Work Text:
Now:
The hospital bed doesn’t creak. The sheets slide back, scratchy and thin. Izuku blinks at him with bloodshot eyes, burst vessels ringing his irises like sunspots.
Katsuki tries not to jostle him as he climbs in.
“What are you doing?” he croaks.
Katsuki’s fist twists into the fabric of Izuku’s gown. He takes a shaky breath, heart pounding dangerously. His head feels foggy. His lungs are– fucked. “Shh– just. Shut up. Let me do this.”
“Do what?” Izuku doesn’t have the energy to be suspicious. He stares openly, tiredly, with blood disgustingly coagulating in the spaces between his teeth, along his bottom lip. His chest rattles under Katsuki.
There’s no time. Katsuki presses their mouths together. He tries to be gentle, in spite of his urgency.
Izuku’s lips part instantly, perhaps involuntarily: either a gasp of surprise or the last breath of a dying man.
Katsuki almost recoils as he tastes stale blood. Instead he licks in, searching, desperate.
A grotesque gurgle. The tip of Izuku’s tongue meets his, wet and unsure. Katsuki shuffles on the mattress, trying to get a better angle.
Shut up. He wants to say again. Just shut up. Let me do this for you. Please.
Hands push against his chest. He’s shoved backwards, ass landing on Izuku’s thighs.
“Kacchan,” Katsuki’s never heard his name like that before. “Why?”
There’s a million things he could say.
He feels as pathetic as Izuku looks, staring up at him with a wet mouth and wetter eyes, two ugly fucking bandages on his head and a dribble of bile staining the front of his gown.
He had plans, dammit.
Instead they’re two dying boys in a twin-sized hospital bed.
He tries to swallow. He’s all swollen lymph nodes and clogged airways these days. What the fuck is he supposed to say?
“I’m scared.”
Izuku looks at him with such despair that Katsuki wishes he was already dead.
“Me too.”
Before:
Despite what he lets others believe, Katsuki Bakugou does experience the unfortunate, occasional, moment of fear. He won’t deny it, if asked. Probably. But so far no one has been brave enough to ask him.
All Might assumed. Once. Katsuki had felt his mouth twist into a traitorous wobble. He probably would have denied it. Way back then.
“Were you scared?”
Maybe the answer is just too obvious, by now. Katsuki remembers his arm being crushed. He remembers Shigaraki’s cruel laughter before he died. But if he felt afraid, it was too detached for him to recognize. The pain took him to a place outside of his body, and the only thing he remembers thinking clearly is— Izuku.
A lot has changed.
Victory cost each of them something. Innocence is the first thing to flee in a war. Despite Edgeshot’s immaculate stitch-job, Katsuki’s heart keeps springing leaks. Weakened tissues, shredded membranes, and all that.
Of course, Izuku went and upstaged him. Katsuki didn’t lose his life, but Izuku did lose his quirk. And because he’s Fate’s favorite punching bag, he didn’t even get to lose it like ripping a bandaid off or severing a limb.
The remnants of One For All still cling to him like film over a dead man’s eyes.
“Were you scared?”
No one has asked him yet, but if Katsuki had to answer, he’d say that the gasping, wretched terror at having faced his own mortality didn’t fully catch up to him until after his first week in the hospital. Lying awake in bed the first night they started weaning him off the morphine, paralyzed not by the wires poking out from his skin or the heavy brace around his torso, but the fact that he should be dead, and Izuku could have died, and All Might could have died. And Izuku is quirkless.
Katsuki is a little scared now.
Scared because he’s been moved into the free bed in Izuku’s hospital room, at his insistence, while All Might gets surgery in the United States. And it’s time for their baths.
Katsuki has resigned himself to the indignity of being bathed by another person, because he can smell himself through the pungent miasma of antiseptics and chemical cleaners that the hospital staff uses. What he hasn’t quite resigned himself to is the fact that Izuku is going to be here while it happens.
But he can’t say anything, because he’s the one who kicked up such a fuss about their rooming together in the first place.
They’ve had a couple visits from Recovery Girl, and now neither of them are considered fall risks. Healed just enough that they can finally bathe more than just their pits and feet.
They’re in dire need of it.
A nurse gently removes the thick band around his chest. Katsuki slumps forward slightly now that his posture isn’t being enforced.
His ribs expand in a way they haven’t been able to in more than a week, and his breath comes out ragged. The skin and muscle above his still-beating heart feels tender; raw and tight. His sternum aches.
Katsuki doesn’t want Izuku to see him like this.
He glances at Izuku out of the corner of his eye, and flushes when he sees him looking back. Izuku is wide-eyed and silent as the nurse disrobes Katsuki and withdraws his arm from its sling to slide a plastic cover over it. He bites down hard on his lip when the wrap-top comes off to reveal another layer of dressings around his ribs.
“We can do this one at a time, if you want privacy.” Tsubaki glances up, like the thought has only just occurred to him.
Katsuki would like privacy, thank you. He would like to not see the storm clouds in Izuku’s eyes while he assesses the damage.
“No!” Izuku’s words sound punched out of him; all air escaping his chest at once as he refuses. “Not unless— Kacchan.”
Katsuki’s head jerks up, blinking rapidly to fight the sudden wetness springing forth from his tear ducts.
“What are you looking at me for?” He snips, voice coming out higher and croakier than he’d prefer, “Do you want me to wait outside or not?”
Teeth going back to worrying at his bottom lip, Izuku shakes his head. “No. I’m okay with it.”
Oh. Well okay then.
Izuku is helped up from his bed and led to the bathroom, completely nude, save for the plastic bags covering his arms. The door stays open. There’s a drain in the middle of the floor and a chair with a low back jammed between the detachable shower head and the toilet, facing out towards the open doorway.
Katsuki briefly considers not looking. The boundaries between them have eroded away, but he still can’t tell what’s going on inside Izuku’s banged up head.
Izuku holds his arms out of the way while he’s soaped up and then gently sprayed down, suds draining into the middle of the floor. Their eyes meet from across the room, and Katsuki’s face burns red.
“You look stupid,” he says before he can stop himself.
Izuku frowns at him. Katsuki looks down, feeling like a jackass. Why did he say that?
Then it’s his turn.
Izuku, swaddled in a towel, watches from the bed as Katsuki is led to the bathroom. He tries to ignore the way his face flushes as he shrugs off his boxers in one quick movement, kicking them out of the splash zone with his toe.
The nurse puts a soapy cloth in Katsuki’s left hand and warns him not to get his stitches wet.
Fuck this. Katsuki wishes he could turn the chair around. He can feel Izuku’s eyes on him. Goose bumps raise along the back of his neck.
He feels exposed like a raw nerve.
He hunches over himself as he scrubs between his toes, up his legs, and between them, moving as efficiently as possible with his right arm dangling useless by his side. Then he holds his hand out and the wash cloth is swapped for the shower head. Katsuki almost cries. It’s not a proper shower, but it’s better than he’s had in weeks.
Then comes the hard part.
Katsuki winces as the bandages are peeled back from the scar on his chest. He doesn’t look at Izuku, but he can hear him gasp.
“Oh, Kacchan.”
Katsuki knows it’s not pretty. Mottled, reddened skin over his heart and a line down the middle from being sewn shut. It’s gnarlier than the scars on his shoulder and hips, wider, a cavity ripped open.
“You need to breathe, kid.” the nurse warns. That has Katsuki looking over. Izuku stares— wide eyed and unblinking— from where he sits on his bed. His chest rises and falls in heaving gasps, an approximation of breathing, but no air is actually entering his lungs.
“Ka— Kacch—”“
“Izuku!” Katsuki stands up in alarm, self-consciousness forgotten, even as he’s struck by a wave of nausea. It nearly rolls him. His limbs turn to jelly, and he sways, catching himself on the railing. Overexerted from the simple act of bathing. Pathetic.
Izuku croaks something, fingers twisting into the sheets, face drained of color.
Katsuki is dizzy by the time he reaches the bed. His bad arm hangs uselessly at his side, he’s dripping water all over the floor, and the nurse is trying to convince Izuku to calm down while reattaching the line of his IV into the port fixed in his vein.
“Ka—ck!” Izuku’s breath rattles out from wet, oxygen deprived lungs. He sounds like death warmed over. He hacks. Something dark and wet falls out of his mouth, landing on the sheets between his legs.
“Here.” A receptacle is shoved into Katsuki’s left hand. Something is injected into Izuku’s IV bag as Katsuki crawls into bed with him, bringing the plastic container under his chin.
“Please breathe, please breathe Izuku, shit.” He mutters like a mantra, while Izuku thrashes, nearly bucking him off as he tries to roll onto his side. He hacks and spits, something in his trachea choking him until he coughs it up with a wet ‘hurk!’ that seems to rattle his entire chest cavity.
Katsuki catches it. He looks down as Izuku’s tremors subside to see—
What the fuck is that?
Pale purple, slightly bloody. A smooth bell shape. For a terrifying second, Katsuki thinks Izuku coughed out a piece of lung.
But it’s not, he realizes, as he picks the thing up with shaking fingers. Underneath him, Izuku lets out another weak cough, slumping back against the pillows. It’s wet with phlegm, but smooth and velvety in a way viscera wouldn’t be. Inside the cone-shape, there are little purple spots. It’s a flower.
Now:
Changing the angle doesn’t stop their teeth from gnashing together. It does mean that drool slips down their chins every time their mouths break apart for air.
Katsuki tries to keep his eyes closed, out of sight, out of mind, and all that. Except the things he wants out of mind have less to do with what’s in front of him, and more to do with the heartclenching ache and burning fear that’s been keeping him awake the past few weeks.
In spite of himself, he catches glimpses. They kiss and break apart, and each time Izuku takes the opportunity to stare at him with an expression akin to utter bafflement and maybe a little awe.
That makes it very hard for Katsuki to ignore the pain in his chest, so he goes in for another kiss.
Gauze-covered fingers dig into his hips. Izuku doesn’t seem to mind that Katsuki is sitting on him. If anything, he pulls him closer. Their tongues trade places. Izuku invades his mouth, licks behind his incisors, gets intimately familiar with his bicuspids.
Katsuki nearly chokes when his soft palette is caressed. His hips shift forward, mostly by accident, except the hands on his hips clench tighter, drag him further up Izuku’s lap, and this time when they pull apart it’s to gasp.
“That’s–” Izuku’s voice comes out strained, lower and fuller than Katsuki has ever heard it before.
“Shit,” Panic rises in his esophagus like an incoming tide. Katsuki struggles to control his breathing. What the fuck is he doing? He knows Izuku can feel him– he was basically just punched in the stomach by the bodily reaction Katsuki is having to sitting on his lap.
“Shit, sorry, I–” his limbs are heavy and uncoordinated as he tries to climb off the bed. Izuku stops him before he gets even a centimeter of distance.
“Kacchan,” he grabs Katsuki’s thighs hard enough to bruise. It jostles them enough to create friction. The friction is enough to launch a firecracker straight up from deep within Katsuki’s gut. He sees sparks.
“Kacchan, please don’t go. Please.” Izuku’s confusion has burned away into desperation. His head falls to Katsuki’s shoulder as he hacks out a wet cough.
Katsuki dreads looking down. He doesn’t want to see the flowers spilling onto their laps. So he shifts again, trying to get comfortable.
Izuku’s head jerks up. Katsuki catches a flash of something–surprise maybe, or relief– before an altogether different feeling takes over.
Izuku twitches against the inside of his thigh. Through thin layers, Katsuki can almost feel the texture of him.
Izuku chews on the corner of his mouth, like he’s stopping himself from speaking. His hands move slowly, sliding around the back of Katsuki’s hips, gathering him up.
Katsuki’s bottom lip juts out. He’s not sure how he feels about being handled like he’s something delicate.
He hates having his vulnerabilities put on display. But with Izuku, it’s… good maybe? Almost too much.
He doesn’t get the chance to verbalize how insane this makes him feel. Izuku catches his pout between his teeth and rolls his hips underneath him. His thoughts get fuzzy.
Before:
The lights in the room are off for the night by the time Izuku is brought back in a wheelchair. He’s helped into bed with a mumbled ‘thanks.’
Katsuki waits until the room clears out.
“Hey.” Silence. “Hey, Izuku.”
Another moment passes. Irritation spikes low in his gut at the thought of being ignored.
Then, Izuku’s voice, tired, raspy in a way that’s vaguely concerning, creeps in to fill the empty space between their beds.
“Hi, Kacchan.”
He doesn’t like that Izuku says his name like a mourner at a funeral.
“Are you seriously not going to tell me what the fuck that was?” Katsuki can’t roll on his side to get comfortable, so he turns his neck as far as he can to glare at the other bed.
“It was nothing. I’m fine.” The silhouette of Izuku’s profile is hard to make out from the shadows. Only the faintly blipping lights of the hospital machinery catching and reflecting off his watery eyes offer any indication that he’s there at all.
“Bullshit. Tell me the truth.”
“I am.” Izuku insists, snappish. A part of Katsuki– maybe the part that used to be a little shithead, or maybe the part that fears how vacant Izuku’s been– lights up a little bit for getting a rise out of him.
“I will tell you what’s happening.” Izuku promises, returning to a measured decibel, “But I’m tired, Kacchan. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
“You’re coughing up weeds and you don’t want to talk about it? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Shh, please Kacchan, you don’t have to shout at me.“
“Don’t fucking shush me. I was worried about you, asshole.”
Izuku doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that.
Katsuki fights with his pillow to turn his head back to the cagey idiot who nearly gave him a heart attack earlier. “Is it serious?”
“I don’t know.” Izuku whispers. He stares up at the ceiling, illuminated only by the blinking lights on the medical equipment. “…It wasn’t a weed. Technically. At least I don’t think so.”
Katsuki purses his lips. Thinly, he asks, “What was it then?”
Izuku doesn’t answer.
“Hey. Fucker. Come on, talk to me.”
Izuku takes another moment to answer. When he does, he sounds bone-tired. “It’s a disease. The flowers are a symptom. That’s what the doctors said.”
A disease. Not a quirk. Weird.
For some reason he’d been worried that it was some toxic trace of One For All, deciding to take Izuku with it on its way out.
“What? Like, you caught something contagious?” he asks, voice low.
“No… No, it’s not contagious.” Izuku sighs. He’s acting remarkably calm, all things considered.
“What the fuck? Is it curable?” Katsuki does not feel as tranquil.
“...Well, yes. But…”
“But? What the shit, Izuku? I thought you wanted to get out of here at the same time. We’re missing half our second year, and I’m not planning on letting any of our classmates surpass me.”
Izuku’s eyes flicker in Katsuki’s direction, catching the light again.
“I know, Kacchan. They couldn’t. You’re too good.”
“Damn right.” Katsuki’s throat squeezes. The wrongness of it all curdles on the back of his tongue. A disease. “You know… s’not… a real challenge if you’re not there too.”
Izuku gives him a small smile. Even in the dark, Katsuki can tell that it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“I can’t… get the cure, Kacchan. It would only make things worse.”
“What the fuck? That’s not how cures work, shitty nerd.” This is all wrong.
“It is this time.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
Silence.
“Izuku?”
Katsuki listens hard, but only hears the sounds of sheets rustling as Izuku turns his back to him.
“Izuku, c’mon, answer me.”
“Sorry Kacchan. I’m really tired. Can we talk about it tomorrow?” There’s an edge in his voice that has Katsuki’s throat contracting again. He doesn’t want to let it go. He wants to know why Izuku is acting insane.
“Fine. But you better talk.” It’s not like either of them are going anywhere any time soon.
“I will. I promise.”
But when Katsuki wakes up, Izuku is already being wheeled out for more tests.
Now:
Izuku ruts up against his ass like it's his dying wish. Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut and pours all of his desperation into the wet cavern of his mouth. They’re growing sloppy with it: all teeth and tongue and needy moans that would be embarrassing if not for the circumstance.
There’s a damp spot on the front of Katsuki’s pants where his precum leaks through. The mind-melting friction each time their bodies drag together makes it spread a little further.
The pulsing line on the EKG next to the bed starts spiking. Izuku’s fingers bruise Katsuki’s hips. He jerks, a grind so deep Katsuki feels it in his bone marrow.
Katsuki feels something clawing up his throat.
Then:
It’s something called Hanahaki disease.
Izuku stays tight-lipped about it, but Katsuki overhears two doctors talking in the hallway as he comes back from PT. Normally they go down to the third floor together, but lately Izuku’s been too sick.
He keeps coughing up ugly spotted purple flowers, to the point where there’s a sick-bowl permanently stationed by his bedside. The coughing fits don’t usually go on for too long, but they exhaust Izuku, leaving him folded in half, sweaty and shivering on his bed.
“Hanahaki Disease huh? I can see why you needed a consult. What species?”
“Digitalis purpurea…” One doctor says, sotto voce, shaking his head as they pass him. Katsuki recognizes him as one of the cardiologists who performed his open-heart surgery.
Huh?
“It’s an exceptionally rare case. More dangerous than usual. If he doesn’t get treatment soon… Has he said who’s causing it?” The other doctor asks. The lanyard for her ID badge is a different color than what Katsuki has gotten used to seeing.
Confused as hell, Katsuki slows down, bringing his hand to the wall to feign a need for rest.
Not, how’d Izuku catch it, this Hanahaki thing, but who’s causing it? So it is a quirk or something? Why would Izuku lie to him about that?
“No, but… Well, did you see the note in his chart?” Cardio-Doc asks, “It might resolve itself soon.”
“I did. And I watched that broadcast live, same as the rest of the country. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised it wasn’t the other way around.“ Green-Lanyard nods her head as they round the corner, leaving Katsuki’s field of vision.
“Hopefully things resolve before it gets to that point,” the doctor’s voice gets fainter as they get further away.
Katsuki lingers in the hall for another moment. Focuses on his breathing. He’s so angry he could choke.
And Then:
His dad takes time off from work to come visit him on a Wednesday, and takes him down to the third floor. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah,” Katsuki clears his throat, concentrating on the foam ball in the palm of his hand. “Really.”
It’s true. His arm sits useless in its sling, dead weight that he can’t even feel most of the time. Since he woke up, he’s experienced occasional stabs of shooting pain, radiating up from his elbow (but never, scarily enough, down to the tips of his fingers). Sometimes it feels like it’s being crushed inside a vice. It unnerves him, because it’s too close to what actually happened.
But lately he hasn’t felt any pain at all, and as he stares at the little ball in his hand, he’s able to concentrate and close his fingers around it, even though he can’t feel the thing in his grasp.
There is something bothering him though.
He knows that his father knows something about what’s going on with Izuku. He saw him exchanging a few words with Izuku’s mom in the hallway before he came in.
“Dad,” he starts, cringing at how young his voice sounds, “What’s digitalis?”
His father looks at him behind rectangle frames with a crease between his brows. There’s shadows under his eyes and along his jaw. Clearly he hasn’t had much time to take care of himself, with his only son in the hospital.
“I’m… not sure. Why are you asking?”
“The thing Izuku’s got– it’s fucking his shit up. Some kind of… toxic flower? I don’t–” Mortifyingly, in the span of his hospital stay, Katsuki’s parents have gotten all too used to seeing him cry. Masaru holds the back of Katsuki’s head and guides it to his shoulder. His dorky old man polo shirt soaks up his tears while he pulls his phone out of his pocket.
“Shh, shh,” Masaru leans his chin on top of Katsuki’s head, “Okay, it looks like digitalis is a type of plant… foxglove.”
“Give me the phone.” Katsuki doesn’t wait. He snatches it out of his father’s hands.
Foxglove has medicinal uses but is also very toxic to humans and other mammals, such that consumption can cause serious illness or death.[6] The cardiac glycoside digitoxin, produced from its leaves, is used as a medication for heart failure.[7]
He chokes on the irony. There’s nothing wrong with Izuku’s heart. There sure as shit is something wrong with Katsuki’s.
“Son…”
“Hang on.” Katsuki scrolls further. Words like tachycardia and bradycardia begin to swim in front of his eyes.
“Izuku-kun is a strong kid,” Masaru tries to assure him, “He just saved the whole country– honestly, the whole world. He won’t let something like this beat him.”
Katsuki pulls away, frowning at the streak of snot on his father’s shoulder. “You can’t punch a disease. He says there’s a cure, but for some reason he won’t– it’s like he wants it to kill him.”
“Katsuki, I’m sure that’s not true–”
“It’s killing him, dad.” He swallows. His throat feels scratchy.
As quickly as he can, though it's difficult typing with only the thumb of his nondominant hand, he tries a new search.
Hanahaki disease (花吐き病, Hepburn: Hanahaki-byō; lit. flower-vomiting disease)[1] is a disease characterized by the growth of flowers in the body as a result of unrequited love.
It doesn’t make sense. Why is Izuku suffering from a disease tied to unrequited love?
His chest squeezes at the word unrequited. A sickly, sour taste creeps up the back of his throat.
Izuku is in love with someone. Izuku is sick because he’s in love with someone who doesn’t love him back. Fresh green bitterness spills into his mouth, an ugly wave of jealousy tinged with despair.
What had he hoped for, really?
The primary symptom is coughing or vomiting up flower petals,[2] which progresses into full blooms as the condition worsens.[3] The first and most common cure is the reciprocation of romantic feelings by the object of the afflicted person's affection.[4]
“I’ll fucking kill him myself.” Katsuki chokes. “What the fuck? Why is he refusing treatment?!”
“I’m sure he’s not going to refuse treatment. It looks like it’s curable.” Masaru strokes Katsuki’s hair in an attempt to soothe, “Please calm down, you can’t get worked up right now.”
Katsuki doesn’t bat him off. He focuses on the screen.
The second method involves surgical removal of the flowers, which allows the sufferer to survive but at the cost of losing their romantic feelings for the beloved.[5] If untreated, the disease is fatal.
“No,” Katsuki spits, furious. “No, because he said– he told me already that he wasn’t going to do that. I didn’t know what he fucking meant, thought he needed like, an organ transfer or something, but it’s so much fucking stupider and more self-sacrificing than that! What the shit?”
If he had two good arms, he’d be using one to pull out his hair. As it is, he can barely keep his grip on his father’s phone, his hand is shaking with so much rage. His quirk, which he’s been very good at not using while in recovery, builds under his pores until his whole body feels slick with sweat. He could probably take out the whole hospital right now.
“And the stupidest goddamn thing is– whoever he has f-feelings for?” Angry tears roll down his face. Masaru watches him with a horrified expression. “If they just returned them he’d be okay. He’s sparing their feelings! He’s going to die for some fucking asshole who doesn’t even love him b-back!”
Katsuki hiccups. Then he burps.
For a moment, he and his father blink at each other in surprised silence.
Then Katsuki curls in on himself as his body is wracked with violent coughs.
Suddenly he can’t get enough oxygen. It triggers something akin to panic in his father, but Katsuki feels like he’s been shunted outside of his body. There’s a terrible ripping pain crawling up his throat, but he feels completely detached from it.
His heart monitor’s insistent and increasingly frantic beeping barely registers as he watches himself unload a fucking bouquet’s worth of bright yellow flowers all over himself, his dad, and the floor.
Fuck, he realizes, as his vision tunnels and doctors and nurses start swarming over him. He wasn’t even trying this time, but his body has already decided to catch up to Izuku.
Now:
Katsuki tries to break the kiss before it happens, he really does. He pushes one-handed against Izuku’s chest, but a hand snakes around the back of his neck, locking him in.
He chokes with it: the flowers clogging his airways, the fear that his first kiss will end in death-by suffocation, and the fact that Izuku won’t let him go.
Buds scrape against his uvula. He gags into Izuku’s mouth. He feels disgusting, tethered in place, covered in tears and snot, semen sticking inside his underwear.
Izuku’s tongue pries him open and Katsuki can’t fight it anymore. He coughs, a tremendous wheeze, that has buds sliding wetly over lips and into Izuku’s mouth.
“Mmph– Fuck!” He finally wrenches his mouth free to hack over the side of the bed. “Why the fuck did you do that?!”
Izuku pulls Katsuki back to him. He stares at him for a moment, chewing on something at the back of his molars.
He swallows, and whispers hoarsely, “I’ll take anything Kacchan gives me.”
Then:
When he finishes coughing, there’s stains down the front of his hospital gown. He wheezes, hand clutched over his chest, like it’s the only thing preventing his ribcage from bursting.
Maybe it is.
“Hm, Saint John’s Wort… Interesting.” ” the attending doctor says. He turns to an intern, “Write that down.”
Katsuki scowls. More and more these days he’s beginning to feel like some sort of science experiment.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s medicinal, at least. Historically speaking, it’s been used as an herbal remedy in various regions to treat nerve pain, depression…” Oh. That doesn’t sound too bad, then. ”Though there’s a high risk that it will interfere with your other medications.”
The doctor looks concerned. Katsuki feels his pulse stutter. His heart monitor pings.
“This could be very dangerous, if it progresses.”
Great.
And Then:
Katsuki just needs to confess. He practically did already, when he introduced himself as “Kacchan Bakugou” to humanity’s ugliest villain on live television.
And apparently, hiccuping out big fat baby tears and sobbing about chasing Izuku for the rest of his life wasn’t enough either.
If that mortifying ordeal of being known has taught him anything, though, it’s that at least Izuku will probably let him down gently, with as much left of his dignity intact as he possibly can.
Once Katsuki confesses properly, it will be out of his hands. He’ll either get better, or have no reason to live anyways.
“I’m going in for surgery tomorrow.” Izuku says, and Katsuki can’t even feel the heartbreak because there’s a parasitic plant in his lungs drugging away his pain.
Okay then.
Izuku knows that he’s caught it too. It’s not like Katsuki has been subtle about it. Now both sides of their room have mulch piles of sick-soaked flowers piling up in bowls.
It’s not supposed to be contagious. Katsuki wonders what Izuku thinks is happening. Does he know, already, that the reason Katsuki is dying from a broken heart– again– has everything to do with him? Maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he’s going to have the roots manually extracted with scalpel. So that he doesn’t have to live with the guilt of it all choking him up every day.
At least he’s finally decided that he doesn’t want to let it kill him. Maybe that’s Katsuki’s fault too, now that he’s also spewing shrubbery. Maybe Izuku is trying to set a better example. Cause he’ll never do it for himself, but he sure as shit would do it for someone else.
“I think you should consider it as well,” Izuku says, proving exactly how well Katsuki knows him.
“Hn,” he grunts, noncommittal. He couldn’t really talk right now if he wanted too: there’s a whole flowering branch pressing against his vocal chords.
Yeah, he could get the surgery too. And then he and Izuku can finally recover from their battle wounds and spend the rest of their lives psychically amputated from each other.
Well, tough shit, he wants to say. I’m not doing that. Not if there’s another way.
Katsuki thinks, maybe there is. Another way. Because the timing is too suspect. The first flowers came right when Izuku saw the starburst scars across his chest. And the symptoms. Plants that are toxic except when they’re medicine: heart failure and nerve damage. It has to mean something.
The seed was planted during their childhood. It was left untended and unloved but germinated anyway. Until suddenly it grew too big and too fast, bursting out of its vessel before either of them really learned how to nurture it.
Maybe he can save them both. One more time. Maybe it’s not too late.
And Then:
Katsuki’s arm doesn’t feel like it's going to rot away and fall off anymore. He barely feels it at all. It would worry him, but the fucking yellow flowers he keeps upchucking every morning are affecting his mood, making it difficult to dwell.
He tries though.
Because Izuku is getting worse.
He’s wheeled out again after a round of wheezing and hacking turns into a cardiac event. Now there’s a crash cart next to his bed.
Fucking digitalis.
An herbal remedy once used to treat heart conditions. Except Izuku doesn’t have a heart problem, so it’s killing him instead.
Katsuki fucking hates the color yellow now. He hates purple even more. It’s all wrong. Seeing Izuku spew violet is a chromatic aberration on his senses.
He’s given a bowl to hurl into while he waits for Izuku to come back. The Saint John’s Wort scratches his throat on the way up. The nurses keep having to check in on him for more blood tests, because the fucking flowers are lessening the effects of his heart medication. He’s feeling less pain, but he gets dizzy every time he tries to stand now.
He’s not sure if he appreciates the trade off. The bright hospital lights sting his retinas more than they ever did before.
Now:
“Don’t get the surgery,” Katsuki bites into the kiss, “or I’ll never forgive you.”
Izuku coughs a weak, wet, “I won’t,” that sends petals spilling into his open mouth.
Katsuki rips into them with his teeth. His pants are halfway off his hips, waistband tucked tight under his balls. Pre drips down his shaft as Izuku works him over with a rough palm.
Katsuki shoves his sling into Izuku’s chest, dragging his hospital gown up as his left hand curls around Izuku’s cock.
Izuku groans, thrusting into the clutch of his fist, “Kacchan–”
“You wanted to let it kill you until it looked like it was gonna take me out too, right? You fucking asshole,” Katsuki’s hips move, jerky and uncoordinated. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I’m sorry,” Izuku tosses his head back with a moan. His chest shudders as he drags over the tip of Katsuki’s cock, “I’m sorry, this is all my fault, I love you, please don’t stop.”
“Don’t blame yourself for shit outside your control,” Katsuki chases his mouth, shuddering as Izuku grips him tight and slides his other hand down the back of his pants. “I need you. I can’t– fuck– I don’t wanna do this without you.”
“You’re hurting because of me,” Izuku whines, “I’m so selfish, I just keep taking from you–”
A dry finger prods against Katsuki’s hole, gently circling his rim without pushing in. Katsuki’s breath hitches as he’s stimulated from both ends. Izuku watches him with watery eyes.
“You can have it. Fuck you, you had it already.” Katsuki shuts his eyes as tears stream down his face. “So don’t– don’t you ever think–” he gasps as he spills into Izuku’s fist with a shuddering, choking sob, “don’t leave me behind.”
“Kacchan, you–ahh!” Izuku cries. His cock twitches between them as Katsuki collapses on top of him, coating both of their stomachs.
“Fuck,” Katsuki pants, breathless. He jerks his head up, catching Izuku’s broken expression.
“I’d never leave you behind,” Izuku rasps, “But I thought… Now that One For All is fading… It’ll be me chasing you again.”
Izuku presses his forehead to Katsuki’s, trembling as his eyes drift closed. “So I thought, maybe it would be better if you moved on. Because you’re so strong, and I’m just… But I’m so selfish. I can’t help it. I want you too much.”
Katsuki watches his tears soak into the bandage on his cheek and marvels at the fact that he feels like he can breathe for the first time in weeks. “Be selfish,” he whispers, “becuase I want to be the best, and I’m not fucking doing that without you, and I fucking love you. Damned Nerd.”
Izuku sucks in a quiet breath. He nods.
In the quiet dark, with only the steady pulse of the monitors to count out their heart beats, they kiss again. And the poison passing between their lips turns into medicine.