Chapter Text
“Can I sit?” Eijiro pointed at the lone chair that seemed to have been shoved to the side in the nurse’s path to gain access to the machines on the edge of the hospital bed.
Katsuki tried to restrain his eager nodding to a minimum, but there wasn’t any point in hiding his excitement at seeing the Omega; the medication they were giving him was severely messing with his ability to control his scent. Everyone on this side of the ward probably knew he was happier than a kid who just discovered their quirk.
“Are you thirsty? Hungry? I can ask the nurse to bring something,” Katsuki offered. He tried his best to adjust himself in the bed while keeping his stump hidden under the covers.
Eijiro settled in the chair and shook his head while waving off the Alpha’s questions. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Then silence.
It was obvious neither one knew where to start, nor what to do in this situation. Eijiro fiddled with a frayed thread on his hoodie and Katsuki continued to try and look like the picture of perfect health. His inner Alpha was throwing out orders left and right; demanding Katsuki sit up straighter, puff his chest out more, scent the room heavily, and try not to look so pathetic.
Katsuki was doing his best to comply with his inner Alpha, but it was difficult with his mind rambling questions alongside the orders: should he apologize? Would it sound empty? Could he convince the other man to give him a chance? Is that appropriate? Where do they stand?
All the way through his mind’s rambling, the incessant ticking of the clock above the door informed them that time was passing. The air in the room felt heavy with the weight of potential conversation… if only they could find the words they both needed to say.
“Did-”
“Have-”
“Sorry, what were you gonna say?” both spoke at the same time, their voices mingling and merging into one.
“Go ahead,” Katsuki let out a nervous chuckle.
The one side of Eijiro’s lips quirked up in a soft smile before he broke eye contact and focused on his lap, “I was going to ask if the doctor’s had told you when you were being released?”
“Oh,” Katsuki wasn’t sure if he should be disappointed or not. The Omega maintained a neutral tone, giving nothing away for the Alpha to gauge the depth of the question. Did he want to know, so they could part ways for good? Or was this his way of asking Katsuki to come back home? “Um, not really. They said everything looks, uh good, but they wanted to wait until I started physio.”
“That’s good, I guess, it’s um important to uh do that,” Eijiro replied.
“Yeah.”
Wow, so smooth, Katsuki’s Alpha mocked him.
“When do you start physio?”
“Um, I think she said in two days, I could be wrong though.”
“Okay, okay, cool.”
“Yeah, so how um how have you been?” Katsuki regretted the question almost instantly.
Eijiro’s face dropped and seemed to take on a sickly parlor, his right hand twitched as if he was trying to reach for something, but he was quick to force himself to stop mid air. The scent of sadness became so thick in the air so quickly that Katsuki’s lungs seized mid-inhale in an attempt to avoid the unpleasant smell. Tears welled up in those gorgeous ruby red eyes and Katsuki’s stomach dropped as Eijiro looked around the room panic stricken.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that,” Katsuki rushed out.
“It’s o-okay,” Eijiro stuttered out with a deep grounding breath. One of the ones that caused his shoulders to move up and his hands to clench slightly before his whole body sunk lower into the chair. “I’m just… not sure h-how I’m doing.”
Katsuki wished more than anything that he could just reach out and pull the Omega into a tight hug and tell him everything would be okay. That together, they would find a way to make everything work out. How they would work out, but his mind became a black hole as he tried to think of something, anything, he could say in comfort. Logically he knew that Eijiro was in a terrible position; one that made every option look and feel like the greatest betrayal to his past, but Katsuki could see the confusion and hope in those familiar red eyes. They both, at least in small parts, wanted the same thing.
In the end, there was nothing he could say.
Eijiro had to make up his own mind on what he wanted, and Katsuki had to respect his choice.
…Even if he chose to walk out of the hospital room without so much as a goodbye.
Katsuki watched as Eijiro seemed to be at war with himself. A blind man would be able to tell that he didn’t want to be touched at the moment, but he did need something. Something to disrupt and distract all those dark and spiraling thoughts from continuing to run rampant and unchecked.
“Do you remember when you first came into my hospital room?” Katsuki asked. To be honest, it was more like he yelled the words into the air.
“Huh?” Eijiro looked up at him. The whites of his eyes were the same shade of red as his irises.
“Not tonight, but back when we first met?”
Eijiro’s gaze dropped, and his brow furrowed, “Vaguely? It feels like an eternity since that night…”
“Well, I remember clear as day. The first thing you said was my name…” Katsuki cleared his throat, “I had never heard anyone say my name like that, like it was a prayer, like I mattered.”
“Well, I thought I had… I thought…”
Katsuki offered him a small comforting smile. “I know what you thought, but I need you to know what I thought. Now that we know the… truth, well some of it, I need you to know what that moment meant to me.” He took deep breath to center himself and readjusted himself to sit up higher in the bed, no longer trying to hide the stump of an arm left on his right side. “I didn’t have a childhood like your Katsuki seemed to. I had a nightmare when I was five that scared me so badly that my quirk, which I was only attempting to learn to control at that point, went off and caught my blanket on fire.”
Eijiro nodded, “Kat had a similar incident, but Mitsuki was able to put it out pretty quick as the story goes.”
Katsuki’s took a moment to appreciate how close their lives ran parallel to each other, was that night the catalyst that started the split in the road? Not that it mattered anymore…
“Maybe Mitsuki had been more tired in my life or maybe I wasn’t fast enough in warning them, but regardless of what the difference was, my mama didn’t make it. After that my life took a turn, a dark turn. As I grew up, went to school, graduated, worked through different internships, and even my career as a hero, my name always felt like a curse… until you said it. The way you said my name made me feel like none of my past mattered or that it even existed. All I could feel in that moment, all that was important was sitting right in front of me and all I had to do was open my eyes and accept it. I have no idea why any of this happened or how I got here, but I truly think it was for a reason.”
The air between the two felt thin and as the silence stretched on, Katsuki became nervous.
Did he scare him? Who was he kidding? Of course he did.
K&E K&E K&E
It was sometimes easy to forget that the world changes around you whether you want it to or not; hell even if you are ready or not.
Eijiro had lost his mate.
That was a fact: a terrifying, all-to-real fact. He could do nothing to change it or make it go away. Maybe a part of him knew what had happened, knew the moment his Katsuki had left this world, and was all too accepting at a second chance.
Looking at the man in the bed, with the same blond spikes of hair and the same fierce crimson eyes, but with the different scars and attitude, Eijiro was starting to see how his future could play out.
Together they could heal each other.
Truly fall in love.
Get mated.
Maybe have a couple pups.
Have a future and be happy.
…But is it what he wanted?
No one could ever know the truth, so in essence his Katsuki would have never existed. He’d have to pretend all the questions that were for sure going to come flying their way didn’t sting like hot knives through his heart.
When can we expect the re-opening of your guys’ agency? Eijiro didn’t know.
What is it like to have your mate back? Eijiro wouldn’t know.
Is the bond as strong as before? Eijiro couldn’t know.
Could he handle having another mate? The two were so much alike, yet so completely different. Would he be able to separate the two and not hold anything against the man in front of him? What about this Katsuki’s real life? That existence doesn’t just disappear… does it? Did he have someone at home mourning him? Was Eijiro selfish enough to make them suffer like he had?
Eijiro listened to Katsuki’s words and made his choice.
He was selfish.