The lost continent

Chapter 16

He’s shaking. Deku is grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and pulling him forward. The cobbled ground rumbles beneath his bare feet, rubble digging into his soles, tearing at his skin. He almost stumbles, weak. His head swims with thoughts of freedom! escape! run faster, faster, - no energy, no strength- he ducks his head at the gunshots, the sound rattling his brain.

And he turns, when the weight against his arm falls away.

He doesn’t understand.

Why is Deku on the ground?

Red blooms across his pale shirt like a flower, spreading its petals until they spill over his frame. Bakugou leans down quick, slamming his knees into the hard ground, shaking him.

“Idiot!” Bakugou screams. He’s limp.

No, more than that, he’s lifeless.

B akugou hears the shouts of the soldiers from the prison grow nearer- they’re already within shooting range.

"Fuck!” Bakugou yells. “No! Fuck!”

He stands and he hates himself, he hates, he hates, he hates, and he runs. He runs, and-

He’s shaking. Deku is grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and pulling him forward.

Yet- Bakugou’s vision grows hazy, and Deku is on the ground again- but, it’s not Deku.

Bakugou screams- “Kirishima! Kirishima!”

He’s not dead, but he’s bleeding, blood deep red, much darker than his hair. Bakugou shakes him, and Kirishima speaks, voice broken-

“Katsuki… how could you?”

“Wh-”

Bakugou doesn’t understand.

He reaches out to hold Kirishima’s face, but his hands are covered in blood. It drips thick over his palms and down his wrists, trailing rivers into the sea of tattoos on his arms.

“Why, Captain?” Kirishima asks, and Bakugou screams and grabs his face as his eyes roll back slowly into his head. He holds him up, tries to pull him, but the soldiers are coming, they’re close, he can hear them shouting, shooting-

“-irou. Eij..irou…” Bakugou pants as he sits upright, finally breaking free of the weight of the dream forcing his eyelids closed. He blinks rapidly in and out of the hallucination, staring at his hands, clenching them and unclenching, feeling their dryness, taking in their lack of blood. He takes a quick breath, filling his lungs with air. The smell of the sea isn’t as fresh at the docks, but it still clears his head.

Bakugou runs a hand over his face, only to realize he’s been crying. He curses under his breath at his still-shaking hands.

He looks to Kirishima, hoping he didn’t wake him with his shitty nightmares. He feels like a child, waking up screaming from a mere bad dream. He’s sleeping soundly, no doubt knocked out cold from the beer and the fucking. He sleeps with his mouth open, snoring lightly.

Bakugou frowns. He thinks about waking him- Kirishima prompted him before to talk about his dreams. About his past. Bakugou hates that he let himself open up to this idiot...He hates that he let himself fall for him.

Bakugou sniffs, annoyed. Fuck that. Fucking having… comrades, was bad enough.

He looks back down to Kirishima, furs half over his body, one leg tucked over, one beneath. He frowns deeper. He knows the reality of the world they live in. You can’t save everyone, so you may as well save yourself… but what sticks more with Bakugou, is that he’s already failed. He’s already lost Might...Deku… what if Kirishima was next? And he went and let himself get all goddamn fucking attached to the noble.

Kirishima hums in his sleep, and shuffles in until he’s pressing against Bakugou’s side. He smiles in his sleep.

Bakugou almost snorts. He’s such an idiot.

He doesn’t understand why the fuck he’s still here. Bakugou treated him like less than dirt. And he just took his new life and worked with it. He learned to fight, and swim (badly)... He learned the sails, the masts, the ship, and Bakugou’s heart.

Bakugou reaches out his hand to brush Kirishima’s hair from his face, but a flash of dreamlike memory assaults his vision, and he thinks of his hand, covered in blood. Kirishima asked him why? Bakugou can only assume the blood on his hands is Kirishima’s.

Why indeed?

He was used to losing what he cared for, helpless to the fate of the world. Was he helpless, too, to his own actions? Would he be his own undoing?