Work Text:
Katsuki’s earliest memories were dreams of a boy with red hair. He could distinctly remember spiky red hair and a shark tooth smile, hazy and unforgotten, at the forefront of his mind. Even after years of being told that the boy was an imaginary friend, and accepting that, there was still a tingling notion at the back of his mind telling him this boy had to be real. Even on days where he was swamped with hero work, he could hear whispers from the red haired boy echoing in his mind, encouraging him to find him.
His work was dangerous, and as hard as he tried to keep visions of the boy from distracting him, it wasn’t enough. The first time he let himself get distracted by him, he was stabbed in the heart by a villain with knives for nails.
This was also the first time he didn’t die. It was at this point that he decided that something in his life was keeping him from dying properly, and as much as he would love to say it was his own skill as a hero, he knew that wasn’t the case. The same pull he’d felt his whole life felt like it was physically dragging him away from his life, begging him to walk away from it all.
So he walked.
He walked until his shoes had worn down, and he couldn’t tell how long they lasted until he was walking on his own sore, bare feet. The pull he felt so fiercely when it called him to the unknown no longer begged him to move, and all he had left was to wander. Aimlessly, he walked ten thousand miles, for what felt like ten thousand years to see him, his red haired imaginary friend.
A single minded drive kept him going, even as he watched civilizations burn and cities die around him, every gasp of breath he took he desperately grabbed at just to find him. He climbed up every hill to get to him, wondering ancient lands to hold just him. Every single step of the way, he paid, what he didn’t know, but he knew that the search was keeping him alive, the missing part of him kept him from truly living, and thus, kept him from dying. Every single night and day he searched for him. Through sandstorms and hazy dawns, he reached for him.
~
Eijiro had always known something was missing from his life. He couldn’t explain it, but there was a hole in him that no matter what he did, couldn’t be filled. He’d seen doctors, been to therapists, and when that didn’t work, he simply started indulging himself in whatever high he could to try to fill the hole.
He dreamed of a handsome blonde man with eyes like rubies, and for three days, earnestly tried to recreate the vision with whatever he could bum off floaters around him; but he never got the results he needed.
Strangely, at his lowest points, he never reaped the consequences of his vices when he very well should have. It was disappointing, searching for something to keep him happy, but nothing was ever enough. In one of his more desperate attempts, he convinced himself that if he stole ten thousand pounds from the bank he walked past, he would find him.
It was then he felt a pull asking him to move. And like the floater he was, he did. He had absolutely nothing to his name and as he traveled he robbed convenience stores because he thought they'd make the journey easier. When he ran out of cities and civilizations, he lived off rats and toads and starved looking for him, but no matter what he put himself through he couldn’t die and at the same time couldn’t live. Not without him.
He continued to wander, searching aimlessly as the pull he'd once felt seemed to have abandoned him. He'd almost given up at one point, but then he dreamed of a handsome blonde man with eyes like rubies, and he was back on his feet.
He’d long since lost his shoes, and when his search led him to the wilderness he fought off giant bears, and killed them too, just to feel something on his fruitless endeavor. Every single step of the way, he paid with sore feet. Every single night and day he searched for him. Through sandstorms and hazy dawns, he reached for him.
~
On two different sides of the same mountain, a man with dirty blonde hair and another man with loose red hair felt drawn like magnets into a tunnel of the mountain that divided them. A familiar pull encouraged them to continue to drag, dirty, sore feet through the darkness of the tunnel, and for the first time in years, they felt anticipation in their hearts as the pull drew them closer and closer to what they were searching for.
Holding on to the surface of the tunnel walls, Katsuki spoke, lips dry and cracked. “I’m tired and I'm weak…”
Somehow, Eijiro felt the words spoken at the other end of the tunnel, and encouraged, called back with a voice he hadn’t used in years, raspy from disuse, “…but I'm strong for you.”
From either end of the tunnel, they could see a soft glow in front of them in the darkness. Together they whispered into the darkness. “I wanna go home…” Continuing forward, they each walked into a cavern filled with brilliant crystals, illuminated in the vast space by a magic that stole them from their lives and lit up the minerals surrounding them. Their cavern resembled a small star system, both men found each other across the galaxy, lighting up once their eyes met, “…but my love gets me through.”