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Bakugou rubs his palms on his shirt and looks warily around the dark convenience store. Dust motes flutter across the smashed windows in the light of the midday sun. They are careful to avoid the broken glass. Every step they take is prefaced by looking down for anything that could creak, crack, or crunch. Gravel, leaves, paper, and twigs are the big contenders. Indoors, they usually place their shoes by the door and pad around in socks, on tiptoes. His classmates are strewn around the aisles, signing slowly to one another or dozing. The remnants of class 1-A are a sad sight. Food for thirteen is hard to come by, especially ten months after society falls. Aizawa is standing with his arms crossed, staring out of a far window. Hizashi sits next to him. Casting a glance down an aisle, he sees Uraraka padding her way towards him. She meets his gaze and beckons He follows her to the very back of the store. It is dark here – the sunlight not reaching this far back. Uraraka points to a shelf, too tall for her to safely fully examine. Slowly hissing out a sigh, he carefully skims the orderly rows of prescriptions, matching the medicine names up to those in Uraraka’s medical book. There isn’t much worth taking. Maybe some could be pawned off to druggies, but Aizawa refuses to let them turn to that for bartering. Let them scavenge their own drugs, he’d signed urgently and firmly at Kaminari’s idea. Towards the middle, he finds a bottle of high strength ibuprofen, and towards the very back, one with a round of penicillin. Both are valuable. Incredibly so. He can’t believe their luck. The ibuprofen one is passed down with more gentleness than he can remember ever using before this shitstorm started. He chews his lip, contemplating reaching for the penicillin, before he decides against it. Even with his height over Uraraka, he’d risk knocking over several containers, and there isn’t room to safely relocate them. They could meticulously move each onto the floor, but they’d risk rattling them. They can’t risk excessive noise. He turns to Uraraka and fumbles out the signs for pick you up. She looks at him curiously and signs back, my quirk? He shakes his head. you’re too tired. (man, if it weren’t for Mic, they’d all be screwed in terms of communication) She nods her agreement and he crouches. She hooks her legs through his waiting arms and he stands slowly. She hardly seemed to weigh anything, and he doubts she is using her quirk to make herself lighter. Her new vantage point allows her to reach over the orange pill bottles and pluck up the valuable antibiotics. She carefully slips them into her bag, between rolls of bandages so any rattling will be muffled, and taps Bakugou’s shoulder to signal she wants down. He lowers her gently to the floor, and she smiles gratefully before she skips off, looking for anything else of value. He rubs his palms on his shirt again. It has become a nervous habit. (he can’t believe he of all people has developed a nervous habit. then again, can he really be blamed? his quirk revolves around noise.
and if he makes noise, he is dead.
there are long, red, talon-scars underneath his ragged t-shirt. he’d barely made it out alive. jirou hadn’t been so lucky.
and it’d been such a stupid argument.) A wave of guilt rolls through him. He shrugs it off. He doesn’t think anyone really forgives him, even though Aizawa assures him he does. He returns to the front of the store. To the sunlight. Making sure there’s no glass around, he sits down in the warm light, back against Kirishima’s. Kiri reaches back and squeezes his wrist, quickly. As long as they’re silent, they’re safe. As long as Aizawa is keeping watch, they’re safe. As long as they stick together, they are safe. He falls asleep sitting up, warm in the sunlight and from Kirishima’s back against his. – Bakugou wakes up blearily in the cold. Kirishima still presses against his back. Bakugou carefully crawls around to see Kiri’s hands. awake? the boy signs, and Bakugou signs back, yeah.
(he wishes they could speak. Mic hasn’t been able to teach them much outside of the necessities. his sign language is patchy and lacks any of his old smarm or bite. what he wouldn’t give to say “no shit, shitty-hair.” it would be familiar. it would be comforting.
he settles with a fierce eye-roll.)
Kirishima hauls him up from the tile and they pick their way through darkness back to the main group. Most of them are awake. Uraraka is sleeping now, curled into a ball by Midoriya’s feet. Looking outside at the sky, they can see that it isn’t quite night yet. The sun is burning crimson in a peachy horizon. The moon is an uncaring eye, high above them, approaching purple clouds. Were their situations better, it’d have been a beautiful night. They pick up their shoes one by one. Midoriya delicately shakes Uraraka awake. They file out into the street one by one. They walk in a line, slowly and meticulously. If anything, they are even more cautious outdoors than they were indoors. Every step is watched. They place their feet with precision. Bakugou swipes his hands up and down his shirt over and over again in the hour it takes them to arrive back to the house they camp in this week. Aizawa insists on moving them constantly, consistently north. They get farther and farther away from home every week. Aizawa likes this house because of the tile floors. Tile doesn’t creak like wood.
(they didn’t stay in houses with wooden floors unless they had no choice. not after koda.)
Bakugou takes up his post in the middle of the far wall. Exhaustion weighs heavily on his body, deep in his joints. A part of his mind reminds him that it’s a mix of borderline starvation and stress. His classmates file in after him. Weight builds up on his sides as they collapse around him. Kirishima presses into one side. Uraraka squishes up under his other arm. She’s holding on to Midoriya’s arm bodily. Mina drapes across one leg, and he knows he’s going to wake up with no feeling in it. Asui is somehow over both his and Kiri’s laps. Slowly now, he lets his quirk build up. Despite what people think, his quirk isn’t based in his arms, and it’s not just the nitroglycerin sweat. It grows out of someplace deep in his chest, flooding his veins with heat. He used to associate the feeling with rage. Then again, it used to always end in a boom and yelling and cursing. He’s discovered that he can keep it on a sorta low-power mode. Let the warmth come and keep his friends – family, really – a little warmer in the cold nights. At least for a little while.
(he won’t risk it while he sleeps. it takes a bit of focus to keep it from exploding – nothing he can’t manage when he’s awake. it’s a risk that aizawa will flay him for if he knew he took it. but he was tired of seeing them all shiver as they tried to keep their energy up.
he’s never going to admit to them that keeping them warm saps his energy for the next day. they’re too important.) Some hours later, he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. Aizawa gives him a stern glare that says go to sleep. He lets the warmth die away and falls asleep. – Bakugou has surprisingly good dreams considering everything that’s transpired. He dreams of before, mostly. He dreams of spring and fall, of a cool breeze, of leaves twisting through the sky. He dreams of people, sitting on their sidewalks and outside of the corner café, laughing and talking. He dreams of music, from a radio or earbuds, soft classical or pounding metal depending on his mood.
(more often than not, the latter. but he’ll never admit to anyone he has a soft spot for mozart and chopin, when he studies or needs to chill.)
He dreams of his mother and father. He doesn’t know if they’re still alive.
(he doubts the old hag survived. her mouth was bigger than his.
god, he misses her.)
He dreams of hot, fresh food, and of class at Yuuei, of the luxury of driving a car and the freedom and power granted by his quirk. He dreams of clean clothes – his normal t-shirt and jeans, or his school uniform. He dreams of a bed. He dreams of going to the gym, taking a long shower, and of helping his elderly neighbour bring in her groceries (she always called him ‘such a sweet boy’, despite hearing him yell and blow shit up practically every day since he turned four. he could never bring himself to be cruel or sharp with her. more secrets he was taking to the grave.) Despite the peaceful nature of his dreams, he always wakes up, anxious and sad and despite the people surrounding him, feeling wholly alone. He wonders into the dim of early morning if any of them dream as he does. He hopes they do. – Inevitably, he sits up straighter when Aizawa stands up, nudging the people heaped on top of him into wakefulness. It is a careful process, like playing Jenga. Some people are easy to drag silently from the depths of slumber – like Midoriya – and others take a good solid prod and a hand over their mouth so they don’t blearily mumble for their mom to give them five more minutes, like Mina. Bakugou prides himself on knowing each of their sleep habits.
(the last time someone other than him had recklessly woken someone up, both tokoyami and hagakure vanished. bakugou theorizes this is why aizawa trusts none but him to wake the others up.)
He sees Aizawa do his daily headcount. They sit around, blinking, wishing they could have commodities like coffee and tea again. Aizawa signs them jobs. We’re leaving today. We need to get every last scrap we can carry from here. They get partners. Bakugou, go with Yaomomo. He stands, stretching, feeling his spine pop once, twice, three times. He misses having a bed. He and Yaomomo have the shed. The tricky job. He tests the door carefully. It opens without a sound, despite the rusty hinges. He lets out a slow breath. Musty air yawns out as they step into the dark. Dust lies thick on every surface – Bakugou swipes a hand down a shelf before he winces, thinking about what’s probably in that dust, and then - Yaomomo sneezes. She tries to cover it, smother it like they’ve all been doing. But she is too late to cover it. It’s noisy, and it almost echoes in the metal shed. Too noisy. Too Loud. Even as she freezes, terror widening her features, Bakugou is moving, flinging her over his shoulder. He’s not going to let her be taken, too. He bolts for the side of the yard, where the terrain dips steeply before it runs into a tall fence. He slips and feels something in his leg pop as they skid down the hill. They roll to a rest at the base of the fence, cold muddy water seeping into the back of his shirt and jeans. Yaomomo lands on top of him, and he can feel her shuddering. Her hands are clasped over her face, and her dark eyes are wide in fear. Grimacing, he sits upright. okay? he signs shakily, and she nods, her head bobbing up and down too many times to be considered calm. Then they hear it, thundering across the yards and tearing fences. It is impossibly loud in an instant, and he has to twist his hands into his shirt to keep himself from panicking and causing an explosion. (he knows it’d be useless – he’s tried before, before they knew it was sound that attracted them. his explosions couldn’t get past the thick armor. his quirk is useless .) Wood splinters rain down around them, and he looks up just as he sees the bone y legs clear the muddy gap he and Yaomomo have slid into. They can hear it tearing at the shed – loud, metallic screeching from its talons. It shrieks, frustrated, when it finds nothing alive, and Yaomomo crawls off of Bakugou and up the hill. Her head follows the movements of the beast in the yard. There is another screech, and the sound of breaking wood again, and she stays still for a solid minute before she slides back down the hill to Bakugou. It’s gone, she signs, and holds out a hand to help him up. Pain rips through him as he puts weight on his right leg. He staggers, and she catches him, worried. He waves her off. Uraraka, he signs. He won’t be able to climb back up the steep hill. Yaomomo is back moments after she leaves. Unsurprisingly, the monster’s arrival and subsequent departure attracted attention, and both Uraraka and Aizawa are by him. There are terrified tears in Uraraka’s eyes and Aizawa is doing his own equivalent of fussing over him. Uraraka delicately activates her quirk, and he floats off the ground slowly. A little push has him floating upwards, and Aizawa grabs his arm before he drifts too far. When her quirk releases him, he almost yells as weight returns to his leg again. He bites his tongue, hard, instead, as Aizawa slaps a hand over his face before he could manage more than a barely-there whine. They sit him on the floor in the same room they’d slept in. Uraraka is picking wood splinters out of his hair before he can tell her to leave it alone, and Yaomomo is wringing her hands together by her side. Aizawa reappears and throws him a dry black t-shirt. He doesn’t know where Aizawa found it, but it’s about his size and cleaner and drier than the one he was wearing. He flaps Uraraka’s hands away and tugs his old one off, discarding it. His hands find the talon scars over his chest and he rubs them instead of putting the shirt on. Aizawa watches him carefully. Bakugou , he signs, once he has his attention. We need to look at your leg. be my guest, he replies, hoping his short temper is conveyed in the choppiness of his movements. Bakugou considers himself lucky that his muscle mass has dropped in the last ten months. It means that his jeans can be rolled up over his knee instead of having to be cut or him awkwardly stripping down to his boxers in front of… well, everyone. Not that the apocalypse leaves much room for modesty. He hisses quietly as Aizawa moves his leg, and swallows tightly as his knee is revealed – already swollen and purpling. If only Recovery Girl were here, Hizashi signs sadly. We can’t move forward with your leg like this, Aizawa says. Bakugou shakes his head. they already know something’s here, he signs desperately. I can limp. they’ll lurk.
No.
Please. He mouths the word, with a barely there whisper – not much more than an exhalation. Aizawa sighs. It is exceedingly rare that Bakugou says “please.”
Bakugou…
I don’t want them in danger. leave.
Aizawa’s glare narrows and sharpens. We leave no one behind. Bakugou’s jaw clenches in frustration. His hands clench into fists, and he twists them into the shirt in his lap. Aizawa flags his attention again. Your knee is dislocated. We need to fix it. It’s going to hurt. Bakugou gnaws on his lip. I can handle it.
I saw hardened villains that couldn’t handle a dislocated knee. Don’t kid yourself.
He feels his jaw quiver. Uraraka is there again. Her fingers spell out something to Aizawa he can’t make out. Aizawa looks conflicted.
You’re certain?
She nods. Firmly.
Take Midoriya with you.
She leaves. Aizawa doesn’t quite meet Bakugou’s eyes again. We’re going to fix this. Stay still. Bakugou yanks the shirt over his head, grimacing as another fence splinter jabs his skull. He rips it from his hair, flinging it across the room. It patters off of Todoroki’s leg. what do you want. It was one of the groups of motions that Bakugou had mastered early. His shaking hands prevent him from making it snappy though. It comes across as deadpan. Damn it. He’s scared. He can’t help it. It’s a natural reaction, he reasons. He doesn’t know what Uraraka’s plan is, or what’s going to happen when Aizawa “fixes this,” as he put it. He’s in pain. He’s exhausted. Todoroki wanders closer. Bakugou glares heavily. The air chills around them briefly before a chunk of ice the size of his fist materializes in his hand. He crouches and balances it on Bakugou’s shin. Despite the cold that makes his teeth clench and knuckles go white from keeping his hands from shaking, it draws away some of the pain, reducing it to a dull ache. Todoroki sits down heavily and signs one word. relax. Aizawa’s body language radiates unease. Bakugou can understand. He’s injured. Uraraka and Midoriya are off on some mission. Aizawa himself doesn’t feel safe staying here any longer. The time passes slowly. Todoroki has positioned himself strategically so that his fire side presses against his shaking shoulder. Normally he wouldn’t stand for coddling, but he’s freezing, his hoodie is in his backpack, and Todoroki is comfortably warm. Yaomomo approaches with his backpack, depositing it next to him, as if she’s read his mind. He sags in unspoken thanks as he tugs out his warmer clothing and bundles himself into it. Moving makes him realize how stiff sitting on the floor makes him. Somehow, it makes the torn muscles in his leg scream. He grits his teeth. Ice can only do so much. Like Aizawa said, it needs to be fixed. The others slowly drift back into the room as the day drags into the afternoon. They have stripped as much as they can from this home. It is remarkably little. He gets concerned glances every few minutes. It makes something he hasn’t let surface for months boil in his gut.
(they’re just concerned about you like you’re concerned about them they’re not coddling you they care about you don’t blow up don’t you dare.)
Just when he thinks Aizawa is about to charge out into the street after Uraraka, she and Midoriya return. They have a vial with them. Aizawa looks more than relieved. He takes it almost reverently, examining the label. It’s a tiny thing. Aizawa crouches down in front of him again, holding it out so he can see the label. Ketamine. great plan, he signs shakily. He’s tired and hungry and in pain, and can’t manage any expression. It was meant to be sarcastic.
Hopefully it will keep you quiet while we reset this.
Bakugou swallows tightly. He doesn’t want drugs. He would do it without them if he had any other choice. Before, it wouldn’t have even been an option – he’d be free to scream or bite a stick. But he can’t risk the noise. He can tell himself time and time again that he won’t make any noise, but that is no guarantee. He nods. Do it then. –
(for once, he doesn’t dream.
or at least, he doesn’t think he does. it’s not that he’s in a dark place. he can see, fuzzy shapes moving around him. there’s a familiar hand holding his – strong, rough fingers, squarish palm. Kiri. he can’t make out his face, but he can see the smudgy red-black hair.
he can also see round-face. she has a tight grip on his other.
he almost wants to giggle at the floating sensation but before he can open his mouth, a voice like his mother’s speaks from his mind: Shhhhh.
he doesn’t make a sound.
there’s a sudden, weird pressure, in his leg, and he tries to sit up to see what’s going on but hands hold him firmly in place and then, it aches.
not unbearably. it aches like he’s fallen and knocked his leg into the floor.
a part of him thinks that’s all that’s happened. another part tells him that something is off here.
“mom,” he starts but everything goes dark and he can’t move anymore.
a voice like his mother’s speaks from his mind: Shhhhh. Sleep.)
– When he wakes up – was he asleep? - his eyes roll at the headache throbbing behind his eyes. He’s curled on his side into Kiri’s ribcage, buried in his hoodie. He sits up abruptly and looks at his knee, wrapped in ace bandages and surrounded in a ring of Todoroki’s ice. Right. That had happened. Some part of him is convinced that in paranoia they’d overdosed him on the ketamine and that’s why he had that dream. Another part of him is angry at that idea. A third doubts that Aizawa would risk that, and that ketamine is known for causing trance-like states and hallucinations. Yet another part doesn’t care. It was for the best. The headache doesn’t seem to be letting him think clearly. The only transient thought he can manage is where in the fuck did Uraraka find ketamine. People are still awake. The sun is still up. He almost speaks before he clasps a hand over his own mouth. Aizawa is fiddling with something in his lap. how long? he asks.
About forty minutes.
feels longer.
I know. Does it hurt?
no. did I make noise?
Aizawa doesn’t reply immediately. Not really. Nothing too loud. Too Loud is a vague term. Too Loud is anything above a breathy whisper.
what’d I say?
We think you started to say ‘mom.’ That’s it.
miracle.
Yeah. Midoriya freaked out and hit you in the head before you got too loud.
Too Loud. He almost killed them all.
we couldn’t do that before?
I prefer not to knock you kids out by punching you.
Explains the headache, at least.
is it okay?
Not to walk on. I don’t want you to try.
leaving?
Not tonight. Go back to sleep, kid.
not tired.
Aizawa’s tired eyes glare at him sternly. Sleep. You’ll heal faster. Bakugou tries to think of an argument and fails. Kirishima flicks his arm and tugs him back down onto his side. Bakugou decides himself he’s tired and falls back to sleep. – They stay for two more days before Aizawa’s anxiety decides they need to leave immediately. Uraraka’s medical book says that it takes about six weeks to recover from a dislocated patella. Sometime during the day someone had gone and found two reasonably straight sticks which were used to splint his leg straight. It’s uncomfortable and swollen and bruised, and his jeans bulge awkwardly from their attempts to keep it reasonably bandaged. It hurts, too. Uraraka tries offering him some of their recently acquired ibuprofen. no drugs, he signs. He is firm in this. It’s not crippling pain. save for when someone really needs them. She pouts, but relents. Aizawa still refuses to let him walk on it, though he’s certain he could manage a limp. The book says six weeks, and so you will wait six weeks. Yaomomo suggests they give the shed another look-through. Maybe there’s something useful to him in there – even one crutch would be useful enough, and she and Bakugou didn’t get a chance to really start digging. Kaminari volunteers to go look, and returns triumphantly with PVC pipes and duct tape. we can make a crutch! he signs, thrusting the materials into Uraraka’s arms. She passes them off to Iida, who makes quick work of them. Kirishima hauls him up and balances him awkwardly on one foot while he gets used to leaning on the (uncomfortably flimsy) crutch. At least you don’t have to be carried, Aizawa signs, and Bakugou agrees, and knows it’s more for his own sanity. The thought of someone carrying him makes him want to scream. He still ends up having to lean on Kirishima as he limps awkwardly down the street. If anything, the crutch is making his life even more challenging. They slow the entire group down, and he can see the impatience in Aizawa’s eyes every time he looks behind him. He doesn’t say anything, though. Bakugou knows on some level that Aizawa’s impatience is understandable, and part of him wishes he would snap at him for this, especially considering how short his temper runs these days. It is also exhausting, for both himself and Kirishima. By the time they near the city limit – some hours later – his arms are quivering and his knee is throbbing even more than before. His mental dialogue is ranting and raving at himself for being a fuckin’ idiot and falling like that. Later, it calms down. He finds himself deeply grateful that of all the ways the world could have ended, it was a threat that, as long as he doesn’t make noise, he’s relatively safe. Sure, there’s the threat of lonely thugs, or accidents, like Yaomomo sneezing in the shed. But they’re not outrunning zombies, or dealing with hidden threats like disease. The weather is still mild for fall – they’re not freezing to death or burning alive. He has had a lot of time to think about this. At the last building in sight on the road, their party passes two roughly but carefully constructed markers. The wood is old and splintered and has some mold growing in the knife-carved letters – they’ve been there for a while. The names read Izumi and Hibiki. Aizawa always stops at roadside graves. They don’t have anything to leave – they never think to grab odds and ends that take up valuable space they could be using for necessities, anyways. But they pause and give the lost a moment or three of silence. It always makes Bakugou wonder if wandering strangers ever stop at the graves they’ve placed themselves. There are eight of them forming ragged line stretching from Musutafu north to where they are now. Their moment passes, and they carry on.