Chapter Text
The green-haired villager was going to die, and Katsuki was going to let it happen. He was willing it to happen, watching as the villager swam across the icy river and back, collecting a lamb that had ended up on the other bank.
Die, Katsuki thought as the villager swam with the lamb above his head so it wouldn’t get soaked, as swells of water broke over his head and nearly drowned him, tugging him along downriver.
Die, Katsuki thought as he watched the lamb be reunited with its bleating mother, the villager climbing out stiffly after setting the lamb down. The villager’s clothes were sodden, shades darker than they’d been before. He stayed on the bank, too tired to sit up beyond leaning on his elbows to watch. His face and his green hair were achingly familiar, had been familiar the moment Katsuki caught sight of them.
Die, Katsuki thought once more, harder, as the villager laughed at the lamb’s reunion with its mother, his smile soft before shivers wracked his body. Katsuki couldn’t see the villager’s eyes clearly from here, but he swore they got a faraway look in them. Get hypothermia and die, he thought.
He’d get his wish if no one intervened. The day was early-spring cold, the world foggy and dull, the ground a thought away from frozen despite the glacier-melts that had swollen the river.
Die, Katsuki thought at the prone form as it started stripping off sodden clothes, wracked with shivers. Die, die, die, die.
The shivers continued unabated, pale skin glowing under a nothing-sun, and Katsuki got up from his perch with his teeth gritted.
Izuku woke up deliciously warm. There had been moments, yesterday and in the weeks before, when he’d been sure he’d never feel warmth again. He’d walked away from the river half-dressed and gathered wood in the nearby forest for a fire, but the green wood had smoked more than it had burned, and eventually Izuku had ceased to feel anything at all as sleep dragged him under and kept him from tending the fire, leaving it to go out.
Now, he felt soft fur on his naked skin, the wind’s ever-present chill absent, the ground below him packed and hard but softened by blankets. There was a fire nearby, popping harmoniously, and Izuku let out a soft moan of pleasure at the sensation of warmth and comfort after so long.
Something hissed.
Izuku didn’t so much sit up as launch up, the fur falling from around his shoulders. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. He was in an unfamiliar cave. The thing hissing was—a man.
With… red eyes? Holy shit.
The man glared at him across the fire.
“Oh my god,” Izuku said. He looked down at himself, at his naked chest and the fur that was actually a red, fur-lined cloak. Given the accessories Izuku could see on the half-naked man—red earrings, red bracers—it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
“I’m sorry! This is your cloak, right? I’ll give it…” Izuku trailed off. Giving the cloak back would mean walking around stark naked. “Did you happen to see my clothes?”
There was a growl in response, which Izuku took as a maybe. The feeling of comfort from earlier began to recede. It was strange; he’d read books where people growled, but it had always struck him as something people wouldn’t really do. Growls were just hyperbole, and the text really meant someone frowned ominously while making a disapproving sound. Not that they literally growled.
Young Izuku had been wrong. There were people who growled, and one of those people—red-eyed and hungry-looking—was sitting across the fire from him.
The feeling of wellbeing he’d woken up with had vanished from his system entirely by now. His stomach, suppressed until this point by warmth, sleep, and lack of movement, woke up.
It growled too.
Izuku looked up at the man across from him with fear in his soul, clutching his complaining stomach, wishing he had something more to cover him than the man’s cloak. His upper half was as naked as the man’s—more naked, because he had no bracers or necklaces—and his nipples were hard from nervousness and exposure. Why did nipples have to be like that?
“If you have my clothes, I’ll be on my way,” Izuku said. He’d rather die than ask the man for food. “Thank you so much for taking care of me, if you found my pack I can share—”
He stopped because the man stood up. The cave was tall enough to allow it, and with the fire casting shadows the man looked like a powerful old god, vengeance coursing under his living skin. It wasn’t just the fact that the man was outlined against distant and uneven cave surfaces, rendering his shadow a disproportionate giant, but the musculature of his core and the fall of his necklaces across it were sharply displayed in light and dark, like a fire-forged vision of vitality.
If the man was any weapon at all, he’d be a greataxe—or else a mace. And Izuku was here with him, clearly wearing his patience thin.
But he saved you, Izuku reminded himself.
The man’s footsteps scraped against the cave floor as he came close. He stood over Izuku, looking down from a height. Izuku was just a person sitting, and this man was just a person standing—but Izuku felt like an ant.
Perhaps the man hadn’t saved him. Perhaps someone else had brought him here for ritual murder, which the man would now carry out. He was a priest of some hellish denomination—hence the necklaces.
“I’m not—” Izuku managed to gasp out “—I’m not, tasty! If you were thinking of eating me in some kind of ritual! I know I look healthy but I haven’t eaten well in over a month and steak is better with marbling and—”
The man kneeled to clamp a hand over Izuku’s mouth.
“You should just die,” the man said. His first words—nice. Not only did he look like a barbarian, he was a barbarian. And he was about to murder Izuku in ritual sacrifice.
He wasn’t even going to be polite about it. Tears stood out in Izuku’s eyes, because no matter how much he grew, any hint of unfairness—or kindness, or unkindness, or unexpected resolve in someone weak, or a hundred other things—made his nose prickle and his eyes flow. It was undignified; the Might spirit who’d joined him in the Dagoba Wastes had told him to stop with the bad habit, but he couldn’t.
Izuku didn’t want to fight this man. He didn’t want to risk summoning Toshinori—the Might spirit—in these close quarters when it could well bring the hill down on both of them.
But he had to try, for the world’s sake if not his own.
“I should have let you die,” the man continued—and Izuku’s furious planning stalled. He became aware of the calluses against his lips, hard against soft, and the warmth of the man’s palm.
“You’re the one who saved me?” he said into the hand.
The man glared. “Who the hell else do you think would have saved you? Do you see a town fire brigade out here, dumb shit? A nurse, maybe? Hell—”
Izuku knocked his hand away, relief surging. “I’m Midoriya Izuku! An adventurer from the west. I came here across the Wastes—”
“To die in a fucking forest? To save a fucking lamb?”
The memory of plaintive bleating sounded in Izuku’s ears. His already-painful stomach twisted. The sound—and the sight—had made him so sad yesterday: the ewe on one bank, the lamb on the other. Izuku had immediately thought of his own mother, of how much he’d missed her—of how she’d squashed him to her the morning he left, telling him she’d die if anything happened to him.
It should have made him careful instead of careless, but hot on the heels of memories of his mother was the thought of how much harder everything was, harder than expected, even when good things happened. How everything was more confusing than he could ever have imagined back home with his books. How he was lonely.
In that moment of weakness, that timeless space of looking at a mother and her child separated by icy water swollen from snowmelt, Izuku had jumped. His own painful journey hadn’t mattered as long as he could reunite the lamb with the ewe.
He’d regretted the impulse the moment he hit the water, but by then he was already chilled to the bone, and it would be worse to fail at his quest than to succeed.
Belatedly Izuku realised the barbarian’s accusation regarding the lamb meant he’d seen the river rescue—but that was hours before Izuku passed out. Izuku raised confused eyes to meet those startling red ones.
The man was kneeling by his side, heedless of Izuku’s trip down memory lane as he continued his tirade: “Lambs are just meat waiting to happen, wretch. Did you forget that? I’ll go out right now and kill one in front of its mother.”
“I wasn’t hungry,” Izuku mumbled, “and sheep always belong to farmers, they don’t just wander, there are no feral sheep—”
“Are you going to fucking lecture me about poaching?” the man raged, and Izuku had to admit—at least mentally—to the ridiculousness of telling a man in a cave with animal teeth hung around his neck that killing roaming animals with likely owners was frowned upon.
“I was just explaining,” Izuku mumbled. The more the man raged without attacking—and the sillier their conversation got—the more Izuku relaxed. It was kind of nice to be around another person, this close, when ritual sacrifice wasn’t an immediate threat. Things had gotten so lonely after he left the others behind in Coruscant City.
Angry bluster, even coming from a man resembling a fierce god from olden times, was just bluster. If the man had wanted to hurt him, he could have by now.
Izuku was wrapped in the man’s cloak, had been saved by him, Izuku was warm, and—
“Eat some fucking food so I don’t have to listen to you,” the man said, standing abruptly. He walked away in disgust—to grab something from a sack below an overhang. A cast-iron pot entered Izuku’s line of vision, the man’s back still to him, and there was more rifling through sacks after. Izuku watched in awe as the man began to cook with—what looked to the half-starved Izuku—a glut of supplies.
The man had saved him, and now the man was going to feed him. He wondered whether a thank you would send the man into a towering rage—and decided he didn’t care.
But he’d wait until after the meal to say it just in case.
Katsuki watched Midoriya Izuku eat, wondering whether he should have poisoned the food. His opinion hadn’t changed. This green-haired shit-for-brains could just die and the world would be better off without his high-handed ideals. He should die.
“‘S so good,” Izuku moaned around some stew, and Katsuki’s jaw clenched. Izuku had no idea—didn’t remember at all who Katsuki was. Meanwhile Katsuki had known with certainty from half a league away, without hearing him speak, without even seeing his face properly. Something in him had known.
Die, die, die, die.
“How did you—this is so good.” Izuku had apparently swallowed enough to speak, not that any of it made sense. He wiped at his mouth, then licked the hand he’d wiped his mouth with. It was a hungrier gesture than Katsuki knew what to do with.
Katsuki wasn’t about to explain cooking to this idiot. If he didn’t know by now, it wasn’t worth telling him. Actually, Katsuki wasn’t going to explain anything. Fuck this. Izuku should have recognised him by now instead of stuffing his face. He should have—
Katsuki’s jaw hurt from clenching; he loosened it to speak.
“Deku,” he said, his voice a growl. Izuku froze.
Katsuki felt prickles on his skin from the slow drag of those intense eyes up his body. First his folded legs, then his hips, then his abs, his chest, his shoulders and arms, up his neck—and finally his face. Katsuki glared back, daring Izuku not to remember him.
Who the fuck forgot him? Izuku was the diminutive squirt in homespun saving lambs; Katsuki was steeped in enchanted jewellery, wearing bracers stamped with shaman’s marks, a dragonsblood tattoo for strength carved into his shoulder. He’d made the Kkowir Wilds his back garden, he’d allied with an actual fucking dragon to drive out a bloodthirsty ogre pack before the age of twenty, he could take down a rampaging centaur singlehanded and had on several occasions, and fucking Midoriya Izuku—no, fucking Deku—couldn’t remember who the fuck he was.
“Sorry?” Deku said, a tremble in his voice. He tried a smile. “I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”
“Your name, asswipe.”
“Izu—”
“Deku.” Katsuki held his gaze, daring him not to remember now.
Deku’s eyes were so wide—as wide and guileless as Katsuki could remember them being. His mouth opened.
“Kacchan?” he said, in a voice like his heart was exiting his throat along with the name. Katsuki wanted to punch it back in.
He glared. “Obviously.”
“Ob… obvious?!” Deku met his eyes for a moment longer—and then his gaze dropped to Katsuki’s shoulders: the tattoo. The bracers. The necklaces, the muscles. Katsuki would have throttled anyone else for staring like that.
He wanted to throttle this idiot for a lot of things, but not for staring. It was the first time Deku had looked at him properly, as anything but a—what? A threat? That shouldn’t be insulting; Katsuki was a threat to him.
He could leave Deku bleeding and broken in this cave. The confused anger in him—not wholly his own; dragon’s blood tattoos didn’t leave a person unchanged—wanted him to.
“It’s not obvious,” Deku said finally. “Your eyes are red now. And back then you were—we were both tiny!”
“I was bigger than you.”
Deku’s face went blank. He blinked—and then he smiled sardonically. “Really?”
Where was the stuttering fool from a moment ago? Katsuki’s stomach lurched. “What? It’s true.”
“Bit of an old accomplishment to be holding over me.” The intensity of Deku’s gaze, now, was different. There was a look up and down Katsuki’s body that felt electric, quick: a reminder to Katsuki that things were different now. That their bodies were different now.
Heat surged below Katsuki’s skin, potent as any vitality potion.
He pushed it down.
“You were a shit then too.”
Memories of the summers they’d spent together as children hadn’t haunted Katsuki, exactly, but they hadn’t left him either. The caravan his family travelled with would always stop outside the same town, close to the village where Deku lived, and Deku had come out every day to bother Katsuki and the other merchants’ children. They’d play together all summer, pretending to be caravan guards with their leather vests and large weapons, bows slung across their backs. All they’d had were slingshots and shared powers of imagination, but it had been enough.
Imagination and slingshots hadn’t been enough the day they’d wandered too deep into the forest, though. Deku had already been getting on Katsuki’s nerves by then, looking sad when Katsuki or the others got scraped up, asking if they were okay, more tuned to their needs than his own. It had made Katsuki feel like a baby, or else like a bad leader, and then they’d had the bad luck to stumble into a wild boar’s territory.
The thing had been giant, with tusks longer than Katsuki’s arms were at the time. The pure, distilled fear that had seized him when he saw it was the most vivid memory he had of his childhood—that and the next moment, of wrestling that fear down and calling on confidence in its place, like he’d conjured up the adult he’d become in one moment of childhood bravery. This was a challenge, not a threat.
The other two children began to run away through the undergrowth, screaming, while Katsuki yelled at them to climb a tree. He found himself calculating their chances, the distances, the trees with low limbs. Deku was still back a bit, relatively safe, but Katsuki was close to the beast and the other two’s screaming had focused its attention on him. He grinned with clenched teeth.
Boars were good at charging—but bad at changing direction once they gathered speed. Katsuki reminded himself of this over and over as he let the others get away. He couldn’t panic now. He’d have seconds once the boar started charging, to jump left or right. He’d have to decide based on the boar’s approach.
His knees were bent in preparation for dodging. The boar was stamping its front hoof, lowering its head, getting ready to charge—and then something hit it. A rock fired from a slingshot, from behind the boar.
Deku had crept around and positioned himself to draw the boar’s attention away from Katsuki. For a moment Katsuki was stunned by his daring, almost envious.
Then he saw Deku’s face, tears standing out in his eyes. “That’s right!” Deku yelled at the boar. “Over here!”
The boar turned in one motion, and with that Katsuki’s challenge, his chance to prove himself, was gone. A crying boy two inches shorter than him had taken it from him. Katsuki watched as Deku took his place, as Deku jumped at the last minute, as the situation was resolved with Katsuki having stood in place doing nothing but think.
Katsuki was beside himself with rage—which spilled over later, when they were safe, when a scraped-up Deku had touched his elbow and asked him if he was okay. Goodness and bravery seemed to shine from Deku’s pores, like he was some kind of hero for stealing that moment from Katsuki.
Katsuki had wanted to fight him then. Now… now he wasn’t so sure, but that coat of goodness still covered Deku. Katsuki could smell it on him like sunlight—like grassy earth baking on a cloudless day in early summer. Katsuki had never had that; creatures of the light spurned him. He’d never sought their approval, but he’d sought their help on occasion, and they acted like he was shit stuck to their shoes. Faeries, nymphs, light-aligned summon spirits—their powers were inaccessible to him.
Faeries probably jerked off to Deku’s every breath.
Katsuki poked at the fire, feeding it a branch from the pile. At least fire wasn’t judgmental. It came to Katsuki’s aid easily when he needed it, trusting him to tend to it. Dragons, fire, demons—all those could be harnessed. Because they weren’t assholes.
“You really hated me, huh?” Deku said softly. It was odd that he realised; he’d seemed so oblivious back then, after the boar incident. He’d kept on tagging along despite Katsuki telling him to go away.
Had it been hate? Deku’s goody-two-shoes presence had pushed on insecurities Katsuki couldn’t have named back then, despite the fact that Katsuki was better than Deku at everything. Any single competition they had, he won—and yet Deku never seemed defeated.
“Maybe,” Katsuki said. He wondered what it would take to defeat Deku now. Deku was muscular but too thin, with calluses where the straps of his pack rubbed, and on his right hand from gripping the blade Katsuki had found near his person. There were scars, too—but much of his skin was soft.
Not that Katsuki had felt him up while undressing him, but it had been impossible to avoid touching Deku’s skin while pulling his cold, damp clothes off so his body would warm again.
“I’m surprised you haven’t died out here,” Katsuki said, his voice traitorously soft—he’d meant to make it sound accusatory.
“Ha,” Deku said. “I know. Almost like there’s someone or something protecting me.”
He said it like it was a joke; Katsuki’s eyes narrowed. “Is there?”
“Yes. But I’m still no good at controlling my power, so let’s not fight.”
Had Deku read his mind? Sensed Katsuki still longed to prove his superiority? Fuck, it made Katsuki seem like the precocious child he’d been when they last saw each other. He didn’t need to prove himself to Deku.
He wanted to, though. He wanted to grind Deku into dust and prove he didn’t need him, that he was better, stronger, that he could do whatever he liked. He wanted to hold Deku down and sink his teeth into his neck, feel Deku’s nails rake his back—
Fuck.
That wasn’t fighting; that was fucking. And wanting to do that with Deku meant Katsuki was still losing.
“You want to fight me still?” Deku asked curiously, leaning forward to peer at him. The cloak was just a pool of fabric in his lap. It didn’t cover the jut of his hips, and his leaning uncovered more leg. Katsuki watched the flicker of firelight on newly exposed skin, wetting his lips before meeting Deku’s eyes again. It didn’t pass his notice that Deku’s nipples were just hard buds through chill or nervousness. Katsuki could run his thumb…
“Who do you think would win?” he asked, forcing his gaze to remain steady on Deku’s.
“I’m surprised. You’re asking, not telling?”
“Answer the question, shit-for-brains.”
Deku’s gaze dropped. “You would,” he said softly. Confused, angry arousal hit Katsuki square in the chest.
“What the fuck? What kind of fucking weakling would—”
“You want to fight and I don’t, so you’d win,” Deku said. He rearranged the cloak in his lap, making himself a tiny bit more presentable. It didn’t help. “Sorry to disappoint.”
The rage in Katsuki’s chest had no place to go. Deku didn’t even want to prove himself against him, didn’t want to emerge the victor. It made Katsuki go blind with violent need, his tattoo pulsing, his skin laced with fire, and before he knew it he was launching himself forward, pushing Deku back against the bedroll.
“Horseshit!” Katsuki spat. He straddled Deku, one hand on Deku’s chest holding him down. “If we had to fight, if I was about to kill every single fucking creature in the world, and you had to fight me to stop me, then—”
“You wouldn’t, though.” Deku was staring up at him, utterly convinced of his own rightness. Katsuki noticed his own hand moving on Deku’s chest—across scars—to close around Deku’s neck in blind anger. Deku’s eyes were fierce. Katsuki wanted to spit in his face, squeeze the hand around Deku’s throat, anything, anything to make Deku stop being better than him, to stop him from—
Deku touched the hand Katsuki had wrapped around his throat. “If I had to? I’d win. Are you happy now?”
Happy? No, he wasn’t happy—but the answer made him weak with relief. The heat of his anger died down, at least a little, and he found he was shaking like some kind of weak-ass animal Deku had brought to heel.
Deku licked his lips. “Where are my clothes, Kacchan?”
“Why would I tell you?”
“Do you want me to stay here?”
“Like hell I do.”
“Then where are my clothes?”
“It’s dark out.” Katsuki looked out towards the cave opening, through the narrowed passage that made this such a good hiding place. The smoke could escape through cracks, but the awkward entry meant Katsuki would have advance warning if anyone tried to get in. It had been a pain to carry Deku through it.
“Are we having a sleepover?” Deku asked with a smile.
Katsuki began to get up. “Fuck! Go out there and die then, see if I care.”
He felt a tug when he tried to stand—because Deku had grabbed his belt. This fucker—
“I can stay for the night,” Deku said. His eyes traced Katsuki’s shoulders. “I’d like to stay for the night.”
Was he saying what Katsuki thought he was? Their eyes met for a long moment.
“Why?” Katsuki found himself asking, like two healthy young people fucking needed an explanation. He wished he hadn’t asked the moment the question left him, but the need others felt for sex had always seemed foreign to him, and now he looked like a fucking virgin.
It wasn’t normal to him. He never… he usually didn’t… He’d tried sex, once or twice, and it always left him feeling resentful and disgusted with himself. It was better to fill that need alone and leave the world out of it. He didn’t want to be that close with anyone, even if it was just bodies. It was disgusting.
Katsuki didn’t want to be touched. He didn’t like being touched—not by anyone. And here he was, crouched over Deku, salivating at the thought of rubbing their bodies together. Of touching him, biting him, feeling Deku’s hot cock against his skin until this sunshine-bastard moaned for relief.
Fucking fuck.
This was no time to remember Deku moaning around a mouthful of his food, but he couldn’t help it. He looked down at Deku and suppressed the urge to claw at a patch of unbroken skin and make his own mark, his own scar. Deku swallowed visibly.
“I just thought—for old time’s sake,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again, Kacchan.”
“Nice?”
“Fine!” Deku said. “You’re still an asshole, but you grew up hot, and you rescued me, and I’m lonely.”
“Lonely? Don’t the fucking birds start singing wherever you step?”
“I’m not going to fuck a bird, am I?”
Katsuki stared for a moment, down into those intense eyes—and then he couldn’t believe it. The righteous indignation. I’m not going to fuck a bird, am I? Katsuki couldn’t help it—he started to laugh.
After a moment of staring back, Deku smiled along. “It wasn’t a joke,” he said when Katsuki managed to stop. His eyes were wide and beautiful, but not childlike anymore. Not some annoying kid’s eyes. This was a Deku who’d grown up separate from Katsuki, who was as much a mystery as the creatures of light that undoubtedly flocked to him.
“I hated you then and I hate you now,” Katsuki said, looking down at Deku. What he felt wasn’t even close to hate, but it burned the same. It made him angry the same. “You’re a fucking waste of space.”
“Want me to make up for it?”
God, yes. He wanted Deku sucking him off, or on all fours in front of him, or keening below him, or—
Fuck. He didn’t like sex. What was wrong with him?
Deku touched a hand to Katsuki’s chest, sending a shiver all the way through him. Katsuki’s eyes fell closed, his head fell forward. He didn’t like being touched—not by anyone—but maybe he and creatures of the light weren’t so diametrically opposed after all. Deku was the exception to the rule, a fucking bonfire in the dark night. They all flocked to him.
Katsuki was weak in the knees—weak all over—and that was how Deku got the drop on him. Deku moved to hook his leg around Katsuki’s hips, and with a twist of his body and a push he had Katsuki rolling, falling onto his back with Deku straddling him instead of the other way around. Katsuki remembered Deku’s promise: that he’d win if they fought in earnest.
For a moment his confidence was gone and he believed it. Arousal surged.
Deku looked down at him, lit by a fire beginning to die from lack of attention. Katsuki didn’t give a shit about the fire, except that he didn’t want to miss any expression Deku made. He reached with a leg to shove a branch from the wood pile in, with limited success.
Screw it. If the light died he’d ask Deku to summon up a faerie from his ass crack. He didn’t have time for this, to be caring about anything else. Deku was exploring his chest and shoulders with his hands, running fingers along his bracers.
“They’re hot to the touch,” Deku said. “They’re magic?”
“Yeah.”
“And these?” Deku asked, moving a hand to touch the necklaces splayed across Katsuki’s neck and chest—and abruptly moving it back, hissing like he’d been burned. He examined his palm. “What…”
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Katsuki asked, grinning. Take that, stupid Deku. The spells in his necklaces had taken even him a while to get used to. Reportedly they stung and burned other people.
He wondered if he ought to take them off—and then Deku ran his fingers along them again, hissing a little. A glutton for punishment.
“That’s amazing. I wonder…”
Katsuki looked down at Deku’s naked body, the cloak obscuring just enough to maintain his modesty. Or not quite enough; the hair marking a path down to his cock was clearly visible. Katsuki ran the backs of his fingers down that trail, his mouth watering at the thought of more.
No one else affected him this way. Maybe that was poetic justice for how uselessly angry he’d been at Deku when they were children. It was just this one, sun-baked-earth-smelling guy who woke Katsuki’s body up. Just this one exception—apparently.
Deku was willing, and Katsuki could live with the new knowledge of his own wants. He would let himself taste, have, ravage. They were acquaintances of a sort, anyway, and he’d rescued Deku. Fed him. He could think of this as payment and nothing more, a bonus for not letting this idiot die in the cold.
Deku stopped poking the necklaces. He licked his bottom lip. “Do you have my pack, or not?”
“Get the fuck off me and I’ll get it for you. What do you need?”
“Just bring it.”
There was an odd fear in Katsuki as Deku removed his weight, primly rearranging the cloak. If Katsuki fetched the pack, Deku would know where Katsuki was stashing his things, and he could leave. The only thing that allowed Katsuki to move was his dogged lies to himself that it’d be for the best if Deku just up and left, right now, because he didn’t want that waste of space around anyway. He trudged over to the pack and grabbed it, leaving Deku’s almost-dry clothes—set on firebaked stone—exactly where they were. Deku took the pack from him, the cloak around his shoulders.
Katsuki liked the sight of that: Deku wrapped in red, a contrast to his green hair and eyes. There was a thrill of ownership Katsuki knew not to trust. How many others had fallen? He tended the fire enough to keep it going, then set the cooking pot aside too. He settled down to watch as Deku found something in the pack—a small pot.
“What is it?” Katsuki asked.
“Salve.”
“You’re hurt?”
Deku smiled slightly, setting the pack away. Katsuki kept watching with rapt attention, aware of the cloak’s every move, and Deku poked his leg with one bare foot. “No.”
“I’ll hurt you then, wretch.”
Deku swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Would you like that?” These submissive looks he kept sending said he would—but Katsuki couldn’t help remembering his hand on Deku’s throat, the unflinching way Deku had looked up at him. Deku’s face had said Katsuki could rage and rage but nothing would touch him. There was something in Deku Katsuki couldn’t reach. That goodness in him, maybe.
Fuck.
“I’ll rip you apart,” Katsuki said, before Deku could answer, and he saw Deku shudder. Deku pressed a hand to something inside the cloak—his cock? Shit, unfair. Katsuki wanted… he wanted…
Why was he sitting back making idle threats? He could just take. He moved forward on his knees, approaching Deku, and reached. He slid his fingers into Deku’s hair at the back of his head, gripped tight to his curls and tipped Deku’s head back, exposing the vulnerable column of his neck. Deku’s throat bobbed.
“Tell me to stop,” Katsuki said, staring down at him. “Tell me you don’t want me to.”
He twisted his hand, and Deku jerked just a little, and the cloak fell away from Deku’s shoulders. Deku was exposed in the firelight, all of him, from his glass-hard nipples to a stunningly erect cock. He looked like he was begging for it.
“You want me to lie?” Deku asked, with the same challenge that had driven Katsuki wild earlier. Katsuki hissed out a breath between his teeth.
“Acting like some kind of saint…” he said, looking down at Deku with rapt attention. All that skin—he’d have to find the right bit to mark. He didn’t want the marks he left on Deku to be part of the canvas of scars—he wanted them bright red and aching like a new tattoo, unforgettable. He wanted Deku to feel him under his clothes with every step he took.
Deku was looking, too, hands gripping the bedroll below him as his gaze dropped to Katsuki’s belt.
“You’re still wearing clothes.”
Yeah, and they were getting damned uncomfortable. “Let’s focus on you.”
Deku’s eyes met his again. He handed him the salve mutely.
“What…?”
“Do I have to explain?”
Katsuki’s eyes widened. He was no innocent, to be caught unaware, but the pure sunlight boy—the boy who’d jumped in the river today—carrying something like this with him? Digging it out of his pack at the first whisper of contact with some likely man?
How often was Deku lonely, exactly? The thought made Katsuki angry. He thought of Deku travelling from town to town, sating himself, Katsuki the latest conquest in a long line of them—
He wanted to rip, tear. It didn’t matter how many others there were, because Katsuki was going to make Deku forget they ever existed. Fuck them. He hoped they all died of cholera or some shit.
His hand tightened in Deku’s hair, and he forced him down against the bedroll, still twisting his head back. He licked at the length of Deku’s exposed neck, then bit—and felt Deku quiver beneath him, hips jerking up.
Even when Katsuki stopped licking and biting Deku writhed, and belatedly Katsuki realised his necklaces were touching Deku’s chest, sharp enchanted teeth burning his skin. Despite this the jerking of Deku’s hips continued, almost like he liked the pain.
Katsuki kneeled between Deku’s legs, unscrewing the lid of the little pot as Deku kept moving, caught in some fantasy with his eyes closed, cock thick and swollen against his abdomen as he fidgeted.
“Eager,” Katsuki said, and he hadn’t meant it to sound like a compliment but that was how it came out. He took out a generous helping of the salve—dark green, fragrant—and spread it all around Deku’s hole without asking for permission. There was no shock, no horror, but Deku pressed into his fingers. With the salve on them they were slippery enough; one went in almost without trying. He spread the salve around, Deku taking it eagerly, and a second finger was a stretch but not that much of one; Deku wanted this too badly, his body accommodating Katsuki like it was made to take him in.
Deku’s hot insides pressed around him. Was that just Deku, or was—
Deku moaned. “Hot. It feels so hot. I want…”
“What is this shit?” Katsuki asked, looking down at the goop he’d spread all around like it was just innocent balm. What if it was some kind of dick-burning hell potion?
“It’s just a side effect,” Deku said. “It really is for other stuff, but I realised… um…”
“You’re a fucking goblin,” Katsuki said, and Deku laughed. Katsuki felt the jerk of it around his fingers.
“I never pretended not to be,” Deku said.
But no one realises, Katsuki thought. All those creatures would still fall in line behind Deku, because he could rut like an animal in heat and it still wouldn’t touch the goodness in him. It still wouldn’t change who or what he was. He could be the biggest slut in all five kingdoms and beings of the light would consider it an innocent hobby. Who cared? Meanwhile Katsuki could abstain from all earthly pleasures and still be worse than dirt in their view.
Well, he wasn’t abstaining. He’d take their avatar and ravish him, make him walk funny for weeks. They could ignore him all they liked; with Deku moaning under him he didn’t care anymore whether water sprites pretended not to hear him.
They could die of cholera too. It would be fitting.
“Kacchan,” Deku sighed. “I want more. I want you.”
“You’ll have me until you can’t stand it.” Katsuki retracted his hand to undo his belt and trousers, not even bothering to pull them down all the way before coating himself in the stuff he’d slathered on Deku. If it burned him forever he’d deal.
“Prove it,” Deku said, meeting his eyes again, and Katsuki breathed an exasperated laugh. He gripped Deku’s hips, lined himself up. He couldn’t help his own bruising hold, couldn’t stop himself from squeezing too hard.
“I can take it,” Deku reassured him, and rage boiled in Katsuki’s chest. He hadn’t been worried. He’d just been—something. Taking a breath, maybe. It had been a while.
He pushed, just a little. The heat was immense, the stretch of Deku around him already addicting—from so little contact. This wasn’t sex. This was pre-sex, and Katsuki was already unprepared to lose it, half a breath from blowing his load simply at the give of Deku’s body. Fucking sunlight kid, fucking brave boy with the slingshot. Katsuki would grind him into dust.
“I’ll kill you,” he said, for good measure. Deku canted his hips, and delicious friction tore through Katsuki. More, more. There could always be more, but he was already so close just from this. “Fucking nerd. I’ll tear you to pieces.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Why are you like this?”
Deku laughed softly, and Katsuki looked up to drink it in. It was just a moment, and then Deku was biting his lip. He arched his back, but Katsuki kept looking, waiting for the fire in his veins to die down. There was no way he was losing this.
“Like what?” Deku asked after a moment. He ran a hand down himself, seemingly unconsciously.
“Like a fucking goblin. Shit!”
Deku laughed again, and this time Katsuki caught the whole of it. It looked like sunlight on fucking leaves, the flow of water over smooth stones. It felt right.
“I just want you,” Deku said, pressing around Katsuki’s cock. “That’s all.”
“Me?” Katsuki ran a hand over Deku’s chest, passing over his nipple to hissed approval.
“I might have settled for less. I’ve… I’ve wanted…”
Katsuki thrust, angry at that sentiment. I might have settled for less. Deku whimpered.
“No one understands,” Deku said softly. “I—people—”
Katsuki ran his hands up Deku’s body, up his sides to his shoulders, his arms, finally encircling his wrists with his hands and holding them down. Deku’s legs clamped around his hips, bucking into him to take him in farther, deeper.
“Yeah?” Katsuki hissed. He wanted Deku to keep going with whatever idiotic thing he was saying so he could punish him for it.
“It’s not all rainbows,” Deku managed. “I’ve wanted—this. I didn’t know.”
“Something dirty,” Katsuki said. “Something dark.”
“There’s nothing dark about this. About you.”
Katsuki laughed humourlessly, thrusting into this hero from the west. Desperate rutting by firelight in a cave? Yeah, the next ballad the bards wrote would be about that for sure.
“It’s hard,” Deku gasped. “Being alone. Fate.”
“Being alone is the easiest thing in the world,” Katsuki said. He looked down into Deku’s face, into those wide eyes. “It’s simple.”
“It hurts,” Deku said. His lashes fluttered. “People aren’t built to be alone.”
“That’s what weaklings say.”
Deku smiled, weakening Katsuki’s spine. “I suppose that’s what I am. But you’re still here with me.”
Katsuki growled. This was his cave, his refuge. Deku was the trespasser. He’d make him regret it. He bent to bite at his neck again, then his shoulder. He loosed Deku’s wrists, but only to grip his thighs hard. He thrust into Deku’s willing embrace, the pleasure overwhelming. He could lose himself in the hot press of Deku’s flesh around him. No tattoo or shaman’s mark could protect him from this; this magic was too primal, too strong.
Katsuki wished this was a ritual, that he could bind Deku to him. This idiot light spirit. He’d plaster Deku’s soul to his and keep it safe, threaten away anyone or anything that drew close. Deku wouldn’t come out spouting shit like people aren’t built to be alone. Katsuki would punch him for it.
Deku was hissing in pain. Too hard? Katsuki wondered, slowing slightly. He raised a hand, licking his thumb before setting it to one of those hard nipples. He pinched just slightly, and Deku shuddered.
There was a smell of meat singeing, and Katsuki hissed when he realised why. His necklaces were scraping over Deku’s bare skin, branding him. Tears were standing out in Deku’s eyes.
“Fuck, let me take these off,” Katsuki said, planting a hand as he increased the distance between their chests, reaching behind his neck with the other—but Deku grabbed him before he could undo a single clasp.
“Don’t,” he gasped.
“What?”
Deku canted into him, chased him needily with his lower half. “I just—I want it. I like it.”
“You like being burned by dark magic?”
“By you,” Deku said softly. His hand was possessive on Katsuki’s shoulder. His other touched the necklaces, setting off sparks. “By this.”
“You’re definitely a demon. And no one else realises.”
Deku licked his lips. “I wish it was that.”
“What is it, then?”
“I want,” Deku whispered. “I need—so much.”
Katsuki knew what it was like to crave the whole world. He’d tamed an entire forest of creatures and it wasn’t nearly enough. He understood, and he couldn’t bear the despair in Deku’s voice.
“Shit-ass hero,” he raged. “I’ll give it to you until you can’t bear it. Fuck you and your need.”
Deku’s legs tightened around him. “Please,” he whimpered, and there was the hiss of Katsuki’s necklaces burning into him again, but this time Katsuki didn’t draw back. He let the pain sink into Deku, let himself sink into Deku. He’d split him and his weak resolve apart. He’d tear him into tiny pieces.
“Kacchan,” Deku sobbed. “Thank you. Kacchan. I need… I’ve needed…”
His whimpering became inaudible, matched by Katsuki’s furious cussing. It was too much. The stretch, the heat, the way Deku took and took and took. Katsuki could be as rough as he wanted; nothing could make Deku recoil. It just made him sob and clench. When Deku shuddered into him, hot slick spurting between their bodies, Katsuki only had time to growl, to shut his eyes tight and clench his jaw before he was coming too. He hated it—hated that he’d been dragged into Deku’s pace. He wanted to torture, to make right on his threats.
He had time. Normally he’d be fast asleep—but tonight wasn’t a night like the others. He could recover and try to take Deku apart again. He’d make it so there wasn’t an untouched stretch of skin. Let the creatures of light worship that—their ravaged saviour. They could all crunch beneath Katsuki’s boot for all he cared.
All he cared about, for the moment, was Deku’s hand wrapping around the back of his neck to draw his head down. Their foreheads pressing together, the wrecked look on Deku’s face. The twist of Deku’s mouth, the painful smile.
All he cared about was closing that last little distance himself, pressing his mouth to Deku’s. Kissing him hungrily, like there was no one and nothing else in the world. All he cared about was Deku kissing back.
Izuku woke to a solid presence in the bedroll next to him, hot as a brand, and felt his body ache with remembered pleasure. Kacchan had banked the fire at some point last night, but only the barest glow was left, and most of the light streamed in from what had to be the cave entrance, though it was dim.
Izuku was shattered—but sated. He hadn’t known until Kacchan appeared before him how much he’d craved closeness—how much he’d needed someone holding him and reminding him he wasn’t just a vessel for grand quests and dreams. It amused him to think it had been Kacchan who provided the service: angry, resentful Kacchan, who’d as soon spit at him as look at him.
People changed; a lot of things changed. Once, Izuku had thought the sun rose and set on Kacchan’s word. Now… well, maybe Kacchan’s words caused a sunrise, but it was mostly inside of Izuku. A tide of want swelling up, the knowledge that with Kacchan his needs might be met. He could never have predicted this.
It was one of few welcome surprises he’d had on his journey.
He managed to crawl out of the bedroll without waking Kacchan, which was some accomplishment; unless things had changed Kacchan was an early riser. Then again, they hadn’t exactly slept the night before. Izuku smiled thinking of all the spells that robbed men of their vitality through what they’d just done, but Izuku had used no spells; Kacchan was simply exhausted.
If they ever spoke again, Izuku would warn him about the dangers of cave sex with possible sorcerers. Kacchan would have been screwed if Izuku had wanted to steal his strength in some way; it would have been so easy.
He’d never had a night like the last. Every part of him ached, his skin one big bruise. It was as if Kacchan hadn’t been able to rest until every inch of Izuku’s skin was marked up with signs of his passing.
Izuku had loved it. Kacchan’s brand of violent attentiveness made him an amazing lover, at least for a masochist, and Izuku was starting to think he might be one of those. He looked down at Kacchan’s bracers and necklaces next to the bedroll, discarded sometime during the night so they would stop burning Izuku’s skin, and remembered how Kacchan had been gentler without them. The memory of what Kacchan had been like with all his skin bared left Izuku soft and unwilling to leave.
He made himself step away, going to the part of the cave Kacchan had grabbed his pack from last night. All his stuff was there: his mostly-dry clothes, his sword, his coin purse. He got dressed and grabbed his pack from near the bedroll, whispering an incantation for sneaking. It would soften his steps so as not to make any noise as he left.
He stood over Kacchan, both ready and not ready to go. Kacchan’s hair was messy, his arm still reaching for the spot Izuku had vacated. That cruel mouth looked innocent and kissable in sleep, and heat rose below Izuku’s skin at the thought of all the things that mouth had done and said last night.
Evil wouldn’t defeat itself. Izuku dragged himself away, through the narrow opening towards the entrance, and looked out over the river valley where he’d been an idiot yesterday. From this vantage he could see for miles and chart his path. He took the enchanted stone from his pocket—he was lucky he hadn’t lost it in the river—and swept it in an arc until it warmed. There: that way. That way lay an evil only he could defeat.
He hadn’t stolen any of Kacchan’s strength or vitality last night. He’d only eaten his food and moved with him until his whole body was a bruise—but Izuku felt revitalised nonetheless. This was the break he’d needed in order to continue on without killing himself in the process.
If he saw Kacchan on his way back—if there was a way back—he’d be sure to thank him.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Thank you for all your great (and often hilarious) comments on chapter one! Here's part two—I hope you enjoy the chapter, and @silencedmoment's amazing banner!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Katsuki hadn’t thought much about waking up in the morning when he was running his hands over every spare inch of Deku’s skin last night, but he’d had a general idea of what would happen. He’d wake to Deku’s eyes blinking open, Deku would say something to annoy him, and then it would be time for either breakfast or the next round of sex, depending. Katsuki hadn’t rehearsed the shit he’d rage about, yet, but he was sure there would be material.
What he hadn’t expected was to wake up alone.
First there was disbelief. Actual disbelief. He walked around searching for traces of Deku, but the only evidence left was on his body and the dent in his supplies. There was no note explaining what the fuck Deku was thinking, whether he was coming back, whether he realised Katsuki would want to murder him now.
That was step two: rage. And Katsuki stalled there, because it was familiar and comfortable. What the fuck? he thought, over and over, molars grinding themselves to dust. Deku had… Deku had… He’d left. Just like that. Without saying anything, like the night hadn’t even happened.
Katsuki wasn’t the one in charge of morals in the five kingdoms, but he was pretty sure that was a fucking shitty thing to do.
There was no trace of Deku in the valley, no speck of his retreating back on the horizon. Wherever he’d gone he hadn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow, but Katsuki wasn’t a fucking duck. He didn’t need fucking breadcrumbs to know where to go. He could track that little shit down, and murder him while he was at it. He put on his necklaces, his bracers. He prepared a hearty meal and baked a batch of waybread because he wasn’t an idiot traipsing around the wilderness alone. He knew how to do this shit.
And then he set out, following that sunlight scent on the wind.
There was no path to follow beyond the wilds Kacchan inhabited; the lush greenery ended in a cliff face, and it was a scramble to get down the cliff intact. The shifting of fabric over love bites that had felt erotic during Izuku’s walk through forests and valleys was uncomfortable now, and Izuku sweated through his clothes, worried he’d end up dead at the bottom of a cliff looking like a wild animal had been the one to send him over. He didn’t want Kacchan to get in trouble if anyone ever found him, or to look that undignified in death.
Somehow the worries kept him company all the way down the cliff, and he was touching solid ground before he knew it. His hands ached with clinging to handholds, but the danger was past.
He blinked up at the height he’d just climbed down. How had it been that easy? It would have killed him yesterday.
People aren’t built to be alone, he remembered telling Kacchan. His time with Kacchan truly had strengthened him—but it was fated to be short. Izuku had to do this alone; Toshinori had been clear about the evil he faced. Only Izuku, with the Might spirit’s help, stood a chance of defeating it. No one else could bear to be in the thing’s presence, and would die at the creature’s foul voice.
Others had tried; Izuku had dreams of the volcanic plain where the evil resided, the land covered in the white bones of other adventurers. Not sun-bleached, because the sun never shone in the realm of shadows, but stripped by creatures as twisted as the land, then sanded down by punishing winds. It was an utterly desolate resting place, and in the dreams he always felt the spirits of those adventurers still lingered there restlessly.
Izuku hoped that, if he was going to die on this journey, he’d die after defeating the evil. He hoped he could crawl somewhere nice before meeting the gods in the hereafter; he didn’t want to be another stack of bones in the nightmares he had.
He turned away from the cliff face, and faced the well of thorns. Plants like the stuff of a scared child’s imagination reached up and up, branches coiling ominously. It was the border of evil’s realm, where the land was twisted by dark magic. This would have been an ordinary forest once—but the evil had turned the trees hungry, and they longed to scrape their thorns along an unwary traveller’s cheek, to catch in their clothes and rip.
“All Might?” Izuku said softly. Toshinori had told him to call upon him when he reached the edge of the realm. There was a wave of warmth, tingles over his skin—and then a glowing yellow spirit took up the air before him, banishing some of the gritty foulness in the air.
“Young Midoriya!” Toshinori said in his booming voice, happy for an instant to be called—and then growing concerned as he stared down at Izuku. His glowing eyes took in the bruises on Izuku’s neck. “My boy! Were you attacked?”
Izuku’s face burned. It was instantaneous. Guilt and horror swept him, worse than the time his mother had unknowingly caught him masturbating.
“I—no! No, ha! Everything’s fine! I wasn’t attacked!”
“You weren’t—” Toshinori began, but his mouth clacked shut after a moment. His face went from painfully concerned to blank as a slate as he registered Izuku’s response, or perhaps sensed the tacky leftovers of vigorous sex on him. It was, without a doubt, the worst moment in Izuku’s life.
Toshinori coughed into the crook of his elbow, even though spirits had no throats to clear, and turned to face the well of thorns with his hands on his hips, that broad back a welcome reprieve from the shared awkwardness of facing each other. Oh, god. Oh, god. All Might knew he’d had sex. He knew he’d had a lot of sex violent enough to leave marks. Izuku hid his face in his scraped hands.
“I’m relieved!” Toshinori boomed, as if the loudness of his voice might chase out mutual embarrassment. “You made it in one piece all the way to the edge of the Darkness! I knew you could, but you should be proud!”
“Th-thank you, All Might.”
“I can’t manifest for long, but I can keep you safe through the tangled branches!”
That was good news. The forsaken forest stretched as far as the eye could see, and a trip through it would make Kacchan’s marks look like child’s play in comparison. He’d be lucky to make it through with a scrap of clothing intact.
Izuku managed to stop hiding his face. “Really?”
Toshinori turned his head to look at him, brows rising. “Why do you think I told you to call me?” He swept a hand at the tangling trees and bushes. “Those are very uncomfortable.”
Izuku laughed softly. “Yes, I—thank you, then. I’m relieved.”
The awkwardness began to dissipate as they plunged into the thorns together, All Might’s presence like a barrier of light around Izuku. Thorny branches twisted and whipped, wanting a taste of Izuku’s blood, but none penetrated the glowing bubble of All Might’s protection.
They chatted as they went, and Izuku caught his mentor up on everything that had happened since they last talked. Well—not quite everything. When he got to yesterday’s events he referred to Kacchan simply as an old friend who’d helped him out after the ill-considered lamb rescue, and it passed without comment. All Might was just as eager to gloss over just what shape that help had taken as Izuku was; he only said he was glad Izuku had had someone to take care of him.
Izuku found himself blushing again, but this time it was a gentle feeling rather than mind-numbing embarrassment. He remembered last night’s food with a twinge of regret. Road rations were dust compared to Kacchan’s cooking; he almost wished he’d never tasted it.
He held in a sigh of longing, not wanting to draw attention to himself. It was easier—and certainly more pleasant—to remember the firelit looks on Kacchan’s face last night than to consider what was ahead. His mind drifted over the way Kacchan’s anger would flare hot suddenly, and how it always seemed to fall back into an unwilling tenderness he’d rather banish than admit to. Kacchan’s psyche was a mystery to Izuku, and Kacchan wouldn’t thank Izuku if he ever tried to discuss it. Still Izuku wondered, unbearably curious. He wished it could have been more than a night; he might have gotten an answer or two.
They forged on through the trees, and at last the unforgiving tangle of the well of thorns thinned. Toshinori was flickering by that point, his barrier permeable so Izuku had to dodge a branch here and there. The glow of his presence shrunk.
“Thank you, All Might,” Izuku said when there was sky above them again. Toshinori opened his mouth to answer, but his voice had faded with his powers, and he simply lifted a hand. Izuku felt him settle back to a spirit’s sleep inside of him, and he was alone again—in a grey world. There was a smell of sulphur, now, and the dusty wind scraped Izuku’s skin. He wound an extra shirt around his nose and mouth to filter the air a little, and tried to ignore the painful alone-ness creeping in.
It had been fine in the wilds, with the memories of Kacchan sending pleasant shivers across his skin. It had been exciting. In the well of thorns with his mentor it had been fine too, an adventure—but now he was alone again, and he likely wouldn’t be able to summon All Might until the very end.
He’d be alone until the very end, because no one could help him through this part without risking death, and the thought of all the people he left behind hurt. Ochako, who’d taught him a hundred useful little spells and incantations even a guy like him could do. Iida, who’d helped him with his swordwork. Prince Todoroki, who’d supplemented Iida’s lessons and taught a few of his own—even horseback riding, which was only for nobles and rich folk as far as Izuku knew. They’d all wanted to come and help him, but Izuku had remembered the piles of scoured bones on the dark mountainside in his dreams, and he’d made sure to lose his friends along the way. He’d used Ochako’s spells to befuddle them, keeping them safe and ignorant so they couldn’t follow. They’d remember him eventually, but by then it would be too late.
The only one he hadn’t ensorcelled was Kacchan. There had been no need; Kacchan was as antagonistic as ever, even if the attraction between them gentled him. It was unlikely he’d try to follow. Kacchan didn’t know where Izuku was headed, anyway, and if he tracked him to the edge of the wilds and saw Izuku’s end destination he’d be sure to turn back.
Except—Izuku was just a little worried Kacchan’s pride might spur him on, even if he had no concern for keeping Izuku safe like the others did. What if he didn’t want to be outdone, and tried to take on the evil himself? It was too late to go back to the cave and weave a forgetfulness spell above Kacchan’s sleeping form, but Izuku regretted not trying. He’d been too drugged up with endorphins to think straight, back there, and maybe…
Maybe he didn’t want Kacchan to forget. Even if it was just skin hunger, an ache to fill a need, the night in the cave had meant something to Izuku. The drag of Kacchan’s dark fire over his body, the flame burning between them—it had all the cadences of a ritual, a conclusion to those summers they’d spent together as children. Kacchan had raged impotently, but he’d met him where it mattered. Izuku remembered the heat in Kacchan’s eyes when he told him he’d win if he had to.
No: Izuku didn’t want Kacchan to forget, even for a week or two—even if it was selfish. He’d allow himself this one selfish thing without regret.
Rubble scraped against the soles of his shoes as he began to walk again. He stepped without faltering into the endless grey, past pillars of stone, to where the land was darkest.
That fucker was headed straight into the realm of shadows, like the Lord of Evil was just gonna let him, and Katsuki was too mad to allow Deku’s foolishness to lead to his demise. It was important Deku didn’t die, so Katsuki could kill him himself.
The well of thorns was a problem. Katsuki could survive it, but getting through it would sap his magic, not to mention his strength, and he needed to be in good enough shape to crush Deku at the end of it. He stood at the clifftop at the edge of the wilds and watched a tiny figure move beyond the forest of asshole trees, and screamed with frustration.
What the fuck had made Deku go out there alone? How did he think he’d ever survive out there? Had someone laid a geas? A curse of wandering, dooming Deku never to rest his head in the same place two nights in a row? But why? As far as Katsuki knew he was the only one who hated Deku enough to inconvenience him, let alone send him wandering into a den of evil alone.
He wanted to scale the cliff-face and storm through the well of thorns. It would feel good to blast a path through—but he managed to hold back. He stood at the cliff face and cast a seeking spell instead. He’d wait for a few hours, and if Kirishima didn’t answer his call, Katsuki would throw caution to the wind and head out there in hot pursuit.
He laid out his cloak on the lush grass and ate a short meal before dozing in the watery sunlight. It wasn’t warm—the wind was cool on the naked skin of his torso—but Katsuki ran hot with the magic in his tattoo and accessories. To him it was pleasant enough.
He woke to a roar, and sat up. A giant red dragon landed uncomfortably close—and reached out a talon to pick him up. He tried to yell at it not to, but Kirishima was a fucking terror in dragon form, and as a human he wasn’t much better. Katsuki bore his giant lizard hug limply for ten seconds—he counted them—before beginning to punch his scales.
“Fuck off!” he said, trying to wriggle out of Kirishima’s grasp. He didn’t want to actually hurt his ally, but he’d also break his fist against Kirishima’s hide before he’d tolerate more than ten seconds of hugging.
Kirishima’s hissed laughter released acrid smoke Katsuki hadn’t smelled in a while. He was released, and he slapped Kirishima’s hide.
“Idiot,” he said. He pointed down the cliff. “Get me down there? I’ll owe you.”
Kirishima turned to regard him with one yellow eye, scaled neck curving.
“Don’t shift,” Katsuki said, not wanting an argument—and also not wanting to see the sickening process of a giant lizard transforming into a person. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t good for anyone’s appetite. The way back was no picnic either. Worst was the refractory period; if Kirishima shifted now it would take hours for him to shift back, and Deku would be that much further into a realm where even the air was toxic.
He needed Kirishima in dragon form, and he needed him to drop him off beyond the vast spread of the well of thorns and then leave before the miasma damaged him. It was that simple.
“A friend of mine is in trouble,” Katsuki said, deciding not to get into gory details. “I don’t want you to get involved, but I want to save my strength. So will you drop me off on the other side of the well?”
Kirishima leaned down in answer, taking up the usual mounting position, and Katsuki gathered up his things and ran up Kirishima’s outstretched leg to his shoulder without delay. Once he was settled Kirishima beat his wings once, twice—and then they were off.
Up and up Kirishima lifted them. At a height he let his wings stretch and sailed from the clifftop, his motions smooth. The well that would have taken hours to cross on foot was traversed in no time at all. Kirishima didn’t land beyond the well, though; he carried Katsuki further, until Katsuki started hitting him to stop. If Kirishima breathed this foul air for too long it might damage him and leave him unable to shift either way. Katsuki didn’t want to be responsible. Plus, night was falling. What if Kirishima couldn’t find his way back?
“Damn it! Land here, scales-for-brains!” Katsuki yelled over the wind, but he wasn’t sure it was received. Kirishima did start to descend, though, and soon they were landing on cracked grey soil in a clear space between mounds of rock. Katsuki rolled off his friend.
“You went too far,” he said. “Don’t get hurt on my behalf, dumbass lizard.”
Kirishima’s hissing dragon laughter was all the answer he got to this directive. One talon pointed out ahead of them—and Katsuki turned to look across dead earth. A stalled figure looked back at them. Deku.
Shitty Deku, watching him and Kirishima talk. Katsuki felt a flare of embarrassment at the fact that Kirishima had found Deku at all. Just how pungent was Katsuki’s smell on Deku to a dragon’s nose? A scent hound couldn’t have done better.
Katsuki punched Kirishima’s scales. “Get away before you hurt yourself. I owe you one, got it? It’ll be your fault if you don’t collect.”
A claw tapped Katsuki’s shoulder—his tattoo.
“If I need your help I’ll do another seeking spell,” Katsuki agreed reluctantly. He’d owe Kirishima about ten favours after this. Fuck. He hated owing people.
Kirishima nodded his great dragon head, finally, and lifted off with some difficulty. He already flew like he was wounded; those great lungs took in so much more poisoned air than a human did. Katsuki winced.
He hadn’t wanted a lift all the way out here at the cost of Kirishima’s health—but he was here now, and so was Deku.
Time for murder. He grabbed his pack and walked to catch up with Deku, who was still staring like there was no brain behind those eyes at all.
Deku had a shirt tied around the bottom half of his face, so at least he knew he was a fucking idiot for coming here, but Katsuki wasn’t comforted. He stormed up and caught Deku by the front of his vest to shake him. Deku lifted off the ground easily in his hands, still staring.
“What the fuck!” was all Katsuki managed to say. He had so many accusations he’d wanted to pelt Deku with, but he couldn’t remember any of them. All he could see was half of Deku’s face above him looking… stunned?
Katsuki’s stomach dropped as Deku’s eyes started to fill. Tears tracked through the dirt on the exposed skin of his face, which already looked weathered from the bad air. Fuck!
“Kacchan?” Deku said tremulously. His hands grabbed the fur of Katsuki’s cloak. “Was that really a dragon? Did you ride here on a dragon?”
“Yes,” Katsuki said distractedly, not understanding anything. If Deku had left of his own volition, like Katsuki was some kind of fucking sex waystation, why did he seem so glad to see him? “What—fuck—why… why are you crying, asshole? I should be the one crying, you absolute fucking mess, you just left—”
This made Deku cry harder, making him wipe at his streaming eyes with one hand—and finally the muscles in Katsuki’s arms started to shake, and he let Deku drop. Deku threw himself forward to sob into Katsuki’s chest, grabbing at his cloak.
Katsuki found his arms enfolding him instinctively. “I’m here to murder you, you waste of space, stop crying.”
Deku only cried harder, wet against Katsuki’s bare skin, and clung tightly like he’d been the one left behind. Something inside of Katsuki ached at Deku’s soft, shaking sorrow.
“Why are you here?” Katsuki asked. “This is the worst place for someone like you to be.”
“I’m the only one who can fix it,” Deku mumbled. He sniffed harder, using his sleeve to wipe Katsuki’s wet chest off before setting his cheek tenderly to Katsuki’s shoulder. “You have to go.”
“Fix what?”
“The Lord of Evil. I can defeat him. This can all be arable land again. The ogres will become peaceful and there’ll be less magical plagues spreading from here. I just have to—I have to—”
Deku’s soft hair was rubbing against Katsuki’s cheek. “You have to defeat someone called the Lord of Evil. Alone. No way.”
“I’ll get to his lair tomorrow if he doesn’t find me first,” Deku said. He stepped back, rubbing at his face. It was streaked with black, the skin below the dirt red and puffy. He’d pulled the shirt around his mouth down to speak, and the lower half of his face was cleaner—but it would stain soon too if he didn’t pull the shirt back up. “You have to be gone by then. Please, Kacchan. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”
“Yeah, no. I’m still killing you for leaving without saying goodbye or explaining anything. I can’t do that if this asshole kills you first.”
The ache in Katsuki’s chest was still there, and he wanted to hold Deku again. What was wrong with him?
Meanwhile Deku was staring. “I didn’t think you’d care,” he said. He had the gall to sound completely sincere about it, and Katsuki grabbed that stupid soft green hair, eliciting a wince.
For a moment Katsuki remembered the image of the cloak falling from around Deku’s naked body when Katsuki had grabbed his hair last, and felt a surge of arousal—and then he remembered that tempting fucker had disappeared on him like morning mist the next day.
Not now, he told his body, resentful that it had ever wanted this idiot.
“Didn’t think I’d care? Do you think I fuck every likely traveller who nearly kills himself in front of me?”
“I—well no, but—”
“But one out of three? Demon’s tits, Deku. You’re a fucking disaster. You and the Lord of Evil deserve each other.”
He let go of Deku’s hair with disgust. The miasma out here was making him feel sore on the inside—fucking poisonous air.
“I’m sorry,” Deku said softly. “I thought it would mean less to you.”
Katsuki’s insides were calcifying with every lungful of shit air. Had Deku used him as a waystation or not? Deku thought it would mean less to Katsuki than it did to him, Deku, or he hadn’t anticipated Katsuki would care at all?
Either way was shitty, if he really thought about it. Did Katsuki really have to fucking say it? Hey Deku, I don’t know what the fuck is up with us but I want to find out before you go and get yourself killed on some idiot quest.
He opened his mouth; no words came out. He wanted Deku. It sucked. It sucked wanting wordless things from other people, who could withhold those things and be within their rights to do so. Katsuki preferred wanting concrete things: to kill some rampaging ogre, or to take control of a section of the wilds, or to become stronger. Not this… this connection, between him and Deku, when Deku could go out and get himself killed in some fool quest at any time.
When Deku could care less than he did, and leave Katsuki waking up alone in the morning.
“Fuck you,” Katsuki said. The air really was hurting his lungs.
Deku dropped his gaze. “I am sorry, but you’re so mean I thought it would be fine. You act like you’ve never had a feeling before in your life. Besides anger, I mean.”
“Think again, fuckface.”
A smile twisted Deku’s mouth. “Well—I guess, uh. It’s nice to…”
“Don’t patronise me, assw—”
“Shut up. I might die on this quest, so you can just listen.” Deku’s eyes were steely when they rose to meet his. “I care whether you live or die. I want you to be healthy and happy. I’ll remember last night forever. I wish it could happen again over and over. But I need to defeat the Lord of Evil, and I need to do it alone.”
“Why alone?” Katsuki asked, only slightly placated by Deku’s other words.
“Because he’d kill anyone else. Just his voice kills people. I can’t let you be one of the people who dies. You don’t have my protection against him.”
“Fuck that. Let’s sleep, and kill that fucker in the morning.”
“Seriously, Kacchan, I can’t let you—”
“You can’t make me go away, either. We’ll find a spot for the night, you’ll do a purification spell to clear the area, and tomorrow we kill that shitstain.”
“I really don’t want you to—”
“I don’t care what you want,” Katsuki said.
Deku bent his head—and, finally, nodded.
They found a sheltered area before the grey world went completely black, and only had to fight three ogres for it. Kacchan killed one of the ogres—Izuku wished he hadn’t—and scared off the others with his ferocity. He dragged the corpse away while Izuku walked in a square, calling upon the light inside himself to provide the area with clean air. It drained him, especially after a day of walking through poison, but eventually they had a little area where it didn’t stink of dust and smoke, as long as they didn’t stand; the spell had only purified an area low to the ground.
They sat together and ate food Kacchan had brought, which was much better than the food Izuku had. Heavy silence fogged around them, more impenetrable than the dark. There were no lights in the sky, and eventually Kacchan rifled through his pack for something. He shook the thing when he found it, and held it in his palm—and eventually a thin yellowish light began to shine from it. It was some sort of ampule, tiny and fragile. He set it between them on Izuku’s bedroll, his face serious but not angry.
Izuku wasn’t sure he’d ever get tired of looking at Kacchan’s face like this. Kacchan was handsome—much more handsome than Izuku was, and he didn’t seem to notice or care. He was so careless about everything that didn’t immediately catch his attention, as if vast swathes of the world and people’s experiences just didn’t matter to him.
Apparently Izuku had caught his attention. It was… flattering. And a problem, because Izuku cared about him, and wouldn’t let Kacchan become a pile of bones on a hillside.
“Thank you for coming after me,” Izuku said eventually, because he wanted the silence to end.
“It wasn’t for you,” Kacchan said. It wasn’t said in anger; it was just stated as fact.
“Still.”
“Tell me everything I need to know for tomorrow,” Kacchan said. “The whole situation.”
It wouldn’t be relevant. Izuku was going to slip away again before he woke again—but he might as well pretend he’d let Kacchan join him. He told Kacchan everything—about the call he’d felt, about All Might, about the Lord of Evil and the prophecies that foretold the coming of an ordinary man with the heart of a giant.
“The giant is All Might,” Izuku explained. “Not actually my—”
“I know. Your heart is the size of a pea.”
Izuku cuffed Kacchan’s knee. “I’ll have you know that I made all the others—” he stopped himself. I’ll have you know that I made all the others forget me, I just didn’t think it was necessary for you. That wasn’t a good thing to admit to, when he planned on doing just that tomorrow morning. Kacchan would wake up in the realm of shadows wondering why he’d gone there, and go home. He’d be safe.
“I made the others feel special,” Izuku finished lamely. “Because they were nice to me.”
Kacchan’s eyes seemed to burn, ferocious as they met Izuku’s. His words were slow, taunting: “I wasn’t nice enough for you?”
Izuku sucked in a breath. He’d misstepped. “I—you were.”
“I’ll show you nice,” Kacchan promised. There was dark threat in his every breath. “I’ll show you nice within an inch of your life.”
Izuku ducked his head. He wanted that; he just wished it was possible. “Okay. Let’s… get some sleep.”
Kacchan opened the single bedroll and laid down, setting his necklaces on the earth outside the bedroll. He opened his arms and—gingerly—Izuku laid down facing him. The arms drew him nearer.
They laid in silence, not mentioning a truce between them. Izuku didn’t know what to say. He was grateful to have a friend here for him, even if that friend sort of hated him. He inhaled a large breath of warm air, Kacchan’s spicy, smoky scent a comforting reminder of better days, and scooched closer. Kacchan’s body heat penetrated into him, chasing out fear and regret.
“Good night, Kacchan.”
“Shut the fuck up, Deku.”
“Nice within an inch of my life, huh?”
“I haven’t started yet.”
Izuku smiled into Kacchan’s chest, his heart sore but full, and tried to sleep.
Katsuki kept his eyes closed when Deku began to move in the predawn halflight of the morning. He let Deku leave the bedroll and stand, and look through his pack—but when Deku began to whisper an incantation, Katsuki sat up and grabbed the front of Deku’s shirt. Deku screamed.
“Not on my watch,” Katsuki said, teeth bared. He’d known Deku was up to something; he was glad he’d figured it out so soon. If this was his plan, it was easy to defend against. He got up too.
Deku looked heartbroken. “Kacchan, please—”
“You’re not the only one with special powers,” Katsuki said, and ignored whatever shitty things Deku tried to say next. They packed up their little camp and left, Deku dragging his feet.
Katsuki felt like he was exactly where he needed to be; he was pleased.
The air was still shit, though.
“Who enters my domain?” a voice boomed. It was a terrible voice, like nails on slate. It made Izuku want to vomit up his lunch. He hoped he might not land in the vomit if he fell down after voiding his stomach.
A hand landed on Izuku’s shoulder, keeping him steady.
“We do, shitstain!” Kacchan called out from behind him. Izuku turned his head to look at him in wonder. The voice hadn’t killed Kacchan. Would it, still? They stood halfway up a volcano, on a path covered in rubble. The air was thick with ash, and barely breathable. Kacchan looked a lot steadier than Izuku felt; perhaps he really did have the powers necessary to face this evil down.
“The cocksure barbarian,” the voice said. “I’ve seen you, little fighter.”
There was no more than that—a scratchy silence filled the space the voice left—but as Izuku watched, he saw blood drip from Kacchan’s ear. Kacchan’s teeth were bared, clenched, and he began to shake. The hand on Izuku’s shoulder held tight.
Their foe was talking to Kacchan alone, through the mind-voice All Might had warned of. Izuku wasn’t privy to his words, but he made a decision, clapping his hands over Kacchan’s ears. He sought Kacchan’s eyes with his.
“Don’t listen,” he said. “Whatever he’s saying, don’t listen.”
It took Kacchan’s eyes a moment to focus—but when they did, he looked at Izuku for a long moment. Those angry red eyes seemed to drink him in—and then Kacchan nodded. Izuku stepped in close, trying to stretch All Might’s protection to encompass Kacchan as well.
“All Might,” Izuku whispered, looking around for their enemy. “Please—”
“And you, little adventurer!”
There was a sound of pebbles rolling down a hillside. Izuku turned his head and saw a monster above them on the trail, its skin grey, its teeth sharp. It had wings, but the worst thing about it were its eyes. They were all-black, with red pinpricks for pupils.
“So afraid of the plague reaching your village. So helpless to stop it if it did, no matter what books you read. No matter what defensive arts you practiced.”
There was a vision, then, of Izuku’s mother. Her skin was covered in sweat. A boil on her neck identified her as a plague victim. Tears sprang into Izuku’s eyes.
“No. No!”
She could be taken from him. All the world could be taken from him, could plunge into chaos and despair. It was so much easier for people to be fearful and greedy, to look out only for themselves. It took courage to be more. The Lord of Evil would crush Izuku, and his power would grow, and the realm of shadows would expand into the wilds and—
“Deku!”
The voice was coming from beside him—a roar. Kacchan was looking at him, eyes intense, ears still bleeding. Izuku’s vision flickered. He saw Ochako, Iida, Todoroki—all of them piled into plague carts. The miasma of the realm of shadows covered the whole world.
“No!” Izuku yelled again. His eyes refocused on Kacchan’s.
He wouldn’t let that dark vision happen. The world wasn’t this evil lord’s to play with—it was everyone’s. Izuku would save them all; All Might had given him the power to save them.
Izuku faced forward, looking up the slope towards his foe. He held his sword up.
“All Might!” he yelled. “Help me!”
Strength swept through him—enough strength to bring down a mountain. His skin buzzed with it. His weakness faded. He could feel Kacchan beside him, drawing his own blade and grinning. Their eyes met for a timeless moment.
This was where they were meant to be. They were meant to face this evil together.
The Lord of Evil sent Izuku another vision—Kacchan’s sightless eyes, staring up at grey sky—but Kacchan was right there next to him, looking back at him. Izuku wouldn’t allow Kacchan to die, not while he had any strength in his body.
“That’s enough!” a familiar voice boomed. All Might, recovered from the well of thorns. He shone brighter than Izuku had ever seen. “You’ve tortured and hurt! No more!”
Izuku was just a conduit. He felt himself rush forward, blade in hand—and his foe brought a flaming sword down like a cleaver. Izuku rolled out of his way, claiming the high ground and whirling. The next blow of that sword he parried. All Might fought with him, or through him. With Iida and Todoroki’s teaching to fall back on, with Kacchan distracting the Lord of Evil with volleys of fire and blows from his blade, Izuku held his own. Izuku and the monster circled each other, traded blows, retreated. He yelled with his frustration, with all the loneliness he’d felt on his journey. With how much he didn’t want to die, or for others to be hurt. Kacchan pelted their enemy with fistfuls of summoned flame.
He wanted more nights with Kacchan. He wanted to find out what feelings Kacchan had, besides anger.
“You are weak!” the Lord of Evil said, rushing Izuku, and Izuku tripped as he dodged. He landed on his back, blade clattering away. He reached for it, but it was beyond him. He crawled back on his elbows, his heart in his throat. The flames on the Lord of Evil’s sword changed from red to blue; he raised it menacingly.
There was a yell, and movement behind Izuku’s foe—and then he saw Kacchan, bold as anything, coming down on the Lord of Evil from an outcropping behind him. The attack hit; he slashed all the way down the monster’s back, making one of its wings sag.
“Now!” Kacchan yelled, and Izuku rolled to grab his weapon. He sprang to his feet and rushed the monster. It was hurt, slowed. All Might bellowed a challenge, and then Izuku’s blade was striking true. The tip of his sword slid between ribs made only of dark malice. He ripped it free, and struck again. He stuck the foe over and over, his arms getting tired as All Might’s strength left him.
Izuku couldn’t stop. If he stopped, then he might—they all might—
“That’s all, Young Midoriya,” All Might said softly. His presence was like a blanket. “You did well. You and your friend. I should never have…”
Izuku didn’t get to hear what All Might shouldn’t have done; he fell to his knees, and then all was silent. The last thing he saw was Kacchan rushing forward to catch him, yelling something.
He looked scared.
Izuku woke to a pair of red eyes staring at him… again. He was back in the cave where they’d coupled last night—assuming days hadn’t passed—and he wondered if he’d dreamt that he left it. Was he still meant to walk into the realm of shadows alone? He was too tired. He couldn’t…
“If you fall back asleep I’ll cut you,” Kacchan said from a few feet away. He was scraped, and there were smears of soot across his chest. Not a dream, then.
Izuku took the sleep-hazy opportunity to stare at Kacchan’s chest, pleased with everything about it. Kacchan’s muscles were so nice, even streaked with dirt. It was a good thing he never wore a shirt; his pecs were like beautiful mountains, peaked with the most beautiful, perfectly symmetrical nipples. Izuku wondered what sounds Kacchan would make if they got twisted.
They would be loud sounds, he thought. Or would Kacchan try to be quiet? That was good too.
“Seriously,” Kacchan said. “I have things to say.”
Izuku reached out a hand. Kacchan sat beyond his range, though, and looked down at the offered hand like it offended him.
“I don’t trust you any further than I can throw you,” Kacchan said. “That’s thing one.”
Izuku looked at Kacchan’s arms. “You can throw me… a little distance. Probably.”
“Fine, I trust you in a five-foot radius. That’s not the point.”
It was so hard for Izuku to keep his eyes open. “Mmhmm?”
“Thing two: therefore, you are my prisoner.”
Izuku laughed, and Kacchan was silent. The silence lengthened—and Izuku blinked at him. “Seriously?”
“There’s a chamber pot towards the back of the cave, but I’ve laid a trap at the entrance, and if you walk into it you’re fucked.”
“Bad idea to tell people where the trap is,” Izuku reasoned.
“You know where. You don’t know what. I might have a dragon stationed at the entrance. No way for you to know, because you’re not going that way.”
“I’m not trying to get away,” Izuku said.
“Not right now, I know. But later?”
Izuku looked at Kacchan. He was woozy, still, and not just with sleep. Something was different inside of him—but he was more curious about what was different inside of Kacchan.
“All this for me?” he asked. He tried to keep his eyes open. Kacchan looked on with something like condescension—and then Izuku’s eyes fell closed. Kacchan had said he’d cut him if he fell back asleep. That was inevitable, then.
He fell back asleep.
He woke with his faculties somewhat restored, and sat up. Kacchan lay a little distance away in his own bedroll, but woke when Izuku sat up.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Izuku said. “Just to pee.”
Kacchan mumbled something, and Izuku didn’t strain to hear it. He simply found the chamber pot—in this scenario, was it a cave pot?— and relieved himself. He felt a huge deal better after, like he’d peed out all the poison he’d inhaled on the last leg of his journey. He stumbled back to the bedroll, looking down at himself by the red glow of campfire embers.
He was in a shirt and underwear. Kacchan had undressed him again. Bad habit or good habit? Izuku laid back down, and saw Kacchan was watching him.
Good habit, Izuku decided. Again, he slept.
“Midoriya,” said a voice in his dreams. “Midoriya, my boy.”
Izuku followed the voice through a maze of flowers, expecting All Might, but the man he found at the centre of the maze was much thinner. There was a resemblance, but that was where it ended. This man didn’t glow.
“Young Midoriya,” the man at the centre of the maze said, turning to look at him. He smiled. “You did well.”
It was Toshinori’s voice, but it wasn’t Toshinori. Izuku stood opposite him, looking up into his face.
A ravaged mouth smiled at him. “Your world is full of surprises. I shouldn’t have underestimated it.”
“All Might?”
The man set a hand to Izuku’s forehead. “Be restored, young man. It’s not your time to go.”
Skin slid against skin. There was so much warmth right here. Izuku never wanted to leave the cocoon he was in.
“I’ll kill you if you die,” a voice whispered.
“Kacchan?”
The cocoon shifted. Izuku blinked open his eyes, and saw Kacchan was in his bedroll again—as naked as he was. Their legs were entwined, and Kacchan watched him carefully. There was plenty of light to see by—daylight this time, falling from the cave entrance—and Izuku looked back at him with pleasure.
“You in the world of the living?” Kacchan asked roughly.
“It’s not my time to go,” Izuku said, echoing the man in his dreams.
“Then stop almost dying. I thought I lost you.”
Izuku ran a hand over Kacchan’s chest, then his ribcage. I thought I lost you. Did that mean he belonged to him in some way? That was a nice thought.
“The valour spirit is gone,” Kacchan said. “I think that’s what’s taking a toll on your body. Do you remember eating? Shitting? Fever?”
“No?”
“Didn’t think so. Mountain’s rocky asshole, you’re a piece of work.”
Izuku didn’t remember eating—but he had a sense of time having passed. A day at least—maybe multiple days. Maybe a week, if he was honest. It didn’t take a genius to realise Kacchan had been nursing him back to health.
“It was a might spirit,” Izuku said. “All Might.”
“I know a valour spirit when I see one.”
“It’s gone from inside. I feel—” empty, lost, adrift. He didn’t know how he felt. He only knew that it didn’t feel good. He looked down at himself.
There was no soot.
“Did you wash me?” he asked.
“Yes. You begged me to have sex with you.”
Izuku sucked in a breath. “I… did?”
“It was pathetic.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kacchan laughed softly. “You really don’t remember? You were shameless.”
“Are you teasing me?” Izuku asked defensively. “Did this really happen?”
“You think I’d make this up?”
He supposed not.
“What happens to spirits when they leave people?” Izuku asked instead of answering. He’d never realised All Might would leave him; he hadn’t known to research it.
“Depends on the spirit. Some of them just fade, or their magic washes into other animals or people or places without the consciousness binding them together. Yours was stronger than any I’ve ever encountered.”
Toshinori had been living in the desert when Izuku met him, augmenting a sandstorm that kept a hidden oasis of capybaras safe from hunters. He’d been looking for a vessel strong enough to hold him and gotten distracted from his original goal; he said Izuku had reminded him when he saved one of those hunters from a venomous snake. Izuku gathered it was hard for spirits to enact change without a vessel, and they needed avatars to work through.
The thought of Izuku’s companion being gone, just like that, was too sad.
Kacchan noticed his silence, moving back a bit to see his face, but not far enough away that Izuku had to find a new pillow besides Kacchan’s arm. “I think yours’ll get a chance to be a person, though.”
It was a kind thing to say; from anyone but Kacchan Izuku wouldn’t believe it. “Really?”
Kacchan looked up at the roof of the cave, away from Izuku’s intent gaze. “The gods like go-getters, and your valour spirit—”
“—might spirit—”
“—valour spirit, numbskull. All Might was just his power name or something. Might is just being strong, and that can be a dark magic trait as well as a light one. You carried a valour spirit with you for months and you didn’t even know what it was. You just stumbled across one. Shit, you’re such an idiot. Why do I like you?”
Izuku had obviously annoyed Kacchan off his original line of thought, but he couldn’t regret it. Why do I like you? Izuku bit down a grin, grateful Kacchan wasn’t looking at him. His stomach was filled with gleeful butterflies.
Kacchan liked him. Kacchan was naked in this bedroll with him, had nursed him back to health, was patiently explaining the ins and outs of spirit afterlife to him. Izuku felt like he’d won some sort of prize—but he did want to know what Kacchan had been about to say pre-interruption.
“The gods value a go-getter…” Izuku prompted.
Kacchan looked at him. “Not even going to give me an answer, I see.”
“I thought it was rhetorical.”
“No. Fuck, if you have an answer I want to hear it.”
Izuku moved slowly, his body still weak—but he dragged himself up to straddle Kacchan. He ran his hands over Kacchan’s chest, palms dragging across suddenly-hard nipples. He caressed them, thinking of how much he’d enjoyed Kacchan’s sooty chest on one of his early wakings. He wanted to run his hands and his mouth all over it, press his pecs together and bite down.
“Because of sex?” Kacchan said, and he sounded annoyed despite the flush of arousal in his face. “That’s your answer?”
Izuku shook his head. “Would you let anyone else do this?” he asked curiously.
“Fuck, no.”
“Maybe you trust me.”
“Trust doesn’t—” Kacchan started, and he stopped himself. “It doesn’t explain it,” he said finally.
“We’re not made to be alone,” Izuku reiterated. He trailed a finger over Kacchan’s skin, savouring his scorching heat. The power of Kacchan’s body between his thighs was waking him up better than a draught of giant’s blood.
“Do you want to know why I like you?” he asked.
“It better be because I dragged your useless ass back here and spent a week taking care of you, or—”
“Yeah,” Izuku said. He smiled. “That’s a good reason.”
“Well—good.”
“Not the only one, though.” He looked down into Kacchan’s face, and Kacchan gazed back, his jaw set. Kacchan didn’t lie, or comfort emptily, but the moment he’d sensed Izuku’s sadness about Toshinori he’d begun to list facts and conjecture that might make him less sad. He was an angry guy, but not totally devoid of a softness he showed in acts and gestures more than words.
But Izuku had liked Kacchan before he was ever soft to him. He’d liked his ambition and his self-assurance. He’d liked how no improvement was ever enough, because he had worlds to conquer. He’d been a symbol—an inspiration. A flesh-and-blood spirit of fearlessness.
Izuku wanted to be engulfed by his flames again and again; he was just surprised Kacchan felt a similar need with him.
Kacchan looked away. “Your spirit will get a chance to be a person, because he was strong and he accomplished his mission. That’s what I think.”
“You’ve read about this?”
“I know about this. I’ve met former spirits. Did you forget my family travelled all the time?”
Warmth settled in Izuku’s stomach. It was such a comfort to think Toshinori still existed in the world. He’d find him, eventually. After Kacchan trusted him enough to remove whatever trap he’d laid at the cave entrance.
“Thank you.”
He got off Kacchan. He sort of needed to pee, and he wouldn’t be able to empty his bladder with an erection. He was hungry, too.
“Are there clothes for me to wear?”
“I cleaned some of your spares, but you’re not leaving, asshole. There are still things I want to know, and you’re too weak.”
“I wasn’t trying to leave! I just thought—maybe we could go outside later? Together. I promise not to run off into the sunset or anything.”
“You wouldn’t be able to get away from me if you tried,” Kacchan said, sitting up too. There was a furrow between his brows, his red earrings sparkling dangerously with his anger.
Izuku’s body was still weak—but it was excited, too, and he shivered with his own desire to move against Kacchan again. Later, he promised himself. “I don’t want to get away. I have no reason to get away. We defeated the evil!”
“What about all those special friends?” Kacchan asked, glaring.
Izuku blinked. He’d forgotten. What if they remembered soon, and set off after him?
“I can write to them,” he said.
“And deliver the letters by fucking cave in the middle of nowhere post? Where do you think this is?”
“I can ask someone else to deliver them,” Izuku said. “I’m sure there’ll be some faeries nearby who aren’t too busy, or a dove, or—”
Kacchan growled in frustration. “You’re unbelievable. You can leave if you want to. I fucking want you to—”
“I just said I don’t want to!”
“Fucking prince of light or some shit—”
Izuku interrupted him by surging forward, pressing his lips to that angry mouth hard. He didn’t kiss him the way he wanted to, deep and searching, because his mouth was probably gross—but he promised himself he would do that later, too. He caressed the side of Kacchan’s snarling face and smiled.
“We can send a letter to your family too, if you want. By ‘fucking prince of light’ post.”
“You’re some kind of demon from hell sent to torture me—”
Izuku kissed him again. Kacchan’s hand landed on Izuku’s side and grabbed it violently.
“I’m going to strangle you in your sleep,” Kacchan promised when the kiss stopped, his eyes heavy-lidded. His hand—palm painfully hot—was still on Izuku’s side.
“Do I get breakfast first?”
Kacchan stood and stomped over to the side of the cave, buck-naked and gorgeous. “Yes. What do you want? I’ve got some hearty bread from two days ago, and smoked fish, and…”
Izuku watched Kacchan root through his supplies with that perfect ‘you’re a complete nuisance to me’ frown, reciting a list Izuku was no longer listening to. He couldn’t help smiling, bare feet rubbing together giddily. What do you want? He wanted all sorts of things, but right now he felt happy enough to die.
Except he wouldn’t, because Kacchan had worked hard to make sure he didn’t, and he had to see his friends again, and his mother, and he had to find Toshinori, and he had a million things to live for overall. One of which was Kacchan’s ferocious glare when he realised Izuku had tuned him out towards the end.
Izuku linked his hands above his head, luxuriating in the feel of his muscles loosening as he stretched left and right. “I want it all,” he said.
“You’ll make yourself sick. Have the bread, and see how you feel after.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“It better fucking be,” Kacchan said, bringing over Izuku’s breakfast and sitting down with him. He fixed him with another glare. “Asshole.”
Izuku took the bread meekly, biting his lips against a grin. Kacchan leaned back on his hands.
“There’s oil and vinegar too, if you want to dip it in anything,” Kacchan said.
“You’re so good to me,” Izuku said, eyes closing. The bread was a little hard, but it was full of flavour still—seeds and pockets of baked-in cheese. Mmm.
“Don’t get used to it,” Kacchan said, but when Izuku’s eyes opened he was watching him hungrily—like he could taste the food just by watching. Izuku licked his lips, fighting a smile.
“I’ll try not to.”
Notes:
Find me on tumblr at mysecretfanmoments.tumblr.com, or on twitter @tater_potating!
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