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Katsuki has been sneaking out of the castle weekly for months.
As far as Izuku could tell, nobody else had noticed these late-night trips besides him; perhaps it was a testament to Izuku being so dedicated to the task of watching over Katsuki as his personal guard, or the prince just that good at slipping out of the bounds of castle.
The only thing keeping Izuku from going straight to the king and queen about this was that Katsuki has always returned to the castle intact. Never injured, never sick, only slightly tired the next morning due to whatever he was doing encroaching on his usually strict sleep schedule, but he was able to mask it behind his usual grumpy facade. Izuku knew Katsuki well enough to know the squinty eyes were from not enough sleep rather than anger, however.
He was still curious about what he could be doing to have him leave so often. Even if Katsuki seemed fine now, what if that changed in the future? What if he went out one night and never returned? His parents would have Izuku’s head for sure, but more than that, concern for Katsuki’s safety gnawed at his insides.
Izuku had night shifts on the nights that Katsuki usually snuck out, and he was always gone by the time Izuku arrived to his post, meaning he left during the guard change. So on the night he suspected Katsuki would leave next, Izuku arrived early, hiding in a dark alcove down the hall from Katsuki’s room. Minutes later he heard the previous knight walk away, the man passing Izuku’s hiding spot without noticing him. Not much later Katsuki’s bedroom door creaked open and quietly shut, and a figure hidden under a dark hooded cloak rushed past. Izuku waited a beat before silently following after him.
Katsuki must have had a system down with how many times he’s snuck out, because he didn’t run into a single person as he navigated through the castle, taking the servant’s passageway to the ground level, then slipping out into the night through the side entrance leading into the gardens. Izuku clung to the shadows as Katsuki walked between the rows of flowers, trees, and statues, until he reached the hedges surrounding the outer edge of the gardens. Red eyes glanced back up at the castle, missing Izuku hiding behind a topiary lion nearby. His palms then crackled, small explosions lighting up the darkness, before he blasted himself over the hedge, his cloak fluttering behind him as he landed on the other side.
“Shoot!” Izuku scrambled to follow, resorting to climbing the hedge since he didn’t have any magic to get himself over. By the time he reached the top, Katsuki was already a good distance away, heading down the hill the castle sat on toward the treeline of the forest nearby. Izuku fell off the hedge (definitely not as gracefully as Katsuki had) to the ground on the other side and hurried to catch up.
The next half hour was spent weaving through the trees after Katsuki, doing his best to avoid dead leaves and broken twigs scattered on the forest floor. He must have been doing a good job, because Katsuki didn’t look back once, continuing forward on the path only he could see.
Izuku couldn’t see the lights of the castle or the lower town when he glanced back the way they’d come. How much farther would Katsuki take them? The moon had been close to its peak when they left the castle grounds; any farther and they might not make it back to the castle until near dawn.
His question was answered not much later, when the trees opened up to a clearing with a small lake in the center, the surface reflecting the full moon above. Izuku hung back at the edge of the trees while Katsuki continued forward to the lake’s edge. He kneeled, the water rippling as he dipped his cupped hands into it to take a drink. Once he’d had his fill, he sat back to sit on the shore, pushing back the hood covering his hair, his shoulders sagging in an inaudible sigh. And then he looked up at the sky.
Izuku frowned. Katsuki made such a long trek just to stargaze? He could admit that the clearing afforded a nice view, the trees open to reveal thousands of stars twinkling overhead, but to do it weekly? To risk his safety and being caught by more than just Izuku?
He made to step into the clearing to take Katsuki back home, but before he could make a move, a shadow passed over the clearing, accompanied by what sounded like the flap of large wings, and Izuku froze in his tracks, his hand instinctively going to his sword at his hip.
Katsuki meanwhile shot to his feet, a smile spreading on his lips as he tracked the source of the shadow and noise with his eyes. Izuku squinted into the dark sky, spotting… something , descending into the clearing. It looked like a man, but the resemblance to a human was broken by said large wings sprouting from his back, red in the moonlight, and a matching red tail.
A lot of him was red, Izuku noted as he got closer to the ground. His hair, spiked to the sky; splotches across his skin, from small flecks across his cheeks to larger spreads on his arms, shoulders, and chest, exposed from the vest he wore; and his eyes, Izuku’s heart lurching when he realized they glowed slightly in the darkness, but they weren’t menacing. The being looked excited, his gaze locked onto Katsuki, and as soon as he touched down on the ground he grabbed Katsuki in a tight hug that the prince easily returned.
Izuku watched, stunned. In all the years that he’s known Katsuki, the blond had never been particularly close with anybody besides his parents, Izuku, and his own mom; Izuku and his mom were only because they were a second family to him, Izuku and Katsuki growing up together before Izuku became his personal knight. Anybody else was kept at arm’s length, metaphorical teeth and literal explosions shown as a threat to anybody who even dared to encroach into his space.
Yet here was this stranger, reaching out to Katsuki and being let in, held close enough that they were pressed flush from shoulder to hip, their faces tucked into each other’s necks in an embrace that could only be familiar.
The hybrid stranger pulled back just enough to cup Katsuki’s face in his hands, thumbs stroking across pale cheeks and glowing eyes looking at the prince like he was something precious. And the expression on Katsuki’s face matched, the softest Izuku had ever seen him. He said something inaudible from the distance, and as if Izuku wasn’t being shocked enough that night, Katsuki tugged the stranger closer by his vest to kiss him on the lips.
And it all clicked into place, why Katsuki made these trips at the expense of his sleep, why he made them so frequently.
He was meeting with a secret lover.
Not one of royal descent, Izuku would guess due to the secrecy and the hybrid’s attire. The queen didn’t have Katsuki’s magic, but she would surely explode if she found out about this.
And Izuku was Katsuki’s knight. Along with being obligated to protect him, he was obligated to tell Katsuki’s parents about this, right?
Katsuki and the stranger broke from the kiss, their foreheads pressed together and hands staying on the other as they talked too quietly for Izuku to hear. The stranger’s smile then widened, razor sharp teeth gleaming in the moonlight as he spoke; whatever he said had Katsuki’s eyes widening before he pushed the hybrid’s face away with a small explosion, the stranger unperturbed as his laughter rang out through the clearing, deep, and warm like sitting by a campfire.
“Shut up, transform already, idiot!” Katsuki yelled, his hands still sparking, but Izuku knew they weren’t as a threat.
The stranger knew that too as he continued to laugh, even as he put more distance between them. He started to sober, then before Izuku’s eyes, the specks of red spread to coat his entire body as he grew. The leathery wings spread wider, the tail elongated as he dropped onto his hands and knees, and Izuku’s eyes got wider and wider as he got bigger, and bigger, until a dragon stood in the clearing. Moonlight reflected off of its red scales, and its head looked like it reached the nearby treetops, completely dwarfing Katsuki still standing nearby.
Katsuki for his part didn’t look scared at all, merely looking up at his lover-turned-dragon as he spread his wings wide, casting most of the clearing in shadow, before he kneeled so his head was laying on the ground near Katsuki. He walked over, climbing up the dragon to settle at the base of his neck; the dragon stood back to full height, then with a single powerful beat of his wings, he launched into the dark sky. Izuku rushed out into the clearing, watching as Katsuki was carried higher and higher until the duo was nothing more than a speck among the stars.
Izuku let himself sink to the ground then, his mind reeling to catch up to everything that had happened in the last several minutes.
Katsuki snuck out of the castle on a weekly basis to meet with a secret lover.
Said lover was also a dragon—a dragon shifter , creatures thought to be extinct or even myth, yet Katsuki had found one somehow. How had he even found one???
And now said dragon shifter had whisked away the crown prince of the kingdom to who-knew-where.
Izuku sighed, rubbing his hands down his face and through his hair, before looking up at the clear sky. Only stars filled his field of view. No princes riding dragons in sight.
This was a common occurrence, a ritual at this point. So no matter where Katsuki went, he’d be back eventually. Izuku had to trust that assumption as he fully settled in the rocky sand at the edge of the lake.
His eyes stayed on the sky as time passed, tracking the minute shift of the stars, how the moon sank closer to the horizon. Summer was getting close to it’s end, so the nights were still warm, but the breeze that periodically blew through to ruffle Izuku’s hair made it so that it wasn’t unbearable.
As the stars began to fade from the sky as it steadily brightened with the approaching dawn, Izuku spotted a speck flying through the sky, the red contrasting with the dark blue and approaching fast. He scrambled to his feet and darted toward the treeline, blending into the shadows just as the dragon descended toward the clearing. He touched down gently, Izuku’s hair blowing back with the flap of his wings, and he crouched so Katsuki could slide off his back to the ground.
The shifter shrank back to his humanoid form, and he immediately hugged Katsuki again, even tighter than before. The moment was tender, as was the lingering kiss that Izuku looked away from out of respect, his face warm.
It was nice, seeing Katsuki being able to be so comfortable around another person. Izuku never thought this level of intimacy would be in the cards for Katsuki. Just talking about it made him wrinkle his noise like he’d eaten something rotten, and in the two decades he’s been alive nobody had ever caught the prince’s eye. No commoner, nor the princesses and princes that he’s met throughout his life. Some had manage to worm their way into calling him their friend, not that Katsuki would agree with that sentiment, but nothing more.
Until now.
Were he a better knight, Izuku would put an end to this now. As he thought of the soft look that had been on Katsuki’s face when his lover first arrived, though, the pure open joy that he showed around him and nobody else, Izuku knew this was something precious that had to be protected, royal accords be damned.
He looked up at the flap of wings, seeing the shifter waving at Katsuki as he took off into the early morning sky. Katsuki waved after him, continuing to watch him until he disappeared, and even long after, remaining by the edge of the lake.
When it didn’t look like Katsuki would be moving anytime soon, Izuku chose that moment to step into the clearing. “Kacchan?”
Katsuki would likely deny to the end of his days the way that he jumped, startled as he whirled around to face Izuku with wide eyes. “Wha- Deku?” The shock didn’t linger as his characteristic glare settled across his features. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” Izuku answered, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck as he walked closer. “I was wondering the same thing about you, but it looks like I have my answer.”
Katsuki’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know shit.”
Izuku cocked an eyebrow at him. “You kissed a dragon shifter.”
Katsuki’s palms crackled, and this time Izuku knew it was a threat. “You’re not gonna say shit unless you want me to have a new personal guard.”
“I won’t!” Izuku raised his hands placatingly, but he didn’t back away from the growing anger.
Not that he needed to worry about it, the fire in Katsuki’s eyes and hands immediately doused by more shock. “...you’re not?”
“Of course not! Very few things make you happy, Kacchan, and even fewer people. Responsibility or not, I’d be pretty bad to ruin a good thing like that.”
Katsuki stared at him, almost like he didn’t believe him. Izuku met his gaze head on, expression open as he lowered his hands. An open invitation to look, to search for the deceit and find none.
And none he found, as Katsuki soon looked away, clicking his tongue as he pulled his hood back over his hair. “Whatever.” His shoulder knocked against Izuku’s as he brushed past him to head back, and Izuku easily fell into step with him.
“What’s his name?”
Katsuki side-eyed him for a long moment before looking forward again. “Eijirou. How long have you known?”
“A few months. I haven’t brought it up with anybody else yet.”
Katsuki nodded, some of the tension in his shoulders leaking away. “Keep it that way.”
Silence enveloped them as they walked, and as the castle came into view through the trees, Izuku spoke again. “I’m guessing he’s not a royal?”
Katsuki shrugged. “Not in the traditional sense. No crown, no kingdom, but he’s next in line to lead his clan.”
Izuku’s eyes widened. “You mean there’s more dragons out there?!”
“Fuckin’ knew you were gonna nerd out at some point,” Katsuki groaned, rolling his eyes.
“He’s a dragon shifter , I can’t help it! This is huge! Like, they were thought to be myths, or just creatures from the far past that are now extinct, but turns out their still around! How did they manage to stay hidden like this? Where even are they? Are they just here or are there more in other parts of the world-”
“You’re talking about my mate like he’s a fucking specimen or some shit, cut it out!” Katsuki shoved at Izuku’s shoulder, but it felt teasing, light-hearted, so Izuku chuckled.
“Okay, okay.” Then the rest of Katsuki’s sentence caught up to him. “Your mate?”
A big word, apparently, judging by how Katsuki tugged his hood lower to hide the redness steadily blooming across his face, not uttering a single word.
Izuku could gather the gist of what it meant. He hummed as they broke through the treeline and started up the hill. “...it could be a pretty advantageous marriage. Might be something worth considering.”
“Ugh, not you too, I hear enough about this marriage shit from the hag.”
Only it wasn’t to another royal somewhere out there. It was to somebody Katsuki truly wanted, and already had in his other’s ways. By the slight smile on Katsuki’s lips, he was coming to terms with that fact as well.
Definitely something to bring up to the king and queen at some point.