#sgwrites

There are some nights that Shouta can’t sleep – not because of nightmares, like some would think, but because he can’t stand down, can’t get his mind or body to come off high alert. His bed, not all that big for one person, let alone two, is suddenly a vast, undefended space, the shadowed walls of his bedroom no deterrent against any attack that might come while he sleeps.

There’s only one thing that seems to work when his mind starts to spin, phantom tingles rushing through his missing leg, the other side of his bed cold and empty.

His sleeping bag.

It’s stupid, probably childish, but the weight of it, the way it surrounds him on all sides is comforting. Maybe it’s because he’s used it basically everywhere he regularly goes at one point or another, but it feels safe. So far as coping mechanisms go, he could do worse.

He’s just started to approach the concept of drifting off, insulated from the world in his bright yellow cocoon, when the key turns in the front door. If he weren’t paying attention he wouldn’t have heard the near silent footsteps that eventually make their way down the hallway, but as good as Hitoshi is, Shouta is the one who trained him. That, and they’ve been living together for a couple of years now, more than enough time to become familiar with each other in personal as well as professional ways.

There’s the slightest creak of a floorboard near the bedroom entrance as Hitoshi stops for a moment before he comes in. Shouta turns his head slightly, his good eye trained on Hitoshi as he sheds the remainder of his uniform until he’s in just his undershirt and boxers.

“Didn’t think you’d still be up,” he says lowly as he slides into bed. Up close, Shouta can see a couple scrapes on one side of his face that hadn’t been there this morning.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Shouta says. “Eventful patrol?”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi says with a gusty sigh, and rolls over to face him. He snuggles up against Shouta but his eyes are watchful, looking for any sign of discomfort from his actions, and he keeps his hands to himself. “Got a little rough but nothing I couldn’t handle.” His mouth curls with a sly little smile. “You can kiss it better for me later.”

A soft, fond sound escapes Shouta’s mouth. “Brat.”

“You love it,” Hitoshi drawls, though the effect is ruined by the yawn that immediately follows. He looks at Shouta, half-lidded violet eyes bright with a steady kind of affection that Shouta took a while to pick up on. “How long have you been trying to sleep?”

The question isn’t asked with worry, or judgment, just a simple query that makes his already heavy eyes feel even wearier. “…a while,” Shouta admits.

Hitoshi lets out a little hum of acknowledgement. He raises one hand, and Shouta lets him tuck an errant lock of hair back behind his ear. He should probably cut it soon. “I could help if you want.”

The hand lingers, cupping his face, and Shouta’s eyelids flutter. It isn’t often that Hitoshi offers to use his quirk this way, and even less that Shouta accepts the help. Most of the time good old fashioned physical contact is enough – cuddling or other more strenuous activities helping to either calm or tire him out – but Shouta is just too on edge, too exhausted, to put up even a token denial, and he has work in the morning. “Please,” he breathes, his voice barely audible, but Hitoshi hears it. He always hears him.

“All right,” he says, sounding pleased. “Are you comfortable?”

“Mm-hmm,” Shouta replies, and Hitoshi takes hold of him oh so gently, the blankness that Brainwash brings downright soporific. It’s much different from being under it in a fight, or even during his training as a student when Shouta agreed to play guinea pig. Willingness plays a factor, but so does the already existing state of mind.

“Close your eyes,” Hitoshi murmurs, and Shouta would have done so even if he weren’t under the quirk’s effects. “Good boy.” The irritation that phrase normally induces doesn’t even scratch the surface of the pleasant state Shouta is caught in, physically and mentally bundled up like he is, just beginning to dip into slumber. “Now relax your body, just let everything go.”

The tension he’d still been carrying bleeds out of him, the last phantom sensations from his right leg dissipating, and he must have made some kind of noise, because both of Hitoshi’s hands cradle his face now as he shushes him.

“There you go,” Hitoshi murmurs, his breath brushing against Shouta’s face. “There you go, Shouta, does that feel good?”

“Yes,” he’s compelled to answer, but it’s true, so so true. Snugly enveloped in his sleeping bag, his body finally relaxed, his mind swaddled with the same care that’s present in Hitoshi’s voice and his physical touch – all of it combined swirls into a blissful, languid drowsiness where he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Hitoshi's eyes fluttered open slowly as he came to.

“Hello there sweetheart,” a low, rough voice said in his ear. “Sleep well?”

He startled and would have fallen over because apparently he was sitting up, but his upper arms were gripped tightly to keep him upright, and he immediately realized two things.

One, he noticed as he looked down while trying to orient himself, he wasn’t wearing pants, only his - god, was that his uniform shirt? He only had his school uniform shirt on, no pants, no underwear, which considering he’d gone to sleep fully dressed in pajamas was fucking terrifying.

Two, when he tried to open his mouth he couldn’t because there was fucking duct tape covering it, effectively muting any sounds he tried to make. Trying to get it off was fruitless, as his wrists were tied together behind his back. 

“Shhh,” the voice said again. A blunt chin hooked over his shoulder from behind and strong, hairy arms came around his front, holding him close. “Just breathe,” he was told, and Hitoshi realized he was close to hyperventilating. He breathed in deeply through his nose, trying to quell the trembling he couldn’t quite help. “There we go. Good boy. Such a good boy for me, Hitoshi.”

He knew his name. Why did he know his name?

“Sorry about this.” A finger tapped against his covered mouth. “You have such an amazing quirk, but I can't let you end our fun too early. Feel free to make as much noise as you like, though; I want to know you're feeling good.” There was the brush of chapped lips and stubble against his cheek, followed by a nose pressed against his throat as his captor inhaled deeply.

Hitoshi shook his head, a weak sound of denial bubbling up from his throat as he tried to angle his head away from him.

“Don't be like that.” A large hand clamped around his jaw and turned him so he was looking forward. "Let the camera see your pretty face."

With ice cold horror, Hitoshi realized that down past the foot of the bed sat a camcorder atop a tripod. The little red recording light blinked innocently at him.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while, you know,” the man murmured at his ear. “Didn’t expect you to have a cute little cunt, but you’re just full of surprises.” His finger slipped far too easily into Hitoshi’s hole, his traitorous body offering no resistance, only slick give. “I got a little too excited, started a bit early, but don’t worry, you can watch it later.”

Trainee 23 wasn’t completely sure why they were giving him a child to look after. They didn’t let him interact with new recruits. The small, named part of him they’d tried to squash found it darkly amusing that they didn’t want to risk either undoing the work they’d already put into him or that he might scare the willing recruits away, but that wasn’t any of Trainee 23’s business.

The trainer’s expression was as unreadable as ever with their mandibles and six compound eyes, but Trainee 23 liked to think he had spent enough time around them to pick up on the slight tension in their frame. “You’ve been assigned Trainee 35 as-”

“I told you that’s not my name,” the girl who’d been escorted to his room said hotly. She couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old, and had a quirk suppression collar fitted around her neck. It had the hairs on the back of Trainee 23’s neck tingling in sympathy.

“Trainee 35 is part of the rehabilitation program,” the trainer said, ignoring her outburst. “Her quirk is untrained and potentially deadly. Look after her.”

So she was doubly like him – dangerous, but worth salvaging in the HPSC’s eyes. At her age they would probably have more luck with her than they did with him.

He nodded in understanding and the trainer left, the door locking behind them.

“That’s not my name,” the girl said, softer this time, looking at him almost desperately. “It’s Eri. My name is Eri.”

Trainee 23 wasn’t completely sure why she was telling him this – he wouldn’t be able to say it. The named part of him understood, though, and gave her a simple thumbs up in reply.

Eri gave a small, tremulous smile, and the named part of him felt something at the jewel-red color of her eyes. “Is that… do they make you wear that?” she asked, gesturing to the mask that was fitted to the lower part of his face. “For your quirk?”

He nodded, and she frowned. “How are you supposed to talk to people?”

“I don’t,” he signed. He didn’t expect her to understand, so he quirked one eyebrow in lieu of any other facial expression being covered by his mask to convey the obvious. It covered his mouth and chin tightly enough that he couldn’t talk, and the material was quirked so no other noise he made could escape it, though it was porous enough that it didn’t impede his breathing too much. Both those lessons had been hard learned.

“I know some sign!” Eri said, lighting up. Her hands moved slowly but surely as she spoke. “My uncle taught me. What’s your name?”

“I’m Trainee 23,” Trainee 23 signed back, signing the hiragana individually as he doubted she would know the sign for “trainee” otherwise.

Eri frowned. “That’s not a name.”

This was why Trainee 23 was sort of glad they kept him away from the new recruits. Catching glimpses of the determination and personality leaving their eyes was bad enough, having a front row seat to the eventual breakdown? The thought of it made his stomach turn.

“It’s not,” he agreed, then knelt so he wasn’t looming over her. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“They said my daddy’s a villain,” Eri said quietly. “But he’s not! He rescued me from the people who were using my quirk, so he can’t be one.”

Curious. “Your quirk?”

Her shoulders hunched and she nervously petted at the small horn jutting out of her forehead. “It… I can rewind things. People.”

Well, that explained why she was here. He knew the extremes the HPSC was willing to go to when they wanted a particular quirk at their beck and call. Her father was likely a threat of some kind for them to put her in the rehabilitation program, though that didn’t necessarily mean he was a villain.

Trainee 23 had been classified as a vigilante prior to being forcibly inducted into the Commission’s rehabilitation program. “We’ll of course put your quirk to much better use here,” the peppy woman conducting the intake procedure had chirped, not put off in the slightest by his bloodied face, the wrathful glare aimed at her over the muzzle digging painfully into his face, or how tightly he was strapped to the chair in front of her. She just beamed at him, clipboard in hand like this was all normal. “No more ‘playing’ hero, Trainee 23, you’ll be the real thing.”

They called it rehabilitation, but what it really meant was remolding a person, breaking them down if necessary to turn them into whatever the Commission wanted. The named part of him had come to realize that he couldn’t win the war of attrition being waged against his psyche. Not alone as he was now.

So he’d stamped down the named part of him, hidden it away from the trainers the way he’d concealed his emotions when he’d been singled out by adults and peers alike for his quirk when he was younger. He’d always been good at compartmentalization, at putting one foot in front of the other because the only way out was through, even if he was mostly fueled by spite because fuck what everyone said about him and his quirk. It had helped in this place to have those old coping methods to fall back on so he didn’t completely lose himself, biding his time to find a way out while nursing a grudge deeper than the Tokyo Bay.

He couldn’t let any of what he’d gone through happen to Eri. Not only because she was a child and didn’t deserve any of this no matter who her father was, but because he was fairly certain if they hurt her in front of him he would lose control, and that wouldn’t end well for either of them.

Mind made up, he signed, “It’s okay. My quirk can be dangerous too.”

Eri stared at him with a depth of understanding in her expression that made his stomach twist. “My daddy will rescue me,” she said, her face serious. “You should come with us when he does.”

There was a strange sensation in his chest that he didn’t dare identify. He nodded, and Eri smiled.

***

“Don’t let them know you can understand me,” Trainee 23 had told her before she was taken away from his room that first time. “Anything they don’t know can be an advantage in this place.”

Eri was pretty sure that was exactly why they’d put her with him, because they didn’t think they’d be able to communicate. She didn’t believe a single word she’d been told about how they were doing this for her own good, that she’d been kidnapped by a villain and they needed to help her break through whatever lies he’d told her. Her daddy had rescued her from Overhaul, had told her he didn’t care about her quirk, that she deserved to be just a normal little girl, that he’d do whatever he could to make sure no one hurt her like that again.

He would come for her. He’d never broken a promise, and she knew that Auntie Nemuri had taken down one of the people who attacked them on their outing before the others had knocked Eri out and ran. He and Auntie Nemuri and Uncle Hizashi would figure out who took her and they would rescue her.

Her and Trainee 23. He may have been an adult, but his eyes were just like hers Before. They had the look of someone who didn’t want to be where they were, but there was no way out so you just did as best you could to try to make it to the other side.

“What’s your name?” she asked the next day when the trainer with the bug-like face escorted her once more to Trainee 23’s room and left her there, locking the door behind them.

She had her own room, similar to his except for the bed being smaller. Meals were brought to her room by the lady who had told her that they ‘rescued’ her from her daddy. After she finished eating the lady would ask questions about her daddy, making notes on her clipboard no matter if Eri spoke or not. No one had raised a hand to her or run any tests like she’d feared at first, but they insisted on calling her Trainee 35 instead of her name, insisted that her daddy was a villain and that no, they couldn’t take off the quirk suppressing collar if she was going to continue to have ‘emotional outbursts’.

(For the very first time, Eri found herself actually wanting to use her quirk on someone. She wasn’t sure if that counted as progress or not.)

Trainee 23 didn’t move for a long moment, but from the slight crease in his brow Eri could tell he was thinking. “I can’t tell you right now,” he eventually replied, the speed his hands moved at reflecting the time he took to think. “Not when they think I’ve forgotten. What you don’t know they can’t make you tell.”

It sounded like something her daddy would say. “All right,” she agreed. “You can tell me later.” There was still the issue of what to call him, though. “Is there something you want me to call you?”

“23 is fine.”

A number was barely better, in Eri’s opinion. “23-oniisan,” she compromised. The way his eyes widened reminded her of the way her daddy had reacted the first time she’d called him that instead of his name.

That settled it, she decided. If he was fine with it then she was definitely keeping him.

***

For a moment he was wildly grateful his face was mostly covered as he felt his cheeks warm with a rush of emotion that made him a little nauseous with how quickly it came. He didn’t have any siblings, hadn’t really ever been very close to anyone except for Eras–

Trainee 23 shut that train of thought down with practiced, ruthless efficiency. It was too painful, too dangerous to think about the other vigilante. What the Commission didn’t know about they couldn’t exploit, and he absolutely refused to give them anything that could be used to hurt him the way they had Trainee 23.

He didn’t even know how long he had been here, absent much of the markers that would regularly be used to tell time. He was somewhat afraid to find out.

“Four days, I think,” was Eri’s answer when he asked if she knew how long she had been here. She looked nervous and a little ashamed. “When I first woke up I didn’t know where I was, but there was a doctor and I thought I was back… back where I was before my daddy rescued me, that they were going to take more of me and I… I kind of lost it.”

Maybe that was why they put her with him, Trainee 23 thought. As some kind of weird calming presence. Either that, or they didn’t want to leave her alone and since he couldn’t talk out loud he was a theoretically ‘safe’ option. The named part of him took vindictive satisfaction in that very much not being the case.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “Bad memories can do that.” Of greater importance was that he now had a somewhat concrete timeline, if only for the last few days.

He’d given up on trying to track how much time had passed a while ago. Meals came irregularly most days and other days not at all, depending on what else they had him doing. Some nights the lights in his room would never shut off, and other times the lights would be dark for so long he figured an entire day had to have passed before they turned back on. He had never slept very well in the first place so working through sleep deprivation was old hat, something that seemed to please the trainers.

Four days, though; you could do a lot in four days, and depending on the resources her father had they could be looking at a possible rescue in the very near future. “Can you tell me what happened when they took you?”

He listened as she outlined the day, how she and her aunt had been on a girl’s day out when they’d been attacked by three people. “Auntie Nemuri was fighting two of them,” Eri said, and something in him stirred slightly with a vague sort of recognition at the name. “The third one got past her and grabbed me and I saw her take down one of the others and then they were both running and then one of them knocked me out.”

That was not what he expected. Kidnapping in broad daylight? In front of a witness? That was extremely sloppy compared to the way they took him. Either something had gone wrong and they hadn’t expected resistance like that, or Eri had been kidnapped for who she was rather than because of her quirk, possibly to send a message if her father really was a villain.

Trainee 23 looked at the girl with new understanding. If this was more of a hostage situation, then changed things. In the event of an attack securing her would be the goal of both parties, and therefore his as well. “Your room,” he signed. “Is it like mine?”

Eri nodded. “The bed’s smaller, though.”

“Do they take you to the cafeteria for meals or are they brought to you?”

“The clipboard lady brings them to me,” Eri said. “She always asks a lot of questions.”

Oh, her. Trainee 23 and the named part of him were in full, seething agreement on that bitch. “Do you know how to get between your room and mine?”

“Um, maybe?” She frowned as she thought. “We went left and then straight for a while and then took a right, then another left I think…”

“From your room to here or the other way around?”

“My room to here.”

He nodded. He would be able to find her if it came down to that. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do…”

There was no way to plan for every eventuality, but he thought that given the amount of variables involved and information they didn’t have he’d come up with a fairly decent plan. It would depend on where the both of them were when everything went down, but the basics were simple: get his mask off if possible, keep Eri safe, and get her to her father. After that… well, he’d worry about that when he got to it.

He couldn’t help wondering, late at night on the edges of sleep when the barriers he’d erected in his mind were thinnest, just what had happened since he disappeared. How long had he been gone? Had they just left his apartment the way it was when they took him, in disarray from the paltry fight he’d managed to put up before they subdued him, or had the Commission cleaned it up and made it look like he just vanished?

Did Eraser think he was dead?

The siren call of freedom was heady, the longing for it intense and something he craved deep in his bones, but thinking about what came after, when it was finally achieved, left his stomach churning and his heart heavy with dread. What was left for him if the one person he’d grown closest to had moved on, or worse?

Don’t borrow trouble, he could almost hear the man say in that gruff tone of his, the two of them huddled together in rooftop shadows after another close call. It’s illogical to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet. Prepare, but don’t catastrophize.

He closed his eyes, fingers pressed against his mask over his lips in memory, an ache in his chest. Don’t borrow trouble. Focus on getting out first. He could dream later.

There were several half-baked escape plans that both Trainee 23 and the named part of him had concocted in the time he’d been here. He’d even tried to put one or two of them into action at the beginning, but the main issue he faced beyond evading or overpowering the trainers or any other guards was actually getting out. Brainwash was powerful, and he’d picked up a couple tricks with his quirk that he’d kept secret for just the right time, but being able to overcome and control your opponents did you little to no good if you didn’t know how to get out, especially if they knew how your quirk worked and how to counteract it.

If there were an outside force providing a distraction however… that, he could work with.

Three days passed, and each day around the same time Eri was escorted to Trainee 23’s room for a couple of hours before she was taken back to her room. Outside of the time they spent together he was either alone in his room or escorted to one of the training facilities where he was kept under strict watch, his mask swapped out for a collar that would deliver either an electric shock or a fast acting tranquilizer if he stepped out of line.

“I’m curious as to why I’m babysitting now,” he said in a monotone at the end of his training session with a fellow recruit who had a partial porcupine transformation quirk before they locked his mask back on. “The kid seems pretty worried about her situation.”

His non-question and flat affect earned him an actual answer from the head trainer, a tall man who could spit hot tar. “Her grandpa’s yakuza, and she got kidnapped by a villain who took out him and the group he was the head of. He had the kid hostage for over a year before she got rescued by a couple heroes who were in the right place at the right time. This is about the safest place for her right now until they take the bastard down.”

He nodded silently, turning the information over in his mind with what else he knew about the situation. If her quirk was capable of rewinding or regressing not just things but people, it made sense that a yakuza group, hell, any group would want to try to weaponize it. That her own relatives may have been involved sadly wouldn’t be unheard of – he would know.

For now, though, he would hold judgment until he actually met the man she called her father and got a feel for him. If the man was just lulling Eri into a false sense of security in order to take advantage of her quirk then he would deal with him then. Prepare, don’t catastrophize, he reminded himself as he ignored the pain in his arm underneath the bandage from the broken off quill tip he’d left in the wound, pretending for everyone else that he’d removed the whole thing.

When he got back to his room he waited a few moments before digging the quill tip out. He wiped the blood from it, then slowly but carefully attempted to jimmy the lock securing his mask in place. He’d learned how pick locks a long time ago, but it had been a while since he’d last done this, and he’d never done it blind. It took time, but eventually there was a click, and he felt the slight give in the straps at the back of his head.

A grin stretched his face that only grew wider once he removed his mask. “Awesome,” he whispered, a giddy feeling welling up in him at being able to hear his own voice. Putting it back on felt awful, but he needed to practice so he could pick it faster, and he couldn’t chance someone discovering him without it on if he kept it off for long periods of time.

One step closer, he reminded himself as he hid the quill between his mattress and the bed frame, the only real hiding spot he had available. It wouldn’t be long now.

One week since Trainee 23 had first met Eri, a piercing alarm sounded through the hallways. It was mid-morning, nowhere near the time the girl was usually brought to his room, and he acted in haste, adrenaline coursing through him as he picked the lock of his mask. He opened his mouth wide as he threw the mask away, contorting his face and running through several different expressions to shake off the stiffness from having the bottom of his face immobilized.

He banged on the door, not letting up as he hummed, switching between several different tunes and pitches to warm up his voice, the urge to use his quirk mounting alongside his own anticipation. The rooms locked from the outside, with no way to unlock them from within the room, but if he played this right…

A moment later he heard footsteps running down the hall, and he hit the door faster, though he stopped humming. “Goddammit–” someone on the other side huffed before there was an electronic beep and the door unlocked.

He yanked the door open before the trainer on the other side could. “Hey,” Shinsou Hitoshi said with a toothy grin. “What’s up?”

“Wh-” Brainwash had the man before he realized what was going on, and Shinsou let out a satisfied hum at the full hold he could feel over the man’s mind.

Gods, he’d missed this.

“Do me a favor,” he said, his expression turning vicious, his eyes glinting darkly. “Don’t wake up.”

He stepped over the man’s crumpled form into the hallway and picked the keycard off the floor where it had fallen, rolling his neck and shaking out his arms and shoulders as he adjusted to having complete access to his quirk again with no need to hold back anymore. “Take a right,” he said to himself, following the directions Eri had given him, and then later confirmed, in reverse.

A moment later there was what sounded like a very loud yell from somewhere above him, audible even over the alarm, followed by small bits of dust raining from the ceiling. His eyes narrowed and he started running. That was not good.

Even less good was the bug-faced trainer he saw at the other end of the hallway where Eri’s room was located. Compound eyes widened and they broke into a sprint that was aided by the wings normally folded back.

“Fuck!” Hitoshi hissed, and dove into a roll to avoid the sticky glob of gross that was flung at him. “You remember how this went last time, don’t you?” he taunted.

The bug-faced trainer didn’t say anything, just brought their hand up for another attack and Brainwash struck, coiling around them like a snake, their movements coming to a halt as all six eyes went dull.

“I’ve picked up a couple tricks since then,” Hitoshi said with grim satisfaction. “Why are you down here?”

“To secure Trainee 35,” was the blank reply. “Take her someplace safe.”

“How were you going to get her out?”

“If the elevator is not compromised, take it up to the ground floor. If that isn’t an option, the stairs.”

“Give me your keycard. Don’t move,” he added once he’d taken it and knocked on the door three times in quick succession, followed by two knocks, then three more before he opened it with the keycard.

At first glance there was no one in the room, but when he crouched down he saw Eri hiding under the bed just like he’d told her to. “Hey Eri-chan,” he greeted, signing as he spoke.

“23-oniisan!” she exclaimed, wiggling out from under the bed. She smiled at him with wide eyes. “I think I heard Uncle Hizashi yelling just a bit ago.”

Ah, a voice quirk like that would explain why he taught her sign language, Hitoshi realized. He wouldn’t be surprised if his quirk had led to some hearing loss. “I wondered what that was. We’re gonna take the stairs now, I don’t want to take our chances on the elevator.”

Eri nodded, then hugged him tight. “Thank you.”

It took him a second to respond, caught off guard by the open display of affection. “Of course,” he replied, unable to help a smile, unpracticed as it was.

She stared up at him with a teary smile and laughed. “You smile like my daddy,” she said with a slight giggle.

“I do, huh?”

“Uh-huh. All teeth.”

Hitoshi snorted. “I’m flattered. Now, I’m gonna carry you piggy-back so we can get out of here faster, okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He hoisted her up on his back. “If I have to use my arms at any point you’re gonna have to hold onto me with your legs, but hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“What if you have to fight somebody?” she asked worriedly, then gasped, her hold on him tightening as she saw the bug-faced trainer standing there right outside the room.

“Where’s the stairs?” he asked. Eri’s grip on him never loosened all through the trainer’s directions, only relaxing slightly once they had stopped talking. He hesitated for a moment, caught between needing to make sure they couldn’t come after them and not wanting to do anything violent in front of Eri.

“Sleep,” he decided to command, and the bug-faced trainer slumped against the wall before sliding to the floor.

Hitoshi walked away in the direction of the stairs, and the further they got away from the room, the more Eri relaxed, even as the alarm still blared overhead.

“Was that your quirk?” she eventually asked, and he was relieved that she didn’t seem to sound scared.

“Yeah,” he replied. “It’s called Brainwash. I can control people if I ask them a question and they respond.”

There was a moment of silence between them, then Eri said, “I’m glad you have it.”

Relief broke over him like a wave, and he squeezed her a little in reply. “Me too,” he said.

They didn’t run into anyone on their way to the stairs, but Hitoshi groaned a little at seeing how many flights there were. “Geez,” he grumbled as he started up them. “Fu- freaking figures there’s a million of them. I should’ve asked him how many there were.”

Eri giggled in his ear, bouncing slightly as they climbed. “Which floor are we going to?”

“Well, you said that yell earlier was your uncle, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you think he and your dad would be fighting together?”

“Maybe. Daddy can erase people’s quirks, so-”

The rest of Eri’s sentence fell on deaf ears as Hitoshi stopped mid-step. “Wh-what did you say?” he asked hoarsely.

She hesitated. “Daddy can erase people’s quirks so he might be fighting by himself?”

He craned his head to look at Eri, heart pounding in his ears. “How does his quirk work?”

“H-he stares at people and his hair goes up and his eyes-”

“-go red,” Hitoshi finished for her. A broken laugh escaped him because what were the fucking chances?

“23-oniisan?” Eri asked worriedly. “Are you okay?”

He blinked away the tears that suddenly prickled at his eyes. “Yeah,” he said with a rough chuckle. “Yeah, I’m just fine. I just- I know – knew your dad. Before. I think.” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I don’t know how long it’s been.”

Eri’s arms tightened around his neck and he realized she was trying to hug him. “Oniisan,” she said, muffled against his neck but so close he could still hear her. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Hitoshi let out a shaky breath and tightened his hold on her. “Yeah, let’s go home.”

He opened the door at the next floor and stuck his head out into the hallway, listening for anything over the sound of the alarm. He didn’t hear anything, so they continued up to the next floor.

There was a concentrated scream he felt in his bones that shook the stairwell, and Hitoshi gritted his teeth and started taking the steps two at a time.

Up the next flight he immediately smelled sulfur and burning rubber, and he cursed under his breath at the familiar scent. Hot tar. Shit.

“Bury your face against my shoulder, okay?” he told Eri. “It’s gonna smell really bad, but I think this is where they are.” She did so, and he slipped through the door, closing it quietly out of habit more than anything.

The one thing his mask might have been good for, he thought irritatedly as he pulled his shirt collar up over his nose. Eh, the cons far outweighted the pros in that situation.

As he opened the door someone went flying against the wall at the end of the hallway where it made a right hand turn. Hitoshi watched as the head trainer struggled to stand, only for a familiar white-grey shape to lash out, wrap around him, and then drag him back down the hallway and out of their sight as he struggled like a scene straight out of a horror movie.

Hitoshi licked his lips as he walked forward.

“Where. Is she,” a deep voice growled.

“Safe from you,” was the spat reply, followed by the sound of a punch connecting.

“I am not going to ask again,” Eraser said darkly, and Hitoshi figured he should probably pipe up before he actually killed the guy where Eri could hear.

“Hey,” he said, pulling his shirt away from his mouth as he came around the bend of the hallway. “Don’t you know it’s rude not to answer someone’s question?”

Both men’s heads whipped up almost comically. Panic crossed the head trainer’s face and his mouth opened once before he caught himself, but that response was all Hitoshi needed.

“Kindly shut the fuck up,” he said to the blank-eyed man before wincing. “Sorry, Eri-chan, don’t repeat that.” He smiled nervously at the pole-axed expression on the man not under his control. “Hi.”

“Daddy!” Eri cheered from over his shoulder, wiggling to get down. Hitoshi let go and she ran straight to Eraser, who recovered enough to catch her as she threw herself at him, bursting into happy tears as she hugged him tightly.

Hitoshi took a moment to watch them, his past and present colliding in the most unexpected of ways as Eraser hugged Eri back just as tightly, burying his face against her shoulder briefly before he raised his head to look at Hitoshi with a look of devastation.

“MindJack,” he started. Then, “Hitoshi,” his voice cracking mid-word.

“Shouta,” he replied, tears finally starting to fall.

Eri turned around in her dad’s hold and oh, Hitoshi was going to hold that over him forever, Mr. I don’t adopt strays I just feed them. “Is that your name? Hitoshi?”

Shouta made a strangled sound, but Hitoshi just nodded, and Eri smiled at him. “I like that name a lot better.”

“Me too,” he said.

There was another yell and more shaking, and reality came rushing back. “That’ll be Feedback buying me time,” Shouta said, grabbing Eri up in a princess hold.

Hitoshi held out his arms for her. “You’re going to need your hands free for your capture weapon. I’ll take her.”

There was that look again, flashing across dark eyes. “I don’t…”

Irritation welled up in him, and Hitoshi’s lips thinned. “Don’t wake up,” he said coldly before letting go of his hold on the head trainer. He stared at Shouta, whose eyes had gone wide at the command. “You know I have your back in a fight, Eraser.”

The other man let out a huff. “Yeah, you do,” he admitted gruffly.

“Daddy.” They both looked at Eri, who stared at Shouta seriously. “Hitoshi-oniisan has been protecting me this whole time. We both just want to go home.”

It’s not uncommon for teachers to have favorites. But there are favorites and then there are favorites. Hizashi’s blown off steam with a couple of the more forward third years before, and he and Nemuri have a little game they play every year with the incoming first years where they spend the first few months surveying them and making predictions on which ones will eventually come looking for, ahem, extra credit opportunities in the future.

Shouta, though, he never partakes in any of that. Never so much as acknowledges the attention of fellow adults (the less said about Ms. Joke the better), let alone any hero worship cum hero worship from the students.

So when Hizashi comes back to the teacher’s lounge long after everyone else has left to grab the chapstick he forgot, he’s more than a little surprised to see the space under Shouta’s desk is occupied. He can’t quite contain the eyebrow waggle he shoots Shouta, who barely acknowledges his presence.

“How’s it going down there?” Hizashi asks teasingly, and he sees green sneakers startle, like whoever was underneath didn’t realize he was there before he spoke.

“Settle,” Shouta rumbles, and what Hizashi can see of the suddenly tense form relaxes. He looks up at Hizashi with a glare that’s nowhere near as concentrated as usual, likely due to whoever he has currently warming his cock. “Don’t do that; you’ll distract him.”

“My bad,” Hizashi says with a laugh, throwing his hands up in atonement. “This a new detention technique?”

“No,” Shouta says. “Training.”

Hizashi cocks his head to the side. “That’s new.” He can’t think of any particular upperclassman that would have been bold enough to approach the terrifying Aizawa-sensei for this, but whoever it is is wearing gym clothes, so who…

The answer hits him and Hizashi grins gleefully. “Awww,” he says, all saccharine sweet. “You’ve got yourself a favorite.” The look Shouta shoots him would be quelling in any other circumstance, but Hizashi is in far too good a mood.

“Do you need something?” Shouta grits out.

“Nah, I just gotta grab a thing,” Hizashi replies, heading around to the other side of his desk, right next to Shouta’s. From this angle he can just see the top of a familiar face. Shinsou looks blissed out, eyes half-lidded with his mouth stretched wide around Shouta’s cock, not even acknowledging Hizashi’s presence now.

He’d known Shouta had taken a bit of a shine to the kid, going to bat for him to transfer to the hero course after his showing in the sports festival and offering to train the kid to make sure he was up to snuff. He hadn’t realized just how close the two had gotten. The kid must be some kind of special for Shouta to show him this kind of attention.

“Cute,” Hizashi muses, and grins at Shouta’s deadpan stare. “Y’know, if you ever need an extra set of hands…”

Dark, smoldering eyes narrow slightly, and Hizashi arches one eyebrow. “Shoo,” Shouta grumbles, and Hizashi just barely manages to tone his laughter down from a raucous cackle to a delighted chuckle as he grabs his chapstick from the desk drawer.

“Don’t ride the kid too hard,” he says, then snickers at his own bad joke. “Or send pics if you do!”

Hitoshi groaned as the bottle in the center of the group came to a stop pointed directly at him. “Seriously?”

Izuku had the gall to act innocent. “Rules are rules,” he said, but Hitoshi knew him well enough to spot the well-hidden spark of mischief in those wide green eyes.

“You can always take a penalty shot if you want to skip this round,” Denki chimed in from where he was half-draped over Hanta a couple of people over, his own glass half full of some monstrous concoction that smelled a bit like paint thinner.

Hitoshi grimaced. He really didn’t want to be drinking around this crowd, especially since Yamada and Shirakumo had managed to convince Aizawa to come and kept him from leaving within the first half hour of the party – the last thing he needed was to get drunk and do something embarrassing in front of him. “Ugh, fine, just spin the stupid thing,” he told Izuku. This game was a lot funner when it was other people who were getting shoved in a closet, not him.

The bottle spun around quickly several times before slowing, and Hitoshi watched with what he hoped was a bored expression as it passed person after person, his stomach sinking as it came closer and closer to the best and worst possible option. He swallowed hard as it stopped on Aizawa, who was sitting on the other side of the circle with his friends.

Yamada slapped him on the back while Shirakumo on his other side wolf whistled. “Seven minutes, lovebirds!” the blond crowed, and Aizawa rolled his eyes so hard Hitoshi was surprised he didn’t fall over.

“Shut up,” he sighed, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but here as he got to his feet. “Come on Shinsou, let’s get this over with.”

Right. Seven minutes locked in a closet with Aizawa. With his crush. Fuck.

Hitoshi shot a quick glare at Izuku, who just smiled at him encouragingly. He had the worst friends. “Yeah,” he said, trudging over to the cramped supply closet just off the dorm’s common room.

The door shut behind them and Denki called, “Time starts now! Don’t have too much fun!”

Aizawa huffed, then fumbled for the light switch. Hitoshi blinked as the dim bulb flickered on above them. “I don’t know if that’s allowed.”

“I’m not chancing either of us accidentally knocking over a shelf because we can’t see for shit,” Aizawa grumbled.

“Yeah, no, that’s probably a good idea,” Hitoshi said, jamming his hands into his pockets. He would have crossed his arms, but there was already hardly any room between them; it was safer if his hands were occupied elsewhere. “Though that means we can see each other.”

Aizawa cocked his head. “So? You’re not so bad to look at.”

Hitoshi stared. “Huh?” he said intelligently.

The smile that curved the corner of Aizawa’s mouth upwards was a little condescending, as was his voice as he said, “I said, you’re not terrible looking.”

Hitoshi shouldn’t have found that as hot as he did, but there were a lot of things about Aizawa he probably shouldn’t have found hot, from the way he perpetually slouched to the way he rocked up to class looking a bit like a raccoon some days, dressed all in black with eyeliner so smudged it looked less lazy Goth and more Winter Soldier.

“You too,” he blurted after far too much time had passed. “You don’t look terrible, I mean. You look great, actually. Most days. Pretty much every day.”

“I look great every day, huh?” Aizawa asked with dry amusement, and Hitoshi cursed that he’d turned the lights on, because he could definitely see Hitoshi’s face burning with embarrassment.

“Just… ignore me,” Hitoshi mumbled, finding the boxes on the shelving unit behind Aizawa absolutely riveting.

“Little hard to do that right now.” Aizawa nodded to the scant space between them. “You’re cute when you blush.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Hitoshi snapped, face and neck hot and his stomach twisting. God, this whole party had been a terrible idea, why had he let himself be talked into it?

“I’m not,” Aizawa said, his tone serious, and Hitoshi gasped slightly as he took a step forward, crowding Hitoshi against the shelf behind him. His heart raced as Aizawa looked him in the eyes. “You’re cute, Shinsou.”

He felt his mouth go dry and he nervously wet his lips. Coal dark eyes followed the movement and Hitoshi’s heart stuttered. “Aizawa…” he said, but anything else he might’ve said after was cut off by surprisingly soft lips against his. He closed his eyes and kissed back.

A low sound rumbled in the back of Aizawa’s throat and his hands came to rest on Hitoshi’s waist as he deepened the kiss. Hitoshi moaned, burying his hands in Aizawa’s hair like he’d only dreamt of doing and held him close, the rasp of stubble against his face yet one more thing he probably shouldn’t have found attractive but god damn if he wasn’t curious about where that would feel elsewhere on his body.

They broke apart for air, foreheads resting together. Before their time was up, Hitoshi had to know. “This… this isn’t just the game, is it?”

“No,” Aizawa replied, cupping Hitoshi’s face with his hand. “It’s not.”