"Stay back, Kacchan!"
Katsuki had reached out his hand regardless, two parallel scenes racing like freight trains through his mind in the span of seconds before the building collapsed beneath Deku's broken, hunched form and swallowed him whole.
There hadn't been time to loft the thin alleyway between them, scoop Deku up, and jump back. They'd looked into each other's eyes and both known.
Didn't mean Katsuki hadn't taken a running jump anyway.
With one hand propelling volcanic flame in a jet behind him, the other straining forward, fingers spread like flightless birds, Katsuki had gritted his teeth and fucking hoped.
Deku's eyes had pleaded, his busted lip torn further as he opened his mouth wide to ward off Katsuki's approach.
"Stay back, Kacchan!"
And in the last second, Katsuki had done something which he knew would plague him for life.
He had listened to Deku and flipped midair, up and away from the crumbling building.
He'd had a full view of Deku's tiny body below him, plummeting into the concrete belly of the beast.
Images, fleeting and sharp, splintered and stuck beneath Katsuki's skin.
Deku offering his hand in the creek. Katsuki placing a band-aid on Deku's tiny thumb, mumbling about a stupid fall off the swings. Deku writing his number on Katsuki's palm when they'd finally been allowed to use the phone, Deku's grin all gap-toothed and delighted. Katsuki's knuckles digging a noogie into Deku's curls as he cackled with glee, Deku struggling and giggling despite himself. Deku grabbing Katsuki's wrist in excitement, yanking him toward some gruesome, unfamiliar bug. Their fingertips brushing as they walked, middle of the road toward the setting sun, toward home.
Katsuki's fist bunched in Deku's uniform, searing, burning, smoking. Deku reaching for him as Katsuki slipped into a portal's black abyss, Deku's eyes bloodshot in dawning horror. Grappling at Ground Beta, Katsuki's palm flat on Deku's grimacing face, Deku clawing at Katsuki's collar, his free hand clenching around Katsuki's forearm as they took out every unspoken childhood frustration on each other. The ache in Katsuki's empty hands when Deku had emerged victorious from the Overhaul battle, walking through the dorm looking defeated all the same.
A search team had spent hours wading through rubble for Deku's body. Katsuki's palms had long been roughed up and bloodied from the frantic search, his knuckles split open and bleeding through the gray ash and grime that coated every last person in the vicinity.
When Mirio had emerged from the carnage, face purple from the length of time his lungs had held their air, a limp figure draped loosely in his arms.
"Alive?" Katsuki had yelled over the sound of the crowd and emergency service vehicles. His voice felt red raw and his mouth scented of sharp copper. His bones felt as though they might crumple in on themselves at any moment. But he had to stay standing. Stay until he fucking knew.
Face heavy and grim, Mirio simply nodded and turned, taking weak strides to the nearest ambulance.
Katsuki collapsed, shock and relief numbing his legs as he watched the concrete rise up to meet him.
He'd woken to the obnoxiously familiar sight of Deku in the hospital bed beside him. A hot mess, minus the hot, Deku had slept with a crease across his forehead, a wrinkle hooked between his serious brows. One arm lay tucked against his chest, a thick cast up to the shoulder, even his hand encased. A prickled line of stark stitches crept across Deku's hairline, puckering the skin, shining with the gloss of liquid bandage. The sore, bruised headwound stretched along his temple, cutting unevenly along his scalp, where some of the curls had been shaved clean away.
