This story is the first in the "Hero of the Day," series that will be a collection of short one-shots showcasing one of our favorite heroes from BNHA.
Oasis
"I'd like you to stay another week, Aizawa," the doctor said in a voice that sounded like it was seldom disagreed with. "You need to stay another week," he reiterated.
"I've already been here a week," Aizawa replied. He was tired of the room. Tired of the constant 'in and out' of nurses and doctors and visitors. Tired of the machine beeps that kept waking him. How was he supposed to heal if he couldn't sleep? And if he could smell, he would probably be tired of the medicinal, overly sanitized stink of the hospital as well. But he had not regained his sense of smell yet. Who knows if he ever would?
"You've been here 4 days," the doctor corrected, an arrogant slant to his words. Aizawa couldn't see him, but he could imagine the smug look on the doctor's face. Aizawa's right eye was still bandaged up tightly. They were worried he could still lose it. The vision out of his left eye was still blurry from the treatments and he was told to keep it lightly bandaged most of the time. It was still sensitive to light.
"Your legs were fractured in several places. They're mended due to the healing quirks of our physicians, but you have to stay off of them or you can re-injure. The soft casts on both your legs and your left arm are not a license to continue on like normal. You have to stay off of your legs. Your right arm is in a hard cast because of how mangled it was. This is serious Aizawa." When Aizawa heard the word 'mangled,' he felt slightly nauseated.
"I'll stay in bed as much as possible doctor. In fact, I'm a connoisseur of naps. I go to bed early, and I wake up late. I'll get plenty of rest." Aizawa's mouth was dry. He wished the doctor would go away so he could quit talking. He wanted peace and quiet.
"I'm making a note that I don't agree with your release. You'll have to sign forms saying you are leaving despite my recommendation."
Aizawa couldn't sign anything in his condition. "I give verbal consent that I am leaving against medical advice. Now cut me loose, doctor."
...
Yamada helped him settle in. Bottled waters and all the bottles of medicine were on the nightstand next to the bed. Aizawa could walk, if you could call it walking, maybe shamble was a better word, to the bathroom and to the kitchen. He'd be fine.
"Buddy, I really think I should stay the night, at least your first night home," Yamada remarked.
"I'm fine, Mic. I have my phone if I need you. You're only a few minutes away."
"Shota. You can't even unlock your phone, let alone call someone all bandaged up like a mummy."
He bristled when Yamada called him Shota. It meant he was worried about something and in this case it was him, and he wasn't having it. His body was healed. He was going to be fine. He just needed to rest a couple of days.
"Crashing on the couch, man. Not taking 'no' for an answer," Yamada said.
Aizawa sighed with annoyance and then he regretted the gesture because it felt like his mended broken ribs were tearing his insides up. Logically he knew they were no longer splintered bones threatening his organs. But that was how it felt.
...
A loud voice woke him. Why did Yamada have to be so damn loud?
"Yamada?" he called out. Aizawa's voice was the dust on the bones of a long-forgotten skeleton in a hidden tomb.
"He's at the school, he had to teach."
This voice was familiar, but he couldn't place it for some reason. It was deep and low and even. He couldn't see anything due to the bandages over his eyes. Was he back at the hospital? No. The bed he lay in was definitely his. He was in pain. This pain was different than any he had felt before. It came from deep within him and instead of radiating out, it undulated and receded into itself. His mind was muddled and he was disoriented, the pain wreaking havoc on his logical thought.
"What do you need?" the voice asked.
"Nothing," Aizawa's voice grated. He lay there, the throb of pain making it feel as if his whole body was pulsing. "I just need peace and quiet so I can sleep. Why are you so loud?" He managed somehow to push the words out of his mouth. They were sandpaper sliding against his throat. There was a long silence.
"Aizawa… I think you may have woken yourself up. You were moaning loudly in your sleep… From the pain. Will you take the pills? They'll help with your pain. And I have water for you. Here." He suddenly felt the plastic tip of a straw at his lips. He kept his teeth tightly shut.
"No…" Aizawa muttered. The voice he couldn't recognize was deep and low and even like lazy waves against the shore. It lulled him back to sleep.
...
He had fallen out of bed. He had to go to the restroom, but his legs had given out underneath him. Seconds later he felt someone pick him up like he weighed nothing. He felt steamy waves of heat emitting from the arms and chest that cradled him. "No. Put me down," Aizawa muttered.
"But…"
"Down. Now." The one massive arm lowered his legs to the floor. Aizawa pulled at the bandages over his left eye. His vision was still blurry. He looked down and saw the floor and his legs. They were both in soft casts. Bulky and inconvenient.
"I can do this by myself…" Aizawa whispered since that was all his vocal cords could manage at the moment. He tried to walk, then he tried to shamble. He realized he couldn't do either. A large strong hand like the branches of a tree were under his left arm pit and they never left him. With this help, he managed to make it to his bathroom and had to lean against the wall for quite some time before he could rally up the strength to relieve himself. His intrusive helpmeet had the sense to stay outside the bathroom door. As he turned away from the toilet, his legs decided they had enough of keeping his broken body upright. As he fell, somehow his unwanted guest managed to barrel through the door and catch him before he hit the tile. Their branch-like arms were strong and unrelenting. The body, a trunk that would not falter.
"Put me down you stupid tree," Aizawa murmured his chapped mouth feeling like the dragging of cactus needles across his lips as he spoke.
"No," the tree stated simply, as a tree would.
He was carried to his bed and placed gently upon it. He felt blankets being moved carefully around his battered body. He now felt the straw at his lips again. He kept his mouth clenched tight.
Aizawa's left eye bandage had come undone. He looked at the tree. It was lightly smoking and was no longer the mighty redwood it had been before. Now it was a sapling that had grown too tall and had not had the sense to grow out, to expand its branches, to nourish itself so it could grow thick rings and have a firm foundation.
"Aizawa. You need to drink some water, you're getting dehydrated. You also need your medicine. If you don't take it, you'll be at risk for infection. And they will help with the pain. Please."
Aizawa closed his eyes and he imagined the tree had transformed back into the gentle waves of water. But it wasn't a beach, it was the bubbling ripples of a mountain stream that meandered into a mighty waterfall. Its crashing water sang out deep and low and even. Aizawa licked his dry lips. The rhythmic waves caused him to slip into sleep once more.
...
Scorching desert. His sunburnt skin sizzled with the moisture of his sweat causing it to evaporate almost immediately. He was dragging his broken body over the sweltering mounds of unforgiving grit. He could see something in the distance. The hazy surging of a palm tree and a swelling, undulating blue strip of space below it. An oasis, but it was too far away.
"You need to take your meds, Aizawa." The voice pulled him from his dream. Along with the immense pain he now felt heat radiating from every inch of his body. Aizawa was fevered. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't see anything. They were bandaged up. "Your fever is too high, take these it will help." He felt the straw at his lips. This time he opened his mouth. He couldn't wrap his lips around the straw. It was as if his body forgot. Or maybe his body was betraying him. It was angry he had let it get so damaged and battered and broken. Suddenly he felt the wet and intense cold of ice on his lips. After several cubes had quenched the dry cracks of his lips, he felt the straw at his mouth. "Try again," the voice encouraged, but was firm. This time Aizawa could draw the water from the cup in small drafts. The frigidness stung as it went in his parched mouth and down his desiccated throat. "Now let's try the pills. Here, take these." He felt the pills at his lips. He took them. He did what he was told now.
...
His fevered dreams were interrupted with moments of wakefulness. At these times he was met with ice and water and pills. He had no sense of how much time was passing. During one of his brief waking periods, he was given some sort of milky substance through the straw that tasted of vitamins and he vehemently spit it out. He heard a single profanity uttered and then complaints about all the mess and how he now had to change his shirt. This made Aizawa grin. It was worth the pain that shot through his face as he made the expression. He had only wished that Yagi could have seen his grin through the bandages. He tried to imagine Yagi's incredulous face as he drifted back to sleep.
...
"Yagi?" He waited to hear the deep reassuring tones, but they never came. He was alone. Aizawa would wait then. It was easy to close his eyes and drift back to sleep, but he knew the pain would wake him again.
Their faces. His students' faces. Eyes glistening in the sunshine. Teeth flashing grins. The constant wave of voices talking. But then a great white light ignited and washed over them. An angry, all-encompassing starkness that bleached them all out. Like the skull of a wildebeest baked in the unforgiving desert sun. And they started to dissolve. To fade away into the bleak whiteness of nothing. It hurt his eyes, it was too bright; he couldn't see them. He couldn't save them.
He awoke again in distress. He had called out to his students before he realized it was just a dream. Now the wave of fresh pain hit him. His joints throbbed and his face felt as if it was sunken in and had no form.
"Yagi?" he mumbled, hopeful.
"I am here. I had to leave to get you some different meds. I had your doctor call in something stronger to get your fever down and to lessen your pain since you still seem to be hurting quite a bit." When his voice sounded, it immediately calmed Aizawa and soothed him. He rationalized that his broken body now equated this voice to a relief of pain and some comfort. He felt a straw at his mouth. He took in the cold water and then the pills followed. There were more than usual, but he would not question it. He only wished for sleep, but a dreamless one.
...
The light was different now. He was no longer in his bedroom. He opened his left eye, it wasn't bandaged and his vision was no longer blurry. He looked down at his chest and saw he was wearing a different shirt, an old white one he had that had a large faded, peeling label on the front. His legs were no longer covered by the soft casts. Deep gashes that had been stitched expertly closed still glared an angry red. They would leave knotted white scars in their wake. He felt the coolness of his bare legs exposed to the chilly air of his apartment. Suddenly a long-fingered hand came into view and it started to wrap a gauzy bandage around his left leg, it tickled more than it was painful. The medicines seemed to be working. He wasn't in immense pain anymore, just a dull constant ache. His eyes scanned a bit higher and he saw the top of his blonde head. Two long sections of his hair hung down, one brushed his knee. The deeply shadowed eyes were concentrating on the task at hand. Aizawa's chest had a strange feeling of tightening suddenly. Maybe he was having a heart attack? Or maybe it was something else. Either way, he was so exhausted. "Yagi."
"Aizawa, you're awake," The gaunt face looked up at him and smiled. Blue irises sparkled. "If you feel up to it I made some soup. You haven't had solid food in almost 2 weeks. I can bring it to you here or we can try the table." 2 weeks? That many days had passed since the USJ attack? Aizawa thought. Yagi's voice was no longer laced with worry like it had been when he talked to Aizawa about pills, water, and fever. The voice was relieved now. And it was deep and low and even; Aizawa had made it to the waters of the oasis. And the gentle waves lulled him back to a peaceful sleep.
...
He felt scattered rays of sunshine touch his face, peeking at him from around the fronds of the palm tree. He lay on the edge of the water under its shade. The slightly wettened sand beneath him felt soft and conformed to his body, hugging it gently. He looked up at a cloudless, deep blue sky. An errant wave made its way further than the rest and seeped beneath his head, dampening his hair. The cool water at first made him shiver, but as it receded the sun-baked sand underneath warmed him again. The balmy air around him was cut by cool breezes from time to time. He was perfectly comfortable and content.
He opened his eyes, awakening from the dream. He was laying on his couch but his upper body was on an incline, sitting up slightly, being supported by pillows. He looked up above him and saw Yagi's face upside down peering down at him, small hair-cutting shears in his mouth. He felt fingers in his hair. Yagi took the shears out of his mouth so he could speak. "Hey Aizawa. Perfect timing I'm almost done."
"If you're cutting my hair, you're a dead man," Aizawa said in his usual monotone that finally sounded like himself and not sandpaper tones.
Yagi chuckled. It wasn't an All Might laugh. He preferred the Yagi chuckles.
"No. I'm taking out your stitches. I knew you would fight going back to the hospital to have them do it so I decided to take them out myself. Lucky for you, I have decades of experience removing stitches so was hoping my hand was delicate enough that you'd sleep through most of it. Last one." He felt a strange pressure at his scalp, heard a snip, and felt the odd pulling sensation of the thread being removed. Aizawa closed his eyes. He now noticed his hair was damp and it smelled like his shampoo. "You fell asleep earlier before you had a chance to eat. Do you want to try the soup now? I can bring it to you here or you can try to sit at the table." Aizawa sat up now. He still had the soft casts on his legs, but the one on his left arm was gone. It would seem he had graduated to some higher level of getting his independence back. He slowly swung his legs off the couch. He looked near his feet and saw a small tub of water and a bottle of his shampoo. He realized he had been so very wrong about coming home early. He had been terribly irrational which was so unlike him. And he had been a huge inconvenience for others. Yagi was at his side now and offered his long, thin arm for support. Aizawa took it. He was able to eat dinner sitting at his table. Yagi joined him and they ate in silence.
...
Early morning sun spilled in from his bedroom window. He had gone to bed right after dinner and had slept through the night, fever and pain no longer stirring him awake every couple of hours. He was stiff upon waking though, his muscles began to cramp. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Yagi told him the doctor said he no longer had to wear the soft casts at night, only during the day. He dared to stand on his own and found his legs had forgiven him. They would support the one that almost destroyed them completely. Not wanting to tempt fate or to go against Yagi's orders, he grabbed the casts that were propped against the wall and he sat on his bed and put them on.
As he walked into the living area of his apartment he was greeted cheerfully.
"Hey, man! Was wondering when you were going to wake up, sleepyhead."
This voice was not deep and low and even.
"Hey, Mic," Aizawa smiled at his friend under his layers of bandages. He had a strange, empty feeling in his stomach, as if he had been anticipating something and then was let down utterly. Or maybe he was just hungry.
"Had my two days off and thought I'd give All Might a break. Course he told me earlier when I got here that you really took a big turn yesterday and that you were feeling better. Seems like you won't need babysitters anymore!"
"Yeah. It's about time. It's been annoying constantly having guests," he said wryly trying to drive home his logical ruse.
...
It had been 3 weeks since the USJ incident. Aizawa walked into the teacher's lounge feeling slightly out of breath. His students were quite happy to see him after his time away. The Sports Festival was upon them and he was thankful he had the opportunity to see them through their first experience of the competition. He was grateful that all 20 were physically and mentally ready for the event. He was grateful that they were just there. Things could have been much different that day at the USJ if everyone who had helped had not played their part he thought. Especially….
"Aizawa. You're back," said a deep, even voice.
He turned and was now face to face with the familiar figure. Too tall for his own good, his dark navy suit hanging loosely on his slight frame. His gaunt face all deeply shadowed blue eyes and wide grin. "Still bandaged up I see. You must be thrilled to no longer be in those leg casts."
"I'm still a mummy. At least for the next 2 weeks." Aizawa stood their feeling awkward. He never felt awkward. He also felt he needed to say something else but he couldn't fathom what. What was wrong with him?
"Well, it's good to see you back. Um… I wanted to thank you…." Yagi said, becoming a bit hesitant, his grin being replaced with a serious expression.
"You… wanted to thank me?" Aizawa felt like a cad. Yagi shouldn't be the one thanking him.
"Yeah… After I heard what you did when the villains showed up at the USJ and how selflessly you fought for the kids, especially Asui and Midoriya. You're a real hero Aizawa. You and Thirteen…. The kids wouldn't be here if you guys hadn't… Well… just… Thank you."
Aizawa felt a strange catch in his throat that he found odd. He probably had not had enough water to drink that day. He quickly cleared his throat and gave himself several seconds before he spoke again.
"Real heroes aren't just the ones who save others from the clutches of villains, Yagi. Being there for someone when they're too stubborn to know they need a hand is just as heroic. And they deserve as much praise and thanks as well," Aizawa replied.
A small smile now appeared on Yagi's face and his hollow cheeks now flushed a slight pink, his expression exuding the warmth of the sun. "You're welcome, Aizawa." His words were soothing waves rippling on the sunbaked sand. His eyes serene like a cloudless, deep-blue sky. Knowing his bandages hid his expression, Aizawa couldn't help but bask in his radiance.