Chapter Text
Bakugou Mitsuki makes the trip to the trading outpost village beyond the snowy mountains every year before the last big snow falls. This year, her mate goes with her. While Masaru has his reservations given that she’s in the later stages of her pregnancy, he tries to trust her judgement.
When they leave, they wave goodbye to family and friends. Mitsuki hugs Midoriya Inko tight, round bellies bumping and pairs of little tiny baby feet inside kicking against each other like a wave goodbye.
The last harsh dregs of winter snow hit when they expect it to, but they’re well into their stay at the outpost when it arrives. The only deviation to the norm is when they decide to extend their stay in the trading village after their little spitfire decides he’s ready to join the world as they’re readying for their return home.
Bakugou Katsuki comes screaming into the world a little more than two weeks early. Though conception was hard, and carrying him to term even harder, he’s declared a perfectly healthy pup. Every finger and toe accounted for, and the new parents can’t get over how perfect he is.
It has Masaru suggesting they stay longer in the trading village when Mitsuki brings up the return trip home.
“You just gave birth, you need rest,” he argues. “Katsuki is so little, and the air is frigid still in the peaks on the way back. What if he gets sick?”
“Our timetable is very sensitive—staying here for weeks longer than intended already has us running behind, you know this,” she replies. “We can’t help the perpetual winter of the mountains, but the weather will clear once we’re through the thick of it.” She has her finger captured by Katsuki’s tiny grasp as she makes slow circles in the air with his fist. “The doctors here have deemed me safe for travel as long as I take it easy.”
The villagers know his wife well; a staple of their trade every year. One remarks he’s making the trip anyway, and will be passing by their town on his route. Before they leave the village gates, they pay respects to the Wolf Spirits Mitsuki’s side of the family have long followed. She prays for safe travels, but most importantly, that her pup grows strong and healthy, and can weather whatever trials he faces in his future.
The first half of the journey proceeds with no surprises, though no one expects the sudden whipping of snowy winds and freezing sleet that lashes upon them like a whip. Almost as if the calm they left in was simply the Eye of the storm before the outer rings finally catch up to them in a vortex of force and white.
They’re disoriented, and rightfully so. The weather in the snow peaks has always been ever predictable. The harsh winter climate is supposed to gradually make way for the melted snows of springtime the nearer they get to their hometown.
Masaru watches his life flash before his eyes.
He watches as the cart gives way to flurries and whipping winds. They’re knocked around by the force of it, and it’s all he can do to grapple at the sides to not be carried away himself. The wolves pulling the cart scramble. They yip and howl and he barely manages to duck in time to miss a piece of the cart’s siding, ripped off by cutting winds, before it can collide with his head.
It starts and ends in what feels like an instant.
Masaru, who mere seconds before had his eyes open and trained tenderly on Mitsuki cooing at Katsuki’s uncomfortable cries because of the dry air, blinks. When his eyes open again, the wolves are clawing their way out of multiple feet worth of deep snow. They’re alive, which makes Masaru flit his eyes around the vast expanse of white.
The village boy is several feet away, legs contorted as unnaturally as his neck. Masaru knows the boy’s not breathing. He’s still, frozen like the creep of ice that invades Masaru’s veins.
He finds Mitsuki an hour later. His fingers are an angry, harsh red from the holes he’s dug through the snow like a madman. The wolves are mourning the boy, but one breaks off and connects eyes with Masaru.
Follow, he feels like it’s saying.
So he listens.
He follows the wolf, watches its nose twitch and ears prick until it nudges the red of a scarf barely peeking out from the blanket of thick snow. He frantically shovels aside handfuls, watches as the other wolf catches up to them and soon all three are digging.
It’s the remainder of the swaddle his son was wrapped in, clutched in Mitsuki’s frozen grasp. Her forehead is smeared with the color to match. Her nose looks broken, he thinks, but he can’t feel anything besides his heart cracking his ribs from the way it drums inside his chest.
He holds the scarf to the wolf’s nose, and it sniffs. They amble through the wreckage and snow piles until the wolf finally lets loose a low whimper.
A mournful howl echoes.
Gone, Masaru hears.
The absence of his son’s cries in the dead of the icy mountains reflect the absence of his heart, left in the snow above a blanket of red.
A babe is nestled, quiet and cold, in red fabric that has long since lost the scent of his mother. When a warm, wet nose presses against him, he spares no cry. He’s smaller than the wolf’s muzzle, but he doesn’t so much as flinch.
Tiny lips are blueing, and he has no choice but to let himself be carried away in the gentle jaws of an even gentler giant. The beast trills, calling the pack’s attention to her. A hunter whistles sharp, beckoning her over to release him from her maw.
“Accalia, good,” the hunter praises. He calls out to a fellow, and soon the young pup is gifted with a chance of life. He’s warmed, hydrated. They’re forced to use Wolf Mother’s milk until they can make it back to the village, but it’s better than nothing.
Accalia sticks close, scents and nudges her nose against his cheek once he smells of her milk.
The hunters find a name, embroidered on the tatters of the red swaddle they found him in.
“Come, Accalia,” the hunter commands. He straps the babe upon her back, the safest he could ever be. “Let’s take Katsuki home.”
Within a close knit village in the cold-steeped mountains, Katsuki finds a home.
The closest he’s ever felt to having a mother is the bond he has with the female wolf that found him over two decades ago. He was raised on her milk until a village mother could provide him her own, and she rarely left his side.
The tribespeople say it’s fate—Accalia, being a new mother, shouldn’t have joined that hunt. Without her, they’re aware of the unfortunate fate little Katsuki would have suffered. He’s promised a wolf pup from the litter that gifted her the very life-saving milk that that saw Katsuki through to the village, and he’s always felt they are the closest thing he’s ever had to having a brother.
As a young child learning his first words, he wants to name his wolf “Flaming Embers Fang God,” but the other children laugh at him. A village mother suggests Ember for short, and though he despises having to deviate from his chosen name, he convinces himself that it’s just too cool for the other wolf-less children to understand.
At the age of fourteen, he presents.
The week leading up to it has him feeling at his lowest. He’s tense, hairpin trigger for a temper, and anyone approaching Ember or Accalia has him baring his teeth and snarling out warnings. Accalia’s attempts to scruff him help somewhat, but do little to alleviate his restlessness.
He sticks close to the younger village children because he feels a need to watch over them. Like it’s his job to make sure they are well guarded, even if their mothers and fathers are more than capable of doing so. They humor him, and when he thinks back, he knows it helped take the edge off.
For a while, he doesn’t feel like himself.
He feels like two souls clash inside, until he’s wound so tight that he snaps.
It’s sudden and overwhelming.
He finds his mind flooded with thoughts and feelings he’s never considered before. His groin aches, and when he asks the village healer, he gags at the answer he gets. He cares little about the meaning of arousal and need to breed. He doesn’t need those things, so he ignores the want and ache until it passes after a handful of long, insufferable days.
No one is surprised when he presents as an Alpha, but they find it odd that his presentation rut couldn’t be appeased through non-sexual, pack provided bonding.
His presentation ultimately leads to his coming of age, where he’s expected to split from the main village to start his own homestead.
He’s taught that it builds character and confidence to live off the land, and allows him to begin providing for the community instead of leeching off its resources.
The men stay on their homesteads unless they are called to join the hunt. They work the land and self-sustain not just themselves, but their partner if they so choose to take one. Most do, even for the simple satisfaction of a mutual partner for sharing their seasons with.
A few times a year, homesteading men are called upon to contribute to the main village. Game, farm yields, and animal produce such as milks and cheeses or wools are the most common of offerings.
Unmated women stay in the village to help raise the littles until they, too, pair off and bond. Mated women stay on the homestead and share seasons with their partner until they conceive. When far enough along in their pregnancy, they move back to the village to be watched over by the village healers until they are deemed stable and healthy enough to return to their partner.
The purpose is to create a scattered network where anyone from the pack can find respite should they need it. A web of support even through separation.
When Katsuki and Ember separate from the main village and he forms his own small, rickety homestead at his young age of fifteen—a grace year given to all newly presented children—he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.
He tills soil in the softest patches of earth he can find, and sections off farmland he thinks he can use for livestock. Plank by plank he builds a tiny home, and while it’s not the best or most secure, it’s made from his own hard work.
He’s content to live on his own, and he thinks this little patch of land will be his life until he dies. Caring for his land, joining the hunts, and returning home again.
After several years of this, the village elders urge that he take a partner. Likely a wife, since male Omegas are few in their ranks, and the ones of age are already being courted. He refuses, saying he’s happy with his life the way it is. Himself and his wolf are all the company he needs.
They mention that his seasons will continue to be miserable, but Katsuki ignores them. At twenty, he’s already lived through enough ruts to know what to expect from his body. A normal rut can be satisfied without sex, but Katsuki’s have always been different.
They’re horrendous, and he knows he’s the one that forces himself to spend them solo. But the thought of coupling with anyone makes him sick. He’d rather deal with the sweats and aches and five-day-long erection than fuck.
He locks himself inside two or three times a year, and Ember brings him what he needs for nourishment.
He was never faced with the seriousness of the sexual nature of his ruts until a recently presented Omega was sent to his homestead, reminding him of the next community collections meeting the village is holding in a few days’ time. He never replied back when they sent him word the first time, so she was sent to make sure he got the message, but mostly to make sure it wasn't because he was dead.
Katsuki has a deep scar on his right calf from that night. Why they sent a recently presented anything he’ll never know, and to Katsuki, of all people. It would have been fine, he thinks, if he was locked inside. If he hadn’t miscalculated the amount of water needed to see him through to the end of his season. Or, better yet, if he hadn't been so fucking repressed that he could keep a level head.
He had an extra one that year, throwing him off kilter, but he could handle it. He assumed he could, until he was halfway back from the water well and he catches wind of her. Her pheromones are just potent enough post-presentation that it has him short circuiting.
He doesn’t have to live in a reality where he discovers what would have happened had he reached her, because Ember has his fangs sunk into his calf the instant he goes to sprint.
He misses the gathering, and thus doesn’t contribute that quarter. The elders scold him after they hear the Omega recount her experience, and they say he’s doing himself a disservice by refusing to satiate his Alpha. That his consistent ignoring of his instincts will cost him one day.
That it makes him volatile, mean. Makes him spit venom and he can’t find it in him to make friends. He’s intimidating, his smell is too much, something’s off. They blame it on the fact that he’s denied himself for so long.
Katsuki doesn’t know how to tell them that he doesn’t need friends, and Ember is family enough. Doesn’t know how to articulate it in a way that doesn't make him seem ungrateful to them for raising him. So he returns to his homestead, and tries to ignore how he feels just a tad bit more lonely than he had before.
At twenty-one, Katsuki thinks he’s found his stride.
At least until his wolf growls and snaps outside one early summer night.
Ember smells them before Katsuki can. The distressed stench of an Omega wandering onto his property has his instincts at war with his rationality. One half of him wants to provide; offer shelter and protection. The other tells him a stranger has wandered into his den, and he knows better than to trust too easily.
Regardless of choice, he throws the door open with a hand-carved blade at the ready.
When his eyes land on the Omega for the first time, the world stops. He knows nothing outside of the green haired, freckled man that stumbles in a daze through his fields. His heart twitches oddly under his ribs, and he has to remind himself to fill his lungs with air.
The Omega’s arm is broken, and blood caked along his forehead drenches his left eye just enough that he can’t open it. A gash peeks under the hairline there, and the skin of his upper arm and under his eye are raw and bleeding too.
Katsuki has always been able to win over his instincts.
This fateful summer night was the first time he found himself unable to.
The first thing Midoriya Izuku processes is the smell of smokey musk and spice, like chilis. It fills his lungs and burns in ways Izuku never knew he craved until his shoulders slump and he finds himself asking how he ever lived this long without it.
The Alpha—Izuku has no doubt—eyes him critically, and he feels like a cryptid shambling from the darkest recesses of the woods where nightmares are made. He thinks he probably looks not too far off; he knows his arm is broken in three spots, and his arm and shoulder sting from the less than warm winds when it blows upon him just right.
He can’t see out of his left eye, and he’s sure it’s blood he sees when he tries to crack it open.
But he finds comfort in the fact that he’s at least alive.
Izuku has no idea where he is, nor how to make it back home. He lost his coat hours ago, and has been wandering aimlessly in just a thin shirt and his now-ratty bottoms. His socks are soaked through, his shoes destroyed from miles of snow and mud.
But when he makes eye contact with the blond Alpha, white-knuckled grip on his blade and upturned lip in a glower, he’s oddly filled with relief.
He cries and cries and cries some more when the Alpha breaks the silence to snarl at him to stop. Calls him a crybaby. Izuku stands, unsteady but still, and watches the other mutter a curse under his breath as he pockets the blade.
When the other approaches, he tries to show submission. Tries to appear as non-threatening as possible by exposing his wrists and tilting his neck the best his current state allows. It seems to work, and he’s not sure what to make of the flash that he can’t decipher passing through the blond’s eyes.
The stranger clicks his tongue at his wolf. It confidently strides up to Izuku’s side, and he marvels at how big it is. It sports paws as large as his head, and the crown of its skull reaches up to Izuku’s shoulders.
He feels impossibly small next to it, and he wonders if he should feel intimidated. But he’s nudged purposefully, and buries one of his cold hands in the soft of its fur. The stranger has already turned away to head inside his home, and Izuku dutifully accepts the support the wolf lends him.
When he makes it inside, the tension starts to melt away from his body like the melting of snow under the beating rays of the sun. The scent of the stranger outside is nothing compared to the headyness that drapes over him the minute he passes the threshold.
There’s half eaten dinner on an end table, a small, unremarkable bed stashed away in one corner, and the kitchen is simple with ample counter space Izuku assumes the Alpha uses to clean and prepare the game he catches in the wilds—if the drying rack awkwardly off to the side is anything to go by.
The stranger motions for the wolf to guide Izuku to the crackling fireplace, and he sits on the couch across from it. There isn’t a lot of furniture, he takes note, and the couch isn’t exactly comfortable, but it’s a glimpse of the life the Alpha leads.
Alone, he muses sadly, the lack of scent other than his a dead giveaway.
They don’t speak until the other man has cleaned and splinted his arm. Until his tattered clothes are flung from his form and replaced with a shirt he drowns in and surprisingly soft padded pants. The Alpha insists on doubling up on the socks he puts on his feet, and Izuku feels far safer than he should in the den of a stranger.
He finally introduces himself as Katsuki, and Izuku finds that he tucks the name away like a treasure next to his heart. Katsuki has a hard time following when Izuku tells him his, so he writes it down instead.
A laugh rings out, bubbly and bright from his throat when Katsuki says seriously, “Midoriya De-ku? What’s a Deku?”
Katsuki startles, red eyes widening a fraction in shock, then hunches his shoulders in embarrassment. “What’re you laughing at, hah?!”
Izuku finds it hard to between fits of giggles, but manages, “It’s Izu-ku! Izuku! N-Not Deku!”
Katsuki simply grumbles before brattily stating that if Izuku is planning on breathing his air and sharing in his food as he recovers, he may as well make himself useful. The Omega doesn’t take the quip to heart, and he offers that while he has no idea how to hunt, he can help with the farm once his arm heals. Plus, he’s good at making medicines and salves, and is well read.
He knows a little about raising livestock, having had practice with a ram he owns back at home and misses dearly.
Neither of them question why it feels so easy, so natural for them to fall into step seamlessly as the months continue on. Once Izuku is fully healed, the Alpha follows the rules of his tribe and takes Izuku to the main village to introduce him to the elders.
To say he’s welcomed with open arms is an understatement.
They procure him better fitting clothes so he’s no longer swimming in Katsuki’s hand-me-downs. They provide him with a long, thick black coat that Katsuki steals to sew fur onto the collar for him, as he does with the clunky hat he’s gifted, too.
Izuku links with the healers to teach them everything he knows, witnessing how behind they are from advancements in medicine that he’s benefitted from, growing up in his hometown, versus a smaller village.
The healers look upon him like a deity gifted from the Spirits Above.
At the end of Izuku’s first year with Katsuki and the villagers, the village people have never been healthier or more invigorated. Yields are higher, and hunts suffer less casualties.
But he thinks his shining achievement comes from teaching the young ones about their bodies, and aiding in the gift of delivering life.
He takes special care to teach the young male Omegas of the tribe all about their biology, and he feels a certain pride when they look upon him as someone like them. He knows male Omegas are rare, and has suffered through the trials his biology oft throws at him.
So to teach the young ones makes him feel like his life has a new importance. One deeper, more meaningful than just a year before.
He guides them through their presentations, teaches them of the changes inside their bodies; why some take weeks, and others months; why it hurts so bad, organs shifting and changing to make way for the precious ability to create new life.
He tries to teach them that though they are Omegas, surviving through the rough of their presentations and soldiering through their heats makes them stronger than they think.
All the while, he feels Katsuki’s eyes on him. He takes note when the elders pull the blond aside, and Katsuki tries to subtly glance between the elder and Izuku himself before his cheeks flush and he shoos them away.
It makes him feel good to have the Alpha’s attention. Makes him crave more. He almost hopes they ask if Katsuki plans to court him, based on whispers he’s heard pass between the women.
Izuku spends his heats in the village, so he has plenty of time to get close with them as they help care for him. Katsuki forces him to, but he doesn’t tell Katsuki that he never takes a partner. He’s always bathed and refreshed when the women send him back to the homestead, so he knows Katsuki’s left to wonder.
And Izuku wants him to wonder.
He wants him to wonder whether or not he’s bedded during his seasons, in hopes that maybe the Alpha will feel something. He’s always tense when Izuku returns on the back of his wolf sent to go collect him, and they never talk about it.
But when Katsuki’s ruts approach, Izuku refuses to hide his interest. He can tell when Katsuki plays ignorant, like he doesn’t feel the weight of Izuku’s stare. The Alpha’s scent is so potent that Izuku wants to drown in it.
He gets sent to the village during Katsuki’s ruts, too. Izuku goes, though he’s unhappy about it. There’s a sting of rejection that he doesn’t like, that he knows isn’t personal, even when the villagers inform him that Katsuki’s ruts are different from other Alpha’s.
It only intrigues him more. He greedily wishes that when Katsuki ruts into his bed, into the loneliness of his hand, that he thinks of him; his emerald eyes, forest green hair, and every freckle on his body.
And for the rest of Izuku’s first year with him, they continue to dance around each other.
Katsuki asks him one night in front of the fireplace after dinner why Izuku hasn’t left. They’ve added on to Katsuki’s small hut, made more yard space for herbs and vegetables. Before Katsuki realizes, his home has turned into their home.
The way Izuku looks at him has his blood simmering. Izuku doesn’t lie to him.
“If it had been any other Alpha, I would have. I would have selfishly let you help me, and have been long gone after to find my way back home.”
But he says something about Katsuki has him wanting to stay. Like he should know him. Like he smells familiar, even though they had never met until a year prior.
Izuku nervously twiddles his fingers, bunches the fabric of his pant leg then releases it. “My… my season starts again soon,” he admits shyly. When their eyes meet, it has Katsuki holding his breath at the longing he finds there.
“I don’t want to spend it alone again,” Izuku declares between them. It’s soft, a simple breath like he’s scared it’ll upset the entire delicate balance they’ve built. “Not… not when I always feel you so deep in my bones already.”
Katsuki still sends Izuku to the village the week after.
Izuku hesitates, his eyes cloud over, but the respect he has for Katsuki has him regrettably moving his feet forward anyway. He’ll reach the village by the end of the day, accompanied by Katsuki’s wolf for protection.
He asks Katsuki if he’ll scent him; says it would make him feel better to have Katsuki on his skin so others won’t be tempted before he can make it. Katsuki does so against his better judgement, but his Alpha is satisfied and he swallows down the lust that blooms.
It starts from deep in his gut, slithers up to his heart. Infuses it with a feeling he’s never felt before, and suddenly he’s sweating.
Izuku looks hazy. Scents him back.
But they have to part eventually, and then Katsuki is left alone.
It’s not the same this time, and he doesn’t like it. His Alpha rampages as he watches Izuku ride away.
Sent our Omega away, it roars. Sent him away when all Izuku wants to do is drip for him. Present for him. Be devoured by him.
Katsuki’s skin itches.
It’s reminiscent of the start of his rut, and he’s not blind as to what causes it. He whistles for his wolf almost as soon as it returns. His fur still carries with him the saturated scent of pine; fresh, woodsy, with his underlying hint of citrus.
He doesn't want to risk leaving for the village to fetch Izuku himself.
He writes a note, sends Ember off, and mere hours after, he smells Izuku. Thick, syrupy, fertile. There are other scents too that put him on edge. They’re two mated omegas from the village. They bare their necks and lower their heads in submission when Katsuki slams open his front door.
Their knees shake when they catch whiff of him, overpowering and almost oppressive in nature, but it has Izuku letting out the neediest whine Katsuki has ever heard. Katsuki only takes a few steps out of the door before Izuku flings himself at him. They kiss then, but it feels more like they are eating each other alive with the clash of tongues and teeth and claws.
They taste blood, and Izuku bites Katsuki’s tongue to say he’s taking too long to lead them inside the cabin.
Ember settles outside, guarding the door.
Neither can recall their first time. They don’t make it to the bed, Izuku’s knees rubbing red from the wood of the floor. He presents the instant the door shuts, and Katsuki’s lost.
They can’t recall the time after either, or the days that follow.
What they do remember is how they’re floaty after. How Katsuki rumbles purrs against Izuku’s bite-ridden thigh near a gland there as he cleans him. How Izuku purrs back, lost in the safest haze he’s ever felt. Like he’s in a warm dream, walking on clouds and feeling as light as air.
The only regret Izuku has, that has his Omega sensitive and displeased, is that Katsuki wouldn’t knot him. Not properly, at least. Not where his body wanted it the most. He knots his ass instead, eats him out where his slick flows, uses his fingers to stuff the Omegan hole that weeps for the plug he feels secure inside the wrong one.
Katsuki says they need to talk about it.
They find themselves sitting awkwardly next to each other once the haze and frenzy clears, knees touching in the mess of their nest. Katsuki doesn’t know where to start, never having felt the pull to bare himself so vulnerably to another before.
But Izuku looks at him so earnestly that the words tumble freely. They’ve already shared in their bodies, why not their souls, too?
He recounts that he’s an orphan, but the village took him in. Found amidst the snow by one of the hunter’s wolves. Even if they clothed him, fed him, and taught him how to care for himself, he’d never felt like one of them.
He doesn’t know what it means to be a proper mate. The ways of the nomads are more old school compared to what Izuku was raised around, Katsuki at least knows that much. Izuku’s not the only outsider Katsuki has ever spoken to.
He’s also not stupid. He knows that knotting an Omega through their slit during heat is asking for a pup. When the Alpha is rutting simultaneously it’s practically guaranteed.
Katsuki, most important of all, knows nothing about what it takes to be a father.
He’s never thought to be one, either. A village raised him, after all, and although he’s thankful, he’s a mess. No consistency leads to his many flaws, and the thought of having a little one that’s his own makes him feel conflicted and insecure.
Izuku looks disappointed, but he doesn’t push. And soon after, they fall into a comfortable routine.
Katsuki hunts while Izuku tends to the garden. They buy small livestock, and soon they have a budding farm home. They work with the animals together, and before they know it, another year passes.
They share ruts and heats, and they make love in between. Katsuki still won’t knot him in his Omegan hole, but Izuku thinks that’s okay. He’s enamored by the other man’s self control, especially having been told how hard it is sometimes to keep his instinct in check.
Izuku doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t have to. Katsuki already knows.
In their third year together, Katsuki’s faced with losing everything.
He buys Izuku a ram for his birthday.
Ember could care less, and the way Izuku’s eyes light up, face overtaken with the biggest grin Katsuki has ever seen when he sets his sight upon her, engraves itself in the beating muscle of his heart.
Izuku spends all day with her.
He sets up a spot in the barn, and she’s big enough for him to ride on her back. He has Katsuki join, too, on the back of his wolf, and as Katsuki studies him—leisurely riding on the backs of their animals near a steady stream, sunshine haloing Izuku’s visage in a way that makes him seem like a spirit sent to Katsuki from the purest place in the Sky Above—Katsuki feels an itch in his teeth.
He’s compelled to mark him.
He doesn’t, and it becomes one of his biggest regrets.
They get home after their ride, settle the animals, and Katsuki cooks for Izuku. Says he wants Izuku to do little more than relax and enjoy himself. He wants to be a proper Alpha, to provide and please.
Before bed, Izuku drops to his knees in front of Katsuki like his cock is his most anticipated gift. Lavishes him in attention until Katsuki is gripping green stands between his scarred knuckles from years of hard work when Izuku starts to use a bit of fang. When the Omega buries his nose in the fine hairs and musk of Katsuki’s pelvis and breathes in deep.
The look he gets as he tugs Izuku’s head away is sinful; makes Katsuki feel like perceiving it alone will have him sent to the Ground Below. He grips into Izuku’s hair tighter, watches the hazy film settle in over eyes that match the surrounding forest.
Izuku paws at Katsuki’s thighs, fingertips brushing over the barely-there fuzz. Something foreign tingles in Katsuki’s brain. It’s not the itch of his skin when a rut hits, and he’s completely lucid. But he feels it crawling around, long and twisted with its dozens of legs as it weaves in and out of the meat of his brain.
He sees Izuku’s nose twitch as he takes in another deep breath. Izuku’s claws grow a little sharper. He bops the tip of Katsuki’s dick against his button nose, tracing at the frenulum but makes no move to push forward.
He’s obedient to the silent command Katsuki’s hand demands in his hair. He stares at Katsuki’s heat like he’ll die if he can’t have it back in his mouth where it belongs.
“Izuku.”
Izuku’s gaze snaps up with no hesitation. It has lava erupting in Katsuki’s abdomen.
“Nest.”
As soon as the hold on his curls frees him, Izuku scrambles to their bed. He sheds clothes like they burn him. He kneads the blankets and pillows and Katsuki’s well-worn scarf. He’s not in heat, he keeps reminding himself, his most recent season having ended a fortnight ago, but the familiarity has him leaning into acting as if he is.
He catches himself wishing for his heat slick. Mother nature easing up the effort needed, shouldering half from his partner. From his Alpha.
It’s his birthday, Izuku thinks, so maybe he can be a little selfish. Katsuki speaks before he can.
“Wish you could get wet.” The rasp has Izuku’s toes curling in their bedding as Katsuki settles atop him. “This time, just wanna make you feel the best. Wanna give you what you want.”
Izuku’s back arches, seeks Katsuki like a magnet. “Want… want that, too. Want you here.” His fingers trail down past his cocklet to rest upon his small slit.
Katsuki’s pupils contract. Izuku watches as they narrow. When he catches it, Izuku always thinks Katsuki has most certainly been blessed as a Child of the Wolf.
“Want you inside.” Izuku spreads the slit open just a fraction with a vee of his fingers.
Katsuki’s grip tightens on Izuku’s hips. They both know it’ll bruise.
“Get wet for me, then. ” Katsuki says. He knows their words mean nothing, especially since neither are controlled by their instincts right now. It almost feels like they’re one and the same—the man and the beast inside.
He says it because he knows Izuku’s body can’t. Out of season, he produces just enough slick when they’re intimate to help with the penetration of his ass, but little more. His Omegan passage is too tight to even accommodate a single of Katsuki’s fingers let alone his cock.
Still, the thought has him reeling.
They fuck that night, and something shifts.
Izuku is too far gone to notice that his slit wets and welcomes in a way that it shouldn’t. Katsuki does, but he doesn’t feel like he’s verging on rut himself. Izuku’s smell doesn’t suggest a heat flash, but it’s no less dizzying.
It’s as if Izuku blooms under him, just for him, and it clouds his mind in a way it hasn’t before.
It’s the first time Katsuki properly knots him, and when he does, Izuku’s sobs leak through the walls of their home like it’s made of paper. He digs his nails into Katsuki’s shoulders so deep he wonders if the tracks he leaves will scar. He slumps, tries to fuck himself down until a shaky grip commands his hips still.
Katsuki hisses, growls throaty and low in warning as his second wave punches through him. They lose track of how long they stay locked.
Izuku scream-cries when the knot deflates and Katsuki ducks down to feast on him in his oversensitivity. The only thing missing, he laments, is Katsuki’s claim.
But he knows not to push for it. He knows that Katsuki will likely be sensitive about this—succumbing to cloudy judgement and a moment of weakness, but Izuku doubts he’ll conceive.
Neither are in season, and Izuku isn’t near his most fertile. It’s curious how he got wet, but he doesn’t know everything about Omegan biology and what it can do, let alone every trigger.
A month later, Izuku hears a familiar voice on the outskirts of the homestead. Katsuki leaves to collect from the traps they left out the night before as he’s filling the animal’s feed. He pays special attention to his ram, cooing at her when she butts against his cheek.
“Izuku…?”
He freezes, because he hears a voice he’s been without for almost three years. So when he turns, and his eyes meet a familiar brown, tears falling over her round cheeks, he would have fallen to his knees if she had not already had her arms around him.
His eyes are stuck wide as his two other friends embrace him too. Ochako, Tsuyu, Kirishima—he never thought he’d see them again.
They all hug and cry, and Izuku’s snot rubs on Kirishima’s black scarf. It isn’t until Izuku hears Katsuki call out to him from the woods clearing that he startles back into reality.
Katsuki stops in the middle of his sentence when he notices them. “Deku! We’ve got our work cut out for us tonight. The traps were—”
His nose twitches when Kirishima’s smell reaches his nostrils. It’s then that Izuku remembers Kirishima is an Alpha, too. Katsuki drops the bundles of rabbits in his hands. His claws start to elongate, his eyes slit, and Izuku doesn’t think Katsuki realizes he’s doing it.
He sees when instincts kick in—they’re not formally mated, but Izuku reeks of him. He’s claimed in all ways except for the mark on his neck. His friends smell it too, once Katsuki starts fast walking towards them from the forest edge.
“W-Wait, Kacchan, these are—”
But it falls on deaf ears. Katsuki can’t hear him with the blood like rapids on the insides of his ears. The stranger’s smell has Izuku drenched now. Scented him. Other smells too, not his anymore.
Izuku breaks away from the others. He puts a steady hand on Katsuki’s shoulders to try and keep him back.
Katsuki’s snarl is the meanest Izuku has ever heard. He forgets that Katsuki isn’t used to people. He tries to stop the ensuing fight for dominance, but Katsuki’s too strong.
Kirishima is a brick wall, so it takes everyone off guard when he’s yanked face to face with Katsuki. Izuku’s eyes are wide, scared. He’s never seen Katsuki this angry.
They hear the sound of Kirishima’s scarf tearing, and Izuku’s other friends start stancing up to intervene. He pleads with them not to. Asks them to let him try to calm Katsuki down.
They hesitate, but listen. Izuku orders Kirishima to bare his neck, and though the other’s jaw clenches like he really, really doesn’t want to, he obliges.
Izuku steps up to Katsuki, ups his voice a pitch. He doesn’t use Omegan persuasion a lot, and he’s not sure if it even works that well between unmated partners. Still, he wraps his arms around Katsuki’s waist from behind. Nuzzles his cheek between the firm shoulder muscles in the middle of his back.
He raises up on his tippy toes, scents Katsuki’s neck. “Hey, it’s okay. They’re my friends. They won’t hurt me.”
His voice turns honey sweet with persuasion. “Alpha, you can let him go.” He coos, keeps the surprise out of his inflection when he starts to feel Katsuki unwind the slightest bit.
He grows bold, rubs their neck glands together. “Look, he submitted. See? He knows my Alpha is strong. He’d be on his knees if you let go.”
Katsuki’s arm shakes. Izuku’s friends observe them in a mix of awe and surprise. He doesn’t blame them; Izuku has only had passing partners that never clicked, so to see him like this with Katsuki is a shock.
Izuku swallows his embarrassment and kitten licks Katsuki’s gland on the back of his neck. He feels the full body shudder, the way his fist loosens on Kirishima’s scarf. He shoots his friend a look that says, for the love of the Above don’t move.
Izuku nibbles a bit into the skin. The oil it secretes balms his lips. “I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m safe. They’re my friends.” He hugs Katsuki tighter to him. “Come back to me?”
Izuku uses a chirp that he normally saves for when he’s trying to get Katsuki to join him in their bed. The persuasion works, somehow, and everyone watches with eyes wide as Katsuki roughly shoves Kirishima back. The force of which almost has the redhead tumbling, but Tsuyu reacts swiftly to steady him.
Katsuki stands conflicted, turns his head to meet Izuku’s eyes in confusion. Katsuki's not sure how to sort through the whirlwind of emotions he's feeling, and he still reels from Izuku's persuasion; that he can't comprehend that worked. He doesn't say anything more as he steps out of Izuku’s hold to grab the forgotten rabbits on the ground.
“Oh, that is a lot.” Izuku's voice sounds normal again, no longer placating and sugary. He makes sure he still lets Katsuki know how proud he is of the catch. “Do you need—"
“No.” It’s a bark Katsuki hasn’t used on him in a while. It has him standing with blinking eyes as Katsuki rushes to the front door of their home. “I’ve got it.”
Izuku tries his best to ignore the hurt.
His friends have questions, and once Katsuki is well shut away inside, he provides answers. He tells them everything.
They assure him they never stopped trying to find him. Most of their leads were dead ends and naught but wild goose chases. They ask about Katsuki, and with the fondest smile Izuku tells them all about him, too.
When night falls, his friends pitch a tent on the outskirts. Katsuki hasn’t come out since that morning, and they don’t want to risk intruding further on his den.
Katsuki has already skinned and cleaned the rabbits, has them hung up to dry. It sends a pang through Izuku’s heart, because he loves it when they get to do it together. Laughter and bumping shoulders and Katsuki poking fun that Izuku never skins them right.
Katsuki is in their bed, shirt off with the covers up to his shoulders. He’s facing towards the wall, and doesn’t acknowledge Izuku at all.
The smell is heavy in the cabin, unmistakable as a consequence of Katsuki’s misery. Izuku slips into bed gingerly, leans his forehead against Katsuki’s back.
“You’re angry?” Izuku asks.
“I’m a lot of things.”
Katsuki's voice is empty. It scares Izuku because it’s almost how he sounded when they first met all that time ago.
“Talk to me?”
He doesn’t persuade. His eyes burn when Katsuki remains silent. He’s about to turn away onto his other side before Katsuki rolls to lie flat on his back.
His eyes shine, and Izuku freezes when he notices Katsuki has been crying. His nose is red, residue dripped from his nose shining above his top lip. His eyes are puffy, and Izuku’s heart breaks.
“What’s—”
“You’re going to leave me.” Katsuki’s voice is cracking with the admission. It leaves him in a panicked whisper, pathetic and thin.
Izuku doesn’t know what to say to that, so he answers with tears of his own.
“They found you, and now they’ll take you away.”
“Katsuki… I—”
Katsuki rocks the heels of his palms over his eyelids. His lip juts out in a pout. “I… I wanted more time. I don’t know why I fooled myself into thinking I could have this forever.”
Izuku scoots into him, lets Katsuki crush them together like he’s trying to weld them into one.
Izuku doesn’t say no, I’m not going anywhere. He can’t promise that, and knows Katsuki would only get angry if he tried. Izuku knows his friends want to tell him something important, but they’re hesitant. They say they’ll tell him tomorrow, and he can decide what to do after.
“If… If I did have to go, it wouldn’t be permanent,” Izuku sobs. “I’d come back to you. I’d… come back home.”
Katsuki doesn’t respond. Only holds him tighter.
The next morning comes, and Katsuki already has a meager breakfast made as Izuku wipes at the sleep in his eyes.
He’s made some for his friends, too, and Izuku’s heart swells against his ribs.
They briefly introduce themselves to Katsuki, and Katsuki doesn’t apologize about the day before.
They tell Izuku, then, that Yagi is slowing down. He’s considering selling the shop as they’re faced with Izuku’s indefinite absence, which would be a detriment to the family business and his years of back breaking work.
His parents are doctors; his mother specializes in births, and Yagi is the resident healer. His salves and concoctions have helped thousands, and he had chosen Izuku to succeed him.
It’s why Izuku was in this mess to begin with. What should have been a routine delivery of liquid medicine and herbs ends in a kidnapping. Izuku bites and claws as he futilely tries to get away until they decide it’s easiest to knock him out.
He tries to fight again when he comes to, breaking his arm but managing to wrench himself free. Ambles for what felt like days until he found Katsuki.
Izuku knows the importance of their practice. When he glances over at Katsuki, his heart shatters. The Alpha aims a dead stare at the ground, his knee bouncing because he no longer wants to be there to listen to the reasons why Izuku will leave him.
They don’t make love again before Izuku departs not long after, and it leaves them both feeling a hollowness they're not sure they'll ever be able to fill. Katsuki can't trust himself to not force Izuku to stay if he gets one last taste.
Izuku won't stop crying.
His lip wobbles when Katsuki approaches him, saying he should take his ram with him.
“No,” Izuku says. “She has to stay so I can come back to help take care of her.”
It sounds like a lie, but he really means it. They both know he’s trying to say, I want her here with you because she’s a reminder of me.
Izuku’s Omega wails in anguish when Katsuki appears smaller and smaller as they begin the journey back home, desperate enough that he clutches at his chest in pain. He weeps for the first few hours, while Ochako rubs a hand on his back from her horse.
They borrowed them from Shouto, which makes the trip back only take three days. Izuku marks the path they take on his map, takes mental pictures of landmarks. Tries not to dwell on three days feeling like three years.
He doesn’t like how it feels so final.