comfort
kuhm-fert
- noun
4. relief in affliction, consolation; solace
6. a person or thing that gives consolation
8. a state of ease and satisfaction of bodily wants, with freedom from pain and anxiety.
It had been a hell of a day.
Three attacks, coordinated on locations where meetings had been held in support of less regulations on heroes. It didn't look like a coincidence. The media had leapt to fan the flames almost as soon as the charges had been detonated, accusing politicians of funding the villains, asking the public if they thought the more entrepreneurial heroes had funded it themselves. A woman's femur had been broken when a hero made a judgment call to get her out of the rubble as soon as possible, and within three hours, her lawyer was holding a press conference, verifying that she was, indeed, going to press charges. Deku had rescued three children, one of whom would likely never recover from the psychological effects of what he'd watched play out from where he was trapped in an enclosed playground.
One of the bombs was planted directly next to a pet store.
Every bone in Izuku's body ached. He mumbled his way through two reporter ambushes as nausea and exhaustion pushed in swells up his throat. He had taken two dogs to a nearby veterinary clinic on foot, and could tell from the woman's face as he gingerly deposited it onto the table that the smaller of the two was unlikely to survive the night.
Nobody spoke to him at the agency as he closed the door behind him and limped to the locker room.
Calling a cab didn't cross his mind as he brushed his bangs out of his eyes with a badly rattling hand and started toward his apartment. The cacophonous roar of emergency vehicles and rubble settling and screams and car alarms and door alarms – his head was pulsing with it, twanging through the nerves in his molars. He felt simultaneously hollow and on the cusp of crying or screaming from being so full of noise. He pushed his scarred hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt and ducked his head when a small group of people walked past.
Days like this threatened to break him. They chipped away at his core, making his chest ache with the inescapable pain and confusion and terror in the eyes of those he cradled close to him. Days like this seeped into his wounds like something toxic and corrosive and came out of him in the form of screams as he punched holes in the walls, nightmares, and paralyzing numbness that drained the color from the world.
A sob threatened to tear through his closed-up throat and turned into a painful lump in his gut when he swallowed it back down.
He didn't actively notice when his feet took him toward another part of the district.
The lights were on in the windows he was looking for, the apartments here older and much nicer than his. Izuku closed the old, iron gate and found himself jogging around back, taking the first flight of stairs two at a time. The metal groaned and creaked, ringing out in the relative quiet.
He didn't let himself think as he pulled his hood down and approached the door, because he knew that if he did, the anxiety would freeze him in his tracks. The breath he sucked in caught in his windpipe, on the heaviness of his lungs that threatened to choke him. He knocked five times.
A very slow eight seconds passed as Izuku stood in the evening chill.
When he opened the door and his eyes flitted up to Izuku's, that guarded, neutral expression became one of barely-concealed shock. The familiar set of his shoulders and the striking color of his eyes gripped Izuku's soul and pulled hard. It felt a little like elation; a bit like he was one second closer to falling apart.
"Deku."
It was hushed, Katsuki unmoving as he stared at Izuku.
"Hi, Kacchan." His own voice sounded foreign and very distant. He could see the ripple that went over Katsuki's skin at his words. He drew in a breath, held it. Resisted the urge to look away from the blonde's piercing gaze. "Can I come in?"
Katsuki's lips parted. His eyes flickered down Izuku's frame as if reading him, then wandered back up.
He swallowed, looked away. Shifted and shoved a hand in the pocket of his jeans. "Sure, yeah."
He stepped aside, and Izuku's heart leapt to his throat as he walked inside.