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He’s not supposed to be here.
He told himself, weeks ago, that he wasn’t allowed to be here. But for years now, he’s had the spare key to Izuku’s apartment—green titanium alloy, made so just for him—on the carabiner he carries for work, right along with everything else he figures is essential.
He’s not supposed to be here. Not just because he’s made an internal promise, but because, under technical circumstances, it is entirely illegal.
Too late—with a click!, the lock undoes, and with a shove of the shoulder, the door opens.
Katsuki’s careful to shut it quietly, and when he steps into the genkan, past the kitchen and into the bedroom, he keeps his gait even, soft, steps timed perfectly with the ticking of the clock. His door is wide open, and the bed is a mess of folds of duvets, of sheets, of clothes piled upon clothes piled upon clothes.
He’s not supposed to be here. Truthfully, if it weren’t for the past few weeks, he wouldn’t have needed to break into Izuku’s apartment.
It began with the notice from his doctor a month ago that the heat suppressants he’d been taking for the last decade or so were starting to affect his blood pressure—it explained how stressed he’d been starting to feel, how tall his piles of paperwork looked every night, how he could have sworn his hairs were going gray. It was the culmination of all of this that pushed him to make the first appointment.
Only once his bottle ran out did he realize just how screwed he was about to be. The lady at his regular pharmacy outright refused to resupply him, courtesy of a note on his file, and after the second attempt to find a loophole, he simply gave up.
(He’d been on those things for years, Katsuki tried to say. It would just be a week or two, and once he got the ones that wouldn’t send him to an early grave, he’d throw the bottle out.
He’d throw the bottle out. Still she refused.
(She refused, and Katsuki left the pharmacy with a clenched jaw, with gritted teeth, and a week later, he woke up heady and horny and aching, and so, so pissed. Because the first thing his body wanted, the first thing he knew would bring him a sense of relief—whether that was sexually or not did not matter much—was Izuku.
But Izuku doesn’t want him.)
It's been nearly a day since then, and Katsuki’s not supposed to be here. He’s beyond grateful for his car, even though he probably shouldn’t have driven at all—without it, some random alpha would have jumped him in a nondescript alleyway downtown on the way here and assaulted him, he thinks. He hates to admit it, but he’s much too weak to be here, already hot to the touch and flushed, sweating through his tracksuit, his entire body trembling with each step.
(The collar of his top has his mother’s scent on it, three weeks old now, a gift from when he visited during his last weekend off. He hasn’t told her about the suppressant situation, yet, but Mitsuki’s always worried in the back of her head that one day Katsuki would need his mother’s scent the way he did as a kid, that one day the meds would fail on him, though she hates to admit it; Katsuki knows. He watched as she kept it to her gland, a pinch between her eyebrows for minutes, later handing it to him in a plastic bag, carefully folded, then telling him off for not giving himself a moment to breathe all year.
He’s cursing himself now for keeping quiet, as he keeps bringing the bunched fabric to his nose and breathing in.)
Really, Katsuki doesn’t want to be here. He should be out with his friends, celebrating the advent of his quarter life. Twenty-five, they say, is an important number. Twenty-five is growth.
(No, he doesn't know if it's meant to make sense, either.)
Still, with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, he starts to sift through Izuku’s clothes one by one. With a full fist, he picks out a flannel colored a blueish teal, a sacramento green. He brings it to his nose, breathes in, feels his shoulders un-tense.
Untypical of an alpha, Izuku’s always carried the virginal, rustic smell of cedar, with undertones of eucalyptus. Like a forest frigid and fresh, walking past a terrain after it’s rained. It’s gentle, like the way nature’s supposed to be, forgiving and creating of life, of rules. Still, the smell holds fortifications, holds an earthiness personal to the dominance of animal itself. Personal to power, to ingrain carnage.
(Katsuki holds to him a smell that’s atypical of his secondary gender, too, in this case maybe a parallel to the perceived softness in Izuku’s—thick, heady, strong, warm, full of spice, like a bonfire where crowds gather to tell stories, heavy seasoned meat on a spit somewhere nearby. His scent, he’s always assumed, is something to which you can still assign a suppleness, a hope. Something, something, something, the hearth, the community; the love people hold in their hearts for those who love them back, and those who won’t.
No one should know that, though, and no one will—he moves a hand to his neck and taps on his scent patches to make sure they’re stable. He shoves the flannel in the bag, then keeps going.)
His heartbeat thrums in his ears, overtakes, pounds until he cannot think of anything besides the movements his hands are meant to make. Take a hold, shove in, let go. He’s got most of what he needs to make his nest perfect: plush hero merchandise, themed and colored blankets, his (signed) All Might card in a plastic sleeve—and, once he's out of here, the final touch. Izuku’s scent, as much as he hates that he needs it, is essential. It’s not something he can miss out on. He realized this this morning, tossing and turning around, with a knotted dildo stuffed inside him that wholly was not enough to satisfy him; a little nauseous as he sniffed the air around him and couldn’t get himself to relax. He kept thinking back to Izuku, stupid fucking Izuku, with his toothy smile and his tousled hair, blinking like the dumbass he was as he told him, reiterated, that he couldn’t— Couldn’t—
He doesn’t like that with Izuku’s stuff, his nest would be perfect, just perfect enough to hide in for the next six days or so, surrounded by all the self-care he’s bulked on. But it’s what he’s supposed to deal with.
(This won’t be his first ever heat, is the thing. He remembers the few he had to deal with in his third year of middle school when he first presented, and the two he had to go through right after the war, when he was told suppressants interfered with most strong painkillers.
While he’d been ashamed of the fact at first, getting rid of them now was more of a way to avoid problems. He’d been doing this since his first year of high school, and definitely hadn’t planned to just stop.)
As he’s grabbing what he feels might be the last item, he hears a commotion behind him: Footsteps—leather soles against laminated wood—a yawn, the sound of keys clanging together. With one hand on the third piece of clothing he plans to stuff in his bag Katsuki freezes, a deer in headlights. His eyes flit from the graphic tee to the window right above Izuku’s bed.
He makes a run for it.
–
Footsteps, and an abrupt pause. There’s the sound of wet lips smacking against one another as Izuku sniffs the air, a little careful, eerily quiet. Then, echoing through the bedroom is a growl, a push of sour pheromones; and it fills the room through the cracks under the closet door, so strong Katsuki feels like his every breath is a cotton wad, a glob of mucus, a nosebleed, a broken bone. It’s making it worse, the heat: with every breath he gushes a little more slick, feels his heart thrash a little harder behind his ribcage. He bites down on his bottom lip so hard it draws red, and listens for the noises of Izuku retreating into the kitchen.
But that doesn’t come. Instead the tap-tap-tap grows closer, louder. Izuku hums, a lilt to it like he’s trying to think; mumbling under his breath he seems to approach his bed, sift through the pile of clothes,
There’s a soft gasp, then the janky metallic sounds of Izuku shaking the closet door. Katsuki swallows down, thick when Izuku tears the door open, when he meets Katsuki’s deep red irises.
A sharp intake of breath.
“Kacchan?”
Katsuki gulps.
“Izuku.”
He waits for anger, for a surge forward and a smack upside his head, for a screaming match and the perfect opportunity to jump out the window and never look back. Maybe bang his head on the concrete a few times. But that is not what meets him.
Not even remotely.
Izuku breathes shakily into the room, clutching at the hem of his dress shirt. His chest moves before his legs do, and so the first step back he takes he almost trips on his own feet. His nose twitches as he studies Katsuki, lingering half a second longer than is needed, probably, on the two squares of white stuck to each side of his neck. When he blinks, it’s like he’s disoriented, caught up in his own acerb scent, somehow.
“Kacchan, you look—” he whispers. “Are you okay?”
For a moment or two, neither of them speak.
“I’m fine,” he says bluntly, a little coldly. He steps out of the closet, Izuku’s flannel still pressed to his chest.
“How are you—?” he blinks a few times, reaching a hand out, then letting it fall back down. “How did you come in?”
Katsuki jerks his chin down at his carabiner, resting where his hip juts out to serve as anchor and table for his bag.
“You forgot you gave me this last year, huh?” he huffs. “I never—”
“Why did you come in? You’re— Kacchan is— I haven’t— I haven’t seen you here in— well, in— in—”
“Months,” Katsuki completes. “I fucking know. And I—”
“Are you sick?”
There he goes again, Katsuki thinks. Not seeing what’s right in front of him. It’s bad enough that Izuku’s not wholly freaked out by this. Not urging him to leave, not telling him to never show his ugly mug here again.
Katsuki doesn’t stop to wonder what it means.
“I’m not sick.” He clutches his bag closer to his sides. “I’m sorry if you wanted me to be.” He shoves past Izuku, and walks right into his living room.
Izuku sputters. “I didn’t— I just— Kacchan—”
“I’m leaving now,” he calls over his shoulder. “Won't bother you after this, okay? Don’t worry.”
He gets just over ten steps short of the kitchen before there’s a hand on his shoulder, thumb digging into his deltoids. It makes Katsuki run so hot, jolt so violently, so suddenly that the grip immediately unlatches.
He hears Izuku hold in another breath behind him. Hears him swallow again.
“Are you in heat?”
Katsuki’s fists clench at his sides.
“Fuck you,” he mumbles. Then, louder: “Fuck you. You know I don’t let myself go through heats, Izuku.”
And slowly he turns. Izuku’s got his gaze glued to the bag. His tongue flits out to swipe across his bottom lip; he purses them, then bites down.
“I know that,” he says. “They— They inconvenience the job, right? I know. But you were… taking my clothes,” Izuku starts, slow. He takes one step, then another, and: “Weren’t you?”
“Izuk—”
“I can see them in the bag, Kacchan. And— and well, not to mention you— you look a little unwell. And you’re— you—” He tilts his head, inquisitive. “You smell like you’re in heat. It’s coming off of you in waves.”
Before long Izuku’s within personal space radius, arm’s length, hands shaking subtly as he holds them to his chest, finger knuckles to sternum. Katsuki grits his teeth despite him, his breaths growing erratic, hitched, panicked the closer Izuku gets.
Izuku swoops forward. One sharp intake of air.
“Don’t fucking—”
“What happened? It’s been a while,” Izuku says, soft, “You— You’ve been ignoring me. Did I say something?”
“Nothing,” Katsuki bites. “It’s nothing.”
“I— I still know you, Kacchan. And you’ve gotta be here for a— a reason, right, Kacchan? So…” Thick, he swallows. “Talk to me.”
He lets those words linger for a beat.
Katsuki shuts his eyes and steps back. He runs the tip of his tongue over a canine so hard it pricks.
“You don’t want this, Izuku.”
Izuku’s eyebrows pinch in the middle as his mouth curves down.
“You can’t—” Izuku stammers for a bit, hands searching for words to grab onto: “What is it you think I want?”
“This!” Katsuki screeches. “This— This stupid— You think—”
“What if I did? What if I just really wanted to see you after all these weeks and—?”
“You don’t.”
“But—”
“You don’t want me. So you don’t want this. It doesn’t fucking concern you, Izuku,” he rips from himself. “I’m going to take what I need and leave, and I won’t bother you again.”
The pin drops. There’s something strange in the way Izuku blinks at him. Only three times does he do it, and they look like they take too much effort to be normal. He’s not so assured in it, in what it’s meant to mean—but what Katsuki is very sure of is the way Izuku’s scent grows so sharp, so keen, pointed in all senses of the word. It’s not sour, anymore, in fact hasn’t been since Izuku found him standing straight in his closet, surrounded by the softer parts of it. Suddenly, Krauki’s sinuses, his head, fill with the bulk of it, the hazy way it floats through the air, like he’s sticking his face in the dirt and trying to breathe, sticking his hand in the knot of a tree and trying to feel, walking through a meadow with petrichor in the air, dampness.
Izuku exhales again. It trembles. When he opens his mouth to speak, there’s the littlest peek of his fangs, dripping with drool indicative of a need.
“Who said I didn’t want you?”
Katsuki’s not supposed to be here. Not in this neighborhood, not in Izuku’s paltry apartment, not in his bedroom, and definitely not in the grasps of his own instincts. When Izuku yelps into his mouth, his insides swoop with regret, nausea, the fleeting thought that he’s making a mistake.
(The littlest part of him wants it to be just that—a trip, a misstep. Wants the perfect excuse to turn on his heels once more and make his way out and never have to look back.
But Izuku doesn’t satisfy that need to be right about being wrong. He doesn’t step back, hands up in surrender, tell Katsuki that he just isn’t… that, isn’t gay. Isn’t into Kacchan like that. He doesn’t ask him to leave and doesn't get that look in his eyes, one that voices silent pity.)
No, instead he kisses Katsuki back within the fraction of a second; raises one hand to grasp his jaw and brings the other to pull him closer by the smooth planes of his nape, then the bumps of his spine; takes a few more steps across the living room and shoves him up against the kitchen counter where there aren’t any cabinets.
Katsuki collides with the edge of the kitchen counter—instinctively he throws his arms out to stabilize himself, then wraps them around Izuku’s neck.
Izuku kisses like he’s starved for it longer than he himself knows; mouths him and drinks up the noises, the whines; inhales the smoke, the spice, the stints of hope. When the alpha licks into his mouth, pulls back, licks again, there’s a gush of slick soaking into his boxers as he whines a little low in the back of his throat.
There's no time to breathe properly, not even when Izuku pulls back, steps back to eye him, half-lidded, lips curled into a smile where nothing reads. Like this, atop him, his pupils dilated to surreal levels, Izuku looks near insane. Perfectly and carefully chiseled are his features, but his hair is tousled, so messy and just slightly over its usual length that it drapes down and tickles Katsuki’s cheeks.
He’s got nothing to guard his glands, and so the smell keeps swirling around him, their heads, the room:
“Oh,” Izuku breathes. “Kacchan.”
Katsuki leans back, wrists bending where he presses his palms into the cold marble. He starts heaving, feeling
“You—”
“If you’re in heat,” Izuku interrupts, “I can help you with it.” Fumbling with his hands, he looks down, then back up. “Through it, you know.”
Katsuki’s lower lip wobbles as he scowls.
“Fuck off,” he mumbles, “I– haah—”
Instead of giving him time to say anything else, Izuku leans forward and pecks a line down his throat, stopping right above his glands. With his teeth, he rips off one patch, then moves to rip off the other. He takes them out of his mouth, tosses them onto the counter.
“No one can get this close to Kacchan, can they? You wouldn’t let them,” he mumbles. He considers for a moment his own words, then adds, shakily: “You— You couldn’t let them, Kacchan, could you? If this happened, and I wasn’t around to help, would you have gone to someone else? Another alpha who could—” He swallows down. “No, no. No way.”
When Izuku's lips brush light over his glands, the feedback makes Katsuki run hot again, breath hitching in the back of his throat; his omega preens under the attention, under the contact. He jerks, hips bucking up as he squirms under Izuku again.
“Wrong. Would have found a random knothead,” Katsuki pushes, strains. “Would have gotten some loser online desperate enough to fuck some messed-up omega hole—”
“But you’d close your eyes through it. It wouldn't be enough, would it?” Izuku breathes, head rising to meet his eyes. Wide, almost unsettling in the way they catch the light, the way his pupils seem to bore holes into the omega. “You’d need more. You’d come and you’d gather my scent anyway. Maybe if we were talking I’d just—” He licks his bottom lip, then nuzzles under the omega’s left jawbone. “Give it all to you. Kacchan wouldn’t have to ask. To do it himself.”
Katsuki makes an inhuman, sort of indescribable sound when his own scent mixes with the alpha’s; a campfire in winter, harsh and desperate and a grapple for survival. Knives and guns and a sharp, keen eye, a screech and a slice and slow-roasted game. It’s a huddle for warmth, condensation in the air freezing over. Katsuki melts into it, holding back the urge to chirp for it baring his throat as his head leans back, and there comes the sharp drag of teeth across his left gland.
“Kacchan likes my scent,” Izuku mumbles. “You needed it. Exactly this. Need me.”
“You don’t know shit.” Katsuki grits his teeth, tensing, almost sobs out: “You don’t know me enough.”
Izuku comes back up to study him, a weird misty look in his eyes. He blinks a few times.
“I should, Kacchan. I should, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry I don’t. So, so sorry I don’t.”
Breathe in, breathe out. Katsuki reaches out and up to thread his fingers through his locks, pulls down, and dives in another time.
It’s messier, wetter. It’s hands going under his shirt to slide up and thumbs pinching his nipples until they pebble. Katsuki shudders; Izuku retracts to let him pull his shirt over his head, then moves down to dip his fingers in his waistband and pull his sweats down so they pool around his ankles. Izuku reaches for his boxers next, tugs until Kacchan’s cock springs out, small and soaking pre into the fabric, and oh—the smell of Kacchan’s slick fills the air, pungent with sweetened smoke and the undertones of sandalwood.
He wraps his hand around the base of his dick as Katsuki leans back, throwing his arm over his eyes, hissing.
“Bedroom,” he gasps, squeezing Izuku’s arm.
Izuku nods, watches as Katsuki kicks off his pants, then puts his hands under his thighs and picks him up, almost throwing him over his shoulder before Katsuki finds his grip and balance, legs wrapping around Izuku’s waist.
He’s unceremoniously thrown onto the mattress when they reach it, bounding a few times, quick to collect himself and prop himself up on his elbows before Izuku’s hovering over him, eyeing his small, wet cock as it drips more onto his stomach—eyeing Katsuki’s hole, too, so wet with his slick it’s seeping through the sheets and forming a dark puddle.
Izuku doesn’t hesitate to push two fingers in, the sound an obscene squelch that almost makes his eyes roll to the back of his head. It earns him a gasp and a choked-out moan; Kacchan reaches down to sift the tips of his fingers through his hair, a little tentative in his way until Izuku starts to thrust and scissor him open. He grips, then, a loud whine in the air.
“Knot me, Izuku, fuck—” Katsuki moans and drags the tips of his nails up Izuku's nape and grips his hair hard enough that the alpha groans: “I’m ready. Need— mmh— alpha—”
Izuku bites his bottom lip, curls his fingers again, smiles when the omega whines around the flesh of his forearm.
“Uh-huh,” he mutters, before kissing a line down Katsuki’s happy trail–thin blond hair spattering his lower abdomen, catching the light—stopping just short of thicker, scissor-trimmed blond at the groin. He sticks his tongue out, and laves it along the underside of Katsuki’s cock, then pulls back and swallows the pre, too. “I'm gonna, Kacchan, I promise.”
Katsuki hisses, bucking his hips, burn in his thighs from how hard he's got them held up, his ankles framing Izuku's shoulders. “Not ‘gonna’. Fuckin’— Mmh, please, fuck, fuck, don’t stop— Right now,” he strains. “Or I swear, Deku, I'm going to rip your throat out, and— haah— leave with all your shit, and I’ll never come back.”
Izuku looks up, his eyes wide, lips curving up.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” Katsuki spits, whining when Izuku pulls out to the first knuckles of his fingers, then starts to insert a third. He heaves as he looks down at Izuku. “So get to it.” He lets his voice drop a little, adopt an edge as he adds: “Alpha.”
The word sends a zing down Izuku’s spine, so abrupt he shudders.
“Got it,” he mumbles. Adds himself: “Gonna make you feel good, omega.”
He thrusts his fingers again, hitting Kacchan’s prostate dead-on, eliciting a whine higher than the last one—nearly by a full octave, he thinks. Kacchan twitches with every push-pull that comes after it, quiet and contained in his noises as he leaves his mouth hanging open. It takes another thirty seconds or so before Izuku is satisfied, when Kacchan’s face is as red as his eyes, flushed and starting to sweat, as he’s begging More, more, more, knot me, knot me, fuck’s sake. He pulls his fingers out and licks them clean, leaving Katsuki feeling weirdly empty, clenching around nothing as—screw the fucking heat hormones—he coos.
“Fuck,” he gasps, blinking back tears in his waterline. “Fuck. Get back here.”
“You taste incredible, Kacchan,” Izuku moans around his digits, diving back in to cruise around the webbings, lave at the smears on his palm. “Like sugar. Mmh, smoke.”
He rushes to unbutton his pants and pull out his cock, already hard and red and leaking, and climbs out of his pants, throwing them haphazard somewhere in his room. He walks forward on his knees, holding Kacchan’s legs up by the ankles, goes until Kacchan’s folded in half, his toes touching the headboard.
Katsuki leans his head back as Izuku presses his cock to his slick hole and teases it, tracing the rim and letting the tip catch, uncatch. As he purses his lips Katsuki whines:
“In. In, fucking in.”
Izuku smiles. “Okay, Kacchan.”
He pushes in, stretching Kacchan’s hole around its girth, eliciting a moan airy with a held breath. Izuku pushes forward until he bottoms out, pulls back until he’s catching the tip around the rim again—and thrusts back in so hard Katsuki sees stars.
“Izuku—” he cries out, scrambling to grab onto Izuku’s back, nails pressing crescents into his skin. “Alpha—”
Izuku leans down until he and Kacchan are nose-to-nose, then catches his lips; Kacchan cups his hands around his cheeks and kisses him back, moaning every time Izuku grazes and hits and catches his prostate; pulling back to breathe and whine so loud it’s almost echoing in the room.
Erratic, nothing to be described as rhythmic, Izuku keeps thrusting, wet sounds and smell of sex filling the room, stuffy. The start of his knot, slowly inflating to his ridiculous size, keeps catching onto Kacchan’s rim, every slap earning him a sharp gasp and a plead:
“Knot me,” he gasps. “Hnn— Izuku—”
“My pretty omega,” Izuku says, pulling out, tutting when Katsuki whines, before gently squeezing Kacchan’s obliques. “Kacchan takes me so well. Turn around.”
“Knot—” Katsuki sobs, bucking down to try and meet Izuku’s cock, “Izuku, fuck, please—”
Izuku reaches over to cup Kacchan’s left cheek, cooing as he rubs under his eye. He taps the tip of his cock against his hole.
“Kacchan. I will. Turn around, ‘kay?”
Katsuki stares up at him, heaving, pouting, eyebrows narrowed down. Tears are starting to track down Kacchan’s cheeks, now, and with his nose red and his lips wet with their mixed saliva—and at the image of it Izuku’s heart is soaring, pounding, his cock somehow getting even harder.
“You don’t wanna look at me?” Katsuki huffs. “Are you ugly when you cum?”
Izuku snorts, soft. “No, not at all.”
“Then? You think I’ll get scared if I see your knot?”
“You can already see it.” He jerks his chin down, and he notes the way Kacchan keeps his eyes on it, pupils dilating. He drops his voice down. “Here it is. Just want you to present for me, Kacchan. Okay?”
Katsuki grumbles words indecipherable as he exhales through his nose, then complies, moving to sit on his hands and knees, pushing his ass up and spreading his legs just so, his hole now perfectly in view. Izuku makes a noise in the back of his throat, strangled, sort of awestruck as he lines himself up, then pushes back in. The sound that leaves Kacchan is nothing short of incredible. High-pitched, almost a chirp as Izuku thrusts in a few more times.
“Close,” he gasps. “C’mon.”
“Me too,” Izuku breathes. He kneads the flesh of Katsuki’s ass, lets his thumb rub along the rim a few times. “Kacchan feels so good,” he says. “Taking me so good, feels so good, I love you, so much, Kacchan—”
Izuku guides his knot through his hole; with the burn of the stretch Kacchan screams, flopping down to stuff his face in the pillow. Imbued already with Izuku’s scent, his senses fill with it to overdrive, and with a last, muffled moan, he spurts white onto the sheets, feeling and hearing as Izuku groans low and cums, too. There’s so much of it, Katsuki peeks an eye open and can swear he sees his tummy bulge with the excess.
With a last sigh, Izuku’s knees give out, and he collapses onto Kacchan’s back, flattening him against the mattress.
–
It’s quiet between them for a few minutes; Katsuki can feel Izuku’s knot slowly deflating inside of him, can feel Izuku’s soft breaths tickling down his back as they get more and more spaced out.
Katsuki wiggles his hips. “Oi. Are you falling asleep?”
Izuku jolts, snorting as he shifts around.
“Sorry,” he whispers, and his dick presses a spot near his prostate, so Katsuki hisses. “Sorry! I just—” He yawns. “I had a long day. I’m a little tired.”
Katsuki harrumphs. “You still need to pull out.”
“I know. I— I will. Just a little more.”
Silence again. Izuku slips out of him two minutes later, and in sync they sift around so as to lay down side-to-side, face-to face.
“Look. I don’t—” Katsuki huffs. “It's been years since my last heat. I don't remember how long my cooldowns are. It might be a couple hours until I need to go again. If you want me to go—”
Izuku grips Kacchan’s hip, almost possessively. If he’d been any more awake, it probably could have bruised.
“No. Stay, Kacchan.”
“But—”
“I want you. To stay.”
Katsuki grunts. “I’ll take up your whole fuckin’ weekend.”
“That's fine,” Izuku mutters sleepily. “I'll be here. I wanna help Kacchan as much as I can.”
Silence a third time.
Suddenly, Izuku gasps.
Katsuki frowns. “You okay?”
“It's your birthday,” he mutters, sitting up to stare down at Katsuki; he blinks a few times and shakes his head, shakes the tiredness away. More intently: “Kacchan, it's your birthday.”
Katsuki rolls onto his back and laughs. “Great observation, Deku. You can read a calendar. Congratulations.”
“Kacchan.” Izuku moves to sit on his knees. “Your birthday! You didn't— You don't have any plans?”
“You think I wanted to do anything when I knew I was gonna go into heat within the week?” he sneers. “Not that I like celebrating all that much anyway,” he mumbles.
(He used to, is the thing. For a good few years after the war, it was a way to really grapple with the fact that he'd lived—)
Izuku gapes at him. “I should have gotten you something. I could have—”
He makes a face like he’s thinking too hard, fingers to his lips, mumbling at the speed of light, so fast Katsuki can’t make out a single word, before he leaps off the bed, fishing his underwear out of his pants and making quick to put it back on, laughing when Katsuki makes a face and sound of disgust before watching him run out of the room.
He returns a few minutes later with his hands behind his back and a weird expression etched across his face.
“I've had this for a few years,” he starts. “I don't really know what I was doing, buying it. I think I might have been a little drunk, but um— And it's not all that good of a birthday gift, especially as a birthday gift to someone I'm trying to court—”
Katsuki ignores the way his stomach does a few flips. His eyebrows shoot up his head.
“Court?”
Izuku freezes. He smiles, a little awkwardly.
“Ah. That’s if— Well, if you want me to court you, Kacchan. It’s okay if you don’t want to, y’know, I wasn’t thinking when I said that, actually. I mean, I—”
Katsuki rolls his eyes and cuts him off.
“It’s fine, Izuku. You can court me.”
Izuku straightens. “I can? Even after we’ve, already—”
“You said you wanted me, didn’t you?” He makes grabby hands and splays them out in front of him. “Give me the gift.”
Izuku stares some more, before nodding to himself and walking to the bed, bringing the gift out and setting it onto the mattress with his eyes squeezed shut: it’s a crocheted teddy bear, with two red buttons for eyes, a wash of blond between its ears, dressed in the Dynamight costume, bottom and top. It’s complete with his boots, his gauntlets, and his old headpieces, too, the stupid-looking ones that protruded on either side of his head.
“You got a teddy bear of me,” Katsuki says dumbly.
He nods. “I saw it online from a fan, and I thought it was… cute? I, uh—” He laughs. “I like collecting merch of all my friends.”
“Clearly,” Katsuki rasps.
“I kept this one in my study,” Izuku continues. “I guess, as a sort of motivation. It helps me every time I feel like I need to give up.”
Katsuki can’t help but smile a little at that, leaning back to cross his arms over his chest.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I can scent it a little, if you want—I think that’s the standard.”
Izuku picks it back up, and holds it against his gland, before Katsuki crawls forward and pulls him back onto the bed. The bear slips out of his grip, landing on the corner of the mattress as Izuku stumbles his way between Katsuki’s legs, his yelp of surprise muffled by Katsuki’s lips against his. Izuku melts into the kiss within seconds; he licks into his mouth, groans when Kacchan threads his fingers through his hair and wraps his legs around his waist. Pulling back after a few minutes of making out, Izuku pants against his skin catching his breath.
“Is it starting again? Do you need me to—”
“It’s not,” Katsuki grumbles. His voice breaks as he continues; he pulls his hand to his face and palms his way down to his chin. “I just— Fuck, you didn’t need to do all of this.”
Izuku smiles. “I wanted to. I love you.”
Katsuki keeps his eyes trained on the bear, blinking hard, before he lets out a little sob.
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Talk to me,” Izuku whispers into the crook of his neck. “C'mon, Kacchan.”
Katsuki swallows, loud.
“You piss me off,” he admits, turning his head. “You know? I kept trying to tell you how much you meant to me. For years, Izuku. Thought maybe if I pretended you didn’t exist I could move on.
“Evi-fucking-dently I couldn’t. Half our friends asked me why I wasn’t hanging around you anymore. Why we never sat together, why I always seemed so sad. Why you seemed sad. I dunno. I made you think I hated you.” Katsuki chokes on another sob. “Fuck, I don’t— I just wanted to— to, y’know.” He sobs. “Fuck. Heat hormones are making me too mushy. I sound stupid.”
Izuku catches his bottom lip between his teeth and laughs, leaning down to press little kisses to Katsuki’s tears.
“You’re fine, Kacchan.”
–
They keep talking for the next few hours. Katsuki tells him what it is he really wants, straddling him while he nurses a bottle of water—a partner, not a sidekick. A mate, in Izuku, a friend. Izuku tells him he’s been thinking about taking on more patrols. Thinking of going into commission work over the break, too. When the next wave of his heat comes Izuku fucks him into the mattress, gentler this time, and leaves a claiming bite close to his gland that Katsuki practically begs for in the heat of the moment—he’ll regret it just a little, later, looking in the mirror before his morning shower tomorrow.
(As they lay in each other’s arms afterwards, Izuku freezes up, points out that they didn’t use a condom—Katsuki assures him he’ll just order a morning after pill in a few. It’s fine, he says, because they deliver them quick, and Katsuki can just disguise himself when he picks it up so there’s no media commotion later on.
“Kacchan smells really good,” Izuku mumbles later, so quiet as he spoons him, nipping his lobe, then licking a stripe along the shell of his ear. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
Katsuki takes in a shaky breath, grumbling low in the back of his throat before shaking his head.
“Not like anyone’s had a chance.”
“Yeah,” Izuku whispers, “Guess not.” He laughs. “I'll do that everyday, if Kacchan wants. For all the time we've got.”)