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Katsuki was quiet when his parents entered his hospital room to finally take him home after three excruciatingly long weeks of admission. They were smiling, tentative in their gestures; when his mom stroked his wild hair, her smile grew impossibly more fond at the way the blonde spikes would stand back up again. His dad was packing up his belongings, spare clothes Katsuki hadn’t worn, a gaming console he’d insisted on but hadn’t used for more than thirty minutes because the pain in his body made once-fun hobbies feel like too much effort.
Then came the undeniable sound of medication, pills thrashing about in bottles like omen bells. Each bottle was prescribed for a different sort of pain, or as blood thinners, or to keep Katsuki’s emotions subdued so as not to put strain on his heart. After that, there was a swishing sound, like wind in autumn, and Katsuki knew that to be rolls of gauze, stretch bandages, and cotton composites, alongside specific sterilisers. With the severity of his injuries, Katsuki was forced to turn to more traditional forms of treatment, since quirks like Recovery Girls’ relied on stamina which he didn’t have.
He hated it.
It was almost amusing; with what little energy the boy did have, he spent it cursing his injuries and willing them into curing faster. Staying still had never really been his forté, as evidenced by previous hospital visits, so this was basically another form of torture. Things got worse when they put him on depressants for his nerves, so even if he wanted to move — alongside the other pain medications he was taking — that was nearly impossible. His body felt too heavy, his heart beat too slow for someone so usually active, the pain in his body faded in and out in places like Christmas lights meant to calm.
There was also his head, in which thoughts sometimes drifted in and out of without being comprehended fully when the effects of the drugs were at its most potent. But it was better like that. Better than the alternative, at least. Better than thinking about Izuku and how he was quirkless now. And how it somehow felt like his fault all over again.
It was all his fault.
All his fault.
His fucking fault.
Again.
No, it wasn’t. Izuku had said it wasn’t. Katsuki hadn’t pushed him into giving his quirk away in the last effort to take down Shigaraki. Instead, he’d helped train Izuku so he could master One For All. Hadn’t he? He wasn’t the one, right? Right…?
Katsuki wanted Izuku back, to hear the freckled boy telling him it wasn’t his fault, that these thoughts were because of the stupid medication he was constantly under. The medication will make those thoughts stop, the doctor had said. Liar. And how did the doctor know about his thoughts? Who told him? Izuku?
No. It had been his body language that gave it away. The way his body wouldn’t stop shaking for a week straight, his eyes seeming to stare at the white, blank wall opposite him, unblinking. This look of sheer terror in his eyes that broke his parents all over again since having to watch their son die once and then fight the greatest villain mastermind in the history of quirks. The random sweats. The constant grinding of his jaw throughout the night that left him with an aching jaw throughout the day, making chewing even more difficult than it was already emotionally. When his mom would stay the night, she would have to wake him several times throughout to stop the jarring sound of teeth grinding against each other before it would start again minutes later. They had fashioned him mouth guards but Katsuki had just stared at them in horror, as if they were proof that there was, yet again, something else wrong with him. But he still took them.
He wanted Izuku back. The thought was more recurring than asking about the boy himself.
“How’s Deku?” He would slur past the fogginess in his head, his anticipation for the answer the only thing keeping him as coherent as he was. Sometimes he would get a reply, something vague about “healing” or “doing well”, but it was never enough. Katsuki didn’t think it ever would be.
After that first time he’d slipped out of bed to visit Izuku’s room — when he’d officially learned that things would never be as they were ever again, that Izuku was a liar, a terrible fucking liar, when he had smiled about his quirklessness — Katsuki had cried because of course he had. Everything he had so foolishly allowed himself to hope for had basically been stripped away from him. No more training. No more duels. No more trying to one-up each other and refining their ultimate moves. No more learning complex combat combinations.
Katsuki could go on forever about the ‘no more’s that came out of that event but what would it help? It wouldn’t give Izuku his quirk back.
It would never erase the horrible sight of that glint in Izuku’s eyes, something so utterly dark and broken that the universe made it spark like a light out of pure pity. It had made Katsuki feel like he was five-years-old again. And suddenly someone was telling him he would be quirkless forever and would never become a hero.
Was that how Izuku had felt? Still felt?
The thought made him so sick that even when he was dragged back to his room by both his parents and nurses he still couldn’t get rid of it and so vomited in the nearest bin. Of course, it just set his parents on another anxious parade, especially his dad, who was convinced his weakened immune system had allowed that for a stomach bug. It was only when Katsuki had glared at them through puffy, red-rimmed eyes that they considered that maybe their son was more aware of his own pain more than anyone else.
Did he mention the nightmares? “PTSD” the doctors had called it, sterile, clinical in a way that made Katsuki shiver out of pure ire. He wasn’t traumatised. Fuck that! Trauma was for pussies, for people that hadn’t fought in wars. He had been brave out there, a menace by some people’s standards, but nonetheless valiant and hero-like. Hero. He’d been a hero!
He’d laughed in All For One’s face, after all! Called him names! That had to mean something, right?! People with trauma didn’t do that.
“Yes, they do.” The voice said. In Izuku’s voice— because Izuku had never really said that, but Katsuki knew he would have. If only they let him get out of this bed. Which, today, they finally would.
And Katsuki was finally happy about one thing, or as happy as the medication allowed him to be. Because of it, his emotions always felt distorted, muted sometimes, quieter others, or just wrong. Right now, happiness felt heavy like his body did, but mildly calming. His thoughts were quieter even without the medication and he had actually slept better the previous night — mouth guards still in, of course.
For the first time, his nightmare hadn’t included a small casket, one that never really had an exact size for it was always changing. At first, Katsuki didn’t understand why, but when he realised, he vomited again. At the funeral in which the ever-changing casket sat at the front, a mother beside it, people murmured in confusion. They didn’t understand why the death had happened. Katsuki was there, eyes always too wide, hand gripping the corners of two cards when he knew it should’ve only been one. And amongst the sea of bereaved calling the tragedy a “death”, only Katsuki knew it was a murder.
The cards fell out of his hand, bloodied in the bottom right corner. He looked down at his hands and there they were, red.
Or maybe it was the other one. The one that was just one familiar face. Its features were blurry since it was near-impossible to envision him clearly. But those features stuck out like things to look out for in another life if he ever went searching for him. Freckled cheeks. Grass-green where the sockets of his eyes were and where his hair was, heavily blurred. The smile he’d taken so much advantage of. All of them stuck out against a black background, and slowly, so slowly, they began to fade. Not disappear, no. Just fade. The smile grew weaker. The freckles on his right cheek were obscured by a large gash. The green of his eyes got darker until they blended in with the background.
It was just a visual representation, one Katsuki didn’t understand for a long time until the significance surfaced like drowned bodies— as gruesome as the imagery was.
Nevertheless, his last night at the hospital had been neither of these dreams. Instead, it had been about how much better off Izuku might’ve been if he had never met Katsuki. Maybe being quirkless wouldn’t have been announced like such a slur the day he’d found out. Maybe time might’ve healed his relationship with his quirklessness and he might’ve enrolled in some other UA course like support or general studies, maybe taken on a job similar to Detective Tsukauichi’s. Or maybe he might’ve met All Might in another circumstance and becoming a hero wouldn’t have come with the need to prove he wasn’t “Deku”, wasn’t “useless”. And someone else would’ve dealt with Shigaraki and Izuku would’ve still had his quirk. And — if Katsuki was really stretching his luck — they would’ve met as pro-heroes and the rest would be history.
But that’s enough of dreams that will never be true or nightmares that felt too close to the truth.
Katsuki was still in his hospital bed when his dad finally finished packing the duffel bag he’d brought with him. His mom finally untangled her fingers from his hair and pushed the covers away, helping him swing his legs over the side of the bed, and began pulling him out of the hospital gown and into loose clothes that wouldn’t irritate any wounds underneath or require much movement to wear: comfy black sweats, a large, white T-shirt, and a brown cardigan he didn’t want to wear but relented when his mom insisted on it.
During this, Katsuki’s thoughts — the ones that could finally breathe since he had negotiated this one day to go without the depressants meant for his raging mind — drifted to Izuku. Like the moon gravitated towards the earth. Despite being discharged a week ago, Izuku was back for a check-up on his wounds and Katsuki was going to meet him. It was a surprise and one of Katsuki’s few comforting pastimes was imagining how Izuku might react to it. It made him smile. It still was, and his mom caught it, choosing not to point it out.
“Ready, dear?” Mistuki asked and Katsuki nodded. She helped him stand up, the medication still making his body feel more like thick water, but at least he wasn’t chained to IVs now. Carefully, they walked out of the room, Masaru joining on Katsuki’s other side but keeping his hands to himself because he knew his prideful son already felt humiliated enough just needing his mom’s help.
With each step towards Izuku, Katsuki felt the pressure in the back of his eyes grow and a strain on his heart that he didn’t dare voice aloud in case some stupid adult jeopardised his chances of seeing the one person he couldn’t dare to be separated from longer than he already had been. His soulmate. That was the word for it because Katsuki knew his soul, so long as it carried on, would continue to search for its other half, Izuku. He loved Izuku in a way that was indescribable. It was more than anything he’d ever felt in his life, a type of love that transcended boundaries and only came once a millennia for those most fortunate to encounter it.
If his love had a colour, it would be white. In the way that if you held a prism to it, the light would scatter and form a rainbow that essentially homed all the hues of his love. Red for how it burned hot. Blue for how it was as vast as the skies and oceans.
And soon, Katsuki was standing outside the room, the door slightly ajar. His parents had stepped back and he appreciated it. But suddenly he was nervous. Yeah, he was anxious before, but now the feeling had grown to restrict him physically. This wasn’t good for his heart at all and he would definitely need to take his medication afterwards, but he needed to be off some of them to feel the moment.
So, he just did it. No point stressing his heart out more. Katsuki pushed on the door and it swung open with little force. His eyes immediately snapped to the figure on the bed in his signature plain T-shirt and shorts, arms and a leg still confined in white, eyes fixed on something it seemed no one else could see. Katsuki’s heart squeezed and felt lighter at the same time.
Upon hearing the shuffling of shoes, Izuku turned his head to his right and his eyes immediately went wide before his features settled into one of his soft smiles that Katsuki was convinced was only for him.
“Hey, Kacchan, what a surprise.” His voice was just as soft and it tugged on Katsuki until he was walking towards the bed as if under hypnosis. He wanted to cry but he didn’t. Instead, he kind of just stood there, appearing more stunned than Izuku for whom he had planned this surprise. “You okay?”
The concern in Izuku’s voice snapped Katsuki out of his thoughts and he finally let out a shuddering breath.
“Izuku…”
Izuku smiled even more at that. Or did he frown? The emotions fluctuated on his face so quickly Katsuki didn’t catch them, his senses dulled from all the foreign substances in his body.
“Not ‘Deku’...?”
And that’s when Katsuki realised he’d messed up. Again. It was his fault. Again.
What was he supposed to say to that? That he’s not ‘Deku’ anymore because the dream of heroism is officially out of reach? Even if Katsuki didn’t believe that at all, he knew Izuku felt that way at a level deep enough that it would take years — or maybe it would never happen — to reconcile with. Maybe he was supposed to say ‘Deku’ reminded him too much of how much he’d bullied Izuku, and its lingering effects in the way the freckled boy stil flinched at making others angry, or was sometimes hesitant to talk about his interests in fear of being ridiculed.
Katsuki’s throat was too tight. He was looking into eyes that reflected the swamps in myths, green and growing with undiscovered power. They were hopeful. Despite everything, his eyes were filled with one and only plea.
“Deku… I meant Deku. You’re Deku,” Katsuki whispered, voice surprisingly fierce in its intensity. Izuku looked away, smiling softly, but not before Katsuki caught the glassy look in his eyes.
A moment of silence passed.
“When do you get discharged?” Izuku asked again.
“Today. I already did. Just came to see you… y’know?”
Izuku huffed out a laugh and Katsuki almost smiled without knowing what was so funny.
“Yeah, I know.”
“God, you’ve still got cheek after everything.” When Izuku responded, he ignored what “everything” represented.
“And you’re still the only one to have pointed it out.”
Katsuki actually chuckled at that. He was sure even that wasn’t entirely great for his heart but he didn’t care.
After that, the tension in the room bled out like rain falling from tree leaves. Izuku invited Katsuki to sit on the bed and they got past a few jokes before quietly addressing the topic of their injuries. With three limbs out of commission, Izuku looked like a mummy, and though it might’ve looked funny, Katsuki hated the sight. Izuku had asked too much about Katsuki’s arm and heart and even tentatively asked to listen to his chest. Of course the blonde boy agreed because he found saying no to be impossible.
Like that, the minutes blurred into each other until an hour passed by unnoticed and the doctors were ready to let Izuku go home. Katsuki’s parents were also waiting, medication in hand. Although he dreaded taking them again and the heavy feeling that he would be succumbed to for god-knows-how-long, he was also aware that this was the beginning of something. He didn’t know what but it was something.
There would be more trials and tribulations. The PTSD he had finally come to accept, the physical therapy for his arm, having to watch quirkless Izuku navigate his new life while battling a silent war of trying not to blame himself. There were things even further into the future like graduation and becoming pro-heros. But those things would come with time and he would endure them when they did. After all, he had Izuku with him, quirkless or not. They were alive and willing enough to navigate the future, which was ultimately all that mattered.