Chapter Text
you are furious, first, terrible spitfire that erupts in your veins as you are thrown to the floor and your eyes land on him, stupid and dumb and he didn’t listen, broken and bloody and looking at you like you put the moon into the sky.
you are scared, second, awful needles that pierce your lungs as the stitched edges of scars smile at you with dead eyes and a heavy boot landing on his bicep and pushing and he screams and you scream, overwhelmed with the feeling of wrong in your chest.
you are desperate, third, a weighted darkness that closes your throat as you try to rush to your feet and find yourself pinned by a column on your back instead, thrashing and screaming because his eyes—so big and bright and green, starry, there are stars in his eyes—are filling with tears and pain and fear but he is still smiling at you, even as something strikes the back of your head and sends you into nothing.
—
(you are grateful, last, selfish and silent in the most untouched corners of your mind that you are not alone, because if anyone can give you a reason to thrash and scream your way to victory it is him.)
—
it’s dark when you wake up. your eyes drift open and it’s like they’re still closed, black covering your vision in a heavy blanket. your head is pounding and your mind is fogged. pain blooms in the back of your skull like a flower unfurling. slowly, you try to move, dragging your arms toward your chest and biting down on a groan.
you’re on your side. the floor is cold and smooth beneath your arms and against your ribs where your shirt has ridden up. you curl your toes, adjust your legs, take an inventory of your own body, even as you lift your hand in front of your face and see nothing of it.
it’s foreign being so blind, and it leaves you disoriented in a way you hate.
you hear something shift to your left and tense, palms stiff and fingers already curling to set off fireworks from your hands, but a pathetic noise that has been trailing you all your life makes your heart skip into your throat and your aggression fade. senseless, you reach out and your hand connects with something. it jerks away with a startled whine and you growl low in your throat, reaching further and grabbing hold of it.
“it’s me, idiot,” you mumble. your fingers close around what you can tell is his ankle, his sneaker pressed against the inside of your wrist. he shifts again, whimpers into the darkness, so you hiss softly, “quit moving!”
it feels wrong to be so quiet, but something stops you from speaking above a whisper. you push yourself to sit up with your free hand and pull on his ankle to drag him toward you, fiercely ignoring the bitten down cry of pain that you hear. you reach forward with your free hand, touch what you think is skin, and pull back abruptly. there’s hesitant shuffling and then something presses into your open palm, and you realize with a start that it’s his hand, lacing your fingers together like it’s second nature to him.
“kacchan,” he croaks, hoarse and teary and filled with something that you don’t dare to call relief. there’s a tightness in your chest that you didn’t notice until it unravels, strewn apart by the stupid childhood nickname that you swear you hate. you make a rough sound in response and pretend like you aren’t still touching him, some tiny part of you desperate to confirm his realness in the dark where neither of you can see each other.
“where are we?” he whispers. his palm is cold and you can feel him shivering. you remember suddenly the thick bandages that had smothered his right arm when he lunged through the portal after you. you swallow.
you don’t know, but the admission gets stuck in your throat before it can make its way past your teeth. instead, you let go of his ankle and turn your palm upwards, curling your fingers to cage the sparks that you will to life for some kind of light.
except nothing answers you. you stare at the empty black where you know your hand is, flexing your palm and baring your teeth, but there are no fireworks that dance in response. you become abruptly conscious of his shivering, the soft sound of his teeth chattering in the silence, and snarl.
whoever caught you, wherever they’ve put you, they’re smart. you can’t use your quirk if you don’t sweat, and you don’t sweat if it’s cold.
“kacchan?” he murmurs, soft and scared. you exhale roughly and drop your hand back over his ankle. you’re sitting cross-legged, and you can tell he’s laying on his back in front of you. you let go of his hand and move yours up his arm until you find his shoulder. steady, you grip it and drag him upright, and he makes a startled and pained sound. you ignore the way it makes your jaw clench.
“why?” you ask. more words get stuck on your tongue, but you can’t find the right way to let them out. you think he knows what you mean, though, because when you start to let go of his shoulder, there’s more shuffling and his hand finds yours again.
“i couldn’t—” he croaks, voice breaking, “i-i couldn’t just let them take you, kacchan—”
something hot burns in your chest, and immediately you label it as anger. accusations jump to your lips, bright and biting as your quirk, and you want to shove him away and storm out of this prison on your own, just to prove you can. you’re not weak. you don’t need his help. you don’t need anyone’s help. you’re powerful all on your own—
“i couldn’t just leave you,” he whispers, and the something hot in your chest dims.
“i don’t want you here,” you say under your breath. it’s not a lie, but buried deep in your mind you know that it’s a different kind of truth. it’s like you can still feel that hand around your throat, still see him rushing toward you with a scream, still hear the choked warning that had fled your mouth without permission.
he hadn’t listened. he never does.
he flinches still, curls in on himself. the shuffling of his shorts and his sneakers on the floor and the sound of your combined breathing is all that you hear for some time, beside the rushing of your own blood in your ears. it stays dark. you realize distantly that you haven't let go of his ankle, or his hand.
after a while, he tries, “kacchan?”
“what?” you answer. your voice is gruff. neither of you have spoken above a mumble.
“what are we gonna do?” he asks, breathy and hesitant. his hand squeezes yours, feather light. it reminds you of being kids, marching through a forest with butterfly nets in your fists. your grip on his ankle tightens.
“get out of here,” you respond. he makes a soft noise, and doesn’t speak again.
—
you don’t know how much time passes. you stay sitting until your back starts to ache. you decide to investigate, then, because nothing has happened, and you’ve spent long enough in the dark that your eyes have adjusted to make out the barest of silhouettes if you focus hard enough. you stand and take slow, tentative steps around him, groping at the metal walls and realizing the cell you’re trapped in can’t be bigger than a five foot square.
you grab him under the arms and drag him toward a wall to lean on, and neither of you say anything about it. you sit down next to him after another round of pacing, and neither of you say anything about it. he drifts sideways as he falls asleep and comes to rest with his head on your shoulder, and you don’t say anything about it.
you can’t tell from his silhouette if he still has the clumsy bandages around his arm, but you hadn’t felt them when you hauled him to the side. you know he’s not wearing a shirt, and you can feel his shivering even as he sleeps. your quirk has always made you run warm, but the longer you sit stationary, the more even you start to feel the cold biting at your skin.
you shift, just barely, a little closer to him, so he’s tucked more against your side, and tell yourself that it’s for your own sake.
—
when you wake up, it’s without remembering having fallen asleep. you’re still leaned against the wall, but he’s fallen from your shoulder to lay his head in your lap, strewn sideways with his mangled right arm limp on the floor in front of him. he’s bruised, and covered in dried blood and dirt and soot, and you realize suddenly that you can see him.
the light bleeds dim yellow from an open doorway in front of you. someone stands silhouetted in it, and as your eyes adjust you feel your pulse quicken. one hand drops to his shoulder, the other bracing on the floor to push you to your feet, but the man in the doorway puts a finger to his scarred lips and smiles.
“don’t wanna wake him, do we?” the man says. but he speaks at a normal volume, and between that and your tight grip on his shoulder, deku stirs.
“kacchan?” he mumbles, slurred with sleep. it kicks something in you, something that makes you push yourself up and put yourself between him and the man, fists clenched at your sides and teeth bared. he makes a surprised and mildly distressed noise, and you growl when the man’s gaze settles on him still on the floor behind your legs.
“what do you want?” you snarl. the man stares at deku a beat longer, and you take a step forward, hands flexing. you can feel the heat of your quirk just under your skin, itching to be detonated, but your palms are still devoid of sweat. you can see now that your breath leaves your mouth in a thin cloud when you exhale.
the man looks at you, then, and grins lazily. his gaze is just as lifeless as it was when he dragged you through the portal, and you ignore the way it makes your hackles raise. you ignore the sound of shuffling behind you, and you ignore the feeling of deku pressing up against the back of your legs, and you ignore the way the man’s grin widens into something more lucid at the sight of it.
“i don’t want anything,” the man says. it’s a lie, such a blatant one, but you don’t call him out on it. you stay put, rooted in place by deku’s weight against your calves. the man tilts his head, eyeing the two of you like you’re wares he’s considering for a purchase. you hate it with every part of yourself. you hope your scowl is enough to show that.
he stares at you and you stare back, trying to find a motive in the empty eyes. it unsettles you in a way you’ve never felt. you’ve never seen someone look so dead before.
there’s shuffling behind you, and deku’s hand presses on your lower back, and you realize he’s using you as a support to pull himself to his feet. your arm goes out to the side, caging him behind you, but he doesn’t try to step forward once he’s standing. he just leans against your back and stays there. you glance at him.
he looks small and lost and pathetic. old tear tracks cut lines through the dirt and soot on his cheeks, and his curls are flattened to his forehead with dried sweat. his right arm hangs limp at his side, destroyed worse than you've ever seen it. he stares at the man over your shoulder, that look in his eyes that you’ve seen far too many times since you were kids, that look that says i want to help this person.
the man steps forward. your focus shoots back to him, and you step away, herding deku with you toward the wall. “why are you doing this?” deku asks, soft and gentle, as if he’s ever going to get anywhere making friends with a villain. the man puts one hand in the pocket of his jacket, lifts his other, palm out toward you, and huffs a humorless laugh.
“we got more than we were looking for,” he says. it’s not an answer. you tense, gaze snapping between his hand and his eyes. there’s a life in them, now, and you think you’re going to be sick with the thought that it’s even more paralyzing than his dead stare. “now that we have all might’s successor, we don’t need the firecracker.”
deku makes a choked sound, and you think that, for a second, your heart might stop. but you don’t get a chance to think about the way your chest constricts, the way the breath leaves your lungs, the way your blood starts rushing in your ears, because you’re too busy lunging forward just as the first licks of blue flame sputter to life in the man’s palm.
he isn’t expecting your quick reaction. his eyes go wide as the back of your hand hits his wrist, deflecting the flames, and then several things happen at once.
the hand you used to deflect the fire is, now, damp with sweat from the heat. you lurch toward him and detonate your quirk in his face with a brilliant flash of sparks. he screams, but it’s not the sound that rings in your ears, rattling through your skull and drawing your eyes away from him, back around, back toward—
it’s deku’s scream that pierces you, because the flames you deflected burst against the metal wall of the cell and curled inward toward him, and he’s on the floor with furious burns already eating up his left leg, huddled into a ball and gritting his teeth with tears rushing down his face.
it is the last thing you see before the man’s other hand clamps over your eyes at the same time yours clamps over his, and your world bursts into brilliant blue and pain.
—
for a long few moments, the only thing you can register is the ringing in your ears and the way your face feels like it’s being pierced, thousands and thousands of tiny needles digging into your skin and your eyes and you can’t see, everything is black and it smells like burning flesh and you feel your quirk burst uncontrolled from your palms, reacting to your pain and your adrenaline and the sound of your own screams.
your quirk makes impact with something solid, and the force of it sends you stumbling until you hit the floor on your back. faintly, you hear the wet thud of another body hitting a wall. your instinct is to reach for your face, to grab whatever is tearing your skin apart and throw it as far away as possible, but your quirk is still snapping at random around your fingers and so you slam your palms flat against the floor instead, closing your teeth around the screams that rip your throat and the feeling of tears that streak down your face.
the ringing in your ears gives way to someone’s frantic voice, saying your name over and over—except it’s not your name, it’s kacchan kacchan kacchan mottled with tears and panic and pain, and reality slams back into you. a weight presses into your side and you know it’s deku, uncaring of the violent reactions of your quirk. you choke out something mottled that might be his name.
“kacchan, kacchan please,” he’s begging, voice strained and cracking with tears, and you make another hoarse and pathetic noise. he sobs and leans heavier against you, pressing into your side. your quirk isn’t setting off anymore. you reach for him, blind, and your hand makes contact with skin and he makes a sound of pain but grabs your palm when you try to pull away.
adrenaline is lacing through your veins. it feels as though it’s pressing mute on your surroundings, on your pain. you aren’t sure if it’s the shock, or if your nerves have been overloaded to the point of no return, or if you even have nerves now. you don’t know how severe the burn is, only that you can’t see and that the only thing keeping you grounded is deku’s weight on you, and deku’s quiet sob when you push yourself up and wrap your arms around him.
“we need to go,” you choke out. your voice is thin and you’re shaking like a tree branch in a storm, and deku makes some vague sound of protest as you drag him toward you so you can lift him like a child onto your back, but you’re riding on this adrenaline-shock and you don’t know what else to do. you know the man hasn’t gotten back up, because there is silence except for your heavy breathing and deku’s sniffling. you have a feeling that if you’re caught again then there won’t be any hope of freedom on your own terms.
“kacchan,” deku hiccups, “kacchan, he—he's—you can’t see—”
“then guide me!” you snap, tightening your grip on his thighs. you can feel his shorts, so you know the burns on his leg didn’t climb higher than his knee, but you can’t afford to be slowed down by his limping. his good arm wraps around your shoulders and you lean forward to keep his weight against your back.
you feel him bury his face in your hair, tears dampening the back of your head, before he hiccups again and stutters out, “f-forward!”
your feet kick against what you know are the man’s legs as you stumble your way out the door. you don’t stop to ask if he’s alive, and deku doesn’t pause to tell you.
—
wherever you are, it must be some place abandoned. you run, listening to deku’s voice. it takes a second for you to process his words, and a second more to answer to them, so unused to being given direction, but he’s smart. he’s so stupidly smart that it’s annoying. he notices your delay almost immediately and starts guiding you a moment early so that you respond at the right time.
you’re directed down a hallway away from your cell and around a few corners. deku might as well be as blind as you are, for how well he knows where you’re going. part of you wants to be angry with him about it, but you can’t find it in yourself to properly summon up the fury, not when you can still feel his tears in your hair and hear the whispered apologies he’s rambling between go left and go right.
after what feels like the hundredth turn, you feel him straighten up against your back. he laughs, strangled and relieved and thick with tears, and tells you, “kacchan, that’s an exit ahead!”
you break for it.
“it’s a door,” he rambles to you, “with the bar to open it, like those schools in america, or for those staircases in big office buildings—now, kacchan, now, waist height—!”
you slow just enough to lift your leg, waist height, and kick out. your foot hits something solid and you hear the click of the latch and the groan of the hinges. the door lurches open and you stumble, just barely, and bolt forward again, grunting when the door’s heavy weight starts to bring it back closed and smacks you in the shoulder on your way out.
“steps!” deku warns, just as your foot hits the first one. you kick off it and land unsteadily on what might be gravel or cobblestone. it’s uneven under your shoes and the feeling disorients you.
“i think it’s a factory,” deku tells you before you can even think to ask. he’s not telling you to keep going, so you take the moment to steady your footing and catch your breath, focusing on the feeling of fresh air in your lungs. deku continues, “it must be abandoned, there’s no cars or trucks or construction vehicles, it’s just like an empty parking lot, i wonder if he was the only one here to guard us? we are just kids, and i’m injured and you can’t use your quirk when it’s too cold—”
“where now?” you interrupt. deku quiets and shifts on your back, probably looking around you. you feel his chest against your spine as he takes a shaky breath.
“it looks like there’s a forest,” he says. something creeps into his voice, some distant cousin of hope. “maybe we’re not too far from camp?”
“which way?” you ask.
“forward,” he tells you, and forward you go.
—
navigating through the forest is harder than getting through clear cut hallways, or making your way across an empty lot. a chain link fence had been the only thing to stop you, and you blew it apart easily enough with your quirk. deku had urged you to go further down the treeline, to keep your path as far away from that evidence as possible, and you listened.
after a long time of walking, deku relaying to you when you’ve passed the edge of the lot and keeping you from hitting any stray trees, you turned properly into the woods, and now you’re struggling to avoid tree roots and sudden dips in the ground where animals have burrowed.
“kacchan,” deku murmurs after the tenth time your foot hits a hole and you stumble with a curse, “i think we’re far enough away to rest a little.”
your instinct is to argue, to snap at him that you’re fine and can keep going because you’re nowhere near far enough, but it would all be lies. your shoulders ache from the hunched way you walk with deku on your back, your face stings around where you think the fire simply burned away your nerves, you have no idea how long or how far you’ve really been going, and deku’s been making little sounds of pain each time you trip and feel his burned leg brush against your clothes.
you growl under your breath, just to show off how displeased you are with this decision, but let deku guide you to a gap in some tree roots and slowly lower yourself to the ground, letting go of his thighs to set him down.
deku whimpers and you hear shuffling as you release him. for a moment, you pause, frozen in your crouch, and then turn and reach out toward him again.
“kacchan?” he asks, confused and curious but not wary.
“c’mere,” you order gruffly, putting one hand on the ground so you can feel your way to sit down beside him. once you’re settled, legs out in front of you, you make a grabbing motion. you hear deku shift, but not move, and you make another frustrated noise. “i said c’mere, idiot! if you’re rolling around in the dirt you’ll get infected.”
you don’t know if the blisters you’d seen on his leg have become open wounds or not, but you’re willing to bet that it won’t be long before they do, if he’s sitting on the ground surrounded by dead leaves and sticks and dirt. he makes a soft sound of understanding and you hear shuffling, his quiet grunts of effort as he uses his good arm and leg to scoot himself toward you.
once your hands touch skin, palm splayed over the bumps of his spine, you reach forward and wrap your arms around his middle, hauling him up into your lap. he squeaks as you adjust, leaning back against the tree, and there’s more shuffling. you feel his legs move and imagine he’s putting his good one between his injury and the dirt, if his quiet hiss of pain is anything to go by.
after a moment, he settles, leaning sideways against your chest. his good hand finds one of yours and he rests your laced fingers in his lap. you try hard not to think about how this is the most non-aggressive contact you’ve had with someone in a long time.
“kacchan,” deku starts, in that apprehensive tone he gets when he’s about to say something he knows you’re not going to like, “your eyes—”
“shut up,” you growl, but he doesn’t listen. he never does.
“we should wrap them, at least,” he implores. you must make a face that betrays how you feel about that, because he huffs. “it’s an open wound, kacchan! and maybe it’d be easier to navigate if you feel like you can’t see on purpose—”
“shut up,” you snap. he quiets, but you can practically feel the displeasure radiating off him. “if anything should be wrapped, it’s your fucking leg, moron.”
“it’s not that bad,” he tries, and talks over your scoff, “really, as long as i keep it out of the dirt as much as possible—”
“you’re an idiot,” you tell him. you let go of his hand and push him back upright, ignoring his sounds of protest, so that you can grab the hem of your shirt and rip a length of cloth from it. deku splutters, lamenting the damage. “is it bleeding anywhere?”
there’s a long pause. you reach up with your other hand and pinch a spot under his shoulder blade. he squawks and whacks you on the chest, then mutters, “a little.”
“show me where,” you demand. he grabs your wrist and guides your hand sideways toward his leg, then taps your knuckles. you lower your hand and press the cloth down. deku hisses through his teeth and shifts.
“keep pressure on it,” you instruct, and let go when you feel his hand move to replace yours. once you’re free, you grab your shirt and tear at it more, grumbling under your breath when you have to strain to reach around your own waist.
“kacchan, that’s your shirt,” deku whines, as if you didn’t already know.
“fucking obviously,” you snarl, but there’s no real malice behind it. you’re answered by a sigh, that annoying little huff of air that means deku is frustrated and thinking about a way not to be, but he keeps his mouth shut as you clumsily wrap the burns on his leg. he doesn't say anything when you take off your shirt altogether and tear it up to wrap his arm, either.
—
you rest for a little while, and definitely don’t drift in and out of a restless sleep. deku nudges your shoulder with his good hand and you grumble under your breath and open your eyes; or, at least, you think you do. there isn’t a change between one moment and the next, and for just a second it takes your breath away, until deku shifts on your legs and makes a noise of discomfort.
“kacchan,” he mumbles, “are you—”
“yeah,” you interrupt, roughly, and think really hard about opening your eyes. you hear deku sigh and think you may have succeeded this time.
“the sun is going down,” he tells you, quietly, and shivers like he needs to prove it. “we should keep moving, they’re probably gonna come out to look for us at night since they can’t exactly be discreet during the day—”
“deku,” you say, as something occurs to you quite suddenly, “what did he mean, 'all might's successor'?”
he goes very quiet very fast, as if the life has been sucked out of his neverending rambles. a long silence drags between the two of you. but you're not stupid, nor are you naïve; you'd suspected a long time ago, after your first real fight with him, after he swore to make a borrowed quirk his own.
very softly, like you're something skittish that will startle if he talks too loud, he starts, "i don't—"
"don't bullshit me, deku," you demand immediately in a growl. you can feel him tense. "i'm not some dumb fucking extra who can't put pieces together."
although, you don't admit, part of you had hoped you were wrong. that when deku called his quirk borrowed, he meant it poetically—borrowed luck, having such a powerful late blooming quirk, or borrowed time, having to work so hard to catch up with all the years of practice everyone else had. you had hoped, for once, that you were overthinking it, even though that's his job.
"i'm not supposed to tell anyone," he sighs eventually. something in you shrivels up. "i don't know how they found out, but—"
"you shouldn't have run your fuckin' mouth, then," you snarl. deku makes an outright frustrated noise, but you're too busy being drowned by your own thoughts to think of why.
what was it? you think. what was it that made him special? that made him stand out? it started with the sludge villain, this you're sure of—you don't know why or how you're so certain, but it's something so inexplicably sound that you just accept it. all might had been the one to defeat the villain, had seen the both of you in the same place, must have seen how endlessly you had fought to stay alive before deku decided to appear and be useless.
but he wasn't, some part of you whispers, tiny in the most untouched corners of your mind.
without your permission, you think about how your adrenaline in that moment had skyrocketed; how you had torn away from the sludge villain with somehow even more vigor than you’d had before. you focus very hard on ignoring it.
faintly, you wonder what all might will think of you now that you've managed to get yourself blinded and his precious successor brutally injured. you ignore that, too.
"whatever," you growl. deku makes a soft, surprised sound, and you plow on, "it's not important right now. how long until dark?"
deku hesitates, just long enough that you can practically sense him considering pressing whatever issue he thinks exists right now, then answers, "the sun is almost gone now, so probably just a few more minutes. we're facing south right now, and that factory is east from us."
you make a gruff noise of understanding and shift. your back cries out from the movement and your legs where deku is sitting on them erupt with pins and needles, but you grit your teeth and focus on getting him briefly onto the dirt so you can stand up.
you spare just a moment stretching your shoulders and twisting to crack your back before crouching in front of deku again. his palm touches your back and you jump involuntarily, turning your head to look over your shoulder even though you know you're not going to see him or his outstretched hand.
"we should get as far away from there as possible," he tells you, like it isn't obvious, as you haul him onto your back again, "i haven't seen any mountains, but we could still be close to camp."
you think that if these villains were smart enough to know how to keep your quirk useless after kidnapping you, they wouldn't be stupid enough to keep base near the very place they kidnapped you from. then again, you also think it was very stupid of them to only send one man to kill you, once they realized they had deku too. you don't say either of these things.
maybe, by some twisted logic that you've only seen in movies, staying near the scene of the crime is the best cover. but that portal could have taken you anywhere, so thinking about it just feels like running yourself in circles. you don’t say this, either.
"northwest," you decide, once deku is on your back again, good arm wrapped around your shoulders. he makes a vague noise of agreement, directs you which way to turn, and you walk.
—
deku relays to you that it'd been late afternoon when you escaped that factory, which means at least a full day has passed since your kidnapping. part of you wonders if getting as far away as possible is the best idea, considering the pro heroes will probably end up looking for you there, but it's quickly overcome by the thought of how unpleasant it would be to have that dead-eyed man's friends discover his body with you and deku huddled in the cell next to it.
you keep walking for a long time. deku's weight on your back is steady, and you're strong, but you haven't had food or water or proper rest in over twenty four hours. your spine aches with every step and every hidden burrow that your feet catch before deku can spot them.
it hits near midnight, by his estimate, and you stop to piss and hold deku up so he can too. there's no embarrassment in it for you—there's no time to be embarrassed in what you're rapidly realizing is becoming a survival situation, and you can't fucking see anyway—but you turn your head away out of courtesy and only scoff a little when deku tears leaves off a branch above you for the two of you to wipe your hands on.
once you've picked him up and started moving again, you feel him straighten up and lean back. on instinct, you keep your weight forward so the two of you don't go toppling, and pay very close attention to not being bitter that you're already getting so used to carrying him.
"kacchan," he tells you, "i think it might rain soon."
you grunt an acknowledgement but don't stop walking, and he taps his good hand against your chest where he holds on to your shoulders. "kacchan," he admonishes, "we should stop and find shelter, or we could get sick. we can figure out how to collect the water, too; if either of us get dehydrated we won't be able to keep going."
you almost snap that you could keep going perfectly fine, before he mumbles, "tree, left," and you step to the left like you're listening to a guide dog, and then on top of it he reminds you, "you need to sweat to use your quirk, and you need water to sweat, kacchan."
"fine," you growl, slowing to a stop and straightening up a bit. your grip on his legs tightens to keep him steady as he pushes your shoulder with his good hand and lifts himself up a little.
he shifts back and forth and you imagine him looking around, before he settles down again and tells you, "there's a really big tree a few meters to the right. we could make a lean-to."
to the right you go.
—
making a lean-to becomes a whole process that, you think bitterly, would have gone a lot quicker if you could fucking see. deku directs you around the tree so you can get a feel for how big it actually is, which ends up being pretty fucking big; the both of you could lean against it next to each other and still have room on either side.
after a lot of manhandling and even more cursing, you manage to situate deku so that you can grab around his thighs and haul him up to reach branches to tear off, channeling his quirk into his good arm. he trusts you, wholeheartedly, to keep the two of you balanced as he does this, and you brace your feet apart and grit your teeth with the effort of not falling over each time he successfully gets a branch.
you keep him up just long enough to get as many fat leaves and thinner sticks and bundles of pine needles as he can reach before you lower him. he’s been dumping his prizes on the ground to your right, so you twist to your left and crouch to set him down. he slips from your grip with a few pained grunts, and you set about yanking branches from the pile and setting them up against the tree.
they’re bigger than you expected, even though you’d felt their weight once deku got them broken off. you can get your hand around them easily enough, but you have to drag them across the ground to haul them up against the tree. deku gets you to help him scoot underneath it, and based on the rustling and his requests for the leaves and the pine needles, he does his best attempt at making bedding.
once you've gotten all the branches up against the tree, making what you imagine is a semi-circle lean-to, you hear deku shuffle some more. there's the soft sound of wood scraping wood, and you figure he's putting the thinner sticks between the big ones to get it more stable.
"kacchan," he tells you, "put the leaves on top, so water goes down instead of in."
you put the leaves on top.
—
it rains. you set the branches against the tree so that the two of you could lay down properly, so there's not much height to sit without hunching over, which is what you do for a while at the edge of the shelter. deku shuffles and shifts, almost too much to be believable, and you think he must be thinking of a way to start talking without pissing you off.
you're proven right soon enough.
"kacchan," he starts, and you brace yourself for something you don't want to hear, but then his good hand touches your back and you jump so violently that your shoulder hits the tree and you curse. deku makes some choked noise that sounds like a poorly concealed laugh, even as you turn to face him with your best scowl.
it occurs to you, quite suddenly, that you'll never see him laugh again, but he thankfully distracts you from that thought.
"i tried to make a little bowl," he says, and taps your arm closest to him. you shift around all the way and cup your hands together, and he puts something that doesn't feel like a bowl in your palms. "it's not very good, since i only have one hand."
you clumsily feel around the not-bowl, and figure that it's a bunch of twigs off the ground woven together into an awkward cube and stuffed with leaves. there's an open space at the top and the bottom is packed well enough, so you twist around and put it on the ground just outside your lean-to, which is similarly a little leaky but still better than nothing.
thunder rumbles closer than you think you may be comfortable with, and you hear deku make a surprised noise. it draws your thoughts, oddly, to how tuned you've become to the sounds he makes, when they used to be one of the things about him that annoyed you the most.
you don't think about it, just as you haven't been thinking about a lot of things, and instead scoot further into the shelter and lay down on your back. you hear shuffling just a moment before deku presses into your side, his chest against your arm, and it isn't long before his breathing evens out.
you squirm, just a little, just enough to get your arm up and on the ground behind deku's shoulders, because he's shivering and you don't need your guide dog getting hypothermia. you tell yourself that's the only reason.
—
you wake up to deku tapping on your chest, the sound of him saying that stupid nickname, and go through another round of not knowing if you've opened your eyes or not. after a few tries, deku stops his tapping, and tells you, "we got some water."
you push yourself to your elbows with a grunt and run a hand over your face and freeze.
you haven't, up until this point, touched the burn. the fact you can't feel your hand against the skin around your eyes is telling, but you can feel the skin beneath your fingers. it's rough, and tight, like a brand new scar.
the skin around the edges is tender, and you hiss out a breath at the sting when your fingers brush it, but the reality of it is slowly settling on you.
you really are blind, now. you don't know for certain how long it's been, but part of you thinks too long. you wonder if even the old broad at school could help you now.
deku must notice your silence, or see you sitting there with one hand at the edge of your scar, because after a moment you feel his good hand touch your arm, feather light. you scowl, but even you know there's no real feeling behind it, and drop your hand back into your lap. deku starts to say something, but he quiets when you twist around and grope along the ground for that makeshift bowl, careful not to spill any of its contents when you pick it up and bring it back beneath the shelter.
it tastes like dirt and the smell that raises from the pavement after a good storm, and it drips onto your pants, but you take a few sips and hand it to deku. he takes it carefully and you hear him drink before he passes it back to you, getting your attention with a nudge to your arm with the back of his knuckles.
you drink the rest of it, assuming he wouldn't be stupid enough to make you take the bigger portion, and set the patch worked container down. you don't hear the rain anymore, and outside the shelter was warm when you reached for the water, so you figure the sun must be out. this is day two, you know, and you wonder how many more are to go.
"kacchan," deku says, "they'll be able to fix it. look at todoroki, his scar is obviously bad but he can see perfectly fine—"
"don't compare me to icy hot," you snap, but it's out of instinct more than anger. you know there's doctors out there other than recovery girl, doctors with different kinds of healing quirks, but you're not stupid. even if you are well off, your family isn't made of money like the number two hero's, and you can already hear your mother's shrieks that your injury is your own fault for being so weak.
if she will have anything to say about it, you'll stay blind for the rest of your life, as punishment for not being strong enough.
you swallow, and plow on before deku has a chance to talk again. "it's not important right now, anyway. we need to stay alive before we think about fixing anything."
you say it gruffly, because it's the truth. you don't have time to worry about anything except not dying out here, while you wait for the pros to find you. because they will, eventually. you refuse to accept the idea that they won't.
you gather deku onto your back and leave the lean-to. for a moment, you consider burning it, but once the flame would start you'd have no control over it, so you dismiss the idea. deku directs you northwest, and you walk.
—
(they won't.)
—