Kuebiko - n. a state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence, which force you to revise your image of what can happen in this world—mending the fences of your expectations, weeding out all unwelcome and invasive truths, cultivating the perennial good that's buried under the surface, and propping yourself up like an old scarecrow, who's bursting at the seams but powerless to do anything but stand there and watch.

He screams.

He picks up a vase and throws it against the wall. It shatters on impact, ceramic shards falling to the floor, and still, still he is not satisfied, still not calmed the rage and despair and the why why why that swirls in an endless loop in his head. He screams, wordless and full of so many emotions that he's certain that he's drowning in them. Blood drips from his hands, splatters on the furniture, on the floor, and Izuku doesn't care, can't care, not when everything that he's ever worked for, all the pain and suffering and wounds and two corpses on the ground by his hand was all for nothing.

(He gets the call when he's in class. He's bored, and taking class notes in one notebook and analyzing a new hero in another. They're new to the scene, this Mt. Lady, but they made a splash in their debut and Izuku has no doubt there will be buyers for this particular set on information. He'll spend tonight gathering more information on them; the school they studied at, family relations, close friendships, rivalries, enemies, favorites, habits, routines, and more.

The door opens and the teacher stops their lecture and Izuku is only paying it half a mind, absently sorting the information away in the back of his mind for later use should it prove important. It's only when he hears his name that he looks up.

"Can Midoriya Izuku please come with me? You have a call waiting in the lobby," the assistant-Sakura Nemu, age 34, unmarried-says, smiling sadly. Izuku resists the urge to narrow his eyes, keeps his expression guileless and clueless.

"O-of course!" He stutters and stands, closing his notebooks and slipping them into his bag. He follows Sakura-san out the door, wondering what the call could be about. It's not one of his contacts, that much is obvious, and it's not Todoroki, he's still in school at this point, so it must be the hospital. Has something in his mother's situation changed?

They arrive and the secretary at the desk-Yamamoto Takeru, age 41, married to Yamamoto Sarah, American, age 40-hands him the phone with a grimace. The expression sends ice through his veins, as if Todoroki had frozen all his blood with his quirk, and Izuku forces his breathing to be steady, even as a feeling of dread settles over his mind.

"Midoriya Izuku?" the voice over the phone is female, and familiar. One of the nurses assigned to his mother, no doubt, and Izuku has all their information memorized but his mind is racing so fast, his thoughts swirling in his head and he can't bring himself to remember much more.

"Yes?" He holds his breath after the word is out, sucks it in and traps it, and his world fades to nothing but him, the phone, and the voice on the other side.

"We're sorry," the nurse begins, and Izuku lets out a choked sob because he knows that tone of voice, he knows it- "But Midoriya Inko has passed away."

Something clatters to the floor-the phone, the phone-and his entire world devolves into static)

He flips the couch and tears down the stupid boat painting on the wall and shoves all the papers off the living room table so they splay across the floor. He screams and screams until his throat is raw and still he screams because maybe if he screams enough the gods will listen for once in his life and make everything right with the world again.

But they don't. There is no magic flash of light that brings his mother before him, smile wide and eyes bright and skin pink and healthy and flushed with simple, happy pleasure. The expression she always got when Izuku handed her a gift or told her how much she meant to him, how precious she was, how much he loved her.

It was all for her. All of it. Everything had been for her. His discarded morals, his carefully acquired skills, his network of spies. Everything was for her.

What was he supposed to do?

(The trip to the apartment is blurred and faded. He is excused for the rest of the day and mechanically packs up his things in his school bag and stumbles his way out the gates. He has his phone in his hand before he even realizes it, dialing a number he has memorized by now, he's called it so many times.

It picks up and he's breathing too fast, his head feels light and his body feels like it's about to float away, he has no weight. "I need-" he spits the words out before they can get trapped in his throat and the sentence gets stuck there anyways. "Todo- I need."

"Where are you?" The voice on the other end asks, and Izuku nearly sobs.

"The apartment," he breathes and he's almost there and it doesn't matter what time of day is because his mother is dead and he's not sure how much longer he can hold himself together before he unravels at the seams.

"Breathe, Midoriya," the voice commands and Izuku obeys blindly, his lungs gasping for air, his chest expanding to accommodate the gas. He's stumbled his way up the stairs, somehow-when did he get here?-and there's a key in his hand the door is opening and tears are falling and his mother is dead.

For mother for mother for mother, he had whispered like a mantra. For mother for mother for mother.

What does he do now that his mother is dead?)

"Midoriya!" A voice sounds behind him and Izuku whips around and lashes out with a fist and it hits whoever is there square on the jaw. They stumble back and it's only then that Izuku sees who it is, that it's Todoroki, that it's Shouto, his friend, his confidant, his bodyguard, his partner in crime.

"Todoroki-" He flings himself forward and wraps his arms around him, clinging to Todoroki's back and digs his fingers like claws into his shirt. He's getting blood on the fabric he knows, it registers somewhere distant in the back of his mind, but it's all so chaotic and fucked up that he doesn't care, can't care, won't care until later when he's finally calmed down. He screams again, yells and his lungs burn and he clutches Todoroki like he's the only real person in the world, like the rest of it is an illusion, like his reality is nothing more than a dream. Todoroki wraps his arms around Izuku and they sink to the floor amidst the destruction as Izuku wails.

(She's dead she's dead she's dead what does he do now?)

Sobs come heavy and tears blurr his vision. He's shaking, trembling, twitching, limbs not obeying anything he wants them too. He wants this to end, everything to disappear and vanish into the void, for the world to burn to ash and dust until there is nothing left because he can't live like this, can't, not after all he's done, all the lives he's ruined-

"Shhh." Todoroki's voice is soothing and soft, and his body is warm and solid and real under Izuku's hands. They rock on the ground and Izuku has snot running down his face and there's static in his hearing, loud and persistent and all encompassing, overwhelming. "Shhhhh."

"Todoroki-" Izuku chokes out. "Shouto-"

"I'm here," Todoroki whispers, quiet and comforting and a rock in the storm around them, in him, swallowing him whole. "I'm here."

"I can't-" Izuku shakes his head, desperate for someone, anyone, to understand what he's feeling, what he's going through, all that's happening around him and he can feel everything he's ever worked for slip through his fingers like sand. "Shouto!"

"Hey, listen to the sound of my voice, okay? Focus." It breaks through the chaos and the lightning and thunder and rain and Izuku breathes. It shudders through him and he zeroes in on it, grasping for something, so desperate, why why why was this happening.

"Can you answer some questions for me?" Todoroki asks, and Izuku can only gasp again, a wave coming up and dragging him under, he's drowning. "What's two plus two?"

He he keeps gasping for air, his lungs ache, his head aches, everything aches. "Four," he whispers, like rapture, like gospel.

"Seven plus three?" There is a hand in his hair and Izuku grips Todoroki's shirt tighter and he hears ripping sounds and he doesn't care.

"Ten." He gasps the word out and the sounds are getting quieter as he focuses on the numbers, on the problems, on something he can solve, something he can fix while everything else shatters.

"Nine minus four?" Todoroki is so kind, so kind, what did Izuku ever do to deserve this?

"Five," he whispers, his shoulders slumping, his grip relaxing.

"Fifteen plus eight?"

Twenty three." The world is settling, he breathes.

"One plus seven?"

"Eight." His vision is clearing, the static is fading.

"Ten plus three?"

"Thirteen." Oh. That's better. He's still trembling and he stills, slumping his head against Todoroki's shoulder.

"Better?" Todoroki asks and Izuku just sits there, quiet. In response, Todoroki holds him tighter and waits.

Izuku isn't sure how long they sit there, in the room broken from his rage, from his despair, from his breakdown. Eventually, he lifts his head and looks at Todoroki. He feels small, and vulnerable, and weak. He wants to hide away from the world and wait there until everything is okay again. Instead, he looks Todoroki in the eye and waits.

"What happened?" Todoroki asks, gentle, soft, his hands firm against Izuku's back, an anchor keeping Izuku from descending into madness.

Where does he begin? Izuku lets out a bitter laugh, his head falling forward, his hair shading his eyes. It's a mess as it usually is when he's not in costume, all slicked back and dyed darker, darker, to keep people from connecting the dots. Body language and details. That's what sells the costume, what convinces people of who others are.

"I got a call from the hospital," Izuku says, and his voice is rough and scratchy from his screaming and it hurts to talk. It did before too, when he was reciting numbers, but it's far more noticable now. "Mother is dead."

(Lying cold and broken on the bed, beeeeeeeeep, it rings in his ears, the phantom sound of the machine)

"Oh," Todoroki breathes, his eyes widening, glittering with realization.

Izuku laughs again and regrets it for the pain it brings him. "Yeah. Oh."

He keeps laughing and the static comes back and Izuku reaches forward and grips Todoroki's shoulders hard enough to bruise. He's shaking again, and laughing, and he's hysterical and about to start crying again, it all bubbles up in his throat.

"Breathe, Izuku." Izuku gasps for breath and leans forward to rest his forehead against Todoroki's chest. "Breathe."

That's when Todoroki's phone rings, shattering the atmosphere around them. Izuku is tempted to take the thing and smash it against the ground, stomp on it until it's bits of metal and glass and plastic on the floor, useless and unable to interrupt because how dare it, how dare it, interrupt Izuku when he's falling apart?

Todoroki takes a hand away from Izuku's hair to pull the phone out of his pocket and pales slightly when he sees the name Endeavor flashing across the screen. Izuku spies it from the corner of his vision, sees the name, and his lips quirk up in a smile.

He knows what he wants to do now. He knows what to do next. He leans up to whisper in Todoroki's ear, pours poison straight into Todoroki's mind.

"Let's run away," he says, one hand slipping from Todoroki's shoulder and up into his hair, the other sliding down his back. Blood from the cuts on his hands, from shattered glass and ceramic cutting into his skin, stains Todoroki's hair and his clothes and Izuku feels insanity creep up, taking hold, this idea-

"Let's leave this place," he whispers, the words toxic but he doesn't care. He's far too gone, lost in his own delusions and he knows it and he doesn't care if it's a fantasy that he shouldn't indulge. "We can become brokers full time." So sweet, his words, they seep into Todoroki's thoughts, intrusive and invasive and so, so tempting. "You won't have to go back, and there is nothing for me here." Laughter in his voice, sadness and his cheeks are wet from tears. "We can just leave it all behind and start over again."

The phone keeps ringing, loud, so loud and now it's Todoroki trembling under his grasp, his breath coming quicker, and Izuku tightens his grip in Todoroki's hair.

"Could we?" Todoroki's voice is so vulnerable, so full of age old hope and just a hint of want, an impossible wish. "Can we?"

"Why not?" Izuku croons. "With all the resources available to us, why shouldn't we?"

Todoroki breathes in, shuddering in Izuku's grasp and Izuku feels he's almost there, just a little more and this could all go away, change into something else, something different, so he wouldn't have to stay here, in this apartment, this place, where she used to live.

He wants out. He wants to leave. He can't stay here, can't, and Todoroki is the only thing he has left, the only one who knows it all, who leans on him, who needs him, needs Izuku, and Izuku could never leave him behind.

"Let's leave Endeavor behind to rot, leave him wondering what happened to his perfect plan."

Todoroki exhales and Izuku knows, just knows that he's won this, that Todoroki is his, and there is something, something dark and possessive and a part of him he doesn't like to acknowledge that purrs in his soul.

"Okay."

Izuku smiles as Todoroki speaks.

"Let's leave."

(The phone keeps ringing, forgotten)

AN: Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I am not okay. I am also not sorry. I warned you things would go downhill, and here we are, with things gone waaaay downhill. Yay for mental breakdowns! Also. Me? Updating two days in a row? What is this madness?

Come chat with me on Tumblr. You can find me metronomeihear. The author loves anons and people screaming in their ask box.