Paul pivots on his heel as if struck hard in the shoulder, staggered and whirling, seized up in a mirror of Midoriya's compulsion.
"No."
Panic is scrawled across his face as it was in the ruined street where they faced the fiery wyrm, as it was on the cold beach where they clasped hands and swore that the future where Midoriya fell in tatters to the sea would never come to pass, as it was when Midoriya shattered his bones to throw himself at God on the deck of the ship. All he sees is a door closing, the lips of an open grave drawing together over the toothed eye of an insensible universe.
In the handful of steps it takes him to cross the space between them, he feels no closer, his eyes collapsing to cloudless blue luminosity even in those fractions of seconds.
"Izuku-kun-" He reaches for his shoulders, his strong arms, his voice an unbearable, shaken thing that reaches out with him in terrible yearning - and he catches himself short, staring at the blue flames that lick his fingers. He makes a torn, wet sound at the back of his throat and pulls himself back.
"I must not fear," he breathes, trembling, and when he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes it's impossible to tell where the light of one meets the other, "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
The fire dies with every word, the approach to the criticality threshold averted. He doesn't lower his hands when he speaks again.
"She'd kill you," he whispers, harrowed and low, "I can't let people keep dying for me."
no subject
"No."
Panic is scrawled across his face as it was in the ruined street where they faced the fiery wyrm, as it was on the cold beach where they clasped hands and swore that the future where Midoriya fell in tatters to the sea would never come to pass, as it was when Midoriya shattered his bones to throw himself at God on the deck of the ship. All he sees is a door closing, the lips of an open grave drawing together over the toothed eye of an insensible universe.
In the handful of steps it takes him to cross the space between them, he feels no closer, his eyes collapsing to cloudless blue luminosity even in those fractions of seconds.
"Izuku-kun-" He reaches for his shoulders, his strong arms, his voice an unbearable, shaken thing that reaches out with him in terrible yearning - and he catches himself short, staring at the blue flames that lick his fingers. He makes a torn, wet sound at the back of his throat and pulls himself back.
"I must not fear," he breathes, trembling, and when he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes it's impossible to tell where the light of one meets the other, "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
The fire dies with every word, the approach to the criticality threshold averted. He doesn't lower his hands when he speaks again.
"She'd kill you," he whispers, harrowed and low, "I can't let people keep dying for me."