Chapter Text
The air carries the clean scent of pine and cold stone. Below, the world falls into a breathtaking panorama of jagged mountain peaks and deep valleys. To Katsuki, it is a sight he knows since childhood. Only difference, there is much more snow here and the temperatures are freezing.
But since the job called for it….he spends his time here now. At least for as long as he has to.
“—and that’s why my takedown time is objectively superior,” he finishes his one sided rant, kicking a loose stone over the edge. It vanishes without a sound. “Your little ice slide was a decorative touch at best. Wasted movement.”
Walking a pace behind him, Todoroki does not bother to look over. His eyes are on the path ahead, though they still seem to take in everything and nothing all at once. “It secured the perimeter and prevented escape,” he replies, almost bored. “Efficiency is not always about speed. It is about guaranteed results.”
Katsuki scoffs. “Guaranteed? Please. He was already pinned by my AP Shot. You just wanted to show off.”
“I wasn't aware there was an audience to show off for,” Todoroki says with just the tiniest bit of dry amusement in his tone. “Unless you are counting the marmots.”
“The fuck is a marmot?”
“A small, furry rodent that I am sure was very impressed with your display.”
Katsuki stops and turns, poking a finger at this way too confused looking guy. “You have a real smart mouth today, Icyhot. Hitting your head last week finally rattled something loose?”
Todoroki smirks, something— challenge, maybe— in his eyes. “My mental faculties are intact, thank you for asking. I am simply matching my pace to my company. In several ways.”
For a second, Katsuki just stares, his jaw working, then a grudging grin splits across his lips. “Yeah? Well your company is about to leave your ass in the dust. This ‘pace’ is for damn tourists.” He turns and stomps forward, his heavy snow boots crunching on the path. “Hurry it up. I want to get back to civilization so I can actually get a decent meal instead of these shitty ration bars.”
“The chocolate chip ones are okay,” Todoroki comments, effortlessly keeping pace with him. The fact that he can do so without ever seeming to exert himself is, Katsuki decided years ago, one of his most irritating qualities about this man.
“They are mush! They taste like sugary cardboard! The only thing they are semi-good for is not fucking starving!” Katsuki’s voice echoes off the surrounding rock faces. This comfortable back and forth is by now a familiar after their missions. This is their routine.
“A compelling culinary review. You should consider a blog in your down time.”
“I will consider putting my boot—”
Katsuki’s retort is cut off as a sudden, icy gust of wind rips across the ridge, whipping snow into their faces and stealing the breath from his lungs with its intensity. It is a shocking, sudden change from the relative calm moments before. The bright sunlight vanishes, swallowed by a fast-moving wall of thick, grey cloud.
Todoroki stops, his head tilting as he looks up at the suddenly dark sky. The playful glint in his eyes is gone, replaced by his professional wariness. “The weather is turning faster than forecasted.”
Katsuki wipes the snow from his eyes, his previous playful irritation instantly changing into a focused scowl. “No shit. It is just wind. We can beat it to the extraction point if you stop strolling.”
Another gust, stronger this time, howls around them, carrying with it the first few stinging pellets of sleet that’s already starting to soak them. The temperature drops instantly. The friendly banter is over, the professionalism snapping back into place. The mountain is no longer a backdrop on their way back, it is becoming a threat.
“Forget the point!” Katsuki shouts, the words ripped from his mouth and tossed away by the gale. He has to plant his feet wide to keep from being knocked over, his body angled against the onslaught. “We need to find cover! Now!”
Todoroki nods, his eyes searching the ridge line. The rock face is almost flat, offering little in the way of shelter. “There!” he shouts, pointing a gloved hand toward a slight overhang further along the path. Little more than a shallow dip in the cliff wall, but it is something.
A deep, groaning rumble rolls through the mountain itself, a sound felt more in the bones than heard with the ears. It is not the wind. It is something far, far worse. The sound isn't like thunder either.
Katsuki's instincts scream a second before his mind processes the threat. His head snaps up, eyes scanning the peaks above them.
What he sees freezes the blood in his veins.
The snowfield isn't white anymore. It's moving, shifting with unimaginable weight and power. A massive fracture line races across the mountainside next to them with terrifying speed, the slab beneath it begins to slide, slow and graceful at first, then gaining momentum and rushing straight at them.
Time seems to slow. The howling wind fades into nothing. Katsuki's mind, usually racing with strategies and calculations, goes blank and into overdrive all at once. There's no plan, no clever idea, there is only the understanding of the dimensions—
The insignificance of their two small bodies against the mountain's change of mood.
His training takes over where thought fails. His mouth is already open, the warning ripped from his lungs.
"Avalanche!"
The word is pathetic. A child's whisper against the scream of something godly. It's swallowed instantly by the roar.
The world becomes white.
The first wave hits not as snow, but as pressure, stealing the air from his lungs and the sense from his head. He's blind, disoriented, tumbling through whiteness and brutally smashing into things. He throws his arms up, a useless attempt of protection as his body is tossed like a doll down the side of the mountain.
He can't see Todoroki.
The instinct to blast himself free is crushed by the weight and the complete sensory overload. There's no air to ignite, no direction to aim.
He tries to orient, but there’s no up, no down, only the pull of gravity and the avalanche hammering him end over end.
Then impact.
Something slams against his back with bone-breaking force.
It’s Todoroki. Katsuki feels it instantly, not just weight, but the shape of him, the sharp elbow, the clawing fingers that catch on his harness in a helpless attempt to stop falling. For one second it’s like they’re able to hold together, but then the avalanche rips them apart again, and Todoroki's body is flung into protruding rocks.
The sound is worse than the feeling of falling. A crack, like stone breaking, then a horrible choked scream right beside him.
Katsuki whips around, choking on ice and wind, and sees him. Todoroki’s face half-buried in the rushing snow, his body twisted unnaturally as the current drags them down further. Eyes closed. Mouth slack. His grip on Katsuki completely gone with limp fingers.
“No! Fuck—” Katsuki roars past the block in his throat, trying to grab him, but the mountain has them both.
The snow spits them out over empty air. They’re falling, the avalanche flowing away from the cliff and leaving them suspended. Katsuki sees it happen in slow motion.
Todoroki’s limp body drops first, tumbling like a ragdoll. He slams into the jut of a rock ledge below, shoulder first. The crack is disgusting, carried up through the howl of the canyon. His head whips back, neck bending in a way that makes Katsuki’s stomach twist. The body doesn’t fight it. Doesn’t try to save itself. Just folds, rolls, and lies still.
Katsuki doesn’t even have time to brace himself either. His ankle clips the edge first, pain shooting up his leg, and then his shoulder smashes into the same ledge where Todoroki crumpled. The joint tears loose with a nauseating pop and the breath is ripped out of him, his scream cut short as his face buries into snow and stone.
The world stops moving.
Silence.
Not true silence. A high, thin, whistling sound rushes above. The wind. Still there, singing its eerie, mocking song through the deep fissure they've fallen into. After the deafening roar, the relative quiet down here is somehow more terrifying.
His ears ring. His own breathing is a wet rasp in his throat. He lies still for a long moment, trying to remember how his body works, trying to separate the screaming pains into a list of injuries.
Move. Assess. Now.
Gritting his teeth, he pushes himself up onto his left elbow. Agony shoots through his ruined shoulder, so intense the world grays for a second and bile rises in his throat. He breathes through it, blinking hard until his vision clears.
They are on a narrow ledge, barely wide enough for the two of them. Below, a thick mist lies, hiding any hint of how far the drop might be. The walls are smooth, icy stone, offering no handholds, no hope of getting out of here by climbing.
Todoroki is curled on his side a few feet away, unnaturally still. One arm is clamped around his midsection in a white-knuckled grip, as if trying to hold himself together, his other arm is stretched out at a clearly wrong angle. His face is turned away, pressed against the cold stone, but Katsuki can see the violent, dark bruise already blooming across his temple, a stark stain against his pale skin. A thin line of blood runs a path from his hairline down to his jaw. His face is bloody from the impact with the rock before they fell.
As Katsuki watches, Todoroki’s body twitches and jerks. A shallow, hitching breath rattles out of him, immediately choked off as if the act of breathing itself caused unimaginable pain. Every breath is the same, a quick, desperate gasp that hitches and catches. Katsuki instantly knows he must have suffered serious damage to the torso.
Katsuki tries to yell. To demand a report, to shout Todoroki’s name.
Nothing comes out. His throat is raw, his voice gone. All he manages is a dry croak that the mountain swallows instantly.
The adrenaline is fading, and the cold pushes in. Not just on his skin but through his soaked clothes, into his bones. The cold isn’t just biting anymore, it’s dragging heat out of him fast. He doesn’t need a doctor to know what that means. Hypothermia’s already knocking on the door.
Move. He has to move.
The command screams through his head, loud enough to cut through the haze. Lying here is death.
He rolls onto his stomach, and agony explodes in his shoulder. A groan rips out of him, teeth grinding as he waits for the pain in the joint to dull to something he can bite down. His ankle’s screaming too, but the shoulder is the one that nearly blacks him out.
Crawling’s the only option. He shoves with his left arm, dragging his body forward, legs dragging behind like dead weight with only the healthy one able to help him push. Rock tears at his glove.
He doesn’t go to Todoroki first, as much as he wants to. His eyes caught it in the fall, a piece of green wedged in the rock. One of the packs. A chance.
Please.
Hope.
It feels like forever, but he makes it. By then his breath is harsh smoke in the cold air. Fingers numb and clumsy, he wrestles the straps loose, shoulder screaming with every tug. Then he just dumps it, contents scattering across the stone.
First-aid kit.
Full canteen water.
Six ration bars.
One foil emergency bag, bright orange, the one with padding on the bottom.
That’s it.
No radio. No flares. No rope.
The realization knocks the breath out of him harder than the fall. This isn’t just bad luck….
It’s a death sentence.
One bag. Two hurt bodies. No way to call for help.
The whistle cuts through the canyon like laughter. No one’s ever going to hear them over the constant sound….
His eyes drift back to Todoroki. Blood now dried dark down his temple because of the cold. He takes the gear and crawls back, managing to get up one knee under himself and push forward like that. The way feels longer, the pain worse. By the time he reaches Todoroki, his lungs burn with each cold breath of air.
“Hey.” His voice is fucking sandpaper, barely there. He shakes Todoroki’s good shoulder with his left hand. “Hey. Icyhot. Look at me.”
Todoroki’s head rolls weakly. His eyes find him, but they’re glazed, unfocused. Empty.
A different fear takes Katsuki then, the thought of being the only one awake, the only one fighting. He swallows, forces his voice out. No anger, no pride. Just what has to be said.
“Our clothes,” he rasps. “They’re soaked. They’ll kill us.”
A harsh breath burns his lungs.
“They come off. Now.”
Todoroki blinks slowly, his eyes glassy. One pupil too wide, swimming in concussion fog. He doesn’t answer right away, doesn’t even twitch. For a moment Katsuki thinks he’s lost him already, that his words can’t reach whatever dazed fog the other is drifting through.
Then, with the kind of sluggish way only a wrecked head can manage, Todoroki croaks, “You— you ‘r shiv’ring.”
The bluntness guts him. Katsuki’s hands are trembling against the snow-covered rock. His teeth ache from clenching. He’s fucking freezing, muscles spasming with it, but hearing Todoroki say it aloud makes something in him snap. He looks away, jaw grinding, the corner of his vision blurring with rage and humiliation and fear and worry.
“Don’t waste your fucking energy on stating the obvious.” His voice comes out hoarse, smaller than he wants. “Just move. We don’t have time.”
The foil bag lies like a taunt beside them. Bright, metallic, rescue in cheap, crinkling plastic. It promises warmth, but only if they strip themselves down to their underwear first. Every second they hesitate, their soaked clothes suck heat straight from their bodies.
Katsuki’s good hand fumbles with the first clasp on his own vest. His shoulder protests instantly, pain shooting through the joint. He hisses through clenched teeth, sees white sparks behind his eyes, but keeps pulling. Every buckle, every strap is a fucking war. His breath stutters in the cold air, steam puffing from his lips in bursts.
He’s aware, painfully aware, of Todoroki watching him.
No, not watching. Just staring, that blank concussion haze that sees everything and nothing at once. Still, it burns like judgment. Katsuki wants to snarl, to tell him to look the fuck away, but he needs Todoroki awake, needs his eyes open. Slowing down and letting the haze take over means death here.
“Get your shit off too,” he grits out, fighting the stubborn zipper on his jacket with trembling fingers. “Don’t make me do it for you.”
Todoroki’s answer is to fumble at his own coat. His movements are jerky, clumsy. His coordination is off, like a toddler almost. He doesn’t fight the way Katsuki does, doesn’t curse, doesn’t hiss, but every awkward tug and half-finished move makes his injuries obvious. He winces when his wrong-angled arm shifts, his lips going pale, but he keeps at it, even with pained whines coming out, out of his control.
The pile of fabric between them grows. Jackets, gloves, boots, all of it damp, all of it deadly. Katsuki feels naked before he’s even stripped down to his shirt.
Todoroki sways dangerously where he sits against the wall, only in underwear, his shirt and the still dry socks now. His breath is puffing away fast, his skin already flushed a mottled red from exposure. That blunt voice echoes again in Katsuki’s skull:
"You are shivering."
‘Yeah, dumbass. We both are. And it’s going to fucking kill us.’
The foil bag crackles in his grip, impossibly thin for what it promises. He spreads it out on the snow-packed ledge, then gestures. “Get in. Now.”
Todoroki doesn’t argue, he just stares at the thing like he’s trying to solve a puzzle, then awkwardly lowers himself, every movement slow and pained. His wrong arm dangles uselessly. Katsuki curses under his breath and helps, dragging him the last bit despite the pain in his own body.
Finally, Todoroki’s inside, the bright orange foil swallowing him already. Katsuki doesn’t hesitate this time. He crawls in after until everything he feels is the suffocating press of heat and skin. It’s too close. He can feel the other's breath ghosting against his collarbone, can hear the uneven rhythm of his lungs. Every tremor in his own body transfers straight into the other’s. They’re pressed chest to chest, bodies leeching heat in both directions wherever they touch.
But it is how the bag works.
For a moment, it’s unbearable. The intimacy, the vulnerability, the knowledge that this is the only thing standing between them and the freeze to death. Katsuki’s entire body locks up, his throat tight.
Then Todoroki shifts, just barely, his voice so small it’s almost lost to the wind.
“W’rmer.”
Katsuki shuts his eyes, breath slowing against the side of Todoroki’s throat. He doesn’t answer. Can’t. But he holds still, forcing his body to stop fighting, and lets the heat of another body keep his own from going out and giving up.
The wind song of the chasm comes through the foil walls and, maybe he imagines it, but it’s dulled here.
❈
The foil bag isn’t made for two. It barely fits one. Katsuki knew that the second he pulled it from the backpack, but the reality of it now, two bodies crammed into a crackling cocoon of synthetic heat, is worse than he imagined.
Every breath shifts ribs against ribs. Todoroki’s hip bone digs into his thigh, his injured arm lying useless and heavy between them.
Katsuki shoves their stripped-off clothes down to the bottom, all crumpled into a bundle. His hope is pathetic but maybe the heat of their bodies will dry them at least a little. Maybe they won’t wake up tomorrow to frozen rags.
Maybe they will be rescued before that?
Todoroki groans at the movement, his head rolling against Katsuki’s collarbone. His temple is hot against the skin there, fever already rising.
“Don’ move so much,” he mumbles. His words slur.
“Shut up. I’m making sure we don’t freeze solid.” His voice is scraped.
He wriggles further, dragging Todoroki with him until the foil seals tighter around them. The sounds are maddening. Constant crinkle of the foil, the whistle of the chasm outside, two sets of disturbed breathing. Katsuki wants to punch everything— especially the chasm sound— silent, but his good arm is too busy bracing them in place.
When he finally stops moving, it’s because he has nothing left to give. His muscles are locked, his shoulder and ankle in white-hot pain. The effort leaves him gasping, chest heaving against Todoroki’s.
The other blinks slowly, eyes hazy, half-closed. His breath fans weakly across Katsuki’s throat. For a terrifying moment, it stutters too long. Katsuki presses his forehead hard against Todoroki’s, grounding them both.
“Stay awake,” he whispers harshly. “You hear me, Icyhot? Don’t you fucking dare.”
He doesn't know how long they will be here. If Todoroki really fell asleep, Katsuki would have to monitor it. Better stay awake for now.
One eye blinks open wider, unfocused but aware enough. “Heavy,” Todoroki whispers, as if Katsuki’s whole weight is crushing him.
“Deal with it,” Katsuki mutters, though his voice cracks, softer than he means it to.
❈
The foil bag traps their heat, but it’s not enough. Katsuki feels it, his body shivering, core temperature slipping. The cold is patient. It always wins.
His tired mind— how long has it been? Hour? Minutes?— claws for options. Fire. Todoroki’s fire. It’s risky, stupid maybe, but it’s something.
He leans down, lips close to Todoroki’s ear. “Hey. Think you can spark something? Just outside the bag. Small flame. Doesn’t have to be big.”
At first there’s nothing. Just Todoroki’s shallow breaths and the drag of air in his chest. Katsuki’s ready to drop it, chalk it up as a lost cause, then the other stirs. His brow furrows with concentration right beside him. His hand snakes upward, shaking as it slips out the bag.
Katsuki feels hope.... and immediately hates it. Hope’s a weakness. But he can’t help watching, waiting.
A glow sputters in Todoroki’s palm above their heads. Pathetic, nothing like his usual fire. But it’s there. For half a second, heat brushes Katsuki’s cheek, even inside the bag—
Then Todoroki’s face twists, muscles seizing. The flame dies. His whole body jerks, and he gags hard, twisting on his back in agony.
“Shit— wait!” Katsuki claws at the zipper on the side with his good hand, yanking it open just enough. Cold air knifes in, but he doesn’t care. He shoves Todoroki’s head toward the gap just as he convulses violently.
The sound is disgusting. Vomit tearing out of him in wet heaves, every one surely pulling at broken ribs, making Katsuki wince with sympathy. The scream that tears out of the man is worse…. a raw, high sound Katsuki’s never heard from him before. Not even in fights. Pure pain.
Katsuki’s stomach lurches, but he clamps his jaw and locks his arm around Todoroki’s shoulder and part of his neck, holding him steady so he doesn’t thrash himself into worse damage, or even over the narrow ledge. His shoulder burns with the effort, his ankle throbs where it drags, but none of it matters. Just hold him up. Just keep him from choking.
“Get it out,” he mutters against the back of Todoroki’s hair. “C’mon, just get it out.”
By the time it’s done, the other is shaking so hard Katsuki can feel it in his entire body. He slumps back like a doll without strings, clammy skin sticking to Katsuki’s. His lips are pale, his breathing shredded.
Katsuki yanks the canteen open and tips it to Todoroki's mouth. Not for drinking, just a rinse. Just enough so the taste doesn’t stay.
He zips the bag shut again as soon as Todoroki spits it outside, sealing them back in the suffocating space. His pulse is still hammering. He presses his mouth against a clammy temple when the other turns back toward him with a low, pained noise.
“No more fire. That was stupid. Forget it. You’re done, Shoto. I’m so sorry I just—”
Shoto doesn’t answer. His head lolls against Katsuki’s chest, body slack and heavy with exhaustion.
And that’s worse than any scream.
Katsuki locks his arm tighter around him. He won't ask again. He’ll keep them alive his way.
Even if it kills him.
❈
Night comes, the outside is at least dark enough. Sleep comes for them, their exhaustion too heavy to stay awake any longer. But Katsuki would not allow himself the luxury of true rest, his internal clock shocking him from light dozes every few hours to perform a dreaded, necessary ritual. With a hand that’s far gentler than he’d ever admit, he shakes Shouto’s uninjured shoulder. “Halfie? Shoto…. Hey. Open your eyes.” He demands answers to simple questions— “What’s your name? Where are we?”— his own heart hammering against his ribs until a slurred, disoriented response comes, a small sound that is both a relief and guilt for interrupting the other’s only respite from the pain. Only then, Katsuki grants them both another precious hour of uneasy rest before the cycle begins again.
Until that goddamn chasm song starts to take that from them as well.
At first it was just a whistle, wind through some fucked-up rock formation, but hours down here, it’s become something else. It dips and warbles, as if changing key, sometimes flattening into a single long note, other times twisting until it almost sounds like voices.
It’s the kind of noise that works its way into you, making you imagine things that aren't there. You can’t block it. You can’t ignore it.
Beside him, Shoto twitches every time the pitch spikes. His breath hitches, shoulders trembling against Katsuki’s chest. It takes a minute before Katsuki understands—
It’s not just the sound annoying him. It’s hurting him.
Of course. Concussion. Loud noise drills into your skull, rattles your brain around like loose glass. Katsuki swears under his breath, furious with himself for not realizing sooner.
“Fuck,” he mutters, pressing his lips against the shell of Shoto’s ear so he doesn’t have to raise his voice. “That’s what’s getting you, isn’t it? The song.”
Shoto swallows hard, his throat working against Katsuki’s shoulder. His answer is barely a whisper and weak. “Feels….like needl’s.”
Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut, rage and helplessness burning in his gut. Needles in the head, every second, no way to turn it off. He wants to tear the rock apart with his bare hands, blast the sound into silence, but his shoulder is wrecked and his body is broken and all he can do is be here.
So Katsuki shifts. He drags him closer until there’s no space left between them. He gets his good hand over one ear, presses the other hard against his chest. Shuts out the world as best he can.
Shoto’s breath stutters, then slows. His fingers curl in Katsuki’s shirt, weak and shaking, but holding. His forehead burns against Katsuki’s collarbone. Every now and then a wince tears through him, ribs catching on the movement, but still less. The whistle is now muffled by skin and bone.
Katsuki clenches his jaw against the urge to speak, to break the silence with anything at all. He forces himself to stay still, to breathe steady, slow, exaggerated. A rhythm Shoto can feel instead of hear. One he can follow even past the pain in his chest.
In. Out. Chest rising, chest falling. That’s all he gives.
Minutes bleed away. Could be hours. The song outside goes on, merciless, but in here there’s only the muffled thud of his heartbeat and the rustle of foil can get to his.... colleague. Friend.
Shoto trembles less. His breaths find something closer to rhythm.
Katsuki keeps his palm pressed firm to his ear, keeps him pinned close, and doesn’t say a fucking word.