plumper than life

You are so relieved to be free of his clutches that there is no time to grieve the loss. This is your chance. With or without your pelt you are a selkie, and the ocean always welcomes her children home. 

Guided by the tides' tumultuous song you sprint through the woods, treeline funnelling out on a plateau to reveal the edge of the cliff. You take a staggered breath, wincing at the pain in your chest. Now your momentum has slowed to a stop, the fatigue catches up with you. An ache seeps through your legs and your knees threaten to buckle as you shiver. 

This is it, you think. You watch the waves below roll like dark ribbon. Steeling your resolve you spread your arms as far as they go, until the sinew holding your back pulls taut. Something acrid sinks in your gut and you feel distinctly ill. It takes all of your willpower to deny the fear pounding in your body as you step forward. 

The wind billowed around you, swaying your human form towards the edge. Faux wings spread and a roar pushed to the limits of your small voice, sound whipped from your mouth and cast far asea. Eyes squeezed shut, you tip into the oncoming depths trusting your mother will catch you. 

The sound is cacophonous. Not even your pulse can be heard over the waves; elemental fingers apply sharp pressure to the north and south of your body, shaping flesh until you're nothing but a pebble caught in gravity's path.

If you should concentrate you’d hear a frantic shout through the white noise. And between the milliseconds left before bone collides with the tide, a large clawed foot encircles your forearm. A rush of air swells in your lungs as you try to scream, the abrupt disruption of your freefall forcing your shoulder from its socket, talons tearing through capillaries as if your skin were wet paper. 

Suddenly, you’re a sail without a mast, rippling over the open ocean. Dark and cloudless, not a speck on the surface. The spray is icy against your ankles, a million papercut kisses. In the mirage, you can see fleeting reflections. The silhouette of a dragon mid-flight. 

You’ve no memory of hitting the sand or being carried along the shoreline. Your consciousness dips and peaks. The few times you come to are when your body is being jostled, a blurred figure looming above and unrecognisable. In one breath they are washing your wounds with water poured from a wineskin, the next you are flinching away from salve covered fingers as they poke and prod to stem the bleeding.

Warmth is the first thing on your mind as you wake. With a sudden gasp for air, all the exhilaration and adrenaline hits you as if your soul had been caught, suspended in that moment. Phantom touches skim the length of your spine and all at once you are overwhelmingly aware of your body. 

The sharp noise startles a figure in your periphery. 

“Back in the land of the living, huh?” 

A broad, bare chested man sits at your bedside with his arms crossed tight and pillowed in his lap. There’s a single delicate braid by his ear, longer than his short-spiked hair and dangled loosely beneath his jaw. You’d find him beautiful if not for the searing glare. 

“That was a fucking stupid thing you did back there,” he snarls. Brusque and overfamiliar. When you don’t respond he continues, “What’ve you got to say for yourself?”

You shrink back. 

There’s an awful pinch in his brow. Concern seems to be superseding what was a show of honest anger. Dimly lit by a few oil lamps, from what you can ascertain there is no one else in the room but you two. Inhaling the residuals of healing magic you find that your throat is unbearably dry, tongue stuck to the back of your teeth. How long have you been asleep?

You couldn’t find a voice to ask, exhaling a pathetic whine. The silence provides a window of opportunity for him to further scold you yet he doesn’t take it, fuming as he recedes into his chair. “Don’t need to act so fucking skittish. M’not here to hurt you,” he exhales hard through his nose, reaches out and leaves his hand upturned on the edge of the bed. “Alright?” 

Something draws you to this stranger. Inexorable, like the pull of the tide. You accept his proffered palm and it feels unsettlingly familiar. The skin is rough, battle worn and hot. Slowly, your fingers intertwine, and you see fair hair on the back of his knuckles. 

Disorientation, loss and anxiety err on the edge of your consciousness. The lamp above his head gives him a warm hued crown, highlighting strands of gold. You can feel sleep weighing on your eyelids but you don’t yet want to look away. “Whatever,” his mouth sets into a frown. “Get some more rest or I’ll knock you out myself”.

When you come to the sun has risen and filters into the room in thin streams of light. Dust fairies dance around the bed. You squint as your vision sharpens, a dull throb reverberating through your skull. 

You look at your body first, arm well bandaged and the rest of you bruised tender like an old peach. The wounds throb in time with your pulse when you shift, reminding you that they’re there as your thin clothing brushes against them with little movement. All you can remember is falling. How the waves had careened up the cliff side to catch you, only to have you snatched out of reach once again. 

Wherever you are now it is obviously far from your Lord’s grasp. He has never bothered to take you to a healer. You are in a private office, tucked into a bed with soft blue sheets. The shelves are stocked with various medicines, salves, and analgesics. Herbs and chopped petals are stuffed in glass jars labelled with messy penmanship you can’t decipher. A metronome sits on the nearby wooden desk, ticking back and forth, filling the silence until the door is pushed open. 

Whoever enters is trying to be careful. You can tell by how slowly they turn the handle and pause at every little complaint the hinges give. Their hair is green, richer than the later weeks in spring, with loose waves that bounce as they move. You watch wearily while they move through the space, humming under their breath and picking up a notebook from one of the desk drawers. 

The healer, you presume, pinches the end ball on the metronome and brings it to a stand still. He hushes it as though it were an unruly child before turning on his heels toward you—

And immediately screeching as your eyes meet. 

Loud enough for the entire country to hear, his abrupt shout seems to alert others in the building, causing a gaggle of people to burst their way into the room. A metallic tang fills your senses; magic ready, the man that sat brutish yet kind at your bedside wields explosive sparks in the palm of his hands, adorning chains with carved talons and beads and asymmetrical armour strapped to his left bicep beneath a red fur lined cloak. 

“What is it, Deku?!” 

You offer wordless gratitude to the final dregs of sedatives in your system. You barely flinch at the hostility in his voice, time seemingly slowed as your gaze drags to the companions at his back. First a woman doused in pink. And like the sun, her face glows the rich ochre of dawn, framed by silky salmon toned curls. There are horns protruding from the top of her head, bending like the junction of a tree branch. 

Beside her is a large man. Red, red, red. Bright eyes split with a reptilian slitted pupil. Crimson hair styled into sharp spikes. He’s built like a warrior, tall enough to swallow most of the doorway, yet you feel no true fear when you look at him. Something innate in your gut tells you this is a kindred spirit. Energies aligned, you think he must be a shifter of some kind too. He locks onto you first, his alarmed expression smoothing into a wide toothed grin. 

Last are two men who have managed to tumble to the floor amidst their rush to get into the room. Distinct gold bangs with a symbol of lightning, pale faced, an undercurrent of electricity thrumming below his skin. Dark shoulder length hair, white spools of rope wrapped around the crook of his elbow, grappling hook in hand and ready to strike. 

“Sorry, Kacchan!” the healer, Deku, spluttered. He holds his hands up in surrender, shaking them in a placating motion. “Nothing, it’s nothing! All of you please calm down!” 

Deku is quite the unfortunate name, you think. At his insistence the group lower their defenses and slump forward, relieved. All but ‘Kacchan’, who only raises his hackles further. 

“Don’t fuckin’ scream like that if it’s nothing,” his upper lip curls to bear his teeth, moving fluidly as his group slinks past him to stand by your bed. “I damn near blew up the building”. 

Distantly, “I couldn’t help it…!”

The frame jostles, mattress dipping as it takes on the weight of another. Head turned into the pillow you blink dazedly at the sharp toothed shifter. Propping his chin in his hand, his elbows are braced next to your thigh. “Hi. I’m Kirishima,” he chirped, unmoving as his friends wrapped themselves around him to get a look at you, all repeating his jovial greeting with introductions of their own. 

“…Hello,” you rasp. The word grates the inside of your throat and tears well in your eyes as you fight the urge to cough. “Where am…?”

“Back up, losers,” ‘Kacchan’ forces his way to your bedside, shoving the group aside. There’s that odd sensation again as you stare up at him. Strong jaw clenched with eyes narrowed and blazing; sliding to where you lay, waning briefly. “Have some manners”. 

“Since when have you cared about manners,” the pink woman, Mina, bemoans. 

“Shut it!” 

Deku’s nervous disposition dissipates quickly and he ambles to the opposite side of your bed, his notebook flipped open to a page covered in incomprehensible scrawl. While the others squabble he leans forward and flashes a trembly smile. 

“Hi! I’m Midoriya Izuku, the one that fixed you up,” Midoriya—not Deku—lowers his voice into a more soothing tone. “It’s good to see you awake. Do you think you could tell me your name?”

You remember your name. Yours. The one given to you before human hands stole your hide. Midroiya’s pen scratches at the parchment as you recite it, his lips silently repeating it. “Great! Thank you. Now can I ask, how are you feeling?” he asks, eyes darting across your face, your body, scanning the bandages wrapped around your arm. “Any pain? Nausea? Loss of vision? Numbness in your limbs? Hallucinations?”

“Slow down, nerd,” Bakugo grunts. 

Midoriya immediately appears sheepish, “I’m sorry”. 

“It’s okay,” you say. “My mouth is dry and my arm hurts but I’m— okay, I think”. 

“That’s my bad,” Kirishima speaks up from his place next to Bakugo, lifting a hand. Despite their difference in stature it was clear who led the charge and who fell in line. “I was rushing so I wasn’t very careful when I caught you”. 

Your first thought is that he must have been the dragon. Your second thought is, ah, right. You had tried to fling yourself off the cliff. 

As though he’d read your mind, Bakugo scoffs. “Not much choice when you’re saving someone that’s trying to kill themselves”. 

Overlapping objections ring loud in your ears. “Bro, not cool,” Kirishima groans, similar sentiments sent loud and fast from the rest of his group. 

“I wasn’t trying to—” your half lie is halted by the seething look Bakugo turns to you. Same as before, beneath it all is worry and confusion, unblinking as though you might disappear between the seconds. “I just wanted to go home,” you confess weakly, tethered by the restless twisting of your fingers into the linen. 

“Home?” the electric blonde, Kaminari, murmurs. 

Tension returns to your limbs, instinctively bracing for the greed you have learned to expect. You may get away with evading questions now, but the healer—if he’s worth his salt—would already know what you are. 

“I’m a selkie,” hesitance bleeds into your tone, the confession coming quiet and small. Your chin dips as you swallow, canines sinking into your inner cheek. “The Lord whose castle you raided stole my pelt and kept me hostage for months. I figured it was long gone, so as soon as the attack gave me an opening I ran”.

The atmosphere is stifling. Silence befalls the group, equally stunned. Midoriya is the only one that does not react, kind eyes closely observing you.

A litany of emotions weave through Bakugo’s face as you speak. Disbelief, anger, regret. “Sick bastards,” he mutters heatedly from behind gritted teeth. 

A head of pink hair rests by your knee. You’re taken aback by how informally they all behave towards you. “You still would have died though,” she says, bottom lip jutted, sadness colouring her features. 

“I would have become seafoam,” you rectify passively. “It doesn’t mean death, not to my kind. It’s a sort of rebirth. My pelt is with the ashes now. I thought… it was my only option”. 

“Wait. It got burned up in the fire?!” Kirishima straightens worriedly, eyes wide and apologetic. His fingers twitch as though he wanted to reach for you but thinks the better of it. 

“Surely. I mean, I assume it was,” your mouth thins into a strained, rueful smile. “He kept it in the vault with all his other treasures. I watched his quarters go up in flames”. 

Recognition passes over Bakugo’s expression but Midoriya is already stepping forward with his outstretched hands waving dismissively. “Okay, guys! No more stressing my, uh… patient,” he says, allowing some strength into his instruction. “Give us some space. You can ask more questions later. Please?”

Your new guests surrender with a chorus of groans. Bakugo squints pointedly at you over his shoulder as Sero ushers him out into the hallway. You feel rooted by its significance somehow. An unspoken instruction that you can’t decipher. 

“Are you really feeling okay? No wooziness?”

Drawn to the gentle cadence your gaze meets Midoriya’s. He has set the notebook back onto his desk and rolled up his cuffs. “I’m okay,” you reply after a moment of consideration. “Thank you. You fixed me up, right?” 

Rubbing at his nape, Midoriya shoots you a sheepish grin. “To the best of my ability, yeah,” he says. “I’m just a researcher and I don’t have an affinity for healing magic, but Kacchan insisted that I help”. 

“You’re not a healer?” it’s then that you notice how untraditional his dress is for a doctor. A bishop sleeved shirt, six buttoned green waistcoat and dark pants. There’s a belt strapped tight around his hips, small satchels hooked into the leather, and an empty waist sheath clearly meant for a sword. “Ah. You really aren’t a healer,” you repeat blithely. 

Midoriya giggles, nervous. “No— I mean, this is my office! And I guess I am an apothecary of sorts, but that’s only a small part of what I do,” he explains, gesturing to his various  shelves and cabinets. “Kacchan could’ve taken you to the next town over on Kirishima’s back but I think he was panicking— oh, please don’t tell him I said that. He just doesn’t trust other people much. So you got shafted with me”. 

When he leans down to untuck your bedsheets you bend your unharmed arm, propping your upper body onto your elbow and working in sync with him as he fluffs the pillows behind your back. Sat upright you hold your bandages out to him. “Thank you,” he mumbles, delicate as he slides his hand around your forearm, patting around his belt and satchels with the other. 

Finding a small pair of scissors he tucks it beneath the top of the bandage and carefully cuts down the length of your arm. Your chest constricts as the inflamed skin is slowly revealed to the tepid air. There are ribbons of sutures running from your inner elbow to your wrist, puckered but thin and largely healed, sinew clumsily fused together. 

“Sorry about my poor suturing,” Midoriya says as he overturns your arm in his palm, checking from root to stem. “Everything looks good, though. No infection or fever,” he continues muttering, thumb pressed to the shadow beneath his lip. “Your immune response was pretty quick. I wonder if it has something to do with your selkie blood…”

You barely register his apology, stuck on the jagged scar tissue decorating his own hand. The cautious call of your name breaks your reverie. Midoriya’s brow is furrowed, eyes wide in genuine concern that wanes when you try to smile at him. “Got lost in my head there, sorry”. 

“I get it,” he breathes, glancing over to the largest cabinet in the room. Reaching the ceiling, stained dark wood, and looks slightly out of place alongside his other furniture. Misaligned, you realise. It is on four small wheels and placed an inch away from the wall. Odd. 

You watch Midoriya stroll over with a bounce in his step. His biceps strain under the pale sleeve fabric as he grabs either side of his cabinet and pulls. The wheels squeak and it rolls away with some exertion to uncover a hidden door. Dust cascades through the air; he coughs into his shoulder, shaking out his hair. 

“I’ve got a private washroom through here if you’d like to use it,” he explains after catching your questioning frown. The room is barely bigger than a closet. There’s a toilet, a tiny sink, and a tub that, given the width and depth, would require you to sit with your knees beneath your chin. A mere speck compared to home. If you closed your eyes and concentrated, maybe you could pretend you were resting in a tide pool along the shallows of a beach. 

You stand for the first time in who knows how long. An uncomfortable prickling sensation crawls the length of your legs as the phantom turns solid and blood rushes to your toes. You grip at your bare thighs where the hem of your robe falls, flesh bursting through the gaps between your fingers, and you gasp through the pain. It’s as if you’re growing a new limb all together. 

“Careful,” Midoriya murmurs kindly, hovering at your side in case you need assistance. You hobble over to the washroom, each step like treading on seaglass. He moves away once he is happy with your progress. 

“It’ll take a while to warm up,” he warns. “But there are various medicinal soaps and salts under the sink that I’ve made, so you’re free to use them”. 

The door is closed behind you. 

Left to your own devices the first thing you do is fill the tub with water. You find that the bathroom has no lamp, illuminated only by the cool light flooding in from the main room. His warning had not been exaggeration — fingertips touching the bottom of the basin, the water comes slowly and remains cold up until your second knuckle. Then it warms, warmer than the sea, and with no salt at all. 

Bare knees against the floor and skin pimpling under the thin robes, your breaths come quick, stumbling over the erratic jumping of your diaphragm. Indentations between each tile press uncomfortably into your skin, the initial pain dulling into numbness as you sit back on your heels. Beneath the sink behind you are the medicinal soaps and salts. You delicately take a small pot, squinting to decipher the handwritten labels in the dark. 

Pulling back one of the lids you’re overwhelmed by an unfamiliar floral aroma. Inside are rocks— tiny, tiny pink rocks, with dried white petals. You pinch some with your already damp fingers, feeling as they immediately dissolve in the moisture, and sprinkle them into your bathwater. 

Once full enough, you strip yourself of the robe and fold it neatly, left by the closed doorway. The cold air prickles, your nipples pebbling and the soft hair across your body standing on end, but the water is hot. 

You dip your foot in and breathe a sigh of relief as the temperature suffused through your skin, swaddling you in warmth. You submerge yourself completely. As suspected the space is remarkably cramped. Your legs are bent, tucked against your chest with knees below your chin, arms folded around your shins to keep yourself together. 

Enclosed in four walls again, shrouded in little to no light, you feel lonely. The type of quiet that makes you whisper. Your mind drifts to the stranger that had saved you, wondering where you might’ve met him before. You smile ruefully, cupping the scented water between your hands. He’s strong for a human. Imposing, you muse, staring back at the reflection held in your palms. Not only in his stature, but even his presence is difficult to ignore. 

You bathe, scrub away the blood and grime until you’re a flesh wound. The temperature is cold by the time you’ve turned focus to your fingernails, neurotically picking away the flecks of blood dried beneath them. Drain the murky water, refill, repeat. No matter how harshly you pinch and pull, the feeling of being dirty does not go away, but you stay in the water at least until you feel like yourself again.

The towel you find is coarse to the touch. Sitting in the heated water has tended well to the knots in your muscles. Ungainly as you re-enter Midoriya’s empty office, you flop back onto the freshly made sheets with little guilt. You sit there for a while and let the air dry your body. 

There is a pile of spare clothes on the end of the bed; neatly folded shirts, tunics, skirts and pants. You throw on a sleeved shirt and come across a simple beige kirtle as you parse through, the skirt falling just above the ankle, delicately sewn buttons lining the back. The fabric is very soft, though fitting and naturally cutting at the waist. 

After putting on some thick knitted socks and a pair of hardy brown boots left by the desk you run both hands down your sides and spin on your heel, causing the free flowing skirt to plume. Satisfied, you slip out the door and creep toward the gathering voices at the far end of the hall. Phantom fingertips walk the length of your spine. Odd, but you put it down to the apprehension churning in your stomach. Gradually you are able to make out what they’re saying. 

“Get your filthy hands off it,” Bakugo growls venomously. 

“I just wanna feel,” another whines. You recognise it to be Kaminari. “Why is Kacchan the only one allowed to touch it?”

“Stop calling me that, fucker!”

You round the corner and the bickering halts with a harsh shushing sound. They’re all in the centre of a cramped lobby, few chairs lining the walls, woven tapestry hung from the ceilings. Kirishima stands in front of you wearing a pleased grin, comically large. The armoured plates on his naked shoulders clink as he moves. “Hey! You clean up nice,” he tells you. “Feeling better?” 

“Much better,” you affirm, perking up at his sincerity. “I’m grateful to you all for watching over me”. 

“Our Bakugo did most of the work, really. Got a little protective,” Mina, the one kissed by dusk, leans into your space with her plump mouth curled into a smile. The thin gold jewellery hung from her lobe to ear cuff glints in the late afternoon light. “Barely let us in the room”. 

“Cause you idiots are too loud,” Bakugo grumbles, stepping forward holding a shiny garb. The fond undertones belied his annoyance, and everyone heard it loud and clear. Your skin prickled as he drags his eyes over your clothed body, evoking a sense of insecurity that is foreign to you. You aren’t sure what, but you wanted him to see something in you worth coveting. 

Then your gaze falls to the fabrics folded over his forearm. Your heartbeat ricochets through your ribcage. A tide of emotion wells at the base of your throat. He handles the pelt with purposeful care. Shivers break out across your skin as he smooths a hand over it. Holding it out, he says your name as if it was the simplest thing in the world. 

“Here,” he thrusts the pelt into your arms. You scramble and clutch it to your front. Something deep inside you shifts. “This is yours, right? We took it during the raid”. 

You’re frozen to the spot, mouth gaping around words that won’t come. Bakugo frowns, the group members behind him glancing at each other and shrugging when they find no answer to your silence. 

“Well?” he demands, embarrassment staining his ears pink. 

“Yes,” you choke, bringing the hide up to your face and rubbing your cheek against it. So warm and alive. Brine fills your senses, overwhelmed by the smell of home. The relief is short lived. “Thank you for returning it, but…”

Losing strength, you try to convince yourself that he needn’t know— that the old ritual would not be binding if done with a human. If the Gods were merciful there would be no condition that tied you together for the rest of your lives. Yet you felt it the moment your pelt was handed back to you. You’ve been feeling his touch all this time, even before the bond had solidified. Heat rose to your cheeks at the realisation; such an intimate act, and it had been accidental. 

From one prison to another. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Bakugo seemed good, in his own rugged way, and he was handsome even by faerie standards. 

You wet your lips, breath shaken. “Bakugo. Do you understand the significance of what you just did?” 

Bakugo’s expression darkens and he becomes rigid. You get the impression he hates being left in the dark. “What is it?” 

“To…” your nails sink into the short velvety fur. “To a selkie their pelt is like an extension of their soul. In our culture, to find and return it is viewed as a…marriage proposal”. 

Sero catches Kaminari and Mina as they grapple one another in a dramatic fashion, swaying on their feet. Kirishima puts a hesitant hand on his friend’s shoulder, eyes flickering between the barbarian and your slouched form. “Bro… don’t do anything hasty,” he faltered. 

“Bakugo is married now?” Mina shrilled, promptly shut up by the hand covering her mouth. Sero sends you an apologetic grimace. 

“Like hell I am”. 

Hackles raised, voice sharp and commanding, Bakugo is staring you down like an enemy. Your knees threaten to buckle but you stand your ground, shielding your body with your thick hide. His hands remain by his hips, sparking as the tang of magic bleeds into the air. Despite making no move to attack you still feel his rejection strike you. 

“Break whatever vow I just made,” he demanded. “Now”. 

“I can’t,” you admit helplessly. “It’s more than a legal contract or a declaration of love. We’ve— it binds us together”.

The barbarian starts forward, upper lip curled into a beastly snarl, held back by the dragon shifter’s grip. Stumbling as you dodge, two familiar scarred arms catch you before your fall. “Kacchan, what are you—?!” Bakugo darts out to grab you and Midoriya immediately pushes you behind his back, shielding you with his body. “Stop it!” 

“Midoriya,” Kaminari wheezes, tears beading along his lash line. “Kacchan accidentally got married. Can you believe it?” 

Midoriya observes their exchange with a look of confusion. In the seconds that follow you see his eyes fall to the pelt folded against your chest, eyes brightening in understanding. Incognisant to this, Bakugo continues his verbal barrage. “Oi, Deku. You’ve got brain cells. Figure out a way to fix this”. 

Mouth gaping like a fish out of water, Midoriya pins Bakugo with a pleading look. “Kacchan. Please tell me you didn’t personally give back the selkie pelt”. 

“You knew and didn’t think to say anything?!”

“Why would I?” Midoriya returns, equally irritated. You press your face into the space between his shoulder blades, feeling the vibrations of his voice as they argue. “It’s common folklore!”

“You know I don’t listen to fucking fairytales, Izuku”. 

Midoriya reaches back to brush your wrist and offer a comforting touch. You knock your knuckles to his own, grateful for his consideration but unneeding of it. While Bakugo’s furious refusal hurts, and his volume is harsh on the ears, you aren’t truly scared of him. More than anything your body remembers those warm palms— how he had held your hand, even as a stranger, and how he meticulously groomed your hide only knowing that it was of importance to you. 

“There’s nothing I can do to fix this,” lowering his tone into something more apologetic, Midoriya’s shoulders slump in defeat. You step to the side, coming into view. Head bowed, weight shifting between each foot. You refuse to be subservient any longer but cannot ignore the guilt that churns in your stomach. 

Bakugo sees you. Something flickers in his features; a brief glance, a rough exhale, it flies across his face like the shadow of an albatross and disappears, equally fleeting. Never taking his vermilion eyes off you he argued, “What about cheeks?” 

The golden hour spreads her hands all over the room, air cooling when his spitting frustration dwindles to uncertainty. 

“Uraraka?” Midoriya mused aloud. His softer countenance tempers your anxiety. “It’s possible she could do something… Let me go see if I have her recent coordinates written somewhere…”

Midoriya scurries back down the hallway, leaving you defenseless. Without thinking you ask the group, “Uh. Who’s Uraraka?” 

Everyone’s attention falls to you and you resist the reflexive urge to cower. “She’s a witch,” Kaminari supplies happily, arms wrapped around Sero’s neck like a scarf. “An old friend of ours, but she’s pretty hard to find now. I heard her place is always moving”. 

A building that could move with magic. The human world never ceased to be fascinating. 

Mina nudges her elbow into his side and a shock of electricity sparks from his crown. “That’s outdated, dummy! You’re supposed to say occultist”. 

Kaminari whines, rubbing at his ribs. “To-may-toe, to-mah-toe,” he enunciated, pouting. “Same thing”. 

Bakugo growls, ignoring their exchange in favour of pacing the room. Your pelt is a comforting weight as you follow the back and forth motions, taking the chance to really look at him. The fur lined cloak across his shoulders billows obnoxiously as he turns, jewels and talons strung around his neck knocking against his clavicle. Doused in sunlight, the markings painted across his bare chest are highlighted, and you notice the uneven skin beneath them— more scars. 

He combs his fingers aggressively through his hair and his arm bulges beneath the armour strapped to his bicep. Kirishima tires of watching and cuts into his path, hands open in surrender. 

“Stressing won’t do you any good, man,” the shifter reasoned. “We’ve all got your back. I’m sure Uraraka will know what to do”. 

Bakugo huffs. You think there should be steam coming out of his nose. “I know, shithead. I just,” he takes a quick look at where you are awkwardly standing. “I don’t like this”. 

There’s an abrupt yelp in the distance. Midoriya’s cry is followed by a crash, the sound of books tumbling from shelves onto the wooden floor. He stumbles out into the hallway slightly dishevelled, patting off the dust on his waistcoat and proffering a sheet of paper. Tucked under his arm is a rolled up map. 

“Kacchan,” comes his breathless chime. “Here’s where she was last. But I remembered that she was planning on taking a short trip to the valleys near the coast to find more idiran leaves since they’re in season now. I mapped out all the areas where they usually grow, in case you—”

Bakugo snatches the coordinates and the map without ceremony. “Thanks,” he grunts, turning on his heel and making for the exit. “Come on, losers. We only got a few hours until it’s too dark to fly”. 

The group works in perfect synchrony. Sero reaches under one of the nearby chairs and drags out a large bag, hoisting it over his shoulder. Mina does the same, pulling back the draping tapestry by the doorway and taking back a concealed sack. You watch as they walk leisurely behind Bakugo, in no real rush despite his demands, Kaminari lamenting how little they trusted him with their cargo. 

Kirishima lingers behind, clapping Midoriya soundly on the back. “Thanks for everything as usual, man. We appreciate it,” he emphasised his gratitude with a strong squeeze. 

“I’m always happy to see you,” you’re impressed by Midoriya’s reaction; a smile from ear to ear, sturdy and unaffected by Kirishima’s obvious force, his smaller frame belying his strength. “Just promise not to shift too close to the building. I don’t have time to re-thatch my roof”. 

“I promise!” Kirishima traces a cross over his heart with his fingers. Their focus turns to you. You tense, feeling entirely out of place. “Sure you’re feeling alright? Have you ever flown before?”

“No,” you admit, needlessly smoothing the fabric of your kirtle down. “I’ve probably never been this far inland, nevermind flying”. 

Midoriya’s eyes widened, though not unkindly. They’re sparkling, as if he were excited on your behalf. “Then you’re in for a real treat,” he beams, the intensity dimming within the next breath, sadness hemming his smile. “Just know you’re in good hands. Kacchan is a little abrasive but he means well”. 

“And I swear I’ll fly carefully,” Kirishima interjects. It’s funny, a man so large exuding such gentility. “I’m a dragon shifter, if you hadn’t already guessed”. 

You had sensed it immediately. Shifter energies were palpable and animated things. They hung in the air like a humid fog. Despite your similarities you are still so uniquely different. While you were tied to the pelt in your arms, Kirishima had no such restriction. You envied his freedom. 

“You caught me…?” you say. He nods at your words. “Thank you, then. Again”. 

“That was all Bakubro. He saw you before anyone else did,” as though on cue, Bakugo’s voice penetrated impatiently through the walls, demanding that you both get outside. Kirishima’s lips uptick affectionately. 

“If I don’t get to see you again, well…” Midoriya begins to corral the pair of you to the door as he speaks. “I hope you make it home. And I’m really happy I could meet you”. 

Surrounding Midoriya’s residence is a dense forest. The trees are tall, older than any you’ve seen, their branches reaching out and intertwining with one another to conceal your group under a canopy shrouded in gold. Further ahead it thins out onto a winding road. Built on a steep hill it dips in the distance, opening up to the many plots of land below. 

The earth is soft under your boots. There are wildflowers at your feet. You try to step around each one carefully while Kirishima advances forward to the group with vigour. 

Bakugo is saying something but you barely hear it, lost in your thoughts, besotted by the vast canvas around you; a sense of harmony as the pigments blend together. It is like a dream in which you can’t tell one side of the veil from the other, and nothing like the dreary castle you were once stowed away in. 

Your moment in lucidity is soon interrupted. You instinctively pull the pelt closer to your chest before realising who had approached. “You listening or what?” Bakugo calls quietly, an attempt at being reposeful. Amidst your daydreaming Kirishima has disappeared into the overgrowth and the others are watching your interaction with poorly veiled interest. 

“Uh, sure,” you blurt uselessly. He raises a brow and you feel ridiculous. 

“Kirishima said it’s your first time,” he pauses and you nod in affirmation. A hand comes to rest on your back, breath caught in your throat, pressure pulling you close to his side. “Then you’ll sit up front with me”. 

Your head bobs again, unrolling the pelt and knotting it tight to your waist, skin prickling under his close scrutiny. Bakugo brings his fingers to his lips and whistles, “Red!”

‘Red’ answered the call with a low room and a rustle of wings. The dragon’s head lifts, towering above the treeline, his body following as he steps out into the open. Amber eyes gleamed in the early evening light as he bobbed his head on a serpentine neck. His deep red scales shimmered with a faint golden sheen as he flashed his teeth in greeting. 

You err on the side of reticence while Mina and Kaminari sprint toward the dragon whooping excitedly. Various lines of thick rope trails behind them and Sero picks up the slack, looping it thrice through their bags. He spins the cut end, undulating as the momentum builds, and throws it over Kirishima’s back to be caught by Kaminari and pulled taut. 

“C’mon,” Bakugo leads you forward. He is surprisingly patient with you now. You’ve faced young whales and sharks yet still you feel dwarfed by the sheer size of the dragon, heart all pitter patter behind your ribs. It is the prey animal in you. 

Kirishima snorts, lowering to the ground. The earth trembles, a gust of wind dancing through the grass. Another rope is flung around his neck, threaded through the horns protruding from his skull like a set of reins, dropping in front of you. 

The hand by your hip slides further at your abrupt flinch, arm securing around your waist. “On three I want you to climb,” he commands, giving you no time to think. “One… two…”

Bakugo takes the weight like it’s nothing, lifting you higher so you can grab the rope. Molten heat. You pull yourself up, scrambling to straddle Kirishima’s upper back. The others are further down his spine, playing around at the base of his tail without a care in the world, as though they were not about to be thousands of feet in the air. Kirishima’s lungs expand for breath and you cling to a spike protruding from the dragon’s nape, grip flexing at the warmth that settles behind you. 

Bakugo frames your body with his thighs, thick by the skirt bunching above your knees, and pulls the rest of the rope up to wrap it around your pelt. In an instant you are all too conscious of him as a man, the proximity plucking at your centre of gravity, a cold sensation spreading throughout your chest. “Sorry,” he mutters unprompted, so quiet you aren’t sure you were meant to hear it. You get the impression he doesn’t say it often. “For dragging you into more shit”. 

You mull the words over as you relax into his hold. With that one sentence you think you understand him a little more than before.

Sero’s voice travels through the silence, “Good to go!”

Fastening his arm across your middle, solid and steady, Bakugo brings his boot hard down onto Kirishima’s shoulder. “Get moving, Red!” he roars. 

The dragon’s movements are heavy, slow. Aligned with the winding road, he builds up speed. As though he’d shaken off his own mass Kirishima is suddenly quick on his feet and breaking into a run; forced back in the momentum your stomach swoops, upheld by inertia as your body follows the broad bounding movements. 

Leathery wings snap open into the clearing. Your hands clutch at Bakugo’s forearm and he digs his fingers in harder, his lips warm against your temple. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, but all you can hear is the thundering wind and the blood rushing in your ears. You watch the steep edge approach and take a reflexive breath as it abruptly disappears. 

Air pours into your lungs and then out again in a ragged, exhilarated gasp. The ground falls—and then you are gliding.  

The cool air whips against your cheeks. Smooth and steady as a horse’s canter, Kirishima soars through the open skies, his magnificent wingspan bearing the weight of five riders. Below, the fields coalesce into one land. Towns and villages become an inscrutable speck. Incredulous laughter bursts from your throat, nerves evolving into excitement in the climb towards the clouds. 

Bakugo mellows by the second, tension ironed down by gravity. There’s a particular satisfaction to his expression, contentment you’ve only ever experienced in the ocean’s depths, and yet, as he squeezes around you intermittently to remind you he is there, you can feel it too. 

“You with me?” he shouts. “Not scared?”

You lock eyes and try to show him a tremulous smile, answering at the top of your lungs, “I’m good”. 

Then he bares his teeth, grinning proudly. Over you comes the sense of being praised. Your smile widens.

Time moves differently in the skies. Closer to the sun, you thought perhaps things naturally moved slower. Change is always less apparent when you are walking alongside it. Instead, you measure the hour by the shadows cast chasing Kirishima’s tail, and eventually the skies darken. 

Lowering his head, tilting a wing to swing out in a broad arc, Kirishima angles toward the earth. Bakugo raises up a battle worn hand, the lineaments of his face irradiated by streams of dim light threading through his fingers. He makes a specific gesture, signalling to the others of the incoming descent. Like the sun, you can’t look away from his raw brilliance. 

Kirishima lands at the base of a mountain valley. It sends a gust of wind across the clearing. Through the dark you make out a familiar reflection of light in the distance. The lake is hardly an ocean, but you’re extremely comforted to be by a body of water. 

Chest pressed flat to your back Bakugo’s natural heat spreads through your shirt. Helped down much in the same way you were boosted up, he seems determined to keep you near. You can’t say you mind it— a quiet attraction comes and goes as he steadies you on your feet. He clicks his tongue, muttering clipped insults that he doesn’t mean. 

It’s decided you’ll remain there for the night. “You can bet your ass we’re having an early start,” Bakugo says, pointing at each of you with stubborn intent, squinted glare lingering on the less than enthusiastic members. Kaminari slumps forward dramatically and you worry his knees might buckle. 

Kirishima leaves again, briefly, to circle the area in his full form while Bakugo starts on the pit. It’s lit by a whisper of fire from the returning dragon’s mouth, setting the tinder ablaze over the nest of branches; the dry, withered pine slowly releases years of energy soaked up from the sun, the air, and the ground, keeping the camp brightly lit. 

Smoke swirls above and dissipates into the atmosphere. You are far enough from any large human settlement that you see the night sky in all its clarity. Around you now are the soft voices of acquaintances filtered between conversations; none you could hear properly, but the sounds were still soothing, coming in hushed tones that add to the intimate atmosphere. 

Flames dance on their cheeks, illuminating the prominent parts of their faces. You’re sitting beside the water’s edge with your pelt strewn across your lap, close enough to feel the warmth as it crackles and spits, watching the way they love each other. 

Kaminari has fished out a big bottle from his bag, dramatically popping the cork, and is steadily passing it around. Alcohol, you guessed. Sero took a heavy swig without flinching. Mina had tried to do the same and now has her head pillowed by Kirishima’s thigh, thick and sturdy as a human, and his fingers stroked through the curly by her temple aimlessly as he lost himself in discussion. Sensing your gaze, she meets your eyes and smiles dazedly, lids fluttering. 

You look away, take a breath and notice the air tastes like sake and smoke. Darkness covers the lake. Under the waxing moon your face stares back at you, swimming among minnows and echoes of stars. It ripples where you dip your fingertips, mind empty, anaesthetised by the chill.  

“You idiots never pace yourselves,” Bakugo’s voice rumbled over the flames and rolled over your skin. He is sitting closest to you, legs loosely crossed in the dirt . “If you throw up on Red tomorrow I’m not cleaning it up”. 

Kaminari shakes the bottle in his direction. The bubbles fizz upward, some spilling out. “Such a stick in the mud, Kacchan. We gotta celebrate your marriage somehow!” 

Sero cackles as the other two chime in agreement.  You stroke your pelt, restless at the mention of your union, and it soaks up the water from your fingers. Surprisingly, Bakugo lets it slide, though not before scooping the loose earth into his hand and throwing it at an oncoming Kaminari. 

Eyes of amber briefly flicker over your form in his approach. Kaminari drops into the empty space beside you and pulls the bottle from his mouth with a resounding pop, leaving behind a wet sheen, and tilts it forward. “You too,” he grinned. “Congrats. Our boy is quite the catch, y’know”. 

“So I can see,” you smile, letting the gloom be pulled right out of you, your fingers wrapping around the bottle's neck. They grazing his own and spark static. Neither of you comment on it, his squinted stare fixed curiously on your expression as you bring the finish to your lips. 

The aroma is rich, sweet like overly ripe bananas. You tip back, feeling it dry and bitter on your tongue. There are hints of vanilla and brown sugar, a sting to your throat that begs you to cough. You hear a quiet laugh. 

“Too strong?” Sero teases lightheartedly from across the campfire. 

Your expression twists, “It’s good. But it burns. Is that normal?”

“That’s why it’s good,” Kaminari snickers. You clear your throat, handing the bottle back, attention drawn back to the lake in a beat of comfortable silence. “Oh, hey. I did want to say— you can swim if you need to, y’know”. 

“Hm?”

“Kiri has all sorts of weird urges if he doesn’t shift for a while. Gets all restless and snappy,” Kaminari gives a knowing look to the man in question. Kirishima nods at you, his features taut with sincerity. “So if you want to swim for a while or something we totally get it”. 

You’re flustered by their earnestness, gripping at your pelt, all too aware of it. Slipping into your other form feels far too personal; well meaning as they are, they’re still strangers to you. “That’s— I’m alright,” you politely decline, “my needs as a seal aren’t really felt while I’m like this”. 

A surprised noise resonates from Kirishima, Mina unmoving from her place in his lap but watching with rapt curiosity. “You’re practically human right now, then?” he asks. 

“Practically,” you give a self conscious shrug. Somehow admitting it felt like stripping yourself. Confessing to a weakness. Unsettled, you deflect the subject back. “Do you keep your dragon traits as a human?”

“Nah, not while I’m in this form. I don’t even have my hydrogen glands— look,” Kirishima hooks his fingers into his cheeks to spread them wider. You lean in for a closer look. The glow from the campfire illuminates the back of his throat— barely, and ironically. His tongue wiggles as he tries to lay it flat. You’re not sure what he’s trying to show you. You’ve  never seen a dragon’s maw before, but aside from the shark-like teeth his mouth really does seem the same as any other man’s. 

“Pretty boring, right?” his words come garbled around his fingers and so he pulls them out, wiping the spit on his pants. “But even though I can’t breathe fire right now, I can do this!”

You stare in surprise as the skin along his forearm hardens into tough scales. He holds it out to you in permission to touch; they feel jagged under your fingertips, tough like the bark of an ancient tree. “That’s amazing. You have your own shield,” you breathe, awed. 

“Damn right,” Bakugo interjects. There’s that unfettered pride again. Kirishima’s cheeks redden and you sympathise with him. In your short time with them you knew receiving praise from Bakugo felt like standing under the sun. “Should‘ve seen him as a kid,” he continues, eyes alight and mirthful. “Had scales like wet paper. Even cried when he first shifted”. 

“D’you have to bring that up,” Kirishima groans, though not upset by it. He shares in the amusement, uplifted by the sound of his friends' laughter, and pouts playfully in your direction. “It was scary!” 

Mina giggles. Her movements are sluggish and dopey as she waves her arm in Kaminari’s direction, who then stretches around the pit to Sero, who then passes it off to her. She takes a quick sip, free hand pinching Kirishima’s cheek. “Wasn't your first time an accident, too? That’s so cute”. 

“He sneezed actually,” Sero supplies, smirk crooked, foot tapping Kirishima’s ankle in a preemptive apology. “Destroyed half his house”. 

Kaminari slaps his knee, “Man, you were stumbling around like a newborn foal. It was hilarious”. 

Bakugo grinned as the others bickered, a fond, radiant thing that lit up his whole face. He’s softer like this, drenched in warmth. Cloak tucked behind his shoulders you are given the view of his broad chest. And when he finally looks at you, his half lidded gaze has been softened by his third swig; though he remained considerably sober compared to his companions. 

“What’re you starin’ at?” he mutters.

“Nothing,” you answer quickly, then, quieter, “It’s just nice that you’ve all been together for so long”. 

“Since we were snot-nosed brats. We hail from the same clan. Deku too,” he replies, elbow propped on his knee, chin cupped in his palm. “Getting sick of seeing their faces at every turn”. 

“Liar,” you hum amusedly. “What do humans call it…? Emotionally constipated”. 

His eyes slide over you, brow quirked. With his friends distracted he is more emboldened giving you attention. “Got some liquor down your neck and suddenly you’re givin’ me cheek?” 

“Guess so,” you feel yourself endeared by your not-husband. The pleasant honeyed sensation shrouding your body must’ve loosened your tongue. “Anyone can see they’re like family to you”. 

The barbarian kisses his teeth and shifts himself toward you, an ugly look on his face. You catch his peek at your pelt. “What about you?”

“Me?”

Bakugo grunts. “Yeah. You got family?” 

If not for the alcohol that question might’ve sucked all the joy from the air. You settle on a sad smile, dragging your fingertip through the dirt to draw a vague seal shape. “That’s hard to answer,” you intoned gently, barely audible over the crackling fire. “My memories of them are vague. The longer I stay human the more I forget”. He frowns, but you continue, unperturbed, “Usually it would be the same thing in reverse, if we weren’t bonded I would likely forget all of this”. 

“And you’re okay with that?” he says, some edge to his tone. “You’re okay with being stuck here?” 

The ‘with me’ goes unspoken but you hear it, and you fall silent. Because you have no answer. You’d had months to reconcile a pallid future— at one point you thought you would never again see the ocean, least of all your family. It was probable that they’d already moved on without you. 

“I don’t feel stuck,” you admit. His actions and his words, albeit harsh, proved that to be true. Aside from the obvious differences from your previous capture, the biggest is that you are equally in possession of Bakugo’s individual liberty— you’re married, you mentally amend, not in possession. While it is true you wouldn’t be able to stray far from him with the bond established, you held your pelt, independence, control. 

A near imperceptible tension seeps from him at your answer. “What about you?”

He scoffs, stretching out his legs. The soles of his boots drag in the dirt. “Do I look fuckin’ stuck?” 

“No,” you murmur with amusement, turning to gaze at the flickering pyre. “A man that can fly hundreds of miles on dragonback in a single day certainly isn’t stuck”. 

“Now you’re getting it”.

The other conversation has worn into soft murmurings. Kirishima drunkenly hands off the last of the alcohol to Bakugo, gesturing to the three who’ve surrounded him and fallen asleep. As the dragon shifter repositions himself to join them, curled together like a pack of seal pups, Bakugo takes a sip. 

There’s probably only a mouthful left and you accept it when he offers. “You should sleep, too”. 

You heed his instruction and lie down on your side, your pelt pillowed under your head. The smell of home swaddles you. “Early rise, right?” he nods, leaning back onto his arms. “How long do you think it’ll take to find the—uh, occultist?” 

“A week if she’s where she’s supposed to be,” he scowls. You’re not sure what draws the heat to your face; the drink or his voice, now gravelly with fatigue. “Three at most”. 

“Okay,” you exhale, eyes fluttering closed. “Thank you, Bakugo”. 

A soft breeze dances through the brush. Your skin pebbles, shivers slipping down your spine. Something heavy drapes over you and encases you in a warm cocoon. Fluff tickles at your nose. Your fingers curl into the familiar red fabric of Bakugo’s cloak. He has pointedly angled away from you, ready to ignore any attempt at interrogation. The gruff act of kindness makes your heartbeat faster. Fondness settles in your chest, so big that it aches. His natural scent mixes with yours and it’s like being laid on the shoreline, stitching sea and land together. 

“Don’t fuckin’ thank me yet,” the muscles in his back ripple as he tends to the dwindling fire, declaring with conviction, “Just follow me. I’ll fix this and get you home”. 

You lick your lips, mouth dry from the alcohol. In that very moment you want to tell him that the ocean and the sky are like a two way mirror; that when you were up there with him, strangely, your body thought it was at home. 

Instead, you close your eyes and watch the embers paint yellow and orange kaleidoscopes behind your eyelids. 

Instead, you sleep. 

The weeks that follow are arduous. Uraraka is nowhere to be found, and your group resorted to searching the areas of iridian growth Midoriya circled. 

You weren’t used to hiking up mountainous lands, navigating forests or scaling dragons, not in the beginning. Rising with the sun, enduring unpredictable changes in weather, wincing through the ache that grew in your weaker human muscles, Bakugo found your crankiness amusing and irritating all at once; never missing an opportunity to comment on your lack of stamina, then using it as an excuse to assist where assistance is not truly needed. 

But you saw through him, and let him. You did not need help climbing, yet your hands weaved together so he could pull you up. You’re soon practiced in saddling Kirishima, yet you always wait for Bakugo to put his arm around your lower back every ride. Your inner voice sings whenever he brings you food— begrudgingly, he throws it into your lap and grunts like the barbarian he is— or hangs his cloak over your head without a word as though you were a rack. It’s a little more charged every time you interact, and you found you liked being taken care of in those subtle ways that did not undermine your independence. 

The others noticed and teased accordingly. They call him a dutiful husband and his aggravated explosions saw you driven out of two small settlements for startling livestock. You become closer to each of them. Their patchwork family makes room for you quicker than you know what to do with. And you enjoy it; learning about the people around you, peeling back the rind of their lives piece by piece with mundane questions, seeing what they’re made up of.

You learn Kaminari enjoys literature, dramatically reciting love tales in the night, referencing poems you’ve never heard. He’s charming but never with actual intention. It is somehow more endearing that he doesn’t know his own allure, finding comfort in the role of a jester. Mina is pure joy wrapped in flesh. Apologetically overbearing and well meaning. Like an older sister she showed you how to securely fashion your pelt—over one shoulder, a belt fastened around the waist, keeping it in place— and let you use her combs. She speaks fast when she’s happy, hits hard when she laughs and gossips avidly, picking up new information wherever she goes. 

Kirishima looked at you with kindness and iron surety in his eyes from the start. Good natured and feeling— he has a heart so big that he apologises to a flower bed after he steps on it. There’s a natural fraternal air about him that sets you at ease and the group’s clear affection and appreciation for him diminished any worry about your own treatment as a shifter.

But of everyone else in the group you found Sero the most easygoing. Conversation came fluidly and your initial diffidence was thrown by how naturally you were able to fall into place with him. He lends an ear to any questions you have, practised in the art of human interaction; a man capable of adapting to any one person he comes into contact with. As such, he is the member sent to negotiate, collect information, and make arrangements. 

When you make it to the last destination on the map you are drenched in a time-steeped sunset. Sero trudges back through the brush, returning from the nearby port town. Landing at such a late hour Sero had been tasked with finding the local tavern to buy a few rooms for the night, and the lazy thumbs up he waves from a distance is proof he accomplished his goal.

“They don’t get too many travellers passing through here so I swiped up three rooms,” he huffs, coming to a stop and brushing the dirt off his pants. “They’ve got a bathhouse, too”. 

Bakugo makes a noise of approval, lifting a bag over his shoulder while Kirishima carries the rest under his arms and  flashes a toothy smile. “Glad it went smoothly, man”. 

“Thank the Gods,” Kaminari cheers, clapping his friend on the back. “You’re a lifesaver. I can’t wait to sleep on an actual bed again”. 

“Uh huh. Two twin rooms for us lowly minions,” Sero continues, his grin curling into something more sly. You get a sense of foreboding. “And of course, a double room for the newlyweds”. 

Mina whistles, slipping her hand into yours and tugging. You freeze, heart in your throat, and force yourself to relax, not yet used to how tactile they can be. She’s too invested in Bakugo’s response to notice. Your eyes flicker over to find him red faced and incensed, knuckles white with the pressure he has around the drawstrings of his bag. 

Sharing a room with Bakugo. Alone. Thus far you’d all been together. Either under the stars or in caves, or packed into cramped quarters stuffed with wattle and daub if a villager felt kind enough. 

“You've got exactly five seconds to explain why you thought that was a good idea”.

Sero quickly put his palms up in surrender. “You gave me a budget, Bakugo. They offered to lower the price as a wedding gift. I figured it would be okay for one night”. 

Bakugo jerks his head in your direction, his steely glare unmoving. The tips of his ears are pink, too, frustration unfolding across his skin. “You don’t get to decide that,” he chided, tone harsh like a hiss. 

Suddenly, Sero looks rather ashamed of himself. “Shit, I’m sorry. Should’ve asked,” he says to you, rubbing at his neck as his head lowers. It’s unlike him to be so wilted— and all because of your potential discomfort. 

You meet Bakugo’s eyes, gleaming intensely, already trying to scrutinise your reaction. Mina hums quietly. She tightens grip on your hand again in reassurance, the other running along your bicep. “If you want I can swap with you”. 

Bakugo snorts at that, as if the idea was ridiculous, but he doesn’t shoot it down despite his clear aversion to sharing with Mina. You understood his disbelief. They behaved much like siblings, squabbling and poking at one another. It’d rouse suspicion and you didn’t fancy being chased out of town for swindling the keepers for a discount. 

“Thank you guys. But it’s alright,” you reassured, mouth lifting into a small smile and reciprocating Mina‘s gentle squeeze. “I don’t mind sleeping with Bakugo”. 

A few beats of silence. You see Bakugo’s expression slip, jaw loose and eyes wide for a brief moment before it twists. He turns away from the group as a chorus of suggestive crowing erupts. 

Understanding your mistake almost immediately hot mortification comes over you, stifling beneath the pelt on your shoulder. “Shut up, you useless fuckin’ perverts,” Bakugo snaps, flustered and wild, swatting at the nearest victim. Kirishima feigns a wounded noise. 

“Hey, I didn’t do anything!”

“Just get moving,” the barbarian marches onward, tearing his way through the overgrowth and heading for the tavern. “And walk behind me!”

His choleric mutters continue, heard even at a distance. Tucking your chin to your chest, you hide your laughter in your silken pelt as you follow after him, mouth filling with a comforting briney scent. You think Bakugo undeniably cute when he’s embarrassed; a sight you’ve had the pleasure of seeing more than once on account of his pod. That feeling from the campfire returns, fills your chest, pulsing through to your fingertips, tempting you to reach out, to touch him. 

More and more you’re inundated with the need to be close. You quell the urge and tighten your grip on Mina, her cheek squished to your shoulder, loose curls the colour of blossom tickling your throat. “Don’t worry. He’s not really mad,” she tells you furtively, as if it were a big secret. 

“I know,” gaze lingering on Bakugo’s back, covered by that thick red cloak, you wonder if your scent still clings to it. Contentedly, “I’m getting used to it”. 

The town is beautiful. Bursting with flora and fauna, accentuated by the dusk, ocean curling around the village in a way that reminds you of mother. Nature's cradle. You cling protectively to your pelt, scenting the salt in the air and hovering closer to Bakugo. If anybody could identify a selkie skin it would be fishermen. Stray drunken locals stumble by, arm in arm with boisterous cheer. You’re greeted like a long lost friend, neither person recognising your true identity. Humans really can be hearty and genuine at their core. Life before had been so desolate in comparison, so lacking in love and colour. 

“Oi,” Bakugo beckons you to his side. When you don’t fall in line he grabs your wrist, pulling you close. His natural body heat lingers like a brand. “Make sure you call me Katsuki from now on,” he instructs under his breath. 

You blink at the unexpected request. The muscles in his face are tight, twitching, and his nose flares the longer you stare. Given names are important to humans in this region. Sharing them is an intimate thing, a sign of your close relationship. “Are you sure?” 

“Wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t sure,” he punishes your questioning with the fleeting tightening of his grip. You can’t help it. He’s pink again and you like it. “I’m your husband, yeah? So call me by my fuckin’ name”. 

The keeper waits surreptitiously by a sheltered stairwell leading to the inn above her tavern. A small Elven woman, uncloaked, the lantern overhead creating a halo of light to circle her ginger crown. She perks up when Sero hands over a small velvet sack, the drawstrings pulled tight. “For the rooms,” he emphasises, coins chiming dully against one another as he shakes it. The woman takes it and cradles the payment to her breast, exchanging the gold for three keys. 

You’re guided up the stairwell and into the building, presented with a narrow corridor. There are numerous doors, decorative runes carved into the frames, a coloured piece of string hung from each handle corresponding to the colour of the keys.  “It’s good to see some youngins pass through. We only ever get the same old geezers around here,” she says, “Makes for a mundane life”. 

The crows' feet wrinkle by her eyes when she smiles, laughter lines framing her mouth. She hands out the keys to your pod who all rush in childish excitement to see their rooms. At last she turns to where you stand stiffly beside Katsuki. 

You’re handed a key. The stem is long and thin and made with copper, the key wards in the bit uniquely shaped to your door. Threaded through the bow is a lavender string. “It isn’t much but I hope you will be comfortable for the night,” with a wink, she adds, “Congratulations to you both”. 

“Thank you. We will be in your care,” your reply is tremulous, undecided whether to be pleased with the sincere acknowledgement of your marriage or nervous to be seen through. At your side, the large barbarian grunts. 

It is uncharacteristic of him; always very respectful of his elders. You lean against him, just a nudge. His attention snaps to you and you smile innocently. “Be polite, Katsuki”. 

Like it was meant to be spoken only by you, Katsuki’s name sits right in your mouth, lips shaping around the characters softened by warm intonation. The reaction is instantaneous. His jaw ticks. His faint blush returns. His stoic expression wanes as he looks to the keeper, who is observing the interaction with mirthful eyes. Lowering his head he mutters, “We appreciate your hospitality, ma’am”. 

“You’re quite darlin’ together, aren’t you,” she comments heartily, mostly to herself, as if airing her thoughts. “We got good food and drinks downstairs, do come if you’re hungry! Blessings be upon you”. 

On her departure you enter the room. Spangles of light dusted the air. While it clearly isn’t lived in, it is homely. You canvas the space. Two square-headed windows facing the street are covered by thin cloth. There is an old, tattered tapestry strung across the wall to cover up a fist sized hole, a patterned glass vase and various other unique tchotchke adorning the shelves. You drag your fingers across the brick fireplace opposite a wide double bed, mattress made of wool but compensated by the many feather pillows and blankets. 

“This is good,” you say, “homely”. Though there is an animal hide on the floor, which you find rather… untoward. A soothing musky smell with overtones of caramel and vanilla rising through the cracks in the floorboards from the tavern below. You breathe it in deeply. 

“It’ll do,” Katsuki voices his agreement and drops his bag with a conclusive thud. “Let me hide our stuff and we can meet with the others for food downstairs. You haven’t eaten in hours”. 

The small consideration makes your heart flutter. “Ah. I’ll be there soon,” you tell him. He squints at you, attempting to mentally pry the answers out of you. “I’m okay, Katsuki. I just need a minute”. 

Pausing in the centre of the room, Katsuki scrutinises you. You fidget under his intense appraisal, undecided whether it pleases you or not. It is strange to want something that often leaves you feeling excruciatingly… exposed. 

You wait apprehensively and wonder if he’ll comment on your use of his name— needless, this time. After all there are no ears or eyes in these walls. You’re not sure what you’ll do if he asks you to stop. 

“Are you sure?” you nod, mouth strained in a thin smile. Bakugo frowns but ultimately gives you your space. “Make sure you catch up. If you’re not down in ten minutes I’m coming back”. 

“I will,” you land heavily on the edge of the bed, wrinkling the sheets as you unclip your pelt. The collar of your ill-fitted shirt slips forward with the motion to reveal cleavage, and Bakugo immediately averts his gaze. 

“Whatever,” he rasps, unexpectedly shy. The door slams as he leaves. You right the collar, tugging it back up, lips pressed thin to repress the laughter that bubbles in your chest. Aimless and left to your own devices you take a solitary moment to groom the pelt in your lap, marbled and downy-soft. Brushing through the coat, fingertips trace the rings of black and brown.

Things are so different. Being a person is more overwhelming than you imagined. Being locked away had kept you in a state of inertia, suffocating in numb misery, but now you were left to grapple with the immense spectrum of human emotion. Urges and wants that you had never experienced before meeting Katsuki. 

You swallow, staring at the spaces between your fingers. Spaces filled with short tan fur. Selkie marriages were simultaneously complicated and simple. Rather, they were so simple that they bore unnecessary complications. 

A stolen pelt creates a one sided bond but upon return it is consummated. Between two selkies in courting pelts were exchanged, solidifying their promise to one another, deeply unified by their magic. Elder podmates said that it meant they belonged to only one another. Abandoning the tides, in a way. 

Since being a pup the voice of the sea was a ceaseless whisper you were always aware of. Yet since Katsuki held your seal skin, unknowingly cradled your very being and returned it to you with only sincere intention, that voice had gradually been ebbing away. 

Would there come a day that you no longer recalled your identity as a selkie—? No. You quickly smother the thought. The immaterial, chimerical magic that made up your very being could never be forgotten. And deep down, you knew Katsuki would not let you. Indeed, you can only picture his surly retaliation if you ever woke up and could not recall your lineage. 

With that you get to your feet. Ten minutes would soon pass and his probable wrath was enough motivation. You consider the pelt in your grasp and give a surreptitious glance around the room for somewhere to hide it. Taking it into a tavern full of drunken strangers and mariners seemed like a much worse idea. 

After rolling it up tight you stuff it behind the pillows at the head of the bed, further pulling over the coverlets. The hallway is quiet when you step out. You lock the door, tensing at the loud click. You can hear muffled laughter rising through the floors. 

It grows in volume when you step out into the evening air. Slurred conversation and bickering pour through the tavern windows. At front is a large, arched door, overshadowed by a dark blue awning. The wood panels are weatherworn and rustic, covered in rivets. You reach for the brass handle. It’s heavy in your palm as you turn it, using your full strength to push forward. 

First, you are met with a crescendo of boisterous cheers. Stepping inside, your eyes are drawn to the green dyed sailcloths hung from the rafters above the bar. The establishment is modestly sized, enough that there is a longtable set up in the centre of the room and a fair few smaller roundtables dotted with stools. 

Across the far end of the tavern is a line of small booths, separated by wooden screens decorated with mosaic carvings. Oil lamps are hooked on the walls, casting a warm sepia hue that seems to cohesively bring everything together. It felt welcoming, and intimate, like approaching a friend by the fire. 

You try to seek out a familiar head of blonde hair. The place is busy but nobody bats an eyelid at your entrance, lively enough that you cannot hear clearly above the overlapping voices around you, intermingling with the low playing of music. 

“Lost, stranger?”

You startle. 

She finds you easily, like she’d been waiting. Mina curls an arm around your back, pressure light as if she was suddenly worried about being too familiar. It tightens when you lean into her and she smiles with more vigour. 

“C’mon. Let’s get you something to eat”. 

The distance between you and them is barely that of a crevice, but it is daunting, yawning like a trench. Over in the far left booth, both secluded and closest to the bar, is a group of friends. Directly beneath a lantern strung onto a hook, Katsuki is bathed in orange and nursing a drink. The others are tucked away in the booth, cups and plates lining the table top. Their laughter slows as you approach and you battle the urge to recoil from everyone’s eye. Mina, sensing the discomfort, begins to rub her hand along your back. 

“All of you scoot up,” she asserted, wiggling her pointer finger. “Make some space for us!”

They move around on the long, curved seat to make space. You end up on Katsuki’s right, sandwiched in by Sero who smiles, though awkward, earlier remorse persisting as you take your place beside him. “What’s the verdict, are you happy with your room? Best I got from Bakugo is a grunt”. 

“Yeah, I like it. You did good picking this place. It’s cosy,” you glance over toward Katsuki. “Beats a cave. The fireplace is nice. I wonder if it works…”

Mina tucks into Kirishima’s side where he sits across from you. Most of the plates are piled up in front of him, food aplenty to sate his dragon-sized appetite. His chin dimples as his bottom lip juts forward, “You guys get a fireplace? That’s so unfair”. 

“C’mon, Kiri. The fireplace is there for…”—Kaminari leans in, suggestively lowering his voice and nudging Katsuki’s left arm—“…ambiance”. 

You feel a gentle nudge. Katsuki, ignoring his friend's harmless influx of innuendos, slides a glass across the table toward you. “What is it?” you ask, bringing it to your lips. The liquid is dark, red like fresh blood, but it smells fruity. Before he can tell you, you’ve taken a sip. 

It is weighty on your tongue, unlike anything you’ve tasted before. Cherries and jam and oddly well paired notes of spicy tobacco. The corner of his mouth curls into a barely there smile, pleased at the immediate delighted sound. He brings forward a large opened bottle and presents it to you. 

“Barmaid gave us this to share,” Katsuki taps at the calligraphy on the label. “It’s wine. Expensive too, usually”. 

“Guess marriage does have benefits,” Sero gibed, raising a glass of amber liquid you assume to be beer. Expression open in sincere merriment, he declares, “To the happy couple!” 

Six glasses come together, toasting to your accidental bond, alcohol spilling over your hands. Katsuki’s cup is there too, his monotonous voice blending into their hurrahs. A hand slides from the back of the booth to rest upon your shoulders and you lean into it, heat prickling over your skull at the feel of his bare skin. Blood thinning, belly full, inhibitions lost to bliss. 

Mina brings her hands together in a succinct clap, weaving her fingers. “Another round!” she beams, and the enthusiasm stirs once more. 

The evening crawls on. Your modest group barely puts a dent into the chaotic din but it sure can eat. You’re made to swallow your fill under Katsuki’s direction—watching you closer than he did anyone else—and savour the dishes, heady and complimented by your flavoursome wine. 

Stories pass through loosened lips, new and old. You don’t mention it when Kaminari repeats himself twice over— nobody else does, either. You all sink into the balmy atmosphere, sharing food and conversation, relaxing entirely for what felt like the first time in months. 

Sero chokes on his drink as Kirishima recounts the story of when he and Katsuki first became friends. How the tiny blonde barbarian would sneak up on him through the bushes, throw rocks at his tender head, and challenge him to battle all in pursuit of friendship. 

Your shoulders shake, burrowing into Katsuki’s side to sap his warmth. Bare skin pebbles as your fingertips skim his ribs, poking near his armpit. “Would it kill you to communicate like a normal person?”

Trembling mouth pressed firmly together, Katsuki refuses to give anyone the satisfaction of making him laugh. You see through it plain as day. “Shut up,” he grumbles.  

“Didn’t even flinch when ma threatened to eat him if I came home with any more teeth missing,” Kirishima continued, sighing happily. “My bro is so manly”. 

Steadily the energy begins to dwindle into a pleasant hum. You’re together, drunk on wine and laughter and a sense of harmony. Being with them is startlingly effortless. It feels like family. 

In the recesses of your mind you think, I don’t want to let go. 

“Hey,” Katsuki says, sharper when nobody hears him. “Hey, shitheads”. You lift your head from where it had come to rest on his shoulder, cheek slightly numb. “Think I’m going to head up”.

You hear a chorus of sluggish objections with no real heat behind them. While he’s fighting off their interrogation you simply watch him, awkwardly angled and ignoring the twinge in your neck. The bead in his braid glints in the low light. 

Sensing your stare, Katsuki looks down at you, dappled by lamp light. The flames dance in his irises, gaze unbearably soft, as it had been that first night by the campfire. You hold your breath when he sets his thumb with his tongue and uses it to wipe a crumb from your cheek. The touch is like a spark to flint. A fleeting sort of hope stirs in your chest, like this is all you’d been waiting for, that the universe was finally making things right for you. 

Then he snatches his hand back, as though waking up to what he was doing. 

“I’m going to bed. You idiots better behave,” he groused, returning his focus to the group. You mourn his attention. “If we get kicked out early I’ll kill you”. 

“You love us too much,” Mina tucks her drunken smirk into the cradle of her palm, arm almost slipping with the weight. Cloudy eyes follow Katsuki as he forces his way out of the booth like a bull. “Admit it!” 

Bending at the waist he meets her stare head on and deadpans, “Die”. Mina merely laughs and plants a kiss on his forehead that he aggressively rubs away as he leaves. 

You stay a little longer but find your mood dampening. Katsuki’s absence makes known an ache usually quelled by the weight of your pelt, almost as though his presence had placated that innate yearning for home. The thought leaves you dizzy. 

“I think I’m going to go, too,” you announce out of the blue. 

Expressions fall, concerned. Kaminari tilts into your space. You barely even blink at the proximity now. “Everything alright? Y’dont feel sick or anything, do you?” 

“No, not at all—“ he frowns at you, unconvinced, “—I just feel like going for a soak before bed. Sero, you said there was a bathhouse?” 

Sero perks up at his name and nods loosely, head barely held by his neck. “Yeah! They’re around the back, apparently. Just walk beyond the stairwell,” he shoots you a thumbs up. “They’re mixed but only guests can use ‘em, so don’t worry about it being crowded”. 

That’s comforting to know. If luck was on your side it would be empty. You duck out of the tavern with a final wave and a promise to see them in the morning. Thankfully the boisterous chatter grows dull as you step into the night air, stopping to look up the stairwell. You hope Katsuki can sleep through it. 

Heeding Sero’s instructions you follow the beaten path around the back of the tavern. There you discover another building, smaller, but with a steeped tile roof and shuttered windows. Curious, you gently lift the green dyed curtain hung in the doorway and enter the earthen-floored threshold. 

You are led to what you guess is a small changing area. Cabinets left open, again each handle corresponding the key colours. You find a lavender ribbon and peer around the empty space, contemplating getting undressed. 

Gathering courage you pull the strings in your shirt slack, slipping your arms from the sleeves and pulling it over your head. Tepid air breathes over your skin as you push down your pants, stepping out of them where they pool at your feet. Your clothes are folded and left on the shelf, boots lined neatly by the doorway. 

Further in is an open space covered in tiles of smooth green. There are low stools and basins with natural running water, washcloths and soaps. While unpracticed you are at least somewhat familiar with bathhouse etiquette. Sitting hesitantly, hissing as your bare thighs meet the cool wood, you dip one of the cloths to soak and begin to scrub at your body. 

The knots in your muscles become undone with the repetitive motions, again and again until you’re lathered in bubbles. You breathe in, feeling the humidity cling to your lungs, and rinse away the soaps. 

Eventually you dub yourself clean enough to enter the baths. The seafoam tiles soon taper to stone that borders the baths. You take in the tall ceiling with beautiful carvings along the walls and high placed glass windows allowing the moon to shine in easily. The patterns are comfortingly familiar. Shells, waves, gulls, rock formations and arches. Though the bathhouse is much warmer, hot tendrils of steam rising from the bubbling water. 

Penumbral light glinted on the water's surface. It held a distinct earthy scent, rolling in from the nearby springs. Again, you are reminded of a tide pool, but deeper. Clear and clean and natural. What immediately seizes your attention is the familiar man sitting close by, a head of wet golden hair still somehow holding its shape, the loose strands that typically make up his braid now tucked behind his ear. 

Katsuki tips back to rest on the bath's edge. A thin white towel is laid across his face. Your gaze follows the slope of his shoulders, roving over his defined chest, skin pink with the heat. Rivulets run between his pecs to his sternum, lower body distorted below the water but patently bare, same as you. You exhale a breath you hadn’t known you were holding and quickly look away from his lap. 

Time spent with Katsuki taught you that he hated being treated delicately. Tip toeing around this was not an option. You would join him in the baths and behave as normal. But—

Humans were fickle about nakedness. Where should you sit? What is an appropriate distance? Straying too far could make him defensive, yet getting too close might—

“Are you going to stand there all night?” 

Startled, the soles of your feet almost slip on the smoothed stone. “You knew it was me?” 

Katsuki scoffs. The towel remains over his eyes, obstructing his view, that which you were grateful for. Your previous indifference had so abruptly burgeoned into apprehension. Just the thought that he might see you this glaringly bare and skinless, a body without boundaries, made your stomach swoop. It is a peculiar sensation; you wanted him to look and you didn’t. 

“Nobody else thinks that loud. Unless you’re Deku,” you can imagine his eyes rolling, the exasperation clear in his voice, though not unkind. The corded muscles in his shoulders shift beautifully as his arm stretches across the bath’s edge, wrist limp to allow his fingertips to breach the surface. He flicks the water in your direction, creating capillary waves. “Just— fuckin’ get in already”.  

“Right,” you laugh quietly under your breath, descending the steps into the baths. The heated water is soothing, climbing the length of your lengths, eventually coming to rest above your hips. 

You sink near to him and pointedly keep your eyes above his collar. Katsuki neither twitches nor acknowledges your approach. In fact, you aren’t sure he is even breathing. It occurs to you that he too could be nervous, tempted to look but refraining. The possibility of being wanted by him brings a sudden sharp sort of awareness that slides through you and heightens your senses. 

Outstretched fingertips brush featherlight between your shoulder blades where you lean back against the wall. You sit with your knees close to your breast, relieved to be covered. “I thought you were heading to bed,” you comment quietly. 

“Saw the path and followed it,” he replies, stiff shoulder jerking as he shrugs. “Wanted some quiet”. 

A deep pink flush is spreading across his collarbones, clawing up the column of his throat. Your rational mind knows it is caused by the steam, yet the greedy part of you, the part so distinctly human, wants to know if you affect him as much as he affects you. 

These feelings had gradually been accumulating since the very beginning. You’ve no idea where to put them. The voice in your hindbrain all but panics at the idea of leaving. You’ve spent a lifetime listening to your instincts and they’re telling you to keep your place at his side. 

You inhale until the pressure in your chest is smothered by your lungs and your heart beat slows. Exhale. The water shifts in sync with your subtle movement. Emboldened by the wine in your veins you slide closer. The soft hair on your legs prickles, everything in you gravitating toward him. Katsuki doesn’t acknowledge it. 

“Always staring,” a flustered growl snaps you back to reality. “You got something to say to me?” 

“No,” you answer too quickly. 

“Good,” his upper body sinking lower. After a length of silence it must get to him. Voice pitched low, as though afraid to disturb the atmosphere, he mutters, “Ever had a bath this big, back at that shitty castle?” 

You snort. He turns at the sound and the surface ripples as you quickly smother it with your wet palm. It’s easy to picture the searing glare beneath the face towel. “Sorry. It’s just,” your mouth pulls into a tipsy grin. “All things considered, this place is pretty small to me”. 

“Dumbass. You know what I meant,” he huffs, not bothering to hide his fond exasperation. “The sea doesn’t count”. 

Humans are cute, you concluded. Trying to emulate the ocean in their warm wooden structures. “It counts,” you insist, moving closer still. You’re giddy in the water, with him. Like you’re sharing some special part of yourself in a strange way. “Have you been?”

A rough hum, “Where?” 

“The sea”. 

“Which one?” 

The steam must be making you light headed. You’re tucked to his side again. Thigh to thigh. Skin against skin. You are acutely aware of your shared nakedness. His arm has slipped over the bath's edge to drape around your shoulders. “The closest, obviously. Or any of them,” you knock your knees together. “It’s not like you to be purposefully obtuse”. 

“Big attitude for a little fish,” he mutters, free hand reaching for the towel, sliding it up to his hairline and revealing a crooked grin. Your heart squeezes. “Course I’ve been in the ocean. Flown over it on Red a few times too”. 

You want to do that, too. To bear witness to the wind driving the currents from above, feel the sea salt spray sharp on your cheeks, touch the unreachable seam where your two worlds become indistinguishable.

“Never bathed in it, though?” 

“No,” he drawled, an impatient edge to his tone. “I don’t plan on giving the finfolk an eyeful of my dick anytime soon”. 

You laugh, “Like you are now, you mean?”

Katsuki tears off the face towel before you’ve any time to process it. The water thrashes. You daren’t look away. His stare has a certain ferality, pupils dilated, fair lashes damp from the steam and clumped into little spikes; it pins you in place like prey. 

The blush across his chest is matched in his cheeks. A droplet slides down the delicate slope of his nose. You feel the surface of the water calm and settle just above your breast. You watch his gaze flicker reflexively to them, then to the ceiling, then clamping shut with a growl. Apprehension pulses through you and your thighs clench. 

“You—” he inhales sharply, gathering his thoughts. You track the movement of his tongue as it swipes across his lips. Thickly, Katsuki asks, “What are you trying to do here, exactly?” 

A sense of dejection comes over you and your immediate response is to feign innocence. “Soak with you,” which is no more than a half truth. You attempt to create some distance and his arm coils around your waist. Any effort to twist away from him proves futile; a snake that constricts the more you struggle. He doesn’t allow you to slip away, hand hot at your hip. 

“Yeah?” but there’s no real bite, no vitriol as he drags you closer. “Soaking, s’that what you call this? Rubbing up against me, practically climbing into my lap?”

You might feel demeaned if not for the lust hemming his words. His grip is bruising, fingers kneading soft flesh. You can see this for what it is— a choice, a question. He’s confused, and wanting. Presenting an opportunity for you to change your mind in the face of his callousness. Katsuki is kind, in his own way. 

Your palms come to rest over his sternum, pushing with no real effort, an accomplice in whatever cat and mouse game he was trying to play. His breathing picks up, abdomen clenching. You stare where bodies meet, low light reflecting off the wet sheen. Beneath your touch his heartbeat ricochets around his ribs. 

Katsuki calls you. Your name is barely above a whisper. Peering up through your lashes as his hand comes to cup your nape, the other massages simple shapes into your hip, his fingers splayed across your navel. You exhale shakily as his pinky fits into the crease of your thigh. 

He cradles your nape, guides you into his magnetism, and then you’re tilting— your world with it— into a careful kiss. Static blankets your thoughts. Katsuki’s lips slot over your own, a gentle press that quickly grows feverish as your tongue traces the seam of his mouth. 

Exhaling harshly through his nose he drags you over his lap, the bath water splashing onto the stone tiles, holding you to his front in a way that makes it difficult to discern where you end and he begins. You have all of him now. Half hard under you and tense like he was exerting effort not to do anything about it. Hands wandering, mapping out the topography of your body, clutching greedily at your thighs. Smoke fills your throat, a tang of explosive magic lingering in the grooves of your teeth. 

Minutes passed imperceptibly. You leave it feeling as though all the sinew in your body had unravelled, undone in his embrace like loose skeins of yarn. Katsuki doesn’t appear any more composed than you are; staring at you, slack with hunger, jaw relaxed the way a beast would do to taste the air. Palms cupping his cheeks, thumbs moving in idle back and forth motions under his eyes, you smile—

“Katsuki,” you murmur reverently. For reasons you can’t understand, it wakes him up. Snaps him out of his stupor. Panic flits over his features and you’re being pushed away, deposited back into the water. It rocks with the abrupt movement, waves breaking against your chest as he brusquely wades toward the steps with the small towel barely covering his modesty. 

Echoing louder now, “Katsuki?” 

And he was gone. 

You stare at the entrance to the baths for a long time, willing him to return. You stare until your eyes sting and you’re forced to blink. All that’s left is the soft sound of the running springs, your shallow breath, and the muffled chanting of a few drunken men. 

An emptiness makes home in your chest. Bereft, you follow in his steps, exiting the baths and heading to the changing room. You pat yourself down, rough towel absorbing the moisture, and pull on your clothes. 

A hopeful spark catches when a figure ducks in under the curtain. Snuffed out, then, when Mina greets you cheerily. She seems to have sobered up for the most part, more coherent than you’d last seen her. 

“You took a dip too?” she bounces on the balls of her feet as she undoes her shirt buttons, oblivious to your somber disposition. “I saw Bakugo come from this way too. Looked a little constipated if you ask me. I thought hot baths were supposed to relax you, not—”

Finally, she looks at you. Her voice stops as her brows pinch into a frown. You offer a brittle smile and endure the scrutiny. “Did something happen?” she asks worriedly. 

Your throat closes up. Your teeth sink into your cheek and lower your gaze to the tiled floor, cracks overlapping as your vision blurs. Mina reaches for you. She halts in your periphery, thoughts and actions misaligned. A flash of hesitance, and then determination. She strides across the threshold to pull you into an embrace. Her arms slip around your shoulders, crossing over one another at your nape, tightening. 

The tension begins to soften. Your body slumps, sinking into her kindhearted warmth as the rigidity weakens with your resolve. Bowing into the crook of her neck, you inhale her gentle scent. A soliflore smell, a flower you don’t know the name of, earthy undertones and hints of saké. 

Your eyes are wet. Tears cling to your lashes as you blink. The moths dancing in the lamp light blurs, small specks of white stretching and flickering like pallid butterflies. Breathing shuttered, there’s a thickness in your throat that squeezes your voice into a frail whisper. 

“Thank you”. 

She hums, rubbing a comforting hand along the top of your spine. Her natural heat seeps through the thin fabric of your shirt. Though her arms are muscled they are also supple, like her chest, like her waist. You haven’t been held like this since you last saw your podmates. 

After a few beats she asks, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

You shake your head, grasping your bearings, “No”. It’s best left between you and Katsuki. 

“If you’re sure,” Mina gives a final crushing hug before releasing you. “I’m bunking with Sero tonight. Knock if you need anything”. 

“I will,” you say on the end of a shuddering exhale. “I’ll see you in the morning”. 

She hums, watching apprehensively as you make your way through the changing rooms. The retention of her heat clings to your clothing when you step into the cold night air. Your boots rub at the sore skin around your ankles, fitting loose, having foregone tying the laces. They encumber your steps, obtrusively loud and ungainly on your journey up the stairwell. 

A closed door should not be so daunting. Your hand hovers over the handle, steadily turning it, flinching as the locks click open. Low light floods in from the hallway and your eyes adjust to the darkness between blinks, the shape of a figure under the covers sharpening into view. Katsuki is laid on his back, hand disappearing under the pillow beneath his head where your bunched up pelt resides. 

Hesitant, you shut the door and kick off your dirty shoes. You tiptoe around the frame and climb into bed. You try to alleviate your weight, balanced between your hands and knees so the mattress won’t dip, yet it is futile. “I’m sorry, Katsuki,” you whisper, feeling fragile as you lower into the linens. He’s awake, you can tell despite his efforts to appear otherwise, because you feel him stroking your sealskin between his thumb and forefinger. 

“…Shouldn’t have done that,” his cadence is unsettlingly calm; gently sheathing the sharp words. “We’ve been getting too comfortable, letting shit influence us. It was just the magic talking”. 

What? 

“It’s not—”

“Go to sleep,” the volume raises in momentary frustration, but as quick as it came, anger dissipating. Dropping his head into the pillows he looks as defeated as you feel. He closes his eyes. “I won’t fuckin’ do anything to you so just. Sleep”. 

You try, fitfully. The atmosphere is unbearable, keeping you glued to the far side of the bed lest you accidentally touch one another. Pressing your fingertips to your lips, you remember. You ache. You stare into the shadows and wonder at what point did the intentions become so crossed. 

Katsuki valued the right to choose above all else. You liked that about him. He respected and surrounded himself with people who steered their own destiny, marching to the beat of his own drum; a rhythm you had fortuitously interrupted. In his mind he’d given into a temptation, and that act of indulgence was somehow the same as losing in battle. 

Katsuki viewed your relationship as an infliction he needed to fight against. 

That knowledge hurts you in ways you hadn’t expected. The words “we’re getting too comfortable” reverberated around your skull. Perhaps he was right. Somewhere along the lines you forgot that these truly were temporary circumstances, childishly wishing that maybe he’d come to love you, that you could simply accept this reality and grow into each other like a child into new shoes. 

You blink. Linens rise and fall with his shallow breath. Katsuki’s mouth is open, the corner of his mouth wet with drool. His lips smack together as he bundles you closer. Unconscious, yet still seeking you out. He’s devastating even when he’s not trying to be. 

Sleep feels impossible. 

Then you wake. 

Morning spills her dewy light throughout the room. Katsuki’s side of the bed is empty— made up and tucked at the corners. Cold. You are suddenly a distance apart and scrambling to make it all better again.

You push up into a sitting position. The bedsheets shift and pool around your hips, creasing the perfect slate Katsuki left. You rummage for the pelt hidden behind the pillows, dragging it out and around your shoulders, ducking your nose into the dark fur for comfort before tying it to your midriff. 

Judging by the sun’s position you would guess it is still quite early. Sluggish movement can be heard through the thin walls, indicating that others are awake. Knowing Katsuki he would want to set off early to find Uraraka, especially after last night.

Another figure joins you in the hallway. Kaminari remains unaware of your presence as he fiddles clumsily with the key, squawking when it almost slips between his fingers. He’s dishevelled, shirt half tucked into his belt, cuffs undone and hung off his wrists; there’s still an impression of his pillow printed on his left cheek. 

Having finally turned the lock, Kaminari spins on his heel with a happy hum. The tune escalates into a shriek as he notices you standing a few feet away. “Holy—! Warn a guy, would ya?” he clutches at his chest, exhaling harshly. “I think my heart just stopped”. 

“Sorry Kaminari,” amused by his shrill intonation and melodramatics, you smile for the first time that morning. It exaggerates the bags under your eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like a baby,” he falls into step with you, knocking your elbows together on your way out into the stairwell. “I don’t think you can say the same, though,” his mouth twists into a smirk, “did Kacchan keep you up all night?” 

Normally the teasing wouldn’t bother you. In many ways you saw it as a sign of acceptance into the group. Now you wince like somebody had carelessly pressed a bruise on your body. Kaminari, for all his obliviousness, knows when to drop the masquerade. 

Your smile tightens uncomfortably as his fingers circle your wrist. In daylight you are left feeling exposed, unable to temper the regret written so plainly across your face. His mouth opens and shuts, searching fruitlessly for the right words, only to be interrupted by a callous shout from below. 

Katsuki’s voice is incredibly distinct. He’s yelling, which is nothing new, but now it is with genuine frustration. Kirishima, Mina and Sero are there alongside him, speaking in low tones as you would to an untamed animal. 

Kaminari tugs at your sleeve and gives you a meaningful glance, gently coaxing you to the bottom of the stairs. He must’ve at least connected Katsuki’s poor mood with your own.  “Kacchan, my man. It is too early for all this shouting,” he implored, settling back into his jovial self. 

You collect yourself, trying to retain shape and rationality as Kaminari draws Katsuki’s ire. Those vermillion eyes rove over you, head to toe, before flickering to the man on your right. Fast, like he’s afraid to look too long. Nostrils flare. The warm puff of air from his nose is visible in the cool air. 

“It’s late enough. What took you so long?” Katsuki snarled, poking a finger harshly between Kaminari’s eyebrows. “The keep told me cheeks is planning on leaving today, so all of you get moving”. 

Kaminari pouts, rubbing at the spot. The pale skin turns slightly pink. Unheeding of the wary scrutiny he is receiving, Katsuki charges onwards in expectation that everyone will follow. Kirishima raises a brow at his shape verbiage but doesn’t comment. He takes you under his arm in a half hug, sharing a look of understanding with Mina and the others. 

Sero recounts their findings. According to the townspeople, Uraraka, the occultist, landed her abode miles outside of their bounds and set up wards in the valley to confuse strangers. It steered them in opposing directions and sent them in circles, practically making her impossible to find. You’re worried clear up until your group crests the precipice of a steep hill several hours later.

You take in the gentle undulations of earth and fauna. Grass tall enough to brush your shoulders, wildflowers and weeds hugging the barely worn path, sparingly tended nature left to flourish. The magic becomes apparent with proximity. It hangs in the air like humidity, an unnatural sheen muddying your vision. Katsuki continued with brass-bound determination; weaving skilfully through the runes, barrier fracturing under the pressure of his explosive palms. 

There’s a quaint cottage in the middle of the glen, done up with a sweet ivy on the walls, latticed strips of wood around the windows, and a cobbled chimney towering from the pink tiled roof. Each windowsill appeared to have a different unidentifiable herb growing on it. A small, circular stained glass window in the door refracted the afternoon light, a knocker below it. Hanging by the door frame is a wind chime, shells tied to strings producing delicate crisp sounds in the breeze; in the effort to knock, Katsuki shoulders it carelessly, and the tune turns sour. 

His fist comes down with hard momentum, stopped midway by another. “Be careful,” Kirishima gently chides. Katsuki shoves his hand off, sparing him an incredulous glare, which the shifter subjugates with a pointed reminder: “She won't help you if you bust her door down, bro. Play nice”. 

Katsuki grunted his understanding, jaw clenched. He raps his knuckles on the wood. The sound is dull, and you stare down at your scuffed boots as an unpleasant pang of anxiety knocks around your chest. A voice shouts from inside, somebody scurrying around, then the door is pulled open. 

“Can I—Bakugo?!”

“Uraraka,” Katsuki greets bluntly, giving a short nod. It is the first time you’ve ever heard him say her name. His hands flex at his sides, restless. Through gritted teeth he adds, “Deku sent me. I need your help with something”. 

“Oh,” Uraraka exhales in disbelief. She steps back, pink slippered feet in your periphery. “Come in, then. I haven’t seen you guys in forever…”

Their voices fade into the background. All at once subconscious acts like breathing and blinking become tiresome. Hearing him let go of his pride felt so final. You fall away, stuck in a cold fog. Your gait is uneven as you remind yourself to put one foot in front of the other, incognisant to the worried looks thrown your way. 

You remember being seated on a plush feather-pillowed sofa. Hands running over your shoulders, grounding you. You reach for your pelt, sinking fingers into the downy fur, and find no comfort in it. Now you’re here it feels more like a husk, leaden and hollow, ready for you to be stuffed into. 

“You married a selkie by accident?” Uraraka blanched, her volume rousing you from your haze. “You know, Bakugo, for someone so smart your ignorance is truly astounding”. 

“Can you fucking reverse it or not?” 

“Reverse it. Are you kidding? You’re not. Gods, Bakugo—breaking a soul bond isn’t common,” Uraraka snaps, rubbing roughly at her eyelids as she loses patience. You feel a pang of guilt, that which worsens as it unearths the hope that perhaps she wouldn’t be able to separate you from him. “Most of the methods are based on myth. You realise it will be incredibly painful, and possibly for nothing?”

You take in the surroundings while they continue to bicker. The cottage is modest. A small foyer leads to the living space, rugs of various shapes and colours laid to insulate a path through the house, runes and scrawls carved into the hardwood walls. Logs presumably for fuelling the hearth monopolise much of the space, spilling out from the nook in which they’re stacked. There is nothing particularly otherworldly, at least not where you can see it. Uraraka obviously lives within her means, a humble and frugal person despite wielding magic of her calibre. 

“I do have something I can try, ” she sighs with a sidelong glance. The skin on her lip breaks between her teeth. Your prolonged silence has likely done nothing to reassure her. You try to feign interest, to smile and express gratitude, but she grimaces. 

“What do we have to do?”

“Essentially I can sever the bond at the stem but not the root,” the group is quiet, tense as they listen. Mina’s grip is bruising, as though making sure you were still there. “The dissolution of your marriage will only be complete when the selkie returns to the sea. Within a day or two they’ll… forget you”.  

You sense the atmosphere darken. Katsuki shifts his weight in your periphery. Neither one of you can look at the other. Whether he’s threatened by your feelings or ashamed of them you can’t be sure, but what you know is that they are real, sown and tended in the weeks you spent together. 

Kirishima exhales a shuddered breath. His big body crouches before you, warm hand resting on your knee. Kaminari and Sero linger on either side, watching over the scene, wearing grief plainly on their faces. A broken part of you wants to laugh. They are acting as if this is your wake. 

“Are you sure about this?” he implores, discreet and unintentionally cruel. If you were to say no, what of you then? Nothing to do but follow them on their journey, dragging along like the hide of some shorn animal. Stuck waiting for Katsuki to resent you over an incredibly frustrating and misplaced presumption that he played a part in fabricating your thoughts and feelings.  

Uraraka’s method may well cleave the ties created in your accidental matrimony. You trust in her capabilities because Katsuki clearly respects them. You’ll say yes. And after it all, when your soul has been excavated, when you’ve gone home crying to your mother, rocked to sleep in her gentle undertow, you will still stubbornly want him. 

The thought comes unbidden, a sudden clarity that overcomes you. At that point he would have no room to question your will. “I’m sure,” you say, still breathless with the realisation. “You can go ahead with it, Uraraka”. 

Hesitating in her movement, Uraraka considers you for a moment longer before disappearing down the hall. When she returns she pulls seven tear shaped crystals from a velvet satchel. Dread churns in your stomach, sensing the energy emanating from them. 

She begins to recite machinations beyond your comprehension. Opalescent rays of light burst from within her enclosed fist where it pressed against her mouth, dappling sentient shadows across her face, now taut with concentration. Her features ripple and distort, not unlike a reflection on the ocean's surface, then fades into obscurity as the spell settles into its conduit. 

Uraraka hands the lustre of the stone to you, knuckles pale as she squeezes the magic out into your cupped palms. As a pup you would try to drink sunlight, specks chased across the seabed as the clouds shifted, caught like a cat to a mouse only to remain empty handed. Light was not made up of solid matter— it was intangible. To be felt, seen, but not touched. 

Yet it is swirling in your hands like that lovely warm wine from the night before, slipping through the thin cracks in your fingers. “Drink it,” she coaxes gently. 

You look at Katsuki. His eyes flicker up to meet your own. There’s an awful urgency coursing through your body, frozen like a fawn, something inside willing you to stop. Begging him to speak up. He lowers his gaze, expression pinched and inwardly furious. 

Heel to chin, you tip your head back as if drinking from a cup. Her magic is entirely flavourless, waning with your own imagination as if it were allowing you to choose the taste yourself. The consistency is like steam; inhaled rather than swallowed, and hot on the roof of your mouth. 

Elemental magic was external in the way it bursts forth from the user, often causing flesh wounds or dramatic change in the terrain. You think of Katsuki, the calamity at his fingertips, juxtaposed by the tender manner in which he would always touch you, cauterising your fear. Uraraka’s magic is unforgiving and uniquely invasive. It is so much worse than being burned. 

It spreads through your sinuses like searing wildfire, pressure balloons behind your eye sockets, undoing the seams that make up the very fabric of your being. Waves of nausea engulf you, throat tight and constricted. Breathing laboured and irregular, you fight against the urge to retch it all up. 

It’s too much. The incorporeal spell pierces through your mind, tearing at the bond, more overwhelming than anything you’ve ever been dealt. Knife-like pain persists after her chanting stops. You wince and cradle your head, weeping as it passes. Left in its wake is a muted soreness throbbing across your brain. 

“Hi,” Uraraka is before you, ducking to examine for any injury. Careful, her fingers encircle your wrists and pry your hands away. “You’re okay. Can you look at me?”

You squint, reluctant to blink and irritate the soreness around your eyes. “How’s your vision?” she asked, sotto voce. Her touch is deliberate and gentle, slightly pulling down your bottom eyelids, petting over your jaw and down the nape of your neck, feeling for something. “Does anything feel wrong, or out of place?”

Wrong? your mind echoes. Out of place? Cold is creeping into your muscles, gritty and dense like wet sand. You’re unnerved by the veil of apathy that settles around you. “I don’t think I’m injured. The light is more intense. Hurts,” you admit, voice breaking. 

Everything that remains the same yet is somehow more drab, lacking colour and difficult to look at. Your friends, clinging to each other. Your Katsuki, staring back at you. “But I can still see everything”. 

“Good,” she breathes, relief entirely palpable. If this is success then you wonder what the worst outcome might’ve been. “That’s good. If you reach for the bond, is it there?” 

You’re not sure what she means. Seeking connection you clutch your sealskin to your front, kneading at the familiar fur. It’s minor but it’s back— the voice belonging to the tide, beckoning you to shift again. “I don’t think so,” you reply. 

“Then there’s only one thing left to do,” Uraraka smiles and covers your hands with her own. You sense the tips of her fingers ever so slightly across your collar where they brush the pelt bunched in your fists. “You’re free now. You can go back home”. 

Her soothing countenance might as well be dry grass to your precipitous anger. “Right,” you deadpan, voice entirely devoid of emotion. Best kept that way, lest you release all your bubbling frustrations onto a woman that only wanted to help you; in her eyes—and the rest—you were just another trapped, useless selkie. 

That anger carries you to your feet. You want to cry but the tears don’t come. When you exit the cottage with a curt bow and a ‘thank you’ you find yourself in the lead for once, marching ahead of the group. They remain a few feet behind, muttering amongst each other. Without the view of Katsuki’s back you feel lonely. Even so you keep your hurried pace, too afraid to turn around and be inundated with questions. 

The journey back passes in a blur. Hours, surely, because you’re ready to pass out from the exertion. Loose dirt and geosmin clings to your clothes.  Shadows stretch across the emptying streets as dark cloud cover canopies the town, sparse instances of light rainfall that stick to your skin. There's a chill in the air now, a bite to it that rattles your bones and quickens your breath. It’s damp, imbued with the scent of sea salt. 

You don’t stop, not when the desperate calls of your name begin. Further up the dock is lit golden, lanterns lining cobbled roads and emitting a warm orange glow. You trudge through the quieting bustle, workers scurrying to shelter, while enduring a pervasive sense of wrongness. 

You don’t know what to do with this freedom, this precipice, so joyless and empty. Slowing to descend weather-worn steps onto the beach there’s a presence at your heel. “Shit. Would you slow—!” Katsuki moves to stop you. His fingers flex, start to close around your wrist. Then they hesitate and fall away, clenching at his side until all the blood recedes from his knuckles. “You don’t need to immediately run off into the damn water”. 

“It’s easier this way,” and quicker, you think. 

“What?”

Listening to the sea sings an ancient litany, you let your anger wash away with the oncoming tide. The whiplash is intense. Your lips tremble, pulling into a tearful smile, laughter bubbling up through your chest, choked by the swell in your throat. “I think I understand why you’re always yelling now,” cumulus clouds pass overhead and bring with them a curtain of rain.  “Being human is very melodramatic”. 

Katsuki clearly hadn’t expected that, of all things. His expression softens in his surprise. The short hairs by his temples are laid flat, braid swinging in the breeze, the fur around his cloak dark and saturated. “That’s what this is? Baby’s first tantrum?” his tone is mean, and your hackles would rise if he were not visibly deflating. Katsuki reacts to vulnerability like a wounded dog. He laughs despite himself and scratches at his neck, “Fuck. I thought you’d be happy, or something close to it”. 

Standing a few feet behind him, Kirishima, Sero, Mina and Kaminari are linked together, waiting to approach. They remain in your line of sight as you consider the barbarian in front of you. A cold shock billows through his cloak, a wave crashing onto the shore. He shivers, but remains stubbornly rooted to the steps. 

“I’m not happy,” you lamented. “I’m going to miss you. You are an impossible man, Katsuki. Impossible to forget. I wish you’d believe that”. 

Katsuki’s mouth opens and shuts. Silence falls once again, and he can’t find the words to fill it. Your fingers work at the belt keeping your hide secure, tugging it loose and letting the sealskin unfurl, blanketing the length of your body. 

Mina takes this as an indication that you are leaving. She rushes ahead, stumbling past a stunned Katsuki, gathering you into her arms. The pelt is trapped between your bodies as you curl into the embrace. You feel yourself warm up, the wet winds rolling off the sea obstructed by three larger figures trailing right behind her, encasing you in a group hug. 

Constricted from all sides, the arms around your waist tighten. Mina’s nails dig in, and she shakes you gently in an attempt to scold you, “Don’t go leaving us without a proper goodbye”. 

Kirishima is at your back. He must be. The height, the rough skin, the hard spikes in his hair poking at your nape where he inhales deeply, memorising your scent. Sero flanks your left, resting his head on the shifter's shoulder as dark eyes watch you. Kaminari bears down his weight, slumping against your right, a sour metallic taste at the back of your throat as the grip on his magic loosens with emotion. 

It feels wrong without Katsuki. You crane your neck and look for him. The sight of him dithering off to the side, alone and wearing a visage of muted guilt, makes your insides twist. Your hand bursts through a crevice in the huddle, coaxing him over. 

He comes. Mina drags him into the middle without fanfare, and enclose around you in a last ditch effort to keep you together. “This is the worst,” Kaminari snivelled. “It’s like my parents are divorcing all over again”. 

Katsuki weakens to it. Gives a quiet, choked laugh and it blows warm across your temple. You’d know his hands anywhere. Hesitant, they rest on your hips. You close your eyes and centre yourself in the present, tilting your head to rest on his collar. The motion drags your lips up to his jugular and you kiss the words against the damp skin, thicker than intended, “I’m—really, so happy I met you all”. 

The briny air greets you when they finally step away. Mina rubs harshly at her eyes as your feet sink into the sand. There are stragglers by the port but nobody along the beach, so they trail after you to the shore, equal parts unwilling to leave and curious about your selkie form.  

You’re pointedly aware of their presence as you shake out your fur. You hold it to your face for a moment, blocking out the wind, the light and the rain with how insulated it is, before setting it on the sand. Kaminari coughs, the group spinning on their heels when you begin to undress. Katsuki does not. 

Kicking off your boots as you fiddle with your shirt strings, you consider the barbarian, impressing his appearance behind your eyes for a final time. “What will you do after this?” 

Broad shoulders rise and fall as he sighs. Looks up to the sky, frowning, a blush on his cheeks. “Go further inland to one of the bigger cities to find something to pay back Deku, I guess. Circle around, head back, and then home”. 

Shirt discarded, you unbutton your pants, letting them fall down your thighs, and step out of them. “How long will you be in the city?”

Shrugging, he grunts, “A week at most”. 

That’s good. Long enough to wait out the final stages and prove his place in your memory. You nod, spine straightening with determination. “When you circle back I want you to stop here again. Just for a day”. 

That half lidded gaze slides over to you, squinting. Pointedly kept above the shoulders. Searching. “Why?” 

The tide crawls further ashore. A wave breaks around your ankles. Your toes wiggle in the sand, sinking as it is displaced, a small smile curling at your lips. You bend to grab the pelt and slide it around your shoulders like a coat. It’s comforting, familiar. Energy thrums at the surface of your skin, ready to pull. But you wait. 

“In a week. Promise me?” you say without explanation. 

Katsuki swallows. Eyes boring into yours. His jaw shifts. Then he nods, tersely. Reassured by this you hold the coat tighter, chin tucked as you steady your breathing. Consciously, you reach inward, drawing upon the pelt.

And you change. Falling to your knees, cold water biting at your thighs, you crumple in the sand, body shrinking as flesh and fur meld together. It’s painful after so long, unsettling to be snapped back abruptly into your hindbrain, but the discomfort eases quickly, like stretching a muscle. 

You lift your upper body, nose flat and wide and twitching, scenting the air. The sand sifts under bootstrapped feet. A human approaches, beautiful and familiar, lowering into a crouch as you freeze. Forearms resting on his knees, he holds out his fingers. Faintly smoky, a mix of spice and earth. 

The way in which this man appraises your form is uncomfortably solemn. Vacuous expression betrayed by the gentle light in his eyes. He smiles ruefully and readies himself to speak. Alight with a bitterness that is vaguely accusatory in the oncoming darkness he says, “Already forgot us, didn’t you?”

It steals the breath right from your lungs. Recognition strikes through you. Bakugo Katsuki. The thought is alarmingly fleeting, almost evading your grasp. Nostrils flaring, you drag your body forward to wipe the look of self-deprecation from his face. You nudge your snout into his hand, not shying away from the fierce elemental energy radiating from his palms. You unhinge your jaw, canines gently indenting the heel, as if to scold him. 

He laughs, disbelief bleeding into the sound. It beckons his pod, more humans— one not so human. “Don’t fuckin’ scare them,” Katsuki calls over his shoulder. Not once do his eyes stray from you. 

A thick tang of draconic magic overwhelms your senses as the largest in the group mirrors Katsuki, making himself impossibly small, aware of his magnitude and the imbalance between your species. “Wow…” the shifter, Kirishima, breathes in awe, genuine rather than tainted with greed. “So cute”. 

More people come closer. Their faces filter through your memories in bits and pieces, stitching together into a patchwork timeline. “Yeah…” Mina echoes the sentiment. She gets on her knees, doesn’t care when the waves drench her skirt. “You’re beautiful like this too,” holding her hand an inch away from your skin, she asks, “Can we pet you?” 

Five fingers to your scruff, one hard pull and you could be torn from your rudimentary shell. Human hands are dangerous but not these ones. You give a short tonal whine and hope she interprets it as permission. They do, taking turns tracing the marbled fur and clawed flippers, murmuring awe filled words. 

The tides are high, wrapping around and coaxing you into their arms. You look toward the horizon and the itch grows. A seamless vista of clouded sky. Warm mouths litter the top of your head with kisses, their blunt human teeth behind soft lips, juxtaposed by rough, barely decipherable mutterings of something that sounds mournful. 

Mina sniffles as Kirishima helps her to her feet and they wade backwards toward the port. Katsuki cups your muzzle in his palms, searing where his thumbs swoop beneath your cheekbones, brushing over the whiskers by your nose. “Stay safe out there, yeah? Don’t get eaten by a shark or whatever,” he bends, bringing your foreheads together as if to impress his thoughts onto you. “I won't wait around for a weakling”. 

You can only hope he saw the promise held in your eyes as you stare at his retreating back. The swelling waves pull you into the current, submerged until only your head is above the surface. In the distance your pod breaks into cheers. They line up on the beach, jumping high as their legs will allow, waving their long arms in the air. 

A descending chorus of trills build in your own throat, mellifluous and loud enough to cut through the wind and the waves. Noise becomes muffled as you’re submerged into the dense water. Wrapped up in brine the ambience fills your head. It pushes out rational thought, drawing only instinct to the forefront. 

Your vision adjusts quickly to the dark the further you swim. Stretch your flippers and sweep them down like a dragon's wing, flying through the depths until you tire. Coming to an ocean shelf, there you rest. Cradled by a moving, ever evolving element. Creatures big and small pass by. Fish with vermillion scales haloing wide faces dart in and out of your dreams, shimmering under weak streams of sunlight. 

The shifting tide keeps you cognisant. You linger close to the surface to monitor the sun. Days pass and you are unbearably alone. It is harrowing; this unending, sombre ache. You think of Katsuki. Repeat his name until it sounds foreign. You recall his handsome face, the way his eyes always seemed brighter in the early dawn, how his nose would wrinkle if you stared too long, like he’d tasted something bitter. You miss him. 

Come the week’s end you’ve become something else, something new. Irrevocably changed by love’s hand. You recognise that you exist in two worlds: as a  selkie, tethered to the seabed and embraced by buoyancy, and as a human, struggling against the currents, compelled back to land—

To Katsuki. 

You glide through the waves, riding them as they swell and break onto the shore. Undulating your body, the hitching motion pulls you forward, wriggling up into a cluster of rock pools, safe from any onlookers. You wait there, chin propped on the shoulder of a jagged stone to observe the beach. 

He finds you there beneath an almost oppressive dusk. The approaching footfalls command attention, announcing his arrival. You slink into the shadows for a moment, detailing the subtleties in Katsuki’s expression on his march along the sand, pinching more and more as he casts he searches the beach. The breeze ripples through the notorious red cloak, fur collar tickling his cheeks. Shirtless, wearing his scars proudly. His pants sit low on his hips, adorning various belts and jewels. Warmth curls up in your chest at the sight of him. Giddy. You remember him. 

You lift your head. His focus immediately latches onto the movement. A croon rumbles in your throat as he approaches. He climbs up onto the rock, towering over you, his body obstructing the evening sun. It halos around his golden hair. The braid by his ear falls forward as his head tilts, squinting to get a good look at you. 

The laughter lines by his eyes deepen, brow creasing. Almost slipping as he climbs down, Katsuki frowns at the lack of traction on the surface. You laugh and it comes out like a rough snort. The shallow pools splash loudly under his boots upon landing. He curls his upper lip at you, “Laugh at me and I’ll kill you”. 

You do so again, more deliberate this time. He senses your sarcasm and flicks water at you. Your whiskers twitch, subtly tasting the air. He slumps hard on one of the flatter ridges and clicks his tongue. “This better be you and not some random fuckin’ seal I’m talking to,” he mutters, embarrassed. 

Unwilling to prolong your reunion any longer, you shed your pelt. Joints slot into place, the sealskin receding, your human form unearthing as it loosens and pools around your naked lap. Katsuki watches the air bite at your skin, nipples pebbling as you shiver. 

“Katsuki,” you rest your cheek on his thigh, knelt between his legs. You let him take it all in. Satisfied with his assessment of you his fiery eyes meet yours. 

“Almost didn’t come. Figured you wouldn’t be here,” he intoned gruffly, chin dimpling as he juts his bottom lip. “You were supposed to forget about everything”. 

You nod, mouth curling into a helpless smile. Your fingers flex and you feel the muscles jump underneath, “I know”.

Katsuki exhales a long breath, fists clenched tight in his lap with obvious restraint. “Why didn’t you?” his eyes track the movements of your hands. “It worked, I know it did. Cheeks doesn’t do shit halfway. I felt when… So what the hell are you doing back here?”

You pause when his words register, suddenly off kilter. There it is again, the displeased wrinkle on the bridge of his nose. You had never considered that he, too, would’ve experienced the connection. Admittedly a naive oversight on your part—but he never mentioned it. You figured it was just a selkie thing. Perhaps, all that time, he had been contending with his own feelings as well as yours. Wondering if he could trust himself, if they were true. 

Vows dissolved, he still chose to come back for you. To bet on that slim chance. Just as you did. 

The knowledge compels you to touch him more, to reassure, to lean further into the clutch of his thighs. The intrusion forces his legs wider and when you reach to cradle either side of his taut jaw he lowers to close the distance. 

“I felt it, you know. Before you offered me my pelt I felt you touching it,” you begin, watching how his expression splits open as your eyes meet. “I knew it was safe with you”. 

“That’s stupid,” he utters, though you can hear that he doesn’t mean it. Embarrassment slowly stains his cheeks pink. You can feel him twitch, smothering the instinctive urge to snap at whatever made him feel so intensely. 

“Maybe,” you pull back a hair's breadth to lightly knock your heads together. “My point is, I was drawn to you before all that, in such a short window. I think… I didn’t forget you because those feelings grew naturally”. 

The more you speak he progressively gets pinker, flustered and mad about it. It births an odd, primal urge to sink your teeth into something. To bite his cheek white, watch the blood retreat under the skin. Instead, you slide your hand lower to rest on his neck and his own cuff your wrists. 

“That first day, you apologised to me because I never had a choice,” there’s a soft grunt in acknowledgment. His pulse dances under your palm. “I’m making one now of my free will. And you—can say no, if you want,” you stutter, then, suddenly realising the real possibility of him rejecting your request altogether. “But I want to be here with you”. 

The last rays of sun stretch across the land, cosseted behind soft clouds as it sheaths. Katsuki considers you quietly. There’s a soft sort of intent in his eyes, wearing the revelry of dusk. You kneel in the rock pool, literally and figuratively bare, heart pounding in your throat as he readies himself to respond. 

“Back at the bathhouse…” he hesitates, promptly clears his throat and struggles to look at you. 

“Nothing was influencing me that night. Except maybe the wine,” you admit timidly, abashed at his sudden demurity. “I’m sorry”. 

That garners a reaction from him. In true Katsuki fashion his tongue clicks behind gritted teeth and applies pressure to your wrists, pulling you up. “Come here,” he tells you. You uncurl your legs and begin to stand moving with all the grace of a newborn fawn. “Oi, don’t—!” jerking his head to the side, he averts his gaze from your naked lower half, glaring at the shoreline. The sea-scented air prickles your skin, heat gathering where he has you held. “Expose yourself to everyone in the fuckin’ country, won’t you? Come here,” and then he’s hooking behind your knees, making them bend, gathering you into his lap in bridal fashion. 

“What’s the problem?” you mutter. Heat creeps up your neck, feeling defensive and distinctly embarrassed by his behaviour. “I don’t see how my nakedness is any different here than it is in the public bathhouse”. 

He holds you closer, voice vibrating through his chest as he roughly insists, “It’s different”. 

Your pout softens into a small pleased smile, letting him manhandle you until he’s satisfied with his grip. He bends, incidentally baring his throat stretching for the pelt discarded by the rocks. Tucking your nose to the underside of his jaw you revel in how his arm tightens around your lower back. 

Katsuki draws the pelt into your lap, covering your modesty. You laugh at how sweet and boyish it seems. “Laughin’ at me again, huh?” two fingers pinch at your cheek, pulling until you whine. “Got a death wish?”

Kneading at the sealskin coat your affections roar into existence once more with an intensity. “You wouldn’t hurt me,” you grin, and he abandons the pinch to stretch his big hand across your face. Thumb on your left cheek, fingers on your right, he squeezes together until your mouth is misshapen and pursed. 

“Sure about that?” he warns, tone steeped in fondness. It is exhilarating to have him touch you again, more freely than he ever had before; it is as close to ‘I believe you’ as you think you’ll get. 

You smile with your eyes, locked with his. Close enough to count every fine eyelash. Your words come garbled as you say, “You still haven’t given me an answer”. 

Katsuki exhales shallowly through his nose. His throat contracts as he swallows. The pressure releases. His hand cups your face, flexing with uncertainty. You shudder when he dips to press your lips together. You’re kissed without hurry, besotted by his firm but cautious movements. He relaxes as you lean into the rhythm, humming proudly. The soft, wet sounds of your mouths meeting again and again echo over the crawling waves. 

Katsuki pulls away first, eyes still closed but smiling to himself. He licks his lips and rasps, “I guess you can come along with us,” as though that was all the answer he needed to give. 

Alight with excitement you squirm in his lap, earning a quick slap to your hip. Katsuki ignored your grumbling and set to covering your body entirely. “Hold onto the corners,” he says, draping the hide over your shoulders, comforting warmth enveloping you as you obediently take the corners. “Put your arms around my neck. Do not drop it”. 

You do, curtaining both of your bodies with the pelt in the process, fingers interlocking at Katsuki’s nape. Your faces remain a whisper away. It feeds a skin hunger that plagued you for days. Satisfied, he then unties his cloak to slide it over-top, layering the two to keep you covered. 

Your stomach swoops as Katsuki pushes to his feet, carrying you in his arms with no sign of exertion and much better balance than before. His bicep bulges, fingers flexing under your thighs. “Where are we going?” 

Sand and broken shells crunch under his boots, gait leaden like wading through mud. Mariners whistle suggestively in your direction as he climbs the steps to the dock, making his teeth grind. “Taking you back to our room,” he grunts.  

You flush with heat at the implication. “You still have the key…?” 

Without disrupting his pace, Katsuki’s nose nudges along your temple to press a kiss there. “Said my shitty wife left something behind,” you feel his mouth pull into a smirk, “so they gave me it to go take a look”. 

A pleasant sensation erupts in your stomach. Fluttering like butterflies. “And the others?”

Darkness covers you when he ducks into a narrow alley. Katsuki meanders along the winding path with unfettered confidence. “I sent them on ahead. Said I’d catch up on foot,” he explains, eyes darting over the surroundings, striding back out into a familiar road leading to the tavern. “Wanted to be alone”. 

You’re carried up the stairwell despite the stern assertion that you would be just fine on your feet. In that same vein, Katsuki is clearly just fine taking all of your weight— proud of it, you think. Unwilling to put you down.  

He shoulders into the room and kicks the door shut. It is as you remember. Dim and homely, accented by a lamp that casts a soft yellow glow over the bed. Heavy footsteps take you forward, and you are swiftly deposited on the mattress. You bounce a fraction, losing purchase on the pelt and cloak. Both layers peel away, rumpled under your back, leaving you splayed out and bare. 

Katsuki stands next to the bed, watching the rise and fall of your chest. His features are tender in the light, smoothing his hard edges. It flickers in his irises. Gaze hungry, restless. 

Your body can’t help but react to Katsuki’s silent observation. The ardent stroke of his eyes across every part of you like it were his hands themselves. Heat races through you and coils between your legs. Feeling exposed, you try to close your thighs. 

There’s a hand on your knee, stopping the movement, firm but gentle as he pries them back open. Katsuki moves closer and kicks off his boots. The mattress dips under his weight. One knee on the bed, your legs part further to make space for the intrusion, wrapping around his waist without second thought. 

“This okay?” he murmurs, barely above a whisper. You exhale shakily, hands roving along the thick of his arms to clutch at his shoulders. The buckles on his pants bite into the back of your thighs. You can feel his arousal swelling through the fabric. 

Rocking your hips, your feet cross at his lower back. “Yeah. I want…” his eyes flutter, almost rolling up into his skull, pupils dilated. You chase the phantom feeling of his lips with your tongue and he tracks the movement. “Kiss me again”. 

“Thank fuck,” Katsuki groaned, the sound dwindling into a low chuckle. His forearms settle either side of your head, pressing all his weight down, pinning you to the bed. Taking up your vision until only he is in your orbit. The braid by his ear hangs loosely, the bead cold where it brushes your jaw. You tremble, fingers threading into his hair to scratch gently at his scalp. 

Your mouths slot together and he kisses you full, nibbling your lips until they part. Pushing deeper, tongues sliding over teeth, stealing the breath from your lungs. He handles you with indecision. Careful kisses followed by rough ones; grabbing at the soft parts of your body a little too hard, smoothing the flesh with his thumb in apology. 

It’s overwhelming how much he wants you. And you try to return the fervour, arms sliding around his back to keep him close, undulating your hips to feel the tremors wrack through him. 

The talons strung around his neck graze over your chest as he descends. Kisses left on the corner of your mouth, cheek, jugular. He takes your pulse between his jaws and you whine, clenching at his waist. Katsuki moves away, laving his tongue along your throat. 

“Wanna touch you,” he says. Goosebumps break out across your skin as he blows cool air over the wet stripe left behind. “S’all I could think about. You’re fucking distracting”. 

“Yes. Please,” your eyelids flutter, leaning back to hear your throat. “Please”. 

“Needy,” he mumbles, a satisfied lilt to his tone. His hand slides down to your ass, grabbing one cheek and filling his palm with it as he spreads you open. “Bein’ too quiet. I like it when you say my name,” he rasps. “Gonna let me hear it?” 

Fingertips brush against your sex. Heat flushes under your skin, anticipation and understanding unfurled within you. “Katsuki,” you sigh into his mouth. 

Katsuki flashes a predatory grin. Pleased, and pink all the way to his ears. Breath puffing over your lips he says, “Again”. 

“Katsuk—ah,” his thumb circles over your swollen clit, sparks zipping up your spine. Your breath hitches. You chase the touch, his four fingers splayed low on your navel; the other cups the back of your knee to keep you spread as he descends from throat to chest, forging a path of wet kisses, stopping intermittently to softly suck at the flesh and coax blood to the surface. 

You’re wet. Wet enough, warm enough, that the still air feels cold on your skin. His lips wrap around your nipple and you arch up into the sensation as he slowly sinks a finger inside of you. You take him to the knuckle, and he waits, gradually pulling out until you’re clenching around a fingertip. 

Again and again he fucks you on his fingers, adding another, curling them up mid stroke to brush the most sensitive part of you, spreading them to work you open. You mewl, steeped in pleasure as it diffuses through your belly, pooling between your thighs. 

Katsuki watches you, peering up through heavy eyes, mouth full of your breast. He flicks his tongue over the pert nipple, coming up and switching to the other, lavishing you in attention. You exhale, tremors wracking your body. Cradle the back of his head, grip tightening reflexively when he hits that sweet spot, and the groan rumbling in his throat prickles under your skin. 

Satisfied, he continues lower. Throws your legs over his broad shoulders, laid flat along the bed. The mattress jerks when he ruts into the sheets, still confined in his pants. You hold his gaze as his cheeks hollow. Saliva pools into his mouth and he tucks his chin, spitting it on your clit, massaging it over with his thumb. 

You shudder, hips canting. “Shit, look at you,” he pants, voice so thick and supple you want to wrap yourself in it. “Keep your eyes on me, yeah?” he litters kisses across your inner thigh, pressing praise into the sensitive skin there. Your heels dig into the thick muscle at his back when he dips to kiss your clit, licking in and around his fingers. “I wanna see your face when you cum”.

You’re pulsing around him, frantically chasing the feeling. It’s— overwhelming, like you can’t breathe through it, and every string in your body has been pulled taut, wavering on the precipice. You reach to grasp his forearm. The muscles flex under your palms, pave unrelenting, and tears begin to sting behind your eyes. 

“Fuck, Katsuki,” you gasp, breathlessness abated by the sudden rush of air to your lungs. “Feels so good, I can’t… Katsuki I can’t—”

A broken sound reverberates throughout the room the moment he stops, pulling back and leaving you empty. You can barely believe that it came from you, squeezing your eyes shut in shame. But then he’s right there, crowding into your space, caging your body with his own. “Oi,” he softly takes your jaw, “What did I say? Look at me”. 

You squint up at him. You take in his swollen lips, lidded stare, the sheen of sweat on his brow, hair matted to his forehead, arousal and spit coating his chin. For the first time you think you might understand, just a fraction, the greed of those who kept you. Because now you desire to be the one to take. To keep. To stow away his shamelessness and be the only one to see it. 

“You hurt?” 

“No,” you whisper, blinking away the haze. Katsuki tucks his knees up higher against your middle, tops of his thighs shelving your splayed legs. You feel yourself clenching around nothing, empty. “I’m sorry”. 

“Don’t fuckin’ apologise,” he tucks his nose against your temple, indifferent to the sheen of sweat. You inhale his musky scent and slide your arms around his shoulders. “Got too in your head, huh?”

His cock twitches in his pants, still hard and pressed to your thigh. Gathering your bearings you subtly rock your hips into his lap. You shiver at the sharp hiss by your ear, the drag of his soft lips over the shell. He nips at it in warning. 

“You want to keep going?” 

You nod, playing with the thin hair at his nape. He rumbles and it feels like a purr, pushing up only to pull at the belt buckles around his waist. Impatient, you reach to help, pulling the leather out from the loops, fingers trembling. 

Katsuki frees his hands and lets you work at the buttons. He wears a small, crooked smile on his face as he watches, chest rising and falling with every anticipatory breath. You pull them down his hips, a trail of light hair leading from his bellybutton to his cock. He shifts, hooking into the waistband and pushing them down his legs, kicking them off the bed. 

In your impatience your fingers wrap around his length, playing with the soft skin. You circle the blushing tip, smearing pre with your thumb. He throbs, abdomen clenching with a guttural moan that shoots straight to your own. 

“So impatient,” he cups your jaw and forcing you to meet his eyes. “Get me nice and wet?”

“Yeah,” you rasp, detailing how his pupils expand as you slide his cock through your folds. The corner of his mouth twitches. He grins as he dips to kiss you. It is more chaste than the last, a kiss for the sake of kissing. 

Then the grip on your jaw tightens. Firm and unyielding. Katsuki’s big hand engulfs yours, squeezing his dick, teasing the tip at your entrance. “Gonna make you cum on my cock. But you’ve got to listen to me and relax. Okay?” 

You desperately want to dig your heels into his lower back, to drag him inside and fill up that awful emptiness, to take him to the hilt and keep him there. Instead you acquiesce, forcing yourself pliant; rewarded with a soft kiss, he presses his forehead to yours. 

“Take a deep breath for me,” he tells you. You inhale, ribs expanding as your lungs bloat. Slowly, Katsuki pushes his tip past your entrance, and begins to sink his cock into you. His expression shutters, eyes rolling shut as his face scrunches up. Strained, he says, “Breathe out, baby. Slow”. 

You exhale, ending on a long moan as skin meets skin. He settles in the cradle of your hips. “Good,” his voice is gravelly, strained. His nails bite at your waist, “And in”. 

Repeating the motions your muscles clench around him as he pulls out, as though your body couldn’t be without him. He huffs through his nose and you feel it hot on your cheek. It continues like that. He fucks you slow and deliberate, pinned to the bed like a butterfly, guiding your breathing. You cannot look away from him. He’s devastating. He’s yours. Wild spikes are tousled around a flushed face, mouth kiss-bitten and slack with awe. “Katsuki,” you whisper, each more frantic than the last. 

The earlier intensity does not return, rather, it accumulates inside of you with every inhale, suffusing through you like a warm, pleasant fog. The pressure has you bursting at the seams, undone by the indelible drag of his cock, how his pelvis pressed so perfectly against your clit, little incantations of your name murmured into your hair. 

“Ah, fuck. Katsuki, I’m—” your thighs seize either side of his waist, toes curling as the words catch in your throat. “M’gonna…”

“I’ve got you,” he fucks you a little deeper, gritting his teeth. The muscles in his neck flex with exertion. “In and out, baby. I’ve got you”. 

Those practised breaths quickly stagger into uneven whines as you’re tipped over the edge. Ley lines erupt behind your eyelids. You arch back into the sheets—pelt and cloak rumpled beneath—as the pleasure quakes through you. 

Katsuki fucks you into your orgasm and then beyond it. You cradle him to your chest when his rhythm stutters, releasing a long groan as he spills into you. 

Together you collapse back on the mattress, rolling onto your sides. He slides his arm beneath your head and hooks your knee over his hip, keeping himself nestled inside you for a while longer. You lie there until the fog recedes, leaving a sated contentment in its wake. 

In that instance you can no longer tell where the line of your own body ends and where Katsuki’s begins. You feel warm, comfortable against him. All the fears and hypotheticals that sought to fill the hole in your chest have faded. You realise in those intimate few minutes that home is what you choose it to be. A place, a concept, a person. Home is the ocean, said to cover more than half of the earth, fissuring inland and stretching further than the eye can see; it is a current that will always run in your veins. But humans, too, are made of the sea. Water, minerals and tissue. Home is in the blood that rushes to Katsuki’s cheeks when you kiss him. 

This is where you belong. 

Eventually Katsuki decides he needs to get up. Your objections go ignored, silenced when he returns dressed with a damp cloth to wipe you down. Once he's done he pulls up the bed covers and manhandles you under them, declaring that he needs to go downstairs and pay ‘that woman’ for the room. 

“Won’t be long. Don’t even think about getting up. I’ll need to buy you some clothes tomorrow…”

Grin hidden under the blankets, you call out to him before he goes. He stops in the doorway, softened by the lamp light. Feigning innocence, you jokingly ask, “Before you go, could you pass me my pelt?” 

Your heart races when he reflexively goes to do so, only for him to halt halfway. His eyes narrow, lips thinning into a smirk:

“Real fuckin’ funny”.