Song: Runaway AURORA

I liked this song with the rooftop scene as I felt the song balances both pain and warmth at the same time - maybe that's just me

I didn't get back to the school dorms till eleven that night and a few things bothered me as I stripped off and crawled into bed.

One, Deku's asshole of a dad didn't show up. That just pissed me off more than anything. He had been out of Deku's life for so long and then didn't even come to his son's funeral. What a dick.

Two, I hadn't seen anyone from middle school there. I hadn't realized until now how much my actions had shaped Deku's life, and it made me feel like shit all over again, or maybe just added an extra level of it. I had spent middle school bullying Deku on a daily basis or at least making him uncomfortable for being in the same room as me when he was. Looking back, he didn't really spend time with anyone in class, or out of it. When I tried to recall our middle school years, he was always alone and that was my fault. I had pushed him so far down the hierarchy with my actions that no one else had bothered with him or avoided him because they didn't want to risk becoming a target of mine. I had no doubt I had ruined his middle school years and caused him to be lonely. If I could step out of my own body for a minute, I would have beaten myself bloody at how pissed off I was at myself. Thinking of how I had affected his middle school days, just led my brain back to the day of the slime villain incident and I rolled over with a wave of sickness again, although this time I managed to keep it down.

When I managed to fall asleep, I had been thinking of Deku. I wanted to see him and speak to him again. I was worried about what he may have picked up during the funeral service and wondered how he felt. Not to mention his absence from the last two nights had me concerned, but when I came to inside my dream it wasn't a good one.

It felt just as real as my other encounters with Deku here, but I was alone, on a rooftop. After a second, I recognized the place. It was the rooftop of my middle school and I was standing off to the side behind some large air conditioning units. The smallest of movements off to my left caught my attention and I turned to see Deku's back to me. He was in our black middle school uniform with the same old yellow backpack he's had for years. He was just standing there looking out over the ledge. Our school didn't allow students on the roof, so they had never bothered with putting up chain fences and I froze when I was about to call out to Deku when he shrugged his bag off of his shoulders and stepped up onto the ledge. This wasn't just a bad dream, it was a memory from our past and I wanted to step out to pull him back down, but my feet were frozen in place. Of course, it was a memory, so I knew he wouldn't jump. This had been the day I had told him to jump off a building. One of my lowest moments. I had regretted the words as soon as they had left my mouth and as soon as school had ended, I had made my way to the roof, the door had already been unlocked which made me sweat, but I hid away and waited, worried that Deku may have listened to me. I had waited a long time till almost every student had left the grounds for the day and I had been about to leave myself when I heard him come up. I had watched him, just as I did now, stand on the ledge, high above the ground and decide whether to jump or not. I had been too frozen to move, believing that if I came out and startled him it could send him over the edge. Instead, I had watched and waited, my heart in my throat until he had eventually stepped back down. He had cried for a long time after that and that had pained me more, rage building up inside me from it.

This time it was only a memory, so I made myself move and stepped out from behind the air conditioning units. If he turned, I would be in full view, but I didn't approach him. I called out his name and screamed how I was sorry and was a jerk to him, but he never turned back to me, never showed any signs of hearing me. This Deku wasn't the current Deku. He was just a memory replaying in my head, and I was forced to watch that horrible tense moment all over again. I felt too pathetic and guilty and all those emotions bubbled up my throat till I felt I would choke. I dropped to my knees and beat a fist to the concrete roof and let myself scream at the floor. After I finally gained a little more control, and my throat was raw I looked up again. Deku's back was still to me and as I watched his body shuddered like a shiver had passed up his spine and for a second he swayed. I didn't recall that happening, or maybe I had just been too far away. I got to my feet and stepped forward in case he fell, but a second later the movement had past, and he stood steady again. Deku raised his hands slowly to look at himself and then gazed down, taking it in. After a second, he carefully turned himself around while he still stood on the ledge and looked down to me with surprise. This wasn't just my memory playing back on repeat anymore.

"Kacchan?" he asked in almost a whisper, his eyes were so green and wide as he took me in, that I didn't have anything to say back.
"This isn't my memory, it's yours" he spoke more softly with some shock and looked down at his feet more solemnly, "I had no idea you had been watching that day" I didn't know what I should have expected from him learning that truth, but I hadn't expected him to sound so sad about it and that made me grit my teeth. I had been here that day to make sure he didn't do anything stupid that we would both regret. Deku lifted his head to look back to me and with tears in his eyes, he smiled.

"So what would you have done?" he asked, "would you have saved me?" and before I could say anything back, he spread his arms, never taking his green eyes from me, and still smiling, he let his body fall backwards. I cried out his name and shot forward, following him over the ledge. He was falling ahead of me, smiling back at me gently as the ground grew closer and closer to us. I let out a blast from my palms to propel me forward faster till I reached him. I wrapped my arms around him, one across his back and the other around the back of his head and pulled him in close to me. I felt his own arms wrap around my middle and there wasn't time for me to stop our fall. As the ground reached up to us, I held him tight and shut my eyes, but the ground we hit wasn't solid. We splashed through the surface, and I opened my eyes to find deep clear water surrounding us, lit up by the bright sun overhead.

Under the surface of the water, I lessened my grip on him and now that he was at arm's length where I could see his face and he was smiling warmly to me, the patches of sunlight coming through the water dancing across him. I kicked to the surface and broke through with a gasp of air, Deku following a second behind. We weren't swimming anymore, now we sat in the water of the shallow stream that passed by the grassy slope from our childhood. I was frozen with anger and shock at how everything had warped and changed so fast, but when Deku had come up out of the water he was laughing, even now his body shook all over with his laughter and tears beaded in the corners of his tightly shut eyes. He was smiling broadly and all I could do was glare back at him.

"Why you!" I growled and reached for him and grabbed him by the collar of what was now a plain white shirt, no longer our middle school uniform. He had scared the shit out of me and we both almost died, dream or not, and he was still just laughing his ass off. I brought my other hand forward too and started to shake him back and forth to shut him up, but he wouldn't stop. I gave up, releasing him with a shove and got to my feet, the water only half way up my shins and kicked a wave of water at his face. That shut him up and he coughed and spluttered at the water that had made it in his mouth. He laid back down in the water, a shallower spot than where I stood because his face, chest and knees were still out of the water and he smiled up at the sky.

"I can't believe you did it" he smiled, "It's like a dream come true" I marched through the water over to him and dropped to my knees on either side of him till I was practically straddling him as I loomed over him. I snarled down at him.

"What the hell" I growled down at him, and his smile softened as he looked up at me.
"What the fuck were you thinking you idiot, you could have died"

"But I'm already dead" he spoke back, and I punched him lightly in the chest, not enough to knock the air out of him, but enough to warn him to not fuck around.

"What if you died here too and then you really were gone forever" I spat back. I was pissed at him, pissed and scared and feeling a fresh wave of quilt at how I had treated him in the past. He ignored my words and stared back up at me warmly and he lifted a hand from the water to reach for the side of my face gently.

"That day while I had stood there I wondered if you would come and save me in the last minute before I did anything," his smile grew warmer, "I wondered if the words you said were real or not and hoped you really didn't want me gone" his fingers brushed my cheek and I smacked his hand away and glared down at him.

"You idiot!" I yelled at him and leaned back so I wasn't looming over him anymore while he was still pinned under me, "I never wanted you gone. I hated myself for those words the moment I said them" tears threatened to spill, and my voice was thick with emotion. He didn't look shocked by my words but continued to smile up at me in a comforting way.
"I was such a jerk to you; all these years and the worst part is none of it was true. I was just being pathetic" I couldn't begin to put into words that way I had felt growing up as I dug a rift between us and continued to burn down every bridge he tried to make. I did everything I could think of to push him away from me for my own selfish reasons, but it had never worked. Deku had always been there, in the background. I dropped my gaze to the side.

"I forgive you" he spoke back softly, and I looked back to him. He looked close to tears himself and it was uncomfortable. I splashed water over him and jumped to my feet, stomping out of the stream and up the grassy slope. I wasn't surprised at all when Deku followed me. He always did.

"Hey," I spoke up. We had been sitting on the hill in silence while the sun dried the clothes on our backs. As always, the weather was pleasant here.
"Why haven't you been around that last couple of nights?" I didn't look to him as I spoke and instead plucked at the grass close to me. He may have said he forgave me, but it just made me feel more shitty. I didn't deserve his stupid forgiveness.

"I was busy" he replied with a touch of discomfort, and I dared to glance at him from the corner of my eye.

"Huh, you're living in my head. How busy can you be?" I barked and he flinched where he sat a few feet away.

"Well, I'm not the only one here" he replied with an uncomfortable glance my way. When I shot him another glare, he elaborated.

"One For All carried all of the previous users too. So, I'm with them sometimes" he replied as he scratched at his cheek nervously. I got the feeling this was territory I wasn't supposed to know about.

"So, what, you were having a party or something?' I grumbled and I saw him shake his head.

"Now that I'm one of them, in the sense that I'm dead," he added, "I've been able to get to know them a bit better and they aren't too happy with me" he smiled uncomfortably at the thought.

"Huh"

"Well, " he began, and he turned to face me directly. I didn't turn my body, but I continued to watch him from the side, "when I had One For All, and All Might too, the previous vestiges never really made themselves known and the only time I ever saw them was in the occasional dream or when Shinso used his quirk on me, but I still never spoke to them. Anyway" he cut off his own rambling and began to wave a finger through the air as he spoke to keep himself on track.
"Pretty much they aren't too happy with me because I've been spending time out here with you instead of with them, or like, staying inside the confines of One For All, if that makes sense?" I was skeptical for a moment before I finally nodded in understanding, "they don't want me spending time with you like this" he finished flatly and brought his knees up to his chest and rested his cheek on them.

"So what, you're not allowed to talk to me? Were they keeping you prisoner or something?" I growled in question and Deku sat up straighter.

"No, no" he waved his hands, "I was just trying to listen to them so I tried to stay away, but I could tell you were having another bad dream. You just got to this one before I did this time" his voice cracked, and I could pick up how my state during the bad dream had caused him stress. I glanced away. Even subconsciously I was hurting him.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I growled. Deku looked to me with some confusion, so I rolled my eyes and elaborated, "another bad dream. I got there before you, this time" His eyes glanced away.

"You've been having bad dreams almost every night Kacchan" he told me, green eyes flicking my way and then away again.

"No I haven't" I barked back, turning my face to him.

"You have," he pushed quietly, "I've just been trying to keep them from you" he rubbed the back of his head and his mouth pressed into an uncertain wobbly line.

"You fucking with my head?" I hissed in question. His shoulders tensed at my tone

"I didn't want you to see them" he replied meekly, "I didn't want them to upset you"

"That's not for you to decide" I hissed again in warning. I must have pushed a button because his back straightened and he looked to me finally, but his eyes were hard and firm.

"Would you prefer to watch me die all over again every night instead?" he bit back; I didn't have anything to reply with, so I just glared back at him. Good intentions or not, shielding me from my own dreams felt was….weird and I didn't know how to feel about it. I did feel anger, thought that was my usual go to.

"So what, you watch it instead?" I asked after a tense moment of him staring at me. He turned his face away, his shoulders falling back down. He didn't answer. I figured this was why my dreams had either been interactions with Deku or nothing at all. He was trying to stay away from me and instead of interacting with me directly, would experience my bad dreams in my place, trying to shield me from my own mind and I had to admit to myself that part of me was grateful. If the dreams were really of that, then I would have woken up a panicked mess most mornings.

"So now what then?" I asked and Deku just looked to me with confusion, his earlier emotions having fizzled away "does this mean your going to stay with them?"

"I don't know" he replied quietly, looking away again "I think maybe I should spend less time with you at least. See how you go without me" he wouldn't look my way and I could hear the sadness in his voice.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm blaring on the bedside. My alarm was always sudden and startling, the better to wake me with, rather than a slow and peaceful build up like some, something I would have to change. It would wake me so suddenly that a second after I would hear it in my dream, I was torn from it. I didn't get to finish the discussion with Deku. I could see where he was coming from, even if I didn't want to. He was a part of the quirk now and he should act like it. If the vestiges kept themselves hidden, then I could see why they wouldn't be too pleased about him spending time with me and protecting me from my own bad dreams, though I couldn't see why it had to be that way. Part of me wanted to try to go back to sleep, but I had skipped over my morning exercises yesterday for the funeral and I didn't want to skip it again, so I forced myself to get up. I felt exhausted from lack of sleep, or in this case, mentally so. My body had slept, but my mind hadn't as Deku put it and time passed so differently in the dreams that what felt like only an hour or two in there, was closer to six or more out here.