Chapter 1

Transformation

An ecstatic trill bubbled through Ochako's lips as she closed the front door to her home behind her, the brunette hurriedly twirling around and charging through the curtain of rainbow beads that hung in the doorway of the kitchen.

Her socked feet slid to a stop on the tiled floor by the side of the table that wasn't occupied, her eyes jumping between the two boys eating their dinner as she excitedly gushed, "I was putting out the recycling and a van drove past and the driver waved at me!" She sucked in a delighted breath and clasped her hands in front of her chest, "He could totally see me!"

Shouto blankly watched her happily bounce on the balls of her feet, slowly chewing his most recent bite of his microwaved pizza.

Katsuki, however, didn't look amused in the least. But the blond's glower didn't stop the brunette from enthusiastically jabbering on.

"It's happening all the time now," she lilted, still donning a bright grin. "And not just with people like you guys, but with regular folks, too." Once she was finished gushing, she let out a heavy breath to calm herself, though she was still unable to fight the grin from her face as she asked, "So…who wants some coffee?"

Katsuki's chair creaked in time with his weighty growl as he sunk deeper into his seat and rolled his eyes.

Ochako's smile slowly faded, the brunette quirking a brow at him as she asked, "What?"

"You keep making fucking coffee," he grumbled, gesturing to the countertops around them, "Every single fucking surface is covered with mugs of shitty coffee. I go to make some and I can't! There's no mugs, there's no coffee-it's all been made! And you can't even fucking drink it!"

"Oh," Ochako abashedly curled into herself at his outburst, smiling shyly, "Well…I...I like my routine. It makes me feel normal."

"Normal?" he scoffed incredulously, "You're a fucking ghost!"

Shouto took the childish and angry pout forming on Ochako's face as his cue. He shoved the rest of his pizza into his mouth and grumbled around it as he stood, "We should get going, Bakugo."

"You're both heading out?" Ochako questioned as the two boys brushed past her and through the curtain of beads into the entryway. She followed after them, frowning slightly as she watched them put on their coats.

"Yeah. We've got work and then it's his time of the month," Shouto nodded in Katsuki's direction as he wound a scarf around his neck.

"Oh, right," she hummed and nodded to herself. A subtle giggle slipped through her lips as she started, "Tell you what, I won't miss that. I used to have to curl up on my bed with a hot water bottle and book. If anyone said anything to me, I'd bite their head off." The smile on her face suddenly faded as she looked towards Katsuki, gasping lightly as she caught sight of his annoyed, deadpan stare, "I guess in your case that's actually a possibility, isn't it? You know…biting…" her voice faded out when the blond's expression didn't flinch in the slightest.

Unbothered by the tension, Shouto slid a beanie onto his head and donned a pair of sunglasses, "We'll see you later, Uraraka."

"You should be happy for her," Shouto stated simply as he and his housemate rounded the corner into the hospital's locker room, "She can finally be seen by other people, not just us."

"Other people move in somewhere, and they get water damage or creaky floorboards. Not us," Katsuki grumbled as he opened his locker and threw his discarded coat inside. He glanced around at the other men who were changing in the room to see if anyone was listening in, dropping his voice into a low growl, "Why do we get fucking Casper the friendly ghost?"

"We already talked about this. There must be something unresolved about her death. That's what's keeping her here."

"It's not fucking fair."

"Exactly," Shouto answered, throwing his coat and shirt onto the growing pile of clothes in his locker, "Whatever happened to her was unfair."

"I mean her fucking being here is unfair," Katsuki hissed, stripping himself of his shirt. "The amount of shit we have to put up with because of her…The house was supposed to help us get away from supernatural shit, not bring us more of it."

Seeing its futility, Shouto dropped the topic, pulling the top of his scrubs over his head, "Same plan for tonight as always?"

Katsuki grunted an affirmative, casting another cautious glance around the locker room while he tugged on his scrub bottoms, "Work for an hour, say I have a family emergency, and then sneak down to the isolation room before the moon comes up."

Shouto nodded, pulling up his own bottoms, "I'll come let you out in the morning."

Still clearly irritated (when wasn't he, though?), Katsuki slammed his locker shut, leaving without another word.

Shouto stared at the boy's back for a moment before gently closing his own locker. His eyes naturally passed over the security monitor in the corner of the room as he turned to start his own task.

The monitor soon snagged his full attention, however, and had him freezing in place. The surveillance footage in the upper right corner of the screen captured the doors of a seemingly empty elevator opening before closing again only a moment later. Anyone else would've chalked the sight up to a malfunction in the elevator system, but Shouto knew better than that.

The culprit was one of his own.

It didn't take Shouto long to find where the other vampire had snuck off to. It was like this sense he had, the ability to detect his own and recognize other supernaturals. He'd known what Katsuki was the second they'd met, and he'd been quick to realize what Ochako was the first time he'd seen her, too.

He ducked himself into one of the many hospital rooms that lined the hall, pressing his back against the door once it was closed to cover the long, thin window so no one could see inside. An aura of uncertainty hung in the air, and the chances of this confrontation taking a turn for the worst were high.

Like he'd expected, there was a man waiting inside for him, the other vampire tossing his black trench coat onto the end of the bed, over the feet of the unconscious patient, "How do they expect anyone to find anything in this place?" The man let out a deep chuckle, "I followed the signs for the ICU and ended up back where I came in."

The feelings of amusement weren't reciprocated, Shouto's lips pressed into a tight line as he ground out, "What are you doing here, Touya?"

His brother's lips curled in disgust at the name, but Shouto had no intention of using the other name his brother had adopted after his 'death.'

"Shigaraki thinks recruitment should be more...tactical. Those with money and influence. No more tramps or people who fall asleep on the night bus." A cruel smile spreads across Dabi's lips as he lowly hummed, "You had the right idea with Momo, though. At least she's easy on the eyes."

Despite the novelty of the wound, Shouto didn't allow himself to flinch at the mention of his most recent slip up, of the last time he'd been weak and succumbed to the urges of his kind, letting them take complete control.

Dabi hovered over the ailing man in the bed, grabbing his face from beneath his chin and squeezing his cheeks together around the breathing tube in his mouth. "This guy," he tilted the man's head from side to side, looking him over, "I think he's on the council or something."

"Leave him alone," Shouto pressed, his body tensing.

"What?" Dabi glanced back up at his little brother, his lips splitting in a malicious grin, "You want to share?"

"No," Shouto responded sharply on instinct, cutting off the idea immediately.

But suddenly, there was a familiar stirring and aching in his gut, the urge to just give in calling to him again as it had many times before.

"I've stopped," he hissed, both to himself and to the vampire hovering over the bed.

A mixture of a scoff and groan slipped through Dabi's lips as he pulled back, rolling his eyes, "We've had this conversation, Shouto. Do you remember that student? The guy…When was it? Fifty-eight? Fifty-nine?"

Shouto's gaze fell to the floor, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

Dabi stepped closer and began to circle around the rigid boy, seeming somewhat excited as his voice gained speed while he taunted, "Or you and I and that girl in the hotel in Tokyo? Or the couple in the park on your birthday all those years ago?" He leaned in close, whispering in the boy's ear, "You can't 'stop,' Shouto. It's what we are."

He finally took a step back, looking his brother up and down before he leered in disgust, "Just look at you. When's the last time you fed? You're shaking. And sweating." He gave the boy one last sneer before he turned to go back the ailing man's bedside, "Now, come on. Just a taste."

Shouto stepped forward, his right hand curling around his brother's wrist. His head was still hung, his bangs covering his eyes as he pressed, "Tell Shigaraki the hospital is out of bounds."

A tense silence took hold of the room for a few moments, neither of the boys moving.

Then, Dabi made the slightest pull against his brother. Shouto's grip tightened in warning, one corner of his lips pulling back to flash a fang in intimidation.

Dabi only chuckled in satisfaction, as if that was all he'd been waiting for. He tugged his arm out of his brother's grasp and snatched his trench coat from the edge of the bed, sliding it on as he ground out, "A word of warning, from your big brother," he popped his collar, his voice dropping in volume, "It's cold out there without us."

With those words hanging in the air after him, Dabi left Shouto alone in the room, the sound of the ailing man's blood thrumming in his veins pounding in the boy's ears, calling to him.

Katsuki let out what had to be his twelfth growl of the last ten minutes, hunching forward slightly as he trudged on with his cart of towels.

Mina had been talking his ear off for the last ten minutes as she distributed the towels from his cart to the rooms they passed. He had no idea what she was blabbering on about, something to do with how hard it was to keep her hair dyed pink or some shit, but it was getting on his nerves.

He focused his gaze on anything that wasn't her, the bulletin board on the nearest wall snagging his attention.

The board had been turned into a memorial, with smaller pictures and papers with written messages pinned around the central, larger photo of a girl with hair as black as night. A few flowers and other trinkets had been left on the floor beneath the board, and countless ribbons had been tied around the pins that held the picture in place.

"Who was she?" Mina asked tentatively, her lips set in a small frown as she glanced at the picture.

It was only then that he realized he'd slowed to a halt right beside the board, his pause catching the pink haired girl's attention. "Yaoyorozu," Katsuki growled, beginning to push his cart again and trying to end the conversation fast. "She worked in 'A and E.'"

Mina was silent for a moment, in which Katsuki silent thanked God. But it wasn't long before she hesitantly asked, "When did she die?"

Katsuki didn't answer. He didn't want to talk period, especially not about some stupid shit like a distant coworker who'd died a little over a month ago. Sure, he'd at least known who she was because she and Half 'n Half had seemed to get on real quick when they'd moved to town and started working at the hospital two months ago. But he certainly wasn't her friend, cause he wasn't the type for stupid shit like that.

Mina must have misinterpreted his silence, her voice gentle and seemingly seeking to comfort him, "Well, it looks like they're doing a memorial…Planting a tree."

Katsuki sunk into himself and tightened his grip on the handle of the cart, another growl threatening to spill from his lips. Couldn't she just fucking drop it? Death didn't mean the same thing to him that it used to, and he'd had enough of talking about it with his shitty housemates.

"Bakugo."

Speak of the fucking devil.

Half 'n Half was rushing toward them from the opposite side of the hallway, his face blank as ever as he asked, "Shouldn't you be going?"

"Fuck," Katsuki hissed as he snagged a glance at the clock on the wall. He shoved his cart at his housemate and charged off the hallway in the opposite direction, ignoring Half 'n Half's quiet groan as the cart struck him in the ribs.

With a bit of a pout on her lips, Mina called after him, "See you later, then!"

The black leather of the couch squeaked as Ochako collapsed onto it, her legs dangling over one of the armrests. She gently tossed the book she'd been reading onto the coffee table before lying back down with a sigh, her eyes listlessly drifting to the ceiling.

She was bored. Really bored.

She'd read all of the books on the bookshelf, some of them more than once, and there was hardly ever anything that appealed to her on TV nowadays. Everything just reminded her of all that she'd lost and all the things she'd never get to do.

She'd have to talk to the boys about getting her something else to enter herself, because she wasn't sure she could pull it off on her own. Even though more and more people could see her, there were still those that couldn't. And there didn't seem to be any trends or consistencies among those that could. It just seemed to be completely random.

Not knowing when she was and wasn't visible was too much of a pain. So it'd have to be one of the boys, probably Shoto because she highly doubted Katsuki could ever be convinced to do something for her.

Either way, it couldn't be dealt with until they got home.

Ochako sat up with another sigh, folding her arms over the back of the couch and resting her chin on them with a pout as she moved to her last-resort passtime.

Their house wasn't on the busiest street by any means, but there were always at least a few people out and about. She hadn't really been in the house long enough to meet her neighbors before she'd died. But, her occasional people-watching through the living room window had allowed her to at least see what the people who lived nearby looked like.

The neighbors who were most frequently out and about were the tiny old man who lived next door and the green haired boy from down the street, who was usually helping said old man carry something or other.

Just when she thought she wouldn't see them that day, she finally saw them round the corner onto their street. This time, the boy's arms were weighed down with grocery bags, his pace slow so as not to leave the old man at his side behind.

Ochako was pretty sure the old man had lived here before she'd died, but she didn't recognize the boy at all. He seemed incredibly kind though, and she was sure that he was someone she'd have loved to be friends with.

But that was just another bulletpoint on the long, long list of things she'd never get to do.

Katsuki shrugged his shoulder to hoist his bag up to a more secure position, the old cement floor scraping against the soles of his shoes as he trudged down to where he would be spending the night.

His transformations had never been pleasant, and the fact that he would spend hours and hours completely unaware of his, or rather the wolf's, actions terrified him. At least he'd found a safe place where he could spend the night of a full moon without hurting anyone.

The hospital was old, and so was Musutafu. There was an older level to the block which the hospital covered that much of the general public was either unaware of, or had forgotten entirely. The lowermost level of the block housed dozens of decade-old isolation rooms from a time when asylums and hospitals had yet to be split into separate facilities, their sturdy walls and heavily securable doors providing the perfect prison for a wild beast.

Katsuki had been using them since they'd moved here, and the two transformations he'd spend in an old isolation room had gone without incident.

But as he got closer to the hallway of isolation rooms, the lights bouncing off the stone walls and the sounds of construction let him known that this time was going to be different.

In the hospital's cafeteria, Shouto was three minutes into his break.

Being a hospital porter wasn't the most exciting job, but Shouto didn't need exciting. And at least the people were nice, like Mina.

Now, if he could only focus on what she was saying.

All he could hear was the blood in her veins, the thrumming of her heart as it pumped her full of life.

He hadn't fed for two months now.

His brother was right. He was sweating. And shaking. His body craved for blood, and he was terrified. He wanted to withstand the need and stay clean, but he was only barely holding out against the urges now. If he ever were to lose control again, especially after a couple of months of being clean, how bad would it be? How many people would he kill?

"Todoroki?"

The soft call of his name somehow snapped him out of it and he shifted in his seat, his eyes jumping to meet with Mina's own as she stared at him in concern.

How long had he been staring at her? And how many times had she said his name?

"Are you alright?" Mina asked tentatively, her brows furrowed. "Your hand's shaking."

He followed her gaze to where his right hand was resting on the table, wrapped around a paper cup that'd once held his coffee.

Sure enough, it was trembling.

He leaned forward to rest both of his forearms on the table, wrapping his other hand around the cup as well to steady his shaking while he quickly covered, "Oh…yeah. I, uh….quit smoking a few weeks ago."

"Oh, okay. I hope that goes well for you," with soft, but genuine smile, she gave him her well-wishes. She let out a heavy sigh, "So, anyways, enough about me." A mischievous grin took hold of her features, "You dating anyone right now?"

He stared at her blankly before answering flatly, "No."

How could he ever possibly date someone?

His relationships had always followed a similar pattern. They'd been brief, and they hadn't ended well. He didn't want to keep hurting people. He wanted something good and normal. But he knew he couldn't do that.

"Half 'n Half!"

His gaze shifted behind Mina to see Katsuki charging towards him through the cafeteria doors.

Shouto knew immediately that something was wrong. Otherwise, Katsuki would've locked himself up by now.

Ever the master at keeping his cool, he gave Mina a simple nod and slid out of his chair, "Excuse me."

Katsuki was practically shaking, his eyes anxiously jumping about as he and Shouto finally reached each other, the pair turning to head right back in the direction the blond had come from.

Katsuki hissed through clenched teeth, "The isolation room where I was going to transform is full of fucking construction workers. We need to get somewhere now. I've only got about twenty minutes."

"Where? The forest is too small and too close to town. You could hurt someone." Shouto paused for a moment as they traveled down a crowded hallway, waiting until they'd reached the door that lead to the parking lot before he asked, "What about the house?"

"We already fucking talked about this!" Katsuki hissed. "I'm not doing that shit there!"

"You can't always keep it separate. This is part of you now," Shoto repeated the same thing he'd already told Katsuki countless times.

It'd been over a year since he'd been attacked by that other werewolf, and he was still afraid of what he was.

The blond was sweating bullets, and Shoto was willing to bet he could already feel the transformation coming on.

They were the same in that they didn't want to hurt anyone. But in Katsuki's case, there was the risk of passing the affliction on to some else.

Those must have been the thoughts and feelings that drove the blond to answer, "Fuck it! Let's just go!"

Ochako's eyes went wide as the front door was thrown open. Her focus jumped between Shouto and Katsuki as they charged in and immediately separated, dashing around the house and moving various things about.

She stood from where she'd been curled up on the couch, her eyes zeroing in on Katsuki in particular as he stripped himself of his jacket and harshly threw it aside, "What's going on? I thought it was your time of the month?"

"It is," Shouto answered calmly despite his hurried gathering of their GameCube games. He shoved them down the collar of his still zipped up jacket, informing the girl, "He's doing it here."

Ochako pouted and let out a little whine, "I just vacuumed, though."

Shouto zipped up his jacket back up to the collar once he was done stashing the games inside, "Bakugo, what else do you need?"

"Close the curtains so it can't see outside," Katsuki commanded sharply, shoving the furniture in the living room into the corner. He whipped around to face Ochako, "Put some music on, Cheeks. Loud."

"Good idea. If anyone asks, we'll say there's a party going on," Shouto nodded, charging between all of the windows and yanking the curtains closed. "Uraraka, if there's anything you don't want broken, put it in your room."

The only one in the room that wasn't moving rapidly was Ochako, a pout on her face in response to Katsuki's nickname for her. The brunette calmly walked over to the shelf against the wall and turned on whatever CD was already in the player. She wasn't surprised when her ears were suddenly thrumming with the guitar strums and drum beats of a heavy metal song, having already figured that such would be case given Katsuki's tendency to blast it.

"And what are we supposed to do while he's doing his thing?" she called over the music.

"Get out," Shouto answered sharply, yanking the last of the curtains closed.

Ochako watched the pair in silence as the two boys continued to move things about. She bounced on the balls of her feet and bit her bottom lip for a moment before she worked up the courage to hesitantly ask, "Can I…Can I watch?"

Part of her was hoping that they wouldn't hear her over the music. But, of course, thanks to their amplified senses, they did.

The pair froze and stared at her blankly, Shouto in the midst of unplugging the box TV and Katsuki with a lamp in one hand and a vase in the other.

Under the weight of their stares, she shrugged lightly, looking between them innocently, "I just want to see what happens."

"The fuck?" The indignation was practically rolling off of Katsuki in waves, "I'm not some fucking animal to stare at! This is…" a heavy breath slipped through his lips and his voice dropped in volume, "…it's private."

"I just thought it might be nice for you to have someone with you, since you've always had to do it all alone...And you've seen me since I died," she reasoned, "I think the rules of privacy are bit messy, now."

His frustrated stare didn't let up.

"Oh, come on," she shrugged, "It's not like you can hurt me. I'm already dead, remember?"

"Maybe…maybe she should," Shouto let out a heavy breath.

Katsuki haughtily protested, "What the hell, Half 'n Half?!"

"This is exactly what I mean. It's part of you. Maybe having someone else who knows exactly what it's like will help you accept it."

"Fuck!" Katsuki growled in exasperation, shoving the vase into her arms. His voice dropped in volume but picked up in intensity, letting her know that he absolutely wasn't fucking around, "Stick to the fucking kitchen and stay out of its line of sight. If it sees you, I don't know what it'll do."

A triumphant grin threatened to break out over her features, but she figured it would be ill-fitted to the situation. Ochako was about to nod her head in understanding, but instead, she was left to go wide-eyed as Katsuki suddenly keeled forward, shrieking while the lamp he'd been holding clattered to the floor.

His fists were clenched and his eyes clamped shut, his teeth grit as he hissed, "It's starting."

That was Shouto's cue. He grabbed the box TV and hugged it tight to his chest, somehow managing to balance the GameCube on top of it as he charged out the front door.

He cast a glance both ways down the street as he yanked the door shut behind him, still hugging his TV to his chest as he plopped himself down on the front steps and settled in for the long night ahead of him.

Ochako had retreated into the kitchen just like Katsuki had asked of her.

She peeked past the curtain of beads, still holding the vase he'd shoved at her both because she didn't know what to do with it and because she didn't want to risk missing something by finding a place to safely place it aside.

Katsuki was standing in the middle of the living room, completely naked. He was cupping his hands over his crotch to maintain some sense of modesty, but that didn't make it any less awkward for either them.

Heavy metal still blasting in both of their ears, he cast a tentative, angry glance her way.

The brunette gave him an encouraging wave and a little quirk of her lips, and it was almost like that triggered it.

He keeled forward again, not managing to stay on his feet this time. The scream was louder, too, and it didn't stop, carrying on in a series of shrieks as he convulsed on his hands and knees.

Even over the music and the sound of his screams, Ochako could hear popping and cracking; could see his spine arching to stick out of his back unnaturally. The horrid sound, she realized, was that of his bones breaking.

If she'd had the mind to be thankful at the moment, she was sure she'd be grateful for the vase he'd shoved at her because it gave her something to hug as she sunk to her knees.

It was so gruesome, and it hurt to see someone in so much pain and know there was nothing that could be done to help them. It was a thousand times worse than anything she'd thought it would be.

But she couldn't look away.

All across his body, his veins were beginning to bulge, and the next time he opened his mouth to scream, his teeth were longer and sharper. And the scream was much deeper, too, like there was more than just Katsuki screaming from the inside.

It was when the fur started to break past his skin that Ochako couldn't bring herself to stare any longer.

She collapsed back against one of the cabinets near the door, a few tears she hadn't known were there sliding down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut.

What felt like an eternity was only a few minutes, but the screams finally stopped.

Now, there was only panting.

Ochako turned her gaze back to the doorway, wanting to peek through beads, but feeling too terrified to actually indulge her curiosity. Despite knowing that it wasn't Katsuki on the other side of the curtain anymore, she still wanted to call out to make sure he was okay.

But the sight of golden fur and glowing, red eyes peering at her through the beads had his name dying in her throat.

Shouto's lips pressed into a grim line at the first sound of something shattering inside the house, wondering what the first loss of the night had been. It wouldn't be the last, either. The growling, scratching, and barking that could just barely be heard over the heavy metal music made him sure of that.

With a faint whoosh, he was no longer alone on the front steps.

He looked to the left to find Ochako seated beside him, her eyes wide and the rest of her face slack as she hugged a vase to her chest.

Honestly, she had lasted longer than he'd thought she would.

He'd never seen a werewolf transform given the fact that he wasn't invulnerable to being ripped to shreds like she was. But he'd been alive long enough and wise enough to do his research about one of the few things that could kill him, for good this time.

He knew exactly what a transformation entailed.

Once it started, Katsuki would be dead in about a minute. The werewolf heart was about two-thirds the size of a human's, but in order to shrink, it had to stop. In other words, he would have a heart attack. All the internal organs were smaller as well, so while he had a heart attack, he'd have liver and kidney failure, too.

And if he stopped screaming, it wasn't because the pain was dull. His throat and vocal chords were tearing and reforming, too. It was because he literally couldn't make a sound.

In response to all of this trauma, the pituitary gland should have been working over time, flooding his body with endorphins to relieve some of the pain. But that was also shut down.

Anyone else would've died of shock after only a few seconds, but the wolf wouldn't let him die. It would drive him through the fire and keep him alive; conscious to endure every second.

In the wake of witnessing all of that, Shouto was sure anyone would be as shaken as Ochako was.

She sniffled as she slowly and numbly looked his way, mumbling sadly, "He's gone."

Shouto quirked one of the corners of his lips, a poor attempt at a smile.

It seemed she took that as some sort of invitation, or maybe she was desperately in need of some form of comfort after whatever she'd just seen inside.

Either way, Shouto tensed as she suddenly leaned into his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

Ochako felt him stiffen, but paid it no mind.

For once, as growls and crashes rang out from the house behind her, she was grateful she was immune to the cold of the night.

AN

Just a reminder: This is inspired by the series Being Human

Thank you for reading!