And we're back with another update. Again, this chapter has a special warning. There is mentions of suicidal thoughts, and though is is very short and not vulgar, if that is triggering for you, please don't read.

Don't forget to follow and favorite. Leave a review, I like reading them. Also to the one comment asking for the BakuDeku to just be canon alreasy, this is a slow burn. It's gonna happen, but it's gonna be a while from now. I like to treat this fanfic like a real good slow burn so you guys have a good quality read.


Bakugou was gone again by the time she woke up. She hated it when he did that. They had food, enough to last the end of the week, so they were supposed to be hanging low. Why in the world was he out again? And why was it before the sunrise?

The last three months with just the two of them was very different from the first month. There was no end goal, no hope. They were just trying to make it to the next day, barely hanging on by a thread. They barely talked anymore, they barely slept, and they were barely not afraid. It was just miserable.

Midoriya tried to hope, she really did. She didn't want to be a negative Nancy, even when all her thoughts were begging for her to just slit her wrist or hang herself. She tried to not think about it, the deep desire to just end it all, because she promised Bakugou she'd try. She couldn't deny she hated that promise, especially the more and more they separated. It still boggled her mind that even though they were in the same room almost every minute of the day that they couldn't seem to hold a single conversation. It might be her fault. Bakugou was never on for small talk, and since they found out their parents were gone, Midoriya wasn't one for small talk either. When they did talk it was all business. Only to say they found shelter, water, or food, nothing else. Sometimes he'd snap at her to go to sleep when she'd been awake for too long and could barely keep her eyes open or to eat her food after she'd been picking at it for half an hour, but that was about it. He was always stuck in his own head. He never really reacted to their parents dying, she wondered if that was what he thought about.

She had taken to washing all their clothes and washing herself when he left. He didn't really like it when she went out without him. She felt the same, but he was gone so often that if she waited for him she'd never see the sun again. Then again, it was the middle of winter, it was freezing outside, and it snowed enough for it to be at her knees. Still, she had to wash the little clothes they had. The clothes accumulated dirt over time, and though it didn't stink, she knew that soon it would start to, as well as herself.

She had come up with a system. They had managed to find a place that was by a lake, and that lake had a lot of fresh water, so what she did was make a small homemade well over the frozen lake to collect water whenever they needed it. They had a couple buckets, some for the bath and washing clothes, and one for drinking and cooking. They had to be careful not to mix the buckets, because if they ended up eating soap that'd be a tragedy.

She sighed when the first bucket was put on top of the fire to boil. She hated being in the cabin by herself. It was small, so she could hear everything in case something did happen, but still she was left paranoid. She just preferred he was there with her, because she wasn't that great with a gun and wasn't that strong either.

She took the bucket out of the fire and started boiling the second one. Was Bakugou mad at her? He wasn't giving any verbal cues to if he was. Usually, he'd growl or snap at her, but recently he'd been as quiet as a mouse. He even lost his scowl, which was actually replaced permanently with sleepy, droopy eyes. He got even less sleep than her, but unlike her whose mind was plagued with nightmares, he chose not to sleep. Another secret. He seemed to have a lot of those lately.

She shook her head. She shouldn't judge him for anything. He was the reason why they were still alive. Bakugou was smart, he always has been. His huntings capabilities only strengthened as time continued, and now he could effortlessly catch a rabbit or squirrel. They've had a lot of rabbit stews lately, which she wasn't complaining about. Rabbit's really tasty.

She forced herself not to think about it as she placed the last bucket on the fire. She may not talk a lot, but she thought a lot. Her mind was filled with thoughts, endless thoughts that seemed to just go on forever. Sometimes she was thinking so much so fast that she can't form sentences, her mind already on to the next thing. By the time she realized she had been trapped in her own mind, the water was boiling, and there were footsteps at the front door.

"I'm back," she heard Bakugou mumble huskily. He didn't bother taking his shoes off at the doorstep. It was too cold for them to take them off. She listened to his heavy footsteps until he appeared in front of her, snow covering his blonde hair and jacket. His cheeks and nose were flushed red, and he was rubbing his hands together. He was avoiding eye contact, like always, and took a seat in front of the fire next to her.

"Welcome back, Kacchan," she whispered, her voice hoarse from under use. She could see him wince, or maybe shiver? She couldn't tell with the weather.

"We still have the squirrels, right?" he asked her, rubbing his hands in front of the fire. She nodded and came to her feet. Reaching outside the window. There was a ledge there. She assumed the people who used to live there before the end of the world grew flowers there, but for now they were using it as a refrigerator until winter ended. Bakugou had brought home multiple squirrels, so Midoriya let the two of the three he brought back freeze while they ate the third.

She cooked the squirrel and some rice while he tried to warm himself. His eyebrows were scrunched, which meant he was conflicted about something. She wanted to ask what, but then his eyebrows relaxed and he leaned his head back. He was exhausted.

"Are you going back out?" she had the courage to ask. He visibly froze. That was probably the most she'd said in a while, and the most they've said to each other since their parents died.

"No," he responded. "It's fucking freezing, and I alsmot lost a finger." She grinned, some of his old self genuinely shining through. She finished cooking his squirrel and rice, and gave it to him. He grunted in thanks, silence taking over the room again as he began to eat. He took slow bites, his gaze fixed on the fire absentmindedly. She wondered what he was thinking so hard about. His eyebrows were scrunched together and his jaw was tight. He was blinking slow too, all signs that he was conflicted with something, but she didn't know how to ask what...

She stopped staring once she realized he noticed, and pretended to act like the cold was getting to her. She abruptly stood and made her way upstairs to take her bath in the poorly insulated bathroom that also happened to have the most warmth in the house. Just as she reached the stairs, Bakugou cleared his throat. She turned to him, eyes wide in anticipation.

"I think there's a survivor camp nearby. You remember Shiketsu?" he said slowly, his eyes drifting to the floor. She quietly hummed in response. Everyone knew about the elite border school. "There looks like there's a lot of people there, and protection. I think we should go there."

"No," she said much quicker and harsher than she meant to. The tone of her voice made him look up at her in shock. She didn't know what came over her, but the thought of them going somewhere where there were potentially dangerous strangers made her upset.

"Why would we not?" he asked her back. "There's food there, and protection. I think they even have power and heat. We wouldn't have to freeze our asses out here if we went there, and we'd be able to take actual showers too!"

"We don't know who they are," she argued back. "What if they're like the other people we ran into? What if they try to kill us?"

"I doubt they'd try to kill us–"

"You don't know that!" she exclaimed. Once again he looked shocked by her assertiveness, but it was all with reason. She didn't want to lose him. He was the last person she had, even if he was an asshole she wanted to scream at half the time. If they went into that camp and were attacked by the people who were supposed to be their 'sanctuary', what were they supposed to do? They were managing just fine as they were.

"We're running out of food," he said, in a much softer tone than hers. She wondered if he was tired, if he didn't feel like fighting and was finally admitting the inevitable. "They're searching the area, raiding stores and homes to feed the people they have. There's a lot of people at the camp, at least a couple hundred of them, and all of them look well fed and protected. We'd be safe there."

"I don't want to end up like our parents," she said quietly, just as exhausted but for a different reason. She'd been ignoring their parents' death. Since the day she told Bakugou she'd rather be dead than alive she'd been ignoring the thought, and ignoring the topic all together. He never forced her to talk about it, she didn't even know if he thought about it himself. He was just as quiet as her, and he had the excuse of making sure they were alive to thank for ignoring the topic for so long.

"I don't either," he finally said, abandoning his plate on the floor as he moved to lay on his space on the floor. "Which is why we're going to check it out tomorrow, and I'll let you decide for yourself. I don't fucking care if you want to go or not, so be ready before the suns up."


He could practically hear her raging thoughts all the way from upstairs. He hated when they had moments like that, when they went so long without talking only to scream at each other when they did. Still, he'd take that over her silence, because at least when she was screaming, he knew how she really felt.

In truth he'd been looking at the camp for the past few weeks. He wanted to make sure that it was worth the investment, worth the feeling of hope he felt when he looked at it. He'd admit it, they were barely managing. They were lucky to find a place that was mostly well insulated with a fireplace and that was near a large water source, but that was where their luck ran out. With a camp as huge as the school and as many guns as he could see from the outskirts of its perimeters, he felt Shiketsu would be their best bet. They just needed to find a way in, if she'd let him take her there.

He realized quickly that their struggle to find food was because of Shiketsu. He had run into someone, a man in his thirties who had short black hair and brown eyes, and ran before the man could even say anything to him. Before he left, he realized the man was carrying a large bag with a lot of supplies. Being so close to the school made him realize that sooner or later scouts from the school were going to find them, and it also made him realize that sooner or later Shiketu would pick the area dry and he and Midoriya would have no choice but to go to Shiketsu to survive.

He couldn't seem to stomach the rest of the squirrel and rice, which pissed him off more. That was food they'd never get back. He didn't know how he was going to convince Midoriya to go to Shiketsu. She was a lot more wary than him when it came to meeting new people, which he completely understood. She had a fucking stalker after all, and everyone at the school turned on her in a blink of an eye.

He heard her quiet footsteps before he saw her. She was shaking gently, her green hair sticking to her face from being freshly washed and her red cheeks contrasting against the dark color. She sat close to the fire to get as much warmth as she could. It was chilly and damp no matter where she sat, but the fire made it at least bearable.

"How do you know it's not a bad place," she whispered quietly. He hadn't noticed that she was looking at him, actually looking at him. She made direct eye contact and her shoulders were squared back, no sense of hesitance in her voice at all. He barely saw her like that, and it let him know that she was serious. She was wary of Shiketsu and wanted to know everything she could to decide herself whether it was good or not. With such a look of determination, he was hesitant to tell her anything bad, because if he determined Shiketsu wasn't safe then going there was a definite no go.

"It's secured with a large fence to keep the infected out. They have people with guns there, which was probably why the police station was out of guns when we went there a few weeks ago. There's a garden there too, in the school's courtyard. There's not a lot growing now, but I'm sure in the spring they'll grow a lot more," he explained. She brought her knees close to her chest, her eyes watching the fire. She started to pick at her dry nails as she thought. The silence was loud, and Bakugou almost said something else before she nodded her head.

"Okay," she said. "I wanna see it. Take me to Shiketsu, and we'll decide from there."