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He couldn’t sleep.
Most nights, he was at least trying to fall asleep — not because he believed it could happen, but because he was a stubborn man. He’d always been. Stubbornness was in his blood, even if his father preferred to call it determination.
At some point, Shouto had even tried various methods listed in a shady-looking and oddly written book he’d found in the library. He tried drinking chamomile tea or a strange mixture made from valerian root; he even stuffed his pillow with lavender petals and bought some fancy, magical stones at a witch shop in the city, but he drew the line at draining the blood. Eventually, he returned the book to the library.
That night, he did not try — he just lay on his side of the bed, eyes trained on the ceiling and hands intertwined on his chest. He knew he wouldn’t get any sleep for the next few hours; he needed to wait until dawn and then get some well-deserved rest. He would leave his chamber around noon, but no one would be surprised by that — Shouto’d been here for a long time, and everyone had had more than enough time to get used to his unusual habits.
He needed to wait.
For a while, he considered whether taking a walk to the gardens would be a good idea. It could help him kill some time and maybe even put his mind at ease, but the possibility of being found by guards was overshadowing any potential benefits. Besides, Shouto didn’t want to risk waking up his husband — he was a light sleeper and just anything—the slightest movement, the faintest sound—could wake him up in an instant. Shouto shook his head. Just a few hours more, he thought, clinging to these words as if they could secure his sanity.
He turned his head slightly to his right, his eyes locking on the back of his husband. For some reason, they never slept facing each other. Shouto’s lips curled up in an almost-smile; the word husband always amused him. They were married—no doubts here—but knowing the grounds for their marriage, Shouto couldn’t help but think they were just a couple of strangers forced into living together. There was no love, no devotion, no grand feelings. They had almost killed each other in the decade-long war, and then, just for the sake of their kingdoms and people, got married. Shouto always thought it was ironic — if getting married to your sworn enemy and promising him everlasting loyalty and love wasn’t a cruel joke of fate, then Shouto didn’t know what it was.
He looked away. Katsuki was just inches from him, so close that Shouto could easily reach for him, but he felt as distant as ever. It was never meant to work out, Shouto knew that, but he always hoped they could make it something more than a convenient deal. They were still young, both in their late twenties, so maybe they could… He shook his head frantically, driving away unwanted thoughts.
“Why are you awake?”
The question, sudden and unexpected, cut through the silence of the night. Shouto’s eyes snapped to Katsuki’s back in surprise. For a long moment, he was quiet — opening and closing his mouth, unable to force an answer out of himself. With Katsuki, he never knew how to behave or what to say; most of the time, he was left speechless and confused. It was a weird thing: the longer Shouto knew him, the more intimidated he felt. Shouldn’t it be the opposite?
When he eventually spoke up, it came out as a whisper. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Katsuki snorted; it was quiet, subtle even, but Shouto heard it. “Is that so?” He asked, and Shouto could imagine him arching a brow in a mocking expression. What was there to mock, he didn’t know.
Shouto sighed, hoping he could end this conversation right now, right there, just through his sheer willpower. “Happens sometimes,” he said. Go back to sleep already, he thought pleadingly.
“Sure thing,” Katsuki agreed easily, too easily, as he rolled over and trained his eyes on Shouto’s face. “Happened last night, too?”
Shouto frowned. “What?” The words left his mouth without much thinking. Only when they hung in the air did he realise that Katsuki must’ve known. He must’ve known about all these sleepless nights, and it was making Shouto sick. For how long had he known? Why did he bring it up?
“I asked if it happened last night, too,” Katsuki repeated in a calm, steady voice. It sounded nothing like him; Katsuki was loud and brash, dominating the space around him effortlessly and leaving no room for any objections. He was anything but calm. Shouto even thought that maybe he actually fell asleep. Maybe after all these years, he dreamt for the first time in his life. It sounded like a dream, a strange one, but a dream.
He didn’t indulge these thoughts for long — he knew he wasn’t dreaming; this whole situation was too realistic to be a product of his imagination. At the same time, it was too absurd to be reality. Shouto didn’t even remember the last time they talked.
“Why does it matter?” He asked. As dismissive as it sounded, it was the first thing that came to his mind.
For as long as he could remember, he and Katsuki minded their own businesses, completely ignoring each other’s existence unless it was utterly necessary. Katsuki never asked about Shouto’s day, about his problems or thoughts; he didn’t ask about anything at all, and Shouto didn’t ask either. They were nothing but strangers trapped in the same space, and the only thing holding them together was a threat of bloody war that could easily break out once again. None of them wanted that.
He found Katsuki’s eyes, slightly narrowed and focused, and stared into them with a sudden wave of resolve, hoping he could see through the impassive mask of Katsuki’s face and spot what was hidden beneath it. At first sight, Katsuki seemed to be the most straightforward and expressive person Shouto had ever met; he was loud and confident with his words, more often yelling and hissing than actually speaking, and when he kept his mouth shut on rare occasions, his face betrayed him. Especially his eyes—he had lovely eyes—were revealing what was left unsaid. But sometimes, like right now, Shouto couldn’t read them at all — he didn’t understand what the emotion in Katsuki’s eyes was, and the longer he stared into them, the less he knew.
“It does matter,” Katsuki said firmly, breaking the silence that started to grow uncomfortably between them. “Fuck’s sake, I’m your husband,” he added in a hushed voice, as if he was speaking more to himself than to Shouto. “You can talk to me if something’s bothering you.”
“Nothing is bothering me,” Shouto replied. It was half-truth, half-lie. Many things were bothering him, a lot of them were connected to his husband, but none of them were causing his sleep troubles. He wasn’t expecting Katsuki to believe him; he would never buy this excuse, but Shouto hoped to bore or annoy him into leaving that topic.
It wasn’t an easy deed; Katsuki could be easily irritated and impulsive, but he was also stubborn. If he made up his mind to do something, nothing could stop him — well, maybe his mother could, but she was the last person Shouto wanted to involve in their issues.
Katsuki was quiet for some time, and Shouto even started to think he was too tired to continue their odd chat, especially since it was the middle of the night. “You’re a shitty liar, princess,” Katsuki said eventually.
Shouto didn’t mind being called a shitty liar; simply used to the interesting way of communication Katsuki was so fond of. However, “I’m not a princess,” he pointed out.
“That’s the thing you’ve chosen to focus on?” Katsuki snorted, the corner of his lips curling up. Shouto, despite himself, stared at an almost-smile appearing on Katsuki’s face. It was different, much different from what Katsuki usually was like.
He rarely smiled; his facial expressions were dominated by scowls and frowns, occasionally replaced with rough, victorious grins, but Shouto had never seen him smile like that. Not like that, not in the way that seemed almost soft and fond, not in the way that you look at someone who you hold close to your heart. Katsuki Bakugou wasn’t supposed to look at him like that.
“Well,” Shouto mumbled, suddenly at a loss for words, as he struggled to maintain his composure. “I had to focus on something, right?” He reasoned, arching a brow at Katsuki, who remained mostly unfazed. If anything, his smile grew bigger.
“Of course,” Katsuki agreed easily.
He shifted closer, his face merely inches away from Shouto’s, and reached to brush his thumb against Shouto’s cheek. Shouto stayed mostly still, keeping up his guard just in case and staring at Katsuki with countless questions written all over his face. None of them was answered, as Katsuki didn’t bother to explain his sudden… affections. Yes, affection was a good word for what was happening between them, but it still seemed bizarre to Shouto.
“I think you should go to sleep,” Shouto said. “Don’t you have a meeting with your counsellors in the morning?”
“Didn’t know you paid so much attention to my schedule,” Katsuki teased. He leaned in even closer, his breath tickling Shouto’s skin. They hadn’t been so close in years, probably ever since their wedding night.
Shouto tilted his face to the side as he grumbled, “I’m not.” It was a lie, yet another he said that night. “Besides, you’re acting strange,” he added, gesturing at the absolute lack of free space between them. “Getting some sleep could help you.”
“I could say the same about you,” Katsuki countered as he pulled away a bit. He was still rather close, but he wasn’t invading Shouto’s personal space anymore. Shouto couldn’t decide if he was more relieved or disappointed by that.
“That’s different,” Shouto protested before he could think it over.
Unsurprisingly, Katsuki arched a brow and asked, “How’s that different?”
“Well, it is different,” Shouto said firmly.
“You’re not really convincing, do you know that?” Katsuki replied. “I might be ignorant at times, but I do not believe you’re staring at the ceiling for the whole night and then sleeping till noon without a very good reason.” He sighed deeply, and Shouto guessed he was finally getting fed up with their conversation as it was getting absolutely nowhere. “Did ya go to the doctor with that? We don’t keep him at the court for nothing, you know? Maybe some fuckin’ herbs or something could…”
“No doctor would help me,” Shouto cut in. They’d been talking for half an hour, maybe even longer, and he was getting tired of it. Besides, much to his astonishment, Katsuki seemed to be sincerely concerned about his condition. Why now, all of a sudden, had he shown any interest in Shouto? Shouto had no idea. “I— It’s a curse,” he admitted in a hushed voice.
“A curse,” Katsuki repeated, no sign of surprise in his voice. “In that case, I’d recommend a witch.”
“That’s not funny.”
“And I’m not joking.”
Shouto kept silent for a little while, reliving that one time when he’d visited the witch shop in the city. “The witch couldn’t help me either,” he said. “She gave me these fancy stones, but they didn’t work.”
Katsuki frowned, confusion overtaking his expression, as he asked, “Why the fuck would Pink Cheeks give you some stupid stones? That’s not how this shit works.”
“These were magic stones,” Shouto explained calmly, as if this detail changed anything in the complete uselessness of the said stones. “And she didn’t have pink cheeks.”
“Why would I call her Pink Cheeks if she didn’t have pink cheeks?” Katsuki waved his hand dismissively. “Are we even talking about the same witch?”
Shouto shrugged. “I’m not sure. Probably no,” he said. “But it didn’t work. It’s not a curse you can break,” he added hurriedly.
“Every curse can be broken,” Katsuki argued. He huffed in annoyance, as he did sometimes while talking with his befriended knights, and stated, “You just need to know how to do that.”
“And you know how to break it.” Shouto guessed.
“I know someone who does.” Katsuki grinned, clearly pleased with himself. “I’ll gladly introduce you.”
“To a witch?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, reaching in and tucking a strand of Shouto’s hair behind his ear. “To a witch.”
*
The witch had, in fact, very pink and round cheeks.
She lived in a small building in the southern part of the city. It looked like an ordinary house — walls painted in a soft shade of blue, wide and clean windows, trees and flowers surrounding it from all sides. The only thing suggesting that it wasn’t an ordinary house like many in that area was a sturdy, wooden sign that stood proudly between the entrance and a big oak tree. Clumsily craved letters formed an inscription: Potions and Spells.
The ground floor of the building was serving as a workshop. The main room was messy and cluttered; boxes and packages were scattered everywhere, and the air was thick with the scent of something distinctly magical. If the witch was somewhere close, Shouto couldn’t see her. However, beside a pile of old books and an old, bloody red curtain, he noticed a set of stairs leading to the upper floor.
“What a mess,” Katsuki said suddenly.
Shouto turned around; he’d almost forgotten he wasn’t here alone. His husband was leaning toward a sturdy desk overflowing with papers and receipts; his lips were twisted in an ugly scowl, and his brows were furrowed. If there was something that he hated more than Shouto’s father and entitled nobles, it was a mess. In the castle, everything had to be spotless; no excuses were accepted. Shouto saw countless maids fired over dusty shelves or stained carpets; Katsuki was merciless in that matter. No wonder that the witch’s workshop was putting him in a foul mood.
“Maybe she’s upstairs,” Shouto suggested.
Just as he suspected, it shifted Katsuki’s attention from the desk to the staircase. Under his breath, he muttered something that sounded like “of fucking course, she is” and sighed loudly. Shouto observed as he squeezed through between boxes and stood at the bottom of the stairs, his head tilted up.
“Get the fuck down that instant, Uraraka!” He yelled, his voice echoing in Shouto’s ears for a good while. Right after that, Katsuki went silent, and a new set of noises spread around the house. This time, they were coming from above.
Shouto looked up, as if he wanted to see something through the ceiling, but the only thing he noticed was a huge and surprisingly complex cobweb reaching from a fancy lamp up to the nearest wall. Meanwhile, more and more noise was reaching his ears; something hit the floor and shattered into countless pieces—or so Shouto imagined—and something else tumbled down the stairs; and eventually, hurried footsteps followed.
The witch ran down the stairs, almost tripping over the pair of abandoned boots, and stood in front of them with a sheepish smile stretched across her face. She looked young; big eyes and a round face were taking years off her. Shouto thought she would be older, much, much older — weren’t witches supposed to be old ladies with black cats, ridiculously big hats and flying brooms? The witch Shouto had visited previously was old and had a cat. The cat was calico, but otherwise everything added up. Apparently, some unspoken witchy decorum existed solely in his head.
“What a lovely morning we have,” the witch remarked, smoothing her dress. Her eyes were flickering around the room, slightly panicked, before they reached Katsuki’s face. “It’s delightful to see you, Your Highness.”
“Don’t your highness me, Uraraka,” Katsuki snapped. His annoyance died quickly as he shook his head resignedly, seemingly deciding that the witch was a lost cause. “I told you I would come over today, didn’t I?”
The witch laughed awkwardly. “Did you?” She scratched her cheek, as if she were trying to remember her last conversation with Katsuki.
“Yes, I did.” Katsuki pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them, he added, “And it’s not even a morning, for fuck’s sake.”
“It’s impolite to curse in front of a lady,” she pointed out, suddenly energised. Her whole demeanour seemed to change drastically. “So many people worked day and night to teach you some manners, and it was all for nothing! What a pity it is, Katsuki,” she mused, clicking her tongue. Shouto, completely astonished, felt like a completely different person was standing before them.
“You’re insufferable,” Katsuki hissed. Sighing, he turned his head to Shouto. “That crazy woman over here,” he nodded towards the witch, “is called Ochako Uraraka. If we’re lucky, she’ll be able to help us.”
“I see,” Shouto said.
He stared at Katsuki for a solid moment, registering his words. He was often overthinking things, especially if these things were said to him by Katsuki. He wondered — why did Katsuki say “help us” and not “help you”? The difference was subtle, but for Shouto it meant everything. Just days before, they didn’t even talk; they didn’t interact in any way, and now… Now, there wasn’t just him, there were they. How could he not focus all of his attention on it? He really hoped it wasn’t just a slip of tongue; he hoped that Katsuki meant it. He had to mean it; he would never say something he didn’t mean, not even subconsciously…
“You’re still with us?” Shouto blinked, as if snapped out of the trance, and shook his head to focus on here and now. In front of him stood Ochako, waving her hand inches away from his face and furrowing her brows in a worried expression. “You good?”
“Yes,” he mumbled. “I’m fine. Just…” He averted his eyes, catching a glimpse of Katsuki’s face—he looked a bit worried as well, but he masked it under his usual sneer—and trying to gather his thoughts. “I got distracted for a moment,” he said eventually.
Ochako arched a brow, as if she wanted to ask what exactly had distracted him. She didn’t. “If you say so,” she hummed, turning around and passing through the room towards her desk. “Sorry for the mess. I’ve been rather busy recently.” She gathered a pile of documents and put them aside, glancing briefly at their content. “How can I help you?”
Shouto and Katsuki shared a look. It was Katsuki who explained the issue to Ochako, calmly answering all of her questions. And she had a lot of questions.
After many, many minutes of lively discussion, she sighed deeply. The workshop seemed slightly better, with most of the mess moved around or hidden under an invisibility spell. Ochako was sitting at her desk with a troubled expression. Scratching her cheek, she stared blankly ahead, and Shouto could say she wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Her eyes were distant, and she seemed to be in a completely different place.
While she was eerily quiet and still, Shouto shot a pointed glance at Katsuki. His whole expression seemed to scream, I told you it wouldn’t work. Katsuki stared back at him, his crimson eyes calm and focused. After throwing a brief glance in Ochako’s direction, he closed the distance between them.
Leaning over Shouto’s shoulder, he whispered, “Stop freaking out, princess. She’s doing that weird witch shit right now.” The explanation calmed Shouto down, but Katsuki being so close to him did the exact opposite, so he got even more tense than before. “Give her some time,” Katsuki added as he pulled away. Shouto didn’t reply, just nodded.
They stood next to each other in silence, shoulders almost touching, and waited. Shouto didn’t feel the passing time; while his husband was growing more and more restless—despite being the one to ask Shouto to be more patient—Shouto looked around curiously. With most of the mess gone, the room uncovered its true form before them.
One of the corners was occupied by a bunch of plants Shouto’d recognised from the botany lessons back in his homeland. Aconitum variegatum, digitalis purpurea, nerium oleander, datura stramonium. Shouto could easily name them all, even from a distance. He wondered what Ochako used them for; after all, every single one of them was deadly poisonous.
“Everything is deadly poisonous if the amount is right.” Shouto turned his head around; Ochako was smiling at him gently. She glanced at the plants and mused, “At least, they’re pretty.”
“They are,” Shouto agreed easily.
Katsuki clearly didn’t share their sentiment. “You two can talk about flowers and shit some other time,” he grumbled. “To the point.” He looked at Ochako expectantly. “Can you do anything about that curse or not?”
Ochako tilted her head, a smile fading away. “It’s a tricky thing, that curse,” she said, playing with a sleeve of her dress. “I will try, but I can’t promise it’ll work.”
Katsuki clicked her tongue, unimpressed. “Well, do your damn best,” he demanded. “It’s a king’s request.”
*
After they visited Ochako’s workshop, time seemed to flow more slowly than usual. Shouto wasn’t just living his life from one boring meeting to another, from one hauntingly lonely day to another, from one sleepless night to another. Not only did he find something he could look forward to, but his relationship with Katsuki suddenly evolved from I-pretend-you-don’t-exist-unless-it’s-impossible to I-actually-might-like-you-but-I’m-too-embarrassed-to-admit-it.
“Why weren’t we like that before?” Shouto asked one evening.
Katsuki was standing next to him, looking up at the countless stars decorating the sky. The moonlight illuminated his face, and he never looked more beautiful in Shouto’s eyes. Not even during their wedding day.
“Like what?” Katsuki asked as he tilted his head and glanced at Shouto. He was grinning. He seemed happy.
Shouto shrugged. “Like that,” he repeated. “We talk and go for walks. And you don’t glare at my face as if it personally offended you.”
“Maybe it did offend me,” Katsuki said, a teasing hint to his voice. “Personally,” he added for good measure. “It’s way too pretty for you to wear that blank expression on it all the time.”
“That was mean,” Shouto said.
Katsuki chuckled, turning to him. “Princess, it was a compliment.”
“Well, it didn’t feel like one.”
The other evenings, sometimes also mornings and nights, looked very similar. Shouto felt like he had discovered a completely new, previously hidden part of Katsuki. In fact, he felt like this part of his husband was for his eyes only.
About three weeks after the visit to Ochako’s workshop, the witch sent them a short letter and a small, seemingly ordinary vial with a clear, pinkish liquid. The letter was written on an old, yellowed scrap of paper with neat, but a bit hurried writing. Before Katsuki snatched it from his hands, Shouto managed to read most of the message.
I cannot guarantee the efficiency of this potion. There should be no side effects, but if anything troubles you, please contact me immediately. You can drink it anytime, but I would suggest taking it right before going to sleep. I hope you will dream about something pleasant tonight.
Below, Ochako listed the ingredients she had used for the potion, explaining their origin and how they worked. Shouto caught only a glimpse of them before the letter was taken from him. Rolling his eyes at his husband, he took a vial in his hands. Small and slim, it was only half full of the mysterious liquid. Shouto wondered how it tasted—he assumed it’d be bitter—and what ingredient was responsible for its light pink colour.
“How does it work?” He asked, tilting the vial and looking as the liquid moved within it. Could it really help him? How was this any different from magic stones—a scam, apparently—or lavender petals in his pillow? He hoped that Ochako’s potion would turn out to be a magnificent success, but his mind was full of doubts.
Katsuki looked up from the letter and shrugged. “Dunno. Ain’t a magician, sweetheart,” he said, folding the paper in half and hiding it in his pocket. “Maybe it’s condensed magic or some shit,” he added eventually.
“Or some shit,” Shouto repeated absently, but a small, shy smile stretched across his face.
A few hours later, when he was lying in their bed with his eyes trained on the ceiling, he wasn’t sure if he couldn’t sleep because of the curse or due to his nerves. He had drunk the potion almost half an hour before, under Katsuki’s attentive eye.
“It should start working soon, right?” He asked. Katsuki lay next to him. Shouto could feel his eyes on him, sharp and observant.
Katsuki sighed quietly, reaching out and gently grasping Shouto’s arm. Shouto didn’t protest when he was pulled and held to Katsuki’s chest. “It’ll start working when you stop thinking about it,” Katsuki grumbled. “Just try to relax or something.”
“Or something,” Shouto repeated, chuckling.
“You know what I mean.” Katsuki ruffled his hair playfully and then rested his head against Shouto’s shoulder.
“Not always,” Shouto said in a small voice. It felt like a confession. “But sometimes… Sometimes, I do.” He could feel Katsuki tilting his head and grinning against his skin. “And you know what I mean, too. Don’t you?”
“Mhm,” Katsuki hummed. He placed a gentle, almost shy kiss against Shouto’s neck. “I think I do.”
Shouto thought that Katsuki said something else; maybe he was still talking, but Shouto couldn’t focus on either his voice or words. The warmth of Katsuki’s lips against his cold skin; the electrifying shiver that followed soon after, running down his spine and filling him with that fuzzy, odd feeling — it was all that Shouto could think about.
Then Katsuki kissed him again, a bit lower, where his neck was meeting his shoulder. “Oh,” slipped out of his mouth. Something clicked.
He pulled his head back, and before Katsuki could react in any way, Shouto held his face in his hands. He searched his eyes, looking for a silent confirmation, for the words that weren’t spoken. They didn’t need to be spoken. Katsuki’s eyes were soft around the edges, calm and fond. Shouto thought he knew what Katsuki tried to tell him with these lovely eyes.
Not breaking eye contact, Shouto whispered, “I think you should do it properly.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Do properly what exactly?”
Shouto tilted his head. “You know what I mean.”
A huff of Katsuki’s snort tickled Shouto’s cheek. “Will you go to sleep if I kiss you?” He asked.
Shouto couldn’t reply. Katsuki’s lips were already on his.
He kissed back, slowly. Lazily. As if they had all the time in the world. Who knows, maybe they did.
When they pulled away, Shouto felt all the tension leaving his body, its place taken over by a sudden wave of exhaustion. He didn’t know why he was so tired in the first place, but he also didn’t care enough to seek the answer. Nudging his face against Katsuki’s chest, he let his eyes fall closed.
With his consciousness slipping away, he fell asleep for the first time in years.
“Sweet dreams, princess,” he heard yet.