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Shouto hadn’t been on the police force for very long, but he’d seen his fair share of crazy days on the job.
Today was supposed to be easy. Shouto’s partner, Midoriya, was out sick, so hopefully there wouldn’t be too many cases today.
He pretty much asked for trouble by thinking that.
Around four o’clock they received a call for suspected domestic violence in one of the smaller towns in the area, but the caller seemed credible, so they formed a squad and headed to the address given to them. With their sirens on, it didn’t take long to get there, and soon there were five squad cars parked outside of the small home.
True to the caller’s word, Shouto could hear a child screaming as he approached the door, as well as some guy shouting.
“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?! JUST DIE ALREADY!”
Alright, that was pretty clear.
Shouto pounded on the door, doing his best to shout over the ongoing chaos inside. “Open up, this is the police!”
A moment later, the door opened, revealing a dude who couldn’t be much older than thirty, eyes wide in confusion. He had blonde hair with some kind of lightning streak in it—had he seriously dyed his hair like that?—and bright gold eyes to match.
“Is something wrong, Officer?” the guy asked.
“Sir, where is your spouse?” Shouto asked, cutting straight to the chase.
“My—you mean my husband? What’s going on?”
“We received a call that they heard yelling from your house, complete with ‘why won’t you die,’ something I just heard myself, and your child has been screaming this whole time,” Shouto said. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to put it, but it should get the job done, right? It had nothing to do with the very much married man in front of him who was very good-looking.
Nothing at all.
The guy’s eyes widened, then burst out laughing. “Holy shit. Hold up, I’ll get him. Ei! Ei! ”
“GOT YOU, BITCH!”
A few seconds later, another guy with red spiky hair (also good looking, this was so not helping) showed up, eyes wide and a shoe in hand. “What?” Then he seemed to notice Shouto. “What’s going on?”
The blonde guy laughed even harder at that, actual tears even coming out of his eyes as he gasped for air.
Meanwhile, Shouto was very confused.
“What’s going on here?”
The blonde seemed to pull himself together, wiping the tears from his face. “Sorry for making you come out here, guys. You can check around, but everything’s fine. There was a, uh… a spider.”
A spider.
What.
“Did you say a spider?” Shouto asked, because he had to be absolutely sure he heard that right.
“Ei’s real scared of spiders,” the blonde guy said, still grinning like Christmas had come early.
“You left me, alone , to survive all on my own!” ‘Ei’ shouted.
“You were screaming so loud that one of the neighbors thought you were murdering me,” the blonde guy said with a grin. “Though I’d say it’s worth it.”
Shouto raised an eyebrow. “Worth it how, exactly?”
‘Ei’ seemed to blush at the blonde’s words, moving out of view for a moment before returning with a kid in his arms, rocking them to stop the crying. “Sorry about the, uh… inconvenience. I’m Eijirou, this is my husband, Denki, and this is Naoko. Say hi to the nice police officer, Naoko!”
Naoko looked at Shouto, eyes wide, and waved.
Shouto’s heart melted. He waved back.
She smiled, bright and wide, and Shouto’s heart could not take this today.
“Anyway,” he said, because he needed to gather his thoughts in private thank you, “if there’s no issues here, we should really be going.” Then with a slight smile, he added, “Hopefully the spiders will have learned to stay away.”
Denki snorted. “They never do. Somehow it’s always him that finds them, too.”
“They’ve got it out for me,” Eijirou said jokingly. “I’ve got proof .”
Shouto should be leaving, but something about these two kept him on the doorstep. “What kind of proof?”
“He’s got a whole wall dedicated to it,” Denki said. “We had a spare room when we got the house, so it kind of turned into the conspiracy board room.”
Shouto raised an eyebrow. “You have a whole room dedicated to conspiracy theories?” Honestly, he couldn’t really talk, but it was nice to see someone else who had a real conspiracy board.
“Hell yeah, man.”
The two seemed to share a look, coming to a silent agreement, then looked back at Shouto. “Wanna come inside? I can make some coffee,” Eijirou offered. “Only right for dragging you out this far.”
“Ei makes great coffee,” Denki added. “You look like a coffee guy, but we’ve got tea bags and honey if you like tea.”
Shouto honestly hesitated. He should decline and leave, but, well… something was going on here. “I should really get back to the precinct,” he admitted.
“Oh, shit, you’re working right now,” Denki remembered. “Come by after you get out if you want, neither of us know what a normal sleep schedule is, chances are at least one of us will be awake.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shouto said, unsure of what to make of the whole thing. “Please keep your future spider wars slightly quieter next time.”
“Noted,” Eijirou said. “Have a good afternoon! Say bye bye!”
“Bye bye!” Naoko repeated, smiling wide and waving again.
“Bye bye,” Shouto told her softly, then left the house, heading back to the precinct. Thankfully, one of the other officers had passed on that the situation was under control, meaning that none of them had witnessed that whole exchange and he could drive back in peace .
Thank fuck Midoriya had been home sick today, Shouto would never hear the end of it otherwise. It wasn’t good that Midoriya was sick, obviously, but—whatever, Shouto could take his small victories.
When Shouto’s shift ended, he went home and changed into something more casual, hesitating before getting in his car and driving back to their small town. It was only around eight o’clock, so it wasn’t too late. The front door seemed more daunting this time, though.
Standing in front of it, he tried to rehearse what he would say—why was he nervous, there was no need for him to be nervous?—before ending up just knocking on the door anyway.
It didn’t take long for Eijirou to answer it. “Oh, hey! How are you?”
“I’m alright,” Shouto said. “You?”
“Well, I got assaulted by a spider a few hours ago, but other than that I’m good,” Eijirou siad easily. “Did you want that coffee?”
“If you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. Come on in.”
A few months passed, and the family of three had pretty much pushed their way into Shouto’s life, Eijirou texting him cute photos of Naoko whenever he could and Denki sending him a bunch of shitty memes. Shouto had started sending shitty puns in return, mostly because the two of them hated bad puns and it was fun to watch them groan.
It was really strange how close they’d grown in that amount of time, and it seemed that Eijirou and Denki had noticed it as well.
A week later, they’d asked him out, and Shouto wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that.
He’d ended up agreeing, if only to give it a try, and it ended up being one of the best ideas any of them had had in a while.
And to think, none of this would have happened if Eijirou hadn’t declared war on a spider. Life was certainly weird that way.