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“But I don’t want you to leave!” Izuku whines again, biting at his lower lip and looking up at Katsuki with wide, glassy eyes.
Katsuki huffs again, shaking Izuku off of his sleeve. “Well, I have to.” he bites out because really, he doesn’t want to leave Izuku either. Inko had offered to watch him, but Mitsuki has denied that with a resounding no, saying she didn’t want to burden Inko. Katsuki was fairly sure it was only because he’d been whining about the trip ever since he heard about it.
It was for his parents' business, something about international buyers. All Katsuki got out of it was that he wasn’t going to be able to see Izuku for two whole weeks.
That was way longer than usual!
Katsuki can’t really help how he has no filter and just.. says what he does. “Why don’t we swap?” Izuku sniffles, wiping at his runny nose with his sleeve. “Huh?”
He shuffles a bit, mentally kicking himself for throwing out the suggestion. What if Izuku thinks he’s weird? “We swap. You know like… a chunk of us, with each other. That way I’m always with you.” The words feel sticky and gross in his mouth, mainly because Katsuki knows just how weird they are.
Besides, why would Izuku even agree with him—”Okay!”
Katsuki blanches as Izuku smiles up at him. He’s beaming, obviously happy with what he had suggested. But why?
“I–okay, Deku.” he thinks for a minute. “Do you have like… a knife or something? And a stapler? They use staplers all the time for big gashes and stuff!” He wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, but he’d heard about all kinds of gory stuff! This was nothing!
Izuku came back a little bit later with a wicked sharp pocket knife, as well as his moms’ office stapler. He had also brought back some rubbing alcohol, claiming that they needed to clean off both the knife and stapler so they didn’t get an infection.
Katsuki and Izuku sat in the bathroom, right across from each other. Katsuki held the still-wet knife and rolled up his shorts, frowning at the angle.
Izuku leaned forward, eager to help, but Katsuki swatted his hand away with a scoff, demanding that he do it himself. The green-haired boy sat back on his feet happily for a few seconds, but then frowned.
“Kacchan.. you–you’re going to hurt! I don’t want to see you hurt!” Katsuki huffs. “You’re gonna hurt too, stupid! Plus, I can’t be a hero if I can’t take a little pain! Besides, don’t you want to be together forever?”
He can see the way that phase bounces inside of his head, can see the moment he decides against arguing in favor of soaking a small wash cloth with the alcohol.
The blonde takes a few more seconds to assess it, before jabbing the knife down into the soft flesh of his thigh. It doesn’t go very far in, just enough to carve. He can feel tears pricking the back of his eyes as his clumsy hands shakily drag it in a haphazard oval-ish shape. Blood drips down the sides of his thighs, and he hisses loudly when Izuku presses the soaked washcloth to it.
He shoves the handle to Izukus chest, careful not to hurt the green-haired boy. “Your turn,” he chokes out, because he knows what he’s doing and they have to wait for each other to be done with the carving before they can yank the chunks of flesh out.
Izuku does the same thing he does, gives a shaky approximation of the same shape Katsuki did. With more tears, of course, he’s gasping and trembling when he passes the knife back over to Katsuki.
There’s no pretty way to put it, what they did.
Katsuki dug out his own flesh, feeling dizzy as he watched his best friend do the same. Their bloodied fingertips passed the chunks, and they barely felt the sharp pull of the stapler as they pressed it, driving it home into their skin.
They make sure to wash their hands, of course, as well as clean the blood up from the porcelain even though their heads feel like they’re full of cotton. They bandage the wounds as best as they could, and pass out curled together on Izukus bed.
(Both of them feel lightheaded for weeks, not to mention the bouts of blurry vision, the tingling, the headaches, the nausea. They don’t tell anyone, and they make sure to wear their shorts long and stick close by each other to help. It goes away, after some time, and they eventually rip out the staples, too. Katsuki traces a hand over his thigh the entire time he’s away from his Izuku on that trip, and his parents are none the wiser. Miraculously, neither of them die of sepsis.)
___
Izuku is the one to bring it up next.
They’re out by a creek, lounging around the rocks, and, well, his mom had given them that pocket knife in case of self defense, but all he could think about when he saw it was the bloodied bathroom tiles.
The only reason they were able to complete such a thing and even see it healed was only because of how–innately, even without a quirk–the very human biology was changed. Studies were shown of how the skin would mend with anything it could, what being the upheaved need for a better wound healing process.
That chunk of skin was forever numb, yes, but it had also melded into his skin and despite the tone difference (skin-–their skin was different), it almost looked like it was just.. another part of Izuku.
He loved it, of course, despite the process of nearly bleeding out and then the month-long vertigo spell, simply because it was Katsuki. It was him, his best friend, his everything, his world.
Which is why he wants to do it again.
He has a sewing kit in his back pocket, and Katsuki can tell something is up when he sits down on a rock and begins lightly dragging the knife along his fingertips.
“I want to do it again.”
Katsuki blinks. “Hah? Do what—” he catches sight of the knife, and Izuku can see the way his breath falls short. His pupils contract, his gaze trailing the length of the shining metal. He shudders, and Izuku is about to give it up when he moves to sit beside him. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Where?” he sounds shockingly breathless at the prospect.
Izuku hums, leaning closer and dipping a hand in his pocket to draw out the kit. “Our arms.” he rolls up his sleeve, tracing the flesh just after his elbow. Katsuki drops his own jacket from his shoulders, lining their arms up. “Here?” he nods.
Katsuki grabs the kit, bringing out one of the needles and a lighter. Izuku tried to make quick work of it, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s hissing and has tears trailing down his face by the time he’s connected the two bloody, shaky circles on his forearm.
He passes the knife off to Katsuki, and he does the same. He’s wiping at his eyes furiously by the time he’s done, biting out curses and complaining about how much more it hurts compared to their thighs.
It’s pretty much the same as last time, as their shaky fingertips replace the chunks of flesh they dug out with the knife. The difference there, however, is how Katsuki steadies Izuku's arm and drives the needle through it.
Izuku yelps, his other hand scrambling for the purchase of Katsukis shoulder. He tries to focus on the way their blood is dripping down the sides of the grainy rock, the way he can see it being washed away in the creek.
Katsuki ties a messy knot and passes the needle off to Izuku, leaning heavily on his shoulder is what Izuku can only assume is a hazy state of blood loss. Isukus cherishes every damn moment of it.
(They go home with matching stitches and scratched hands from rubbing the blood off the rocks. The same lightheadedness follows them, and Katsuki has to deal with a small Quirk imbalance from the missing part of his forearm. He assures Izuku he would have it no other way, and when they finally uproot the stitches, they do it with a smile.)
___
“We should do our sides next.” Katsuki announces rather suddenly when they’re both in Izukus room, working on math homework.
“Eh?” Izuku isn’t sure what he means. Katsuki flicks him on the forehead lightly. “Our sides, stupid. The swapping thing.” and he sincerely hopes that he hasn’t miscalculated and that Izuku really did enjoy their little swaps as much as he did.
It was euphoric, knowing that Izuku was always with him no matter what. He had chunks of Izuku mended, melted, molded into him, and he always will. He didn’t even care when he had to relearn his quirk, when he had to struggle with the sweat imbalance because it was Izuku.
It was him, his everything, his. All his, forever.
He wants to do it again. He wants to feel Izuku next to him as he wipes his tears and smiles at their wounds. He wants it so badly, so fucking desperately that it physically hurts him.
Izuku visibly brightens. “Oh! Alright! We have to be really careful, ‘cause I don’t want Kacchan to get too hurt, okay?” Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan. Always worried for him, only him. Katsuki smiles, a giddy feeling pooling in his stomach.
Katsuki gets the infamous pocket knife from the kitchen, as well as the office stapler they used the first time. Of course, they make sure to properly sanitize their ‘tools’ now, what with two times of experience under their belts now.
He takes the knife and pulls his shirt askew, careful to pull apart the wounds as he slowly, every so slowly carves away his flesh. He presses a washcloth to stem it a bit, and lets Izuku bite into the shoulder of his t-shirt to muffle his own cries as he does the same.
Katsuki digs out his own flesh, and, when he sees that Izuku is shaking but determined, puts the knife in his hands and closes his palms over them. He presses into the curve of Izuku's body, guiding his hand and feeling nearly drunk on the feeling.
They pass off the pieces, and drive the stapler into their bodies again and again, shaking when they finally finish with blood staining Izuku's carpet. Luckily, he’s a little too out of it to immediately start panicking, just kind of babbling about it to Katsuki as the blonde limps to dig out some peroxide and maybe vinegar.
Somehow, he had lost less blood that Izuku did (or was maybe just more conscious) and managed to get most of it out of the light grey fabric.
By the time they both turn in for bed—in Izuku's bed—his wound is still dribbling with blood, presumably from the staples. Katsuki makes sure to wrap it well, and holds Izuku close for the night, indulging himself in that incessant need to be close to his friend.
Izuku presses his face close to him, nuzzles into his chest and just breathes. Katsuki is fairly sure that he’s sniffing him, but he can’t even bring himself to anger at the sight of such a pretty, hurt boy before him.
Katsuki loves the way Izuku looks like this, loves how pliant he is in his arms.
(He falls asleep with a smile on his face, and they make sure to drag each other through the vertigo and the headaches. Izuku learns medicine just for him, and Katsuki spends that afternoon pretending his head isn’t filled with fuzzy euphoria at that thought.)
___
Izuku doesn’t like the dingy little underground place Inko visits. It’s the only place that won't refuse Izuku though, so he just bears it and tries not to think about what his Mom would say if he knew why they were really here.
Him and Katsuki both, actually, but the blonde is currently dragging him away from the doctors room and into the bathroom, babbling something about wanting to do ‘it’ for a while now. Whatever ‘it’ is, Izuku hasn’t figured it out.
Though, he does feel like he’s going to find out as Katsuki flips open that damn pocket knife. “They can’t tell. Not if we don’t let them.” he breathes, crowding into Izukus space precisely because he knows how much Izuku likes it.
“Wha—Kacchan? What are we swapping?” he figures it’s a swap, because the pocket knife is what they use for things like that.
Katsuki bares a grin that’s all teeth. “Eyes! I want to, and they can’t tell anyone if we don’t let them, stupid. Your mom isn’t in the room, she’s waiting for you.”
Eyes. They-–Katsuki wants them to switch eyes. He frowns, though. “Do you not want to?” and Izuku has to shake his head because he does, he wants it so bad. But he can’t, he’s not strong enough for that. “I—Kacchan I can’t. I-I want to, but it’s—“ “Then I’ll do it for you, dummy.”
Izuku mulls it over for a bare second, before nodding shakily. Katsuki frowns. “You—Are you sure?” He sounds so concerned, so different from what he usually does and Izuku's heart melts at that. He nods, firmer this time. “No. No, I want to, Kacchan.”
Katsuki presses against his chest, effectively pinning him to the wall as he digs his elbow into him. He uses his free hand to pull Izuku's lower lid down, narrowing his eyes in conversation.
Izuku can feel the cold metal as it prods under the eye, into his socket. Slowly, Katsuki puts real pressure on it, jerking it back and forth and visibly grinning at Izuku's gasp as blood starts to drip down his face.
At some point, Izuku closes his other eye and just reaches blindly to grab at Katsukis shirt, rolling the soft fabric between the pads of his fingers. He feels Katsuki press something wet and warm into his open palm, and when he opens his remaining eye and blinks through the blurriness, he can see Katsuki bent over the sink mirror with blood trailing his pretty face.
He looks down to see his own eye, cradled in a bloodstained palm. Katsuki braces a hand against his cheek and messes with his face a bit, a soft smile on his face. He presses—what Izuku assumes is—his own eye in his gaping socket, and Izuku shudders at the feeling.
He presses his own emerald eye into Katsukis waiting fingers, letting his friends calloused hands guide his smaller ones.
Both of them blink the blood out of where they can see, and look into the mirror again.
Their right eyes are different colors now, and they have matching blood trails running down their cheeks.
Izuku thinks that Katsuki has never looked prettier. He leans against his best friend's chest, letting Katsuki wrap his arms around him and sighing. He traces a bloody fingernail under Izuku's eye and smiles. “You look surprisingly pretty like this, Deku.”
Izuku giggles. “You too, Kacchan. What are we telling the doctor? Our parents? We don’t exactly have matching eye colors. And the depth perception—“ Katsuki shushes him with a small, chaste kiss to his not-bloody cheek. It leaves a small stain from where Katsuki had smeared blood on his lip.
“We tell them the truth, stupid. We’ll figure it out.”
(As it turns out, they don’t need to. The doctor looks a little grossed out, but she does heal them enough and assures them that they might actually have sight returning in a month or two. She also hands them colored contacts, saying something about a bad response from their parents. Izuku and Katsuki just smile, humming to each other a distant melody only they could hear.)
___
They’re older now, in UA, even. Granted, they’re in different courses, but it doesn’t stop or even hinder their relationship as much as Katsuki was expecting.
His classmates are pretty annoying, and those who’d surrounded him had demanded to know who he was talking with all the damn time. Katsuki always ignored them, obviously, because his relationship with Izuku was none of their fucking business.
But they just get so incessant. He’s trying to go find Izuku in one of the training rooms—he’s planning on trying to get into the Hero Course via Sports Festival—but the gaggle of people around him just refuse to let up.
It’s making him antsy. Katsuki’s rubbing absentmindedly at his shoulder, grinding his teeth down and firing rapid texts at Izuku explaining his situation.
-
katsu
these idiots wont leave me alone
might be a little late
srry nerd
zuku
oh no it’s okay!!
i can get started on stretches n stuff so you can take your time :))
katsu
why ar ethey so interested in knowing who you are
its none of their fucking business
at all. they have nothing to do with you.
zuku
well why dont i come find you then??
theyll know who i am come sports fest so
katsu
fine
im gonna fucking kill them if they dont stop though
zuku
:)) coming to find you dw
-
It takes about 5 minutes (5 minutes Katsuki spends counting them down) for Izuku to bound up to him, halo of green curls bobbing around his face.
Mina takes to him instantly, and then soon follows Kaminari, Kirishima, and Sero in rapid succession. Katsuki stands off to the side and grits his teeth so hard his jaw is aching, trying to calm his temper enough to get through the day.
Izuku—like the fucking angel saint he is—takes note of his discomfort, and staves off the rest of Katsukis -classmates- the extras that followed him. He leads him over to the gym he was at a while ago, murmuring sweet nothings all the way, rubbing small circles into Katsukis wrist.
Despite how much Katsuki loved the small gestures Izuku showed him the entire way there, he can’t stop the lasting, itching, simmering feeling under his skin, the way he could feel his composure slowly cracking as small pops danced in the empty space of his palms.
By the time he’s gotten himself back together enough to be coherent, Izuku’s sitting across from him with–what he assumes–is Katsukis gym uniform, scrolling absently on his phone. When he notices Katsuki staring at him, he smiles.
“Here you go, Kacchan!” Katsuki grinned at the nickname, knowing that Izuku would have usually settled for a ‘here’ if he wasn’t so worked up. He yanks his shirt off, ready to get on with the day when something makes him pause.
It’s his shoulder, angry red marks running up and down his skin from where he had thought he was absentmindedly rubbing at it. Apparently he stares too long, though, because before he knows it, Izuku is tapping him and has shifted his position so he’s straddling the bench instead. He’s foregon his own jacket and has the same sewing kit from when they dug into their forearms all those years ago. He’s handing the pocket knife to Katsuki with a smile as he tugs on the hem of his tank top for him to sit.
Katsuki is about to start the usual process of carving when Izuku tilts his head curiously. He huffs expectantly, holding the metal flush against his skin.
“We should do it to each other this time.” and Katsuki barely has time to even process that statement before his hands are reaching out to grab at the knife and is bracing against his other shoulder as he straddles the blonde.
Katsuki doesn’t even protest, settling easy under Izuku's touch and bracing a forearm behind him. He would trust Izuku with his life over anyone else he’s known and probably ever will know.
He sighs happily when he feels the dig of the knife, unsettlingly familiar by now. His swapped eye twinges in protest, vision blurring for a split second when Izuku starts going under, the pain always a stark shock no matter how many times he’ll replay the moment afterwards. He can hear the way his blood spatters against the floor, smiling at the sound.
Izuku does it in such a way that it’ll only take a small swipe to disconnect it, and soon he’s handing the knife off to Katsuki and sliding off his lap to look up at the blonde with the cutest expression on his face.
Katsuki doesn’t hesitate, giving Izuku no warning before he pins his friend to the already-bloodied bench, grinning as he gasps sharply from the sudden change. Blood rolls down Katsukis arm as he does his part in digging out the flesh of Izuku's shoulder, foregoing what he did and letting Izuku hold the chunk of flesh in place himself.
He pulls back, dropping the knife to let it clatter to the floor and pulling Izuku into his own lap in one fluid motion.
He practically tears the small connecting strip of skin, passing the chunks over and guiding Izuku's shaky hands as both of them thread the needle through their flesh.
Izuku wipes at his eyes when they’re done, looking around them. “We need to clean up,” he mutters, and Katsuki barks out a laugh, feeling lighter than he had in weeks.
(The Sports Festival goes well. Izuku talks Katsuki down from his original speech plan, and ends up winning second place, just barely scraping by in his match with a gen-ed kid named Shinsou and getting–well, for lack of a better term–fucking destroyed by Todoroki. Katsuki doesn’t end up on the podium, but Izuku's pure and unadulterated joy makes it worth it, even if they know how badly their shoulders impacted their performance. Katsuki has no doubt in his mind that Izuku will make it to the hero course.)
___
.. you and me, always forever.
we could stay, alone together
say you'll stay, never be separate...