Chapter 29
"Protect the Sleeping dogs"
Hizashi came back that night to his shared apartment, having an enjoyed his last day of sick leave from all three jobs, by spending time with a musical friend he rarely saw. He just hadn't expected to be home so late, especially after all the drama with him and the hospital. When he came back in though, he could tell something was wrong.
"Hey Sho' why are the lights all off?" He asked, feeling a little stupid, realizing Aizawa could be asleep. So he flicked the light on and was looking at his broodingly furious boyfriend on the couch.
And the fist sized hole in the wall.
Their cats were also nowhere to be seen. Usually, one of them was always trying to get Aizawa's attention.
"Uhhhh, Sho' why are you sitting here in the dark, with a hole in the wall?" Hizashi asked, confusion thick in his voice as he stood there in the threshold of the door way, not sure if he actually should come in. It was his home too, dammit and he took a swallow and crossed the threshold into the apartment. "Sorry I came back so late, I should have texted you."
"It's fine. Get in and close the door." Aizawa's voice was cold and smooth. Hizashi was, and wouldn't really say it, just a little apprehensive when Aizawa was really angry. It wasn't often, but the dark haired man did have emotions and when he felt anger, oh boy was he Angry. Hizashi just did as he was told, and walked calmly over to the couch next to his boyfriend.
"You were right to distrust Sunshine." Aizawa started, arms still crossed over his chest, likely hiding his bruised knuckles Hizashi supposed.
"I was?" Hizashi asked, trying not to sound as confused as he felt. Aizawa nodded, unfolded his arms, and leaned forward. Yup there were his swollen knuckles from punching the wall. "Is this why you punched the wall?"
A deep sigh and another nod.
"Arrrree you going to tell me about that, then?" Hizashi asked again, Aizawa giving him no looks of irritation for pushing for an answer. Instead a soft noise and he rested his hands against his head, and filled the other in on what he'd learned from Sunshine that day.
Hizashi was horrified, to say the least. "She's using us! We have to tell Nezu!" He practically nearly jumped up to his feet before Aizawa grabbed his arm and held him down.
"There's no point. I already told him. He already knew this was the likely reality..." Aizawa stated with a little less anger, and more tired irritation in his voice.
"So... what do we do?" Hizashi didn't know how to take his pre-planned role by Sunshine. Should he be mad? Angry? Confused? He was a hot pot mix of all of them.
"Our Jobs." Aizawa stated curtly. "That's all we can do. Just keep an eye on the kids as always... Can you keep a close eye on Alarice when you can spare it?" He turned to Hizashi, looking into his green eyes. Hizashi returned the eye-contact and followed up with an easy confident smile.
"Of course I can, Sho'."
000
Alarice didn't appreciate the day off. She appreciated Recovery Girl catching her, and expediting her healing for her, but... She still had some bandages on and she felt... punished.
She knew why, it was because of her sister. The "Hell-Hound" Situation meant there wasn't much she could do, for now. That an unknown hell-hound had weaseled his way out of the wood work, to attack her personally, while she was on the job, was a bit concerning. Enough that she was pulled early from internship while the investigation was active. She wanted to just cry but instead, she'd gone to work on improving herself. 1-A would largely be done or continuing their internships soon, in a few days time it would be time for classes again.
So, she spent her day running. When she was done with running, she ate and did some bizarre exercises to train her sense of smell. That didn't prove too fulfilling, and she could only do it so many times. So, she fell to her only other activity she enjoyed outside of break-dance and remixing...
"Stone what are you doing?" Cementoss had caught her jumping around the outside of one building. Her face turned red and she hopped down carefully. Using a bush to make her fall more gentle and land on her feet on the ground.
"I'm uh... Parkouring?" Alarice gave a nervous shrug. The cement man just kind of nodded, or at least, she thought he nodded.
"You're bored. That's understandable." Alarice flushed red as he said that, so bluntly pointing it out. "That seems like a useful hobby... hmmm How about, you come with me and I lay out a course for you?"
"ah.. is that okay? I mean yes, please." She didn't know how to respond but Cementoss wasn't a bad teacher by any means, plus she liked his general patience. She followed behind him, as they headed to one of the gyms. Where he proceeded to lay out a course, and then another more complicated course and another one, after that. For each one she completed, he would make another one, leading into encouraging her to use her quirk in small ways to help herself get around. She hadn't expected to have one of those famous free-style lessons when she wasn't even in school.
She didn't mind. Cementoss didn't seem bothered either.
After a day mostly consumed with free-style parkour courses, Alarice was tired, and after a huge meal, she was back to not knowing what to do with herself. Her classmates had started to file back into the campus and dorms, following their own internships. Selfish as it was, she didn't want to talk to them, or hear about their internships right now. She let out a yawn found her thoughts wandering to what her father had told her, as a youth.
Once again, her large hell-hound form dominated a grassy spot on one of the lawns.
She looked a lot like like a stereotypical anubis statue, her long ears right up, and her colors all black and patches darkening. Even her skull-face had started to get darker as she got older. Not that she really noticed the color change. So what if she was an all-black Hell-Hound.
Next, she tried to just relax, not drop her form, but relax in her form. It wasn't easy and she was definitely not getting there, instead listening like a snoop. She laid there, overhearing the faint sounds of voices from her neighboring dorms and her own dormitory. She wasn't really sure how long she was going to lie there, or how long she had, only that she had more than enough stored energy to practice. The sky had grown dark when she was able to hear someone was whistling a tune she found familiar. Turning her head around to watch her favorite hero's approach, he must have had a patrol because he was still in his hero garb.
He gave her a little wave as he came over. She snorted as he clearly barely avoided patting her snoot when he got close.
"Hey ya pupper-listener, what are you doing?" He asked, instead taking a seat on the nearby bench rather than join her on the grass. Her ears twitched left, right, and finally there was just a teenage girl lying in the grass in her suit, looking a little annoyed, but happy.
"Trying to uh... sleep as a hell-hound?" Alarice responded, trying to describe what she was doing without it sounding as lame as it just did.
"Sleep with your quirk activated?" Mic responded back, definitely not getting it. "Why would you want to do that?"
"mm well, mostly because Dad could do it. Its supposed to help you get closer to your hell-hound self, or something like that, but what it definitely does is let you run on low-power without dropping the form?" Alarice tried to explain, still stretched-out on the grass. "Its useful for guarding."
"Ah." He nodded, his long, pointy mane of hair shaking a little. The hair gel that held it up was starting to wear out after a full day's yelling. "You don't have to feel like you need to guard us you know."
"I know that." Alarice said back, making a face at him, even sticking her tongue out at him. "I just... I want it. Dad could do it, so I want to be able to do it, too."
Mic just was very silent for a moment, but before he could say anything else, she cut him off.
"Mic... Did either of your parents have your quirk?"
"Mm no, not really. Neither of them even really had voice related quirks, I don't think." Mic responded, with a casual shrug and Alarice noted, even a bit of pink on his cheeks. "I think my mom maybe? Neither of them where heros, so I really don't know, I never really asked them." He looked over at Alarice and she was just looking back at him with big puppy eyes. It wasn't a conscious choice to look that way. "What? Some people's quirks are real quiet!" she tried not to snort at that comment. "The eyes came from my dad, does that satisfy your nosy curiosity Pupper?"
Alarice flushed this time and buried her head in her arms so he couldn't see her doofy smile on her face. There was a muffled response of "yes" and then a little clearer; "Mine are from my mom. My dad has like, ice-blue eyes. Like a Husky's."
He let out a snorting noise of his own, before he went a little too quiet. Alarice realized to late, as she rolled onto her back, that she had taken her sleeves off, and they were laying on the bench he was sitting on. He clearly noticed too. "Stone.. is that the arm? The one Parasus broke?"
She went a little wooden then, but did her best to respond. "Yeah. That's the one."
"Well you only have two, it had to be one of them, pupper-listener." He responded, trying to be light about it.
Alarice just let out a soft laugh at that, before tracing the white scar marks and slight divots in her right arm. He tossed over her sleeves, one landing on her face, by accident and she let out a soft laugh about it, before tugging them on.
"She bit you as a hell-hound didn't she." He murmured out, he couldn't stop himself in time. She stiffened a little, as he was obviously thinking about it.
She snapped the right one on, covering up the awkward looking arm. "She did." Neither of them said anything, before she continued nervously on her own. "we were supposed to just be playing. I had to walk back to the house with it." She touched the lower marks through the sleeve but didn't say much else.
He sucked in some air between his teeth. "Little pupper sure was a tough kid. Do you want to hear about the ridiculous Villain I had to deal with today?" He offered, since she was clearly uncomfortable talking about her scars. Impressive and well-healed though they were. He couldn't imagine a 7 year old dealing with an injury like that, without an adult to help her, for any amount of time. Mostly he didn't want to think about that at all, any more, it was too upsetting.
"Sure." Alarice responded, stretching out before laying her arms over her stomach again.
"Alright so, I'm on my patrol. It's usually pretty chill, a few goofs asking me to play some meme songs on my speaker but that's like, standard. I'm ignoring that today. Sometimes I humor it because the song is funny, but today I decided to stay on focus, and as I'm trying to stay that way, when I hear the most ridiculous noise. Prepare yourself because this is some Grade A, top tier ridiculousness: It sounded like a fart." Alarice let out a little laugh and Mic clearly had to stifle one himself. His story continued on as she listened, how this guy had an incredibly specific sound based quirk, and had the legs of a cheetah apparently. As he explained how he found their partner in crime, Alarice had already felt her eyes droop. She didn't hear the end of the story, soundly asleep, by then.
000
Mic had never really seen someone fall asleep to him talking, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it, seeing it happen. He couldn't even really be mad. Apparently, she listened his radio show a lot, specifically to relax. According to Cementoss, she hadn't put her 'free-day' to waste either, so she was reasonably exhausted. That wasn't even counting that look she'd given him when he walked up, that spark of cheer in her eyes she probably wasn't even aware of. Now, she just looked so relaxed, and deeply asleep in the grass. He was reminded again of puppys after a long day of play passing out and becoming limp. Then he remembered how difficult she was to wake up when she passed out like this.
Aizawa had nearly dragged her out of the car onto the pavement before she'd woken up the first time.
Was this girl even aware of how much like a dog she acted? Probably not. He squatted down to try and shake her awake to not avail. She was out like a light again.
It was then a bit of movement caught his eye, and all of his skin went cold. Crawling in the grass right next to her long braided hair was a fairly decent sized beetle! There was a beetle coming after them!. He took a sharp inhale, and he closed his eyes and snatched her hair away from the beetle, gently laying it on his student where beetles couldn't threaten it.
The beetle was still there, though.
There was no helping it, with a small noise of effort, he scooped his student into his arms, and picked her up. Carrying her away from the beetle and heading for her dorm. She made one noise the whole time. Mic however was unprepared for how heavy she actually was. He'd forgotten how almost entirely muscle "Pupper" was. He was more than ready to put her down when he got up to 1-A's dorm, having to buzz the doorbell since he wasn't their homeroom teacher. There was an awkward moment where he just stood there, cradling a student in his arms while he waited for some one to come to door.
Jiro was clearly not that impressed, when she opened the door to see this sight.
"She fell asleep, listener" He said blankly.
"And she's still asleep?" Jiro asked, almost not believing it until he adjusted his grip, and she just stayed just as unconscious. "I can't carry her."
"Well, your classmates aren't going to bother her if she sleeps on a couch right?" Mic asked, trying not to feel creepy about the entire moment.
"Why not just wake her up?" Jiro suggested with a shoulder shrug, despite the thought, she just stepped out of the way. She noted Alarice was wearing her full hero uniform which meant... he'd left her shoes back where she'd fallen asleep. Jiro let out a sigh as Mic gave her a surprisingly indignant look.
"Why, when she's clearly happy this way, Earpods?" Mic said, not interested in the difficulty of waking her up, when she was likely in need of the deep sleep she was getting. One doesn't just pass-out like this, if they're getting good, regular sleep, or aren't exhausted, or both. He knew from experience in living with Aizawa, and also, in being a hero himself. Jiro didn't seem to feel the same, given the look she was giving him. She let out a sigh though and walked towards the stairs.
"I'll get her a spare blanket... just go put her on one of the couches then." Jiro's voice came from the stairwell. Mic would have shrugged but his arms were full of Hell-hound, so he awkwardly carried her to the common room, receiving a look that was definitely judging, from the 1-A student in the room. "She fell asleep, HVAC."
Todoroki just stared at him, in continued silent judgment of his actions.
He gently put her down on the couch, where she barely moved of course. Jiro returned with the blanket, just in time to throw it over Alarice, before settling down at the end of the couch herself. "I'll make sure she knows what happened Mic-Sensei."
"Alright, well.. goodnight listeners."
Todoroki just silently nodded, Jiro doing much of the same.