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There was a weird knock on the door. More like a thump than anything, like something soft was hitting it. Katsuki lifted his head from his textbook, instinctively standing. That particular sound only ever meant one thing.
Katsuki pulled the door open to find exactly what he expected, a tired-looking Izuku with his hands held to his chest, wrists limp and hands still. Izuku looked pitifully up at him and held his arms out carefully, wrists still relaxed.
Eri had once seen this and called him Deku-saurus, to Katsuki’s delight. And Izuku’s, although that was probably mostly because everything Eri did seemed to delight him, and not because he thought it was hilariously accurate like Katsuki did. Nerd.
But Katsuki never felt like teasing when they did this. He took one look at Izuku and his proffered hands and moved back to let him in wordlessly, nodding.
Izuku stepped inside, plopping down on the floor with his back to the bed. Katsuki followed, sitting in front of him, matching his crossed legs. Izuku held his hands weirdly when he was like this, like he was spending all his mental energy on keeping them motionless, stiff without tensing, because any movement hurt. Relaxed but not so much they were floppy. It looked exhausting, to hold them still, on top of the aching that Katsuki knew drained him. Chronic pain was sneaky like that, creeping and careful and leeching energy in the shadows.
Izuku's tenseness, so carefully kept out of his hands, seemed to spread up his arms to his shoulders instead, down his back, so that his whole body was stiff in an effort to hold his hands from twitching. Still, as if in real fear of triggering flares of fire through his joints.
“Thank you, Kacchan,” Izuku said quietly, voice soft from suppressed pain. Katsuki grunted as he took Izuku’s hands in his. This was nothing to thank him for. Anyone in his position would do the same, if they had a dumb best friend who overworked their dumb limbs to the point of breaking their dumb bones, leaving their childhood-friend-with-a-convenient-heat-quirk with the privilege of providing some relief to their aching, scarred hands, every time they turned up at his door with stupid fucking doe eyes and shaky fingers.
If this was the most Izuku would ever want from him, Katsuki would do it. If this was the least Izuku would ever ask from him, Katsuki would still do it all gladly, because nothing he ever did would probably come close to what Izuku deserved, but he could try.
Katsuki held both of Izuku’s frozen hands in his gently, warming his own slightly without setting off his quirk. He brushed a thumb over the backs of both, the barest comfort before he focused on one and left the other in pain a bit longer. Katsuki set Izuku’s left hand down on his lap carefully, apologetically, before grasping his right hand in both of his own. Izuku’s face was tight with discomfort, clearly stopping himself from making pained noises. Izuku’s hands twitched involuntarily and he winced, and Katsuki’s heart gave an equally involuntary clench. Idiot.
Katsuki typically faced off villains he hated with open palms. This wasn’t all that different. Just quieter.
Katsuki turned Izuku’s hand over carefully, pressing into the stiff palm with a warm, bordering-on-hot thumb. Izuku shuddered. Katsuki pushed deeper slowly, rubbing in lines away from the center of Izuku’s palm with one thumb while the other circled over the fleshier parts under each finger. He kept the entirety of both his hands warm, remaining fingers heating up the back of Izuku’s hand in consolation while he focused on the palm. Willing the heat to rub the ache away. Izuku’s head tipped back onto the bedside, shoulders relaxing minutely.
Good. It was working, at least a little. Katsuki felt his back unconsciously relax a bit too.
He bent forward, head tipped in concentration, massaging the meat of Izuku’s hand. Then he carefully turned it over, greeted by the scars painting divots into the otherwise soft skin.
Izuku was so focused on his goals, so devoted to the point of self-sacrifice in the name of living up to his quirk, that Katsuki had never seen him look twice at the scars littering his hands and arms. Izuku surely felt them an insignificant side effect of a bigger journey.
But Katsuki knew him. And even if Izuku thought the scars worth it, or negligible in the grand scheme of things, or whatever it was he told himself, Katsuki knew Izuku didn’t think very much of himself. And that he felt his scars didn’t help his appearance. Which is why Katsuki took special care, in these brief moments where he was allowed to, to subliminally make Izuku love them. Or at the very least, to make them hurt less.
Katsuki poured everything he was into the heat he pressed into Izuku’s scars. Thumbs pushing in gentle circles, trying to rub the ache away. Katsuki had never been very religious, but here with his head bent and body angled forward, he did his best to worship his only angel.
Izuku was thawing slightly with every pass of Katsuki’s heated fingers over his hand, and that did something to Katsuki’s stomach. That evidence of some good he gave unto Izuku, despite everything.
Finished with Izuku’s left hand, he raised it slightly, pressing his lips to the widest knuckles for a moment, close-mouthed with eyes lidded. Willing comfort upon him from the depths of his soul. Almost in prayer. Izuku’s eyes were often open for this part, but Katsuki never looked at him. Maybe he was a coward for that, but he didn’t dare, afraid of what he would see. What he might do.
Although he'd never say it out loud, Katsuki was endlessly grateful for this small mercy Izuku granted him. Allowing him a moment of unjudged disclosure. A thoughtless, quiet confession, in confidence. To remain unanalysed by either of them.
Katsuki worked on Izuku’s other hand the same way, heat leeching away the ache successfully if Izuku’s now-limp form shed any light on its effect, ending with a press of lips to scarred knuckles neither of them would talk about.
Katsuki drew a thumb over the hand still in his light grip, tracing the scars there. Izuku had scars up one arm, too, cross-hatched with stretch marks by an artist's hand, but the inflammation had settled in his joints, it seemed, so his hands bore the brunt of the weight of his actions.
A shame, except that Katsuki was horribly, selfishly, secretly grateful, because it gave him this, this privilege of holding said battered hands, to melt the pain away, to do something healing with his quirk for once, instead of something violent.
The most honest part of Katsuki had always been his hands.
It was terrifying, how he could not hide his feelings in the movements of his palms, how they revealed him so openly, so shamelessly. He wondered if Izuku knew that. Probably not, given how he had been baring his soul for months now, with gentled touches, with late afternoon massages, with ruffled hair and hot meals and notes passed in class. Clicking pens. Twitching fingers, aching to reach, to cradle, to hold.
Evidently Izuku had no idea, because otherwise he would never allow Katsuki to sit here like his, tracing quiet confessions into every scar on the back of his still-warm hands, every pass a love letter, every heated touch a secret kiss. He'd never let Katsuki get away with that, so he must not know.
Katsuki had been stalling for long enough, staring down at Izuku's hands under the guise of finishing up his task. Any longer and the excuse would have stretched too far to be able to carry any weight.
"Better?" Katsuki asked, finally looking up at Izuku. Scarred hand still sitting in his, Katsuki unwilling to let go just yet. Maybe he'd forgotten about it - Izuku wouldn't know.
Izuku's round eyes looked back, filled with something unreadable. Or maybe Katsuki was just too scared to read it.
Izuku nodded a little with a weak smile, clearly relieved but exhausted from however long he'd dealt with the ache alone. Katsuki looked away from it, back down to his pretty hands.
"Thank you, Kacchan," Izuku said, quiet. Everything was quiet, afternoon light filtering through the drapes.
"'Course, angel," Katsuki said unthinkingly.
His eyes widened immediately after, vision blurring with panic.
Izuku was still. He didn't appear to be breathing. Neither, for that matter, was Katsuki.
Katsuki squeezed his eyes in a strength-gathering wince once before lifting his head slowly. He was all too aware of the hand still in his, desperately trying not to set off his quirk accidentally from the fear making his very bones tremble.
"Sorry," he whispered, meeting Izuku's eyes. At the very least, he could stop being a coward.
Izuku's breath caught audibly.
Katsuki was tired of not knowing what was going on in his head. He tried to read Izuku's expression, but it was like a novel in a language he'd long forgotten, familiar and just out of reach, indecipherable but for bits and pieces here and there. Probably because Izuku's mind worked too fast for mere eyes to keep up with. Katsuki wondered if he'd ever catch up to him.
Izuku was trembling. Katsuki enclosed the hand in his a little tighter automatically. A mindless attempt at comfort.
Izuku was mumbling, too soft for Katsuki to hear even sitting so close, practically merely mouthing words. Katsuki shifted closer unconsciously to listen, stupidly forgetting the action would bring them closer, only realising when Izuku's mumbling cut off as he gasped.
Katsuki could count his eyelashes from here. Or his freckles, if that weren't a fairly simple task he could do from anywhere. Instead, he waited. Patiently, the kind that seemed to come so easily for Izuku now, to make up for all the years it hadn't.
Izuku drew in a shaky breath. His eyes were shining — happily.
Oh.
He opened his mouth to speak, and Katsuki kissed him.
(Perhaps he could learn to have a mouth as honest as his hands. Perhaps he already did.)
Izuku let out a breathy sound like he was losing all the thoughts in his mind at the feel of Katsuki's mouth over his. That was okay — Katsuki hadn't been able to read them anyway. Let them fall. Katsuki could catch him.
Izuku was kissing him back, and Katsuki was still holding his hands. He didn't move his, afraid of what they would say. It was fitting, for their first kiss to be like this — cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom in the dwindling afternoon light, carefully holding hands, warmth spreading between each other from the places they were touching. Their hands, their knees, their mouths. Katsuki felt like he could fly in the same line that he felt he had never been more grounded, more firmly planted on the earth.
Like his lifelines were all right here, in the places they were touching.
Katsuki pulled away. When had he closed his eyes? He opened them slowly, savouring, to the sight of Izuku leaning toward him mindlessly, eyes shut, following his lips. Katsuki smiled fondly, granting him a final peck before moving back fully. He could have stayed suspended in that moment forever, in all honesty, but they should probably talk. And finish their homework. Even if Katsuki never wanted to let go of Izuku's hands.
Izuku had opened his dumb doe eyes, looking up at him as Katsuki sat up straight. Fuck. It was taking everything in him not to smother the nerd, lay it on him so he understood good and well exactly how Katsuki felt. He shook himself internally. Now was not the time.
But now Izuku was biting his lip, looking incandescently happy, and Katsuki was a weak, weak man.
He grabbed Izuku's head in his palms and dove back in helplessly.
Ah, well. They had the rest of their lives to talk, if they needed it — but there was so much honesty, here, finally in their mouths, and in how they held each other in their hands.