𝓝𝓸𝓽 𝓗𝓸𝔀 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂 𝓖𝓸𝓮𝓼 | Katsuki Bakugou x Male reader

Chapter 9

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Someone gave (M/N)'s shoulder a shake and he sat up. He had fallen asleep with his face on the table. The white cloth had left creases on his good cheek. The other, the one that took the lash from the whip, throbbed painfully. Shoto was dead to the world, but his fingers were locked around (M/N)'s. (M/N) smelled fresh bread and turned his stiff neck to find Katsuki looking down at him with a neutral expression, though there was clear pain hidden in his eyes. (M/N) got the sense he had been watching them for a while.

"Go to bed, (M/N). I'll watch him now," he said.

"Katsuki. About what I said yesterday, about running-" (M/N) began.

"I know," he said. "There's nothing to explain."

(M/N) saw the loaves of bread on the counter in the pale, snowy morning light. The shadows under Katsuki's eyes. (M/N) wondered if he slept at all. Couldn't have been long. He thought of Katsuki agreeing to go with him yesterday, Katsuki stepping up beside him to protect Shoto, Katsuki's willingness to throw his lot in with (M/N)'s entirely when he gave the blonde so little in return. No matter what (M/N) does, he always hurts someone. "Katsuki-"

"Just go to bed, ok?" Katsuki said.

(M/N) felt his way up the stairs, crawled under the covers, and fell asleep almost immediately. At some point, Toga, the girl from District 1, entered his dreams. She chased him, pinned him to the ground, and pulled out a knife to cut his face. It dug deeply into his cheek, opening a wide gash. Then Toga began to transform, her face elongating into a snout, fur spouting from her skin, her fingernails growing into long claws, but her eyes remained unchanged. She became the mutation form of herself, the wolflike creation of the Capitol that terrorised him the last night in the arena. Toga began to lap the blood flowing from his wound, each lick sending a new wave of pain through his face. (M/N) woke with a start, sweating and shivering at the same time. Cradling his damaged cheek in his hand, (M/N) reminded himself that it was not Toga but the Head Peacekeeper who gave him that wound.

(M/N) sighed, wishing Katsuki was there to hold him, until he remembered he wasn't supposed to wish that anymore. He had chosen Shoto and the rebellion, and a future with Katsuki was the Capitol's design, not his.

The swelling around (M/N)'s eye had gone down and he could open it a bit. He pushed aside the curtains and saw the snowstorm had strengthened to a full-out blizzard. There was nothing but whiteness and the howling wind that sounded remarkably like the mutations.

(M/N) welcomed the blizzard, with its ferocious winds and deep, drifting snow. It may have been enough to keep the real wolves, also known as Peacekeepers, from his door. A few days to think. To work out a plan. With Shoto, Katsuki and Shota all at hand. The blizzard was a gift.

Before he went down to face this new life, though, he took some time making himself acknowledge what it would mean. Less than a day ago, he was prepared to head into the wilderness with his loved ones in midwinter, with the very real possibility of the Capitol pursuing them. A precarious venture at best. But now he was committing to something even more risky. Fighting the Capitol assures their swift retaliation. (M/N) had to accept that at any moment he could be arrested. There would be a knock on the door, like the one last night, a band of Peacekeepers to haul him away. There might be torture. Mutilation. A bullet through his skull in the town square, if he was fortunate enough to go that quickly.

The Capitol had no end of creative ways to kill people. (M/N) imagined those things and he was terrified, but they'd been lurking in the back of his mind anyway. He had been a tribute in the Games. Been threatened by the president. Taken a lash across his face. He was already a target.