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Incense - Fluff

When Katsuki was stressed out, he burned incense.

Izuku has no clue when he started he just remembered the first time he'd shown him. He'd been in a pair of dark, tight fitted briefs that hugged his waist with a thick band of gold, paired with a tank-top that had practically clung to his pecs and slid off of his shoulders. And it was dark.

They'd both just taken a shower, it'd been a long day of work, and now Izuku had finally laid in bed in his boxers after drying off hurriedly in his rush to rest. But Katsuki was slower, lazy in his movements with the grace of a dancer. He was always so flexible, despite the bulk of his muscles.

"What're you doing?" Izuku murmured, propping an arm beneath his head so he could watch his partner more comfortably as he padded over the carpeted floors of their bedroom quietly. His skin shone like alabaster, the moon shining in through the curtains just right against his skin, dipping his blond hair into platinum and his carmine eyes into hues of pink.

"Burning incense." Katsuki murmured, picking up the lighter that lay on the vanity besides the candle that usually sat there waiting to be lit and the hoards of miscellaneous things scattered neatly in front of the mirror. They'd just started moving in, the apartment was an organized mess and their work was starting to tire them too deeply to unpack much other than the essentials, if anything it'd been a whirlwind of a week.

The sound of the click and roll of the grated metal cylinder filled the silence, the question as to why stuck in the back of Izuku's throat as he watched Katsuki snap the lighter a few times before the flames ignited. With his other hand he hovered the coloured, thicker ends of the stick over the flame, sliding it back and forth slowly until it caught. He blew faintly on the fire that danced slowly over the tip of the stick, setting the lighter down as he watched the fire give out and smoke raise in controlled streams upwards.

"It relaxes me, the old hag used to do it." He stretched, raising it above his head to let the smoke fester in the room in swirls for a bit, waving it gently over the opening of their bedroom door and once around Izuku's head and hovering down the line of his torso before setting it in the metal stand with grooves and a design of the sun etched into the end. "She used to get all these different scents, or use herbs or get sage or sweet grass, some were old traditions that she took from different cultures and others were just shit she read online."

Katsuki crossed the room, throwing a leg over Izuku's hips, mounting him like one would a motorcycle, setting his hands down over his abdomen. "She said that incense would help make a calm atmosphere, clear the air in the room and make it easier to meditate." He took a deep breath, the swell of his chest rising and falling as he looked down at Izuku, spiky blond hair shading his eyes as he rocked upwards to shift his position when his hands rested on his waist. "Deep breath."

Feeling Katsuki's hand slip up his body, resting right over the middle of his chest, he took a big gust of air in through his nose; feeling his diaphragm swell and lungs expand, stomach rising to make Katsuki rise before rest back down over him.

Izuku always was reminded of monasteries where they burned the heavy, smoky scented incense in the cathedral, the smell catching onto everything and clinging to the walls for years to come; like that of firewood and blossom. Of sage. How it'd cast a fog over the room, warming it.

It was calm, feeling it fester in his lungs, the scent of it soothing some sort of lodge in his throat as his eyes drooped. Yawning, his palms dragged down Katsuki's waist to where his thighs were on either side of him, hooking his fingers beneath his knees and tugging him closer until he pressed over him completely. "It calms me too."

The scent of it would linger in their room for a few days, the smudges of fallen, burnt off edges cascading onto the metal tin. It'd remind him of Katsuki on days or oftentimes weeks they were apart. He'd begun to breathe easier, meditate and calm with it on the way Katsuki was, focusing on unpacking while the blond was gone with it lingering around him comfortingly. It became a habit, they'd even try different scents varying from blossom to orange or vanilla, all with the heady thickness of firewood.

And, now and then, he'd set it on for him when Katsuki returned home as something peaceful to return to and it unknowingly became a part of their home's constant smell. A mix between dark and light scents, a meld of sweet and smoky.

But nothing would ever compare to that image of him, scantily clad, muscles on display beneath the moonlight, with the lighter highlighting his face in a warm glowing light as he ignited the incense with smoke wafting off of the ends. He'd looked like something out of a movie then, the lightning and his position making it look like it was still in time. A sculpture of his own Adonis with fire and smoke, smelling of comfort and home.