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Katsuki blinks his eyes open, alert all at once.
His room is dark, because it's well past three in the morning, and he doesn't move a muscle as he tries to figure out what woke him up.
There's no noise in his apartment; no hushed shuffling from a break in or the like.
But there's an anxious tingle in his gut that forces him to sit up in bed and stare off into the emptiness, until he makes out the vague shapes of his furniture.
Then, his phone vibrates.
"The hell…" Katsuki snatches the device from his nightstand. It was set on do-not-disturb, as it was every night, so something must be happening.
His lips curve downwards at the edges, though, as watches Deku's name flash across the screen.
Katsuki is, admittedly, still groggy. Which may be why he stares at his phone the entire time it buzzes, wracking his brain as to why Deku would be calling him at 3 am— not through the emergency line, but on his personal cell.
Especially when he was in a completely different part of Japan.
He'd been there for six months, interning with a number of heroes in quick succession. It was a new training program Deku had volunteered for, shortly after his debut as a sidekick.
Katsuki had not volunteered for it, because it sounded like bullshit and an excuse to wring new heroes ragged under the pretense of 'experience'.
The phone stops buzzing all at once, Deku's picture fading as it goes black, and Katsuki mutters a soft, "Shit."
But it rings again, not two seconds later.
Katsuki answers on the third buzz.
"It's three in the morning, Deku."
Katsuki rolls back into bed, curling his blanket over his shoulders. His tank top was good at keeping his core warm, but he loved sleeping with an air purifier at night— which left the entire room chilled. It's soft whirring also helped him sleep, covering the barely-there noise of the street some many floors below.
He lets one shiver roll through him before he shakes his head and pulls the phone away from his ear to look at the screen.
Still connected, but Deku hadn't said anything yet. A butt-dial?
"Fuckin' hell," Katsuki sighs, holding the phone back to his ear nonetheless. He can hear the faint background noise of something (people?) shuffling, though it doesn't have the thumping bass of a nightclub or a bar.
It sounds like something is rubbing against the phone, though— like fabric. Probably in his back pocket, or something.
Katsuki's breathing starts to deepen, eyes falling heavy. He mutters nonsense under his breath, a half-baked threat to run up Deku's phone bill while he sleeps, but they blink open again when he hears a soft whimper.
Katsuki sits up, squinting in the dark. The clock still reads 3:42, four minutes past when he answered the phone.
"Hello?"
There's a ragged breath, and then the sound of a clearing throat.
"K-Kacchan…"
Katsuki can't help the way his grip tightens on his phone. Deku's voice is slurred, and every bad thing that Katsuki can think of zooms through his mind as if played on a fast-forwarded movie reel:
Deku, having misdialed perhaps and needing emergency services.
Deku, mugged and bleeding out, unable to reach anyone else at this hour but Katsuki (what... a thousand miles away, give or take?).
Deku, kidnapped, forced to call his contacts one by one and say goodbye to each with no hope of escape.
Deku— hurt, injured, scared.
In each scenario, Katsuki would never be able to reach him in time. Fuck.
But Deku hiccups, and then there's the sound of a glass bottle clinking against another.
Oh.
He's drunk.
Katsuki slumps over, fist pressed to his pounding heart.
"Fuck, Deku. Where do you get off calling so late, you ass?"
"Kacchan," Deku says again, breathlessly.
He whimpers a bit, at the end, and the tone of his voice is so familiar but Katsuki can't place it, still stuck between sleep and heart-pounding panic.
"Are… are you sleeping?" Deku has the nerve to ask.
"No shit." Katsuki snorts. "Was, 'til your dumbass called and woke me up."
He sets the phone beside his head, on the pillow, and turns it on speaker. The noises are a bit more tinny like this, but his ear was getting sweaty with it pressed to his face like that.
And it felt weird, hearing Deku's voice murmuring in his ear so late at night after so long.
"I'm sorry."
Deku says nothing more than that, though he clinks his beer(?) bottles together again, and swallows audibly, even through the speaker.
There's that shuffling sound again, and oh—
Deku's wiping tears from his face, sleeve brushing against the mic.
Katsuki's anxiety crescendos. "Deku?"
"I didn't mean to call," Deku continues, continuing to rub at his eyes. "I just… I just needed…"
He trails off.
Katsuki pinches the bridge of his nose.
Then,
"Kacchan…" Izuku whispers, voice still lilted with the heavy edge of alcohol.
"What, Deku?"
"I don't wanna be here anymore," he finally says. Miserably, as if it had been weighing on his heart for centuries. Then, even softer he says: "I miss… you. I miss you so much."
…
It really has been too long. Since they were kids, the longest they'd ever been apart was a summer or winter vacation.
They'd gotten closer over the years. They were friends, of course— more than that. Their lives were inextricably connected, from their social lives to their hero work. They were a pair, on their way to something… more.
Then Izuku had to go— had left.
Katsuki thought about it sometimes on nights like this, when the quiet got to be too much.
The second bedroom, adjacent to his own, is an oppressive presence. Especially when it has been left empty, waiting for someone to come and live in it.
Waiting for Izuku.
Katsuki swallows past the lump in his throat, and disregards the sting of tears at his eyelashes. He sits up in bed, and ignores the clock completely as he searches his drawers for clothes and an overnight bag.
The entire time, Deku softly sniffles in his ear.
"I didn't mean to call," Deku repeats after a moment. "I… I'm sorry."
Katsuki tugs a sweatshirt over his head and shoves the phone between his cheek and his shoulder as he stalks through the door, bag packed.
"I'm coming to get you."
"You…?" Deku shuffles on the other end, and his voice sounds much closer as he incredulously whispers, "You're what?"
Katsuki shoves his wallet in his bag, grabs two water bottles just so he wouldn't have to buy one later.
Then he's out the door, hurriedly locking it behind him.
"I'm coming to get you," he repeats, firmer. "You're still in temporary housing right? Send me your address. Get a bag packed."
"K-Kacchan… I can't leave." Deku coughs, turning away from the phone, and Katsuki frowns hard. Nerd was probably getting sick from overworking.
That only further cements Katsuki's decision to stone.
Katsuki ignores Deku as he shakily goes through the details and exacts as to why he can't leave, though each reason just makes his voice go softer and softer until he's just breathing into the microphone. It's muffled, as if he'd slumped over and was barely hanging on by a thread.
"Deku…" Katsuki inhales slow, eyes shutting.
He can picture the miserable face Izuku must be making, solitarily confined in what was little more than a glorified box, in a city he's never been to. All alone.
And drunk.
"Izuku," Katsuki says, instead. "I'm coming to get you, okay? The details don't matter right now."
"B-but… heroes can't just—"
"Do you want me to come get you?"
There's silence on the other end. Katsuki keeps walking, glaring at anyone who even curiously looks in his direction.
He makes it all the way to the train station before Izuku speaks again.
"Yes."
Then, Izuku is crying again. Louder this time, entire voice shaking with his blubbering sobs.
Katsuki tsks, shoving his earbuds in. Izuku's crying cuts out for just a second as the phone registers the new connection, and then he can hear the whimpering directly in his ear. It doesn't irritate him as much as he would have expected, at almost 4 in the morning.
"Okay," Katsuki says, as Izuku begins to calm. "Pack a bag. You're not going back, so take the necessary shit. Got it?"
Izuku responds with a hesitant hum, but it's affirmative nonetheless.
Katsuki rests his head against the cold metal of the train, listening to it pass over the tracks as he heads to the next city, the one with the closest airport. It'd take three hours to get across the country, to where Izuku is.
The ticket is easy to buy. Katsuki dips into his savings, but he had enough that it didn't matter.
When he gets off at the next station, Izuku is still on the phone with him. He's sobered up around the edges, though every so often he'll cough from his chest and whimper.
"Wait for me. I'm coming to get you, Deku."
Izuku sniffles, but Katsuki can hear the small smile in his voice as he murmurs back a soft, "I'll be waiting, Kacchan."
(And so, Katsuki goes to bring Izuku home.)