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In the big picture window, the sky was streaked with oranges and pinks over a steadily darkening blue but Fumikage only spared a momentary glimpse at it as he strode over to the chair next to the hospital bed and sat down. The bulk of the other boy was so impossibly broad, a wonder of biological engineering but he only allowed himself a moment of appreciation before he searched for the rise and fall of his chest, finding it to be too quick, and the set of his many shoulderblades, each too tense.
“I know you aren’t sleeping, Mezo.”
He watched as the broad span of his back seemed to wilt as Mezo let out a long sigh, finally turning to lay flat on his back again. “I was trying to,” he retorted.
It was a weak response and they both knew it. “What happened,” Fumikage finally asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He snorted. “Something happened on the beach. Spill.”
“What does it matter?” Shouji turned his head to rest his cheek against the pillow, bangs in disarray without any gel in them. Fumikage itched to fix them and tidy them up. One eye was hidden under the hair, per normal, but the one that Fumikage could see was painfully blank.
He’d only seen Shouji like this once, when the news had come that his grandmother was dying. It had been sudden and there hadn’t been any way for him to travel to Fukuoka in time. He’d instead curled up on the thin mattress he preferred for a bed and had stared out blankly at nothing. There had barely been a blink when Fumikage had slipped into his room after getting no response after knocking. Fumikage had sat down and done his homework, patiently waiting until Shouji finally sat up after four hours, reached for his own school bag and joined him.
“It matters to me,” Fumikage finally said, keeping his voice down as a code alarm sounded in the hospital and a cacophony of people flowed outside Shouji’s room. He waited for them to leave before he turned back to meet the one eye that he could. “You have been weird ever since. Something happened there. Ojiro and Iida aren’t sure what it is and Sato and Todoroki are oblivious. Even Tsu doesn’t know, which means that whatever it is, it was bad.”
“And?” Shouji asked, blinking his one eye slowly. He was likely still on painkillers and Tokoyami briefly considered whether he was being impatient. But then he remembered the way that Shouji had eaten the night after, one hand curled into his hair as he hung back in the corner. Shouji hid when something was wrong, like a wounded cat trying to find a dark place to either live or die and he was being released tomorrow. Now was the time to push or he’d find Shouji right back on his bed, staring at nothing.
“And I don’t want to see you hurt,” he said softly, waving Dark Shadow off as it tried to approach Shouji, likely to preen his hair or something else embarrassing.
“I’m fine.”
Fumikage sighed and leaned back in his chair. “No, you aren’t. You forget that I am rather experienced with inner turmoil. I know it when I see it.”
Shouji sighed and closed his eyes, his brow furrowing slightly as he shifted in bed. His arms were still covered in bandages, the wounds half healed but likely still raw. When he found a more comfortable spot, he let out a deep breath before finally saying, “He didn’t say anything that I haven’t heard before.”
“But it hit differently this time?”
“It hit a little differently this time,” Shouji allowed.
When Shouji didn’t elaborate, Fumikage pushed, “What did he say?”
He watched as Shouji stared down at his feet, one hand moving quickly towards his face but then recoiling in pain before another wiped across his eyes. He sniffed before speaking, his voice low but not soft as he said, “If our classmates didn’t know me and they ran into me fighting someone in an alley or something, do you think they would think I was the villain?”
“Oh,” Fumikage said softly. “It hit like that.”
“Yeah,” Shouji said, voice thick and cracking and Fumikage didn’t even bother to try to shoo Dark Shadow back. Within a heartbeat, Dark Shadow had curled himself around Shouji’s head, mindful of his arms as the spirit crooned to him, delicately preening at his hair with his spectral beak. Shouji didn’t bother to try and dislodge him. Instead, he shut his eyes, sniffed again and rested his head back against the pillows.
He found himself staring at one of Shouji’s hands, watching as he clenched at the sheets beneath him as the other hands weakly reached out for something. Fumikage kept his own hands tight against his chest and listened to Shouji cry. He was good at inner turmoil, he hadn’t been kidding about that. But his own form of turmoil was… different. It burned. It stung. And it was often simple, one thing right and one thing wrong. This wasn't like that.
This was complicated. It was made even more so because it was Shouji.
He finally scanned the room to find a box of tissues, moving carefully so as to not dislodge Dark Shadow as he slid over to grasp the box with the pads of his fingers, enough to tip it and get a better grip. Giving in to the pull of Dark Shadow’s tie to him was a relief, the spirit seeming to loosen with the tension as he leaned back. It took the tissue box from him, pulling out an absurd amount in it’s eagerness to help. But that made Shouji laugh, a wet, choking laugh but a laugh all the same.
“Do you want my pessimistic answer or my optimistic one?” Fumikage finally asked.
Shouji blew his nose, the act awkward as he had to curl himself over to keep his arms from reaching too far and had to do it all under the mask. But when he was done, Dark Shadow was like an eager puppy to nab his dirty tissue and toss it towards the bin. He chuckled at that and reached over to give Dark Shadow a fond pat, leaving Fumikage to hide the shiver at the faint ghost of sensation that mirrored back to him. “Both, I guess. If we’re going to get into this.”
Fumikage sucked in a deep breath, letting it go slowly as Shouji finally looked back at him with red rimmed eyes. His voice was soft as it spoke, “The pessimistic answer would be that they probably would. It would be the same if they saw me fighting someone who looked like a hero should. But the optimistic answer, and what I think is the right one, is that they have learned from us that there is more to someone than their appearance.”
“I know.” Shouji said, his voice quiet in response. He reached out with one of the less bandaged hands to run his fingers along the jagged purple static of shadow that made up Dark Shadow. The spirit met Fumikage’s eyes and a recognition seemed to vibrate through them. This was Shouji. He was allowed.
“It still hurts,” Fumikage agreed.
“It does,” he said softly.
“Can I ask what he said?”
Shouji shrugged, eyes welling up again which made Dark Shadow squawk furiously at Fumikage before pulling several tissues from the box to offer to Shouji. He laughed and his voice was tender as he said, “I’m fine, it’s alright,” to the shadow. He grabbed a tissue and reached under his mask and Fumikage couldn’t help himself.
“You can just pull it down, you know.”
Shouji paused before he looked over. “It isn’t pretty,” he warned. “It’s scary.”
“Revelry in the dark is practically my catchphrase,” he said with a snort.
Shouji stared down at the tissue. “Will you stop anyone if they try to come in?” he asked, voice soft.
“I swear it.”
He nodded, taking a deep breath as he pulled the mask down. It was surprising, Fumikage had to admit. He’d hoped for a beak, if he was being completely honest. Octopi had them, he’d googled that. They weren’t the same as his own but a strange part of him had hoped. But what Shouji had didn’t scare him. His jaw was pronounced, yes, and the length that his lips went back were eerily far. But it wasn’t scary by any stretch of the imagination.
Shouji blew his nose and then caught Fumikage’s eyes. He sighed, giving Dark Shadow the tissue before he carefully opened his mouth. He pulled his lip back as though to better show the jagged, sharp teeth not like a shark or an alligator or really any animal that Fumikage could think of but somehow still beastial. And when he lowered his jaw and stuck out his abnormally long, black tongue, Fumikage could do nothing else but nod. The mask made sense, yes. He understood.
Still though, he found himself unable to simply take the information and he scooted the chair forward. One of the more useful parts of the shape of his head and his eyes being slightly more wide set was his wider scope of vision. It was easier to see Shouji snap his mouth shut in confusion as Fumikage stood and tilted his head back to show his own. After pulling his lips apart, he leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “My beak is completely useless. Why I should need both teeth and a beak is beyond my comprehension. I am unable to find any use for it besides my body’s apparent devotion to a particular goth aesthetic.”
That earned him a stare and then, finally, a laugh. A quiet laugh at first but it seemed to quickly turn to something that stank of relief from a mouth that was alien and strange but also achingly familiar before he pulled his mask back up. “Are you trying to say that even your mouth is pretentious?”
“Yes,” Fumikage said coolly before he sat back down, making sure to catch Shouji’s eye before throwing him a wink. “Those are some teeth.”
Shouji shrugged his shoulders, keeping the gesture shallow to keep from hurting himself. “Yeah, I guess.”
“It’s not a bad thing.”
At Shouji’s look, he shrugged and answered, “I am a little jealous of you sometimes, you know.”
“Of what?”
“You have eyebrows. I’m sure I technically have them though they aren’t exactly hair. They seem rather handy to have in an expressive sort of way.”
“I hadn’t thought of things that way,” Shouji muttered as Dark Shadow chirped to itself, picking at his blanket and generally fussing over him. “Does he do this for you?”
“No, no it absolutely does not,” Fumikage muttered. He scrubbed at the pinfeathers at his face, carefully parting the ones just around the edge of his beak to get at the sensitive skin. A dust bath was in order and the idea made him sour. He pulled out a dead feather and eyed it with disdain before looking back over to Shouji. “It generally just makes itself into a nuisance. It generally has its own space and I have mine.”
“‘It’? Good to know, thank you for telling me,” Shouji said, his face completely sincere and Fumikage felt something tug at chest.
He considered Shouji. He considered the thoughtfulness that seemed to emanate from everything he did, from the way that he had worried about the kids and, painfully, what he’d heard from Ojiro. That Shouji had thrown himself in front of potential killing blows last night, not once but twice. That was a part of becoming a hero, yes, but this seemed different, particularly with the news that he’d have died had the child’s quirk not helped with regeneration.
“If you feel resentful, I’m sure that anyone would understand,” Fumikage finally said.
Shouji didn’t have eyelashes. It was a strange realization but it had caught him off guard. There was, instead, a close, quick flick of inner eyelid as he closed his eyes and Fumikage found himself itching to know what his parents’ Quirks had been. His own had been so easy to understand, his father’s sentient shadow with his mother’s almost avian but not quite features along with her temper. But Shouji, he had no idea. Not with the lack of pictures or anything identifying in his room.
They had been studying there before they’d left for the Hero Recommendation Project. Fumikage’s room had been deemed too claustrophobic so they had sprawled out on the hardwood floor as the last rays of the sun warmed Fumikage’s feathers and kept Dark Shadow calm and sweet. Shouji had stretched out on the warmed hardwood floor, seeming to fill the room for one quick moment before he shrunk himself down again and curled.
He watched Shouji then, in that hospital room. He watched his face and watched the way that he avoided looking at Fumikage, instead running another hand over Dark Shadow that made Fumikage’s toes curl. “I know,” Shouji said softly.
“It feels as though there is an ‘and’ waiting for me.”
Shouji’s fingers seemed so long as he reached up to rub at his eyes, letting out a soft groan before saying, “Do you ever feel like you want to be a hero just so people won’t see you as a monster?”
Fumikage blinked, head jerking back for a moment at the heft of that question. “I…”
“Not that I don’t want to help people,” he gritted out, “I do. I - it’s stupid.”
“No it isn’t.” Fumikage leaned back in his chair, feeling so tired so suddenly. “I get it. If people won’t see you as human, then they might as well see you as useful.”
“Yeah.”
Shouji sucked in a deep breath, licking his lips as he seemed ready to speak before he stopped. Fumikage slid his eyes open to watch Shouji, his head cocked. “What?”
“I thought there would be more of us when I came to UA,” Shouji said, voice soft.
“More mutants?”
“Yeah. I mean, you and Kouda and Tsu are here, which is good. And there’s Ojiro and Ashido and I suppose that you could technically count Iida but I’d been so sure-”
Shouji paused and glanced over at him. “Did you see how many of the villains at the USJ had mutant quirks?”
“Somewhat but Kouda and I were moved to our zone rather quickly and it was quite dark.”
Shouji shrugged, brows furrowing as he stared down at one of his hands. “They almost all were,” he said softly. “I suppose they could have selected them to try to stack their decks against sensei but-”
“It still feels strange that they managed to find that many people with the same kind of quirk that likely ostracized them.”
“Yeah,” Shouji said softly.
There were times that Fumikage wished he could simply pause time solely so that he could call Hawks and ask him what to do. Hawks would know how to handle this, surely. Though Hawks looked like Hawks, so perhaps he wouldn’t.
“I am unable to think of anything that might be comforting,” he finally said.
“That’s alright,” Shouji said almost immediately, giving him a quick shrug. “I’ll be fine, it’s okay.”
It wasn’t, of course. They both had to know that, this nebulous idea having to depend on the idea that they would both agree to play pretend. Fumikage drew in a deep breath and carefully opened the part of himself that he kept from Dark Shadow as a safety precaution. It cocked it’s head at him from it’s spot on Shouji’s lap, sliding over to carefully twine himself around bandaged arms and then to rest it’s chin between the crook of Shouji’s neck as he stared up at the ceiling. It was intimate and Fumikage selfishly let himself lean into the feeling for a moment, the two feeding off of each other in a rare moment of positive synchronicity.
“It’s not alright,” Fumikage said finally. “And that’s okay.”
He could see Shouji’s nose wrinkle under his mask in irritation and it was a bit of a relief to see something come from him. “What’s even the point of saying that,” Shouji rumbled.
“Do you mean besides reminding you that you aren’t required to be the perfect mutant at all times and that it is, in fact, healthy for you to feel some level of bitterness?”
Shouji scowled then before he let his head slump to the side and pin Fumikage with an annoyed look. “Are you my therapist now?”
He grinned, unable to help himself. “I’m sensing some hostility here, let’s really dig deep and see if we can expand on this,” he said, putting on the stupid accent of the therapist that he both hated and grudgingly admired for his anger management.
Shouji softly said, “Oh fuck you,” but he had smiled. He’d heard enough about Angela to catch the reference. Shouji’s room had been Fumikage’s first place to go to after their sessions, the sound of his voice echoing off of the empty hardwood floors and walls and it felt satisfying as he unleashed all of his petulant fury. And through it all, Shouji would set aside his homework, lean back against the wall and listen. He’d laugh at the right times, he’d acknowledge he was listening at the right times, he would do everything that he could to help even though he never vented back.
“Do you ever get angry?” Fumikage asked softly.
“Oh yeah,” Shouji said with a snort.
“At what.”
Fumikage could feel through Dark Shadow as Shouji’s chest rose and fell after a long deep breath, his gaze turning from Fumikage to the ceiling. “I don’t know. When I fail at something that I know that I should be able to do. When Bakugou interrupts a perfectly good class to start yelling about something that I don’t really care about. When someone is mean to someone and they shouldn’t be. When someone doesn’t hold the door, that’s just basic courtesy. Lots of things, I guess. Why?”
Fumikage shrugged. “I don’t know. Makes you seem more human.”
He paused at that, eyes narrowing for a moment before he looked over and met Fumikage’s eyes again. “When do you think we stop being human?”
He cocked his head in surprise at that. “You’re asking the man with the head of a bird about that?”
“Was that rude?”
“No, it’s funny,” he admitted. “And I don’t know. I guess that the question comes down to why it even matters. Who cares what we are, just that we are something worthwhile.”
“That’s poetic.”
“Shut up,” he muttered and he let out a soft breath of relief at Shouji’s chuckle. “But really. I know what you are. Everyone who has met you for more than two minutes knows who you are. Isn’t that all that’s important? What does it matter?”
“It matters to me,” Shouji said, a slight touch of wistfulness in his voice. Fumikage let the ache in his heart be felt, feeling the resonating press of heat and skin as Dark Shadow wrapped even closer to Shouji.
“This is unlike you,” Fumikage remarked.
“Sorry,” Shouji said in an almost whisper.
“Don’t be. It’s not bad. You’re-” he caught himself just in time. What was he even going to say? Interesting? Complicated? All that he thought about some days? “You’re good. It’s good.”
“Good, I guess.” Shouj said with a frown before he reached back up to the ceiling. Fumikage quietly thanked any deity that he had done that before Shouji reached a hand up to stroke Dark Shadow’s head. His own feathers had poofed in surprise and while it was quick, it was still embarrassing.
“Are you alright?” Fumikage asked, not sure why.
Shouji’s hesitation was an answer enough. “Of course.”
“I know that you’re lying.”
He watched as the mask crinkled, Shouji clearly scowling under it. “Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That is fair,” Fumikage conceded. They sat in silence then for a while, the hospital bustling and beeping and breathing around them. Fumikage had been watching the last bit of sunlight die as Shouji finally spoke.
“I don’t think I want to have kids.”
“Was that recently an option for you?” Fumikage asked, more surprised than anything. He snorted at the stink eye that he got. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have just disregarded that out of hand, go on.”
“I don’t think I want to pass this on. Any of this. I doubt I’ll ever have the opportunity anyway but still.”
“What does that mean?”
The wry look that Shouji shot him only served to annoy him further as he repeated himself. “No, really, what does that mean?”
“It means that I’m a realist,” Shouji said softly and Fumikage had to immediately snap a part of himself shut before anger boiled through his connection to Dark Shadow. It’s head snapped up to stare at him with hungry intent and he mentally wrestled down the flare of heat until it smoldered.
Shouji had been eyeing him with concern but he met his look. “Scoot over,” Fumikage said.
“What?”
“I said, move,” he stated in his most commanding voice. He stood and, after a moment of thought, started to unlace his boots.
“Why?”
Fumikage gritted his teeth as he kicked his boots off and pulled himself onto the edge of the bed. Shouji finally scooted over to the side, more than he frankly needed to. And when Fumikage settled down on his side, he reached over Shouji’s waist and gently guided him back from damn near hanging off the bed. Shouji was tense and his breathing was careful and shallow but he did eventually rest an arm around Fumikage’s shoulders, his touch as gentle as though Fumikage was of glass.
Fumikage made a note to spar with Shouji once he got better to remind him that while he may be hollow boned, he was still capable of brutality and resilience. But for the time being, he shooed Dark Shadow to his own side, finally committed to throwing a leg across Shouji’s as he rested his head on Shouji’s chest. “What is this?” he heard Shouji say softly, his voice hesitant and careful.
“I do not like it when you talk about yourself like that,” Fumikage said as he stared pointedly out the window and not upwards where Shouji’s eyes were likely boring a hole into him.
“And?”
“And this is me trying to show you that you’re wrong despite not having the words to express it,” he finally allowed.
He felt Shouji’s chest rise swiftly and then slowly compress as he considered that. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Fumikage muttered, thankful once again for the fact that his feathers hid any kind of blush that he might have. “Is this okay?”
“It is, yes,” Shouji said faintly, one of his hands spreading to lay against the small of Fumikage’s back.
Unsure what to do with his hand, Fumikage finally reached up to rest it on Shouji’s chest. The hand that covered it was so tentative that it steeled Fumikage’s resolve as he decided to lace their fingers together. He marvelled for a moment at the hand, idly wondering if it had been the one that had grown back. The memory of that night was a complicated one, both terrifying and oddly gratifying. After the adrenaline and shame had passed, he’d woken up the next morning with the full realization of how he felt.
He squeezed Shouji’s hand, grip firm for a moment as though that would make his words sink in. “If you’re not human, then I’m not either. But we’ll be not-human together, okay?”
“I’d like that,” he said softly and Fumikage listened to Shouji’s heart beat in his chest, first wild and then finally, steady and calm. His breath finally evened out as Shouji fell asleep and Fumikage stared out the window at the night sky, the steady beat under his ear sounding something like home.