Work Text:
Even weeks later, Kirishima doesn’t regret it.
-
It was late at night, the kind of dark where everyone slowed down driving. Kirishima didn’t know much about space, but he thinks it was a new moon, or something like that- you know, the one where the sky is completely darkened, where the stars shine just a little brighter but leave the land around him in a pitch-black darkness. Sure, there were headlights, but it didn’t make driving when it was like this any less scary, especially on roads with so many sharp turns.
His car wasn’t good by any means, hell, he’d just gotten his license a few weeks ago. Kaminari joked about it, calling it a shitbox. It wasn’t any good, but he loved it still. He loved the ancient, pink, dusty dice that hung from the mirror. He liked the coffee stain that spilled just over the floormats, staining the carpet below. He adored the barely noticeable scratched smiley face just to the left of his tail light, where his little sister had drawn in the dust and it had scratched the car. Kirishima hadn’t minded, he liked how you could still see it when the sun hit the car just right.
It was late at night, pitch black, and Kirishima was slowly driving his shitbox down the sharp-turned road when he saw the red car flipped on the roof.
There was glass shattered in the road, presumably from the driver's side window. At least, from what Kirishima could see, the passenger one was still intact. There were pieces of car scattered partway across the road, though it didn’t look too awful, maybe two or three big hunks of metal, along with other bits that he couldn’t quite make out. Kirishima wasn’t sure what caused the accident, he didn’t particularly care as he turned the steering wheel to the left, his car pulling to a stop just before another sharp turn.
His music stopped as he opened the door to his car and he had to shake his legs awake before he got out. He made sure to look carefully for headlights both ways before jogging across the street to the flipped-over vehicle, checking the backseat first- no kids, just a gym bag now resting on the roof.
He heard a familiar whimper in the eerie silence of the night. He only heard it once, when his dad had gotten a bad shot on a deer, when he’d walked up to it and quickly put it out of its misery- the few seconds he heard the sound were enough for it to be engraved in his mind. It still sent shivers up the back of his spine- it was an animal that knew it was about to die.
It was late at night, pitch black when Kirishima met Katsuki Bakugo.
He had to choke back a gag as he rounded to the other side of the car. Maybe it was because he’d forgotten his glasses, maybe it was because he was more focused on the big chunks of metal in the road, but he could see what some of them were now when he was this closeup. Human pieces- blood smears surrounding them as they were dragged along the road. A tiny trickle of blood running down into the grass from the growing puddle beneath the boy in front of him.
The boy let out a wheeze that sounded a little bit like a ‘help,’ and Kirishima was crouching down in a second, hoping to find some way he could help. The steering wheel was pressing into him, the airbags pushing up against his chest forcefully. The seat was broken, lurching the boy into the carnage in front of him. He reached out, using all of his weight to pull the seat back.
Oh god.
The boy’s legs were... barely there. Kirishima tore his eyes away before morbid curiosity found out of that was really bone or not.
“Hey- what’s your name?” Kirishima panted, sitting up.
“Bakugo- Katsuki, Katsuki Bakugo.” He spoke in short bursts, catching his breath. “I didn’t get to call anyone-” He whimpered. Kirishima dug into his pocket for his phone, quickly getting a responder on the other end. He gave his rough location, searching for a nearby mile marker. He focused on the woman’s voice on the other end, trying to block out Bakugo’s pained sounds. The woman assured that medical would be sent out as fast as possible before Kirishima hung up.
It was just them now.
“My name is Eijiro Kirishima.”
“You an angel or some shit?” He managed to say, “I’m... dead?” Kirishima reached out his hand, taking Bakugo’s scraped palm into his. It broke his heart, imagining how long Bakugo sat here, barely able to breathe, trying to pull himself from between the dash and the seat. He pushed the image from his head,
“You aren’t dead, okay? I promise- you’re alive, and you’re gonna stay alive. Help is on the way, Bakugo.” His fingers clasped around Kirishima’s hand, knuckles shaking white and leaving Eijiro’s own fingertips going a little bit numb.
“Why the fuck did you stop?” Kirishima tried really hard to ignore the blood dribbling from the corner of Bakugo’s mouth, and he had to look away for a few seconds when he spits onto the red-coated asphalt below him.
“I don’t know.” Kirishima admits, looking back down at Bakugo.
“So you aren’t... a doctor? A paramedic?” Kirishima shakes his head. Bakugo looks down at the ground.
Their hands are interlocked, white knuckle holds on each other as silence takes over the both of them. Kirishima isn’t quite sure what it all means.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Bakugo begins to shake his head, but pauses.
“Can you... tell me something?” Kirishima nods, “My legs... I can’t quite... feel them. Can you look at them, tell me how bad they are?” Kirishima can’t help it as the tears that had been brewing in his eyes finally spilled over. He looks off to the side of the road, and the silence is back. “Just- just that one thing, asshole.”
“I saw them already.” Kirishima whispers. He turns back after a few more baited seconds. Bakugo is looking at him, eyebrows turned up in the center, lips parted and a sad look in his eyes.
“They’re... that bad, huh?” He scoffs. Kirishima goes quiet, squeezes his hand in response. There is more silence, until there isn’t. “I’m sorry that I yelled at you.” Bakugo whispers. “You stopped and... I’m glad.” He lets out a cackle, and it shocks Kirishima. He laughs, and it almost echoes in the woods around them. “I always was sure that I’d die alone, you know? But... I’m not going to- you’re here. I have no fucking clue who you are and- and you’re going to be traumatized and- and I’m not going to die alone because your dumbass decided to stop.” Kirishima shakes his head,
“You aren’t going to die.” He spoke with confidence, “I... don’t think you would have died alone, either.”
“I’m a dick.”
“So?” Bakugo goes quiet for a little bit.
Their hands are still interlocked, but Bakugo’s grip is a little looser. His gaze keeps unfocusing from Kirishima too, and he doesn’t think that it’s intentional. Kirishima doesn’t know what this means either.
“Don’t be quiet- talk, please.” Bakugo seems to whimper, “It- it hurts, just... let me focus on your voice.” Kirishima doesn’t know what to talk about, so he talks about his car.
He talks about the shitbox, which leads to the introduction of Kaminari and Mina, Sero as well. He tells Bakugo about the coffee stain and the dice, about the smiley face, and about his little sister. When he runs out of things to say, he talks about his sister, and he talks about Kaminari and everyone else, and he talks about everything except the fact that Bakugo is bleeding out and it’s from so many places that Kirishima can’t begin to know how to stop it.
Bakugo is an engaging listener, laughing at all the right parts and putting in jabs that make Kirishima laugh just along with him. There’s a certain glint in his red eyes when Kirishima laughs, almost like he’s proud of himself for it.
Kirishima is mid-story, specifically of when Kaminari had sticker bombed the dash of his car, when Bakugo started crying. Kirishima hadn’t mentioned the silent tears running down his face before, but now, he was wailing.
“Off- get it off-!” He was screaming, shrugging his shoulder up to his face. There was blood streaming down his forehead, starting to drip in front of his eyes, dangerously close to going past his eyelashes. Kirishima pulls his hand away for the first time, wiping the stream away before pulling his shirt off, wiping the blood away completely, holding the ruined shirt in his other hand for when it needs to be wiped away again.
Their fingers are interlocked again, but Bakugo barely holds back. Sirens are distant. The blood is quickly drying to Kirishima’s hand, and Bakugo looks scared.
“Do you think... I-” Bakugo is choking on his own tears, and Kirishima can feel the ball in his throat growing larger. “I’m... not kind, but I wasn’t ever evil... will I... make it to heaven?” He asks, voice quivering.
“You’re going to live.” His voice cracks and he knows now that neither of them believe it, he knows that they both see how the puddle of blood is growing wider. “Bakugo- you have to live.”
“I’m tired, Kirishima.”
“Bakugo, stay awake- Katsuki-!” He’s squeezing his hand hard as Bakugo’s eyes flutter open and shut, as tears stream down his face and mix in with blood. He reaches out and holds Bakugo’s face, shoulders shaking as he sobs, “Please don’t die- don’t- the-” He breaks off into cries that even he can’t understand. Bakugo seems to be awake, though, so maybe it was worth it.
“Eijiro... please don’t cry.” He whispers. “You don’t know me, you won’t miss me. I’m... not worth crying over.” He looks down at Kirishima’s chest. “I had this coming to me. I’m... not kind.”
“Shut up with that-!” He shouts, and Bakugo looks startled. “You’re worth crying over- fuck you, I’ll cry!” He shouts, “I’ll miss you because I like how you listened to my stories, and I like your jabs and I like how your laugh sounds!” He shouts at him, leaning closer to his bloodied face. “Fuck, Katsuki- I would’ve loved to be friends with you, so shut up with that bullshit about not being worth it and just fucking stay awake.” All they can hear in the quiet night is Kirishima’s ragged breathing, barely masking Bakugo’s short breaths.
“I like the color of your hair,” Katsuki whispers. “That’s all, you know? I don’t know what else to say, but it’s all I’ve been thinking. You came up to me and- and the second thing that I thought of was how I liked how your hair and eyes matched.” Kirishima’s tears make up so little of the puddle below them in comparison to the coppery liquid surrounding them, but they stream in such amounts that they could’ve made a puddle of their own. “Can you sing?”
“Not- not really,” He whispers, suddenly cursing himself for not taking lessons when he was younger. “I sound bad.” Katsuki smiles, softly for the first time.
“Show me anyway. You know, I’ll close my eyes if you’d like.”
“No, no.” He whispers, “Keep them open.”
Kirishima’s voice is weak and it breaks, he is weak and he breaks. He cries while he sings, but Bakugo smiles anyway. He can feel how his grip is growing weaker, can see how his eyes keep drooping.
“You know,” He chuckles, “This was the weirdest before-death conversation I’ve ever had.” He laughs now, full and unabashedly. “It’s nothing like the movies. This was... happy.”
“Happy.” Kirishima echoes. Bakugo’s thumb runs back and forth over Kirishima’s, and for a moment, that is all that he can feel. He can see in his eyes, hear in his voice, that Bakugo is really starting to slip. The sirens are getting closer, though- he just... has to make it. Right? There’s no way that they can only have this little time together before Bakugo is pulled away from him forever.
Bakugo looks at the red puddle below him, up to Kirishima’s hair, and finally landing on Eijiro’s eyes.
“I’m glad,” Bakugo whispers, “That I got to see one more good red before I died.”
He squeezes Kirishima’s hand.
Kirishima squeezes back.
The night is quiet, and Kirishima hums to keep himself from hearing the last of Bakugo’s final, weak, breaths. He rubs his thumb over the back of Katsuki’s in his final moments, just like he’d done for him earlier. He hums to keep himself from screaming, though silent tears pour from his eyes. Just a few more seconds he has to stay strong, has to be strong for Katsuki.
Their hands are still interlocked, the blood dried on his skin, and Bakugo’s hand is completely limp. Kirishima reaches out to close his eyes, looks down at his ruined t-shirt and anywhere but Bakugo’s body. The warm blood and his hand are cold now. The distant sirens are growing closer, Kirishima can see the red and blue lights on the tree’s leaves. His hands are so, so cold.
He knows what it means, this time.
-
Even weeks later, sobbing on his couch, he doesn’t regret it.
He doesn’t regret pulling over.
He’s glad that Bakugo didn’t die alone.
They knew each other for a total of fourteen minutes, according to the GPS on his shitbox car with the scratchy smiley face and the coffee stain on the rug. He didn’t believe it at first, but the responders time confirmed it.
Sometimes, if he closes his eyes really tight, when everything is quiet and dark and the stars shine just a little bit brighter, he can feel the weight of his hand.
No, he doesn’t regret it at all.