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Katsuki’s entire day is ruin, unsurprisingly, because Izuku is a fucking idiot.
---
It starts off with the insistent tapping that would not fucking die behind him. The sound plagues Katsuki since the start of the first period and hasn’t let up since. Katsuki is so fucking done.
Katsuki turns around to face Izuku in his seat as soon as he sees that Aizawa isn’t looking at them. “Stop that annoying tapping or I’ll break your fingers,” he hisses, gripping the back of his chair hard enough to hear the cracking of the wood beneath his palm.
Izuku drops the pen from his fingers as he fidgets in his seat, a tinged of pink staining his cheeks. “S-Sorry, Kacchan,” he says, scratching at his arm distractedly.
Katsuki frowns, scrutinizing Izuku’s weary complexion and how he’s practically vibrating with nervous energy. He can see sweat beading at Izuku’s brows even though it’s the middle of October and fall has been making pit stop, he’s jittery and acting like he wants to crawl out of his skin, even his usual base floral scent is off—there’s a hint of something sugary, almost saccharine sweetness about it that makes Katsuki uneasy. “What’s wrong with you?”
Izuku tugs at his choker nervously, a thick black band that acts as much as a deterrence as it attracts all the wrong attention to his neck. “N-Nothing. I’m fine, Kacchan!”
Katsuki frowns deepen. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m really okay, Kacchan! Don’t worry about me,” he insists, even though his entire scent is sour by the lies he just spouted.
“I’m fucking not, you shitstain, you’re just being even more incredibly annoying right now and I want to know why,” Katsuki demands, refusing to let this go if it means Izuku would just fucking answer him already. “I can smell your lie ten feet away, so don’t even.”
Izuku’s nose scrunches up and he tries to cover his face with his hands as though that would hide the bitter taste of his scent coming off of him in waves. “That’s cheating Kacchan,” he says, lips thinning in displeasure.
“Curse your fucking biology then,” he snaps, eyes flashing.
Izuku’s drop his hands back on his desk and his face pinch up, looking ready to fight him.
“Midoriya and Bakugou, do you have something to share with the class or you’re just using this time to chit-chat and distract your fellow classmates instead,” Aizawa’s voice cuts through their argument.
Izuku looks so relieved to be called out by Aizawa and to finally drop their conversation that Katsuki wants to punch his freckled face to the ground. “Fine, but we’re not done here,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Izuku before turning back to face the front again.
Izuku stops the tapping after that but the nagging feeling that something is very wrong didn’t leave Katsuki for the entire class.
---
Since that incident, Katsuki makes sure to keep a close eye on Izuku and it turns out to be truly a worthwhile and informative endeavor.
During a combat simulation, where the class was separated to either a villain or hero role and have to battle it out, Izuku got way into it more than usual. He was unimaginably fierce and aggressive as he faced his opponents and had sent more than five people flying, almost knocking Iida out of the fight completely and had apologized profusely for it afterward.
Izuku had thoroughly put the fear of god in half the class in today’s sim, that even Katsuki was slightly impressed by it.
Which is why he knows something is up, no matter how much Izuku claims otherwise, but before he can force an answer out of Izuku, he’d escaped Katsuki’s clutch once more. Izuku was the first to make it to the changing room before everyone else and he’d quickly changed out of his combat gears and costume by the time the rest of the class gets there.
“Midoriya?” Todoroki says as Izuku dashes pass them.
“See you guys at lunch!” Izuku says, with a frantic wave and Katsuki catches a sniff of it as it trails after him.
As they make their way into the changing room the air electrifies Katsuki, his shoulder tensing up and his palms are sweaty.
“Do you smell that?” Sero says, sniffing the air.
“What is that sweet scent?” Denki adds in, furrowing his brows. “It’s really, really good.”
The odor is so strong that Katsuki is nearly knocked off his footing. He doesn’t even have to lift up his nose to smell it; it’s all around them, fluttering on the edge of their touch. Izuku strips down to nothing but his scent is a lone patch of flowers grown on the side of the road, boring, basic, and so common that it hurts but if you look away even for a second you’ll miss the undercurrent of a spark in the air, thick with energy and ready to strike in the background, it’s simply electrifying—flower and lightning, that’s basically Izuku in a nutshell. It’s just now more pronounced and unavoidable and tinged with a renew sweetness that beckons to them like a siren’s call to their watery grave.
Katsuki grits his teeth as he heads toward his locker.
“It’s Midoriya,” Todoroki says because he’s a fucking twit who doesn’t understand social cues and lived in a cave all his life. “I smelled it on him when he’d passed us by.”
A fierce furor of interest rise from the group, because Izuku is one of the few rare omegas in the school, rarer still to be found in the Hero Course, and his status as an unclaimed omega make him infamous around the school for all the wrong reasons. It doesn’t help that Izuku wears his choker in defiant of the endless speculations and rumors.
“Do you think--?” Kirishima says next to him, biting his lips worriedly.
“It’s preheat, isn’t it?!” Mineta says excitedly, the fucking degenerate twig even look particularly gleeful at that revelation.
Some of his classmates, the ones that can actually make something of that scent, Katsuki can see their eyes glazing over and the hunger on their wretched face, their putrid scent mixing with Izuku’s and giving it a sharp finer edge to it that ruin the delicacy of Izuku’s flower, but to be pulled along and teased in this way by an omega’s scent like a fucking animal with nothing but instinct to drive them forward.
Disgusting.
Katsuki bangs his fist against the surface of his locker; the echoing sound of flesh hitting metal cuts through the room. “Shut the fuck up. Stop gossiping like a bunch of pussy ass bitch and change your clothes already!” he yells, his hand throbbing with pain but for a brief second he can smell nothing, not the scent of other alphas’ increasing interest or Izuku’s tantalizing heat, and that’s such a relief.
Katsuki yanks his locker open and quickly takes off his gear, changing back to his school uniform before storming out.
The scent of Izuku chases after him all day.
---
By lunchtime, words already got around and nobody could stop fucking staring at Izuku. His table is at the center of attention in the class but Izuku is steely determined to pretend everything is normal even though the entire room is stench with his obnoxious floral scent filling up the space.
“You look a bit flush there, Deku-kun,” Uraraka says, brows creasing in concern. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I’m fine, Ochako-chan,” Izuku blatantly lies, even though it’s clear he isn’t doing well at all because Izuku is the type that could be dying in someone’s arm and still apologized for bleeding on them. “It’s just preheat, you know?” He smiles sheepishly.
Uraraka makes an understanding sound as though she isn’t a shitty ass beta and actually have no clue that Izuku’s body is currently at war with himself.
Fucking ridiculous, and even more so is that Katsuki always on top of this. He has Izuku’s heat days marked out on his calendar ahead of time so he can be prepared for it, but Izuku is in his preheat two weeks ahead of schedule—now, that’s out of the ordinary and Izuku laughing it off like it doesn’t matter, like he’s not giving Katsuki an aneurysm two tables away, and causing the entire school to be on constant edge.
Maybe Katsuki is just unpracticed, giving that Izuku missed his last heat six months ago, so he couldn’t see the blaring signs much earlier and let it smack him right in the face instead. Izuku’s heat cycle only runs four times a year, every three months, and his preheat is usually four to five days long before his heat can really get going, which typically last one to two days, but before that he’s usually antsy, constantly feel like he’s burning a low fever, and his scent, a light touch of flower that easily breeze passed people most days, is sickened with a sweetness that is so thick and sugary it draws all kind of attention, like ants to crumb.
The signs were all there and Katsuki just walked past it, because while Izuku is an idiot for not telling him right away Katsuki is a much bigger one for not noticing it even though he’d been with Izuku longer and had been with him through all his heat so far.
“So, you’re not hungry?” Iida asks, pointing toward Izuku’s unfinished food layout in front of him. “Is that a symptom of the preheat?”
“Nah, I’m just not feeling it all that much,” Izuku answers, and his tone may be light and unaffected but his scent says otherwise.
The rot of unease and dissatisfaction infects Izuku’s little garden and the smell of dying flowers turn Katsuki’s stomach. He stares down at his half-eaten lunch and knows he won’t get anything done if he doesn’t solve this right away.
Katsuki, having enough of eavesdropping on them, abruptly stands up in his seat, surprising his lunch partners in their mid-conversation and stalks over to Izuku and his nerdy trio table with his prize in hand.
He can feel all eyes zeroing in on him as he makes his way there and he stops, spinning around to shoot them all a fierce glare. “Eat your fucking food,” he snaps, and they all hastily turn back to their seat and pretend to find it all very fascinating than the scent that is about to unfold in front of their eyes.
He turns back toward his destination and marches right in front of Izuku. “Drink,” Katsuki orders, slamming a bottle of strawberry ramune down on the table. He had dragged himself back to the dorm much earlier and pulled the ramune out from his personal collection, which Katsuki had previously threatened and harassed people for if they dare to touch it. He knew it wasn’t a waste of effort in the end.
“Kacchan?” Izuku asks eyes wide, still in shock by Katsuki’s presence at their table. He stares at the glass bottle in front of with murky confusion.
“Don’t make me repeat it again,” Katsuki says, glowering down at him.
“Oh,” he says, lips parting in realization. “It’s my favorite.”
Kastuki can practically see flowers blossoming in the back of Izuku’s head, turning this room into his own personal greenhouse at this rate. Izuku’s scent keeps getting deeper and richer, mirroring the happiness and delight blooming on his face now.
“You were stinking up the place,” Katsuki says, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
Izuku smiles up at him anyway and like the soda pop he had given to Izuku, his scent bubbles and fizz at the surface with a gentle sweetness, becoming more pronounced by the second and a dangerous presence to be around. “Thank you, Kacchan.”
“Whatever,” Katsuki says, and makes a speedy exit out of the class as he tries to shake the sweet bubbling happiness of Izuku off of him. Lunch is a lost cause now.
“What was that?” Uraraka asks loudly, confusion coloring her voice behind him. “I can’t believe he came over here just to give you his drink and where did he even get it?!”
Katsuki didn’t wait to hear Izuku’s response since he got other things to do.
---
Right after school is over Katsuki ditch his friends to head off to the nearest supermarket and buy some necessities there. He comes back to dorm an hour later carrying several bags of food, drink, and other stuff and has to fight off several curious inquiries about his purchase. Those noisy fuckers.
He fills his corner of the pantry in the kitchen with plenty of snacks and drinks for the next couple of days of Izuku’s preheat, and the rest of the other items that he’d bought he takes it up to his room.
Once that done, he makes sure to corner Izuku as soon as catch him away from his friends, who have been circling around him protectively as though Izuku can’t break someone’s back with just a flick of his fingers.
Izuku may be going into his heat soon, but he’s not a fucking invalid. It’s not him that they need to guard; the world doesn’t need Izuku walking around all sweet and enticing, giving other alphas an invitation to riot.
“When were you going to tell me?” Katsuki demands, after finally confronting Izuku in the laundry room when Katsuki caught him trying to sneak off with one of Katsuki’s used top.
Izuku blushes and looks down at the floor, one hand holding Katsuki’s shirt to his chest like he’s afraid Katsuki going to steal it back. “S-Sorry.”
Katsuki clicks his tongue in annoyance. “I don’t want your apology; I want to know why didn’t you fucking tell me that your heat is coming?”
“It’s because I didn’t expect it myself,” Izuku says, scratching his cheek self-consciously. “I think it was the stress of the last couple of weeks that triggered an early onset of heat.”
“Don’t keep me in the fucking dark,” Katsuki says wearily, ruffling his hair in frustration. “We’re stuck together in this.”
“Sorry,” Izuku says again like that’s all he knows. His flowers are all doom and gloom, twisting the air around him into something putrid and ugly. “But um,” he hesitates as he tightens his grip Katsuki’s shirt, tugging it closer to him, “will you be here?”
“Where the fuck else would I be?” Katsuki says with a glare like he hadn’t missed any of Izuku’s heat since he’d presented at twelve and dealing with it ever since. No matter how much Katsuki hates it, they’re in this together until they find a way to absolve this fucked up messed of a relationship of theirs, this half form bond of theirs, making them neither mate or just something he can easily dismiss.
“Oh,” Izuku answers, looking up at him with a small smile and the air is suddenly much easier to breathe.
“Did you at least request a heat relieve absence?” Katsuki presses, trying to ignore how easily Izuku’s mood is affected by Katsuki.
Izuku nods. “I talked with Aizawa sensei earlier about my incoming heat and he, uh, was very quick to give it to me to get me to stop talking.”
“Alright, I’ll be close by so don’t do anything fucking dumb,” Katsuki orders with narrow eyes. “And stop stealing my clothes, you kleptomaniac.” And what that, Katsuki leaves Izuku to his lonesome before he gets caught in Izuku’s scent again.
---
That night when everyone was either dead asleep or contently locked in their room, Katsuki slips down to the second floor with a large bag in toll.
He knocks on Izuku’s door in rapid succession, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor when it doesn’t open fast enough. He hears footsteps closing in on the other side and a click as the step get closer and louder. The door slowly opens and Izuku’s scent is nearly palpable through the gap.
“Kacchan,” Izuku says, eyes huge and wide—a pool of endless sea of green that stares right back at Katsuki. His face breaks into a smile when he realizes it’s just Katsuki and Katsuki can’t stand to look at him for too long.
Katsuki’s eyes quickly dart away for a second and he breathes through his mouth. “Who the fuck else,” he says, pushing his way into the room. “Or do you make habit of entertaining other alpha in the middle of the night?” Even as the piercing words leave his mouth, the figure of an imaginary alpha suitor paying Izuku a secret rendezvous is enough for him to want to throttle somebody. Preferably, himself.
Apparently, Katsuki is really, really good at causing self-inflicting wound.
“I just didn’t expect you to be here so late,” Izuku murmurs, trailing behind him. “And you know, you’re the only one.”
Katsuki is slightly annoyed with himself that he actually sniffs the air to test the truth there and is even more annoyed when he found himself pleasantly please that all he smells is an unending sea of flowers in the room. This is fucking stupid, he muses disgruntledly.
He takes a quick look around Izuku’s room where All Might’s posters lined the wall and his desk is stacked with All Might’s paraphernalia. It’s normal, familiar and eye-rolling just like Izuku’s room back in his home but only the difference is that everything here now smells like he’s in a fucking flower shop.
Katsuki spins around to face Izuku. “Here,” he says, shoving the bag of dirty clothes at Izuku. Usually, a week before Izuku’s preheat he would start storing up previously worn clothes for Izuku, this means selecting through assorted shirts to find the ones that are most comfortable and have the softest material, but since this, an early heat had set in, Katsuki has to make do with what he has on hand.
“Thank you,” Izuku says, clutching the bag of dirty laundry like it’s a lifeline. He walks past Katsuki and carries it toward his bed, but instead of placing it on there he leaves it on the floor, careful to not disturb the apparent architectural masterpiece on his bed.
Katsuki scrutinizes the mess on Izuku’s bed.
Izuku’s nest is barely starting to take shape. There are a few shirts here and there littering on his bed—many of them are Izuku’s but some are Katsuki’s old tattered shirts worn last year—his All Might plushie that Izuku always kept close on his heat days, and a wall of pillows that lined his nest.
Katsuki can see the blueprint of what Izuku is trying to create, it may be only the starting point and it’s haphazard but it’s getting there. The next couple of days are going hectic with Izuku trying to spruce up his nest till Izuku is one hundred ten percent happy with it, which means Katsuki is going busy too.
“Not bad,” he says, the words leaving him unbidden.
Izuku preens, practically glowing under Katsuki’s word and Katsuki gets an immediate whiff of a garden sprung right in the middle of the room, smacking him right in the face. Izuku’s scent turning ever sweeter and sweeter, that even his teeth are starting to ache.
Those evergreen eyes look up at him from his bed with a huge smile drawn across it. “Thank you, Kacchan!” he chirrups.
Katsuki looks away again, clearing his throat and trying to rid the image of Izuku from his head. “What else do you need?” he asks gruffly.
“Um,” Izuku says, picking at the thread of his shirt, “can I have a hoodie of yours?”
Katsuki considers the question for a moment. He has a few hoodies he can spare but Izuki is notorious about stealing Katsuki’s hoodie for his nest and never giving it back. “I’ll get you one tomorrow,” he finally answers. He can probably spare one or two he guesses.
Izuku shakes his head and the flower seems to dim around him. “I—no,“ he visibly swallows, “the one you’re wearing, can I have that instead?”
Katsuki gazes down at his clothes; he only has his hoodie and the tank underneath that he had casually thrown on himself before climbing down to Izuku’s floor. He looks back up at Izuku and Izuku fidgets under the scrutiny.
“It has the freshest scent,” he clarifies for Katsuki.
Katsuki continues to stares at Izuku for a minute more before heaving a sigh. He quickly takes off his hoodie and throws it at Izuku’s head.
Izuku catches it in his arms and squeezes tightly against his chest as he inhales Kastuki’s scent like a dying man last gulp of air. He presses his face up close to the fabric, rubbing his cheek against it in needy thrill.
It’s so bizarre and keenly not how Izuku behaves at all, yet Katsuki can’t stop starring nor move from his spot.
Izuku slowly raises his head and smiles up at Katsuki. “You’re the best, Kacchan,” he says, glassy eyes and rosy cheeks. His lips wet and tempting as the flowers all around them spring to life like summer is in season and there’s nothing sweeter than the nectar of a mature flower.
Unconsciously, Katsuki reaches out and strokes Izuku’s cheek. Izuku immediately forgoes the hoodie and drops it into his lap instead to lean into Katsuki’s touch. He nuzzles his cheek against Katsuki’s hand, his skin warm and malleable against Katsuki’s palm. It’s like touching a very large cat, bathing him in affectionate touch.
Katsuki feels the warm of Izuku sinking into him as though Izuku’s heat is transferable. Being in Izuku’s presence when he’s like this—half-wild, unrestrained, and utterly captivating is dangerous.
History tells of legendary empires that rose one day and gone the next, of a single person that brought the empire to its knee. They call it love, they call it the temptation of the devil or they call it a man’s fool but they never call it for it is the pull of the omega.
There are no warships, no war to be fought here but, in this space where Izuku’s sweet scent permeates the air and Katsuki is drowning in it, he thinks he would give his end and all for Izuku. Helen of Troy got nothing on his Izuku.
And that’s why Katsuki can’t stand to be around Izuku, can’t be with him when he knows there are days when he can’t tell if it’s his biology taking over or it’s really him after all.
“We’re done here then,” Katsuki says roughly, jerking his hand away from Izuku. The loss of Izuku’s warm touch is swift and acutely disheartening.
“Wait.” Izuku’s hand flicks out and catches a sliver of Katsuki’s shirt. “Stay,” Izuku begs, tugging on it like he can’t bear to let Katsuki go. He stares down on the floor, eyelashes dips coyly, and his thick sweet scent coiling around them. “D-Doesn’t have to be for the entire night, just a few hours is okay.”
When did Izuku’s flowers get so sweet and wets his mouth like honey on his tongue? He feels the pull of Izuku calling to him and it’s so easy to give in. So pathetically easy.
Katsuki shut his eyes and breathes, counting ten seconds backward. His left hand tightens, nails digging into the flesh of his palm until the pain numbs out Izuku’s scent. It takes a herculean force of will for him to pulls away from Izuku, but he uses his free hand to extract Izuku’s forceful grip from his shirt.
If he gives Izuku an inch, he’ll take a mile till Katsuki is nothing left but an empty husk. They’re getting too comfortable, too complacent in this little arrangement of theirs. Tonight, he won’t be unmade.
“Don’t be stupid,” he snaps, taking several steps back, “we’re not mates. I don’t owe you anything.”
“I--,” Izuku winces. “O-Of course, you’re right. I’m sorry to ask that of you.”
The smell of wilting flowers is clear and distinct in the air; it’s suffocating and hard to breathe and Katsuki’s lungs are full of dead flowers.
Katsuki can’t be here anymore if he stays any longer—he, he doesn’t know what he’ll do, so he forces his feet to move. He turns around and just as he’s about to half way there he hears it: “Kacchan,” Izuku calls out, planting one last rose in an attempt to dissuade him.
Katsuki feels it, Izuku’s sweet scent beckons him once more and one last time, Katsuki stops for him. “I just want to say thank you. I’m glad that it’s you,” Izuku tells him, all saccharine sweetness.
“You’re the only one then,” Katsuki says, yanking the last of Izuku’s flower out by its root. He had not only ripped out Izuku’s happy little garden and now he has spit on its grave.
He doesn’t have to look back to know that Izuku’s entire face is crumbling and his beautiful garden is in disarray and Katsuki the cause of it. He hates, hates Izuku for it but he hates himself more for doing it.
Katsuki quickly strides out of the room, quickly shutting up the door between them and erecting a barrier where Izuku and his fucked up flowers can’t touch him.
Katsuki leans his head against the wall, even with such a limited exposure to Izuku it’s already exhausting enough and tests every one of his ironclad control. Izuku is his modern day Delilah but Katsuki won’t be anyone fucking Samson.
He slowly opens left hand that had been held tight and sees there’s a slight trace of blood where the indentation of his nails had cut into his flesh. This is all for him to resist Izuku, that all he has to defend himself, just nothing but his will and control alone.
If only he can completely purge Izuku out of his system, but the intoxicating smell of Izuku clings to him, sinking beneath his skin and seeping into his bloodstream. It’s all around him, surrounding him in a tight embrace and he can’t get Izuku out of his head even if he wants to. He knows he’s already in too deep. It’s too late to save him now.
Sometimes, he thinks Izuku is put on this earth to test him. To see him fail and tied him down so Katsuki’s existence will be defined by his bond to Izuku instead of the freedom he craves. If they weren’t both rule by their secondary gender and Katsuki’s alpha wouldn’t answer to Izuku’s omega, maybe, maybe they would have a chance but that’s not the case here.
He won’t ever have let Izuku get the better of him. He’s not a fucking animal that would roll over for some bitch in heat. The only things he can do is stall, holds tight and not fall to Izuku and his alluring garden of Eden.
He looks back at the door to Izuku’s room one last time before heading back to his floor, distancing himself as much as possible from Izuku.
Since when did he become so good at running away? Since Izuku, he guesses bitterly.