I don't actually know the times and seasons (winter, spring, summer, fall) for what takes place when, so hop on board for the bs―

He's six-almost-seven the first time someone tells him to kill himself and the teachers don't say anything. (They look away, like he isn't there, and maybe they're right.)

Twenty percent of the population is quirkless, they say. You have to grow a thick skin, they say. It takes a while, but his skin grows over with stone and rock―ice frosts over his lungs, and his naivety dies far too late, maybe it's a sign he's doomed to live longer than others. He's slow (he used to be number one in class, but Kacchan has to be the best. He's going to be a hero, you know), bright red shoes covered in musk and ashes from his sleeve and brown blotches. There are patterns on his skin, he traces them because they hurt, but they're so pretty, a star has died on his chest, a supernova detailed with Fate and her cruel hands. He wonders when the artist will give up on him, name him a tradgedy with too many scars and rips. His soul is crashing and his wax wings have turned to dust.

He is Icarus―which he? Izuku doesn't know. Maybe it's Kacchan, burning bright like a star on the verge of collapse. Spite thrums under his explosive second-skin, a sheen of chemicals that smell like burnt sugar (briefly, Izuku wonders if it's because Kacchan kills all things sweet).

Then he dismisses it because Izuku isn't sweet; he's poison. Rotting away like chimney smoke, burning through stardust, and molding to the earth like a parasite. Green like dry-rot and mildew and raidioactive chemicals. Mom is life, giving and giving until he has cemented into her hands and spread like a virus she can't rid herself of. Sticky like honey, Izuku clings off her every word, off each tired smile. He's killing her, Izuku knows, slowly driving her to the ledge of insanity―he's waiting for the day she leaves like Dad did.

She is the only one who is blind to him. He doesn't want her to die, but he's an infection that will fill her lungs in blistering pneumonia that curls around her spine in cold-spots and burnt-out hands.

They match.

Izuku has wrangled fingers, they've been broken one too many times, twisting and turning until he is contorted beyond repair. Surrealist art in its worst form, blotches of green and red and black-blue-bruises. Izuku grits his teeth and bares them as kindly as he can, his fingers are falling apart. His eyes burrow into his skull and he curls into himself until he cannot be seen, until he is nothing but a pattern in the back of someones mind and he disapears like stardust.

Happy seventh birthday, Deku.

_

Spring buzzes with sweat and a sour breathe of air. 

Even Tomura has taken to wearing short sleeves, showcasing the cracks and crevises on his arms. Natsuo has given up on wearing anything but a tank-top and shorts. Dabi matches him, purple lining him like a second skin―perhaps it is a second skin. Burnt away is all the things he was before he fell to his hatred. Ochako wears a skirt and a short sleave shirt every day, they are fraying from the edges, she has thinned remarkable (she's also gained muscle on par with Dabi, who has more muscle than actual skin).

Izuku wears long sleeves. Arays of colored shirts with kanji scrawled lazily on them. Izuku wears long pants and he doesn't complain about it. Nobody says anything, even when there's a heatwave, and Izuku doesn't say anything back. 

"Guys―" Ochako struts in like a fashion model, and Izuku would have said she was pretty if he didn't fear she would touch him and allow him to land on the sun (even if that would be so much nicer than falling, tumbling, tripping from a roof). "I'm, I'm going on an internship―"

"For the week, right?" Natsuo butts in like he'd known. 

"Uh, yeah, how'd you know?"

"Uh," He has suddenly become self-aware as to the words coming from his mouth. Izuku has to wonder. (The Sports Festival was broadcasted everywhere, but Izuku knew Kacchan would be there―that Kacchan would win. Izuku would forget to breathe if he saw the hands that stained supernova's over his skin like a painter would a canvas.) Natsuo's last name is Todoroki, isn't it? One of Ochako's classmates has that name, he's reserved with heterocromia and he's pretty, from Ochako's reports. She talks about how similar his eye is to Endeavors sometimes (Dabi glazes to apathy and Natsuo bites his tongue, like he wants to argue but can't find it in himself to disagree). 

"Todoroki's really wierd, ya'know, the more I see him." She says with a smile. Her cheeks are sunken and she's starting to resemble the people on the street and his mother the last time he saw her―less skin than bone, tearing away and rotting from her stomach out. He'll have to get her something to eat tomorrow. "I don't think he's ever had much social contact. He's anxious and apathetic―kinda like a mix of Snowflake and.. Dabi and.. Natsuo!"

"How the fuck―he doesn't even look like me in any way!" Tomura turns the ends of his gameboy to ash. His skin dries to flakes and he uses the blunt of his nails to eat away at the healthy flesh. Red dots through, Izuku is enamoured (slit wrists, rooftop gates, too many pills, head underwater; koi fish circling above him like a warped halo―).

"I'm talking about the nerves, though he tries to hold in his anger a lot more than you. That's where I got Natsu from."

Dabi hazes, his eyes burning cold. Like dry ice and winter mornings. "And where am I in this?"

"Dude, the apathetic bullshit facade and softy vibes.." She says. "Or maybe that's just asshole older brother vibes, they kinda mix, ya'know?"

"Yeah yeah. You get then you get little sister vibes." Dabi waves off, like part of his mystery hadn't just vanished off the face of the earth. "This means I'm stealing your onigiri and dango, by the way. And that you can't stop me from feeding you."

"Aw man." She whines, wiping a gleen of sweat from her forehead. Ochako looks at Izuku, her eyes tracing over his long sleeves and pants. It's hot, he doesn't bother trying to steer the sweat off his face. He avoids her warm stare and looks at his hands, tracing over the papercuts and scars.

"In any case, I was thinking about goint to Gunheads agency. He's pretty cool and all that. I didn't get any fancy offers or anything like that, Todoroki has his dad backing him up and Bakugou's got his cool explosions. Martail arts would be really helpful."

Izuku tries (and fails) to supress a flinch at Kacchans name (they're going to find out you're a stupid worthless Deku. They're going to like him more than you, and you'll disapear and all they'll do is hang out with Kacchan and forget you ever existed in the first place).

"That's.. really smart," He says instead. "actaully. You should focus on hand and hand and long range fighting. Hand and hand because your quirk requires close contact. Using Gunhead―most heroes are experienced in long range fighting because of flashy quirks. If you can intern with underground heroes that would be the best, but martial arts is a good base for learning. You should learn how to fight with a weapon, though, like Snipe. You should use long range because your quirk wouldn't do well against something that's too heavy and you'd want to waste as little resources as possible in heroics. Making your costume non-flashy should do you wonders. Working at night would be even better, surprise attacks. You should get a heavy weapon to drop on villains and things like that―" Izuku looks up, eyes incandecent with wonder.

"Holy shit, Izu!"

Right. It was creepy to do that. She was going to tell him he made her uncomfortable and that he should tone it down and shut up. Stay down like he's suposed to, stupid Dek―

"That was so cool!" Natsuo says.

"What?"

"Holy shit, kid." Dabi whistles. "That's fucking impressive. Ochako, you should write this down."

She sputters, snapped from her daze. "Yeah, hey, 'Zuku, can you repeat that?"

And he gives he a watery smile, stuttering over his speech. Finally―finally, he's not alone anymore. They are not painters, they are canvases, just as he is. At the mercy of Fate and her cruel hands, they are blotched. Tomura with his scars, scratches upon scratches, held by his own two hands. Dabi with his patchwork, cicatrix that dye his skin the color of bruises. Natsuo with his burn and fear of the flame (such is he and the man made of patchquilt). Ochako with her sunken cheeks and skinny wrists. And Izuku, with supernovas molted on him. Maybe this is family, maybe now he isn't alone.

(Oh Deku, you'll always be alone.)