For Nethie
The first thing that Iida Tenya noticed about the man that fell in his forest that wasn't his first aid training (two thick lacerations to the back, many thin scratches all over, eyes tired, signs of fatigue-) was that he was incredibly light for his build. Iida expected him to be heavier, and yet he almost jerked him up when he finally lifted him from his landing. Iida thought it could mean something worse, like malnutrition, so it only made him hurry to reach his farmhouse just a short walk away.
So running was easy with such a light load, and with his familiarity of the forest he was able to move quite quickly. With such an odd cargo and the severity of the situation, it made the short distance seem to take forever to cross.
The boy groaned something unintelligible about halfway back, eyes opening and closing in inconsistent intervals. Iida pressed the torn shirt closer, the thick fabric soaked through with blood, just enough pressure to stop the bleeding without (hopefully) causing discomfort.
Then pressing the wad even tighter, because discomfort is bleeding out in a forest in the middle of nowhere, alone and afraid and cold. This man needed reassurance and medical treatment.
"Everything will be okay! My house is nearby, and me and my brother are trained in first aid!"
The boy almost hissed in response, eyes bright with some emotion that he could not quite understand. Iida readjusted his grip, and the boy did not flinch. "Everything is alright, I promise."
The boy seemed satisfied with that answer, finally closing his eyes, letting out the smallest of breaths. His blood soaked the remains of Iida's shirt and jeans, making them stick to his skin like old glue.
"Where the hell did he even come from?" Tensei finally asked, staring at the boy they finally moved onto Tenya's bed. "He doesn't look local, especially with his dark skin, and I've definitely never seen him in town. And those injuries-"
"I'm just glad I saw him when I did. He could be dead."
The boy's face had a smear of his own blood across the cheek, his expression painful even in sleep. Tensei had took great care on the stitches, but even after sanitizing and scrubbing away the dirt the wounds looked disgusting and pitiful.
"You know those marks look like-"
The boy sucked in a deep breath, making both of the brothers jump. Tensei's chair careened forward and hit the foot of the bed. "Oh fuck-"
The boy shifted in his sleep onto his side, eyes tightening as he did so. His dry lips parted slightly, giving an almost peaceful look despite the scratches and cuts all over his body.
"We should let him sleep." Tensei whispered. "He'll probably not even be awake until tomorrow."
"I will stay with him, just in case." Tenya slumped into his desk, which was clean but slightly dusty with disuse. The night's events only had seem to catch up with him the second he sat down. He turned on a lamp before settling, every muscle in his body screaming in protest. "I do not want him to tear those stitches, or wake up alone. After such an ordeal, he needs that much."
Tensei raised his hands, ever so slightly stained with the boy's blood. "I have to wash this off first. Please, get some sleep little brother."
"I will. Goodnight, Tensei."
As soon as the man left, Tenya stood from the desk and into the closet, finding his favorite thick blanket to use as a liner in the cold winter. He carefully tucked it around the boy's unconscious body, movements slow to not to wake him.
The boy slept on, in warm blankets on a comfortable bed as the stars scraped against the sky, mourning a loss of their own.
The boy woke up just a few hours after the storm had blown itself out, after fitfully rolling around in his sleep, and after crying out in pain that made Tenya wince. His eyes opened, wide and just barely prickled with tears.
Iida Tenya walked slowly to the boy's side. "You were in an accident. You have horrible cuts on your back, but you will recover with time," he said slowly.
The boy didn't seem to understand a word he said. Iida tried again, taking the boy's hand into his own. "You were hurt, but you're going to be alright."
The boy still didn't appear to understand, and after a minute of studying his face, Iida understood. The boy definitely wasn't from around here with his freckles and green eyes and thin fingers. He didn't look like anybody Iida has seen from his rare visits into town.
He propped the boy up on the stiff but soft pillows he had taken off of the couch a few hours before, and gestured to his bandages. "Me and my brother were able to stitch up your wounds and stop the bleeding. You may have some trouble breathing, but I must ask you to not loosen the bandages-"
Tears rolled down the boy's cheeks, and soft, wheezing sobs wracked his small body. Without thinking, Iida wrapped him into a hug, mindful of the awful lacerations and careful with the bandages. The boy clung back, taking fistfulls of his sweater and sobbing into his shoulder, quivering horribly in his strong grip.
"I'm sorry. You're going to be alright." Iida murmured gently as the poor boy wept. "You're going to be okay. I promise."
Somehow, deep in his heart, Iida knew it was a promise he won't be able to fulfill.
-
"Iida Tenya." Iida pointed to himself at his desk the next day, his brother watching them from the doorway with a bowl of cereal. The boy had only prodded his own bowl before drinking it like soup, leaving the spoon untouched on his nightstand.
"Iida Tensei," he pointed to his brother, who only gave a small wave. The boy's eyes didn't follow to where he was pointing, just stayed glued to his hand. Like he had never seen someone point before, and didn't know what it meant.
"Uh, over here kid." His head jerked to Tensei. "I'm Tensei. Tenya, just stick to first names. Having two people named Iida isn't probably a good idea."
"Ah, yes." Tenya looked to the boy again, who seemed to be staring at nothing. "I am Tenya!"
"Ten..ya." the boy stuttered out, blinking twice at Tenya. "Ten-ya?"
"Yes! That's me!" Tenya grinned, happy to see the boy finally moving away from his dissociative state.
The boy looked back to Tensei, his mouth working but no sound coming out. "Ten.. say?" He finally croaked out.
"Tensei." Tensei said patiently.
"Ten…. say?"
"Eh, good enough."
The boy turned back to Tenya, and drank from his cereal bowl again, a milk mustache forming on his upper lip. A single cornflake stuck to his cheek.
"What's your name?" he asked, pointing to the boy when he set the bowl down on his lap, the milk drained from the bowl to reduce the possibility of spills. The cornflake was wiped away by Tenya without a second thought.
"Your name." He asked again when the boy only touched his cheek were the cornflake resided. "Tenya." he pointed to himself.
"You?" he pointed to the boy.
The boy stared, then his eyes lit up in understanding, and let out a series of sharp clicks and hisses and "ck's" that was about fifteen seconds in length. Tenya and Tensei stared, mouths slightly agape.
"Izuku..?" He asked, politely. The boy's eyes lit up, mouth finally turning ever so upwards in a small smile. It wasn't close to the sound that had come out of the boy's mouth at all, but unbeknownst to Tenya, the young man had liked it instantly.
"Izuku," he repeated, rolling the name over his tongue. "Izuku."
"It's definitely a name, if anything else," Tensei said from behind his own cereal bowl. This time the boy didn't turn, seeming enthralled by his upturned reflection in his unused spoon that he gingerly picked up with the intent to inspect it.
"Izuku," Tenya muttered. "It doesn't sound like he's from around here, so that rules that possibility out."
Tensei wheeled his way into the kitchen, empty bowl and spoon balanced on his lap. "Just focus on healing him for now. Maybe give him some more Ibuprofen in an hour?" he said as he wheeled out.
"Will do!" Tenya said loudly. Izuku only watched him with big eyes that seemed to swallow everything they saw, and then focused his attention back on the spoon.
Tenya felt his chest go tight with an unfamiliar emotion.
Tenya showed Izuku pictures of flags from a book he had gotten in the library, shapes of different countries, even bits of sentences in different languages, to no avail. The boy had picked up English quickly, muttering "not there," to every country, flag, and language he brought home.
With every passing day Izuku regained strength, much quicker then Tensei or Tenya had expected of him. Within a week he was walking around the small farmhouse, inspecting each corner of the house before settling on a windowsill, watching the horizon with those intense, green eyes.
And just a few weeks later came Tenya's only hint on where Izuku might have come from. He had carefully wrote strange symbols on the margins of one of the books he checked out from the library, complicated and evenly spaced. Iida thought it was just scribbling until he studied it.
His eyes widened, and he involuntary let out a loud gasp. It was writing. Writing he had never seen before. It looked almost like Arabic, but it was too blocky and written in the opposite direction. Tenya stared at Izuku, who was wearing a small but rare smile as he watched Tenya.
"Is this, is this the language you speak?" he asked excitedly, only slightly aware of his hands gesturing wildly to the script.
Izuku probably couldn't tell what he was asking, but he nodded anyway. Tenya jumped into the seat of his desk and turned on his ancient computer all under a second, blowing the dust off the screen and thumbing the end of the print carefully, like it would reveal its meaning if Tenya stared at it long enough.
"What does it say?"
Izuku only watched him with those wide eyes, before letting out a piping and reedy hiss followed by a sharp "Schek!" and a jubilant grin.
"Oh yes, you probably don't know the words in English. But worry not, I will be able to figure out what it says! I promise!"
He didn't see Izuku's guilty look, or the nervous bite of his lip.
"Not there."
It had been two days and Iida had almost been at the computer the entire time, his neat little notebook almost filled with notes about dead languages, dialects, all dead ends and nowhere close to a match.
Izuku's hand clasped his own over the mouse, forcing his hand away. "I'm so close, please Izuku let me-"
"Not there." He said again.
"But I've looked so long! Is it a dialect of Arabic-Latin, its so close to matching the script! It's from so far away but there must be a logical explanation of how you got here, and Arabic-Latin is spoken by 0.003 percent of the Indian population-"
"Not there." Izuku looked sad, guilty.
"But it has to be! You had to have come from nearby, and-"
"Not there." He said, pointing to the books on the foot of Tenya's bed. "Not there." To the computer. "Not there." To the notebook that Tenya had clenched in one fist.
"Not...there?" Tenya looked to his computer with his several tabs open. Then it hit him.
Izuku probably didn't want him to look anymore. Maybe it was too hard of a language to find, understand, learn, decipher. He remembered the series of clicks and hisses that make up Izuku's actual name, and how Izuku seemed to float just a second too high in the air when he jumped, how he would watch the sky for hours, searching or longing for something he couldn't put a name too. How Izuku jumped about a mile in the air when he first heard the cows mooing, or hid behind the couch, pressed between the wall and back during electrical storms. How he didn't seem to know what pointing was meant for, or how to clap. How quick he was to learn, to help, to touch, to see, to taste.
Like it was his first time experiencing these things.
"Okay. I won't look anymore," he said, leaning forward in this chair with a slight grunt to switch off the computer. "No more looking."
"Sorry," Izuku said, softly. "Sorry, Tenya."
The warm, featherly feeling in Tenya's chest bloomed once more as the boy ducked away from Tenya's gaze.
Izuku was a great help on the farm, more than Tensei would admit. Since Tensei's accident, he hadn't been able to help with much aside from tending to their raised vegetable garden (that Tenya had built) and sewing up holes in Tenya's clothing.
Seeing Izuku follow his little brother around like a lost puppy was pretty entertaining, too. The kid didn't know how to sweep, or brush a cat, or push a wheelbarrow but he could make things grow in the ground like magic. Tenya had taken him into town and they came back laden with many different seeds and starter plants, Izuku muttering happily in half hisses.
Tenya had commented on Izuku's sheer strength before, but the first time Tensei had seen it in action was when Izuku climbed into the bed of the truck, and lifted five bags of topsoil over his shoulder without even hesitating. Tensei gapped as Izuku hopped down, landing lightly on his feet, and walked to the small shed, poking the door open with his bare foot.
"I told you; he's strong." Tenya said over dinner, as Izuku devoured a whole can of green beans, barely pausing to chew and swallow. "He wants to help, too. I see how happy he is in the garden, or when he's feeding the cows."
"I'm not too worried about his happiness. He seems to be happy just being with you." Tensei winked playfully, and let out a small chuckle as red blush spread across his younger brother's face.
"I'm-, hey that is-, argh! No!" Tenya sputtered. "That is not what it is! I promise!"
"Tenya?" Izuku, probably drawn out of his green bean stupor by Tenya's agitated tone, looked up from his second can of green beans. "Tenya alright?"
"Yes Izuku, I am alright." Tenya quickly shoved some of his dinner in his mouth, not meeting his eyes. Izuku only nodded, before going back to devouring his own dinner.
Tensei hid his smile with a sip of his iced tea.
It was one of those days where Izuku never left the roof, bare toes curled just over the uncleaned gutter, and never taking his eyes off of the sky, even when it rained, or when the sun was a bit too hot to handle even for Tensei.
Tenya was never quite sure what to do in those situations other than comfort the boy when he finally came down, wheezing soft, airy sobs into his chest. Shove a bit of hot tea in his own hands, before both of them falling asleep on the couch, words lost between the two of them. It was exhausting for everyone involved, but Izuku seemed to appreciate Tenya's attempts at cheering him up.
But once, as Izuku climbed onto the roof one morning via the ancient gutter, Tenya followed. With a ladder of course, because he didn't think the rusty gutter would hold his weight for very long.
They sat next to each other, bare feet and hands just barely touching, necks craned back to watch the sky.
As the first sniffle came, Tenya grabbed Izuku's hand while pointing to one of those big fluffy clouds, turned pink by the oncoming sunrise, and quickly said, "Look! It looks like a whale."
Izuku stared at the cloud. "Look like a… whale?"
"Yes! Like the picture I showed you yesterday? And that one, below it-" Tenya pointed to the wispy contrail below the whale.
"-An Ishflematrak!" Izuku interrupted excitedly, before realizing what he did. A furious blush bloomed across his face. "Sorry, sorry, sorry."
"No, you are fine! No sorry, alright?" Tenya smiled, then turned back to the cloud in question. "What is an.. Ishflematick?"
"Ishflematrak," Izuku corrected, with those weird k's that almost curve upwards on the end. "Flying… sky whale, I think?"
Izuku's k's turned upwards on the "think," almost like he couldn't switch from whatever mysterious language he was speaking in to English very easily. Tenya nodded, deciding not to point out the mispronunciation.
It became a game, to find pictures in the sky and laugh at the different words they came up with. Izuku found many cows in the sky, or maybe he was just commenting on the cows mooing. Hours went by, with the impediment of the day's work being done by Tensei, who came out at one point to the raised beds with a watering can.
And then their giggling calmed, backs resting on the warm shingles of the roof, and Tenya realized he never let go of Izuku's hand.
"You know," Tenya begun, glancing sideways at the boy with an anxious knot in his chest. "You don't have to cry alone. Or be alone, when you get sad." Tenya squeezed his hand in earnest, smiling as kindly as he could. "You don't have to go through this alone. You have me, and Tensei."
Izuku squeezed his hand back, trying to convey how much he knew that already, but that he loved and appreciated Tenya for telling him. He never wanted to be alone, not when he had Tenya around.
"Thank you." His voice was silvery with tears, his hand squeezing Tenya's once more. "Thank you, thank you."
"Do you want to go back?"
The question was sparked at the lake, where they had spent the hot saturday afternoon skipping stones into the pond and catching frogs before jumping into the cool water, and were now resting with their shirts drying on the fencepost, relaxing on the pebbles that made up a small shore. Izuku was flipping a small black stone back and forth in his hands, eyes on the sky once more. From a distance, the cattle that had taken a liking to Izuku watched with warm eyes.
It was a question sparked by many things that have come together in Tenya's mind as simple facts, truths, even if the full story would be just as unbelievable if Tenya had ever spoken it aloud. It was a question that was finally settled when he saw those healing scars on Izuku's back, that looked so much like the pictures in an article he read so long ago.
It was a question that was finally asked when Iida Tenya had found his father's old flying manuels in the run down barn, stowed just under the worn seat of the cockpit. When he had opened it, a picture of Tensei, Tenya, and of their late mother had fluttered out of the inside pocket.
"Go back?" Izuku repeated, bewildered.
"Do you want to go back home?" He gestured to the sky, where the sky was dotted with fluffy clouds, ever so evenly spaced. If Tenya looked closely, he could see the shapes of the Ishflematraks Izuku had drawn for him just a few days before. "To the Ishflematrak and the other things you told me about. To your family."
Izuku fell silent, his face stony, before ducking behind his own hair, pulling his knees up to his chest, his lithe form quivering. "I can't."
And just as natural as the many hugs before, Tenya wrapped his arms around the young man that he had found in his forest, bleeding and dying, and the boy that was ever so curious about Tenya's world and so ready to learn everything he could, and he made a promise to himself.
Izuku fluttered between the different aisles of the hardware store as Tenya talked pensively to the only employee, gathering metal plating and screws and a replacement battery for the drill that always ran dry.
When he was just about to check out, tallying his total purchase to his credit card and mentally calculating how he could save money this month by eating out of the garden, Izuku tapped his shoulder with an energetic "Tenya!"
"Yes, Izuku? Oh-!" Izuku had bent the multi-colored wires on aisle three into some sort of circuit or headband, with complicated knots that almost looked like roses at different intervals around the circumference. A basket weave made up the band, making it almost look like a crown. "Oh Izuku it's so intricate! Did you make this in the short time we were here?"
Izuku nodded excitedly, before placing the crown delicately on Tenya's head. "Fits."
The clerk wore a thoughtful smile as Tenya turned away from Izuku, his cheeks heated and eyes wide. "I'll let y'all have that for free."
"What? Oh no, it's of no trouble-"
The clerk waved their hand, silencing Tenya. "It's no problem. That wire was 'bout outta stock anyway, and ain't nobody want to buy only a foot of wire, no matta how cheap."
She handed back Tenya's card and receipt with flourish. "Just consider it a gift, from one friend to another."
One the far drive home, through the thick forest and open fields, Izuku hummed happily every time he glanced over at Tenya from his perch in the passenger's side.
The plane was a beautiful thing, of fiberglass wings and two spars in the belly that were well oiled, even after years of abandonment. It used to be a crop duster in the days were their family grew all the crops across the valley, but now with that land sold and with their own cattle to worry about, it has sat alone with nothing but the barn cats for company.
But even his father's plane was not immune to the passage of time. A nest of mice had made their way through the wiring in the engine. The metal plating on the inside of the hull had cracked with rust. At one point Tensei had torn out the back seat to replace the seat on their ancient tractor, but it had been thrown haphazardly back in when their neighbors had given them their spare.
Tenya had fallen into his old habits of repairment when he lifted the engine cover from under the plane's wing, scattering the mice that lived in its pistons directly into the mouths of the waiting barncats. He begun to thread new wire in, mindful of how the instructions on his yellowed manual had changed when Tensei had flown it. A p78 wire no longer ran the length, but had been replaced by two seperate p59s to improve the airflow of piston 16. The motor mount had long since been bent, but still caused a problem on windy days. Tensei's neat handwriting lined the margins of each repair, but even so Tenya found himself getting confused.
He brought his manuels up to each dinner to discuss the repairs with Tensei, who was occupied with keeping Izuku out of the barn on the days Tenya went in there.
"I want it to be a surprise," Tenya had whispered, long after Izuku had gone up to the room they made for him in the attic. "I can distract him with cattle for the most part, but I still want you to distract him with other things when I'm fixing it."
Tensei nodded, a knowing smile forming on his face. "I've always wanted to teach someone how to knit. You were always impossible, but I bet he would like it a lot."
Each dinner the brothers huddled over the aged notes, too busy to do it during the day. Izuku had joined them, but with his inability to read Tensei's handwriting and the complicated script, he ignored them in favor of g͓͓̭̙̳r͍̹̳͍̬e͉͓̣̯͖̫ͅe͖͔̺̙͉͔͢n̺̼̗͔̻͓ ͉̼͚̹͖b͔̹͙̞e̯̪͕̺͚͞a̵͔̩̟͎n̲̝̣̝͇͈ͅs̴̮̗̪̖͔̝̟.
The nights were filled with Izuku's fluttering snores above him, Tensei's sleep talking from the room to his right, and the occasional catfight or coyote howl. Tenya poured his energy into fixing that plane, making his own notes of repairs until he had both the flight manual and repair manual memorized front to cover.
It affected his farmwork. Some days Izuku had to shake him awake far after the sun rose.
It would take Tenya a while to admit it, but he didn't mind being awoken by Izuku. He always had that soft look about him, those eyes watching every movement and twitch. His hands were soft, and his voice floated like feathers around his broken English.
He wouldn't mind living the rest of his life with him, as long as Izuku had that smile.
The seatbelts had been torn out long ago when Tensei and their father had piloted the craft, in need to reach every switch and dial both in front and behind them. Tensei had done the same in the passenger seat in a fit of teenage rebellion.
Tenya had finally found them both, in one of the several metal cabinets that lined the back wall. He had carefully resewed the thick fabric back into place, cursing as he pricked his finger every time. He was not one for small things, like a needle and thread. His hands were thick and big, calloused with work from the farm.
That didn't make sewing any less of a valuable skill. His pants with torn knees sewed a thousand times by his patient brother was proof of that.
In a way, the needle and thread reminded him of Izuku. Thin, delicate, but impossibly strong. Tenya found himself thinking more and more about Izuku as he worked, rethreading engine parts on pure autopilot before realizing his mistake and going back to fix it.
And then one chilly autumn morning, it was finished.
"Izuku, Izuku, wake up!"
For once he was the one waking Izuku up and not the other way around, but Tenya was too excited to dwell on that simple fact.
Izuku's eyes finally blinked open, bleary eyed in the early hour and only looked confused.
"Get these on!" He shoved a pair of winter clothing into Izuku's hands. "I'll be waiting in the kitchen. I have something very important to show you!"
He jumped down from the attic ladder that has become a permanent fixture in their small hallway, before rushing to his own room and putting on his too small winter jacket and thick jeans stuffed with a cotton liner.
He walked to and fro in the kitchen, arms stiff as a board and swinging in excitement. When Izuku finally made his way down, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he grabbed his hand and hurried them to the barn.
In the crisp dawn weather he finally threw open the barn doors all the way, before pulling out the old plane proudly, refurbished to perfection like it was brand new.
Izuku's eyes ran over the plane with curiosity and awe. He had no idea what it was.
Tenya pressed his old pair of worn leather gloves and goggles into Izuku's hands, before putting on his own. His goggles, yellow with age, used to be his father's and now fit him perfectly.
He secured Izuku in the passenger seat, before hoping in the front and pushing the rudder into the neutral position. The plane hummed to life with a roar, the propeller spinning one rickety cycle before evening out. Tenya shoved his goggles down on his face, released the clutch, shoved his foot down on the taxi shift, and they lurched forward on the overgrown runway.
Izuku grabbed Tenya's shoulder, eyes wide with fear. "Tenya! Water!"
Tenya could barely hear him over the roar of the engine.
"L, Lake!" Izuku pointed frantically at the small pond.
"Hold on!"
The wings of the craft just caught the early morning breeze, gliding over the lake perfectly. Izuku had buried his face into Tenya's shoulder. Tenya adjusted the sticky rudder to gain altitude, the flaps of the wings adjusting with a rusty clank.
Izuku jerked out of his seat, and peered out of the starboard side of the plane, before letting out a gasp of delight that just barely carried over the wind.
Then he straightened up and let out a hearty laugh, arms thrown over his head and eyes closed. The biggest smile Tenya had ever seen stretched across his face. He looked so at home in the wind, with his hair tangling in the crisp morning air.
"Careful!" He yelled over the wind, putting his hand on Izuku's leg to prevent him from standing up further. Izuku's eyes landed on him with a glimmer of understanding, before adjusting himself so he sat more balanced on the torn seat.
Tenya turned back to the controls as Izuku's arms wrapped around him again, clutching him tightly. He felt the tickle of words hissed into his ear, the words lost on the wind but the meaning still felt.
Thank you.