Chapter Text
Yuuji is running faster than he’s ever run before. The roots are catching up, though – fucking baldy and his mafia henchmen. The Sanctuary has been torn to pieces, is that not enough ? Do they all need to die too ?
What have they done to deserve this ?
The air crackles, and Terushima hears a voice he doesn’t recognise. “Hey hey hey, is this working ?”
“Yeah, whatever ‘this’ is, but if it isn’t the precog who sends you, you can suck my dick.”
“Language !” the bright voice says. “I’m Owl, I’m psychic. Thanks for the taglock, it’s way easier finding out about your whereabouts when I have something to trace back to you.”
Fucking hell, he’d forgotten about that. Taglocks, walkies, a census of who was at the Sanctuary, all those were the conditions under which the Hero Association would consider helping them. Yuuji had grit his teeth through the meeting, but he’d caved – nowhere else to go for them, now that the mafia was on their tracks. Hailstorm had probably been the last straw. Yuuji does not regret welcoming him in, only… they could have been more cautious. While he was in China, heroes and vigilantes were much more secretive, far from the parades organised for them in Japan. He kind of regrets coming back.
“You should turn left,” the voice says, and Yuuji almost jumps out of his skin in terror – he’d forgotten about the psychic.
“Fucking hell, don’t scare me like that,” he snaps, but he does turn left, just in time to avoid a large root. “Thanks, man.”
“Of course, dude,” Owl says. “You’ll be happy to know the others made it out safe, from what I can tell.”
Yuuji sighs in relief, and thinks of his packmates, of the misfits he’d gathered throughout the years, the home they’d built. He’s tearing up at the mere idea that one of them could be hurt. That’s why he agreed to the Association’s conditions about… “relocating”, or dealing with the “worst” of them. There’s no one who sticks out for the losers but themselves, in his humble opinion, and he’s been proven right countless times.
The roots chasing him become more and more sparse, and Yuuji starts to breathe again. When it looks like he’s entirely made it out, he collapses in the hollow at the base of a tree, shifting back to human, and immediately regretting it when he realises how cold he is.
“Uh, dude,” Owl’s voice is tight and embarrassed. “Fuck, I should have told you before you turned back into human shape, but I wasn’t tuned in -- I can see you.”
If Yuuji could say “LMAO” out loud, he would have. “Oh sweetheart,” he says, “There’s literally a bounty on my head in three different countries. My identity is less of a secret than the Daft Punk singers.”
Owl hoots with laughter – hoots, that’s the word. Yuuji starts to wonder if the guy’s not a shifter as well. He shifts back into his wolf shape, and tries to run a little to warm up, to no avail. Even worse, something must have gone wrong during his wild escape, because he’s limping a little, left back paw stinging when it touches the ground.
“Ok, now, you gotta get to the shelter,” Owl pipes in. “It’s, uh, it’s kinda far away.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Yuuji mutters. “Just give me directions, I’ll try and make this quick.”
“North-east from where you are. Gotta run for about five kilometres before you start seeing houses. Then you’d better turn back and get to the library quickly, before people start wondering why a giant golden wolf is walking down the streets.”
“Gotcha,” Yuuji answers, and he makes his way towards the city. The way is exhausting, especially after all that happened. Yuuji wants to slip into a warm bed, shifted into a wolf just so he can listen to the heartbeat of his packmates – a quiet hum, steady and reassuring. Yuuji wants to sleep, and not have to worry. Something in the air crackles, and at first, he thinks it’s Owl again, but drops of water start falling down the cloudy sky, slowed down by the leaves above him. Great, that was the last thing he needed. Yuuji hates the rain, and he hasn’t been able to change into warmer clothes before the shelter was attacked – he’s gonna freeze his ass off when he shifts back.
It takes an hour for him to notice the noise. He’d thought it was the hum of raindrops on the leaves, but when he realises the rain is gone, and the noise still persists, he asks out loud, “Owl ? You there ?”
“Shit, sorry,” comes the hasty reply. “Uh, yeah, got told to keep an eye on you. I’ve been singing so I don’t fall asleep. I can stop though, if it bothers you.”
“I could barely hear it,” Yuuji admits. “You can sing louder if you wanna.”
Silence follows, and Yuuji regrets saying anything. Without Owl’s comforting baritone, the walk is suddenly too quiet, too lonely. He realises that his breathing got heavier when the air crackles again, and Owl speaks to him.
“Hey, you gotta calm down, I’ve noticed some activity not too far from you. Campers, apparently, they’re gonna shit their pants if they see a wolf here !”
“Can you,” Yuuji laboriously starts, “can you sing again. Please.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah, ok,” Owl says. There’s silence for a few seconds, and then, “What genre ?”
“Whatever you like,” Yuuji’s not picky, “I just. Don’t wanna feel alone right now.”
The words are raw out of his brain, and Yuuji thinks that if Owl can rummage into what’s going on in there, he knows perfectly well how messed up Yuuji’s been. Losing the Sanctuary feels like getting a limb torn right off – like somehow all the things he’s been striving for, all that talk of being stronger together, were all mush.
“I’m here,” Owl says after a pause, “I was, uh, I was getting the lyrics off the internet. Don’t wanna mess up the classics,” he jokes.
Yuuji snorts. “The classics” turn out to be anime openings, and if he could laugh in his wolf shape, he definitely would. There’s something so bizarre to being there, turned into a wolf, listening to a fucking psychic sing out “We are fighting dreamers,” while he runs off to an uncertain future after his home just got wrecked.
Eventually, the singing gets drowned out by the sounds of the forest awakening. Birds fill the air with trills, mice and other tiny critters make their way around. Only when the noise quiets down does Yuuji notice he’s in someone’s backyard.
“Uh, I should turn back, right ?” he asks Owl, who audibly startles out of a half-mumbled rendition of “Nagareboshi Kirai.”
“Holy hell, yeah !” he yells. “I didn’t think you’d make it this quick. Road’s to the left, then, look for the sign that says ‘Library,’ we’ll be there.”
“So, not an official Association venture,” Yuuji yawns. “I hope there’s a bed.”
“There’s plenty of beds ! That’s where they put me, when they got me.”
The memory seems sour, if Owl’s voice is true to his mind. Yuuji doesn’t press the issue.
Owl was right – there’s a road a few steps to the left, and he turns back, painfully, after having remained shifted for so long. “One day you won’t be able to get out,” Yukie warned. “One day you’ll shift and that’ll be it. No more Yuuji, just an animal.” She’d looked down at the wolf curled up on her lap, and her hands had tightened in his fur.
The “Library” signs are easy to find. There’s plenty everywhere and they lead to a nice little house in the suburbs of the town, where a woman with dark hair is tending to the flowerbeds. Yuuji startles when she calls out to him using his name – he wasn’t expecting a positive welcome.
“Come in,” she says, and she half carries him to the second floor, where a couple of rooms seem already inhabited.
“I’m-” he yawns. “I’m gonna sleep for a couple days, probably,” he says. “Would be good to eat a little before that happens.”
“I’ll be quick,” she says, and she is, coming back before he can blink with a sandwich and a pitcher of water.
A voice speaks to his ear again. “Hey hey hey,” Owls says softly. “You’re there, I’m glad.”
“You’re probably the only one, ‘cept for my packmates.”
“Don’t say that ! I’m sure you’ll make friends.”
“Friends,” Yuuji repeats. Yeah, right.
He falls asleep almost immediately. The bed is just too welcoming, and he’s just too cold. He knows he wakes up a few times, because he doesn’t die of dehydration, but he remembers none of it. It was barely daylight when he arrived, and now the sun is about to set.
Shit. Yuuji doesn’t even know if he’s allowed out the room. What if they have plans for him ? What kind of plans ?
The air crackles, and this time, Yuuji focuses enough to know that Owl is gonna talk to him.
“Oya ? A lazy wolf finally woke up ?” The voice is comforting enough that Yuuji doesn’t mind hearing it again. “Hey,” Owl says, voice fake-casual – disturbingly so. “I’m, uh, I’m outside your room.”
“Shit, dude, come in !” Yuuji must admit that he’s curious, about how the other looks like, what his actual voice sounds like.
“Do you want me to ? I meant it, when I say you could make friends. What happened at the shelter was awful, I don’t want you to feel lonely.”
“Uh. Oh, yeah, I mean,” Yuuji is at a loss for words, “yeah, we could be friends ? I guess ? You’re not like those stuck-up heroes I’ve met last time.”
“No one meets me. I’m not on the field anymore,” Owl says, that fake-casual tone seeping back into his voice. Yuuji knows what’s not said - “I fucked up too bad to be allowed out.”
“I won’t force you to meet me,” Yuuji clarifies. “You gotta protect that secret ID of yours, right ? But if you wanna be friends, sure, I guess. I ain’t got time for fakes though.”
“You wound me,” Owl says, but this time Yuuji can hear a smile.
The door opens slowly, and on the other side is a man Yuuji can immediately qualify as “Not what he expected.” Owl is strongly built, a quality you don’t often associate with psychics, and he’s smiling nervously, wringing his hands, hair gelled-up or standing straight from being pulled at, the tips dyed to an ashy grey. His eyes cross Yuuji’s and he winces.
“Can I come in ?” he asks shyly.
“It’s not even my house, come on, you’re just as welcome here as I am.”
“I do live here,” Owl says, and his smile becomes a little more genuine.
“Really ? You live next to the hot lady who opened the door ? Damn, lucky you.”
“Oh, Shimizu-san is kind of a celebrity, I wouldn’t dare lay a finger on her,” and Yuuji can hear in the protective tone he takes that “Shimizu-san” is way more than just a facade for the Association.
Silence falls, kind of awkward, and Yuuji thinks that it’s gonna stretch eternally, before Owl speaks up. “Oh, by the way. My name is Bokuto.”
“Sweet ! Mine’s Terushima,” he answers, “but you probably know that.”
“Yeah, I did, but still, gotta get to know people properly, instead of just using taglocks.”
“True that,” Yuuji agrees. “Any news from my crew ?”
Bokuto winces again. “I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“Wow, I expected them to wanna break us up, but that’s severe.”
“I know, right ?” Bokuto vehemently says. “I told them it was unfair. You must be worried sick.”
“If someone died,” Yuuji manages to ask around the knot in his throat, “would I be allowed to know ?”
“Fuck. I don’t even know about that. I’ll ask them next time I see them, I swear.”
“Easy,” Yuuji says, both pained by the news and charmed by Bokuto’s genuine concern. “We got time, don’t we ?”
Bokuto visibly relaxes at that. “I guess so,” he says. “I gotta go soon, but just in case, I’m in room 412. Knock before you enter, though, I share it with a bro.”
“A bro,” Yuuji repeats. “Are you for real ?”
“Solid as a brick !” Bokuto beams. “Don’t hesitate, really, I’m usually not on duty.”
“Sure,” Yuuji says, and after an awkward wave, Bokuto is gone, closing the door behind him softly. He’s surprised, he really didn’t think the psychic would show up, considering how much of a rarity they are. Maybe he broke the rules for that – Yuuji suspects he wasn’t supposed to hear back from Bokuto.
He’s not opposed to hearing more, though.