weary travelers.

FEAR IS A FRIEND AND FOE AT THE BEST OF TIMES

It's warm, fog curls from his mouth like a childs laughter.

He hates the warmth. Suffocating, bleeding out from a scar covered in burn-salve. Natsuo gargles out something that could have been a whimper, but he's let the sound die in his mind―letting his thoughts haze over to draw a blank.

Think helpful thoughts, that's what Fuyumi tells him. That's what she tells herself when he gets into fights with Endeavor. So he shakes his head and thinks helpful thoughts.

He turns his life eleven years back. To when he was the hardhead child that had a loving mother and no father. He drowns out the noise and tries to focus on the chill that his windows cannot keep out. Focusing on the warmth that his father cannot match no matter how he pushes himself―focusing on the warmth that his mother wrapped around him and that his brother produced in spades. The warmth that promises to freeze Fuyumi whole.

He opens he is eyes, this isn't his bed.

On the living room floor, he sits, eleven years ago and he's loud. He's always been loud, but now it's reserved for only the people who have seen the things he knows shouldn't be shown to children. Eleven years ago, before one of the candles in his body flickered out―the brightest flame, shining a blue as bright as it's wielders eyes, but holding none of the hate and poison that their donor holds, steal in his grip. It vanishes, unsteady, flickering, then it dies.

A terrible fate, but he did not know it would happen then―he has flicked his memories back eleven summers and ten winters before he hates blue and red with all his passion and his mother breaks down―resulting in a trashed tea-pot and a traumatized six-year-old. The sounds are like a caw of birds toying with the satellite up in space. A grainy sound that shouldn't exist; a time when they haven't learned to mask their footsteps. A time when he is a child, a time his masterpiece of a baby brother doesn't know exists. They are children-but-not, trying to keep their sanity together under the chaos unfolding around them.

He is eight years old and he can smile without thinking―it isn't a skill yet, but he's good at being happy.

Young-Natsuo is full of enough candor that it overflows to his family―his eldest brother, who is far too bitter at the cusp of a childhood he never got; young-Natsuo doesn't understand that the reason his mother― his beloved mother, the saint that not even a god could usurp from their hearts ―avoids his kind, eldest brother.

He doesn't understand why his eldest brother― with a blurry face and a smile that looks like his mothers, yet somehow his own (it's lined with a dreary sadness that threatens to choke him whole) ―is hurting himself because the monster with his eyes tells him to set himself on fire when he is made of a patchwork-flurry of ice and cement.

Natsuo flips his life eleven summers back, to when he didn't know what the smell of burning flesh was. When he didn't know why his brother woke up screaming sorrows into his hands.

Then time races foreword in a blink―and he doesn't know what chapter he's in. His hands are like chipped television static, shattering under his breathe. He's older than when he was eight. It's like a dream, maybe he fell asleep. His hands tremble in fear; but they aren't his. A mockery of all the things he's done in a faulty attempt to avoid the demon that lurks in the corner of his minds eye. (His fingertips are not calloused with frostbite.)

Grass flushes to brown beneeth his fingertips and melts to scorched floorboards. Charr chips on the sides of ripped curtains and broken words etched to fragile bones enough times that they snap. His body pulls itself together and he holds in the tears and molds them to rage―shapes the fear into hate.

He tumbles through a window and poison fills his mind when he sees cyan eyes full of contempt and disappointment. They aren't his eldest brothers, too high up. A voice says something, but it just comes into his ears like he's underwater. His fingers are shaking and his joints go stiff, they lock into place. The voice gets louder but he still can't make out anything―like wearing foggy glasses in the rain.

His hands are numb and his tongue is frozen in his mouth. Teeth freeze, his eyes fade―he might be breaking but he can't feel it. Frost burns his throat enough to swallow him whole.

Then―then it stops. Everything is gone, but he's on fire. Bubbling like smoke from the outside in. It crawls from his arm and he doesn't know what's happening. It spreads from his throat to the air around him in a glass-shattering trill. Whoever's screaming needs to calm down, because everything hurts. Maybe his mother is hurting. That doesn't make any sense though, because the monster is standing front and center. Is his eldest brother hurt?

"That is your punishment, boy." It's quavered and he scarcely makes it out from under the shrill sound of his own yelps, but the words register, and so does the fact it's him that's screaming.

Natsuo wakes up, his hand over his mouth as he trembles. Praying that his brother is safe in (arth thou in heaven, oh kind one?) heaven, that he never has to hurt again, that he can like boys without the monster at the ends of his eyes telling him that he's a failure. 

He hopes that God does exist so that he doesn't have to be the only one to know his life is a half-written sob story with tear-stained pages and frayed ends. He hopes that the afterlife is full of nothing, that it is just a void, that he is doomed to be nothing but worthless; because some bitter part of him  thinks that if God, or gods, exist, then they let the demon in human skin destroy his flame without repercussion.

(He wants to drown his thoughts in the tears he's held back.)

(He tries, really, he tries, but the only thing that greets him is frostbite numbing his senses and a fog over his eyes like a static film.)

(You're such a crybaby, the monster shrieks. Real men don't cry, then you always were a failure.)

―

Natsuo is hiding in his room when he gets a text from Ochako telling him to meet up at a very shady address near Izuku's apartment―for 'important' information. It's a surprise to him, but he leaves a note on his bed for Fuyumi anyway. Endeavor doesn't need to know shit. (He never does, he should stay in his own fucking business and leave Natsuo alone―)

Off he goes, jumping from his window into the streets with a soundless thud. The train station is next to the school, so he takes the bus first.

It's quiet, but the anticipation keeps his thoughts rolling. What if Shouto caught him? What if Fuyumi tattled? (He knew it was irrational but she'd always wanted a normal family.) God―what if Endeavor bumped into him? He always patrolled in the suspicious parts of town, and the slums were filled with criminals. What would happen then? Would he get hit? Grounded? Beat? Seared? Would his arms match, bubbling and pink, and burning? Would he go back to the days where he cried over Touya? When he cried over the voice that tells him that if he was better― if Endeavor wasn't right ―then he could have stopped it all.

No. He could make up some bullshit about needing to take pictures for an assignment.

Yeah, that could work―just be angry. Tell him that it's none of his fucking business and since when did you care!? It might work. Endeavor can't hurt him, not in public. There's bound to be an upside to the staring, right?

His arm itches, but he refrains from tearing it apart (he want to find new skin, to watch himself anew). Ochako has good news, no need to ruin the mood. Get a hold of yourself, Natsuo. He'd probably ignore you anyway.

In, hold, out. Nothing can hurt you. Not anymore. You have Izuku and Tomura and Ochako. In, hold, out. 

You are safe. 

You are safe. 

You are safe.

If he repeats it enough, he might believe it. (He'll never believe it, so long as saints are punished and sinners are rewarded. Ever greedily they take everything. Maybe God is a sinner―it took his family, his smile, and his ability to cry―filling the hole in their empty hearts. Taking and taking until he has no more candor and he hides in the shadow he once cast. Touya would know what to do.)

God, he's such a mess.