Work Text:
Izuku is unconscious on the operating table when Katsuki finds him.
He puts two bullets in the surgeon’s temple while Eijirou swings his bat and bashes the guards across their necks. Hanta levels his AR15 at the screaming techs and tells them to get on the ground. They cower on the floor cluttered with smoldering pieces of the door Katsuki blasted open. Someone pisses themselves.
Katsuki kicks the twitching body away from the table and fumbles for Izuku’s pulse. It’s weak and faint but it’s there . God he is so cold. His freckles are faded spots on sallow skin.
“Securing the exit,” Kyouka’s voice filters through his heavy earpiece, crackly from the signal distance. “Got a horde of sick coming through the west side.”
“ETA?” Hanta says, covering Eijirou’s back.
The conversation between Kyouka and the others is white noise to the rage crashing over Katsuki as he tries to remove the dozens of IVs filled with god-knows-what stuck in almost every inch of Izuku’s skin without hurting him even more.
Izuku cries out, hoarse. It’s a sound more terrifying than any gunshot or sick hoard.
Three weeks. Three weeks since these fuckers raided their group and took Izuku with them from right under Katsuki’s arm. Twenty days since Katsuki woke up half-dead in the summer heat to their camp decimated and in ashes, tatters of tents and supplies rotting, Mina and Eijirou’s gaunt faces hovering above him as he hacked out blood and spit and demanded where Izuku was.
Mina told him the people had torched the grounds and slashed the tires on their only truck, but everyone was alive. Injured but left alive, to some confusion. The people probably thought the fires or the sick would take care of them.
That was their mistake; they should have taken the chance to kill them.
Nineteen days since Katsuki was able to stand and make a plan.
Eighteen days of searching, finding tracks, trapping agents, ripping out teeth and nails, keeping the kids away from the carnage, tossing and turning in a tent too large for one person.
Five days; breaking down in the middle of a supply run when he saw a pair of red sneakers that weren’t Izuku’s but looked similar enough.
Three days since someone finally squealed a location.
Katsuki cradles Izuku to his chest.
He was already too skinny before. Gave almost half of his rations to the kids even if they said they weren’t hungry. No one was not hungry in the goddamn apocalypse. Izuku, damn bleeding heart, insisted. Katsuki could hardly blame children for taking the extra shares.
At this weight, Katsuki can carry him with one arm.
Izuku groans, his forehead wrinkling with pain. Katsuki wants to roar and rage and set this fucking compound on fire.
Eijirou presses a hand to his earpiece. “Truck’s ready in two.”
“The supplies,” Hanta reminds him. Eijirou nods and starts clearing out the medical cabinets. “The IVs, also.”
One of the techs says, “We have people coming right now. You can run away but they’ll find you again in the end.”
The woman next to him quails and hisses, “Shut up.”
“We almost have it,” the man says. His eyes are manic and wild. “The vaccine. Maybe even a cure. We can put an end to this nightmare if you would just look at the bigger picture and stop running away!”
Hanta and Eijirou freeze. Katsuki can see their thoughts tumbling over each other, trying to connect the dots they didn’t know needed to be connected.
Katsuki aims at the man. He goes quiet.
Then he stands.
“H-Hey, get down,” Hanta says, looking between the man and Katsuki.
“We were so close this time,” the man keeps saying, almost pleading. He looks at Izuku. “We just need him. Need his blood. His cells—the way they fight against the infection is extraordinary. It’s like his body knows exactly how to protect its most vital organs without sacrificing itself. He is healthy.”
“Back,” Katsuki says, a chill dousing him at the words. “Step back or I’ll fucking shoot.”
The woman starts sobbing, pitching forward into her hands. It is loud and harsh against the stainless steel of the operating room.
Eijirou hauls his bag over his shoulder. “Kat—”
“Please,” the man says, then runs. Eijirou shouts. Katsuki is faster.
Blood sprays against the walls and the woman’s pale blue scrubs. The man gives one horrible gurgle, throat convulsing, blinking rapidly past the gush of blood from the middle of his forehead. His hand flings out in their direction. He falls, nose crunching when it meets the floor.
Outside, reverberating echoes of groans evolve into rabid snarls. Hanta and Eijirou curse.
Eijirou asks the woman, “Will you come with us?”
She lifts her head. “No. It’s too late for me.” Her gaze falls on Izuku. “He’s infected but healthy. It’s remarkable. Go now, and take it from me—the others won’t stop looking for him.”
It’s only Eijirou’s firm grip that keeps Katsuki from knocking her teeth out. “Don’t. Let’s just get out of here!”
They leave the woman behind, Eijirou leading the way and Hanta taking up the rear. Izuku makes a soft noise at being jostled but Katsuki can’t stop to comfort him. Not until everyone is in the truck and at least fifty miles from this godforsaken place.
Outside, the compound is overrun with heavy smoke clouding the night sky and screams and distant gunshots. Setting the guard tower on fire had been a spur of the moment thing when they got spotted, but Katsuki’s glad for it. There is more than enough light to see the writhing bodies heaving against the wire fence, some still alive, still human. Only a matter of time before it comes down and the sick take over the buildings.
There are around two hundred people living in this compound, and Katsuki knows most of them had no hand in taking Izuku. They were just trying to survive. Took shelter where they could find it. Tried to build a new life. He spotted a garden when he and Eijirou were scouting the area, not unlike the one Izuku started at camp. It was well-tended. Some of the plants were already fruiting.
But Izuku will always be Katsuki’s number one priority. If this is the cost, Katsuki will pay it a thousand times over.
A screech of tires. The truck careens narrowly beside them. Mina shouts, “Come on!”
“You nearly ran us over,” Katsuki snaps, climbing into the truck bed.
It’s a testament to their months working together that Mina simply inclines her head, wiping the sweat off her brow. “The freeway’s been compromised. We need to take the long route around the back.”
“Let me,” Eijirou says. He swaps with Mina and gives her the bag. Hanta joins Katsuki in the back and thumps the side of the truck.
Eijirou floors it through a group of sick with Mina rapidly giving directions. Plumes of acrid smoke and the heavy smell of burning rotten flesh make Katsuki’s eyes water and his lungs constrict. He buries his face in Izuku’s oily curls. Times his inhales and exhales with his.
“Bakugou,” Hanta says quietly. “What the guy said…” He points to his earpiece. Kyouka must still be listening in. Denki, too. Katsuki expected them to be tuning into the operation. Izuku has become important to all of them.
Hanta is a good guy. Solid aim. Adaptable. More of a team player than a leader, but dependable and honest. Izuku likes him. Likes everyone in their group, to Katsuki’s dismay.
“I’ll explain when we’re in the clear,” Katsuki says. “Just, just give a minute, damn it.”
“Okay,” Hanta says.
Katsuki stays buried in Izuku’s curls, one palm pressed over his beating heart until he can smell pine trees and fresh air. They’re pulling into the backroads now. It’s quieter here, less crowded and more secluded from anyone or anything drawn by the chaos at the compound.
A crackle of static. Katsuki’s earpiece goes completely quiet. Since they’re taking the long route back, they’ll be out of range for a while. He shuffles and lays Izuku out on the floor, folding up his jacket and putting it under his head.
“You want a blanket for him?” Hanta asks, removing his earpiece and touching the reddened skin with a wince. “There should be one in the backseat.”
“Yeah. Appreciate it.” Katsuki rubs his exhausted eyes. Hanta lifts his hand to thump on the glass.
Katsuki lunges and sinks his teeth into his throat.
Three hours later, he pulls the truck into the mouth of the forest where Denki and Kyouka are waiting for them.
“I’ve been pinging you for hours,” Kyouka is saying as Katsuki gets out behind the wheel and goes to open the doors to the backseat. “Why were you offline for so long? Is everyone—”
Denki screams. “Oh my god Eijirou !”
Eijirou stumbles out, skin gray and green. Eyes bloodshot and lips cracked, pale. Clumps of red hair fall to the ground. His bare stomach bulges with thin dark veins. His jaw grinds and drops, letting out a long, hollow moan. The bite mark on his neck glistens with blood and saliva.
Denki stumbles back. Eijirou follows. Kyouka whirls on Katsuki. He opens the door wider to let Hanta and Mina fall on her with open maws.
Kyouka screams, choked by Hanta and Mina’s combined weights. She tries to push them away. Katsuki can hear their teeth meeting fragile bones and soft flesh.
“Eijirou, it’s me, it’s me,” Denki babbles, his voice spiraling into a broken cry when Eijirou tears into his chest.
“Kacchan.” Izuku emerges from the truck bed. The bag from the compound and the AR15 are strapped to his back.
“Go get the kids. I’ll take care of this.”
Izuku looks at the writhing bodies of their friends. The rising dawn hugs him in soft yellows. “I’m so sorry.” He turns and steps into the forest without looking back.
A hand encircles Katsuki’s ankle.
Kyouka gurgles as Hanta and Mina chew on her gaping neck. Her eyes are wide and terrified and betrayed. Katsuki takes her earpiece and puts it in his pocket with the others.
He tells her, “This is why I wanted to get him on my own. I’m sorry it had to happen this way.”
He shakes off her hand and goes back to the truck. He drives Eijirou’s bat into the glass. The shrill car alarm wakes up the forest, sending birds into the sky and drawing dormant sick into the area.
Can’t waste any bullets, especially now.
Katsuki takes one last look at these people he’s fought with, eaten with, and survived with for months. They weren’t healthy, not like him and Izuku, but they also weren’t sick in a world frothing on its deathbed.
It was a blessing and a curse for their paths to cross. Izuku had been so hopeful.
Katsuki gives a moment of silence before following Izuku. Luckily, the camp is set up far enough for the sounds of the forest to cover up what is happening behind him. It takes fifteen minutes to reach the clearing where Izuku is waiting for him with Eri and Kota. The tents have been deconstructed, the firepit covered in soil. Backpacks stuffed with supplies rest on a log.
Izuku meets his eyes and smiles sadly.
Kota asks in a shaky voice, “Where are the others?”
“We got ambushed on the way and split up,” Katsuki says. “We’ll meet at the cabin upriver. Get ready to hike and keep an eye out for sick.”
Kota stares at him. Nods in one slow motion. “Okay.”
Eri takes Izuku’s hand. “Should we wait for them? Will they be okay?”
Izuku pats her head. “Eijirou said he knew this area better than anyone. They’ll be able to track us.”
He doesn’t answer her question, and they know it. Still, these two kids, orphaned young by the apocalypse, trust him and Izuku more than anyone else. They pick up their bags and follow Katsuki up the river.
After they arrive at the cabin, Katsuki scouts the area. Izuku makes a hearty dinner of fish, potatoes, and wild greens that Eri and Kota gorge themselves on. Izuku fusses over their messy faces, helps them clean up, and sends them to bed with full bellies and forgotten thoughts about the others.
It is only when Izuku confirms they are sound asleep that Katsuki draws him into his arms with a deep kiss.
Izuku tastes like medicine and stale breath but that’s fine. He is warm and alive and with Katsuki right now. Heat pools inside him and comes down, makes him stir.
Izuku moans when he feels it against his belly. Katsuki takes him to the farthest room with no windows. Presses him into old, moth-eaten sheets and groans as Izuku spreads for him. Keeps one hand over Izuku’s pounding heart and another around his hip as he moves them together, making sure he never takes his eyes off Izuku.
It’s rough and it’s raw and it’s so good he sobs into Izuku’s hair.
After, Izuku whispers into the cradle of Katsuki’s sweaty neck, “Thank you for finding me.”
“I made a promise, remember? I’ll always find you.”
Izuku kisses him, and it feels like coming back to life.
He settles in Katsuki’s arms and draws little swirls on his skin. “Do you think they knew?”
“Don’t know for sure. Denki and Kyouka might have started suspecting a month ago. Denki kept mentioning how the sick never seemed to bother you.”
“That was my fault. I shouldn’t have been careless on the supply runs. I didn’t know he was watching me.”
“It’s in the past. We’ll have to be more careful going forward.”
Izuku sighs, his breath soft against Katsuki’s neck. A little forlorn, but more resigned than anything. “I really liked them. Mina reminded me of Ochako. I think Denki would have liked Shouto.”
“I know.”
“You liked them too.”
“They were annoying sometimes. Pretty sure Hanta and Denki kept stealing my socks and hiding them in the trees. But yeah. They were good people.”
“What about us, Kacchan? Are we good people?”
Katsuki adjusts them so he can see Izuku’s eyes, already tearing up. He brushes a thumb over the scattering of freckles on Izuku’s cheek. He’s looking better already, a healthy flush coming back under Katsuki’s hand. “We’re just trying to survive.”
“Just trying to survive,” Izuku echoes.
Katsuki remembers saying the same words when he held Izuku after his first defensive kill: his mentor at the teaching hospital near their university. He had gotten sick after exposure to patient zero.
Remembers Izuku in the lab, frantically saying something about senescence and pluripotency, inheritance and gene manipulation, before Katsuki pulled him out of the way of another sick.
Remembers the outbreak, the chaos amidst the spread, and the fall.
Izuku’s hand comes to a stop above Katsuki’s heart, where Izuku’s bite has left deep indents of teeth.
Katsuki mirrors him and touches his own bite mark below Izuku’s clavicle.
He remembers the way they were rounded up like cattle when they entered the government-enforced sanctuary, how much Izuku cried during the experiments, how they dug into Katsuki’s body to extract bone and blood.
What kept him sane in those days were dreams of freedom. They were proliferated by Izuku’s hushed wishes for sunlight and rain, to read comic books on a soft warm bed, to eat something other than gruel and the pills they were force-fed. Make love for the first time, if someone would have him.
That was the first time they kissed, and Katsuki swore he would do anything, everything.
“Kacchan, I want to live,” Izuku had said when they escaped hand-in-hand into the dying world, barefoot and bleeding, dragging empty IV lines and ripped hospital gowns while the facility smoldered behind them.
Izuku says it again now. His eyes are evergreen, the veins visible as they fight against the infection. Katsuki takes his mouth again, breathes the same contaminated air.
Their hearts pump with each other’s blood, the contagion and the cure.
He says, “We’re alive.”