Chapter Text
“Smoking isn't allowed on campus, idiot.”
Izuku's head flies up, the sound of a familiar voice echoing over the roof from behind him. It's been a few days since he's heard that gruff, strained tone that he'd become so accustomed to over the years.
But it's different now that they’re older.
It's not filled with anger anymore, ill equipped to fight the wears of time with all its existing might. Rather, it's dull—a fire that's been long extinguished—an ember still occasionally flickering to life. Instead of screaming, he listened. And instead of fuming, he sat quietly and observed. Instead of hatred, it was complacency.
But even though he’s different, he’s still Katsuki.
Izuku doesn't say anything as he feels the man approach him, his energy threatening the balance he had precariously laid there around himself. He normally didn’t mind company, but being alone had given him a new perspective since the war. A lonely but clear perspective. He could finally think without the pressure of everyone around him, and for once the loneliness felt nice…as long as silence didn’t accompany it for too long.
Smoke rolls around his lips as he exhales, billowing into the air silently, absent of any real purpose to him…other than synthetic peace inside his head.
“And, cigarettes are bad for you.” Katsuki complains further, his arms coming to rest on the fence railing, mimicking Izuku's own pose against the cold metal frame that separated them from a ten story drop.
Side by side.
Izuku turns his head to look at the blond, but doesn't receive one back, and it's obvious that Katsuki wants him to stop, policy or not. Yet neither of them make a move. The cigarette remains locked between his fingers.
Katsuki looked tired, much more tired than usual given that he goes to sleep around eight in the evening. His eyes dawned dark circles, skin smooth in the absence of his usual anger induced wrinkles.
“It's actually a mini cigar.” Izuku corrects absently. “They're not as bad for you as cigarettes.”
“But they're still bad.” He argues back quickly, without much passion. It's not really an argument with the way Katsuki's voice quiets and his body hunches over, under prepared for anything tactical or physical at that. When they were younger, fighting it out was a much more common ailment to an argument. But now, it seemed like even a disagreement wasn't worth the mess a quirk fight brings. Izuku looks at him for a moment more, before directing his gaze back down into the empty street below them.
He can only look at Katsuki for so long without the most raw, undesired feelings sitting in his chest like heartburn.
It's unbearable at times.
But there's an odd comfort that settles between them right now.
Izuku still doesn't acknowledge the remark about his smoking, and Katsuki probably knows he won't stop from a weak complaint either. Someone from class must have told on him anyways, because that would've been the only way Katsuki had found out he even does this.
He knows smoking is bad. Cigarettes, cigars, it's all bad.
But what's worse?
The dreams.
The nightmares.
The silence.
Even the memories are strained and tainted.
After one too many therapy sessions and absolutely no mental change to his well being, he started seeking out other methods of help. Mainly to stop the memories from being so vivid. To stop thinking about the misery and agony people had to go through largely because of him. He can't say that out loud either though, without a swarm of people calling for an intervention to change his mind.
He just wanted to dull his thoughts from time to time. To stop seeing it play over and over again, like it's stuck in a loop that's meant to drive him so mad he should climb over the railing right now and-
“Couldn't sleep?” He asks Katsuki, quietly changing the subject.
Like he suspects, the blond shakes his head, his hair rustling against his brow.
Izuku takes another deep inhale of the Cheyenne, letting it burn his throat without the relief of open airways. Just holding it, hoping it'll suffocate him.
Katsuki says nothing about it, doesn't even turn his head to acknowledge that he's still smoking it.
“Came up here to relax.”
Izuku hums, “I guess I could say the same.”
“Plenty of other ways to relax than getting lung cancer, Izuku.”
Right.
Katsuki never lost an argument.
But it sounds sincere, and he should've known better than to think the subject would be ignored. Katsuki is always sincere when he uses his real name. Granted, that was all he ever used now. No more Deku, and only sometimes ‘nerd’ or ‘idiot’ or ‘dumbass.’
“Yeah, I know.” Izuku mutters, but Katsuki is quick to respond.
“Clearly you don't.”
Now it sounds hostile. Like the flip of a switch, Katsuki can go from content to pissed just like that.
“It's not a long term solution, Kacchan, I promise.” Izuku fights back softly, trying to make it sound better than it is. He knows he'll probably continue doing it, given that smoking is the only thing to calm him down in months. And shit, maybe that's why it was such a popular thing globally. Plenty of people spend their life addicted to it, and now here he was.
Needless to say, he gets it now.
“So what's next then?” Katsuki continues, though he doesn't sound hopeful.
“Huh?”
“If this isn't your long term solution, what is?”
Izuku pauses, unsure why he even brought it up if he didn't actually have a long term solution. Of course Katsuki was going to ask about that too, questioning his every response in a methodological display of interest. Izuku was still trying to figure out if he actually cared that much, and why.
“Therapy, I think.”
“Aren't you already in therapy?”
“Well, yes, but I’m-”
“So you're lying to me.”
Izuku sighs, feeling suddenly small under such a big interrogation. He wasn't going to last much longer under the pressure anyways, so he entertains the man.
“No, I just…” He takes a deep breath. “I just get so stressed out sometimes, like anxiety building up over time. And I didn't have a good way to cope with any of it. It's not like stress just…resolves itself when the things causing you stress don't even matter anymore.”
“There are plenty of other ways to relieve stress, nerd.” Katsuki insults.
“Like drinking?” Izuku shoots back, knowing that it was Katsuki’s chosen method of relief, before delivering a fatal blow, “Which destroys your liver.”
Katsuki looks at him this time, head snapping in his direction as his eyes slit in a rather hostile reaction to the remark. It's because he's right, and in Izuku's mind, the man's drinking obsession was just as bad as him smoking.
“Better than fuckin’ lung cancer.” Katsuki argues sharply, like he's offended.
“Debatable.”
“No, not debatable. It's a slow painful death over getting your stomach pumped once or twice and being alive at the end of it.”
The thought irks Izuku. He'd seen it happen once, on a rescue mission at a bar in Roppongi Hills. He'd gotten the unconscious young woman to the hospital just in time, and the doctors allowed him to remain within range because he was so worried for her.
Unfortunately, the operation went sideways when a doctor reported the tube had entered her airways instead of her esophagus, and she got pneumonia. A completely separate issue caused by an ordinarily fixable one. The whole ordeal seriously traumatized him.
“I'd rather die a slow painful death.” He concludes, and Katsuki scoffs. He probably didn't remember the incident like Izuku did.
“Not the point, you masochistic know it all.”
“I didn't say I'd like the pain, I just would rather that than get my stomach pumped! And besides, aren't they both painful?” Izuku defends, his face warmed by the seemingly erotic comment. He probably didn't mean it like that.
“How the hell would I know.” Katsuki brushes it off, clearly uninterested in the debate. So, Izuku leaves it alone with a muttered remark about not knowing either.
“What about massage therapy?”
“Why pay for something you could get for free, that's stupid.” Katsuki retorts.
“Huh?”
“Just phone a friend.”
It's Izuku's turn to snort, laughing quietly at the comment because none of their friends were going into the profession, so how was that an option?
“I really doubt any of our friends would want to…massage me for fun Kacchan.” He toys with the word in a soft laugh, because he thinks it's silly.
“They would if it was more than just a massage.”
More than…
Izuku shoots an eye at him, frowning at the implication. “Kacchan, what are you saying?”
“You're dumb, but not that dumb Izuku.”
“Are you seriously suggesting I…”
“I'm not suggesting anything, but you're an idiot if you think nicotine and alcohol are the only two things that relieve stress.”
“I don't think…that is going to make me less stressed out.” Izuku admits, picking up what he's put down. “It would probably make it worse.”
Katsuki huffs in a way that puzzles him. Like he's unimpressed with Izuku's assessment.
“You act like you would know.” Izuku replies as he rolls his eyes to no one in particular, not interested in thinking about whatever sexual experience Katsuki’s had.
But Katsuki doesn't respond, and the blood slowly drains from Izuku's body.
He turns to look back at the older anxiously.
“Would you?” He phrases it as a question this time.
“Why does that matter?”
“It…doesn't, I'm just…” Izuku starts, looking back down into the lonely road below like he's supposed to find some kind of reason as to why it matters in the empty pavement and dim lamp posts. When he can’t find the words, Katsuki huffs.
“You're thinking too much, nerd.”
“I'm only thinking about what you brought up.”
“What, sex?” Katsuki says nonchalantly..
Izuku’s face promptly burns in the same way his lungs do from all the smoke.
“No, no, just…well, yes but, in the way you described it.” He starts to ramble. His mind was slowly slipping into the gutter nonconsensually.
“Have you never jacked off before or something?”
Izuku's throat closes entirely and he squeaks, “What?!”
“Just answer the damn question.”
“I…I mean who hasn't at least…tried?” Izuku asks, trying to put as much distance between himself and the topic of admittance as possible. He had just started to calm down, and now here he was with a racing heart and twitching fingers. The cigarette threatens to fall from between them.
“You clearly haven't then, because if you had, then you'd know it's a great way to burn off a few thoughts from time to time.” Katsuki affirms.
Izuku sighs. “I know.”
“So what's the problem here?”
“There's no problem, Kacchan.”
“There is, because you've still got that cancer stick between your fingers like it's some kind of sick aesthetic.”
“What, you want me to just go find someone to hook up with right now?”
Katsuki shrugs.
“It's three in the morning Kacchan.” Izuku argues, to his point.
“You've got Uraraka’s number don't you?”
Okay, if Izuku wasn't burning before, he's literally on fire now. Katsuki implying he should go get laid was something else, but going the extra step to suggest his best friend made him want to throw up.
“Kacchan.” He scolds.
“Hell, any of em would probably take the chance to get plowed by-”
Izuku lunges forward, viciously, like a damn tiger locked onto its prey, smashing a hand against Katsuki's lips in an effort to silence him and knocking the two over completely.
“Kacchan!!” It's a yell now, as Katsuki attempts to rip the hand from his face like he’s suffocating. He's successful when he starts to heat up his palm and Izuku’s skin feels spiked with the dangerous crackle of his explosion quirk.
“What the hell Izuku!”
“You can't just go around saying stuff like that out loud!!!” Izuku hisses, watching in anxiety as the blonde rubs an arm over his mouth, like he's brushing Izuku's presence away.
“There's no one else up here, dumbass!” He insults.
Izuku exhales anxiously, “Still.”
“Hell.” Katsuki grumbles. “I'm just trying to give you advice. Unsolicited for that matter. So fuck you for acting like we're sixteen and grown up shit doesn't exist. News flash, Izuku, we're adults and adults do adult fucking shit.”
“I know, I know, I'm not dumb.”
“Yeah, you are.” Katsuki barks.
“Whatever! I'm not hooking up with Ochako, or any of the girls for that matter.” He argues with his hands thrown up in the air dramatically.
Katsuki folds his arms and hangs his head low again, tilted away from him.
Izuku breathes heavily, almost like he's out of breath from a little quarrel. And from the looks of it, Katsuki is too. They stand back up and straighten out, with the blonde adjusting his clothing like he was offended.
They reinstate their previous positions, silence covering them like a blanket from the sky for a while after that.
“Pretty sure mind fuck was eyeballing you at the seminar last week, if…that’s more your speed.” Katsuki mumbles out.
Mind fuck…
Shinsou?
A man.
His speed?
Fuck.
“That's…not the problem.” Izuku admits in a hushed tone, and Katsuki looks at him with renewed interest, curiosity.
“Then what is?”
“I don't know.”
“You need to get out more.” Katsuki decides for him, in a suddenly opinionated way.
“I'm perfectly fine sitting here and being alone.” Izuku objects confidently, holding his head high.
“Well I'm not fine with that because you're gonna get yourself addicted to nicotine like this.”
They fall quiet…again. Izuku knows he cares. It's a nice feeling to have someone be so sentimental towards his wellbeing, even if it's in the most distant way possible.
Maybe this was Katsuki's way of offering to help, his way of sharing that he really does care.
“I heard working out helps with stress.” Izuku switches sides, in an attempt to help in return. He realizes he was being too harsh.
“Sure, but the gyms aren't open now either.”
“We could go for a run?”
“You, not we. And you can't do that either because of curfew and those damn spy robots.” Katsuki points to a far off chunk of metal that guards the entrance to school property. He’s got a point, but…
“Since when do you follow the rules?’
“Since when was all this about me?” The other questions back. “I know you, and you’re not the rule breaker.”
“I could be.” Izuku prompts, side eyeing him to see if he'll take the bait. Katsuki looks at him with that same slightly confused but amused expression. Lips shut tightly, eyes glistening, almost like they’re shimmering with…interest? But the look is fleeting.
“Whatever.” Katsuki just grumbles as he turns his head back forward.
“I’m breaking the rules right now, aren’t I?” Izuku points to a small sign down at the bottom of the dorm road, and they both know what it says despite the distance.
No smoking, in big red lettering with a line straight through the middle.
“This conversation is pointless.” Katsuki grumbles.
“I’m sorry.” Izuku apologizes, as surely as he can. It wasn't necessary though, he quickly finds out.
“Y’don’t gotta do that, nerd.”
“But I mean it.” He tries again. With their conversation at a lul, he realizes it's the perfect time for him to bring up the one thing that was always stuck on his mind…the reason he was up here smoking in the first place.
“After the war I…met a few unsavory people. They told me about a few illicit drugs you can get around Shinjuku and…” he pauses, seeing the way Katsuki's brows furrow and his eyes slit again. “No, I didn’t do drugs, Kacchan. But one of them shared a cigarette with me. She was nice, said she saw what I did on tv and that I deserved to relax a bit. I never saw her again but, it’s all too easy to find those vending machines around the city. Once we were eighteen, it was even easier.”
Katsuki listens quietly, for the first time that night.
“I know it’s selfish…especially after…” he pauses, trying not to remember the brutality of it all. “After what you went through.”
“Then stop.”
“If I stop, everything just comes back.” Izuku admits sadly, his voice dipping into a weird washed out mumble.
“You barely saw it.” Katsuki pushes, like it’s a joke. “Don’t let those losers tell you how it was, because they’re lying.”
Izuku chuckles. As fucked up as it is, he almost starts full belly laughing.
“..What?” Katsuki asks bewildered. His expression is confusion mixed with worry before he rushes, “Izuku, don’t tell me you watched the video you fucker, they told us not to and I swear if you-“
“I was there, Kacchan.”
Katsuki pauses, taken aback before replying wearily, “Yeah, I know.”
“You don’t.”
“They told me you got there when-”
“When you were on the ground.” Izuku bites out the words like they were a well done steak. He repeats it again in a quieter tone, head in his hands.
“The hell are you talking about.”
“I got there only two minutes and twenty six seconds after you...”
Izuku takes a minute to breathe. Katsuki isn’t saying anything, and it makes his heart rate spike again. Did he believe it? What was he thinking? Was he angry?
But he does respond, after a few more seconds of deafening silence, “They told me you got there when I woke up.”
It was heard to hear Katsuki refer to his death as sleeping. Even though he had woken up again, there was a very high chance he wouldn’t. If Edge Shot hadn’t been there when he was, it would’ve been game over.
“I didn't want you to carry that burden, after everything Kacchan.”
Izuku continues,
“So no, I didn’t need to watch the damn video to know that. To know you…” he has to hold back tears now.
Katsuki exhales heavily. “Don’t fuckin do that, asshole.”
“What?”
“That sentimental crying bullshit. That was years ago. I’m right the fuck here and I’m fine.”
“I know.” Izuku nods, but his eyes wander to Katsuki's right arm instinctively.
“So act like it.”
He sighs, for maybe the billionth time that night as his best friend fights with all his stubborn nature once more.
“We can’t change the past.” Katsuki starts. “All we got is the future. So don’t fuck it up before you even get there.”
And there they were, back at square one, about Izuku smoking. Except now he feels like a fucking asshole, and Katsuki is like some all knowing nirvana figure by telling him smoking is wrong.
“But.” He starts again. “I get it. Do what you want.”
Izuku holds the cigarette limply, “I don’t want to do this.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I…” he pauses. “To feel normal again…no, to feel anything other than this unending pit that sinks me so deep I can’t breathe. Something better than a burnt throat and cold hands…not this.”
“A distraction.” Katsuki offers.
“A distraction.” Izuku repeats back out in agreement.
“Plenty of people in the dorms that would willingly help you with that.”
Izuku opens his mouth but Katsuki cuts him off, “-and just shut up, I don’t mean explicitly sex. I told you I don’t care what you do.”
But you do, don't you?
“Just-I don’t know, ask cheeks for a hug or something.” Katsuki waves it off, like he’s annoyed again.
“Okay Kacchan.” Izuku gives in.
“It’s late. You should go to bed.” The older suggests, though it sounds more like a motherly demand. Katsuki turns and starts to walk back towards the roof hatch.
His guts kick in, somehow, and he's twisting himself to look back at the man walking away from him.
“Maybe we could-“ Izuku blurts out, pausing for a moment as he thinks. “Would you want to hang out sometime?”
Katsuki’s back is still turned to him, but he’s motionless as he seems to consider the request. Izuku thinks he can see the brief turn of his head, only enough to make out the silhouette of his features in the dark.
“I know where to find you.”