Shelter

Izuku had never driven a car before, but the starter was on the dash and the engine was already running. He rolled slowly down a steep road lit only by lightning and the ice in the headlights, but Tokoyami's shuddering pushed him faster, guiding him to the base of the mountain.

The police cars and cement barricades were gone. Of course. Izuku felt his heart clench as fiercely as his jaw.

"Someplace safe," he mumbled. "Bandages, gauze, sutures, pain killers...blankets...someplace warm..."

So late at night, a car prowling through the narrow streets wasn't noticed. It was luck that he found a motel with a lurid neon sign advertising a vacancy. Even more luck that he noticed the concierge's eyes flicking toward his green hair, taking note of his scarred hands. Identifying features, Izuku knew, of a well known student having vanished from the nearby campus.

"Did they offer a big reward?" Izuku asked calmly.

In a grimy sweat shirt, ostensibly watching a wrestling match on the portable tv behind the desk, the concierge's voice didn't falter at the odd question. "Reward for what?" The lack of curiosity or confusion in his tone forced Izuku's hand. He couldn't afford mercy. He had a friend to protect.

Izuku had to roll the body into the threadbare carpet in the hall, then tied it with a curtain cord and poured the rest of the man's beer over the surface. A huge stain, too big to even think of salvaging, and he chucked the whole thing into the dumpster out front. Then he took a key for an empty room, carried Tokoyami inside to the bed and put a blanket over him.

"I'll be back," he whispered, smoothing the feathers on Tokoyami's head. "With something for the pain."

"...don't...don't get caught..."

Lightning flashed outside. Izuku closed the curtains and left the lamp on. As he walked out, he turned on the radio by the bed, a strange superstition in his heart that if Tokoyami didn't fall asleep, he'd be alive when Izuku returned.

The only pharmacy he found was already closed. Fine. No one saw him pull the bars off the narrow back window and slide in. He had to root through the dark for packaged flashlights and batteries before he could cautiously shine a beam over the shelves and gather food, medicine, a lighter. He raided behind the counter for prescription pills. And then he splashed rubbing alcohol over the floor and set the shop on fire, sprinting out loaded with bags as the glow grew behind him.

So this is what it feels like, he thought. To not care. To have nothing to lose.

No, he thought. Not 'nothing' to lose. Everything precious to me. All I have is my friends. If he...

Izuku swallowed his worries and hopped through the alleys faster.

The rain was finally slowing to a dull drizzle as he came around the corner of the motel. In the red neon glare, something reared up and swayed over him, a giant centipede as tall as the roof. With a half-choked shriek, he whirled and pulled his fist back, arm taut with the gathering power.

Not a centipede. A rolled carpet that had shifted upright in the wind.

Izuku stared at it for a long moment, trying to reconcile what he was seeing with the vision his mind had conjured. Its legs, just long threads and shadows. The fangs, the shoes jutting out of one side. The hissing, the rasp of old fabric on metal.

He shoved the carpet back down into the dumpster and slammed the top closed. As he walked back in, he changed the sign to no vacancy and locked up.

Tokoyami was still breathing, his gaze sliding from the ceiling to the door as Izuku came in. Shadow unwrapped from around him, welcoming Izuku in as he took out bottles of pills and water.

"Does it make you stronger if your shadow's in the dark?" Izuku asked as he read the instructions on the side and measured out the right dose. "Like, can he help you stay...?"

Alive? He couldn't make himself say it. Tokoyami had the strength to raise his head and take the offered pills and water.

"...don't...know..." He lay back and closed his eyes.

"Things like that, we should know," Izuku muttered. "Just one lamp so I can see, and then we'll turn it off."

To Izuku's relief, the bleeding had slowed to a frozen slush from Tokoyami's arm and shoulder. He rinsed them off and used the antiseptic, gauze and bandages. Only now as he tried to look up 'field medicine' did he see that the rain had gotten behind his cell phone screen. Desperate, he looked for Tokoyami's phone only to find it in his shirt pocket, two large ripples of cracks in its screen.

Ricochets.

He did the best he could, made a quick canned soup in the microwave and forced Tokoyami to swallow some of it. Then he turned off the lamp and closed the curtains. In the darkness, Shadow's eyes shone like stars, sometimes staring at Izuku, usually watching Tokoyami.

Izuku's mind raced—too exhausted to sleep, too wired to focus, he found his fingers writhing, in need of a pen. He used the flashlight to search through the drawers for a pen, finding one by the rotary phone by the bed. But there was no paper or notepad.

He started writing on the walls.

"Phones, internet—first priority. We need communication. Radio's not good enough. We have to warn everyone. Save everyone. Stop the government. Stop them from hurting us. Destroy their ability to hurt us..."