Work Text:
With nightfall comes a chill that nips at Katsuki's bones, painful where they've been broken and reformed time and again. Katsuki picks at the bracer outlining his wrist, unsure if he wants to tighten it or loosen, but is soon distracted by the sound of footfalls from behind him.
He turns, not sharply because he recognizes the cadence of the leather boots, and acknowledges Izuku's arrival with a soft grunt.
Izuku carries with him a bundle of firewood, much more than they needed for a night's rest, but he always did that.
"What if we want to sleep in tomorrow, Kacchan?" Izuku had mused, in the past. "Then you can just reignite the wood from our bedroll."
"And incinerate the entire fuckin' forest while I'm at it." Katsuki had grumbled, not pointing out the fact that it was Izuku who chose to leave their bedroll each morning, bright and early.
Now, Izuku has busied himself with kindling in the shape of thin sticks and twigs and dry dead grass. Katsuki turns away before he's caught staring.
Small swarms of fireflies dip in and out of the treeline, flickering their delicate glow behind moonbeams that pierce through the thick throngs of branches and leaves. Katsuki waves a couple away from his face, blinking up at the sky.
It was a pleasantly clear night, though the stars were soon dulled as thick smoke entered the atmosphere. Izuku stands up tall, stretching a crick out of his neck, and Katsuki's eyes turn towards the modest campfire that soon soothes the ache from his bones with its mellow warmth.
Katsuki falls heavy on a log he'd dragged out into the open earlier, which has rotted a bit by the way it has turned green around the edges, but was stable enough to hold his weight. Acrid smoke curls around him, scaring away the pesky lightning bugs that have taken interest in his eyelashes, and Katsuki finds comfort in the way it pleasantly coats his lungs.
With a deep breath, he lets his spine curl over as he leans against his knees, still picking at his bracer. He hadn't realized how high his shoulders had been to his ears until then.
Izuku comes to join him on the log, fingers skipping across the exposed skin of Katsuki's shoulders that lay bare without his cloak. They're cold at the tips, but tepid at the palms when he curls the calloused pad of his hand around Katsuki's upper arm.
"Long day, hm?" Izuku muses, quiet. As if someone could overhear them, purposefully lost in the woods as they were. They'd travelled ages and hours to get here, to the middle of nowhere, and they had the scars to prove it.
Katsuki's eyes dart over to Izuku's. One, vibrant green and bright and a bit tired around the edges where the few sleepless nights he'd gone through have built up over the weeks and left dark smudges and swollen skin beneath his waterline.
The other eye still has the bags and the dark marks, but is nothing more than a blank, white marble that mocks Katsuki at the best and worst of times.
He turns away with a jerk, knocking Izuku's hand off of his skin. Izuku takes no offense to the motion, only offering a temperate hum as he stands again to pick through their wares for dinner.
Generally, Katsuki was the one who cooked.
He hadn't offered tonight, because there was something, some stupid feeling simmering beneath his skin and his muscles and gluing between his bones, that left him hot and cold and overtly empty in the stomach.
Katsuki could barely focus past it, which only got him more pissed. An irritating feedback loop, and Katsuki scarcely had the energy to take those feelings out on an enemy or an unfortunate tree stump, let alone talk it through rationally with his partner.
His partner, who has busied himself with their cooking pot and setting up a spit to cook the small rabbit they had prepared earlier. Izuku sets it out, the rabbit carcass, as close to the fire as it can get without preemptively cooking, so that the bugs stay off of it.
Then, he tugs out a sack filled with potatoes that have lasted them most of the month, a shallot or two squished at the bottom. The rest of their mushrooms are spread throughout, like edible ornaments, and he upends the whole of the bag atop a slab of clean wood, nestled in a cleared area on the forest floor. They spread messily across his chopping block, the heavy one that hangs off of a loop on Izuku's pack when they hike through woods and mountains.
"Peel these?" Izuku asks, holding up two of the five small potatoes they have left. Altogether it would be a hearty meal that would send them right to sleep, and probably have leftovers for breakfast if they remembered to keep it covered and simmering through the night.
Katsuki doesn't make a show of his compliance, unhooking the paring knife from their food pack and gathering up the potatoes without a sound. Izuku's head tilts, as if trying to figure out a puzzle or hear a silent song on the wind. He mumbles something, purposefully low so that Katsuki doesn't hear, but he disappears with the cooking pot before Katsuki can make a fuss about it. Off to get clean water from the stream they'd set up partially near.
With his absence, that feeling that coiled around in Katsuki's gut— like a stubborn snake that has carelessly poisoned itself— starts to rear up even heavier.
He recognizes that it is, atleast partially, fear. Fear of what will happen with Izuku out of his sight. How fucking stupid is it that he only starts getting afraid for idiot Deku after he's been injured, healed over, and shown to be alright.
And though Katsuki cares for the half-elf, he… isn't the best at categorizing his own feelings. Especially for others. Even before the incident, Katsuki's relationship with Izuku was a fragile thing: thin and easily pierced like an eggshell. Anything could come and break it, and Katsuki hadn't been ready yet to acknowledge how much it would wound him if it did happen. Still isn't.
Though, it's not as if he… didn't care before. Far from it. But the injury had only cemented some sort of mortality in the thick of Katsuki's mind, for the both of them. Each battle could bring the demise of either one of them; could end the fanciful dream they have conceived where they would wind up, at the end of their days, together and happy and peaceful.
Instead, it was more like Izuku was the one who didn't care.
He had laughed, joyous and bubbling, with his eye plucked straight from his head like grapes unready to be pulled from a vine. Covered in his own blood, dying, and he was just happy that he'd saved Katsuki.
Katsuki had been cursed, some while ago, by some asshole who hated his guts for some reason Katsuki couldn't even remember anymore. They, the one who cursed him, had thought it would be funny to torment Katsuki. To dangle his dreams in front of him and tell him, clearly, that he would never achieve them. That the only thing he had to look forward to was the dark veil of death.
The curse decreed that his vision belonged to that sorcerer. Someway or another, completely outside of Katsuki's control, he would lose them (his dreams, his vision, his future) and die. For a person without a future is nothing more than a corpse, they'd said.
Izuku hadn't liked learning that. Almost more than Katsuki hated being toyed with by a shitty spellcaster.
There isn't much Katsuki remembers specifically about the event, truly. He knows that Izuku had figured out how to fiddle with the curse, how to turn it onto himself instead of Katsuki. How to make it so that something physical is given up, instead of a full life.
Izuku had willingly given up his eye, so that Katsuki could live. He gave up part of his own vision, his iris greying like a silver coin, and had been so happy when he'd turned to Katsuki, expression bright and open, when it worked.
It took them both by surprise when the curse-giver had returned with a vengeance, even before Katsuki could get mad at Izuku for butting in where he shouldn't have. Katsuki had barely opened his lips, ready to yell probably, when sharp fingers had plunged into Izuku's face. Those fingers had sliced through Izuku's battle-hardened skin and bones like it was soft river water parted by a departing boat.
Something Katsuki does starkly remember is the intense despair that had gripped his ribs and rattled them like rusting cage bars, seeing that. Izuku's lifeblood spilled across his pores, painting across his freckles with deep, heavy crimson. Katsuki remembers how it had dried brown just around the edges, but still sluggishly bled when Izuku passed out in his arms.
He couldn't breathe with every step he took to a medic, or a necromancer, or even a fucking seamstress if only they could fix Deku.
"I'm glad, Kacchan," Izuku had mumbled, voice dying in his throat as the pain gripped him from inside and outside his skull. He was still smiling, teeth staining red as his wound spilled over across his lips. "You're free."
As an elf, Izuku had a long life in front of him. Even before Katsuki was born some thirty years ago, Izuku had lived through half the lifetime of a plain human. And even now, they've only known one another for five years, no longer than that. So why had it been so easy for him to give up the rest of his life, just for Katsuki?
It haunted him, still, that he didn't know the answer to that question.
Katsuki had to trade his sword, pommel embedded with rare stones charmed with strength magic, to pay for the medicines, the surgery, and for his new eye. It wasn't his best sword, yet was an heirloom from his parents. Despite that, he'd used the thing maybe a dozen times for the better part of the year, so it had been easy to part with. Much easier than giving up Izuku.
It was scary, realizing the extent that his care for such a stupid elven idiot went.
Before the incident, Katsuki could have even comfortably said that he hated the guy, that he was stupidly selfless and had a god-complex from always looking down on everyone. That he was annoying. It would have been a lie, the 'hate' part atleast, but Katsuki could have said it and been at ease with himself.
Even when Izuku would greet him with a bright smile, a 'Great work, Kacchan!' after battle, or a gentle touch when they had to suture one another's wounds, Katsuki had been… hesitant with his— heart or whatever. He barely wanted to let the elf in, because that was just another weakness his enemies could use to get to him. And, because…
Izuku returns with a full pot and two full waterskins.
Katsuki had been distracted and slow-going with the potatoes, so he still has two left to peel by the time Izuku sits cross-legged in front of the fire, stirring the water with spices, cuts of butter, the mushrooms.
"What's bothering you, Kacchan?" Izuku asks, knife coming down hard on the chopping block as he prepares the few peeled potatoes and the rest of the vegetables for the stew. The rabbit is quickly dismembered and stuffed tight into the tiny cast iron vessel, before the stew is placed back over the fire.
It doesn't even bubble and boil before the aroma is drifting through their humble campsite.
When Katsuki doesn't answer the question, Izuku slips his legs beneath himself and crawls over, knees staining with dark soil. His hands are dirty with rabbit blood and salt.
"I can help, if you tell me."
His hair is soft as he rests his head in Katsuki's lap, uncaring of stray potato peels. His fingers curl over as he holds them limply in the air, careful not to stain either of their clothes.
His eyes drift shut. The scarred side doesn't close all the way, a thing it sometimes does when Izuku lays his neck at odd angles. He never notices it, but Katsuki does. The scar is thick, though it wasn't keloid or bumpy, and sometimes made his left eyelid curve up away from the lower lid.
Katsuki didn't want to let Izuku into his heart because Katsuki wasn't strong enough yet, for love.
It's something he realized in the middle of a night when he'd startled awake, breathing in the scent at the nape of Izuku's neck. It was a soft fragrance, and though Izuku was a light sleeper he hadn't woken up when Katsuki jerked from his nightmare by gripping him tight around the middle.
No, he stayed peacefully dozing, as the morning sun began to melt the dew and warm the ground. And so, Katsuki was able to look at him clearly, openly, and thank the heavens that Izuku was still with him. It made him pathetically soft in the heart, pressing himself skin to skin to Izuku.
Caring takes a lot out of a person, requires a lot more. It hurt to admit, even in the hidden space of his mind, but Katsuki didn't think he'd ever be strong enough, for love.
Something else Katsuki remembers from the episode that cost Izuku half his sight is how much Katsuki had cried. His entire frame had wracked and shuddered with sobs, hands dirty with elf blood and salty tears that surely did not help the wound.
Like with everything else, he doesn't know how he was able to kill the sorcerer who cursed them both, but he does remember the vibrating, thrumming heat all through his veins. It was as if he was a beast that had been dulled with drugged food and collars and chains for all of his life, and was suddenly let loose.
He let his anger consume him in a literal blaze, igniting the earth and the air without prejudice. He seared sinewy muscle from bone, his own as they crackled to absorb his influx of power, and that of the sorcerer who dared to find humor in Izuku's sacrifice.
Izuku tells him this, laughing the same way as he did that horrible day, and also says that Katsuki had been a stunning sight, finally reaching the apex of his power: his maturation. He had glowed with his anger and his heat and his fear.
Dragonkin did not mature traditionally. Their powers were muted, though still strong, and were kept locked inside of their bodies until they reached a boiling point in their life. A period of time of extreme stress, pressuring them to mold into something new— like diamonds sitting at the Earth's core tense under magmatic rock. Katsuki matured much earlier than most.
Of course it would be Deku that brought him to that breaking point.
It was ironic, in a way that Katsuki didn't care to think further about. Especially not at that point in time, when Izuku was choking on his own tongue and turning pale as he bled out. He'd smeared some of it, the blood, across Katsuki's face, messily staining locks of hair that had grown longer with the breadth of their shared adventure.
"Kacchan," Izuku says.
Katsuki blinks, and Izuku is now sitting on his right, also atop the log. He'd missed the moment when Izuku decided to rest his head against Katsuki's shoulder, only catching the motion as he pulls away to clean his hands with a wetted cloth.
"What?"
"I asked if you weren't feeling hungry after all. It was a long day." Izuku has to wet the cloth twice more with water from his waterskin in order to get the stubborn, thin blood from between his fingers. "You can sleep, if you want."
Katsuki rolls excuses around his tongue, jaw clenching and unclenching. "It's almost done. 's fine."
The pot begins to bubble in that moment, summoned to life. It overflows a bit, and Izuku hurries back over to stir. Katsuki watches as he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear with his cleaned fingers, unnoticing of the stray strands that tickle his blind side.
He ladles some of the soup with a small spoon, though the rabbit is nowhere near done, and sniffs at it closely. His nostril flares, wrinkling at the edges of his smile line, which means that he thinks it smells good.
Still, he adds a few more dashes of spice and hurries to finish chopping the rest of the potatoes. Conversation forgotten (but not really), he hums a soft tune to himself. Bathed in firelight like this, half-angled away, it looks as though he's been untouched by the war and the battles they'd been through.
Katsuki makes the mistake of shifting, sitting up straighter, and Izuku glances up at him. His fake eye reflects brighter than his real one, and it's like a stab.
When Katsuki does nothing more than resettle, Izuku turns back to their meal and cleans up the utensils and the cutting board. He rinses them only, preferring to sanitize in the morning when they take river baths. He lays them out on a terrycloth to dry, and settles back on the log with Katsuki, crossing his legs at the ankle.
He lets Katsuki brood silently, then, busying himself with picking the dirt from his knees and pulling over his sword to see if it needs sharpening. It doesn't, but he pulls out his whetstone and tools to polish it at least. Izuku doesn't see how Katsuki clenches his fist and squeezes tight on nothing.
"Deku," Katsuki starts, before stopping just as suddenly. "Why…"
Izuku turns to him again, has to shift onto one of his hips to see Katsuki properly. Another stabbing reminder. He seems to find something worrisome in Katsuki's gaze, or maybe his tone, because he sets down his sword again and scoots closer.
He holds his hand out, palm up, and Katsuki hovers over it hesitantly.
"Talk to me, Katsuki."
There's too much to say, really.
Katsuki lets his hand rest in Izuku's and sighs. His palm had warmed from earlier, probably from gripping the chopping knife, and the physical reminder that he's here and alive settles the fear in Katsuki's stomach, just a touch.
He doesn't get a chance to fully develop his thoughts, whatever they were, because the pot starts to boil over again. Rabbit marrow and blood thickened by the heated water splatters into the campfire, further daubing the campsite with its hearty flavor. Izuku looks stricken when Katsuki pulls away, but only nods to himself and goes to tend to it.
He's still looking back at Katsuki when he reaches for the ladle, which is why he misses. His hand goes dangerously close to the flames, nearly curling around a charred log. When the heat registers, he jerks back with a hiss, but the pot is in the way.
His fingers touch the searing hot iron full on, stay in contact long enough that there is a faint sizzle, but he is able to yank it away with a ragged gasp. Katsuki jumps to his feet, heart pounding.
He snatches Izuku back by the collar of his shirt and drags him away a few paces, eyes wide.
"Idiot!"
Izuku grunts as he's choked, and then when the pain flares a bit as he holds his fingers up to the light. Katsuki circles to his front, darkening Izuku with shadows, and grabs his hand to look at the injury himself.
It isn't a bad burn by far, somewhere between a first and a second degree. He'd probably get worse standing too close to Katsuki in battle. But it was a preventable one. Preventable by a margin of months, in a timeline where Izuku hadn't been so fucking… him that he took a blow meant to rid Katsuki from the world.
Liquid fire laps at Katsuki's throat, or maybe it's bile from the sudden deluge of anxiety, and it scorches him so much differently than his fire ever does.
"You never fucking learn," Katsuki growls, throat igniting. He has to breathe all of the fire from his lungs before he makes the injury worse, turning away until the flames putter out to embers that tingle across his tongue.
"Sorry, Kacchan." Izuku is placid when he tugs his fingers out of Katsuki's grip, rubbing his thumb across the already presenting blisters. "Guess I'm still getting used to… you know."
He says it as if it's a joke, as if it was the same as tripping over untied shoelaces, and Katsuki gets pissed.
He goes red in the face, and not in the same way he does when Deku holds him close and kisses him on the cheeks or around the neck. It's mottled and splotchy, and the same face he makes when he's moments away from crying— whether furious tears or not.
"Maybe if you hadn't taken a blow not meant for you, you'd still have your two shitty eyes." Katsuki grabs his hand again, too rough, and pulls Izuku over to their bags. Izuku yanks his appendages back when Katsuki lets go to shuffle through their things for salve and bandages.
He licks at them with his tongue, blowing cool breath to ease the biting pain. Idiot would get himself fucking infected.
"Just like the last time you said that, I won't apologize for what I did." Izuku says it firmly, as if it were an obvious conclusion he'd come to and not one born of— of fucking stupidity and martyrdom.
"I would do it again if I had to."
"You didn't have to the first time!" Katsuki explodes. It's literal when shards of their salve pot splinter between his drawn knuckles, though the ceramic is shattered to dust enough that the skin doesn't cut. He jerks his fist back, hiding it even though Izuku doesn't reach for him, and smears the smooth paste against his trousers as he continues, "I didn't ask you to sacrifice yourself, you ass."
Izuku stands up straight, looking him right in the eye even when Katsuki can't bear to stare at him back. Daring him to do something. He shoves Izuku in the shoulder, making him stumble back, and forces him to sit back on the log that has been plopped upon so heavily in the last hour that it has made its own indent in the soft soil.
What salve he has managed to save, piled and stuck to the backs of his nails, he plasters across Izuku's newest injury. It instantly soothes the pain, and the pinched expression sitting on Izuku's brow eases to something calmer. He's still upset though, lips pulled down in a frown as he tries to look Katsuki in the eye again.
Katsuki stays looking down, at the swollen blisters that would surely rupture in the next skirmish they had, and reaches for the gauze and cloth to wrap them in.
"I'm not fucking weak." Katsuki sighs, finally. Softly. He deflates with the motion, shoulders dropping until he looks small and tired, and they are so far from the campfire that he is outlined in white and blue moonlight like a dying siren in the ocean.
"You're the strongest person I know," Izuku agrees.
The fight fizzles out, just like that. No kindling to keep it alight.
The two longest fingers of Izuku's hands get wrapped thickly, so that if he knocks them into things they won't hurt too bad. Another is just lightly reddened, the most minor of burns, and only gets a thin layer of the rest of the ointment before Katsuki lets him go.
Izuku pats the spot next to him on the log, on his blindside.
Katsuki goes, not begrudgingly but tired all the same. He sits on Deku's left side and turns to look at him fully, watching the way the scar curls and curves as high as his hairline and as low as the jut of his jaw.
The overboiled pot is taken away from the fire, settled on a thicker piece of wood that can stand the heat of the iron. Izuku leaves it to simmer there, but both of them know it will be a long few hours before either is ready to eat it.
Unobstructed, the campfire flames flicker higher into the night sky.
It isn't so tall as to rival a bonfire, not even close, but it curlicues into the sky as if playing with starlight. They are granted more light, in return, and Katsuki can see clearly how Izuku is struggling to come up with the right words to stay, to figure out what was wrong with Katsuki that night.
It doesn't irritate him as much as it would have in the past.
"Deku," Katsuki tries again.
Just as before, Izuku turns to him. Before he has a chance to second-guess himself, Katsuki reaches out to touch. Izuku relaxes as soon as Katsuki's hand has curled around his jaw, fingers grazing the straight edge of his pointed ears.
Katsuki's fingers bleed warmth where they press into Izuku's skin, heating it up until he goes pleasantly pink around the fringes. His thumb brushes the edge of the inlaid scar that just barely missed bisecting one of his more prominent freckles in two. It is completely healed over, has been numb to everything for months, but Katsuki is tentative around it as if it were still fresh and raw.
He remembers tending to it, after Izuku's life was no longer in danger. It looked different then, scabs peeling away to reveal more scabs, and he hadn't been able to stick in a prosthetic piece until the cavern where his old eye rested had been aired out and cleared of both blood and debris.
Katsuki had to flush it every so often, with sterile water and stinging medicine, and Izuku had thrown up the first time he'd had to experience it. The pain had gone straight through what few nerves he had left and grabbed at his brain with sharp talons, and it had taken a considerable amount of both of their strength to get him to lay still again.
Kacchan had touched him in this familiar way, back when the eye was taken. Katsuki's face had been splattered with tears and Izuku's blood, because Izuku had accidentally brushed some of it onto his skin when reaching for him, to comfort.
But Katsuki was so beautiful and bright like the sun, but closer and more tangible and much more torrid. Izuku had felt so blessed to be able to witness his rebirth, to be the first to see his true power burst from his fingertips and his mouth, that Izuku hadn't thought to be upset that he would die soon afterwards.
"Don't cry, Kacchan," Izuku remembers saying, hopefully smiling in a way that wasn't too crazed. It hurt to move but he pressed his hand to the back of Katsuki's palm anyway and hugged it tighter against his unmarred cheek. "That's my job, remember?"
"It'll be okay." He'd said, also. "Everything will be fine." Because even if he died, Kacchan was free now, to live and to see.
For Izuku, his scar is a sign of what he is willing to do for his Kacchan, the risks that come with loving someone heart and soul. He wears it with pride, content in knowing that Katsuki survived— no, that he won that day. Even from the beginning, Izuku would have given up the world for Katsuki.
He's lived long enough to learn to cherish what he falls in love with— especially when he may live so long as to lose it in the blink of an eye. Literally.
But to Katsuki, it is only a painful reminder of his weaknesses. His inability to protect himself, let alone protect his own. It's cruel, the way that Deku chooses to stand on Katsuki's right side, so that if Katsuki even so much as tilts his head, he sees the glint of the fake, unseeing crystal glinting in sunlight.
Izuku looks at him, the injured eyelid drifting shut as Katsuki focuses on it for a long, aching moment.
Silence, only the soft lulling lullaby of forest symphony.
Then, "Izuku," Katsuki breathes. It's a whisper, softly anguished, and it breaks Izuku's heart.
"Why did you…" Katsuki trails off, leaning forward to drop his face against Izuku's shoulder. His nose presses against the jugular and he can feel the full thrum of Izuku's heartbeat pumping blood inside his veins. "Why did you do it?"
In every moment with Izuku, Katsuki is reminded of his shortcomings. It's amazing that he hasn't realized, not just yet, that it is pure trust in his abilities that makes Izuku choose to stand on Katsuki's right side. Where he is blind, he knows Katsuki is there to defend and to protect, to fight back against those who will try to take advantage of his weakness.
Though his wound could be debilitating in battle, never once after the incident had he been hit on his left. Not with Katsuki there.
"Because I care about you," Izuku explains carefully. He cradles his other hand, the uninjured one, around Katsuki's back and holds him steady. "Because I knew what I was willing to do for you, even if you hated me for it."
Izuku has never been uncertain of where Katsuki stands in his heart. He loved him with everything he had, and he would show it time and again, for as long as he was able because forever is such a fickle thing. And though they hadn't yet promised to be the other's forever, Izuku knew it was what he wanted.
"Because I love you," Izuku adds, as if it weren't clear. As if he didn't say it every day in words and in actions. He was willing to wait and to fight for it, even if Katsuki chose to never reciprocate those feelings. Izuku would always love Katsuki fiercely and purely.
The two stay like that, half curled in on one another. Izuku isn't sure if his words absorb the way he means them to, or if he should say more to prove his feelings. But Katsuki doesn't move, so Izuku doesn't pull away.
Whatever it is that Katsuki takes from Izuku's words, though, he seems satisfied as he sits up straight. He's calmer, and that self-assured look is back where it should be.
Katsuki gathers him, first by wrapping his arms tight around Izuku's torso to pull him hip to hip, and then with his palms pressing against his cheeks. He does that often, these days.
Katsuki looks Izuku in the eyes, gaze flickering from side to side as he looks first into the blank eye and then into the green one that greets him eagerly.
"Okay."
The rabbit stew sits, forgotten and simmering next to the blooming fire as Katsuki pulls Izuku from the log towards their bedrolls. He kicks away the bags from their pillows and tugs off his bracers, dropping them somewhere where their feet will rest when they sleep.
In the morning, they will scramble for their things as they begin their day: Katsuki's bracers and Izuku's sword, the rabbit stew gone cold when the fire died down in the middle of the night, and the ointment that dried sticky on Katsuki's trousers.
But, just for tonight, the only thing that matters to both of them is each other. Katsuki lays with Izuku down atop the earth, breathing with him, looking him in the eyes.
Izuku's head rests in the crook of his arm, and he hooks a blanket over their hips. He lets his hand come to lay on Katsuki's arm, rubbing semi-circles into his flesh until Katsuki relaxes further into their shared bedroll.
Katsuki sits up, only to pull Izuku closer and settle his own arm beneath Izuku's head, trapping him there until Katsuki has taken his fill for the evening.
He makes a silent promise.
Izuku was already in his heart, rooted firmly there, so Katsuki would do everything he could to protect him from now on. There was no obstacle he wouldn't face, no weakness he couldn't overcome—
Katsuki would get stronger alongside Izuku so they could live together, forever.