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He hates this.
Heart battering his ribs, sweat dripping down the planes of his face, breath labored and far too loud, blood—not his—seeping into his clothes, gluing cloth to skin. Katsuki’s senses are sharper than most, but even he can barely hear over the distressed clamor of his own body.
He can’t hear Shouto’s heart over the pounding of his own. Can’t smell his vitality when so much of what’s supposed to be inside is dripping all over outside, oxidizing and clogging Katsuki’s nose with iron. Katsuki can’t hear Shouto’s breathing, either, but he can feel his lungs expand and contract, pressing his ribs into Katsuki’s.
Those shallow breaths are the only sign Katsuki’s not carrying a corpse. There’s time, but how much? Katsuki has no idea.
What’s the point of a wolf’s heightened senses if they can be so easily overwhelmed?
What’s the point of a vampiric healing factor when it doesn’t fucking work like it’s supposed to?
Katsuki hates this.
If only he’d been sharper, faster. If only he could cover his own six. If only he could shift, carry Shouto on his back, bear him to safe harbor in half the time.
Hate. Four letters strung together to sound an insipid word worn weary with overuse.
Hate doesn’t cover it. Blithe repetition has rendered the word trite. Impotent. A sad syllable that fails to encompass the steaming frustration, boiling self-recrimination, fermenting envy—all of it churning within, choking Katsuki, splitting his seams.
Vamps are trouble. Everyone knows it, and look where it’s gotten him. Hiding in a dark alley, waiting for a clear coast, heart on the outside where anyone—everyone—can see it exsanguinating over the cobblestones.
This particular vamp is more trouble than most.
This spawn of an unholy union between undying and living, unnatural in the basest sense of the word. This halfling borne of corrosive ambition against natural order who rejected his origin to become someone of his own making. Someone more, someone better. Maybe not fair, but thoroughly just. Maybe not nice, but unfailingly kind.
For the first time, Katsuki wishes Shouto was a bit more like his sanctimonious bloodsucker of a father. Enji wouldn’t hesitate to shred the nearest human jugular to preserve himself or his kin. Though he’s not fully a vampire, Shouto still needs blood. Animal will do in a pinch…
Katsuki glances down at his unconscious burden. Blood drips like ichor from Shouto’s colorless lips, falls from gashes to spatter the ground.
This situation is lightyears from a mere pinch, but Shouto would never approach a stranger in such circumstances. That would violate his philosophy on bloodsucking: There’s a time and place to entreat someone, and it’s not when scales teeter between life and death.
Humans feel compelled to do. To help. When a life is on the line, they tend to act, often without full cognizance of the risks and consequences. Shouto would know. Unlike Katsuki, he is half human. Half foolhardy do-gooder.
He’s also half vampire. A gutted vamp is a dead vamp unless all that was lost is replenished, and moribund bloodsuckers aren’t known for restraint. If Shouto fed from an extra off the street, he’d kill them—and shatter his half human heart. Shouto is not his father. Most days, that’s part of his charm.
That leaves Katsuki with one choice. There’s only one human Shouto trusts implicitly to know their own limits and respects Shouto’s.
Katsuki hates it. Resents it. Yet here he is, dragging Shouto’s deadweight through alleys like a thief, lest the passersby see a murderous wolf dragging a blood-stained vamp down the street and get the wrong idea. What else can he do?
Katsuki would pour his own blood down Shouto’s throat if that would accomplish anything. But Katsuki’s not human, and so it won’t. There’s only one port in this shitstorm.
They need Deku.
There are two silver linings limning this godawful night. One: The monster that crashed their starlit hike and tried to rip Katsuki inside out before Shouto intervened is dead in the woods. Two: Safe harbor is only a block away.
Though he’s human, Deku’s reputation as a fabled hero with an uncanny affinity for charms is fully justified. Even from this distance, Katsuki can feel the warmth rippling from of the protective ward cast around his house. One block and Shouto will be fine, and then Katsuki will read him the riot act to end all riot acts for his idiotic attempt at gallantry.
Blood seeps between his fingers where they’re fisted in the cloth at Shouto’s hip. It sticks between them where Katsuki’s hand grips Shouto’s limp wrist. Katsuki holds on tighter. Bones creak, but he doesn’t notice. Doesn’t care. What’s it matter? They’re seconds away from Deku and his stupid guilt-free blood.
Just a moment away. One block, and then Shouto will drink, and rest, and heal, and be whole but not full of holes that were meant for Katsuki instead.
Katsuki peers down the street, which glows with incandescent light. The coast is clear.
“Buckle up, princess,” he mutters.
And then he’s barreling forward, moving with such single-minded, purpose that he scarcely notices Shouto’s limp weight dragging down every step.
He’s not sure how long it takes him to traverse that block. One second they’re in the alley, the next he’s kicking at Deku’s door because knocking requires hands and there’s no way he’s releasing Shouto for anything but Deku’s exposed neck.
“Deku!” he roars. “Open the goddamn door or I’m blowing it in!”
The weathered door flies open so quickly that the next kick from Katsuki’s steel-toed boot almost connects with Deku’s shin. To his credit, Deku doesn’t flinch. They stare at each other, equally wide-eyed. Deku’s open-mouthed gape would be comical if Katsuki wasn’t heaving, dripping with sweat, and clinging to the half dead halfling slipping down his shoulder.
Wrangling the embers of his strength, Katsuki bodies past Deku, who silently catches himself on the door and watches Katsuki and his burden collapse in a bloody heap on the floor.
“Get the fuck over here,” Katsuki heaves, breathless.
Deku slams the door shut, locks it, then crouches beside them. For a beat, there’s no sound but Katsuki’s heavy breathing and the drip, drip, drip of blood pooling on polished hardwood.
“What happened?” Deku exclaims.
“Fix him,” Katsuki demands.
Deku’s already reaching out, rearranging them so Katsuki leans against the wall and Shouto leans against Katsuki, head tipped on his shoulder. Katsuki winds his arms around Shouto, gripping fistfuls of fabric to hold him steady.
He can’t feel a pulse under his hand, but if he strains his ears, he can hear it, faint and thready. His own heart pounds against his ribs, then threatens to jump out of throat when Deku stands rather than immediately solving the problem.
“Don’t just stand there,” Katsuki snarls. “Fix him.”
“I will,” Deku assures. “Just a second.”
He disappears in a flash of crackling green magic—the speed charm is one of many he maintains at all times.
If this was anyone else, Katsuki would erupt. But with Shouto, there’s no one he trusts more. His faith is rewarded when Deku reappears a second later, knife in his scarred hands. He kneels beside them, touches the blade to his upturned wrist, and slices. Blood wells up immediately, vibrant and red. Deku’s movements are steady as he presses a finger against the cut until it’s coated.
“Come on,” Deku murmurs, raising his finger to Shouto’s mouth. The blood he paints there is garishly bright against pallid lips.
The reaction is instantaneous. Shouto rouses, nose flaring and tongue darting out to lick his lips, conscious if not aware. When his lips stay parted, waiting, Deku shifts to hold his wrist above Shouto’s mouth. Gravity does the rest.
The knot of panic in Katsuki’s chest loosens. Finally, finally, he’s secured the one thing that can ameliorate this situation. But the journey here left a bloody trail over a mile long. Katsuki watches as Shouto’s throat bobs, swallowing, and does not feel completely settled.
“It’s not enough,” he presses. “There’s more on him than in him.”
“Patience.” Deku’s voice is steady, his eyes fixed on Shouto’s face. “I can’t make him feed when he’s delirious. He has to wake up.”
“What sort of vamp doesn’t shred the nearest vein,” Katsuki says, throat tight.
“The kind sort,” Deku replies. “Just a bit more. Look.”
Shouto’s lashes flutter sluggishly. Eventually, his lids part enough to reveal slivers of gray and blue. Even bleary and half-lidded, those luminous eyes find Deku unerringly. He licks his lips, chasing after every trace smear of blood. When there’s nothing left yet the hunger razes unabated, he whines.
In other circumstances, Katsuki might jeer or tease. Now, the pathetic sound only makes his heart clench.
For a moment they’re suspended in silence while Shouto blinks further into consciousness, twitching in fits and starts, trying to regain control over a nerveless body, trying to chase, to feed. With him, it’s not quite bloodlust, but it’s close. Needy, desperate, and all-consuming. Blood is the only thing on his mind.
It’s not Katsuki’s name that Shouto whispers in this moment. There’s only one person who can slake his thirst.
“Izuku,” he rasps. Izuku, Izuku.
It’s neither personal nor intentional. It’s instinct. Pure animal instinct. The wolf in Katsuki understands this implicitly, yet something tender and fragile cracks in his chest anyway.
“Here, Shou,” Deku calls, taking Shouto’s hand and settling against the opposite wall.
Moth to a flame, Shouto follows. He extracts himself from Katsuki’s grip with none of his usual grace, launching forward to grasp at Deku’s shoulders and burying his face against Deku’s throat. He holds there, taking a heaving breath that shakes on the exhale.
Katsuki watches, arms crossed and rigid with tension. He prefers the blood bags stored in the fridge. They’re easier and less… intimate. But fresh is better in taste and quality, according to Shouto and every piece of literature Katsuki’s read on the subject. In moments like this, when well-being hangs by a thread, fresh is unparalleled.
And though Shouto would rather not injure anyone for his own sake, it’s not like Deku’s some self-sacrificing saint who gets nothing out of it. It’s a mutually beneficial transaction: Shouto gets blood, and Deku gets whatever the fuck is in Shouto’s weird halfling venom that makes it less mind-altering while preserve the palliative effect, soothing both bite and the chronic pain in Deku’s abused joints.
There’s no way around it, and there’s nothing deeper to it.
And yet Shouto hesitates, as always. The hunger is tremendous, Katsuki knows. He can see it in Shouto’s frame: He shudders in place, fingers curling in Deku’s sleeve. But he doesn’t bite, not yet. Even at death’s door, delirious with hunger, pale with blood loss, he waits. He’s more in control of himself than anyone Katsuki’s ever known.
Deku, well versed in Shouto’s eccentricities and inhibitions, doesn’t leave him hanging.
“You’re good,” he reassures.
Shouto bares his fangs and bites.
The effect is nearly instantaneous. Deku slumps, body languid and eyes shuttered. Chuffing softly, he turns his head as much as he’s able to press a languid smile against Shouto’s pointed ear.
The crack in Katsuki’s chest aches. “What,” he demands, ignoring the fissure.
“S’funny—how much it doesn’t hurt. He always worries.”
Katsuki digs his fingernails into his biceps. “It’s not about that.”
Deku’s mouth twitches with the ghost of a wry smile. “I know.”
It’s not about pain. Deku can handle a bite. It’s about the take, which is more than the give. It’s about surrender, restraint, and base survival instincts. It’s about the hunger that grows adamant and insatiable in extreme duress, always wanting more, more, more.
But Deku can handle that too. He knows himself, can take care of himself, and take care of Shouto too. Shouto trusts Deku unconditionally. That’s why they’re here.
Still. The blood loss was tremendous. The thing’s claws must have been laced with something lethal to obliterate Shouto’s considerable healing factor. Katsuki didn’t smell anything particularly toxic, but what would poison or venom from a beast like that even smell like? Exposed skull, lidless eyes, serrated teeth—Katsuki’s never seen anything like it.
There are too many unknowns. They’re walking a fine line: Too little and it won’t work, but too much… Too much would be worse.
Leaned against the other wall, Deku radiates serenity. Katsuki can’t fathom how. His gut roils with an uneasy tension, and the growing silence doesn’t bring any comfort. It’s a yawning void that only amplifies the anxiety roaring in his mind.
“You better be counting,” he snaps, voice pitched overloud to dispel the quiet.
Deku leans his head against the wall. “I am.”
Between the three of them, they’ve worked this down to a science: Five minutes now, five minutes later, if necessary. Tonight, it’s necessary. Katsuki hopes it’s enough. If it’s not, they’ll have to supplement.
“You have extra?” he asks to be sure, though he knows damn well Deku’s nearly as conscientious as he is.
Deku knows it too. “Of course.” Green eyes peel open to give Katsuki an affronted look that clearly says, Who do you take me for? “I would never let him starve.”
His tone is bait to engage in their usual rapport. That, at least, is easy. Normal. Something he can handle. Katsuki allows it.
He clicks his tongue derisively. “Tell that to his human side.”
Deku’s expression morphs into a glare that’s rendered largely inert by the fact that he’s basically stoned on Shouto’s particular strain of vamp venom.
“I would never poison him either.”
“Last month,” Katsuki counters.
“That wasn’t intentional!” Deku protests. “I didn’t know the miso had gone bad!”
“It was three years expired. I knew it was off the second I opened the container.”
“Your nose is sharper than most,” Deku counters, looking aside. “Besides, I don’t cook much.”
“Last I checked, you still have eyes and can read. Or have you—”
Just then, Shouto shifts, barely raising his head from Deku’s shoulder.
“Shh,” he chastises. “Don’t fight. S’bitter.”
This too is part of the game, though Shouto usually don’t intervene unless they tread too close to a line.
“We’re not,” Deku assures.
But lines can shift, especially when emotions are heightened. He must have felt something if Shouto could taste it. Guilt, maybe. They’re all stressed. Who wouldn’t be? Especially Deku, who’s empathetic to a fault, though he’s perfected the art of wearing a brave face.
Swallowing back his compulsive need to seize the last word, Katsuki forces himself to relax. He flexes his hands, then rubs his fingertips over the crescent indents on his biceps. Mutters, “Shut up and drink, Halfie.”
Shouto hums distractedly, fangs already back in place.
“Halfie,” Deku repeats detachedly. His eyes are closed again. “Good thing you’re you, Shou. Or this wouldn’t work.”
It’s a fact Katsuki’s been ignoring: Were Shouto a full vampire whose diet comprised only blood, he would be dead. That was, after all, the point of his birth. It’s precisely as Enji envisioned: Shouto’s humanity is the very thing that keeps him undying in situations like this.
Shouto’s humanity is the half Katsuki can—does, despite Shouto’s recalcitrant sweet tooth—help sustain.
Still. There are limits to even that. Shouto is remarkable, but he’s not truly immortal. He can be killed, though tonight’s the closest he’s ever come.
Katsuki clenches his fists on his knees and bows his head, eyes squeezed tight.
He’s waiting. He’s trying. He’s holding his composure, but it’s been a long, horrific night, and his nerves are taut enough to shatter.
“Is he good,” he asks, voice rough with poorly veiled impatience.
“Hmm,” Deku hums, waits a few beats, then nods. “That’s five.”
Turning his head, he whispers something to Shouto. If Shouto responds, Katsuki doesn’t hear it. He probably doesn’t need to speak, though. They get weird, like this. The blood sharing and the venom and the freaky vampire mindmeld of it all.
Katsuki can honestly say he’s never wanted Shouto in his head. He’d never want Shouto in his, either. But if he has to spend one more second watching the boyfriend he almost watched die tonight suck at Deku’s throat, he will surely explode.
“Hey,” Deku says, interrupting his descent into bitter resentment. “Do me a favor?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Katsuki hisses, strangled.
“Not you, Kacchan,” Deku says. His voice is gentle and steady. Assured a way he never used to be, strong in the same way he’s always been. “Shouto’s OK. You’re OK, I’m OK.”
“I know,” Katsuki snaps, staring at the back of Shouto’s head. “I just—hate this.”
“This?” Deku asks, shifting to settle Shouto against the wall. He levers himself up and over to Katsuki, whom he arranges like an articulated doll. Legs spread, bent at the knee. Arms open, waiting.
Any other day, Katsuki would kick him through the wall for such blatant manhandling. Now, he’s too goddamn tired. Too tired to protest, too tired to filter himself. It’s just Deku and Shouto here. They already know the worst of him.
“Being useless,” he answers. There’s no curbing the bitterness in the admission.
“Kacchan and useless,” Deku muses laconically, clearly still loose-limbed and -minded from vampiric venom. “That’s funny too. Those words. They don’t really pair, do they?”
Katsuki watches silently as Deku turns back to Shouto, who’s dozing against the opposite wall.
“Shou.” Deku brushes a finger against Shouto’s cheek and brightens when he rouses enough to open his blue-gray eyes. “Hey, hi. Can you do me a favor? Sit with Kacchan for a minute while I go run the bath. Yeah? OK. Here we go.”
Deku gestures at his neck before sliding his hands under Shouto’s arms. “This, I can do. And I can be his friend, and his partner.”
His best friend. His first friend. Katsuki can’t even begrudge him that.
“I’d do anything for him, and for you. Anything in my ability. But,” Deku pauses, voice hitching as he hefts Shouto up and over and into Katsuki’s waiting arms, where Shouto settles bonelessly, with the ease of trust and familiarity. Katsuki’s arms fold around him automatically, pulling him in, holding him close.
“I can’t be you,” Deku continues, smiling softly downward. “I can’t cook his favorite foods like you do. I can’t watch out for him like you do. I can’t irritate him like you do, or make him smile like you do.”
He looks up, resting his hands atop Katsuki’s where they cling to Shouto’s ruined clothes.
“You make him happy. And strong. This would have killed him a few years ago, no matter what I did.”
“His shitstain father didn’t bother to teach him how to feed himself like a human,” Katsuki mutters. “And then isolated him from anyone who could.”
Deku’s hands tighten over his own, smile dimming. “Ironic,” he murmurs.
“Pathetic,” Katsuki counters. “A halfling was exactly what that asshole wanted, but once he had it, he couldn’t be bothered to care for the human half. This idiot was living off of takeout and blood.”
Deku gives him a crooked grin. “Looks like force-feeding him vegetables has paid off.”
“No thanks to you,” Katsuki mutters, looking to the side, though not for long. His gaze tracks back to the top of Shouto’s head, which rests against his shoulder.
Nerd’s right about one thing, he considers. Deku gives his blood, but he can’t cook for shit. Shouto would waste away if left to Deku’s enthusiastic but sorely lacking tender mercies.
“Like I said,” Deku laughs. “I can’t cook.”
Katsuki twitches, dislodging Deku’s grip. “You’ve made your point.”
“Good.” Deku’s grin widens when he looks back to Shouto, who’s turned his face into Katsuki’s chest. “Gonna start that bath. Be right back.”
He leaves, and Katsuki settles, resting his cheek against Shouto’s filthy hair.
“Bastard,” he accuses, eyes squeezed shut. “You owe me. Hear that? You owe me for this.”
For saving me. For scaring me. Fuck your better nature. Fuck your kind heart. Don’t you realize? The world would be worthless without you.
It’s terrifying, he thinks, how sometimes your whole world fits in the circle of your arms.
“Don’t ever do that shit again,” he chokes through a tight throat. “Try it one more time, and I’ll kill you myself. I won’t half-ass it. If you’re so keen to die, I’ll make it fucking stick.”
Liar.
“Liar.”
Katsuki hears it double: in his heart and in Shouto’s voice. Ragged, exhausted, but steady. Awake and aware. And then, finally, finally—
“Katsuki,” Shouto whispers. An unsteady hand raises to rest against a damp cheek. “Hey.”
Katsuki turns into the touch and opens his eyes to meet Shouto’s half-lidded gaze.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Katsuki dismisses.
“Thank you,” Shouto repeats, as emphatically as his fatigued body will allow. “I didn’t mean to—scare you. I knew…”
“You knew,” Katsuki prompts.
“I could take it. Survive it.” The barest wisp of a smile graces Shouto’s lips. “S’what I was made for.”
“You’re more than that,” he says fiercely.
Shouto ignores him, as usual. “I also knew that you’d—get me here. Safe. So I’m glad. Everything that happened… It got me here, and there—with you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Katsuki insists. “I’m not some damsel. And you’re not actually immortal.”
“It would have killed you,” Shouto says stubbornly.
Better you than me, Katsuki thinks. But when he gears up to reply, Shouto presses a palm over his mouth.
“Don’t say it,” he says. “We’re the same. I don’t want to be alone either. Trust me to know my own limits. Please.”
Katsuki holds Shouto’s imploring gaze with burning eyes. Some part of him revels in the fact that those earnest, gray-blue eyes are looking at him, and solely at him. Katsuki nods, just once.
Some of the tension in Shouto’s face eases. “We’re OK?” he asks.
Katsuki pulls Shouto’s hand away from his mouth. “We will be,” he confirms.
“Good,” Shouto murmurs, closing his eyes.
The ensuing silence is short-lived.
“Is now good—?” Deku’s voice calls from down the hall. “Because the bath’s ready.”
Together, they hoist Shouto up and into the bathroom, where Katsuki trashes their ruined clothes and examines Shouto’s injuries. Already, the tide of blood has stemmed, the gashes scabbing over. Satisfied that nothing is still bleeding, Katsuki hustles Shouto into the shower, where they wash away the detritus of the day, and then into the hot bath, which soothes Katsuki’s tired muscles.
All the while, Shouto’s never more than a hand’s width away—partly Katsuki can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t drown and waste all their effort keeping him alive, but partly so Katsuki can keep him close.
By morning, the scabbed wounds will be little more than angry pink lines. Within a week, even those will fade. Shouto does not scar easily. Memory, though—that endures. So does Katsuki’s largely unprocessed emotional response to this clusterfuck of a day, but that’s a problem for later. There will be time.
Here, now, Katsuki towel dries Shouto’s hair until it’s a riot. The sight lightens his mood, as does Shouto’s petulant pout. After he smooths it down and ensures the red is parted from the white according to Shouto’s exacting standards, he helps Shouto thread uncoordinated limbs through clean clothes.
Deku bares his throat one more time, giving another five-minute dose of blood. Katsuki can’t help with that, but he can be there. He can keep time and watch over them both.
They follow that up with a packet of reheated blood just to be safe. Katsuki’s the one who fills the mug, heats the contents to body temperature, and drops a straw in for good measure. He also sets a plate of sliced fruit in front of Deku before sending him to bed.
After all that, Katsuki hauls Shouto to the spare bedroom. Shouto lets Katsuki hustle him into bed, and then Katsuki lets Shouto roll into him, pointed ear pressed over Katsuki’s heart. This close, Katsuki’s ears can pick up Shouto’s heartbeat too. It’s steady now, and strong.
Just as he’s finally winding down, Shouto disrupts his peace, as he’s wont to do.
“Don’t blame Izuku,” he mumbles. “I knew the miso smelled off. Thought cooking it would kill the bugs.”
“The bugs,” Katsuki repeats, unable to keep fond exasperation from bleeding into his tone. “Your upbringing was criminal.”
“You seem disturbed. Maybe you should do something about it.”
“Like what, Halfie? Time travel?”
Shouto, who has never quite grasped the art of the rhetorical question, is armed with a response.
“Teach me to cook.”
The thought alone compounds his exhaustion. Katsuki closes his eyes and runs his fingers through Shouto’s soft, clean hair.
“Maybe,” he hedges.
“It would improve my general odds of survival,” Shouto says. “So I’ve heard.”
Katsuki scoffs. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Can’t argue with yourself,” Shouto mumbles.
“Fine,” Katsuki concedes.
“Izuku too. No—” Shouto’s voice cracks around an enormous yawn. “No more poisoning.”
Katsuki balks immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“Katsuki.” Shouto kicks him under the blankets.
“Ask your sister.”
“Won’t work.”
“The fuck not?”
“The blood thing.”
Right. Vampires. Fuyumi tends to cook with blood. It’s never bothered Katsuki, but Deku’s neither were nor vamp. Katsuki is the one most qualified to navigate the dietary quagmire between the three of them. Shouto has him cornered.
“Fuck, fine. Deku too,” he groans. “You happy?”
Shouto hums, pleased. Katsuki tugs a fistful of his hair in retaliation for the manipulation before dropping his hand to Shouto’s hip. Soon after, Shouto’s breaths ease into the cyclical cadence of slumber. Katsuki matches Shouto’s next inhale, and the one after that, until they breathe in tandem.
Once, Katsuki strove to be the best at everything. He knows better now. No one can even be everything for everyone. He can’t be everything, fix everything, for Shouto. It’s a bitter truth, and tonight’s not the first time it’s nearly choked him.
Better to acknowledge reality than ignore it. So he can’t be anything but himself—that’s fine—or it will be. There are others he can trust with the rest. Because of that, he’s alive. Shouto’s alive. They’re safe. Tomorrow they’ll wake, and Katsuki will teach Shouto to make okayu. Deku too. Disaster anticipates disaster, but he’s not not looking forward to it.
He scans his body bottom to top: legs, arms, shoulders, neck, jaw, eyes. Every time he encounters a clenched muscle, he pauses and releases the tension.
Bit by bit, he relaxes. The fragile thing in his chest settles, whole and warm, and he follows Shouto into sleep.