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Katsuki confesses in all of his dreams.
In this one, tonight, trailing a pace or two behind Deku on the walk back to his place, it’ll be no different.
Katsuki squints ahead of him, and he doesn’t really remember how the dream started. It was dim, and quiet, in the way quiet is when it’s made of nothing but noise.
Deku had been there, as he always was. Pressed in next to him at some booth, mouth drawing close to Katsuki’s ear whenever he needed to speak. There was some gross taste in Katsuki’s mouth he attributes to whatever mystery drink his brain conjured, and Deku had been laughing.
He’d smelled good. Like soap, and mint. Katsuki doesn’t think he’d had a single drink all night, which wasn’t all that unusual, for him.
It’s unusual that Katsuki was. But — dreams are funny.
Katsuki attempts to kick a stray rock in his path, then stumbles as his vision swims in front of his eyes. It makes his stomach swoop, and he misses. Deku reaches back to mumble something that sounds like it travels through water, and Katsuki lets him grab his hand, because what are dreams for, if not to indulge secrets?
Secrets like — he craves this. Deku’s scarred fingers threaded through his own. His grip sure, and fueled by hard-earned strength. They’d hold hands like this as kids, sometimes, only Katsuki was in front and Deku was in the back and it was Deku, then, who’d come tumbling after.
They do now, still, in bursts — but not like this.
He’s warm. The feeling is surprisingly real, so Katsuki picks his pace up just enough to lay down his other palm.
Just to check. Just to see if it feels different on the other side. It makes Deku pause, but only for a second, and he doesn’t look at Katsuki. Only their joined fingers, then the street in front of them.
If Katsuki could see better, he’d make him stop walking. Make him hold still, and try to see if his dreams get Deku’s freckles right.
“We’re almost, there, Kacchan,” Deku says quietly, the first sound to come through in ages. Katsuki squeezes around his knuckles until he winces, just to flesh out more sensation, sans apology. Deku flicks his eyes his way, finally, and asks, “How are you feeling?”
The question is stupid. Katsuki doesn’t sleep so he can be interrogated, and he’s half tempted to say as much. But sometimes acknowledging his dreams breaks him out of them, and this Deku has to be the prettiest one by far. His features are sharp, clear against a blended backdrop. He’s never felt as warm, or as sturdy.
In his blurrier dreams, Deku slips through his fingers like smoke.
Deku’s still waiting, and they’re still walking. The ground sways unkindly underneath Katsuki’s feet, but he keeps him firmly upright. There’s an earnest look on his face that always messes up Katsuki’s insides, so Katsuki settles on honesty, and says, “Drunk.”
It’s as much truth as he’s willing to unhand. For whatever reason, it makes Deku laugh. Tinted with surprise, eyes crinkled at the corners, like Katsuki had made some private joke. The sound lifts the whole world a few inches, before it drops back down.
Katsuki goes woozy from the force, and tips a little closer to it, Deku’s body the only thing left unmoving.
He kisses him there, under the streetlights. It’s as fitting a place as any, when Deku’s face is pinkened and alive and his mouth looks red and soft.
He kisses him, and feels Deku’s entire body freeze. This happens, sometimes, before Deku might kiss him back — where his dream-state will still, and nobody moves an inch. Then Deku breathes in, and Katsuki feels his entire body melt. Sometimes he keeps on melting, and Katsuki’s left alone, and cold.
This Deku doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a relief, because Katsuki doesn’t feel quite right. Deku grasps two hands at Katsuki’s shoulders, shaking from the force of his surprise, and his mouth is so warm, Katsuki thinks he might dissolve over the concrete.
When the sidewalk tries to pull out from under his feet, Deku catches him.
“Woah – hey,” Deku says, and Katsuki isn’t supporting his own weight anymore. His mouth tingles distantly, and some strange light ebbs in, and out in front of his eyes.
The warmth of Deku’s hand is different at his back, he thinks, more concentrated. Heat twists around Katsuki’s entire torso, and Katsuki knows already he can’t walk anymore –
So he doesn’t protest, when the world tilts.
“It’s okay.”
Deku’s chest is soft, and runs hotter than his hands. Katsuki’s thinks whole body might be full of cotton. He tips his ear into his shoulder, settles his palm in the center of him, and Deku’s heart thuds an uneven pace, beneath his shirt.
“We’re already here,” Deku assures him, and Katsuki hears the clink of metal he assumes to be keys on a ring.
The world moves way too much for Katsuki’s stomach, so he closes his eyes.
He makes out the slide of a key into a lock, then a click. It’s darker inside, wherever Deku’s taking him, compared to sitting under the streetlights, and Katsuki’s grateful because it means less to focus on.
Less of anything that isn’t Deku’s body, solid against his. Anything beyond his breathing, uneven in thought, rather than effort.
Deku moves slowly and carefully. Katsuki tips his nose a little more into his shoulder, and under his touch, his pulse thumps.
It’s strange that the dream continues after Katsuki’s already kissed him. That’s usually around the time Katsuki’s chest swells with pride, in himself, for ending a decade-long streak of cowardice. It likes to build him up, just to fit its hands in him, and tear him all the way back down.
There must be more tonight.
There’s the creak of a door on its hinge, and Katsuki knows it’s his bedroom for its familiarity. His dreams are usually somewhere else, somewhere strange, somewhere Katsuki could never revisit.
It’s edging towards cruel, for this one to lead him here.
Deku shifts him, in his arms. Gravity shifts, too, and Katsuki feels the cool press of his own sheets in sharp contrast to his palms. Katsuki moves on autopilot to twist his fingers into Deku’s shirt, and thinks, this is the part where I do it.
“I love you, you know,” he says, and — there, that makes more sense. The entire dream freezes. Deku’s breathing, all the white noise, Deku’s entire body. It just stops.
“I love you,” Katsuki repeats, the shape of the words perfect in practice, and in his ears, the words slur. “That’s why I did it.”
Done.
In stages, the dream restarts. There’s a caught breath, and the shift of a mattress. Deku’s body catches up with itself, and when he breathes out again, Katsuki lets go.
He doesn’t wait to hear the words said back. In Katsuki’s dreams, Deku never does.
Katsuki smiles to himself, and finally opens his eyes.
He doesn’t think it’s ever been this satisfying. His perfect ending.
Maybe now, the dreams will stop.
Deku’s got one knee pressed into the mattress, and Katsuki always knows his eyes will blow wide. Wide, and watery, and shell-shocked — this is who Deku is, when he’s surprised by something.
He’s said I know before, in Katsuki’s dreams – but it’s never any fun, that way. Only succeeds in hurting Katsuki’s feelings — an ache so much, so intense, Katsuki wakes up.
Tonight, when Deku speaks to him, his voice shakes.
“I’ll be on the couch,” he says haltingly, and shifts back on that knee. When he isn’t so close, his face grows dark, shadowed. “I’ll stay here tonight, so – when you need to yell at me in the morning, you can find me.”
Which won’t happen, because the dream will end first. Katsuki’s reached the last stage, once more, one of countless tries. “‘Kay,” he says back anyway, to satisfy him.
The bed creaks as Deku leaves.
He moves too slowly, across the room, too unsteady. He’s larger than life, in most ways, and through Katsuki’s eyes especially — but in the dark, like this, he looks small.
Moments like this, Katsuki remembers that he is. Deku’s hand hovers by the edge of the doorframe, and he pauses. “Come find me, if you need anything. I won’t go anywhere.”
The door clicks shut.
And heavily, the silence settles.
Over his skin — down to his bones. It’s strange, the weight that clings to Katsuki’s body. His own solidity, when this is usually the point where he floats away.
The dream is growing darker around the edges, slowly. He doesn’t remember them ever ending this way — with quiet, with some satisfying conclusion. Usually they shake loose at the height of things, leave him rattled, heart racing, some thick, heavy admittance on the tip of his tongue.
This is different. Quietly, Katsuki hopes it might mean the end of his torment.
He sleeps — wakes to a pounding head.