We're getting back into the groove. I know I put a warning in the beginning of the book, but there is a special warning for this chapter. There is mentions of contemplating suicide, so if that is triggering for you, please skip this chapter.

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Midoriya woke up the next morning with the most unbearable pain she had ever experienced. She didn't know if the pain was in her leg, arm, or head because it felt like it was all over. She hadn't realized she had grunted out in pain so loud it woke Bakugou up until she felt his hand on her cheek. She flinched away, the memory of the intruder haunting her.

"Deku?" he whispered. "Bout time you woke up?" Without much thought, she brought her hand to her shoulder and squeezed. Her shoulder was wrapped in a bandage very unprofessionally, the clothing bunching under her armpit uncomfortably. She groaned again, too tired to scream out in pain. It all came rushing back to her. The intruders, the fight, and the fire. That must be the tingly feeling she had all over her body.

"How's your head?" she asked back. She finally looked at him and gasped. He had a huge bruise on the top of his forehead, a split lip, and some burn marks along his face and hands. She could tell he was having back pains from the way he was sitting. She wanted to ask him to show her his back, but she had a feeling he would say no.

"I tried to clean the wound the best I could. I don't think it's infected. It would be a pain in the ass if it was," he stated, resting his back on the bed rest. Midoriya realized she was lying in bed, and that brought a spur of questions. Where were they, and how did they manage to get out of the burning house? How long was she out? Where were her things? "Shut up. I can practically hear you thinking."

"I'm confused," she admitted. "Where are we?" She decided to ask that first. The other questions could wait because they didn't matter. What happened, they had to move on to find their parents. Speaking of which, what was their new plan of action?

"A house I found on the highway," he said. "No one was here, and there was a bed so I decided it would be best for us to stay here until we heal."

"We?" she asked instinctually because it sounded to her like he was admitting weakness and she knew that couldn't be right. Since they were kids he always hid his pain to the point where it had to be forced out of him. Did that mean he was a lot more injured than he was letting himself seem?

"We," he confirmed. "My back is shot and your shoulder is fucked up. We don't have a lot of medical supplies or food, so we have to be careful with what we have. Our parents aren't far from here, maybe a day or two walk. The bike got us a lot further than I thought it would."

"Bike?" she interrupted. There was no way he managed to get her and the supplies they had left to a safe palace on a flimsy bike, not to mention she was unconscious the entire time.

"Fucking listen will you? Stop asking stupid questions," he scolded. She apologized and he continued on. "I don't think they're following us anymore. I managed to get out of the house while they were still down. You're safe now." Her eyes jumped to him when he said it. It was so gentle, so sincere, almost as if he was relieved he had managed to bring her to safety. Was that his goal? Was he trying to make sure she didn't die? It made her heart all warm and fuzzy.

"How long do you plan on staying here?" she asked, picking at her nails. He finally looked at her, actually at her and not around her. She could have sworn she saw the exhaustion in his eyes. The air felt different, tense, but a good kind. She didn't feel intimidated by him, which was a first. It was almost as if he was trying to tell her it was okay to be concerned about him for once, that he'd allow himself to be weak for the next few days so they could make it past tomorrow. She found it endearing.

"Two days," he decided. "Then we're back on the road to find our parents. Scoot over." He uncharacteristically pushed her over, wrapping his arms around her gently and pulling her in. She wondered where his need for physical contact came in, and if he had ignored the urge until she woke up. That's when she noticed he was hiding his head in her neck and shaking gently. He was crying, Bakugou didn't cry, but he was finally succumbing to the fear that must have been consuming them in escaping. She gently wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to display his emotions without being embarrassed. She felt honored that he was letting her see that side of him.

––––––––––

Two days passed much quicker than Bakugou thought it would. When he had woken up on the first day his back hurt so much he could barely move. It didn't help that he had slept on the floor. He had wanted to give Midoriya her space until she woke up, and his back screamed bloody murder at the decision. He was happy when she awoke, because not only was she okay, but he also was able to get in the bed to ease the pain in his back. Also, Midoriya made a great cuddling buddy. He hadn't realized how much he relied on human contact until she wasn't wrapped in his arms.

Her shoulder did get better. Luckily she never got an infection and the wound managed to close. Bakugou made her a splint so she wouldn't move her arm too much. He also applied medicine to her wrists and wrapped them. They were bruised and scarred badly the first two days, but they seemed to be lightening up by the time they were moving. With both of them in better conditions, he thought it was good for them to go.

Walking towards their parents did take long either. There weren't a lot of infected. He assumed it was because they were in a more rural area. The city had a lot of infected because there were a lot of people living there. Citizens were so dispersed in the country that they were lucky if they ran in two or three a day. But that was where their luck seemed to stop because once they reached their destination their fear came to life.

Bakugou never liked hope. Hope was a bitch, a true son of a bitch that always rammed their ugly head into his chest when he met them. He shouldn't have let it cloud his judgment, to let him think that maybe the world wasn't over after all and that he, his parents, and Midoriya could live normal lives in a new civilization.

There wasn't even a single tent left in the haze.

It was still in flames, the smoke burning his nose as he stared at the destruction. Midoriya was on her knees, crying as she looked at the damage. Their parents were there, burning away in what was supposed to be the rest of the camp.

Just lost to the red flames.

He picked Midoriya up by her elbows, dragging her back to the car. He didn't bother to look over his shoulder at the burning city, to listen to the silence of what would've been screaming had they come earlier. There was no one left, just shrub and ash.

He wouldn't let this be the end of them. He and Midoriya would find somewhere to be, somewhere safe. Somewhere where they could sleep through the entire night without nightmares, or have to worry about if biters were nearby, or if they had enough food to last them the day. Somewhere where scavenging wouldn't be the only means of survival, where there would already be food for them there, every night, at the same time.

He just wanted to find a place where Midoriya could smile and laugh again because he couldn't do that anymore. He wanted to find a palace she could call home, that she could give herself to because he knew she'd never do that for him. There was only so much he could do, so much he could provide for her, and eventually, he'd run dry.

He couldn't hope anymore for the sake of his sanity. It wasn't worth the pain and tears. He had to be strong because only the strong could survive in the new world. He wouldn't let himself or Midoriya fall weak again. He wouldn't let them die because he wasn't strong enough.

He had to be strong enough.

He ignored the big hole growing in his chest at the sight of the city. He ignored the urge to turn back and look for his parents in the ash, to find their bodies and give them a proper burial. He ignored the feeling of holding Midoriya with everything he had because he knew he had to get her away first before she went running to search and get herself killed as well. He knew at that point that anything he was feeling towards her would have to go because her survival came before every skip of his heartbeat whenever she hugged him, smiled at him, or breathed near him.

At that point, all they could do was live, and Bakugou would be damned if he messed that shit up.


The first night they spent completely and utterly alone was in a car. They were still in the rural part of Japan, and unlike the city, there weren't many houses they could just break into. He was sure people were still living in their houses too. The rural areas weren't as dramatic as the urban areas, there weren't infected biting at your ankle every two steps or stalkers watching your every move. It's quiet, calm, but still dangerous.

It was tight and uncomfortable. The car looked like it had been abandoned long before the end of the world began. There were a few holes in the glass of the window and the car seats had eroded naturally over time. The only thing keeping them from turning around and finding somewhere better was the freezing cold. Winter had just begun if the snow said anything. The car may be busted beyond repair, but it protected them from the cold as long as they covered the windows with blankets.

Insulating the car was their best decision. They had a few blankets, enough to cover the windows and the seats. They'd maybe get a few hours of rest if they were lucky and move on to the next day, but that was if they could actually make it past that night. It wasn't like they had ever slept outside in close to negative degree weather. They could freeze to death and join their parents, or wake damn near close to dying.

He was concerned when Midoriya didn't say anything. He knew she was uncomfortable. She was shaking hard, even with two blankets and a winter coat. She was also gripping her shoulder. There was no way her shoulder was going to allow her to sleep well. She kept tossing and turning, quietly wincing when she moved her shoulder.

"Just sleep on your back," he told her, too cold to snap at her. She didn't turn to look at him, she didn't even respond, she just stilled. She wasn't even tense, just limp. It made him freak out for a second, it looked like she actually died. Then a muted sob echoed through the car, and he realized she was trying her best not to throw a fit.

"What are we going to do?" she managed to say. He felt something burst in his chest, he couldn't quite identify what but it hurt. He didn't like seeing her that way looking completely helpless.

"Survive," he told her. "That's all we can do."

"But how, Kacchan? It's the end of the world, help isn't coming, there's nowhere for us to go, and our parents are dead! What are we supposed to do with that?" she was getting louder, too loud, but it wasn't like he was going to tell her to shut up, not this time. Unlike all the other times she had annoyed the crap out of him by being over emotional he felt this was justified. In his own way, he wanted to yell out too. Just scream at the world why? The world was shit now, and they were just kids. How were they expected to survive when at any given moment they could just die?

"We just have to," he said. "Goddammit Deku! I'm mad too! There's nothing I want more than to kill whoever killed our parents, but they're probably long gone and we're not. All we can do is fucking live." There was silence, and then Midoriya turned to him and looked him dead in the eyes. He'd never seen anything so broken in his life.

"What if we just end it here?" she asked. He stared at her, his mind for once drawing a blank and repeating those words over and over in his head. She couldn't be serious right? She'd never say anything like that. The idea of her offing herself plagued his mind. He didn't care what excuse she gave him, he wouldn't allow it. Never.

Suddenly he had a lot more to fear than the monsters walking outside of their shelter.

"I don't want to run for the rest of my life," she said to him. "I've never been so scared, Kacchan. The only thing that made me want to keep going was waiting for help and finding my mother. I just wanted to see her one more time." She was sobbing again, her hands uselessly wiping the tears away before she gave up and palmed at the material on her knees. Shaking, she shook her head as if denying the thought of killing herself, but he could see in her eyes that she was very much considering it, and he hated that. "I don't want to fight. I don't want to hurt others. I don't want to hurt anymore."

"Shut up," he growled, anger building inside of him. He could see her flinch, her eyes avoiding his. He hadn't realized he had taken her head in his hands, that in her desperation to admit to him that she wanted to kill herself he had taken the liberty of wiping her tears away. "I'm not letting you kill yourself, you hear me shitty Deku!"

"Kacchan–"

"Fuck no!" he yelled. "The last thing our parents asked us to do was live. That means not dying from the monsters, not dying from people, and no fucking suicides. We're going to live until we are old and brittle, I swear on my fucking life, so don't fucking look down on me and kill yourself!" His words, frantic and grotesque as they sounded, were entirely his feelings. He didn't give a damn what the world threw at them, they were going to make it if he had any Goddamn say in it.

"Kacchan!" she cried, burying her head in his chest. Her good hand rested on his chest, gathering material into her shaking fist. Again, like all the other times she had impulsively hugged since this fucked up shit started happening, he let her, because he was scared too. He took solace in knowing she was comfortable enough to cry into his chest, and he–very silently–let out his growing fear by holding her back. His grip was tight, refusing to let go until she fell asleep. Even when she fell asleep he held on because he knew he wasn't going to sleep and that she was going to have a nightmare, so holding on was in the best interest of both of them. Besides, once that sun rose and shit began to hit the fan, he'd be too busy making sure they lived instead of confiding in her hugs.

He dreaded when the time came.


The first months were exhausting. They ran out of food after a week, then water after a week and a half. They were forced to move when they had no basic necessities and then forced to move closer to the city when they realized they wouldn't find shit in such a dispersed community. Houses were miles from one another, seeming so far and spread apart that it felt like he and Midoriya had entered another country by the time they got to the next house. That alone exhausted them, that wasn't even taking into consideration the infected…

Sometimes they had to get creative to get food. In one of the houses, he managed to find a hunting book. He taught himself how to set traps and snares, which animals were easiest to catch, and which ones would be a waste of food. Midoriya learned which berries were good to eat to help, but they barely ran into edible plant bushes or bushes that weren't already consumed by animals.

It almost felt like out of nowhere Midoriya started getting really smart about where to start looking. He didn't know how she did it, but she seemed to understand maps on a deeper level than they're meant to be understood. Somehow she could tell him where neighborhoods were–which wasn't hard because all neighborhoods had st. in the name–and she could easily tell him which roads had stores and restaurants. Once they realized stores were practically useless, they started searching abandoned restaurants and shopping areas. They were lucky enough to find more durable clothing for the winter, and sometimes they'd get lucky with a spare can of food in a restaurant.

He knew they were growing distant, and it hurt, but he knew he needed to focus on finding somewhere for her to be before he let any emotion take over his judgment. He had to be decisive and unmoving, a good leader for her, but not too overbearing. She was proving herself worthy to be his companion. He just didn't want to let her down.

He couldn't let her down either.