Chapter Text
Lying in the forest, eyes turned up toward the snowfall, Katsuki wondered when he’d die.
There was talk of dragons living hundreds, maybe thousands of years, but Katsuki had only lived five in this form, and he felt nauseous at the thought of another day. He buried his snout under an outstretched wing and tried to ignore the icy wind sending shivers down his scaly body.
He should’ve moved South for the winter. At least there, the sun would warm him.
His home was just miles away, the little village with its small cottages and smoking chimneys. Leaving felt like forfeiting his rights as a human.
And submitting to the beast.
But even then, he had trouble staying lucid. Katsuki wasn’t meant to be a monster; he didn’t know how to hunt, to care for his body the way a dragon would. He starved more times than not, and there were still times he did not sleep, afraid that the cold and the hunger would make it so that when he closed his eyes, he would not wake up.
In this state, he lost clarity. He’d see grazing deer that did not exist or watch worms sprout from between the flanks of his scales, eating his flesh.
The illusions terrified him more when they started taking the form of people he once knew. Lying in the forest clearing, buried under snow and pine needles, Katsuki blinked slitted eyes and found a man at the treeline, dressed head to toe in warm furs. His hair was wild beneath his ear muffs, green curls blending in with evergreens.
Katsuki had only known one person in his life with curly green hair. The more he stared at the stranger, the more he started to look like Izuku Midoriya, once the village punching bag, standing frigid in the winter scape.
Katsuki huffed, smoke rising from his nostrils. The man’s eyes went wide, and he took a hesitant step backward and stepped on a branch. The loud snap made him go still once more, but made Katsuki finally take stock of the sight before him.
Because his hallucinations never made a sound before.
He lifted his large head off the floor and tilted it curiously.
The adventurer said, “Easy, boy… I’ll, er, just be going now.”
He sounded like Izuku.
But that didn’t make any sense, right? There was no reason for a human to be wandering this far into the woods. Especially not Izuku Midoriya, whose exodus from the village to a bigger, better encampment had happened years ago.
Except, when Katsuki put his head back down and closed his eyes, focused on forgetting how terribly this apparition was toying with his head, he felt a hand on his snout.
A warm hand.
The hand that, growing up, always wanted to hold his.
Katsuki pried an eye open, heart sinking when he saw the strange man just before him with a wide smile on his face. It was real.
There was a warm hand, gloved in furs, touching him tenderly. There was a smile brighter than the reflection of sun on snow staring up at him.
Izuku Midoriya had found him.
Katsuki lifted himself up on his feet then, and the sudden movement made Izuku startle back. He fell ass first into the snow, gawking as Katsuki rose to full size. And then Izuku was shuffling back, trying so hard to escape the nasty beast before him.
The thought of Izuku running from him, of losing this fleeting link to the world he’d been forced to leave, made him do something unforgivable.
He rolled onto his back, baring his stomach in a show of submission.
Izuku Midoriya froze.
Katsuki did nothing for a long time, not wanting to give the man a reason to run.
And then Izuku let out a breathy laugh. “I take it you’re a… friendly dragon?”
Katsuki puffed smoke into the clearing, and Izuku laughed again. Rising to his feet, Izuku Midoriya brushed the snow off his legs and said, “Can’t say I’ve met one of those before.”
You’ve met me , Katsuki thought. We used to play together. You’d tell me I was amazing, and I’d- I… I would tell you you were nothing without me.
Where did that memory come from? Katsuki had thought nothing so bitter in years; he hadn’t remembered drawing pictures in the dirt streets with sticks or nicking sweets from the shop stalls with a grubby-faced Izuku until this moment.
They’d been such good friends.
How had he let all those memories fade?
“Well,” Izuku huffed, breath coming out in white clouds. “I can’t tell you how fascinating this is. I study alchemy, you know? There are a lot of special properties that come from dragons. They’re really vital in transmutations.”
Katsuki rolled back onto his stomach, shaking his head. Fire flew from his nostrils, and Izuku jumped back with his hands up. “Okay, okay! I won’t talk about, er, using dragon parts and stuff.” He rubbed at his scalp, muttering like he always used to. “Man, how am I fucking up talking to a dragon?”
Katsuki smiled internally. You were never good at making friends.
“Alright, well, I guess I should get going.”
What? No!
Izuku made to leave the clearing, and Katsuki lurched forward to grab the hood of his jacket in his teeth. Izuku squawked, flailing his arms as he floundered. Katsuki had a good two minutes before the weight of Izuku’s dangling body ripped the seams of his hood, and Izuku fell to the forest floor and bolted for the treeline.
In those two minutes, he decided that he couldn’t let Izuku go. At least, not yet. Izuku had stumbled upon him when not a soul had found the slumbering dragon in the full five years he’d been cursed with this body.
That was fate.
Besides, Izuku brought back memories—memories that had been slowly slipping away over the past some odd months without human contact, without a soul to remind him he wasn’t an animal. He was a person; he had feelings; he had a life.
Katsuki threw Izuku’s floundering body onto his back and trudged towards the treeline. He half expected Izuku to fight, to slip off his hide and make a run for it.
But he didn’t.
Small finger curled against Katsuki’s scales, and Izuku asked, “So, you’re coming with me.”
Left with only one real gesture to signal agreement or aggravation, Katsuki huffed. Smoke rose from his nostrils—no fire this time—and Izuku seemed to take that as an affirmation. “Okay! Well, we have to go the other way, you know? I’m headed to Hagi Village.”
Hagi.
Home.
Katsuki turned in the direction of the small village with window boxes on every cottage and rolling hills that filled with pastel flowers every spring. He didn’t need Izuku muttering directions from atop his back. He knew which direction Hagi lied every time he moved to a new area of the forest. You could follow that North Star to Hagi, because the North Star always pointed you towards home.
Katsuki was going home.
Nights in the forest were full of bizarre creatures and strange sounds.
Katsuki had no fear of them. The wendigos, the wolves, and the wild things were so much smaller than him. And even if they did approach, a fiery breath or the flap of his wings took the danger away. No, Katsuki wasn’t afraid.
But Izuku was.
The fire glowed between the trees, making the evergreens grow suspicious shadows. It was plenty warm for a human, roaring high and flicking embers, but Izuku somehow found Katsuki warmer. He found himself a spot in the crook of Katsuki’s neck, just beside his ear. Katsuki could just make him out of the corner of his eye.
Izuku was wrapped in a thick woolen blanket, his cheeks a rosier red than any Holly Berry. The rise and fall of his shoulders with every breath was a calming presence for Katsuki, new to contact this extreme in the years since he’d left Hagi.
“I’m excited,” Izuku muttered, staring at the fire. Katsuki couldn’t answer, but he wouldn’t even if he could. Izuku’s voice was distant, like he was thinking of something somber. “I haven’t been to Hagi in nearly six years.
“See,” He started. “My mother thought it would be better to move to a bigger village. There are better opportunities there, more academics. I’ve never been too, er, athletic, and I could get an apprenticeship with a scholar in the city. Besides, it was nicer there. People weren’t-” Izuku gulped. “People weren’t mean.”
If Katsuki had been human, he would have bitten his lip and averted his gaze. He had to settle for flicking his tail in a show of discomfort.
Izuku didn’t notice.
“Of course, she was just looking out for me, y’know?” Izuku shook his head. “Still, I don’t think she understood Kacchan.” His name.
That was his name.
Not just Katsuki, but Kacchan.
The nickname pulled at long forgotten memories—a toothy smile angled up at him, a cry for help when Izuku, when Deku, had been stranded on a rock in the middle of a stream.
Katsuki’s body grew hotter, and Izuku seemed to sense that. He snuggled in, tucking his head in the crook of Katsuki’s jaw. “I think you’d like him. He was always kinda like a dragon,” Izuku laughed. “So strong and fiery.”
Katsuki clenched his jaw.
Izuku said, “D’you wanna know something embarrassing?”
Of course, Katsuki thought not just because Izuku was the first person to approach him in five long years, but because Katsuki wanted to know more about the sorta-friend who’d left town when he was still a child. He wanted to know what wonderful life that little freckled dumbass had without him.
Was that masochistic? Probably.
Still, Katsuki strained to hear a human voice.
“While I was with my mom in Musutafu, I studied alchemy and learned to fight and- and did all this cool stuff, but the entire time, all I could think about was how I couldn’t wait to go back to Hagi and tell Kacchan.” Then, voice impossibly low as if to mask the sincerity of the statement, he added, “I hoped he’d be proud of me.”
Proud of him, he said.
Katsuki tasted something bitter, and it wasn’t the deer meat caught in his molars. Something painful jabbed at his heart, and a sensation of dread washed over him. He dropped his head to the snowy forest floor and puffed smoke.
A distant memory, foggy in its makeup, came to him. More teasing, more tears in Izuku’s eyes. A wrinkled hand and a sharp voice. Katsuki didn’t know how they were linked, but they sat there in his head like an invisible splinter.
He should have been nicer; he should have given Izuku fonder memories.
Because when he went to Hagi, Katsuki wouldn’t be there. Katsuki would be in the forest, alone again, mourning the smallest dose of human affection he had had in forever.
Katsuki hoped they never made it to Hagi.
By foot, the journey to Hagi took six days. By sky, Katsuki could finish the trip in six hours at most, but that would mean Izuku would leave so much sooner. Besides, it was hard for Katsuki to wiggle through closely grown trees, and that just added more time to the journey.
Izuku grumbled about it, of course.
Katsuki didn’t; With the extra time, maybe he could get Izuku to recognize him. If he did, maybe Izuku would stay.
Maybe he’d have a friend.
Originally, Katsuki’s idea had been to spell his name out in the snow. A cleanly scribbled ‘ I am Katsuki’ would have done the trick.
Except Katsuki was bulky in this form and the forest trails were small. There were few clearings big enough for him to write in the snow, and even when he did, he had to use his tail.
Tails, he learned, were not made to be effective writing tools.
“Hey, stop playing!” Izuku had laughed. He wrapped a ring of hellebore around Katsuki’s horns, then scratched his chin. Disgruntled and defeated, Katsuki returned to the drawing board.
His second idea and fifth overall attempt was to simply stare Izuku in the eye. Red eyes weren’t that common. If Izuku really was the intelligent alchemist’s apprentice he claimed to be, then surely he’d recognize the eyes of his old friend.
Much to Katsuki’s chagrin, though, Izuku had thought he needed help getting something out of his eye and gave him no deeper consideration. The days waned on, and a steadily growing anxiety took root in Katsuki’s oversized heart. Only two days from the village, Katsuki began to really worry that this was it.
He would be alone again, descending into an animal state where he could no longer hold on to his hazy memories of human life.
In a last ditch effort, he started shoving his snout against Izuku’s back as they walked. Perhaps a physical collision would knock some sense into him. But that, like every other attempt, failed miserably. Izuku just called him pushy, climbed begrudgingly onto his back and huffed, “Then carry me if you’re gonna be a big baby.”
Katsuki could have sat and refused to move. He could have thrown him from his back and smacked him against a tree—an injured Izuku couldn’t make it to Hagi, could he? Katsuki would get to take care of him; He’d get to keep his human companion a little while longer, giving himself a sense of community and Izuku a longer period of blissful ignorance.
But Izuku couldn’t wait to get to Hagi, could he?
And as he curled his little fingers around Katsuki’s scales, Katsuki crumbled.
He couldn’t hold Izuku off from the inevitable. He would leave and Katsuki would be alone once more. That was fine, he told himself, trying desperately to accept it. Katsuki closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, then took off toward Hagi.
Izuku’s goodbye lacked the emotional depth that Katsuki wanted it to have.
Naturally, he knew that Izuku was saying goodbye to an animal he’d met only days prior. But Katsuki, it was saying goodbye to the only link to his home that he’d had in the last five years. To Katsuki, it was saying goodbye to the warmest hands and softest smile he’d felt in eons.
They stood just behind the perimeter of Hagi’s forest. While it was purely logical to keep Katsuki hidden to avoid a scene, Katsuki yearned to see the smoking chimneys and the snow-topped thatch roofs of his long abandoned home.
He looked up past the trees at a plume of smoke in the distance, and only bowed his head when Izuku whispered, “Hey.”
Katsuki looked at his little adventurer.
Izuku’s cheeks were rosy, his stance excited. His hands were fisted at his sides; he bounced on the balls of his feet. Katsuki hated that he knew the disappointment this would lead to.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Izuku told him, reaching up a hand to rub his snout. Katsuki leaned into it, savoring the last bit of warmth he’d get in who knew how long. When Izuku pulled away, Katsuki chased after his fingers.
It was too late, though.
Izuku started backing away, eyes drifting to the treeline. “I wish you could come with me. I bet Kacchan would think it’s impressive that I’d befriended a dragon. I don’t want to spook people, though.”
Right. Of course not.
“Maybe I’ll see you again, hm? I’ll be in this town for a little while, and I always need things from the forest in my alchemy! Will you stick around?”
Anything for you.
With a puff of smoke from flared nostrils, Katsuki hoped that his sentiments were heard. He descended to the forest floor, getting comfortable in the snow to show his desire to remain sedentary.
Izuku smiled, nodding to himself. “Okay, awesome! Here I go!”
And then he turned his back on Katsuki without a second thought and drifted towards the treeline. Katsuki watched him go, savoring every second that he was still in view.
Those seconds, though, were limited. In just a short time, Izuku disappeared between tall trees of birch and evergreen.
And Katsuki was left alone.
But he woke from sleep to the far off call of Izuku’s voice. The words were hard to make out, harsh winter winds carrying them off. He thought he heard ‘dragon’, and thought this would have been so much easier if Izuku had been smart enough to recognize him, to use his name.
It wasn’t long, though, until screams were replaced by the dark figure of a person in the distance. The silhouette grew quickly, and Katsuki rose to his feet to meet them.
At first, he was rigid.
Just because he had heard Izuku’s voice, it didn’t mean this was him, shrouded in the dark of night.
But Izuku came running to him quickly, and Katsuki only just registered him before arms were wrapped around one of his legs, squeezing as hard as a human could squeeze. His body shook, and wet gasps mixed with the wind breezing through the trees.
Katsuki would ask What’s wrong, but he didn’t have a tongue that could speak. He bent his long neck and tucked his chin in, pressing his snout to the curly top of Izuku’s head.
“H-He’s gone,” Izuku rattled. “No one has seen him in years. Kacchan’s dead.”
Katsuki stiffened; Izuku clutched him tighter.
Katsuki had known this was coming; he had known that Izuku would discover his disappearance, and the world would come crashing down. He just hadn’t expected that the arms—or wings, rather—that Izuku came crawling into for comfort would be his.
It felt good, being wanted like this.
But that feeling was ruined by wracking sobs and Katsuki, confused and desperate to provide answers, could do nothing.
So, for now, he wrapped his wings around his little traveler and guided him to sleep.