o5 . bone house mingle!

[necrolord]

Who: necrolord and CR!
What: Several teens move into the horrible necromancy mansion, and sometimes they bring their friends.
When: Early March.
Where: Bone House in Gaze.

Content Warnings: Skeletons, discussions of death and grief, violence where marked, vomit where marked. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

OTA. Early March, but not too early

[wannasmash]

Semi-closed to whoever opens the door
Midoriya, known to some as the hero Deku, doesn't come over to people's homes uninvited. He is expected. A young man, high school age, short but solidly built, arrives at the door wearing a faded blue jacket hoodie and his backpack. He has the hood up over his dark green hair, which bears signs of damage and is in need of a trim. He wears a simple black cloth mask stretched over his lower face and neck. Facial coverings are sometimes a fashion statement among Trenchies, but it's unusual on Midoriya.

It's just a precaution. He remembers, a lifetime ago, when he and his friends snuck off to Kamino at night, and he crossed his arms in front of his face, comically trying and failing to be covert. He wishes he could ask his homeroom teacher for real tips now.

He's probably overthinking it. Just in case, he needs to ask a small favor of anyone he has met or will meet.

Sitting (OTA)
If the curtains are open, he sits out of view of the windows, politely occupying his square of space. The residents keep their shoes on in this nightmarish dystopia of a house, but he removes his red sneakers unless told not to. He's pocketed his mask and unzipped the jacket worn over a plain black shirt.

His thick curls are scraggly and uncharacteristically coarse. There is still a sleepless roughness around his eyes. Despite receiving magical healing, a few scrapes mar his skin near the back of his jaw. His face is not twisted in Corrupted sadness like it was when the month changed over, but it is restful, serious, and worn. On the face of a person who lived his life looking at the world wide-eyed in wonder, surprise, and earnestness, it is a drastic change.

"I'd like to ask you a favor if that's all right," he says in a quieter version of his usual politeness. "It's a small one, but it can be easy to forget."

It's 3 AM, where are you? (OTA) cw: scars
Midoriya is standing silently in the dimly lit kitchen, a victim of a sleep schedule he ruined over multiple weeks. He's wearing his pajamas (T-shirt and basketball shorts) and a voluminous bedhead. The large, blotchy scar on his well-muscled upper arm and the ones on his hand are old ones from home. Since November, he's been covered in even more scars, but they pale next to his new ones, ragged slashes still redly fading.

He hopes to find a midnight snack without disturbing anyone. In his hand he examines a box labeled Cap'n Trench.

3 AM

[peripheries]

Unlike Midoriya, Kaworu isn't used to sleepless nights. At first, after returning to the Trench from the ocean and then the catacombs, it felt like all he did was sleep. But recently they've been creeping up on him. He can blame allergies to some extent but the truth is, he can't stop thinking about the Old Man and his letters.

Sometimes, he wakes and reads the words over and over by the light of his omni. He probably doesn't even need to read it anymore now that the words have seared into his brain. Which is good as the paper in the notebook has been dotted with (allergic, he tells himself), causing the ink to blur and fade.

He pads down the stairs so silently it's as though he's floating. He tells himself it's to grab a box of tissues but silently he hopes to see Teacher. Instead, in the kitchen he finds Midoriya, someone he almost forgot was there despite being keen to invite him over.

"They're good." He comments, voice raspy with sleep and congestion. Cap'n Trench is one of the few foods not made by Paul that Kaworu will eat.

[wannasmash]

It's quiet enough at night that Midoriya hears the very soft footfalls. He turns his head slightly. Due to the aches from his warmblood, every movement costs him.

"Do you want me to pour you some?" he asks, voice a near-whisper. Kaworu has seen that gentle solicitousness before, but Midorioya doesn't pitch his voice slightly higher like he usually does when speaking to people. He's tired and burdened, but he's healed in more ways than one.

"I'll make you some ginger tea too. You sound like you need it."

He recalls with a pang a memory of his mom emptying a packet into hot water while he, a young child, sat and sniffled with a cold. Trench is less about modern packaging and more about tins, jars, and canning, but ginger and honey preserve well as a syrup too.

[peripheries]

There's a shake of his head as he goes over and starts rooting through the cabinet to find another box of tissues (thank you Teacher). He opens the box just in time to muffle a sneeze into a handful of tissues. Then he blows his nose, as softly as he can, before tossing them away.

Kaworu ambles over the the table and watches Midoriya and the cereal, pulling his knees to his chest and sitting like a tiny bird in one of the kitchen chairs. Ginger tea? That sounds curious and he's instantly very keen to try something new. Then something twinges in the back of his head, almost like an itch, reminding him of something important.

Oh... Midoriya has been through a lot. He shouldn't be waiting on someone else, not in the middle of the night.

"You should eat your food and rest. You've been through a lot."

[wannasmash]

Kaworu folds up so small like a fledgling left in the nest. Midoriya leaves the box on the table in case Kaworu changes his mind.

"I'm fine enough to visit," he assures him. That's not much of an assurance, considering he's up at weird hours eating cereal, but his appearance is a stark improvement from the shambling husk that haunted Trenchwood. Less a cryptid, though he could still be accused as such at this hour, and more what he is: a tired but resolute young man. He puts the kettle on with his usual care and returns to his bowl. As the water heats, he pushes his cereal around with his spoon, not eating though he is hungry. Finally he looks up.

"I'm really sorry, Nagisa-kun," he says in an even lower voice, as if continuing a separate conversation. "You went through a lot too, and you came to find me."

[peripheries]

“I wanted to find you, so I tried. Why are you apologizing?”

Kaworu glances over at Midoriya, like he’s confused about the entire direction of the conversation. There’s no reason to apologize or any resentment on his part. He gives a shrug of skinny soldiers.

“I’m just glad you came to visit.”

[wannasmash]

"You weren't feeling well," he tries to explain. "You shouldn't have been in the woods, but you were because of me. So I came to apologize, and to make sure you're doing all right."

He doesn't want to hurt others. He feels he must thank or apologize for the trouble others go through because of him. He frowns, looking contrite, and takes a spoonful of cereal. It's a little sweet for him, someone who took All Might's workout meal plan as a guideline for his own groceries, but yes, it is good.

[peripheries]

Kaworu shrugs a little. "I wanted to find you. I've endured worse." His tone is matter-of-fact, unconcerned, unaware that's an extremely odd thing to say even in the context of simple allergies. He watches Midoriya move the cereal around and feels he should say something.

"I'm glad you came to visit."

[wannasmash]

It is an extremely normal thing to say to the guy who broke his bones on purpose multiple times. Someone has got to join Kaworu in scar solidarity if they haven't already. Midoriya sets his spoon down. Kaworu is... glad. Midoriya doesn't know or care if it's a platitude. He'll make it true.

"That doesn't mean you should. Anyway," he says, rising and padding in his socks over to the boiling kettle demanding attention, "I hope this will make you feel better."

He retrieves a jar of ginger honey syrup he brought over for this specific purpose and stirs some into a mug of hot water. He slides this over to Kaworu ("Careful, it's hot.") and returns to his cereal.

"Thank you for having me over even after all that. It's probably for the best that I'm not spending a lot of time at home." He chews his Cap'n Trench thoughtfully.

[peripheries]

There's a shrug, not dismissive but unconcerned, as though the idea of "doesn't mean you should" doesn't apply to him. Life is, especially his own, about enduring pain and confusion that come with being alive, so to endure a little more for someone he cares for is easy to do without second thought.

Even if hay fever is awful. He sniffles and takes the mug. The ginger spice manages to penetrate his clogged sinuses in a pleasant way (even if he has to grab tissues as it makes his nose start to run). He curls up around the mug like it's a little flame, holding it to his chest. Then he glances up at Midoriya, curious (or maybe he's just trying to hold back a sneeze).

"Why? Did you cover it in slime again?"

[wannasmash]

Life isn't fair. Midoriya learned that very young when a Quirk didn't manifest in him, and everyone thought less of him for the way he was born. A hero looks at an unfair world and protects people from it. Midoriya does this without even thinking, an urgency in him as necessary as breathing.

He makes a sound like a dying animal. "No..." he manages, pressing his lips together. Why this?! He's never going to live down the slime incident.

"I don't want people to find out where I live," he explains after swallowing the bit of cereal he nearly choked on, "or who I'm friends with. I've been thinking... that I should be more careful. I don't have my school or Pro Heroes or even the police to help. A villain could attack my friends. I can't let that happen."

[peripheries]

The sound makes Kaworu laugh. It's bit barking and a bit raspy but it's it feels light and easy. He often feels that way around Midoriya. And it's nice to have that brief moment as the conversation turns serious.

There's a frown as the angel sets the mug down and observes Midoriya, trying to calculate where that line of thought came from. "I won't let anyone hurt you or the people you know. If you need help, call me. I'll get rid of the villain."

[wannasmash]

"Thank you, but it's not that simple, Nagisa-kun." He feels like he's explaining once again that Kaworu, who already died once, is not invincible. Even All Might is not invincible. "Someone can get the jump on you or anyone I know. You can't be everywhere at once. Neither can I. Preventative measures are better. We can't just react, because we'd always be one step behind."

He is taking someone who can kill with a touch very seriously, but he can't just tell people that. The moment someone looks at Shigaraki with recognition could be the moment they die instantly. Right now, there are only a handful of people who could out him. It could all come back to the UA students. He pokes his spoon fitfully in his bowl again.

"Anyway, you don't look like you're in the best shape right now. We're all tired. This world throws enough at us without having to worry about watching our backs too. I'll do that myself. Just don't tell people we're friends. Except those who already know."

Open Door

[terriblepurpose]

The door opens carefully under the hand of a boy with simply blue eyes, a shade closer to a desert's cloudless skies than a pale star. They're set in a pallid, reserved face, and they shine only with the hesitation he keeps out of the rest of his expression. He's traded his usual sharp blacks for soft ones, a loose t-shirt and something he's been told are called 'sweatpants' for reasons he's still not clear on.

Paul knows who it is. It's easier to recognize him with his features obscured. He can pay attention to the way the visitor holds himself, the way his footsteps fell on the doorstep.

"Midoriya-kun?" He asks, anyway, in a soft, singular voice.

[wannasmash]

Given that Midoriya lived in house clothes and various states of unwell until today, he can forgive Paul for appearing in his. There's nothing to forgive, really, in all of this. He looks at two pieces of sky-glass, hears his name spoken in just one voice, and his throat tightens.

"It's me," he says quietly anyway, despite knowing, with unease, how well he can be recognized up close despite his coverings, by the set of his shoulders or the way his hands grip the straps of his backpack--out of habit; it's not heavy. He doesn't yet know that Palebloods are having trouble seeing faces.

"May I come in?"

This is unusual. He usually waits to be invited in, whether or not he's been asked over. It's not just how things are done, but how he always gives others the chance to decline interacting with him at all. He throws a small, fleeting look over his shoulder.

[terriblepurpose]

Paul's throat bobs. His eyes threaten a certain collapse at their corners, joined by the faint twitch of a muscle working in Paul's jaws. He opens his mouth. He closes it. He steps forward, and without deference or hesitation he pulls Midoriya into a fierce, crushing hug.

"I missed you," Paul says, voice tight and aching. With his eyes closed, there are no tangling hyphae, no skin-breaching fungal scales, no protruding bulbous spore caps. There's just Midoriya, warm and alive and returned.

"I couldn't find you again." He'd looked, with eyes and dreams, but the way closed off before him. "You can come in. Of course you can come in, you - I missed you."

Paul will have to let go of him for that to be possible, which seems unlikely to happen at once. Maybe they'll just stay here like this, threshold bound, in the moment of relief and reprieve. They'll stay here, and Paul won't have to think about the next part, when the guilt will creep back in like poison in his roots.

[wannasmash]

He remembers the last time Paul said his name, just after the white-hot hope died in his eyes. He didn't know Paul kept looking. The urgency of not feeling safe on thresholds (anymore) wars with his hands coming up to clasp around Paul's back equally tight, as if that will make up for leaving him alone with his chorus of voices. Something in Midoriya that was torn apart knits back together like healing skin.

It's entirely different from the last time he held him. He can feel, past the zipper of his jacket mashed between them, the thudding of life and flow of breath. Paul moves even as he traps himself in the doorway of a house of death covered in vivacious spring growth. Paul is alive.

Still, Midoriya has to keep him that way. He won't allow sentiment to end with Paul disappearing in a gout of blue flame or simply turn to dust and then nothing. He firmly walks him indoors, even as he too is unwilling to let go. This results in an awkward shuffle even before the aches of his warmblood magnify with contact. He doesn't care. He pulls down his mask and draws in a clearer, shuddering breath over Paul's shoulder. This is not exactly how Midoriya supposes he should be making his very grave apology, but this is no less heartfelt.

"I'm so sorry, Paul-kun," he says, low and tremulous. The old Midoriya would have dissolved into tears already, but this new one is determined to get the words out. "I'm sorry I ran when you asked me to stay."

[terriblepurpose]

Paul laughs, a bubble of hysterical, bruised joy muffled against Midoriya's hooded hair. The awkward shift into the house is one Paul should have conducted himself, since he knows better, even if the specifics of Midoriya's current concerns are unknown to him - but if there's any house where Paul feels secure on an open threshold or in front of an unshielded window, it's this one, most of the time.

"I know," he says, rushing to disarm that laughter, pulling back enough so that Midoriya can see his face, his bright shining eyes lit by nothing but the ambient glow of dusty sunlight streaming in through closed gauzy curtains, "I'm sorry I didn't chase you, but - don't. Please, don't - everyone keeps telling me they're sorry, and you don't have to be, even if you are. I don't need you to be sorry."

He looks at Midoriya's revealed face with no more true recognition than he had in the forest, but that's all right. He's adjusted since, he knows more, and it's why he finally releases Midoriya's shoulders, as much as he'd like to cling. He doesn't want to hurt him. He never wants to hurt him.

"You're better? You seem better." He must be, to be here. His teeth seem flattened, his skin not so cracked. "Would you like something to drink? I can make tea, or coffee, or get you water - or anything else, if you give me a little while to find it."

[wannasmash]

"I wasn't there for you," is his last weak insistence, but he won't burden Paul with his apologies any more. He will be here, now. He clutches his shoulders (his hands cramp) and conducts his own examination, a swift but specific search in the manner of his training. He already noted that Paul's eyes are returning to their normal state, but the color still glows bioluminescent blue in the dim entryway. He doesn't like the uncontrolled tripping of that laughter, the paleness of his skin, the broken sentences, the tears held back. He says nothing.

His release brings physical relief but also an emotional ache. Lately, for reasons that are obvious to both of them, he wants to keep the people he cares about close. He reluctantly lets him go.

"Yes, I'm better..." he murmurs with his new low quietness, wondering why Paul even has to ask. He shucks off his backpack and his jacket. Spring sun is warm now, but it will get cool later, he thinks. He puts his mask into one of its pockets, and removes his shoes. He has a plain, boring black shirt underneath, but this one is not borrowed and actually fits him.

"Tea. I brought you all something." He wouldn't come over empty-handed. He retrieves a pastry box from his backpack labeled Patisserie Lysitherie. Ever since that time Aoyama shoved cheese in his mouth, Midoriya has picked up the habit of surprising his friends with food when they're feeling down. He also produces a jar of ginger honey syrup--for the allergy sufferers.

[terriblepurpose]

Being apart is almost a hum in the bones of his hands, which Paul flexes at his sides to keep them preoccupied with something other than reaching for Midoriya's shoulder or brushing over his hair, down the subtly visible line of his spine through his fitted shirt. He knows enough to admit to the anxiety under the impulse, but still, it remains.

"Thank you," Paul says, graciously soft, as he fills the need to hold something by taking the box two-handed. He also knows enough to remember his manners. (The name on the box only darkens his eyes for a moment - a young woman's place of safety, her retirement from the field of battle, and then Paul -)

"And you're here now." He smiles at Midoriya with only traces of trepidation in his nearly manic relief. "Let's go to the kitchen and I'll put these away."

Paul begins the short journey to the room in question, nodding to a passing skeleton as he goes.

[wannasmash]

He has two friends--both out of commission at the time of the Leviathan battle--who help out at Lysithea's shop. Weeping Wafers have been a staple in the variety box Midoriya purchases for friends going through the roughest of patches.

He smiles for the first time, reflecting back a wan, understated version of Paul's, but however small it is, it does not waver. He follows quietly with less spring in his step, socks padding a little softer than they usually do. He nods to the humanoid shape clinking past out of habit, taking his cue from Paul, then remembers with a jolt that this is one of those real skeletons he saw on the ship and outside the house--up close. There is something so terribly authentic about the very human imperfections in proportion, the bump of healed bone here or there--quite different from the fake plastic things they put in science classrooms.

He doesn't ask how he's been, like rubbing salt in the wound. He can see for himself. Midoriya will let his friend have this, the usual motions of puttering in a kitchen and getting someone something to drink in an attempt to find an equilibrium.

[terriblepurpose]

Paul has never puttered much before in his life. He still doesn't have the knack for it. He's too fluidly efficient, going through the motions of making tea and setting Weeping Wafers on plates like he's field-stripping armor instead.

"They're not so bad when you're used to them," he says, in the midst of it, after the water is set up to heat through and Midoriya has been offered one of the high stools drawn up against the counters ringing the kitchen, "The skeletons. It's interesting, actually - you can learn a lot about variations in anatomy in terms of range of motion with a moving model."

"That one you saw is Harrowhark's. Her people pledge their bones to their House, when they die. It's their way of honoring their dead," he adds, as if it's a casual afterthought, folding himself up on a stool with his leg drawn up to cross over his knee, improbably and perfectly balanced despite the backlessness of the chair. "She brought them from home with her. I think that must be comforting, don't you?"

[wannasmash]

"Yes." He can see that, for someone who grew up with the tradition at least, it must be. "I saw some on the ship, but we were busy..."

Harrowhark (a housemate?) has her bones, the comfort of her people. Poor Paul doesn't even have the comfort of pretending to bustle or fumble with domesticity, the efficiency of movement too ingrained in him. He talks about skeletons instead. Oh well, Midoriya thinks as he watches the plates laid out with swift precision. Midoriya settles on his stool, legs down, socks gently resting on rungs. He looks at his friend, a long black bird with iridescent eyes perched with one leg in. A person risen from the dead.

"I never got to thank you. I was too busy running away." He has to thank him, a gesture Midoriya doesn't expect of others towards himself, but one that tugs compulsorily until it's done. "If it wasn't for you, the city would have been overrun, and I'd have been killed."

It's the sort of brutal fact he's used to facing in the aftermath of a fight, but he tempers it by lightly resting a hand on his shoulder. Sometimes Midoriya finds himself filling in for something that isn't there. He feels the absence of Paul's usual touches, that trust he shows. His fingers ache with it, but that is familiar too, from the times he had to let his bones heal and strengthen the sinews around them again.

[terriblepurpose]

"You were busy." Paul doesn't fidget. Whatever he's doing with his fingernails along the seam of his pants at the knee is, therefore, something else. Midoriya's thanks have Paul's attention slanting down to a crack in the flooring, one not yet refilled with mending bone.

"I should thank you again," he says, quietly, "For everything. You had to - I think it's harder, being the one left."

It's an admission he already half-regrets. He thinks about what Midoriya knows about him, about what Midoriya knows about people, about the scattering of slips that Paul has made around him. It's not that difficult to put together when a person is speaking from a certain kind of experience.

But then again - maybe there's a sort of comfort in that. Paul knows what it's like to be the one gone as well as the one left. He didn't suffer while he was dead. He was spared the aftermath, the cleaning up, the first shock of grief. He made his way back into the world when it had open arms for him to fall into. He got off lightly. He always seems to.

"I'm sorry you saw me like that." Paul says, to the cracked floor and the sunbeam on it.

cw: mention of impalement, mha spoilers (anime-friendly)

[wannasmash]

Midoriya's mouth goes dry, but he forgets to sip his tea. He just cups it in his hands to ease the stiff aches. It twists his heart to think of how it might be if his and Paul's positions were reversed the day the Leviathan landed. It's not the first time for either of them.

"My old boss died from his wounds in a raid," he offers lowly in sympathy. Unconsciously, Midoriya's hand hovers down over his stomach where this Hero was impaled. He can still smell the flowers at the funeral, and the Beastblood when Paul--

"I'm sorry. I meant to cheer you up by coming over. I just... Smiling and pretending everything's all right won't work. I should be more honest with you."

Now it's Midoriya's turn to look down. He's lied by omission before. He's lied simply, gently, to the people closest to him. He's lied to himself. He's going to do it all over again to a hurting friend. He's not great at telling lies, but he came here clothed in softness carrying several.

"I also came here to ask you a favor. Two. But it can wait a little. If you'd rather talk about something else first, that's all right."