Archive of Our Own ^beta

April in New York is cold and wet. The damp is inescapable, a chill that won’t seep out ‘til June, and it never fails to make Izuku feel a strange sort of enveloping grey. Grey sky, grey streets, grey fog that smokes off the sea—a dove’s feather morning, hazed pink at the edges with the rising sun.

He’s not usually up and about this early. The night sings to him, the darkness a hug that suspends his disbelief, so he’s always awake late. Something shivers in the corners of the world at night, and he just barely catches it—catches himself looking up, into the city smog, searching.

Today isn’t special. There’s no reason Izuku’s out of bed with so much energy except a good night’s sleep. But that something that has him looking, that keeps him awake with a strange, foundless hope through the witching hour every night, is still alive in his veins. It drives him out of his apartment, the sparkling excitement in his chest pushing him toward the harbor, eager to be with people.

Izuku likes people. He likes knowing what makes them tick, what forces in the world govern them; he likes to write them out into immortality, though words are never good enough to capture a person in their entirety. Words are too small on their own, Izuku thinks, even as he loves them—it’s people who make the words bigger. Consider, for no particular reason, the word love : four letters, a single syllable. Tiny and simplistic. Then consider what it means.

That’s the best part of being a journalist. He takes the world and compresses it to words, and if he chooses the right ones, they’re read back out bigger than the endless sky. He feels powerful when he writes, knowing he’s shaping reality.

It fills a little of the ever-present hole inside of him. Like he was meant to do it. Like he’s creating that something he’s always searching for. Like that something will find him first, if he just writes enough.

So he’s out, in search of something new to chronicle, planning to watch all the people huddling by the harbor and enjoy a morning that vibrates like midnight.

“Papers, papers!” A kid shouts on the sidewalk, waving one high in the air. “Get your papers here!”

Izuku fishes a dime from his coat pocket, tucks his scarf in a little tighter against the wind. A good rule for staying relevant in the news is to know it, and this isn’t his publication, so he might as well see what the others are printing. There’s usually at least one thing he doesn’t know, and he appreciates learning it.

He’s just opened the first page when a man comes tearing past like there are hellhounds on his heels, and Izuku is almost knocked on his ass in the crush of parting people. He flails to keep his balance and drops his paper directly into a greasy puddle, ruining it.

“Hey!” he says, mostly to himself; the man’s already down the block, pelting for the harbor without a coat on. Without a coat on, in this weather! And what’s he running for, Izuku wonders—was he running away from something, or running toward something else?

Without really thinking about it, Izuku forgoes his soaked newspaper and sets off in the same direction.

That man had really been quite strange, after all. Just a quick look at the back of him and Izuku had seen wide shoulders and thick arms, a shock of blonde hair sticking up every which way. Perhaps he works on the docks, and that’s why he’s running so hard for the harbor? Because he was certainly going toward the harbor, otherwise he would’ve hooked a left at the end of the street, and if Izuku gets between people just right, he can see pale spikes still beelining in the distance.

Izuku pushes through the throng, shoes crunching softly on the pavement as it starts melting into sand. There the man is, dead ahead, straight across the beach—no, surely he isn’t going to—but there he goes, into the wet, kicking up foam that must be freezing.

Something crackles in Izuku’s chest, pops like champagne. Apprehension trembles down his arms, the instinctual tension against the unknown; the breeze picks up and he shivers, pretending it’s all chill.

“Hey!” The word bursts from his throat with surprising force.

The man whirls, hands splashing in the gently lapping water that now comes up to his waist. Izuku waves before he can think better of it, drawn toward the story of this man who went headlong into the ocean knowing full well it’s only barely not ice.

His face is familiar.

“Hey, out there!” The man looks at Izuku from yards away, but he abruptly seems so big he blocks out the sun. It’s the watered sunshine of his hair, probably, Izuku thinks. Reflecting in the last smears of fog like a starlight halo. Izuku smiles, all nerves for a reason he can’t place. “You’ll get yourself sick like that!”

The man—boy? he seems too young, angled wrong for his eyes—walks through the water as though he’s being pulled under, feet dragging heavy in the sand. The whole time he presses forward he’s looking at Izuku, staring like he’s seeing someone else, lips parted around words that won’t come. Did he think no one would see him gallivanting in the waves? Izuku shakes his head and starts unwinding his scarf.

“Here, my God,” he says, throwing it around the man’s neck when he’s close enough. Izuku notices with a jolt that his eyes are red, a ferocious color that makes his face nearly savage in its beauty—he’s maybe two inches taller than Izuku, but he leans forward until you couldn’t tell. Izuku swallows lightly, trying not to look too long at any one part of him. “What on Earth possessed you to go crashing into the waves in April?”

The man stares. Izuku feels too warm for the day, feels itchy under the scrutiny; he feels such a wide variety of things that he abruptly feels a little sick. Just to maintain some balance, Izuku stares back, noting the man’s delicate collarbone and the pink flush to his ears, the strength in his hands and the fine dusting of blonde hair across his jaw.

Izuku notices with a thrill up his spine that this objectively very attractive man is looking at him with a kind of desperation that defies description.

“Look all you like, mister mysterious,” Izuku laughs to cover his anxiety. It’s intense, that gaze—those eyes hold something ancient in them, a light he might have named stars were he the poetic type. There’s a stunning focus to them, looking at Izuku and seeing... well, Izuku doesn’t know what they’re seeing, to look at him like that. “I’m Izuku. And you are?”

The man’s salted lips part, a flash of white teeth: “Going insane.”

That voice— low and graveled and broken breathy with emotion—Izuku’s knees twinge weak as his chest expands so rapidly he fears his ribs might crack. It’s like music, that voice, some melody he knew as a child and forgot. It’s in his bones, as far down as his soul. The feeling that blooms red as roses in his veins is nothing short of awe.

“Right,” Izuku says, amazed that his heartbeat, so loud in his ears, isn’t hammering into the air. “Shall I show you to the nearest loony bin?”

He might show himself to the loony bin, going weak-kneed at the sound of a stranger.

The man starts crying.

Izuku’s hand goes to the man’s arm before he can even think of proper boundaries, his brows creasing in concern. His heart is thick in his throat, choking him with instinct to fix this, to make it better. This beautiful face should not be crying. “Hey, whoa, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

The man clutches his sleeve, sheer strength dipping Izuku slightly to the side. His eyes shine with that desperation again, that recognition— Izuku can feel his pulse in his lips, whole body aching to close a distance that he didn’t know existed until this very moment.

“Lemme get you a coffee.”

“Uh,” Izuku says, because he has nothing else prepared. He has no other thoughts, mind torn from its usually endless rambling by a deep, crashing comfort. It matches the tide rolling along the shore. “Okay? Sure, uh...”

“Kacch—” the man’s jaw locks, the rest of the sound strangled and shoved down almost involuntarily. Izuku startles at it, at how much he wanted to hear whatever that word was—that name was important and he has no idea why. “Katsuki.”

Izuku smiles shakily and belatedly realizes he’s still holding Katsuki’s arm. Katsuki is still holding his sleeve, too. They’re just standing on the beach in the melting grey morning clinging to a complete stranger like they’ve known each other all their lives.

It feels... right.

“Sure, Katsuki,” Izuku says, his smile gaining strength. “Coffee sounds great.”

—

There’s a dream Izuku’s had since he was small, once every few months. It’s not very complicated. He sits on cold ground overlooking hills that are barely hills, shivering in the slight breeze, watching the night sky as it wheels overhead. His hand is held by a boy of maybe nine, with pale hair and bright eyes and a smile so confident he can only be young.

In this dream, Izuku is his own age—time passes for him, from age eight to age twelve to age twenty-four. But the little boy clinging to his hand stays the same. They huddle together on that hill that seems smaller every time and wait for something.

Izuku always wakes up before it happens.

He has this dream fourteen times in four years, and has it a fifteenth time the night before Lincoln dies—the night before he meets Katsuki again.

The little boy is older, this time.

Taller, sharper, a knife in his demeanor but so delicately designed that he couldn’t possibly be a killing thing. Pale hair grown to spikes of white-gold, bright eyes turned grieving, confident smile gone. Katsuki holds Izuku’s hand like he’ll die if he lets go.

This dream is why, when Katsuki explains his theory over coffee and upheaval, Izuku doesn’t run out on him again.

“I,” Izuku clears his throat, “I’m not saying it’s not... familiar. In an eerie, dreamy sort of way.”

Hills that were barely hills. A night sky unbreathing as it waits with them. A child, grown up in guilt, reaching for any hand that will reach back.

“It’s like I’ve written it before.” Izuku runs his finger around the rim of his empty cup, gazing into the dregs as though he can divine the answers to the questions ringing in his head. Do you still believe in the stars? You a poet? What can’t you say to me? “Like you’re telling me my own story.”

Katsuki looks constipated. “I am.”

“Not literally,” Izuku says. Katsuki is blunt and direct, but this abstract life he lives is difficult for even head-in-the-clouds Izuku to make sense of. “It’s as if you’re summarizing a manuscript of mine. Something I... dreamt up, and wrote down, that you read and recounted.” He makes eye contact with Katsuki, holding that gaze as steady as he always dreams he does. “I thought I dreamt meeting you, for the briefest of moments. You reminded me of one.”

It takes Katsuki a long time to speak. Izuku just keeps looking at him, wondering how the little boy in his dream—memory?—became so sharp and scared. Does he dream of Izuku, too? Does he sleep at all? Does he ache to hold Izuku’s hand as tight and warm as he did before?

Katsuki presses a hand to his chest. “Kacchan.” He sweeps his open palm to Izuku, eyes shining, jaw straining. “Deku.”

Izuku stops breathing. His heart stops beating. He stops thinking.

For a split second, he can see the night sky, endless and full of impossible light. He watches as a single pinprick star streaks away off the edge of the world.

“That’s it,” Katsuki says, flicking his nail against his cup and looking at the floor. “Short. Sweet. Stupid. Dead.”

Izuku drops back into reality from somewhere high above, gasping for air with lungs that won’t fill, heart racing to make up for the beats it missed. Those names—they sparkle in his soul, bloom some new awareness in his chest—his eyes grow hot and itchy, tears fighting free.

Katsuki starts pulling his things together, gets to his feet. “I’ll go.”

Izuku launches out of his chair and across the table before he really understands why. His fingers close on Katsuki’s sleeve, wrap tight enough to squeeze recognition and resemblance from his palm, and he knows he’s crying. Saltwater plinks onto the edge of his plate of raspberry tarts, porcelain set to glittering like stars.

“I, uh,” he laughs shakily, letting Katsuki go with a difficulty he wasn’t expecting—his fingers want to stay curled in the fabric. He forces them to relax by swiping the tears from his face. “I don’t know why I’m crying. Sorry.”

Katsuki sits back down, looking at him with something that borders on adoration. Izuku still can’t get enough air.

“Don’t be.”

Six months later, Izuku laughs long and hard at how ridiculous Katsuki looks hopping around on one foot and swearing at children who are already planning on throwing their ball at him again, and Katsuki smiles for the first time since they met. 

At that exact moment, Izuku falls in love.

—

In a tiny apartment in Chicago, Izuku curls into Katsuki’s side and bickers with him in perfect push and pull, their voices low and private even though they’re alone. Their four walls are close and quiet, every available space cluttered with souvenirs of their travels, paper and pencils spilling across the floor in haphazard tracks of Izuku’s lifelong passion. Katsuki puts up with it, says he never saw Izuku doing anything different, could envision him drawing red string connections and stories out of thin air for the rest of his life. Katsuki is in love with it.

It took Izuku a while to understand that Katsuki was in love with him. He thinks maybe he knew when they visited the grave and drank that too-sweet wine on a hill that barely counted as a hill, but he didn’t really understand the enormity of that until much later. Katsuki spoke like he never left Missouri, like Izuku never left at all; he was that little boy again, staring up into the night and waiting for something.

When Katsuki kissed him in that train car, Izuku realized that he had stopped searching. He didn’t look in dark corners or wait through the smogged city nights anymore. That thing that shivered at the edges of the world—he’d found it.

“‘M thirsty,” he murmurs into Katsuki’s jaw. It’s a very nice jaw, you see. Putting his mouth on it is one of Izuku’s greatest joys.

“Uh huh. Okay.” Katsuki untangles himself from the covers, keeping them snug around Izuku as he clambers out of the bed. It’s such a little thing, making sure Izuku’s warm—it’s a mark of how long and how well they’ve loved each other that Katsuki doesn’t even think before doing so. Braving the big cold open floor to get a glass of cold water knowing he’ll be warm again so soon with the love of his life is no small thing to achieve.

Izuku props himself up on one elbow to watch Katsuki as he carefully steps around the various print templates laid out on their rug. Careful steps, swinging hips, sturdy shoulders. Izuku loves this savagely beautiful, quietly caring young immortal who’s chosen for a reason he doesn’t understand to love Izuku back.

As it does every so often, Izuku’s mind halts on the concept of immortality. Katsuki hasn’t aged at all since they’ve known each other. Izuku has—it shows in his calloused hands and aching joints—and Izuku knows what the passage of time inevitably does to people. Someday he’ll be old and stooped, and Katsuki will still be radiant. He likes to think they’ll still be in love, even then. Even when he’s gone and Katsuki finds someone else.

Their second chance is wonderful as it is. Izuku knows a life with Katsuki, and Katsuki will live forever. They both get exactly what they wanted.

Someone screams.

Izuku sits up. “What was that?”

“Some kids being dumb in the alley,” Katsuki says, holding a glass under the running faucet. He’s never been one to break their comfortable moments by registering people around him. Sometimes Izuku loves that single-minded focus on them and them alone—it makes him feel loved. But sometimes people scream for a reason.

Izuku gets up onto his knees on the bed, shoves the tiny pebbled window over it open. The noise grows louder, gains voices. Yelling. Shrieks. A siren.

The fire is huge and horrifyingly beautiful, orange tongues licking high into the air, smoke pluming so dense and dark it blocks out the sky. The buildings nearby—God, all wood and too close together—they’ve caught in a spread that takes Izuku’s breath away, choked out and replaced by soot. The streets are already clogged with people trampling each other in panic.

“Deku?” Not even the name can pull him back from this brink. “What’s goin’ on?”

He can’t look away.

“Izuku,” Katsuki says, hoarse like he’s breathed the smoke in already. “What’s going on.”

There are only two things Izuku must save from this apartment. He lands hard on the floor, reaching underneath and shoving things out of the way until his hand closes on the box of notebooks. Six years of his life—six years of love—packed away until they have more to add to it. They always have more to add to it.

He whirls, locking terrified eyes with Katsuki. “Fire.”

Katsuki drops the water.

Izuku shoves the box into Katsuki’s arms. He can carry it, he can handle that burden—he can save them, take their memories and live forever with them. At least one of them can. Izuku rips the door open, pelts down the hall, shouts fire, fire until people start responding. Katsuki is right behind him, the box tucked against one hip, making for the stairs.

Izuku starts up. Katsuki tries to pull him down.

“What!” Katsuki yells at him when he yanks out of his grip. “What are you doing, we have to go!”

The words stick in his throat, painful in their voicing, clawing out of him because Izuku’s body is already moving up the stairs. He can’t leave people up there! He can’t just run when children are sleeping, unaware of what Hell is burning toward them. He couldn’t live with himself if another Kacchan lost another Deku when he could save them.

He jumps up another step. “I have to warn the rest of them!”

“No, we have to leave!” Katsuki’s face is so scared, his voice broken in the crush of their neighbors racing down the stairs. His eyes, his dawn-red eyes lock with Izuku and beg him please, don’t do this, come with me instead. It hurts, but Izuku can’t give in—he likes people, likes knowing what makes them tick, and won’t let the forces of this world take more of them.

Izuku climbs two steps at a time.

“Deku!”

Izuku bangs on more doors and yells until his throat is raw, coughing as smoke fills the building, rising to meet him on the fourth and highest floor. Neighbors stampede out, he follows after them, herds them down, makes sure no one’s left on any floor by burning himself in cherry streaks checking every room. A wall buckles in—a massive crashing noise as something hits the building, flames leaping through and consuming everything they touch. Izuku can’t hear himself over the cracking of wooden beams and the bursting of ovens.

In a room on the second floor, a woman is screaming, her little boy wrapped tightly in her arms but her girl trapped on the other side of a burning support beam. Izuku doesn’t think. He leaps across without a care for the singe of his skin and scoops her up, jumping back over and running after the mother. They make it to the first floor, down that long hallway, out towards the free October world where heat is just a concept and cold is a promise.

Izuku sees Katsuki from the stairwell. The love of his life, standing at the fiery door, holding out his hands. Izuku watches as he moves debris that strips the skin from his palms and remembers something incredible.

Katsuki is immortal. He doesn’t age. He will live forever like the stars promised.

Izuku is mortal. He knew a life with Katsuki—two of them—just like the stars promised. They never said how long that life would last.

The mother is out, into the cold. Izuku can’t really feel the heat anymore, just the saw of his lungs and the beat of his heart. Both are too tight, too fast, to be okay. His body is moving on autopilot, pushing through on pure adrenaline, and as his vision edges black Izuku knows he is well and truly mortal. Katsuki reaches out, reaches—

Izuku smiles. The building groans. The little girl in his arms tenses for the jump, realizes before he does what he’s going to do.

“Kacchan,” Izuku says, and means it like a prayer. Like a thank you.

He lunges. The girl lands in Katsuki’s arms. Their hands brush for a split second, close enough to touch, close enough for a pair of little boys to make a wish that isn’t granted.

The building collapses, and Izuku, like the morning stars, winks out.

—

Thirty-four years later, a bouncy baby boy is born. He cried once at the lights of the hospital room, new eyes adjusting to seeing and sensing, then was quiet. He looked all around him for such a long time and so intelligently a nurse thought to listen to his heart again, concerned he might be sick already. Something was wrong with his heart, but not in any way a stethoscope could pick up.

The baby boy discovered shortly thereafter that he had hands, and immediately set about reaching for everything in his tiny world. His blankets, the bed, his mother, his father. He reached and touched and explored with his little ungainly fingers and strangely wise eyes and burbled at the night-dark windows as though communicating with the owls.

He was searching for something. There was something missing and he knew it, only minutes into life. He knew he wouldn’t find it, not yet, but it didn’t stop him looking.

To take him home they swaddled him in red, and his clumsy hands liked holding that so much he didn’t let go until they pried it from him. That was the second time he ever cried.

His parents named him Izuku, and he spent the next twenty-four years of his life searching. He searched through poverty and wealth, through mandatory schooling and university, through girlfriends and boyfriends who never quite made sense when they told him they loved him. He just kept looking, as though the next corner was always more interesting than the last. Nothing held his interest long, but he was interested in everything; the world had more to offer than doing one thing for the rest of his life. He almost wished he didn’t have this urge to look. He didn’t even know what he was looking for.

Not until the week of graduation, when he stumbled into a speakeasy with a few already-drunk friends and spotted a man so golden he glowed. The man turned, hollered something at the singer on stage who called for requests; his whiskey eyes were the color of challenge and life and Izuku stopped breathing for a second.

There’s this dream, you see, that Izuku’s had since he was small. Every few months he dreams about a little boy with pale hair and red eyes that smiles like he’s never been sad, holding his hand under a firefly sky that hums with expectation.

Drunk, dizzy, and delirious with discovery, Izuku didn’t realize it until days later, finally recovered from his hangover and officially a Harvard graduate.

After he saw that man, for the first time in his life, he stopped searching.