weary travelers.

CONCENTRATE, AIRHEAD

When Tomura leaves, Dabi doesn't move his eyes from the door for about a minute, not blinking even once. Until he does.

His voice creeks like an old instrument; Dabi sounds like a hollowed out corpse. Stuffed full of cinder and coal―like he's been smoking for the past ten years.

"So, kid," He starts, rickety. "if your father sucks so bad, what about your mother?"

_

Izuku is sitting down. The woman from down the block is brushing through his frazzled hair. It's cold out. Her fingers weave gently through his curls, pacing through. She's humming an old song that she must have heard on one of the adds from before All Might went big. She's one of the oldest residents here, the only reason she's lived so long is because disease can't get to her; the only reason she's alive is because people pay well for protection on goods they don't want found. 

He doesn't know her name, but she doesn't mind it. She pulls a little too hard on one of the curls in his hair, but he doesn't say anything about it. She doesn't either; she just keeps humming. The melody lilts and turns. It's so inconsistent he doesn't know if it's garbled static or a lullaby, but she keeps humming. 

It's nice, but there's something itching him.

There's a wet spot on his forehead. Like a raindrop. Like sweat after running away from—

There's another wet spot, and another. The drop on his forehead wells and wells. It gets heavier on his head. 

The drop slips past his eye, tilts agains his forehead, and it's black. Like ink.

Izuku looks up, his eyes trace up the woman's wrinkled fingers, across the curve of his shoulder. He looks hesitantly at her face; it's sagging. Skin folding over skin, worn flesh over hollowed out bone. He looks at her eyes and—

And—

They're black. Dripping with poison or something rotten, and Izuku cannot scream, he does not want to scream. It's very cold here and he doesn't know why.

The woman he does not know the name of pays no mind to him nor the cold, she just keep running her thin fingers through his hair. She just keeps humming.

Izuku can't tell if it's a lullaby or something like a muted scream.

_

Ochako doesn't know why Tenya sent her a text location, but he was never a cryptic person. So Ochako, like the good friend she is, tells Tomura a friend of hers is in danger. She was not expecting the chaos that would ensue from this. Fire glared across the television, her internship room had one. There, on the news, it read in bright red―like Izuku's shoes, red―letters HERO KILLER STAIN ATTACKS HOSU and the amount of stress that tumbles from her lungs and eyes and ears are unparalleled. What the fuck? This isn't supposed to happen, and even Gunhead is surprised.

(Goddammit―was this why Tenya wanted to go!? To fulfill some stupid revenge?)

What did she just put Tomura into now?

She presses her hands together and prays to every God there is that Tomura doesn't get hurt on her behalf. Her prayers are futile, his hands will be caked in blood and his arms will be full of new markings made by his fingernails. She still prays though, because there's nothing else she can do.

_

Tomura doesn't think, he runs. Runs into danger like he's some sort of self-sacrificing dimwit.

Maybe Izuku is rubbing off on him after all.

_

There's a sakura tree outside her window. The petals are glowing pink, even under the moonlight. The mattress is uncomfortable under her calloused hands―the sheets itch at her skin.

Rei paints her nails with watercolors, she's done with the canvas; done with the wood. She wanted to be something, once, maybe. It's not all too clear with the haze; it drips around like sink water, and in her steadier times, she tells Natsuo he reminds her of Touya. Maybe she has warbled teeth―gums painted yellow with bruises and gold. The clouds flint to silver and the sun dies out. By the time she comes too, her nails are purple, and her pain brush is frozen over.

It's interesting.

It's interesting―she can't use her quirk when she's doped up on drugs. So it's really, really―

"Sorry Todoroki-san," A doctor says. "we messed up your medication! The dose was for Shimura-san next door."

Oh. Oh, okay. Less interesting.

She smiles, tells the doctor that she's fine, and ignores the cold freezing between her teeth; ignores the way it settles and festers like it belongs there.

Rei hums. "Can you tell her about the garden?"

The doctor smiles wirily. "Yes, Todoroki-san." The doctor stops before leaving. "You can come with me, if you'd like! I know Shimura-san misses you too."

"I'd love to." She says it sweetly, like her closet isn't chock full of skeletons, like she hasn't dug a grave to spill ashes into with her incompetence.

The doctor opens the door next to hers. There she is, watching the tips of her book, legs fooded into a pretzel; her painting of a corgi drying on the side. Her hair folds short over her ears, Rei glances at the hand mark on her right forearm. Shimura-chan flits, eyes glancing from behind her book. She smiles, wiping black hair from her eyes. "Rei-chan! I missed you!"

Rei smiles, too. "I missed to too, Shimura-chan."

Shimura-chan sighs into her book, folding into her clothes.

"C'mon! You make me sound so old, I'm twenty-six. Gimme a break."

A laugh slios through Rei's mouth. "My son said the exact same thing once."

"And did you ever call your son by his last name?"

Smiling, Rei snickers. "Not exactly, no."

"Then just call me by my name already, Rei-chan! It isn't very fair if I call you by your first name, is it?"

"I suppose not, Hana-chan."

Shimura-chan grins, it looks so happy. "There ya go!"