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They tried their best. That was the most anyone could have asked for on a battlefield.
Katsuki was no stranger to pain, but nothing could have ever prepared him for this: lying half-dead and mangled on a razed field, largely immobilised as frigid raindrops continued to pour over him.
Your heart had stopped, he’d heard someone tell him when he regained consciousness. Back then, the past tense had been definite. You had died, but we all worked together to save your life and you’ve been revived!
Well, it wasn’t really working. It turns out that performing impromptu open heart surgery in the middle of a war couldn’t actually bring Katsuki back to life. It only prolonged it for a few more minutes.
It was Edgeshot, apparently, who had kept Katsuki’s heart beating just a little longer. What a fucking waste. Throwing your life away for some kid who never got to live the life he wanted?
Well. It wouldn’t be the first time Katsuki had ended a hero’s career.
…Anyway. The fact of the matter is that he’s dying on a field, after having already died, so he’s probably got the worst fucking luck in the world.
Inevitably, he thinks of his mom. He wonders where she is right now, what she’s doing. Is she safe? Does she know where he is right now?
A memory comes to him, unbidden. It’s an old one, clouded by the effects of too much time passing since it had last been revisited. He’d been seven, probably. His dad sits at a sewing kit, stitching up a maroon pantsuit. In the foreground, Mitsuki twists her torso in front of a body length mirror, smoothing down the front of her newly tailored blazer.
She turns to little Katsuki, planted on the floor by her feet, and asks him if it looks okay. He doesn’t remember what he said, but she’d smacked him upside the head for it, so it couldn’t have been anything good.
…Yeah. He should’ve called home more often.
There’s a face peering over him. Dark rimmed eyes and face splattered with something dark red.
To someone else, he would’ve been unrecognisable. That dark aura and the black Quirk flickering all around him has masked him so entirely.
But Katsuki doesn’t have to see him to know him.
“‘M I dead, Deku?”
Izuku stares at him blankly for a second, and begins shaking his head repeatedly. There’s teartracks on his cheeks. “No, Kacchan, no, you’re not. You’re not.”
“Dying, then?”
Izuku purses his lips, still shaking his head. “No, no, no, you’re fine, you’re gonna be fine. Okay? Help is on the way. It’s—“
He looks up. Someone else is talking. Jeanist, maybe?
“He doesn’t have long. The fastest help we can get in these conditions is more than thirty minutes from now.”
Ah. So he is dying.
You’re about to die, his body tells him. But at least Izuku is here.
And it’s like the world shakes a couple hands and makes a couple deals. Katsuki feels his lungs expand— keeping enough breath in his lungs to say his last thoughts to Izuku.
So, Katsuki, what do you want to say?
“Oi.” The blood in his mouth makes it difficult to tell if he’s even uttered anything, but from the way Izuku leans in, eyes wide and focused and lip quivering, he must’ve at least made a sound.
“Are you still…” He tries to swallow, but the muscles are weak. Still, he goes on. Izuku keeps his ear close to Katsuki’s mouth. “You still scared of thunder, Izuku?”
Izuku leans back to stare at him, eyebrows furrowing together. He waits a long moment, as if Katsuki had spoken a riddle and Izuku was required to answer it, before he finally croaks out, “W… What? Thunder? Where…”
He shakes his head then, pursing his lips and closing his eyes. It looks like he’s trying very hard to keep from crying, but he’s doing a pretty shit job judging from the way he looks like already. “Never mind that, Kacchan. Don’t— Don’t worry about the thunder. I know it must be loud. I’m— We’re going to get you to a hospital—”
“Izuku.”
The word makes Izuku halt again, keeping so still it’s like he’s holding his breath.
Katsuki would’ve sighed if he had the energy for it. Instead, he asks, “D’you remember when we were kids—?” Izuku nods prematurely, which is irritating as hell but Katsuki continues, “—and Aunty allowed you to stay over? It was raining that day.”
Izuku blinks, then nods again, slowly.
Katsuki closes his eyes for just a second. “You were scared of the thunder.”
Izuku begins shaking his head again. “Don’t. Kacchan, I’m begging you. Please shut up, please. Don’t talk. Especially not when it sounds like you’re—“ His voice cracks, and so does his entire face, his expression splintering into a thousand different portrayals of grief. "You're not dying, you stupid jerk!" He looks up, eyes searching the rest of the audience gathered around his body. “What are you all just standing around for?! Help Kacchan! He needs help, damn it! Didn’t you see what he did?! He’s— he’s the best hero out of all of us, and you’re— none of you people are doing anything!”
Everyone is silent. They keep their distance. Izuku’s apparently the last one to understand what everybody else knows, and that is: Katsuki is going to die here.
It’s the immediate aftermath of a war. Immediate medical assistance is too limited, and the heroes standing battered and bruised around them are barely able to even pick themselves up.
It’s too late for him.
But Deku’s always been a stubborn bastard.
“Would you fackin’ shut your yapping!” Katsuki spits out. “How am I supposed to hear the fucking angel’s choir if you keep blubbering in my ear! You’re gonna get me so lost I end up stuck here as your shitty ghost!”
“Kacchan—” Izuku gasps, and Katsuki wants to roll his eyes but he… he gets it, damn it.
“Just listen.” Katsuki takes in a shuddering breath. There’s still air left in his lungs. “…Please.”
Katsuki doesn’t need to wrestle with the word anymore. He wishes he’d mastered the fight against it ages ago, because it works like magic against Izuku, who immediately shuts up.
Taking in another breath, Katsuki starts again. “You were scared of the thunder, so you slept in my bed. It was too small for the two of us, but we managed to fit, somehow.”
Izuku closes his eyes just as a single tear tracks down one of his cheeks. “Yes. You called me lots of names but you— You held my hand all night.”
Katsuki watches him cry for a second. “And the bed was wet in the morning.”
Izuku chuckles quietly and drily, opening his eyes and looking at him sadly, tenderly, fondly. A Katsuki from not too long ago would’ve sent his face into the dirt for it. Seriously, it’s like he got schooled in Sappy Expression Academy.
“You’re really bringing this up now? I was like, five, probably.”
“It was me.” Katsuki doesn’t wait for Izuku to cut in. “Blamed it on you’n everything ‘cause your gullible ass would just believe it.”
Izuku blinks. “Oh… Okay? I mean, you were five too… It’s really not that embarrassing…”
Katsuki pauses. “I fully wet the goddamn bed, idiot. Shat myself a little too.”
“Oh my god—?!”
“What? It’s true.” Katsuki wishes he could shrug. “I fully pissed and shat the bed. ‘Course it’s fucking embarrassing.”
“Is this your darkest secret or something?” Izuku squeaks. “I’m sure Aunty Mitsuki wouldn’t have gotten mad if she knew it was y—“
“I was scared of the thunder too.”
This one warrants a silence. Distantly, he can hear people shuffling away from them, keeping their distance. Which they should’ve been doin’ since the start, but whatever.
Katsuki finds that he now has the energy to sigh, so that’s what he does. A long, irritated, sigh. “I was scared. I never liked the stupid ass rain. But you were scared too, so I… I just wanted to… I needed to…”
At this, Izuku‘s face collapses in on itself and he pulls his hands from Katsuki’s tattered hero uniform to clutch at his own face. The first sob sends a painful shockwave through Katsuki’s nervous system. “I know,” he whispers wetly. “I know, Kacchan.”
Then Izuku curls inward, pressing his forehead over Katsuki’s torso. He lets out a second sob, and then a third, until he’s wracked with them. “You’re s-so unfair, Kacchan. I knew you’d always be there for me.” He burrows his head in further. “I knew it. You’ve always been my hero. So— So why are you—”
Leaving me now?
Fuck. Katsuki wants to cry so badly.
“Asshole,” he hisses instead. “Save the theatrics ‘til after I’ve croaked my last croak. I still got shit to say.”
Izuku’s sobbing ceases eventually, at which point he pulls away, rubs at his eyes with his forearm, and looks at Katsuki’s heart. He’s devoid of any outward expression now. The silence is cue enough to continue speaking, but Katsuki can’t stand it when—
“Look here, Izuku.”
Izuku’s eyes slide reluctantly to meet his. Dark-circled and bloodshot. His forehead is painted in Katsuki’s own blood. It’s fucking nauseating. He’d better have a shower when this is all done— he's in dire need of washing his ugly face.
He must be so tired.
God fucking damn, ow. Katsuki winces, though it’s probably more of a wheeze, when the force of his injuries hits him again. He’d done his best to ignore it for Izuku, but the fuck, the pain is overwhelming.
His blood continues to pump into that countdown clock of a heart. It’s a wonder he’s even conscious and talking right now.
Izuku, of course, notices this, but Katsuki is able to very barely shift his hand so that it touches Izuku’s knee from where he’s kneeling down.
Stop, he tries to say.
Izuku doesn’t. He hovers his hands over him, unsure of how to make the pain stop but unwilling to not try. “U-Um— I don’t know where— how can I help— K-Kacchan?“
“It’s okay,” Katsuki slurs out. The goddamn rain is in his eyes makes it so annoying to look at him. “D’you remember Valentine’s Day? Our last year in middle school?”
Izuku settles for cupping his hand gingerly with both of his. “I- I think so…? It doesn’t stick out to me. I’ve—” He hesitates, eyes darting to and away. Why does this idiot have the nerve to look guilty when they both know who’s the real person to blame? “Well. You know. I never received anything, um, real, so they all kinda… blur together, for me…”
Katsuki stares at him. Honestly, it’s an abomination that Izuku hasn’t been showered in flowers and chocolates and all of that other gross stuff. It wouldn’t have even mattered if Katsuki had never been brave enough to add his own homemade chocolate to the mix, because he would’ve been content enough to simply see Izuku be appreciated.
Well, maybe now he would. Middle school Katsuki would’ve done something significantly more destructive.
…And isn’t that exactly what he did? Fuck. Where does he even begin with this one?
Izuku seems to mistake the silence for something else because he scrambles to correct himself. “I’m not blaming you, I swear! I know you regret what you’ve done and you worked so hard to become a person you can forgive. I heard you loud and clear when you apologised! You didn’t have to do that, by the way, I always knew you—“
“Secret number two, Izuku,” Katsuki interrupts. The hands warming his own limp one seems to burn. “You did receive somethin’ that day.” Katsuki tries to remove his hand from Izuku’s, because he shouldn’t be allowed that right now, but of course, his body does not cooperate.
Selfish for Izuku’s touch even in his last moments. Go figure.
“Okay, look. Every Valentine’s Day, I’d get to class extra early to make sure your table was empty.”
Katsuki doesn’t want to look at him when he says this, but he can’t help but risk a quick glance. Izuku’s biting his bottom lip and he doesn’t seem thrilled to hear this, but at least he hasn’t pulled away yet.
“It was always empty, Izuku. But that day, I saw her. Some chick from our class with a water-based quirk, or something—”
“O-Oh!” Izuku straightens up, using one hand to grip his chin in thought. “Could it be Ota-kun? The one who could create mini fountains in her hands? She used to braid her friends’ hair during lunch—?”
“Her name could be Ronald McDonald for all I care!” Katsuki barks, because what the hell De- Izuku? “Why do you even want to know! Listen to my sad backstory and stop thinking about her!”
Izuku goes rigid like a startled cat. “Eek! S-Sorry Kacchan! Please continue!”
Katsuki harumphs, closing his eyes as a fresh wave of pain washes over him. Fuck. How did Izuku ever live like this?
“She left a rose and a box of chocolates on your desk. And a note.” Katsuki pauses, remembering the day with no shortage of mortification. “Tasted like shit, by the way.”
“You ate them?!”
“I was talking about the note.”
“You ate the note?!”
“I had to make sure you never saw it! And I ate the chocolates too, by the way. What else was I supposed to do, Izuku?” Katsuki scoffs. “Give them to you? The whole point of gettin’ there early was to make sure you didn’t get anything. So when I eventually wrote you a fake love letter, you’d think that I was the only one thinking of you.”
There. Wow. He had so many issues.
Izuku looks like he doesn’t know how to respond to this. Fair enough. Katsuki wouldn’t know how to either.
He huffs from the nose. “Yeah. I was a desperate fucking cringe ass loser. Wish I could strangle that guy.”
A scandalised Izuku straightens up, hands tightening over his own as if he’d forgotten to be tender. “Don’t you dare say that—”
“I’m not fucking around. I was a weird, messed up kid.”
“But I—” Izuku makes a short, frustrated sound. “Wait... I do remember a note, actually. But it wasn’t… Was that you and your friends? Come to think of it, it was your handwriting.”
Katsuki settles back down at this. He even manages a dry, humourless laugh. “Yeah I was gettin' to that…”
“That day, you didn’t even look sad that you hadn’t received anything. I mean, normally, you at least try to hide the disappointment a little. But that day, you were so… blank. You just sat down and started writing in your nerd book as usual while everyone else was gossiping and shit. It’s like you’d accepted it. Like you’d lost hope a long time ago.”
Izuku blinks. Then, quietly, he admits: “Yeah. I was pretty lonely.”
Izuku: shadowed in the middle of the room, head ducked into his notebook. The sunlight from the windows seemed to touch its rays on everybody except for him, bending around him like he didn’t even exist. As if he were a ghost.
Katsuki remembers standing at his desk with his goons surrounding him, twisting his head to look over his shoulder to watch him. No muttering, no wandering eyes that sometimes strayed towards Katsuki. He wore his loneliness like a well worn jacket, like it was his native tongue, like it was the only thing to keep him sheltered.
Katsuki blinks, and this time there is a tear there. Despite his own limited bodily functions, it seems the tear glands still work. And he’s not even crying for himself.
“Right, well,” he continues, ignoring the increased hoarseness in his already fucked-up voice. “I didn’t like that look. So I… wrote you a— you know. A love letter thing. Yanked the pink heart-shaped paper from some other guy in our class and wrote somethin’ sappy on it.”
“From memory, Kacchan, I’m pretty sure it said ‘Your eyes are big and wet and freaky stop looking at me—’.”
“Yeah. Sappy.” Katsuki’s chest rises and falls weakly, and he mutters, “It doesn’t matter what it said anyway because you just tore it up.” Then, as an afterthought, “Dunno why you even bothered to open it.”
Izuku casts his eyes down, absentmindedly stroking Katsuki’s immobilised arm. There is no pain. Is that supposed to be a bad sign?
“It was your handwriting,” he says simply, the admission almost shy. “It didn’t matter how cruel the words were. As long as it was your handwriting…”
The electric feeling blooming in his chest is as bloody as the red that pools out from below him.
Why did you care? Won’t you tell me? It’s so late to be having this conversation. That’s my fault.
“Why did you even write it, Kacchan?” Izuku asks, finally glancing up at him. “Will you tell me?”
And Katsuki actually smiles at this. Izuku might actually be his other half. “Use your head, genius. I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon.”
Izuku furrows his brows, mouth parting in objection, but Katsuki is able to move his right hand, so he angles it up to catch Izuku’s roughened fingers in his own. Where did the nerd’s gloves go anyway?
“1-5-0-7.” Katsuki racks his brain to remember if there’s anything in there he doesn’t want Izuku to see, before promptly deciding that it doesn’t matter. Let him look this time. “My phone passcode.”
“I would never invade your privacy!” Izuku objects, voice high and adamant.
“I want you to,” Katsuki starts to chuckle weakly. “My Home Screen is you picking your nose. Snapped it when you were goin’ over your notes once. Gross loser. Heh.”
Izuku’s face loses some of its weight when he goes slightly slack jawed. The redness on his cheeks takes on a different genre. “I— What? Why? When?”
Instead of answering, “I got a whole album of you. The shirtless one taught me how to jerk off. Pretty sure I yanked it like—”
“KACCHAN?!” Izuku screeches, head snapping up momentarily to see if anyone else heard that. (They probably did).
“—once a week- Would you just let me finish?” Katsuki snaps. “Can’t even let a dying man say his last words without giving in your two cents!”
“I just—” And Izuku’s flailing now, looking so much like a schoolboy who doesn’t know how to turn down a confession, “You? Huh? Pictures? Me?!”
“No fuckin’ duh it’s you. You’re bigger than everything,” he says, and, okay, he wasn’t expecting to say that. “Realised that last year. You’re too big for this fucking world and you gotta realise that. Nothin’ can match you and you’re—“ He’s choking on his sentences, “—a hero. A true one. The best we’ve ever seen.”
The fat dollops of tears pooling in Izuku’s eyes seem to have rendered him incapable of speech. “Ka- Ka- Ka-cc—“
“But I still put up a good fight against you, huh?”
Instead of a sob, Izuku’s face goes blotchy red and he lets out an inhuman, pained whimper. A soft blubbering, webbed with wet attempts at speech: “Ss-Sdop—“
The vision in the corners of his eyes are splotching with black. The all-encompassing pain is receding into the recesses of his mind, extracting its claws from the soft flesh of his battered body. They have no need to torment a corpse.
There’s commotion somewhere. Distant, insignificant. A flurry of conversation and footsteps and trodden wet grass and mud. Izuku doesn’t even spare a glance upwards, instead scrambling forward with wide, frantic eyes.
There’s so much to say. Where does he start? How much time do they have left? Why won’t anybody answer him?
Izuku, when we got assigned that poetry assignment I wrote mine about you. Aizawa failed me and told me to schedule another appointment with my therapist.
Izuku, I’ve written half a notebook now cataloguing your moves and your progress and the anatomy of your Quirk. It’s not complete.
Izuku, can you finish the unread manga on my shelf for me? Would you tell me your thoughts on the ending of the shoujo with the pink and blue cover whose name I can’t remember? Can you make sure it’s a rant session with a 3 hour minimum?
Izuku, the All-Might trading card that glinted silver and gold in the sun. Do you remember it?
Izuku, I’ve lost so much sleep over the image of you turning to look at me.
The way your hand strikes my shoulder in a spar. The tree we climbed the powder on your mom’s apron your shoe with the stone in the sole and the rattling sound it made when you walked during training you sipped from my bottle was that an indirect kiss take care of my parents take my figurines the blush on your face and every perfect shade of green and the goddamn RIVER do you remember the river and your outstretched hand and oh fuck, running out of time and he’s not ready—
“Izuku, I love you.”
He’s not ready.
Izuku seems to be thinking the same thing, because he goes ballistic. He’s the prettiest picture of snot and desperation and he’s screaming himself hoarse.
“No, no, no, Kacchan, keep talking. Tell me about high school! They’re literally right here, they just got here, and they’re going to take care of you! What else do you have to say? Don’t— Not when we’re so close— Stop being so fucking unfair, Kacchan, come on—!“
A last lungful of crisp, static air.
“I love you,” Katsuki repeats again.
And really, what else was there to say?
Katsuki walks forever in a sea of white. He has little left to think about here, but his footsteps leave behind a trail of green, stamping the ground with something bright and kind and beautiful.
How odd. How ugly. How dare he leave something so lovely behind in this pristine limbo?
He is a contaminant. He does not belong here.
There’s a lot of voices. They come and go like funeral goers at a wake. Katsuki is still smothered in white, but it’s coloured differently. It’s solid. It has weight to it.
There’s crying. His hand is held a lot.
One half of his body burns.
There’s his mom, his dad. His classmates— every last one of them. Katsuki doesn’t know how he knows, but he just does. Even if he can’t yet open his eyes.
But Deku hasn’t visited. Why isn’t he here?
Wait. Is Katsuki alive?
That can’t be right… right? After— all of that. It had been so dramatic. It had felt so final.
So why does he hear the familiar sounds of a hospital? Why does he hear doctors explaining to faceless visitors that his injuries were not fatal? That the doctors worked so hard to bring him back?
And why is he still…
Dead people aren’t meant to miss someone so badly that it feels like all of their limbs are being torn off.
Or, uh, maybe his limbs really were torn off. It’s hard to tell.
This time, when Katsuki finally feels actually conscious, the first thing he notices is that the lights are off. The sunrise is blue and pale, filtering in weakly from the window.
Both his legs and his arms are bandaged. His legs are both hanging suspended in the air — fuck, did he break them? — while his arms are tucked by his sides.
Well, one of them is. One half of his body is still burning, and that arm has lost all feeling.
Katsuki attempts to move it, gets attacked by pins and needles, and when he finally looks down to see what the fuck happened to him—
It’s Izuku. Tucked into his side, snoring lightly, ear pressed against Katsuki’s chest.
Clingy bastard.
He must’ve said it out loud, because Izuku peels his eyes open, blinks himself awake, and peers up at him. He looks like hell, but Katsuki’s used to it. That’s still his Deku, looking at him silently with big, wet, freaky eyes.
They’re… really close. Izuku doesn’t seem to register it, but Katsuki’s skin crawls. Or maybe it craves. Either way, he—
Katsuki comes to two realisations.
One: what was keeping the left side of him warm this entire time was Izuku sticking to him like his own portable heater.
Two: Holy shit. I told him I jerked off to his picture.
His head whips to the door, he yanks his feet from the leg suspenders, and he runs.
But then Izuku whispers, “Why aren’t you looking at me?” And Katsuki realises that he’s been glaring holes into the door for the last two minutes instead.
“Fuck.” His voice is almost unrecognisable, rusty from disuse. He tries to wriggle his legs, but those things are tied up nicely. “Thought I was running away.”
Izuku jolts at this, drawing closer and tightening his fist over Katsuki’s hospital gown, twisted over his chest. “Kacchan, don’t!”
It’s a broken sound, like a child begging their mother not to leave them somewhere unfamiliar. Katsuki looks down to see Izuku crying into his shoulder and oh yeah, he did just watch him die.
He doesn’t remember his hand lifting up but here it is now, flopping tiredly on top of Izuku’s hair. “I— Sorry,” he says, only mildly surprised at how easy it is to say now. “It’s fine, Deku. Not goin’ anywhere. Go back to sleep.”
Izuku peeks at him from under his hair. He matches his breathing for a few minutes, stubbornly not looking away, and says quietly, “Can you convince me that I’m not dreaming?”
Katsuki snorts. “Sure. Can your dream Kacchan do this?”
Izuku stares at him, then furrows his brow. “Do what?”
“Fuck,” he says again. “Thought I was doin’ a backflip.”
Izuku breaks into a small smile, but it pours over Katsuki like a bucket of sunshine anyway. “My Kacchan doesn’t know how to make a joke.”
That’s pretty insulting considering he genuinely thought the backflip would work.
But he did say ‘my’ Kacchan, and it probably doesn’t mean anything, but Katsuki thinks he could forgive Izuku for anything he says if he started it with that.
Katsuki pinched his cheek — wow that’s soft — and yanks at it. “Yeah? How about: You’re killing my fucking arm, Deku, lay off a bit.”
Izuku springs away with an ‘eep!’ He seems reluctant to move too far away, so as a compromise he keeps his hand flat over Katsuki’s chest. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to stay here— You were— and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t— I had to be with you— The nurses let me, I swear—”
“Hey, hey,” Katsuki interrupts softly, gripping Izuku’s hand with the one that is still mobile. “I get it.” He would’ve done the same back when their roles were swapped, if anybody would have let him.
…Why do the two of them keep ending up in this scenario?
Izuku makes a face like he’s going to cry (one of Katsuki‘s favourites, though that’s a little redundant because he loves them all) and Katsuki’s thumb is already there to catch the first tear.
“I’m so relieved,” Izuku gasps wetly, cuddling in closer but with significantly less weight. “I’m so, so relieved.”
He’s reminded suddenly of the breath in his lungs. Of the way he’s breathing right now. The numbed pain in every part of his body. Izuku’s skin under his thumb. His eyes adjusting to the low light.
He remembers dying so vividly. And he remembers especially all of the things he didn’t get to say.
So he swallows another beautiful lungful of air, thumps a hand against Izuku’s shoulder, and announces, “…I meant everything I said. By the way.”
There’s no running away from this.
Izuku takes a second to comprehend what Katsuki means, promptly turns rosy pink, clears his throat a little, and looks somewhere at Katsuki’s chin. “Erm. Of course. Well I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. He doesn’t expect Izuku to reciprocate, of course, but the lack of any response doesn’t sit right.
“You do remember what I said, right?”
“Obviously!” Izuku squeaks, flushed fully red now. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and I was wondering, um, if you meant… platonically or r-romantically? Or, uh, sexually…?”
Katsuki immediately pulls at his cheek again. “Fuck you, you stupid bastard! I didn’t waste my dying breath professing my love to you for you to think it wasn’t all three! Obviously! How much clearer do I have to be? Did I really have to be brought back to life to clarify? Didn’t I already say I jerked it to you—“
“Why do you keep mentioning that?!”
“—at least once a week- stop interrupting me!” This guy is seriously the most thickheaded— “—Stupid idiot! If I knew you were going to be this dumb I would’ve stayed dead, and the only reason I’m not callin’ up the Angel of Death to take me back under right now is ‘cause it’ll break your big stupid heart! I love you! I love you so much it makes me hate you! How thick is your skull! You! You… Uh…”
He trails off when he sees the look in Izuku’s eyes, pupils dilated, wide and open and focused like a cat about to pounce. The abrupt change is freaky to watch, and Katsuki would’ve racked his brain trying to think of what he said that made Izuku react like this, but he’s kind of mesmerised by the sight.
The meagre light from the window has cast Izuku in a deep blue, painting the colour of his eyes black, and Katsuki is struck with the sudden urge to commit the image to memory.
Izuku rises up over Katsuki slowly, quietly, hooking a leg over Katsuki’s hip and swinging on top of him to fall into his lap. He’s forgotten to be gentle about it again— like he forgot about Katsuki’s injuries.
Katsuki comes to a third realisation:
Maybe Deku is as selfish about him as he is about Deku. How fucked up would that be?
This Izuku is quieter than Katsuki has ever experienced, so he says nothing in order to not break the spell. He just breathes a little heavier, Izuku licks his lips, Katsuki’s eyes dart down instantly to follow the movement, and then Izuku leaps forward.
It’s a hard and desperate press of lips against lips. There’s a lot of spit, Izuku tastes a little like blood, and Katsuki can’t help it— he lets out a throaty groan, and loudly.
Izuku gasps, “Kacchan, I love you so much,” shifts in his lap, and Izuku might actually be his Angel of Death all along because the boy is killing him.
His hands grip onto Izuku’s hair, nearly yanking the strands off in his effort to keep him close. Izuku must have the same idea, because he has his arms looped tight around his neck and he barely moves back an inch when he has to take a breath.
Izuku’s crying a little, the tears spilling quietly down his face as he kisses Katsuki like he’s the one grateful for the chance to breathe again.
Fuck, that shouldn’t be hot. Izuku’s tears spill over onto Katsuki’s face, and it shouldn’t be hot, but it is.
Izuku pulls away, wiping at his eyes furiously, and he’s about to dive back in for more when Katsuki hooks his arms behind Izuku’s neck and pulls him in forcefully. Izuku squawks as his face gets mushed into Katsuki’s shoulder, but Katsuki doesn’t let up.
Obviously, he doesn’t want to stop kissing Izuku, he’ll kiss him to hell for the rest of his life if he could, and he can’t even believe he was kissing him now, but it’s all just so much. He knows there’s tears in his own eyes because he’s shutting them tight, trembling in Izuku’s arms as they cling to each other as if the world was going to collapse right out from under them.
“You better have meant that,” he croaks out.
“I love you,” Izuku says easily into his ear, and Katsuki believes him. “I love you so much it scares me.” He nuzzles in closer. “It should probably scare you too.”
Katsuki considers this. He’s heard the stories— from classmates, from news anchors. How Izuku had gone ballistic, time and time again, for Katsuki’s sake. He hadn’t believed it then, at least not fully.
But things are different now and the Izuku in his arms is one he’s only just now beginning to learn. The toll his so-called duties and his expectations for himself have burdened him so much. Traumatised him. Katsuki will have to be there to catch him, if Izuku would let him.
“Your emo ass doesn’t scare me,” Katsuki says, and it’s somewhere between a truth and a lie.
Izuku lets out a dry laugh. “Someday, I’ll—”
Katsuki squeezes tighter. “Won’t matter. Nothin’ you do can ever shake me off. You’re stuck with me forever. Like a fucking leech.”
Izuku hums, still pasted over him like a koala. “…I think I like the sound of that.” Then, after a bout of peaceful silence, “Do you really have a photo album of me?”
Katsuki winces. “Forgot I told you that. You didn’t check my phone?”
“Well, you were hospitalised and on your way to a recovery,” he reasons. “And I had hope. So I didn’t touch it.”
Katsuki sighs through his nose. “Right. Before you go ahead and call me creepy or whatever, you gotta know that—“ He pauses. “Never mind, I dunno how to defend that.”
Izuku laughs again, pulling away to look at him. The tears are dried, and best of all, there’s light in his eyes. Katsuki did that. This might be the best day of his life, and it isn’t (just) because he was brought back from the dead.
“You think that’s creepy? You should hear what goes on through my head when something bad happens to you.”
Katsuki tilts his head. “If someone stepped on my toe, you’d break the whole world into little pieces and then it eat them raw, right?” He waits for Izuku to nod, because he knows Izuku will. Izuku nods. “Yeah. Well I’m the same. In fact, I’d go a step further and eat something actually raw for you.”
“Um, I wouldn’t go that far—”
“I would. I’d eat raw meat if it meant you’d be safe.”
“You’ll contract a disease though?!”
“So? I’ll contract every disease! Are you saying I can’t handle it? I’ll destroy them all!”
Izuku laughs, and leans down to brush their noses together. “Okay, Kacchan. Me too.”
Katsuki makes a disapproving sound. “You’re supposed to one-up me, nerd.”
“Too tired,” he says, yawning on cue. “Maybe later.” Katsuki wants to bite him.
He kisses him instead, there in that blue, in that quiet room flooded to the brink with time, in the early morning where anything feels possible. He kisses the man who brought him back to life.
There’s so much time, he’s sure of it. He’s been gifted with more, and there’s time to tell Izuku everything. But still…
“Izuku.”
Izuku props his chin over Katsuki’s heart and looks up at him from there. It might be a while before Izuku stops doing that — listening to his heartbeat — but Katsuki isn’t sure he ever wants him to stop. He has a feeling he could use the reminder, in the future.
“I need to tell you something.”
Izuku blinks, and Katsuki pulls one of Izuku’s hands from behind his neck to hold it in his hand.
A deep breath in. “You won’t remember this, but when we were five, there was this river…”