Midoriya grumbled to himself in frustration, putting unnecessary amounts of pressure on the back of the pencil as he erased away the mistake. Bits of the paper could be seen amongst the eraser shavings as he brushed them aside fervently, biting his lip in irritation as he did so.

Izuku had been trying to draw the same arm for what felt like hours now, always rejecting the result and trying again. He didn't want to start over entirely when he was so proud of the rest of the picture (it was of All Might waving), but the area where the arm was supposed to be was so screwed up that it took away from the image. He angrily clapped his sketchbook shut, begrudgingly deciding he'd work on it later.

The sudden noise seemed to get Dabi's attention, and he eyed him with an expression Izuku couldn't quite place. Izuku could tell the older's natural first reaction would typically be to tease, but there had been times recently where he'd simply blown up. He'd be fueled with such a foreign and frustrating aggravation in seconds for no reason at the slightest thing, and he didn't even know why. It confused Izuku, and he'd always be too ashamed of the outburst to apologize after, so nothing was ever done.

Dabi never made any attempt to bring it up either, so Izuku assumed that meant it didn't bother him. Hopefully, anyways. He'd mentioned before that it was okay to feel strong emotions, that it was normal, but Midoriya had a hard time figuring out why he was feeling anger of all things.

He went into a lot of heavy moods with oddly placed emotions for no reason at all. He felt sad. Not the 'my ice cream fell onto the ground' sad, but the 'deep-seated hard to lift a finger and want to suffocate in your own self-pity' kind of sad. The more he thought about it, the more miserable he got, so he tried not to, but it was so hard. Izuku tried his best not to cry, or do it quietly, because Dabi already had so much on his plate already. It was the least he could do. Even so, an annoying part of him wanted Dabi to see him crying. He wanted Dabi to see his tears and hold him and tell him it's alright whenever he got that way until he cried harder.

But Dabi had better things to do, and thinking like that was selfish, so he tried his best to keep it to himself. Plus, everyone feels sad when bad things happen. He can at least understand where it's coming from. People get sad when things die. It made sense.

The anger didn't. The anger came out of nowhere, and it wouldn't go away.

Just like the sadness, it happened for no reason, and it happened all. The. Time.

The way Dabi's voice sounded could set him off, his toe nicking the edge of a wall, drawing, drinking, eating, and the list went on.

Sometimes, Midoriya could feel sad and angry at the same time, and it sucked. He'd start feeling mad about something he should be feeling sad about, and he'd start crying, and then he'd get angry that he was crying, and when Dabi asked him what was wrong he felt just about ready to scream at him—

Yeah, the sad anger was frustrating and confusing.

But even that wasn't as bad as the feeling of numbness.

It scared him more than everything else combined.

It came around when the sadness was supposed to. Picturing doing things with his Mom almost always made him sad, and sometimes certain activities or items did too. Sometimes he'd think of her on purpose to get sad, and he had no idea what that was, but that's beside the point.

The point was that he'd think of her, and sometimes, he didn't feel anything. Not anger. Not sad. Not happy.

Just emptiness.

He could picture the way her body would envelop his in warm and affectionate hugs that she knew he needed, or how she always tried her best to help and take care of him, no matter what. He could bring up memories of baking on late nights and watching shows together snuggled up on the couch on early mornings. He could even relive that one memory that he shouldn't think about in vivid, horrifying detail.

And he felt nothing.

He couldn't bring himself to. The attachment was dead. He couldn't even cry.

It was absolutely terrifying.

And a part of him, a buried and disgusting piece of him, craved it in a way that repulsed him.

"Hey, Midoman, you good over there? You've been staring at that stain on the ceiling for way too long," Dabi prodded carefully out of the blue, mindful of his mood swings.

Izuku shook his head to clear his dark thoughts away and turned his attention to a moderately concerned Dabi.

It was for the better that he'd interrupted. It probably wasn't good for Midoriya to think so much about it, especially on a day as important to prove himself as this one. His mind was used to over-analyzing practically anything, after all.

"Yeah."

He couldn't think of anything else to say.

The older paused, seeming to think through his words cautiously.

"Cool, cool…" Dabi mumbled, looking down at his phone without really reading what was on it. He clearly still had more to say, but didn't know how to say it.

"So, imma be heading off soon. They want me there in thirty, but it's better to be early than late. Good first impressions, you know?"

He said it casually, but Izuku could feel him scanning for any adverse reaction.

As of late, Dabi had been trying to get as many job interviews as possible. Most of the time he didn't even make it past the resume; even when he did, he'd fail the interview. Midoriya had a theory that he was doing it on purpose. That Dabi didn't trust that he'd be alright if he left for too long, so he made up excuses to leave. It was just a hunch, though.

This particular job would be the first time Dabi left for nearly the entire day; if he actually stayed, that is. It was definitely a test to see how much he'd improved at being alone, and Izuku felt confident. He had a chance to prove to Dabi that he wasn't just a clingy burden. Or, at the very least, it was a step in the right direction.

"Yeah, sounds good," he answered simply, avoiding eye contact. And Izuku really was getting better in the being alone department. It wasn't an act he was trying to withhold. Brief periods around the residence were now a breeze since he knew Dabi was within yelling reach. Even being left entirely alone was easy in moderation, especially as long as he didn't dwell on it. Nothing was perfect though, and pressure still built up in Izuku's head the longer he was away.

Dabi finally sat up and grabbed an old (but nice) jacket, slipping it on and storing his phone in one of the pockets.

"Remember, under no circumstances do you leave the subway station. I'll be back in about 6 or 7 hours with dinner. See ya then, kiddo,"

Izuku glanced at his wristwatch, a cheap one they got from the dollar store. It was almost twelve in the afternoon, that meant eight hours in the confines of an empty room with nothing to accompany him but his terrible mind and no distractions.

(It's okay just don't think about it everything will be fine just stop—)Dabi turned around to give him a quick wave goodbye, but hesitated when he saw his likely visible distress.

"Hey hey, relax kid, don't sweat it," he reassured, taking a few steps forward before crouching down to meet his face.

"You've done this before, and you can do it again. When I come back, we can eat really unhealthy food, and I'll tell you about all the pissy customers I'll inevitably end up dealing with. I'll even snatch a chocolate chip cookie for you. Deal?"

Luckily, Midoriya wasn't at the point of tears yet, but his voice still wavered when he said,

"...Okay,"

The cookie sounded nice, though.

Dabi ruffled his hair playfully, eliciting an agitated huff from Midroiya, and stood back up.

"That's the spirit. I'll be back before you know it, I promise," he soothed with a smile and a few quick finger guns shot in Izuku's direction. With that, Dabi closed the door and was gone, leaving Izuku to deal with immediate and crushing atmospheric stillness.

He took a breath as he felt the warmth of where Dabi had messed his hair disappear (his hands were always unnaturally temperatured) and flopped onto the floor in defeat.

It was still high noon, but Izuku wanted nothing more than to sleep what remained of the day away until Dabi returned. The desire only proved to upset him, as he kicked fruitlessly at the floor in response. Man, he really couldn't do anything on his own, could he? He found himself for the first time in a very long time longing for a friend.

The thought was practically alien compared to what his mind had been busy with for a while, and he embraced the newness with open arms.

Yeah, a friend would be awesome to have; even one just conjured up from his mind would do. He supposed Dabi was his friend, but the label didn't seem to fit in his head quite right. Which was strange, because what was Dabi if he wasn't his friend? Midoriya benched the question for later, though. Rule number one of being alone was not to think about anything that could make him worry, and Dabi was on the top of that list.

He subconsciously fiddled with his fingers. The pinkie on his right hand clicked when he bent it, and didn't go away when he popped it. He vaguely remembered someone in his class bragging about something similar, specifically having what she called an unopposable thumb that clicked in weird directions to make it look broken. Maybe this was something like that. Maybe if he knew it a year or two ago, he'd have made friends with her. Who knows. He doubted it, though.

He noticed a tear slipping down his cheek and angrily wiped it away. There it was again, the angry sad that he hated so much.

The heaviness and ruefulness he felt after that particular speculation was enough to convince him to transition to a new topic before he really got away from himself. He kept to the underlying theme of friends to make it fun, almost like a game.

He didn't have many positive memories of interacting with classmates, he reminded himself bitterly, but then again, the world was bigger than his school. He remembered heading off to other playgrounds where kids his age that went to different schools would be. They always played with no quirks to make it fair, so no one needed to know that he didn't have one.

It was very refreshing and fun hanging out with kids who treated him nicely; he even made a couple of friends along the way. From what he could remember, his favorite game was spiders on the ground: an activity where someone's the 'spider' and everyone else has to try and not get caught. The spider had to close their eyes as they searched the structure for someone to tag. Izuku smiled at the memory of other children surprised and in awe when he managed to climb along the outside of the playground stealthy to avoid getting caught. He was always the hardest to catch by far. It was rare being praised by people his age, and the recollection of the sentiment still made him happy.

He allowed himself to stew in this contentment until he got a glimpse of the neon orange of his wristwatch proclaiming it had only been twenty-six minutes since Dabi left.

Midoriya gaped in disbelief at the time and did a double-take, wishing the numbers would change. He wasn't even a seventh of the way through.

He could hear his heart beating as clearly as if his ribcage was a speaker, and an uncomfortable wave of heat overtook him. He legs shook, and he sat up to latch onto them to muffle the tremors. He hardly had time to breathe before he was already under; drowning.

Izuku wouldn't be able to do this, there was no way he'd be able to wait for eight hours, how could he think for a minute he was ready for this? Why had he tried to convince Dabi? What was the point? The distance from now to the future where six hours pass seems so far away, no, unreachable. Izuku is all too aware of his heavy breathing as he felt his lungs grow smaller and smaller, needing more and more air by the second.

His head pounded and screamed at him, needing to know what was wrong with him why was he like this why couldn't everything just be normal it shouldn't even be like this in the first place this was wrong it was all wrong everything, everything is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG—

The absolute unmoving concept of time hung over him, making him feel small and useless and terrified as he felt his grasp on everything around him grow colorless and senseless. His watch constricted him like unmoveable chains that were choking and suffocating him and filling his head with lines that went on and on forever. He desperately craved to tear it off of him as it was surely killing him with its unbearable tightness, but he couldn't find it in himself to move from the sheer force of how far away everything was and how his very soul quaked in nauseating and overwhelming fear.

He tried his best to run away from it all and scream louder than the chaos booming in his brain, (was he really screaming? He felt like he was ) but it all felt too big and he felt too small and frail because he doesn't have a quirk who will protect you now—

Izuku somehow managed to pick out noises of distress that sounded small and he clung to it against everything else crashing against him, because he knew it was real. He followed it until it grew closer and bigger to him than everything else used to be until he was back again, feeling the ground and smelling Lysol and seeing through tear-blanketed eyes the door he'd never turned away from.

He took big, full, deep breaths, letting his body relax on the most uncomfortable floor ever as he sloppily wiped tears away from his concerningly hot face. His hand afterward met the back of his sweat-coated and equally hot neck to scratch it. He felt really itchy.

He laid there for a bit, letting the cool air calm what was left of his nerves down a few more notches. He refused the nagging temptation to peek at the time. He wasn't that stupid. Although, he was beginning to question just how dumb he truly was after getting so upset over looking at a plastic watch. It hardly even felt like a big deal now. Honestly, he had no idea was wrong with him, because something definitely was. The only thing that had changed had been...had been that one thing that had happened. But nobody ever told him loss came with what he'd just experienced.

A while passed on the exceedingly uncomfortable ground with nothing but stale attempts at positivity that hurt his throbbing head. Izuku knew he should get up and take some ibuprofen before it got worse, but he hardly felt like it. He gained the courage to sneak a peek at his wrist and was somewhat relieved to see that a little over an hour had passed. It wasn't much, but it felt like progress. The feeling was invigorating, to say the least, and gave him the strength to (finally) do something. He slapped his cheeks a couple times and shot up from where he had been sitting all morning, deciding he was going to do something productive with his new random and strange boost of motivation.

Stopping and thinking of something he could actually do, he thought of what he usually did on days off from school. Truthfully, he'd never put much stress on afterschool activities before, because it had never really mattered to him. If he wanted to, he could spend all day watching TV lazily on the couch. The understanding of those things being privileges he never appreciated before stung bitterly in his chest, but he refused to let it ruin his new mood.

Putting a hand to his chin, he listed off everything he could think of that could work out. Drawing obviously came first as the most easily accessible task, but he couldn't start another sketch without knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that there was an All Might drawing that wasn't finished. Frustration was too much of a risk with how hard it was to get rid of.

'Maybe later, when I have less time to burn,' he thought to himself.

He remembered what he'd been reminiscing about earlier, and briefly considered finding kids at a playground, but crossed it out when he remembered how Dabi had explicitly told him to stay put. Of course, if he did leave, Dabi would never have to know, but the guilt of breaking his trust like that would be cripplingly challenging to deal with later.

Next was cooking, which he didn't have any of the resources for. That was something he'd neglected to think about for the longest while. He missed it a lot for multiple reasons, and wasn't able to block out the emotions that came with it in time to spare himself the grief. He bit it back with minimal eye-watering and sidetracked to the next idea.

The memories of cooking had brought upon a whole other category; food. Namely how unhealthy it had been recently. He could hardly blame Dabi for it—especially when Izuku was the prime reason he was only just getting a job now—but that combined with his lack of physical activity had driven him horrifically out of shape. Not that he was ever really in shape, but he at least ate relatively healthy and stayed active enough to keep his small stature. Now, however, he had the beginning of a gut, and zero muscles. In fact, backing up his point, his little runaway stunt had completely winded him and had made him extremely sore the following day.

Izuku snagged his sketchbook, neglecting the half-finished All-Might drawing and flipping to a new page. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. He scrawled 'Exercise Plan' at the top and nibbled at the end of the pencil in thought. A year or two ago, Izuku had gone through a short couple-month phase of trying to work out and get fit. It'd been the period when the bullying had first really started getting to him, but before he'd developed his tolerance. The school counselor his Mom made him go to told him that exercise and staying active was good for his state of mind, and desperate, dumb Deku had hoped getting strong could make people like him. That let-down was a disappointment for a bit, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he had a general idea of what work-out routine would work best in his scenario.

Midoriya brainstormed rapidly, finally for the first time in ages putting his analysis ability to good use. He scribbled down new ideas and crossed out bad ones, creating a plethora of nonsense across several pages. Eventually, he was able to devise a messy and rough plan that would suffice for the time being. It could be expanded on later.

For evident reasons, he was unable to do anything that required a lot of room or resources, so he kept to simple stuff. His list consisted of two sets of ten squats, fifteen pushups, thirty-five jumping jacks, and ten of those elbows to knee things he forgot the name of. He could come back and do the sets over again if he didn't feel tired by the end (which he predicted he would).

Izuku tore the paper out carefully, wishing he had tape or at least tacs to put it up on the wall (like the people in the movies did before they did their own epic training) but the tabletop could work for now. He pushed a few random articles from the biggest floor space in the room and began his regimen. Eager to start, Midoriya skipped the stretches and got cracking, thrilled to actually do something productive for once.

That innocent excitement lasted about seven pushups in, and then shriveled up and died. He quickly learned that he was way more out of shape then he thought he was, and working out wasn't nearly as inspirational and fun as epic movie training made it seem. He limbs screamed at him with the strain, and he soon became coated with another layer of sweat. However, despite this, he was still determined to at least meet his original goal of finishing the set once.

A few hours later found him lying on the bathroom floor with a tap-water soaked towel wrapped around his body. His arms felt unattached and noodley from the pushups, and his legs ached dully. His stomach, however, had received the brunt of the project. It was painful using it to sit up or down and hurt as if bruised when touched, so he used his now pathetically exhausted arms to laboringly force himself off the ground. Izuku noted that he smelled absolutely nasty, but the routine had been more or less a success.

Of course, it had been strenuous as hell, but giving his old school counselor credit, he felt a great deal better than he did before. If anything, the soreness only added to his motivation to get stronger. Looking at his watch once again, he was proud to see that there were only two and a half hours left before Dabi returned, and he grinned happily. Sadly, the proudness was interrupted when he caught another whiff of his BO and gagged. Yeah, he should probably take care of that first before he took to a new activity.

Entering the bathroom, he paused for a bit to appreciate how far it had come since their arrival. It still wasn't much, but it was the cleanest room in the house thanks to hours upon hours of scrubbing and cleansing on Dabi and Izuku's part. They'd even acquired an adjustable hose from a supply store to turn the area of the room with a prebuilt drain into a makeshift shower. Only problem was that the water temperature only had one setting; literally freezing.

On most days, Dabi would stay in the bathroom for a while with his quirk in use to heat it up enough for the cold to be less gruesome, but for now his only option was to grin and bear it.

This plan also didn't last long, because the frigid temperature was only bearable for ten seconds before he had to jump out and throw a towel over himself, shaking violently. He settled for wetting said towel and scrubbing himself down as an alternative to wash the sweat away and rid of the awful smell. It wasn't like he needed to be peachy clean or anything, he'd just taken a shower the night before.

He got dressed into more comfortable clothing that he could sleep in and wandered back into the main room, grabbing a bag of chips and his abandoned sketchbook and pencil along the way.

Izuku sagged snuggly into the couch, feeling exhausted, but in a good way. He was used to feeling tired nowadays, but it came with a lag and lack of motivation. Right then, the tiredness he felt was anything but that. He was filled with determination not to mope around despite the sleepiness, and suddenly wanted to finish his All Might drawing.

He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth and wiped the grease onto the fold-over before flipping to the right page and surveying the drawing. The damage done was pretty irreversible, enough so that one more slip-up would tear through the page. That was fine though, it only meant Midoriya would have to get creative.

The page was almost definitely unsalvageable with how much of it had been aggressively erased, so attempting to drawing over it, even if he did it right the first time, would be futile. A better idea would be to trace the original drawing onto a new piece of paper for a clean slate, but the parchment was too thick to see through. Unless…

Izuku got up on his knees and leaned towards the closest lamp, holding the wrecked paper over the light. Aha! It was far more see-through than it was before, and the lineart stood out boldly. He ripped out a blank page and put it in front of the old sketch before placing it over the lamp again and grinning. It would be easy to trace now.

He spent the next couple of minutes holding the two pages in the light with one hand and lightly tracing with the other. Izuku then sat back down, his arms aching terribly from the earlier work-out and now holding them up for so long, and went over the sketchy impressions with bolder strokes to define the lineart better. He got the arm right on his second try this time, and even went through the trouble of getting some colored pencils as a finishing touch.

Once the masterpiece was finally complete, he was happy with the drawing, and more importantly, with himself. All Might smiled triumphantly at him, and Izuku smiled back. When Dabi returned, Izuku would have to ask him to buy a frame, or at least tape, to put it up somewhere. It was the best thing he'd drawn in forever, something he was genuinely satisfied with.

Midoriya felt an oncoming yawn, and didn't bother to suppress it. It was getting late, and as much as his original plan was to prove himself to Dabi through being conscious and victorious when he arrived, he felt that he had earned a well-deserved good night of sleep.

He tumbled to his side into the nest of blankets and immersed himself into them, far too sleepy to turn even one of their many lamps off.

Izuku had actually done it. He'd found a way to stay sane and productive for over six hours on his own. He smiled to himself brightly, hugging a nearby pillow close to his chest in glee. He imagined Dabi next to him, hugging him, telling him how proud he was. He imagined the cookie he would get to have for breakfast. He imagined his All Might artwork hung up on the wall in all of its glory. It was these things that Izuku finally drifted off to sleep, beaming softly to himself.

Dabi was fucking done.

Dabi was done and tired and ready to quit except he couldn't so it sucked ass and he wanted to lie down at home but wasn't even out of the goddamn building yet.

He threw his apron into the fucking apron pile or bin or whatever, checked out, said a few insanely half-assed and mostly mumbled goodbyes, and got the fuck out of there.

It was later at night, past the usual people-getting-out-of-work rush hour (although he supposed it didn't really matter since he didn't have a car, but there were still less people giving him weird looks on the streets, so there was that). The sunset had already disappeared beyond the horizon, but the sky wasn't yet at its peak darkness, and moonlight lit the city up nicely. It was almost a full moon. How quaint.

The walk from starbucks to their little hobo-house was a moderately short one, but it was enough for Dabi to regret existing just a little more. He'd follow the main street for a couple blocks before veering off into the more discreet backroads for the rest of the way. This last step wasn't entirely necessary, but it only lengthened the trip by a little and helped him avoid some of the more busy street-cams.

Dabi stopped off at some off-brand family owned Japanese take-out place that he had no chance of remembering the name of (they seemed very nice though, so maybe he should have) and meandered through a few more backstreets before finally arriving at the entrance of the subway. He was thankful he hadn't put the planks up before leaving that afternoon, it spared him the minute five-minute effort of taking them off.

Entering the living room, Dabi prepared for the worst, but instead released a breath of relief at the realization the kid was sleeping peacefully already. He relaxed and allowed the tension that had festered inside of him all day to evaporate as he stored the takeout and cookie away in their food-lunchbox thing; it would make for an easy and filling breakfast. He was also glad that the kid wasn't awake, because this way he didn't have to answer any questions. Dabi was definitely way too tired and on edge to relay the experience without snapping.

He numbly flicked off of the lamps before shedding his jacket and hanging it up on the rack. Dabi climbed into bed with Izuku, his belt pressing uncomfortably against his side. He suppressed an audible curse of discomfort and settled for frowning slightly as he buried himself in covers. Dabi wanted to take it off, but now that he was completely settled in, he didn't want to risk waking Izuku up with the movement.

"...Dabi?"

Whoops. Too late.

"Yeah, I'm back kid," he murmured, turning his frown into a slight smile. The kid was turned the other way, though, so he couldn't see it anyway. He wasn't sure why he did it in the first place. It felt right.

"Let's save the talking for tomorrow, okay? I think it'd be best if the two of us got some shut-eye."

A beat, and Dabi almost worried he'd said something wrong.

"mmmmkay," Izuku finally replied quietly, hugging his pillow tighter.

He didn't sound upset or disappointed, so Dabi nodded. He was tempted to succumb to his own exhaustion and leave it at that, but he still wanted to say one last thing.

"And Izuku?" he tried despite himself.

The kid turned his head to signify he was listening, even though he couldn't see through the pitch-black darkness.

"Mhm?"

Dabi swallowed.

"I'm uh. I'm proud of you,"

Ah shit, that was far more awkward than before. Maybe he should have left it where it ended.

The kid was still, so still, in fact, that it was clear he was straining to do so.

Slowly, he turned his head back, and settled again, forcing his body to go limp in false casualness.

"Thanks."

There was something in that thanks that made Dabi's chest go warm and his mouth quirk up involuntarily. Something that was practically invisible. To anybody else in the world, Dabi was sure it sounded like a simple, meaningless gesture of dull appreciation. An overused word that wasn't even said in a particularly fond way. To Dabi though, it was so, so much more. It was laced with true and genuine endearment like nothing he'd ever heard before.

And in that moment, Dabi wondered to himself.

He wondered.

Is this what it felt like?

What it felt like to love somebody?

Please be safe out there to everyone around the world. Don't lose hope and keep fighting.