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He didn’t really have a purpose here.
Watching the sky drain of color, cold pelts of rain splattering against his pale flesh, Izuku was certain of this fact.
It was the only thing he was sure of.
He’d thought he was worth something, once, as a young child reading fantasy books about heroes and villains, about how all you needed to succeed in life was a heart of gold. It was a sentiment preached to him since the moment he was old enough to understand the words, something he was made to believe.
But faith in a delusion like that would never last in such a harsh reality.
Innocent games of hide-and-go seek on the playground became holding his breath in empty classrooms, trembling at the thought of being found by his bullies. His confidence was eviscerated, worn thin by rejection after rejection, insult after insult. And finally, that belief, along with his already fading dreams of being a doctor, had been crushed completely as he stood over his mother’s casket at sixteen, left only with his failures and an ever-absent father.
He’d thought once, foolishly, that he had some kind of purpose.
He was wrong.
But this; this was the one thing he’d been told over and over and over by almost everyone he’d met. The universe had taken every opportunity to drill it into his brain. This was the one thing he knew.
Izuku Midoriya was worthless.
And worthless things don’t have purpose.
And without purpose, what do you do? Where do you go?
Lying in the middle of an intersection, the remains of his totaled car scattered around his battered, broken body as the sky crumbled above, Izuku came to a conclusion.
Things without purpose… well.
It wouldn’t really make a difference if he just disappeared, would it?
The room was a mess, again.
Katsuki growled and rolled up his sleeves, snagging old food from the floor with a grimace and tugging clothes out from an expensive looking armchair. He was a nurse, goddammit, not a maid.
“Stop throwing your shit around, dammit! One good arm and you’re gonna use it to pull this shit? Spoiled brat,” he spat, rounding the side of the bed to face his patient. He was met with tired green eyes and a withering apologetic smile, the only expression he’d seen on the man’s face since he first arrived a couple weeks ago.
“Sorry,” Deku, as he’d taken to calling him, mumbled. Katsuki rolled his eyes.
“If you’re sorry, stop fuckin’ doing it.” Deku didn’t respond, and Katsuki got to work. He cleaned and re-bandaged his burns, though they were almost completely healed. The bruises had long since faded, too. The only real issues were the broken limbs — a broken arm and leg, both on his left side — and a hip fracture.
Honestly, Katsuki didn’t even really need to be here. Deku’s father could easily enough push him around in his shitty wheelchair, wrap his casts and help him into the bath, but the bastard was apparently just as lazy as he was rich. Not that Katsuki was complaining; sure, living in a mansion with a couple of snobbish strangers for a month wasn’t ideal by any fucking stretch, but his bank account was singing . With that much money, he could return to med school and become a full-fledged doctor.
So, however annoying shitty Deku might be, always looking down on Katsuki with those eyes that screamed indifference, he would stick it out.
He collected the trash that’d gathered on the side table and moved to leave, but a scarred hand snagged him before he could get anywhere. He scowled and turned to the boy in the bed.
Deku stared up at him, his messy green curls fanning out around his head on the pillow. He looked like he needed a haircut, in Katsuki’s opinion.
“I really am sorry,” he whispered earnestly, and Katsuki huffed. The idiot spent all his time steeping in brooding silence, making messes for Katsuki to clean and barely having the grace to apologize for it. Which was all he did. The only words he’d heard out of his mouth were variations of ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘You don’t have to do this’ — two phrases Katsuki loathed, unfortunately.
He wouldn’t tolerate being looked down on, not even by the patient he was being paid to watch over.
He sneered down at Deku, watching the hand on his arm fall away and that face turn to hide itself in untamed curls before he left.
The next six weeks were gonna be hell.
-
Katsuki woke up early, stretching out on his temporary king-sized mattress in his temporary designed-for-royalty room.
Light blazed in through the comically enormous windows that stretched from floor to ceiling; he must’ve forgotten to close the curtains last night, though he supposed it didn’t really matter. Sun shining in his eyes or not, he was an early riser either way.
He glanced at his phone, checking the time. 7:02AM.
As good a time as any to start breakfast, he supposed.
He pulled himself from bed, beginning his trek down the massive hallway after fixing the sheets and throwing on a sweatshirt over his bare chest. As usual, he didn’t see a single soul on his journey to the kitchen.
He’d thought that in a mansion this size, there’d be maids, and butlers, even a cook, but the house was practically barren. A dozen empty rooms and only three had inhabitants, Katsuki included. He’d never seen the head of the house, either. Not after the day he’d been hired.
Hisashi had greeted him on the doorstep and led him through a maze of corridors and stairwells that had Katsuki worried he was about to be murdered. He’d eventually stopped at the foot of a huge, mahogany double door with intricate designs curling from the rounded edges back towards its center.
Inside had been what appeared to be a combination of an office and lounge, a desk on the far wall with two fancy sofas on the other end of the room. There, he’d been interviewed. His employer had curls like Deku’s, only his were pitch-black instead of green, and his eyes were stony. There had been something so condescending about the way he spoke, the words he chose, and it’d grated on every last one of Katsuki’s nerves.
But he’d kept his mouth shut, because a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like this was too great to risk over some petty argument.
He sighed, gathering ingredients from the fridge and unhooking a skillet from the chandelier-esque rack. At least he didn’t have to deal with Stony Eyes anymore, just Deku.
Deku, who watched grass grow from the window everyday, letting the light in his room grow from warm to cold without so much as turning his head. Katsuki frowned. He didn’t understand Deku at all, not really, and it was frustrating.
The sound of butter sizzling caught Katsuki’s attention and he rolled up his sleeves. Breakfast first, irritated ruminating on mysterious rich men later.
Katsuki didn’t bother to knock as he opened Deku’s bedroom door, strolling right in with a platter of egg fried rice, miso soup, and a tall glass of orange juice.
Technically, making breakfast wasn’t in his job description, but he was supposed to take care of Deku, and something told him the idiot probably wouldn’t eat unless Katsuki force fed him. Besides, he had to make food for himself, anyway. Making an extra serving wasn’t a big deal.
Lying awake in his bed, Deku sat with his one good hand folded in his lap, gazing at the window with distant eyes.
“Oi, Deku. Breakfast.”
Deku didn’t respond. Katsuki scowled and clicked his tongue, setting the platter down on the side table next to him a tad harsher than necessary. A little soup spilled out of the bowl, but whatever. It was what shitty Deku deserved for being a brat.
“Eat,” he said when he still didn’t get any reaction.
“Oh,” Deku murmured, finally seeming to notice him. “Sorry.”
“Tch. I don’t get paid enough to put up with you.” That was a lie. If anything, he got paid too much. But it was the sentiment that mattered.
“I know, I’m sorry,” he said again, a pathetic little smile lilting his lips, and the last, frayed thread of Katsuki’s patience snapped. He slammed his fist down onto the side-table, earning a jump and a squeal from Deku.
“Stop looking down on me, shithead! I don’t need your half-baked apologies or dismissals, got it?!”
Deku blinked at him. His eyes were wide and focused, a light blush pinkening the tips of his ears — he looked more alive in that one moment than he had the entire rest of the time Katsuki had been there.
“L-Looking down on you…?”
“You think I don’t know what you’re thinking? Spoiled little rich boy who thinks the world owes him everything, well guess what? I don’t owe you shit!”
“I-I’m not— I don’t understa—”
“Just eat your damn breakfast. I’ll come back in twenty minutes to collect the dishes and then your ass is goin’ in the tub, got it?”
Deku’s features twisted up in confusion. It seemed like there was more he wanted to say, but ultimately, he said nothing. He shut his mouth and sagged against the headboard, a soft sigh escaping through his nose.
Katsuki felt a twist in his gut watching the fight drain from him, but acknowledged the feeling with little more than a click of his tongue.
He let the door slam behind him.
-
The next time Katsuki came in to clean, he found a note under Deku’s bed.
Crumpled and torn halfway, he almost threw the thing away, but writing caught his eye, and after a glance up at the man’s balled, sleeping form, curiosity got the better of him and he unfurled the tortured paper.
‘ The sky bleeds my name. It pours and cracks, shakes and bends, disorients me completely. For an abyss that stretches forever, it is so suffocating. I hear the thunder in the distance, and brace myself for the flood.
Only when the drought comes do I miss the burning in my lungs, the water in my throat.
Heads or tails, the sky will scream.
And my ears won't stop ringing.’
And, okay, what the hell did that mean? First, he gets called out to this huge, creepily empty mansion to take care of some mysterious rich guy who refuses to even talk to him most of the time, and now he finds weird, cryptic poetry under that same guy’s bed?
He really didn’t get paid enough for this.
But even so, instead of just crushing the paper in his hands and tossing it away like he probably should have, he found himself folding it up and tucking it in his pocket.
He went on with his day afterward, and, swept up in monotonous chores and mildly entertaining western movies he’d found tucked away in their stupidly lavish living room, forgot about the note. That night, though, he was reminded.
It fell from his pants pocket as he tugged them off and fluttered to the floor. Katsuki stared at the tattered paper, its contents replaying in his head, and thought about what it could mean. He looked out the window and wondered what it was he saw out there, what was so interesting he just had to look all the damn time.
Something told him it wasn’t flowers or fairies Deku was searching for through those grand windows.
Clicking his tongue, Katsuki chose to ignore the note this time as he rolled his shoulders and made his way over to bed. Whatever the nerd was seeking for or looking at, it wasn’t any of Katsuki’s business.
He didn’t want it to be his business.
But still, a couple times afterward he caught himself staring out of the windows, too, or watching Deku’s expressions a tad closer.
Deku inevitably noticed, a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes as he focused on him, and Katsuki sighed.
What a pain in the ass patient.
-
“When am I going to be able to walk again?”
The question startled Katsuki, causing him to nearly lose grip on Deku’s arm. It was the first full, unprompted sentence he’d spoken. He tightened his hold on the man and carefully lowered him back into his wheelchair; Deku still needed assistance getting back into it after using the toilet. At least he could pull up his own pants now, though. When Katsuki had first arrived, the gashes on his good hand had been painful enough he couldn’t even make a fist.
He’d never complained, though. Even when Katsuki had been a little too rough changing the bandages once and accidentally reopened a cut. Katsuki begrudgingly respected that about Deku, even if he found it a little weird.
“A couple weeks, at least,” Katsuki finally replied, wheeling him back into his bedroom. “You’d move like a toddler trying to use crutches with a broken leg and arm, and your hip needs to heal more before you start putting that much strain on it.”
Deku hummed in acknowledgement, a contemplative look settling over his features.
Katuki thought about pestering him about the intent behind his question — he sure didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get anywhere — but decided against it. Why should he care what the idiot was thinking?
“Where to, Deku?” he asked instead, placing his hands back on the wheelchair’s handle-bars. He had a feeling he knew what answer he was going to get, but the muttered, “Here is okay, thank you,” still managed to piss him off a little.
“Yeah, not fuckin’ happening.” Ignoring the surprised yelp from below, Katsuki shoved Deku’s wheelchair through the doorway and down the hallway. “All you do every day is lay in that stupid bed. Don’t you have hobbies or some shit? Wanna watch TV? Anything?”
“N-No, I…” Deku fidgeted, glancing up at Katsuki. “W-Why do you care? It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“It matters when you start wasting away beneath your goddamn sheets! My job is to take care of you, and I’ll be damned if your need for bed sores mars my clean record.”
“I…” Deku bit his lip, eyes darting back at the rapidly receding frame of his bedroom door. He sighed and slumped back in the wheelchair. “Okay.”
“Good boy,” Katsuki praised, a little condescendingly. He was both triumphant and frustrated when there was no retort, not that he’d really expected one in the first place.
He stopped them in the garden. Deku spent all that time staring at nature through glass, taking him to stare at nature in nature this time seemed like a safe bet, so that was what he’d done.
And Katsuki had to admit, he could see the appeal.
Grass bent and swayed, trees danced in the breeze as their leaves twirled and fell and fluttered, flowers sprouted from the earth, shining brightly when they caught the sun just right. A squirrel hopped out of a nearby bush, cheeks full, and scaled a tree in a matter of seconds, winding around it's bulging roots like an expert. It was nice. Not I’d-stare-at-this-for-48-hours-straight nice, but nice.
A little curious, Katsuki shifted his gaze towards the man beside him.
Green eyes watched the scene ahead of them blankly, staring through the flower beds, past the soil, at something unseen. Deku’s lips curved up in the tiniest of smiles and his curls shifted with every small gust of wind.
“Do you even really like this nature shit, or do you always just stare at nothing?”
The question startled Deku out of whatever thought-pool he’d been sucked into, those pupils flitting over to Katsuki. “Um,” he mumbled intelligently, “I… don’t know?”
Katsuki raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know.”
“N-No…?”
At Katsuki’s unimpressed stare, Deku sighed. “I like it. It’s pretty.”
“But you’re not even really looking at it.”
Deku turned his head to stare out at the garden again, eyes glazing over in that same unfocused way. “No, I guess not.”
A haunted expression crossed his features for the briefest of seconds, just a flash of emotion, and Katsuki decided it was probably best to leave things there for the day.
After a while of loitering around in silence, he wheeled Deku back to his room, unloaded him onto his stale, rumpled sheets, and left him to watch paint dry.
-
“So,” Katsuki said, one day, after wheeling Deku out to watch nature out of one of the lofty kitchen windows instead of the ones in his bedroom. He flipped an omelette expertly, watching Deku out of the corner of his eye. “What are your hobbies?”
The question seemed to surprise the nerd, who perked up the tiniest bit, his eyes growing wide. He had big eyes, bigger than Katsuki’d first thought, after seeing them half-lidded constantly with what Katsuki had assumed was snark or disinterest.
“Um… my hobbies?” Deku asked, voice wobbly and unsure.
“That’s what I fucking said, wasn’t it?”
“I-I don’t…”
Katsuki flipped off the stove and grabbed some grossly gaudy forks from a drawer. Rich people and their desire to show off with cutlery of all things. “What, you don’t have hobbies? Bullshit. A nerd like you’s probably got a dozen.”
Deku blushed, and to Katsuki’s slight surprise, smiled. His lips curled up in a way that was so foreign for the gloomy man and his hand lifted to scratch bashfully at his pink, freckled cheek. “Heh, I guess…”
Shit. Snobby brat-man was cute.
Huffing, Katsuki turned to plate the omelettes he was making before he burned them. “So, answer my question. What are yours?”
“I don’t really have hobbies.”
“Maybe for now because you’re stuck in that damn wheelchair. Give me a real answer.”
“That was a real answer.” Deku cocked his head to the side, and Katsuki kept his eyes averted. Calling Deku cute one time was pushing his revelation-quota for the day, twice was out of the damn question.
“You’re telling me you’ve never once enjoyed something? Never once dedicated more than a few minutes to something? Stop avoiding the question.”
“What about yours?”
“Jesus, what the fuck is this, twenty questions?! Gimme an answer already, dammit!”
And if Katsuki was surprised before, he was shocked now, watching those lips fall open on a laugh. It was short, and quiet, but the breathy giggle filled the air like nothing else.
Deku appeared to realize his slip a moment later. He slapped a hand over his mouth, the room falling silent in a second as the color drained from his face. Now blanketed in a layer of tension, the atmosphere turned awkward, leaving Katsuki both annoyed and mystified.
“I-I… want to go back to my room now.”
“Deku—”
“I want to go back to my room now, please.”
Katsuki Bakugou didn’t stand for being talked down to like that. Katsuki Bakugou didn’t take orders from anyone, boss or client or whoever the fuck, and he sure as hell didn’t tolerate being interrupted. But Deku was shaking, hands gripping the arms of his wheelchair so tight his knuckles were white, and even Katsuki Bakugou could recognize this wasn’t the time to pick a fight.
“...Fine.”
He brought Deku back up to his room. He tried to help him into his bed, but Deku shrugged him off, and when Katsuki came back in a couple minutes later with his room-temperature omelette, he was still in that wheelchair, staring listlessly at the wall.
“Oi, nerd,” he stepped closer, waving a hand in front of Deku’s emotionless face. “What the hell are you suddenly so worked up over?”
Deku didn’t answer.
“Hey, shithead, don’t ignore me. What the hell happened?”
No response. Katsuki grit his teeth.
“You little fucker, don’t act like I’m not here!”
“Just leave me alone, please.”
A vein popped on Katsuki’s forehead, and before he knew what he was doing, he was plopping down on the floor right next to Deku.
“No, fuck you, moron. I’m gonna stay right the fuck here, you just try and move me.”
That sparked the tiniest flash of emotion, a dull glint of confusion gleaming behind Deku’s eyes, but he said nothing. Instead, he sighed, settling back into his wheelchair, and not another word was exchanged.
Whatever, it was still Katsuki’s win.
And, though he’d never admit it was a bonus, Deku wasn’t left alone.
-
Katsuki tried again a couple days later to get Deku to stop looking so gloomy, to just do something. For some reason, it was becoming increasingly unbearable to watch him just waste away.
“Stop being stubborn, Deku,” he grouched as he attempted for the upteenth time to shove a set of cards in his hand. Deku had never been all that willing to do things before, but since his mini-breakdown, he was practically, annoyingly, unshakable. Nothing Katsuki did got any reaction from him and nothing he said made a damn difference.
The cards fell to the floor in a messy pile as Deku’s hand twitched away, a sigh leaving his lips, and Katsuki growled in frustration.
“Are you really so fucking upset you won’t play a stupid game of cards?!” he questioned, turning Deku’s wheelchair so that he was forced to face him. “Or maybe you’re just so terrible at cards it’s insufferable and you’re too humiliated to tell me. Which is it, huh?”
Deku’s face scrunched up at that, his lips and eyebrows trembling, and he jerked his head to the side so he wouldn’t have to face Katsuki.
“Stop sulking, damnit!” Katsuki griped, turning his wheelchair again, only for Deku to turn his head away again.
Eyebrow twitching in irritation, Katsuki placed his hands on the arms of Deku’s wheelchair. If the nerd wanted to play like that, then fine, but he wasn’t gonna win.
He spun Deku around again as fast as he could, nearly tipping the chair with the momentum. Deku shrieked, taken off guard, but still managed to turn his head away in time.
A manic grin stretched across Katsuki’s face as he tried it again, and again, and again, until finally, he got the best of Deku and whisked him around before he had a chance to react.
Breathless and wide-eyed, Deku watched as Katsuki grinned and hollered, “Hah! Eat shit, Deku, I win!”
Deku’s lips jerked like he wanted to smile, like he was about to, and seeing it made Katsuki’s heart pound faster. But then something dark crept back into his eyes and any trace of levity was lost. He sank back into his wheelchair, watching his lap with sad eyes, and Katsuki felt the mirth leave him like water down a drain.
“I want to go back to my room, please. I’m sorry.”
“Tch,” Katsuki blew through his teeth. “Fine. But you’re eating first.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Like hell you aren’t, you haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.”
Deku didn’t respond, and Katsuki took his silence as reluctant acceptance. He laid his hands on the handlebards and began pushing in the direction of the kitchen. He’d just clean up the cards later, of course making sure to grumble loud enough Deku could hear him the whole time.
“You better like fish, nerd. That’s all you got in that big, fancy fridge of yours.”
-
The week following that was more of the same. Deku, content to waste away in his room, uttered only quiet apologies when Katsuki was near and made messes for him to clean up. The only times Deku had even gotten out of bed were the times Katsuki forced him to practice on his crutches, something he was oddly very averse about even after getting his cast off. He was horrible at it too; the damn nerd couldn’t stand on his own two feet if his life depended on it.
It was almost like the guy didn’t plan on walking again. And, shit, maybe he didn’t.
It was an idea that was quickly, soberingly, becoming Katsuki’s main hypothesis. He had a sinking suspicion Deku didn’t even eat what Katsuki brought him, most of the time. He caught a whiff of rotting food everytime he entered the room but never managed to locate the source.
“Oi, Deku,” he called, opening the door before Deku had a chance to oppose. Not that Deku would, that asshole and his zipped-shut mouth. Besides, he doubted he was going to walk in on anything personal. He’d bet his life savings the nerd hadn’t jerked it in months, at least.
Unsurprisingly, the sight that greeted him was the same as every other damn day: Deku, on his lifessly gray bed, staring out the window in apathy. Katsuki was still puzzling over how he’d gotten this sack of flour to laugh once.
“Deku, get up. Time for you to flounder around on your crutches till you do something right.”
Deku hummed quietly, an acknowledging but not exactly affirming sound.
Looking at the way his curls fell flat around his head, the way the bags under his eyes drooped and stood stark against the paleness of his flesh, Katsuki was reminded of a wilting flower.
Just a few weeks ago, he’d thought that Deku was just some selfish, rich asshole who didn’t deem Katsuki worthy of his words. He’d thought Deku was constantly looking down on him, dismissing him, and hell, maybe Deku was looking down on somebody. But it wasn’t Katsuki.
With a sigh, he made his way over to the bed and tugged Deku up.
“Change of plans,” he said. “You’re gonna watch a movie with me.”
“Wha—” Deku blinked up at him, a mix of surprise and confusion coloring his features. “Why?”
“Because I said so, Deku.”
A tired look crossed Deku’s face, and for a moment, Katsuki was sure he’d just give in and let Katsuki cart him around as he pleased, but in the next second, he was looking back up, a flicker of something in his eyes.
“What if I don’t want to, Kacchan?”
Katsuki balked. “What the fuck did you just call me, asshole?!”
“Kacchan! Because you’re always acting like a child!”
“Hah?!” Katsuki screeched, nabbing Deku by the collar. Where the hell had the nerd gotten the balls to insult him?
“You keep saying I’m looking down on you but I haven’t done anything to you! And you tell me I’m a freak because I don’t want to do anything, and you yell at me when I fall on the crutches, and you keep dragging me from my bed, and— and you make me laugh and smile and I hate it because I’ve already made up my mind and you— you make me question it,” Deku croaked, his screaming voice getting quieter with every strained word. The moment he stopped talking, the waterworks started, tears gathering in his eyes and dripping down his face before Katsuki had even processed the words.
He cried loudly, choking and hiccuping, burying his face in his hands as his small, broken body shook and shivered.
Katsuki didn’t know what to do. He’d seen people fall apart before — working in a hospital meant he was met with horror-stricken, despairing people every damn day — but this was somehow different, somehow so much more personal, and suddenly Katsuki realized just how out of his depth he was.
“Fuck,” he breathed out, his taut muscles relaxing despite the turmoil and discomfort raging in his head. There was only one thing he really could do.
Slowly, hesitantly, he made his way over to the bed. Deku didn’t lift his head, didn’t utter a word, just sobbed as Katsuki’s hands hovered uncertainly above him. He wasn’t used to comforting people; even when he delivered bad news to patients, he never stuck around long enough to watch them crumble. But, hell, there was a first time for everything.
Besides, as the best damn nurse the world had ever seen, he had to keep his patients healthy and happy. If a hug was what that took, he guessed he could spare one. At least for this idiot.
Finally, he let his hands drop and his arms wrap around Deku’s thin frame. He hugged him to his chest and held tight, felt the way Deku trembled in his arms and pawed at his thin shirt like he was too weak to grasp it. He listened to all the quiet, pitiful whimpers and whines, sucked in a breath at every teardrop that soaked through his sleeves, and questioned how he’d ever mistaken this for some stupid superiority complex.
“Did you already forget I’m your nurse, Deku?” he grumbled, squeezing tighter. “I’m not your damn therapist.”
Deku hiccuped and attempted, pathetically, to hit his chest. “S-Stop that!”
“Stop what, Deku? Pointing out the obvious?”
“Stop being funny!” Deku looked up, his cheeks red and tear-streaked. “Stop trying to make me laugh! I just… I need...:”
“You need a sense of humor, dipshit.” He smirked and pushed Deku’s face back into his chest. “Just get some rest, nerd. And drink some water, gonna dehydrate yourself cryin’ so damn much.”
“...Okay,” Deku sniffled. “Okay, Kacchan. Just… s-stay here with me, please? I don’t—” he gripped Katsuki’s shirt tighter, “—don’t want to be alone right now.”
Katsuki pretended to ponder on his answer, humming as he thread his fingers through Deku’s matted curls. Nerd needed a bath. “Fine, I’ll stay, but you owe me. No more of this, ‘crying because I don’t wanna laugh’ bullshit. And you gotta tell me what it is you’re ‘questioning’ too, got that, Deku?”
After a brief stillness, Deku nodded, and Katsuki settled in for a long night. Put some pillows behind him to ease the burden on his back, pulled up the blankets, and poked a glass of old water at Deku’s lips.
Tomorrow, they’d talk; but for now, they could just sit and let the world dissipate around them.
-
Deku groaned, rolling away from the hands grabbing at him. “Kacchan, leave me alone.”
“Fuck off with that noise, dumbshit,” Katsuki gowled, snagging the nerd’s arm. “I’m the one taking care of you, I’m in charge. And stop calling me that stupid nickname.”
“You call me Deku.”
“Because you are one, moron. Now get up or I’ll carry you my damn self.”
Deku sighed and gave up arguing but remained still, keeping his body firmly planted in his tomb of comfort. Katsuki growled in annoyance and tugged on the little shit’s ear, a move he’d learned from his gremlin of a mother.
As expected, Deku whined and followed the movement of Katsuki’s hand.
“Get up, asshole. You still have a promise to fulfill.”
“Ow ow ow, okay, I know, I’m sorry,” Deku spluttered out. He rubbed his ear when Katsuki let go and cast his eyes down at the blankets piled on his lap. His eyes flickered then to the rest of his room, taking in the unfinished food on his nightstand, the mountain of dirty clothes spilling from his laundry basket, the coat of dust settling over his desk from lack of use. “I’m sorry for making you clean up so much, Kacchan. I didn’t realize…”
“Didn’t I tell you already that I don’t need your apologies? Just do what I say for once and follow me. You’re gonna tell me what’s up with you.”
Conceding a nod, Deku did as he was told. Katsuki led them through the house down into the lobby, where a long, plush sofa took up most of the space. A large TV sat in front of it; Katsuki’s eyes had bulged when he first laid eyes on the thing, it was almost as big as the couch.
“Why’re we in here?” Deku asked as he was guided to the sofa and made to sit. “Couldn’t we just talk in my room?”
“‘Cause after you spill your guts, we’re gonna watch a damn movie.”
“We-We’re still doing that?!”
“You think I’d go back on my word?!”
“No! I just—”
“—Shut up, nevermind that. Tell me what your deal is.”
Deku quieted obediently, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. His adams apple bobbed and Katsuki noted the way his eyes kept flitting about, never staying in one place for too long.
It was quiet for a while, the air tense and stagnant in that huge, spiritless room, and he, thinking the nerd had chickened out, was about to speak up again. But then Deku’s mouth opened and his first words broke the silence.
“I...wanted to be a doctor as a child, just like I assume you did.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened. Out of all the things he’d expected to hear, Deku revealing his childhood dream of being a doctor was not one of them.
“I worked so hard. But nobody believed in me, not one single soul. My mom believed in my spirit, and told me I could’ve been a great doctor, if only we had more money. I know that sounds funny now, but we didn’t gain this fortune until after…” Deku shook his head, exhaling deeply. “That’s… that’s for later. Anyway, I kept chasing my dream. Even though all my classmates told me I was stupid and worthless, even though my father only ever acknowledged me with distracted hums, even though Mom looked at me everyday with those sad eyes.
“I had notebooks filled with my own notes and research. I studied everyday, as much as I could, desperately attempting to piece together this… this silly daydream of mine, like it was actually within my reach.” Deku chuckled, the sound wet with tears already shed, and Katsuki’s heart clenched in his chest. He scowled, leaning a little closer on the couch in a paltry attempt to offer some comfort. “I got picked on for it, of course. My classmates would steal my notebooks, burn them, throw them out of the windows. They hit me, too. I was so scared of them, Kacchan. I would hide in the lockers and under desks for hours because I was so terrified of them jumping me on my way home.”
Katsuki gulped, thinking back to his own school days. He hated to think he probably would’ve been just like one of those bullies, had he known Deku at the time. Always pushing and shoving, breaking and tearing down on his savage sprint to victory.
“But one day, my mom passed out on the couch. She’d started complaining about a stomachache a few minutes before, told me she felt dizzy; she puked before she collapsed, all over the table, the carpet, the sofa, and I— I didn’t know what was happening. I called an ambulance and held her hand the whole time, but I knew, before the paramedics had even gotten there, that… that she was gone.
“Five minutes. She died in five minutes, to an aneurysm.” A choked gurgle emanated from Deku’s throat. “And I was right there. I was right there and yet I could do nothing to save her.”
He pulled his lip between his teeth, trying his hardest to hold back the tears. The grief looked wrong on his naturally jovial features, and for once in his life, Katsuki found himself wishing he could ease the burden, even if it meant shouldering it himself.
“I knew then that my dreams were pointless. I’m completely, utterly useless.” He shrugged, a sad smile on his face. “Dad used her life insurance to start a company and gained tremendous wealth. We moved into this big, fancy, empty mansion, and I’ve spent all my days since just watching the world pass me by, just thinking. I was trying to find some purpose, some reason for me to stay, and I always came up empty handed. Then, I got into that accident and I decided… I was ready to go. I’m not needed here.”
The worlds settled in the ensuing silence and Katsuki couldn’t help the way his jaw clenched and his teeth grit.
“Bullshit,” he said.
That elicited a real reaction, a bit of life flushing back into Deku’s dull expression and drawing that faraway gaze back to the present. “What…?”
“I said, bullshit,” he reiterated, scowl deepening. “Who the hell are you to decide whether or not you’re needed?”
Any sane, reasonable guy could tell this was a situation that needed to be handled delicately and with tact. Katsuki, however, had always been too honest, too harsh, too brash, and at times like these he just couldn’t grasp that sensibility everyone around him seemed to have. It was a nasty quality, one that’d helped destroy many people; maybe this time, this once, it would be a quality that could save.
Too shocked to reply, Deku’s mouth simply hung open, eyes wide and confused. But his eyes were on Katsuki, not staring off into space or at the slate-shaded carpet, and he was listening. That was all that really mattered.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say I know what it’s like to lose a parent, or what it’s like to have people constantly doubting you. I was a prodigy child — straight As in all my classes, a champion on the field and a natural at any extracurricular I tried. Plus, my parents were loaded at the time. I had everything.
“But then my mom lost her job, we lost all our money, and all the other extras who worshipped the ground I walked on were eventually chased off by my shitty attitude. If you think I act like a child now, you should’ve seen me back then. I didn’t care who I knocked down on my path if it meant I’d reach victory faster.” He sighed, wincing as he set his pride aside. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this — I’ll kill you, nerd — but there was a time I doubted I could do it. Others kept surpassing me, and I wondered if I was good enough. If, all that time, all that confidence was just a front. If all that bullshit about being the best was just some petty lie I kept telling myself.
“And maybe it was, but I knew I wasn’t useless. You’re only useless if you’re dead, and you’re not dead yet. So don’t spout that shit at me. You’ve got the funds to do it, and you’d be a good doctor with that bleeding heart of yours. Not as good as me, but you could probably get almost close. You’d be better than all the other dumbasses I work with, at least.”
A tinkle of laughter broke the tension as soon as those last words left his mouth, and Katsuki found himself smirking as he looked across the couch at Deku. His eyes were teary and shining and his lip still wobbled the slightest bit, but he was smiling, genuinely, and the giggles escaping him were mirthful.
He rubbed pathetically at his eyes as he laughed and hiccuped, attempting to wipe away the tears now streaking down his face in all directions. “S-Sorry, I just—” a hiccup, “—really needed to hear that. I needed to h-hear it from you.”
“The hell does that mean?” Katsuki asked, grabbing his sobbing companion by the back of his neck and guiding him downward. Deku looked a little surprised when he realized his trajectory, but said nothing as his head was laid in Katsuki’s lap and instead got comfortable.
“You make me feel like I want to smile, even when you’re being ridiculous.” He sniffled and rubbed at his nose, looking up at Katsuki with pink cheeks and a small smile.
Katsuki grabbed one of the nearby couch pillows and smothered Deku’s face in it.
“Shut up, idiot nerd,” he growled.
“Sorry, sorry!” Deku replied, his apologies muffled by the pillow on his head. Katsuki grunted and, a tad reluctantly, removed it for him, allowing him to speak properly again. Curling up a bit as he leaned his head on Katsuki’s thigh, he sighed.
“I… a big part of me still really wants to disappear, Kacchan. It feels like, as I’ve grown older, I’ve also grown more afraid. I’m scared of everything. Scared to try, to fail, to step foot outside this awful mansion and face people again. I’m not sure what to do. How to keep living.” The admission was quiet, whispered remorsefully into the fabric of Katsuki’s sweatpants. It felt almost like a failure to Katsuki, who frowned and dug his fingers into wild green hair.
“Tsk. Just follow me, nerd. You won’t fall with me here, even as clumsy as you are.”
Deku glanced back at him, seemingly coming to a decision. It only took a moment, his body sagging completely into him, the tension draining from his features.
“Okay, Kacchan. I’ll follow you.”
---
Deku was more compliant in the weeks following — swallowing his complaints when Katsuki yanked him from his bed to practice on his crutches, allowing himself to be dragged down the hall to eat at the table like a normal person or pulled to the couch to watch some old superhero movies they’d found a common interest in.
“Only for Kacchan,” he’d grumble, an adorable sulking look on his face, and Katsuki would pinch his cheek, tell him to stop making such an expression.
They’d tried playing games and even painting together, once. It was tiring, putting so much effort into making Deku do things and attempting to encourage him to keep going, keep trying, but he couldn’t deny there was a part of him that liked it. Really liked it. He never particularly enjoyed going out of his comfort zone, but doing it with Deku, making contests out of the littlest things; it lit a fire in him.
For whatever reason, Deku’s presence alone seemed to spur him on, and based on the fair share of challenges Deku himself issued, Katsuki would say the same was true for him too.
His lips twitched upward against his will, curling at the corners in a self-satisfied smirk as he watched Deku beam at him from the stove. He was holding out a pan, dipped down slightly so Katsuki could see the slightly burnt but in-tact omelette he’d made. It was the first one he’d made successfully — the result of his training with Katsuki, of course. The idiot hadn’t even known how to butter the pan when they first started.
“I did it, Kacchan!”
“About damn time, nerd.”
“At least congratulate me!”
Deku pouted at him and his shoulders drooped; a fatal mistake at the expense of his precious omelette, which slipped from the pan and plopped sadly to the floor. Deku noticed just a little too late, watching with a shell-shocked expression as it landed pitifully at his feet.
Silence. And then booming laughter as Katsuki threw his head back, gripping his stomach with one hand and banging the table with the other for extra emphasis. Deku tried to look offended, but couldn’t keep up the charade, and soon enough he was laughing too, pointing at Katsuki’s face as he wheezed.
Of course, it wasn’t always like that. A couple times, Katsuki had walked in on Deku crying, or staring out the window like he used to, with those muddy eyes and ghost-like complexion. He’d witnessed Deku at his weakest, times he struggled just to take his socks off or lift his head from his pillow.
Sometimes, during these shitty spells of his, Deku would seek him out. He’d woken Katsuki in the dead of night once, looking like a child cocooned in his thick comforter, tears and snot dribbling down his face.
Katsuki had let him lay with him, but only after telling him how ugly he looked. And, to Katsuki’s satisfaction, had gotten a laugh out of him with that, even if it broke into a sob a second later.
His last week there was spent comforting him more than really helping him. Deku could get around with or without his crutches, even if he tended to hobble a bit with the pain in his hip. It was only his mental state that remained broken.
“Kacchan,” Deku called quietly from Katsuki’s doorway. Katsuki was bent over, folding his freshly washed laundry into neat little squares to be tucked into his open suitcase, which was black with an orange ‘X’ on the front. It had originally been an ugly shit-brown, but he and Deku had spent three evenings together painting over it. The design had been Katsuki’s idea, of course.
Katsuki grunted at Deku questioningly, though he had a feeling he knew what was about to be said. He’d been thinking about it a lot over the weeks, too.
“You’re… leaving today, huh?” Deku said and chuckled, but the sound lacked much joy. He shuffled where he stood, hands wringing the hem of his shirt like he did when he was nervous.
“Yeah.”
“I… I see.” Nodding, Deku turned to leave, but stopped himself. He seemed to be debating with himself about something, and instead of stepping in, Katsuki sat back and watched. As much as he tried, he could never get the selfless idiot to just ask for what he wanted; if that was what was about to happen, he’d damn well let it.
“K-Kacchan, do you think—” he whirled back around to face him, but swallowed the rest of the sentence. Katsuki crossed his arms over his chest, smirking, and raised an eyebrow at him.
“Do I think what, Deku?”
“You’re smirking at me! You already know!”
“I don’t know shit, nerd. Spit it out.”
“But how do I even ask something like this…?” Deku’s hands tightened around his shirt, scrunching the fabric and pulling it taut over his chest. Katsuki’s eyes flitted down briefly, and based off the flush spreading up Deku’s neck, the nerd had caught it.
“With words, idiot. Say it.”
“I, um… I…” he stuttered, his breaths coming out a bit uneven before he found the wherewithal to close his eyes and calm himself down. “I d-don’t want you to go! Or, I want to stay with you! I mean! Can I have your number?!”
Katsuki’s head lolled back as he barked out a laugh. Deku shouted, ‘Hey!’ but was smiling regardless.
“I just—I’m gonna miss you, and I know you’ve helped me out so much already, and you’re probably tired of being around me all the time, and I’m probably being selfish asking this, but I feel a little better when I’m around you, and when you’re gone it’s just so much harder to get up and I know that probably sounds so needy but—”
“Oh my god, nerd, shut the fuck up,” Katsuki groaned, his laughs having quieted down over Deku’s little spiel. “I already knew you were needy as shit. I was going to ask you to move in with me anyway.”
Deku’s jaw dropped. “M-Move in?!”
“Yeah?” Katsuki scowled. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Well, y-yes, I suppose, I just didn’t expect you to say yes.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not just gonna leave a suicidal guy here in some probably-haunted mansion alone with his asshole dad. You need to be somewhere you’re not gonna be alone all the time, and after I get my paycheck, I’ll have plenty of money to support the both of us. Plus,” he stood, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep himself from acting prematurely. “I like you.”
Eyes widening, freckles disappearing beneath the rapidly spreading scarlet, Deku stared at him in shock. “What?! Really?! But— But Kacchan is so cool! And funny, and talented, and confident, and I’m just—”
“How many times do I have to tell you to shut up, nerd? You’re not ‘just’ anything. You’re Deku. Be proud of it.”
Predictably, Deku teared up, and Katsuki rolled his eyes, standing up to make his way over to him. He swept the tears away as they fell, cupping his cheeks. “So whaddya say, nerd?”
“Of course I like Kacchan too!”
Katsuki smirked victoriously and wasted no time in claiming his prize, tugging Deku’s face up to meet his. Deku gripped tightly to his arms as he melted against him, his hot breath hitting the side of Katsuki’s face as he breathed out through his nose. Katsuki kept him there for a good minute, snaking an arm around his waist, testing his boundaries with swipes of his tongue.
When they pulled away, Katsuki was a little surprised to see a mischievous look on Deku’s face.
“I don’t think nurses are supposed to offer these kinds of services, Kacchan.”
“Hah? You complainin’, shithead?” Katsuki snarled, leaning back in to bite down on a supple, freckled cheek. Deku squealed and laughed, writhing in his arms.
“Owsch! Kasshan!” he whined, and Katsuki pulled away only to shove him towards the door with a pat on his ass, at which Deku squeaked.
“Go pack up.”
“Can you help me?” he asked, turning those big eyes on him. “I’m terrible at packing.”
“I’m not your damn maid!” he screeched, only to end up following after him anyway, watching Deku’s face as he giggled.
But whatever. Nurse, maid, therapist, boyfriend; Katsuki supposed he didn’t mind being anything Deku needed, so long as he kept laughing.
“You’re the greatest,” Deku said, smiling, and yeah. Katsuki was inclined to agree.