What Makes A Hero

19

      Katsuo had managed to stay sober for months, steadily improving with a purpose pushing him forward and Jin and Deku at his side. Unfortunately that had not lasted as long as Izuku would have hoped and he found Katsuo curled up in the upstairs room that had become Katsuo's with a spilled bottle of liquor clutched tightly to him. Deku winced noting how little was spilled on the sheets and left in the bottle as he carefully extracted it from the other's grip.

     Katsuo had definitely had more than just a taste.

The bottle was capped and set safely off to the side- it had been lucky that Katsuo hadn't broken it because the shards of glass would add a new level of difficulty to everything. Jin was downstairs manning his bar and so, it would be up to Deku to make sure that their friend was taken care of.

A cold shower was immediately off limits because of both the logistics of him transporting them and the risk of shock, as was coffee considering the late-ish hour that it was currently. Instead he pulled out some of the snack bars and sports drinks that Jin kept pressing on him to carry around instead of skipping meals and helped tug Katsuo off his back and upright.

"Quit it..."

He breathed a sigh of relief as Katsuo hadn't been responding either to his worried murmuring or calls. "Katsuo, wake up!"

"'M up."

"Katsuo, how are you feeling?"

"'M fine, know's you, it's allll good."

Deku blinked taking a moment to decipher what exactly that statement was supposed to mean, "Okay... You know it's me?"

"Def- De- Desu!" Katsuo giggled a bit to himself, "Ah, sot- s'ry, Degozaimasu." He laughed more to himself before brightening, "No, Degozaru, Mis'ta Bosk Man, Degozaru, Sir. To Desu or not to Desu."

Deku stared at his friend for a moment as they trailed off and began muttering to themselves, "Katsuo, can you eat this for me?" He handed over a piece of one of the bars as he sorted through the drinks he had available and pulled out the juice box Katsuo had laughed at him for not that many days ago which had the manipulator increasing his 'mother' Jin jokes several times over.

(Most of his words is a horrible joke on my part, with him messing up pronunciation and saying Desu rather than Deku, and so he uses the more formal version of Desu -to be- and then the super old fashioned version since he constantly jokes about Deku being a commander/mafia boss/ lord etc. Uh, yes, as I said Desu is 'to be' and so he uses it completely incorrectly in, I think, all possible ways that you can possibly misuse a word by saying 'to desu or not to desu'. That's on purpose, he's drunk.)

Deku handed over another good sized chunk to chew on before holding out the mouth of the straw for him. "Yaaay," The words were said with his usual victorious cheer, but his manner didn't match as, ignoring the next piece of food bar that was being pushed towards him to fall forward until his head rested on Deku's shoulder. "You care..."

"W-What?" Izuku stared in shock for a moment, "W-what are you- of course- I - do- I'm so- wh- a-"

His eyes were still glazed over just as much as before but his words were far less slurred, "Mom used to bring me drinks with a straw when I was sick too... but then all their dreams were crushed.. their precious little hero didn't even have a quirk! The only thing worse would be a viallain's!"