A/N: I like to listen to music while I tyope and I often feel like some songs fit very well with certain scenes so I will share said songs as they come to mind.
Song: Hold On - Chord Overstreet
I managed just over an hour before I had to stop to rest. There was no light at the end of the tunnel ahead of me and I gritted my teeth. I had made good distance as far as I could tell but felt no nearer to getting out. I crouched down on all fours to rest. I didn't want to untie Deku from my back unless I had too as it would be too much of a hassle to tie him back on my own and I doubted if I even could, and I couldn't lay down without being on him one way or another. I was grateful for my knee plates right now.
Deku was still hot, and I could feel my back was wet with sweat, both of ours. His breathing hadn't improved, and he was shivering enough now that I could feel it across me. I got back to my feet and set off to walk a while. It was a pace that I could recover at and still make some distance with. I used an arm to hold his weight so the strain around my chest would be less till I was ready to blast off again. I walked in silence, the only sound was Deku's light panting and the occasional groan from him. His face screwed up when he made the noise and he seemed to be in pain, but for now he would have to bear with it. Using my free hand to let off enough sparks to light the way I only made it a few minutes before I heard a noise up ahead. I closed my palm to hide us in the darkness. Footsteps came closer from up ahead, friend or foe, they would have already seen my light and know I was there. I remained silent and waited, not entirely possible with Deku's heavy breathing by my ear. I was growing tenser as the steps came closer. I had already decided that I didn't have time to get caught up in a fight if it was a villain, plus my movement would be hindered with Deku on my back and to take him off would take time and leave him exposed. He was safer on my back, but the same couldn't be said for me. Deku groaned again by my ear, a low whimpering groan of pain and the person ahead spoke up.
"Ho, ho, what is that I hear" hissed a male voice through the dark and I heard the striking of a match and a second later I saw a thin face light up several meters away. He took the faint sight of us in before speaking again.
"oh, that one looks ill" for a second I would have thought he was actually concerned and then a sly smirk stretched across his face and a thin black pencil like tounge flicked out before disappearing again, "was he bitten by dear Doku? if that's the case, I wouldn't waste your time. He won't make it through the night" I felt a swell of rage build up in me at his words, fueled by my concern. There was no way I was going to let Deku die, especially down in a shitty place like this.
"You one of those kids they sent down to flush us out? Ha, what a joke. Or maybe I should say what a waste" he continued to talk as he stepped closer and closer slowly, "sending kids down here only to have some of them killed no doubt" his grin never left his face and I wanted nothing more than to beat the shit out of him. I braced myself and he stopped, now less than two meters from me. I had to move quick, so I waited till he opened his mouth to speak again and brought both of my hands forward and let loose a bright flash to blind him. He stepped back and shielded his face, dropping his match and I took the chance to change position to face my arms behind me so I could blast myself past him and hopefully out of his reach.
My bright blast would have blinded him for at least thirty seconds or more, but he was used to the dark apparently and I felt something thin and spear like pierce my right thigh. The spear was barbed and dug in and I was pulled back. The pain was excruciating, and I clenched my jaw closed to stop myself from crying out. The force of the pull was bringing me back first towards the stone ledge by the water and I let off a blast to turn my body as to not land on Deku. It worked and I landed awkwardly on all fours. I felt the barbed spear pull free from my leg and return in the direction it had come from. Within seconds my pant leg was wet with hot blood, but I pushed myself to my feet. I heard steps coming closer as the cocky bastard approached me. I was torn with what to do.
I needed to get away, but he would just pull me back down, he could see me far better than I could him and there wasn't enough room in the tunnel to maneuver away and I didn't know how far his spear attack could reach.
I needed to fight to get this obstacle out of the way so I could safely move on as quickly as possible.
I needed to stop the bleeding before it weakened me. My leg was throbbing like hell. The spear, though thin, had gone right through and the bleeding was bad, and I needed to stay strong to get Deku out of here.
If I fought, my movement would already be affected by my leg and Deku on my back. I would have to remove him to be able to get the job done as quickly as possible, but then traveling with Deku would be harder afterwards as I wouldn't be able to secure him on me as well by myself and with my leg injured, I would have to rely on my arms, arms I couldn't be using to hold Deku, to get us out of here.
All these thoughts flashed by in my mind over a second.
The man picked up his pace and in the darkness I could here him running towards us. I remained still and waited to hear him close in. When he was close enough, I stepped to the side, closest to the wall and I felt a rush of air past my face, I guessed he had tried to land a hit on me. He noticed I was gone and swung to the side. I guessed that much, and ducked low, extra low because of Deku, my leg throbbing. The man grunted in annoyance. With all my speed I stood up straight again, bringing my fist up to land a hit on where I hoped his chin would be, I got him, just, I just clipped his jaw and he pulled away. I closed my eyes and brought my other hand upwards to release a bright flash at his face again before he could retaliate. A gasp of annoyance escaped him. Before I even opened my eyes again, I was struck in the side with enough force to press me against the wall, Deku taking the worst of the impact with a pained groan. The man had round housed me in the side. I hadn't expected him to react so fast. I went to push off the wall when I was struck again by the thin spear, this time it hit my left shoulder, right under my collar bone. It didn't go through, there wasn't enough force, but fuck did it sting.
I felt Deku shift slightly on me, he was still pinned between me and the wall. I planned my next move, to kick out and hopefully push him into the water, though I didn't know how far in front of me he stood, but a light flicker of green in the corner of my eye made me hesitate. Light green sparks flickered and outlined Deku's hand as he weekly raised it in the direction we were facing. Once it was close enough to level, he flicked out his middle finger that he had been holding and in a snap the air rushed around us and I heard the man cry out. We were in a cramped space and the force was enough to press my body back against the wall, crushing Deku further, he groaned from the pressure and his hand dropped away, the sparks gone. When Deku fired the blast, I felt the spear tear from my shoulder and the man was flung back, across the water, and from the sounds of it, hit the far wall and fell to the ledge. I stood still for a moment listening, but I didn't hear him get back up. The new silence was unsettling, but I turned my attention to Deku. He was panting heavily on me and I lit up his face with small sparks. His eyes were partially open, and he blinked slowly against the light.
"You're actually not useless for once" I said just to test his level of awareness. I saw the corner of his lips turn up in a humorous smirk and he huffed through his nose, but then relaxed back into his weakened, feverish state. He was starting to shiver again. I wasn't leaning against him anymore, but I stepped away from the wall to free him from it. My injured leg was shaking, and blood had pooled around my foot to make me almost slip. I reached into the red pouches of Deku's belt around my hips and extracted some gauze and bandages and did the best I could to cover it up tightly. I didn't bother about the one on my shoulder, I hurt, but wasn't as bad and with deku on the back of me I couldn't bandage it properly anyway. The man on the other side of the water made no sound of movement and the thought crossed my mind that he was either knocked out good, or worse. I reminded myself not to care. Stupid Deku was my priority right now.
With my wounds and tired state, I was really beginning to feel Deku's weight on me and my body dreaded having to get back in the air to keep going. But I dreaded the idea of walking more. After some big breaths and gritting my teeth the whole time I moved my arm into position behind me, my shoulder protesting, and I took off with a big blast so save me from jumping and it took me a while to get the strength of my output right.
The next time I landed, it was awkward and painful and after checking my phone I was disappointed to see I'd only made it half an hour, but as much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, I was struggling. Deku had managed to remain at least semi-conscious during the short trip and he was groaning with pain more frequently yet wasn't in enough of a state to answer me when I asked him about it. I was reaching a point where the urge to untie him from me so I could check him over was getting too strong to resist, the fact that I needed to keep my arms free was the only thing preventing me from doing it right that second. I stood with my good arm braced against the cold stone wall to catch my breath. My legs were trembling under me. I hit the wall with the side of my fist with enough force that it throbbed, but I deserved it. I was being pathetic when someone's life was on the line.
My sudden movement must have sparked something in Deku, because he started coughing. It sounded wet and chocked and painful and the noise that followed was almost a whimper and I cursed myself for stopping to take a break in the first place. I pushed away from the wall and took a stumbled step towards the water. Even if it killed me, I was going to get Deku out of here. I positioned myself to blast off again when I hesitated. Deku moved, but the movement didn't feel natural, and my heart froze for a second while I tried to make sense of what I could feel in the dark. He twitched again, his whole body convulsing and then it ceased. I felt panic rise in me and prayed to the darkness that it was my imagination, that that was all there was, but then his body twitched again and again, slowly picking up frequency and I knew in that second that I had to get him off of me. I was out of options.
I tugged at the knotted clothes around my chest and felt his weight fall free of me. I held him as best I could in the position and lowered him to the cold floor ungracefully, but he was hard to hold. The feeling of his body convulsing and the sound against the ground made me sick with fear. His fever had reached such a height that he was having a seizure. I tried calling to him, my hands on him to try to hold him down with just enough force to keep him in place. I rolled him to his side and I threw my body gently over him, my arms loosely bracing his head and I just held onto him for what felt like an eternity until the convulsions slowed and weakened and his body seemed to relax. I loosened my grip on him and knelt beside his body. I let off some sparks again so I could see him. His eyes were closed, tears in the corner of his eyes from the seizure, he was panting and sweating heavily and he had thrown up on himself during the episode. The most disturbing part was that there was blood present there too.
I gazed around me helplessly in the dark, my attention falling to the water. I shuffled closer to it, gritting against the pain and dipped a hand into it to taste. I already knew that the water was natural and not sewer water, and I tasted it to check for its freshness before spitting it out. The water seemed clean enough and good. I pulled my phone from my pocket and took the belt off to keep them dry and slowly pulled Deku to the waters edge beside me and then pulled us both in. The water was shallow enough that I could touch the bottom, bringing the water to my chest. I held Deku close to me, letting the water both cool him down, and wash him clean. I kept telling myself that I didn't have the time to spare to sit still, I walked along the bottom, letting the slow current do most of the work to push us downstream, keeping my handful of items against the ledge to keep them dry till after about twenty minutes it was starting to get dangerously cold and with a lot of effort I hoisted both of us back on the ledge. My next problem was how I was going to move Deku now. A thought that really pissed me off.
"Kacchan?" called Deku weakly from where he lay dripping on the stone floor. His voice was hoarse and it took him some effort to get the word out. I was already sitting by him and shuffled closer. In the darkness, I touched him lightly on the arm to let him know I was there, water pooling around us.
"What? I'm here" I said back harsher than I meant to, lighting us up again with my pone dry hand and I could see his eyes were half open and he was looking at me for the first time. He opened his mouth to speak again, but it took an effort for words to come out between shallow breaths.
"Can you – ask your mum – if I – can stay over" he said between labored breathes, he was looking my way, but his eyes were unfocused and a spot of blood came from his nose, "I – don't feel – so good. I – don't want to go- home. So can I – sleepover?" he asked, and it took me a moment to register his request. The bath in the cold water must have woken him up, but he was still delirious from the fever and it seemed at the moment that his mind had turned back to when we had been in early elementary school. Back in those days, since kindergarten, we had play dates often and even the occasional sleep over. Things had been so much simpler back then before quirks.
"Yeah, sure" I said back and Deku smiled weakly and closed his eyes with exhaustion. The bead of blood by his nose formed into a thin line and ran down his face. I glared down at him with concern. We hadn't reached an exit yet and he was getting worse, but I could no longer tie him to me and travel with my quirk. With my injured shoulder and leg, carrying him and walking would be slow and painful. The water was a good idea, but the temperature could do more harm than good if we spent too long in it. My frustration at the situation was reaching boiling point, Deku coughing brought me back to the here and now. He coughed and groaned, his face screwing up tightly as he did. I took a deep breath, bracing myself mentally for the pain I was about to endure.
With some trouble I got Deku on my back, my arms under his legs to hold him in place and his arms draped over my shoulders. He groaned in protest at me moving him, but I grumbled at him to suck it up. My progress was infuriatingly slow. I had taken the chance to change both my bandage and Deku's to dry fresh ones before we continued through the dark, but already I could feel blood dripping down my leg, the bandage unable to soak in anymore. I gritted my teeth and pushed on. Deku was growing more restless, groaning from pain my movements caused him and coughing more frequently, his breathing becoming more shallow and rapid between coughing fits. I did my best to ignore him, but then he had another coughing fit and this one sounded more wet then the rest. I brought up some light and turned my face to the side to check on him, bearing all his weight on my one good arm with a snarl. Blood dripped from his chin and he groaned again when the coughing subsided. His breathe was beginning to rasp. He began to cough again, and I lowered him to the ground as gently and quickly I could.
He writhed on the ground slowly, weakly, but clearly in pain. Blood slowly streamed from his nose and came up from his throat when he coughed. I called to him and he opened an eye weakly to look to me. The white of his eyes were turning pink from blood and I had to swallow back my growing panic. Deku shut his eyes tightly again as his body convulsed with a wave of pain. I was scared he would have a seizure again, but that didn't happen. He coughed more, this time chocking on the blood that came up. I rolled him over so he could get the blood out, it splattered on the ground in front of him. Dark chunks the size of finger nails were scattered in the blood and I tried not to think about what it could be. He was shaking and gasping for air, his body curling in on itself in pain.
I pushed myself to my feet beside him. Bared my teeth and picked up his arms. I was weak and tired and in pain and sick with worry, but I dragged him downstream, desperation keeping me going. He groaned and carried on from the pain of me moving him, but I tried to block it out. I wasn't just going to sit there while he died. Then something amazing happened. I felt a light breeze. I paused and turned my head to look over my shoulder, further downstream in the direction we were heading and although I couldn't see any light. I could feel the lightest breeze ahead and it spurred me on, giving me the last burst of energy I needed to move my body. I scooped Deku up in my arms, he cried out, and I pushed myself as fast as my leg would take me towards the breeze.
It was excruciating, but we finally made it to the end of the tunnel. I stepped out from under the stone roof and onto natural gravel that lined the water as it headed into the trees. It was dark out, only the slightest light of dawn lighting the area up enough for me to see. Stars were still in the sky and there were no buildings or roads in sight. The underground river seemed to just head off into a forest. Although it had a manmade structure built around it form under the city, here only grass grew over the top with more trees surrounding it. Taking a moment to stop had been a mistake and all my pain and exhaustion hit me in a wave and I staggered forward. I moved myself to the nearest tree and set Deku down and slumped against the tree, catching my breath. My legs were shaking from the effort and my pant leg was wet with blood. I leaned my head back against the bark and closed my eyes as I rifled through my pockets for my phone. I had a single bar of reception and enough battery left to make a call to Mr. Aizawa.
"Bakugo, where are you? Who else is with you?" I told him the bad shape Deku was in and described where we were. Mr. Aizawa told me to stay put and that he was on his way before hanging up. I had nothing to do but rest and wait. I looked down beside my legs to where Deku lay. He was sweating and bleeding, his breathing was shallow and rasped. I leaned down and pulled him closer, letting his head rest on my good leg. There was nothing more I could do for him as his body twitched weakly with pain.
"Oi Deku" I called loudly, "I spoke to the hag. She said you can stay over as long as you want" I felt silly playing along with his earlier feverish delusion, but if it made him feel a bit better, it was worth a try. He opened his blood shot eyes after a spasm of pain passed, took a moment to gaze at his surrounding in the growing light and then looked up to me. He smiled weakly when he saw me with him.
"I'm glad" he rasped, his voice barely a whisper, followed by a pained bloody cough, "can I – sleep with you?" he asked quietly. When we had been so little and Deku stayed over back then, he always did end up in my bed. My mum would set up a futon on the floor by my bed for him, but by the morning he was always in my bed with me. It happened so often that my mum gave up even setting up the futon for him. Back then I hadn't minded at all. He would crawl into my bed and we would hide under the covers and talk about heroes and other silly things until we fell asleep.
"Sure" I replied and placed a hand on the top of his head lightly. He closed his eyes and smiled weakly, stifling a groan of pain that tried to escape him, but he couldn't help but whimper. With Deku resting I tilted my head back to rest against the tree again, exhaustion taking over, and I closed my eyes, though I didn't sleep. Deku twitched and groaned often enough to keep my attention. He was growing weaker, his body moving less and his groans quieter. In the distance a familiar sound caught my attention, and I opened my eyes to look at the sky beyond the tunnel exit, there I could see a helicopter coming our way in the pale morning sky. I knew it was for us and I raised my good arm above my head, palm facing up and let off a blast big enough that even at that distance, the people in the helicopter would see and it worked, the helicopter turned our way a moment later. The blast had sparked some of the high up branches above and they smoldered, but I chose to ignore it. I didn't have the energy to move us, and it wasn't a danger.
My attention fell back to Deku who shuddered from a new wave of pain. He went to cough, and it got caught in his throat. I rolled him off on my leg to clear his airway. I moved painfully to crouch over him while he coughed up a mouthful of blood and chunks and his body shook from the effort. The helicopter was close now, moving off to the side to find somewhere to land. From here I could make out Mr. Aizawa hanging out from the side, and he dropped out to the tree line, followed by several others when it reached low enough. It would take him a couple of minutes to get here while the helicopter peeled away to find somewhere clear enough to land. I turned my attention back to Deku to tell him Mr. Aizawa was on the way, but the words froze in my throat. Deku was silent, he wasn't gasping for breath anymore.
"Deku?" I called out quietly and rolled him back to face me, so he was on his back. His head lulled to the side, his eyes closed gently, his lips slightly parted, a fresh line of blood trailing across his face.
"Deku!" I called more frantically and grabbed his shoulder, ignoring the pain in my own, and shook him. No reaction. Nothing. I pushed back my panic and jumped into action, leaning over him, hands on his chest and started pumping, trying to bring him back. Mr. Aizawa was so close. Help was so close. He only needed to wake up and hold on a little longer.
"Wake up damnit!" I yelled down at him. Blood gurgled up his throat and dribbled out of his mouth with each chest compression. My eyes were wide as I worked desperately. I dropped down, mouth to mouth, to give him air before starting the compressions again. I could taste his blood in my mouth.
"What happened to having that sleepover huh?!" I cursed at him. Mr. Aizawa reached us at that point and he paused for a second to take everything in. I heard the rush of footsteps following him, I glanced up for second, never stopping, to see medics with him. One of them was carrying Recovery Girl on their back.
"Bakugo" called Mr. Aizawa gently as he stepped up beside where I crouched over Deku. I ignored him and dropped lower, giving Deku more air, before picking up where I left off with the compressions.
"That's enough" he said more firmly. I ignored him. The medics reached us. When I didn't move Mr. Aizawa touched my shoulder and I turned to face him, my face wet with blood and tears, that I hadn't even realized I had been shedding. He gripped my shoulder more firmly and pulled me away. He was stronger than I would have given him credit for and it hurt my body to move, but he pulled me away and the medics took my place, Recovery Girl hovering beside them.
Their bodies blocked my view of Deku and Mr. Aizawa stepped between us, forcing my attention on him. He was speaking to me, his face serious, but I couldn't hear him. My body felt numb as I saw the medics step away, their shoulders slumped in defeat and Recovery Girl shook her head sadly. I lost it then, falling to all fours. It hurt and I cried out, but the emotional pain overtook the physical and I was screaming down at the ground. I felt a hand on my back and felt people around me, but they meant nothing to me in that moment. After everything, after all the effort and pain, I lost stupid Deku.