Thread by @wifedeku

#bkdk / #勝デ
cw: a/b/o, pregku, fluff, slight nsfw, arranged marriage

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What is it to be happy? Izuku pondered the question from a young age. Was happiness achieving something that would always be out of your reach?

Freedom had never been on Izuku’s horizon, but then, how many people out there could say any different? It was hard to argue in the face of society when he saw firsthand how hard life was even to those closest to him. And beyond the walled city,

how many countless toiled for Izuku’s gilded life?

If Izuku could change things, he would. He’d want to do it on the frontlines, to physically see and feel the direct effects of his actions. But wars weren’t always won on the battlefield,

and furthermore the best battles won were those where no blood had been drawn. All Might had taught him that.

So Izuku had no freedom in who he was to marry, but he had little problems with the notion.

If it meant that he could save the people in the hinterlands from the roaming tribes of the savage north by marrying one of their princes, then he would comply with a smile. He’d been trained for it.

What he hadn’t expected—couldn’t have imagined in the wildest,

maddest dreams stashed in the hidden corners of his heart—was that he would do so sincerely.

But as he locked his gaze with his Barbarian prince’s eyes, as red as a spider lily, and just as delicate and alien and beautiful,

all he could feel were the corners of his mouth raising with a kind of involuntary, instinctive thrum.

/Alpha./

/Mine./

Were omegas meant to be this possessive? Oh, but he was. His whole being felt it,

felt the expansion of something haloed and bright that clawed to escape the confines of his skin. Katsuki /belonged/ to him.

And he belonged to Katsuki.

That was the first time he’d been convinced that he’d reached happiness. To walk the path that had been laid for him,

and finding none of it wanting.

It wasn’t idyllic at first. His prince didn’t warm to him for a long time, that first year. He’d been used to being alone, so used to carrying the entire weight of the lives and fates of his those around him,

sometimes against the very King that had sent Izuku. He’d rejected Izuku, and the latter had felt it; every upturned chin, every grimace and growl and ‘back off’ left ragged notches on his bone.

But he’d tasted the sweet sugar of happiness, and he’d persevered.

He’d learnt to make tea the way Katsuki and his people liked it, boiled in salt water and topped with mare’s milk. He learnt to ride a horse bareback. He helped rear a wolf pup and a lamb at the same time, weeping the first time they curled into each other by the fire.

Eventually, Katsuki began to see him.

Eventually, Katsuki took him to bed.

And as Izuku draped his awkward limbs over his husband at his coaxing, feeling exposed and small and unworthy, Katsuki raised a thumb rough from work to graze his lip,

curling his fingers around the soft corners of his jaw, and smiled at him for the first time.

Happiness. This must be happiness.

The strength of knowing you held the love of the one you loved. Not possession, not fate, but organic and alive and willingly given.

The anxiety fled his body, and in their absence Katsuki the man rose.

His pale shoulders, which carried Izuku’s weight easily as he dug the heels of his palms into them, sinking down on his shaft with a soft cry. His large hands,

which wrapped around Izuku’s slender waist in an anchoring hold, almost touching. His lidded, hazy eyes, slitted from sweat but determined to keep Izuku in focus, as enamoured with Izuku as Izuku was with Katsuki.

And the bite on his neck,

which had laid dormant since their wedding from so long ago, bloomed to life.

Another year, another winter, another move. Izuku helped with the gruelling task this time, finally fulfilling his role as Katsuki’s partner to the full extent.

When had he learned to gain so much pleasure and fulfillment from backbreaking busywork? And he even found himself complaining sometimes; about the musty scent of the flock, the burnt taste of the tea, the wildness of their horses,

no longer worried about offending the people that he now saw as his own.

It was not the people across the boundary that he worried for. It was no sacrifice for him to be here, though he was glad that they could reap his rewards in his absence.

This was the home of his husband and his pride and his work. This was where he was meant to be.

Another year, another winter, another move. This time Izuku couldn’t help with the preparations, though no one faulted him for it, laden as he was. Wherever he went,

Katsuki loomed close behind, a possessive palm spread over the hard bump of his omega’s belly.

/Silly alpha,/ Izuku thought with so much fondness that he was surprised that he hadn’t simply floated away.

And even that fondness paled in comparison to when they saw their son for the first time. Red faced and hairy, wrinkled and bruised all along his buttocks, but with all ten perfect toes intact and ten wriggling, grasping fingers. His fingernails were so tiny,

slivers of half moons that Izuku felt compelled to kiss whenever Shin-chan was out of his swaddle.

And Katsuki, against all the traditions of his tribe, agreed with Izuku to raise their pup the way the latter had been raised. Well loved and warm and scented,

not to be pigeonholed as a hardened warrior or nimble herder, though of course he could be either if he so chooses, but to learn to write and read in the southern script, so that maybe one day he could bridge the gap between Izuku’s and Katsuki’s people.

‘Happiness’,

his son wrote in shaky, black strokes during one lesson. ‘Happiness, happiness, happiness.’

The sunlight filtered through the paper as Izuku held it up to the sun, holding tight against the whip of the dry wind.

Yes, he thought, and carried it back to their home.