Chapter Text
The first thing he’s aware of is the pain. Sharp splinters stab through his skull and all he wants is to return to the blackness that he was submerged in a moment ago.
Vaguely, he registers there’s noise, a whole canopy of sounds but he can’t focus on anything other than the pain to decipher what sound is what. He’s pretty sure that there’s people touching him, he knows his own hands are grasping his head and trying to keep his thoughts in his brain and not oozing out through his ears. Another wave of pain crests in his brain and then oddly enough, his throat. Is he screaming? He might be, but he doesn’t care. He just wants it to stop.
He makes the mistake of trying to open his eyes at one point, to see if something was causing his skull to cave in and as soon as light hits his eyes, he screws them back shut, the brief flash of bright light pure agony. His stomach roils and then his throat burns more. He feels hands push him to the side and then liquid splatter next to him. This time he’s able to recognize when his shrieking starts up again against the background noise.
He writhes and pants and screeches in pain and he thinks he throws up again and all he can do is lay there and take it and think make it stop make it stop over and over and OVER.
Finally he feels something else touch him, moist and slimy against his forehead and the pain recedes rapidly along with his ability to stay awake as he finally falls into unconsciousness again.
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This time he floats back to awareness slowly, not slammed awake by the immediateness of the pain.
His head throbs, but its like a bruise, a lingering affect of what came before. He realizes his eyes are open and blinks to try to bring the world into focus. He recognizes a white ceiling with lights off before his vision blurs again. He closes his eyes against the nausea that accompanied his swirling vision and tries to figure out what happened to him.
His thoughts are sliding away faster than he can grab them, but also finds he doesn’t mind too much. Drugs, his hazy mind offers up, and that seems right so he doesn’t try to chase the half-formed thoughts that follow after too hard.
Eventually, he tries to open his eyes again to see what’s going on. This time, his vision’s only slightly out of focus as he takes in a riot of colors around the bed he appears to be propped up in. Red is the closest, right up against his side. There’s yellow, pink, black all along the foot of his bed and green up against the wall opposite red. There’s a low murmuring coming from….one of the colors? He’s not sure, but he’s glad the noise is low and the lights are off, save for the bright orange coming through some fabric.
Window, sunset, must be late, his brain lazily churns out. He blinks at the thought and makes a low hum of agreement. As soon as the noise leaves his throat, however, a flurry of movement and noise erupts.
His sore mind can barely track what’s going on and only takes in bits and pieces.
Red squeezing his hand tighter (it was being held before?)-
“-awake!”
“Kacc-!”
Pink jumping up and down-
“-scared us, bro!”
Green darting out the door with a nervous laugh and a parting, “-get sensei, he won’t want me-!”
“-kubro! Don’t DO tha-!”
He blinks blearily at the commotion, until black makes a shushing noise eventually, and says something that he thinks is a question. He doesn’t know what he said, his brain is lagging, but they’re all clearly waiting on him for something.
He opens his mouth and manages and to croak out “Wazzit?”
Pink giggles, and ok, he’s starting to focus more, that’s good. Wow, that’s a lot of PINK, like, way more color than the other colors.
“S’lotta p’nk,” his mouth says without him realizing.
There’s silence for a moment, then nervous laughter from all the colors- the people, he’s realizing as they come more and more in focus.
“Wow, she put him on the good stuff, huh?”
“Dude, Kiri, please say we can ask him embarrassing stuff, this is a golden opportunity!”
“Taking advantage of a bro while he’s on painkillers isn’t manly, guys,” Red says with an amused grin. Red turns to face him and squeezes his hand again, “How are you feeling, though? Any pain or problems? You- you really scared us there man.” Red’s grin has slipped off his face at the end.
He blinks, and then hums as he considers the question and tries to organize his thoughts. “Is- is l’ke, um, leftov’rs,” he mumbles out.
“Leftovers?” Red says, flabbergasted. Red turns to the others for help after he hums an affirmative.
The others, however are hiding their faces and sound like they’re choking on something. But Red doesn’t panic so he decides not to worry about it either.
A knock cuts through the air right as Red whines, “Guys! This is serious!”
“Sure is,” Yellow chokes, tears streaming down his face as Black heads to the door.
“So serious, these are our serious faces,” wheezes Pink.
“If you two are going to be disruptive you can leave,” comes from the door Black has pulled open to reveal….taller Black?
“No sensei, we can be good!” “Promise!” The man narrows his eyes at them.
He hears original Black murmur quietly “-seems pretty out of it, sensei.” Taller black- sensei- his mind corrects, heads over to his side opposite Red and sits down.
“Problem child. Glad you’re awake finally. How do you feel?” Red speaks for him, seeming still confused about his ‘leftovers’ comment. Sensei man however, figures out what he means.
“Leftover aches then? Not actual pain, but the aftermath?”
“Mmmh,” he nods, that sounds right. “‘m tired. Can I sleep s’more?”
Sensei arches a brow. “Not yet kid. You remember what happened?”
His mush-brain slowly pulls together his last memories. “M’brain was…gettin’ stabbed. Was…bad. Hurt lots. D’I throw up?”
Sensei frowns but nods. “Several times. Unfortunately we don’t know what happened either, we found you like that. Looks like whatever quirk hit you was migraine based and just wanted to knock you out of commission.”
“Oh.”
His eyes are drooping and he’s finding it hard to focus again. Red squeezes his hand again and shakes his arm slightly. “Hey dude, no sleeping yet. Little longer, kay? Just until Recovery Girl gives you the all clear.”
“I’ll be done soon dearie.”
He jumps about a foot off the bed at the voice that appeared at his elbow. The sudden adrenaline rush pulls everything back into focus as he peers down at a tiny old lady fiddling with a tube he hadn’t realized was connected to him until that moment. The choking noises are back, but he ignores them in favor of watching her pull the tube out and away from him. “I’ve taken you off the pain meds, so you should be thinking clearly soon enough. You’re already healed up from the fight, so you can head back to the dorms for the night in about an hour. Provided there are no new developments.”
She pats his arm before disappearing behind a curtain. Sensei snaps at the others to quiet down, before turning back to him.
“Alright kid, now for the probably-unnecessary-but-ultimately-logical functions test.”
“The what?” Black asks, looking confused. Good, at least he’s not the only one lost here.
“The quirk was mind-based. It may have been a pain quirk, but it’s still logical to check whether the pain was a result of either an actual migraine quirk or perhaps one that impacted his thinking, or memories, or anything really,” Sensei sighs. “Alright kid, ready? I know you’re tired and still kinda high, but try to answer as best you can.”
He nods, and Red squeezes his hand again. He squeezes back this time, trying to ground himself and focus his mush brain.
“Where are you?”
“Uh…” he blanks for a moment and then his brain floats up the answer. “N'rses Office.”
Sensei nods. “What’s the date?”
Again, he has no idea, but his mouth opens anyways and out pops the answer. “….November 12.”
“Name five random animals.”
On and on the questions go. He repeats back a couple sentences, solves a basic math problem, says what color and shapes are on a few flash cards, holds up his left arm, then his right. He clumsily catches a small ball tossed at him and follows the finger Sensei holds up with just his eyes.
“Last one kid, what were those five random animals you picked out earlier?”
“Dog, snake, rabbit, lion, armadillo,” he mumbles. He’s exhausted and ready to pass out again.
“Did he do it?” Yellow asks, leg bouncing erratically.
“Flying colors.”
The others whoop as Sensei stretches and stands, clearly about to leave. Red beams at him.
“Nothing keeps Lord Explosion Murder down for long!” Black cackles.
Did they have to be so loud? He’s tired and really getting annoyed by all the yelling. “Who’s that?” he grumbles, hoping they tell him quickly and then let him sleep.
He receives immediate silence. He sighs, and relaxes against the pillows gratefully. Hopefully his head isn’t so muddled when he wakes up next.
“Kid.”
He blinks his eyes back open at Sensei’s voice. He looks…weird. They all do, frozen in shock. “What?” he asks, already done with the conversation.
Sensei looks pained. “One more question, kid. What’s your name?”
He sighs and opens his mouth, ready for the answer to come to him like it did earlier.
Only this time, nothing happens.