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Day 1, 2, 3, 7 13, 15-Bakugou "doesn't get sick"

Trying another whumptober whoo hoo! I got a new job, a great one for the first time in my life lol, and I've got a lot of time to be able to sit down and just write. So I'm gonna try my hardest to finish this whumptober, I've been writing as much as I physically can haha

prompts- swooning, thermometer/delurium, "make it stop", "can you hear me", cold compress, "I'm fine"- fever, passing out, sick Katsuki, todobaku pre, shower scene ;)

Feel free to find this on AO3- https://archiveofourown.org/works/50196034/chapters/126773227

This is a long one, so I'm gonna put it under a cut.

Katsuki had been hot and sweaty all day, which is normally something he encouraged for his quirk to work at its highest potential, but today it just felt wrong. He wasn’t sure why, he always took very good care of his body, but something just wasn’t adding up. It was spring, and the weather was supposed to be very nice, but it felt like he couldn’t cool off no matter what he did. He felt like the sun was projecting pure heat through the window as he sat uncomfortably in class, trying his best to pay attention through one of the worst headaches he’d ever had in his life.

To make matters worse, Katsuki had been assigned fucking Todoroki as a partner for an upcoming hero research paper. He hated group work in the first place, but assigning him goddamn Todoroki (even if Aizawa claimed it was random, he never believed that bullshit, Aizawa lied to them all the time) was just adding insult to injury at this point. But he never shirked from his academic responsibilities, he was going to graduate top of his class, so he still had to actually try on this stupid assignment even though he didn’t want to work with the half-n-half bastard. His headache would just have to wait. The sooner they were done, the less he had to talk to IcyHot.

“We’re finishing this as fast as we fucking can,” Katsuki had hissed at Todoroki, who only stared back blankly. Bastard. “I don’t care if you have plans tonight, I’m coming over to your fucking room and we’re finishing this tonight.”

“Aizawa distinctly said we should not do this in one night.” God, even his voice irritated Katsuki. Everything about the bastard irritated Katsuki, from his stupid hair to his stupid muscles to his stupid blank face that never showed any thought Katsuki could pick up on. Kaminari had teased him over ‘how obsessed you are over Todoroki’ and how it ‘sounds like you liiiike him’ but he shut up when Katsuki pushed him off his chair.

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “He was talking to the idiots who wait until the last minute to do the work.”

Like the idiots he couldn’t help but call friends because… well, he didn’t know what else to call them. They wouldn’t leave him alone, always forced him to participate in their activities, and every time he tried to leave the group chat they’d set up, he’d just be added right back in and chastised lightly as if he’d just made a small mistake. It had been hard to admit, but sometimes, only sometimes, Katsuki enjoyed their company, and even had fun once or twice. He would never admit to it, especially since he didn’t know how to feel about it, and he refused to be laughed at because he was unsure of these new feelings.

“I suppose we’ll find out when we attempt the assignment.” Todoroki said, which only infuriated Katsuki more, which caused his headache to spike. He wanted to argue some more, but having done it in the past proved its inefficiency. Todoroki never fucking reacted to anything he did, even when he was purposefully antagonizing the bastard just to see him make some kind of facial expression.

“Whatever. I’m coming over right after dinner,” and didn’t that sound disgusting, “so be ready.”

Todoroki nodded, and Katsuki almost felt cheated since Todoroki never reacted to anything he said. He’d seen Todoroki make facial expressions for fucking pathetic Deku, Katsuki was way better than him, why didn’t he get those reactions? Katsuki was ridiculously past good enough to get one of those stupid ass smiles or little puffs of laughter. Katsuki deserved that more than Deku ever would.

Getting through the rest of the day had been difficult, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He just had a headache from dealing with everyone’s bullshit, and the day was a fluke of being too hot, and he just had to get through it. Katsuki was the strongest person in this entire class, he could handle anything. It got easier after school when he took off his uniform and could put on a simple tank and shorts. At dinner, he forced himself to have some congee rather than his normal, nutritionally balanced meal, but the thought of food was so unappealing that forcing himself to cook and eat his routine foods almost outweighed his knowledge that he had to eat dinner in the first place.

When he went to put the half he couldn’t finish in the fridge, Kirishima was in the kitchen, burning whatever he was trying to make. Usually Katsuki could tell by smell alone, but this time he couldn’t smell anything but it was obviously burning. Even worse, Katsuki knew how to salvage his dinner and he didn’t have a reason not to tell him.

“Your heat is too high. Take it out now and it’ll only be slightly burnt.” Katsuki grumbled, rolling his eyes both at himself and his idiot best friend. He couldn’t believe he was best friends with someone who could barely function like an independent human being.

“Thanks, bro!” Katsuki had given up on Kirishima calling him ‘bro’, it seemed to be a core aspect of the redhead’s personality. The chipper smile directed at him as Kirishima did as he said kinda made up for it. Making his friends happy wasn’t the worst thing he’s ever done. “Are you done already? Usually you’re in here cooking up a storm, I was surprised not to see you.”

Kirishima then saw the congee in his hands as he put it in his tupperware, and he frowned. “Dude, is that all you had? Aren’t you the one always yelling at us to ‘make better dinners’? Are you okay?”

Katsuki bristled at the question, his pride flaring up in defense. “I have to work with fucking IcyHot on a dumb fucking project I don’t need a partner for, and apparently I can’t have a simple dinner for once without everyone jumping down my throat! The fuck do you think?”

“Okay, okay, sorry, bro.” Kirishima held up his hands in defense. “Just wanted to check in. You haven’t seemed yourself today.”

Katsuki glared at him. “I don’t need you to ‘check in’. Leave me the fuck alone.”

“If you say so, bro.” Kirishima shrugged. “We’re gonna have a smash brothers tournament at Denki’s tonight, you wanna join in?”

“You shits are lucky I can’t destroy you tonight.” Katsuki rolled his eyes. “I’m doing my fucking report, which is what you should be doing. When it’s two nights before it’s due, and you still haven’t done it, don’t come crying to me. I won’t help you.”

He would help them. His friends struggled with schoolwork, and if he was going to be seen with them then they had to live up to his reputation. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do that without his help, and he didn’t like watching his friends struggle and seeing them upset over their grades. That stupid feeling he hated outweighed his annoyance at helping them, so, he didn’t really have a choice if he didn’t want that stupid feeling he got when he saw his friends get upset. He didn’t know how, but somehow his idiots had figured that out, and they still came to him every time, and every time, despite him telling himself that he wouldn’t help them this time, he helped them regardless. They were all the worst and he hated them.

But for now, Katsuki was too busy hating the elevator’s stupidly bright lights to hate his friends anymore. Katsuki leaned against the metal, the coolness of the metal a balm on his overly hot skin. He’d never been so glad that the entirety of Heights Alliance had air conditioning. The day had been way too hot today, Katsuki had always been sensitive to hotter temperatures since he couldn’t cool his body through his sweat like other people did, which is probably why he hadn’t heard anyone else complain about it. But he could take anything, any temperature, any obstacle, because no hero worth their salt would let a thing like a hot day stop them so he refused to let it stop him.

Even though he really didn’t want to be doing this, he’d much prefer to just take a cold shower and go to bed early so the day would finally be over, he still pushed forward and went to Todoroki’s room. He went to just walk in, not like the bastard didn’t know he was coming, but the door was locked. He jiggled the door handle a little violently, clearly seeing the light was on under the door, but it still didn’t open. Katsuki’s eye twitched.

knock. knock.

It was the stiffest knock of his life, but apparently that was enough for Todoroki, who finally opened the door. “You knew I was coming, that was a dick move.”

“So is barging in unannounced.” Todoroki replied, raising an eyebrow. Katsuki’s eye twitched again.

“We should get started since you want to finish tonight.” Todoroki said, and Katsuki just growled, and then just set his stuff down on the tiny ass table Todoroki had. Sometimes, Katsuki had to choose his battles. Most of the time, he chose all battles, but this one he had to let go since he didn’t want his grade to suffer.

“I’m taking this pathetic excuse for a chair since you’re apparently so fine with being on the floor.” Katsuki said, referring to the mat Todoroki slept on. Todoroki didn’t protest, he merely just set the mat next to the thing that couldn’t even be called a desk really since it was too damn small. The room didn’t seem to have much in terms of temperature control, as the elevator had been much cooler. It was probably because Todoroki could regulate his own temperature, so he didn’t need the ac unit to do it for him. That was annoying as fuck.

The headache that Katsuki had been working very hard to ignore was becoming more and more of a problem as they worked. Katsuki could at least appreciate the monotone right now since it was quiet, and he spoke slowly enough that Katsuki could hear him despite the pounding in his head. A hammer was slamming into his head with every beat of his heart, and it just got worse as they kept going, the material not interesting enough to get past the pain. He would’ve given up and gone to sleep if he didn’t have to do this damn paper with Todoroki. The bastard couldn’t keep a secret for his life so in order to keep his reputation, he had to keep going, even through the worst headache he’d had in a long time. But with every beat of the hammer, he was losing his resolve. It was only his drive not to be weak that kept him going.

“Bakugou? Did you hear what I said?” Todoroki said, startling Katsuki a little.

“Of course I did. I was just thinking.” Katsuki snapped, trying to brush it off, ignoring the fact that he actually hadn’t heard what Todoroki had said. He hoped it wasn’t important.

“Thinking.” Todoroki echoed, but it wasn’t a question or a challenge. It was just a statement.

“That’s what I fucking said.”

“Are you alright, Bakugou?” Todoroki asked, and Katsuki could almost hear a touch of concern in the monotone. It pissed him off, though he wasn’t sure exactly why. “You’ve been strangely quiet today.”

“I’m fine.” Katsuki sneered, a violent threat in his voice.

Todoroki pursed his lips at him, but only continued on with what he was saying. Katsuki struggled to keep focusing on it, Todoroki’s voice was soothing in its quiet volume, but he couldn’t process the words the bastard was actually saying.

Dammit. He couldn’t keep doing this. If he actually turned in the report they were working on now, Katsuki would get the worst grade he’d ever gotten in his life, even though he very much understood the topic. His headache was just too bad, and the room had only gotten steadily hotter as they’d worked, and Katsuki couldn’t take it anymore, his reputation be damned. He’d just blame it on Todoroki not properly cooling his room and sweating him out of it.

“I’m done, I’m going to bed.” Katsuki said, gathering up his stuff as quickly as he could. He was a little uncoordinated in his haste, but he blamed it on the heat. “We’ll just do this tomorrow.”

Todoroki didn’t even show his surprise beyond a raised eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to do this in one night.”

“It’s not my fault your room is like a sauna and your voice is like a fucking icepick in my head!” Katsuki snapped, absolutely done with today. The room was so hot he was starting to get a little dizzy, and standing just made his vision swim for a moment. “How the fuck am I supposed to focus on court cases and legalities when the room is a million degrees and you won’t fucking shut up?”

That seemed to actually surprise Shouto, though it still only showed in his eyes. “Bakugou, my room isn’t hot. And I was only talking since you wouldn’t. You’ve barely said anything tonight.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes, and then had to pinch his nose and shut his eyes when the room blurred, playing it off as annoyance. Dammit, he was so fucking hot. “You wouldn’t notice, you have that stupid temperature thing because of your quirk.”

“I turn on the ac when I have guests, Bakugou.” Todoroki said, and Katsuki scoffed. He was sweating far too much for that to be true. He didn’t doubt that Todoroki was lying, but there was no way the ac was actually on right now. The bastard must’ve just set it to the wrong setting, he wouldn’t be the first in their class to struggle with the thermostat, to his perpetual annoyance.

“Bakugou, I may not be an expert, but you do not look well.” Todoroki said, which only infuriated him more. If he was suddenly going to care about Katsuki, the least he could do was fucking show it. Katsuki knew not everyone wore their emotions on their sleeve, but Todoroki never seemed to have any emotion at all, not even when dealing with Katsuki.

“I’m fine.” Katsuki hissed, parroting what he said earlier, with the same vitriol.

“You clearly are not.” Todoroki said firmly. “I can regulate my own temperature, you’re correct, but I can still feel the temperature around me. My room isn’t hot, and you’re sweating like it’s summer. I think you should see Recovery Girl.”

Katsuki growled an incoherent shout. “I don’t need that old bat, there’s nothing wrong with me beyond suffering from dealing with all you idiots. Fuck off!”

Katsuki turned to leave, but his vision swam so quickly that he had to stop mid-step. His hand came to his eyes, trying to steady himself, forcing himself to push through the heat. But before he could get his body to work, his backpack slipped through his fingers as his vision went black.

“-ugou. Bakugou. Bakugou.” Someone was shaking him, insistence in their voice. He groaned lightly, his eyes fluttering, his head pounding even harder than before. He squinted, and Todoroki then came into focus. He was wearing a look Katsuki had never seen before. It looked almost like worry, but Katsuki couldn’t tell.

He groaned again, and then he felt something blissfully cool against his forehead, easing his headache and the unbearable heat he was trapped in. He sighed, his eyes managing to stay open now. He was in Todoroki’s arms, with Todoroki’s right hand pressed against his forehead. He remembered that Todoroki’s right side was cool, and Katsuki wanted to just sink into him.

“Wha- happen?” Katsuki said, the act of speaking a struggle it had never been before.

“You passed out.” Todoroki said, a frown tugging at his lips. “You have a fever. I’m going to take you to Recovery Girl.”

Todoroki began to push them both upwards, but Katsuki shook his head. “No! No. ‘M fine. Just… just need to sleep it off. ‘M fine.”

“You are not fine, Bakugou.” Todoroki groaned, and Katsuki could’ve sworn he heard concern and frustration in Todoroki’s voice. But that was impossible, Katsuki never got emotion from Todoroki, no matter how hard he tried. “You literally just passed out. You’re sick, Bakugou.”

“I don’t get sick.” Katsuki said, and that was completely true. Katsuki got sick so rarely that he couldn’t even remember the last time. “Be fine. Just need sleep. Don’t need help.”

“You can’t stand on your own.” Todoroki said, deadpan. Katsuki frowned at that, and he opened his mouth again, but Todoroki cut him off. “If you say you’re fine one more time, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and drag you to Recovery Girl.”

Katsuki pouted at that, and stayed silent for a moment, knowing Todoroki was just as serious with his threats as he was.

“I don’t get sick.” He repeated. “Just need to sleep this off.”

Todoroki pursed his lips again, clearly torn between what to do, before he sighed, obviously coming to a decision. “Fine. I’ll take you to your room, but only for now. I can’t tell if this is just your pride or if this is actually how your body works. If you get worse, I’m taking you to Recovery Girl no matter what you say.”

Katsuki nodded, and went to get up, pushing himself up on noodly arms. He immediately fell back into Todoroki. Thankfully, Todoroki didn’t comment on his weakness, he just wrapped Katsuki’s arm around his shoulder and pushed them both up. With Todoroki’s support, Katsuki could mostly walk, his feet dragging a little as he couldn’t raise his feet off the ground very high.

The elevator ride down to the fourth floor was silent, almost awkward. Katsuki couldn’t find the strength to say anything, but Todoroki didn’t seem to mind the silence. Right now, he just wanted his bed more than anything in the world.

Their next obstacle was Katsuki’s door, as he always locked it when he wasn’t in his room. He couldn’t remember where he put his keys at first, patting down his pockets. Suddenly a hand reached into his back pocket and he yelped a little at the surprise, his reaction was too slow, but he still hated being startled with touch. Had for a long time. Todoroki then handed him his keys, with a sheepish look on his face. “I saw them in your pocket. Thought I’d save you the trouble.”

Katsuki took the keys and opened his door, using the door handle to keep himself up, trying to keep himself upright on his own. Todoroki went to follow him in and Katsuki growled again.

“No one goes in my room.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Todoroki said, a little snippy, uncaring that he was stepping into Katsuki’s space.

Todoroki turned on the lights, and Katsuki hissed as his headache spiked, unconsciously pressing himself into the nape of Todoroki’s neck. Todoroki immediately turned the light off with a quiet “sorry.” before he started walking again.

Katsuki flopped into bed with all the grace of a newborn giraffe, but his bed was cool (he had special sheets so he wouldn’t overheat as he slept, his parents had designed them for him) and that was all that mattered to him. He rolled onto his side, felt something lift his legs into the bed, and he was out as soon as his head hit the pillow, just barely feeling a cool hand brush his sweaty bangs out of his face.

“- been asleep for a little while… nothing’s changed…”

“- not sure, Todoroki. He really doesn’t get sick that often. I think the last time was over five years ago. Even I don’t really remember.”

He knew that voice. Goddammit, he knew that voice and he went to glare at fucking useless Deku, but he was still squinting in the darkness he’d woken up in, lessening its effect. Todoroki had left the door open a little, the hall lights shining in his room far too brightly for his headache. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, but his mind wasn’t as fuzzy as before. Still way too fucking hot though.

“You got fucking Deku?” Katsuki growled, refusing to admit that it sounded more like a whine.

“I didn’t know anyone else who would know how your body works when it’s sick.” Todoroki said matter-of-factly, coming back over to Katsuki’s bed. He was mostly forgiven when he put his cool hand back on Katsuki’s burning forehead, getting a soft noise Katsuki didn’t even know he made.

“Well, his parents will know, for sure.” Deku said to Todoroki. Katsuki glared harder. “I can call them, figure out where to go from here.”

Todoroki nodded.

Deku then handed Todoroki a rather big box that Katsuki surprisingly recognized. Auntie Inko knew how injured they got in training, especially since Deku wouldn’t fucking stop constantly breaking all of his bones, and had gifted him the same first aid kit that Deku held in his hands. Actually, it really wasn’t a first aid kit but a mini hospital, with so many things Katsuki didn’t know when he’d ever use some of them. (Seriously, Auntie, when was he gonna need a goddamn stethoscope?) He’d only taken it because his mother would’ve been mad if he made Auntie cry, not that he could handle her tears anyways, and, well… secretly he could appreciate the gesture. He never understood why Auntie continued to try and take care of him even though he really wanted nothing to do with her son, but he supposed that’s just how she was. Deku too, but he was way more annoying about it.

“You should take his temperature, if he’ll let you.” Deku said, still talking to Todoroki and not him. “You’ll have a way better chance with him than I will.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” Katsuki shouted, immediately regretting the loudness when he made his own headache worse.

“Sorry, Kacchan.” Katsuki just glared at him, fighting off the wince he’d just given himself. “I- I’ll just go call Uncle Masaru now.”

Deku stepped out of the room, and Todoroki set the kit down onto his nightstand, digging through it with one hand, keeping his right hand on Katsuki’s forehead.

“There are three thermometers in here.” Todoroki stated, seemingly a little overwhelmed by Auntie’s overprotective nature. “And they’re all different.”

Katsuki made a noncommittal noise. Something then pushed gently at his mouth, and he turned his glare to Todoroki.

“I can’t use the other ones, I’ve been cooling you off too much.” Todoroki said, poking him again. “They won’t give accurate results. This is the only one left.”

“I can do it myself.” Katsuki said, trying to move his mouth as little as possible.

Todoroki sighed, definitely sounding frustrated. “Bakugou, will you please just put your damn pride aside for two minutes? I just want to help you. You’re my friend. Let me help you.”

This was the first he’d heard about them being friends, though he supposed he had started paying more attention to Todoroki after their supplemental classes. He hadn’t thought it had been reciprocated though. But even if they were friends now, this was something he couldn’t allow. He wasn’t weak, he didn’t need help, not even Todoroki’s.

Not even if a dark part of him wanted to accept it.

Moving his body was like trying to move through molasses, but he did eventually get his arm out from under the blanket (when did he get a blanket?) and he reached for the thermometer. Todoroki sighed, but gave it to him. This time, the silence was awkward as they waited for the thermometer to beep. He wasn’t sure why this time was so different.

Deku was the one who broke it when he came back in. He still didn’t like anyone in his room, but he didn’t have the strength to blast the fucker out, even if he did have the sweat.

“Uncle said that there’s not much we can do except keep him cool, the illness just has to run its course.” Deku frowned, trying not to talk directly to Todoroki and failing. “And. um. Auntie Mitsuki said, um, not to take any of his, uh, ‘bullshit’. Her words, not mine.”

Todoroki just nodded. Katsuki didn’t know what that meant.

Once the thermometer finally beeped, Todoroki withdrew it without asking permission. Oh, that’s what that meant. Damn hag, and damn Deku. Todoroki took everything too literally, Deku should’ve fucking translated his mother’s stupid words.

“39.27 (102.7)” The monotone was back. Katsuki felt an emotion he didn’t know how to describe, but it wasn’t pleasant. “That’s higher than I was expecting, though unsurprising.”

“Yeah, Uncle said when Kacchan gets sick, he really gets sick.”

Katsuki growled at him again, wanting to yell and blow him up but trying not to be stupid and repeat past mistakes. His head was still throbbing from the earlier shout.

“I-I-I should go, Todoroki.” Deku said, shrinking away from him. “I think I’m just making it worse. He doesn’t want me here.” No. No he didn’t. Especially since he wouldn’t stop talking about him like he wasn’t there in his own fucking room. “Do you want to come with me? I’m sure Kirishima wouldn’t mind looking after him.”

The beat in between Deku’s question and Todoroki’s answer made the emotion he had worse.

“No. I’ll keep him cool for now. It’s no trouble.” Katsuki didn’t know whether that made him happy or annoyed. God, he hated emotions, they were literally the worst. It was so much easier to just be angry all the time.

“Don’t forget to not overuse your quirk, Todoroki. Just let one of us know if you get too cold. We’ll figure something out.”

Todoroki just nodded and Deku very quickly left the room. If Katsuki was more childish like his friends, he would’ve flipped him off as he left. But Deku didn’t deserve what little energy he had, and closing the door until very little light was left was at least the decent thing to do.

“You can leave, IcyHot.” Katsuki grumbled. “I’m-mmph.” Suddenly Todoroki’s cool hand was over his mouth. Katsuki did not like that, he didn’t like anyone touching his face and it had only gotten worse since the-incident-that-shall-not-be-named. He nipped at Todoroki’s hand, and it quickly returned to his forehead, but the message to shut up was loud and clear.

“Stop saying you’re fine.” Todoroki snapped, and Katsuki thought he almost sounded angry. Katsuki didn’t know that Todoroki could even get angry. “Stop lying to me. I don’t care about your stupid pride, and I cannot understand why you won’t let it go for two seconds for your friends. I want to help you but I can’t if you won’t let me. Why won’t you let me? Do you… do you hate me?”

Grand displays of emotion were hard for him. Grand displays of emotion coming from Todoroki were another beast entirely. Katsuki had no idea how to respond to this, and if he wasn’t sick, he wouldn’t have responded to it beyond anger. But right now, with a fever he could no longer deny, his mind didn’t immediately go to the rage he used to shield him from emotions he didn’t like. It just took much energy that he didn’t have, and he hated himself for his weakness.

“No.” Was Katsuki’s response, and it was a lot more awkward than he’d wanted it to be.

“Then why won’t you stop lying to me?” Todoroki said, looking just as uncomfortable as Katsuki was. But apparently, not uncomfortable enough to shut up and let this go. “I thought you respected me, at least a little.”

Shit. Katsuki did not like letting people know when he respected them. They never responded in  a way that Katsuki liked or could handle, either acting all smug about it or like it was obvious that they deserved it. Both reactions drove Katsuki up the wall.

Thinking about this was too hard, even with the soothing coolness Todoroki was projecting. He didn’t do emotions, and everything he was feeling right now just made him even uncomfortable in his skin. He’d take the fever and headache over this any day.

“I didn’t lie to you, I’m fine by myself.” Katsuki said. “I can take care of myself.”

“Except you won’t.” Todoroki snapped again and Katsuki internally cursed at his mother for putting this idea into Todoroki’s stupid head. “Taking care of yourself would’ve been canceling our plans, or going to see Recovery Girl. You refused to do either. That’s not taking care of yourself. You couldn’t even admit to me that you weren’t feeling well after you literally passed out in my arms. You’re lucky I was there to catch you, what if you weren’t with me? What if it happened when you’d stepped into the hall and I hadn’t followed you? You might’ve gotten a concussion or worse. If you don’t hate me, then why can’t you let me care about you?”

Katsuki unconsciously curled a little into himself, his quills puffing up, ready to lash out at any moment. His head hurt, and even with the frosty air Todoroki was creating he was on fire, he just couldn’t deal with this right now. Being sick for the first time in years was already way too much for him, he’d never felt so shitty in his life, and having fucking Todoroki of all people see him this weak made him so uncomfortable he didn’t have a word for it. Katsuki didn’t understand why Todoroki was so upset, and thinking about it hurt his head too much. He didn’t even have an answer for Todoroki. He didn’t have an answer when his friends asked him the same question after they were fed up with his insistence on independence and refusing to accept their help. He’d learned the hard way that sometimes he had to depend on other people, but that hadn’t made it any easier to deal with. So he’d rather just not deal with it at all.

After a fair amount of silence, Todoroki just sighed, sounding resigned. This was the most emotion Katsuki had seen out of Todoroki since he’d met the bastard. Katsuki thought that was very rude, and he should’ve gotten this a lot earlier. Though, he could do without the annoyance and anger. “You should get some sleep, Bakugou.”

Well, now he was purposefully not gonna do that, even though he was exhausted. Once spite was activated there was no stopping it. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Then stop being an idiot.” Todoroki hissed.

Katsuki glared at Todoroki but it didn’t matter since Todoroki still wasn’t looking at him, only straight ahead.

“Don’t fucking insult me.”

“I’ll do whatever I want, thanks.” Todoroki said, matching his energy. “Since that’s all you do, I get to do it too.”

“Oh fuck you!” Katsuki snapped, absolutely done with this stupid bastard, throwing his own words in his face was the last straw. “Get the fuck out of my room! Leave me the fuck alone!”

It was quiet for a minute.

“Fine.”

Todoroki ripped his hand away from Katsuki’s forehead and stood sharply. He walked out without another word, and Katsuki expected the door to slam and prepared himself for it. But Todoroki caught it just before it did, and he closed the door quietly behind him.

Katsuki stared at the door for a moment, almost in disbelief. Todoroki never got angry, let alone to this extreme. He thought even Deku hadn’t seen that before, the damn nerd would’ve said something. Even though Katsuki liked antagonizing Todoroki, liked seeing if he could get the bastard to show emotion, even if it was negative emotions, this didn’t… this didn’t make him feel good. The emotion he hadn’t been able to describe twisted in his gut, making his chest hurt in a way that it never had before. He wanted to get Todoroki riled up, it’s why he talked to him the way he did, the way he purposely tried to push the bastard’s buttons, that was his end goal. He wanted to see Todoroki show some sort of emotion, any sort of emotion.

So why did that make him feel so shitty?

Getting what he wanted never made him feel bad in the past. It was a point of pride for him that he basically always got what he wanted, that he’d earned what he’d wanted. Katsuki was always so sure of himself, he always knew what he wanted, and he did everything he could to get it.

Was this… actually what he wanted? Somehow, he didn’t think so. Which never happened, Katsuki always knew what he wanted, and he never regretted anything. (Well, he regretted a few things but he never let himself think about them so that was basically the same thing.) But the more the silence of the room echoed in his ears, the more he regretted saying any of those things, and not just because he’d lost the hand that had been keeping his headache at a somewhat manageable level. The icepick in his head only seemed to make his actions seem worse, and Katsuki did not like that. Even though he knew he was an asshole with no filter, and no intent on getting one, this felt like he’d gone too far. He’d gone too far a couple of times in his life, and this felt worse than all of them.

With the door closed, heat was starting to build up in his room, and the blanket that he still didn’t know how he got was kicked around to his legs. His hand flopped around to his nightstand, opening the drawer and grabbing the remote for his ac unit. He turned it down several degrees, and didn’t have the energy to put it back. His hand just fell to his bed, and his eyes closed on their own accord. Even though he’d wanted to stay up to spite Todoroki, despite the fact that he couldn’t remember why anymore, his body just started to shut down on its own. At least sleep would be a reprieve from the overwhelming pain in his chest and his head, so he surrendered to the thick haze of sleep and hoped he’d wake up without this agony.

Blood. Blood and screams and death and fear. Katsuki spun around, lost and scared, wanting to run but unsure of where he could run to. Screams rang in his ears from all directions, each one different yet full of the same agony. Each one echoed their pain into his heart, overwhelming him with emotions he couldn’t handle. Unable to take anymore, his legs took off running without thinking, his chest heaving as the torturous screams pierced his chest.

He skidded to a stop as an image flashed in his mind, his own scream blending into the background. Deku’s body was still crackling with energy, his green lightning dying as Deku lay still. His arms and legs were both black, bent in horrific ways, and Katsuki’s stomach lurched as his gaze finally landed on Deku’s chest. His ribs had pierced through his skin, his chest cavity a mess of blood and bone, surprise still written on Deku’s lax face, his green eyes dull and lifeless. Again, Katsuki’s legs took off without his consent, tears streaming down Katsuki’s face as nausea built in his stomach.

His arms flailed as he slipped on something wet and sticky, crashing into some sort of small building. Looking up, Katsuki screamed again, seeing Kirishima spread eagle across the top, his head hanging down, his neck brutally slit open, dripping blood into the fiery red hair he was so famous for. Katsuki slipped again in his haste to get up, realizing with a sickening jolt that he was slipping on Kirishima’s blood.

“Make it stop.” Katsuki sobbed. “Make it stop.”

He finally got up again, only to freeze in place. In front of him was Ashido, lying in a heap, her neck bone protruding from her skin as her head twisted the other way. As more and more tears spilled down his cheeks, he turned and turned and turned. Jirou, her own earphones wrapped around her red, raw neck. Sero hanging from his own tape, his limp hands still stuck from trying to free himself. Kaminari’s head soaked, water still dripping from his motionless mouth. His world began to spin, and he crashed to the ground, curling into a ball.

“Make it stop.” Katsuki covered his ears and shut his eyes, trying to block it all out. “Please, make it stop.”

The world went silent.

Katsuki warily opened his eyes. Vast ground filled only with empty space. He was too scared to try and speak, terrified that the death and screams and blood would come back. No matter where he looked, all he found was emptiness until he came across Todoroki, laying on the ground too, facing away from him.

He crawled over hesitantly, his mouth moving to speak Todoroki’s name but his vocal cords refused to make any noise. Katsuki’s hand hovered over Todoroki’s body for a moment, not seeing anything on his red side. Maybe he was just unconscious? His hand finally landed on Todoroki’s arm, frowning as it was cool. No, no, his red was his fire side, he should’ve been warm. His hand jerked as he pulled it back, causing Todoroki to roll over.

Katsuki screamed again, his voice laden with agony as Todoroki’s head lolled to the side. His white side had completely disappeared, charred to ash, his skin covered in burns matching the scar on his face. He cowered away, his hands dragging him away from Todoroki’s dead body. He slipped again, curling back into a ball, sobbing.

Everyone he had ever cared about was gone, and Katsuki was alone. Emptiness beat in his ears, the silence louder than any of the screams had been. His sobs echoed across the vastness, his breath the only other sound. He longed for his friends, wanted someone to still be with him, to tell him that everything was going to be okay. That he would have more than himself to keep him company, to make him smile just a little, to make him let out a breathy laugh. To watch with amusement as they did something stupid, being far too noticeable when he was socially awkward with his stupid confused face, silently sitting with him when they knew he wanted company but couldn’t take any more noise. Grabbing him in one arm hugs, ruffling his hair and dodging when he swatted at them, squishing him when they were all crammed together in too small of a space to fit all of them. He wanted that back, he wanted them back so badly, he’d do anything.

“Anything, huh?” The back of his neck burned, and he was lifted off the ground. He writhed in the grip, sludge rising from the ground to latch onto his body, forcing him into submission.

“No, no, please, stop!” Katsuki wailed, the sludge only growing stronger, binding his body in muck. The heat on the back of his neck increased, and another hand forced his head forward, his eyes only able to focus on Todoroki’s lifeless body. “Not like this, not like this!”

“Aw, I thought you said ‘anything’.” The voice taunted. “Don’t you love them? Wouldn’t you do anything for them? You know we have an offer for you, you remember our last one.”

“Can’t.” Katsuki wanted to shake his head, but the grip was too strong. “Won’t betray them.”

“Then die with them.”

Katsuki couldn’t move, his entire body now encased in the sludge, could barely talk as the goo began to tease at going in his mouth and down his throat. 

“Not again.” Katsuki gasped, feeling the horrid taste of the sludge as it crept slowly, maliciously, into his mouth. “Please not again.”

A mocking laugh, and then the sludge forced itself down his throat, cutting off his air. Katsuki panicked, writhing with great strength, but useless, so uselessly. The world spun one last time as he grew dizzy from hypoxia, and he fell into darkness with taunting laughter echoing around him.

Katsuki jolted up in bed, a silent scream on his lips. His eyes rolled at the heat of his room, just as dizzy as he was in his fever induced nightmare, practically seeing the waves of heat energy radiating from his furniture, his walls. He had to cool down. If he didn’t cool down, he thought he was going to die, his body melting into his bed.

His room had a shower. The door was right there. He just had to get there, the water could cool him down. He pushed himself up, his arms too shaky to hold him for long. Maneuvering his body was like trying to walk straight in a gyroscope. He stepped forward with his left foot, shaking as he stood, desperately trying to go forward. His right foot was next, but it was still tangled up in the blanket of unknown origin. He tried to pull it free, but another strong bout of dizziness sent him tumbling to the floor.

The world faded in and out as he lay on the floor, his arms trying to push himself up, but he crashed back down every time. He just didn’t have the strength to get up, the attempts draining what little he had until he just gave up. His vision flickered in and out, his sweat soaking into his carpet, his heart carrying agony all over his body, igniting each nerve with a bonfire, his head pounding like a thunderstorm’s rage.

“Sorry to disturb you…”

“Eh, no worries, Todoroki. If Bakubro needs me, then I’m there, no matter what.”

Even though the door was closed, Katsuki could still hear the voices through it. The dorm walls carried sound better than any speaker.

His door quietly creaked open, driving another spike of pain into his head. “Bakugou? Hey man, are you- oh shit!”

Light blinded him for a moment, before he felt a cold arm heave him up, cradling him in iciness. He whimpered, the sudden shock of frigidity making him wince. A warmer hand came to his forehead before jerking back with a hiss.

“He’s burning up.” Kirishima gasped, cursing again.

“Kirishima, get Recovery Girl.” Todoroki ordered, taking charge of the situation. “I’m gonna try to cool him down.”

Kirishima nodded, his face set in his ‘serious mode’. His best friend should’ve been a comfort, but seeing Kirishima’s frown and furrowed brow just made him a little scared. Kirishima was one of the smiliest people he’d ever met, and Katsuki always told him that his face would get stuck like that. It was always laughed off, bringing out that same smile, which always made Katsuki roll his eyes. But he still liked seeing it, and when it was missing, Katsuki didn’t like it, not one bit.

“Don’t use your quirk, use his shower.” Kirishima said, standing. “Anything lower than room temperature is too cold, you’ll send him into shock.”

Todoroki just nodded, and Katsuki wondered if he’d already known that, or if his temperature regulation thing kept him from getting fevers. Kirishima bolted out the door, his steps thudding down the hall then the stairs.

Another arm came to his knees, and he was lifted into the air. His vision swirled again, able to tell he was moving but unable to process anything else. His legs were gently placed on the ground, but then the sound of a massive waterfall assaulted him and he turned back into the soft, wintry physique. But then he was pulled away from it, and he didn’t know whether that felt good or bad. The waterfall then disappeared, and he saw that Todoroki had switched the tap to shower.

The arm came back to his knees, and another dizzying bit of motion finished with water pelting at him, as he was pressed against something that didn’t feel hot or cold. Even though the water droplets were needle-sharp, they were cool, and Katsuki sank into it, feeling the water soothe the bonfire under his skin. He wasn’t sure how long he was under the spray before his mind finally cleared enough to focus on his surroundings. Katsuki was laying against Todoroki, who was holding him up by his waist, in Katsuki’s shower. Katsuki decided to be embarrassed about this later, when he didn’t feel so shitty and when Todoroki wasn’t keeping him from drowning in his own shower.

“‘roki?” Katsuki groaned, his voice weak and quiet. But thankfully Todoroki still heard him.

“Yes, Bakugou?”

“I don’ feel so good.” Katsuki said, looking up at Todoroki. He must’ve looked like a drowned cat, his hair soaked and stuck to his forehead, his clothes soaked to the skin, his skin showing through his white tank top, Katsuki didn’t think he’d ever looked so pathetic in his life.

“No shit.” Todoroki muttered grumpily. “You couldn’t have said that a few hours ago?”

Katsuki ducked his head a little, his cheeks were already flushed but the pink got a little stronger. “Couldn’t. Can’t be weak. Specially not in front of you.”

That made Todoroki pause, and then meet his eye again. “Me?”

Katsuki nodded shakily.

“Why?” Todoroki breathed, the shower louder than both of their voices.

“Because… you’re so strong.” Katsuki mumbled, the fever that still raged within him loosening his tongue. If he were coherent, he’d rather be caught dead than saying shit like this, but he was still so hot and the water felt so good and his mind felt so worn thin that he just kept talking. “Noticed the first day I saw you. Never met anyone like you. Stronger than me. Pissed me off.”

Todoroki scoffed. “Of course it would.” a sigh. “But why would that mean you can’t be ‘weak’ around me?”

“Weakness doesn’t get notice. ‘N like that. Wanted notice.”

There was another beat of silence. Katsuki turned his head into Todoroki’s cooler side, using him as an ice pack for his still aching head.

“Are you saying that you thought I wouldn’t notice you if I thought you were weak?” Todoroki murmured, his voice low and uncertain.

His body was starting to get wracked with tremors, but he managed a nod through it. He couldn’t tell if he was shivering or shaking, just feeling his body vibrate, and the bonfire inside him was starting to win the battle against the water. His body went limp as the fire began to consume him, his eyes rolling around in his head.

“I, I… Bakugou? Bakugou, what’s wrong? Bakugou!” Todoroki’s voice jumped in emotion, in worry, but Katsuki could no longer differentiate the emotions. Todoroki was little more than a red and white blur now, Katsuki’s world spinning faster than a top, black spots dotting his vision, growing larger with each rotation. His mind lost all sense of reality, darkness swirling around him like a maelstrom. Voices again rang in his ears, but he couldn’t distinguish one from another.

“-hear me? Bakugou, can you hear me?”

“He was talking a minute ago, but…”

“-unresponsive -get him to the infirmary- covery girl can- hurry…”

Someone grabbed his arms, hauling him into the air, and the sudden movement had him blacking out entirely, falling into the black hole the maelstrom had created.

~~

Consciousness was murky, muddying his perception into something unintelligible as he slipped in and out of the darkness always on the edge of his mind. He wasn’t sure how long it took for his mind to clear, but the longer time went on, he sluggishly began to become more aware of his surroundings. He discovered new pain in his hand, but the agony in his head had subsided a great deal, though it wasn’t entirely gone. He was laying on something familiar but uncomfortable, his body propped up against it. To his immense relief, he found that he wasn’t on fire for the first time in what felt like days. 

Dazedly, he opened his eyes, immediately squinting at the bright overhead lights. It took him a minute to adjust, but the light didn’t increase his headache much, so he managed easily enough. White walls came into focus, along with cool, white sheets on the bed he couldn’t remember getting in, with a light blue canvas on his chest. He pulled lightly at it, confused, and pulled his hand up to his vision. No wonder it hurt, there was an IV stabbed through his hand, drawing out a noise of discomfort. He felt like he hadn’t slept in years, his mind struggling to keep up with the world around him.

Footsteps had his head immediately turning, his instincts sharper than any discombobulation, and he made another discovery, movement didn’t make him dizzy anymore. But that didn’t answer the question of what had happened, but the old woman walking towards him at least contributed to it. He knew this room, this was the infirmary, but he couldn’t remember how he got here.

“Ah, young Bakugou, I was wondering when you’d come back to us.” The old bat said, sounding far too cheerful.

He frowned at her, trying and failing to process her words in time as Recovery Girl walked up to his bed. His head still swam in uncertainty, cognizance lagging out like one of his friends’ video games. She stood on one of her little step-stools, coming up to his level, patting his hand gently before putting something uncomfortable in his ear. He groaned, attempting to turn away, but she cupped his cheek, gently but firmly keeping him in place.

“Keep still, it’s alright.” Her voice was as gentle as her hand, but that didn’t soothe him much. “Just a few seconds more.”

A quiet beeping and she kept her word. “38.44 (101.2). Much better, considering you came in at 40.5 (104.9). Any higher and you might’ve had permanent brain damage.”

Oh shit. That was bad. That was very bad. A brief flash of fear ran up his spine, a spike of anxiety panging in his stomach.

“Wha’ happ’n?” Katsuki asked, his voice hoarse from disuse.

“A stress fever.” She replied, handing him a little paper cup of water. His hand was shaking a little as he took it, but he kept her help to a minimum. “Unsurprising, considering the amount of stress you all are under, you especially. Normally, they’re not an issue, and they fade rather quickly, but you’re a special case. As you know, your sweat can’t cool you down like most people so you’re easily affected by fevers. Since you didn’t come to me, or do anything to reduce it, your fever just worsened and worsened until your body couldn’t take it anymore. You’re very lucky that Todoroki and Kirishima found you when they did.”

Jumbled memories came to the forefront of his mind, of Kirishima’s voice in his room, a hand on his forehead, of Todoroki carrying him, holding him as they lay in the shower. Fuck, that was embarrassing, and the chastising Recovery Girl was giving just made him feel even worse.

“Didn’t notice.” He said, needing to defend himself, his pride leaving him unable to do anything less. After all, it wasn’t like he’d done this on purpose. He may hate being in this damn room, but he wasn’t stupid enough to not seek medical help when he was seriously sick. He just honestly hadn’t noticed something was wrong until it was too late. He’d dealt with plenty of hot and uncomfortable days before so he thought yesterday had been no different. “Not til af’r dinner. Don’t get sick.”

“Yes, young Midoriya said that.” Recovery Girl sighed. “As did your parents when I called them. They said since they’re currently in Madrid, they’d do their best, but the flight home is rather long, even without layovers. Hopefully, by the time they do get here, you’ll be fever free.”

Well, his day just got a lot worse. Katsuki hated it when his parents had to pick him up from school. He didn’t need his parents to come and fuss over him, he wasn’t a baby.

His unhappiness must’ve shown on his face, since Recovery Girl just tutted at him. “Give them a break, you gave them quite a scare. You’ve gotten very good at that.”

Katsuki huffed, definitely not pouting.

“Really, I should’ve expected something like this to happen.” She muttered. He cocked his head in confusion. “It’s been a week since I’ve had one of you in here, and if someone from 1A isn’t in here, something is very wrong.”

He had to admit, that seemed like solid logic. He was classmates with the biggest dumbasses he’d ever met, and they were all klutzy and accident prone, and that was off the battlefield.

“Speaking of your classmates,” ah hell, what do those idiots want now? “when you’re feeling up to it, you’ll have plenty of visitors.”

Oh fuck no, he was not doing that. His classmates were so emotional, crying and pitying and all sorts of terrible shit he hated being around. He got uncomfortable when one of his friends was upset, he couldn’t take the whole class. Leaving before Recovery Girl said he could sounded like a much better option. He’d rather get yelled at than deal with all of his dumbasses.

“Try to get out of this bed and I’ll sedate you.” Recovery Girl said bluntly. Katsuki deflated, miserably becoming resigned to his fate. Obviously, this was just going to be one of the shittiest days of his life and he couldn’t do anything about it.

“I’ll keep them from overwhelming you.” She said sympathetically, patting his hand again, and that was at least something. Normally, he would’ve snapped that he didn’t need her pity, but he could tell it wasn’t pity. He didn’t quite know what it was, but anything was better than pity. “But for right now, you should get some sleep. Let your body’s natural processes heal you. I’d much rather have your body heal itself, I don’t like how high a dosage of fever reducer I have to give you to help you fight this. I want to take you off that as soon as I can.”

Ah, that explained the IV, and why his mind wasn’t working right. He’d seen his idiot friends on too much cold medicine before, he’d just never experienced it himself until now. It was a lot more disconcerting than he would’ve thought. Next time, he’d have to watch more closely when one of his idiots got sick, this fucking sucked.

Sleep did sound like a fantastic idea, though. Keeping up with this conversation was taking far too much energy than it should’ve, and Katsuki was just fucking done. Even better, if he slept the rest of the day away, he could avoid all of the extras and idiots who wanted to ‘visit’ him and annoy him with their presence. The medication was no doubt keeping his spite under control, as when Recovery Girl stepped down to do other shit he didn’t give a fuck about, he could just close his eyes and let the exhaustion that been on the edge of his mind since he woke up take him without much resistance.

finally a fic

well, @seekers-who-are-lovers you're not alone anymore. It's only a drabble, but still.

Title: Eye Contact

*Episode 11 spoiler*

He turned as his aide flew in, gracefully landing onstage, down in formal kneeling position before his feathers disappeared. They locked eyes the moment he stood. He wasn't worried about Yukiya's speech, he was more proper with other people. That fact made him happy.

It's his own words he has trouble with. Sumio says he's too honest, he knows he's blunt. Whatever this is Yukiya has kindled in him slowly grows every time they do this, even now, at a time like this.

But he wanted to get his point across.

You mean more to me than they ever could.

(also on AO3.)

So yeah uh I can't explain myself

Part One of the ~6,000 word fic I wrote solely on a plot bunny I got at 2 a.m.

The Delta Quadrant finally breaks Captain Janeway, and Q arrives entirely too late.

TW: sewerslidal thoughts

Goddess of Good Fortune pt. 1

Voyager had been floating dead in space for days now. Janeway was reading through sensor logs in her ready room when whoever it was had attacked; an explosion rendered the bridge inhospitable, trapping her inside.

She couldn't reach anyone. The comm system wasn't down, there was simply no one to reach. She remained unshakable for the first day, trying everything she could, but there was nothing she could do without the rest of Voyager.

The second day, she broke down, sobbing as she slapped her comm badge for what felt like the thousandth time, asking for somebody, anybody to answer. She was furious at herself, at fate, and she began throwing everything that wasn't attached to the deck. She quickly scolded herself for acting like a foolish child, and cried some more.

The third day, environmental controls began to lose power. She tried asking the computer what was going on, but she was answered with a slow chime before the lights went out. Oxygen levels slowly began to drop, and before long she sat on the floor with her legs curled up under her. Her breaths came heavily and she dozed off after a few hours.

She woke up on the fourth day to the sound of a familiar voice.

"Kathy…"

She opened her eyes sluggishly and saw Q standing by her desk, wearing his usual Starfleet attire and an unusually grim expression. She muttered weakly through gritted teeth, "What the hell do you want."

He met her gaze and said, with something almost like remorse, "I knew you were in a bit of trouble, I thought you'd be able to handle it, but something went… wrong." He stepped towards her and said, "Horribly wrong…"

She moved to try and stand, grunting softly as her legs buckled underneath her. She was exhausted, but in a flash of light, he was there beside her, helping her to her feet. She grimaced and shoved him away weakly, bracing herself on the edge of the desk and saying, "Then why didn't you do something. Why didn't you… blink the other ship away or send them into the abyss-" her voice rose angrily, "-why didn't you do something Q! My crew is gone! My ship is in ruins! They're all dead! Every single one! Kim, Paris, Tuvok, Wildman, Torres, Chakotay-"

Her voice broke and she looked away, blinking back angry tears and taking in a raspy breath. The Continuum had forbidden him from aiding Voyager, she knew that; he knew that she knew that, but for once, he could almost understand.

It was almost a minute of dreadful, pointed silence before she whispered, "Go away."

He hesitated before reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder, but as soon as he touched her, she slapped his hand away, yelling hoarsely, "Go away, Q! Go away! For once in your infuriating existence, go away and leave me be!"

Her slap didn't physically hurt him- he doubted anything outside Q weapons ever could -but seeing her like this was the closest anything had ever gotten.

For the first few seconds, she tried to regain her composure, tucking various stray locks of hair behind her ears and standing upright while turning away from him. It didn't last long.

It started with her breaths beginning to shudder, and her hand quickly went to brace against her desk. She straightened her back and squared her shoulders, but it was to no avail. Her knees buckled once more and she held a hand over her mouth, sobbing openly and almost folding in on herself.

He knelt beside her and slowly placed a hand on her shoulder, his heart(?) nearly shattering as she flinched at his touch.

"I could take you home. If that would help." He knew it wouldn't.

Her answer was almost inaudible, but for once in his life(?), he regretted the fact that he could hear her voice flawlessly. "It doesn't matter anymore."

He moved in front of her. She looked up from the carpet, and he almost hoped she would glare at him (punch him, scream at him, anything to let him know there was some fight left), but her bottom lip quivered and her head fell forward to rest on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around her and he kissed the top of her head, stroking her back and her shoulders as he whispered sweet nothings into her hair.

He took them away from Voyager, leaving the broken ship to drift aimlessly in space. With a thought, they were in the Continuum, but not in any form she'd seen before. The dirt road was dreadful, and the memories of almost being executed in the Civil War reenactment still made him grimace, so instead he took her to a 20th century suburban home.

The small house was decorated with all manner of knickknacks and embroidery projects (and some of the most hideous wallpaper he'd ever seen), and there was plastic on the furniture for god's sake, but there was something oddly comforting about it all, so he let it be.

She was exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and he decided that what she needed the most was sleep.

In normal circumstances, where she would banter with him and he could charm her all he wanted, he would have changed her clothes by hand, but this was far from normal (he noticed with devastating awareness). He snapped his fingers and she was in a comfortable set of pajamas, underneath the covers of the master bedroom's California King, and it wasn't long before she drifted to sleep.

He stepped to the side of the bed and saw that her face was screwed into a frown. Her hands held the sheets in a white-knuckled grip. He reached into her thoughts and found that she was already slipping into a nightmare, and a nasty one at that. He knew that before all of this, she would have hated him for digging around in her mind, but for the moment he could only hope she would forgive him as he made her sleep dreamlessly.

He kissed her forehead and tucked a stray lock of hair out of her face, just as a flash of light signalled the arrival of another Q.

He sighed and turned to face his former lover, saying in a solemn voice he'd never heard himself use before, "Please Q, she's had a wretched day."

She raised one of her impeccable eyebrows and drawled, "So you've brought your pet human back to the Continuum. What was it this time? Did she have a bad date with Commander Whatsit and wanted to whimper to you, or did another wormhole turn out to be a dud?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and she narrowed hers right back, as he said, "Buzz off. I don't feel like arguing with you."

She rolled her eyes and stepped closer, saying as she looked down at the sleeping captain like a snake eyeing a mouse, "If it's really that horrible, just cheer her up. Give her that horrid bean drink she never shuts up about, make her a new ship with new underlings to boss around, there has to be something to stop this nonsense and your insufferable moping."

He kept his eyes fixed on Kathryn, stroking her cheek with the back of one finger. He remained grim as he said, "None of that will make her happy, not now."

For the first time, he heard Miss Q laugh. "Then what will? Good heavens, you never moped this much when she rejected you. This 'horrid day' must have been a real doozy."

The humor quickly died for her and she said, "I almost have the mind to make her Q. Surely now that those ignoramuses are out of the way, she couldn't be too horrible to have around."

He looked up at her quickly and said with a bit of urgency, "Don't you dare. That's a terrible idea."

She gave him a smirk. "You act like the fact that it's a terrible idea to you is going to stop me. If anything, I'm convinced. Really Q, your sense of humor has degraded horribly ever since you let that mammal into our lives. Besides. It will be so much fun to watch her."

She disappeared.

He quickly looked back down at Kathryn to find her still asleep underneath the covers, her expression now blank and her hands grasping at the sheets. He sat on the side of the bed and held one of her hands gently, slipping a small sliver of a dream into her mind.

She was lying in the middle of a wildflower field, gazing up at the stars, but Q stayed by her side, warding her nightmares away.

---

When Kathryn woke up the next morning(?), sunlight filtered beautifully through the windows and birds sang outside in the trees. She looked around the room with a bit of alarm, but as soon as she saw Q, it all came flooding back. Her face fell and she lied back down, turning away from him as she curled up in the sheets.

He moved to rest a hand on her back but hesitated at the last second, saying softly, “Kathy… you know there was nothing I could do.”

She turned over and gave him a weak glare, saying hoarsely, “Well you certainly picked an odd time to give a damn about anyone’s rules.” He nodded and said with a ghost of a sad smirk, “I guess I did.”

He stood from the side of the bed and conjured a small breakfast tray for her, complete with a tall stack of pancakes, bacon and eggs, and of course a steaming mug of coffee. She faced away from him, although her stomach rumbled loud enough for him to hear.

“You have to eat something, Kathy. Please,” he muttered, moving a little closer. She reluctantly sat up and grabbed the tray, setting it in her lap before wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. He watched her inquisitively, a faint frown on his face as he said, "Go on, it's not poison." The corner of her mouth twitched and she muttered under her breath, "Shame."

She ate her breakfast, keeping her gaze on the tray as she downed mouthful after mouthful. She hadn't realized just how hungry she actually was; she cleaned her plate in five minutes. The coffee, however, remained untouched.

Q noticed this, saying, "It's your favorite blend, black, just how you like it." She grabbed the handle slowly and took a sip, setting it back down. He let out a small breath before saying, "How are you, Kathy?"

She rubbed one of her temples with her free hand and said through gritted teeth, "Don't call me that." He frowned and said, "Kathryn, then." Chakotay's face flashed behind her eyes and she spat, "That's worse."

"Madame Captain?"

She slammed the mug down on her tray, sending coffee sloshing over the sides. "I'm not a damn captain anymore Q, my crew is dead-!"

Her voice cracked and she held her face in her hands, taking deep shuddering breaths before grabbing the mug again. She took another slow sip of coffee, taking a deep breath.

“I’m sorry," he said softly. She nodded, finishing off her mug and setting it down on the tray.

“‘Kathy’ is alright. I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“My dear Kathy, no one has more of a right to yell than you do.”

She set her tray to the side, and he vanished it as soon as it left her hands.

She spent the day in bed, alternating hours of sleeping and crying and only breaking this routine to begrudgingly eat the meals Q conjured for her. Although she hardly said a word, he stayed with her the entire time, keeping her dreams peaceful and making sure she was comfortable.

---

Almost a month passed this way; Kathryn could hardly leave her room. She ate her meals and drank her coffee in silence, ignoring Q and staring into nothingness. He fought off her nightmares and talked to her even though he hardly ever got answers outside small grunts and single words.

He never knew her crew meant this much to her. Sure, she’d told him, she’d been so determined to get home, she watched over them like a mother bear, but he woefully realized that he’d never really listened to her. Seeing her like this was truly jarring.

One day, she’d been in a darker place than usual. She’d thrown her mug at the wall, sending hot coffee and shards of glass everywhere, and screamed for him to leave. He forgot himself for a moment and left the Continuum, knocking a few moons out of orbit before righting them again and heading back. He found her sitting in the living room, and she said in a voice hoarse from sobbing, “I’m sorry Q.” She watched him with watery eyes as he stepped closer, and he said, “It’s alright… I shouldn't have left you alone, you have every right to be angry.” He sat down next to her hesitantly, and before he could react, she moved closer and hugged him. He returned the hug gently, feeling her begin to cry in his arms.

Miss Q arrived one evening while Kathryn was sleeping, and Q stood in front of her door with a glare.

“Don’t you dare, Q. You can’t.”

She raised an eyebrow and said, “And why can’t I? I’m bored. I know fully well that you understand the feeling.”

“She’s miserable enough without having to live out eternity this way. Please, leave her be.”

She actually smirked, chuckling low in her throat and saying, “‘Please’? Oh Q, how pathetic of you.” She snapped her fingers, disappearing from the house in a flash of light.

He teleported to Kathryn's room only to find her sitting on the edge of her bed, looking down at her hands. He could feel something almost like electricity in the air, a subtle difference he only noticed around fellow Q. His heart(?) dropped.

He knew that right now, she was feeling the full brunt of omnipotence, weighing down on her like a foot on the back of her neck. He stepped forward cautiously, but the force of her anger shoved him back against the closed door as she muttered, "What the hell did you do to me."

"This wasn't me, I swear! It was Q, that conniving-"

"Why."

He couldn't answer her.

Standing in front of her was almost like standing in the center of a supernova. He could feel the intensity of the grief rolling off of her, and it almost brought him to his knees. For her sake, he couldn't wait until a few millenia passed, when emotions began to fade and give way to crushing emptiness, but at the same time he dreaded it.

As she narrowed her eyes at him and snapped vindictively, sending them both hurtling through space, he had to admit she adjusted quickly. He truthfully expected nothing less from her, and he would have been proud were it not for the fact that he was currently being dragged through space and time like a ragdoll. Given the circumstances, for the first time in forever, he was terrified.

She yelled at him in the Qs' language, and while hearing her voice saying those words(?) was transcendent, the meaning behind them made him want to hide in the nearest blackhole and never come out again.

"Why did she do this? Why did she make me this way? Answer me, Q!"

"She said she was bored, nothing more! She didn't mean anything by it!"

She lashed out, dragging him through an anomaly and raging, "That would be just my luck, to spend the rest of time itself as part of a species who torments sentient life because they're bored!"

She vanished, leaving him reeling.

It wasn't until fifty years later that he found her standing on top of a trash freighter in the Delta Quadrant, watching Voyager's remains being hauled away.

She wore her Starfleet uniform, her (lovely) hair pulled back into her signature bun. She felt his presence and said softly, "Go away." He manifested beside her in his own corporeal form, sitting down on the hull. She sat down next to him and blinked back tears (he remembered tears, from his mortal experience on the Enterprise-D).

"Kathy… this won't help."

"I know it won't."

She clasped her hands together and took in a deep breath, saying, "It doesn't get any better, does it?" He looked down at the bulkhead beneath his feet and said, "I wouldn't know. I haven't… cared for anything as strongly as you cared for them."

He thought for a quick second before saying, "If it makes you feel any better, you're Q now. You can see anything you want, do anything you like."

She looked at him and said lowly, "You really don't know anything about me, do you? After all those years of stalking me and trying to win me over, you never really took the time to learn who I am. If you think I'm going to enjoy being trapped in limbo, never able to move on from this miserable existence, then you don't know me at all."

She disappeared, and with that, Voyager's remains ceased to exist.

He stayed on the bulkhead of the trash freighter for a while longer, staring out at the empty space in front of him. He wasn't sure what was to be done now.

---

The first thing she did was try to undo what happened to Voyager. She went back and vanished the other ship into nothingness, but as she did, she could feel every individual life cease to exist all at once. It hit her like a punch to the throat.

She watched her crew go on living, but she wasn't used to changing time, and what she changed only caused another timeline.

Back in her timeline, her crew was still dead.

She tried everything she could, but the results remained the same. She supposed she could have ripped the universe apart but in the end she didn't see the point.

---

Years, decades, centuries passed and Kathryn grew used to omnipotence.

She started off the rest of eternity by exploring, still driven by the humanity inside her to see all that she could. She looked but never touched, determined not to become a monster but too dreadfully aimless to remove herself entirely.

She visited Earth only once, but without her crew the planet held nothing but bitterness. She never visited it again.

In a somewhat desperate attempt to regain some small bit of normalcy, she lived in different species for a couple millenia. She'd mingle, learn all there was to learn, sometimes staying for hundreds of years at a time before moving to the next.

The more and more she lived as a Q, the less and less sense the Prime Directive made to her. The notion left her mind entirely one day, as she stopped an asteroid from decimating a planet populated by a civilization that deemed her the Goddess of Good Fortune shortly afterward. She found somewhat of a purpose, gaining a similar reputation in thousands of solar systems, halting plagues and natural disasters and all manner of disputes.

She refused to be associated with the Continuum. She never sought them out, and for the longest time, she didn't see any of them.

Q finally came to talk to her, watching carefully from afar as she drifted on the edge of a spiral galaxy in the incorporeal form she hated so much. She thought she would never get used to the feeling.

"What do you want, Q?"

"I'd just like to talk."

"...Alright."

She appeared in the tunic she'd worn on the planet she and Chakotay had dubbed New Earth, sitting cross-legged in the void. Q joined her in his usual uniform, looking at her with a silent question on his features.

"I'm sorry, Kathy, you must know that by now."

She paused before saying softly, "I know."

She rested her chin on her hand and said, "I've given it quite a bit of thought, between the distractions. Time… is so incredibly different this way. I guess it doesn't matter now."

She faced him and said, "The emptiness is… almost suffocating sometimes. I've lived a thousand different lives, on so many different worlds, but it doesn't mean a thing. Not a damn thing. I can pretend, but I'm not like them anymore."

Her voice quivered as she said, "I can barely even mourn properly. I feel… I feel numb, but that's not the right word. I know it was senseless, I know there was nothing I could have done, but I can't accept that. But I have to."

He hesitated, for once in his life(?) thinking before he spoke.

"You may not believe me, and I've given you plenty of reason not to, but I admire you."

She looked back out into the void, chuckling darkly. He raised both hands and said, "I do. Any other-"

He caught himself, "A Q would have lashed out. Half the universe would be in ruins, but you, Kathryn Janeway, the marvel of the human race… I used to scoff at your morals, but…" He looked down at his hands and then back at her, saying softly, "You're so much better than I could ever be."

They sat there in silence, watching everything and nothing all at once. She caught herself speaking aloud, startling them both, "Hold me." He gave her a puzzled look and she said, "Please."

Without hesitation, he pulled her into a tight hug, feeling her return it. He planted a small kiss under her ear and she rested her forehead on his shoulder, holding onto him a little tighter. He could feel her emotions filling the space around them, her frustration, anger, but the most overwhelming was the crushing grief. It poured off of her in relentless waves that had long since dragged her under.

He held her, stroking her hair and staying silent as she began to cry. He didn’t need to infer too much to know that he shouldn’t say anything, and even if he should, he wouldn't know what. He supposed if she were in a better mood, she would have found that amusing, Q, not knowing what to say, but he doubted she would be in a better mood again.

Slowly, over the course of a few hours, the waves subsided to numbness, and she disappeared without another word. He stayed behind, looking out at the galaxy gently turning before him. She had called this the Milky Way before, and he almost had the mind to destroy it.

He plucked it out of space and held it in his palm, regarding it with something almost resembling disgust. A simple thought, that's all it would take, but something stopped him. He paused, letting it turn in his hand before leaving it hanging in the void.

---

Another thousand years came and went like it was nothing, and Q didn’t see Kathryn once. He saw her handiwork: corrected orbits, cured plagues, halted disasters of every caliber, but never the orchestrator. That was, until one day she found him instead of the other way around.

He had gone back to Earth and found nothing he remembered. Humans had changed drastically since the last time he'd seen them, and when he arrived, they simply ignored him. He knew it was foolish, but he almost felt hurt. He was sitting inside a nebula, vanishing stars without systems when she found him.

She didn't say a word, sitting down next to him and hugging her knees to her chest. He couldn't feel her emotions at first, and as he probed for them, he found nothing but a small fragment of her grief.

He turned to face her and said, "I can see why you hate this so much…" He paused before saying softly, "Kathr- Kathy, I am so sorry-"

She interrupted him with a swift kiss on the mouth, and as he looked at her in utter bewilderment, she said, "Enough apologies, Q." She leaned in again, and there was nothing he could do to move away.

This kiss was slow. It was everything he'd ever wanted, but at the same time it wasn't. Her arms hooked around his neck and her hands wandered to his hair, but she was so dreadfully cold. Where he should have felt passion, warmth, love, if not love then lust, anything, he felt nothing.

Part Two of my sleep-deprivation fuelled angst-fic

TW: sewerslidal thoughts

He broke the kiss quickly, placing both hands by her shoulders and saying, "This isn't right."

She blinked at him and said, "Why the hell not? You had no qualms about seducing me before."

He frowned and said slowly, "Because… you don't love me. I know you don't." She smirked (he was seeing himself in her more and more and it scared him) and said, "Wasn't it you who told me 'what's that got to do with it?'"

He couldn't deny that logic.

She tugged him in for another kiss, harsher this time. He returned the kiss and as he gave an inch, she took a mile.

---

Their first few encounters were strained and almost cold, purely filling the emptiness she felt with something resembling companionship. He accommodated her in every way he could because he couldn't imagine losing her after all this.

He kissed her, he held her, she made it so he could feel what she needed and he always did his best. She always left right after, never lingering in his arms for long. He supposed it was best for her, but each time, he found himself wishing she would stay.

He wished he could tell her, but he knew she would hate him for it. Sometimes he felt her probing, and it was all he could do to keep her out.

Being with her felt like ecstasy, but when he remembered how it came to be, the scarce bits of positivity vanished and left behind a hollow sort of sadness. Now that he could have her, every part of him begged for her, but deep down he knew that she didn't want him the same way. He knew he was a distraction, but he could never refuse her.

Slowly, their encounters grew warmer, and their walls began to fall. She let him hold her for longer afterwards, staring listlessly at the void as he made it his task to cover her body in gentle kisses. He tried his best to show her what he couldn't say, with soft caresses and eagerness. He tried not to say anything at all, in fears that she'd remember herself and who she was with, or simply that he would mess up. If he did let something slip, it was always her name, gasped or sighed or moaned.

He was careful to keep it that way over the course of the next million years, but she always made it difficult. "Q" never sounded better than when she said it. Her touches were like lightning, when she decided to touch him at all. She was art and music (melancholy as it may be) and beauty and strength, all in one. The small bit of sensation she allowed herself to feel shone from her like sunlight, and he basked in it.

It was only when she came to him and kissed him slowly, cradling his face in her hands and filling the space around them with the soft glow of contentment, that he finally let it slip. He had broken the kiss and let his mouth wander along her jawline when he caught himself muttering against her skin, "You'll be my undoing, Kathy-"

If she thought anything he said was odd, she didn't betray it besides the slightest of pauses before she tilted her head back. He laid a heavy kiss over her pulse(?) and given her silence, he thought nothing of it.

Moments later, with her legs draped over his shoulders and her hands buried in his hair, she grew curious and probed for his feelings. She was taken aback by the adoration that filled his actions, so much so that she overlooked the remorse and the guilt. It wasn't long before she ignored the physical feelings entirely and probed deeper, reading his thoughts and even living through them like a holonovel.

She didn't know what she expected, but she certainly hadn't expected to hear 'I love you' in so many ways. She saw all the times they'd been together, even some instances before she was Q, only he thought of telling her every time. She dug even deeper and felt it for herself, and it was genuine, although it was twisted and confused from an eternity of not feeling anything at all.

She withdrew from his thoughts like something had burned her, shoving him away with wide eyes. A split second of confusion flashed across his face before he realized what she did, but she didn’t stay long enough for him to call after her.

She didn’t find him again for a couple million years, and for once, he felt every miserable second of it.

---

Kathryn had forgotten just how much change could happen in a million years, and when she went back to exploring, she found that almost everything was different. The human race had gone extinct. She was surprised to find that she didn’t want to look back and see what had happened.

She left the Milky Way and rediscovered some of the worlds she had lived on, seeing the races she’d befriended had evolved or gone extinct. She simply befriended the new ones.

She hated how much of Q she heard in her own voice, so for a couple hundred years she hid in the Continuum, playing the role of the scarecrow, the truck, even the road and the sun that burned in the sky without end. Now more than ever, she could understand why Quinn had wanted to die. She couldn’t fathom how one could spend eternity like this; she hardly even felt pain anymore. The only thing that came close was the dull ache left behind whenever she remembered her crew, and even that was slipping away. She went back out into the universe and found another species to aide, trying desperately to find some small fragment of purpose again.

Whenever she didn’t quite feel like showing herself for a millenia or two, she spent the time conjuring stars and scattering nebulas through space, creating beautiful sights but never life. She crafted entire galaxies, star by star, watching them turn in the void before holding them in her hands and vanishing them with a thought.

When she finally showed herself, she was always benevolent, refusing to toy with lower lifeforms like the other Q had done. She solved some of their problems but never allowed herself to get attached.

She filled entire corners of the universe with wondrous stars and anomalies, braiding the fabric of space and undoing it just to do it all again. Time slipped by with her hardly noticing the centuries, but at the same time she felt every minute pass with agonizing clarity. Time was also beginning to be a bit of a nuisance, so she spent another million years mastering it.

She explored every aspect of existence itself, down to the most minute detail, until one day(?) she realized there was nothing left to explore. She wandered around in denial, thinking that surely there must be something left, but over the course of another century her fears were confirmed. She'd mastered it all.

For a couple dozen years, she even tried to kill herself. She knew that if a veteran Q like Quinn couldn't manage it, then she couldn't possibly hope to, but now all she had was time so she reasoned that it couldn't hurt to try.

She hurled herself into a blackhole only to come out completely unscathed. She teleported into the center of a supernova, turned into a microbe and found some antimatter to smack around, and even provoked a species calling themselves the God-Killers. Nothing did the slightest bit of harm (not even the God-Killers, but there was no real surprise there.)

She gave up after trying everything she could, spending a century floating aimlessly between galaxies. She would have felt hopeless if she could feel anything at all.

---

She found Q in the Continuum, sitting on the steps to the front porch and staring out at the road. He had foregone his usual Starfleet uniform, dressed instead in a drab tan suit with a green tie. It took her a little by surprise, seeing him fit into a landscape rather than defy it. It was almost sad.

She stepped closer and said with a bit of the smirk (that she couldn't muster the hatred for), "I've got to admit, the uniform wasn't half bad, but green makes you almost look dashing." He looked up at her before she sat down next to him, and said with a hint of a smile in his eyes, "Who are you and what have you done with my beloved Kathy?"

A small smile spread across her face. She hated to admit it, but she'd missed talking to someone who didn't revere her as a god. It made her feel almost human again, and as that thought occurred to her, her smile faded.

"Did you mean it, Q?"

His smile dimmed, and he looked back out at the road as he answered, "Wasn't it you who observed that I might be a lot of things, but I'm no liar?" They sat in silence for a minute (or an hour or a decade, time was slippery in the Continuum) before he said with a dreadful lack of theatrics, "I meant it. I still mean it, as much as it pains me to admit."

She rested her elbows on her knees and said, "I don't know if I love you. I don't even know if I still can." He nodded slowly and began to say something but she interjected, holding up a finger and saying, "I'm not finished." He nodded again and let her continue.

"But being with you… is truly the closest thing to normal anymore." She chuckled a bit at her own statement and said, "Imagine, calling anything to do with you 'normal'. I never thought I'd live to see the day."

She paused for a second(?), staring at the road and counting the molecules in the space in front of her before saying, "I might not love you… but I'll be damned if I lose the only person I can be around anymore."

A small smile snuck its way onto his face and he said, “I can definitely live with that, for now.” If she could feel the minute bit of melancholy in his voice, she didn’t show it. She simply smirked and said, “Don’t test your luck.”

---

Kathryn was different.

Q knew it would have been foolish to expect nothing to change. It was only natural, after all, for a person who had been so unceremoniously gifted (ha) omnipotence. But she reminded him more and more of himself, and for the first time, he could almost understand why humans had found him so frustrating.

She was infinitely more nihilistic than she'd ever been, smothering the emptiness under sarcasm and searing kisses. The Indiana lilt never truly left her voice, but her whispered promises and wagers were refined with a silver tongue that easily rivalled his.

She grew bored more and more easily, sometimes spending millions of years at a time in the Continuum just to see what changes would await her once she left. This game quickly grew tiring, however, because with omnipotence she found that she already knew, even before she looked. She'd look anyway, occasionally making herself known to the civilizations that arose there. Despite Q's urging that it would be infinitely more fun, she refused to lord over them, still clinging to the last shreds of her humanity. He loved her for it.

She had always been the perpetual ice queen but where before there was warmth behind her eyes, there was nothing but a reflection of time and space. She braided starlight into the copper hair of her corporeal form, soared through the void as if it had always been her home, but there was an odd detachment in everything she did.

She gave herself the duty of protecting life (although Q argued that life was insignificant), and earned the gratitude of so many systems. It wasn't long before he joined her in her visits, causing his usual amount of mischief and getting a rise out of her. She was careful to make sure these encounters never turned into a tug of war where there might be collateral damage, but Q seemed intent on pushing her buttons.

Q had experience, countless lifetimes more than Kathryn did, but if he was an unstoppable force, she was an immovable object. However, their squabbles never went past playful banter and the occasional flung anomaly, and in the end, he always stole a kiss.

But there was always something off. When he held her, she felt almost hollow. Her thoughts and feelings were tainted by her ever-present grief, and no matter what she said when they were alone, he knew that if she had the choice, she would have died along with her crew. He could see it in the way she watched life down on the planets: she envied them. She envied mortality.

He told her he loved her almost every day (second? century?) and while she had begun to say it back, whether it be muttered against his cheek or thought to him as they watched the galaxies turn, he couldn't believe her. She felt nothing for him outside something resembling friendship, and it was beyond his extensive powers of imagination to think otherwise.

He supposed that he should have felt lucky to earn her friendship in the first place, but along with the desperate selfish part of him that always wanted more, another part mourned with her.

Occasionally she still asked him to hold her, and of course he could never refuse her anything, but he couldn't help but think that he never wanted it to happen like this.

He always thought that one day he'd arrive back on Voyager, possibly after she'd found a way home despite the crushing odds, and after some witty banter he'd ask her to dinner. Or maybe she'd ask him for help with some dilemma (unlikely) or she'd just want to talk (even more unlikely).

As much as he jested, as much as he'd flung Starfleet ships into the furthest reaches of what they knew, he'd quite forgotten how oddly fragile humanity was.

They stood in the void, watching the galaxies Kathryn had conjured. Q absent-mindedly wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned into his touch and relaxed with a ghost of a sigh. Her melancholy washed over him and he didn't fight it.

We Can Figure it Out After

Summary:  Law has spent every day of the last 13 years thinking and plotting his action for that day in Dressrosa. Now that's it come and gone with the unexpected result of his surviving, how is a man without a purpose supposed to look forward? Luffy thinks he can help.

read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23374645

Time felt like it had slowed or no longer flowed with the rest of the world that morning. The sun was warm, and gentle as it shined down upon the deck of the Barto Club's prized vessel. Everyone was either still awake, just rising, or pre-occupied with maintaining the ship and keeping to themsleves elsewhere on the ships main and lower decks.

Law ever running from sleep and his own mind had taken to dozing tentatively in the small tangerine grove towards the rear of the ship, leaning up against one of the trees from his place sat on the grass portion of the deck. He had been there since early morn before the sun dared break past the horizon, hoping to remain unseen until he was sure he could pull off a mask of bored calm around the other crews. It seemed though unseen, sight wasn't the only sense that could lead anyone to him.

"Oi! Torao!"

Law flinched slightly at the call, knowing he couldn't feign sleep to avoid the other's unwanted company or attention. However he knew, not after Dressrosa and all he'd seen and done, could he say no to Luffy. So with a forced sigh, far too dramatic to fool the observant type, he looked up to the smaller captain and gave him a weak and tired glare as the other approached him.

"Mugiwara-ya."

"What're you doing all the way over here? Breakfast is soon!" Luffy spoke as if missing the meal in question were of a truly disastrous consequence, though the comment only earned him an eye roll from the surgeon. Pouting at the older man, Luffy sat himself cross legged in front of Law, hands gripping his knees as he tilted his head and met the surgeon's gaze; a not so subtle inquiry.

Law looked away, offering a weak excuse. "I...couldn't sleep." As Luffy's gaze never wavered, Law seemed to find tracing the spots on the thighs of his jeans to be quite the fascinating task. At the least, it was certainly the safer option than meet those wide dark eyes.

Luffy, noticing the obviously vague explanation, seemed to come to a decision. He spun himself around, still sitting but now with his back to Law before he scootched backwards until his back was pressed against the other's chest. Law jumped a bit, not expecting the sudden close contact or movement though he stiffly remained seated with his knees bent putting his thighs on either side of the other captain.

"Wha-"

He was cut off promptly, but with a soft tone. "You don't have to talk about it, okay?"

Law still stiff, chewed on his lip and stared at the grass to his side. Taking his silence either as an answer in itself or like a signal, the younger man reached back and grabbed one of the tattooed hands of the elder captain. Law did not resist, but his body moved and reacted in sharp movements, too on edge from the unpredictable situation he was faced with.

Luffy huffed, puffing his cheeks a little in frustration yet he forced his small amount of patience into his gentle tugging of the hand in his grip and waited, pulling the owner of it forward slightly against him more with Law's arm over and against his shoulder. When the other finally gave in and did so, Luffy set about to tracing the tattoos before him.

He started with Law's forearm, his fingers warm against the cooler skin of the other, tracing the spiked ring bordering the central shape of the tattoo. Law through all this was reeling, wound taught like one giant ball of nerves screaming to get up and away, yet he simply sat there instead. Over time in the quiet between them, Law let his arm and eventually his posture relax bit by bit as the other repeatedly traced and rubbed at the designs on his flesh until he was far enough forward to rest his chin on the other's shoulder where his upper arm once rested.

"Does this help?" Luffy prompted, having moved to the simpler designs on the back of Law's hands. Law simply hummed in response, trying to simply focus on the sensation of the others touch and for once not getting stuck too deep within his own thoughts.

In his thoughts was where his toughest battles were after all. The reminders in an array of voices telling him he was a waste of life, that he didn't deserve to be alive, to have the good things around him now. That he was a failure and that everyone was disappointed in him, ashamed of him: his parents, Lami, his crew...Cora-san. The voices of those who loved him mocked him, beat him to the ground and he believed every word of it most days. After all, he was simply a boy on borrowed time in exchange for the life of someone so much more than he'd ever be.

What was the point anymore anyways? He didn't even take down Doflamingo himself, he didn't deserve to celebrate, to have survived Dressrosa. He should have died, hell he had planned on dying for years there and he wanted it, to be free of this constant burden of moving forward and doing, planning, caring so much by not caring, hurting...His mission had been completed, and now with a life he didn't expect to keep, he had to keep going. What was the plan now?

"Well, just...do whatever you want. That's what I've been doing and look how far I got."

Law's eyes widened and he flinched, an audible gasp softly passing his lips as he realized his thoughts had slipped past him while he was unguarded.

"I..." Law trailed off meekly, unsure how to respond. How could he? Luffy stilled a moment and Law quickly went rigid in kind, taking the others pause as a sign he was leaving or dissatisfied. That was fine, Law decided, clearly lying to himself. His insecurities and demons were his to bear, of course a man of conviction and radiance like Luffy wouldn't understand or have the patience for someone who was unwilling to follow suite.

However he was soon proved oh so wrong when Luffy released his arm just to pull his other one forward too. Luffy swiveled his own arms above Law's, effectively loosely placing tattooed arms around his midsection. Law was still, eyes widened slightly in awe of the gesture.

With a satisfied chuckle and a grin to match, luffy then reached up and removed his signature strawhat only to plop it gently atop Law's head. Law's shoulders stiffened and rose at the gesture, his mind racing at what was going on his teeth firmly clamped down on his lip not letting himself break further than he had already.

That venture was short lived however, as Luffy softly patted Law's uninjured bicep and said, "It's okay if you don't know what you want yet. I'm not too good at math so i don't really get exactly how long it was, but you spent a real long time thinkin' about that 'mingo guy huh?"

It was silent for a few moments, Luffy left hanging yet he didn't make to move or speak further. Then, like a dam reluctantly, finally, falling apart the tears came like the metaphorical waters - rushing all at once now freed. Law buried his face into the rubber man's shoulder, first simply crying and soon devolving into sobbing and wailing into the red clothes he hid his face in. His arms tightened around Luffy's waist, now outright hugging the smaller captain to himself.

Law felt so much, yet nothing at all right now and it seemed he couldn't care any longer about the pride and distance he'd spent building up for so long, he didn't care anymore. He was elated and upset, he was hurting yet he wanted to celebrate. He was full of so many thoughts and feelings, from his past and his regrets, to the terrible things his mind forced down his throat from all the years of fear and rage burning within him. It all and so much more hit him, and Luffy spoke it all into existence and broke down his walls.

Law wanted to scream out to the heavens how much it was, too much for him. Everything was too much and so overwhelming, he had gone through so much on Dressrosa and the pain of it plus everything before had reared its head. And now he had a life to live, free of Doflamingo and with knowledge from a marine of all places that Cora-san had truly loved him and wanted him to be happy. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

How could he face so readily the simple truth he refused to let himself deserve for 13 long years? How was he supposed to live, what was he to do with that life he had finally truly gained? What was he supposed to do now, his purpose was done and though his life was guaranteed to be shorter than the average man's, he had a decade or two minimum to go should he not be killed or off himself like the miserable fool he was.

All this and so many other thoughts circled in Law's head and who knows, maybe he said all of it or none of it or something else entirely, he didn't know or care anymore. He just kept crying, as if he could expel everything out of him and replace it all with the warmth radiating out of the smaller man in his grip. It took a moment before Law remembered he had Luffy tightly in his arms sat in his lap more or less, but when Law tried to suddenly stop himself (to no avail) and pull away, Luffy was quick to put a hand on the back of Law's neck, holding his face against the crook of his neck.

"It's okay, you're allowed to do whatever you need or want now Torao. If you're upset? Be upset, that's fine. And when you don't wanna be upset anymore or don't have anymore in you to be upset about, we can both figure out together what you wanna do after that."

A wet gasp followed by deep sniffling was followed by an almost unintelligible question of, "What if it takes years before I'm not upset anymore?"

Luffy hummed softly in thought for a moment before replying simply, "then we'll figure it out after however many years it takes." He said it like it was so simple, and knowing him he thought it was exactly that simple. It was enough to elicit a tired chuckle followed by a small cough out of the surgeon, his outburst slowing by this point.

While Law had not loosened his grip, Luffy took to humming to himself idly, returning to tracing the tattoos on Law's arms and hands again. Starting this time by tracing the lettering along his fingers. As the older man's sobs turned to soft hiccups and sniffled, he moved his face to the side resting his cheek on Luffy's shoulder and facing out to the side. He let his still wet eyes close as he listened to and felt the other in front of him. In their little hidden place within the tangerine grove, he decided that when he was truly ready to face himself, he'd have to take Luffy up on his offer of help figuring out what to do next.

Luffy in a short amount of time had certainly lived a lot of life after all, how crazy could it get following in his footsteps or at his side?

"There is no light without shadow, and there is no happiness without pain"

This is the fox Sonic knew, a person so happy and cheerful it blinded him of cruel nostalgia, almost mocking him of something he used to have. Something precious, something you can only have once. And Nine never got to savor it, as it was taken by the cruel fists and harsh oppression of life. He turned jaded, covering the last purity he had under a shield of snark and hatred for the world he was forced to grow in.

This fox, who wore his tails proudly, letting them grow, never hiding them in a sleek metal cocoon, smiled a smile Nine longed to have again, their blue eyes shimmering with wonder as they gazed upon him, as if he was worth their curiosity, of such innocent curiosity.

Nine swallowed an odd lump in their throat, feeling that pain in his chest. And he hated it. All of that cheerfulness, that sweetness, that gentle, naive soul the fluffy fox gave the world when Nine never had a chance; he loathed all of it.

But this was the only way to even be in the same world as Sonic, this is the only way he can be with Sonic, the only way he can be alive. So he tolerated the fox. He wasn't buddy-buddy with him, but he tried not to be hostile or rude. He stayed aloof, despite wanting company so bad, he stayed snarky, no matter how much it made him want to kick himself, he stayed strong and fierce, because he didn't deserve comfort that was meant for someone else.

He stayed broken and in secret sorrow, because it's the only way to feel that he's his own person; because he's just the shadow of someone who's fixed and happy.

Wtf 😂

To all the Tumblr users who tend to use tags very liberally:

In Ivy's Grasp||BTS Fanfic (on Wattpad) and AO3 https://www.wattpad.com/story/248916208-in-ivy%27s-grasp-bts-fanfic?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_info&wp_uname=wond3rlandd__&wp_originator=M%2FrzZG%2BKJ%2FwQbHOFmWdHMvKonDX5v7Bs58KWPiK9oP3ygQWJ7DrKmUU5H5iRm%2F9v7bwbusC2VkLzte9%2BlYLFsVdkSMU7dhVCk4Hx19ykcyJZI086cVRhs7q9MccQEyNj "You know the rules Kin-Ji.. Say them to me." I gulped and closed my eyes before stating, "Don't Scream, Don't Shout, Don't Beg-" I stopped as I felt tears forming, "And most importantly?" He asked as he pressed the knife a bit harder into my skin. "Don't cry." I said, as I opened my eyes to meet his. --------- **This is an OT7xReader, I say that because you can put yourself into whichever of the five girls you choose. Happy Reading.💜💜 These characters do not represent BTS in real life. This is a work of fiction. Please remember that. I do not give ANYONE permission to use my writing for rewrites or anything else. Please respect that and Happy reading!💜 Started; 11/23/2020 Finished; ?

In Ivy's Grasp||BTS Fanfic - Content....Maybe (on Wattpad) & AO3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038114/chapters/70712619) https://www.wattpad.com/1012550708-in-ivy%27s-grasp-bts-fanfic-content-maybe?utm_source=web&utm_medium=tumblr&utm_content=share_reading&wp_uname=wond3rlandd__&wp_originator=nTOXdC%2BZVzLPYI1ZGbPEXhv3LRdbyR6snDlG2oSUfbW1Zzlh%2BUnRq9MQ4PSe2qrChfvF%2BB24f%2FpRd5mNMziU3SS23YJFDw1F%2B6ozbFFya4N0ryjOsYO9yK11iRdZ8jPN "You know the rules Kin-Ji.. Say them to me." I gulped and closed my eyes before stating, "Don't Scream, Don't Shout, Don't Beg-" I stopped as I felt tears forming, "And most importantly?" He asked as he pressed the knife a bit harder into my skin. "Don't cry." I said, as I opened my eyes to meet his. --------- **This is an OT7xReader, I say that because you can put yourself into whichever of the five girls you choose. Happy Reading.💜💜 These characters do not represent BTS in real life. This is a work of fiction. Please remember that. I do not give ANYONE permission to use my writing for rewrites or anything else. Please respect that and Happy reading!💜 Started; 11/23/2020 Finished; ?