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astralis01 · 3 years ago

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Rivalry (Isn’t it Bitter Sweet): Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Your feud with Bakugou Katsuki only escalated throughout your years at Hogwarts; whether it was on the quidditch field or who would be the first to sit down in class, there always seemed to be some sort of raging competition between you two.

Read it here on AO3

You could feel his presence from across the dining hall, immediately dowsing you in a raging hatred that you only reserved for him. His arrogance mocked you as he basically danced into the Great Hall bathed in compliments.

The Slytherin quidditch team won against Ravenclaw the night before. You didn’t know why he had all of the glory… he wasn’t even the captain. Being a keeper had its perks, you guessed. You rolled your eyes and focused your attention on your food. You tried not to stab the plate as you heard the varying praises to the boy in green and silver.

And what annoyed you the most was the herd that he always seemed to have around the place he sat. Varying from girls to boys, from Slytherin itself to the other houses too.

Stab, you picked up a piece of broccoli from your plate as you heard, "Wow, Tsuki, the last save was so cool."

Pierce, “That last block was brilliant!”

And that was the last straw for you. Who had even given the very, obviously bright idea of making the Gryffindors and Slytherins almost sit together?

Katsuki Bakugou was simply not someone who deserved such compliments. He was vile, annoying, and did everything in his limited power to poke and prod at every single one of your nerves. You used to ignore the burning hatred that you harboured for him; but late in your second year, you had let it all out.

And, as it turned out, he wasn’t quite fond of you either.

It had been years since then, yet the feeling remained the same. It was just the start of your sixth year and you already wanted to gouge his eyes out with the pointy end of your fork.

Hanta Sero caught your eye from across the tables and gave you a cheeky smile in return and the rage which had simmered down a bit rose again with a vengeance. He was the captain of the other team and you wished you could hate him as much as him. But he was quite fun to be around when he wasn't hanging out with that loser.

Though before you could get up from your place in the hall, Shouto Todoroki stopped you, holding your hands and preventing you from getting off your seat.

You turned to look at him, with the most terrible glare you could offer but he just gave you the most unimpressed look and pulled you down to sit beside him again, still holding your hand and preventing you from charging at the Slytherin table.

Then a young Slytherin, probably a first-year piped out, "Next week at the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match, you guys are sure to win."

Shouto's grip faltered and you grinned. One thing that annoyed Shouto the most, perhaps, after his father was the fact when someone insulted the Gryffindor Quidditch team that he was a proud member of.

And that was the moment you needed to charge towards the Slytherin table before any of your other friends tried to put an intervention to your actions.

"I wouldn't be too sure, you know, we have a pretty good team this year," you said, casually leaning on the table.

"And why would that stop us from winning, Captain? We have a pretty good team this year, perhaps the best," Sero drawled out, almost stretching onto the table like a tabby cat and you just wanted to slap the smirk off his face.

And before you could put that thought into action, Izuku Midoriya, came and dragged you away back to the table, so you yelled back, "Next week, we'll surely be the winners.”

"We'll see," Bakugou said.

Perhaps five years ago, you wanted to be friends with Katsuki, but now Katsuki and you were bitter enemies.

It started in the first year when you met with Katsuki and Izuku on the train.

As soon as Katsuki entered the train cart you sat in, he dozed off and Izuku came rushing in, apologizing for 'Kachaan's' manners. You laughed it off and invited him to sit with you and you two spent the train ride talking to each other, making friends when suddenly the announcement to be ready to get off at the station sounded off.

"Kachaan, wake up. We're here. We're here at Hogwarts."

"Shut up Deku."

You frowned at the interaction but you forwarded a hand towards him and said, "Hello, I am-"

"No need to tell me you shitty extra," and he walked out on the both of you.

Izuku tried to apologize for his actions but you shushed him and dragged him out with you to climb aboard the boats.

And perhaps, that was the start of your bitter rivalry.

The ending of the second year was when you finally cracked the nut in the middle of Charms class and told him off in the middle of class, in front of everyone. This is why you were put in Gryffindor, a small part of your mind thought.

(another part of your mind had thought that you shouldn't have done that and perhaps you might be at the very least allies today.)

"For Merlin's sake, can you stop shouting for a moment? This," gesturing towards his mouth, "is getting super annoying. Don't you ever get tired of shouting so much, all the time?"

And an awkward silence blanketed the class as everyone quieted down to watch the fight between you two.

Bakugou slowly turned red and then shouted, "This is getting annoying? Well, your presence is getting annoying but do you see me screaming at you to fuck off all the time, you prissy prick?"

You turned at him with the vilest look and said, "If you are going to be an idiot, you should actually try to be subtle about it."

Katsuki froze and said, "Funny you should say it."

“You’re so ridiculous.” You rolled your eyes. “Oh, I’m Katsuki Bakugou and I am a perfect student that can’t even properly pronounce a simple spell! But that doesn’t matter because guess who’s a keeper for the quidditch team when I’m only a second-year!! I am perfect!! Literally, no one likes you.”

“Trust me, no one likes you either.”

No one meaning, and translating to, I don’t.

Just to show off, you easily cast the charm that he had failed. Charms were your strong subject, so you only needed to say the spell and flick your wand before turning your attention back to him.

He was nearly smoking from his ears, he was both embarrassed and livid.

And you felt a satisfied smirk curl up on your face as you turned to Ochako to help her complete the spell.

You waved to Momo Yaoyorozu as you walked down the hallway to meet up with Shouto and Izuku. Even though she was a Ravenclaw, she was a close friend of yours through Shouto.

And you kinda owed it to your housemates for stopping you from embarrassing yourself multiple times to be nice to their friends.

“Hey, Yao-momo.” You said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until classes tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, I’m waiting for Kyouka.” She turned his body to lean against the wall. “We’re going to Hogsmeade today.”

“No invitation?”

She smiled at you and asked, “Would you like to join us, Captain?”

“I was joking, no need to sound so enthusiastic.” You chuckled. As you started to speak again, Kyouka Jirou left the classroom the two of you stood outside of. She smiled at you, her violet eyes gleaming at you, reflecting the sun rays.

“Captain!” Kyouka greeted, putting an arm around your shoulder. “Are you coming to Hogsmeade with us?”

“Be careful, your mortal enemies are coming.” Momo interrupted and warned, motioning over your shoulder.

You turned around to find Sero and Bakugou walking next to each other, laughing about something only the two of them knew. You had to hold back from commenting.

“Yoohoo!” Hanta Sero caught your eye. You sighed and turned back to your friends, sharing a look.

“Hello, Hanta.” You felt him beside you before you looked.

You purposely didn’t look at Bakugou.

“We’re celebrating our win tonight, you guys should join!” Sero invited. You heard Bakugou’s exhale of frustration, but you only rolled your eyes in an attempt to ignore his presence.

“You want a group of your rivals, plus one from the team that you beat today hanging out with you, celebrating your win, when Gryffindor go against you in less than a week?” Momo spoke up. Shee moved off of the wall. “No thanks. Come, Kyouka. Let’s go.”

Kyouka waved goodbye and followed her best friend down the hall. You pivoted to fully face the two Slytherins.

"What about the mighty Lion's Captain?" Sero asked.

"No, thanks, I have better stuff to do," you said, turning on your heels and waving at Sero.

Bakugou glared at your retreating figure.

It was the time of year just before winter, where the air starts to cool but the sun still warms your skin. You took a breath and held your broom at your side.

It was near minutes before the anticipated game against Slytherin, the two fated rivals, and you could hear the crowds already. The rivalry between your houses was something that everyone enjoyed; the rivalry between you and their keeper was all you.

“Alright team.” You pivoted to the team behind you. “We’re playing Lion first; and if we don’t get any points within the first two minutes, I’ll hold up the signal for Golden. Got it?”

“Got it.”

You had pretty much the best team between all of the houses in your honest opinion. was perfect as your keeper, he was never one to let anything get past him. Your chasers included you, Shouto, and Eijirou Kirishima. You had Leon and Leo for beaters. Two-third years that showed a huge amount of potential. And, rather recently, you gained a new seeker named Izuku Midoriya. And Izuku being one of your old friends made your teamwork with him, flawless in games

The Slytherin team was not one to mess with, they had a nice team too. Bakugou as the keeper, the Idiots Monoma and Tetsutetsu as beaters, their new seeker Aoyoma… but the problem was their chasers: Sero, Kyouka, Mina. They were so quick on their brooms, it was like working against the wind.

But your team was faster than theirs.

Today was no day to lose.

“It’s our first official match of the year.” You encouraged. “Let’s show them who not to mess with.”

“Let’s absolutely destroy them,” Leon added.

You grinned.

As you headed towards the field, you could feel the adrenaline creeping into your bones. Quidditch had become routine, simple muscle memory as you moved to your starting positions.

The Slytherin team appeared, and you felt the excitement enter you in a rush of air.

And as soon as the whistle sounded, you all flew off in the air, fully intent on kicking Slytherin's butts.

In the air, Bakugou Katsuki felt at peace. He was very good at what he did, and he knew that, and the game was something he was passionate about.

He was also passionate about beating you.

You were the bane of his existence. You had never once sent him anything other than something bitter or sarcastic. You were an annoying pest that he simply couldn’t get rid of.

And as you threw the Quaffle into the goal just above his head, Katsuki felt his eye twitch.

And what even irritated him, even more, was the small smile that you shot at him as you rushed back for a high-five at Todoroki.

Slytherin won, Izuku Midoriya’s hand high with the Snitch inside.

You watched in triumph as the teams descended on the brooms. From the skies down, you cheered.

“Congrats, Gryffindor,” Sero said, though his tone was bitter and sour.

And it did not feel as the statement was supposed to be at all but you ignored it in favour of the elation.

You knew that he hated losing, so you didn’t push it. He was a friend, after all. Sending him just a small “I’m sorry you didn’t win” smile, you headed to your team. You gathered them into a hug, or rather– a huddle, and ruffled the hair on Izuku’s head.

You peeked over your shoulder to catch sight of Bakugou. He was standing, hands at his sides, red face and eyes blank of any expression other than anger.

You smirked at him.

And he snarled back at you.

Katsuki Bakugou was on the other side of the victory this time, silently brooding as he picked at his food in the Great Hall. The Slytherin table emitted zero volume.

He was pissed off the second you entered the hall, Deku and Todoroki walking beside you. The gold and red seemed to glow, mocking him in the worst way imaginable.

Sero tried to bring his attention back to the food, but Bakugou was focused primarily on you. You were gloating, relishing in his loss, taking delight in the compliments from your house. A Hufflepuff appeared at your side, and you smiled as you thanked them for their congratulations.

He felt sick.

And a small part of him felt angry. But that was well deserved by you, he supposes.

You could not help but drown yourself in the triumph. You walked on air, the feeling of superiority tickling every inch of skin it could touch.

You waved goodbye to a couple of friends, heading directly to the Slytherin table. You placed your hands on Sero and Katsuki’s shoulders, leaning to place your head right between theirs.

“I suppose we beat you as I told you.” You sent a wink to Bakugou, knowing full well how it would provoke him.

“Fuck off.” Bakugou shoved your hand off of his shoulder.

“To receive your praise at the Gryffindor table.” Mina shooed, fork in hand. “You won’t find it here.”

“Sore losers.” You mocked just for fun. You stood straight. “I imagine that I would be the same, given it was the other way.”

You basically skipped back to your table for breakfast.

You were absolutely elated for the rest of the day. It was quite similar to being on cloud 9, winning your first game of the year against your rivals. The look on Katsuki Bakugou’s face only added to the feeling.

You were walking down the hall, talking to Denki who had his arm wrapped in yours. He was going on and on about how he wished he could have imprinted Izuku's snitch catch to his memory. Or made it into shirts so he could sell it to his fan club and you laughed at that idea.

That was when your shoulder collided directly into a firm body.

Your arm was ripped away from your classmates, along with your bag that fell onto the hard ground with a loud thud and wisp of parchment and ink. Everything in your bag is now scattered on the ground, covered in dark ink and dirt.

Your mood was too high to get too angry. It was an accident; you would bite your tongue and clean up the mess.

Until you realized just who’s the shoulder you ran into Bakugou Katsuki. Your greatest enemy and now the destruction of your contents.

“Watch where you’re going next time, Bakugou.” You grunted, kneeling to save some of your parchment before the ink could reach it.

“Perhaps if you had your head out of your ass, you wouldn’t have run into me,” Bakugou responded. He had turned to face you midway through your fall.

“As if you didn’t feel this way a week ago.” You told him, standing up. Nearly everything that was in your bag was soaked, including the bag itself. You inhaled deeply. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Now, why would I run my shoulder into you on purpose hoping to ruin your mood?” He asked. “You must be very arrogant to think that everything must be about you.”

You clenched your jaw and closed your eyes. “I will not let a piece of shit such as yourself bring my mood down today. Today is a good day.”

You knelt once again to find the essay that you had written for Aizawa, searching your documents. Only to find it one of the few that were directly under the ink, completely doused in black.

“Actually, fuck you.” You lifted the paper. Ink dripped off and onto the ground. “Do you know how long I worked on this?”

“I don’t know, a couple of minutes?” Bakugou shrugged. “You aren’t exactly the best at your schoolwork.”

“You wish you knew me well, but you don’t at all.” You felt anger boil in your chest. “I worked very hard on this essay. Days, even. And you destroyed it in less than five seconds..”

“There’s the Gryffindor in you.” He let out a humourless laugh. “You think everything has to be about you, and if it doesn’t then someone is out to get you. Your ego is so fucking enormous that you can’t even muster the idea that maybe something isn’t about you. And then you shout at me for that. You didn’t even win, Deku won the game for you. God, why don’t you go make a friend instead of standing here arguing with me about an accident?”

"Fuck you, I actually have friends, unlike you, who only has followers," you answered back to him.

"Well, you have everyone hanging over you. You're just a slut aren't you?"

Denki's eyes widened and the small groups of people who were conversing around you stopped and for a moment you thought that the whole school had heard with the silence that spread.

You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes. Yes, both of you fought in front of each other. Both of you told each other to fuck off or even curse out a few times but none of you ever shouted such vulgar words at each other.

It was one thing to make comments, to be bitter and roll your eyes at each other’s presence. It was one thing to bicker, to fight, to joke to friends about the other’s incompetence and purposely pull on each other’s strings.

It was something else completely to call you a slut in front of everyone in the middle of a hallway after a thread of insults.

The overwhelming force to cry was still there but you would not allow yourself to cry in front of him.

Right after he called you that.

You would not let him have that satisfaction.

So, you turned on your heels and said, "You're more than an asshole Katsuki Bakugou."

And your prompts hurried away.

Denki, who was still frozen on the spot after the volley of insults had to be shot and the worse had been done, shoved Bakugou aside and said, "You shouldn't have said that Bakugou," and rushed behind you, calling out your name.

"You shouldn't call anyone a slut, Katsuki. Those words are not meant to be uttered in a civil society. It's like calling you a pussy publicly," Mitsuki Bakugou uttered, with the most strict voice she could offer while Masuru Bakugou spluttered at the usage of curse words in front of their son.

Katsuki Bakugou did not think often before speaking. He was just so used to people either bowing down and agreeing to his demands or just ignoring them that when he meet you, someone he could neither affect with both of his options, he always blew up.

Perhaps it was the fact that you had such a kind heart that you shook the Giant Squid's tentacle when it came on your boat during your first year because you thought it was lonely.

Or perhaps it was how easily you made friends with people. Just collecting the lonely bits of a big puzzle and joining it together, seemed to be your speciality.

But perhaps the most infuriating thing about you was the fact that you just refused to bow down to his screams and shouts and temper. You rose to receive the challenge he posed.

That is why his heart tore and clawed its way in his chest when you had turned around and run away from him.

He supposes you had stuck beside him long enough.

And he could not ignore the way that your friends glared at him while sitting in the Great Hall, Todoroki being the most vocal about it.

Or the way, Mina made excuses whenever he tried to talk to her.

Or, how Kirishima had stopped trying to drag his butt to Hogsmead for a friendly meet during the weekends.

Yes, he could not ignore all that.

"Maybe you should apologize," Sero suggested one day after catching the solemn look on his face.

"Do what now?" he screamed at him.

"You know, apologize to them," he repeated, slowly.

"Why should I apologize to them?"

"Because you know that you went too far. I know you still have feelings and stuff that you seem to everyone else for it."

For several days Katsuki Bakugou did not see you anywhere. Not in the classes, not in the Great Hall and the weight of his deed was still there.

So he did the next best thing.

He found out when you had booked the Quidditch pitch for practise of your team because he knew you wouldn't abandon them even in your worse days and planned to apologise to you there.

He had even practised it a few times in front of the mirror, "I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings by calling you a slut." It was a small apology but he was hopeful that you would forgive him.

Yes. And you two could go back to the regular hating and biting remarks instead of the new empty kind of feeling that settled in his chest.

But the second he stepped onto the Quidditch, he was stopped by Shouto Todoroki and Izuku Midoriya from going any further.

"Kachaan, you should not be here," Izuku said with more force than he had ever talked to with Katsuki and he wondered, what had you done that so many people were standing in defence of you.

"I know. I just came to apologize to them. Just move out of my way Deku."

Todoroki stepped in front of Izuku and said as bluntly as ever, "They don't want to see you. And I don't think your apology will mean anything to them except for sending them into a bad mood."

Before he could say anything, you came and said, "Zuku, Shou, the break is over. Get your butts moving."

Katsuki felt himself freeze in surprise. You had been at the practice for about two hours yet your voice was not hoarse from shouting. Even your energy levels seemed to be at the ever high.

Though before he could unfreeze and say his apology, you had already flown into the sky with Izuku and Shouto behind, in tow, leaving him behind in the dust.

The loneliness that you left behind with ignoring him was cold.

And his heart broke a little.

And he finally understood, all those years he thought he had the vilest hatred for you was just his stupid emotions trying to tell him that he liked you.

But he was too late now, he supposed.

How could he be such an idiot, to believe that you, out of all people, could ever love him?

Hanta Sero took a place beside you. It would have been normal if it were not for your avid avoidance of anyone with a Slytherin robe on.

“Hello, Hanta.” You said without sparing him a glance.

The thing was, you weren’t angry with him. You didn’t hate him, you hated his closest friend. And by association, you didn’t want to talk to him just as much. Sero had always been the middle ground between the doom and gloom that was the sandy-haired boy you hated.

“I think you should talk to Kats,” Sero said. Plain and simple, to the point.

“I think you should mind your business.” You retorted. “I never talked to him to begin with, what’s different now?”

“Because now is different.” He grabbed his book as the professor walked in. “Now, you won’t even say your smart ass remarks or tell him how fucked up his hair looks. Now he is just… boring and sad. And he mopes all the time. He isn't even playing his best on the field”

“So you want me to talk to the guy I hate in order for him to not be sad?” You scoffed and collected your things. “No, thank you. I've been keeping my distance, just like he wanted and I am happy to keep it this way.”

You stood up from your seat and sat beside Izuku just as the professor started talking, receiving a few stares in the process. It wasn’t as if you weren’t used to that.

You were walking with Ochako, laughing about the attempts everyone had tried to do to make Todoroki laugh when you committed the most horrific mistake of your life.

You caught the eye of Bakugou across the street who just had to look at you at the same moment.

You quickly averted your eyes but not before it caught his attention

It had been snowing, so most of the students were in their winter gear and warm clothes. You yourself had a hat and scarf on, gloves to cover your hands despite the hot to-go mug of cocoa in them.

Hogsmeade was quite busy with everyone getting last-minute holiday gifts and hurrying to hang out before the break. Yet, somehow, your eyes found the reds of Bakugou's.

You turned around, forcing Ochako to follow. The girl didn’t even have to ask about your change in demeanour, easily falling into place beside you.

You felt a hand on your wrist and heard your name being called. “Hey. Can I talk to you? I’ve been trying to apologize…”

You stopped dead in your tracks as if you were pulled on a leash. As if his bare hand touching your empty gloved one had scolded you. Bakugou stood before you, red cheeks from either the cold or from rushing after you. Either way, you wanted nothing to do with it.

He had spun you in his grasp, his jaw tight and eyes searching yours before falling to his hand around yours. His grip on your wrist was tight, and he swallowed as his eyes found yours again.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” You snatched your arm away. “Have you ever considered that? I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want to hear your half-ass apology! What gives you the right to just waltz back into my life after all the pain you’ve caused."

“I have been trying to talk to you.” He said. “I…” His eyes scanned yours. His tongue rolled in his mouth. “You mean to tell me that you don’t want my apologies?”

“You’ve made it very clear what you think of me, so I hope that I can make this very clear for you,” You took a deep breath. “I hate you. I don’t like you, I have never liked you, and I hope that whatever it is that is eating you up inside continues to do so.”

Katsuki Bakugou’s eyes twitched. He started to take a step towards you, but decided against it, falling back into the same step. “I don’t…” His voice was nothing as you had ever heard it. “You…” His eyes clouded with the emotions you were familiar with. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

Bakugou faltered for a moment, his eyes held remorse and you almost wanted to forgive him but you remembered what he called you.

He quickly shoved a box of chocolates into your hands and said, "I brought this for you as an apology gift but you didn't want my words. I hope my actions will speak louder. And I hope that someday you will find it in your heart to forgive me," and he promptly left, leaving you flabbergasted in the middle of the streets of Hogsmead, with Ochako by your side.

It was a sudden realization. It was not something you had even considered before, not something planned or reasoned. It was much like a tsunami, a build-up of unrelated activity that brought something else entirely.

Emotions were unfortunate things. If you feel extreme emotions for someone, no matter what… they are still very strong feelings.

Hate to love, what a strange concept.

You held the potion below your nose, inhaling the scent.

“What does it smell like?” Aizawa asked.

“It smells like… caramel.” You distinguished the varying smells. “Apple. And… burning wood?”

You stepped back and hoped no one could see you connecting the dots through your eyes.

Hanta Sero was an observant person. He was known to be the person who knew the best for his team, easily finding the perfect techniques for each on the field and as encouragement. He was one for connections and relationships. He was the one who handled the emotional part.

This is why he knew that you were masking feelings of something else with this burning hatred. This is why he knew why you felt so bad after Kats called you a terrible name in front of an audience. This is why he knew who it was when you listed your amortentia scents.

He tried to send you a look from his seat across from you, classes later. He wanted to tell you that he knew; that he knew there was something more to what’s going on, and that something was Katsuki.

You just sent him a middle finger, knowing full well what he was getting at.

Your feelings didn’t just suddenly arrive. And you were full of confusion, disorientation, and most of all… anger.

For as long as you could remember, Katsuki Bakugou was supposed to be your arch enemy. He was your nemesis on a daily basis. He was the reason for your annoyance. He was the reason for your hatred for the colours green and silver. He was the reason you became the quidditch captain. He was the reason for the breath leaving your lungs.

And he was the reason for the breath entering.

You were pissed. You were pissed that you had unrealized feelings for the man you were supposed to hate, have hated for years. You were pissed that your love had been in a game of chess, where the only outcome is to win or forfeit. You were pissed that the entire time you had spent a vast majority of your time hating, loathing, rolling your eyes at… the entire time you had reserved space for hate when it should have been quite the opposite.

The luck must have been exclusively for someone else because it seemed as though whoever created you had decided to have a fun game.

You had punched Bakugou Katsuki once.

It was something you thought of a lot, and it was the main reason Bakugou chose not to test you too close to that day.

He was rolling his eyes at something Denki was saying when you walked by. You were heading to your quidditch practice, the captain not one for latecomers. And he caught sight of you. He quickly jumped from his spot and stopped you from passing.

“Out of the way, Katsuki, I have practice.”

“Oh, right, because you’re on the quidditch team now.”

“I am, thank you very much.” It was the beginning of the third year, and you were not only annoyed but you were also a Growing Person going through puberty. You did not have time to deal with a teenage boy pissing you off. “You forget that not everyone got on the team their first year of trying out.”

“Because we’re better than the entire Gryffindor team.”

“Talk to me when you win a house cup.” You tried to push past him, but he stood directly in front of you in one step. “Move, or be moved.”

“What are you going to do? Punch me?”

So, you did. Your fist collided with his cheek before you could even register that it had happened. Denki gasped out loud, it quickly turned into a laugh.

“They punched you! That was superb.” Denki laughed, grasping at his sides. “Ah, man!”

While Bakugou touched his cheek to check that— ah yes, you really did punch him— you were already walking away to the practice field.

Katsuki started t missed you if he were being fully and completely honest with himself.

It was right, you only miss something that is completely removed from your life.

He found himself searching for you in classes or in common areas, prepared for your snide remarks and bitter taunts. He found himself waiting for you to roll your eyes at his presence; looking for you to quip about the next quidditch game.

But when none of it came, he felt out of place.

He actually missed your annoying banter. He missed you shoving your middle finger in his direction. He missed the redness on your cheeks when you would try to calm yourself down. He missed the silence that would escape you if he entered a room and you were anything other than angry.

He missed catching you smiling at someone and watching your face change. He missed the arguments in class. He missed the little comments during eating.

Confused, he pushed those feelings down as he watched you eat with some Ravenclaws and a Hufflepuff that he had never talked to before.

And the empty space in his heart only grew larger in size.

It had been several weeks of silence from your end. You had thrown yourself back into quidditch before the break, happy to have a distraction from whatever the fuck you were feeling. You weren’t going home for the holidays, so you spent some time planning for the spring and classes.

You found yourself outside, sitting in the snow and writing a makeup essay for Aizawa. You had found a nice spot under a roofed area, so nothing smudged your writing (or, you know, covered it completely).

“Oh.” A voice said from above you.

You looked up to find Bakugou, hands in pockets and staring at you as if you had never existed and he was discovering you for the first time.

“I wasn’t expecting to find anyone here.” He said.

“Yeah, obviously neither was I.” You started to put your things away.

“No… no comment?”

“Hm?”

“No… snarky comment? No, you look terrible to me?”

You shook your head. Mainly because you didn’t have the energy. You were content, bored, and just overall exhausted. You had exhausted yourself in thinking of every possible outcome to your love for the boy in front of you, none of which made any sense.

None of it made any sense.

It was as if one moment, you were standing on the ground. And the next, you were swept away by a giant wave that you thought was only an earthquake. You hated to love.

“Then, can I finally say what I have been meaning to?”

“No.” You finally got the last of your things into your bag.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why can’t you just hear me out?” He stood in front of you, hoping to stall your leaving. “I’ve been trying to tell you that I shouldn’t have called you a slut, and I should have…”

“And I don’t want to hear it.”

You started to leave, but he jogged to jump in front of you again. Through the years, he had gained height compared to you. You weren’t necessarily kids anymore, you weren’t at eye level to just punch him in his cheek without reaching for it.

“God, you’re fucking annoying.” You shifted your bag on your shoulders. “You want me to call you a name so it can be even? Do you want me to tell you that everything is fine and we can go back to our constant fighting? What do you fucking want from me? Did it mean anything to you? Did I mean anything to you?”

“What do I want from you?” He asked, voice rising to match yours. “What do you want from me? I’ve been trying to get your attention for over a fucking month and you have given me every reason to just stop.”

“Then why don’t you!” You dropped your hands. “Why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

“Why?”

“Why what, Katsuki?”

“Why?” Katsuki let out a small breath, the grey cloud leaving his lungs. “Why won’t you just let me talk to you for five minutes?”

“Because I don’t want to! Because I don’t want to hear you make up excuses. Because I cannot listen to your voice for too long.”

Before you could stop yourself, before you could recognize your own voice, before any thoughts arrived, you said, “Because for some fucked up god awful reason, I’m in love with you!”

Everything froze all at once. The oxygen left your lungs, the snow stopped falling, and everything became so unbearably silent.

You stared at him, regret drenching you in an instant as if the tides of the ocean had risen and fell in one single motion. You couldn’t breathe, your heart seized in your chest and against your ribs. You couldn’t bring yourself to look into his face, fearing to find yourself lost and never found.

He let out a single breath. And you held yours.

He froze and then he leaned forward.

He remembered the last time he was too late to act.

His lips touched yours, gently and then suddenly was full of the fireworks that everyone had said about their first kisses. The fervent feelings that ran through your bodies, the anger and the misplaced love, all tumbling out in the biggest mess he'd ever seen.

But he continued. And then you broke apart.

Both of you had a lot of talking to do with each other but hopefully it would all turn out to be well.

"And so, we both are kinda dating now," you finished with an awkward look on your face, rubbing your neck.

A silence overtook your friends and Izuku whispered, "What the fuck?"

Shouto screamed at the both of you, "I fucking knew it." And then his voice slipped into his conspiracy theorist voice, "There was sexual tension between the two of you."

You facepalmed.

Katsuki turned red.

#bnha #mha #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #x gn reader #bakugou x y/n #mha bakugou #bakugou katuski x reader #bakugou x reader #boku no hero acadamia oc #bnha fanfic

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tysonrunningfox · 7 years ago

Text

Lost Chances

This is a super mean chapter. I just almost cried editing it. I’m so...invested.

And I just couldn’t do this close to Christmas. Don’t expect another update until after, probably, because I do want people to catch up and also, feel free to pillage my inbox with pitchforks because I half feel I deserve it. But here.

Tumblr | AO3

It’s quiet for a few days. Calm almost, except for Bang following Mom around like something bad will happen if he lets her out of his sight. He doesn’t even want to go flying, so I end up walking to cover about ten things for the chief when he opts to stay home to keep an eye on Mom. I kind of get what she’s saying about not being able to live like that for almost a year, but I know better than to say anything about it. It might finally be getting through my thick skull that having the same fight multiple times just for the sake of it never actually changes anything.

Aurelia’s still being frosty and sticking closer to the chief than usual and I’m trying not to let it bug me even though it feels like I’m kicked out of some club. A club I never accepted the invite to, because I was never one to hang out with the chief on purpose. Maybe that’s what changed his mind, if I’d kissed up more he wouldn’t keep waving me to the door to take care of his stuff with that disinterested little head bob.

I end up spending a lot of time with Stoick, which isn’t as awkward as I would have thought because he mostly just likes dragons and getting as covered in mud as is humanly possible. That and we’re both banned from the house for being deemed too loud, except the number of times Mom checks on us makes me sure that it’s more the chief’s idea than hers.

It reminds me of the last time we were all living under the law of the chief’s idea, his whole brilliant marriage plan that didn’t quite backfire. Except this time, Aurelia is inside and I’m not. And everyone’s ok with it to the point where I can’t even try to shut up that little voice in my head that’s constantly reminding me that they’re all hoping for a second chance at a better version.

And then, one morning, I wake up coughing, sitting bolt upright and wheezing against the incredibly pointy elbow jabbing into my chest. It takes me a groggy moment to recognize the brick red of Aurelia’s hair tangled in my blankets and another second to realize she’s sobbing, her face wet against the side of my neck, back heaving.

“Hey, it’s ok,” I mutter, clearing my throat and ignoring the fact that she’s practically choking me as I rub her back. She’s fully dressed and smells like the woods, like she just snuck in. For a moment I’m sure it’s Arvid, that he’s done something, and he may be my half-brother but he’s dead.

Her fingernails dig into the nape of my neck, “it’s Mom.” She barely gets it out between sobs and I sit up more fully, looking around at the quiet room. The fire has died down to coals, and it’s not strange because I’m used to waking up next to a cold hearth, but in the moment I’m sure it’s gone because Mom couldn’t restart it for some reason.

“Is she ok? What happened?” I try to pry my sister’s face away from my shoulder but she refuses, rubbing her snot on my shirt.

“It’s…it’s the baby,” she whispers, shoulders tensing as she pulls away ever so slightly. Right, I made an ass of myself, as always, and now she doesn’t think she can talk to me about it.

Eret not-son of Eret, ruining sibling relationships for sixteen years and counting.

“What happened with the baby?”

She sniffs and presses her face back into my shoulder. It’s not an answer but it’s everything I needed to hear.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

That earns a snort, for some reason, and she pushes soggy hair out of her face and hugs me like she’s not trying to choke me, “you do care. Did care, I mean. You’re right, shit.”

“Of course I care,” I’m suddenly aware of the house around me, the three people breathing in the other rooms, the weight of this all pressing down. “Just because I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“Could have fooled Mom,” her tone isn’t accusatory, not really, just matter of fact in a way that pierces my chest like a well-aimed Nadder barb. “Sorry, that was too far,” she sniffs, “I’m just…I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”

I don’t have time to answer, which is probably a good thing because I have no idea what to say, because the bedroom door opens behind us and the chief appears in the doorway, looking gaunt and gray in a way I’ve never seen. He stares at us for a moment before recognition flickers behind glassy eyes and one corner of his mouth quirks up.

Aurelia pulls slowly out of our hug and stands, brushing her skirt off and crossing the room with an even, defiant gait, like it hurts her to do it. She wraps her arms gingerly around his waist and squeezes. I barely hear the murmured, “love you, Dad,” and it doesn’t sound like her when she says it. It occurs to me that she’s saying it for him, not because she wants to or because it’s true, and I feel so impossibly helpless.

What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, chief, I don’t hate you sometimes’? Is lying cool? Is this one of those situations where I can fill the gaps in the conversation with fluffy, sweet lies and no one will call me out on it?

“Love you too,” the chief kisses the top of her head and something stirs in my stomach, remembering Dad carrying me to bed and whispering goodnight in my ear because he didn’t know I could hear him. I feel like an intruder.

I don’t belong anywhere else.

Aurelia turns and walks into the bedroom with an admirable caution, her footfalls even and close together, and the chief looks at me, staring like he’s not sure what he sees.

“Uh…Aurelia told me,” I stand, wishing I’d slept in my shoes so I could bolt out the door. The twin instincts to run and to face him, head held high, wage war in my head and I grind my teeth.

“Yeah, she…Astrid told her first.” He seems to shrink, lips pressed into a thin, pale line.

“Oh.”

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” he says it so quietly that at first I think I’m imagining it. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded that quiet, that gentle, and for the first time I really see the ghost of a boy who trained a night fury inside of him. “It was too literal. Trying again like that.”

I open my mouth to excuse myself but nothing comes out, and I don’t remember the last time I felt so silent.

“I guess there are just some things you can’t get back. Some things don’t get second chances.”

I know what to say then, I know the lie to tell, the one that fixes something, that bridges the gap between me and the sadness I’m so compelled to brush away. You don’t need a second chance, you have me.

But then it strikes me how true that is, that he has me, like a possession. He saw me and wanted me and took me, married my mom, split apart what I used to call my family. I want to be furious but I’m too tired, too overwhelmed, too weighed down by the unfairness and stupidity in the world to get myself riled up. I wonder if this is what it feels like to grow up, if being an adult is nothing more than a million little decisions to be quiet when you want to be upset.

“I—” I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to think. “I’m…sorry.”

I wonder if he looked this devastated about me once upon a time.

“Me too.”

I think of him reading to Stoick, of him staring after Aurelia with what I always took to be stern negligence but was probably always more misunderstanding than malice. I think of him hugging me by a forest fire, with my burned feet and singed hair. I think of him thwarting my plans at every turn, always talking about how dangerous they are, how I don’t know what I’m doing.

Maybe…maybe all this Hel has been nothing more than a misguided asshole’s horrible attempt at rebuilding a family.

“It sounds like you mean it.”

“I don’t,” he’s crying now, tears dotting those too familiar freckles together as he runs his hand through his hair, silver sticking up at odd angles. “Gods, I’m not sorry at all, I did what I did and I’m here and this should have been better—it should have been different, you shouldn’t hate me so much, you and my daughter shouldn’t band together against me and—and—and I should have been able to build something instead of tearing everything apart.” He sobs and it sounds like Aurelia, their pain has the same cadence and it reverberates in my chest like a Thunderdrum bellow.

“Hey, it’s—I don’t hate you.” I’m an awful liar, I didn’t used to be, but somehow I am now. I flinch from my own insincere words as the chief flops down into a chair, elbows on the table, head cradled in his hands.

“I deserve this. I—I fucked everything up, a thousand times. In a row. Just again and again and again. But your mother doesn’t...” His back is shaking, trembling really, and I feel anchored to the floor like my feet must be made of lead. I take a faltering step towards him, looking towards the closed bedroom door, thinking of how strong Aurelia was to walk in there, chin held high. As mad as we’ve been at each other lately, I can’t think of how to repay her for that.

It takes a million years to cross the ten feet of room between us. I set my hand on his shoulder, lightly, because I’m scared to touch him, scared of what it means. If I comfort him, does ‘Dad’ follow? Do I start thinking he’s right? Does trying to absorb this indescribable pain build from here until I don’t recognize myself anymore?

Or is it worse than that? Will I run away from it eventually? Will I recognize myself perfectly because I’ll be just like him?

“Umm…it’s not ok, I’m not going to say it’s ok, but…” I don’t know what spirit possesses me to keep talking, but I stare at the back of my hand, jarring against the soft wool of the chief’s green tunic. “I don’t know what to say, I was never the one that gave pep talks. That was always Mom or Ingrid, I was the one who needed them. Ingrid always knew how to make me feel better, she can make any situation seem like a fight I can win if I just push a little harder but…but this isn’t like that. I know it’s not.” Gods, I wish Ingrid were here. I miss her. It’s the only reason I don’t leave sometimes, I don’t want anyone missing me the way that I miss Ingrid.

The bedroom door opens behind us and I jerk away, shoving both my hands into my pockets. I expect to see Aurelia alone, but Mom is with her, eyes wide, face composed.

“Eret, can you pick your clothes up off the floor? I swear to Thor, you’re going to be chief before you learn to pick up your own socks.” Mom snaps at me, and she sounds so much like her old self, the one I haven’t seen since I was oblivious, that I jump to attention, scrambling to pick up my mess. “This house is too stuffy, don’t you think? I know it’s just spring, but I think we could open some windows. It’s not that cold outside.”

“Mom,” Aurelia’s voice is fragile as she rests a hand on Mom’s elbow. “Maybe you should—”

“If I gave you some money would you run down to the market for me?” Mom cuts across her suggestion, striding across the room and rummaging through the chief’s coin purse. “We need…a lot. We need everything.” She pauses and I can see her façade splitting at the seams, sad but not unsurprised. Beaten but not lying down. Guilty in a way she never should be.

“Hey, Mom, why don’t you go lay down—” Aurelia looks at me like I might have the answer as Mom starts organizing a cabinet, tossing things haphazardly onto the floor behind her.

I spot my axe out of the corner of my eye, her old axe, and it’s desperate and hopeful when I grab it and walk over to her, grabbing her hand and tucking it around the handle. She swallows and turns towards me, taking it in both hands.

“You’re right. That’s better, isn’t it? We need firewood.”

“Yeah, the pile is looking a little low.”

She stalks outside, axe over her shoulder and when I look back inside, Aurelia and the chief are staring at me, twin pairs of green eyes fixed on my face. That crushing weight of responsibility is back with all of its charming heft and I backpedal, tripping on an uneven floorboard and stumbling back upright.

“I’m going for a flight.” I’m not sure that they heard me but I leave anyway, trying to ignore the rhythmic hack of Mom’s axe, pounding along with my heartbeat.

00000

I end up at Fuse’s shed, eventually, after a few lazy laps around the island, fighting the thought of going further. It doesn’t seem relaxing anymore what with the dragons and Arvid and the fact that the quiet would just amplify the thoughts bouncing around my head. But Fuse’s shed is quiet and the stool in the corner isn’t comfortable enough to relax. She barely lifts her head from whatever she’s doing when I step inside and sit down and that’s better already. I can pout without making it worse for anyone else.

I’m not even sure what I’m pouting about, honestly, I wasn’t excited like everyone else.

“What are you building?”

“Testing a boring charge combination.” She looks away from whatever she’s doing to exhale, like the force of her breath could disturb it.

“For the chief or for our plan.”

“Our plan.”

“Have you talked to Smitelout?”

“No, I haven’t needed anything.” She carefully sets a clay lid onto what she built before spackling the seam with what smells like pine sap but is darker, mixed with something I don’t recognize.

“I still can’t believe I told her. Do you think she’ll tell anyone?”

“We’ll know if she does.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

She doesn’t know and it was comforting at first but now it feels suffocating. It’s not mine to tell and I don’t want to talk about it, necessarily, I just…Mom needed someone to hand her an axe. I need someone to tell me that axing something wouldn’t do anything even though I already know.

And I never had a problem going against the chief before, staring at the parts in front of me—the forbidden parts, the defiant parts—I can’t help but feel strange. Almost guilty. I think of how his face crumpled when he told me, how he looked so much like me in that moment that hurting him was suddenly akin to smacking my own head against a wall for sport.

“What’s wrong?” Fuse looks up from her project, a few heaps of jewel toned powders laid out in some cryptic organization on an old scrap of seal skin. She’s methodical where I’m stagnant, a smoking stone bowl dispersing her day’s work into the air. It smells awful, like tar and rotten eggs, and I have no problem believing it would explode flawlessly.

“Nothing.” It’s not something I should talk about, is it? It’s private and it occurs to me that I haven’t ever been in on a family secret before. Ha.

It’s a passing of the torch, I’m no longer the big whopping family secret, some concept of a dead little sibling of mine is.

My eyes itch. I don’t know why.

Fuse quirks half an eyebrow, the short fuzz of regrowth catching the sunlight streaming through the doorway and glowing pink like her hair, “you’re an awful liar.”

“Thanks. I try.”

“You aren’t being as much of a nuisance as normal.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“Silently? What’s going on?” She walks towards me and the hair on my arms stands up.

“Nope. I’m good. You just—you know? I might actually call it a night, take Bang on a flight or something just—are you ever just antsy? Like there’s a hundred fireworms wriggling under your skin. Yep. I’m just going to go uh—“ I stand up and trip over my own foot, internally cursing my clumsiness and where it came from. Maybe that’s why I didn’t leave, that would have made me feel more like the chief, it would have brought the memory of his unreachable sadness even closer than it already is. That thought shakes that hard little ball of anxiety around in my stomach and I feel nauseous and Thor’s beard, it’s a good thing I never had to keep family secrets, I would have been floundering in Daddy issues by the age of three.

Fuse’s grip is stronger than it should be as she catches me by my upper arm even though I’m not stumbling anymore. She brushes some soot off of my shoulder but just makes it worse, rubbing it into the weave of my new shirt. My clothes still feel wrong, crisp and un-stretched in the shoulders, constantly reminding me that Arvid didn’t wear them first.

“You know I’m a good listener.” She reiterates like she has so many times the past few months.

“That’s what scares me,” I swallow, “I might just tell you everything.”

“You could start with why you aren’t working on your master plan to help the dragons, because that’s all I’m really asking about.”

“Gods, you make it sound so easy.”

“You talk more than anyone I know, it is easy for you.”

“Careful,” I snort, fumbling back for my stool and plopping down onto it, rubbing sooty hands over my face. “You might convince me to talk your ear off and then I’d never stop.”

“You always stop.” She shrugs, one shoulder, almost sad in that Fuse way that makes me suspect she’s reading my mind. “Eventually, at least.”

She sits back down at her station, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye as she carefully scoops an emerald green powder back into a small, clay jar with a tight-fitting lid.

“What if this is all about me?” It’s a rhetorical question and I don’t really expect her to answer, but when she doesn’t, I’m suddenly compelled to fill the silence. I don’t like silence, it used to be because I was afraid I’d disappear into my siblings’ larger shadows, but now I know too much about what exists in the silence between people. Between me and…this morning, I understand that whole people can disappear into the quiet. Suddenly I’m angry that the chief and Mom didn’t tell anyone, that they kept it secret just like they did to me all those years. Like we couldn’t exist until we were a long lost miracle. “What if I’m not trying to help the dragons at all? What if I’m just…screaming into a void and hoping that the chief hears me. That he knows I’m angry. But he knows and he’s—I want him to be evil, I want him to be pathetic, but he’s just…what if I’m defying him just for the sake of defying him?”

“So you aren’t worried about the dragons?” She hisses, sucking on her finger when it glances across a candle flame.

“You ok?”

“Because those dragons look sick, Eret. You didn’t make that up. Hel, one died and washed up here, that’s never happened before that I know of—”

“If it were about the dragons, wouldn’t I have argued more? Wouldn’t I have fought harder for help?” I sigh, “the chief is the one who knows the most, he’s the one I should be campaigning to. I shouldn’t be playing matchmaker for my half siblings in the forge in the middle of the night. I would be…I don’t know. Rallying. I’m supposed to be chief someday, people should listen to me. Instead I’m just in here playing teenage defiance.”

“What happened between you and the chief?” She asks, turning towards me, eyes narrowed, strand of long hair escaping her braid and falling in front of her face. I get the impression she’s reading me, like a water-logged scroll, trying to see what I said before the elements got to me.

“Nothing, alright? It’s just…don’t I have to grow up sometime?”

“You tried with the chief, he didn’t listen.”

“He admitted it’s a problem. I should have waited—”

“Growing up isn’t synonymous with laying down.”

“F—“ For my mom it was. I barely catch the words on the way out of my mouth, turning them into a cough and staring at my hands.

I can’t stop thinking of her face this morning, sad but unsurprised, like the only response she had left was ‘not again’. I can’t help but wonder how much she’s lost, can’t help but think of her loving the chief and then loving my dad and then waffling, each decision hurting one of them, but never as much as it hurt her.

She has it worse than I do, and I’m in here whining and defying and making everything harder for everyone while they’re going through something I don’t want to understand. I should be back there helping, but I don’t know how to help, I don’t know how to handle everyone grieving for something I never understood them wanting.

Am I not good enough? Is it because I don’t call the chief dad and let him ruffle my hair? I feel impossibly more replaced, like I have to try harder and be better just to prove that it wasn’t a loss, not really. They didn’t need to try again, they’ve got me and I’m…

I’m both of them, all at once, they don’t need another. They don’t need to be so shattered.

I’ll shatter for them and they can put me back together and then maybe I’ll be what they want.

I sniff, wipe an errant tear away from my cheek, and look up at Fuse. She’s not looking at me, almost like she’s giving me privacy to fall apart, like I’m a bomb and she wants me on the other side of a barrier. I like the way she deals with emotions, clinical, sure, calm. She’s the calmest person I’ve ever met and it makes me feel safe and inferior all at once.

“I think you’re doing this for the dragons,” she says quietly, her tone assured and steady, “I think your methods might be for you, but I think that’s ok. When you don’t do anything constructive, you end up fighting your brother and screaming at the chief and if you need a few things to blow up as an outlet, well hey,” she smiles at me, “I get that.”

It’s too quiet and I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out. Maybe a sigh, maybe half a breathless laugh.

“I think I should head home.” I should go try and help. Even though I don’t know what to do or how to do it. She’s right, my methods are for me and I don’t want to be someone who runs and hides so now I have to prove that to myself.

“Alright,” she nods, “I’m close to something here. I’ll let you know if it’s anything.”

I nod and stand up, “yeah, sure, I’ll…I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess. Or something. Around, I’ll see you around.”

She nods at me and I keep that quiet reassurance in my head as long as I can as I fly back up the hill to the chief’s house. I think about knocking again, honestly, especially after I see Mom’s axe planted so deep into half a tree that I wonder if she stopped because she couldn’t get it out. I did that a lot as a kid, honestly, I was way better at swinging than I was at getting it back and I don’t think I’ve changed much. I just didn’t know I got that from Mom. She was always so in control, of us, of what she said and did. Of everything.

Until the chief came back into the picture and threw her back into chaos, I guess.

I take one more deep breath before pushing the door open.

Mom is cooking and she’d look completely normal if it weren’t for the splinters stuck to her skirt and the hair that’s out of her braid and stuck to her neck, like she was sweating from all the tree murdering. Aurelia is at the table, stack of books in front of her, on her knees in her chair to see the book at the top of the stack. She looks more frazzled than Mom does, face pale when she looks up and stares at me for a second before shaking her head.

“Oh, hi.”

I know that voice. That’s the voice of someone who just mistook me for the chief. I reach up and pull the tie out of my hair, shaking it out with my hand like that’ll make the difference more obvious.

“Hey.”

“We could have used your help earlier,” Mom stands up, “Aurelia nearly killed herself bringing the entire library home.” She walks across the room, affectionately touching the top of Aurelia’s head and looking at me like she dares me to bring it up.

“Sorry,” I cough, trying to think of anything else to say. “I uh…needed some air?”

“Mom, this says that dandelion greens—” Aurelia starts in an urgent half-whisper, like she’s not quite sure she wants me to hear and Mom cuts her off.

“I told Hiccup it was stuffy in here. We’re Vikings, a spring cross-breeze has never hurt any of us.” She goes back to the fireplace, fussing with whatever she has on the grate inside of it. “Are you hungry?”

“Always,” I blurt and she shakes her head like it’s just a normal day and that’s just a normal joke that wasn’t funny the first time, let alone the thousandth. “That smells good.” The second part is a lie because I can’t smell anything but fire and Aurelia’s anxious energy as she flips through pages. I glance at her book and see drawings that aren’t Berkian and the words aren’t Norse. She’s mouthing slowly to herself, face flushed with frustration.

“Cold baths,” she mutters, looking up at Mom, “maybe it was the time of year?”

“Put the book away and eat something,” Mom half snaps, dropping a plate of stew in front of her and putting one in my hands. She sits back down on the hearth and starts eating out of the pot, idly brushing splinters off of her lap. “That’s good. Yeah, Hiccup is never on cooking duty again, there’s a reason he’s so skinny.”

“Maybe you weren’t eating enough.” Aurelia says louder, pushing the plate pointedly away. “Maybe that’s it.”

“You skipped breakfast.” Mom looks at the plate, “eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” Aurelia crosses her arms and I shake my head at her as subtly as I can, because even though I’ve never seen Mom quite like this, I can’t imagine it’s a good idea to challenge her like that.

“You need to eat something.”

“Not until I figure this out,” Aurelia’s voice cracks and she slumps back down, sitting on her heels. She doesn’t wipe the tear that spills out of the corner of her eye, doesn’t even try to hide it, and Mom’s expression freezes on her face.

“I’m going to go get Stoick,” she stands up, leaving her fork on the hearth next to the pot of stew. “You can hold down the fort while I’m gone, right Eret?”

“Uh…” I look at Aurelia and swallow hard, like I can physically stuff my own confused sadness so deep inside that it won’t spill out accidentally. “Yeah. Sure.”

“And check on Hiccup, would you?” She says it like an afterthought, slipping on her boots and frowning when she pulls a splinter out of one. “I don’t think I’ve ever known him to sleep this long at all, let alone in the middle of the day.” Her laugh is hollow and numb and another tear slips down Aurelia’s cheek.

“Sure.” I feel like it’s somehow the same word I just said, like it floated around the unusually dead air in the room and came back to me, only to fall out under nearly identical, numb circumstances.

“I’ll be back,” she opens the door and leaves like it’s a normal day and Aurelia sobs the second the door is closed.

“Hey,” I set down my food, wrapping my arms around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug that’s almost intentionally smothering, like I can squeeze this out of her faster. “It’s ok—”

“She needs to talk about it!” She snaps, wiping her face on my shirt and leaning into the hug. “We need to figure out why for when…” she sighs, “in case…”

“She’s…” I want to say something comforting but all I have is the truth and I shrug, “she’s kind of old for it, Aurelia, it was crazy in the first place—”

“Just because you didn’t think of something doesn’t make it crazy.” She shoves me off, leaning back over her book and slowly saying a word in a language I don’t recognize. “Fuck. What’s that mean? Thor-dammit.” She slams the book shut and wipes her eyes again. “I can do this. I can do this.”

“What are you trying to do?”

“Read.” She sits, letting her legs swing under the chair, and pulls the giant book into her lap. “Of course we don’t have anything in Norse about this but that doesn’t matter. I can do this.”

“Aurelia,” I put my hand on her shoulder and she shrugs it off, “look at me.”

“I know the answer is in here, I just need to figure it out—”

“I know you’re upset, but that doesn’t mean you need to magically learn another language—”

“I know this!” She jabs her finger at the page, a whole wave of tears falling down her cheeks at once. “It’s my Mom’s language, I spoke it. We spoke it. She taught it to me and…and it’s gone. Parts of it are gone and I need it—”

“Hey,” I bend down to hug her again, ignoring the weak swat of her hand on my forearm. “Mom will see a healer, they’ll know what happened—”

“She already did,” she goes back to tracing over the same strange word again and again with her fingertip. “They said it just happens. Things don’t just happen. If things happen it’s because something makes them happen and someone lets them happen. What the fuck is this word? I know it, I know I know it.”

I look down at my arm, the pale, freckled skin against the dark green wool of her shirt. There’s the scar that I got falling off of Bang when I was eleven, there’s the dirt under my fingernails from cleaning my saddle. I just happened. I am a mistake, an accident, an unlikely collision of things that weren’t supposed to happen and if they happened they weren’t supposed to work.

And now I’m an isolated event. I always was, of course, but it’s different now after lightning failed to strike twice.

“It’s a fish!” She shouts, “it’s a kind of fish. We didn’t have it here, my mom was always looking for it...” She mutters a few more words in a strange, clunky accent, “and that doesn’t help us.”

“I don’t know how this would help anything.”

“Of course you don’t,” she shrugs my arm off and it plucks at that nagging feeling of being replaced by something that died before it was ever alive.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mom needs to talk about it, I know you don’t seem to think she needs to, but you’re wrong. And she can’t talk about it when everyone is just acting like it’s normal, it can’t be something she has to bring up—”

“I think you need to talk about it.” I gesture at the closed bedroom door, “he probably needs to talk about it. I…” I don’t have anything new to say about it. It feels like I don’t have a single thought in my head that hasn’t been said a hundred times. I feel empty and full of other people’s thoughts at the same time and I can’t figure out who would care if I said that out loud.

“Mom should talk.”

“Well, you can’t make her,” I let my hands fall against my legs with a louder slap than I expect.

She glares at me and sniffs, wiping her nose on the end of her too long sleeve. She looks younger than she has lately, puffy eyes and red cheeks reminding me of the sullen girl I moved in with, the one I just wanted to laugh so that someone would. I get the odd feeling that I know her less now than I did then and then I was just guessing.

We aren’t feeling the same thing. Not even close. We aren’t in the same book, let alone on the same page. Our books are in different languages.

Today’s the most I’ve ever heard her talk about her mom and I almost want to ask, to try and steer this back into something I understand, but I don’t want her to say the things in my head. I don’t want to hear it out loud, that I’m always going to be a reminder of something they all lost.

“I’m going to check on the chief.”

“Yeah.” She looks back at her book, “good luck getting him to talk. Since you know what he needs so well.”

I pause for a second, deciding against answering that and picking another teary fight before Mom gets back, and cross the room to open the bedroom door. It creaks, and a bar of light falls across a lump of blankets that I assume is the chief. I stand there for a minute and he doesn’t say anything so I clear my throat, hoping it’s loud enough to wake him.

“I’ll be out in a minute.” He mumbles, barely loud enough to hear through the covers and I sigh. I almost ask him to get up for Mom, because she’d like a little normalcy and that doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

But maybe I’m the one who wants normalcy and my normal isn’t anyone else’s anymore.

“Ok. Yeah. Seems likely.” I shut the door and resist the urge to bash it against my head a few times on the way.

#eret iii #festerverse #tw miscarriage #aurelia haddock #fuse thorston #hiccstrid

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