Chapter Text
Izuku woke up to a cold bed.
It wasn’t really that odd of an occurrence—Katsuki’s missions sometimes sent him on early-morning trips, but Izuku was pretty sure today didn’t have anything like that planned.
Unless… unless there was an emergency? No, that didn’t make any sense, Kacchan would’ve woken him up to let him know. Maybe Izuku forgot about a meeting Katsuki was scheduled for? Izuku turned his head on the pillow, still half asleep despite his inner turmoil, and spotted Katsuki’s work bag still leaning against the wall.
So he was still home but not in bed? Kacchan is a pretty early riser, sure, but Izuku usually woke up around the same time he did. Did Izuku oversleep? Maybe he was pinning the blame on Katsuki when this whole time, Izuku’s the one who completely missed something somewhere in the last 24 hours.
Izuku, there’s a simple way to find out what’s going on, he thought to himself. Get out of bed.
Right, yeah, that’d probably help.
Izuku swung his legs over the side of the bed and stretched his arms over his head. He relished in the satisfying pop straightening out his stiff arms, then slid his socked feet into his house slippers and trudged to the bedroom door.
The second Izuku stepped into his and Katsuki’s shared dining-slash-living area, he concluded that, actually, Kacchan just happened to be up extra early today. A quick glance at the stove’s digital clock determined that it was barely six in the morning, but Katsuki was already at the dining room table with his laptop open in front of him. His glasses were perched halfway down his nose, eyes half-lidded and cheek smushed against his palm. His free hand slowly scrolled against the trackpad of the laptop, brow furrowed in what was probably concentration.
The fact that Kacchan was using his glasses this early in the morning was already ringing warning bells in Izuku’s head. Yes, Katsuki was mildly farsighted, but he rarely, if ever, wore his glasses despite them literally being prescribed. He only wore them if his eyes were already strained from screens or reading, which either meant he’d been up for way too long or he woke up already feeling crappy. Both of those options sent a jolt of unease through Izuku’s stomach.
Izuku took a few steps further into the room, unsure if Katsuki was in the middle of something he didn’t want to shift his attention from. “Morning, Kacchan,” he called gently.
Evidently, Katsuki hadn’t noticed Izuku come into the room at all—his shoulders jolted in a noticeable flinch, and he blinked a few times in surprise. Another warning bell. He composed himself quickly enough, and the corners of his mouth lifted into a tired smile when he laid eyes on Izuku’s figure.
“Morning, nerd.” Traces of fatigue curled the edges of Katsuki’s voice, Izuku noticed. He pushed his glasses above his forehead, lenses nestling in the spikes of his unruly hair.
Izuku crossed the last few feet of the living area and wrapped his arms around Katsuki’s shoulders, the latter snaking an arm around Izuku’s waist and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Why’re you up so early?” Izuku asked, pulling back just far enough to look Katsuki in the eye. His face was pale, dark smudges visible beneath tired eyes.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Katsuki mumbled, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and scrubbed. “Figured I’d work on some stuff instead of staring at the wall for an hour.” He pressed a palm to his mouth as he breathed a deep, wide yawn, one that made his shoulders shake noticeably beneath Izuku’s hands.
Izuku frowned. Neither he nor Katsuki were strangers to sleepless nights —post-traumatic stress and chronic nightmares tends to do that to a person — but they’d both agreed long, long ago to be upfront about that kind of thing. Something had to be wrong, and Katsuki had to be hiding something.
Then again, no one could ever claim that Bakugo Katsuki wasn’t one of the most emotionally constipated people in the country, perhaps in the entire world. Unfortunately, that meant that Katsuki wasn’t exactly great at identifying his own emotions… it was incredibly possible that Kacchan wasn’t even aware that something was wrong.
Izuku was snapped out of his own thoughts by Katsuki lifting his mug (which Izuku hadn’t noticed two seconds ago) and taking a long sip of… some kind of beverage. If Kacchan wasn’t going to openly admit to something being wrong, maybe Izuku could find a way to wheedle it out of him? “Whatcha drinking?”
Katsuki exhaled into the mug as he tipped it back down, then gave a startled grunt when his glasses slipped and fell onto his nose with a metallic click. “Is today ‘Interrogate Your Boyfriend Day’ or something?” He pulled his glasses off his face, folded the legs, then neatly placed them in their little designated dish on the dining table. “Icy-hot stopped by a couple days ago and gave us some kind of specialty tea. Don’t know what it is, but it tastes good so I don’t really give a crap.”
Odd. Katsuki wasn’t much of a tea person. Izuku tried to pay it no mind and ran a hand between Katsuki’s shoulders, smiling when he saw Katsuki’s eyes blissfully flutter closed. Izuku’s thumb made contact with bare skin, and a third (fourth?) warning bell sounded off in his brain.
Katsuki was wearing the sweatshirt he’d cut the collar off of—the one he only ever wore if he was already irritated and knew the sensation of something close to his neck would agitate him even more.
There were so many things wrong with Katsuki this morning, too many to suggest that Katsuki was feeling even slightly decent.
And then it clicked.
The sweatshirt. The tea. The glasses. The spacing out. The waking-up-an-hour-early to work on God-knows-what.
Oh my god.
Katsuki was sick.
Holy fuck. Izuku was going to have to sell his left kidney to get this man to rest.
Alright, fine. Mission: Get Kacchan in Bed. Step one: get him to admit he’s not feeling well.
Jesus Christ. Izuku was just going to have to bite the dynamite-encrusted bullet.
“Are you okay?”
Katsuki raised his eyebrows, then exhaled sharply through his nostrils. “Yeah? We agreed not to ignore our psychological scars or whatever. I’d tell you if something happened.” He hadn’t opened his eyes when he answered, but his eyebrows pinched together in discomfort. A small crease formed between them, betraying just how not-okay he definitely felt.
Izuku hummed in response. He gently combed his fingers against a tuft of hair at the base of Kacchan’s neck, if not out of his own fidgety nature then to soften Katsuki up to admitting he was unwell. “…what about physically?”
Katsuki bristled and turned his head to face Izuku, a flash of something that might’ve been apprehension in his ruby red eyes. “Why the hell are you asking so many questions this morning? I’m fine.”
“I’m asking because I care about you ,” Izuku shot back. “I think you might be coming down with something.”
“I’m fine,” Katsuki repeated, response a little too quick for Izuku’s liking. “I just… I have a headache. Not a big deal.”
Izuku pursed his lips, then placed a palm flat on Katsuki’s forehead. He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t push Izuku’s hand away. Izuku couldn’t tell if he was feverish, and it hit him a little belatedly that the nerve damage and scar tissue in his hands probably wouldn’t let him feel temperature all that well.
“You’re overreacting.”
“I think you’re not reacting enough,” Izuku spit back. “I’m gonna check your temperature with an actual thermometer, and if you have a fever you’re staying home.”
Katsuki pressed his lips into a thin, pale line. His eyes flicked down to look at his hands, clasped and trembling in front of his timed-out laptop. “It’s 37.3,” he mumbled. His voice was wavering, reluctant, a little broken at the edges. Izuku saw the way he tilted his head just a centimeter to the side, as if to tuck his face away from Izuku’s gaze. “Not a fever.”
Izuku sighed. The hesitation in Katsuki’s voice was evident that he knew he’d incriminated himself by admitting he’d already checked his temperature, that he already knew something was off. Quite frankly, that was all the proof Izuku needed to know he really, truly, wasn’t feeling well.
The warning bells in his brain didn’t fade, but they did change their tune. Katsuki wasn’t in denial about being unwell, but he still hadn’t said why; Izuku needed to know the why.
He slowly pulled out the chair next to Katsuki, sat down, and placed a scarred hand over Katsuki’s cold, clammy hands. He refused to take his eyes off Katsuki’s face, off the face of his boyfriend clearly fighting something internal.
Izuku simply sat there, gave no indication that he expected Katsuki to talk, to move, to look at him. He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t do anything besides run a thumb across Katsuki’s knuckles. He just…
He just gave him space.
Katsuki took that space and used it to smooth himself out. His brows furrowed incrementally, his jaw muscles tightened, his Adam’s apple bobbed in a harsh swallow. He opened his mouth to speak at one point, but he closed it just as quickly.
He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and exhaled through his nose, slow and stuttering. Then, silently, wordlessly, he leaned forward and rested his forehead on the back of Izuku’s hand.
“I think…” Katsuki’s voice wavered again. “I think my brain is—“ He groaned, exasperated, annoyed. “I think it’s making me physically sick. And it’s getting on my goddamn nerves.”
Ah.
Okay. Izuku was somehow completely right and completely wrong about all of this.
“… Can you tell me what you’re feeling?”
Katsuki sighed again. Izuku was willing to bet he was exhausted, though whether that was with Izuku or himself, he didn’t know. “I wasn’t lying about the headache.” He shifted his head so his temple was on Izuku’s hand; he was facing Izuku’s direction now, but he was staring very intently at his shirt instead of his face. “My whole body hurts. I’m nauseous. Feels like I’ve got… fuckin’… butterflies in my stomach or something.”
Izuku hummed in acknowledgment. He lifted his free hand and gently raked his fingers through Katsuki’s ash blonde hair. He could tell Katsuki wasn’t done, so he just waited for him to continue.
“I thought… I thought maybe if I had a fever it would explain me feeling so shitty, but I don’t so that’s obviously not what’s fucking causing this. It’s just me being too weak to stomach the same stupid memories I’ve been dealing with for years.” His mouth was pinching in discomfort now, emotional and physical. He squeezed his eyes shut and twisted his head down again. “This is such bullshit,” he mumbled. His voice was thick, slurred with frustration and fear and a thousand other emotions he likely couldn’t name. “I’m getting physically taken out by my own fucking brain.”
Katsuki sniffled then, and the realization that he was crying sent a pang of hurt deep into Izuku’s bones. Izuku pursed his lips as he processed the scene before him, the realization that up until ten minutes ago, Katsuki was probably fully ready to go about his day and pretend nothing was wrong. Had Izuku not coaxed these tears out of him, would he have mentioned anything at all?
“Kacchan…” Izuku gently smoothed down the fluffy spikes at the back of his head—he knew they wouldn’t stay down, but he also knew Katsuki liked the physical affection far more than he cared to admit. “Sweetheart, I think you need to call in sick.”
Katsuki straightened up and barked a wet, humorless laugh. Angry tears fell past his cheeks, leaving shimmering tracks in their wake. “And fucking tell them what? That my mental illness won’t stay in its goddamn lane?”
“You can tell them you’re not feeling well,” Izuku suggested. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
Katsuki stared at their joined hands in lieu of a response. Izuku could tell from the movements of his jaw that he was biting the skin off the inside of his lip. “I guess.” He freed one of his hands from Izuku’s grasp, then rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. “Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, out of commission from fucking nerves.”
Izuku brought the hand still under his own to his lips, then pressed a kiss to Kacchan’s knuckles. He kept his hand close to his face as his eyes scanned Katsuki’s features, still pale underneath the pink flush of frustration. Izuku was glad that Katsuki had opened up about his inner turmoil, but Izuku still had the lingering tug in his brain telling him there were more layers to it. “How long ago did you check your temperature?”
“Uh… I dunno, maybe an hour ago? Two hours ago?”
Izuku stood from his chair and made his way to the bathroom. “I still want to check, just to make sure.” He came back with the thermometer in hand and held it up to Katsuki’s face, ignoring the eye-roll directed at him when he guided the device to his lips. He combed his fingers through Katsuki’s bangs while they waited for the reading, fingers twirling some of the tufts together so they formed even sharper little spikes.
The thermometer beeped once, twice, three times, but Katsuki had already pulled it out of his mouth on the first beep and squinted at the numbers too small for Izuku to see from where he was standing. He gave a dissatisfied “Tch,” then lifted the thermometer above his head for Izuku to read.
37.4. Higher than what Kacchan said it was, but as he said, not a fever. Izuku pursed his lips. He might be inclined to suggest that it could be a low-grade fever, maybe on its way to developing into a full-blown fever, but Katsuki always ran warm anyways. This genuinely just wasn’t a significant temperature reading.
Izuku raked his fingers through Katsuki’s hair. Katsuki leaned forward and rested his forehead against Izuku’s sternum. “Well…” Izuku began, “I know you’re not feverish, but I think you would still benefit from the rest.”
Kacchan hummed, then wrapped his arms around Izuku’s hips to anchor him in place. “Nah. You’re making me feel better.”
Izuku hummed. Katsuki already had several spikes that were significantly more defined than the rest of his hair. “Is that so? Or are you just saying that to get me off your back?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
That got a snort out of Izuku. Yeah, he was feeling better. “You know, there’s no shame in having physical symptoms from a mental illness. Panic attacks are like physical manifestations of anxiety, and it’s not like having a panic attack means you’re weak because your body’s reacting to racing thoughts.”
“I’m not having a panic attack, nerd.”
“I know,” Izuku laughed. “I’m just trying to make a comparison. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Kacchan snorted against Izuku’s shirt. “Spoken like a true hypocrite.”
“Hey—this is about Kacchan, not me.”