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It was raining when he found him, pouring as they fought to get him back, and drizzling when they finally got him to stay.
Bakugou Katsuki has always hated the rain with a burning passion, but this one, this one rainy night, he can almost forgive it.
(The rain makes him weak; it makes him vulnerable. It makes him feel like he is at the river again.)
He looks at the boy beside him—the boy in the rain, the boy at the playground, the boy at the river, the boy in Katsuki’s life (and he will stay in it because Midoriya Izuku didn’t leave when he had the chance, when Katsuki had pushed, pulled, and shoved him away). The boy is asleep beside him, unguarded with his defenses down, and it would be so easy for Katsuki to hurt him, to make him bleed, to make him cry—if only it isn’t what Katsuki is determined not to do, if only it isn’t what he is doing his best to avoid. Because he could drive a blade into Midoriya’s stomach, he could shoot him in the head, make a gaping hole in his chest, and the boy would still be hurt more by the fact that it was Bakugo who did it.
(Kacchan is amazing; the words echo in his head like a verdict, like a promise, like a truth—and Katsuki hates these words because he knows they're true but he doesn’t need anyone to say it for him.
Katsuki also feels like the words are a life sentence, and the orator of it is the victim of how untrue the words are. )
And Katsuki can do it, but can he stomach it? Can he take it, hurting the boy he grew up with—the boy he had already hurt—the boy who had hurt enough?
(Kasuki isn't afraid of anything, but this time he doesn’t want to know the answer. He knows it will change something, anything, everything.)
The object of Katsuki’s dilemma shifts beside him; the blanket their classmate had put over the boy slips down his shoulders as quiet whimpers escape his lips, and Katsuki looks. He takes in the changes, the differences, and what has stayed the same for the boy he knows—knew?—his whole life.
(Does Katsuki really know him? Has he ever tried to? Is it too late to try?)
Midoriya Izuku has always been strong, even back when he was quirkless. He is strong in some ways that Katsuki isn’t, but he got stronger in UA and even stronger after UA, and isn’t that frustrating to think about? That he got stronger where Bakugo couldn’t see him? That he got better with no Katsuki beside him? Katsuki finds it unfair because Midoriya Izuku is supposed to look at Bakugou Katsuki because that's how it has always been. And Katsuki... he has always looked at the nerd, even when he doesn’t like what he sees, because he can’t really look away.
Katsuki focuses on the face, a face he has known all his life; he counts the freckles speckled on it like it's a canvas. They’re like constellations scattered across the sky, and in the dark, in front of the television light, Katsuki can almost call them stars. His fingers hover over the spots along the curve of his cheeks, tracing them, following them on his nose, some on his forehead, above his lips, and below it, making sure they are there, making sure that he is here, that he is real, that he is alive, that he is by Katsuki’s side. That Izuku sleeping, safe and sound, on the couch of their common room is not just a mirage of the past that Bakugo desperately wanted back.
(He wants it back. He wants him back. He has it now. He has him now. Katsuki won’t let him go again. Ever. Never Again.)
Katsuki’s eyes trail down the thin neck of his childhood friend (it was true, right? He can say that now, right?) following the marks on his childhood friend’s shoulders like the sun had kissed him there; he also notices how his old shirt doesn’t fit him like it used to, like it isn’t his. Katsuki mutters obscenities under his breath; for someone so smart, he thinks, the nerd is an idiot for neglecting his health and destroying his body. Katsuki stops the ghosting of his fingers and fixes the old washed-out article on the other boy’s form. He drapes the blanket back around Izuku and lays the head full of green curls against his shoulder because Katsuki knows—even when Izuku doesn’t—that the selfless boy needs someone to lean on, and he will make sure that the walking savior complex will always have a shoulder he can rest-cry-whatever on. For someone so strong, he thinks again, the nerd looked so frail and young.
Like he would break beneath the weight of the burden he carries, and Katsuki can do nothing but watch as he does.
But he will not let that happen, it is what he is doing his best to avoid after all; let the nerd get hurt, let the nerd hurt himself.
(He hates the self-sacrificial tendencies Izuku has. Always has and always will, because even when he doesn’t want to, he knows that he is the one who’s going to pick up the pieces that Izuku will leave behind.
He knew this—at a certain unconscious level, even back when they were kids—that Izuku would tear himself apart for his dreams, for others. He didn’t want that, still doesn’t, but now he will stay by Izuku’s side and piece the nerd back together before he can shatter.
And even when he does break, Katsuki will be there, and like Izuku said, Kacchan is amazing. He will save him—his childhood friend, his victim, his classmate, his rival, his whatever-he-is-to-Katsuki, and his whatever-he-will-be-him—because Katsuki is a hero too.
(And also because it’s Izuku.)
Katsuki sits still beside the sleeping greenet on the couch as their classmates sleep around them on the floor and on the other couches. They were too afraid to lose their friend again, and Katsuki understands that; he is there, after all (he feels the same).
He takes Izuku’s hand, crooked and littered with scars and discoloration; there are some freckles on it too, and Katsuki touches them almost reverently. Nearly every part of him is littered with it, like a galaxy. Katsuki knows this. He traces the scars and freckles, textured and soft, with his fingers. The nearly-there touches he had been doing earlier don’t appeal to him anymore; now he touches the skin fully with his calloused fingers and rough palm, and Katsuki was never one to be gentle, but he tries.
(Because Katsuki feels like he needs to touch Izuku to assure himself that he will not disappear, he holds his hand and clasps it between his as he rests his head beside the boy, his blond locks touching green ones.
Sunkissed, his mother had told Izuku’s, your son is loved by the sun. They were four and sitting on the grass as their mothers gossiped from their seats under the shade. Katsuki remembers sticky fingers and a blinding smile as Izuku went down from his brain freeze. No one will want to kiss an idiot like you, Katsuki had told him, because you kiss someone when you love them, right? Okay, Kacchan, Izuko had replied then, not really understanding it, and Bakugo didn’t get it either, but he does now.
If Katsuki kisses the hand clasped against his before he falls asleep, only the moon and stars would know.
—
Katsuki wakes up to a soft hand carefully prying itself from his, so gentle that he almost wouldn’t feel it if he wasn’t Bakugou Katsuki.
Tough luck because he is and Kacchan is fucking amazing.
“What are you doing?” He asks. Why are you letting go? He doesn’t.
“Hi, Kacchan.” The culprit whispers instead, his hand stilling in Katsuki’s before moving again.
Katsuki narrows his eyes and grips the hand tighter, pulling the owner back to his seat, flush against him. “Stop that,” he tells the idiot, closing his eyes again. He needs sleep. They need sleep, the nerd even more so. “Stay here,” he whispers to the green curls smelling of the baby shampoo they used on him earlier.
“Okay,” he says, “Okay, Kacchan.”
That’s right, listen to Kacchan for once, Katsuki thinks, a little pissed at the nerd for trying to run away from him and for being so goddamn stubborn.
“Kacchan,” Izuku whispers, uncertain.
“What?” Katsuki mouths at the side of his head.
“I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to run away,” he tells Katsuki, he plays with his fingers and the blond lets him.
Katsuki scoffs, “You can try.” The nerd can try but Katsuki will drag him back here, he will break his legs if he has to. Recovery Girl can always heal him, “Or you can bring me with you.”
“You know I won’t do that to you, Kacchan.”
Katsuki sighs, “Just stay here then.” He wants to argue, he wants to shake the nerd, and beat some sense into his brain but now is not the best time. He will wait for the altruistic idiot to rest before he sets him straight. “Sleep,” he says to him lowly and Izuku does.
Katsuki doesn’t sleep, though; he waits for Izuku to relax in his hold, and when he does, Katsuki opens his eyes. Thick green lashes kiss freckled cheeks, and Katsuki yearns, so he does it too.
He doesn’t think about what he just did, what he’s been doing since earlier, or what it’s going to mean for him and Izuku. He also doesn’t think about how his heart stuttered looking at Izuku’s eyes in the dark, only illuminated by the static of the television, and how the green orbs gazed at him like he was the brightest thing in the room. He doesn’t.