It's a Plan(et)

Chapter 11

"Are they bringing us our toothbrushes?" Shigaraki asked. "And mint toothpaste?" he badgered when he didn't get a response automatically.

"Cotton candy toothpaste," Izuku answered under his breath as he tried to focus on what the approaching dolluns and scraks were conversing about. It was rare to see the two species getting along enough to walk next to each other, let alone conversing together.

"No!" Shigaraki objected, throwing himself to the ground in preparation to tantrum. "Tell them to send it back! I don't want it!" Then, after a thoughtful pause, "Do they even know what cotton candy is?" Then, indignant, "Midoriya!"

With a snicker, Izuku said, "Okay, you got me. I'm trying to listen in on their conversation," Izuku stressed, nodding his head in the direction of the aliens coming down the hall. "They haven't mentioned anything about toothbrushes, yet."

Shigaraki quietened then, looking down the hall to see the two species approaching. "Oh," he whispered-yelled, trying to be quiet but also still be heard by Izuku across the hall. "They don't normally get along, do they?"

"No, which is why I'm trying to listen in," Izuku explained with a sharp glare in Shigaraki's direction.

Shigaraki raised his hands in surrender and meandered back into his cell, busying himself with counting how many of each item he had gathered in his newly accumulated stash.

"They have that gun that shoots ammo-masks!" Izuku warned loudly as soon as he saw it clutched in the hands of a scrak following up at the back of the group of approaching aliens, unable to control his volume in his panic.

Shigaraki, without hesitation, used a bowl to shield the lower half of his face before turning around from his stash, quickly making his way to the bars that still buzzed with low-level electricity that had no effect on the humans the cells housed. He promptly threw another bowl over to Izuku who, adrenaline rushing, panic crawling up his throat, imagined himself fumbling the bowl and it rolling down the corridor toward the approaching dolluns and scraks, leaving him defenseless against their weapons, Shigaraki yelling in the background, probably something about wasting a valuable part of his stash, but Izuku wouldn't be able to make it out because of the blood rushing through his ears making everything sound muffled.

Luckily, that was just his panic-addled brain feeding him some intrusive thoughts of what-if, and he caught the bowl just fine, pulling it in through the bars and pressing it over the lower half of his face where the mask would attach if given the chance.

The scrak holding the weapon awkwardly, the weapon too small to sit correctly for it's long, armored limbs asked, "what is this?" with the weapon half raised toward Izuku when they stopped in front of his cell, turning toward Izuku's cell first.

Why does it always have to be me? He felt selfish immediately after the thought, knowing that it was better for them to focus on him than to drag Shigaraki off to get his own brain messed with for the UTD implant if that could be avoided at all.

Izuku provided direct translations for Shigaraki in real-time, nothing more and nothing less. "What is this?" he said, right after the scrak.

"What is this?!" Shigaraki mocked, in a high-pitched tone gesturing with one of his hands, feeling brave enough to not brace the bowl with both hands with the weapon not aimed at him, but not enough to remove the bowl from his face, his voice echoing off the metal contours of the inside of the bowl pressed cautiously against his face. "What are those?! What is anything?! Fuck, are these guys dumb. We should have figured out that they weren't top of the hierarchy the second we got here."

Despite himself, Izuku smiled under his own bowl. The faint scent of the crocknets that had been presented in the bowl had long dissipated and there was no dust left behind to waft up into his eyes, but Izuku could imagine it if he tried hard enough. Maybe that's what was making him tear up, and not the camaraderie that Shigaraki could show when Izuku needed it the most, when he felt the panic at the thought of 'what if this didn't work and he woke up with yet another body modification that he wasn't warned about, didn't consent to?'