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Katsuki is in the kitchen when you get home.
You curse under your breath, hurriedly wiping the tears off of your cheeks, and close the door behind you as quietly as you can manage. You slide the lock bolt slowly so it doesn’t make its usual rattle, but it’s no use—Katsuki hears it anyway, hyper-attuned to every single going-on in his domain, like a suburban mother on an HOA board. An extremely annoying trait he’s had since birth.
“The hell’re you home early for?” he demands as his wild riot of blonde hair pokes through the doorway, a frown on his mouth. “Fuck knuckle ain’t with you?”
He’s bare-chested, you can see, and a bicep bulges intimidatingly where he grips the door frame, at odds with the pink spatula clutched in his grip.
Fuck knuckle, as you know, refers to your boyfriend of a year. Well, ex-boyfriend to be technical, as of forty-five minutes ago. You’d been out on a date with him this evening—your last, considering he’d informed you only a few minutes in that there was someone else. Someone new and fun and interesting, someone else that he didn’t mean to happen, but just did.
You frantically try to vacuum the tears threatening to spill back into your eyeballs, willing your voice to sound normal. “Nope, just me,” you say, giving him a casual wave and starting towards your room, as if you mean to go change.
You think you’ve managed to sound normal, but Katsuki’s scarlet eyes narrow in on you with all the deadly precision of homing missiles. “Oi, the fuck do you sound like that for?” he demands, angling his entire body through the doorway now, stepping closer.
You freeze, horrified as a teardrop works its way loose from your lashes, spilling down your cheek. Katsuki’s eyes widen, his mouth flattening into a thin, grim line, and then he’s prowling towards you with unmistakable violence in his step.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” he growls, whipping his spatula at the floor. It clatters off the tile, rebounding and hitting the wall, flinging flecks of what looks like frosting everywhere. “What did he do to you? I’ll rip his fucking liver out through his mouth!”
You take a step back, hands coming up to reflexively hide yourself from him, but Katsuki’s there in an instant, catching hold of your wrist, yanking you to him. His other hand comes up to grab you by your chin, tilting your face up to him so he can look at you.
Embarrassingly, another tear escapes you, and you can feel it slide down your face to meet his palm.
“He—dumped me,” you manage, hating the way your voice has gone high and hoarse. “It’s not—your liver-ripping services are appreciated but not needed—”
“Dumped you?” Katsuki demands, leaning into you. He’s all hot eyes and burning hands and his pouty mouth is drawn into a snarl. “That asshole dumped you? Is he fucking for real?”
You stare up at him, shocked, as his expression goes even darker.
“He’s like a pile of fucking shit you stepped in one day and he’s lucky you never wiped him off your goddamn shoe! Are you fucking kidding?” Katsuki growls.
Despite yourself, a laugh works its way out of your throat, emerging as a horrible little half-sob. The sound seems to startle you both. Katsuki blinks down at you again, those crimson eyes widening, before trailing over you in some kind of assessment. He must decide something, because the next second, he’s yanking you to him, wrapping his arms tightly around you.
You fall against him in shock.
Katsuki is rarely ever affectionate and gentle with you, preferring to sass you from across the room, prod you with his foot, put you in a headlock, or dump you out of bed by lifting your mattress if you’re running late for work. He’s been like that since you were kids together, like his assertion that you’d had cooties had stuck to you all these years and he preferred to keep distance from your contagion.
But now he’s warm and hard and surprisingly reassuring all around you—the heat of his bare chest seeps into you, the gentle strength of his arms grounding you. A hand comes up to cup the back of your head, pressing your face into your neck—and that’s what finally does it.
Hot tears well up, prickling against your lashes, before you dissolve, sagging against him. He takes all your weight as you wrap your arms around him in return, and he presses you against him hard with a firm hand on your back, the fingers of his other hand sliding into your hair. Everything feels so world-endingly horrible right now but he feels like such relief against you, and you press yourself harder to him in return, wanting to climb into him and hide from the world.
“I really thought he liked me,” you whimper into his neck, your ears going hot with embarrassment even as you speak. “I liked him.”
“Well I fucking didn’t,” Katsuki rasps, his words rough even while his touch is gentle on your hair. “He was too ugly for you.”
Another half-sob half-laugh forces its way out of you as your tears drip onto Katsuki’s shoulder. “No he wasn’t.”
“Yes the fuck he was,” Katsuki promises, shaking you a little as if to get you to agree. He hates to be wrong, even when it comes to stupid things like this. “He was the ugliest fuck to ever set foot in this apartment and he was dumb as rocks.”
“You think everyone—is dumb as rocks,” you hiccup out between hitching breaths.
“Well he was the dumbest fuckin’ one,” Katsuki declares. His grip on you flexes, and suddenly he’s shifting. An arm goes underneath your thighs, the other tight against your back, and then you’re being boosted up and carried over to the couch. Katsuki sinks down with you still in his arms, arranging you against him, so that you’re situated in his lap.
Normally you’d find this too embarrassing for words, perching in your foul-mouthed, bad-tempered childhood friend’s lap. But you’re too wretched, too wrung out to care, too desperate for the comfort of his warm body against yours, tall and strong and achingly familiar after all of these years. You let him put you how he wants, your face still tucked into his shoulder, smearing your tears against his skin.
“He’s a fucking idiot,” Katsuki tells you as he settles, his chest vibrating under your ear. “You’re a pain in the fucking ass but he was lucky you even gave him the goddamn time of day. Nothing is stopping me from killing him on sight now.”
You huff into his shoulder, but say nothing. Some horrible little part of you preens at the notion of Katsuki wanting to avenge you, though you know it’s only the fresh hurt you’re feeling. You just want to not think or feel or care about anything right now, especially not your ex. You kind of want him to hurt just like you.
“Pretty sure there’s—the law, actually,” you finally manage, as Katsuki’s fingers find their way into your hair again, petting so unexpectedly softly.
“That applies to people, not sentient pieces of shit,” Katsuki snarls, the rumble of his growl reassuring against your ear. Then, quieter, he says. “Plus it’d be worth it, idiot. Nobody fucks with you on my watch.”
“Except you,” you say.
A snort issues from somewhere over your temple. “‘Cept me,” he agrees. The hand petting over your hair is hypnotic in its slow rhythm, and the warmth of Katsuki under and around you is strangely lulling, and you feel the fibers of your body start to unwind just a little more. You feel safe in his grip. Cherished—as much as anyone can under the same arm that puts them in a headlock daily.
You let your eyes close, burrowing into him. You like this side of him, and it means everything that he’s showing it to you now, when pride usually stops him. He’s always cared for you, you’ve known, always taken care of you when you’re struggling or lost or sick. He’s been the number one man in your life for your entire lifetime, and that won’t change any time soon, it seems.
Maybe never.
“Thanks for taking care of me, Katsuki,” you say, worn out, but a little calmed. You still feel like you want to lay in bed and cry and never move again until your bones melt into soup, but there’s a feeling in the back of your brain, a reassurance that Katsuki will always be there, will always take care of you. And you will always be okay, as long as he’s there with you.
You don’t realize you’ve spoken it aloud until Katsuki grunts, then lowers his mouth to your forehead, pressing his lips there in something almost like a kiss. “Yeah, brat, I’ll always take care of you,” he rasps, his promise warm on your skin. “I’ll always be there. Promise.”
And something unfurls in the recesses of your mind, though you won’t truly pick it apart, not for many months. But there’s a sliver of understanding then—that Katsuki is here. That Katsuki will take care of you. That Katsuki, for you, is forever.
That Katsuki is your always.