Chapter Text
Izuku watched from the kitchen while Mina and Eijirou spoke with Katsuki. Maybe he shouldn't have, maybe he should give them her privacy, but it's not like it really mattered.
It was good to see them. He barely ever got the chance these days. They were so busy and Katsuki was...well. Kacchan had a lot on his plate. So Mina and Ei rarely came around. Neither did Hanta and Denki. Momo was around more often, but she lived pretty far away.
He hated that Kacchan had become so isolated, and he hoped it would change. He wasn't sure, though, because Ei and Mina seemed on edge—shifting in their seats as they spoke. Katsuki noticed too—Izuku could tell by the way the blonde's jaw was clenching, his hands curling into fists.
"Would you fucks just spit it out already?" he finally snapped, eyes narrowed threateningly. The pair glanced at each other nervously.
"We're worried about you, Kats," Mina said. "And we know...we know it's hard, but it's been a year, and we think..." She looked at Eijirou for help, and Izuku's stomach twisted.
"We think it's time for you to start moving forward," Eijirou told him gently. Katsuki tensed. "We're not saying you need to completely move on right away, but...it's time for you to start being an actual participant in your life again, man."
"And how," Katsuki snarled. "Do you expect me to do that?"
"We don't expect anything," Mina assured him. "It's not like that. We just...it's hard to see you like this, Kats. Maybe...maybe it's time for you to start doing philanthropic work again? Maybe you could take the teaching post at UA?
"You could even start seeing new people, even if its just—"
"Shut the fuck up," Katsuki said, voice dark. They clammed up, looking at him with wide eyes. Izuku's heart broke at the look on his face. He was tearing up, jaw clenched as he tried to hold them back. His lip was trembling. "Get out."
"Kats—"
"No. It's barely been a year. A year."
"We're not saying you have to start dating, you just have to—"
Katsuki got to his feet, hurling his coffee cup at the wall with explosive force.
"I don't have to do shit. I can't even fucking look at you, fuck. Get out."
"Katsuki—"
"GET OUT!"
They jumped, staring up at him with sad eyes. Slowly, Eijirou rose from the couch. He held out his hand, pulling Mina up with him. Izuku watched them sadly. They had such a beautiful relationship—always in sync, always partners.
"Alright, dude. We're going," Eijirou said. He sounded choked up, and Izuku wished he could reassure him.
"We're here for you, Katsuki," Mina said softly. "When you're ready, we'll help you however we can, okay?"
Katsuki clenched his fists, taking a deep breath. "Just...leave. Please."
They left, casting concerned glances behind them before the door fell shut. And then Katsuki was alone again. He was always alone, and Izuku hated it.
He came to stand in front of his partner. His best friend. The love of his life. "Move on," Izuku whispered around the lump in his throat. Katsuki's shoulders hunched in, then started to shake as he let out a broken sob.
But not because he could hear Izuku's pleas. He couldn't hear Izuku at all.
"I'm not going to leave you behind," Katsuki promised into his palms.
"Move on, Kacchan," he begged, following as Katsuki collapsed back on the couch and pressed his palms into his eyes—crying harder. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that Kacchan was listening.
But he did know better. His words were falling on unhearing ears. He stroked the line of his lover's shoulder, just for his fingertips to sink through him.
That's why he had to move on. That's why he had to put twenty years of companionship behind him and learn to live without it. It's not like Izuku could provide it anymore.
Izuku had been dead for a year, after all.
The day Deku died was the worst day of Katsuki's life, bar none. He could remember every moment in vivid detail—he'd gone over it so many times in his head, it would be impossible to forget.
It was two weeks short of Halloween, and Bird Brain was going to have a charity costume party that evening. Izuku had been excited about their costumes because he'd made them himself—a cute little ghost and the big bad wolf.
He'd stayed up late putting the finishing touches on, and crawled into bed long after Katsuki had fallen asleep.
They'd woken up, fucked in the shower, made breakfast, eaten together while they watched the news. Izuku's shift started two hours earlier than his, so they went in together but Katsuki stayed in his office to catch up on paperwork.
Katsuki started his patrol at noon. Everything was fine until it wasn't.
Izuku's patrol route was all the way on the other side of their district, so when Katsuki got his distress call, he wasn't close enough. He flew as fast as he could. He really did, he knew he did. He knew there was nothing he could have done.
It wasn't his fault that Izuku was already dead by the time he got there. It wasn't his fault that Izuku's last words to dispatch, caught on recording to be preserved forever—to be played at Commission hearings for weeks to come—had been words of adoration and apology.
He'd held Izuku in his burning hands, clutching his lifeless form. He couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears. He couldn't hear himself begging Izuku to wake up.
He didn't hear or see anything except his beautiful face, slack jawed and glass-eyed. Gone, gone, gone. Then, he heard the villain, still tearing up the street.
Then, he killed the villain. He killed him with concrete, concussion, and combustion—pummeling him for the cameras to see, making him bleed, breaking him apart, tearing him to pieces as he screamed with sorrow—and all the while his ears were ringing.
He didn't even feel his own explosions—his hands, his body, his heart, numb from shock and horror. He wanted to tear the world apart. He wanted to burn it to the ground, and his rampage persisted—even when his hands started to bleed.
In the end, Eijirou had to stop him. Stood in front of him, grabbed him, wouldn't let go. Held him as he broke down in the wake of his destruction, crumbling in the middle of the street, sobbing for the cameras to see.
The civilians understood. The media understood. They all knew what Deku meant to him. They all knew that Izuku was a piece of his soul—the most important piece. They knew he was gone. They were horrified, but they understood.
They understood when Katsuki was suspended, too. They knew he couldn't be an active hero in this state.
They didn't know what the solitude did to him—alone with his despair. His friends and family tried not to let him be alone, but he could barely see them. He couldn't hear them. It felt like he was drowning, and there was nothing coming to pull him from the water.
Every morning, he'd wake up and forget that Deku was dead. He'd feel Deku's side of the bed, frowning when he found it cold. Then he'd remember, and he'd go numb all over again. He'd break down all over again. He'd cry himself to sleep and scream his throat raw all over again. He'd lose Izuku all over again.
For those first two weeks, it would sometimes feel like he was still there. His scent would linger, soothing him as he slept. The toothpaste cap would be left off the tube. The coffee maker would be going when he woke up. It drove him insane.
He had no idea how much time had passed. He was just numb and then raw and then numb again. One night, he got so drunk that he could have sworn he hear Izuku's voice in his ear. He screamed, throwing a glass against the wall, breaking down as it shattered.
In the morning, the glass was gone. He could only assume Mina or Ei had come to check on him and cleaned it up. It explained the coffee that was brewing in the kitchen, too.
One morning, two weeks since Izuku's death, Katsuki woke up with a smile on his face and a tangible weight in his arms. He buried his face into familiar curls, breathing in deep. He'd missed the smell of his shampoo, soft and sweet like flowers.
Then, he remembered why he missed it, going stone still with Izuku's sturdy form warm in his grasp. He could feel his body rising and falling, as though he was breathing. As though he was alive.
But Izuku was dead. They'd buried him a week ago.
This was either a dream or a nightmare. As long as he kept his eyes closed, he wouldn't have to find out which. Maybe he could do better than Orpheus. Maybe he could keep living in this dream—not opening his eyes because if he looked, it would slip out of his grasp.
But he wasn't stronger than Orpheus. He was just as weak.
He opened his eyes, and his heart stopped.
It was Deku. At least, it looked like him. He just looked...different. Slowly, those emerald eyes fluttered open. He didn't look the way he usually did in the mornings—unfocused and bleary. He looked like he'd been awake for hours, pretending to sleep so that they could wake up together.
There was an adoring smile on his face, and it made his heart ache.
He had to be fake. A figment of his imagination, a cruel torture, a villainous plot. He looked hazy and out of focus around the edges. He was pale, too—pallid where Izuku was usually sun-kissed. It wasn't him. It wasn't real.
Except his freckles were too perfect. Too exact to be faked.
"When is the first time you kissed me?" Katsuki asked quietly. Their security question. Maybe the dream in his arms was an impostor. A way to feed off his vulnerability.
"When we were four," Izuku replied softly. "We saw your parents kiss, and you wanted to know what it felt like."
The answer registered slowly, and Katsuki crumbled in pieces—his lip trembling, jaw clenching, eyes flooding, breath hitching; falling apart step by step until he was sobbing in Izuku's arms.
"How are you here?" he sobbed, taking his face in his hands. "You were fucking dead, how are you here?"
Izukus smile turned sad. "I'm not," he said. "Not really, and not forever. But I am here for today."
Izuku watched as Katsuki paced the floor of their...his apartment. It was one minute until midnight, and the blonde had been restless all day. It had been one year minus one minute since last Halloween, and he understood the anticipation.
Katsuki wanted to know if last year was a fluke. A vivid hallucination.
Izuku wanted to know, too. It was hard seeing Katsuki every day without being able to touch him. It was hard to see his hurt and loneliness—his isolation—without being able to intervene or give comfort. It was like a two-way mirror, with Katsuki sitting in the interrogation room. Except the interrogation room was his entire life, and he was constantly on edge, like he was being watched everywhere he went, while also being completely on his own.
Izuku wanted to know, because Izuku wanted to reach out to him without his fingers passing through Kacchan's body. He wanted to know, so that even if it was only for a moment, he could be Katsuki's again.
He wanted to know, because he wanted Katsuki to move forward. To heal. He couldn't do that if he knew Izuku was lingering. He would refuse, stubborn as ever, insisting that one day out of the year was enough.
As though Izuku hadn't seen him yearning. As though he hadn't been yearning right back.
He stood in the doorway while he waited for the clock to strike twelve—just studying Katsuki's face. He looked so hopeful. The selfish part of him hoped that he'd materialize. That he'd get to satisfy that hope—reward it appropriately.
The reasonable side of him—the one he forced himself to listen to—was praying that he wouldn't reappear. That whatever scab had formed over the broken pieces of Katsuki's heart wouldn't be ripped open when he had to leave at Midnight the following day.
He was tired of seeing Kacchan in pain.
The alarm on Katsuki's phone went off, and his head snapped up, searching the room with desperate eyes. It took him a moment, but Izuku smiled sadly when Katsuki found him standing by the door. He was visible. Katsuki could see him. And in barely any time at all, Katsuki would lose him again.
But the relief that flooded his face was palpable. The tension left his shoulders, and he stood—staggering toward him like he was an oasis in a desert. He pulled Izuku into his arms, and melted into him. It made Izuku feel heavy with guilt, but loved, too.
So loved.
It made him mourn for whatever life they could have had that would have stretched into old age in peace. He wished he could have stayed with Kacchan forever. But he was dead, and eventually, Kacchan would have to let go.
Tonight, though, he pressed his face into Katsuki's neck. He could almost smell him, but it was a memory. He wasn't really here. His heart wasn't beating, but there was a phantom echo of the way his heart used to pound in his husband's presence. He ran his fingers through blonde strands, wishing he could truly appreciate Katsuki's warmth.
He didn't say any of that aloud. Instead, he said, "Hi, Kacchan."
"You need to move on," Izuku murmured.
It had been two years and eight months since he'd died. Two years since Izuku had first shown up on Halloween. Another year of waiting for the day he'd get to see Deku again. And now he was here. They were lying in bed, Izuku tucked into his arms, and it wasn't perfect but it was good enough.
"I can't," Katsuki replied. He was wrapped around Izuku's frame—holding him like a lifeline. He hadn't been more than five inches away from Izuku since he'd appeared. He couldn't let him go—just seeing him felt like the first breath you take after drowning. Touching him—even though it didn't feel quite right—was like a morphine drip, easing the ache in his soul to near nothingness.
"You definitely can't if you don't try," he said. And he definitely wasn't trying. He was languishing—barely recognizable as he moved through his life like a puppet with its strings cut. He knew it. But at least he had something to look forward to. A reward for persevering. A full day with the remnants of the man he loved.
"This is enough, Deku. I don't need more. Moving on isn't really in the cards." How do you move on from someone who fits you so perfectly? Who fills all the empty spaces and holds onto your heart with both hands, even when plummeting into the grave?
There was a reason he felt so fucking empty. Why, for 364 days of the year, he felt adrift. The person who made him feel alive was dead.
There was a long pause. Then, quietly, Izuku said, "I can't move on unless you do, Kacchan."
It was like being doused with ice water. He felt sick, suddenly gripped by his own selfishness. He'd been so wrapped up in what he wanted—what he craved—for years now. He needed Deku to feel whole—spent the entirety of Halloween completely consumed by him.
He'd never even bothered to ask what it was like for him for the rest of the year. How it felt to be stuck—in the world but not a part of it. Separated from everything you loved, but unable to leave it behind.
"Do you want to move on?" he asked. He wanted him to say no. He wanted Izuku to wait here with him until he could go with him. Who knew what came after life? What if moving on now meant never seeing each other again? He didn't know if he could take that.
Izuku was silent for a long moment, and his stomach was sinking. "I don't want to leave you," he finally said. "I wish I could come back. I wish I could be here for our morning coffees and date nights. But I can't. If we move on, I can rest. If we don't, all I can do is watch and wait, and it's painful to watch you hurt and wait for you to find happiness that you refuse to look for, Kacchan. It's destroying both of us in different ways." A tear slipped out of Katsuki's eyes, and he squeezed them shut, pulling Izuku in closer. Holding onto him even though he was already gone. Izuku squeezed him back. "I think you should at least try."
"I don't want to leave you behind," he said.
"You won't be," he said. "Kacchan, you'll always carry me with you. But you should be a part of your own life again. You should spend time with friends and family, not waste away in here, all alone. They're hurting, too. You could help each other. You could live again. You can be happy, even if it hurts."
"I'll never love anyone like I love you, Deku. Isn't that fucking unfair? To them? To me?"
"You don't have to date," he said, sliding a soothing hand down Katsuki's back. "At least not right now. But if you meet someone along the way, you don't have to love them the way you love me. You could love them differently."
His stomach turned, knowing that it would never be enough.
Izuku watched. He watched, and he watched, and he watched. He watched with bated breath, even though he couldn't breathe.
Katsuki was trying.
It had started with their friends. He'd invited them over, and they'd had a quiet night in. Izuku had watched. He'd watched as Mina curled into his side and they watched movies, clearly still walking on eggshells. He watched as Katsuki cracked, the first sob coming in quiet and broken until he was crying so hard that he couldn't breathe. Mina and Eijirou held him.
Mina rubbed soothing circles into his back, and Eijirou held his hand. He'd tried to explain—he felt stuck. Izuku was still everywhere to him, lurking around every corner, just out of reach. How he couldn't stop turning toward him to ask for his opinion or reach for his hand, just to find him missing.
He was living with a ghost, and he was okay with that. But it hurt.
"I'm sorry," Mina said. "For being so stupid that first year. For pushing you when you weren't ready. We just...we worried, Kats. We've barely seen you in two years. You've disappeared from your own life. And I don't know how you feel, but I do get it. It was tactless of me to suggest dating, but we love you and don't want you to lock yourself away."
"And you might not like hearing this," Eijirou said, soft but steady. "But Izuku wouldn't want you to live like this either. Kats, he'd be so sad to see you so alone."
Izuku's heart broke as Katsuki sobbed even harder, because they'd had that exact conversation only a week ago, and he knew they were right. It was a first step, and it hurt. And Izuku knew Katsuki was only doing this for him, but it was a start. A slow, painful start.
Over the next few months, it was a slow drip. He'd mostly invite people over—reaching out and letting people reach out to him, but still wary of reintroducing himself to the world at large. He understood. Nothing felt right. And even now, in his third year of death, Katsuki would turn to look for him as though he'd forgotten that Izuku was gone.
He was relearning how to live without him after a lifetime of having him within arm's reach.
One day, Katsuki came home from work, tossing his keys in the bowl by the door, and dropping his bag in the entryway. That was uncharacteristic. Kacchan was neat to a fault. He'd put things away as soon as he could, but today, he stumbled over to the couch and buried his head in his hands.
"Pinky's setting me up on a date," Katsuki mumbled. Izuku went still, dead heart fracturing. It was for the best, but it hurt. "No expectations or anything, just testing the waters. I don't know how the fuck she managed to convince me, but she did."
He was grateful to her. He hated her a little, too, though.
He knew Katsuki couldn't hear him, but he said, "That's good." Trying to reassure him. "You need to keep trying and growing and changing. That's what being alive is about, Kacchan."
"It feels like I'm betraying you. You're still here, I know you are. How can I possibly fucking date someone knowing that you're here? But Pinky said something about how we'd hit it off and that even if we didn't click romantically, he'd be a good friend or some shit, and she looked so fucking hopeful, and I just caved."
"She's bringing you out of your comfort zone," Izuku said to unhearing ears. "It's not even a comfort zone, it's a misery zone. She's trying to maximize your chances for happiness. It's a good thing."
"You think it's worth a try, don't you?" he scoffed. "You think it would be good for me."
"It would be."
Katsuki was silent for a moment, face still pressed into his palms. "I'm meeting the guy at seven. We're going to that French bistro around the corner that we never got to try. And that feels shitty, too."
"It's okay to feel shitty," Izuku told him. "But you've gotta keep trying."
It took a while, Katsuki eventually moved from the couch, trudging into their bedroom like it was a whole new funeral march. He picked out a nice shirt and fitted slacks, and finished off the look with a necklace that Izuku had gotten him a few years into their relationship. "Might as well carry you with me," he murmured as he fastened it. "I don't want you to ever think that I'm leaving you behind."
He was touched, truly. But he wondered if that would hold him back. He wondered if he was holding Katsuki back. Maybe he shouldn't have ever showed himself. Maybe that would have made it easier.
But nothing would make this easier. He just had to keep pushing forward. He had to keep living. You couldn't live with one hand in the grave. He didn't have to forget, but he had to let go.
Izuku had to let go, too. So, he watched—heart aching but soul lighter—as Katsuki made his way out the door. He hoped beyond reason that he would find something good. That he'd find something that would bring him back to life.
When he got home that night, Katsuki slumped into the bed like a puppet with its strings cut.
"He was nice," Katsuki admitted. "It was nice to talk to someone who hasn't been all up in my business for fuckin' years. But he's not you." Izuku hoped that wasn't the qualification he was looking for. He'd be alone forever that way. "He was nice. Sympathetic and shit. Knew that we were married and that you died in a villain attack. Seemed a little freaked out when I told him this was the first date I'd been on since you died, though. Don't think he was looking for that type of baggage."
Izuku understood that. "There'll be more, if you want to keep trying," he said softly. "You're amazing, Kacchan. Anyone who has a chance with you is lucky."
"Not sure I wanna do that shit again," he said. "But some of it...didn't feel horrible."
Izuku gave a sad smile. It sounded like a promising start.
A ritual was formed. Katsuki started to go out.
Not only on dates—sometimes to spend time with friends, sometimes to community events, sometimes to his parents' place. Sometimes to visit Izuku's mother.
But the dates were there, too. They were un-ignorable, because Katsuki would tell him before every single one, as though he was asking for forgiveness. Then, when he came home, and he would talk to himself. Well, not to himself—but Izuku couldn't respond, so really, what was the difference?
He would come home miserable every single time, and tell him why this each new person didn't fit, or what was good about them and how it reminded him of Izuku. He'd lament, he'd rage, he'd cry. Izuku wondered if this was hurting more than helping, but there was no denying that he was reaching out more.
Growing back into his life.
Sure, the dates may be futile—though he hoped they weren't—but they got him out the door. And once he had a taste for being in the world again, he got better at actually being present. It was a relief that he didn't know how to appreciate. It was like they'd been superglued together their entire lives, and now they were being pried apart without a solvent. But that was better for both of them, even if it hurt.
He still hadn't moved on by the time Halloween came around, though. October 30th, 11:59 PM found Katsuki exactly where he'd been last year—waiting on the couch with bated breath. Like Izuku was still his lifeline, even though he'd started living again.
He couldn't help himself, though. When midnight struck and he appeared, Katsuki looked at him like he was the entire universe, and he smiled—the longing that plagued him subsiding as the blonde opened his arms and Izuku slid into them like he belonged there. It couldn't go on forever, but it could go on for now.
"Missed you," Katsuki murmured, kissing him in the next breath. Izuku savored it, knowing that this time tomorrow, he'd be out of reach again. And maybe forever after that, if things went right. When he pulled back, he said, "I hate this. I hate missing you."
Izuku cupped his face, running his thumb over his cheekbone—tracing the lines of his face like it was a work of art. "I know," he replied softly. "You've been trying, though. You've been trying so hard, Kacchan. I'm so proud of you. It finally feels like you're alive again. And it'll get better."
"Maybe," he said, a tear slipped down his face, and Izuku was quick to wipe it away. He pulled Izuku in closer. "But there'll always be a part of me that was buried with you."