Archive of Our Own ^beta

It's not really the first time Hitoshi has found himself in a situation like this. It's not even really the second or even fifth time.

Late January wind blows hard over his arms. Truthfully it's way too fucking cold to be out in just his t-shirt and jeans, but it's not like he had any other option. The choice at the time fell between get hurt or get out and he was far from wanting another bruise. Ignoring the chill for a moment, Shinsou brings himself back enough to do a physical scan.

His left ankle is already bruised and he can feel his pulse in the joint. The feeling is almost as nauseating as the pop that came from it as he jumped down from his windowsill back at his foster home. The sole of his ratty Converse is peeling, and the stitching tore years ago so at least his shoe's loose enough not to aggravate it. His knees are skinned from the fall as well staining the denim of his jeans slightly as they bleed sluggishly. Unrelated to the fall, a ring of bruises sits on his arm. He ignores the urge to poke at it, knowing that any twinge of pain will just give him the phantom pains of being roughly grabbed. 

His head aches. It feels like ages ago that he'd gotten pain meds from Togata back on campus but it's only truly been six hours max. Or something. He's kind of lost track of time since coming up here. Maybe someone's looking for him by now. He doubts it. 

A lifetime ago, earlier in the day, Eri had invited him to Aizawa-Sensei's for a tea party after school. He'd gone over before, and always enjoyed himself– everyone on campus was enamoured with Eri but she was still getting used to people. It was a long time before she was comfortable spending time alone with anyone except Togata, Midoriya, or Aizawa, but since picking up on the amount of time Aizawa and Shinsou spent together training, she'd started slowly letting him into her orbit. 

So far they'd read their way through a huge stack of picture books from the library down the street (picked out by Hitoshi himself one day while wandering around avoiding the train home), finger painting (Aizawa greatly encouraged Eri to make messes), and tea parties. Tea was Eri's second favourite activity after reading. It usually started with the little girl sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him while he did her hair "super fancy" and ended with a mess of cookie crumbs all over Aizawa's coffee table. Sometimes the tea was imaginary, but more often than not, Hitoshi would hold Eri up to pick out mugs for the two of them from Aizawa's cupboard. Hitoshi would steep a random bag of tea from the assortment of tea Aizawa had collected in the past few years but never drank, and then add ice cubes to Eri's.

He can't remember if he told anyone he wouldn't be making an appearance at the dorm after all.

There's a muzzle latched tight around the lower half of his face which bites in at the edges. Trickles of blood keep slowly falling down his cheeks, tickling the skin below the cool metal, but there's no way for him to wipe them away. A chunk of his hair is tangled in the locking mechanism, pinching his scalp and making his migraine worse. Every jerk of his head has been accompanied by the feeling of strands being pulled out. At this point, the pain is no longer grounding– it's blending together into this numb miasma that makes his brain drift no matter how much he tries to stay present. 

The floaty feeling in his brain could be attributed to many things, he's aware. He hasn't slept. He hasn't eaten since lunch. He could be in shock from his injuries. It's freezing and he could be developing symptoms of hypothermia. 

Personally, he thinks the majority of his problem stems from his quirk. He had overdone it in training, much to Aizawa's barely concealed annoyance. Togota had offered himself up as a test subject today to see if he could get some clarity on the exact differences between people's brains while they were under. Aizawa mentioned that they might be getting too used to each other and thought another person would add a level of challenge they'd been missing so far. As per usual, his sensei was right.

Togota barely looked fatigued by the end of it, but after barely half an hour of brainwashing and un-brainwashing, Shinsou had woken up lying on the grass, with no memory of losing consciousness. Aizawa was stern with his reprimand as he held a tissue under Hitoshi's bleeding nose and rooted around in his utility belt for a jelly packet. There was a hint of worry in expression at the time– there always was these days– but it was fine. He was fine.

He'd already been working on empty when he'd stumbled in his front door. They hadn't even really done anything physical besides a warm-up, but his legs felt like jelly the whole way back to the house. He was tired. That was his excuse.

He was tired, his head hurt, and his frontal lobe felt like it was made out of fluffy cotton. The nerves behind his eyes ached as though his eyeballs had impossibly grown bigger. He was barely in the front door.

The cold bites at the skin of his forearms and blows up the sleeves of his too-big t-shirt. He's given up on hugging his arms tight around himself to preserve body heat– it isn't as though there's much to preserve at this point. He doesn't know when he last blinked, looking out over the city skyline, but he does know that his eyelashes have frozen into sticky clumps. 

When he'd changed at school, Hitoshi had forgotten to take his jacket from his locker. Most students just left school in their uniform. Not Hitoshi. This was already his second blazer after the kids back at the house had taken to the sleeves of his old one with a pair of scissors in an attempt to cure their boredom. All of his emergency savings had gone into getting a new one and now the pouch under his mattress barely housed enough money for the new pair of socks he desperately needed. Now he changed at school, no matter the looks he got from classmates for his too-big hand-me-down clothes. 

His first thought when he walked in the front door was that he was glad to be inside out of the cold. Foolish, really, to get complacent. Rookie mistake to take that second to appreciate the warmth of the newly-repaired furnace. He was tired. He was cold. He was hungry. He spotted his foster father in the living room and asked him about his day before he'd even leaned down to take off his shoes.

Hitoshi couldn’t recall the walk here. He doesn’t remember how he got up here, but he does know that his cell phone has been vibrating in his pocket for a while. Had he gotten in touch with someone? He doesn’t remember. He couldn’t check his phone even if he wanted to because the joints in his fingers are stiff from the cold bent to clutch at the ledge he sits on. He couldn’t straighten them out to pull his phone from his pocket or maneuver his fingers to send a text even if he wanted to. 

He knows where he is vaguely, though pulling the information from his foggy brain is like trying to pull a fish out of water with his bare hands. He’s on the roof of a building, and he can’t feel his toes. The parking lot below him is empty and dark, frost forming in dark puddles where people’s cars have warmed the concrete while heating. He’s pretty sure he got up this high by climbing the fire escape out back, but who knows. 

Aizawa took him up here months ago. He’d brought sandwiches from the cafe across the street and they’d talked the whole walk here. He’d been too tired for training that day, so his teacher had called it early. Only when Hitoshi’s face had fallen in disappointment did Aizawa offer up an alternative. They’d sat on the rooftop together on top of Aizawa’s coat and watched the sunset while they ate. It was nice. It was a nice memory. Hitoshi is glad he thinks of it in this moment.

He’d rather remember his weird picnic with Aizawa than the cold glint in his foster father’s eyes. He doesn’t remember a lot of it anyway– just bits and pieces like snapshots playing in a slideshow under a running track of static white noise. The click of the muzzle latch too loud despite the chaos of other sounds. The way the man in front of him had immediately hit it square on with his palm. The edges of the muzzle are sharp. They used to be lined with rubber, but the slight comfort wore off a long time ago due to overuse.

He tried to run. Or he thinks he tried to run? He remembers a mad dash for the staircase up to his room, an immediate bruising grip on his arm, and the hard tumble he took to the ground. Everything grows fuzzy when his head hits the linoleum, eyes fuzzy like he’s dreaming. If he could move his fingers he’d check his head for any marks, but he doesn’t really think he’s concussed. He’s had concussions before.

Somewhere in the haze of raised voices, as his body gets shaken angrily by the grown man looming over him, Hitoshi almost subconsciously remembers a thread. The familiar impulse– The tug– The quiet. He was so tired. Blood drips sluggishly from his nose, coating his lips under the mechanism around his face. It’s hard to swallow. It’s hard to breathe. His eyelids dip briefly and he feels himself sway.

Since Aizawa and his impromptu rooftop picnic, Hitoshi has come back here. When he needs to get away but has nowhere else to go, he’ll escape for a few hours alone just to watch the city crawl below him. It’s peaceful. He’s always loved wind and the bluster of it from up here almost lulls him like a meditation track. He doesn’t usually sit so close to the edge, though.

His phone buzzes again. It breaks him out of the hazy state he’s found himself in, reminding him of the pain lancing through his body. It’s annoying. What an irritating thing, interrupting him and not letting him hide from the pain. Very slowly, he peels one hand from the ledge, barely noting the imprint of the cement on his palm and fingers from how tight he’d been gripping it. It’s awkward and painful getting his phone out. By the time he’s flopped it down in his lap, it’s stopped and started ringing twice more. On the third call, he pressed hard at the answer button. It takes a couple of tries with how cold his fingers are– the screen not registering any body heat to react to.

It’s Aizawa. That’s what the screen tells him now that the call has been answered– it said so before, he’s sure, but he didn’t really read it before picking up. Aizawa’s voice is small and tinny from his phone speaker. Fifteen seconds later, Shinsou finally succeeds at pressing the speaker button, and his mentor’s voice comes at him more clearly. He focuses on it through the wisps his brain has turned into.

“–Sou! Shinsou, answer me. I got your message, but I need to know where you are. You haven’t been answering anything – Hitoshi, please .” Aizawa keeps talking for a while before Hitoshi registers most of what he’s saying. He scoots back slightly so that he can curl closer to the phone without toppling off the building. In his haze, he forgets the muzzle. The noise he makes sounds more like a moan of pain than words.

“Are you hurt? I need you to speak to me, Hitoshi, or I can’t help you–” Ah. Well. The wind buffets around him, playing with the hem of his t-shirt now that he’s bent over. “Hitoshi, what was th– Are you somewhere windy? I don’t understand, kid, I need you to help me out here.”

It’s all Hitoshi can do to hum an affirmative back at him. His mentor keeps speaking, but he loses himself again to the droning comfort of a voice he trusts. He hears his name more times, something about GPS. Sometimes his mentor’s voice gets quieter as though he’s no longer talking to Hitoshi. It’s dark outside. He’s not sure when it got dark outside. He’s so tired.

Time drips past him slow enough that it feels like honey, but tastes like iron. The phone in his lap is still making noise somehow. When the call disconnects he doesn’t even register it, only vaguely aware that the comfort he’d barely grasped onto is gone. He hasn’t shivered in a while. His head hurts.

Below him, a car speeds down the street and screeches into the parking lot. A tiny ant scurries out like it’s on fire and makes a beeline for his building. The car’s not even inside the lines of a parking stall. It’s kinda funny– he smiles the barest amount, hardly feeling the way the muzzle cuts further into his cheeks. He wonders where the voice on his phone went, but he doesn’t have to wonder for too long.

Behind him, quiet footsteps fall against the rooftop.

“Hey, kid,” The voice is gentle. Familiar. He’s sure he would’ve been startled if he was anywhere close to his right headspace, but at the moment all he feels is a foreign rush of relief. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he knows he trusts whoever is back there. Tension falls in his shoulders. He shivers. Oh, they’re speaking.

“I need you to come down from there, okay? I’m coming closer, just–” There’s a ragged breath, “Just wait there. Don’t– Just wait for me.”

The voice gets closer, close enough that Hitoshi can look over his shoulder and see them. He knows this person, he’s sure of it. His head cocks to the side, letting their voice wash over him again. When they’re close enough, he stiffly takes his hands from where they’re clasped on either side of him and holds them out in the man’s direction.

“That’s it, Hitoshi. Oh, come here, kiddo– I’ve– I’ve got you– That’s it,” Big warm hands gather Hitoshi up under his armpits and all but drag him back into the body. They’re warm. He immediately hums and wiggles in closer to them, his eyes slipping shut. “Jesus, you scared the fuck out of me, kid. I thought– Don’t ever do that again, do you understand me?” 

Hitoshi isn’t sure what there is to understand but he hums anyway. The man’s hands are big and warm. One rests on his back pressing him tight into the warmth in front of him while the other combs frantically through his hair. He whines when the fingers accidentally tug further on the hair that’s trapped in the muzzle’s latch.

“I know– I know, I’ve got you. Let me just– I need to get this off of you,” They seem aware of the fact that they’re basically talking to themself, but he doesn’t stop. Hitoshi is grateful for it. He whines sadly when the hands let him go slightly, but they’re back soon enough, both fiddling with the clasp behind his head. Something pokes into Hitoshi’s head, making the man wince and apologize, “I’m taking it off. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Ah, he’s narrating what he’s doing. It takes a while and a lot of fumbling since the man doesn’t even try to turn Hitoshi around, but eventually, the pressure on his face loosens. He opens his eyes, unaware of when they’d closed, and whimpers as the man gently pries the muzzle off of his face. There’s a gross wet nose as the metal comes free of some of the cuts on the fatty parts of his cheeks. It’s discarded abruptly, Hitoshi doesn’t see where.

“‘Zawa…?” He murmurs.

“That’s it, kiddo. I’ve got you. You’re okay,” His mentor busies himself shrugging off his thick black coat, wrapping it tight around Shinsou. He sighs at the warmth, melting against Aizawa. He blinks and suddenly he’s in Aizawa’s arms being carried carefully down the fire escape stairs. He blinks again and his teacher is buckling him into the passenger seat of his car. He blinks again and watches the streetlights glide past the car. He recognizes Mic-Sensei’s voice on the radio.

A nervous tapping is coming from beside him and when he turns to look, he sees Aizawa staring straight ahead with a tight expression, fingers absently tapping away at the steering wheel. It feels like waking up somehow. The heat is blowing on his feet, and he’s shivering all wrapped up in this too-big wool coat. They’re in a familiar area of town. He’s walked this way to school in the mornings, though they’re still a ways away from campus. When the car stops at the next red, Aizawa turns his eyes away from the road and looks surprised to see Hitoshi looking back at him.

“Hi,” Hitoshi says, nearly a whisper.

“Welcome back. You with me now?”

“I think mostly,” He tugs the jacket tighter around him and buries his face in it. “You came for me?”

“Always, kid,” Aizawa blinks roughly and clears his throat, looking back at the road in time for the time to turn.

“I think I missed Eri’s tea party,” Shinsou’s voice is too soft. He should speak up.

“I’m sure she understands,” His mentor reaches one hand out to ruffle his hair before placing it back at the wheel. “She’s staying with Nemuri right now. You’re coming home with me and never going back to that place, do you understand?”

“Okay,”

“I’m gonna get you cleaned and warmed up. I have clothes for you there– It’s all the clothes the students have left, but they don’t have to know. I have soup I can warm up for you– Are you listening?”

“Mm-hmm…” His eyes have slipped shut without his consent, “I’m tired,”

“I know,” His mentor’s voice is softer than he thinks he’s ever heard it. “Why don’t you get some sleep, then, and I’ll wake you up with we get back to campus.”

“Mmkay,” Shinsou yawns. It hurts his jaw a bit, but it’s not too bad. He burrows deeper in the jacket and allows himself to give in to the pull of sleep.

He wakes up later, still huddled inside the jacket, being carried by his mentor, but falls back asleep too soon after to react. The night sky above him is clouded slightly by the lights of the Teacher’s dorm blazing bright. He falls back asleep to the sound of his mentor breathing above him, his breath crystallizing in the cold air. He still hurts, but it’s okay because Aizawa has an industrial-sized first aid kit in his bathroom cabinet, and he’s gonna help him. It’s a nice feeling, safety.