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keulixeutin · 2 years

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Breathless

a/n: my plane experience didn’t quite go like this. would’ve been nice, though. hope it makes sense, and hope y’all enjoy! summary: a stranger helps ground you when you feel trapped on a plane. bakugou x reader. she/her pronouns. cw: claustrophobia attack, panic attack, anxiety, nausea (no vomiting), fluff, just bakugou doing the best he can. au, but no powers are mentioned so u can pretend its canon if u want lol. word count: 4,258 words

You jerked awake, suddenly feeling odd.

There was something—off.

You didn’t feel right, but you couldn’t pick up on the reason why. There was an uncomfortable sense of dread growing in the pit of your stomach, spreading throughout the rest of your body. Your hands were clammy; your skin felt sensitive; you were jittery in ways you hadn’t been before, and you couldn’t put a finger on why.

You looked around the plane. It was dark; most of the passengers had their window shutters closed against the blinding afternoon light. Many of them were dozed off, too. You wondered if anyone else felt this—unnerved.

You were sitting in the back of the large plane, sandwiched tightly between the window and the man beside you. You felt more cramped than you remember feeling in previous plane rides. You normally handled them well, so what was happening now? Was this plane somehow more narrow than others? Was it more narrow in the back? Did this man with his wild hair and impossibly wide shoulders really have to put his elbow so far across the arm rest into your space?

No, no, that wasn’t fair. It was tight for everyone. This uncomfortable feeling—you just needed to stretch. Just need to shift a little, like a cat circling a spot three times before settling down to sleep.

You straightened your back, trying to soothe out the knots and kinks and pop it. It didn’t work, didn’t pop and didn’t help. The odd feeling lingered—intensifying even—no. No, it wasn’t intensifying, because intensifying would be bad. It was just there. It was just uncomfortable. Disagreeable—yes. That was a good word, a calm and collected word, a not-too-negative word to describe your situation. Once you found an agreeable position, you would easily fall back to sleep and bypass the last couple hours, you thought to yourself.

Optimistic, you leaned against the window.

Then, you leaned back into the chair, folding your arms, hyper aware of his elbow still past the invisible line.

Then, you unlocked the table from the seat in front of you to try and rest your head on it, but you realized that there wasn’t much space for you to curl your back, so you pushed it back up, locked it, and sat, staring at the seat in front of you that began to recline back, toward you.

It was so tight here. So confined. You felt restricted. You felt—

—Trapped.

You felt trapped.

As soon as that thought crossed your mind, you clearly felt the weighted dread on your chest, the difficulty swallowing, the starting heat.

It was a lack of air.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

It wasn’t discomfort; it wasn’t disagreeable. It was suffocating.

You couldn’t breathe.

Instead of finding a comfortable position, you found that you were possibly—probably—very definitely having a claustrophobia attack.

You felt yourself starting to panic. This was new to you. You usually flew so easily; sometimes, it got tight, but you never felt stuck. Sometimes you ached, but you never felt nauseous.

You closed your eyes, imagining that you were in a car driving through grassy plains, imagining beautiful wildflowers of all types of colors. The sun was bright, as bright as the tall sunflowers that greeted you as you stared out the passenger window.

Okay, okay, you thought. This was doable. You could do this. You could manage two (and a half) more hours doing this.

The plane shifted suddenly—slight turbulence—and that was all your brain needed to go into overdrive. The grassy plains in your imagination suddenly got taller, bigger, growing wildly to eclipse the flowers, the sky, the path, boxing you in, trapping your car—and then the car suddenly wasn’t a car, but a metal box getting smaller and smaller and darker and tighter and—

Your eyes shot open, breaths coming out in short, tiny pants.

You were dangerously hyperaware of all movement and spacing around you, how everyone seemed to take up so much space, how they seemed to take up so much of your space, the elbow crossing the arm rest, the reclining seat in front of you, the child accidentally kicking the back of your chair. Your nausea was building, your chest was burning, your vision was darkening—shit, shit, shit, what were you going to do—what were you going to do?

“Hey. You alright?”

You turned to the man beside you, the one whose elbow was two centimeters too far over the invisible line, and logically you knew that it was illogical, but with the way your breaths came out shallow and desperate, with the way your heart was trying to claw its way out of the heat behind your diaphragm as though there were a fire starting behind your ribs, under your skin, it only seemed right and helpful and sane to blame him.

He seemed to see something on your face. His red eyes narrowed at you. Maybe he saw the terror. Maybe he saw the flames.

“I have to get up,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady despite your intense need to double over and cry and throw up and pass out, in whatever order gave you the most relief. “Please. Please, I n-need to get up.”

Without hesitation, the stranger woke up the woman in the aisle seat. Instead of stand up, she stayed seated, twisting her body and moving her legs to the side, expecting the two of you to squeeze through, but the man hissed out an aggravated, “Move your ass, lady!” She scrambled to her feet with a huff.

You all but fell into the aisle, feet trying to find ground beneath you, but you were furiously aware that nothing was solid ground, that you were in the sky in a metal bin, and it wasn’t the fall that frightened you but the walls, how they wouldn’t expand, and the people, how they could only expand, only take up more space, more oxygen.

So close to the back of the plane, your eyes caught the back room where the flight attendants sat. It was empty, though, so you quickly rushed to the back, trying not to frighten people with your heaving so loud in your ear as you gripped the wall and turned the corner, slowly falling to your knees.

You swallowed a gasping breath—one, two, then another, more. The darkness that had been dotting your vision was fading. The space here wasn’t much; you wouldn’t be able to stretch out your legs without leaning against the emergency exit (which you absolutely weren’t going to do), but the fact that you weren’t pressed up against a hard shoulder and a shuttered window was already relieving some weight off your shoulders, extinguishing some of the flames from your chest.

“You need water?” Same gruff voice—same gruff scowl.

He was crouched in the aisle, peering at you from the entrance. You were vaguely aware that, though he couldn’t tell his elbow had been encroaching your space, he was mindful of not crowding you here and not hovering over you with his size and height.

You nodded. He disappeared. You hazily remembered the flight attendants were pushing their drink cart at the front of the plane. When he came back, he handed you a cup and sat down on the other side of the little space, legs tucked against his chest.

“Thanks,” you said. The nausea was still bubbling in your stomach; you didn’t want to give it fuel, so you took tiny sips. “Y-you can go back,” you told him. “I should be okay now.”

“It’s fine—I’ll stay.” He was still scowling, eyebrows furrowed in sharp, angry angles, but there had been a softness in the red of his eyes when he had seen you gasping beside him, when you had asked him to let you through. “Lean back and keep your chest open,” he said. “Stop hunching.”

You slowly adjusted your posture.

“Good. Fix your breathing; you’re on the fucking verge of hyperventilating. In through your nose and out through your mouth to slow down. Three or four counts. Whatever you can manage.”

You didn’t realize that you had still been gasping for air. The initial panic had subsided as soon as you sat down in this open space (open being extremely relative), but you could still feel the anxiousness on the edge of your skin, as though it were lingering smoke, or embers ready to reignite.

You crossed your legs, tilted your head back, and rested your hands on your knees to ensure that your shoulders didn’t shift back into a cowering hunch. You closed your eyes, counted three as you inhaled through your nose, counting again as you exhaled through your mouth.

“Good,” you heard him say again.

Good, you thought.

In—out.

In—

The plane shook suddenly. It wasn’t an abnormal shake, just a small, tiny piece of turbulence that was to be expected at that height, but in your delicate and frazzled state, it felt as though you were minutes from the door and ceiling collapsing on top of you, seconds from your breath being taken away.

You choked out a gasp—

“You’re fine.”

No, he couldn’t know that, he—

“Hey—look at me.”

You felt a grip on your left hand that rested on your knee. You opened your eyes; he was glaring at you—no, he was looking. Brows sharp. Angular. Crimson eyes fierce—intense—but not knife-like. Not jagged. Not cruel.

“It’s mild turbulence,” he said. He squeezed your hand once.

You swallowed a nervous lump. Your mouth was dry. Your throat hurt.

“I’m telling you, you’re fine. You need to keep breathing,” he said, then adding, “slowly,” as though you had forgotten (how could you forget?).

You tilted your head back.

“Come on—inhale, one…two…three…four… Good.”

Good, you thought.

“Again—one, two, three, four. That’s it.”

He squeezed your hand a second time.

He was—odd. And fucking rude. You thought people were supposed to be more compassionate in these situations, empathy coloring all their movements, expressions, and voices, but this stranger was sharp, brusque, all angles and hard lines.

And yet—there was an unusual and unexpected sense of reassurance in his terse honesty, in the tight grip of his hand, in the callouses that brushed against your knuckles every time he shifted and squeezed. There was an inexplicable comfort in his curtness, in his hard angles, like you could touch him and your fingers wouldn’t sink; and there was something pleasant about holding someone and knowing that they had a weight to them, a structure, a frame that wouldn’t bend or break or flatten. You felt like you could trust him to tell you without falsities or sweetness whether the plane was landing safely or exploding wildly. You felt like he’d find space for you in his diaphragm in the fire, in the fall, like he’d give you the air from his own lungs if that was what it took. You didn’t know why you thought this, or what about him said this, but you held onto that thought with clenched hands and clenched jaws.

It helped you settle against the makeshift wall behind you, made of the flight attendant’s folded seat. There was still a curling ball in the pit of your stomach, but at least the air was coming in deep and leaving slow, unobstructed.

“How do you feel?” he asked; a question that was normally laced with concern was colored coarse.

“Better,” you answered quietly.

You felt a tender loss as he released his hand and shifted back to his end. A silence settled between the two of you as you both listened to your breathing.

After a few minutes, he asked, “This happen often?”

You shook your head.

“No medication then? Sedative, anti-anxiety?’

“No,” you said, shaking your head again. “This is the first time.” You would’ve laughed incredulously if you didn’t feel like every energy was being used to keep your chest open and not on fire.

You thought back to the past several weeks, leading up to this trip to visit your friends on the coast. You thought about the stress from work, the deadlines you couldn’t miss and the projects you couldn’t disregard, your calendar piled on and crammed with events and hang-outs to try and please everyone’s desire to see you, the way you forced yourself to clean the apartment at 1 AM because you couldn’t stand the mess, and then sleep at 3 AM because you had to decompress, and then wake at 7 AM to shower and get dressed, starting all over again. All of it finally caught up with you in the tiny back of this tremendous plane.

The flight attendant suddenly peered in. “Is everything okay?” she asked, looking between you and the stranger. Her frown seemed to imply that she had initially thought something lewd was happening, but then she noted that you were sitting separately and still straining to keep from boiling over. Her frown softened. “Are you okay to go back to your seats? You can’t really be back here, and the seatbelt light is on. I can get you more water if needed, ma’am.”

Before any type of panic could bubble in your chest, before the words even had the time to linger in the air with her breath, the frenzy-haired and red-eyed stranger interrupted, saying, “She’s trying to catch her breath. Give us ten minutes and then we’ll head back."

The flight attendant looked hesitant, but another look at you made her acquiesce. “I’m sorry. I can only give you five minutes; we’re almost done passing out drinks and the cart has to come back here, okay?” she said. Then, turning to you, she asked, “Do you want more water?”

What you wanted was for her to give you a break.

“No,” he said.

She looked to him, maybe confused as to why he was answering, maybe concerned as to why he was so rough, but she didn’t say anything else and disappeared down the aisle. You relaxed the best you could against the hard wall, grateful for his gruffness, and murmured your thanks.

“It’s whatever.”

You sat back in silence, focusing on breathing. You didn’t try to imagine anything. You just counted. You almost asked to hold his hand again, but then the flight attendant came back too soon and you were forced to get up.

The walk back to your seat was painful, each step rekindling the embers in your chest. You took your seat, feeling the dread as a lump in your throat that, when you swallowed, sat in your stomach with a gravity you didn’t think you could keep contained.

“Hey,” the stranger said, catching your attention. “You got anything to keep occupied? Fidget spinner? Games?”

You shook your head hesitantly, feeling small, feeling stuck, feeling tr—

“Focus on me, dumbass. No games? No portable consoles? Like a DS?”

You sighed shakily, trying to focus your unfocusing eyes. “I know what consoles are. I brought a book and my laptop, and I promise you, I will upchuck if I read right now.”

“Tch.”

He pulled his dark red backpack out from under the seat and rifled through it. He took out a Nintendo Switch, turned it on, and shoved it into your hands.

“Here. Play,” he ordered. He didn’t explain the rules, just plugged in the earbuds, tucked both into your ears, skipped the wordy intro, and then watched you maneuver your character and die. A lot. He swore a lot, too, and you found that listening to his harsh mutterings was better than listening to the game’s soundtrack. You tugged the earbuds off, letting yourself be distracted by his game and his voice.

You felt okay for a moment, whispering back to him—

“This is hard.”

“You’re just ass at it.”

—thinking that you could spend the rest of the flight like this, not relaxed but just okay.

And then the plane shuddered and your stomach clenched and your vision was wobbly, and he was too close to you, the game was too much in your hands, just another thing taking space, and you had to drop it into your lap or you were going to be so nauseous. You gripped onto the seat in front of you, aware that you were encroaching on the passenger’s space but not finding it in you to care. You fought the desperate urge to clamber out of your seat and crawl toward the back, quickly forgetting why you even needed to fight it.

“Chest open.”

You were vaguely aware that you were nodding, vaguely aware that he had shifted back from you as far as the seats would allow, even to the point where he was invading the aisle woman’s space, but it didn’t seem like he cared either.

“Keep the count,” he told you. “You want to sit in the bathroom?”

You shook your head.

“Then you gotta sit fucking straighter than that.” There was no fire behind his words. You wondered if swearing was just part of his everyday vocabulary. He gently grasped your shoulder, touched your back, helped you sit up with your chest up and shoulders back. You closed your eyes, counting, counting, breathing.

It felt like there was a blazing in your chest, like something ready to ignite, something trying to—and it felt like you were trying to cover it with just your body, just your small diaphragm, just the little bones of your ribs. How could so much heaviness, so much fire, fit behind the smallest bones, you wondered.

He must’ve noticed you squeezing your knees, because you felt his hard hand grasp the back of your soft knuckles. Another hand gently massaged the back of your neck.

“You’re alright,” he said. “You’ll be fine. Keep breathing.” His hand dipped to your shoulders, moved up and down your back, heavy fingers pressing against knotted muscle, blunt nails scratching at clammy, stiff skin. “Good?” he asked.

You nodded, appreciative of the touch, of a different type of pressure on your body. Good.

“Focus on my voice. Just keep breathing.”

“—W-why—” you gasped out softly.

“Why keep breathing?” He looked like he was restraining himself from yelling. There was a pulsing vein in his forehead, visible even in the dim light, that would’ve made you smile, that would’ve made you laugh if you weren’t so busy trying to rework your lungs.

“No—why h-help?”

He frowned. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

What a bizarre response, you thought. What a perfect one, for someone whose scowl didn’t quite match his red eyes.

You flipped your palm over, interlaced your fingers through his, and held tightly. His thumb rubbed circles into the back of your hand. The callouses right beneath his fingers were dry and cutting. His hand and hold felt honest. He murmured encouragingly, the same few lines in the same low tone, choppy and curt, on repeat like he didn’t know what else to say. His hand on your back was similar. Sometimes he massaged too hard; sometimes he scratched too light. A clumsy and sweet effort.

You closed your eyes, fighting the mismatched breathing, counting your breaths, counting the seconds, and then counting the circles he drew against your skin and the times he gripped your shoulder, the hold slowly grounding you.

You were on the edge—but you were tied to a lifeline. Your toes hovered over the black space right past the threshold, but you wouldn’t fall—you wouldn’t fall—you wouldn’t fall. You weren’t comfortable—but you were okay.

You leaned against the shuttered window, and fell into a light and jerky sleep. Whenever you felt yourself fall too deep, though, you were wracked with an immediate and sudden fear. You’d shoot awake, panting, gasping, but he’d squeeze your hand tight, murmuring the same comforting and clumsy words until you settled down—“In through your nose, idiot. How many times I gotta tell ya? Good, good, just like that.”

Good, you thought.

It was the same pattern every five, maybe ten minutes. You didn’t fall asleep for long, the nerves always working you up to a dreadful jerk awake, even if there wasn’t any turbulence. But he squeezed your hand every time, with a scowl that didn’t meet his eyes, and he’d repeat the words again and again, like a chorus, like a mantra, like a prayer, one you held onto fiercely as you hovered over the edge for the rest of the flight.

The jostling of the plane landing was what woke you up next. Rather than a panicked gasp, your eyes fluttered open, feeling an ache in your neck and a weight on your head. The seat before you was crooked—no, you were crooked. Your head was tilted, resting on the stranger’s shoulders—and his head was rested on yours. In your lap was his Switch—and the both of your hands, still intertwined.

You smiled and took in a deep and unimpeded breath of stale plane air.

You touched his shoulder tenderly. “Wake up,” you said.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“We’ve landed,” you said, pulling your fingers out of his warm hold and watching how his hand twitched in your direction, as if chasing your grasp.

He sat up, eyes groggy. He tried to stretch his arms, immediately hitting the top of the aircraft cabin with an annoyed growl. You wondered if he ever had claustrophobia attacks. His frame was so large; how could he move through this world without feeling enclosed, encaged in every room he stepped in?

He caught your eyes staring.

“You good?” he asked, voice surly and shaded with sleep still.

“Good,” you said. “Thanks to you.”

You watched everyone get up before you, thinking that it’d be easier to let the fast-paced crowd hasten toward the exit first. The man sat with you; you shouldn’t have been surprised, but you were. He seemed like the go-go-go type.

When it was finally your turn, the stranger stepped out, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and grabbed his black suitcase from the overhead compartments.

“Which one’s yours?” he asked.

You pointed to the dark mauve, plastic one behind him.

Without another word, he pulled it out and set it down; his biceps flexed under the weight. He let you leave first with your backpack over your shoulders and his Switch against your chest, with him following behind, easily rolling both suitcases down the aisle.

When the two of you exited the gate, you pulled off to the side, relieved to be back on solid ground—but a little disappointed, you found, to be leaving him.

“I really appreciate everything,” you said, giving back his Switch. “I don’t even know how to truly thank you.”

“It’s fine. Don’t mention it.” He was gruff, he was scowling—and he was soft. You could see it clearly in his eyes. Now that you were out of the dim plane cabin, you could see how his brows had imperceptibly straightened, how his eyes weren’t so much red but a darkened and complicated pink.

“Can I hug you?” you asked quietly, hearing your heart hammering for a variety of reasons that you were too tired to think on.

He didn’t answer, but he uncrossed his arms, holding his hands out to you, the posture as gentle as the pink in his eyes. You stepped into his embrace eagerly, his larger body engulfing you entirely.

His heartbeat was strong. Steady. Curt, like his words. His body was all hard angles, all flexed muscles, all sturdy structure and heavy frame. His cologne smelled faintly of spiced wood, reminding you of summer storms, electricity crackling through a vibrating air. You took in a deep, deep breath, holding the smell behind your aching diaphragm, behind the small bones of your ribs, inside your tired lungs for as long as he held you.

You pulled back finally. Reluctantly.

“Thanks,” you repeated, looking up at him and catching the softness in his eyes again, the only part of his body that wasn’t all sharp.

For a moment, you thought he was going to kiss you.

You didn’t know why. Just a feeling. Just the way his grip tightened on your waist, the way his eyes flickered down to your lips, the way the air seemed to buzz, your body answering on your tip-toes.

But he pulled away, dropping his hands to grab your suitcase handle.

“Got anywhere to be?” he asked.

“Not yet,” you said. “Why?”

“You should hydrate and eat. Come on.”

”Wait—”

“Stop complaining and let’s go.”

You smiled, touching his arm as you caught up. “I was just going to ask your name.”

He glanced at you. “Bakugou,” he said. “Katsuki—just call me Katsuki.”

“Okay,” you said, breathless in a way you didn’t mind.

But he didn’t ask your name. Instead, as you followed him down to luggage retrieval, he asked when your return flight was, and when you found that you were both on the same plane again but not in the same aisle, you saw him check the airline app for any available seats near you. You thought that it was somehow on brand that he didn’t ask for your name. You thought this was part of his curtness, part of his clumsiness, part of how his hands were so rough but encompassed yours so warmly, so sweetly.