Work Text
The truth of the lie that is life—what is seen is what is. Perspective is truth, all else is lie. Life is endless until death, who is the end of seeing and thus is an untruth. Fallibility is no notion accepted by the human state, instead, it insists—it imposes, penetrates to become real. The body falls not, lest it is felled. Solidness is one with living—violence, illness, fate, uncertainty, fantasy, being watched, being touched, playing pretend. All unseen, all evaporated into falsehood.That night, for the first time and not the last, Izuku passed into the lie and became something unlike himself.⊹His eyes had been closed for a while. Dancing didn't require seeing, the need already well-subsidised with his other senses. Other senses like touch; the brush of someone’s hand or leg, chest, warm breath, hard acrylic, leather, denim, cold metal, hot flesh. His skin thrummed with all the sensualities of being alive. The buzz of music and liquor was in his veins. Dancing, he felt it.Touch dissolved into hearing—what little he had of it over the thrum of heavy bass through the club floor, anyway. He could hear himself breathe. He could hear the blood pumping, off-beat, in his ears. Occasionally, a far-away shout of what’s your name, or are you from around here? Ochako had long since disappeared into a dark corner with Himiko since their arrival, and Shouto with Tenya—not that Izuku particularly minded. The echo of something else, a trilled, lilting threat, would have called him away from his group either way. The pulse of bodies moving in the room beckoned; from the back of his mind something different scraped.Taste. Sour, nauseatingly so. Izuku didn't like the taste of alcohol. If he licked, he could taste its remaining violence on his lips. Sweet talk. Talk and nothings. Metaphorical bullshit. Blood. Thirst, crashing into him like a wave, responsively pouring off his body. Agitated by his movement. He felt it on his tongue, down his throat, in his eyes.Izuku tasted want. Izuku wanted a taste.And he wanted another drink, despite how he hated it. Hate. Idly, he rolled the word around on his tongue.So, opening his eyes was his first desperate gulp, and, truly, finally, it was sublimating. The flashing lights blinded Izuku, for a moment. Like sterile hospital lighting, bright mornings, being born again. Seeing clearly, being renewed in his discomfort. Then off—plunged him back into dark, perceptual death, ignorant once more. The strobe was completely disorientating—it made it a little impossible to figure out where exactly he was. Swathed in the crowd of moving bodies and pounding music, he could barely see more than a couple yards forwards. His vision swam, a little, pushing him roughly into his drunken step, then another. He had to go. He had to… Go towards… Towards?“We’ve met before.”Izuku whipped his head around with a gasp. And there it was. Red, tainted redder—boring into him with all the intensity, the hunger, the lust, the violence aggrandising in the room, concentrated into two lethal pinpoints that made Izuku’s blood run hot, made his own eyes water a little.The man was beautiful. A true, marble beauty—with all of the kind of allure they warn of in scripture.A faint cheer—or it could’ve been screaming—went up in some far corner of the hall. The air was warm on his teeth as Izuku sucked in a breath, then another—it made him nauseous.“We have?” he choked a little.“Of course,” the stranger said, still staring, practically unmoving. He was tall, with the palest blonde hair, impossibly paler skin; if Izuku was any more taken, he’d say the man practically glowed. Like he’d stolen a piece of the moonlight for himself, keeping it hidden away in his chest, rationing it against the nighttime’s swell. And it had to be true, it had to—because Izuku could see the sun’s fire as proof, burning away in his eyes.It called for the truth. The truth called for life. The life in Izuku tentatively answered.“Prove it, then.”As the man pressed closer, a piece of Izuku fell away, into the pale stranger’s hands. The room swam, the other people, being swept away. His mouth filled with spit, face flushed red-hot—somebody behind Izuku knocked into him hard, and he fell forwards, menaced to already know the stranger would catch him. And, predictable again, he whispered, confirming, “I don’t need proof. You know me already,” bringing Izuku’s hands around his waist, baring his neck a little. “You know what you want already.”Izuku knew that he feared this man. The fear curdled and became viscous. He ran his tongue over his teeth, full of knowing—emptied of something else, a third key, several levels over anything normal humans were allowed to perceive.But this man wasn’t human. Izuku saw it in how his gaze seemed to mock the silly, benign things that usually confined, defined humans—like permission. How his lips, full and wet curved with a hint of humour. His lashes were thick and full, spiky with the room’s humidity. His hair looked soft on his nape as he tilted his head, oh-so-slightly, to the left.“What do you want, Izuku?” A soft, clear taunt.An invitation to steal.“I don’t,” Izuku groaned, swaying, taking, then surged up to kiss him.Their lips met and Izuku was instantly lost and defunct. It was good. It was so good—it was great, even. How foolish was Izuku, to only notice how he’d slipped out of his mind after he’d wrapped his hands around the stranger’s nape, shoving him backwards roughly against the closest wall? They kissed sloppy, and grinded sloppier against each other, completely ignoring the rhythm of the music. The man wrapped his arms around Izuku’s neck, sliding lower and lower until Izuku had to grab him by the thighs to carry his weight.The… Izuku’s tempter’s lips were soft, and Izuku couldn’t hear him, but the plush, buzzing thrills under Izuku’s fingertips burned innuendos into his mind and poured force into his lips and tongue and teeth. Was he feeling good? Was he making noises? That was something else Izuku wanted, bad.For the blonde to enjoy this. Because Izuku was enjoying this. So, so, mind-bogglingly good. How stupid was he, only just noticing how they moved to the rhythm of his own heartbeat—? Ignoring how he nicked his tongue on the man’s teeth?“What’s your name?” Izuku moaned into the stranger’s mouth, barely hearing himself.Well, you… can call me Kacchan. I’m—yeah, Kacchan.”And Kacchan pulled away, smirking a little coyly. His finger and thumb came up to Izuku’s lip, gathering up the spit leaking from one corner of his mouth and dragging it across to the other. A heat, molten desire pooled in Izuku’s gut—it made him turgid with desire.“And you…”Kacchan—curling his thumb inwards. Izuku’s lip throbbed needily directly under Kacchan’s pinched fingers, greedily, he leaned into the sensation. Are mine.And digging in, hard.The pain was almost blinding, immediately sobering Izuku. He gasped, trying to pull away—only for Kacchan to dig his nail into his lip harder. He swore he felt something rip. It made Izuku groan, tremble, rush to fill with pain and terror, desire violently swapped for the urge to get away. Something wet, viscous and warm trickled down Izuku’s jaw, dripping onto his chest.Now was the time for fight or flight. But Izuku had realised it now—foolish foolish. The clutch he was in didn’t bend to now. “Wuh—?”Slowly, listlessly, the blonde leaned in, slowly gliding his tongue across Izuku’s lip, lingering on the throb of where he pinched. His breaths came in hot and heavy on Izuku’s chin—like a predator thoroughly worn by a good chase. Like he had finally caught his prey. He let go, closing in again, opening his to—to eat. And as he grinned, Izuku couldn’t pry his eyes away from the fangs. Like now was his turn as prey to finally be played with before the kill.“I won’t kill you,” Kacchan murmured. Again, he licked at Izuku’s bottom lip, dragging his tongue down the trail of blood he’d left. Sucking a hickey into his jaw, kissing his Adam’s apple. Blowing cold air onto the junction between Izuku’s neck and shoulder.“You just smelled so healthy, so good.” Kacchan huffed a mean laugh, grazing his teeth lightly against the soft flesh. “So sexed, love. So wanting.”He seemed to croon the last word, bringing a hand up to cup Izuku’s cheek. “...You’re just like me, Izuku. I’m wanting too.” This was a mistake. He was going to die, he was going to die, he was going to— “See, all I want is one good taste, baby.”As Kacchan leaned in, there was horror in understanding what he meant.When Kacchan bit him, it wasn’t surgical—the way his teeth cut into him bordered insanity. Izuku suffered his teeth, how they dug and tore all the way from Izuku’s neck to his collarbone; suffered the blood gush, dark and wet all over his shirt, horror at the few spatters dropping onto his shoes, the muscles being ripped out of the way, shoved apart. A scream built up, clawing to escape from Izuku’s ribs, temporary salve to the pain, the pain being forced on him. The level of it was inconceivable. A cruelty upon a cruelty to picture. A violation to experience. Izuku's mind was going to break. He was going to die—if he could just SCREAM—Slowly, Kacchan licked back up his neck, sucking hard where blood pooled slowly. Izuku shivered, bringing a trembling arm up to secure himself against the wall, trying his hardest to not fall or pass out—not to succumb to the agony. His vision spotted a little, the room’s temperature dropping by several degrees. He felt his life being drank—stolen from his neck, little by little, flickered and dimmed and spat at his luck.Pathetically, he could only whimper, “It hurts so bad, Kacchan.”And Kacchan pulled back, mouth and chin completely coated in Izuku’s own blood. Staring at him pityingly. Roadkill. Rotting carcass.But… But. The red looked unworldly against his skin. In a deeper, unkinder part of Izuku’s brain, a miniature, taboo victory announced itself. In the way Kacchan’s pupils were blown wide, the way he rasped heavily as though completely taken with Izuku’s blood. The occasional flicker of Kacchan’s tongue over the corner of his mouth, as though Izuku’s body was a drug; one that had felled him back. He didn’t know what he was talking about. As though they had both been emptied out. He didn’t know what he was talking about. As though they’d replaced themselves with one another.They’d both won something in that moment.He didn’t—“You poor thing,” Kacchan murmured simply, staring down at him—his voice supernaturally clear above the pounding bass. Izuku’s body slumped weakly to the floor as soon as Kacchan slid out from under him, laughably weak, weak, weak. Bending down, licking the crusted blood off Izuku’s lip, pressing a final chaste kiss against his cheek. “You keep hurting like that and I just won’t know what to do,” standing and rubbing the back of his forearm over his mouth with a sigh. Oddly humane, almost prudish, the way Kacchan tried to clean himself—clean up the evidence. The motion was felt in a disconcerting, jarring way. Felt keenly, to Izuku, more than anything, like a realisation.And as Kacchan turned to disappear into the crowd, he cast one look back at Izuku. In his gaze was a glinting something, saturated to technicolour, something Izuku felt the urge to reach for, to violently tug and rip and take back for himself. Tryingly, he attempted to push himself off the floor.His vision faded to black before he could even lift an arm.⊹“Izuku..? Izuku!”Gently, Izuku felt himself being shaken awake, and even before prying open his eyes, he immediately recognised the sound of his friend’s voice.“Izuku? I think… laced, shit. Shouto, could… of the bartenders?” It was all muted and blurry as he tried to open his eyes. Vaguely, he could see the outline of Ochako’s face, pinched with concern as she stared down at him. Iida and Himiko’s silhouettes each a few paces behind her. He groaned weakly; tongue like lead in his mouth.Flashes of red and white. Rotting carcass.Tentatively, with all the strength he could muster, Izuku put a hand up to his neck.“He’s passing… Again… Ambulance…!”Strangely, the last thing he saw was his palm, coming away completely clean.