Chapter Text
The first time he threw himself off of a building was an experience he’d never forget.
He’d never felt the wind rush by his ears as quickly, or the sound of city traffic blurr and muffle together as seamlessly , or felt as weightless as he did outside of watching villains fight, than when he was falling.
Rocketing straight towards the cracked sidewalk beneath him , chipped from constant use and stained pastel from hopscotch lines that trickled away from the morning drizzle.
He sank like stone , all one hundred and ten pounds of him.
Nothing more than skin and bones wracked with a festering, bubbling type of resentment that weighed more than all of him combined.
…
When he stepped off the rooftops edge the wind whistled in his ears and gravity wrapped its reaching arounds out his waist and pulled.
His stomach flipped and eyes squinted and the world seemed to pause for just a moment.
While people ran errands and drove to work, unassuming and unaware, his body teetered off the edge on the verge of a decision he could never take back…
And for every second that passed and sweat beaded down his neck , was another second that he found himself reminiscing on how it all came to this.
Tired , resentful and alone.
It started a lot more petty fueled than most suicides, with a hoodie of all things.
He remembered wrapping the gift his dad had sent him for a late birthday present tighter around his waist. Thick fabric wrinkling the faded graphic tee that was bundled underneath.
A Hawks themed hoodie.
An oh so generous gift from his dad that’d originally been given to him by a coworker during a work sanctioned black elephant game. Which had inevitably , as all shitty gifts were , rewrapped and passed along to him to be “regifted”.
As thoughtless as the act was and lackluster his father’s affection proved to be, he still found himself treasuring them all. Without even being aware of it, every birthday card and the cheap gift from every odd tourist shop sent his way hoarded away.
Post cards tucked in-between book pages and tacky t-shirts with stupid sayings worn regularly on weekends.
He waited patiently, anxiously, to be wanted and acknowledged by a man he hadn’t seen since he was in still in diapers. Every year without fail , nervously sitting by the house phone for his yearly birthday call until he stopped needing a step stool to reach the receiver.
He waited until the phone calls stopped coming and then a little bit more after that.
Until his mom herded him away and distracted him with Tonkatsu and tucked him into his hero themed bed. Tiny ears perked for the telltale ring-ring-ring in the downstairs living room.
It’s three months after his fifteenth birthday that he gets a shoddily wrapped gift in the mail, several sizes too big.
It’s one week and several eavesdropped phone calls later that he overhears his dad asking for it back.
His mom worries her lips and strums the coiled cord on the house phone like a guitar string.
“—yes dear, but—-I just.. I don’t want to take it away from—“
His dad’s frustrated voice echoes over the receiver.
“Kids lose stuff all the time, just take out his closet while he’s with his friends and after a few days he won’t think twice about it.”
He stands in the entryway near the front door in silence until the phone call ends with a dial tone and defeated click. The next morning he knows his mom had searched for and failed in finding the hoodie when her soft looks turn increasingly frustrated as dinner goes on.
Call it teen hormones or the result of a decades worth of pent up frustration towards a man that couldn’t even be bothered to call his wife or son on a regular basis, but the cathartic feeling of getting his way for once without having to fear the immediate consequences made keeping the hoodie all the more sweet.
Twice as much sense it was one of the rarer items in his collection, with only a limited number of jackets having been sold and distributed throughout a few select countries.
The fact that it was a variation just made it all the more prized.
It’s outside mimicked the hero’s Kevlar under armor. A dark black color with thick shimmery gold embroidery and fancy zipper accents in the shape of red feather pull tabs. Thick fuzzy white fleece lined its inside and a metal clasp securely closed its high collar. The peist-de-resistance being the two red wings sewn on the back that swayed when he walked. Soft and plush-like.
He’d kept it buried in its bubble mailer for a few weeks until his dad called off his search. There his prize stayed hidden underneath a large shrub and its pointy brambles until it was safe to be worn again.
Life continued and his small victory was celebrated privately as the days went on , secret held tightly to his chest.
More days often than not he left and came right back to an empty house. Mom working , cling wrapped food on the kitchen counter, knuckles bloody and burns on his back.
The school year kept on with his classmates expending more and more energy on humiliating ways to ruin his day than they did on tests. His teachers turned a blind eye to it he bullying and he turned a blind eye to the resentment building in his chest.
Ideas of hacked phones , leaked embarrassing pictures and bugs slipped through cracked windows , dancing through his mind. Some daydreams tamer than others.
His body stung and ears rang faintly as his notebook was thrown out the school window and Kacchan stalked away from the mess he’d left behind. Life moved on , his heart ached and the scars on his shoulders ached as they slumped in defeat.
By the time the sky turned a pale blue he found himself shaking on the very top of a foreclosed apartment, damaged from a villain fight years back that left even the surrounding grass permanently dead.
Shuddering breaths left his lips as he tumbled his way down the building's stairs and wobbled back to his house.
Body sticky , wet trousers sticking to the crease of his thighs. Slime dribbling into his socks and sloshing around his shoes.
His sneakers were kicked off as he entered and his lungs wheezed a wet sound when he hunched over the toilet. The parts of his hair that weren’t windswept stuck stubbornly to the nape of his neck and his wrinkled forehead.
Sludge soaked shirt sticking to his neck and the part of the toilet seat he curled up against. It left slime stains in his wake , green hand prints as he pressed against whatever he could get ahold of to brace himself as he wretched with a force that left his vision spotted.
In their dingy little bathroom, he tucked himself into a ball on the tiled floor as the sensation of being violated and almost dying once and then twice for someone who hadn’t been his friend in years cradled him like a thin knit blanket.
A few hours later he was still alone , still scared and so so so tired.
Campus notebooks scattered his bedroom floor in various states of disrepair. He dried the newest one with his mom’s hair dryer. Each ink bleeding page peeled from the other meticulously.
His mom was at Aunt Mitsuki’s and he could hear the neighbors yelling at each other as he cleaned himself methodically in the shower. Scrubbing extra hard and letting the hot water run down his face.
It was in the shower that he decided that he didn’t want to live anymore. With as much consideration as he used to decide what shitty t-shirt to wear when he got out.
It’s not a decision that weighs on him, considered once or twice and then shelved for another day. It’s in the shower that’s it’s unpacked and it’s contents spilled out on his minds floor. Every trophy of pain and medal of perseverance dusted off.
Slivers and golds shined as he rummages through the hallway closet and comes out with large trash bags.
Each one showcased for every item he packs away in his room. Walls cleared, journals organized , hero figurines cushioned between his nice clothes. Double bagged trash bags filled and compressed with the help of a vacuum cleaner. Turned into plastic bricks of clothes and collectibles.
Dinners eaten early , house vacuumed and floor mopped free of green.
He floats around his house like a wraith , already gone and just tying up loose ends.
Exhausted enough run into deaths arms but just resentful enough to make sure no one else gets his stuff when he’s gone. The art he drew , journals he filled , merch he traded and bartered for at second hand shops.
It’s around five that he leaves his house , trash bags in hand. House key pushed through the mail slot and hoodie unearthed from its hiding spot.
The beach is his first stop.
He wiggles through tight spots and over broken glass. Past something smoking and away from where murky water washes up onto the shore. Right below a sheet of metal, sharp edged, is where the culmination of his life is buried by steady hands.
Satisfied with the mini burial , his second stop is at a convenience store where he washes his hands and slips on his hoodie. It’s oversized and falls to his mid thighs, clean but earthy smelling.
Ducking out the restroom with the hood over his head , he limps down the street.
Planning his death the entire way.
Half a hour later he stands on an abandoned building. In a neighborhood long forgotten, taxes funneled into god knows what while pockets of ruined lives , broken down and rubbish filled, span the city.
As he stands on the rooftop, right beside the dried slime stain where he stood before , swaddled by his hoodie and seen by no one but the sun... he feels incredibly warm.
On top of a high-rise building where his dreams were broken and the wind pushes him around and messes up his hair.
It’s warm up here , quiet and safe. Safer than he’s ever been anywhere else. Safe enough for him to slip his shoes off next.
They’re a size nine , the exact same ones he’s been wearing since middle school. Red shoes an identifier , warning and target on his back all in one.
They’re clunky and a bit too big , a size up to stretch their lifespan. Foam Insoles fitted to his feet , formed to the high arch to his heels and the fragile extra joints in his toes. They’d been patched up with fabric scraps and repetitive sewing, an old pre quirk sewing technique he learned from scrolling prequirk studies online.
It kept everything from his shoes to his clothes and backpack still functioning. All throughout years of bullying and financial strain.
He’d always privately wondered why his mom didn’t just let him wear a sized up pair of knock off sneakers instead. When his entire identity was attached to one color—, why she disapproved of him doing something as simple as wearing thrifted shoes…and then the thought crossed his mind that her having him wear them was her own way of punishing him too.
Unintentionally maybe , for being lesser— for making her lesser. Less the mother , the nurse , the talented woman she could be and was before him.… The thought is brushed aside as quickly as it arises… but it lingers. His mom’s not a vindictive type of person.
She accepts her failing marriage like she accepts her only son. With a clumsy, frightened sort of grace , clinging on despite it all. But not without lapses of hopelessness, guilt and shame.
Adjusting his jacket and flapping his stiff hands he goes back to what he was doing with a shake of his head.
As he bends down to align his shoes neatly he hacks up something bad. Tilting and almost pitching off the building's side before he was ready. Coughing out what felt like part of a lung, thick and sludge like.
His eyes water and when he starts to cry in earnest as he hunches over clawing at his chest when the itchy burning feeling of being suffocated returns with vengeance.
The weight of the sun beating down on his back bakes the sour taste in his mouth from the outside in.
He was never seen by paramedics, not after the first assault or second and his body protests the only way it knows how.Standing up shakily , he wheezes and heaves.
The sooner he says his goodbyes the sooner everything stops hurting and the better before underground hero’s start patrolling rooftops.
With his shoes taken care of there really isn’t much else to do. He didn’t write a note , didn’t care to give whatever hero or police officer that found his shoes and by extension his body the vindication of knowing his last words.
The last words a poor little quirkless boy , beaten down and battered just the way the world intended.
They really deserve it and he didn’t think they would care anyway once they saw the color of his shoes.
No one would.
And don’t get him wrong, he loves his mom. Loves the soft floral laundry scent that she leaves behind her as she walks around the house, her home cooked meals and her fluttering laughter , her soft touches and pained smiles.
…but he can’t bring himself to leave anything behind.
Not in the house and not in her life.
So no notes , nothing about what he wants done with what was leftover of his body or any last wishes that would scarcely be granted.
Instead he does something that he didn’t think the him before today would do in a million years.
… he shares his digital journals. Edited and lacking doodles in the margins and his typical run on sentences.
It’s an impulsive decision, not something he fully thought out or contemplated like his death. No one had ever taken his analysis seriously besides strangers on the internet here and there, although he was certain their interests were less than innocent.
He wasn’t one to usually take risks without a back up plan and a back up plan for his backup plan. Todays events non withstanding.
Normally, he walked a thin line of risk and reward. Carefully balancing wanting to be known, to be seen and praised and the learned instinct to hide away and make himself smaller , unimportant.
He’s not a genius , but he’s discernible. More stubborn than brave and not particularly special, but he loved his journals. Squeezed every last drop of hope and dreams that he had into them in the hopes that one day he’d be able to enter a competition or find a school counselor willing to give him even a second of their time and make something of himself.
But that would never happen now.
So he figures that if anyone will get any use out of them , at least a couple people should have the opportunity before he kicked the bucket.
All his more personal journals had been packed away in plastic bags and buried in a time capsule no one would ever find. So with a few swipes of his thumb , ever careful not to slice his finger open on his fractured screen saver , he googles and mass emailed several well known names and schools the digital copies he made of a few of his favorite analyses just for the hell of it.
Close to nobody would answer it or take it seriously if they did give it a passing glance , but after hiding his hobby for years he figured he was allowed to be a little reckless. Message some people he would have never imagined even attempting to talk to and let these emails be the last big hurray he threw for himself before taking a long, long nap.
Emails sent and his phone tucked safely away into a side pocket of his cargo shorts , he shuffles forward and lets a gentle breeze sway him softly. Lets the thin tee shirt he wore rustle, several sizes too big and draped loosely over a frail body.
The wind brushing through his curls and the sun shining right into his bad eye , already pale and cloudy from sudden popping explosions aimed to the face.
His body buzzed and air hummed as he stood a small speck on the back drop of a melding wall of yellows and orange.
.
.
.
When he steps closer to the ledge, for the first time that day he finds it easier to breathe.
Without the world weighing him down or the disappointed stares of the hero’s he failed and local EMTs who hadn’t even bothered to give him a brief look over.
Time moves slowly as he peels open his eyes. He doesn’t even glance below him. Just takes in the rising skyline , shimmering glass buildings, forests that stretched for miles and even the red tips of a few torii’s that survived The Great Riots.
Water glitters at the edges of his blurry vision and for a couple seconds he wished he had walked sentence the shallows one last time.
Then he’s falling—
And adrenaline kicks in quickly, whether to keep him from feeling pain when he hits the cement or in an attempt to prevent him from dying via heart attack first , he doesn’t know.
But when he closes his eyes for what feels like the last time, it’s only a handful of seconds later that he’s opening them again.
Vaguely disoriented , whole but aching and lying down in an unfamiliar bedroom.
A poorly decorated one too.
.
.
.
The room he’s in is … messy, for lack of a better word.
Not messy as in there’s bugs and empty snack containers everywhere, but messy like there are thick stacks of papers leaning precariously off of a desk and different medical diagrams he recognized from skimming through his mom’s medical books tacked to the walls. Along with red biohazard trash bags laying in piles on the floor and a nearby tray overflowing with uncapped syringes smelling strongly of?
… pine?
Something woodsy and almost smoky. A little bit too close to the smell of his dad’s cologne , or what was left of the bottle his mom had hidden away in her dresser.
His face scrunched and then twitched at the feeling of it being pulled in different directions, other places more taunt than others. Head angled awkwardly , he followed his nose to search for where the pine scent was the strongest— only to realize that it was coming from him.
And then he realized that something- someone had pieced him back together like a jigsaw puzzle , because thick black sutures ran up and down his limbs like clothing seams. From each joint horizontally along his fingers to winding around his arms in no particular pattern, just following along where his body had decided to burst after popping open like a water balloon.
The stress and force from falling too much for his freckled skin to handle.
With one heavy sniff he was curling over and pawing at the gown he was assuming had been slipped on to him sometime after his death.
Another surprise.
He’d fell high enough to kill if not permanently injure and debilitate a healthy grown man. His body should have painted the sidewalk and blood and brain have glued themselves to the surrounding walls. For all intents and purposes, he should have been soup on the asphalt… a really chunky soup…
Throwing a glance to the rest he eyed the wooden door at the far end of the room. The papers piled next to it had all been pushed to one side and the locks running up and down the door frame didn’t spell good for his general wellbeing.
Glancing around some more , he took it all in. The lack of windows , of laptops or computers or anything else that could be used to communicate with the outside world.
Just heart rate monitors and medical equipment attached to him like puppet strings.
So without any way to check the time and with his phone nowhere to be seen he decides to check over everything else before whoever smuggled his corpse came back again.
Before his panic catches up to him and the feeling of being violated washes over him again.
…
It’s like he’s caught a bad case of the stripes.
Pressing his fingers to his skin he hums in disbelief. His nerves were a little numb , pressing on his stomach felt like he was applying pressure over a thick blanket , but besides that everything worked the way he remembered. All his scars were the same , keloids raised and only broken up by thick stitching.
Only after trailing shaky slow hands up and down his body, following the tight stitches from his hands down his chest to his sharp hip bones and underneath his pants to the tips of his toes, all of them attached, does he slightly relax.
Fussing some more , he presses along his stomach and then feels his chest. He didn’t know if he’d even need his organs now , not after he’d been put together again. They didn’t feel missing, but the fact that his stitches were more heavily concentrated along his limbs and upper body than his pelvis or midsection made him feel a bit better.
He took stock of the important things. Like his lungs and heart , keeping his chest rising and falling. Huffing to himself , he breathed in deeply for the first time in a long few hours. They felt clean. Like someone poured water in them and dumped out all the gunk.
Brushing over his throat, feeling jagged raised scars , his hands were the next thing he zeroed in on. They were uncomfortably tight and looked like each digit had been dipped in paint. He’d be a little more awed and less concerned if he wasn’t certain the reason they looked that way was because of heavy chemicals.
His pinky was an apple green, his thumb was a plum purple and the middle finger on his left hand a pepto bismol pink. One of his calves was an entirely different color separated by gnarly stitching, his skin an opaque periwinkle blue. A few other things were faintly yellow and any other color that in normal circumstances would send a doctor into a fit.
Tongue tracing over his teeth and he found a few extra chips. They’d shifted and moved around and the taste of metal lingered on his tongue, metal wires attached behind his teeth. Probably to keep them from shifting even more. One canine pushed against his lip , a snaggle tooth, and the chip he had on his front tooth was more pronounced , but other than that and the gap in his front teeth it wasn’t widely different.
His overall situation was … fascinating and his spiraling curiosity kept him from panicking. He wasn’t even sure if he could sweat let alone cry anymore.
From a science standpoint the fact that he was even sitting up and breathing at all, almost good as new , was unbelievable.
Healing quirks were uncommon and highly sought after, even the most simplistic of ones. And any other quirks that could be used creatively or adjusted to be able to “heal” were seen just as favorably.
The number of quirks that could bring dead people or people near death back to life, were so few and far between that he could count them on one hand. All of which worked exclusively for or around different government agencies. Paid a high price and pandering to the highest bidders.
The recipients of such quirks often lead interesting laws as well , used in medical research to further study the effects quirks had on the human body. Such as the rate of healing externally and internally, the difference of healing between blood types and how healing quirks individually navigated and interacted with quirked bodies.
Interestingly enough that such experiments were how quirked drugs got out on the streets, when quirk laws were less regulated and quirks were still uncommon.
Every once in a while the planets would align and one person with a potentially dangerous quirk got hit with another deadly quirk that ended up creating something dizzyingly addictive.
Distributed in rougher neighborhoods with fewer heroes and looser rules , neighborhoods like his own. Cheaper synthetic versions making their rounds and eventually distributed on a wider scale.
He flexed his fingers. Inspecting every angle and tugging up a stitch or two before going back to patting himself down.
Bouncing between hows and whys , he discrete himself nearly effortlessly.
When his mom took shift after shift and he was left by himself he’d stress clean. On his hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floors or on their front porch with a broom and bucket of water , cleaning the cement and knocking down spider webs.
At school he’d write and write and write. Jot down random thoughts in a decoy journal, write down answers on the copy of a scheduled quiz paper, original hidden in his desk.
But his need to know and anxious thoughts worked against him with nothing to focusing on other than his pieced together body. Festering and crying to be let out—-
Like what his kidnapper wanted with him if they were willing to use such an intricate quirk on him. One that could reconnect nerves and weave together flesh , with drawbacks he could imagine in vivid detail.
What if the stitches weren’t strong enough and he broke apart trying to stand up?
What if his guts had been liquidated and flushed out like in actual corpses and he just didn’t notice?
What if his kidnapper accidentally left an important part of him out on the street?
What if no one was coming back for him and he was left stuck in a locked room?
No one in their right mind would sew up a mangled body just to let it rot, but then again no one in their right mind would steal a dead body in the first place and no sane person could successfully revive a corpse without money , power , or connections to someone or something that he wanted zero part of.
Zilch.
A horse whine crawled its way out of his mouth as his worries rose and as he clawed at his dressing gown a voice roused from its dormancy, called by his distress.
He ignored it , a stream of consciousness , a failing effort to keep from launching into a breakdown a long time coming.
But it persisted , pawing at him— and the thought of not being alone in his own mind , let alone his body made him squirm violently.
Not again, not again—-
But the voice didn’t stop, it encroached and purred lowly , a strum through his spine. He could just barely picture it, its sweet murmurs ,soft touches leaving prickles along his cheek. Crooked grin and freckled skin identical to his own , like him but not.
It’s arms wrapped around him. He could feel them , under his skin and hugging his waist. The voice , not his own, whispered and crooned in an attempt to comfort. Back arching he huddled around himself and kicked out blindly to back himself against the wall. Unable to escape from the hallucination wearing his skin , a presence that pressed tighter underneath his skin and unnerved him with its very being.
Cold air blasted from a vent next to the door as he laid in restless thought. It wasn’t freezing enough to safely leave regular meat on the kitchen counter for hours on end, let alone a human body, but it was cold enough that his movements were sluggish and his chilled toes tingled.
Looking over the room again he strained himself to think, analysis came so easily, but now it was like he couldn’t catch his train of thought to save his life. Not his own , just the other one that pressed against his thoughts like a person in the passenger seat.
Amongst the trash bags and empty bottles there was one familiar thing that caught his attention. A metallic silver pole that went up and up and held several empty bags worth of fluid from its arms.
The bag's faded label gave him glimpses of a shimmery liquid clinging to its insides. They’d been full once , but now they hung waiting to be replaced. Several small thin tubes slithering down from their bottoms , lifted up with clips that pinned them along the wall until they reached where he layed and needles dangled next to his bedside. The ones responsible for the only blotches of color that didn’t look intentional on his skin, purple bruises splotched along his forearm.
Understanding flooded into him with a jolt. Eyes widening, he huffed.
He’d been pumped full of preservatives. That explained the woody scent that oozed from every surface he touched. Paper dress blotched with imprints of his hands and droplets of something pine smelling, dribbling from used needles. The liquid dispersed from his pores and fingers like a thin oil as he leaned off the cot and eyed a few different bottles. Isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide and a few large jugs of formalin spread out around him.
Lips dropping into a frown he wondered what type of permit you’d need to buy formalin in such a large quantity. Question on the tip of his tongue he opened his mouth and instantly regretted it. Immediately coughing all over his lap in so much pain that his eyes winched shut.
Fuck-
He gurgled more than he actually spoke and dammit—That hurt. It looked like his body wasn’t the only thing that’d change , being turned inside out really did a number on him.
His spit colored his gown , a slurry of colors dying the fabric on him and medical equipment around him. His lungs contracted , hurting but strong and his body shuddered through the pain.
The only thing he could think of was that he hadn’t fully absorbed everything that had been pumped into him and speaking apparently forced it out instead of how it’d been naturally leaking from him through his pores.
He wrung his hands and flicked the colored sweat from them. His arms felt weighted down and his legs ached like they hadn’t been used in years, they might not have.
But for now there was nothing more he could do but breathe and wait for something to happen as his eyes fluttered shut.
Creeping into a doze he propped his body up against the wall and struggled to regulate his breathing as the other voice hummed softly. The drywall beside him did little to ease his worries besides cool his red face , eyes pink and face drying from straining.
Formalin dripped down his cheek, bitter and sour as he licked his chapped lips.
His face screwed up in distaste.
God , he was disgusting.
.
.
.
There was no telling how much time had passed from his short nap. But the other voice rolled in agitation, nudging him awake. Head bowed and eyes closed, his nose twitched and scrunched.
Warmth — a voice whispered , not his own , but uncannily
close.
Warmth and food , food , food , food.
Through the thick scent of him and pine and something else pungent filling the room , the smell of something warm and living seeped from right outside the bolt locked door.
And it approached quickly, leaving him to sit up fully from where he’d been folded over in sleep. The doorknob wiggled , several locks turned and the door that locked him away from the outside—-
slammed open , covering the sound of his scrambling and leaving him staring wide eyed at the woman that walked calmly through the threshold.
Whatever he was expecting he’s kidnapper to look like it wasn’t this.
She was short , his height maybe shorter . So much so that if he were sitting anywhere higher he’d be looking down at the top of her head.
Movement’s slow, almost predatory , he pulled his legs up to his chest, knees to his chin and arms around his calves to watch the stranger with pulsing eyes.
His other voice echoed in his ear , chin resting on his shoulder , eyes locked on target.
Her hair came down into two french braids and wide circle glasses were perched on a sharp nose. She was looking down at something in her hands. Important from the looks of it , covered in red pen marks. Crosses and check marks galore.
It didn’t look like she’d even realized he was awake yet. He hadn’t ttempted to make any more noise and didn’t want to get hit by the clipboard in her hands if she swung when he did.
Head tucked and shoulders raised he watched her some more, barely breathing while she mumbled to herself and placed a ring of keys down on her messy desk.
Then she turned towards him and he bit his tongue when she squealed.
“Oh . My . God!! It worked- it really , really worked— oh , oh fuck!—” Her smile was wide , eyes shining.
Her hands clasped in front her , nails long like claws.
“When did you? — oh you probably don’t even know what time you woke up—“
Walking in tight circles with a dirty lab coat a large tablet was pulled out of the desk’s drawers. Each clack of her nails on the tablet screen sent his eyes twitching. Her lips moved quickly and it was only because of his own habit of mumbling that he was able to make out most of what she said.
“Let’s see … obtained on April third, reconstruction lasted fourteen days , preservation sixty four days… hmmm .. underwent a week of observation and—-.”
Two months , he’d been dead for two months.
More than—- how many days had it been— how many was it now since he’d been taken— how many days? Dead for that long??
Reaching for a machine plugged up beside him she watched numbers fluctuate and snapped a band around his wrist with quick movements , then another on his other arm and he leaned away as far as he could as drool dribbled down his chin. Feet kicking uselessly.
It crooned at him , warmth , danger —food?
Her heart beat like a drum , thundering away directly in his ear despite her being several steps away. He could hear her heart overlapping with his own , pounding in his ears. Just faintly recognizing the bare there feeling of his hands twitching made him want to cry.
“Blood pressure below ninety five , heart rate … one twenty beats per minute …” She mumbled and wrote down her findings, setting down her tablet and angling her clipboard out of view. He took the chance to roughly wipe his face off on his shoulder.
“His heart works overtime to supply blood to the rest of his body instead of slowing down— how curious!”
Glancing at what looked like a heart rate monitor , she rushed back over to him and before he knew it there was a bright light shining in his eye and a popsicle stick on his tongue.
“Right eye still cloudy, vision has not returned, teeth straightening faster than expected, eating may be hindered, stitches around the throat abnormally sensitive— may affect speech—“
It was like a doctor’s appointment, a really invasive appointment he hadn’t made.
Glittery pink nails crossed check mark after check mark on her clipboard after she’d tested his hand to eye coordination , speech ability and memory management. She didn’t explain who she was or what day it was but moved about the room in a flurry of activity he couldn’t look away from.
The paper gown he was wrapped in did little to hide his nudity, but besides the far-off brush against his skin he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Difficult thoughts were fleeting, making his head pulse.
He could only focus on the little purple blob at the end of his vision that kept moving back and forth and back and forth and made something in his teeth itch, but the small taser that sat holstered on her hip kept it at bay.
She went on and on , and on , and on , and on, and a small part of him contemplated dying again for some peace and quiet. He wondered if that’s how other people felt when he went on tirades about quirks , but then he stopped caring because he didn’t kidnap people or force them to listen to his analysis.
Done recording her findings on her tablet it was switched out for a thick stack of papers that were then dumped on his lap.
She was a whirlwind of movement and the other him bristled. The papers started at elementary and ending at college level and he was encouraged none to gently to fill them out.
Testing his intelligence.
He broke his pencil twice and she had to pluck the splinters out of his palm and he eyed the keys on her desk. After that and harsh scolding she gave him a pen and when his hand shook so bad he dropped it , she duct taped it to his hand and didn’t take the tape off until he’d scribbled in his final answer.
Somewhere between solving fractions and writing down the names of historical important pre quirk events did his kidnapper unholster her taser and set it down on her desk as well. Pleased with his docility.
For the most part when he wasn’t watching her or her keys like a hawk he was picking at his gown and making small rips and holes. He had so many questions he wanted to ask and so many things he wanted to know, but he also just wanted to lay down and go right back to his forever sleep.
Bitten nails clenched and ripped the paper material sprawled on him. His arms shivered and teeth snapped in a small biting motion as she turned her back to him.
The other voice shoved closer, merging along his spine.
Tired and hungry it took control so smoothly, hands clutching his.
Put together again , given something new , but empty in all the places that mattered.
Scared and tired , tired and alone , alone and hungry , hungry—
He choked a small noise as his control was pried from him. His grunts ignored by his captor in favor of fiddling with the machines hooked up to his bedside. All of them turned off and the wires kicked to the side.
“ Up and at em kid , I gotta get you tagged and then to the boss as quickly as possible!”
Her hand waved around in excited looping motions, the other tugging on him uncaring of his less than enthusiastic response.
“ I wonder if he’ll give me a pay raise? God I hope so” She murmured to herself. Voice wistful , unaware as he stood on shaky legs and licked his teeth. Over the divots and along their crooked sides.
Something tangled in the back of his mind , something that rebelled against his first instincts to fawn and beg and plead. It was wrong , the way the other voice leaned on him. Body weighing on his own and taking control, sizing her up and rolling his shoulders in preparation… preparation for… he didn’t know—
but he was so hungry, and so tired and everything stung.
The pain was immersible. Worse than burns , the sensation of being controlled and the harsh grip of of her hand held too tightly around his wrist.
A click echoed in the room as she took a picture of him , what she was doing with it he didn’t know. He didn’t know a lot at the moment, not much other than hunger.
A longing seeping into a desperate ugly feeling.
Some were something small and hiding from the other voice that lurked overhead whimpered.
He’d been experimented on, he was so tired. She was gonna pawn him off to some villain , sold to someone he’d never be able to escape—- and he was so hungry. He was fifteen and so tired. He was fifteen and had been rejected from all the local non hero highschools for more and quirkist reasons than the last.
He was fifteen and had been missing for god who knew how long and he was fifteen and dead and he was so so hungry that it physically hurt.
He tugged his arm back when she jerked him particularly hard and she stopped just long enough for him to crack his lips open and whine in pain.
It hurt so bad.
—She yanked him again.
He was so hungry… starving.
Her eyes widened in awe, staring at him like he was something amazing to behold. He’d leaned close , just enough to make out the pride in her voice as she whispered to herself.
“My greatest creation yet.”
Her delighted murmurs went on. Hauling him further away from his bed cot and deeper into uncertainty, to be sold.
‘Danger’ , the voice warbled in warning.
The longer his body shook, the less he saw her as a person, the more his reasoning was gently wrestled further out his hands.
‘Safe’ , it promised.
“Ah- nnn— hunnn—.”
He doesn’t really know what happened next, doesn't remember moving at all.
It whispers in his ear.
It moves for him—- and can’t remember the last thing he ate. Rice and mackerel? Lukewarm, leftovers reheated for him before his mom went to work.
His mouth salivated and head twitched dizzyingly—- all he could feel was biting through something into heat and holding down something struggling.
Something that gave way as it thrashed. Muscles tensing and Adams' apple bobbed, a body beneath him moved, shoved and pushed. Clawed at his face and his shoulders.
‘food’ — ‘food’ , ‘food’ , ‘food’.
He retched up something phlegm like onto the floor felt a shiver work him out of his trance before a warm hand urged him back down. He crooned in his own ear and reached down with shaking hands to shovel what’d fallen out his mouth back in.
His jaw clicked uncomfortably and bits of viscera spilled out from where his teeth gapped and refused to fully close.
Then…then he was full.
Off kilter and hunched over on his knees , he gasped great grasping breaths. His hands slicked down to his elbows. Globs of spit pooling at his chin and down the floor, adding onto to squelching wet spots pooling into the carpet.
‘Safe’ a voice echoed, whispered from somewhere deep within his mind. Singing soft praises as a single hiccup and pitched whine left his mouth.
‘Safe now” it vowed.
.
.
.
When he came back to he was still kneeling on the carpet and hunched over the same body.
Except now it wasn’t a shapeless blob of flesh and skin , now it was a person— a human being with glossy fish eyes staring back at him. Fear and confusion faded as awareness fled from her limp body. She was sticky, chest agape as she writhed and her fingers gave a few frantic twitches.
The temperature difference in the room was more noticeable now than ever as he stared her down in shock and watched the steam rise from her chest in a wide wave.
Disrupted only slightly by his occasional pants.
His hair fell loosely over his eyes and caught the droplets of blood that fell off his nose. It stuck to his skin like a fine layer of paint, more viscous and thick than he was expecting. A deep ruddy red coated his hands , hot and rapidly cooling like syrup.
Face wrinkling as it dripped down his shirt and trailed down his soaked chest.
The ceiling light glared down from above, making her blood shine and sparkle. Iridescent like glitter or oil on water.
It twinkled even as it was soaked up by the carpet's fiber as he ate his fill. With each wide bite like eating a plum with thicker skin, the less his stitches itched, the deeper the voice purred and encouraged.
Arks around his midsection, holding him steady.
‘Warmth’ , ‘food’ , ‘Danger gone’
He heaved.
’gone’ , ’gone’ , ‘gone’
A warm feeling washed through him in small waves, one that made him feel soft and made him grin despite the carnage done by his feeble hands. Washed in warmth the voice whispered safety , full and complete. Proud — proud and full and safe.
He was doped up, numb and sensitive in all the wrong ways. Static wrapped around his toes and hair sticking to his face in clumps.
Her body took some time to stop twitching and by then her blood started to peel and flake off his cheek , itchy like a sunburn. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed and the empty cavity staring back at him gave him no answers.
Control came back slowly, bubbling back into his fingers then his upper arms and the rest a bit after.
Minutes—hours had passed and he was kicked sharply from his high as cognitive inched its way back to him.
His emotions as well , bubbling over viscously.
The voice inside his head distracted him momentarily. Small addictive jolts of dopamine fading quicker faster than that last. His brows creased and his head ached something fierce, not even the voice could drown it out with its proclamations of ‘safe now , full and fed and safe.’
Phantom hands combed through his matted hair with a heavy hand and nudged him up , up , up and away from the mess he made with a touch that felt too real to be fake.
He’s in the corner now. The smiles slipped from his face and he’s back pressed against the far wall , squished between trash bags and filling boxes and he’s screaming.
Screaming shrilly , scared out of his mind.
He screamed between gags and hands clawed desperately at his stomach and the stitches that held him together. Wailed as his other voice shushed him like a mother would a child. Creeping slowly under his skin , stroking his back and curling along his gaunt sides protectively.
It’s not until his screams turn into throaty wails that someone heavy stomped upstairs. Bangs rattle the ceiling.
Yells from up above to “Shut the fuck up!” And the voice hisses at the neighbors angered shouts.
The warm feeling returns and steals his senses with it. The room blurs and his body relaxes against his will until even the sound of banging fades to light taps.
He cries , curled along the floor and against the wall mortified. Unable to stare back at what he did , who he killed.
Sobbing , his breath came out in huffs. Short and ugly and choked up, snot smeared along his face.
He screamed and the other voice laid over him like a restrictive blanket. Heavy hand stroking his hair and shushing the aganized cries that it caused.
‘Safe’ it whispered , ‘safety and comfort , safe , safe , safe—‘
He screamed and the stitches on his neck pulled taunt and drew blood.
‘Safe now , safe now, kept safe , safe , safe —‘ It pleaded.
He screamed with his face pressed into the dirty carpeted floor as her blood dried in his hair and coated his teeth.
‘—Stop ,stop, stop, stop ,stop ,stop’ it begged.
His body recoiled and his head hit the wall. The arms around him wrapped tighter and tighter and even breathing started to hurt—
It whispered apologies, breath ghosting over in his ear.
‘Sorry, sorry , sorry , sorry—‘ , it cried and its pleas raked through his mind like shrieks-
—and He screamed.