𝔄𝔫 ℑ𝔫𝔣𝔦𝔫𝔦𝔱𝔶 𝔄𝔴𝔞𝔶 | Katsuki Bakugo x OC

Chapter 61 - Twisted Patterns Everywhere

Considering how often Hina gets nightmares, she should've been used to it by now.

It only gets worse. Dabi's remembrances never haunt her dreams anymore. It was almost always Katsuki's likeness that was doing so.

Not Katsuki in imagery but the visual of seeing him die. Seeing him beg to not touch her, him breaking and losing himself when Hina was hurt. That was what tormented her in her sleep.

She'd hear his voice scream in agony. Not from any physical pain but from holding her corpse. She'd feel his body lose its warmth and see him wither into hopelessness.

But the worst ones were when she'd be forced to watch him grow cold and angry. He'd stand up, his eyes hidden by his bangs and an explosion would rock the room they were in. The stench of red death would fill up her nose; the villains became a pile of corpses beside Hina's dead form.

Her Katsuki would be gone. Scars littered his arms and face. One eye glassed-over gray in his rage, the other still the brilliant and passionate crimson she knew.

His hand was outstretched and faced her, an explosion rippling through the inky darkness between them.

It was enough to have her scream through her nightmares and outside her dreams. It was enough to have the real Katsuki wake up and soothe her, scent her, hold her.

She knew her nightmares were just twisted half-lies brewed in her mind, convoluting her reality. She knew Katsuki wouldn't resort to murder; even if she died in his arms. However, the hard truth of it all was that she could never guarantee it would never happen. That the villains would never use her to get to him, to hurt him.

Maybe one day that agonizing scream will become a reality. His begging and his soul-wrenching sobs too.

Maybe.

She's cocooned in his arms, her face pushed into his chest as she sobbed. She sobbed from the misery in the dream. She sobbed from all the maybes flitting in her mind.

She finally understood why he hated her "maybes" so much. Imagining all those depressive possibilities was exhausting her, draining her into a hollow husk of who she was. Her fingers dug into the back of his muscle tank, grasping at the cotton desperately, and pulling it as she squeezed him tighter.

The thought of bringing him such pain—of being responsible for his pain—was shattering her inside. Little glass pieces cut her heart and pierced her soul. The only way to keep him safe would be to let him go. The only way to keep him safe was for her to disappear.

That thought also broke her. She wasn't strong enough to leave him, wasn't a self-sacrificing idiot as Katsuki said Izuku was. She couldn't live without him. Not yet.

Her scent had gone the most bitter it had ever been. Katsuki was rattled from it, his own despair pulling through the link as she pushed more of her dark miseries in it. With a kiss on the crown of her head and a hand tangled in her hair, he poured out his comfort in all the ways he could. He did it through his embrace, through his scent—warming it with sweet caramel and nodes of smokey sandalwood—through the soft rumble in his chest.

When her scent didn't change and her grip only got stronger, he whispered reassurances in her ear.

I've got you. You're safe. Just breathe. No one's here except me. You have me. Just breathe.

When that didn't work, he brought his wrist against her nape, pressing it harder, letting the oils mingle into a semblance of harmony.

It barely worked. Her whimpers receded, her breathing leveled, and her eyes opened bleary.