Archive of Our Own

Midoriya Izuku was a strange kid. Bakugou Katsuki had understood this about him for nearly as long as he’d known him, and he’d known him for most of his life.

He could still remember first meeting the other kid on the playground, with his big ass bug eyes, and chubby little, freckled face. They played superheroes, and the little freak seemed to think Katsuki actually had powers or something, the way that he looked at him in awe all the time. He kept him as his sidekick.

But very soon on, Katsuki noticed some strange tics of his. He got distracted very easily, by nothing it seemed. Katsuki would be busy trying to lead his ragtag bunch, and he’d look over his shoulder and catch Izuku looking away, into purely empty space.

“Oi, Deku! Keep up or get lost!”

Izuku would startle and catch up, trailing at the back.

“R-Right!”

It wasn’t that weird… at first. But Katsuki paid attention. Izuku was jumpy. He’d jump at absolutely nothing. He thought that maybe the kid was just easily scared, but one time he saw him out of the corner of his eye, swatting at his own body. He looked at him and saw there was nothing on him. Weirdo.

The more he played with the other kid, the weirder he thought he was. He talked to himself, and he trembled even thinking about going into the woods. His eyes flickered about, and his fingers fidgeted together anxiously some days. Katsuki wanted to kick the nervous tics out of him. Do you want to play or not?? Don’t bring your stupid weirdness to his playground.

“You comin’ crybaby?” Katsuki and the rest were glaring at Izuku, waiting at the edge of the forest. Izuku stood there, knees trembling, eyes wide as he stared at the trees behind them all.

“Don’t… There’s, there’s monsters in there…”

Katsuki scoffed. “Course there are. And I’m gonna beat them up!” The shivering brat did not seem convinced.

“There’s a lot…” Katsuki glared at the boy who had little faith.

“I’ll beat them all up! I’m not scared!” The last thing he saw before he turned around and marched on in was Izuku’s already wide eyes widening. After a couple of steps, feeling the other boys following smugly behind him, he looked over his shoulder and saw Izuku had rushed after, and was sticking close to the last kid and staring after their leader, his hands fisted tight by his side. Katsuki smirked.

One day, Izuku was more anxious than normal. He shivered like it wasn’t a sweltering July afternoon, and he kept looking around, eyes darting anywhere, everywhere, like he was… scared of something.

Katsuki was getting irritated with him. The others were just trying to play fight and save the make pretend city from make pretend villains, but Izuku was hiding beneath the slide like there were actual enemies around.

“Gotchu!”

“Ah!”

Katsuki jumped down onto the wood chips behind the trembling boy, who jumped like a cat at the surprise. His eyes were blown wide, and in the shade of the playset, Katsuki thought that he saw true, genuine fear in them.

“I’m gonna take you down, you monster!” At that, Izuku whipped around, and clung to the slide beside him, looking around wildly.

“Where??” Katsuki frowned. This wasn’t fun.

“You, stupid Deku.” Then he chased Izuku around the playground with tears springing into those big, stupid eyes. But at least Katsuki was finally having fun, cackling as he cornered him and made him turn and race away. “Can’t hide from me!”

His shadow loomed over Izuku, who was trapped against the climbing net, with nowhere to turn. Yet as Katsuki stalked up to him, those eyes looked up, and the fear returned. Before Kasuki could even move, Izuku fell and cowered on the ground, his arms shielding his face as if to protect himself.

“Eyes!”

“Hah?” The other boys had come up behind Katsuki, just as confused by the episode.

“In the sky,” Izuku whispered in horror. They all looked up at the perfectly blue, cloudless sky, then turned their gazes back to the panicking child.

With a bored look on his face, Katsuki walked up to him and kicked wood chips over him.

“You’re lame.” He was about to turn around and play again, minus one loser, when his sweaty skin felt suddenly cool. A shadow had passed over him and the boy at his feet, who whimpered. Blinking in confusion, he looked back up, but saw nothing. It was the same clear sky it had been three seconds ago.

Looking to the others, he asked, “What the heck was that?” But they only stared back at him, confused.

“What was what?”

He scrunched his nose up at that. Not his own fault if other people were too stupid to notice things around them. He looked back down at Izuku, who still laid pathetically on his side, but he peered up strangely at Katsuki from between his fingers. He stuck his tongue out at the lame boy.

“Get lost, loser!”

Yet despite his condemnation of the other, and the fact that he refused to acknowledge him the rest of the day, he felt those weird eyes on him. He’d sneer at the freak if it didn’t mean having to acknowledge him when he was trying to pretend like he didn’t exist.

The next week, Izuku didn’t come to play. Good, Katsuki thought. No weirdos at his playground.

“I wanna be the one to take down the villain!” Lackey one.

“Why don’t you have to be the villain, Kacchan?” Lackey two.

“Cause I’m the best!” Damn Deku, leaving him alone with these greedy jerks.

When the weirdo returned, he still seemed shy, but what happened the week before felt like an age ago to their young minds. Katsuki immediately designated him his sidekick again and they fought against the other boys, villain and henchman.

“What super power do you have, Kacchan?”

“Super strength, duh.”

“Is that why you can climb to the highest branch?”

“Yup.”

“So cool!”

Izuku sometimes looked to the sky, or to the woods, but he didn’t say anything. Sometimes Katsuki thought he saw him shiver.

They found themselves in the same school. A new playground, but nothing much else changed. Katsuki was still the leader, and Izuku was still weird. But now he was weird in front of the whole class, making Katsuki look weird, too.

“Ow!” Izuku’s face scrunched up as he fell, pushed down by his friend.

“Stop muttering, weirdo!” Katsuki sneered down at him before running away, hearing the scuffling of the other boy rising and chasing after him.

“W-Wait, Kacchan!”

He aggravated Katsuki. Sure, yeah, he made Katsuki feel smug, when he compared himself to the loser. However the other kids snickered at him whenever he had one of his “tics.” Katsuki hadn’t even realized just how often he was weird until there was a whole school judging him.

One day at recess, Katsuki was running around, aptly avoiding the one who was “it.” He hadn’t been tagged all day.

He raced up the ladders and across the monkey bars, then over the bridge and down the slide, breathless as he kept well ahead of those chasing after him. He felt strong, fast, invincible as the ground passed beneath his feet.

His legs hurt, as did his chest, so he took a quick rest beneath the rock wall, where no one would find him right away. Yet he was not alone.

Izuku was there, just like that one day beneath the slide. His eyes were wide as they darted to look at Katsuki, for just a brief moment, before they returned to the empty space he’d been staring into previously. An angry heat rose up in Katsuki to see him acting like that where anyone could find them.

“What are you doing, stupid?” But Izuku didn’t answer. He was stock still, practically frozen in place, like some sort of a dumb statue. “Hello? Are you deaf, idiot?”

Yet as Katsuki took a step and reached forward to shake the weirdo, Izuku grabbed his wrist suddenly, strangely quick, and when Katsuki looked at him, he saw that fear in his eyes again.

“Don’t move.”

Katsuki felt his own eyes widen. Something about his voice, so certain, tight with its own fear, made Katsuki obey. He held his breath, unmoving, staring at Deku for what must have been ages. He felt something ice cold on his neck.

“Freak!” Katsuki ripped his hand away and ran off.

“Kacchan! Wait!” Izuku shrieked behind him.

Katsuki ran like the wind, but the wind was faster. The ice cold feeling was breathing down his neck, dragging its icy tendrils across his skin. He thought he could hear it laughing, like it was enjoying the chase-

He tripped. At the pain that suddenly flared up in his knees, he groaned. Around him, he sensed the other children at play stop and look at him. As embarrassing as it was tripping in front of all of those nameless faces, he couldn’t move. The ice caged him, and he shivered under the noon sun. The air was so cold it shrank his lungs and made it hard to breathe-

“Eek!” Izuku let out an embarrassing squeak as he fell purposefully on top of Katsuki, covering him with his body.

Katsuki’s breath returned to him suddenly, the ice gone, and he looked up at that freckled face, cheeks puffy but eyes determined as he pinned Katsuki’s limbs in place. Katsuki’s teeth began to grit as the kids around them gathered to watch them.

“What are they doing…?”

“Huh? Are you okay?”

“Get off me…” Katsuki said, annoyed with how his voice wavered. Izuku shook his head, both snotty and stubbornly fixed to stay right where he was. “Get off!”

Katsuki started pushing at him, and when he didn’t budge, he pinched him and kneed him. Katsuki struggled hard against the other, surprised by the strength of his desperation, all the while Izuku was sobbing and begging him to stay still.

“Children!” Two of the teachers came back and pulled them both up, holding them under their arms. Izuku was looking around frantically, and seemed to let out a sigh, and relax. But Katsuki was upset. He saw all the kids staring at them, wide-eyed. They’d gotten in trouble.

“Stay away from me, you freak!” Katsuki spat out, still fighting a little in the exasperated teacher’s grip. Izuku looked at him with sadness in his big, stupid eyes.

“Kacchan…”

They were taken inside, and they missed the rest of recess, which Katsuki swore to never forgive Izuku for. They were asked who started it, and they both said Izuku. The other boy had to go without recess for the rest of the week, but the weird stares Katsuki received from his peers were punishment enough for him.

When Izuku was back at recess, Katsuki pushed and spat at him until everyone knew that he wasn’t weird, like him.

Try as he might, Katsuki couldn’t avoid Izuku. They were in the same classes through the years, though they took different paths. Katsuki was cool, still the leader, as always. Izuku sat in the corner, and no one wanted to look at him, or acknowledge his existence. And the weirdo seemed, not necessarily content with this, but like he couldn’t stand for anything more than that. Rather than working with others, he would stay at his desk and draw, and draw, and draw. His drawings were really creepy, like strange creatures and crooked trees and dark, heavy handed skies. When he wasn’t drawing, he often looked out the window with glazed over eyes.

It happened the year before they moved up to middle school. Nobody talked about it. Everyone knew about it.

Izuku had a break down.

It was cold outside, winter, so they had recess indoors. Izuku didn’t really hang out with anyone, just sat off in the corner and kept his face buried in his notebook, his pencil scribbling away, probably creating something with fangs and weird eyes and bat wings.

Katsuki didn’t even really see it happen, as he tried his best to avoid the freak. Supposedly, when he went to go sharpen his pencil, someone had pushed him into the closet and locked the door.

Katsuki had no idea if he’d been in there for awhile, or if he started screaming the second he’d entered. All he knew is that he would never forget that shrill, paralyzing sound for as long as he lived. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Some clapped their hands over their ears. Katsuki whipped his head toward the closet, and saw some kids staring at it in guilt-stricken horror.

They all crowded around but none could move as they watched it shake as it was pounded with tiny but desperate fists. Katsuki stood close by, in the front, as they all watched the teacher push through them and hurry to open the door.

The second she did, Izuku fell into Katsuki’s arms, sobbing, hiccuping, screaming like the devil. Katsuki’s first instinct was to push him away, but Izuku clung to him with a death grip, like he’d be pulled back into the closet if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

His words were unintelligible, but as Katsuki looked down at him, he swore he saw blue and purple bruises all over him.

“Don’t let them touch me-” Katsuki’s eyes widened.

Thankfully, the teacher rushed to pick Izuku up into her arms. For some reason, he started kicking and fighting against her, screeching even worse.

“No! Don’t touch!”

Nobody talked about it, but everyone knew it had happened. Izuku was gone from school for a long time. And when he returned, he didn’t speak to anyone. Katsuki tried to strike it from his memory, but he could still recall so easily the vision of a small shadow on the floor slithering back into the closet that day. He didn’t talk about it.

Middle school was kind of a fresh start. They were no longer Katsuki and Izuku, but Bakugou and Midoriya. Not everybody at this new school knew what happened, why Midoriya was a strange, eclectic kid that spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to. They just followed the crowd, and ignored him.

It didn’t help that he was a freak. It wasn’t even weird anymore – now that he wasn’t a little kid, it was creepy. His jumpiness, his muttering, his eyes darting around, his nails chewed to the bud. It was not appealing. The awkwardness of being a preteen now only heightened his strangeness. His paranoid demeanor made him seem like a rubber band ready to snap at any moment. He was always scrunched in on himself, like he was trying to attract the least amount of attention as possible, take up the least amount of space that he could. Bakugou grimaced to see it.

And for some reason, for some damn reason, the weird ass nerd had none of those problems around Bakugou.

“H-Hi, Kacchan,” Midoriya said, trying for a smile. It pissed Bakugou off.

“Who the hell are you saying hi to?” Midoriya said nothing, merely backed off warily. But from within that huddled form, that steady gaze lingered on him. What grated on Bakugou the most was his lack of fear. He was always scared. How could he not be scared to approach Bakugou?

He’d teach him a lesson.

“Oi.”

The lockers clattered as Bakugou shoved Midoriya up against them. For once, he didn’t have his lackeys by his side, so it was just the two of them. But this wasn’t for show, this was a lesson.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Bothering me and shit. Knock it off, and keep that weird ass muttering to yourself.” He kept his voice rough to mask the puberty he was going through, trying to sound intimidating. It worked on everyone else their age.

“Sorry, Kacchan…” Midoriya looked at him from over the fist that clenched his uniform. It pissed him off, so he shoved him against the locker again just to watch him wince as the metal bit into his back.

“What’s with that fucking look on your face? Keep your eyes off me, you freak.” And yet there was still no fear as Midoriya stared back at him. His gaze clung to Bakugou, his damn eyes still so fucking big, it was weird to feel their whole weight on him. When was the little freak going to grow into them?

“Kacchan,” Midoriya breathed out low, something in his voice making Bakugou’s skin prickle. He sounded like they were sharing a secret. “Don’t you see them? Sometimes?”

Bakugou blinked suddenly, and he found himself releasing Midoriya, like his body burned him. He backed away two steps, and saw Midoriya watching him, fearful, hopeful. Those eyes flicked off to the side, somewhere behind him, and despite himself, Bakugou whipped around. There was nothing there.

He turned back to the other, a growl rising in his throat. Damn bastard, making him look like a fool. He stepped forward, Midoriya pressing back against the lockers his own damn self from Bakugou’s intimidating aura.

“Keep your freak shit to yourself, damn freak.” He walked away after that, but he couldn’t get the feeling of those eyes off his back, even after scrubbing away at it in the shower that night, for a long time.

“Do you really see things that aren’t there?” Poor, unfortunate girl, who got stuck with Midoriya for a group project. But why the hell did she have to go and ask that shit? Bakugou was right in front of them with his shitty partner, and for some reason, he found himself paying more attention to them than to his own work.

Midoriya was silent for a while, perhaps judging how truthful he should be.

“I… Yes…”

“That’s… weird.” Her voice was frightened. Wrong choice.

“Tell her what you see Deku.” Bakugou twisted around in his seat to give the kid an unkind grin. Midoriya hunched down lower in his seat, keeping his mouth shut tight.

“What- What does he see?” But Bakugou just smirked at Midoriya until he spoke.

“Monsters,” he said, quietly, his knuckles white around his pencil. Even then, though it was perhaps imperceptible to anyone else, Bakugou saw his eyes twitch to the side, as if noticing movement. He’d certainly gotten better control of himself since primary school.

“Heh, baby shit,” Bakugou said, the kids around them grinning and snickering with him. “No such thing as monster, dumbass.” Midoriya looked down at his papers, his face red, his eyes sunken in, and dark.

Stupid, stupid fucking Deku. Bakugou knew that he was a freak. Kid probably belonged in a mental asylum, not a school for normal people. He thought that as he walked home one breezy spring afternoon. No plans that day, just going home and finishing up an essay. He crushed an empty pop can in his hands and tossed it easily into a passing trash bin.

“Kacchan, wait!” Stupid.

Bakugou turned around and saw Midoriya, red faced and out of breath, having run up to him, crossing the street when it wasn’t his turn to walk.

“The hell is your problem? Stop being so fucking obsessed with me, you freak!” Yet Midoriya wasn’t looking at him, like the freak he was. He was looking over his shoulder. It was then that Bakugou noticed his nervous grip on his backpack strap, the way his fingers twitched and tensed sporadically, and the strange set to his jaw. Bakugou fought not to look behind himself, knowing there would be nothing there.

“Don’t… Please don’t go that way.”

“Hah?” He really did turn around then. It was just their neighborhood street. Go straight and take a right, and his house was just on the left. He’d walked this way for two years now. He turned back with a scowl. “Fuck off.”

“It’s not safe!” Midoriya said, taking a step after him.

“Why? Are there monsters?” Bakugou jeered at him.

Midoriya was silent, and Bakugou laughed in his face.

“Damn crybaby. Not all of us are scared of monsters.” Those eyes flashed before he turned around and very purposefully kept walking forward, down the so very scary street. Not even a second later, he heard steps behind him, and he scowled, knowing the other was following him. Whatever. The nerd lived this way too, he guessed. As long as he stayed behind him.

Bakugou was not scared as he walked down the street. He let his gaze sweep across the path before him, a little corner in the back of his mind wondering what it was that Midoriya saw, but there was nothing out of the ordinary here. Obviously. The shadows looked fine, and the sky was pretty, filled with clouds and turning lovely shades of pink and orange. Huh. It wasn’t that late already, was it?

A couple steps further and suddenly, the street light that towered over the sidewalk flicked on. Bakugou tried not to startle at that. He told himself that he just wasn’t used to the lights turning on while he was walking home. And why was that? Why was it turning on right now? But the thought stayed in the back of his head, as if submerged within a dark, thick puddle. His legs kept carrying him forward. Something seemed strange, but he couldn’t quite place it. His pace slowed until he stopped beneath the beam of light, and then he realized what was wrong – none of the other streetlights had turned on.

He stared up, into the bulb. Time seemed to move slowly, or maybe it wasn’t even moving at all. But as he looked up, he began to realize that the sky around it was darkening, turning a sickly shade of purple. His breath felt tight in his chest, but he couldn’t look away from that terribly white light. It looked to him like an eyeball.

He felt his heart thump in his chest, and adrenaline flooded his limbs, like he was some sort of prey animal that needed to bolt. All of a sudden he heard shoes scuffing the ground beside him, and he felt a body sidle up next to him, its hand slipping into his own and holding him tight. Its warmth made him realize just how clammy his palm had turned.

“Don’t breathe,” Midoriya whispered, just right next to his ear. Bakugou held his breath.

He had no idea how long they both stood there, feeling the pressure of that gaze bearing down on them, watching them, studying them. Then suddenly, the light blinked out, and everything was normal. The sky was blue, and the day was bright.

Bakugou gasped, and then stepped away from Midoriya, who was staring at him intently. Fuck that.

“Let me go!” He hissed, ripping his hand away. Immediately he sped off down the sidewalk, in the direction of his home.

“Kacchan!”

“It was just a damn light, dumbass!” He whipped around to snarl at the other, but Midoriya looked at him, that familiar lack of fear there, looking almost… Hungry. Starved.

“You saw the light.” Bakugou blinked at his breathless awe. Then he bristled.

“Keep your freak shit away from me!” And he stormed off, making sure he didn’t hear the other following after him again.

Bakugou glared at Midoriya at school. The stupid fucker pissed him off. He got his mind all fucked up, making him imagine shit that wasn’t there. He caught Midoriya’s eyes trailing over the walls, and when they went to lunch, he saw his feet purposefully stepping around something – nothing. And after spending years trying to ignore the bastard, Bakugou noticed that he often showed up to class with weird ass bruises on his arms, just beneath his sleeves, and shirt collar. Maybe even more that couldn’t be seen. And those big ass eyes of his, they looked so heavy, weighed down by their bags.

One time, Bakugou quietly looked over his shoulder, when no one was paying attention, at the notebook he was scribbling in. There were weird ass symbols, and nonsensical syllables that reminded Bakugou of the nerd’s strange muttering. The margins were littered with his creepy ass drawings, which had gotten significantly creepier the more skilled the little freak had become. And there were eyes, everywhere, on every single page. They seemed to burn through the paper. Bakugou swiped the notebook from beneath Midoriya’s nose and flung it out the window after class.

He detested the freak. Why couldn’t he be fucking normal? And why did he have to drag Bakugou into his weirdness? Fuck that shit. Bakugou was normal, he didn’t see things, definitely not unnatural things. Deku was just a freak that made things seem abnormal. He was fucked in the head.

Bakugou was looking for his friends after school. He circled around the building, ready to yell at them for being dumbasses, wandering around aimlessly. When he finally found them, he was surprised at first, because they had Deku with them, and they were holding him. Roughly. By the arms. They were in the back lot behind the school, in front of the fenced in area with the dumpster that led to the basement. They all looked at him as he arrived and went, “Eh?”

“Yo, Bakugou check it out. The freak was trying to tell us to stay away from this place. Like hell I’m letting him tell me what to do!”

Bakugou got a nasty grin on his face as he studied Midoriya, who was looking back at him, his expression wary. Good, some respectful fear, for once.

“Yeah?” Bakugou said, his hands in his pockets as he took a couple more steps toward them and leaned forward, in Midoriya’s face, making him shrink back into the other boys. “What’d you see, Deku?”

The other two snickered, and one said, “Little baby’s crying about monsters?” Bakugou didn’t say anything else, just waited a bit longer. Midoriya didn’t answer him, just held his gaze, his chin down.

Perhaps a little disappointed, Bakugou pulled back and waved them off.

“Let’s fucking go. I’m sick of that nerd stench.”

“Wait, shouldn’t we help him get a closer look?” Bakugou stopped, and looked at the boy that had spoken.

“Hah?”

“You know,” the boy said, the other one grinning. “Show him that monsters aren’t real.” They both had a mischievous glint in their eyes, and Midoriya tensed up, his breathing becoming tight. For some reason, Bakugou’s stomach lurched at the thought of what they planned.

“Forget about it. Who gives a fuck what the freak thinks?”

“C’mon, maybe it’ll shut up his muttering all the time.” Bakugou’s eyes flicked to Midoriya’s, and he saw that true fear in them again. He realized that he hadn’t seen that look in quite a while, thought maybe even his childhood mind had distorted it in memory, but no. He recalled the terrible sounds of screaming, and a door flinging open, then being grabbed and held onto like he was the only stable ground there.

“You wanna show him that there’s no monsters?” Bakugou turned and walked to the fence, gripping onto it to test its sturdiness. He looked back over and saw Midoriya’s eyes were wide. “Watch and learn, you freak.”

He climbed the fence easily and landed on the other side, the chain links clanging behind him from the shifting weight. He looked back over with a grin.

“I don’t see any fucking monsters over here.” His friends chuckled a little. Midoriya looked pale, and was possibly even developing a light sheen. Still, he said nothing. “Oi, loser, what’s the matter? Too scared to speak?”

“He’s trembling,” one boy laughed, as if delighted.

“Heh, freak,” Bakugou said, offhandedly.

“Bakugou, you’re gonna get in trouble,” the other boy snickered as they watched him looking around, as if he was trying to find something. He saw that the back door leading into the basement was cracked open. He didn’t remember that. Also, why the fuck would it be open? Did they really just leave shit unlocked around this place? Idiots.

“This where your monster is, Deku?” Bakugou looked over his shoulder to watch the cold sweat take over Midoriya.

“No,” he said quietly, a little too quickly. Finally, a reaction. Bakugou smirked and grabbed the handle. The door opened slowly – it was a heavy son of a bitch – and inside was the black, yawning maw of the school’s basement. When he glanced back over, Midoriya looked like he was ready to be sick to his stomach.

His foot scuffed as he took a step forward.

“Hey, come on dude!” One of his friends called out, and there was humor in his voice. “You’re definitely gonna get in trouble if you go in there!”

“I can’t believe him,” the other muttered, laughing to himself.

“What are you talking about?” Bakugou asked defiantly, looking back at them all, seeing Midoriya was now fighting against their hold. He held the freak’s gaze, and he said, “I ain’t scared.”

“Kacchan!” But Bakugou walked inside, down the steps to the lower level, and he let the door shut behind him.

Inside, Bakugou’s first thought was that it was boring as hell. It was a dusty ass hallway, with no lighting. It was dark, gray, and damp. Why the hell had he convinced himself to do this again? He walked forward a little, and his steps were loud in his ears.

As he was there, he wondered what exactly his plan was. Was he actually going to explore? Was he going to step back outside and say, “Hah, no monsters, told ya?” Or was he going to start screaming and scare the shit out of the freak?

Then, suddenly, he heard something – a door closing somewhere in a room over. Shit, he was going to get caught down here! He immediately went back up the stairs and tried to open the door he’d come through, but it was locked. The fuck? How the hell…

He could hear someone getting closer. He leapt down and ducked through a door on the right and closed it behind him. The room he was in was dark, and he couldn’t see. As he stood still, he listened. He couldn’t hear anything or anyone in the hallway he’d left, but there was a buzzing in his ears that got more and more annoying the longer it went on. What the fuck was he supposed to do now that he was trapped? Stupid fucking nerdy freak getting him into shitty fucking situations.

There, off to the side. His head whipped to look, but it was nothing. He hadn’t seen anything. After a second he realized his heart rate had picked up. With a scowl, he told himself to calm down, there wasn’t anything down here.

With his eyes adjusting, he saw a small storage room. He could hear a slow, steady drip from a rusty pipe somewhere. Carefully, he began to step forward, the sound of his feet scuffing the cement floor loud in his ears. There was a door against the left wall; maybe he could find a different way out.

His hand was on the doorknob when he heard movement, objects shifting. He looked back, but couldn’t see anything. He thought it came from that shelf in the corner…

Something moved past his foot. “Shit!” He jumped, unable to help it. He fell to a deep squat, eyes blown open wide, searching. There, it was small, and moving fast across the floor! It was… squeaking.

He huffed, angry mostly at himself as he rose up to his feet. Shitty fucking school had mice. He turned and grabbed the handle again. There was a crunch and the squeaking stopped abruptly. He pushed through the door and closed it quickly behind himself.

He backed away from the door, watching it carefully for a while, his heart pounding in his chest and in his ears. After some time, he felt stupid for being so scared, and his body calmed. Then he realized that the pounding in his ears wasn’t his own heart. He turned around and figured out that the sound was coming from that direction – a dull booming that he could feel in his bones.

There, against the opposite wall, was another door. He ignored the flickering movement in his periphery and walked forward. Not like he had any other place to go.

When he stepped through the door, he found another hallway, this time with only one door at the other end. In the back of his mind he wondered at the whack ass layout of the school. But his legs took him forward, and with each step the pounding got louder, slowly, steadily.

From either side, he saw movement, darkness dappling the edges of his vision, like black flames that almost reminded him of figures. Anytime he looked at them head on, he didn’t see anything.

He reached the door, and when he touched the handle, it was warm.

He opened the door, and he felt the heat against his face. Before him, in the middle of this new room, was a searing furnace, burning, blazing, beating, the source of the steady pounding. Bakugou was surrounded by it. It exuded a fiery glow, and the shadows danced around it, like strange, frenzied convulsions. Tens, dozens, hundreds of pipes decorated the walls, crossing over each other and leading to the mechanical center piece, each one pulsing in sync. For some reason, Bakugou was paralyzed.

Suddenly, the door behind him slammed open, and there stood Midoriya, panting as if he’d been running. He was pale and glistened with slight perspiration, and his face was scraped up with a small trickle of blood smeared on his chin. In his hand there was a flashlight, its beam shaking in his grip. His frantic eyes locked on Bakugou and the furnace, and they widened in utter horror.

“Kacchan!” Midoriya squeaked before grabbing Bakugou’s wrist and dragging him toward another door he hadn’t noticed before.

As they rushed into the next room, the pounding was muffled by the closing door. Bakugou looked down at the hand wrapped around his wrist, then back up at the boy who was trembling before him, yet determined as he looked back and forth, as if trying to decide which way to go. He yanked his arm free aggressively, and Midoriya turned around to see his pissed off face.

“Oi! Don’t fucking come in here like you’re fucking saving me from something-”

“Kacchan,” Midoriya hissed, low, as if he was afraid of being heard. He hardly ever got this animated anymore. “It’s not safe here.”

“Yeah?” Bakugou said, feeling a bead of sweat from the previous room dripping down the side of his face. “Because of your stupid monsters? I don’t fucking see anything!” Yet despite his raised voice and his control visibly slipping, Midoriya stared at him carefully, and when he spoke his next words, there was a slight tremor in them.

“We’re inside of it.”

Bakugou was still for a moment. He felt that pounding in his own chest, in his limbs, in his head.

He grabbed Midoriya by the collar and pushed him back until he slammed into the wall. He loomed right before his face, baring his teeth, and he growled his words.

“You’re getting on my last fucking nerves shitty fucking Deku. Making me come down here and get locked in the fucking basement, and then you come in after me? Maybe I should fucking lock you in that furnace room without this-”

He grabbed the still lit flashlight from Midoriya’s trembling hand and watched as panic flashed in those big ass eyes.

“No, Kacchan!” He reached for it, and Bakugou, the slightly taller of the two, held it up, out of his reach. “Kacchan,” he squealed, his voice high pitched in desperation. “Please, they like the dark!”

Bakugou studied the flashlight in his hand. It was small, nothing impressive, probably purchasable from a convenience store. The nerd must keep it on him at all times, he realized. Turning back to smirk at Midoriya, he flicked off the switch.

Midoriya whimpered before him, and despite everything, he got closer to Bakugou, as if he were trying to huddle against him. Bakugou was ready to push him off, when he heard something whisper against his ears. He froze, his body going rigid. The whispering grew, until there were several voices overlapping. He couldn’t make out any words; then he realized that it reminded him of the weird things the freak muttered under his breath.

Midoriya was shivering against him, and when Bakugou breathed out, he could see his own breath. He felt something tug at the back of his shirt collar, even though Midoriya’s hands were fisted tight against his chest.

A door to the side opened. It wasn’t sudden, but it still startled them. Light poured in, revealing them clutching each other, and they looked over to see a teacher, blinking at them. Strangely enough, the pounding stopped.

Bakugou quickly jumped away from Midoriya, then cursed himself internally. He knew exactly what this looked like.

Needless to say, they got in trouble for that. Two weeks of staying after school cleaning. The worst part was that they had to do it together. Bakugou was starting to not like that school after hours.

His friends found him the next day and asked him where the hell he’d gone. Bakugou tried to brush off their pestering, already grumpy enough, but they wouldn’t stop bothering him.

“The weirdo ran in after you.”

“Yeah, he got a flashlight from his backpack and climbed the fence, then went in, all scared and shit.”

“He fell on his face and then got up and practically ripped the door off its hinges. He was all frantic and weird. Then neither of you came out. I was gonna ask if you locked him down there or something, but then I saw him this morning.”

Bakugou frowned at them, annoyed at how much they wanted to talk about it. But when he imagined them waiting there for awhile for him, he felt a little smug. He snapped at them.

“We got in trouble, okay?”

After a second, they laughed at him, saying, “I told you so!” But even as they made fun of him, he couldn’t help but rewind the conversation and think about something. What do they mean Midoriya opened the door and went in after him? The door had locked behind him, he’d thought. Hadn’t it?

That afternoon was the first day of their punishment. His friends were chuckling as they left school that day without him. He just glowered, knowing who he’d have for company for the rest of the day.

The teacher immediately put them to work. They were to start with the first floor classes, picking up after the students and scrubbing the floors. Bakugou immediately took his bucket and walked away briskly. He wanted to work by himself, but they were supposed to work on one room at a time until the teacher was content with their job. So he got to work, squeegeeing his towel and starting to wipe shit down while Midoriya stayed on his side of the room. Finally, he did something smart for once.

Yet the peace didn’t last forever, not in a room filled with so much tension. Bakugou was able to ignore Midoriya’s tics, his flickering gaze, the way he stopped to watch something that wasn’t there. But when he started muttering, Bakugou was brought back to that basement, feeling that freezing breath whispering in his ears, against his neck, and his rag splashed into the bucket.

“Shut the fuck up,” he growled. Midoriya was jumpy as he looked over at Bakugou, but when he realized what Bakugou was talking about, he settled.

“Sorry…” he murmured, trying to quietly continue wiping the blackboard. Yet Bakugou couldn’t stop thinking about the day before, about the basement. He’d dreamt about that furnace, beating, like a large, terrible heart, bleeding flames and death.

“The fuck is your problem, anyway? Why are you always saying that weird ass shit under your breath?”

Midoriya was silent for a while, leaving Bakugou holding his breath. But then, he said, “They’re always whispering it.” Bakugou exaggeratedly rolled his eyes.

“They. Fucking freak.” He thought he put enough bite into that, but when he chanced a glance at the other boy, he saw Midoriya eyeing him. He sneered at him until he looked away.

He didn’t talk to the freak again until the next afternoon. They were halfway done with their first classroom that day. It was nice and quiet – just the sound of their cloths and spray bottles.

“Why do you say it?” It was Bakugou who broke their silence, still keeping his gaze down on his scrubbing as he spoke to the boy somewhere behind him. “Just cause you hear it doesn’t mean you gotta fucking say it.” He didn’t turn around to check, but he heard the movement from the other side of the room stop. After a solid moment of silence, he got a response.

“I don’t do it on purpose,” Midoriya said cautiously, as if he couldn’t tell which next word would light the bomb. “It’s… compulsory.”

Compulsory. Freak words for a freak nerd.

“Weirdo,” Bakugou said as his nose scrunched up in disdain. He was ready to leave it at that, already annoyed with himself for even bringing it up. Another minute of silence passed between them. Then-

“You were saying it.” Bakugou finally turned around to look at him. Midoriya was watching him carefully, with those big ass, freaky bug eyes of his, that sickeningly luminescent color. The light there was dark just then, and his bangs were hanging in his gaze. How the fuck did he see like that? And when had he gotten so mangy looking?

“Hah?”

“Back in the basement… I heard you saying their words.” Something crawled beneath Bakugou’s skin. It was probably the sound of the nerd’s voice. He spoke so softly, slowly, carefully. He kept his voice low and calm. It was nothing like the shrill, excited voice of their preschool days. It was creepy.

“Liar,” Bakugou hissed at him. He shrank back from Bakugou’s ire.

“I wasn’t-”

“Your freak shit is rubbing off on me,” Bakugou snarled. “Stay the fuck on your side of the room!” Midoriya didn’t say anything else, and they went back to work. Bakugou didn’t know why he felt so unnerved after that. But he thought back to that basement, back to that room. He hadn’t said shit. Midoriya was fucking crazy.

They didn’t talk much for the next few days. It took most of Bakugou’s energy to refrain from biting the nerd’s head off. He occasionally had to put up with a soft spoken, “Kacchan,” whenever Midoriya reached for a bottle near him, or returned something to him. Bakugou always glared back at him.

Bakugou was just starting to get used to ignoring the other. He grew complacent.

He was scrubbing the gunk off from under a desk (fuck these shitty kids) and Midoriya was wiping down the chairs on the other side of the room. They’d learned to work in a circle, going around the room, always opposite each other.

Bakugou got his head under the desk as Midoriya was making his way over to dip his rag in the bucket of water. Suddenly, Bakugou heard a gasp followed by chairs clattering from startled movement that had him banging his forehead. He cursed in a way to let the damn freak know he should fucking book it. When he pulled out from under the desk, he saw Midoriya backing away and jumping backwards onto a desk of his own, bringing his feet up and staring at the floor with a panicked look on his face. Bakugou looked at the spot Midoriya was staring at. He saw nothing.

“Get your feet off the damn desk, I already cleaned that one.” Midoriya looked up at him, as if remembering that Bakugou was there. He gulped, his eyes darting back to that stupid empty spot.

“I… S-Sorry…” He gasped out his apology, sounding choked. But the soles of his shoes slipped on the edge of the desk, and his fingers gripped the sides. His face was lit up for once, and it was in panic. Bakugou couldn’t stand to see that damn ugly expression.

“Oi-” Bakugou got up and threw his own sponge down before stomping over.

“W-Wait, Kacchan-!” Midoriya tried to stop him, but Bakugou just stomped right up, right to that damn spot the freak’s gaze was fixed on. Look at him when he’s speaking!

When Bakugou set his foot down firmly, Midoriya flinched, like someone being flicked with water. Bakugou crossed his arms and gave the other his best glare.

“I said get off the fucking desk.”

Midoriya stared at him then, his eyes wide. They flicked down at his foot for just a second then back up, before he nodded, and he slid down off of the desk.

“Stop fucking around,” Bakugou bit out before returning to his side of the room. “Don’t give me more shit to clean.”

Thankfully Midoriya knew better than to say anything to him. But when his back was turned, he felt those eyes on him, from time to time.

Bakugou was growing uncomfortable with the steady peace developing. On the last day of their punishment, he was ready for it to be over. They’d cleaned the entirety of the first floor over those two weeks. And then of course, the teacher had to ruin the ending by telling them to clean the bathroom.

It wasn’t just that it was the fucking boys’ bathroom. It was a smaller space, and they were practically on top of each other as they cleaned. They both avoided the toilets for as long as they could and started off with the hand washing area. Midoriya was scrubbing them down while Bakugou cleaned the mirrors. Neither of them said anything. Bakugou may have been miserable, but so was the freak, and that made it a bit more bearable.

He was standing there, pointedly not looking at the other as he wiped over the reflective glass. His hand passed over it again, and he blinked, seeing something behind him. It looked like eyes.

He turned around quickly, but there was nothing there. He sensed Midoriya looking up, and then heard him gasp. Bakugou was about to scowl at him for freaking him out, when he felt a force hit him hard and slam him backwards. The mirror shattered against their backs as they both hit the wall and landed on their asses. He heard a wince to his side, but he was too dazed to turn and look. He felt a sting in his own palms and heard the crunch of glass.

Bakugou shifted where he sat, feeling his own groan more than hearing it. He thought he could feel movement, a sort of weight that got closer, climbed up him. He opened his eyes wildly, and saw nothing, but all of a sudden, there was something snaking into his mouth, his throat, his chest, and then he was drowning.

Fuck! Shit! He couldn’t breathe. What the hell… What was happening?! He choked, and he scratched his face, trying to get whatever the fuck it was out of him, but there was nothing. He was losing vision, losing life, and there wasn’t even fucking anything there.

Tears slipped down his cheeks as his chest ached, and dimly from somewhere, he heard a voice calling something that sounded like his name. There was a panicked, frantic edge to it, but not like he could do a damn thing about it.

Then he heard a clang, and then another. It sounded metallic. All of a sudden, he was being sprayed with water, right in the face. Before he could be upset about it, he heard something. Or at least, he thought he heard something. Some kind of strange, inhuman groaning. Then, whatever was inside of him pulled out of his throat and left him coughing and retching, gasping for breath and trembling in the wake of it all.

There were hands grabbing his arms and pulling him, dragging him when he wasn’t cooperating, and he was too weak to fight it. He ended up in a stall, feeling Midoriya behind him, still gripping him tight. Bakugou’s feet shifted before him, like he wanted to move, and Midoriya’s legs were sprawled out on either side of him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but then a hand slapped over his mouth and he tasted blood. He felt Midoriya’s heart racing against his back, and something passed over his foot. He couldn’t help but swallow.

“Don’t make a sound.”

It was muttered quietly, Midoriya’s lips pressed to his ear, and suddenly he was brought back to the playground under the climbing wall, with a chill taking over his body.

Bakugou could not say how long he sat there on the bathroom floor. He could not say how long it took for it to happen. Maybe only a few seconds passed. Maybe they sat there huddled together for an hour listening to the water rushing from the broken sink pipe. But slowly, the room dimmed, with a sort of purple haze glazing over his vision. He started to hear sounds of movement, liquidy sounding almost, like a slurp, slurp, slurp. And he felt it – a slimy substance sliding over his feet. Instinctively, he wished to pull away, but the fingers that dug tight into his arm kept him still. Behind him, Midoriya was holding his breath.

Bakugou started to see. He saw it, slowly, like a gradual realization that it was there, and his brain was just now processing it. There was a fucking monster in that damn bathroom with them.

It was big and shapeless, constantly reforming, as it seemed to be coated in some thick, viscous sludge. It was a murky color, like sewage. And it smelled like sewage too. Bakugou gagged, tasting it on his tongue suddenly, and thinking about that sludge in his throat, in his lungs. The thing had been pacing back and forth, but when Bakugou made a startled sound behind Midoriya’s hand at his first glimpse of it, it turned toward him. More eyes blinked open all over its body, and every single one of them were directed right at him.

Midoriya squeezed him, and the warmth Bakugou felt against his back was probably the only thing that kept him grounded enough to maintain control of himself. Even as the thing crept closer, oozing across the floor, on top of his legs, getting close enough to stare down at him, study him with its many eyes. Bakugou stared back silently in horror and disgust.

Like it didn’t see anything, it turned away from them, disinterested. Or, rather, its eyes slid across its body, to the other side, perhaps this thing’s method of turning. And it moved back into the center of the bathroom, and slowly it began to sink down. It took a while, but Bakugou realized eventually that it was seeping into the drain in the floor. His heartbeat only slowed to normal when it was fully gone. But nothing was normal. Not anymore.

Midoriya released him and they both gasped. But even as they breathed out hard and heavy, the fright did not just linger in the air. Bakugou looked around, and he started to realize that he saw much more than that monster.

The walls were covered in ooze, and black tendrils reached out, searchingly, menacingly. It seemed like the lights had gone out, and everything was dark and shadowy. And the shadows moved. This time, when he turned to look at them, they were there, shapeless figures that darted back, and lingered, watching. He heard the whispers again, silent, ever present. Instinctively his ears strained to hear, to make out what they were saying, but it was nothing intelligible. He got scared of fixating on their words. And there was ice in his veins as he realized: this was not the school they’d been in mere moments before.

“K… Kacchan…” He heard Midoriya’s voice behind him, but he didn’t say anything in response. “Kacchan…?”

Bakugou couldn’t respond. He was looking around, seeing the faces shifting in the walls, hearing the bubbling goo that emanated from the ceiling and dripped down in puddles – or maybe they were dripping up? And there was this constant groaning sound, like the whole damn building was creaking and moaning in despair. And there were eyes. Eyes, everywhere.

He couldn’t speak. Instead, he turned around, scrambling to his knees, and he gripped the toilet bowl as he retched into it.

Midoriya rose up beside him, hovering there, and as Bakugou heaved, he felt those damn eyes, holding on him.

“Fuck,” he rasped into the bowl.

“Ka…chan…”

He didn’t stick around for the nerd’s comfort. He darted.

Bursting out of the bathroom, he almost tripped over his own feet as he froze to the spot. If the bathroom was terrible, the hallway was hellish. There were fleshy columns connecting the floor to the ceiling, and the walls were porous and bleeding, dark and purple blood. Little critters skittered across the floor and over his foot. He jumped back and kicked it away and it splattered in a mess of viscera and twitching legs.

He heard his childish nickname called out behind him, and he raced down the hall. As he ran past, eyes blinked open along the walls and ceiling, bulging and bloodshot, and they followed him. Weird, fingerlike tendrils stuck out from the openings in the lockers, and hooded creatures seemed to be hiding in every corner. But it wasn’t just the fucking monsters, or even the state of the building. There was a purple miasma, subtle, and difficult to make out, but it distorted his vision, and sucked the brightness out of the lights, leaving this world in a permanent twilight. And worse than anything else was the overwhelming aura that chilled him to the bone. He could feel it, the malice in these halls. This place wanted to consume him, slowly pick him apart and eat him alive until there was nothing left.

He ran, and he felt like he was tilting. The further he went, the longer the hallway stretched before him. Everything, it was all too much, it overloaded his brain and he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing or where he was or what he was doing. Was this some kind of a sick joke? A drug hallucination? A nightmare? Yet the pain throbbing in his hand was crisp and real. The solid floor beneath him was real. This place, this was…

He felt dizzy from the horror that surrounded him. He stumbled through a random door and found himself in a classroom. Why was he here? Probably because he’d wanted a window – he needed to see the sun, the blue sky, the green grass. But outside was the worst nightmare yet. Terrible barren trees like claws rose up from the scorched earth, crooked and broken, and in their branches were perched wicked, winged creatures with dripping fangs and meat in their talons. Up above, the sky was a vile, unnatural purple, like something he’d seen once before. And up, nestled at the peak in place of the sun, was a giant, bulbous eye that cast its ominous gaze upon him. When it blinked, the world went dark.

“F… Fu…” Bakugou’s legs gave out beneath him. A large, arachnid monster was crawling lazily up the side of the wall. Little piles of goo bubbled, and some inched across the floor, closer to him. Bakugou quickly backed away until he felt the wall behind him. Lithe tendrils gently wound around his arms and tugged him closer, and he started to sink into the wall. He quickly brushed them off and held himself, feeling cold.

It was strange, seeing the horror in this normal classroom. Their desks and chairs with feelers creeping up the legs. The algebraic equations on the board mixing with the dully glowing symbols etched onto the wall. And the whispers… He couldn’t tell where they were coming from. It seemed from everywhere, and the more he listened, the more voices added to it. His hands squeezed his head, as if he could block it all out, as if he could prevent himself from breaking.

Then the door opened again, and he saw Midoriya run in, his gaze immediately latching onto him. He seemed breathless, panting, and eager. His eyes glowed as they saw him.

“Kacchan-”

Midoriya threw himself on the floor before Bakugou, and he had a grin on his face that seemed so out of place, with the tendrils that draped over his shoulder, or the thorny vines that wrapped around his shoe, his calf, his crown. Like he was perfectly unbothered by it all.

“You can see it?”

Bakugou shook his head frantically, but he couldn’t hide the abject horror on his face. Midoriya’s eyes widened, and when he spoke next, it was with awe.

“You can see all of it.”

Hands reached out of the shadows to touch him and he swatted them away, but it only made more appear. Before him, Midoriya started crawling forward, his face split open with that brilliant smile.

“It’s okay,” he said, getting closer to a Bakugou that couldn’t back away any further. He grew larger in Bakugou’s vision, until he was looming before him. They were in hell, surrounded by monsters, and Midoriya’s crazed grin was perhaps the most horrifying thing there. “It’s okay, Kacchan.”

He crawled between Bakugou’s legs, and his hands came up to hold Bakugou’s cheeks. His face was now wet with the other boy’s blood, and he could still remember the taste of it on his tongue.

“I can see it too.”

Bakugou stared into his eyes, his big, round, all-consuming eyes, and his own widened. His gaze flickered over the room again, taking in everything. This was the world Midoriya Izuku had been living in, for as long as Bakugou Katsuki had known him. And something dropped in his stomach. Fuck this place was terrifying. He looked back into Midoriya’s glowing eyes, the ones that studied his face intently, and it was the first time Bakugou could describe him as looking happy in a… long, long time. Bakugou gulped, and then nodded once.

“I see it.” His voice was gruff as he answered, finally. A strange sound came out of Midoriya’s throat, like a happy chirping, or even a purr. And then he closed his eyes and leaned forward, until his forehead was resting against Bakugou’s. For a moment, Bakugou’s heart stopped. Then it carried on, steadying out, and he held Midoriya’s arms, and he soaked in the only source of warmth in that godforsaken world.