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Izuku leans his cheek against the side of the bathroom sink and considers, muzzily, his luck. Because he is lucky, ultimately. One for All is — still, after this long, a wonder. A gift. One that keeps unfolding. It would be ridiculously ungrateful to complain about it.
It just — would be nice if it had, at some point, passed through the hands of somebody immune to stomach viruses.
The dorm bathrooms don’t have windows, and his phone died a while ago, so he’s not really sure what time it is. Beyond the bathroom door his shades are still down, so the light’s been dim all day. It’s just him and the fluorescents in here, and the dull gleam of the tile. He’s sweat-clammy and too warm, and the floor feels nice beneath him. As much as anything feels nice, right now.
His hands hurt. This feels kind of unfair, since he hasn’t been doing anything to make them flare up. He has, in fact, not been doing anything much at all. It’s not like complaining will help, so there’s no point, but still. It would be nice to only feel shaky and nauseous and headachey and have his throat feel all burned-raw and have his stomach ache — not just the nausea, but the actual muscles of his core, because he did a lot of crunches yesterday and was still half-sore and then he threw up violently for hours. It would be nice to only feel all of that, and not also have his hands ache again.
It could be a lot worse. It could! This will end, and he’ll be fine. It’s just… not great, while it’s happening.
This reverie is interrupted by someone hammering on his door hard enough to resonate through Izuku’s skull. “Deku!” bellows, unmistakably, Kacchan. “Are you in there or what?”
“Hey, Kacchan,” Izuku calls, or tries to. It’s kind of a rasp. He does his best to clear his throat. “I’m in here!” Still a rasp.
“Deku?!” Kacchan manages to get even louder. “Answer your fucking door, dammit!”
“I’m in here!” Izuku tries again, with limited success, and coughs. It turns into retching, and he has to breathe through it and hold himself extremely still. He’s very tired of throwing up. “Just give me a second?”
“Okay, to hell with this, you deserve it,” he hears from outside, slightly less loud than before. Izuku has a split second to wonder if Kacchan is leaving, and if so, if he’s actually angry, before an explosion rocks its way through the room. He can feel it buzz through the floor, through the cabinet of the sink where he’s pressed against it. Kacchan makes an appalled noise, far less muffled than a moment ago.
“…Did you just blow my door off its hinges?” Izuku asks, blinking.
“What the hell, did you die in here?” Kacchan asks, ignoring this question completely. “It reeks.” This is followed by the sound of the door slamming back into its frame, so the hinges are fine, but Izuku is pretty worried about his lock. He can hear stomping, followed by rattling blinds and the shriek-creak of the windowframe. Air rushes in, fresh and sweet and clean. Izuku breathes in deep.
“There we go,” Kacchan grumbles. “Nasty in here.” He appears in the bathroom doorway, glaring. “You look horrible.”
“Thanks, Kacchan,” Izuku mumbles, sighing. “Are you looking for something?”
“Yeah, you. Idiot.”
“Can you be a little quieter?” Izuku asks, wincing. “I’m sorry, my head…”
“Ugh.” He is less loud, though. He shoves his way through the door and starts rattling through Izuku’s bathroom rack, where Izuku keeps his towels and his spare toilet paper and his caddy for the showers downstairs, since it’s just half-baths in the rooms. “Did you drink anything today, moron?”
“Um… some?” He washed out his mouth and stuff, and he had some water at some point. He’s pretty sure. “What time is it?”
“Like eight.” Kacchan makes another disgusted noise. “Stay where you are.”
“Pretty much gonna, yeah,” Izuku says, letting his eyes fall half-closed. There’s more stomping — also muted, which he appreciates, but still loud — and then Kacchan’s knee takes up most of his field of vision while the sink roars like a waterfall above his head. He might be a little noise-sensitive.
“Here,” Kacchan says, shoving something into Izuku’s hands. A water bottle — Izuku’s own, fresh beads of water spilling down its sides. “You wouldn’t be having a headache if you weren’t dehydrated as hell.”
“Um, I don’t know if that’s a good idea?” Izuku says, eying it warily. “I, uh…”
“Seriou— !” It’s loud enough for Izuku to flinch from the noise, and Kacchan cuts himself off. “Seriously, Deku?” he hisses. “You can’t keep down water?”
“I mostly could!” Izuku protests. “I mean, I probably can, it was just for a couple hours?”
“Goddammit, Deku, you bastard.” Kacchan pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts typing like he’s trying to put his fingers through the screen. “Are you shitting your guts out too? I just smell puke.”
“Just throwing up,” Izuku says, sighing. It’s something, right?
“Ugh. Well, move for a second and try a few sips at least, dammit.” Kacchan grabs something off the bathroom rack — Izuku can’t quite see — and nudges Izuku’s side with his foot, lightly as the breeze from the window. “Slide your ass over.”
“Okay?” Izuku says, scooting back until Kacchan stops glaring at him. “Just, um, be ready to move, maybe.”
“Ugh.” Kacchan grabs Izuku’s towel off its hook and drops it on him. “Aim for that, if you need to. Puke on my ankles and I’ll kill you.”
“You don’t have to do… um, whatever you’re doing,” Izuku says, fumbling with the bottle cap. Kacchan snorts, not even bothering to turn around.
“Shut the hell up,” he says. He’s found Izuku’s cleaning wipes, apparently; chemical-mint drifts through the room, mingling with the fresh air from outside. “No wonder you’re still puking when it stinks this bad. Ugh.” He grumbles under his breath for a bit longer. “These the kind you can flush?”
“Um — yeah, it’s fine.”
“Good.” The toilet clatters; Kacchan steps out of the way and starts washing his hands. Izuku blinks blearily up at him, then at the toilet seat, which is no longer… spattered.
“Um, thanks…?”
“Why the hell didn’t you go to Recovery Girl?” Kacchan demands, which he seems to think is an answer. He shakes off his hands over the sink, since Izuku’s towel is currently piled on his chest. “Why haven’t you been answering your goddamn phone?”
“The battery ran out?” Izuku says. “And I, um, I didn’t feel good about standing up to plug it in? I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,” he defends himself. “I thought it was just something I ate and I’d be fine in an hour or two. And, um… it wasn’t.” He shrugs. “I did let Aizawa-sensei know I couldn’t come to class, though? And I think I texted Iida back when he asked where I was.”
“Yeah, and then no one heard from you all day.” Kacchan is messing with something on the bathroom rack again. “Take off your stupid nasty shirt, you puked on it.”
That… definitely did happen, yeah. Izuku moves slowly, shakily, step by step: set the water bottle down, move the towel aside, start pulling fabric over his head. He’s just about got the shirt off when the movement tips into too much and bile surges in his throat again. “Oh shit —” he rasps, and lurches forward as his body starts to spasm again.
It hurts. It just hurts, at this point. He’s been through worse, a lot worse, but — it’s still not fun. And there’s no point to it, no gain to anyone, no task to focus on. That makes it harder.
Kacchan’s hand is an unexpected warm pressure on his back, between his shoulder blades. Anchoring. Izuku needs it, since after the first couple mouthfuls of bile he’s just dry-heaving, and that’s — worse. Come on, body. Even if I were poisoned, this wouldn’t be helping anymore. Can we stop?
It does stop, eventually. He slumps back, a little, letting some of his weight fall on Kacchan’s arm. “Jesus Christ,” Kacchan says, and reaches over to flush the toilet. “This is pathetic. You’re pathetic right now.”
“Mm.” Izuku doesn’t really mind. He feels pathetic. Also, Kacchan is still rubbing his back a little, just small circles on the bare skin, and he can call Izuku whatever he likes as long as he keeps doing that. It feels too good to complain, and it makes it hard to take his insults seriously anyway.
“Was that from drinking the water?” Kacchan asks. “Only a couple hours, my ass.”
“I — what? Oh. No. I, um, got distracted.” Izuku fumbles with the bottle until he can get the cap open.
“Got distracted,” Kacchan mutters, as disgusted by this as he was by the smell. “How are you not dead.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, forget it. Don’t drink the whole thing, then you’ll definitely throw up. Rinse out your damn mouth.” Izuku laughs, shaky and sore, and swishes water through his mouth. “What the hell’s so funny?”
“Mmm.” Izuku leans forward enough to spit into the toilet, and swills another sip for good measure. It helps. A lot. “You sounded like your mom for a second there, is all, when she was yelling at you about swearing and stuff. Except deeper.” Exactly like her.
“What the — I’m being literal, weirdo.”
“Yeah, I know, it was just funny.” Izuku does take an actual sip of water, this time. It feels like the water is soaking right into the cells of his mouth, same as it would on dry sand. He doesn’t gulp it — Kacchan’s right, that will definitely make him sick — but it’s hard to put the bottle down. He swallows gingerly.
“How much of a fever do you fucking have?” Kacchan grumbles, propping him against the wall. It’s still gentle. “Laughing at stupid shit.”
“I do that anyway,” Izuku points out. “By your standards, I mean.”
“Yeah, well, shut the fuck up, your skin feels like it’s on fire. Where’d I put the…” He pokes around on top of the sink for a moment; water runs. Izuku blinks up at him, half-curious. “Oh, goddammit, your gross shirt’s still in here. Don’t go anywhere.” Shirt in hand, he stomps out of the bathroom.
“Kay,” Izuku says, half to himself. It’s not like he’s going anywhere anyway.
Time blurs, a little bit. Water runs again. Then Kacchan is crouching next to him, scowling in concentration more than anger, and there’s something warm and wet on Izuku’s forehead.
“What…?”
“You’re all sweaty and disgusting,” Kacchan says, swiping at his forehead. It’s true; Izuku has been sweating for hours, and there’s things he doesn’t want to think about crusted at the edge of his mouth. “Not like you can take a shower, you’ll fall over and freakin’ drown or something.”
“Mmm.” It feels like an inadequate response, but Izuku can’t come up with anything to say. Kacchan wipes the sweat and vomit-trace and general scum-feeling of sickness away from Izuku’s skin with matter-of-fact briskness. It’s uneven; he keeps speeding up to the point of roughness and then slowing himself back down. The warmth is nice, though, and he bends Izuku’s head forward to get at the back of his neck, where Izuku can feel his hair sticking to him unplesantly. Izuku sighs as Kacchan’s thumb catches a runaway bead of water.
“Kacchan?”
“Eh?”
He’s not sure, actually. “You’re being really nice about this,” Izuku says at last. “You, um…” Different impulses jostle each other on his tongue; thank you, you don’t have to, sorry to worry you. “I’ll be okay now, really. Thank you.”
Kacchan smacks him on the shoulder. “You think I’m stupid or something?”
“What? No!”
“Then shut up.” He snorts, sitting back on his heels. “You still need a shower, but you’re not as gross. Stop forgetting your water.”
“Um, okay.” He does take another careful sip. “Really, though, thank you. It was really nice of you to help.”
“It makes me sick just looking at you right now,” Kacchan says, as if that’s not a problem that exists entirely because he broke Izuku’s door down to come looking for him. Okay, Kacchan. Izuku blinks up at him.
“Does it not normally?” he asks, which he’s going to blame on the fever and the dehydration. Kacchan goes a shade of astonished indignant red that would be honestly really funny, if Izuku weren’t afraid that laughing too hard would start the dry-heaving again.
“Never mind, drop dead.”
They’re interrupted at this point by a loud, familiar sigh and the creak of Izuku’s door. “Bakugo,” Aizawa’s voice drifts in. “I take it this is your handiwork?”
“He wasn’t answering the fucking door!” Kacchan yells, and it rings through Izuku’s skull like the kind of blow that gets people checking him for concussions.
“Ow,” he mumbles, before he can stop himself. Kacchan rolls his eyes and drags himself to his feet, but he doesn’t stomp as he goes to meet their teacher.
“He wasn’t answering his fucking door and he wasn’t answering messages from anybody either.” He actually is a lot quieter, but Izuku can still make out the words. “It’s not like he wouldn’t just hole up and pass out or something, it’s him.” That seems a little unfair. “He’s dehydrated for sure, says he couldn’t keep down water for a while.”
“Oh dear.” That’s, to Izuku’s surprise, Recovery Girl. “Well, let’s have a look.” Her cane taps across the floor. Izuku has a moment of guilt about the laundry that’s kind of in a heap in front of his dresser, waiting for him to admit that he’s not going to fold it. It’s probably in the way.
“Sorry to make you come out here,” he says, trying to sit up a little straighter. She folds her arms and stares down at him, eyebrow crooked ominously.
“What are we going to do with you, young man?” she asks, and sighs. “Severe vomiting, no other gastrointestinal distress, fever, signs of dehydration? Let me get your temperature.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tilts his head back obediently for her ministrations; she clucks her tongue at the results, but not in any real alarm. “Well, the good news is that you don’t seem worse than dehydrated. I can’t fix that, but I can speed up the healing process, which in turn will make it easier for you to keep down water — and food, in a few hours. The bad news is that, well, you’re familiar with how my quirk works.”
“It takes my own energy,” he recites.
“Quite. Now, recovering from a disease is a tiring process in the natural way, and this will only condense that. You’re going to fall asleep almost immediately, and probably stay asleep for a good twelve hours at least. When you wake up, do not push yourself. Have a large drink of water, get some rice, and go directly back to bed. You may read or use the Internet for a bit if you like, but sleep as soon as your body requires. Under no circumstances should you be in class tomorrow.” It’s very stern.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.” She leans down to kiss his forehead, lips smacking. “That should take effect in a moment. You’ll want to be in bed when it does.”
“Don’t fall over,” Kacchan adds snottily from the doorway, glowering as Izuku drags himself up the wall.
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Yeah, you don’t plan on a lot of things,” Kacchan mutters, following at his elbow as he wobbles over to the bed. Aizawa watches from the doorway, eyebrows raised. “You puke on your sheets?”
“No, I made it to the bathroom when it started.” Izuku drops onto his bed gratefully. It’s wonderfully soft after the bathroom tile. He fumbles with his water bottle again, yawning. “Wow, it’s hitting already.”
“Hmph.” Kacchan turns his glower on Recovery Girl. “So he’s an idiot for not going to you in the first place, right?”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but yes,” she says, folding her hands on her cane. “I wasn’t sure it was productive to scold you at the moment,” she adds to Izuku, sounding oddly... not sad, exactly? “But yes, this could have been much easier and much faster if you’d come to my office when you started feeling sick.”
“I really didn’t think it was going to get this bad,” Izuku protests. Kacchan makes a quiet scoffing sound, and something odd shifts in the currents of the room then, as Kacchan and Aizawa and Recovery Girl all look between each other. There’s some tired thing that passes between them, something that has to be at least a little about Izuku but isn’t quite meant for him. It’s awkward and guilty and sour as the bile. “Um, sorry about the trouble.”
“None of that,” Recovery Girl says briskly, but she looks older than she did a moment ago. “I’m here to take care of the students, if you’ll try and take care of yourselves.”
“Um. Yes’m.”
“Where’s your phone charger?” Kacchan demands, glancing around the room. Izuku blinks.
“It should be under my desk? I think my phone is on the sink…”
“It’s not for your phone,” Kacchan says, ducking under Izuku’s desk. “You’re about to pass out for twelve hours, the hell do you need your phone for? I’m down to fifteen percent over here. Hey, what the fuck is going on with your cables…”
Izuku’s eyes are drifting closed against his will. Under the sounds of Kacchan’s rummaging, he hears Recovery Girl murmur to Aizawa: “I thought these two didn’t get along at all.”
“Don’t ask,” Aizawa says, equally quiet.
“Finally,” Kacchan grumbles, accompanied by the scrape of a chair. He doesn’t seem to have heard; he misses low sounds, sometimes, Izuku’s noticed. “Hey, idiot, drink your water before you go to sleep.”
“Oh, right.” Izuku opens his eyes long enough to get the water bottle open, yawning. Kacchan is sprawling sideways in Izuku’s desk chair, plugged-in phone propped against his knee. Recovery Girl still has both hands folded on the back of her cane, cocking her head at them; she looks like a suspicious sparrow. (That might be the fever talking.) Aizawa leans against the doorframe, raising his eyebrows at Kacchan.
“You do realize it’s his room,” he says mildly. “You’re supposed to have his permission to be in here.”
“Oh, for —” Kacchan rolls his eyes. “Deku, you want to kick me out?”
“Mmmglub?” He swallows. “Hm? No, I mean — uh, it’s fine, I guess? Are you… um, you don’t have to?”
“Did I ask?” Kacchan asks. He tilts his chin towards Aizawa, all stubbornness, and adds, “My homework’s finished anyway.” The room is starting to seem fuzzy at the edges. Izuku’s water bottle is empty, by now; he can barely hold himself up long enough to fumble it onto the nightstand.
“I don’t think your friend is in any danger,” Recovery Girl says, with a surprising hint of gentleness.
“Better not be.” The chair creaks, pointedly.
“He ca… ah… can stay if he wants,” Izuku manages, nestling into the bed. His eyes have fallen closed at some point. “’S…. ‘S fine.”
Aizawa sighs, inexplicably resigned. “I better not see you in class tomorrow, Midoriya,” he says. “Go to sleep.”
“Yessir.”
“I’m surprised he’s still that awake,” Recovery Girl says. It sounds distant, faraway; Izuku is drifting out of his body, which is honestly a relief. It hasn’t been a great place to be, lately. His bed is so much softer than the bathroom tile.
“And if you begin to feel at all ill,” Recovery Girl is still saying to Kacchan, “come to me immediately. We should be able to avoid the whole thing. In fact —” There’s a loud smack of lips and a startled grunt. “That may head off any trouble.” Her cane clicks against the floor. “And with that, I think I can get back to my game.”
“Thanks,” Aizawa says, and gets tsk’d at. The door creaks closed. Aizawa clears his throat, still unmuffled and clear. “Bakugo. Good work.”
There’s a fidgety scuffling sound. “Yeah, well. Not like he was gonna take care of himself. You know what he’s like, so.” It’s quiet, gruff but steady-calm in a way that Izuku hasn’t heard from him before. Kacchan’s grown. (Not that Izuku didn’t know. But still.)
“I do.” That tiredness again. Problem child. “At least he has you looking out for him.”
“Least I can do.” It’s not a dismissal; it’s serious and sincere and low.
“I wouldn’t say so.” Aizawa is equally quiet. “A lot of people would do less.”
“Well, I’m not gonna.”
“Good.” Footsteps, a shuffling sound. “You’re a pretty good friend to him, these days.” There’s a edge of judgment in these days that Izuku winces from the truth of; it’s sharp enough to drag himself a little back towards wakefulness. But when he cracks one eye open, Kacchan is only nodding in that slow sharp way he’s developed these last few months: evaluative, thoughtful, self-demanding. The tell me how to get better look of him.
You are, Izuku tries to say. You’re my friend again, now, and a good one this time. It comes out closer to “Auwurr,” and Kacchan rolls his eyes and glances over.
“Go the fuck back to sleep, Deku.” It’s a weary gripe, and he looks annoyed, but he’s settled in Izuku’s chair with his feet up on Izuku’s deck and no intention to go anywhere, and Izuku is warm all the way through in a way that’s so much better than the fever.
He lets his eyes fall closed again, and sleep laps at him like a rising tide. The last thing he hears is the creaking of the chair as Kacchan shifts around, still on watch.