Work Text:
Friday nights are for sparring.
It’s the gym, and him and Deku—the unremitting whirr of the fans overhead and the sweat-slick floor mats under them, solid against their bare feet. In front of him, Deku's crouched in a perfect stance. His fists are raised, knuckles wrapped in hard tape that had been clean and white just a few hours ago. It's something closer to red now, the cloth ripped.
“Come on,” Katsuki hisses. “Lunge, you fuck一”
And Deku moves, left foot pivoting on the mat. His body twists, and with it, the swing of his right foot coming up in a singular, upward path. It’s a slice more than it is a swing, and the force of it lands squarely on the side of Katsuki's head.
Or where his head would have been, if Katsuki hadn't ducked. His knees bend like coiled springs and he charges shoulder-first to Deku's stomach, right where it hurts, and knocks them both down to the mat. All of it happens in the split of one second, one movement. Because Katsuki’s body knows Deku's body. They've been at this for hours. Years.
He hears Deku's breath leave him in a hiss. Deku has this angry look on his face and Katsuki almost smirks at the sight of it一almost taunts a yeah, did you like that?一 but they’re still two-for-two, and Katsuki still has to win. If it had been anybody else, it’d be game over. He'd have that armbar locked. He’d have another submission win to his name, because that's just how Katsuki likes to win these things. But Deku's body knows Katsuki's body一complete fluency in its hard edges and how Katsuki wields them, where they’ll be in the next second before they even get there. But Katsuki knows this, too. This was the deal, wasn’t it? To learn each other’s every move and to match it. Every flash, kick, swerve, punch, lunge, or whatever else there is just outside of their quirks. To be each other. Then, surpass that too.
Katsuki doesn’t let him, not this time.
Even before Deku moves to lock a reverse armbar, Katsuki’s already halfway to stopping him. He presses the flat of his elbow to Deku’s face, its whole weight bearing down on the other boy to disorient him. It works, until it doesn't, because they're way past that point in the night where everything in their vision is clear, sharp, precise, limbs made light by adrenaline. Now, Deku's gasping out of his mouth. He’s writhing just the wrong way from under Katsuki, then something slips, skin on sweat on skin. The sharp jut of Katsuki's elbow hits him at the temple, then grates across his forehead, cutting him open.
Under the harsh white of the lights, it's hard to miss all that red, blooming一there's so much of it so fast. With Deku still trying to dislodge from Katsuki's grip, some of it slicks across his face, the dip of his brow bone, then his cheeks, crawling into the small fissures of his skin. There’s some dripping down Deku’s temple too, pooling in the mat beside his head.
And it’s nothing, Katsuki knows. It's nothing new. It’s not even first blood tonight. It stops Katsuki dead anyway.
“I一” he says. “Deku, your一”
He loosens his grip. The second he does, he loses it entirely. Katsuki blinks and he's down on the mat just like that, breath stolen from under him. Suddenly there’s Deku’s weight on top of him, pinning him down.
And Deku's laughing. The way Deku laughs, it's always all over his face一wide and sore-cheeked and breathless. Manic. He’s looming so close that his face floods Katsuki’s vision, his head halo-ed by the harsh white lights of the ceiling over them. He’s smiling with his teeth wet with his own blood. It’s strange that he’s the only thing in the room. Some of the blood has smeared across Katsuki’s face too, and he doesn’t know how it got there, just that he can taste it.
Then, Deku moves again. “Tap, Kacchan,” he grunts, voice tight, right next to Katsuki's ear, and it's only then that Katsuki realizes his arms are now locked in an Americana一his own favorite submission hold一and that if Deku decides to shift his body just so, the bones in Katsuki's wrist, elbow, and shoulder would snap from their places, just so.
“Tap, Kacchan!”
Katsuki blinks, the pain in his arms jarring him awake. Deku puts a little more pressure on his hold until Katsuki’s back to himself enough to sneer, “Alright, alright, fuck off!” spitefully, right into Deku’s eardrum, and they both know that that's about as gracious a submission as Katsuki would ever give. Finally, Deku relents. He’s still laughing as he sits back, quiet except for his harsh breathing. He’s staring down at Katsuki a little strangely.
“You okay?” he asks, still panting.
“Fucker,” Katsuki mutters. He rolls his right shoulder in an attempt to soothe it. “That hurt.”
“No, I mean...” Deku starts, smile slipping. “That was almost too easy?” he says, practically to himself. The heat of his body hovers just over Katsuki’s hips. His hair is wet-dark, mottled curls sticking to his temple. The blood has mixed with sweat, and it trickles like syrup down his jaw, the pale flesh of his neck, soaking his white shirt, and it's stupid, because it's just Deku, and it's nothing either of them hasn't seen before, but from where Katsuki's lying prone on the mat Deku suddenly seems like he's three times his size and is about to swallow him whole.
“You looked a little distracted, Kacchan.”
“Get the fuck off me,” he just says. He stands as soon as Deku does, taking his hand as Deku hauls him up. “And clean that wound, shitsnack.”
“Oh yeah,” Deku huffs, absently looking up at his own hairline as if he can actually see it. “Is it bad?” he smiles, rubbing the back of his neck in half a laugh, half an apology. Something about it pisses Katsuki off. It's so hard to look at Deku sometimes. Equally as hard to look away.
“Bathroom, now.” Katsuki just says. He shoves at Deku's shoulders a little harder than he needs to as he pushes him to the direction of the showers. There's no pain yet, for either of them. Their bodies are still spinning on complete momentum, endorphins kicking in. Distantly, Katsuki glances at the wall clock. They've been sparring for close to six hours now.
“Sit,” he instructs, as soon as he flicks the bathroom lights on. It’s wide enough to hold their whole class, but at 3am on a Saturday morning, the emptiness just makes their voices echo with a haunting kind of clarity. It makes Katsuki feel like it’s only the two of them for miles all around.
“It’s not so bad, Kacchan,” Deku says, but he goes to obey Katsuki anyway and drags a chair close to the sinks. “You know how head wounds are. They just bleed a lot!”
I know, Katsuki doesn’t say. I know. He knows it’s not a bad cut, that accidents like these happen all the time in a grappling match, that it wasn’t his fault. Still. Just let me do this, he doesn’t say.
Instead, Katsuki washes his hands, then runs a clean cloth under the jet of cold water. It’s the lone broken faucet in the bathroom, Katsuki notices. A defective valve or something. It leaks long after he closes it, the steady tap, tap, tap, somehow, sharpening the silence.
And it's strange. It's strange because they've done this before. It’s all part of the deal, as rivals, partners, equals, as soon to be pro-heroes. Wounds cut open, then you clean each other up. It's work. They've been here before. And yet.
“Hold still,” Katsuki mumbles, pressing the cloth to the spot of trauma. As gentle as his destructive hands would allow. The blood mixes with the water, and it pushes ratty trails down the back of Katsuki's hand, down the pale inside of his wrist, dripping to the white of the tiles.
He cleans the skin around it, thoroughly, careful not to pull, then rinses the cloth once it's soaked red and cleans around the gash again, and again. Because they've done this before, and it's just as much muscle memory as the rhythm of fighting is. But when Katsuki places his palm on the curve of Deku's cheek, just to steady him, Deku leans into the heat of it, just slightly. The wound is clean now. Katsuki can stop.
Instead, he says, “Does it hurt?" syllables small and barely leaving his throat. Slowly, he wipes at the clotted blood around Deku's hairline, forehead, brow bone, and when Deku closes his eyes with a faint sigh, Katsuki takes it as permission. He takes the cloth to Deku's lashes with a gentleness almost painful, this trembling kind of restraint his hands were never meant for. Katsuki thinks of his scarred palms and calloused fingers. Thick skin made to ignite. He has never minded them before, until now.
“S'okay.” Deku says.
And it's strange because they're in the first floor men's bathroom just behind the gym and they've sat in this exact same position more times than Katsuki could count. Yet, the light feels different. Deku looks different. It's strange that he's the only thing in what feels like miles. It's strange, because Katsuki doesn't know why.
So, he cleans. And Deku keeps his eyes closed. He cleans around Deku's temples一slowly, delicately, tracing the high planes of his cheeks, dried blood wiped away to reveal his freckles, then down the curve of his jaw where Katsuki's hand, absurdly, wouldn’t let go. His skin is pink, touch-warmed. They've never done this before.
“Kacchan,” Deku exhales, softly, barely at all. Or maybe Katsuki just imagined it. Kacchan. Kacchan.
And oh, Katsuki thinks. It's the first time he realizes something has changed. Katsuki looks at him and feels unmoored. Katsuki looks at him and doesn't trust his own hands. He tries to think of how this happened, a certain instance where things started to shift since the day they fought at Ground Beta, Katsuki sharing the burden of Deku and All Might’s secret. They’d become partners, then, all those years ago. Deku and Kacchan. The only ones who could keep up with each other. Something has changed.
Except一except for a while now, Deku has always made him feel this way. Katsuki has always looked at Deku this way. Katsuki looks at him now, and it isn’t any different. He looks at him and feels embarrassed. He looks at him and he is so aware一of all the best parts of Deku, of all the worst parts of himself. Katsuki has always felt lost in front of him, like there isn’t any place to hide. There’s no part of his life that Deku doesn’t touch. There never could be. Deku is his rival, partner, bestfriend.
Nothing has changed, fuck.
And he stares at his hand lingering at Deku’s cheek, his thumb slowly, hesitantly strumming over the skin, over every scar and freckle and shudder as if he can read Deku like braille, find the answers there somehow. My hands don’t know how to do this, he thinks. My hands could learn, he thinks. If you’d let me.
Katsuki feels warm, warm all over. It curls his toes and pulls at his stomach. He doesn’t even breathe. His heart is beating so loud it’s the only thing he can hear of his thoughts. The light feels different. They’ve been here before, this should be so easy. Why isn’t it?
“Kacchan,” his name is a sigh barely surviving Deku's mouth. Deku leans into his touch, chases after it, and fuck, it feels so nice一to be allowed by Deku like this, for his hands, for once, to be wanted like this. Deku turns his head until his lips touch Katsuki's wrist, and it shocks Katsuki cold.
He pulls his hand away, flinching like he's just touched something burning, white-hot and electric. His hands have never known what it's like to be burned until now, and Katsuki lets go, much sooner than he wants to. But then again, a thousand years would be much sooner than he wants to.
“I一” he starts, then clears his throat. “You're good, nerd. It's clean.” he grits. “Put some antiseptic on it.” But before he can pull away, Deku's hand is already on his wrist. Between the two of them, he's always been the faster one.
“Kacchan, I got my blood on your face.” Deku mumbles, as he pries the cloth from Katsuki’s hands and presses it to his skin, jaw, cheeks, catching on the fleshy part of his bottom lip, lingering there, even if only slightly.
Deku meets his eyes. It’s those same eyes that have always seen him, and there’s never been a place Katsuki could run off to and hide, not from him. Not from this. Nothing has changed. Katsuki's in love. Nothing has changed.
“Um,” Deku swallows. “You're good, too. Thanks一”
“Deku.” Katsuki feels weak. For once, for the first time in his life, he doesn’t fight it. “Fuck, Deku. Can I一?”
And Deku’s nodding. Deku’s already reaching for him. Between the two of them, he’s always been the faster one and nothing has changed. Katsuki loves him. Katsuki’s hands are trembling because they’re the only honest thing about him. He kisses his confession right into Deku’s lips.
Because Katsuki’s in love. There’s no part of him that hasn’t been in love. Only parts of him that had not known it, yet.