Fuselage

×~× Chapter 33 ×~×

The sun was weak. Fuck it was cold as balls. The airport was just as dead as always... But still Ground Zero felt like home. Everything was exactly how it should have been. Technically, anyway.

And yet for every second Katsuki spent checking the dials and propellers and gauges and belts and wheels... He felt like a foreign body. As Katsuki pulled his helmet on there shouldn't have been a helmet left hanging on a hook. Climbing into the cockpit, there should have been a body behind him. There should have been a deep voice on the mic. There shouldn't have been an empty hangar beside the table. The dogs should have been tired from wrestling with a massive idiot. The sky should have been a heavy dark blue.

Not the sad bright grey, pregnant with the promise of more snowfall. Not dark on the horizon with the threat of plummeting temperatures.

Katsuki sighed, letting the vibration of the engine comfort him. No matter what he'd gone through; Ground Zero had gotten him past it before... he would again...

Right?

Katsuki couldn't settle the unease in his stomach. Grip on the joystick loosening, eyes closed. Breath easing out too hot, chest too tight for a proper inhale.

Eijirou beneath him with that awkward grin.

"In my mouth with your mouth?"

Katsuki's eyes snapped open, hands recoiled. "I-I..." chest rising and falling in panic. Short, stuttering coughs that burned deep in his lungs. "In, in, out." He fell over his lap, tears welling. Fingers snagging in hair. Each blink burning against too dry eyes.

The cockpit felt too small. Katsuki couldn't breathe, couldn't see. Couldn't swallow. The onslaught was vicious; sudden.

Everything he'd been fighting falling around him at once like an avalanche. The taste of carnival apples, the way the water felt slicing sound their tangled bodies, Kirishima's wet hair as it was being dyed, the weight of them against a stone wall at the back of a shrine, fingers sliding up his thigh as soft eyes and a deep voice begged to confess.

"Why?" Katsuki moaned, voiced echoed tinny in the cockpit. "Why?"

"You've brought us straight to heaven!"

"Fuck." Katsuki's stomach heaved as blurred eyes struggled to assist clumsy fingers. "I'm gunna-" A cold sweat cling to his hairline as his stomach clenched and gurgled, as something heavy and thick forced its way up his esophagus. Lodged there. Coughing again; deeper, guttural.

Motor died. Belt fell away.

Again Katsuki fell from the plane, to the ground, racing to the trash can; vomiting, shuddering. Too cold, too hot.

Crying. Emptying his stomach.

His mind.

Numb he moved to the fridge, grabbed a beer. Used the counter to pop it open. Shivered.

Eijir- Kirishima had taught him that trick.

Fuck. Katsuki sat heavily.

Aki whined, curled around his legs. Sakura stayed away. That was fine. Katsuki couldn't find the strength to move to call her over. He was so tired and so cold. He took a drink. The alcohol warmed his chest from the inside.

That was nice. He was too tired to fight the rationale that told him drinking while sick was stupid.

When Mina found him he hadn't moved from the table, staring at the fridge, beer in hand half drunk. Warm. Aki by his side. Sakura quickly joining at the sight of her Momma.