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Blood has a funny taste, very few people put their tongue to the red with the thought or desire of tasting it. Maybe it occurs through sucking gently on a paper cut on their finger, or the gentle sting of a cut inside their mouth. Yet there is that familiar taste all know, like you just picked up a coin and tossed it in your mouth. Everyone describes it the same: it tastes like copper. Metallic .
So why is it at the same time so awful when you find yourself doubled over, coughing it up, and finding yourself delusional as you see it coming with the bile. There is no way that is normal. The feverish feeling you feel in your head and the spinning of the world that your eyes trick you to seeing. It makes it seem like it’s real, right?
As a pair of crimson eyes can barely open enough to see the monstrosity heading towards him. What is it again? He doesn’t remember and his vision isn’t clear enough to see. It’s painted with black and red, only memories of something that isn’t possibly real.
He holds out his arm, as a last ditch effort to aim and fire one last explosion. As though that’ll save him and eliminate an enemy that seems to be completely untouched.
“That won’t save you now,” the voice calls out. It seems too deep, too calm, too familiar. The blonde finds himself falling over, unable to even hold his arm up as he feels weak and dizzy and he can’t tell if sleep is taking over his body or death. It isn’t until he hears a faint, “ Kacchan ” that his eyes are wide open yet the green haired man in front of him isn’t who he knows. Those green eyes are dead, they’re lifeless, and he doesn’t know those. “ Kacchan ,” the voice comes again, this time it sounds panicked. It sounds like it needs him. Like it’s calling for help, and that’s all he wants to do. All Kacchan wants to do is help the only person who would dare to say that name.
It’s when he realizes that the reason those eyes are so lifeless and dull is because there is no life left in that body, the same blood in his mouth is pouring from his neck like a stream, and the knife that was used to cut it, is held in another hand of a person who’s face he can’t see. The sweaty green curls being collected in a fist is the only thing that keeps that head up. However, the lips move once more.
“ Kacchan .”
Bakugou sits straight up in bed, panting as he puts a hand to his chest. His eyes are looking around the dimly lit room as he’s scanning for any sign that what he had just seen was real.
“Kacchan,” Midoriya’s voice comes out gently, and he turns his head to see Midoriya before screaming and nearly falling backwards off the bed if Midoriya hadn’t leaned forward to grab his arm. When Bakugou has regained his senses is when he blinks and sees Midoriya’s face. His eyes are wide and he looks afraid or concerned or maybe, both?
“Kacchan?” His voice comes out gently and that’s when Bakugou moves, he grabs hold of Midoriya’s face and tilts his head up to see his neck before looking at Midoriya’s eyes and seeing that calming familiarity in them. Something feels peaceful now. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Bakugou lets out a sigh of relief, so that was all it was, was a bad dream. All of reality is returning to him now, and now he feels himself calming down, yet there is still that gentle tang of copper in his mouth that almost makes the dream feel too real. His tongue runs through his mouth, trying to find the source before realizing it was caused by him biting down too harshly on his own cheek.
Another sigh of relief.
“Kacchan, you haven’t said anything to me yet.” Midoriya said and Bakugou finally turns his head to Midoriya before nodding.
“Sorry, did I wake you up?” His voice comes our more hoarse than he expects it to.
“You were practically screaming,” Midoriya answered and that immediately explained why Bakugou’s voice sounded the way it did. “Did you have that kind of dream again?”
Bakugou let his eyes fall gently closed. “Yeah. That kind of dream.”
That kind of dream entails the worst kind of dreams. It’s nightmares of their hero work coming to an end, it’s the feeling of the one thing you’re trying to hold onto being ripped out of your hands with a ferocity like no other. So yeah, that kind of dream isn’t something either of them think fondly of.
Midoriya’s lips formed a line as he looked sorrowfully at the blonde before scooting closer to the blonde. “It was nearly three months ago, Kacchan.”
“Okay and your point?” Bakugou sighed. “Fuck, Deku, I could have lost you and I don’t like being slapped by reality like that. The reality that either one of us could go to work one day and not come back. The worst part about the whole thing, is that it’s been like that since we were at U.A.; you’ve always been reckless.”
Three months prior, there was an.. incident . A villain had managed to nearly rip Midoriya limb for limb and it was something that could barely be called a victory, despite the villain’s ultimate defeat. Bakugou rushed to that hospital the moment he heard and felt like an idiot that he couldn’t help Midoriya. The fact that the green haired man had tried to do something so foolish on his own, yet Bakugou wasn’t even there to help him.
At the end of it all, he ended up taking five days to wake up, and even after that, it took him a week to be able to walk on his own and despite being fully recovered now, he was still cautiously watched at the agency.
Midoriya looked at Bakugou whose eyes were screwed shut and tried to push down any emotion that might be rising up in him. “I’m sorry.”
“You always say that you’re sorry,” Bakugou sighed. “And it’s fine because it isn’t completely your fault and that is just the kind of job we have.”
“What happened in this one?” Midoriya asked and Bakugou refused to meet his eyes afraid of nightmares coming to reality.
“I don’t know,” was what he said at first, but Midoriya waited knowing that was how he always started these stories. “I could barely lift my head up see anything, but when I did someone else was holding you up by your hair. The blood just kept pouring out of your neck like there was an endless supply in there. And fuck, your fucking eyes.”
“What happened to my eyes?” Midoriya asked.
“There wasn’t anything left in them.” Bakugou replied with a shake of his head. “They were just.. lifeless and at first I couldn’t figure out why, but when I realized it..”
“Kacchan,” Midoriya said quietly as he ran his hand through the blonde’s hair. “You don’t have to say more than you want to.” Bakugou flopped back down on the bed before tugging Midoriya down to face him. He looked at his face, scanned him once more as his thumb traced over his cheek. “Can I help?”
“I don’t think so,” Bakugou sighed as his eyes fell shut. “I can’t do this another night, I can’t keep waking up sweaty and in fear.”
“Fear?” Midoriya spoke up and Bakugou’s eyes opened to see him.
“Yeah of course fucking fear,” Bakugou sighed. “That’s what a nightmare is, being fucking afraid. And I’m fucking afraid to lose you, I didn’t work this hard to get you to lose you.”
Midoriya smiled sadly at him, although it was sweet, something about it made the whole thing a little bitter. “You haven’t lost me.”
“I could,” Bakugou replied. “If I knew fucking being with a pro hero would be this costly I wouldn’t have done it.” Hearing this caused Midoriya’s eyes to wide up, after all, would Bakugou really want to leave him? Just to make things easier for himself?
“Do you not want to be with me?” The question came out a little squeaky and a little afraid. Bakugou rolled his eyes.
“Yes, of course I want to be with you,” he answered. “I didn’t mean anything by that, I’m really happy with you Deku, I promise. I’m sorry, it’s just really difficult to get through that situation. It’s difficult to not be able to help and to feel so weak and foolish. It fucking sucked that whole time.”
Midoriya didn’t say anything, he had nothing to compare to the feelings that Bakugou faced when he sat in that hospital room every day, nervously bouncing his leg and dry-heaving since he could barely get anything down and what did always came back up. He’d never felt that kind of anxiety in his life.
There was no sense in saying that Midoriya would always be okay, that he would always return home to his Kacchan because the reality of it was that he had no idea. Had one thing gone differently, Midoriya arrived at the hospital a little later, he could have very well been dead. What frustrated Bakugou more was he wasn’t even there, that he could have died and Bakugou would have never gotten to tell him all the things he needed to, and all the things he knew just one more time .
Midoriya opened his mouth to speak, but Bakugou interjected. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry, and don’t lie to me and tell me there’s no way nothing bad could ever happen to you because it already fucking did.”
“So what do you want?” Midoriya asked.
Bakugou took a deep breath. “I don’t know, Deku, I really just don’t fucking know.”
There was that awful silence again, closing down in a way that made Midoriya feel anxious, sick . He felt as though he wanted to cry because things had been so different since the incident, not so much with him, but with Bakugou. Bakugou was always hesitant now, seemed skittish even, and the last of sleep had rendered him to be an ineffective hero. Which lead to him always pushing way more than he needed to. It just hurt to watch.
“I love you,” Midoriya spoke and Bakugou’s eyes moved to gaze across Midoriya’s features. He was relieved, of course, to say that everything seemed okay. That Midoriya had seemed okay. At least, for now. “I know it’s hard to not worry about, but I don’t want that to be all you do. And I won’t lie to you, yeah, things get dangerous and that could end up with me getting really hurt or worse. But I will guarantee to you that no matter what I’ll never give up, and I’ll never stop fighting because I know that I have to come home to you.”
Bakugou laid his head back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry for putting you in these circumstances.”
“You need to sleep better, Kacchan.” Midoriya said. “All I did was get up to get some water and when I was in the kitchen you started screaming.”
“Well then don’t fucking leave me in here by myself.”
“I thought you’d be alright!” Midoriya answered. “I won’t leave you again though, I promise.”
And it was a promise that was deeper than the original purpose. After all, no matter how fast either of them fell, and no matter if they couldn’t stand up, those with souls connected like that, never truly leave the other. That was a promise that Bakugou and Midoriya could both rely on.
“Goodnight, Izuku,” Bakugou replied as he adjusted himself while Midoriya clicked off the light before sliding into Bakugou’s embrace.
“Goodnight Katsuki,” Midoriya hummed. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Bakugou muttered, already beginning to feel sleepy again. He kissed the top of Midoriya’s head, and ran his tongue through the inside of his cheek. Thankful, at least, that the taste of copper was altogether fading form his mouth.