genesis

jen-uh-sis

- noun, plural gen-e-sis

1. an origin, creation, or beginning.

Izuku isn't sure when it started.

Truth be told, it probably started the day they met. This is the scattered conclusion his mind returns to on the sleepless nights when he's not wary enough to herd his thoughts elsewhere. The undercurrents were always there – the bones of this monster that looms behind Izuku with every breath. That's how he sees it now; not a new, creeping growth over the tangled and cluttered mess they've made, but the final layer of what began when they were so little they could barely spell their own names. A logical step in a journey the length of their very lives.

He doesn't know when the piercing, meaningful looks and the way Katsuki's voice cracks with emotion every time they speak morphed into what they are now. He can't pinpoint the moment at which the weight of Katsuki's eyes became frightening and overwhelming in this wholly new, wholly uncomfortable way.

Izuku was always terrified of Kacchan.

That's why, when speaking to him of being in close proximity to him starts to make Izuku's face heat up and his lungs try to burst out of his chest, he is able to adapt. It's not all that different from the fluttering awe he felt for Katsuki when they were little, from the simple, animalistic fear when Katsuki hated him.

Yet in a way, this is something different altogether.

It's a party, sort of: a get-together not all that different from the way they all hang out normally save for the fact that Sero and Mina arranged it and Kaminari found alcohol. The blonde and the pink-haired girl have been making sure all evening that neither Iida nor Yaoyorozu get their hands on a cup with anything in it other than soda after deciding there was no way either would stand for such mischief. Most of the lights in the small red room are off, and the majority of the class has gravitated toward the corner where Hagakure has plugged her phone into a small speaker. The din is a cozy one, rising and falling with the excited chatter of teenagers emboldened by the fuzzy warmth of alcohol.

Izuku hovers in the kitchen, watching them through the doorway.

Oddly, the buzz feels a little like One for All. It ripples through his limbs, ebbing warmly as it prickles against his cheeks and his fingertips like minuscule bursts of static. It buoys him in turns, lifting and emboldening him in one moment and turning his stomach with liquid uncertainty the next. He listens to Uraraka excitedly recounting something that happened at the mall a few days prior from where she sits in the semi-circle of young adults and Izuku looks down at the syrupy liquid in his cup, counting his heartbeats.

As if the very atoms in his skin were attuned to his presence, Izuku knows it's Bakugou entering the room before he even looks.

Kacchan's angular face is pink from the alcohol, making his sharp red eyes glow the same color as Izuku's heated, uneasy insides. Midoriya stiffens and his eyes widen. Unhelpfully, the dull fizzle of the beer drifting through him turns the usual lump of anxiety into a cloying interest that pulls in the direction where the blonde is standing.

They stare at each other for a long moment, utterly still. Izuku feels bare before him, stripped of confidence and bravado and pretense. Under the weight of his sharp, intimidating gaze, Izuku is nothing but the child he still holds inside him, small and insecure and full of fierce, unfaltering faith.

Katsuki steps toward him, closing the distance between them, holding Izuku's stare where he leans against the counter.

His lips part with a breath, blood-colored eyes as captivating and unreadable as ever, and takes his hands out of his pockets. He smells like sweat and burnt sugar and something sharply alive.

Izuku doesn't know exactly what this new layer of their relationship is, but at he leans up to meet Kacchan, he knows that this is just the beginning.