Work Text:
A boy with red eyes is staring down at her. He has spiky blonde hair and is wearing a black t-shirt with a skull on it, and he almost looks like he’s smiling when he says, “The Hell are you doing out of bed, kid?”
Eri takes a step back, then another, her mouth dry. She knows that she’s seen this boy before - maybe she’s even been told his name - but, right now, she can barely remember anything about him except for the fact that he sometimes yelled at Deku. Deku acted like it didn’t bother him, and maybe it really didn’t, but she knows that it’d bother her if she got yelled at by someone like the boy in front of her, and so she just clamps her mouth shut and watches him warily.
Maybe he'll go away if she doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t go away. He crouches down so that he can look at her face, and he tilts his head, like he’s confused, like she’s confusing. “You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” he asks, and she knows that he’s looking at the dark smudges under her eyes that look like the ones that Eraserhead always had, the ones that Present Mic clicked his tongue at whenever he saw, saying, Shouta, you need to get some rest, or, Shouta, we talked about this! To Eri, he always said, Are you having nightmares, sweetie? He said, in a voice that could be so loud but was always so, so soft whenever he spoke to her, Is there anything I can do to help?
She never does tell him the truth, in the end.
She knows from living with her uncle that adults didn’t really ever want answers when they asked a question, they just wanted you to stop doing whatever they were questioning about, and, so, whenever Present Mic said stuff like that, she always smiled and shook her head, No.
No, she’s not having nightmares.
No, he can’t help.
No, no, no.
It's a lie, and lies are bad, but nothing would be worse than making Eraserhead and Present Mic worry about her just because she has bad dreams sometimes. She’s not a baby. It's not like she’s scared of the dark or anything, it's just that she sometimes feels like it's about to swallow her whole, like she’s going to open her eyes and find herself back in her room at her uncle’s house, like everything good that had happened from then to now had just been her imagination. There are some nights where she tries to fall asleep but she can’t, she can’t, and she just lays there and shifts and tries to get comfortable and nothing works at all.
The boy with red eyes snaps his fingers in front of her face to get her attention and she flinches away, breath hissing sharply between her teeth. The boy drops his hand quickly, looking thoroughly apologetic. “Sorry,” he says, and sounds like he actually is, “that was stupid. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Eri tugs at her sleeves, pulling them down past her wrists, stares at the ground. “It's okay,” she mumbles, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She’s not used to having people say that they were sorry. Usually she was the one saying it.
Nothing makes any sense anymore.
Her head snaps up as the boy straightens. He drags a hand down his face and sighs, deep, and she notices for the first time that there are marks under his eyes, too. He sees her staring at him and he smiles, just a hint of white between his lips before he asks, quietly like he doesn’t want to wake up the other people on the hall, “How’d you get up here, anyways?”
She points at the elevator, and he follows the motion, scoffs, “Yeah, no shit. I meant, how’d you get into the dorms in the first place? Don’t you live with Aizawa and Yamada?”
Eri bites down on her lip, says, “They’re busy. Mina is supposed to be watching me.”
“She’s not doing a very good job.” The boy’s voice is flat. “Fuck, what would she do if you got hurt? What if you went into the kitchen and started a fire?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Eri protests, crossing her arms firmly over her chest. “Plus, I’m not a baby. I wouldn’t get lost or anything.”
“Then what the Hell are you doing wandering around on the fourth floor?” the boy counters, mimicking her pose, bending down so that they’re eye-level. “Why the Hell are you wandering around in the first place, huh? Why are you even awake? It's two in the fucking morning, and you’re, like, five. You should be asleep.”
“I was asleep. I woke up.” Eri narrows her eyes at him. “And I’m seven years old, not five.”
“You’re a runt, that’s what you fuckin’ are.” The boy runs his fingers through his hair, grimaces. “Well, I guess I can’t just leave you here, damnit,” he mutters, and holds out a hand, sharp, insistent. “C’mon. We’re going to go get some food, and then you’re going the fuck to bed.”
“I’m not hungry,” Eri says, tentatively slipping her fingers between his. His palms are rough and calloused, just like the way that he speaks, but his grip is surprisingly gentle. “And what about you? Why aren’t you asleep?”
He doesn’t answer at first, just leads her to the elevator and presses a button that she recognizes as the one that takes them all the way down to the bottom floor, the place with the couches that Momo and Kyoka liked to sit on and watch movies together with her in the middle, and Kyoka would lean over sometimes and kiss Momo on the cheek, ruffle Eri’s hair. As they step onto the carpet, the boy says, “Just like you, I guess.” He takes her towards the kitchen, reaches over her head to flick on the light switch. “I was asleep, and then I woke up.”
“Why?”
The boy lets go of her hand so that he can pull open the fridge, the sound jarring in the nighttime silence. “Fuck if I know,” he says, and pulls out a drawer, comes up with an apple. “You like these, don’t you?”
“Are you having nightmares?” Eri asks, and the boy jolts so hard that the back of his head slams into the top of the freezer door.
He mutters something under his breath, something that she probably shouldn’t repeat, ever, and turns to glare at her. “The fuck did you just say, kid?”
Eri swallows. “I asked if you have nightmares,” she says, and then, “And you can’t answer a question with a question. That’s what Denki always says.”
“That little shit,” the boy says, with something like wonder in his voice, like he can’t believe how much of a little shit Denki is. “I’m the one who taught him that.” He rubs at the back of his skull, wincing, and then nudges the refrigerator door shut with one slippered foot. He opens and closes cabinets until he finds a cutting board, then pulls out a knife from a drawer. He chops the apple in half, then in half again, then in half again, until he has eight pieces, yanks the dishwasher open and drops the slices onto a plate. He hands it to her without a word, fingers curled around her shoulder to guide her into the living room in the dark. Only when the lamp in the corner is on, bathing the two of them in a warm yellow glow, does he speak.
“Yeah,” he says, “I guess that’s what those fuckers are called.”
“What?” Eri asks, biting into an apple, carefully avoiding the seeds. “Nightmares?”
He makes a disgruntled sound of agreement, his arms slung across the top of the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. “They’re stupid as all Hell, but they always wake me up. It's annoying.” He pauses, head tilting back so that he can stare at the ceiling, “When I first saw you, you know, I thought you were a ghost.”
Eri finds that she can’t keep herself from smiling. “What?”
“I mean, can you blame me? You were this pale little midget girl staring at me like I just ran over her damn dog, I thought you were all my wrongdoings given a human fucking form, and it didn’t help that you didn’t talk at all.” And he just keeps going, keeps speaking, and, despite herself, Eri finds that her eyelids are drifting shut. As they close, she feels someone guide her down gently against the couch cushions. She grabs at the boy’s hands when they start to move away, refuses to relinquish her grip, and, dimly, she hears him sigh. “Fine, kid,” he says. “Fine.”
Eri falls asleep.