Work Text:
A text message.
A fucking text message. Of course. Why should he expect anything different?
Lately, the days have been long, stretching endlessly into tortuous exhaustion, yet simultaneously short, as though a week can go by with a single blink. Time seems to be moving as it pleases, stopping and starting in ways that Izuku can’t keep track of, deciding how long each day will be on a whim. According to the calendar, it’s been over three months, but for all he knows, it could have only been three days. Any recollection is fuzzy and undefined.
And after all this painful, unclear, unwanted time, Katsuki reinserts himself into Izuku’s life with little fanfare and two words.
Even though it’s been months and he knows he’s not coming back, Izuku still can’t bring himself to delete his contact information. He doesn’t know if he ever will. It’s still listed under “Favorites.”
When Izuku sees the notification from a number he never expected to hear from ever again, the name Kacchan flashing across the screen, his field of vision narrows and blurs as everything else ceases to exist. With trembling fingers, he opens the message. The two words send his heart launching up into his throat.
im alive
Izuku’s grip is so tight that he almost shatters his phone. Thoughts racing, emotions fluctuating like roiling bubbles in a whistling tea kettle, he frantically sends several rapidfire replies.
is this a joke? Disbelief.
where were you? Confusion.
where are you now? Concern.
we had a fucking funeral for you, you fucking asshole! Anger.
Why? Betrayal.
Izuku wants nothing more than to call him and hear his voice, hear him explain just what the hell is going on, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. He needs to see him in person before he can accept this to be real.
And then Katsuki explains, not wasting any time getting to the point, through brief text messages. He faked his death. He had to lay low for a while, away at some secret facility for a temporary escape from this existence and some desperately needed therapy. Life was getting too fucked up and this was the only way to completely break away from it all. Everything is okay now, though.
No one else knows.
And it makes perfect sense, really. Of course that’s what happened. Katsuki is alive, he has been this entire time, and the universe can right itself again. The relief that floods through his body, finally drowning the ever-present grief, is short lived as it boils into a volcanic fury.
Ever since Katsuki died, Izuku has floated through his days as an absolute shell of a person, a husk of his former self. Going through the motions but not really there. Each and every day has been filled with misery and numbness. The sharp ache in his chest has been so constant that he forgets it’s even there.
But now he isn’t dead. He never was. If Izuku only knew, then all of that pain could have been avoided.
Why didn’t he tell him? Izuku has trusted him with a secret that is larger than his own life, and Katsuki couldn’t tell him this? Couldn’t have spared him of suffering for once in his life?
Izuku doesn’t respond to the messages, feeling conflicted. His maelstrom of emotions still hasn’t decided on which one is here to stay. He didn’t realize he called Uraraka until he feels the phone at his ear.
The words spill from his mouth with a desperate need for someone else to hear him, to help bring him back down to earth before he floats away entirely.
“What would you do if someone you really care about lied to you about something important because they felt that they had to, but they really hurt you in the process?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I would be able to trust them again. That doesn’t sound healthy.”
After their conversation ends, Izuku feels better about sharing his plight, but he disregards Uraraka’s opinion entirely. Katsuki is the most trustworthy person Izuku has ever met. What the hell does she know? What the hell does anyone know?
None of them were as close to Katsuki as he was.
Izuku finds himself outside the front gates of UA. There isn’t a soul around. He walks into the courtyard, head swiveling as he searches. Suddenly, he stops, feeling compelled to turn around by an unknown force.
All Might is standing there, skeletal form with baggy clothes, a wide, eager smile on his face.
“My boy, there’s someone here I think you’d like to see.”
Up until this point, as much as he wanted it to be true, Izuku still had some doubts about whether the texts from Katsuki were genuine. But when All Might steps aside, Izuku’s breath catches and his heart stops, because all at once everything else fades away and it becomes real.
Kacchan.
He looks like he always has, the same as Izuku remembers him. His trademark cocky grin, clever crimson eyes, explosion of bright blond hair. His entire being is flawless. Perfect and amazing Kacchan.
Izuku’s first steps are more like stumbles, but then he’s running, and within seconds he slams his body into his friend’s warm chest and wraps his arms around him in a desperate embrace.
“You’re here,” he chokes out, voice wet and wavering. “Don’t do that ever again.”
“I know,” is all Katsuki says in reply, sincere, tinged with guilt.
When he returns the hug, Izuku feels right and real and safe. What happened was just a mistake; it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing else matters but this moment of reality realigning.
“Stay.”
From the crook of Katsuki’s neck, Izuku can see the familiar small line of a scar right above his collarbone, so faint that most people wouldn’t notice it. Katsuki received it as a child from a minor mishap during a game of heroes vs. villains. Izuku smiles softly into Katsuki’s shoulder at the memory, tightening his hold behind his back, fists firmly gripping the back of his shirt.
“Stay.”
As close as he is, Izuku can smell the sweet scent of nitroglycerin, mixed with Katsuki’s natural forest fire that he always seems to carry with him. It’s really him - ever since he left, nothing has even come close to mimicking this scent. Detecting it again after so long triggers a flurry of memories that flash by in an instant. Izuku’s embrace tightens even further as he is overwhelmed with emotion, never wanting this moment to end. If he never lets go, maybe it doesn’t have to.
“Stay.”
And then, with the word still fresh on his lips, Izuku opens his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks. His arms are in a firm X across his chest, devastatingly empty, the pressure from his own grip ironically the very thing that caused him to wake. Early morning light filters in through the blinds of his bedroom. For a few fleeting seconds, Izuku doesn’t move a muscle, not even to breathe, in a futile effort to cling to the residual serenity of his dream before it completely slips away like sand through his fingers. When he finally takes a sharp inhale through his nose, he swears he can still detect that tingling, smokey scent of Kacchan for a few heartbeats, vivid as if he were right there next to him, until that fades away too, and that’s what really triggers Izuku to start sobbing in earnest.
He releases his clamp-like hold on himself and, with stiff movements, reaches up to grab his pillow before shoving his face into it and releasing a scream.
For just a single beautiful second, it felt so real. Everything made perfect sense, everything was okay, and Katsuki was alive. He was breathing and smiling and right there in his arms only to be ripped away again and-
Why did I have to wake up?
As the aftershocks of the dream begin to dissolve into nothingness, the grief returns all at once, as it always does, slamming into him with its bone-crushing weight. Izuku tries to stifle his crying. Maybe, if he can fall back asleep quickly enough, he can return to the reality he actually wants to exist in.
He tries for about five minutes before his actual reality reasserts itself in the form of his alarm going off.
Bleary-eyed and hollowed out, Izuku slowly sits up and attempts to put the pieces of himself back together to start another day that he wishes never began. No matter how hard he tries, though, the pieces never fit just right. There’s always one missing, and there always will be.
Lately, the days have been long, and it appears that this one will be no different.