Chapter Text
The cell door was a heavy thing, made of iron bars nearly as thick as his wrist. Katsuki hauled it open with barely a grunt of effort, and his heart wrenched painfully in his chest as he saw the figure inside move. Not human, not dragon, but some painful-looking thing in between. There was no mistaking who it was though, Katsuki knew those eyes, those horns. Horn, now, with one broken off in a mere stump. “It’s okay, Kirishima.” he said, hands up as he stepped into the cell. His dragon was clearly out of it, teeth bared and growling softly, but Katsuki didn’t let that dissuade him.
“It’s gonna be okay.” he said, stepping slowly closer. Raccoon Eyes followed, slinking out to the side as Katsuki held Kirishima’s attention. “We’re gonna go home together.”
Kirishima roared, and lunged dead at him. “Get the chains!” he ordered, and braced himself so Kirishima wouldn’t knock him over. He didn’t have time to brace himself for the pain of human-sized draconic claws biting into his forearm. The scream of pain it wrenched from his throat would’ve been humiliating if he hadn’t seen their combat teacher make his husband bawl like a baby in a spar.
Kirishima dragged him closer by the claws in his arm, and Katsuki howled as his dragon clawed deep enough to scrape one bone, then the other. The sound that left Kirishima’s throat was dark and awful, and wrenched at Katsuki’s heart. Raccoon Eyes sidled around behind Kirishima, and Katsuki swallowed the instinct to lash out. If he lashed out, Kirishima would repond in kind. Would make it harder for Raccoon Eyes to get the chains off him so they could all go home. So Katsuki forced his magic to stay under his skin, and lifted his free hand to grip Kirishima’s remaining horn. Kirishima tried to snap at his hand, and Katsuki hated that he was grateful for the muzzle biting into his dragon’s face.
“Fuck, I don’t- are you even hearing me, Red?” he asked, straining to get the words out without any further screams of pain. “You don’t even have any hair to replace your brains, right now.”
Raccoon Eyes was more or less in position, and Katsuki’s arm fucking hurt. “Come on, Kirishima.” he murmured, dropping his voice as he drifted his hand down the back of Kirishima’s head, fingers finding and wrapping around the mechanism holding the muzzle in place. “Let’s go home.” he surged magic out of his palm, reducing the lock to so much slag and singing at least one strap clean off it.
Raccoon Eyes took the explosion for the cue it was and fired her acid at the ankle cuffs, as well as square at Kirishima’s back, presumably to deal with the harness binding his wings. Kirishima’s hands flew up to claw at his face, gouging new wounds as he scrambled to peel the muzzle from his head. Katsuki exploded the latch on the cuffs around Kirishima’s wrists, now that they were nowhere near his own bleeding arm, and ducked out of the way as Kirishima flung the muzzle and cuffs both across the shitty cell. The rest of the restraints slithered to the floor a moment later, and Katsuki yelped as Kirishima fucking fainted. At least he snapped back to human as he collapsed, not dragon, or Katsuki would’ve been smushed trying to catch him.
“Fuck!” he yelped, staggering under the weight of a fully unconscious dragon shifter. Holy hell, what did Kirishima eat, rocks? “You weigh a fucking ton.” he grunted, hauling Kirishima just far enough away from the cuffs and chains to be sure he couldn’t brush them by accident.
“Is he alright?”
“Does he fucking look alright, Raccoon Eyes?” he snapped, tugging Kirishima closer against his chest, his good arm tight enough to feel Kirishima’s heartbeat against his skin. “Grab that waterskin.” he jerked his head towards the door, then turned his attention back to Kirishima. His arm barely hurt anymore, the wards on his skin glinting even through the coating of blood, and he did his best to put it out of mind.
“Hey, Kirishima.” Katsuki shook his friend gently, then a little harder, choking back nausea as moving Kirishima jostled his wounded arm. “Kirishima, wake up!”
The dragon shifter in his arms groaned, but didn’t move. “Here.” Raccoon Eyes held the waterskin out towards him. “Give him this.”
“My hands are a bit full, Pinky.” he snapped, shifting his hold to support Kirishima’s head upright. “You’re holding it already.”
She shuffled closer on her knees, and dribbled a tiny stream of water into Kirishima’s slack mouth. It trickled back out, and Katsuki swore viciously. They were running out of time! The extras outside were raising hell, but that would only work for so long. “We could carry him?” Raccoon Eyes suggested, and Katsuki shook his head.
“Too heavy. We’d be wide open to any two bit nobody with a spear, getting him up onto the birdbrain's back.” he tightened his arm around Kirishima’s chest, and wracked his brain for what little relevant knowledge the old bat back at camp had managed to beat into his head. Nullification magic was bad for shifters, and Kirishima had been held with it for, fuck, a week? He’d be running totally empty, and shifters were more reliant on their magic than the rest of them. “He needs magic.” he said, and prayed he was right.
“We don’t exactly have one of Shuzenji’s potions with us!” Raccoon Eyes exclaimed.
“There’s another way, isn’t there?” Katsuki could almost remember it, something about blood?
“Well, yeah, but neither of us is a dragon!” Raccoon Eyes said, strangling the neck of the waterskin in her hands, the leather paling under her touch. “It has to be the same type of magic, or he’ll just get worse.”
“He’s a fire dragon.” Katsuki said, finally recalling the details. “I’ve got fire magic.” he looked at his fucked up arm, then at Kirishima’s slack mouth. Holding his arm up to his dragon’s lips wouldn’t work, and he’d need both arms to hold him up for this anyways. “Go tell the others to have Birdbrain ready to land as close to the door as possible.”
Raccoon Eyes looked like she wanted to argue, but thankfully she didn’t, and as soon as they were alone Katsuki brought his bleeding arm up to his mouth. He’d tasted blood plenty of times before, usually his own after getting hit in the face or eating dirt trying out a cool new trick. Having his mouth full of it was something new though, ashy and metallic and overwhelming. He held Kirishima upright against him with one arm, tilted his head with the other hand, and sealed their lips together.
His blood flowed readily into Kirishima’s mouth, fire-hot and practically sparking with magic. It was a long, heart-pounding moment before Kirishima swallowed. Katsuki pulled away, blinking back the hot pricks at the corners of his eyes as he gasped a breath, and already lifting his injured arm for another mouthful when Kirishima moved.
In a single fluid motion he twisted free of Katsuki’s hold, pinned him bodily to the filthy stone floor, and crashed their mouths back together with a growl that was far more dragon than human. Katsuki wasn’t entirely sure what noise he made as Kirishima bit his lower lip hard enough it bled, but he would deny to his dying day that he moaned when Kirishima sealed their lips together again, licking into his mouth like he wanted to lap up every last drop of blood clinging to Katsuki’s tongue, to the insides of his cheeks. His head was spinning by the time Kirishima pulled back enough to let him breathe, and Katsuki opened his eyes- when had he closed them? When had he wrapped his arms around Kirishima like he wanted to keep him close enough to kiss again?- to see his dragon’s gaze was dark, inhuman.
Dragon eyes stared out from Kirishima’s human face, the pupils blown so wide only the barest ring of red was visible at the corners. “Feeling better?” he asked, almost startling himself with how low and rough his voice came out.
“Bakugo?” Kirishima blinked, and his eyes were back to human, wide and confused. “Wha-” he swayed, even on all fours, and Katsuki hurried to sit up and brace him.
“It’s okay.” he said quickly, grabbing the waterskin from where Raccoon Eyes had dropped it. “It’s okay, Kirishima, I’ve got you.” he wrapped his good arm around his dragon, and pressed the waterskin into Kirishima’s hands. “Drink this.”
Kirishima’s hands shook, but he managed at least a few good gulps of water before something distracted him, and his eyes inevitably landed on Katsuki’s still-bleeding wound. “Bakugo, your arm.” he choked out, lifting a hand towards the injury, then stopping and staring at the blood which coated his palm. “What-” his eyes flicked up to meet Katsuki’s, wide and terrified and Katsuki wanted to hurt anyone who made Kirishima look like that. “Bakugo, did I-”
“It doesn’t matter.” Katsuki said, doing his best to channel Aizawa's no-arguing tone.
“It does.” Kirishima whined, a sound Katsuki hadn’t heard since they were dumb little kids on the road together. It tore at some uncomfortably soft, vulnerable thing in his chest that he didn’t dare name. Katsuki would turn the world to cinders, if that was what it took to make sure Kirishima never had to make that sound again.
“Oi, stop that.” he snapped, grabbing Kirishima by the horn, snapping him out of his own head. “We need to leave. Can you walk?”
“I- probably?” Kirishima answered, hesitant and unsure. Well, that was what Katsuki was here for. Katsuki’s head spun a little, as he helped Kirishima stand with an arm around his back, but leaning into his dragon’s side steadied both of them. And if Katsuki ran his tongue over his lips, chasing the taste Kirishima had left there... well, that was nobody's business but his own.