Work Text:
Shouta is supposed to be over this. He’s supposed to be mature and sensible and a sturdy figure in his students’ lives that they can lean on for support whenever they find themselves going down a dark path.
Sure, Shouta isn’t very emotional— he’s strict and often comes off as downright callous, but he’s made sure that his students know that he’s there. Even if he’s not as warm as their other teachers. They know they have his protection, and that’s what matters.
Shouta is supposed to always be there. But he’s not. Not right now. He’s sitting crumpled on the floor of the shared kitchen in the dorm’s common room, chest heaving up and down as he desperately tries to stop himself from going down that dark path too, the one he hasn’t contemplated walking since he was seventeen and grieving the death of one of his best friends.
Oboro.
The thought of him sends a sharp pain straight to his chest, and Shouta grits his teeth at the wave of nausea that rushes through him as he’s met with flashes of Kurogiri strapped down in that chair in Tartarus, mist flickering and dissipating for one brief moment to reveal Oboro’s deadened eyes staring right back at him, just like that day where they pulled him out of the rubble and—
Shouta digs crescent moons into his skin with his nails so hard he nearly draws blood. He needs a distraction, and he tells himself over and over again that it’s pathetic when he finds his gaze wandering over to the block of knives on the counter. He’s not seventeen anymore. He’s thirty-one. He shouldn’t be craving the drag of a sharp blade against his arms and the stinging pain it leaves in its wake, watching the blood seep from his wounds and imagining that whatever’s bothering him is pouring out alongside it. It’s been over a decade since he last cut himself—since Hizashi found him all bloodied up that one day and stuck by his side as he received therapy, learned coping mechanisms—
And yet nothing, absolutely nothing, seems better than getting up and grabbing one of those knives. Shouta has used those coping mechanisms he was taught plenty of times successfully, and he could go bother Hizashi with his issues and he wouldn’t be mad at all, but he’s here and he feels like he’s losing his mind on the kitchen floor, unable to stop thinking of Oboro, who couldn’t find peace even in death. But he’d be able to control the knife, where he places it on his body, how deep he presses it into his skin. Allowing himself to imagine his thoughts pouring out of him in the stream of blood that flows from his cuts. That wouldn’t be out of his control. And oh, Shouta wants.
It’s pathetic. It’s juvenile. It’s not healthy. Shouta has stopped some of his students from doing this before, muttering things like ‘ there are healthier ways of coping’ as he let them cry into his shoulder while he bandaged their cuts as gently as humanly possible. It doesn’t sound the same when he half-heartedly thinks those words to himself, scrambling to stand up and stumbling over to the counter, hands splayed over the marble as he catches his breath like he’s just run a marathon.
His body aches like it has. Ever since the USJ, it’s never stopped aching. There’s always a persistent throbbing in his joints or an occasional sharp pain that he feels deep within his bones. But it’s not the kind of pain he craves— that pain is uncontrollable, something that was inflicted upon him by someone else.
Shouta deftly picks up one of the knives by its handle, fist clenching tightly onto it as trembles wrack his body. He freezes where he stands, staring at it with his lips parted. He knows why he shouldn’t do it, he thinks it’s sad that he still wants to. He shouldn’t be like this, especially not now.
But that urge to actually do it is an incredibly powerful, overwhelming thing and before Shouta knows it, he’s rolling one of his sleeves up and pressing the knife to his skin, dragging it and—
He lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding as the first speck of blood blooms on his arm. And then before he knows it, the blade is back on his skin. The relief he feels is instantaneous but brief—just as he remembers it being all those years ago. That feeling of lightness is addicting even when the pain in his chest and onslaught of guilt makes his throat tight afterward.
It’s good. It’s awful.
He needed to do it. He shouldn’t have done it—
“— Aizawa Sensei?”
Shouta jumps, discreetly rolling his sleeve back down and turning around as stoically as he can. Hitoshi stares right back at him dressed in pyjamas, hair ruffled from tossing and turning throughout the night. “Why are you awake and wandering around? It’s way past curfew.”
It hurts to say just that much. Shouta swallows as he fights the urge to cry. He hasn’t cried in front of someone in years, and he’s never cried in front of one of his students. He point-blank refuses to start doing it now.
Hitoshi gives him a strange look before shrugging, rolling his eyes like he always does. After spending time with him while training, Shouta became aware of his troubles with sleeping, and so he tends to turn a blind eye whenever Hitoshi gets up at night and wanders around at night as long as he doesn’t go outside. “You know why. Trouble sl—“
He trails off, eyes widening as his gaze falls to Shouta’s arm hanging limply at his side. Shouta looks down too just as a drop of blood trails down the back of his hand and onto the floor. “…You’re hurt.”
Shouta tenses, stiffly moving his arm to hide the blood. “It’s nothing. It happened on patrol.”
Hitoshi strides into the kitchen, opening up a cupboard and taking the first aid kit out of it. He turns around, looking back at Shouta with an accusing shimmer in his eyes. “You’re lying.”
“ Excuse me?” Shouta says. It comes out much less intimidating than he’d have liked, given that Hitoshi’s hitting him with astronomical amounts of sass.
“I saw Present Mic in the hallway this afternoon. Said you and him went to visit someone in Tartarus,” Hitoshi jumps up on the counter, twisting his legs together. “He said you weren’t gonna be showing up for the rest of the day because you needed to rest.”
“Oh,” Shouta grumbles slowly. “It’s just a scratch, Hitoshi. I bumped into something. It happens when I’m tired. You can go back to walking around now—“
“… Sensei,” Hitoshi’s voice sounds strangled as he looks at him, eyes flickering with understanding that has Shouta blanching. So much understanding because they both think of the nights where he finds his way to Shouta, fists clenched tightly as he fights off the same urges. Those nights where Shouta keeps him company because as much as Hitoshi puts up a front, he’s not very fond of feeling alone. “I saw what happened .”
Shouta feels like he’s been doused in a bucket of freezing ice water. His heart pounds in his chest as he defensively snaps; “how long were you there?”
Hitoshi flinches minutely—a slight jerk of the head, and Shouta instantly feels bad that he lashed out at him. He’s come so far with trusting him, he’s so much softer and kinder with him than he tends to be with other people, he doesn’t want to ruin it or break that trust. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Hitoshi replies a too little quickly. He stumbles over his words, trying to find the right ones. “I… I get that you probably don’t want me here right now, knowing this about you. If it’s any comfort, I swear I won’t tell anyone else. I can leave you here if you want. But you’ve done so much for me and I don’t wanna… I want to help you too.”
Shouta can’t get over how earnest he looks. Hitoshi is so kind when he wants to be, so gentle once his barriers are broken down and he begins to trust. Sometimes, it’s like looking into a mirror at his past self. And something about that causes a twinge to appear in his heart. “It isn’t your job to help me, it’s my job to help all of you Problem Children. I’m fine now, this was just a slip-up.”
Hitoshi levels him with a deadpan stare. “ Really. You do realise that just because it’s your job to help us doesn’t mean you can’t need help sometimes too, right? I mean, it doesn’t have to be me. I can get someone else for you, but—“
“No,” Shouta heaves a great sigh. Anyone else and he’d probably panic and hurt them right now—even Hizashi , but Hitoshi is just… Hitoshi. The boy he’s cared for, gotten to know and helped train into the hero course. Even when the embarrassment that he’s ruining the image Hitoshi has of him in his head heats up his face, and a little bit of shame because he knows he shouldn’t be concerning any of the kids with his issues. “No. Just… fine.”
“Really?” Hitoshi blurts out. “I mean okay. Fuck.”
Hitoshi stares at him longer, awkwardly holding the first-aid kit half-open in his hands. “Um. Can I…?”
“Yes,” Shouta says, staring down at his sleeve. He needs to roll it back up in order for Hitoshi to bandage it, but…
There is something about being seen as weak in front of the people that he’s supposed to be strong for that really gets him uptight, especially now. He remembers being freshly twenty, still reeling from Oboro’s death as Nedzu offered him a teaching position at UA but taking it nonetheless for one reason: he’d stop more kids from ending up like they did. Oboro dead. Hizashi traumatised. Shouta…. Whatever the hell this is. But in order to do that, he needed to be better. He had worked hard to be better.
And yet here he is. With someone he’s meant to be looking out for, looking out for him instead—doing it with zero judgement as he just sits on the counter and stares. “Do you want me to do it?”
If Shouta is hurt like this in front of him, will he still feel safe under his guardianship? Under his protection? It’s such a self-conscious way of thinking, but he can’t seem to help it right now. Shouta swallows as he grabs at the hem of his sleeve, rolling it up. “It’s fine, I can do it.”
His arm is bloodied, stinging pain travelling up it as Hitoshi leans forward to take his arm into his lap, beginning to clean it and bandage it with ease. He says nothing about the cutting—he doesn’t try to throw Shouta’s own words about better coping mechanisms back at him, for which he’s grateful for. He’s also grateful for Hitoshi avoiding anything to do with him visiting Tartarus like the plague. Letting him see this vulnerability is more than enough for Shouta, he doesn’t want to put the responsibility of caring for him on top of it all. Hitoshi has seen enough in his lifetime—has been forced out of his childhood way too early and Shouta doesn’t want to do it to him again.
“Well,” Hitoshi murmurs sardonically after finishing the last bandage. “It’s official. You’re joining the extra- fucked-up club. It’s currently run by me and Todoroki. We needed teacher-supervision anyways. Or maybe suicide-watch.”
“What did I say about suicide jokes? And that’s not a very creative name,” Shouta feels inclined to point out, too drained to be strict teacher Eraserhead at the moment. It’s not like it matters anyway—he’s already seen him as just Shouta . Hitoshi shrugs.
“It’s fitting.”
Silence lulls for a bit. “You’re gonna have to tell someone about this.”
“I know,” Shouta sighs. He’ll tell Hizashi in the morning, and he’ll be so kind and compassionate about it all that it’ll be sickening to sit through, exactly like it always is. Shouta loves him for it regardless. “Wanna tell me what’s bothering you?”
Hitoshi startles before groaning. “You always know.”
“Of course I do,” Shouta snorts.
Hitoshi falls silent before mumbling: “nightmares again. The usual ones where I’m kicked out of the hero course and have to go back to a foster home instead of living here in the dorms.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Shouta says softly. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Hitoshi gapes at him. “But if I’m kicked out—“
“Hitoshi,” Shouta interrupts. “Even if you, by some miracle, got yourself kicked out of the hero course, I wouldn’t just leave you.”
“Oh,” Hitoshi manages to get out, voice warbling as he swallows thickly. “…Thanks, Sensei.”
“Yeah?” Shouta finds himself reaching over to gently ruffle his hair with his hands. “…Thank you as well, Hitoshi.”
Hitoshi’s lips twitch ever so slightly upwards—practically a grin for him.
And even though his body still aches and his mind hurts, Shouta’s heart feels infinitely lighter.