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Sunday Snippets: Nameless Project
🕑 Added 2021-09-26 20:47:56 +0000 UTCHi folks, so I wondered whether maybe I might start sharing the odd snippets of my fic WIP's as well as art WIP's, and I figured I could start with a new multi-chaptered BKDK fic that I've been scratching my head over for a while.
Like Cat Puns, and DEADICATION, this fic will be an AU, in which Izuku is a researcher as a facility that detains and investigates unusual entities and oddities, one of which is none other than Katsuki.
I've also actually honest to god drafted this fic out, which isn't how I usually do things at all! But dang if I ain't hoping that makes writing this fic a little easier on me... So far, it's only loosely edited and spell checked and still nameless so forgive me for that. Anyway, lemme know what you think! Let's goooo!
“Go in, ask my questions, get out.”
The soft shaky timbre of the researcher's voice echoed down the brightly-lit corridor, a muddled green mess against the clinical white walls. He’d been standing here for almost three minutes now, staring down at the clipboard in his hand, fighting back his apprehension as he waited for the timer above the tall featureless door to count down to zero. It wasn’t his first time standing in one of these corridors, apprehension pooling in his gut and, on one memorable occasion, half a goat swung over his shoulder. But it was his first time standing in this corridor. And he had waited a long time to be here. After all, there wasn’t a researcher alive who hadn’t itched for the chance to question their most famous of oddities, and this particular researcher knew full well just how lucky he was to have been given the opportunity. But knowing that only seemed to make his palms that much sweatier.
One minute until clearance, booooy!
He took a deep breath, adjusting his grip on the clipboard lest it slip from his gross fingers.
“Go in, ask my questions, get out.”
Despite the oddity beyond the vacant door having been with them longer than any of the others, there hadn’t been many researchers successful in getting much information from it. What they had gathered so far was that it was hundreds, possibly thousands, of years old; it had casually mentioned how much it missed the ‘good old days’ when workers had been paid with beer, and their payslips had been carved in stone. But whilst it regaled in sharing tales that seemed often too far-fetched to be more than fantasy, the damn thing was notoriously secretive about most else. Still, they knew all too well what the oddity was capable of, and researchers were carefully screened for months before they were allowed their first meeting with Number One.
Door opening, please stand clear. Go get ‘em, tiger!
He jumped, holding his clipboard to his chest and gulping as the door slid back with a faint whine, a humid heat immediately hitting as his wide eyes took in the sight before him.
The room itself looked like the kind of sanctuary any teenage boy might dream of; a flat screen television taking up much of the further wall, every games console he could think of stacked up beneath it, a steering wheel sat directly in front of it. A drum set sat on a plush red rug, a set of speakers and a tower of cassettes beside it, and a beer chiller hummed contentedly in a corner of the room. It might have passed for some kind of bachelor pad, were it not for the huge collection of super hero merch that lined an entire wall. Somehow, that seemed like the most bizarre thing to him.
“Oi, Half ‘n’ Half,” came a low rough voice, making him jump for a second time. “Ain’t you late? And what the fuck is up with the sound system?”
The clipboard in his hand was in danger of being snapped in half, as his eyes landed on the sofa in the middle of the room, positioned to face the television. He could make out blond hair rocking from side to side, a muttered curse, and he took a deep breath.
“Uh, I’m sorry, but my name is Midoriya Izuku,” he said, voice sounding pathetically small in this huge room. “Todoroki isn’t available today.”
The head stopped rocking, and he heard an irritated tut.
“What a fucking loser,” the voice grunted out. “Anyway, the sound system? What’s all that about?”
“Huh- oh!” Izuku glanced back behind him, noticing that the door had already shut without him noticing. “Well, it’s… we got a new subject in. It seems to have affected our communication. Mostly harmless, that we can tell, it’s just quite enthusiastic.”
“Sounds like a fucking frat boy. I hate it. Sort it out.”
“We’re doing our best,” Izuku replied, before he blinked. As far as he understood it, he was the ranking superior in the room, in so much as it counted, not the oddity. Shit, he’d only been in the room thirty seconds and he already felt like he had to answer to the thing.
“I’ve come to ask you some questions,” Izuku said, voice louder and firmer, dropping his clipboard to his waist and staring directly at the back of the oddity’s head.
“Is that so?”
The blond spikes shifted, and next thing Izuku was staring into the eyes of a devil. His breath left his lungs, the air around them grew tighter, and burning red stared at him over high golden cheekbones. He had seen Number One before, of course, he had studied him for a long time before given the opportunity to meet him for real, but the photographs certainly did not give him a chance to prepare for how intense it was coming face-to-face. Aside from his red eyes, Number One wasn’t really extraordinary-looking; there weren’t any fangs dripping venom onto his chin, rams horns sticking out of his skull, and he didn’t have tentacles for fingernails. But, what he lacked in the fucking weird department, he made up for in intensity. Red eyes pinned Izuku to the spot, raking over him in a slow, uninterested fashion, suddenly filling Izuku with an alarming need to do something, anything, to impress him.
No, Izuku told himself firmly. Ignore it. Ask your questions, then get out.
“Yes,” Izuku said, clearing his throat. “Do you mind?”
Number One rose a single sharp brow. “Oi, you any good at Mario Kart.”
“Am I- uh… sorry, what?”
“Mario Kart, dickhead,” Number One said. “You good at it? Gets boring playing against myself all the damn time.”
“Uh… I’m not really here to play games,” Izuku replied. Number One glowered at him.
“Do I look like I care what you’re here for?” he said. “Tell you what, you play, and for every game you win I’ll answer one of your questions, how does that sound?”
“I-” Izuku faltered, clamping his mouth shut and plastering his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “No,” he said, slowly.
A wide smirk appeared on Number One’s face, sharp canines glittering and dangerous eyes dancing over his cheeks.
“Oh, so they already warned you about that, hah?” he asked. “Sure they did, you’ve had plenty training to get here, right?”
“We all do,” Izuku said curtly. “This is a professional facility, Number One.”
Izuku regretted speaking immediately. Number One was up and over the sofa before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, and all at once he was overwhelmed by the scent of burning sugar, and the heat coming from the body in front of him in waves.
“Then you’ll know I don’t let anyone call me that,” Number One growled, his lips drawn back to show off teeth that looked like they could crush bone, the red of his eyes burning like a flame. Izuku realised very quickly that he was entirely out of his depth, and his blood ran cold despite the furnace pressing into his personal space. He was not clueless; he’d been around more than enough creatures capable of killing him, in his lifetime. Before being awarded a role as a researcher, his job had involved travelling across the world researching disturbances and anomalies, and there had been more than a handful of close calls during that time. And yet, never before had he felt like he was in the presence of something far more powerful that a goddamn lightning storm, with ten times the pressure.
“Wh-what would you like me to call you?” Izuku said, forcing the words from his lips and willing his teeth not to start chattering. Frankly, he could only pray that he hadn’t pissed himself.
Number One continued standing over him for what felt like an eternity after that, filling Izuku’s vision with red, before he pulled away just as suddenly. Izuku blinked, letting out a shaky breath of relief as Number One leaned causally against the back of the sofa, shoving both his hands into the pockets of his black sweats.
“Would’a been nice to start with that, don’t you think?” Number One said. “You know, you extra’s have always got so much shit to say about me, but you got any idea how fucking rude you all are? What, you think this detached bullshit is gonna do a damn thing to stop any of the ghoulies here from scooping your eyes out your ears with their toenails? Pulling your kidneys out your ass and making you eat them? I fuckin’ doubt it.”
“That’s… horrible,” Izuku found himself saying.
Number One pulled a face, one side of his face screwed up and his head cocked to one side.
“Hah?”
A beat passed, and then Number One started to laugh; a loud, raucous, ugly sound that rattled about in Izuku’s brain.
“Fuck,” Number One said, grinning. “You ain’t wrong. Anyway, back to it. You’ve got ten seconds to give a better impression before I do something real inventive with my thumb and your spleen.”
Izuku yelped, eyes wide. “Wh- wait, hold on-”
“Seven seconds.”
“Wait!”
“Six.”
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry! My name is Midoriya, what should I call you?”
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Number One replied, stepping forward and reaching out a hand to pat Izuku on the cheek. Izuku was prepared for the hand to be hot, but he wasn’t prepared for the sweet scent that came with it, putting Izuku in mind of the better days of his childhood, walking with candy floss in one hand and the hem of his mother’s cardigan in the other.
Shit, pull yourself together, Izuku!
“You probably can’t pronounce my actual name,” Number One continued, thrusting his hand back into his pocket, but still standing close. “But Bakugo Katsuki works in your language, don’t it?”
“Uh, Bakugo,” Izuku repeated, nodding. He wondered why no one had thought to fucking warn him about this. “Yes, it’s nice to meet you, Bakugo.”
“Nice for you maybe,” Bakugo replied with a shrug. “But I meet extra’s like you every fucking week. Just get your damn questions asked so I can ignore them and get back to my very busy schedule.”
Izuku might not have been warned about Bakugo’s aversion to being called ‘Number One’, but he had been warned that it was likely that he wouldn’t respond to any of Izuku’s questions. It had been that way for the last two decades since Bakugo had come to the facility; he refused to answer most of their questions, and the answers that he did offer were so cryptic as to be essentially useless to them. And it was frustrating, because so far as they knew Bakugo was the oldest of any of the entities here, arguably the most powerful, and they were certain that the sort of information he kept close to his chest could help them understand so much more about the darker, twisted parts of their world.
Comments
doodlejoops
Thank you thank you, I’m really excited about this idea, and the ending more than anything!!!
I'm curious to see what you've cooked up on this one!
