Chapter Text
Katsuki's skull bounces dully against the wall.
His lips are wet. His lips are dry. His lips are mud-cracked and bloody, warping around half-formed insults, pulling at the corners of his mouth; that effervescent, persisting smirk. Katsuki can barely hear himself. There's a hand curled around the collar of his shirt and an ugly face sneering into his, so Katsuki rolls his tongue around his mouth and spits. His grin splits into something nastier, blood tainting his teeth orange, and a fist reigns down hard on his nose.
Katsuki's neck jerks to the side. His ears ring. Just how long has it been? His cheek scrapes against the concrete like the scratchy stubble on his dad's face; years ago now that Katsuki's fingers, stubby and small, last grazed his face, curious, searching. Time is slippery. Days. Feeding schedule; days, or the closest thing to it. Ugly Face's wrist rolls easily, grip twisting, then, before Katsuki can even blink, yanks him up and forward. Ugly's mouth hovers just next to his ear; a shiver crawls up and through Katsuki's entire body, fizzling out like electricity.
"Mouthy shit," Low bass, growling thunder. Thor, God of Storms, or fucking thunder or whatever, yada yada yada. His breath is disgusting. "Acting pretty tough for a kid."
Katsuki's tongue swipes across his lips. Hot blood dribbles down from his nose. "You think I'm just some punk kid?" Katsuki starts , and sucks in a shallow breath. His lids flutter against the instinct to squeeze shut. His nose pulsates in time with is heart; fast, hard. Steel-toed boots met ribs some innumerable amount of time ago, every breath after digging a splinter of pain further into his lungs; now is another element, now he has to breathe through his mouth. It's a problem. Everything is a problem. "I'll blast your fucking head off the second I get these cuffs off."
An amused chuckle sets Katsuki's teeth on edge. "That so?"
Ugly's presence slips away. Katsuki shivers, again, slower. Ugly's staring at Katsuki with far too much anticipation in his baggy eyes.
"I have," he says, "a friend."
This, Katsuki learns, is another problem.