. Means you won enough battles. Doesn’t come with a fancy castle and lifelong responsibility.”
Shouto hums. “The fancy castle was nice,” he admits. “I knew all the secluded spots where you could—wait. That’s not the kind of thing you share with current partners, is it?”
“Ooh,” says Izuku. “Did you like anyone?”
“No,” Shouto says. “It wasn’t anything like that. I just—my father would host these balls for me and my siblings to meet the kind of people who were acceptable to pursue further, if we felt inclined to, and I—well, I always felt bad turning them down so I—kind of set them up? And then I’d point them to spots where they wouldn’t be disturbed if they wanted to, uh, get to know one another better. So I did possess the kind of knowledge that would otherwise imply my morals were somewhat questionable.”
“Kacchan,” says Izuku excitedly. “Shouto set people up. That’s so cute. He’s so cute. I changed my mind. I’m marrying him and you can just. Wear nice clothes and stand there. I’ll even let you object if it makes you feel better.”
“Yeah?” Katsuki snorts. “Object? On the basis of what? Making him come harder than you do?”
“But I like it when Izuku makes me come,” Shouto interjects. “He always tells me he loves me right after.”
“See?” says Izuku proudly. “Unless you start being sweeter, you can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“Spoiled brat still needs to say yes,” Katsuki points out. “No one’s marrying him unless he wants it. Can’t even get him out of bed in the morning without the right incentive.”
“Mm,” Shouto says, “you’re very efficient. Getting my dick sucked is quite nice as far as preparations to brave an unpleasant morning go.”
“Oh my god,” says Katsuki with a noticeable degree of desperation. “You gonna marry us, or do I need to spank you?”
Just to be difficult, Shouto purses his mouth and pretends to consider it. “Okay,” he says, just when Katsuki is starting to turn vaguely purple with impatience, and Izuku looks like he might buzz out of his skin. “I’ll marry you if I get to wear a pretty dress. Deal?”
“Deal,” Katsuki says. “Oh my god, fuckin’—deal.”
Izuku, predictably and endearingly, tries to cheer with a sore throat.
“Does it matter?” Shouto asks.
“Does what matter, Shouto-kun?”
“That I won’t be pure and untouched on our wedding night. You know, since we have already tried—almost everything?”
“Almost everything,” Katsuki repeats incredulously. “What? You got a list stashed somewhere?”
Shouto shrugs. “Just in my head,” he says. “Sometimes I wonder if I like something because I like it or because I’m doing with you two.”
“Oh,” says Izuku, like he’s realized something for himself. “There’s a difference?”
Shouto’s nose scrunches. “I think?” he says. “I wouldn’t know, I’ve never—I wasn’t exactly, um, experienced before you two.”
Katsuki laughs. It’s not mean, exactly. “Neither were we, pretty boy. I think it showed when Deku came as soon as he put it in.”
“Hey,” says Izuku. “I knew that was why you let me go first.”
Katsuki tsks. “Finish your soup. Shouto worked hard on it.”
It doesn’t—
It doesn’t sound so bad, spending forever trying to stifle a smile watching them bicker like this. Spending forever like this. Trying his best for the two people he loves most. (And they love him back. Isn’t that great?)
“Do you think Momo will make me a dress?”
…
Momo, it turns out, will not only make him a dress, but will also insist on upholding any and all wedding traditions throughout history that she deems important enough. (Shouto suspects important is a placeholder for words she thinks are too uncouth to speak aloud. Words like fun and silly and—well. Whichever one’s most apt for how she's currently applying something that glitters to his eyelids.)
“You’re so pretty,” she says. “You’ll look amazing in a dress.”
“If you make it, I’m sure,” Shouto says. Her craftsmanship is unmatched, and she likes him enough that she refuses to charge him for anything. So far, deciding to get married has only had benefits for him.
Momo tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. “Don’t sell yourself short, Shouto-san. No artist has ever been inspired without a muse.”
That’s—
A nice sentiment, even if Shouto hardly sees himself as worthy of providing inspiration for something as delicate as what Momo does. Hardly beautiful in that way that things light and good are. Untouched by pain. But—
It’s nice, to know that nothing gets made if you don’t love it enough. That he gets to be loved. To be made real through other people’s hands on him. Momo gently tucking hair behind his ear and Katsuki putting a comforting hand on his knee and Izuku pressing his rough, worry-bitten lips tentatively (tenderly) to the edge of his scar, and—
There are so many different ways to be loved, and each day is a new opportunity to discover more. Gently, without the world demanding anything in return. Isn’t that a revelation?
“Yes,” Shouto says. “I suppose you do need to experience beauty in order to replicate it.”
Momo shakes her head. “Sometimes you just make it from scratch,” she says. “You know, like you did.”
And—
Did he?
Shouto doesn’t think so. Doesn’t think anything good can come from hollowness, from an absolute absence of warmth. And he had that. Through every storm, he had warmth. His mother’s hands and his sister’s smiles and Touya-nii saying that’s it, Shouto, his mouth curled up like he meant you did well the first time Shouto got his fire warm enough to briefly flicker blue.
So. “I had help,” he says. “Like right now.”
…
Izuku likes the dress. (He cries.) Katsuki likes it too. (He promises to take it off Shouto himself once the ceremony ends.)
Shouto—
Well, he didn’t tell Izuku so he wouldn’t cry more and potentially flood the whole forest, but. He cried too. Just a little. A few tears that Ochako cooed over while Momo carefully dabbed at the corners of Shouto’s eyes so the makeup wouldn’t smudge before the people meant to enjoy him being Ethereal and Beautiful on his wedding day had gotten a chance to.
Impossibly, Shouto does feel ethereal and beautiful. Gets it, finally. Why people do these things. That sometimes happiness can be so vast and run so deep you need to share it so it doesn’t overflow, so you’re not flooded with too much good.
Momo outdid herself. The dress looks like a bit of sky. Light blue, soft and flowy. Shouto has the persistent impulse to twirl in it. Maybe he’ll even let Katsuki or Izuku carry him to bed. Whichever one is more persistent about it.
“You look happy,” says Momo. “That’s good.”
It might genuinely be the first time in Shouto’s whole life—barring maybe when he was a very small child—where excitement feels like a physical thing. About to burst from his chest like magic does if you coil it tightly enough. Bright and powerful and unapologetic about being precisely what it is.
“I am happy,” says Shouto. Then, scared by how small and new the admission feels on his clumsy tongue, “That’s okay, right? Even if there’s still missing bits?”
Momo takes his hand, squeezes tightly. “Yes,” she says, “that’s okay.”
Shouto believes her, right then. That happiness can be a journey instead of a goal. So he lets her hold his hand for a bit more, down the makeshift aisle and all the way to—well, the rest of his life, hopefully. The specifics of it probably involving a lot of talk about rare books on esoteric magic and a larger than ideal amount of spicy food. That, and a satisfactory quantity of earth-shattering orgasms.
(But he probably shouldn’t be thinking about that while his best friend walks him down the aisle, symbolically or not. Or maybe—
Maybe if he can’t wait to fuck his brand new husbands, it’s a good thing? Auspicious for the longevity of their commitment to each other? Because surely if they’re busy making each come, then they won’t have as much time to argue?)
“Hi,” says Izuku. He’s teary-eyed, still. “You’re so pretty. Kacchan, he’s so pretty.”
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to say something special during a wedding, Deku,” says Katsuki. “Not, you know, the kind of shit you tell him three times on a slow day.”
And—
That’s true, isn’t it? Shouto’s so openly appreciated, so well-loved that it’s easy to forget how much space inside his chest all that affection has filled. That—
He gets lonely with an empty bed, without warmth pressed along his back, without arms wrapped around his waist, without careful touch holding him together.
“It’s okay,” Shouto says. “He should say whatever he wants to. You should too. Can’t hurt. I’ve heard it all already.”
Everything from fuck off, halfie, to—
“I love you, Shouto.”
Oh. Well—
“That’s sweet,” Shouto says, before leaning in to peck his cheeks. “You’re sweet.”
“Oh, shut up,” says Katsuki, face visibly redder.
…
Ochako leads the ceremony. It’s mostly the usual promises about holding on to each other through the good and the bad, but there’s also—
The magic bit. Because magic is about intent, and the intent here is that your life is something to be shared. Not halved, but made more whole.
Izuku’s magic feels like spring rain slipping off the skin. Katsuki’s magic isn’t like fire, like burning and ash. Nothing like Shouto’s own, unsteady unless the chill of ice balances it. It’s just—warmth. The specific comfort that comes with knowing you’re safe where everyone else would be in danger. Like—god, Katsuki would detest the comparison, but. Like getting a scowling dog to trust you enough to eat from your palm.
Shouto wonders what his own magic feels like to them. If it’s too much. Too revealing. They’ve seen him bare, they’ve had him desperate, they know his anger and his stubbornness, but they haven’t—they haven’t felt it.
Magic is only a honed manifestation of the user’s natural proclivities. Shouto was meant for it, made to either burn or freeze solid. Both. The steady middle ground. He likes to think that. That the most volatile parts of him cancel each other out.
And—
“Wow,” says Izuku.
“This isn’t half bad, Shou.”
—maybe it’s true. Even if it’s only ceremonial. Intent. It’s still about intent. And if his magic feels good to them, feels right, then—
To have and to hold might be the right way to put it, who knows?
…
“Finally,” says Katsuki. “If one more person came up to us, I was going to blow something up.”
“You liked it,” Izuku tells him. “Doesn’t hurt to admit that once in a while.”
“I like you two,” Katsuki protests. “I can admit that just fine.”
“Didn’t you like Shouto-san and his pretty dress?” Izuku asks pointedly. Shouto almost forgets that, sometimes. How much of a brat he can be behind the soft, unassuming features. How little he fears playing with fire. Which—
Is a good thing for both of them, if they’re being honest.
Katsuki sighs. “He’s been pulling this shit since the reception,” he says. “Each time someone pulled you away he’d start off with fucking plausible deniability and then suddenly it was all Kacchan, you could fuck him bent over the table, bet he’s still loose from last night, you could slip right in.”
Shouto’s mouth twitches. “You could have,” he admits. “It’s nice, being full. Probably not what most of our guests would consider tasteful, though.”
“Kacchan would like it,” Izuku says. “Not—not other people looking but. You know, staking his claim.”
“You can do that now,” Shouto says. “I, uh, insisted against the complicated buttons for personal reasons.”
Katsuki looks somewhere between painfully turned on and painfully exhausted. Which, if they’re being honest, is what Shouto strives for on a good day.
Because—
It’s easy, with them. As easy as wrapping both arms around Katsuki’s neck and whispering, “Do you want to be a daddy?” and then immediately having to wince and amend, “No, not like that. I’ve been—I was thinking, and I know it would potentially be tough on the body, but the spells exist, and—I think I’d like it. Having kids around. Having kids with you. Um, you and Izuku.”
“Oh,” says Izuku emphatically, eyes already glistening with a fountain of unshed tears. “You trust us that much?”
“Of course I do,” Shouto begins, only to be interrupted by Katsuki veritably growling.
“Deku,” he says. “I’m gonna fuck him pregnant.”
It is, of course, futile to point out that’s not currently possible despite the potential bewitching effects of a pretty dress. (Maybe it’s not just the dress, though? Maybe it’s—)
So Shouto arches an eyebrow, and asks, “What about you. Izuku? Do you want to fuck me pregnant? Stuff my cunt full?”
It’s worth the slightly uncomfortable warmth that blooms on his cheeks for the way Izuku goes tomato red and Katsuki cackles.
“Come to bed, sweetheart,” he says then, too soft. “The wedding night is special. Don’t worry, we’ll show you.”
“Yeah,” Izuku says, like they haven’t done this a thousand times (okay, maybe a little less) before. “We will.”
Shouto loves them. Has he mentioned that yet? That if his fate is written in the stars unalterably, or if it’s something you craft, he’s glad anyway? Happy to have this? To have them.
“You’re good husbands,” he says. “I don’t think I’ll regret this.”
(He won’t.)