"Be Still, Just for Me" {Bakugo x Reader}

Day 33

First of all, I whooooooly fuckin apologize for the uh two month delay in this chapter. My life kind of went to shit for a while and writing this chapter was extremely difficult. But here we are, there are probably spelling errors and there's no moodboard, but a flawed chapter is better than no chapter at all <3 thanks for sticking around

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The nightmares weren't what plagued him with the moon far overhead, glinting down atop your apartment building. Nightmares he could deal with, would welcome, even, under the circumstances. Familiar in some sickening way, a villain he could counter. Instead, Katsuki drifted in and out of restless sleep for hours, hyper-aware of the canyon-wide space between you and himself that he created. The mattress was eerily cold in the middle like a ghost settling, creeping on the back of his neck, haunting him with everything he was trying to rid himself of.

Love.

No, it definitely wasn't. Couldn't be. He refused to accept such a cruel reality.

Instead, he slogged through the night in slow mental exhaustion, closing his eyes for a moment only to hear your shift behind him and force him awake for another half hour before he tried again. It went on like this, without dreams or nightmares, for the entire night until he resigned himself to giving up when your room finally began to fill with early morning sunshine.

Normally, he'd savor that feeling, welcome it because it meant you were there to... wake up next to...

I fucking hate this. Exhaustion did nothing for him except exacerbate his stress, anxiety, and what he knew would be a general bad attitude throughout the day. But he still sat up, bed creaking under him guiltily as he refused to look over his shoulder where he knew you were sleeping. Maybe you slept terribly, too. It'd be his fault after all. He hated that, too.

While he quietly opened your bedroom door and slid into the living room, you felt every shift of the bed and heard his cotton-soft footsteps as you curled in on yourself like someone abandoned in the cold.

He was achingly familiar with your apartment by now, intimately aware of the furniture placement, where everything lived in the kitchen, which shelf you kept the bathroom towels on. Since everything in your place was packed tighter than in his own back home, his toes had suffered for the first couple of days as he cut the corners a bit too sharply. Since then, however? An argument could be made that he'd have to remember where his glasses and plates were all over again, mistaking them for your own.

Exhaustion from such an awful night's sleep crept over him as he walked around the couch before pausing in the middle of the room. What... was he supposed to do now? Being tired would just make his attitude worse, would drive the ache down deeper. Today was day... thirty-three, right? Had it really been over a month? That sobering thought sent the frown lines along his face sinking towards the carpet.

Katsuki glanced towards the couch and sighed while running a tired hand through his limp and messy hair. The large stuffed animal he'd won you sat almost mockingly on the cushion; it made him wince. The couch wasn't supposed to be his bed ever again, not after you'd formally invited him to your room to share the last bit of personal space you had with him, but he refused to go back. Couldn't go back to your bed. Not anymore.

So, knowing he would either sit up with his self-inflicted misery or attempt to make breakfast when the thought of food made him grimace despite having eaten no dinner, Katsuki moved the stuffed animal to the floor and laid down on the couch with a tired groan and stared up at the ceiling. It wasn't warm or nearly as comfortable as your bed, but he needed to try and regain a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. If he was asleep, you couldn't talk to him, guilt him, plead with him to reveal what was wrong.