guard.

BOY OF ICE & MADNESS

ACT II, SCENE III

boy of ice & madness.

Natsuo wakes up screaming. There's carvings all over the walls. There's a little girl screaming with him.

GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWA Y ― is etched into the floor, the mats, the rice paper doors. This place is empty of any condolences, there is no love here, just ambition. The future is dead.

Natsuo is worthless with the way he spits smoke and nothing else, Natsuo is a boy of slushy tears and steaming hands. Go away go away go away go away go away―

Natsuo holds his head between his hands, sticks his face in his knees and holds his breathe; he's not special. Everyone has dreams that scare them. Everyone has weird dreams where their parents hold thier older brother under water until he stops br―

Go away!

He likes the ones where he's falling better, that endless drop. It makes him want to throw up, but he doesn't wake up screaming, doesn't see an amalgamation of his brother and a stranger. Doesn't see flesh sloughing off, burns age old and at the merciless hands of hypothermia.

Natsuo is fourteen. He counts it on his fingers and toes. Takes away a number. The blanket scratches his hands  and the bed makes him ache in restlessness. He's really, really tired.

Touya is gone like a bad dream. He wishes it was him, because sometimes pain is better when he wears it. So he does.

Go away!

He should've died, not Touya. Not Touya. Not him, Touya didn't deserve that, he didn't deserve to die sad, lopsided and ashed up like a smoker. Touya should have died, it should have been Endeavor.

Natsuo has vampire skin and cold blood; melting isn't an option. Natsuo is cold blood and burning temper. Sizzling blue.

Natsuo is fourteen the first time he gets heat stroke. He dreams up two ghosts, his dilapidated brother and a girl with black hair crying at him. Broken Touya Touya Touya does not cry at him, doesn't say anything really.

"Y'know he's sorry, Niisan he's sorry, he really is," the girl says to him, blubbering. "he is he is he is―"

"Natsuo yer gonna die like that," he says, "Natsuo you can't die like me," he says.

"Tou-ya?" Natsuo says, but not really. His mouth doesn't move but―

The thing in his likeness nods, chin wobbling like Touya's really would. It almost makes him smile before he remembers that real Touya is dead. That's why he's doing this. To see Touya again.

He doesn't.

He doesn't, instead he wakes up in a hospital. Instead of his brother, his sister is there. Endeavor must be wherever is more important (and, really, anything is more important than him). Fuyumi-nee is sniffling by the chair next to his bed. She's still in school uniform, so he must've been here a while. Instead of going to Touya he's stuck here. In a hospital with stale blankets and walls. He's stuck with Fuyumi-nee crying (why, though, she should be happy instead, he's practically quirkless―) because of him.

Natsuo thinks that he's still dreaming, though, because they little girl is still there, even when Touya isn't.

(Why does she stay when he's gone, Touya should be here not her―)

Something sour and bitter and burning builds up in his throat. He spits that up, though, because it's hurting his mouth.

"Nacchan!"

The girl flinches and smokes away. Like she's a part of his quirk, foggy and cold.

Natsuo keeps spitting up that nasty things in his stomach. And Fuyumi-nee must've left at some point because there's nobody there, now. It stinks here. Like―

Oh. He just threw up, didn't he?

What an embarrassment.
.
.
.

He should disappear, then, but he's tired, really. So he just sleeps

(touya touya touya touya―

―there was a crash, then. then, a blaze, white fire swallowing touya touya touya whole like a bad dream he won't name. reality can't catch him here.

not when clouds become vapour and the sun is becoming green in the yellow-light of the sky, now when pink clouds dance around the sky merely.

there's a girl he knows but has never met standing by the wayside. her back is turned to him.

"hey!" he says. "hey who are you!?")

(call me kana-chan.)

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.
.

Natsuo doesn't really exist in school. Everyone is trying to talk to him, but he can't make out the words. Brain fog swallows him like a forest fire, he's golden like this. Or maybe more grey, solid outline fading against the background. Backdrop. Natsuo is a side character in his own life and―

He's sick like this. Maybe that's a good thing.

He's still showing good attitude, he's a Todoroki, after all, and even with his fuckup genetics he's still going to live up to Endeavor's meager standard of first in everything. Natsuo doesn't have time for friends, doesn't have time for a personality or hobbies or an ambition that isn't academic.

Even with this education, Endeavor expects him to become an upstanding member of society and if―if he's going to do that, he's doing it by his standard. He's doing it to make the nightmares how away. He's doing it so nobody else is haunted by the smell of burning skin and decaying floorboards.

Natsuo is becoming a doctor. The kind who saves kids like Touya.

(Because Touya was his age when he―)

_

Natsuo's fifteenth birthday is celebrated with mochi ice cream and a half-hearted promise of better times. Maybe neesan didn't mean for it to be half-hearted, but still, it feels like a lie (how can things get better when there's a monster killing everyone in the house?), and Natsuo is too old to wish on shooting stars anymore.

He still does. Maybe that's childish of him, and maybe it's selfish. Maybe maybe maybe―still. He can't help it, he can't, and he knows what Touya would say, sharp teeth, sharp grin, sharp eyes, soft embrace―  but maybe, maybe, maybe Natsuo has distorted his brother. Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe Touya is rounder in his memories, bandaged hands so loving, voice so so so soft like he didn't scream at night and break walls and bones and ambitions in equal measure, and maybe maybe, maybe this is bad for him but―

Natsuo wants something here, something. He doesn't have a lot; visions of little girls screaming screaming screaming in the hallway and crying in cabinets and neechan and na-chan, call me kana-na-chan ― Natsuo is a cold blooded boy, ice makes his skin soggy. Blood makes his hands warm. Warm like summer― Natsuo means summer, Atsu means warm, maybe if he smashed his name into preices he'd fit right, hot like his temper. Natsuo is a burning boy, cold heart and frozen mouth. Shock steeps his chest like a vice.

Natsuo is ― Natsuo isn't fourteen anymore. Happy birthday. Happy birthday.

END SCENE.