THE EXCORS|| TodoBakuDeku au

THE EXCORS 016--A series of bonds, broken and building alike

What happened?

It should have been an easy question to answer, really. But there was too much going on inside of his head to properly answer it. Too many thoughts. So little time.       

Of course, it didn't help that the effects of the mushrooms were beginning to govern nearly every synapse in Katsuki's body. It came to a point where even his thoughts were beginning to sway―shifting from panic and anxiety-induced to hazy and delusional. 

What happened?

No amount of explaining could justify―in Katsuki's reasonable fucking opinion―what happened. His mother, his own flesh and blood, kidnapped him, tortured him, and had the audacity to blame him for everything. How does one return from that? How does one sit there, straight-faced, and explain the ordeal he had gone through? 

Some part of him, the small boy cowering in the corner of his darkest thoughts, wanted to lash out at them. All of them. It was unwarranted and petulant, he knew this thus being the reason why he ignored those thoughts. But it didn't stop them from resurfacing from time to time. Maybe it was because he was tired―tired of being so strong, so fearless, so brave in the face of his people.

This being the reason why he didn't want to become Ductor in the first place. 

Of course, he didn't blame Shoto―no matter how hard the petulant child within him wanted to, he didn't. Because Shoto couldn't have predicted what would have happened after that fateful day in the forest when they Fated, he couldn't have known the deathly aftermath, the impact, it would have on the three tribes. It was nowhere near what they expected.

So, in the heat of the moment, he stepped up to stand beside his lover, fight alongside him, lead alongside him. 

But now he was here, battered, bruised, and broken. His well-kept façade spilling at the seams, leaking with every lie, every fake smile, every determined speech he had ever given. Katsuki was fucking breaking.

And they wanted him to talk about it?

To relive it?

All for the sake of knowing information?

Katsuki sighed at his own thoughts, shaking his head as he fought back traitorous tears. He wouldn't cry. He would look weak. He needed to get his emotions in check, no fear. This was important―Katsuki knew Shoto wouldn't have asked unless he thought otherwise.

"Kat, if you want to stop we can―"

"No," Katsuki cut in, voice hoarse and raw. "This is important, it can't wait."

Shoto's gaze softened, something that didn't happen often, especially in front of his comrades. "Okay . . . Take your time,"

With his eyes slipping close, enveloping his senses in the darkness that followed, Katsuki thought. Long and hard. Remembering every breathy chuckle of a vengeance-governed guard taking their anger out on him to his mother's betrayed and hurt expression when she laid eyes on him for the first time in years. There had been some instanced where he had blacked out, opening his eyes for only minutes at a time from fatigue.

"Try and remember everything," Soiren urged, his voice slightly demanding in the way that made Katsuki want to throw him into the river. Injuries be damned.

Nevertheless, he did just that.

"Cold," Katsuki muttered, "Something cold kept swiping across my wounds . . . Not a rag, she wouldn't do that . . . It was glass―a-a tube! A small, glass, tube,"

He opened his eyes, at that. 

During that time, he had just woken up from one of his periods of unconsciousness, all he knew was that whatever his mother was doing it sounded important. She kept ordering him to hold still, snapping at the guards in the refined and final voice she only ever used on Katsuki and his siblings. It had been important, he just didn't know why.