Chapter 1: A Long Day
Summary:
Aizawa Shota has one hell of a day.
Notes:
WOW. It's finally here.
I've been vibrating with excitement about sharing this project for a while now, and if you're familiar with my other mha work I can tell you this is nothing like it. If you're new, welcome aboard the Mad Banquet of Darkness that we're about to embark upon. I'm so fucking excited, yo.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The piercing ring of Aizawa’s phone jars him out of groggy wish-I-was-drugged sleep. If Aizawa were drugged then there’d be a chance of the effects wearing off, but sleep debt is a high that he rarely comes down from.
“Hello?” he croaks into the speaker as he presses the handset to his ear from inside the sleeping bag.
“Eraserhead? Officer Tamakawa speaking. Are you able to talk?”
“Just about.” Aizawa muffles a dry cough and rolls onto his back, no longer crushing the phone against his cheek hard enough to leave an indentation. He fumbles for a bottle of eyedrops that’ve been digging into his hip all night and dribbles some into each eye with his free hand, feeling the excess streak down the sides of his face as he heavy-blinks into fully conscious being.
“We’ve… there’s been an incident.” There’s a dark sadness to Tamakawa’s tone, such that Aizawa doesn’t have to think too hard about what it might be. “Do you think you could check it out?”
“Send me the address.” Aizawa coughs again. “I’ll be there after school lets out.”
“Thanks, Eraser.”
“Bye.” Aizawa hangs up the call and remains where he is, feeling gravity pulling him into the floor. One morning he’s going to be discovered having just melted overnight, transformed into a soaking wet sleeping bag. At least this one is watertight enough that they would probably be able to drag it into a freezer and let him set without losing any liquid.
Aizawa leaves the phone by his face and starts drifting off again, meaning it scares the barely-clinging-on life out of him by ringing again a few minutes (or so it feels) later. It belts the most obnoxious personalised ringtone in Aizawa’s phone – the only, in fact. The song is awful. If Aizawa could have changed it himself, he would have, but the secrets to doing that lie behind a wall of settings he is unwilling to learn. “Yes?”
“Shotaaaaa,” comes the morning-hoarse yet undeniably for-radio voice of Yamada Hizashi. “Where are you?”
With his eyes closed, Aizawa can picture him: barely awake fumbling with his phone before he’s even put his glasses on, bare inked shoulders pressing into the mattress and a long train of golden hair getting everywhere. “At school.”
“Why.” It’s an accusation more than a question. Aizawa asks himself the same thing at these times, but knows the answer.
“I got caught up-”
“With work, yeah, yeah. Play the other record, love,” Hizashi lilts, making some sounds like he’s surely rolling around all over that king-size bed. In spite of its size, Hizashi makes it feel like the bare minimum amount of space he personally requires to thrash. “So anyway,” Hizashi’s voice smooths even more, like going from brushing velvet the wrong way to gliding the right one. “What are you wearing?”
Aizawa hangs up and goes back to sleep. It’s about to be another long day.
There’s a Police officer in an unmarked cop car waiting for Aizawa at 4:15 sharp, parked outside the UA side-gate he prefers to frequent. Not a face Aizawa recognises, but he knows the license plate, so it’s with utter confidence he opens the passenger-side door and climbs in.
Aizawa has no sooner sat down than the newbie begins, “It’s… uh, an honour to meet you, Mr. Eraserhead. I’m Officer Yamaguichi.” With a sideways glance Aizawa compiles a quick list: young enough to be straight from the Academy, female which means she must be determined in this line of work, and so fresh-faced her mother could have wiped her cheeks with a flannel and packed her a bento on her first day of school. If this were anything like school, which it isn’t.
“You must be new.” Aizawa finds the seat adjustment lever and yanks it up, pushing the chair back until he’s gazing at the roof of the car.
“First week, sir.” Yamaguichi starts the car and they pull away. “Is it that obvious?”
“Eraserhead.”
“What?”
“None of this mister, sir crap,” Aizawa knocks out good and early. People calling him Eraserhead is bad enough, though it’s helpful to keep his name distanced from the other part of his life. The half that’s shaded in twilight, like the dark side of the moon.
“Oh… yes, Eraserhead. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” Aizawa adjusts the seat again, rolling his shoulders and letting his eyes drift shut. “Save being sorry for the crime scene.”
“He was discovered at six a.m., when a neighbour finally convinced the building supervisor to open the door and switch off the TV,” Officer Tamakawa begins the second Aizawa steps under the police tape, as if their conversation at god-knows-when this morning has been continued without a break. “It’d been playing at max volume all night, but the manager only comes in at six. He’s got the master key.”
Officer Yamaguichi keeps shifting from one foot to the other without walking anywhere. Hell of a case to land in the first week. She’s on edge, not timid but a little unsure as she suggests, “Maybe he wanted to be found.”
“Someone did.” Aizawa paces through the compact apartment, putting his head through to the bathroom with a shudder. Yamaguichi follows him, looking around with a furtive nervousness. When she peers around the open bathroom door, Aizawa hears the stifled sound of horror without looking around.
“That’s a… lot of blood.” Yamaguichi sounds shaky, and Aizawa bites back a sigh. He takes care of children all day; does he really have to do it in his other job too?
With a relentless rhythm, Aizawa pushes the conversation back onto the case. “Where’s the body?”
“They already came to take it.” Tamakawa finally comes up, stepping into the space behind Aizawa that Yamaguichi has decided to quickly vacate. “In the water, you know. Time’s a factor.” Aizawa probably shouldn’t (technically) be here, he scribbles on a piece of scrap paper in the back of his mind.
“I’ll stop by the morgue later,” Aizawa announces. That’s what he gets for teaching class all day rather than dropping everything to dash to a B-movie crime scene: more work. “What was the situation when you arrived?”
“Male, middle-aged. Unremarkable guy, at least according to the neighbours.” Tamakawa’s whiskers twitch on the edge of certain words, but now the tip of his ear gives a butterfly-wing flick. “He came home, ran a bath, then cracked open a plastic razor. The rest is as you find it.”
The half-full bath looks like it’s entirely blood, more than one human could ever contain. Aizawa knows it’s just the dilution effect in the water; but that underpinning logic doesn’t make the scene any less grim. It’s not stayed just in the tub either, run in long tendrils across the tiled floor. Bloodbath hardly covers it.
“What makes you suspicious?” Aizawa questions; Tamakawa has good instincts, might even make detective if he’s fleet of foot about it, but there has to be something in it beside good feline intuition.
“Here.” Tamakawa walks back into the main room and gestures at a couple of bags sitting on the kitchen counter. There’s an off-colour liquid congealed across the worktop, but it’s nothing sinister. Except to the lactose intolerant. “He didn’t even put the ice-cream away.” Tamakawa points out with growing insistence, “Who buys several days worth of groceries and then commits suicide?”
“Stranger things have happened.” Aizawa says this more to be a contrarian than fault Tamakawa’s point – he’s spot on, after all. Teacher habit: to draw the work out of someone rather than do it for them. “What else have you got?”
“I was just getting to that.” Tamakawa walks up to the fridge and extends a clawlike finger to a piece of paper on the fridge, no fear of the challenge Aizawa puts to him. “He was promoted this week.”
That’s enough to pause on. Aizawa’s eyebrows lift minimally, but there’s no way Tamakawa would see that under the oily drapes of his fringe. “Promoted?”
“This is the confirmation letter.” Tamakawa watches Aizawa with glassy cornfield eyes. “I’m sure it happens, but it’s usually getting passed over for a job that drives people to suicide, not getting it.”
“Someone was passed over,” Aizawa considers. “Find out who.” It occurs to him a moment later that Tamakawa is only a Police officer, so he technically needs to ask, “Which detective’s working this case?”
“None right now.” Tamakawa sounds a little more bashful this time. “Because of the circumstances, it isn’t being treated as suspicious. That’s why I thought you might be able to, ah…”
“Not a problem,” Aizawa reassures, dragging out his phone and pulling up the contact for Tsukauchi, N. and dialling. He beckons Tamakawa over as it starts to ring, a few cycles in when the caller picks up.
“Eraser, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Your boys have found something.” Boy and a girl, technically – Yamaguichi’s a fresh-faced, spectacle-wearing young lady with her hair in a neat ponytail down her back, even if she is skulking by the door looking to get out of this grim slaughterhouse. “Looks like suicide, but only if you’re not paying attention. You should have a detective come take a look.”
“I wasn’t aware of your promotion to police chief, congratulations.” The slight wryness to Tsukauchi’s tone is just about friendly, but still means ‘don’t tell me how to do my job, hero.’
“Alright then, don’t call it in. Let me make your department look like fools,” Aizawa points out the alternative. “Again.” He catches the breathy laugh-sigh from the other side of the line.
“Very well, acting police-chief,” Tsukauchi jabs, but they’re only warm-up punches. “Tell Toshi I said hi if you see him.”
“Will do.” Aizawa has a moment of consideration, like trying to remember the last thing he wrote on the shopping list that he left at home and only realised after getting to the store. “Thanks.”
“Just doing my job, Eraser.” Tsukauchi ends the call. Aizawa swipes away several messages from Hizashi and puts his phone in his pocket. Knowing Hizashi, they are not going to be the kind of thing anyone should be viewing at an active crime scene. “Can you drop me back at the station?” He still needs to stop in at the morgue.
“Affirmative, Mr. Eraserhead!” Yamaguichi zips to a stiff salute, and Aizawa rolls his eyes. This day isn’t letting up any time soon. “On behalf of the police force…” Yamaguichi notices Tamakawa giving her a particularly emotive stare – a proverbial 'what are you doing, newbie' of a cat-eyed glare – and trails off.
“Thanks, Eraser.” Tamakawa pats Aizawa on the back with an even more pawlike hand than usual in thick gloves. “Can we pick you up something to eat on the way?”
Aizawa has a paranoid moment where he wonders if Hizashi has been texting Tamakawa again. He should probably check those messages. Aizawa’s stomach lets out an underwhelming gurgle, like it’s not quite convinced it knows what meal should be next. Aizawa isn’t sure either, after looking at that bathroom.
The tub looms into Aizawa’s mind and his appetite ceases to have an opinion about anything. Definitely not soup. However, the thought lingers that eating dinner (solid food, not intended for babies) would make Hizashi happy. “I suppose so.”
The morgue is Aizawa’s kind of place, and not just because the dead bodies. He doesn’t mind them – corpses are corpses, though the failures they represent are more sobering. Corpses hold all kinds of information. Plus, they don’t talk. Unlike the mortician.
“Eraserhead, you’re looking very… you, as always,” the mortician riffs the moment Aizawa sets foot in her cold, chemically pungent arena. “Come in for a checkup? Kidding, lighten up already.”
“Spirited as ever, Kuwabara,” Aizawa sighs. This job attracts odd people, that’s a given, but this cheery redhead is weirder than most. The kind of woman you’d expect yelling orders across a crowded family restaurant instead of wheeling around cadavers, toting a sense of humour so dark it’d need infrared goggles to be spotted in a dimly lit room. “I’m here to see the suicide they brought in earlier.”
“Eesh, I wouldn’t if I were you.” Kuwabara’s a tough lady, absolutely no denying that. Aizawa’s watched her shunting around literal dead weights like shopping carts at the supermarket. She's been doing this job almost ten years without being any less sane than when she showed up – which is still slightly nutty, but clearly stable. So her revulsion at the mere mention of this case isn't a good sign. “I’ll pull him out, but you might wanna finish that first.” Kuwabara points at the half-eaten box of yakisoba in Aizawa’s hands.
“Not really.” Aizawa reaches out to drop it in the trash, and feels the buzz of his phone in his pocket. He’d checked Hizashi’s last string of messages in the car on the way over; two selfies, three questions about dinner, and one short clip of Nezu eating corn on the cob that defies explanation. Aizawa can’t wait to find out what the latest bit of nonsense will be, but this isn't really the time or place.
“Right through here, Eraser.” Kuwabara leads the way. “I hate the ones that’ve been in water. Gross city.” Not for the first time, Aizawa wonders why Kuwabara even got into this line of work, and how on earth she got a job doing it for the police. Then again, some stones are best left unturned.
The body is about as bad as everyone amped Aizawa up to expect. It’s the bloating that’s the worst. This guy only had hours to soak before being found, but warm water certainly doesn’t help the way his sliced flesh has peeled away from the body. Each wrist almost shredded into ribbon-like petals from some bloody blossom. The guy’s a mess, to put it lightly.
“Slitting your wrists ain’t something you can practice much, but this guy could have used a test run,” Kuwabara makes a blunt observation, hands on her broad hips and a grim expression at the body on the drawer.
“These cuts look… forced,” Aizawa murmurs as he cranes his head to get a better look, then reluctantly reaches out to twist a stiff wrist and turn it further. It seems clear that this man was the one enacting his gorey demise – the clumsy slices all over his fingers from the badly-wielded razor blade confirm that. The apartment so securely locked from the inside that they had to wait until morning to get in only cements it. But just because they were his hands doesn’t mean this man was acting under his own free will.
“Yeah, no ‘cut along the dotted line’ for this one, huh?” Kuwabara huffs, and Aizawa’s struck with the thought that she’s a woman who talks like she’s seen all manner of mess, and maybe that’s why she can stomach this job without cracking. “Damn shame.”
Aizawa notices something between a couple of the deeper cuts, on either side of the badly ruptured skin. “What do you think this is?”
“Hm?” Kuwabara walks over and leans in good and close. “Maybe he drew some guidelines after all, looks like ink to me.”
“Ink?”
“Yeah, like a marker pen or something,” Kuwabara specifies, lest Aizawa start thinking this guy had an octopus in the bath with him. “It’s mostly gone now, but that’s my best guess. Along there too.” Kuwabara’s finger follows the pale, engorged flesh through a messy railway map of slices. This man didn’t stop when it would’ve been enough, just went over and over until he passed out, presumably. Aizawa’s jaw clenches, everything about this setup screaming something horribly wrong. With a mental process like the workings of an intricate cuckoo clock, Aizawa returns to the thought that Tamakawa was right to call him. “Maybe some chick gave him her number.” It’s a slightly outdated notion, but it sparks something in Aizawa's mind.
After the razor and the bloodbath, there's only the barest marks left, like day-old notes written on the back of a hand. Aizawa studies them, tries to recreate the full characters from the spliced aftermath. No good.
“Let me know if you find anything else, Kuwabara,” Aizawa lets out a sigh. It’s been a long day, but it’ll be an even longer night at this rate. “I’m heading upstairs.”
“Say hi to the living for me.”
Aizawa sighs like he's Charon himself, wearily punting a boat across the river styx. “Will do.”
Aizawa’s phone rings in the elevator, and it’s that ringtone again. The romance ballad so corny that people almost always turn around to see who’d answer such an audacious calling card, then quickly turn back once they see who it is.
Aizawa picks it up. “Yes?”
“Where are you?”
“I just left the morgue.”
“Why am I always competing with dead people for your attention?”
“They don't talk as much.”
“As much ? Are you going all sixth sense on me?”
“I wish,” Aizawa replies. This line of work would be a lot easier if the victims could tell the living what or who was responsible for their death. “I'll be home later.”
“Bullshit.” Aizawa holds for the crumble. “How much later?”
“Can't say.”
“Double bullshit.”
Hizashi waits for Aizawa to crumble this time, which he does. “Two hours.”
“So I’ll see you in four?”
“Probably.” Aizawa doesn't disguise his resignation. A pre-broken promise is a softer blow somehow, and Aizawa does his best, but crime doesn’t take the night off because Hizashi’s feeling lonely. If only.
“Love you.”
Aizawa tries to keep the tone of his voice level, as if that’ll help delay the inevitable point where he has to say more than, “You too.”
“COWARD!” Hizashi bellows with enough gusto that Aizawa feels his eye twitch. Delay the inevitable, even just to affirm that it’s pointless to resist. “Let those strangers know you're capable of emotion!”
“I love you too, idiot,” Aizawa mumbles into the phone, ducking those glances again from his elevator companions.
“Call that an admission of love?! DOUBLE COWARD! Don't bother coming home, we're done, finished! Kaput! Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn! I've cried too long over you-” Aizawa hangs up and gives the only person in the elevator still looking at him a ‘you don't wanna know’ look as the doors open.
“Excuse me,” Aizawa fully deadpans as he weaves his way out; this isn't his floor, but it's close, so he'll take the stairs up the rest of the way.
He could use a breather.
“I thought you quit smoking?”
“For as long as you quit being a busybody,” Aizawa returns over his guilt-cigarette as he stands in the police station stairwell with his back to the wall. If he could be bothered, he’d go all the way into the side-alley outside the building that the other cops use, but if he bumps into anyone he might be expected to make conversation.
Instead, Aizawa’s bending the rules in this airy semi-open space, where the stairs coil like a snake around a long column of light that shines down from the glass-panelled roof far up above his head. Late afternoon sun casts golden beams that breathe a little life into the tired concrete, clouded with blue where the smoke Aizawa exhales hits them.
“Ah, Mr. Pot, I presume,” Tsukauchi introduces as he makes a sarcastic gesture towards Aizawa, before turning the accusatory hand on himself. “Detective Kettle, and it's kind of my prerogative.” Aizawa rolls his eyes and takes another drag. “Yamada wants to know if you've eaten, but I don't think cigarettes count.”
“Dinner is in the morgue trash.”
“Have you been snacking on the bodies again? I told Kuwabara to stop letting you do that.”
Aizawa takes another deliberately long pull on the cigarette while making eye contact with Tsukauchi, before tapping the ash into his open hand. The things he’s touched today, ash is the least of Aizawa’s problems.
Apropos of nothing, Aizawa asks on a plume of exhaled smoke, “What do you know about mind control quirks?”
This catches Tsukauchi off-guard, but not for long. “Less than I should, but more than I'd like,” he answers with a look of conflicted resignation. “Your ‘suicide’ case?” He makes the air-quotes gestures, which Aizawa supposes is a good sign.
“Aren't the ‘detectives’ supposed to be working those?” Aizawa bats back with a matching gesture of his cigarette-clamping fingers. He gets along with Tsukauchi just fine, but anyone close to Toshinori is destined to have some friction with the heroic antithesis of All Might.
That Aizawa’s also one of those annoying underground Heroes who doesn’t always participate in police procedure can’t help their rickety ropebridge of a relationship. Aizawa has been known to take an ‘opt-out’ approach to the law if he’s chasing down a villain and sees the Police as being a hindrance to that. Big organisations move slow, so it's just part and parcel of being an underground Hero that means he can move that much faster.
So there’s always been a friendly antagonism between Aizawa and Tsukauchi, but in the sense of two apex predators in a space that has to be carefully negotiated but can be shared. They’re both on the same side, after all.
“You could talk to our psych, I suppose,” Tsukauchi suggests, still peering at Aizawa halfway down the stairs from him. “Or you know, wait for the detectives to do their jobs.” He doesn’t make the gesture, but sarcasm suits just fine.
“If you're not racing me to solve the case, where’s the incentive?” Aizawa taunts as he sucks the last dregs out of the cigarette and then stubs it out on the wall, sticking the butt in his pocket as he climbs the rest of the staircase. The honest truth is Aizawa and the police complement more than compete, so at least as long as they keep their noses in the right direction they’ll get along fine. They can always follow Aizawa if in doubt; as he’ll be one step ahead of them – solving it first. “You got a psych?” he asks climbing the stairs up to Tsukauchi as he opens the door.
“About time too. I'll walk you to her office,” Tsukauchi offers with a more amiable air as Aizawa traipses through the door.
They walk side by side down a generic piece of hallway, and Aizawa doesn’t do small talk, but he does do small details. “How long has she been here?”
“A few months now, but they sure go fast,” Tsukauchi says as they walk down the corridor. “The higher-ups finally decided it was worthwhile having one in-house.” Finally, they stop at a door with a card bearing the name Dr. Iwaya slotted into a holder on the front of it. Tsukauchi knocks with a brisk series of raps, and a faint “Enter,” comes from within.
“New patient for you, Doc,” Tsukauchi announces with an air of joking that seems a little tired. Aizawa would know, tired draws to him like iron filings to a magnet.
“I don’t do walk-ins, but somehow I suspect that’s not your purpose.” The Psych – the true definition for the title has been forever lost somewhere between psychiatrist and psychic-quirkist – is a woman of cold, marbled beauty. She takes Aizawa in like he’s a bull strolling around a china shop. “You don’t look like a police detective.” Dr. Iwaya’s gaze has an intensity Aizawa dislikes immediately.
“Oh good, I was starting to worry.” Aizawa steps further into the room. “Thank you, Detective Kettle.” It doesn’t mean ‘thank you’, naturally. What Aizawa’s really saying is goodbye and get the hell out, but luckily Tsukauchi seems to concur.
“Later, Mr. Pot,” Tsukauchi says with a quick glance at Dr. Iwaya before he goes.
The door clicks shut behind them, leaving Aizawa in a neatly organised office that feels like one of the walls ought to be glass – a windowed box in order to study the inhabitants. The Psych is finishing writing something in neat, careful handwriting into a notepad, which she flips shut moments later before looking back up to Aizawa. “And you are?”
He itches for another cigarette already. “I go by Eraserhead.”
The smallest smile comes onto the woman’s – Iwaya, going by the door – face, before settling again like the flutter of a wing. “Is that so?”
“I’m not here for psychoanalysis.” Aizawa takes several long steps across the office and is right at the desk.
“Then what are you here for?” she asks politely, but Aizawa recognises the clean, hard edges of her tone as weaponry. Two people with their guards most wholly and thoroughly up against one another.
“To talk about mind control quirks.”
There’s no real reaction in Iwaya’s face, but that doesn’t mean there’s no significance to the silence that follows for a moment.
Although every new generation has wilder and more powerful quirks than the ones before, a taboo remains around those who exert such a frightening power over others. Quirks that people don’t like to talk about, or would rather pretend to be quirkless than be labelled the wielder of such a cursed power. The human mind is the final frontier, the last defence of free will, so for those holding the keys to the fort, it’s only natural for people to fear what they can do.
For all this, Iwaya’s only remark is, “An interesting topic.”
Much like the victim, Aizawa cuts straight to it. “How many cases do you know where a mind control quirk was strong enough to commit murder-suicide?”
Iwaya’s face doesn’t stir any more than the carved hair of a statue would blow in the wind. “By which you mean…?”
“Using a brainwashing quirk to force their victim to kill themselves,” Aizawa spells out with an impatient snap. “Have they just had you back here filling out wellness evaluations or something?”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page.” Iwaya makes a calm gesture to the chair in front of her desk. “Why don’t you sit down?” It’s the last thing Aizawa wants to do, just by merit of her asking.
“Why don’t you answer my question?”
The Psych checks herself, eyes widening and a subtle discomfort that Aizawa only notices because he’s watching very carefully. “Force of habit,” Iwaya answers with her shield slightly lowered, that little bit more open. Aziawa has landed himself more of a lead than he was expecting, perhaps. “Please sit, you look tired and we may be a while.”
Aizawa begrudgingly sinks into the chair and takes a load off, kicking his legs out straight and trying to stretch a particularly tight muscle in one of his shoulders. “What’s so troubling I have to be sat down for?”
Iwaya’s presentation doesn’t falter, because she sounds like she could be reading the last rights at a funeral when she asks, “Have you heard of a scholar named Dr. Shinsou Masaru?”
Something cold and calculating falls into place in the elaborate machinework of Aizawa’s head. He knows that name. Shinsou. It takes a moment, but the memory gets called from the archive. The General Studies student from the Sports festival – the one who almost took down Midoriya in the first round. Maybe it’s just coincidence.
“No,” Aizawa plays safe. Namely: ignorant.
“You’ve heard of the Ninety-Nine Massacre.”
Another piece of the deadly machine slots into place. “Yes.”
“So then you know that a mind control quirk can drive others to take their lives,”
“That was poisoning,” Aizawa explains hesitantly. “This case is more… violent.”
“Oh, but those victims knew it was poison when they drank,” Iwaya relates with a matter-of-fact sadness.
“How do you know that?” Aizawa’s suspicion rises like the hair on the back of a cat trying to look big. This all feels terribly close and convenient.
Iwaya’s gaze is unflinching. “Because Professor Shinsou told us so.” Perhaps reading the intense mistrust in Aizawa’s face, Iwaya gives a sigh and turns around, reaching for a book on the shelf that she sets flat on the desk before Aizawa. ‘Dr. Shinsou Masaru, The 90% Mind’ the title reads. When Aizawa lifts the cover he sees a portrait picture of a man with ghostly sallow skin, purple-matched eyes to his slicked-back hair and immediately closes it again.
“He was the leading authority on mentalist quirks, widely respected in the field and… my teacher, at one point,” Iwaya tacks on at the end, while Aizawa’s teeth clench in discomfort.
“Where is he now?”
Iwaya has a soulful look, some internal tragedy Aizawa can guess at. A reason to be where she is, doing what she does. “Prison, of course.”
“And what’s your professional opinion of this so-called expert?”
“Why, he’s criminally insane.” Iwaya smiles, which is fucking unnerving, to put it bluntly. “But if you’re looking for an expert on the murderous limits of mentalist quirks, no one else would know more on the subject.”
Aizawa crosses his arms, a resolutely unimpressed look that covers for his lingering discomfort. This is dark stuff, no simple thug holding up a convenience store for a fast buck. What Aizawa wouldn’t do for a simple solve like that.
“Why don’t we start with what you know, Doctor Iwaya, and we’ll get onto the great Doc Shinsou from there?”
An hour later Aizawa has more questions than he arrived with, and a more exacting list of the reasons he mistrusts psychs. First of all, doctors and therefore meddlers; secondly, mind doctors which is inherently suspicious; thirdly, obsessed with mentalist quirks and so undeniably creepy. And this is Aizawa's standard for creepy, so that's pretty damn weird.
Given how prominent this Dr. Shinsou had been in the field before his ‘mental breakdown’ as Dr. Iwaya had so coldly put it, it’s apparently not that unusual for any psych of a certain age to have been taught by the great professor of psychiatric quirks. This is before he lost it, and murdered a bunch of his students to prove the hitherto untested theories of his research.
As terribly convenient as Dr. Iwaya’s connection to this lunatic is, a cursory search of the Internet would have also turned up Dr. Shinsou Masaru as the leading basket-case in this field. Then Aizawa wouldn’t have had to endure the mental obstacle course of talking to Iwaya. After spending an hour with her, he sort of wishes he'd taken the e-detective route. That could have been done from bed with Hizashi snoring in his ear, if he’d bothered to go home instead of chasing leads all evening.
The doctor’s sad smile and melancholy aura haunt Aizawa worse than the bodies in the morgue, and for that reason he’s reluctant to go straight home, even though it’s already late. Not with all this dark energy still soaked into Aizawa like he’s a man-sized sponge. He doesn’t want to bring that poison back into his safe space, where the daily terror of existence can’t reach. So Aizawa is tired, but not going home in a hurry.
Right on time his phone rings. That ringtone.
Aizawa picks it up and is immediately greeted with, “Shotaaaaaaa.”
“I just left the police station,” Aizawa pre-empts the inevitable question. “I’ll be back… soon.” Once he's walked the darkness off.
“No stops on the way.”
“You know I can’t promise that,” Aizawa replies as he starts walking away from the station. Luckily work hasn’t taken him so far away from home tonight that it’s not worth going back at all, but Aizawa hates the train and that fresh-faced Yamaguichi was nowhere to be found for a lift. He’d rather walk and get his thoughts in order. Not that having Hizashi on the line will help at all.
“Just get a fucking train, babe.” Hizashi actually sounds annoyed, knowing Aizawa’s ways better than he does himself: if Aizawa gets the train back, his exposure to petty crime is going to be rather different than walking most of the backalleys all the way back, and at a certain point he’s inviting the distraction. But someone has to do it.
Aizawa cuts down an alleyway that the faint of heart would never brave, and considers that he hasn’t been home in… a while. It’s never been the deal that he’s expected to be or has to be, but that’s no discredit to Hizashi’s attempts to draw Aizawa into some form of domestic routine. If it weren’t for Hizashi, Aizawa wouldn’t go back at all. He can take the backalleys to the station, so Aizawa supposes it wouldn’t be impossible to get the train and actually be home in the two-to-four hours he promised.
“Alright,” Aizawa sighs. “But I’m going straight to bed when I get in.” To sleep that always means when Aizawa says it; Hizashi’s definition is a little different.
“You always say that,” Hizashi replies sordidly, a lift in his voice that makes a dull throb in Aizawa’s chest a little more noticable. Hizashi is pleased, not least because it’s only been three hours since Aizawa said he’d be two. And he's coming home at all. There’s a short pause. “Seriously, no stops.”
Aizawa sighs again, catching some shadows from the corner of his eye that look rather like foolish punks that ought to know better than to stalk strangers within ten-minutes walking distance of the police station. “Tell it to the criminals, love.” Cheap trick, but effective. Aizawa can imagine the conflicted pout on Hizashi’s face. On the one hand, he loves any term of endearment Aizawa lets slip. On the other, Hizashi knows full well Aizawa uses that to manipulate him. Or at least pacify.
“Alright, have it your way,” Hizashi relents, though his determination to keep having this negotiation with Aizawa is, if anything, an admirable dedication to the cause of trying to convince Aizawa to spend just a little less time taking care of criminals and a little more taking care of himself. So far the criminals have Aizawa at an advantage on that front. “But don’t you come crawling into bed covered in blood again.”
Aizawa sighs for a third time, and not just because the stalking shadows have shaped up into real what-are-they-thinking thugs who think Aizawa’s got a bullseye painted on him for their benefit alone. “I told you before, none of that was mine-”
Before finishing the sentence, Aizawa ducks the swing of a metal crowbar that comes whizzing towards his head from behind. At the same time, he kicks the man behind him in the stomach. Aizawa’s assailant is so profoundly unsuspecting that he flies across the dingy alleyway Aizawa was cutting through and lands in a pile of trash. The others seem shocked by this, but haven’t run off straight away.
“Oof- what the fuck?!” the assaulted assailant groans.
“How does trouble always find you?” Hizashi accuses down the line as he recognises the sure sounds of a fight breaking loose. “I'd ask if it's your shampoo or something, but that'd imply you ever wash-”
Aizawa interjects a swift, “I’ll call you back,” and hangs up.
No blood, Hizashi said, and for a moment the bathtub flashes into Aizawa’s head. One of the would-be muggers tries to charge Aizawa, so he stares him and his quirk down. Only when Aizawa’s hair lifts, quirk erased, do a couple of the thugs finally realise who they’re messing with.
“Shit, my quirk’s gone!” The sound of manic footsteps speeding away – not the direction Aizawa’s meant to be heading in, but the way he’s going to go all the same. The next person these two-bit criminals try to jump isn’t likely to be so well-equipped, so leaving them on the streets is a crime in the third degree as far as Aizawa is concerned.
Aizawa sighs a fourth and final time as he flings a handful of his capture weapon to start locking down these hapless fools. It's going to be a long night.
Notes:
And that's a wrap! To begin with... I think I will look to post updates about weekly, which, given the length of the chapters seems like a reasonable amount of time to digest all of this. As usual, I have a significant backlog to work from, and if you thought my last project was long I can say with good authority that this one's going to end up even longer. I can feel it in me waters.
For useless author fact corner, I build custom OCs when I absolutely need to, so Dr. Shinsou is 'from scratch' (heavily inspired by Hannibal Lecter with a dash of Charles Manson) but for the other OCs I've introduced I tend to 'cameo' a character from somewhere else as a shortcut (I write fanfic as a shortcut around original fiction so you could call me a lazy author in that sense). Yamaguichi is the protagonist of a manga/anime/J-drama I adore called Gokusen, Iwaya is the protagonist of a manga/J-drama called Kimi Wa Petto, which share an amusing connection in that both the male romantic leads in those J-dramas are played by the same actor (Matsujun). Kuwabara is loosely based off Yu Yu Hashuko, which I've only seen clips of but I spun the mortician based off the fella, only to discover that he HAS a sister in the show who's pretty similar to the way I've portrayed this character.
Thanks for reading!
Chapter 2: A Long Night
Summary:
Aizawa's day is followed by an unforgivingly long night.
Notes:
Thanks for the support so far, y'all, I can't explain how delighted I am for the familiar faces and new ones who are showing up on this fortuitously timed story. Who would've known I'd start posting just in time to catch my son's foretold return to canon? I'm so proud of him *sniff* *wipes nose on sleeve* *pulls off the whole tablecloth to blow nose with*
OH and disclaimers for people who might find some of the stuff in here a bit hardhitting, there is a distinct gender theme in this story along with all the other dark shit we've got on, so watch out for those references to sexual assault. I've added a tag in respect of that, because I'm also very sensitive to that dynamic and hadn't included it in my initial tagging, though I can promise you there'll be none of that disgusting Twin Peaks-ey trope shit in here. Only the delicate handling such a topic deserves. On top of all the suicidey murder-shit too, obviously. *Manic laugh*
So anyway, enjoy the next chapter ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa never calls Hizashi back. But he does roll into the apartment he pays half the rent for and spends a quarter of the time in, and it’s only been four hours since his initial broken promise.
In accordance with his next broken promise, the first place Aizawa goes isn’t the bedroom, but the shower. The one promise he isn’t going to break is tumbling into bed covered in blood (again). And there was an… incident at the police station.
A scuffle broke out when Aizawa was checking in the muggers and resulted in a broken nose – not Aizawa’s of course. But his arm might have been in the way… doing the breaking, as it happened. Aizawa had only noticed the blood when the carriage wall he’d been pressed against on the crowded evening-commuter train came away redder than it should have. Another reason he doesn’t take the train: the other passengers had not been wild about that.
Hizashi also happens to keep very nice, very clean, very expensive sheets on the small island that passes for a bed in their airy penthouse apartment. Hizashi picked this place out a few years ago, only telling Aizawa about it when he was needed to sign the papers. Which was the earliest Aizawa would have wanted to know about it anyway; Hizashi’s always been better at all that day-to-day living stuff, so Aizawa just leaves him to it.
It’s late enough that the early-rising Hizashi is already bundled up on the cushion-strewn plinth in the middle of the master bedroom with the lights out. However, he’s not so clocked-out as not to stir when Aizawa comes in with only a towel – which he’s using to dry his hair. He’s otherwise unencumbered, throwing back the covers and face-planting on the bed with a soft flap of air as his weight hits the mattress.
Hizashi’s got hands like ferrets, and this occasion is no exception. Aizawa’s hardly been sedentary a few seconds when slim fingers slide as smoothly as a snake across Aizawa’s stomach then stop.
Hizashi says with a mouthful of pillow, “You’re wet.”
“Water,” Aizawa informs him. “I showered.”
“Prove it.”
Aizawa lifts a fatigue-clumsy arm up and waits, allowing Hizashi to roll over to him and give a checking whiff of his armpit. Aizawa must pass, because Hizashi’s hand resumes an excursion that heads promptly south. His head lifts from whatever assortment of pillows Hizashi’s used to assemble the fort, and he elaborates in a bedroom voice like crushed velvet, “You’re naked.”
“It’s conventional when showering,” Aizawa deadpans, but then his breath hitches in his throat over Hizashi’s newest ministrations. He's always the same when Aizawa comes in like this: it’s one of the main reasons he comes home. When Aizawa lowers his boneless arm, Hizashi shuffles to rest under it, wrapping around Aizawa like a limpet.
“Hey.” Hizashi’s interactive action under the sheets pauses, and he gives a few over-the-top sniffs of Aizawa like a dog meeting a new person. “Did you use my jasmine shampoo on your whole body?”
“Soap is soap,” Aizawa replies gruffly. “Using different types for your hair and body is absurd.” How Hizashi manages to have so many different products for every square inch of him will be an everlasting wonder in Aizawa’s eyes.
“You washed your ass with my ten-thousand-yen shampoo?”
“You paid ten-thousand yen for… never mind,” Aizawa gives a comfortable sigh, the feeling of Hizashi grinding his hip somewhat distracting. “And who says I washed there?”
“I sure fucking hope so,” Hizashi laughs a little too loud and Aizawa flinches away, which just opens up the side of his face for Hizashi to lunge right in like a lizard going for crickets. “Mmmm-” Hizashi hums overzealously in Aizawa’s ear. “You smell like a fancy salon.”
“I’d think that’s preferable to the morgue,” Aizawa replies, adjusting the hand he's wrapped around Hizashi’s shoulders to sink lower down his back. “I touched a dead body today.”
“Gross,” Hizashi decrees around a mouthful of Aizawa’s earlobe. “Anyone we know?”
“No.” Aizawa reaches far enough to grab Hizashi’s ass and feels him squirm. “This hand.”
“Grosser,” Hizashi groans. “Stop killing the mood.”
“Wasn’t aware there was one.”
“Well that does it.” Hizashi lifts himself up to manoeuvre directly over Aizawa, demanding attention with the subtlety of lighting a giant-lettered neon sign. “Shut up and kiss me, Shota.”
Aizawa’s glad to be home.
Aizawa’s phone rings in the middle of the night.
He’s so programmed to respond that he’s awake before the end of the first ring cycle. Reaching blindly for the handset on the nightstand, Aizawa tries to work out which limbs are Hizashi’s and which are his gone slightly-dead from sleeping in a pretzel formation. This results in him squeezing a knee that turns out to be Hizashi’s.
“I hate you,” Hizashi groans from the tangle of bony arms and legs that constitutes his attempts at cuddling. Luckily, Aizawa’s such a dead-to-the-world sleeper that Hizashi can do just about anything to him and he’ll be comfortable enough to sleep; in fact, there's a high-gloss coffee table book of photographic evidence to that end.
But Hizashi’s in no such good mood now, hands and feet digging determinedly into Aizawa’s side. Shoving Aizawa out of bed like a flamingo trying to shift a large crocodile. “Get out.”
Aizawa gets the phone to his ear around the time he’s bodily shoved out of bed, crawling into the hallway with his eyes still basically closed. “Yes?”
“Mr. Eraser… I mean, Eraserhead sir-... I mean-”
“Yamaguichi,” Aizawa nails in one, shutting the bedroom door after him and sliding up the wall onto his feet. “What?” He finds the lights, wincing in the blinding glare of the hallway after reality switches back on.
“Another incident, sir– I mean, Officer Tamakawa wonders if you’d-”
“Still no detectives?” Aizawa has to admit, he was pretty comfortable with his situation as it was. What if the police did their jobs and Aizawa got an uninterrupted night with Hizashi for once? Fat chance of that happening, but he can dream.
“No one’s been assigned yet, but we only just got called out to the scene so it’s uh–” There’s a slight gulping sound, and Aizawa has a bolt of sympathy for any rookie with a first week turning out like this. “Pretty fresh.”
“Is Tamakawa there?”
“Interviewing some of the witnesses. It was… we’re at the train station, you see. Someone jumped in front of the last train home.”
Aizawa shudders instinctively, massaging his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Only when he strolls into the living room past the floor-to-ceiling windows does Aizawa remember he’s naked. His bloodied onesie is hanging up in the shower stall – Hizashi is probably going to freak out in the morning, but Aizawa washed most of the blood out so it’ll be an overreaction he can tolerate. That’s if Aizawa does come back…
Catching himself in the act of letting his spotlight focus only on what’s right in front of him, bleaching out all else, Aizawa consciously stops and considers the fuller spread of his actions. “I’m going to text you an address, ring me again when you’re outside the building,” Aizawa instructs.
“Thanks, Eraserhead.” Yamaguichi sounds relieved Aizawa’s coming: he’d be too, if he were in her position. “See you soon.”
“Later.” Aizawa hangs up and stands in the fully lit living room buttass naked, contemplating his life. Then he zombie-shuffles back to the bedroom and tentatively opens the door.
“Let me guess,” comes a muffled accusation from the hump in the bed lit by only a beam of light from the open door. “You’re leaving?”
“I’ll be back.” Aizawa heads for the bump first, setting hands on either side of the soft mound and looking for the yellow-brick-road of hair leading to the origin of Hizashi’s head under the covers. He’s a natural-born bundler, perpetually in struggle with Aizawa to claim most of the extra-large covers for himself.
“Bullshit,” the duvet says.
“I promise.” Aizawa scoops a handful of covers and pulls them down, exposing a soft cheek and resentful-but-appreciative emerald eye of glaring; Hizashi hates for his beauty sleep to be disturbed, but so help Aizawa if he leaves without saying goodbye. Hizashi hates that a lot more, and he’ll still be beautiful in the morning.
“Love you.” The statement is so melodic when it’s coming from Hizashi; not like Aizawa’s rusty croaks in return.
That Hizashi’s hand darts out from the covers and swipes for Aizawa’s free-hanging cock moments later is a weird direction for the mood to take. But that’s perfect really, because Aizawa is not a man disposed to large outpourings of emotion, and it is Hizashi’s wont to swing at low-hanging fruit from time to time.
“Love you too.” Aizawa dodges Hizashi’s playful attempts to grab his junk and kisses him square on the mouth. “See you later.”
“Mhmmmm,” Hizashi hums like a disapproving vacuum before burrowing back into the covers, tuning out as Aizawa crosses the room toward the small cupboard meant for appliances that he keeps his spare jumpsuits in. All three of them. Aizawa used to keep them in the main closet, but kept getting annoyed at losing them among all of Hizashi’s things.
Aizawa dresses in the dark, sure by the pattern of breathing that Hizashi is already asleep when he finally heads back out into the rest of the apartment. He restocks on juice and energy bars before heading out – the building Yamaguichi is driving to is a few blocks away. Aizawa never lets people come to his real home. Not a chance.
He has too much to lose.
If Aizawa thought he looked rough after a long day, Tamakawa is the cat who got the double-suicide shift instead of cream. He's sitting on a bench at the abandoned train station platform, staring straight over the tracks when Aizawa walks up and takes the space beside him.
“What’s the situation?”
“Jumper,” Tamakawa answers, and then, “have you got a cigarette?”
“That bad, huh?” Aizawa responds, patting himself down and realising his pack must have still been in the jumpsuit he hosed off in the shower. “I'm out.” There were three dogeared cigarettes still in there. But they'll dry out fine.
“Ah shit, guess I can send Yamaguichi for some…” Tamakawa mutters, but doesn't do anything about it.
“So what happened?” Aizawa prompts with a little more finesse than he usually uses. It's partly the quiet, tragic air of the abandoned station; the bloodspatters towards the end of the platform tell the end of the story. Aizawa is here to learn about the start.
“It’s all on the security footage,” Tamakawa begins solemnly. “Normal guy from the looks of it. Got off the second-to-last train and waited on the edge for the next one. Someone should have noticed him, but you know what it’s like on those late trains, everyone focused on getting home.”
“So why’d you call me?” Aizawa gets to the point: if this were a normal case, he wouldn’t have been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.
“A lady got off the train after him, and she… she must have said something to him.” Tamakawa’s voice holds an even keel, but Aizawa can read it for the signs of stress well enough. This is a lot for anyone to handle all in one day. “He waited on the platform after that, and… it was like he was hypnotised or something.”
Shit, now Aizawa wants a cigarette too.
“Or something is right,” he mutters, hearing how hoarse his voice sounds in the cold, echoing amphitheatre of the deserted train station. Aizawa reaches for the only thing that has any significance against all the meaningless waste of life: the thread of truth to unravel the crime. “I need to see that footage.”
“I shouldn’t really let you, you know,” Tamakawa relates with a quiet sigh. Aizawa drums his fingers against his arms instead of letting them itch for a phantom smoke.
“I wouldn’t need to if there were a detective here,” Aizawa replies and it isn’t strictly true. Because even if there were a detective on the scene, Aizawa would be right alongside them, making sure the dial of justice stays pointing true. “How about you show the evidence to whoever’s on the scene, and we’ll take it from there?”
“Now you mention it, that is what I recall doing,” Tamakawa phrases distantly, like he’s rehearsing the line before it goes into his report.
“Or you know.” Aizawa moves to get up, but in raising up his arms sets his hand on Tamakawa’s shoulder: more of a firm clasp. “If you were a detective, we’d be cutting out the middleman.” Or middle cat, perhaps.
“Yeah…” Tamakawa’s tone holds a little stronger this time, like a note being tuned. He stands after Aizawa. “Right this way, Detective Eraser.”
This is the last place Aizawa wants to be: a railway embankment at three in the morning, looking for little bits of dead body.
The security footage in the train station could have been a lot more helpful than it was. It’s not often Aizawa can watch a murder taking place and still have no fucking idea what’s going on.
Aizawa paces in long methodical steps up and down the railway embankment, a beam of light sweeping the ground ahead of him in time with the sway of his body. Rolling waves of illumination, as Yamaguichi and Tamakawa do the same further along the bank.
The black-and-white video from the security office screens projects on a blank sheet in Aizawa’s mind; the victim gets off the train, pursued by a woman who grabs him right outside the train and pulls him back. There’s a rush of people that covers anything that happens below shoulder level, the angle of the cameras not helping either, but she’s talking to him intensely, and after appearing initially panicked the man becomes calmer. Then at some point during the interaction he goes under.
The woman leaves, but the man stays there, shuffling through the crowds to reach the edge of the platform and waiting. Unreactive, staring dead ahead – right until the train comes storming through. The man leaps without hesitation or signs of distress, and the train windscreen cracks and dents in such a way that several parts of the victims body are cut away on the jagged edges of his impact, slicing through the corpse like meat through a mincer.
“S-s… Eraserhead, Tamakawa,” Yamaguichi’s voice pitches up and quivers. “I think I found something.” Aizawa swings his light and the beam cuts across the dark, deserted traintracks.
The rough ground crunches underfoot and Aizawa is next to the small-statured woman. Yamaguichi is little but sturdy, Aizawa has no doubt of her mettle – this is just a lot for anyone to take in. “It’s a… hand?”
“Part of one.” Aizawa drops to a crouch next to it. About a third of a hand, to be exact; they’re definitely fingers, and a part of the palm. What became of the rest is anyone’s guess, they’re still trying to trace the middle section of the victims arm, marking off and photographing before time pushes on and they have to clear the lines. Far be it from an active crime scene to cause a delay to commuters when services start back up in the morning.
Aizawa takes a picture and waits for Tamakawa to do the same, and then – he shouldn’t do this, but he does – reaches out a single finger and flips it like a most unappetising pancake. With no detectives, forensic experts and this whole scene due to be hurriedly cleaned up before the Police Chief even sits down at his desk and has his first slurp of coffee in the morning, time is a factor that can’t wait.
“There.” Aizawa gestures; it’s incomplete due to the rest of the hand still being AWOL, but the markings are unmistakable.
“Is that… pen?” Tamakawa queries, also dropped into a low squat to pore over the partial-hand. Whatever sharp edge severed it was clean, a neat cut that took off three fingers and part of the palm at an angle. The pen is on the back of the hand, just a corner visible with the rest cut off – literally. What they can see looks like 世子. “Successor?” Tamaka reads curiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think the suspect writes on people,” Aizawa reveals hoarsely. “That’s how they…” He doesn’t finish: Tamakawa can guess what happens after.
“Too bad we don’t have the rest of the body,” Tamakawa observes. “Not many murderers go around signing autographs on their victims.”
Yamaguichi has peeled away, not squatting like the rest of them but full-on sitting on the ground. Aizawa hears the alarm bells as loud as if they were ringing at school for the end of lunch break.
“Hey, Yamaguichi,” Aizawa calls out. “Can you go buy me a pack of cigarettes?”
Yamaguichi’s head moves up fast, and then she turns over her shoulder to look at Aizawa with a despondency that tells of a person on the edge, but hanging on. “Yes s-... Eraserhead. What kind?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Aizawa stands and walks over to the crumpled Police officer, offering a hand to pull her back onto her feet. If Yamaguichi were a student Aizawa might not do it like this; he has to teach the kids to be strong before allowing them to be weak, but an under-five-foot lady doesn't make it into the police force because she's not strong enough to stand on her own two feet. Aizawa also wouldn't send students to buy cigarettes. Probably. “Keep your senses about you on the way, many murderers return to the scene of their crimes, so we'll be relying on you.”
“Yes,” Yamaguichi sounds like she's coming back from a long way down a tunnel. “I understand, Mr. Eraser.”
Aizawa lets her off the mister this time.
After Yamaguichi slopes away Aizawa and Tamakawa to resume the search for the rest of this poor unfortunate soul’s hand. They find an arm, but it ends at the wrist, and another hour of searching turns up nothing.
When they finally return to the platform, it's to find Yamaguichi corralling a cleanup crew eager to remove any trace of this crime from the scene. Destroy the evidence so the civilians won't know anything was wrong, Aizawa thinks with a bitter taste in his mouth. As if no one died here, where some other numb-minded salaryman will stand on the edge and wait to go to work, come back home to eat, sleep and repeat it again. Another form of death; at least to Aizawa. Dead to the truth, at least.
“I didn't know what to get, so I hope this is alright.” Yamaguichi holds out a pack of cigarettes to Aizawa when she gets a moment, and her hands are still a little shaky.
“Thanks, what do I owe you?”
“No, no, it's fine,” Yamaguichi insists. “After all your help, it's the least I could do.”
“Speaking of help,” Aizawa segues. “Have you been able to ID the victim?”
“Not yet, there was no wallet with the body,” Tamakawa explains. That’s suspicious.
“Could you run their fingerprints?” Aizawa questions.
Tamakawa answers a little less surely, “I suppose so, but that’d be…”
“Have you got an evidence bag, Yamaguichi?” Aizawa asks instead, and after fumbling with her satchel for a moment Yamaguichi produces one for Aizawa, which he takes and hops back off the platform edge to pace alongside the tracks.
“Eraser, are you sure-” Tamakawa asks as he pursues Aizawa.
“The cleanup crew will move everything, and the body already has pieces missing,” Aizawa says surely, honing in on the hand and stooping over to scoop it up in the bag. “One more piece won’t hurt.” Aizawa stands back up with the hand-corner in his bag like a really dodgy prize from an arcade. “We have three fingers, so that’s three fingerprints that could give us a potential ID. Shall we leave that evidence to go cold or act on it?” Another teacher trick: to ask loaded questions and wait for the answers, making the capable but unsure walk themselves through the process rather than drag them by the heels.
Tamakawa comes around fast, just like Aizawa has come to expect. “You’re right.” But he’s still just a Police officer, so far, and it’s the plain truth that a pro hero of some repute can nudge doors that might open more slowly within the established hierarchy of the force. It’s surely with this in mind that Tamakawa suggests, “Will you come back to the station with us?”
Aizawa thinks about it, then looks down at the clear bag with a corner of someone’s hand in it; Hizashi will be asleep at home, none the worse for Aizawa not being there. No one to punch and kick in his dreams. Hizashi will keep overnight – this trail might not. “I’ll come.”
One thing to be said about fingerprinting a dismembered hand is that it’s a lot more cooperative than suspects are. Aizawa literally does it in his lap on the car ride over to the police station, then gives the night-shift clerk an eyeroll when asked why there’s only three fingerprints on the card.
“He was a couple short. Run it anyway,” Aizawa instructs dryly, and leaves Yamaguichi waiting on the results as he takes Tamakawa by the shoulder and makes a smoking gesture with his other hand.
It’s only sensible for an underground Hero and a Police officer who’s not a detective to pop out back of the station, skulking in the alleyway lighting a couple of cigarettes. They can't smoke inside, after all. If it just so happens they talk about a case that hasn't made it to the detectives’ desks yet, that’s just pure coincidence.
“So what do you think’s going on?” Tamakawa asks as he lifts the cigarette away from his whiskery mouth with delicate, claw-like nails.
“What do you think it is?” Aizawa turns back on him: teachering again.
“The victims don’t seem connected at first glance, but the MO is similar,” Tamakawa lays out. “Strange behaviour followed by suicide. If it’s something to do with that woman…” He pauses, taking a drag on the cigarette followed by a cough: unused to smoking, which probably makes Aizawa a bad influence. “Could she be making them do it?”
“I think it’s entirely plausible,” Aizawa replies, puffing contently on a fresh cigarette compared to the stale ones he’s been nursing. Yamaguichi bought the good stuff too.
Tamakawa’s ears lift. “Really?”
“Of course,” Aizawa affirms. It’s always nice when someone coaxed into stepping up proves capable, and Aizawa has long suspected Tamakawa's far more competent than his station does justice. Maybe Tamakawa likes being a cop, or perhaps he and the Police Chief get along like… well, cats and dogs. Aizawa prefers working with him compared to Tsukauchi, that’s for sure.
“So that means… she might have one of those quirks.” Tamakawa gives another pensive drag on his cigarette, resting his free arm over his smoking one and giving himself an instinctive shake. “Gives me the creeps.”
A name floats back into Aizawa’s head: Shinsou. He pulls on his own smoke, blowing the cloud into the crowded alley like their very own noire fog-generator. Aizawa checks his phone for the time: no messages from Hizashi of course, he’s asleep. Like Aizawa should be. But Hizashi wakes up early, and Aizawa would like to be there when he does.
“Do you think Yamaguichi could take me somewhere?” Aizawa takes a final few drags on his smoke before stubbing it out on the wall, tossing it into a box of rubbish piled up in the alley.
“Sure thing, we’re almost at the end of our shift. After tonight I don’t mind her leaving a little early.” Tamakawa puffs on and then bins his own cigarette. “I’m a little worried, to tell you the truth. This is a bad lot for a newbie fresh out of the academy on their first week.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa has been at this ten years, and even he doesn’t feel prepared for it. He steps forward to head for the door, pausing to give Tamakawa a couple of pats on the shoulder, and his ears flick and readjust. “Hell of a night.”
“You can say that again,” Tamakawa purrs.
Aizawa forgets to ask about the results of the fingerprinting, but it turns out not to matter, because he gets them in the car with Yamaguichi.
What Aizawa also gets is an utter meltdown.
It starts simply; the straight-faced Yamaguichi stood to attention at the desk, stiffly nodding at Tamakawa when he asks her to drop Aizawa back where she found him, like some kind of displaced wild animal that needs returning to his natural habitat.
They get into the car and start driving, Aizawa starting to feel drowsy again as the night eats into early morning. Then Aizawa remembers what he forgot and innocently asks, “By the way, did you get a match on those prints?” and Yamaguichi just bursts like a broken tap.
“Buuuhuhuhuhuhuhuh-” Yamaguichi starts outright sobbing over the steering wheel, and Aizawa takes a long, meditative breath. Doesn’t say anything, because he assumes she’s going to get it out with eventually. He’s right. “The prints… they…” Aizawa wonders what could be so distressing that a fully grown Police officer would burst into tears, but has every faith he’s about to find out.
“They were a match,” Aizawa supplies. That much is evident; no one is this upset over not getting a new lead.
“Yuh… yeah,” Yamaguichi sniffs, then rubs her cheeks and nose on her shirt sleeve. “He… he’s got a record a mile long, Eraserhead. S-” she hiccups, maybe swallowing the sir that was trying to slip out. Or maybe not. “S-sexual assault.”
“Oh.” Aizawa crosses his arms, replaying that footage from the station with a new filter. “On the train?” The woman chasing the man off the carriage, the panicked way he reacted when she grabbed him, before falling still and awaiting his kamikaze descent into the train’s windshield – practically a fitting end, spits a bitter part of Aizawa’s conscience.
“M-mostly, yeah.” Yamaguichi sniffs again. “It’s so awful, but I thought… when I first saw the report… I wasn’t sad that a person like that was dead.” She turns to look at Aizawa with utter hopelessness; this kind of thing happens sometimes, especially after having to hunt for dismembered body parts along the railway lines at stupid o’clock in the morning. “Does that make me a bad Police officer?”
“No.” Aizawa doesn’t do coddling, and it's not his job to tell people they’re meant to have absolute faith in the justice systems. Pretending to believe that not even the worst criminals deserve a violent death. “Scum like that deserve what’s coming to them, but you didn’t hear it from me.” After the day she’s had, Yamaguichi doesn’t need to be lied to on top of everything else. It seems to have a calming effect; just to feel like she’s not wrong for feeling the way she does. Police officer or not, Yamaguichi is also a woman. Aizawa can only guess at the difference that could make.
“Sorry for breaking down like this.” Yamaguichi takes a deep breath, blinking heavily behind her glasses and keeping her eyes on the road.
“Don’t be,” Aizawa replies surely. “The only time you should be worried is if you ever stop feeling this way.” He pauses, pondering if his teacher habits are ever going to take a night off. “Then you'll know your morals have gone numb.”
Yamaguichi stops at a useless traffic light on the empty roads and rubs the edge of her sleeve under her eyes. “I suppose you’re right.” The light turns green, and it’s with a little more hope that she adds, “Thanks, Eraser.”
Aizawa has never known what to do when people thank him, but it happens quite a lot, so he just fumbles his way through. “No problem,” he mumbles through a yawn. They’re getting closer to the drop-off spot, and Aizawa thinks about walking the two blocks down back alleys alone, wallowing in this shitstorm of a day followed by a clusterfuck of a night.
“Actually, could you take me a little further this time?” Aizawa asks with a warmer, slightly dare-he-say-it-personal air. “There’s a stop I’d like to make on the way.” It’s getting light already, and there’s a bakery he knows will be open just another block from here.
“Yes sir, I mean- Eraser,” Yamaguichi says and then corrects herself; a good sign, Aizawa thinks. “Anything to help.”
Aizawa’s grateful for all the help he can get.
Sailing through the quiet, 5:00 a.m. liminal space of their apartment like a ghost, Aizawa slides the plastic-bagged package he brings back with him into the fridge and heads straight for bed. He pushes his capture weapon off in a heap somewhere down the hallway, already undoing his belt and the long zipper on the front of his jumpsuit, stepping out of them as he crosses the threshold into the bedroom.
Bluish dawn light chases Aizawa into the room, picking out the edge of the bed for a moment before he shuts the door behind him and finds his way in the dark. He reaches the bed and drops down, climbing under the body-warmed covers with deep, soothing relief.
Hizashi’s engine runs so hot he’d melt a hole through the bed in an ice hotel. It’s also a fact that Aizawa has always slept better in his best friend’s second-hand warmth than he ever managed by himself, even before they were ‘together’ in a conventional sense – within their already fairly unconventional setup. It’s going on fifteen years that Aizawa’s been sleeping in Hizashi’s bed, more than half of it never – okay, mostly never – having a sexual component. Which is only weird if you think about it too hard. But if there had ever been a spark at certain, don’t-talk-about-it times, nothing ever came of it. At least not for the first seven years.
After testing a couple of false-bundles that turn out to be pillows, Aizawa finally finds Hizashi and shuffles closer to him. Asleep but nominally responsive, Hizashi shifts enough to allow Aizawa to slip an arm around him from behind, wrapping across Hizashi’s stomach and squeezing. They got there in the end.
When Aizawa’s mouth presses unconsciously to the back of Hizashi’s shoulder under a sheet of silky hair, Hizashi stirs a little more; just enough to wriggle to fit himself more snugly into Aizawa like stacking cups. A moment later Hizashi’s hand moves over Aizawa’s wrist and locks like a set of handcuffs, making sure there’s no getting away from him without Hizashi knowing about it.
Aizawa thinks he’s still mostly asleep, but a few moments later there’s a sonous murmur of, “You realise I’m getting up in an hour.” How Hizashi knows what time it is beggars belief, but he hardly even needs an alarm clock to wake up at six every morning. Aizawa has long since accepted that Hizashi is a man governed by his own rules just as much as Aizawa is.
Aizawa kisses Hizashi’s back again, and huffs a breathy laugh-sigh that’s neither one nor the other. “That’s what you think.”
Notes:
After such patience with Chapter 1 and the all-important array of minor canon characters and fully original ones, this chapter's got a few Mic-related treats in there. What really helps writing this is that I am 1) in love with him and 2) also I love him. Conveniently, so does Aizawa.
Semi-related note, I'm here, I'm queer, and I'm ready to champion the Officer Tamakawa corner until the cows come home. It ASTONISHES me that 'Aizawa and the policeman who's a literal cat-man' hasn't been tapped until now, but lemme tell ya I'm gonna TAP IT HARD. Him like the Kittycat.
Disclaimer: If you disapprove of smoking or otherwise find it disagreeable to read about, I legit don't know what to say to you. It's a smokey fic. *Sails on a ship through the noir smoke*
Oh, and in both my personal opinion and as agreed by the lucky souls who've been helping me get this delightful story to a shiny polish, the next chapter is when this fic really kicks in. I'm SOOOOOO excited....
Chapter 3: The Morning After
Summary:
The morning brings aftermath, and new beginnings.
Notes:
Me: I'll update weekly
Also me: Except when you don't
Me again: OH YEAH! Except for thenBasically, I can't bear to not have at LEAST these three chapters up for now, I literally couldn't live a moment longer without doing it. This doesn't mean I'm increasing my weekly update rate or anything, it's just a freebie because of this *particular* chapter being a very important one. That said, hope you enjoy it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Hey, what’s this box in the fridge?”
“Don’t touch that,” Aizawa instructs. “It’s police evidence.”
Hizashi pops out from behind the fridge door to glare daggers at Aizawa behind the breakfast bar – Aizawa never fought Hizashi about the decoration of this place, but he does like to question breakfast bar as needing to be its own meal-serving structure. If they must have a bar, why not for drinks? Well, Hizashi had one of those put in too – out of spite, largely – after the first time Aizawa brought it up. When he is here, Aizawa admittedly spends more time behind the breakfast equivalent, perched on one of the artsy over-designed high stools drinking coffee so bitter it’s strong enough to revive Hades himself at this time of the morning.
It’s commonly understood in this household that the hours between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. are Aizawa’s domain, but from the moment Hizashi’s obnoxious alarm (who has an alarm of their own voice?) goes off at six, he reigns supreme over the morning. Ever since they were in their teens, Hizashi has been tasked by parents, fellow students and teachers alike with the job of stirring Aizawa from his corpse-like slumber: though his methods have changed over the years.
Back when they were younger – or in the present day, if he’s (rarely) not in the mood – Hizashi merely positioned his mouth two inches over Aizawa’s moplike head and belted unbearable morning platitudes until Aizawa’s fist connected with his chin or his quirk was erased. Usually both.
More recently, and providing Hizashi is in the mood – this morning being a perfect example – his techniques are a little subtler. If “riling Aizawa up with a morning handjob before announcing that if he’d like to continue Hizashi will be found in the shower” could be called subtle. Aizawa doesn’t, but he tends not to call it much of anything when he’s being led around by the cock. It works, he won’t deny that. Aizawa has always been a man of simple needs: shower sex is one of them.
Hizashi, by contrast, is a bird of paradise walking. Even when he’s wandering around in his home glasses with his wet hair istill twisted into a tight bun on top of his head. He’s pre-blowdry, in that windtunnel of a machine he uses to get it sticking up like a cockatoo’s crest. But if the lack of canary-yellow exclamation mark over Hizashi’s head lowers his profile, the tattoos shove it way back up.
It’s not possible to see when he’s dressed in all-black leather, but in a simple white vest there’s a solid third-or-more or so of Hizashi’s ink on show, the rest spanning his back all the way down past his ass. Tough times for all when that particular stretch of his masterpiece was being filled in. For someone who’s watched it grow, inch by agonising you-can’t-really-be-getting-more-done inch, Aizawa’s still knocked out by the (temporarily) finished product.
The themes of Hizashi’s tattoos vary, but fall into three rough groups: music, Heroics, and the people he loves. Aizawa’s got a few corners in there, but Hizashi’s a popular man. He’s got designs sent in by fans, inked signatures from his rock idols, the logo of the first Hero he side-kicked for. Hizashi’s whole life has been painted out on the living canvas of his skin, from the age of just-before-eighteen until the most recent time he had ‘just one more piece’ to add to the ever-growing mural. Which was two months ago, and then six before that, and so on… Aizawa’s sure that Hizashi will be covered head-to-toe by the time they’re sixty, but he’ll pull it off because he’s Present Mic: loud and proud. Emphasis on the loud.
“What’s in the fridge, Shota?” Hizashi asks with a dangerous air, his smirk emphasised all the more by the freshly-trimmed fringe of his moustache framing his curling upper lip.
Aizawa casts a look at Hizashi like dice in a game of craps. “Promise you won’t freak out?”
“Shotaaa.” Hizashi’s hand comes down to rest on the other side of the counter Aizawa is perched behind and the fingers drum an incessant patter. He could just check the box in the fridge rather than abandoning it for a squabble, but where’s the fun in that?
“Better keep it cool,” Aizawa explains glibly. “You don’t wanna see what happens if conditions get too warm.”
“I thought we agreed you were going to stop bringing body parts home from work,” Hizashi lectures.
“Technically,” Aizawa replies crisply, raising his hand as if to indicate only a few of the fingers, “it’s only a third of one.”
“You’re so gross!” Hizashi bursts, holding Aizawa’s gaze for a moment. It’s rare Aizawa stares at anyone this long without using his quirk, and the result is that he ends up fixated on Hizashi’s dazzling green eyes. A long moment passes before Aizawa can’t prevent it any longer, and he smiles. Hizashi cracks when he does. “You’re fucking with me.”
Usually hidden behind the musty drapes of his hair, so no one can ever see, Aizawa has a particularly expressive talent with his eyebrows. Freshly washed, his hair has been scraped back from his head, and puts on show the razor-sharp slice of the right lifting while the left remains a dead flatline. “Wasn’t that what happened in the shower?”
Hizashi ripples with laughter, flashing his pearly white I-paid-for-them-so-they’re-mine teeth, and then turns around to go back to the fridge, pulling it back open and taking out the unmarked white box for closer inspection.
Hizashi studies the box and finds the logo with a million-buck smile. “I picked up breakfast,” Aizawa explains.
Finally, Hizashi gets the lid open. “This is a cake.” He flips it shut again and gives Aizawa a dead stare. “You call that breakfast?”
“If I eat it in the morning, anything’s breakfast,” Aizawa rationalises as he takes another sip of coffee and dodges Hizashi’s lascivious look. Maybe this makes it his second breakfast, if they’re counting what went on in the shower.
“You’re a strange guy, you know that?” Hizashi plates the layered cream-cake Aizawa bought and presents it to him with a fork; Aizawa will eat, and Hizashi steals bites. Some things don’t change, and Hizashi’s always been a filch with an eye for the grass on the other side.
“Hadn’t come to my attention,” Aizawa returns in a deadpan, scooping up a bite of the cake and muffling through his mouthful, “You love me anyway.”
Hizashi laughs like a parrot and comes over to pilfer his bite – straight off Aizawa’s fork, as it happens. He straightens up with a palm resting across the top of Aizawa’s head, fingers scrunching Aizawa’s wet hair while it’s actually clean for once. “Only because you’re the one person who can’t break up with me for spending too much time with you."
It’d admittedly taken a while for Hizashi and Aizawa to mutually recognise they might be as good in a romantic relationship as they’ve always been in a platonic one. The string of people who dumped Hizashi while insisting one or the other of them had been secretly pining for each other was a bit of a pointer in that direction – even though they hadn’t, at least not at the time. They’ve tried to explain, though people rarely believe it, but Aizawa and Hizashi honestly hadn’t seen each other that way – at least, not until the point was repeatedly hammered home. Things worked out fine once the sparks finally kindled, but it was a fire that took a little while to start.
“Love by default,” Aizawa sums up, staring at his breakfast-cake like he’s trying to remember what to do with it. “Sounds about right.”
“Ooh, that could be the name of my next album.” It’s right for him and Hizashi, in any case.
“Good morning, Aizawa!” Nezu beams with inextinguishable cheer, fresh and glossy in a way Aizawa hasn’t been since the last press conference he got roped into. Which has been a while, thankfully. “Mind if I catch a lift?”
“I was meaning to have a word with you, hop aboard.” Aizawa bends down and offers his arm as the stairwell for Nezu to climb with skilled ease, clambering over his collar to duck into the roomy layers of Aizawa’s capture weapon, then about-facing to pop out right next to Aizawa’s ear.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Nezu is so close that when Aizawa straightens up and starts walking, no one below the level of Aizawa’s shoulder would even know the Principal was there at all, much less having a confidential discussion. Works like a charm.
“That student in the General Studies Course, the one with a brainwashing quirk,” Aizawa begins with a carefully muted tone, like he’d cup his hand if he didn’t have a mountain of his capture weapon piled up to do the same thing, which arouses must less suspicion anyway. “Does he have a somewhat… famous father?” Nezu doesn’t reply, but Aizawa feels his tail twitch deep in the mass of wraps that make up Aizawa’s ‘daywear comfort blankie’ as Hizashi likes to tease.
“I would think that’s infamous,” Nezu replies with a surety that’s all but outright confirmation. “Dr. Shinsou has been incarcerated for many years now, but I understand our own Shinsou Hitoshi and his mother broke ties with him long before that fall from grace.”
“From grace?” Aizawa echoes suspiciously.
“Back in the day, the work of Professor Shinsou revolutionised our understanding of mentalist quirks. Never before had so much light been cast on such a controversial subject,” Nezu relates with the same cheery optimism he always uses, disguising anything sinister in the dark undercurrents he knows all too well. “The Field of Pyschiatric Quirk Research will never be the same for the loss of him, I’m afraid.”
Aizawa feels the weight of Nezu against his shoulder, Nezu’s big paws folded over his belly, and remembers that once humans had experimented on the Principal for the sake of quirk research. “Just what the hell was so special about this guy?”
“The variety and detail with which Dr. Shinsou documented mentalist quirks is astonishing,” Nezu continues thoughtfully. “The things he learned from studying them, and the number of people who came to congregate around a charismatic ambassador for their plight. Based on his body of work alone, the man is, quite simply, a genius.” And this is the Principal, a genius himself admitting it.
Aizawa feels a dark sinking sensation, like taking a dip in the ocean with lead-lined shoes. “A mad genius.”
“Oh, a complete lunatic,” Nezu affirms. “Sometimes a person goes so far into the darkness that they cannot find the light again. I fear he was one such case.”
“Then years later, his son applies here to be in the Hero Course,” Aizawa reins back in on the topic, weaving between students as he escorts Nezu to the teacher’s room. “But he doesn’t make the cut.”
“That young man applied to both Hero and General Studies,” Nezu recites as if he pre-recorded the response. “It seems even he understood that there was a natural disadvantage regarding his quirk that we could not accommodate.”
“We couldn’t accommodate?” Aizawa repeats back.
“No thanks to the work of Dr. Shinsou, the difficulties of handling students with mentalist quirks are substantial,” Nezu continues, and now Aizawa steps into an alcove and hovers out of the main flow of the crowd. “Even moreso in the Hero Course, where they would be actively using their quirks on classmates or out in the field under a provisional license. Prodigal as he may be, it would be unwise for us to make an exception to the entrance exam requirements for young Shinsou.”
Aizawa knows Nezu wouldn’t have taken a choice like this lightly. “So you stuck him into General. Why?"
“The boy shows promise, doesn’t he?” Nezu catches the corner of Aizawa’s eye and tilts his head in an especially bestial fashion, answering the question that’s really being asked. “And isn’t UA just the kind of environment where an industrious young boy could be exposed to the kind of Heroes who could help him?”
“Or exploit him,” Aizawa points out.
“Well in your capacity as a teacher at this school, I naturally can’t condone anything that could put a student at risk,” Nezu says surely. “But of course, if an underground Hero were to reach out to the boy, in connection with a private investigation that has no association with UA whatsoever, that would be a different matter.”
Students arrange their own work experience, and that’s no coincidence when it comes to liability of taking untested would-be Heroes into the field. It’s a primary reason Aizawa tries to have nothing to do with interns: he’s got enough kids to babysit every day of his life. “It would, huh?” Aizawa murmurs, mulling over the quiet inevitability of what Nezu is proposing.
“Yes, why then I wouldn’t know anything about it,” Nezu ruminates contently, and Aizawa steps back out of the alcove to continue walking. “And as long as I continue to know nothing about it, nothing could possibly be the matter with such an arrangement.”
“So I guess it’s true then.” As Aizawa’s speaking, Nezu readjusts inside the sling of the capture weapon, and sticks a clunky shoe rather clumsily in Aizawa’s collarbone. “Ignorance really is bliss.”
“You could call me a creature of such comforts,” Nezu replies cannily, either not knowing or caring about the fact that he’s kicking Aizawa by accident – at least, Aizawa hopes. “But if anyone can help that child, I think it’d be a Hero like Eraserhead.”
Aizawa nods in mute agreement, tongue-tied with the magnitude of the choice he’s going to make.
Aizawa sticks his head around the door during the final minutes of one of Hizashi’s English classes – he knows how to pick a window of opportunity – and simply says, “Shinsou Hitoshi.”
Shinsou Hitoshi lifts his head from his hands like he'd been dozing in them, befuddled enough to need a couple of moments before noticing how the collective gaze of his classmates encircles him. Then he looks straight at Aizawa, and a chill scuttles down the back of Aizawa's neck. He remembers the portrait from the book: the same face that stares out from behind a screen when Aizawa searches for Shinsou’s mass-murderer father on his phone out of sick curiosity. He’s found online lectures and talkshow footage, along with a video of the self-titled Dr. Shinsou using his quirk to make the host lift up her shirt on an episode of a ten-year-old gameshow. There's a family resemblance, that's for sure, but how deep it runs remains to be seen.
Above all else, Shinsou sounds bored when he answers, “Yeah?”
That isn't a great start, but he's also a little suspicious, which Aizawa understands more. “I need you to come with me.” Aizawa redirects his gaze to Hizashi. “Mic, you don't mind me taking one of your students, do you?”
“No, no, take him away,” Hizashi replies brightly, and though Aizawa can't see his eyes through his mirrored lenses, he can easily imagine the ‘we'll be catching up about this later’ look behind them.
“Jeez, alright then.” Shinsou stands with more of a petulant groan than anything, and a small illuminated sign in Aizawa's head with the words ‘attitude problem’ lights up like a fasten-your-seatbelt light on a plane.
Aizawa starts walking before Shinsou is at the door and expects him to keep up. He doesn't, trailing behind Aizawa like a sullen baby duck.
The rest of classes have let out by the time they're almost back to Aizawa’s classroom. Shinsou and Midoriya clock each other’s presence in the hallway as they pass on the way. Not for the first time, Aizawa considers what would have happened had Shinsou succeeded at walking Midoriya out of the arena like a puppet during the sports festival.
Only when Shinsou and Aizawa are both in the classroom with the door shut does either speak. Shinsou has his hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders up like a cat with its hackles raised. “So what's this all about?”
“It's to do with your father.” Aizawa cuts straight to it; this is a real case with serious stakes, and that means no pussyfooting around personal sensitivities.
Shinsou doesn't react right away, staring at Aizawa through dark-ringed eyes. It occurs to Aizawa – new thought, never-before-had – that there's actually a chance this interaction goes nowhere. That Shinsou could refuse any involvement, not for any price. The stakes suddenly get a little higher, at least in Aizawa's mind.
But Shinsou just sighs and says, “Why don't you read his book, if you're such a fan?”
“Not a fan,” Aizawa replies coldly. “But I need access to him.”
That gets through to the kid. Suddenly this stops looking like such a terrible drag, and the shadows under his eyes seem to become more sinister than weary. “You don't wanna do that.”
“I do,” Aizawa reiterates surely. “Trust me, if there was an alternative, I'd have taken it.”
“So look harder,” Shinsou snaps defensively. “The school already knew about my… about him when I was accepted, so if they're changing their minds-”
“This isn't school business,” Aizawa corrects. “In fact, I need you to keep this conversation and anything that does or doesn't happen after it a secret from your classmates and the other teachers.”
“That seems kinda questionable,” Shinsou suggests with an even-more-questionable undercurrent. “What's in it for me?” Aizawa has definitely got the kid’s interest now.
Aizawa crosses his arms and leans back on the edge of his desk. He's skipping a perfectly good nap for this, so this tall drink of attitude isn't the only one who has better things they could be doing right now. “You want to be a Hero, don't you?”
Aizawa's got him there, can see the tortured scream of frustration in the teen’s eyes. Aizawa knows about fighting to be recognised in spite of his quirk, about being at a disadvantage to his peers with a quirk that does something invasive and intimidating to others. But even Aizawa's quirk isn't so feared as Shinsou’s, and Aizawa wouldn't dare to claim it.
“You don't have to decide right away.” Aizawa wishes Shinsou would, but that's not how to catch a fly. He goes to his desk and scribbles the address of a nearby convenience store he buys cigarettes from on a superfluous appendix to Midoriya’s homework, which he offers out to Shinsou. “Meet me here after school to find out more, but if you show up be prepared to do what you're told, when you're told. Even if it's…” Aizawa thinks of the bathtub, the severed hand, and the face of Dr. Shinsou Masaru: all in order of the revulsion each bring out in him. “Unpleasant.”
Shinsou takes the paper without breaking his gaze from dead on Aizawa’s. “Sounds like a nightmare for child services,” he comments in a tone so dry it'd crunch if Aizawa stood on it; he might still. “Should I be concerned for my innocence?”
“Probably,” Aizawa replies curtly, which catches Shinsou on the wrong foot. He's trying to provoke, to push Aizawa's buttons so he's not in control. And if that doesn't work there's always-
Aizawa activates his quirk on Shinsou the very moment before he feels the boy tries to do the same to him. Aizawa’s quirk smothers Shinsou’s like setting a cup over a lit candle. Already staring dead at Shinsou, Aizawa catches the frustration and anger of a very rough diamond hitting a surface it's unable to scratch. Aizawa knows all about diamonds in the rough.
“If you ever try that on me again, this offer is immediately void,” Aizawa says sternly, feeling his hair drop back down after he releases his quirk.
“Offer?” Shinsou echoes caustically. “I thought you needed my help?”
“And you need someone to give you a shot.” Aizawa doesn’t do any kind of love but tough. “You want to be a Hero, kid? Prove to me you have what it takes.”
He crosses his arms and watches Shinsou, thinking about the monumental pain in his ass this kid would be if he were one of Aizawa’s students. Aizawa would run out of eyedrops in a week. “Now get out of my classroom.”
“Alright, no need to get your panties in a twist,” Shinsou grumbles. Maybe Nezu was right to keep Shinsou out of the Heroics course: he’s sure as shit not ready for it… yet.
“So what was poaching tall, dark and gloomy from my class all about?” Hizashi asks Aizawa over lunch – namely, Hizashi eating lunch sitting on the floor while Aizawa lays behind his desk in his sleeping bag. Hizashi feeding him bites like some kind of Very Hungry Caterpillar.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” Aizawa replies, pouting as Hizashi’s chopsticks prod his cheeks before opening his mouth to accept the bite of sticky rice, mumbling through the mouthful, “You neef-” he finishes chewing, “plausible deniability.”
“Ooooh,” Hizashi coos like a bird whistling for fun. “Anything I should be worried about?”
“Probably,” Aizawa responds dourly. He’s worried about the boy, that’s for sure. “What’s he like to teach?”
“What?”
“Shinsou.” Aizawa lets Hizashi’s next helping of rice spill on his cheek as the landing doors do not open for the airplane. “He doesn’t have any classes with me.” Yet, a quiet thought reiterates from the strangely shaped cave in Aizawa’s mind, where hidden tunnels and crevices mean that footsteps sound as if they’re coming from all around.
“Oh well he’s… quiet, to the point of napping,” Hizashi reels off easily. “Jumps about five feet into the air when I wake him up with a Good Morning special.”
“So do I,” Aizawa replies, finally getting so sick of Hizashi’s nagging prods at his mouth that he opens up and takes the feed like an animal at a petting zoo. In truth, he’s pretty sure Hizashi does this for the fun of it as much as the practicality. Aizawa would be fine without lunch, but if anything can be made into a task that vaguely annoys Aizawa, Hizashi will be first in line to do it. Aizawa’s nourishment in the process is just a bonus. “Does he use his quirk?”
“What?”
“In class, have you ever caught him using his quirk?”
“General Studies students aren’t allowed to do that.”
“Would you know if he did?”
“I…” Hizashi draws a visible blank, and a scary thought creeps up on Aizawa like a creature that lives in shadows. “Dunno.”
“Has he ever used it on you?”
“What?! Of course not, I’m a teacher!”
“He tried it on me.”
Hizashi’s chopsticks fall, spilling rice down his front in transit to his own mouth. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Aizawa wriggles over a little closer, so his face is almost next to Hizashi’s thigh. “If he’s stupid enough to try it once, who says he hasn’t done it to other members of staff?” Especially ones who don’t have a quirk that would erase Shinsou’s attempts to gain control of their minds, could perhaps even make them forget it’d even happened.
“I’m guessing he wasn’t successful with you.”
“Of course not.” Aizawa’s almost insulted, and lets it show in his tone. Hizashi prods his cheek with another wad of rice, but Aizawa’s lips stay narrow, pulling together to deny access. “I made it clear what would happen if he ever tried it again.”
“Again? Just what are you doing with this kid, Shota?” Hizashi actually sounds concerned this time. Not suspicious, like he has to question the morals of what Aizawa’s doing – those are fine, the trust is there and absolute – but wanting to be sure Aizawa knows the line between things he can’t talk about and things he has to say when he needs to. Like help me.
“Like I said.” Aizawa flips himself up to rest on Hizashi’s knee where his legs are crossed, then opens his mouth like a baby bird waiting to have pre-chewed food spat into it. “It’s better if you don’t know.” Until Hizashi does need to know, and then he’ll be the reliable foundation he’s always been to Aizawa’s fragile perpetual-motion balancing act.
“Sounds like a nightmare for child services.” Hizashi feeds him the bite, then picks a few grains of rice off his cheek and feeds him them too – why let good food go to waste?
“Hm.” Aizawa chuckles breathily, and Hizashi quirks his head at him. “That’s what he said.”
“Smart kid, I guess.” Hizashi would know, if anyone’s supposed to, but Aizawa gets the feeling Shinsou’s still largely below the radar, and probably with good reason.
Aizawa’s about to find out what lies beneath. “I sure hope so.”
Aizawa’s sitting on the edge of the parapet that encircles the flat roof of the convenience store, gazing listlessly over the wastelands of rooftop suburbia with a stress-cigarette when Shinsou finally scrambles up over the fire escape. Finally. Aizawa was so tense waiting – thinking it was possible he’d been wrong, and Shinsou wasn’t going to show – he smoked two in a row, which he usually only does when he’s been drinking.
“So you’re not totally hopeless,” Aizawa opens as the lanky teen clambers onto the roof with the grace of a deer taking its first steps, if those steps happened to be up a narrow metal ladder. Covered in grease.
“Did you have to make it on top of this place?” Shinsou gripes, looking at his own scuffed hands like he can’t believe he had to dirty them so.
“Yes,” Aizawa answers bluntly.
Shinsou watches Aizawa warily. “Smoking’s a bad habit.”
“So is talking back,” Aizawa returns, taking another long pull and blowing the smoke upwards. He pauses for a moment, waiting for Shinsou to prompt him to speak, but the boy doesn’t, just slumps back against the wall, the tips of his violet hair in contrast to the dreary grey of the skies above them. “I’m investigating a couple of staged suicides,” Aizawa finally begins to unwind. It occurs to him that this is the first time he’s spelled it out to anyone in his own words.
“Staged?” Shinsou echoes with such scathing Aizawa could be fooled for mistaking who’s testing who in this situation.
“I think someone with a brainwashing quirk is making people kill themselves,” Aizawa rephrases without room for doubt. He sees the infuriated twist in Shinsou’s expression, like a drawstring pulling all the tension in his face tight. “I’ve spoken to a criminal expert in this field, who directed me to the work of Dr. Shinsou Masaru.”
“Was it a psych?” Shinsou offers cautiously, and Aizawa nods. “Fucking creeps,” Shinsou mutters in a way that rings true for Aizawa’s own feelings about his time with Dr. Iwaya.
“So that’s one thing we agree on,” Aizawa offers up, and there’s a glint of something brighter in Shinsou’s gaze on him. Aizawa takes another drag on his cigarette and stubs it out next to him. “Apparently, your father destroyed all his records before…” Aizawa hesitates for just a moment, but it’s enough to cede control. Of the conversation, that is.
“Before he killed all his students,” Shinsou finishes for him with sterile detachment. “You don’t have to tread so lightly around me, I’m pretty familiar with what my dad did to the people who idolised him.” There’s a pause, before a more malicious air takes over. “I’m not gonna snap or anything.”
“You’d better not,” Aizawa remarks. “The things you might see in connection with this case are distressing, even to people with years of experience.”
“You mean, everyone shits their pants when it comes to quirks like mine,” Shinsou puts without pretence. “Are we going to reach a point where you stop telling me things I already know anytime soon?”
“I think the killer’s quirk requires her to write on people to gain control of them,” Aizawa spits like a tack. “Have you ever heard of someone with a quirk like that?”
“Me? No,” Shinsou answers sullenly. “My… that man was already half-looney when I came along, and I never wanted to be part of his research.” The ugly silence holds for a few moments, and under the prickly heat of Aizawa’s gaze, Shinsou relents to reveal a little more. “But if there was anyone with a quirk like that… at least before he was locked up, my old man would know about them.” Shinsou scuffs one of his shoes on the rooftop – trainers that wouldn’t be that clean if he exercised in them enough. From head to toe, the boy looks one thing: untested. “He must have had every kid with a mentalist quirk in the country through his clinic at some point. They flew in from all over the world, just to be assessed by him.”
“That’s as I thought,” Aizawa muses. “Unfortunately.”
“Why’s it suck for you?” Shinsou replies curtly. “I’m the one related to him.”
“It means we do have to meet him,” Aizawa tries not to sigh, but it’s a hard temptation to resist.
“Isn’t that what you wanted all along?” Shinsou catches out with that prime fifteen-year-old obnoxiousness, and Aizawa’s already annoyed with this kid.
“I never want to visit an insane criminal mastermind to play hunt-the-lead,” Aizawa snaps even more bluntly than he’d be in a classroom, which is already pretty fucking blunt. “I don’t imagine you’re keen on it either.” By the grimace on Shinsou’s face, so far the primary observation from this conversation is that they are well-disposed for pushing each other’s buttons. Which isn’t a great start.
“Oh yeah, I’m just falling over myself to see dear old dad again,” Shinsou snarks. “How’s it going, Pa? Get any more prison guards to swallow their tongues lately?”
“That’s… not possible,” Aizawa says dangerously, not wanting to believe it more than he thinks Shinsou would make something like that up.
“Tell that to the family of the guard who suffocated to death,” Shinsou retorts viciously; even if it is true, Aizawa doesn’t want to know. “If you’re serious about meeting him, you sure as hell better go in prepared.”
Aizawa says, “Then tell me what I need to know.”
“Not so fast,” Shinsou puts up like tossing trashcans in front of Aizawa as he’s pursued down an alleyway. “What do I get in return?”
“We’ve been over this,” Aizawa says dryly.
“Not in enough detail.” Shinsou actually gets up now, walking across to Aizawa. Still being seated, Shinsou towers over Aizawa. He might even be as tall as Aizawa – at least including the hair. “Use me to get access to that nutjob by all means, but I want something out of it too.”
“You work the case with me,” Aizawa deals out like bullets to slot into a game of russian roulette. “You get to see an underground Hero in action.”
Shinsou thinks on it. “So I’m your intern.”
“You’re not even close to licensed, so no,” Aizawa puts to rest swiftly. “But you could call it a… work placement.” Aizawa gets cagey; this isn’t the sort of thing he does, professionally speaking. As much as he tries and fails, his teaching life isn’t meant to run into his pro Hero life like crayon colouring over the lines. “Strictly off the record.”
“Of course,” Shinsou murmurs sourly. “Wouldn’t want the scary brainwashing kid to be seen actually doing anything too Heroic, right?”
“If you only want to be a Hero for the acclaim, drop out now,” Aizawa cuts coarsely, like taking the rough edges off a cutout before he goes over with a fine scalpel later. “When an underground Hero does their job well, no one knows they’ve done anything at all. You’ll get no praise for what you do right, and all the blame for what goes wrong. If that’s a problem-”
“That’s fine,” Shinsou rushes like he’s feeling a little foolish – good, that was the point. “I just want to do something good.” He pauses, kicking the rooftop like its done anything to deserve it. “For once.”
“Then help me stop more people from dying,” Aizawa puts to him sternly.
“Alright.” Shinsou slides his hands out of his pockets, and for a moment Aizawa thinks he’s going to hold out his hand to shake, but he doesn’t. Just stands there, arms lax by his sides and a look too haggard for any fifteen year old to rightfully be. “I’m in.”
Notes:
THERE WE GO. That's what this shit's ABOUT TO BE ABOUT, y'all. This is why I had to get this chapter up, and chose to drop it at the weekend, no less. It was too much of a temptation to resist.
Soooo also Present Mic with tattoos is one of those things I've seen in fanart and was like 'Oh yes, that's correct' so that's just what you get now. Just as I can believe that the times we see Mic and Aizawa interacting in canon and that be 100% accurate and then when they're alone together they act like... they do here, Mic can *not* have tattoos on the parts of him we see in canon, and then basically everywhere else be covered in ink. It's what's in my heart for him.
Same goes for my take on their backstory, which is one of those things where I have an idea for how I think they ended up together, but it's not a *story* in itself. Plus, this fandom already has a decent amount of good get-together Erasermic fics, so this is one of those rare occasions where I default to a pre-established relationship because it feels right for the context. This story isn't about their relationship, but it's still something that'll be featured throughout, on which note one of the BEST things about the Erasermic combo (for me) is keeping that feeling of two people who are clearly best friends as well as lovers, so I really love capturing that side of them as much as the romantic stuff. I'm basically a thirsty bitch for open-ended intimacy.
On which point... he's HERE. MY SON PURPLE CARROT TOP (his actual handle in my notes for this fic) IS HERE. He's HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HEREEEEEEEEEEEE.
*coughs and regains composure* So yeah, a new chapter'll probably be out around the end of the week. Probs.
Chapter 4: Night Falls
Summary:
Aizawa and his baggage get used to each other. It's a bumpy ride.
Notes:
New update new update new update! He's HERE my grape flavoured pushpop is HERE and we get to see him DOING THINGS and I'm so excited.
After the dizzying popularity of my last fic (a lil kacchako known as Don't Ask Don't Tell), I promised my new story would tank in comparison. People didn't believe me, insisted they'd love anything I wrote for a next project, but I proved them all wrong! This story has had a lot less traction, but that's just an observation rather than a complaint. This fic is simply a less popular vehicle than teen-centric cute rom-com feels. I'm gonna HAVE feels in this story and they'll be very big ones, but it's just playing to different crowds, you know? (I like this crowd more anyway, more my speed/tastes)
Also this story is going to run for a LONG long time so I expect to build some momentum, y'all gonna be my mystery bitches before this is through.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“So now what?” Shinsou asks, and that’s the question Aizawa’s been figuring out all day. Next steps: including this brat.
“Call the prison,” Aizawa lays out as if he’s just coming up with the plan, and wasn’t already set on his course of action before Shinsou ever showed up. This is plan A, which doesn’t mean Aizawa’s got no B, C and D. “Set up a meeting.”
“That might take a while,” Shinsou replies warily. “It’s not exactly a ‘call and waltz in’ kind of lockup.”
“You get it done, or more people die,” Aizawa explains simply. There’s no way Shinsou would be able to know if Aizawa's plan is premeditated; then again, Aizawa has no true measure of what this kid’s quirk could do if he gets in through the door to his mind. Aizawa’s guard remains firmly up.
Shinsou demands, “What makes you so sure this person’s going to strike again?”
“Call it experience,” Aizawa says morosely as he stands. “Or hey, wait to find out if you’re wrong. It’s just someone’s life.”
“Alright, alright,” Shinsou grinds like he’s polishing stone with high pressured jets of water. “I’ll see what I can do.” Aizawa is pleased to be making inroads with the boy – how to get under his skin, in any case.
“Use my phone.” Aizawa pulls it out of his pocket and holds it out to Shinsou. Not only is his number untraceable, but everything said and received through it gets uploaded to remote storage in neatly portioned audio files he can pick up on the computer. There’s no harm in being careful. He’s even got the Warden’s number ready to call, leaked by a pal in the Police station basement.
“Right now?” Shinsou reacts like Aizawa is doing this as some kind of show for his benefit – a dry run before they actually start going to work. But they don’t have time for a tutorial level.
“No, make me wait for it,” Aizawa digs sarcastically. When he shakes the phone as an indicative gesture, Shinsou finally snatches it from his hand.
“Fine.” When he checks the screen, another question crosses Shinsou’s face in the worried lines of his frown, surmised in the words, “What number is this?”
“The Warden’s office at the prison,” Aizawa replies coolly. “I took the liberty of finding it.” It wasn’t too hard to get this number thankfully – Kuwabara wasn’t always a Police mortician, and has met some interesting people in her long and esteemed career riddled with infamy.
“Tch, you really had this whole thing all worked out,” Shinsou murmurs as he stares at the screen and stalls, while Aizawa’s sense of urgency starts to itch. Keep pushing forwards or risk breaking down. That’s the rule he’s always lived by.
“If you didn’t show up I’d call him myself, so it wouldn’t have mattered either way. But yes,” Aizawa rails off disinterestedly, waiting for this conversation to just be over. “I’ve already anticipated what you’re going to do, before you even do. Get used to that.”
There’s a moment when Aizawa suddenly wants to stare Shinsou down preventatively, in case the boy’s even thinking of using his quirk – simply because Aizawa has made himself vulnerable to it. But he told Shinsou that if he did it again this… whatever it is, would end. Aizawa has to trust that Shinsou’s taking this seriously, and would never do anything that dumb.
A beat later, Shinsou presses dial and puts the phone to his ear. Not so dumb after all. “What’s his name?”
“Who?” Aizawa asks, then realises as soon as he says it – in time with Shinsou’s impetuous eyeroll – what the answer is. “Mr. Tanaka.”
“Ah, hello? Mr. Tanaka?” Shinsou picks up seamlessly, and Aizawa falls mute as his easy ticket in goes up for play. “My name’s Shinsou Hitoshi. I’d like to meet with my father.” Dead silence for a moment. “Yes, that father.” Shinsou’s eyes narrow to letterboxes over dark panda-eyes that Aizawa can’t help but recognise: takes an insomniac to know one. Aizawa can’t deny that there’s a hell of a lot about Shinsou that reminds him of himself when he was younger.
Though it’s not an exact match; Shinsou’s got an air for melodrama that Aizawa’s sorely lacking, going by the exasperated face he makes as he listens to the Warden talk. “Well, the weekend would be great, but could you make it a little sooner? I…” Hesitation, followed by a narrow glance sideways at Aizawa before Shinsou finishes, “miss him.” Silence again. “Yes, a boy does only get one father, doesn’t he?” Aizawa gestures at himself indicatively, and without a moment of doubt Shinsou adds an easy, “Oh, and I’ll be bringing someone with me, a security detail of sorts. That’s alright with you, isn’t it?”
It’s the way Shinsou draws his questions like cards out of a deck that gives Aizawa a thought about whether his quirk would work over the phone. Followed by another thought about how Shinsou could easily be having a conversation that seems like free will from this side in order to seem like…
Too complex, Aizawa decides before setting the thought aside. He has the recordings if he really wants to check whether Tanaka is responding normally, and there’s no way Shinsou could hold someone under his quirk – remotely – for long enough to allow a high-security prison visit. What’s more alarming is that Aizawa has the thought at all, purely because of Shinsou’s quirk. “Read his book,” Aizawa hears in Shinsou’s most jaded voice, followed by Nezu’s “revolutionised understanding.” Perhaps even Aizawa’s own bias needs checking; that inherent fear of someone with a key to the backdoor of his mind. Shinsou’s just a kid. One who wants to be a Hero, no less.
“Tomorrow would be great. Thank you, Mr. Tanaka.” Shinsou rolls his eyes again. “Oh yes, I’ll be there on the dot. I understand. Goodbye.” Hanging up the phone, Shinsou offers it back to Aizawa and says, “Five p.m.” Then without missing a beat Shinsou follows up, “So now that’s out of the way, there’s a couple of things I’d like us to do.”
Aizawa’s about to respond, and then… doesn’t.
Shinsou loses patience. “I’m not gonna use my quirk on you.”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me what,” Aizawa replies like a parent knocking away a child’s jam-covered hands from their good suit. “I haven’t got all day.”
It’s a simple request. Logical. Yet it surprises Aizawa. Somehow, this is the one thing he didn’t see coming. “I want you to train me.”
It doesn’t take a genius to work out what Shinsou is asking for; what anyone who wants to be a Hero would ask for, especially after being pushed into General Studies to watch and envy the easy-choice quirks get the first pick. It also can’t be denied that Shinsou’s come through UA’s doors at a bad time. When Aizawa was young, quirks on the whole were less common, meaning less competition for a place on UA’s conveyor belt to greatness. And the entrance exam had been different – less unfair, Aizawa would call it.
When Aizawa had applied to UA, he’d been able to battle people posing as villains rather than robots, giving him the chance to prove his right to be on the Hero Course in a way Shinsou never had. And even though the deck was stacked against Shinsou from the start, he's still trying, head not completely pushed down yet. His initiative is alive and kicking, by the way he handled that phone call.
“Alright, but you can’t tell anyone about this,” Aizawa grants with a sense of this already being several steps more complicated than he likes any arrangement to be. But he has to keep digging, even if it turns out to be his own grave. “Not even the Principal.”
“Seriously?” Shinsou says scathingly. “Are we gonna get in trouble?”
“Not if you keep quiet,” Aizawa issues clearly. “It’s easier this way, trust me.”
“I’ll trust you when you start trusting me,” Shinsou turns back on Aizawa as quickly as if he were flipping a switchblade.
Shinsou’s got him there.
“You'll be trusted when you earn it,” Aizawa says sternly, and then steps up onto the edge of the short wall bordering the convenience store roof. “In the meantime, try to keep up.”
Aizawa runs along the ledge and jumps, comfortably making the distance between buildings and landing without losing momentum, already on the other side of that building when he stops to watch Shinsou follow: he makes the jump, but lands like shit. Aizawa doesn't wait any longer and turns back around to launch himself into the next jump, speeding across the flat rooftop before treading lightly over a tiled one.
Next, Aizawa hits a wall and scales it like water pouring upwards. It's a little high, but not so high that Shinsou shouldn't be able to make it, though Aizawa doesn't wait to find out. When he reaches the end of the block, Aizawa throws a piece of his capture weapon around a railing and jumps off the edge, letting the material coast through his roughened hands to part-abseil, part-throws himself down to the ground, breaking his fall with practiced ease and leaving the wrap there as he waits for Shinsou’s first attempt to keep up.
Shinsou hesitates at the top, which is the first mistake, fucks around too much deciding what he’s going to do to get down, and climbs down the capture weapon like a rope for a very awkward couple of metres before realising its friction is such that he can loop it around himself and coast. By the end he makes it look vaguely on-purpose, but for the most part Shinsou descends the building with the grace of a drunk spider.
Aizawa’s got his work cut out.
Shinsou is so distracted by the sound of Aizawa’s phone going off that he trips over an air vent and goes down like a felled tree. Once he hits the rooftop he stays there, half-bracing himself on his hands but mostly staring at Aizawa in utter astonishment. It’s not always like that, but this is a special caller.
“Yeah?” Aizawa picks it up as quickly as he can, which is the only way to stop both the hideous ringtone and Hizashi from calling back, should he deign not to answer.
“Where are you?” Aizawa looks around. Shinsou’s ‘training’ has primarily taken the form of keep-up-parkour, which is an easy way to manage patrols while giving the kid something to sweat over. While Shinsou’s not completely useless, he still wouldn’t keep up with even the slowest kids in Aizawa’s class. That has to change.
By finding his way across rooftops, running slackline bridges of his capture weapon between buildings when the jumps are too large for Shinsou, Aizawa pursued a route that gave the most challenging terrain without being completely beyond the kid's ability. Still beyond it, but Aizawa is a deep-end, sink-or-swim kind of teacher – always has been.
What he isn’t, though, is entirely sure of his surroundings. In fact, Aizawa was so tuned out on scouting the streets, picking an obstacle course out of the rooftop-playground, mulling over the case and upcoming visit with the infamous Dr. Shinsou all at the same time, that it could be said he has no fucking clue where he is. He’s got an approximate idea, but ‘half an hour’s freerun from school’ makes for quite a big circle of possibilities. “I don’t know.”
“Typical. I’m going for drinks with Kayama at that barbecue place we like. Come have dinner with us.”
“Not right now,” Aizawa replies, knowing exactly which place and remembering that he does, in fact, have some semblance of a social life that he’s consistently avoiding. “I’m…” Shinsou gets up, brushing his uniform down with jaded stiffness, “busy.”
“Still working, huh?”
Aizawa doesn’t – can’t, really – lie to Hizashi. It’s been proven not to work. But he can twist the truth a little, and the only reason Aizawa is training Shinsou is for work; at least, that’s the reasoning he’s used to convince himself. There is something else, which Aizawa’s really trying not to dwell on because he doesn’t like complicated and playing favourites – much less a kid not in his class, not even in his course.
“Sorta,” Aizawa turns his head away as he replies. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Kayama says don’t be a basic bitch and come get drunk with us.”
“She would.” Aizawa sees Shinsou pretending he’s at a bus stop and not eavesdropping on Aizawa’s conversation, but there’s nothing he can do about it really. “Later, okay?” Aizawa tries a flicking, go-away of a hand gesture to shoo Shinsou like a pigeon, but Shinsou just lifts an eyebrow. He’s almost as good at it as Aizawa is.
“Okay, okay, later baby.”
“Bye.” Aizawa hangs up and avoids the stare Shinsou is shining like a spotlight in his direction.
“Your old lady giving you trouble?” Shinsou suggests in a way he clearly thinks is wry – as if he’s oh so grown up to talk the way he does. But it just makes him seem even younger.
“Something like that,” Aizawa replies with true wryness to put Shinsou’s to shame. “I didn’t say you could stop.”
“You said to follow you, and you stopped.”
Aizawa stops himself right before breaking into an argument with a literal teenager, and looks around at his surroundings again. “Do you know where we are?”
Shinsou looks shocked. More accurately, he looks like Aizawa’s just unzipped his jumpsuit and stepped out wearing a shimmering skin-tight leisure suit underneath and declared his secret-secret identity as a diva. Shinsou looks like his whole world realigned with the discovery that Aizawa could not know something as basic as their location.
Except Aizawa’s still completely attuned to everything around him, every potential threat and hazard, from the old lady crossing the road to the family of three being watched by a couple of sketchy-looking teenagers loitering around a convenience store on the street below them. He’s aware of everything he needs to know off the top of his head in order to do his job, which is being a Hero. Where he is, exactly, at all times – or even what time of day it is – isn’t always necessary. So until there’s somewhere he needs to go, where Aizawa is geographically speaking often comes down more to chance than foresight.
“I thought you knew where we were going,” Shinsou protests like it’s an affront Aizawa could have led him around for no other reason than to make him run, even though he asked to be trained in the first place.
“Wasn’t important,” Aizawa dismisses, and movement in his peripheral vision draws his attention. The teens outside the convenience store give a nod that’s not for one another’s benefit and skulk away, while the alleyway alongside them echoes with heavy footsteps.
That sense Aizawa’s developed like the flex of a phantom limb twitches; a just-before-ness that hits him like it comes straight from the spinal cord. He moves to the edge of the rooftop and peers down the alleyway. Big men in bandanas, aggressive quirks by the looks of the spikes on one of them, heading right for the convenience store. “Wait here.” Aizawa flings his capture weapon around the end of the vent Shinsou tripped over and breaks into a dash, leaping off the edge of the building and freefalling before the tether picks up his weight and he swings down into the alleyway.
The would-be robbers don't see Aizawa coming until he's right behind them, almost between their large shoulders – each of them is about twice as wide across as he is, and a solid head taller. The spiked man has points easily sharp enough to take someone's eye out.
“If you're planning a robbery, having your weapons out before you're even in the store is a particularly idiotic move.” Aizawa announces his presence to the couple, who jump around raising a nail-studded baseball bat that could easily have someone's other eye out.
They aren’t actually robbing the store yet, so Aizawa waits for an aggressive reaction that will prove guilt – and gets one. The baseball bat swinging for his head.
Aizawa ducks and kicks one assailant in the knee while he loops a strip of his capture weapon around the other’s foot and pulls, sweeping the opponent’s leg out from under him so he falls on his ass. Suddenly, from behind Aizawa comes a question that throws them all off.
“So was it your mother I fucked last night?” Shinsou announces from the end of the alleyway Aizawa and the crooks are in, shifting his gaze from one of them to the other. “Or yours?” For a brat without any hair on his chin – like he's fucked anyone – Shinsou sure knows how to smack talk as if he has some experience. There's a momentary, stunned pause before he continues. “She told me her son was homely, but let's face it. You both clearly fell from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
Shock turns to indignation, particularly in the eyes of the robber with the spikes on his shoulders; how anyone thinks Shinsou can tell if they're ugly under the bandanas covering their faces is beyond comprehension, but these two clearly aren't smart enough to pick up on that. “Why you-” is how far the fool gets into responding before he blanks out, like a file that's been corrupted and just ceases to run.
“That's better,” Shinsou remarks calmly, and then around the time the robber Aizawa tripped gets back up he simply says, “Now go ahead and knock your buddy there out for me.”
Several things happen after that: spiky-robber punches baseball-bat-robber in the face and he drops like a ton of bricks from the top of Tokyo Tower; Aizawa uses his quirk with his gaze fixed wholly on Shinsou, meaning Spikes wakes up; and then a moment after that Aizawa punches the remaining criminal with an upward blow to the chin and he goes down like a second ton of bricks.
“I told you to wait.” Aizawa’s cold with anger. “What you just did was illegal.”
“Did I do anything?” Shinsou poses coyly. “Maybe I'm just very persuasive.”
“I'm serious.” Aizawa takes a step closer. “I had the situation under control.”
“So did I,” Shinsou replies, and that rational voice in Aizawa's head tells him ‘don't argue with teenagers’ one more time, lest he let the mantra slip.
“If you were in my class, I'd expel you on the spot for that,” Aizawa tells him and means it.
“Then it's a good thing I'm not, huh?” Shinsou replies nonchalantly, and Aizawa takes another step towards him, so they're standing almost toe-to-toe.
“That was your second chance, Shinsou,” he says quietly. “One more and you're out.”
“Then who gets you into prison tomorrow?” Shinsou contests smugly, like he thinks he has leverage worth shit. If Aizawa had been a model of composure before, now he's actually annoyed. But Aizawa was already annoyed before, so now he’s pissed.
A handful of cloth flies from a minimal move of Aizawa’s wrist and wraps around Shinsou, binding his arms to his side and closing that final short space between them, so Aizawa’s face is right at the level of Shinsou’s eyes and purple geyser of hair. Aizawa lifts him off the ground in a cocoon he could crush instead of leaving to turn into a butterfly. “If you think I won’t take you to the police and report you for illegal use of your brainwashing quirk, think again, kid.” Shinsou’s looking a bit more like he’s rapidly reconsidering his attitude. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yeah.” Shinsou has the decency to look abashed at least, though he could be a lot more so as far as Aizawa’s concerned.
“Yeah what?” Aizawa, as a rule, isn’t about formalities or showing respect for authority. Especially if the authority is misguided with his personal ideals. But he appreciates there’s a point to it, and for a stupid kid incapable of knowing exactly how stupid they are, it can be useful to crack that particular whip sometimes.
Shinsou knows it too, though he looks terribly uncomfortable, even after Aizawa releases the teen and the mummy-wraps binding him. “Yeah… sir.”
Aizawa coils his capture weapon around his shoulders with practiced ease and glances at the unconscious thugs on the ground. For how ineffective Shinsou’s quirk is in simulations designed to prepare young Heroes to fight crime in the field, it’s frighteningly well-suited to the realities of combat. Despite all his misplaced ego, Shinsou’s got greater potential than he knows. Aizawa can see it through his world-wearied eyes: the situations that could be controlled, chains of events that could be diverted, people who could be saved if their free will to do harm was stripped away from them with a simple question-and-answer takeover.
Anyone who thinks Shinsou’s quirk is only suited to villainy is stupid and wrong.
But he’s not ready to hear that yet, so Aizawa just crosses his arms. “Don’t you forget it.”
Shinsou’s not much good for heavy lifting, and even Aizawa struggles with two unconscious men who, combined, must make up at least three times his own weight. Not to mention one of them has sharp bits that dig a hole through his jumpsuit – and skin – the first time he tries lifting them both at the same time.
What Shinsou does contribute is to ‘borrow’ a shopping trolley from a nearby store – he insists he didn’t use his quirk, so probably nicked it. But it’s useful, so Aizawa dumps the men in there one after the other like a buy-one-get-one-free deal on lowlifes.
That’s how he comes to wheel them into the nearest police station with Shinsou three paces behind him. It looks like a pretty weird shopping trip overall, not helped by his phone ringing again – and that ringtone, obviously – while he’s filling out details for the police report on the would-be armed robbers.
“Shotaaaaaa,” Hizashi drawls, and Aizawa can pinpoint almost exactly how many beers in he is by how long he drags out the last vowel. “Come for a drink.”
“You’ve had enough for the both of us,” Aizawa replies wearily, and hears a background scuffle down the line that can only be Kayama trying to grab the phone off him.
He doesn’t catch the start of what she’s trying to yell into the phone in the meantime, but the end definitely goes something like “lameass no-fun trashman who doesn’t deserve Yamada!” This is followed by a distinct, “Kampai!”
“I’m at the police station,” Aizawa explains. “When I’ve wrapped things up here I’ll-”
“Shitty loser excuse!” Kayama succeeds in getting the phone off Hizashi. “Get your tight lil’ ass over here!”
“I’m working.”
“Then work faster, bitch!” Kayama hits a pitch so shrill Aizawa pulls the phone away from his ear with a flinch; the police officer at the desk and Shinsou give him matching sceptical looks.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there…” Aizawa defers, then after a heaving breath that’s a sigh without energy for exasperation adds, “eventually.”
“Don’t lie to us you basic-ass motherfucker!” Kayama belts like snapping one of her (many) whips. Aizawa rolls his eyes, not that anyone on the phone can see it. “If you’re not here in an hour I’m having sex with Yamada in the bathroom. Don’t think I won’t do it!” It’s a classic Kayama threat, one she’ll never act on, probably – even if she did, it’s never had much traction with Aizawa. He hasn’t got a jealous bone in his body, though Kayama insists she’ll find it one day.
“Later, Kayama.” She’s still cussing him out when he hangs up.
“Your missus is kinda clingy, huh?” Shinsou teases like he thinks he’s smart.
Aizawa rolls his eyes another time. “You have no idea.”
They’re about to leave the police station when all hell breaks loose. Police officers start rushing frantically out the station doors like red blood cells shooting through arteries. Aizawa manages to snag one that’s dragging their feet and asks, “What’s going on?”
“Someone took a dive off a nearby building,” the officer relates frantically. “A big crowd gathered trying to talk the guy down, but it was no good. Everyone’s freaking out, apparently he changed his mind on the way down.” The officer looks panicked, running like a lemming for cliffs. There's a common misconception about lemmings: they never went intentionally, but were driven over the edge on purpose. “Who does that?”
Aizawa looks at Shinsou, who’s staring dead back at him in a way that shows his age all at once. Maybe the reality is beginning to sink in a little. Real lives, real deaths. You try to stop the next victim, and sometimes the clock runs out anyway.
Turning to Shinsou with a small movement of his head, Aizawa murmurs, “Let’s check it out.”
If this is Shinsou’s first exposure to a dead body, it’s a hell of a way to start.
“Stick to the back of the crowd and keep your eyes open,” Aizawa tells Shinsou, who just nods. Not keen on getting close to the still-warm corpse in a slowly-spreading pool of blood on the curb, just visible through the slats of patrolling Police officers. The poor bastard hit the curb head-first and cracked like an egg. No walking this one off.
With almost an entire police station crowding the scene, cordoning the area off and directing the horrified onlookers away, it’s just a matter of time before the familiar faces show.
“Looks like you beat us to this one, Eraser,” Tamakawa announces as he approaches almost silently and sets a pawlike hand in padded gloves on Aizawa’s shoulder, making him jump very slightly – though enough for Shinsou to notice, going by the way his eyebrow hoists up his face with a ‘now that’s interesting’ observation. “Who’s this?” Tamakawa clocks Shinsou right away: kids at active crime scenes stick out a little like that. At least Shinsou has the sense not to be wearing his uniform. Black hoodie, unmarked. It’s subtle, but smart. The kid isn’t all dumb nativity – just mostly.
“Work experience,” Aizawa butts in before Shinsou can get a word in edgeways. “Can you get us close to the body?”
“Do you really want to?” Tamakawa suggests sceptically, but then shakes his head in a serious answer to the question. “Not in a crowd like this, I’m afraid. Even if it were our precinct.”
“He needs to be checked for markings,” Aizawa states plainly.
Tamakawa suggests morbidly, “Other than the mark the ground left on his skull?” Aizawa crosses his arms and meets a long, cat-eyed stare until his own start to itch. “I’ll see what I can do,” Tamakawa relents as Aizawa fumbles some eyedrops out of his pocket.
“Is there anyone who was on the scene before he jumped that we could talk to?” is Aizawa’s next question, head tipped back to drip a couple drops in each eye before he blinks it out.
“I’ll ask around, give me a few minutes,” Tamakawa replies, and then with another paddy-pawed pat of Aizawa’s shoulder is off weaving through the crowds, leaving Aizawa chief babysitter of Shinsou – and now Yamaguichi.
“How are you holding up, Eraserhead?” Yamaguichi asks, but it’s not him she should be concerned about.
“Better than that guy,” Aizawa replies grimly, and notices Yamaguichi and Shinsou eyeing each other with great curiosity met with suspicion; too many newbies in this mix for anyone’s good. “How did you get out here so fast?”
“We were on patrol in the car when we heard it coming in,” Yamaguichi explains awkwardly. “Based on the… Tamakawa thought we should check it out.”
“So did we,” Aizawa affirms. “They’re dropping like flies.” Only after he says it does Aizawa notice how ill-placed such a comment is for the context, but no helping that now. “What do you know about this building?”
“Uh… well I… um.” Yamaguichi clearly knows nothing, based on the start of her awkward rambling. Why she started replying might be chalked up to nerves – Shinsou is definitely staring her out the way a crocodile examines one of the birds that picks in between its teeth.
“You don’t know? It’s a famous hostess club,” a nearby civilian offers up. “Imagine getting shot down that badly in a place where the girls are paid to like you.”
“Hm,” is all Aizawa has to offer on the subject thus far, then turns to the stranger. A man of indiscriminate middle age with a truly self-deceiving comb-over that’s not fooling anyone, and not looking quite as remorseful as decency permits in such a setting. The kind of guy who would know exactly what kind of place this building is by merit of frequenting it before the police had the whole place evacuated. “Were you here when he jumped?”
“Sure was,” he almost gloats. “People were shouting all kinds of things, but he never even looked down. Like he was-” he trails off, losing the words.
“Hypnotised?” Aizawa suggests cautiously.
“Yeah!” the man bolts with recognition. “He didn’t seem scared to be standing on the edge, but then as soon as he stepped off screams blue murder. I DON’T WANNA DIEEEE!” the stranger recreates so brashly people all around them flinch. It could be suspicious, but Aizawa’s nose for that stuff isn’t picking anything up. This guy just seems like a cunt. “Bit late for second thoughts, huh?”
“Yeah.” Aizawa reflects on the fact that a lot of people are dirt. There’s not enough beer in all Tokyo to wash this bitterness out of his mouth. He could try, at least. That’s assuming he even makes it to the bar with Hizashi and Kayama in time.
“You shouldn’t speak that way of the dead!” Yamaguichi bursts, and the man seems affronted by the challenge.
“What does it matter now? The guy already smashed his brains in. Dead is dead.” This rubbernecker doesn’t even have the gall to look sorry. That’s the trouble with messy, public crime scenes like this. They attract the wrong sorts. “If you can’t handle that, maybe sensitive little ladies should stay out of the police force.” Yamaguichi goes red and seems paralysed by the shocked indignation, paused with her mouth half-open like she can’t believe what she’s hearing, much less process it fast enough to respond.
Aizawa feels his pulse throbbing in his neck, but before even he can react Shinsou comes in with a smooth, “Don’t you feel sorry for him?” The man looks a little disturbed to realise he’s in the company of a teenager, doubly-so one asking him demanding, borderline-accusatory questions.
“Why should I-” That’s how far the man gets before going all wiped-clean blackboard, and Aizawa feels his teeth clench together.
“Piss off,” Shinsou’s voice is quiet and controlled. “Go find a dumpster to lay in with the rest of the trash.”
Without saying another word – for reasons obvious to Aizawa and no one else – the man turns and walks away, ploughing through the crowd so obliviously they part for him like the red sea.
Yamaguichi looks utterly astonished. Shinsou’s watching Aizawa, and this is a tightrope moment for him if there ever was one. One more chance, Aizawa had said, but…
Watching the nasty man head straight for the nearest alleyway, before climbing into a heap of garbage piled up in it and laying down as if to take a nap, Aizawa’s kind of… glad. If he were going to hand Shinsou in, they’re literally in front of a police officer. So this is the moment, and they both know it. Except Shinsou didn’t do any harm, and if anyone deserves to awaken lying in garbage wondering what happened, it’s a piece of work like that.
So what Shinsou just did is totally against the law, but some rules have an inherent flex to them – at least when it comes to Aizawa’s interpretation. No one except licensed Heroes are meant to use their quirks in public, but it happens every day and the prisons don’t get filled with minor offenders. Speaking of prison, Shinsou has a point about how Aizawa would get into a maximum security one tomorrow without him.
“He actually… did it?” Yamaguchi says with dazed disbelief.
“Yeah.” Aizawa grabs Shinsou by the shoulder and grips hard; you’re cutting it close, but I’ll let it go this time, he conveys with the firmness he pulls the teen closer to him with. “The kid here can be very persuasive.” Shinsou glances sideways at Aizawa just as he’s doing the same thing, and their guilt will be compounded by such symmetry as their eyes meet. “It doesn’t look like there’s much for us to do here. Tell Tamakawa to give me a ring when he’s got some info.” Yamaguichi is a bit wet behind the ears still, but she’s not an idiot. They’d be smart to get out of here quickish.
“Ah… yes, I’ll tell him,” Yamaguchi replies in a slight fluster, then turns to Shinsou in even more of one. “I, uh… thanks, kid.”
Shinsou looks utterly shocked to be thanked for something he’s pretending not to have done, but what’s inalienable is that whether he (illegally) used his quirk or not, he still stuck up for her. It counts, and going by the way Shinsou’s face changes through a spectrum of emotions: confusion through to fear, but morphing into relief. Perhaps it hasn’t happened to him very often.
Aizawa knows he made the right call when Shinsou smiles and simply says, “You’re welcome.”
Notes:
This one goes out to the commenter who picked up on 'should Shinsou be exposed to the dead-people parts of this case?' I can now safely answer: probably not, but he's absolutely going to anyway. WOOHOOOOooooo murduRRRRRRRRR *skrees*
Oh and this is probably the first big moment for a topic we're going to spend a loooooooooooot of time on which is 'why brainwashing is actually an AMAZING quirk for a Hero to have and anyone who disagrees is wrong'. It's something very close to my heart, and the moralities/different angles that are opened up to us with Shinsou's quirk in a Heroic context are just *claps hands together* very exciting.
On a vaguely related note, I feel like a lot of the Aizawa & Shinsou fics I've seen out there so far do something very common in fanfic which is pre-establish a significant part of their relationship and then pick up from there. I bake all my character relationships (except Erasermic which is obvs canon) from scratch, so having these two starting out on slightly unsteady footing, without trust and even some ingrained bias/mistrust is just *chef kiss* the finest ingredients to bake a delicious character dynamic.
As usual, I can't wait to keep sharing this story... tune in again next week!
Chapter 5: The Next Chapter
Summary:
Aizawa finds himself a little more tied up than anticipated.
Notes:
In respects of this chapter title: Yes, I find myself hilarious at all times.
This goes out as a kind of spite-update, so in respect of the anonymous homophobe whose ass I kicked in last chapter's comments and would fight in the parking lot at the drop of a hat: just to be super clear, this is a story by a LGBT author which includes LGBT representation and if you don't like or agree with that I'd like to direct you to the back button. Y'all don't have to enjoy the Erasermic content in this story (though I know many of you do) but it is an honest attempt at a portrayal of a healthy, happy gay relationship and if you have an issue with that then you're wrong and I don't care for your support. If I could put this fic behind a 5 min. gay cumshot compilation to weed out the weaklings then I would, though I reckon A03 wouldn't like that much.
This chapter *particularly* is going to be a nice litmus test of these things, because I believe really strongly in positive representation, but it has to come from an organic place and be natural to the context of the story, rather than overblown and used like a prop that conforms to stereotypes (even ones that LGBT people don't always have a problem with). It's such a deep and important subject, so along with the gender themes that we're seeing introduced, you can bet your BUTT that sexuality will also play a part in the tapestry of this story - not always, and not for the sake of it, but in a way that real-life sexuality interacts with people's real-life experiences.
If that makes you uncomfortable, squicks you out or makes you think less of me as an author for my creative choices or decision to soapbox about them here: I literally don't give a fuck, I'm not making this for you and you're don't have to approve of my choices. This is my work, and this is me as a creator. Like it or get the hell out of my kitchen.
Just to give a vague heads-up on some of the stuff we're going to be visiting in this chapter: Midnight has a cameo. You *know* what kinda stuff she's into, and I'm not shying away from it. BDSM-haters beware ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“So now what?” Shinsou walks next to Aizawa for once, rather than several sullen feet behind him.
“I hope you understand what a fine line you walk with your quirk.” Aizawa knows this doesn’t have anything to do with the question Shinsou asked, and senses him bristle as they stride in no particular direction almost shoulder-to-shoulder. However, there’s no off-the-cuff denial like Aizawa initially feared. This is a talk they have to have, whether Shinsou likes it or not.
“You didn’t bust me earlier, so I musta done something right this time,” Shinsou mutters, his hands slipping into the pockets of the thick hoodie he has on in lieu of the too-easily-identified UA blazer.
“This time,” Aizawa concedes with an important air of reservation – use those chances wisely, lest they not be granted again. “So why did you do it?” If something was done well, they should understand why and turn that into a rule in their own words and thought; not just because an authority figure said so. It has no sticking power otherwise, and with a quirk like Shinsou’s that’s more important than ever.
Shinsou pieces it out reluctantly, like a handful of change across a convenience store counter. “I… it felt like the right thing to do.” Aizawa’s not trying to judge or penalise him for his choices – not when the chance to do so was back at the crime scene in front of Officer Yamaguichi. Instead Aizawa covered for him; this is the debrief, not the trial. “And that jackass deserved it.”
“He did,” Aizawa agrees. “But it won't always be that simple.”
“Shocking as it sounds, this isn’t the first time someone’s tried to lecture me on the moralities of my quirk.” Shinsou’s defensive, but then his guard has barely dropped anyway. He’s not relaxed or secure enough to be open yet. Aizawa understands that plenty well.
Aizawa sets Shinsou up to do what he wanted in the first place: to hear the rules as they sit in his own mind. “Then you tell me what the difference is.” Only then will he know where or how they need tweaking.
Shinsou proceeds like a cart needing a push to get over a starting-bump at the beginning of a downhill roll. “In the alleyway… I made one guy hit the other, and… intervened in a crime without a license. But that dickhead just dumped himself in the trash,” Shinsou pauses for a moment, “which is where he belonged anyway.” He shrugs and sighs in such synchronicity that it’s as if the weight of his shoulders pushes the breath out of his chest like a bellows. “Making a bastard lay in garbage isn’t a real crime, and doesn’t do him any lasting harm like those criminals could’ve done to each other using my quirk.” Or claiming to be under it, because how would a judge ever know whether Shinsou did or didn’t use his quirk? For all its power, Shinsou’s quirk makes him vulnerable too. An easy scapegoat that gets even easier with a villain for a father.
“It's all still coercion, so don't get too comfortable,” Aizawa points out. What Shinsou did is illegal, but he just gives Aizawa an ‘I know that’ sideways-eyeroll.
“I never asked for this quirk,” Shinsou grumbles, which makes it Aizawa's turn to eyeroll. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“No one gets to choose.” Aizawa had to work too, harder than he’s seen Shinsou work so far, to get where he is with (or without) his quirk. “We make the best of what comes to us by chance.”
“Jeez, teach. You're a regular prophet.” Shinsou makes out like some kind of spear-fisherman, as if he’s waded into the shallows, waiting to catch a glimpse of the soft spots in Aizawa's belly. He knows there’s a layer of intimacy-blocking distance between them, and wants to bridge it any way he can. “You could make a side-career writing fortune cookies with lines like that.”
“I've got enough jobs already,” Aizawa replies solidly. Current count: his day-teaching job, his underground Hero job, and now this night-teaching gig that's even further underground than his Hero work. And he's not even being paid for this.
“Yeah well, some of us start out with more than others,” Shinsou breaks into further grumbling. “We can't all be like Midoriya.”
“And a good thing too,” Aizawa insists. One of Midoriya is already plenty of migraine material. “The way you see others is rarely how they perceive themselves.”
“Another one for the cookies,” Shinsou baits. “Got any more for me?”
It occurs to Aizawa how constantly vulnerable he is to Shinsou’s quirk. He could use his own quirk to stop it, but if he pre-empts it too much he’s hammering home that air of mistrust. And would it be quite so terrible? He’d do better under the influence of Shinsou’s quirk than the guy who leapt from the rooftop did under the killer’s. “A lot of people would envy your quirk much the same as you envy others for theirs.”
“Villains, you mean,” Shinsou suggests in a tone that feels like it’d need scraping out the bottom of a barrel and even then wouldn’t be salvageable. “Or my dad’s fangirls.”
“No, I don't,” Aizawa contradicts like swinging a sledgehammer into drywall. “I shouldn't have to tell you the positive uses for your quirk, because aside from demonstrating them already today, twice, you wouldn't be so determined to be a Hero if you weren't aware of your potential. But like I said,” Aizawa tacks on with a faux-casual air. “You don't need me to tell you.”
Shinsou is tight-lipped, but even that doesn’t quite hide the smile pulling the corners of his mouth. “Guess not.”
“It’s even more reason to be careful,” Aizawa schools like he said it anyway, which he basically did. “You can't let people drag you down to their level.” Aizawa knows plenty about that, not that any of the stones naysayers tried to shove in his pockets were heavy enough to drown him.
“So you admit it?” Shinsou sounds out like he’s cracking the case, but they should be so lucky.
“What?”
“That people hate me on principle.”
“They fear you,” Aizawa corrects. “It’s not the same.”
“One thing leads to the other.”
“You think you’re unique in that respect,” Aizawa observes neutrally: standard teen. “You’re not.” Aizawa’s also been targeted for no other reason than the power his quirk holds over others. Not in quite the same way as Shinsou, but enough for it to make his school life miserable enough to occasionally wonder why he bothered from time to time; maybe that’s where this sudden burst of validation is coming from. “The best way to defy those who are afraid of what you can do is to succeed where they think you’ll fail.” Aizawa feels himself hesitate as a roster of no-good bullies and haters flash through his mind from the flicker-book of his own history. The ones he proved wrong. “Even if they never know it, being a Hero – a real Hero – is enough.”
“You think I can be a Hero?” It’s only when Shinsou asks that Aizawa realises it’s never been affirmed; at least, not as explicitly as in this conversation. Shinsou’s vulnerability when he does ask, the furtive glances at Aizawa that he doesn’t want to be noticed, are proof enough of why it’s only come up now. One by one, and without any true intention of doing so – just playing the hand through as it needs to be played – they’re each revealing their cards to one another. Wanting approval; wanting to give it.
A muffled voice of warning in the back of his mind tells Aizawa he’s being soft, letting his feelings of affinity and justice make him more sympathetic and less strict than he could and probably should be. But he’s not this kid’s real teacher, and no one is going to know if he has a favourite in his night-class of one.
To hell with it, Aizawa thinks. He’s said enough already – and what harm does the truth, does his frank and honest opinion do? Someone has to stick a hand out for the boy. To be believed in is a powerful thing.
“Yeah,” Aizawa admits like it’s more criminal than anything Shinsou’s done with his quirk, eyes to the ground and hands in his own pockets; they probably make quite an ominous pair strolling the dark streets like this. “I do.”
Aizawa asks where Shinsou lives and gets an approximate answer, ignores several increasingly suggestive selfies from Hizashi and Kayama, and is heading in the vague direction of Shinsou’s neighbourhood, rather than the bar, when his phone rings with a tone that's not criminally embarrassing.
Not that Aizawa cares enough to do anything about the ringtone thing. Hizashi’s just got a ten-year knack for finding ways to get to Aizawa, and this little ‘prank’ has been a long-running fixture of their relationship – romantic or otherwise. Aizawa stops on the corner of the wall bordering a pedestrian overpass he's made Shinsou scale with him rather than walk over, checks the ID on his phone and answers with a single, “Yeah?” Hello is overrated.
“I pulled some strings and got them to send the stiff from earlier to our morgue,” Tamakawa explains, sounding awfully tired. Aizawa can sympathise.
“Thanks, Tama,” slips out of Aizawa like the water from heavy rains pouring down a drain; he's far too soft this evening. “Good work.”
“You're… welcome. ” Tamakawa’s practically bashful, though Aizawa has expressed gratitude to him before. “I expect Kuwabara’s home for the night already, so you'd be best to wait til the morning to check it out. Could you come after school again?”
“Negative,” Aizawa answers. They've got a date with a cultish mass-murderer. “But I have a free period in the middle of the day, I'll stop by then.”
“Let me know when and I'll send Yamaguichi to pick you up,” Tamakawa offers, and then with a softer touch, “Whatever you and the kid did to lift her spirits, keep it up.”
“Just our jobs,” Aizawa replies firmly, even while shooting Shinsou a cautionary don't get any lofty ideas glare. Especially if he thinks he’s going to skip class to come with Aizawa, which he is not. That would be in clear violation of the Principal’s ‘do what you want with Shinsou, just keep it out of conflict with school’ recommendation.
Aizawa’s finally accepted he’s going to train this kid, drag him by the heels through knowing what he needs to know in order to make it as a Hero, which Shinsou sure as shit isn’t going to get in General Studies. But that doesn’t mean to the neglect of his general studies. Shinsou can make up what he misses in the Hero Course in night school; however, even Hero Course students spend most of the day in normal lessons. From among the chosen ones who made it onto the Hero Course in the first place, even they won’t all make it to be pros. They still need an education and a backup plan. Not that Aizawa ever had one.
“If only everyone was as dedicated to their work as you.” Tamakawa means to praise, but it just reminds Aizawa of the less severe workaholics who have been sending him taunting pictures of the fun they’re having without him.
“Nice thought, but I’m not sure it’d work,” Aizawa replies. Society would collapse in about eight days – which is how long it takes Aizawa to burn out when he lacks moderation from an outside party with stronger preservation instincts than he has. Namely: Hizashi. Speaking of which. “G’nite, Tama. See you tomorrow.”
“Try to get some rest, Eraser.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.” Aizawa hangs up and turns his attention back to Shinsou. “You should go home.” Shinsou shrugs, which isn’t a great start. “You’ll worry your mother.” This is a distinctly un-Aizawa like thing to say, but he’s trying to shift the kid on, and he’s still got one parent who isn’t completely loopy. Aizawa hopes.
“She’s still at work, won’t even know I’m gone.” Shinsou drops off the thin wall he was standing on and starts to climb the stairs normally. Aizawa follows, but only on the assumption this is the way towards his home. He doesn’t need to make sure Shinsou goes home, but with attitude like that Aizawa’s concern isn’t safety so much as being sure the brat does actually go – rather than skulking around getting himself into trouble now he has a taste for the way Aizawa works.
“Then go do your homework or something,” Aizawa nags, which is an inherent teacher prerogative. Though this isn’t exactly a conventional arrangement.
“Give me some, then,” Shinsou suggests, and that’s not what Aizawa meant. But if that’s the way Shinsou wants to play it, Aizawa will gladly indulge.
“Fifty pushups and a 5k run,” he answers without missing a beat. “Tomorrow morning, before school.”
“What? That’s not-” Shinsou’s belligerent moan dies so fast, if it were a bird it’d drop out of the sky midair. That might be because of Aizawa’s sternest “don’t test me” glare aimed straight between his eyes. “Yessir,” he drawls reluctantly instead.
Aizawa knew it from the start, but Shinsou’s over-reliance on his quirk not needing to be physical has caused him to neglect his fitness and strength. He’s not outright bad per se, but he’s got a long way to go if he’ll expect to pass a provisional license exam…
Aizawa feels the thought catch him like a fish hook through the lip, how far ahead his own thoughts have rushed in a single afternoon. How easy it is to project the path, to see himself helping this smart-mouthed brat achieve his goals where UA has failed him as an institution. It boils Aizawa’s blood just to think about it, much less if he allows himself to dwell on why the system must be wrong if a bright boy with more potential than half Aizawa’s actual students falls through the cracks so easily.
More than ever, Aizawa senses himself drifting into a dangerous situation: too close for objectivity. Compromised is what he calls it in his own mind. Getting fond of the kid is a simpler way to put it – not that he’d ever admit it.
In fact, the more Aizawa likes Shinsou, the harder he’s going to have to be on him.
So the boy better be ready.
Aizawa’s on the last stretch of his accidental escort mission to get Shinsou no-trouble-along-the-way back to his neighbourhood, if not actually seeing him to his front door. It’s been several hours since Hizashi and Kayama went out for dinner and drinks, so they might not even be at the same place anymore. Aizawa also hasn’t mortified any of the general public with that personalised ringtone in a suspiciously long amount of time.
So Aizawa does something that doesn’t happen all that often, and pulls out his phone to call Hizashi first.
In an even rarer turn of events, Hizashi isn't the one who answers.
“It's about time, fuckface.”
“Hi,” Aizawa greets Kayama in a careful monotone, conscious of Shinsou no doubt hanging on every word, eager for any scrap of Aizawa’s personal life that he can glean. “How is he?” If she's answering the phone, there's only a few things it could be; white-girl-wasted Hizashi is one of them. Loud, blonde, and probably squeezed into clothing a size too small for him.
“Oh, Yamanda’s just fine,” Kayama purrs in her best people-pay-me-for-this tone. “He's just a little tied up and can't come to the phone right now.” She pauses and gives a flirty laugh that makes the hair on the back of Aizawa's next stand on end. “Or at all.”
“So it's like that, huh?” Maybe it’s not the blackout drunk Hizashi scenario after all. Aizawa feels a lump in his throat that makes his voice hoarser, and can only imagine – not that it helps the rush of blood crashing south like floodwaters – what kind of artistry Kayama has worked on Hizashi this time. For someone who is very good at finding ways to tie up criminals for capture, even Aizawa bows to the mastery of ropework that Kayama uses for business and pleasure. She even indulges her friends with a demonstration from time to time – she’s a pal like that.
“Yeah. So get your ass home before you miss all the good stuff.”
Aizawa pauses for just a moment before answering, “Yes ma’am.” It's only slightly sarcastic, and Kayama’s delighted cackle promises the best kind of retribution.
“You know I hate being called that.”
Aizawa tries not to sound smug and fails. “That would be why I said it.”
“I'm going to make you pay for it when you get here.”
“Good,” he answers. “I'm leaving right now.” After Shinsou-sitting wraps up without any more drama.
“Better hurry, Yamada’s not a patient man.” Some background moaning is highly indicative of this well-known truth about the person Aizawa’s committed to spending the rest of his life with. However long that lasts.
Aizawa’s tone shifts like someone crossing their legs to cover-up a spontaneous erection. Which isn’t far from the truth. “Isn't that what you're there for?”
“Good point. But even I'm not waiting forever.”
“I know. Later.” Aizawa hangs up and has to hope Shinsou hasn’t noticed anything he shouldn’t. It doesn’t seem that way, going by the relatively uninterested look on his face.
Turns out, Aizawa doesn’t need to use his imagination. Kayama sends a picture so fast after the end of the call that his phone isn’t even in his pocket – though a second later that’s exactly where Aizawa hurriedly shoves it.
A lattice of ropes sits like the lead between panes of a stained-glass window, spread across the vibrant landscape of Hizashi’s back – and beyond. Not something that bears accidental-or-otherwise peeking at. Especially not by minors, and extra-especially not when it’s a picture of aforementioned minor’s English teacher. Not that a student would be able to recognise Hizashi from that particular angle anyway… Aizawa hazards a quick-and-guilty glance at Shinsou before announcing, “I have to go.”
“Right now?” Shinsou suggests with a touch of well-warranted suspicion.
“Exactly.” Aizawa just stops walking, knowing it’s the wrong way from where he needs to go in order to get home as fast as possible. Places to be, people to do.
“Are you in trouble at home or something?” Shinsou thinks he’s taunting, which makes the situation ironic enough that Aizawa smirks.
“Let’s go with that.” Aizawa never specifies what kind: such as the type he’s going to thoroughly enjoy. “See ya.” He gives a lax wave that’s meant to compensate for the thrum of excitement coursing through his veins.
“Wait,” Shinsou calls a little too urgently after as Aizawa starts walking in the other direction, and he very nearly openly scowls. “Where should I meet you tomorrow?”
Aizawa answers after a moment’s consideration, “Outside the same store we met at today.” His brain isn’t entirely dedicated to tomorrow-things right now, not with all the tonight-things he’s about to get stuck into.
“Okay.” Shinsou looks like he was enjoying the company more than he wanted to let on, his disappointment showing now this precious time with Aizawa is about to end. “See ya, teach.”
Aizawa resists the urge to sigh. How does he keep getting himself into these situations? “Bye.”
Aizawa makes it home in record time. Hizashi’s literally hanging on his return, so it’s the least he can do. Hizashi and Kayama did manage to wait – just – but the former’s state when Aizawa steps through the door is that of a drunk tightrope walker who’s been doing cartwheels along the wire all night, then been tied up with it. Or to put it another way: Hizashi has been edged to the point of insanity and back again, but in a really good way. Aizawa certainly isn’t going to make him wait much longer, nor does he fancy hanging around too long himself.
“Hands,” is Kayama’s only greeting-come-instruction when Aizawa steps through the door. Really it should be Midnight when she’s in her full garb and with boss-bitch mode on. Aizawa’s only taken one more step after that when Kayama kicks it shut with a stiletto heel and adds a follow up. “Strip first.”
For Aizawa, that only takes as long as undoing a long zip and belt, hurrying out of his boots and taking a third step as he lifts his hands, wrists almost together.
“No, behind your back tonight, I think,” Kayama lilts in a sing-song, like she’s reading off (dirty) nursery rhymes. Aizawa takes a fourth step and obliges. He’d argue, but he’s not in the mood; not with a view of Hizashi folded on the couch like an ornate piece of origami – if origami used rope instead of paper-folds.
There’s a vague mumble-moaning sound that’s presumably Hizashi, but as it happens his mouth doesn’t appear to be free enough to make anything more coherent than that.
It’d been a joke, at first: Kayama offering her ‘services’ to Aizawa and Hizashi. “A freebie” she’d insisted, half-drunk one evening and apparently in the mood to truss someone up just for the hell of it. “You might even like it. How’d you know if you’ve never tried?’ ”
That was years ago. Hizashi will try anything once as a matter of principle, so he’d been the critical second instigator. But after getting a sample, he’d wanted the whole scoop, again and again – so had Aizawa, as it happens. Not all the time, but hell if it doesn’t brighten up a dreary school night from time to time.
Turns out there’s no substitute for a good dominatrix – someone who knows exactly what they’re doing and loves doing it for its own sake. No sex required, at least not for her. Kayama tends to bemoan the overemphasis on “dick in vag” as a means to sexual pleasure, claiming there’s far purer pursuits of such ecstasy: and she'd know. By her own account after exactly two alcoholic beverages, not having a lot of sensation down there isn't and shouldn't be a barrier to great sex – which isn't all about coming, or so Kayama will rant at length given the opportunity. Aizawa wouldn’t really know, and consequently doesn’t worry about it; sex with Kayama isn’t really how their arrangement works.
How it does work is that she's the boss, Mistress technically, and doing what she says is not an opt-in situation. But that's never been a problem for Aizawa: giving up control is an intense relief for anyone who has to be so switched on all the time. Having to be responsible not just for himself and his inner circle, but all those well-intended baby ducklings in his classes every day. Sometimes the best way to relax is not being in control, not having to think at all. Following orders, knowing it will lead to exhausted, gratified relief. That's Aizawa's reasoning, at least; Hizashi’s just kinky as shit.
Aizawa's breath actually starts to even out, the excitement from his high-paced sprint home in anticipation turning into a slowing-down of submission. Long, controlled breaths that fall in time with the rhythmic tugs of the finely-spun hemp rope that Kayama can produce just about anywhere, anytime. Each exhale lets her pull the binding just a little bit tighter each time, working knots with practiced artistry up the length of Aizawa’s arms, drawing them together as the stretch pulls him into position like smoothing out a wrinkled sheet. Hell, this couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Yamada’s been very good and waited for you, Aizawa,” Kayama purrs devilishly from behind him as she knots him up like a boat by a dock. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Thanks,” Aizawa answers in a raspy tone, followed by a much more desperate, “I need this.”
Kayama finishes the section of bindings on Aizawa’s arms. “Mmm, I can tell,” she purrs as she leads into a connection that places careful, perfectly aligned layers of rope tantalisingly across Aizawa’s neck. The harder he pulls on his arms bound together behind his back, the tighter it’ll sit across his throat. But Kayama knows how much is just-before-too -much, so Aizawa can trust that he’s in safe hands. Just switch off, for a while. Submit.
When the binding is finally complete, there’s a pause before something leathery-feeling lightly brushes the back of Aizawa’s thighs. A flock of invisible moths funnel up the negative space that’s been created within his arms and the arch of his back. Kayama remarks with a girlish tone chock full of sadistic fun, “Let’s get started, shall we?”
Aizawa takes a deep breath, and feels a heavy pulse in his crotch. He’s ready.
For the first time in far too long, Aizawa sleeps for over eight gloriously uninterrupted hours. He wakes in the morning doubling up as Hizashi’s mattress, a rhythmic snore chugging in his ear that’s more effective than any alarm clock. Hizashi’s the taller of them – something he’ll never stop holding over Aizawa, often literally – but Aizawa’s got more mass. Which of those two things comes out at an advantage usually depends on what the contest is about; as much as anyone can ‘win’ at being better to lie on top of.
Aizawa shoves Hizashi off him and he flips like a pancake onto his back, mouth falling open to start snoring so loud their belongings vibrate on the nightstand. Pushing up on an elbow, Aizawa activates his quirk so Hizashi’s quirk-enhanced roar is no longer at risk of making the neighbours go bonkers – again. Then Aizawa closes his palm over Hizashi’s mouth, muffling the rest of the chainsaw-snore that’s almost as famous as his radio show.
It’s rare that Aizawa’s up first, but once he’s hit the saturation point of a good night’s sleep, the agony of waking is lighter and he’s wide-awake as soon as he stirs. Taking full advantage of the occasion, Aizawa’s content to simply watch Hizashi join him in the land of the waking.
This close, Aizawa can make out the fair tips of Hizashi’s eyelashes as they fan across his under-eye. He tints them, which Aizawa loves to tease him over but would never want Hizashi to stop. A Hizashi who’s not high-maintenance like a fancy poodle is no fun at all, and Aizawa is enough of a slob for both of them.
Eventually the clamp of Aizawa’s hands over Hizashi’s mouth like a jar lid becomes notable enough to rouse him from his beauty sleep. His eyelids lift like store shutters the owner only puts half-up before opening. Hizashi will be able to see Aizawa well enough at this distance, but he’s probably still a little blurry. Not that it matters.
Aizawa feels Hizashi’s mouth pull into a smile under his palm, and his eyes open far enough for him to make out their verdant colour in the morning light of the apartment.
“Mymoure mupp mmformme,” Hizashi mumbles past Aizawa’s hand, and he lifts it – but only to dip down and kiss Hizashi like a bobbing-bird desk toy. Hizashi puts one arm around Aizawa’s neck and starts to awkwardly flail the other in the direction of his nightstand. Ending the kiss the way one wraps up a leisurely countryside walk, Aizawa stretches over Hizashi to grab his glasses, setting them into Hizashi’s hand and falling back to rest on his side, head propped on his folded arm.
Aizawa yawns, but in a sense of shaking off the last vestiges of sleep like morning dew. “Last night was fun.”
“Says the guy who missed the prelude.” Hizashi yawns even wider as he slips his glasses on, and a flashback from Kayama’s orchestrated playtime dashes through Aizawa’s mind like a streaker. Hizashi’s mouth is so rarely closed, it makes sense he’s good at keeping it open wide for a truly pro-level face-fucking.
Perhaps the lascivious nature of Aizawa’s gaze is a giveaway, because when Hizashi pounces a moment later the kiss he delivers is a toaster in the bathtub of the morning-wood-mood. Aizawa lets it escalate, knowing that they have time and feeling the good kind of ache all over. “I wanna fuck you,” Hizashi mumbles while more or less chewing on Aizawa's neck. Somehow he can make saying it every time sound like it's the first, as if that’s not what Hizashi always wants and almost-always gets.
Even last night, at the end of a long and worthwhile journey to exhausted satisfaction; making Aizawa stretch himself out on a toy while Hizashi choked on his cock. Kayama took pity on them, Aizawa suspects – she’s softer than she lets on, even when she’s being tough.
Aizawa half-wrestles Hizashi off him, but purely for the struggle. They’ve fought each other in any-and-every-other capacity since they were teens; sparring remains a much-favoured pastime. So it’s with an only-slightly sarcastic croak that Aizawa replies, “And what’s new?”
Aizawa tells Hizashi a little more about the case on the drive in to work – the parts he needs to know, at least.
“... There’s something else,” Aizawa tacks on with an afterthought that almost feels guilty, tipped back in the passenger seat of the car Hizashi bought himself as his own 30th birthday present: Aizawa hates the train, and Hizashi hates being recognised when he’s just trying to get into work. So they don’t always drive in, but if they’re both going in together it’s the far more pleasant option.
“Let me guess,” Hizashi interjects as he corners a little aggressively for Aizawa’s preference; but if he doesn’t like Hizashi’s driving, he can get his own license and do it himself, so the familiar argument runs. “It’s about the kid in General you pinched from my class?”
“Shinsou,” Aizawa confirms, not that Hizashi needs the name, but it serves just as well as ‘yeah’. After a long pause of consideration, Aizawa shares an observation that’s periodically troubled him since the last sports festival. “When we were young, someone like that would have made it onto the Hero Course easily.”
Hizashi doesn’t answer right away, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel in the fingerless gloves he hides the ink on the back of his hands with; matching mouths of classic comedy and tragedy masks, positioned for him to hold over his jaw as if the smile or frown were his own. “So?” No denial, that’s good. Aizawa’s relieved not to have to argue this one with Hizashi, but that’s why they’re so great together.
“I just… feel for him.” Hizashi’s presence is like a touchstone that Aizawa cannot lie around; more than that – it draws the truth out of him like divining shapes from swirling smoke.
Hizashi’s questions have an eagle eyesight accuracy that his actual shortsightedness doesn't do justice to. “What’s that got to do with your case?”
“Well there’s an… arrangement,” Aizawa answers cagily. “Sort of like a work placement.” For Eraserhead, it has to go without saying.
Hizashi's humming a tune as if to make up for the lack of radio, then pauses to ask, “Does Nezu know?”
“As much as he needs to, which is nothing, professionally speaking." Aizawa shouldn’t feel so nervous – or not nervous, just on-edge – but he does. The Principal’s ignorance is by his own design, of course, and Hizashi’s sure to guess that. “It’s risky, but he’s smart.”
“He’s a hyper-intelligent little whatever-he-is.”
“No, Shinsou,” Aizawa clarifies, then afterwards decides – the shit-eating grin on his face is a dead giveaway – that Hizashi probably deliberately made the ‘mistake’ to make him admit it.
“So what’re you worried about?” That Hizashi’s reaction isn’t you-can’t-do-that outrage is an unsung, tacit approval that Aizawa needs more than he’s comfortable to admit. He doesn’t trust his own judgement on this as much as he would otherwise. He's never had an intern… work placement, whatever Shinsou is. So perhaps it feels stranger to him for the unfamiliarity rather than being inherently wrong.
Explaining things to Hizashi has also always been easier than doing so for anyone else, including Aizawa himself. So it feels natural to say, “It’s too complicated,” and only realise afterwards that it’s the simplest and best label for the simmering anxiety the situation’s been giving him. Working with other pros, police officers, and even Hero Course students are all a level of known experience Aizawa’s been able to frame in a way that doesn’t leave him feeling overextended. And in a way he’s not entirely able to place just yet, Shinsou makes Aizawa feel… exposed.
There’s too many blurry boundaries, all these conflicting opinions and personal hangups that stop the case being cut and dry: the way Aizawa tries and rarely succeeds at keeping his pro Hero work. But just the act of putting it into words – to Hizashi – helps to define the creeping monster, even if by the shape of its shadow. And with the real monster he’s going to meet soon enough, Aizawa needs to have his head in order. This helps.
“That’s life,” Hizashi replies lightly, then without missing a beat breaks into song, “That’s what all the people saaaaay~” He’s right of course: these things can’t be changed, they just have to be dealt with as best they can. “You're riding high in April… shot down in May!”
Aizawa’s going to have plenty to deal with soon enough, so for now he just tucks a hand behind his head and lets his human radio play.
Notes:
Me in the opening a/n: this is a HAPPY, HEALTHY GAY RELATIONSHIP.
Me in the closing a/n: BSDM IS WHOLESOME. Except really, it is (in this case).My Mic is a straight-up showtune singing freak, and that's exactly the way I love him :3
This is probably the naughtiest stuff we're gonna see for a while, and I can promise you it arose 100% organically months ago when I was first writing this story. It just made SENSE and it's LOGICAL so I don't know what to tell you other than this is the timeline I believe in and that's simply how it is.
Oh also shoutout to the distinctly separate spheres of being a dominatrix and fucking people. They're different and I would really love to see that being portrayed more in all kinds of media, because it's so desperately misunderstood as a subject.
Shinsou? Shinsou who- ohhhhhh, I gotcha. My son, purple carrot top. Last chapter, a commenter reflected on how Aizawa and Shinsou haven't started out on the best footing, but that's kind of... the point of having a character dynamic that evolves. Not that it's taking suuuuper long, but even then it's more satisfying to build from a climate of uncertainty than making it seem like a done deal from the outset. Gotta leave SOME tension in the air, yanno?
As you can see, we've already started heading into feelstown through the mentorship express. Chu chuuuuu~~~
See y'all next week(ish).
Chapter 6: The Professor
Summary:
Knowing thine enemy is one thing, but this is getting ridiculous.
Notes:
Oh, I'm sorry... were you waiting for this chapter? Looks like we finally made it... enjoy.
Hey also I should mention I guess that Silence of the Lambs & the Hannibal TV series are both iconic influences on this story. I'm not the hugest fan of horror or even thrillers (find them stressful when it's not from my own brain) but I do make exceptions for masterful examples of the genre, and those are both excellent in their own equally valid ways. Other influences include the Bogart & Bacall film The Big Sleep and detective stories in general which for me means straight up Sherlock Holmes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Going by the cheerful, “Good-day, Mr. Eraser!” that Yamaguichi belts when Aizawa opens the door and gets into her police car at the start of his first free class of the day, she's definitely in better spirits overall. It’s Aizawa's free period right before lunch, usually a time-honoured nap, but with how damn well-rested he is today there's no need. He's got plenty of time to make it to the morgue and back before his next class, checking out the latest murder-suicide rather like someone pops out for a dentist appointment. “But where’s your intern?”
“Work placement,” Aizawa corrects – it’s a pedantic difference, but interns ought to hold or at least be planning to get provisional licenses, especially if (and when) they’re in the field actually using their quirks. The correction is Aizawa’s nerves speaking more than anything, but really this whole setup is questionable at best and illegal at worst. It puts Aizawa as much at risk as it does Shinsou, letting him ride on a pro’s coattails into situations he’s not been trained for. If it were anyone else, or any thing else, Aizawa wouldn’t have allowed it.
Then again, a classroom isn’t the only place to learn.
“He’s… busy today.” Busy being a first-year General Studies student with fuck-all qualifications. Aizawa doesn’t use Shinsou’s name to be safe, but has a thought that he's given away more than enough just by admitting their connection at all.
Yamaguichi pulls away more smoothly than Hizashi’s ever driven with Aizawa in the passenger seat. Sometimes he thinks Hizashi drives like that on purpose, just to make sure Aizawa doesn’t fall asleep and has to keep talking to him.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about what happened yesterday,” Yamaguichi announces a little way into the drive, and Aizawa’s gut ties itself in a double-bow.
“What about it?”
Yamaguichi doesn’t seem too worried, which ought to be a good sign, but Aizawa still can’t settle. “Is it really okay for someone that age to be involved in a case like this?” What age that means to Yamaguichi could be anything within a fairly significant range at this point, but Aizawa’s not letting on more than he needs to.
“Ah.” Aizawa couldn’t agree more, but he can’t explain that he actually needs Shinsou to go talk to his famous mass-murderer father. “He’s a… special case. Don’t worry about it.”
“If you’re sure,” Yamaguichi sighs. “It’s just been bothering me. I became a Police officer to look out for kids like him, not the other way around.” She’s half a kid herself, but Aizawa doesn’t begrudge her such a noble thought.
Aizawa’s thought resurfaces again, this time more coherent. “There is something you could do to help us.” It slips out again, the us of him-and-Shinsou thought that’s already attached itself to Aizawa like a tick. “Will you be on duty at five p.m.?”
“No, I’ll have finished for the day,” Yamaguichi answers with concern written in volumes across her face. “Why?”
“Good.” Aizawa muses, “It’s probably better that way.” The worry in Yamaguichi’s face comes out with a new edition; this is another risk, another complication that Aizawa tries to avoid. Yet here he is, asking anyway. “I need someone to drop us off at prison.”
The morgue remains as lively as a place full of dead people could ever be.
Kuwabara is… Kuwabara as always, greeting Aizawa with a proverbial machine-gun round of upbeat questions and what looks to be a biro sticking out of the front of her over-styled quaff of copper hair. “Aizawa! You have to stop lurking around here or I'll stick you in a drawer! Are ya here to meet another friend? Is it true you made them run prints on three severed fingers upstairs?”
“The fingers were still attached to each other,” Aizawa explains dourly, “just not the rest of the hand.”
Kuwabara’s laugh comes out more like a dog’s bark than a human. “Heh! You’re a peach! I had to put all those iddy-biddy pieces back together, but there was a part missing. You haven’t been pinching keepsakes have you?”
“Not me.” But someone might have, Aizawa considers carefully, pushing the thought like a pin into the notice board of his mind. “What part was missing?”
“The resta’tha hand, like you said,” Kuwabara explains as she scratches her scalp with another pen. When she turns, Aizawa sees that the messy bun her hair is packed into at the back is held together with what looks like a single disposable chopstick—with a bit of what looks like dried sauce still stuck to the end. “But you’re here to see the rooftop-jumper, aren’t you? Tamakawa called in a buncha favours to get him sent here. Are the two of you against me taking a vacation or something?”
“I’ll look at both,” Aizawa answers blankly.
Kuwabara shoves the second pen into her hair and heaves a sigh heavy as a full kitbag over her shoulder. She heads over to one of the cold steel doors, checks the info on the front and then draws it back like a stack of shopping carts, a grunt of exertion as the chilled drawer rolls out to reveal the broken-toy body laid out inside. A corpse is always harrowing, and Aizawa reminds himself this man was a serial sex offender, but it somehow just deepens the horror.
“I’ve seen trains take people apart pretty badly before, but this was something else.” Kuwabara crosses thick arms over her broad chest. “Most people just clip the carriage, but he hit the windscreen head-on, musta really gone for it when he jumped.”
The corpse is in three to five really big chunks, but has been diced up a lot more around the edges. Aizawa recognises the severed hand, and the more-important gap where a piece is still missing. On cold, longer-dead skin the marking in pen is clearer: an unmistakable 世子. He asks, “How far could a piece of the corpse be thrown from this kind of collision?”
“Far enough for someone to pick it up if they wanted to,” Kuwabara answers distastefully. “People’re fucked up like that.” Following Aizawa’s gaze like a piece of string, Kuwabara rounds the table and focuses on Aizawa’s focus: the hand and kanji written on it. “More doodles, huh? Does that say successor? Not much for this poor bastard to inherit now.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Aizawa muses, fixated on the missing piece. If only Aizawa had the rest. But then, this is only one body. “Show me the other.”
Kuwabara heads over for the newest addition and slides the drawer back. This jumper is all in one piece as far as the ears. Beyond that, his head is caved like an eggshell: being bald doesn’t help the appearance.
“You could read it as a name,” Kuwabara offers up, still musing on the train-jumper’s hand-writing. “Seko, Seiko, somethin’ like that.”
Aizawa’s moved on, busy pulling up the sleeves of the baldy’s shirt. “Not that,” he interjects as another piece falls into place. “There’s a kanji missing.”
Kuwabara’s head tilts, and she follows around the table again to see what Aizawa’s revealed. She would have found this when she processed the body herself, but everything has been left as is – another favour for Tamakawa, no doubt. “ Missing? What was it?”
“Shi.” There it reads, in precisely formed strokes on the pale skin of the roof-jumper’s inner wrist: 死世子.
Kuwabara reads with a furrow in her brow so deep it could be used for planting crops. “Shiyoko? Creepy. S’at his girlfriend or something?”
It’s not much, but it’s slightly more than nothing and Aizawa takes what he can get, “Not quite.”
Aizawa doesn't like it, but he pays Dr. Iwaya a visit before leaving the police station. Knocking before he dares open the door, the same soft, “Enter,” rings out like a bell used for Pavlovian training.
“Eraserhead.” Iwaya seems to make it as much of an accusation as a greeting. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Aizawa paces straight over and drops into the mise en scene specifically placed chair in front of her desk. “Cut the bullshit. I'm here to talk about Dr. Shinsou.”
Even though she remains calm and even smiles, Aizawa swears there's panic in Iwaya’s eyes. “And what would you like to know?”
“Tell me about his quirk.” Aizawa leaves a careful pause before suffixing, “And his family.”
That really seems to put the fear into Iwaya. But Aizawa is beginning to think it's not a fear of anything current, but the echo of a long-held trauma. Iwaya was once taught by the renowned Dr. Shinsou, and what happened – what he did to others, and perhaps even tried to do to her – is not trauma that just fades away.
“His family?”
“He had a wife and child, didn't he?” Aizawa puts out in spite of knowing damn well that both exist.
“I was just his student. Professor Shinsou kept his… private life away from us,” Iwaya answers nervously.
“Students gossip.” Aizawa would know. Three non-sequential generations of students have found out that a couple of their teachers are cohabitating, but luckily students leave school whereas the teachers stay. Each class has to stumble upon that information in their own way, if at all.
As uncanny as it might seem, a touch of colour creeps into the cold marble of Iwaya’s face. “Well… I know that his wife used to be his research assistant.”
“No one ever met her?”
“Professor Shinsou got a new assistant every year,” Iwaya explains. “They, uh…”
When she hesitates, Aizawa goes for the jugular. “Were you one?”
The colour in Iwaya’s cheeks deepens, and it occurs to Aizawa that to most people she would be considered a very attractive woman. It’s a fact he registers as more of a case note than anything he thinks upon, but it’s important all the same. “Not for long.”
“Why not?”
With careful arrangement of her fingers, folding them together like arranging patient history notes, Iwaya regains her composure. “Professor Shinsou… took issue with my quirk.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Aizawa says with his gaze carefully fixed on the pristine woman sat opposite to him.
Iwaya smiles softly, and answers, “I can read the mind of anyone I touch.”
“I can see why that’d be an issue for him,” Aizawa relates coldly; the murderous Doctor Shinsou and many other men – if not Aizawa, for more than one reason. It must help her profession hugely. “What about his quirk?”
“The Professor’s?” Iwaya is so still and unblinking that even Aizawa is impressed, like her eyes are glass and eyelids weighted such that as long as she sits up she’ll never blink. “Surely you’re aware.”
Aizawa tries to get more comfortable in his chair and fails at it. “Tell me anyway.”
“He can take over the mind of anyone who responds to a question he asks,” Iwaya explains with a cold, necessary detachment.
“Only questions?”
“Yes.” Iwaya’s head tilts curiously, like she reads the hidden implication in his checking. Shinsou Hitoshi just needs some verbal response, and Aizawa thinks of how quirks seem to be getting stronger and stronger each generation. Shinsou’s still young too, untrained to the fullest limits of what his quirk could do.
“Did he ever use it on you?”
“He used it on everyone.” Iwaya’s stillness is like that of a prey creature in sight of a predator, frozen for hope of not being noticed as something alive. “It was a classic trick in his classes. If you answered something out of turn, you’d come to standing on your desk doing an impression of a chicken.”
“A chicken?”
A small, fleeting smile that’s not entirely fear crosses Iwaya’s face for just a moment. “If he was in a good mood.”
“And if he wasn’t?”
Iwaya shakes her head, drawing a line with chalk or salt to ward away evil spirits. “Worse.”
“One last thing,” Aizawa adds as he starts to lift himself from the chair. He’s had almost as much of this as he can handle, but the thing that he came in here for hasn’t yet been addressed. His eyes fix on the book behind Iwaya’s head on the shelf, a dark cover with thin white lettering down the spine. “Can I borrow that?” He could buy a copy himself, but Aizawa doesn’t want to put his money into anything so distasteful.
Dr. Iwaya gets up and turns around, her hair a polished onyx cascade down her back as she slides the book off the shelf and holds it out to him. “Of course.”
Having seen it once before, Aizawa knows the title: The 90% Mind, Dr. Shinsou Masaru. Shinsou Hitoshi’s scathing words float back into Aizawa’s head, “Read his book, if you’re such a fan.”
Aizawa’s no fan, but he’ll read it anyway. This is no battle to go into unprepared.
Shinsou’s shock of violet hair is especially gravity-defying today. It could even rival Aizawa’s own with his quirk activated. Spotting him a mile off for this reason, Shinsou strolls up to the convenience store where Aizawa is waiting with a false air of coincidence. He's dressed in black head-to-toe, which makes two of them, and stops, rolling his neck in his palm. “‘ Sup , teach.”
If Shinsou is nervous about what they’re about to do, he certainly isn’t letting it show. Bluffing is an important skill anyway, especially for someone like him.
“Ready?” Aizawa asks more to get a read on Shinsou than anything.
“Not really,” he answers in surprising honesty; but then, who could be ready for what they're about to do? Aizawa certainly isn't. He's tried to prepare as best he can, but they've really no idea what awaits them.
Aizawa throws a bone of solidarity. “Me neither.” Shinsou ruffles and resettles, seeming reassured by the notion that even Aizawa doesn’t know what they’re going into. Empathy is important like that.
With perfect timing – she's been down the street watching them, no doubt – Yamaguichi rolls up in a car that must be hers and opens the window, beaming at them from the driver's side with strangely well-placed cheer, like a candle in a dark room. “You fellas need a lift?”
Shinsou casts a wary look at Aizawa, but he nods and Shinsou relaxes, shoulders dropping and the very tips of his hair brushing the top of the car door as he gets into the backseat. Aizawa rounds the car to get in at the front.
The drive starts quietly, but doesn't remain so for long. “Say, kid. I never got your name,” Yamaguichi remarks brightly a few minutes into the drive.
Aizawa keeps quiet, waiting and wondering what Shinsou will do – it's another test of sorts, gauging his judgement and handling of a situation.
But Shinsou doesn't disappoint. “Mind Jack,” he says with a tone so even it could be used as a spirit level, the bubble of air placed exactly between the lines within which he should operate: as a Hero, not himself.
“Oooh,” Yamaguichi hums, giving Aizawa a sideways look that seems to say ‘what a cute kid.’ That's not exactly what Aizawa would call it, but he's relieved Shinsou understands enough to have withheld his real name – and to have even had a Hero name tucked into his pocket like that. “Can I call you Jack?”
Shinsou’s gazing listlessly out the window, but there’s an essence of warmth when he replies, “You can call me anything you want.”
Yamaguichi titters behind the steering wheel, and it occurs to Aizawa that the age gap between Yamaguichi and Shinsou may be less than the gap between her and himself. “Well then, Jack. How did you get set up with a Hero like Eraserhead?”
Aizawa swears he can feel Shinsou’s stare on the back of his head. “He came looking for me.”
“Ohohoho, I see,” Yamaguichi chortles, even though she probably doesn't. It's convenient enough to see it that way, though, so Aizawa won't interfere. It's true enough. “I'm Officer Yamaguichi Kumiko, it's nice to meet you.”
“I know,” Shinsou replies with a sure deadpan; Aizawa isn’t watching, but he does glean the tone, and is better positioned to catch the surprise on Yamaguichi’s face.
“Uh, you do?”
“I read your badge when we met yesterday,” Shinsou explains while breaking into a yawn. Aizawa wonders if he got up early for that ‘homework’ Aizawa set. He better have.
Yamaguichi seems a little bashful, almost. “Oh, of course.”
“It's nice t’meet you too,” Shinsou hangs carefully, and Aizawa won't deny it: he has a certain way with people. “Can I call you Yankumi?”
“What?” This one catches Yamaguichi a little off-guard. “Like a nickname?” It’s a shorthand of the kanji in her name, endearingly done – at least for a brat like Shinsou, mashing names together as the youth are wont to do.
“If you’re gonna call me Jack.”
“Sure! I mean, alright then.” If Aizawa’s not mistaken, Yamaguichi’s a little flush of face. “Yankumi it is.”
Shinsou just murmurs contently, and the rest of the ride is quiet. Aizawa finds himself reflecting on the passages in the elder Shinsou's book that he managed to scan in the teacher's room just before he left for the day. It was barely more than the introduction, plus a few important passages on the detail of Dr. Shinsou’s quirk, but already Aizawa can tell from his writing that this is a man of considerable intellect. To explain things of such complexity in such eloquent form: laying out the labyrinth pathways of the human mind pre-quirk, and then unleashing the minotaur of mentalist quirks into that maze.
Aizawa knows enough to be sure of this – nothing will prepare him for the terror of meeting Dr. Shinsou in the flesh.
Warden Tanaka is waiting at the prison gates to meet them.
He’s a man of unimposing stature, well dressed with perfectly circular spectacles that glint in the afternoon light, as if they contain a kind of advanced technology that flashes up information on the two figures who get out of the car. They'll have to hope not.
Shinsou probably doesn’t need much introduction anyway. Anyone familiar with his father would see the resemblance easily; Aizawa certainly does, based only on pictures of the infamous Professor.
“Good afternoon,” the Warden begins stiffly. “I hope you understand my wanting to meet you out here.” It isn’t long before his gaze casts over to Aizawa. “So you are?”
“Eraserhead,” Aizawa answers just as unyieldingly. “A Hero. I erase quirks.” Any intelligent man could understand the purpose of a skill like that in this context. Another beat rests and then he adds, “I’m here to supervise.”
“I believe we can see to the security ourselves,” the Warden replies like it’s an affront.
“He’s my teacher,” Shinsou butts in, which is both true and untrue. “I want him here.” That’s a little clearer cut.
“It’s been several years since your father’s incarceration,” the Warden relates. “Might I inquire as to the purpose of this visit?”
“Information,” Aizawa answers before Shinsou can. “If you intended to interrogate us on our intentions, why agree in first place?”
“I thought it would be wiser to meet you in person, rather than discuss such sensitive matters on the phone.” Smart man. The Warden is looking at Shinsou. “I’d simply like to know what this is all about.”
“A boy can’t have a friendly chat with his own father?” Shinsou suggests with an edge so fine Aizawa could use it for his once-monthly shave. “Like Eraser said, you’re either gonna let us in or not. Just pick which it is already.”
“It is my job to see to order in the prison, which means I need to understand any potential threat to that balance,” Tanaka explains patiently. “I merely want to ascertain your intentions, and evaluate any risks to either yourself or my prisoner.”
Shinsou scoffs at the latter suggestion. “Like we wouldn’t be doing the world a favour if something happened to that bastard.”
The Warden’s glasses glint again, as he moves his head just a little to change the angle of his gaze. “I have a responsibility to my position to uphold.”
“Ah,” Shinsou murmurs provocatively. “So that’s what it’s about for you? Reputation.” His tone conveys the opinion he holds of the Warden’s motivations, which is lower than a ditch at the bottom of a grave.
“Easy, kid,” Aizawa intercedes more gently than he would with someone else, someplace else. They still need this man’s favour to get in, but hell if he can’t understand if the boy’s nerves are being grated on a little. After all, Aizawa is the one who wanted this. Shinsou has just come along by default, through the basic fact of this being the next, necessary step to closing in on their killer.
The Warden’s gaze flicks back to Aizawa, and he looks a little more appreciative for his presence now. “I’ll take you into the compound now, but we’ll need to go over some security protocol prior to visiting Dr. Shinsou’s holding cell.”
“Does he know I’m coming?” Shinsou pipes up again, and the flash-in-the-pan flare of temper has abated, thankfully, but there's still an ocean of concern in his tone. Aizawa can't imagine what he must be feeling.
“Oh yes,” the Warden answers with a chill that Aizawa swears he feels blow right through him. “He says he’s been expecting you.”
The security protocols to access Dr. Shinsou’s maximum security ward within the prison are exhausting. It’s understandable, but the safety-training video they have to watch and the stack of waivers to sign seems excessive; especially when the person they’re planning to meet will remain inside his cell while in the company of a Hero who can literally erase quirks. The younger Shinsou looks utterly bored by the whole experience. Aizawa empathises, and might have given up halfway through too, were this all not at his impetus.
Aizawa’s hunch is that this must be what they have to go through with the guards and other staff who work around the infamous Professor. The people they encounter as they move from the main prison area to the carefully-separated high-security wing do seem to get more morose and inhuman as they proceed. Frightened eyes of people who have been on edge for too long.
Shinsou’s quiet as they get closer, hands in his pockets and his eyes cast down as he walks almost attached to Aizawa’s side. If he’d really needed to, Aizawa could have tried to take another route to meet Dr. Shinsou, gotten a legal pathway or simply appealed to the Warden by himself. It was quicker and easier to go through the familial connection his son offers. Aizawa feels a pang of guilt about the unspoken exploitation; although, Shinsou could have refused if he was truly opposed.
But that doesn’t feel very guilt-assuaging, so Aizawa resolves to be sure to find a way to make it up to the kid. This is a big favour – to catch a killer, sure, but there’s no mistaking the intention of the fact that Shinsou has never taken it upon himself to visit his father before now. No sane person could blame him for that – maybe it makes Aizawa slightly insane.
The penultimate door opens up and they step into a small containment area with a guard. The wall is covered in hooks, each with a set of noise-cancelling headphones on them. The guard waits stiffly, and the video has covered this: Wear headphones at all times when engaging Dr. Shinsou. Do not remove them for any reason. Necessary communication with Dr. Shinsou must take place via the installed writing boards. The intercom is for emergency use only by authorised personnel. This is for your safety.
Aizawa’s Shinsou, as he's accidentally found himself thinking of the younger, catches his gaze as they're reaching for identical headphones and then rolls his eyes. A smile tugs on the corner of Aizawa's mouth like a meek toddler looking for attention. They put the headphones on – for now – and follow the guard though the final door into a white corridor.
The hallway doesn't go on for very long, stopping in a dead end no more than the length of Aizawa's classroom. One wall is solid all the way through, but the other ends with thick glass, in front of which there's a single chair and a freestanding dry-wipe board. The adjacent wall contains a button-operated intercom, shielded under a perspex box. They walk down the corridor after the guard, Aizawa on the left of Shinsou, almost shoulder-to-shoulder but for the few inches of height that separate them. Aizawa hears Shinsou taking a deep breath as they come into view of the thick glass pane that separates them.
Dr. Shinsou stands still as a statue in the middle of the floor.
There is a matching dry-wipe board in his cell, but Dr. Shinsou has taken to writing on the thick glass that separates them instead; he had to have written backwards for it to be legible to them on this side, so the precise formation of the kanji is a subtle but present testament to the Doc’s attention to detail.
In long script, so it looks more like an overlay of information or subtitle to the austere figure of the murderous doctor, it reads. “Welcome, son. I’ve been waiting for you.”
No one moves for a long moment, years of seconds that weather the passage of time like a stone endures the seasons one after the other. Then Aizawa reaches up and removes his headphones. He strides over and lifts the barrier over the intercom without fear. Pushing down the single button so a light illuminates, Aizawa announces, “Dr. Shinsou, I presume?”
The professor of mentalist quirks is a taller man than Aizawa, of lean build and his violet hair a slightly darker shade than his son’s, slicked back from a hairline that recedes into a deep widow's peak. A corresponding light comes on in a matching speaker on the wall of Dr. Shinsou’s cell, indicating that Aizawa's question must be heard within his soundproof box. Not that the Professor of Mentalism responds in any discernible way.
The cell seems rather comfortable for a man responsible for two dozen deaths. It was amazing he escaped the death penalty at all, but for the fact that his lawyers made a pervasive feast of the argument that the induced suicides of his victims wanted to die. Enough that they had to mistrial and recruit new judges. That and the fact that they were too afraid to attempt enacting the death penalty on such a dangerous a man.
There is a single bed, a desk and a shelf full of books. The wall behind the desk contains sheet upon sheet of meticulously handwritten text, affixed like wallpaper tiles across one side of the cell.
Aizawa’s finger remains on the button, but all the Professor does is incline his head very slightly to the side, followed by a gesture of his eyes that draws Aizawa's own momentarily to the intercom at his hand. There's a small, very missable switch underneath the button with a small label: Enable response. For EMERGENCY USE only.
Aizawa slides the switch across and a jarring siren lets out a short wail. They're really sparing no precaution here.
“And who might I ask,” Dr. Shinsou’s voice is like smooth butter. He doesn't move from his position, unrestrained hands tucked behind his back, “are you?”
Aizawa looks the maniac dead in the eyes and activates his quirk. “You can call me Eraserhead. I have a few questions for you.” Like a snake slithering over glass, Aizawa feels the weight of Dr. Shinsou’s quirk pressing on his mind. It's a sizable force, but not enough to crack the glass. “Your tricks won't work on me.”
The doctor smiles, and Aizawa thinks of poison darts used by communities from deep in the rainforest: unstable, unknown toxins that are almost impossible to detect and incurable by the time the symptoms have set in. If the doctor was able to use his quirk on Aizawa, how aware would Aizawa even be? “For how long, I wonder?”
“Long enough to answer our questions,” Shinsou finally adds, taking off his own headphones and dropping them on the ground as he steps closer to the intercom and Aizawa.
Aizawa’s quirk is still active and remains trained on the Doctor, protecting Shinsou from the answer he gives to his father’s question. The guard seems distressed by this deviation from the rules, but not so much so that he'd take off his own headphones and put himself at risk. They signed the damn waivers for something, after all. Aizawa has the situation under control – so far.
“How’ve you been, Dad? Prison suits you.” There's no warmth or fondness in this statement, and it strikes Aizawa that the use of intercoms and caution around them means the Shinsous’ quirks must work just as well over electronic transmission as direct – meaning Shinsou could use it on people over the phone if he were so inclined.
There's a sick pride mixed into Dr. Shinsou's tone. “You've grown so much, Hitoshi.”
The capture window for Dr. Shinsou’s quirk closes by the furthering of the conversation beyond his first questions, so Aizawa lets his quirk drop and allows himself to blink. Dr. Shinsou notices this, but there isn't much that he can do about it. Aizawa read the important parts of the Doctor’s book, and knows from the self-study contained within that only by answering one of Dr. Shinsou's questions can a victim's mind be ensnared.
The upshot is that when Dr. Shinsou speaks without an open query, it changes the alignment of brainwaves his – their – quirks rely on. So they’re safe again, temporarily. Unlike his son, the elder Shinsou requires direct question-and-answer to take control, though the power he gains thereafter is absolute. “Send my love to your mother.”
In a flash, Shinsou bangs on the glass like he’s going to crack it. “Shut up! You never loved her!”
The smile returns to Dr. Shinsou’s face, like a viper sliding back into view across hot sand. “On the contrary. I loved her most intensely.”
“You’re a psychopath,” Shinsou accuses. “You don’t even know what love is.”
Shinsou’s father tilts his head again, and Aizawa wishes he would move more like a man than a strange ethereal creature. Like the Doctor could slip through the glass if he wanted to, but simply finds it more interesting to remain where he is for the time being. “Perhaps it is you who cannot recognise love?”
Shinsou spits “You’re wrong,” and “I’ve had enough of this,” almost concurrently, and that sense of Aizawa’s goes off again; the before- ness of something about to happen. Nothing changes, but one of the features of Aizawa’s quirk is a sixth sense that flutters in the presence of others being used. So when Shinsou turns to Aizawa and tells him, “Ask your questions, he’s going to answer,” then it’s without doubt for what’s taken place.
“Shinsou,” Aizawa murmurs warily. Answers under duress may not hold the information they seek. If Shinsou can even hold his father under the power of his quirk.
“Aren’t you, Dad?” Shinsou turns back to his father with cold anger. “Nod your head and show him.”
Dr. Shinsou’s head bobs just once, but then things start to get more troubling. Shinsou is visibly tense, like there’s a struggle taking place that results in his complete yet intense inertia. Then the Professor says, “Sit down, son, you’re straining yourself.”
When Shinsou starts to do it, so much at war with himself he’s not even breathing, Aizawa doesn’t hesitate to activate his quirk. He fixes his erasing glare first on Shinsou, breaking the hold he has on Dr. Shinsou, then casts his gaze quickly at the professor. Shinsou lets out a gasp and grabs the back of the chair for support as he drops out of the stiff mental grip, but there’s no similar reaction in the Professor’s composure.
“That’s a useful quirk you have, I must admit,” Dr. Shinsou remarks calmly, the way an entomologist speaks of a butterfly they’d like to gas in a chamber and pin to the wall. “I would very much like to study it.”
“No studying, and no more brainwashing.” Aizawa lays down the law with another quick glance between Shinsou and his father before finally letting his own quirk drop and blinking, fumbling in his pocket for a bottle of eyedrops. “That’s both of you.”
“Very well, Eraserhead .” Dr. Shinsou emphasises this in such a way, it sounds more meaningful than any title Hizashi spouted on an arthouse-movie whim. “I’ll hear your questions.”
He never specifies that he’ll answer them.
Notes:
*Gives the middle finger to every 'Shinsou is in foster care' fic that just deletes the existence of his parents to make them a non-issue rather than address them in any meaningful way*
QUICK point I don't speak Japanese but I do research these things so shi is the word for death and also why the number 4 (which is shi) is considered to be unlucky! I thought it'd be cool to try and make the effort to do some of the clever naming that Hori does (he's obvs a master and I'm an amatur chump) but I thought having this quirk with anything as CHOICE as the literal symbol for death in her name was too much of an opportunity not to run with.
Speaking of hori and the canon, obviously he decided this was exactly the right time to undermine all the assumptions I had to make about Shinsous (plural) quirk when I started writing this fic months ago. This is especially regarding digitisation as cancelling out the effect, which I'd considered at the time but then the cards just fell the way they did when I was writing, and there's thematic importance to the strength of the Shinsou brainwashing quirk in this story that are understandably pared back in the manga.
So here's my incredibly complex explanation for why Shinsou's quirk doesn't appear consistent with recent info from canon about it:
..... he's lying.That's it. He's just lying, because he's keeping the full extent of his abilities secret in case he needs to use it against the same people he's cooperating with at the moment. I even have some form of evidence for this because all his "I can't use it on more than one person" nonsense literally flies in the face of his 3-person throne that he used in the sports festival: TWO people withdrew from the contest after feeling they didn't deserve it due to being brainwashed by Shinsou to get through the rounds, so RIDDLE ME THAT, HORI. LIAR LIAR PANTS ON GODDAMN FIRE.
Ahem... also, I've been told before my Shinsou is more of a 'little shit' and indeed even more of a charmer than he usually is in fanfic. This was always intuitive to me, because his quirk relies on getting people to respond to him. That can be in good or bad ways, but it makes sense that he's got a certain social capability that would make him good at getting people to talk to him and even being witty when he wants to be (and wit is naturally well-disposed to flirting). Now we've seen his shit-talking capabilities in canon already, and Kaminari takes ONE look at him and is like here's a guy who's a hit with the ladies, so I feel pretty validated in that sense.
Yankumi is the nickname that Yamaguichi Kumiko in one of my fav mangas Gokusen gets from her own students, and she's who this Yamaguichi is based off (with a touch of Amy Santiago too), so I didn't do that mash-up myself so much as copied it because I'm sucker for a character who nicknames people. One of my personal FAVS.
I probably can't promise next week when I know it's unlikely to be that long, so see you in approx. 4-5 days. My poor editor has her work cut out keeping up with me ;)
Chapter 7: Question Time
Summary:
Aizawa, Shinsou and a whole lot of questions that are better left unanswered.
Notes:
Excited for more of this scene, huh?
Comments from my editor on this chap included "i'm cry and also i'm die" so I figure it's got that gud shit ;)
I was gonna put this in the end a/n but it's getting kind of long, so taking a moment here to mention how I tend to write for an 'underserved niche' I see in fanfic, and how much it astonishes me on a daily basis that a fic like this, which focuses primarily on Aizawa training Shinsou in a Hero environment, hasn't been done already. Not by me (or to my admittedly high standards), at least. I really adore the 'Hints and Allegations' series by scout_1910, but that's a different kettle of fish (in a good way) to this fic, so I feel this niche is yet to be fully realised with a truly gold standard fic for this fanon-turned-canon.
The positive responses so far make me very hopeful that much like my last big project, I can steer this epic vessel into being a landmark fic for this premise, because it's supported with SO much good fanart and yet so much of the fic seems focused on Aizawa's performance of domestic caregiving duties, when I'm like uh, that man sleeps on the ground and drinks juice pouches, why would anyone think he's going to be better at domestic caregiving over being a badass workaholic Hero? But hey, that's just me. I like my trashman with an extra side of trash.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I’m looking for a woman with a mind control quirk,” Aizawa launches into his piece with the assumption that he has precious time left before the Warden comes barging in here raving about safety violations and dangerous use of quirks both on prisoners and visitors. “Engaged via writing on her victims. Possibly her name… which might be Shiyoko.” It’s a lot of guesswork, but if it were obvious they wouldn’t have to be here. “Have you ever encountered someone with that name or kind of quirk in your research?”
Dr. Shinsou’s thin smile snakes across his face once more. “My my, quite a predicament you have there. So tell me, Eraser, what’s little Shiyoko been up to out in the real world? They keep me quite separate from it.”
Aizawa activates his quirk, eyes gleaming an angry red as his hair lifts of its own accord. “She’s been doing something you’d know plenty about, Doctor.” Murder dressed as suicide.
Shinsou – Aizawa’s Shinsou – is quiet and sullen, avoiding the piercing gaze of his father as best he can. The guard has since skulked away from the viewing panel of Dr. Shinsou’s cell, and waits in his noise-cancelling earphones awfully close to the door. “Ah, I wonder what her trigger must have been.” As the threat of mind control abates like a wave rolling out, Aizawa lets his quirk fall.
“Trigger?” Aizawa dares to ask.
“There’s always a trigger, poor lost boys,” Dr. Shinsou relates in a harmonious, lilting voice. “I wonder what yours will be?” He targets Shinsou with another weighted tilt of his head like the swinging of a clock pendulum.
“Not gonna happen,” Shinsou mutters, and Aizawa activates his quirk just to be safe, staring this maniacal piece of shit down, half-regretting ever coming here – at least with Shinsou.
“She was passed over for a promotion,” Aizawa butts in before Shinsou can get dragged any further by the riptide of his father’s conversation. Maybe the promotion thing is true, maybe it isn’t, but it’s a way to start.
“Poor little girl, that would certainly be enough to do it,” Dr. Shinsou muses. Aizawa blinks, rubs his eyes and then looks back up without his quirk activated, hair dropping limply around his face.
“Poor little. Why do you keep saying that?” Aizawa pins as his eyes itch.
The Professor answers, “She was when I met her.”
In a short window of time, Aizawa takes his finger off the intercom button and puts his head back to drip eyedrops into each eye. It’s exposure of his vulnerability, his limits, but what can Dr. Shinsou accomplish from behind a pane of reinforced security glass?
Shinsou reaches past Aizawa for the button this time. “So you knew her, she was part of your research?"
“Humour me, Eraser.” Every time he says it, Dr. Shinsou makes Aizawa’s title sound a little more like something nonexistent. Not eraser, but erased. “What’s your relationship to my son?”
“Not your concern.” Refreshed, Aizawa opens wide and activates his quirk yet again. “Who’s Shiyoko?”
The Professor’s statuesque form breaks into motion, and he begins to pace along the length of his glass-walled cell like a tiger in a cage. Maybe they’re starting to get to him after all. “Quid pro quo,” the Professor replies craftily as he passes directly past Aizawa and Shinsou next to the intercom, though his voice remains at the same volume coming from the speaker in the wall. “Give me answers and I’ll give them to you in return.”
“Only you use answers to brainwash people,” Shinsou points out crossly, still holding down the button to the intercom with an expression like he wished it did more than allow them to communicate with the prisoner. Fill the goldfish tank of his cell slowly with water, perhaps.
“Isn’t that what your escort is here to prevent?” Shinsou’s father suggests glibly, stopping his oscillation up and down the length of his cell to eye Aizawa like a carcass he’s waiting to butcher. Aizawa doesn’t let his quirk fall. “There’s something else though… you had to come across one another somehow. School, perhaps?”
“He’s teaching me to be a Hero.” Shinsou’s declaration causes a reactionary lurch in Aizawa’s gut. This is what he gets for bringing messy family ties into the mix. Pieces of information that were best left under the table, not thrown down on a hand that they might have to fold on.
“Oh.” Dr. Shinsou mulls this over like a treat of unparalleled magnitude. “What a noble thought.” He pauses long enough to let the pity well up in his voice like waters in a fresh spring. “But that’s not for you, son.”
“You’re wrong.” Shinsou isn’t conflicted or compromised about this declaration. “I’ll be a Hero that stops people like you.” Aizawa wonders if Shinsou would be so sure if they hadn’t had some of the conversations they have in the past day. If Shinsou weren’t here with Aizawa, doing work that feels like being a real Hero…’s intern, or something like that.
Dr. Shinsou looks back at Aizawa as he drops his quirk to blink, and it's a tiny flicker but he feels the brush of something against the back of his mind, the push to be ensnared by a quirk that hits an internal wall. The greatest despair the Professor has with his quirk, by his own admission, is that he cannot surpass its limitations – something his son has proven capable of already. They all have limits. Even Aizawa has to blink, but he picks his moments to be vulnerable very carefully. So too will the Professor.
“Tsk tsk.” Aizawa can't be sure, but he thinks this is annoying Dr. Shinsou. “Getting the boy's hopes up like that.”
“I didn't set the bar for his hopes,” Aizawa counters, and this is a twisty way to get around to talking about a murder suspect. He doesn’t like it one bit. “I just gave him my view on whether he could achieve them.”
“And your professional opinion, Mr. Eraser?” Dr. Shinsou says it like that to mock, he must.
Aizawa knows this is no place to hold back the things he's told Shinsou in confidence. Even things he's thought beyond that and hasn't even said yet. If there's anywhere the boy needs to hear it, then it's in front of this demon of a father. And there's no reason Aizawa can't be obnoxious about it. Quirk flaring, he answers, “He'll be a better Hero than you ever were a villain.”
That micro-flicker of annoyance twitches in the corner of the doctor’s eye again, and Aizawa allows his mouth a slightly smug twist, crossing his arms as if nonchalant and not finding something to do with them that doesn’t betray his frustration. “Quid pro quo, Doctor. Tell us about Shiyoko.”
“What do you expect me to know?” Dr. Shinsou poses as if they’re at the height of presumptuous. “I encountered many mentalist quirk users through my research, why should I know this one?”
“Cut the bullshit, dad.” Shinsou leads this brigade knowingly. “You don’t forget anyone.”
Another sly smile works its way across Dr. Shinsou’s face. As if he likes to be known, and the reiteration of their familial connection still has currency in his sick mind. “Then what am I to tell you of one little girl who once sat in my office over ten years ago?”
“Her full name would be a start,” Aizawa suggests, but senses the wall has been hit again. His eyes itch and he feels the urge to blink, but he’s held on far longer than this before. It was a mistake not wearing his goggles – one he’s not likely to make again. If this happens again. Aizawa’s used to putting the goggles on for combat, he simply hadn’t realised he was about to walk into an all-out fight – not in the physical world, but mental. Stupid of him.
“Another question first,” the Professor reverts cannily. “How many?”
“How many what?” Aizawa replies with a tense jaw, eyes burning.
“Has little Shiyoko killed? You said victims.” After a short pause, Dr. Shinsou adds, “You may blink, Eraser. I shalln’t use my quirk on you.”
This is a cunning double-trick, because without ending in a question it is possible for Aizawa to blink. So he does, but not because Dr. Shinsou said so. Even if that’s what it looks like. “You can’t use it on me,” Aizawa mutters as he brings his fingers to his eyes, “it’s different.”
“As far as you know,” Dr. Shinsou reports slyly. “I haven’t been entirely idle during my incarceration.”
“I can see that,” Aizawa observes, letting his tired gaze swing over the papers tiling the walls. “Let me guess. Your next book?”
That deadly smile returns again. It occurs to Aizawa that things would be so much easier if the Doctor were a simple, murderous villain with no charisma. This is entirely different; the mental equivalent of sitting with his hand on the table while someone bangs an ice pick between his fingers. “Very good. So you aren’t completely without observational skills.”
“The next victim was a sexual molester who attacked her on a train,” Aizawa throws like a baseball he wants to pitch through this thick glass straight into the back of Dr. Shinsou’s skull. “Presumably.”
“Presumption leaves margin for error,” Dr. Shinsou points out aloofly, and leans forward very slightly as he poses his next threat – in the form of a question, of course. “Are you sure he attacked her?”
Aizawa doesn’t activate his quirk. Doesn’t need to. He’s not answering the doctor’s question. “The pattern is still developing, but the victims are men who have experienced or exploited a privilege against her as a woman. Except for the most recent, who seems to have been sought out at a hostess bar. She doesn’t appear to have known him.”
“One is so rarely enough, once you get a taste for killing,” Dr. Shinsou remarks in a voice of poisoned honey. “So her pattern is becoming less consistent?”
Now Aizawa reactivates his quirk. “If you give me her full name, we’ll catch her faster and I’ll let you know,” he replies caustically.
Dr. Shinsou tsks again. “Then I would be taking the thrill of the hunt away from you. Wouldn’t want that, would we?” Aizawa can hardly move for all these baited hooks. So he just stares through the unflagging wall of his quirk, and it makes the point well enough. “Even as a child, Shiyoko was acutely aware of the injustices that would beset her as a consequence of her quirk. One can only imagine what her experience as a woman would add to that.”
“If we know her given name and quirk, can’t we just check the registry?” Shinsou suggests to Aizawa, then scowls when his father tsks again.
“Oh no, Hitoshi. She wasn’t registered.”
“But you studied her,” Shinsou accuses.
“My research was anonymised,” Dr. Shinsou answers smugly. “If they chose to remain registered quirkless for fear of prejudice, that was merely incidental information, of little consequence to my work.”
“Right, far be it from you to do the right thing.” Shinsou's loathing pours our of him like water overflowing a drain.
“My decision not to report unregistered quirks to the authorities was also part of my oath to uphold doctor-patient confidentiality,” his father replies. “So don’t be so quick to think you know the whole world just yet, my dear boy.”
Shinsou’s hunching more and more over the intercom, finger pressed over the button until his knuckle blanches. Aizawa senses tension in those violin strings his father tunes to play. “Shinsou.” Without thinking of it, Aizawa reaches to set a hand on his shoulder. It’s easier than trying to fight his hand on the controls of the intercom, but enough to draw him out of another downward spiral.
In a flash Shinsou turns over his shoulder to glance up at Aizawa, a slightly darker ring of violet around the outside of his irises, which are almost lavender in the centre. Darkness and light blended together. His finger comes off the button, and he takes a visible breath. Without the intercom engaged, and with the guard still staring stoically into space with his headphones on, it’s just the two of them who hear Aizawa say, “It’s alright,” about nothing in particular and everything that matters.
This might be the most aggravating thing of all to the Professor, who when Aizawa looks warily back over isn’t smiling anymore. No, this is a definite scowl.
“Tell me,” Dr. Shinsou’s voice creaks like the lowest notes of a stringed instrument being bowed – badly. “Why the sudden interest in my son?”
Aizawa’s quirk rises up like a cobra and strikes, hair lifting and eyes a glaring red as he fixes on the Professor. He slips his hand off Shinsou’s shoulder to reach for the button to the intercom. “Because he helped me get access to you? Is that what you’d like me to say?” It’s better to admit these things up front than pretend it’s not the case, and this direct barrage seems to keep Dr. Shinsou on the back foot. “That part of it is true, but I wouldn’t have agreed to train your son if I didn’t see his potential. He’s been failed,” Aizawa injects like venom from a fanged bite: – an unconscious action, built into his very physiology, “by the school, by society, and by you.”
There’s no real order of importance there, but each makes up a distinct part of why it’s so unacceptable to Aizawa that Shinsou’s dreams are left to perish for being ‘too challenging’ or because his quirk seems more ‘naturally’ suited to villainy. Anyone who believes that is merely reflecting their own internal darkness. Otherwise they’d see the huge potential that Aizawa does. “So if I help him, it’s not out of pity or leverage or access to you, but because that’s the least he deserves.”
Aizawa wants to blink but can’t, feeling an intense weight on his mind as Dr. Shinsou tries to cave his mental state in like banging a sledgehammer against Aizawa’s skull. Just because it won’t break doesn’t mean there’s no strain.
“Bit late for you to bring back the overprotective father shit, ” Shinsou butts in rudely enough to draw Dr. Shinsou’s focus; Aizawa feels the weight of cancelling out the Doctor’s brainwashing quirk lighten. He's relieved that he didn’t come here without backup. “Quid pro quo, Dad: tell us about the girl.”
For all his calculating genius, Dr. Shinsou is still a creature of human emotions, albeit they’re fucking twisted ones. This appeal to whatever he perceives of a biological link between himself and his son is a good enough chum to draw the shark near.
“Little Shiyoko was always running away, because she knew what would become of her when she was found,” Dr. Shinsou narrates like a nursery rhyme, and breaking into such lyricism allows Aizawa to drop his quirk. “You won’t get anywhere by looking for miss hide-and-go-seek in the places she’s meant to be. Clever girl knows how to stay hidden, even in plain sight.”
“Drop the fucking riddles,” Shinsou bites. “People are dying.”
His father has regained composure, taking a deep breath that lifts and resettles his narrow shoulders. It’s with a peculiar curiosity that he remarks, “And that bothers you.”
Shinsou begins to rant, “Of course! Even if you don’t care about them, if you gave a shit about me like you pretend to do then you’d want to help.”
“On the contrary, my boy,” Dr. Shinsou interjects. “It is because I care for you that I offer no more help than that which I’ve already given.”
“Bullshit,” Shinsou spits in a tone that would flash-freeze Hell.
His father tuts and the clicking sounds carry over the audio system like a kind of morse code. “You have to learn how do to things for yourself, Hitoshi. But never fear, I believe this will be a…” He pauses like a hangman finishing the final knot on a noose before stringing it up, and shifts his gaze from Shinsou over to Aizawa, “bonding experience for you both.” Like the flight of a bird, one pale hand shoots out from behind his back and the fingers flutter. “Ta-ta, do be sure to visit again.”
‘We’re finished when I say we’re finished,’ Aizawa wants to growl – Shinsou too, by the looks of it – but they can’t compel the mad doctor to cooperate without being just as bad as him. And as loath as he is to admit it, this has been helpful – in the way a root canal is. Something beneficial doesn’t mean it’s not agonising, or to be dreaded if it must be repeated.
“Fine,” Aizawa declares stiffly, taking his finger off the button and sliding the intercom switch back across. He glances sideways at Shinsou with dry, itching eyes that he’ll irrigate like dry fields when they’re out of this room. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Yamaguichi isn’t waiting for them outside the prison, but that’s fine and wasn’t part of the arrangement he made with her: poor woman deserves an evening off. Aizawa prefers to walk anyway, falling into step alongside Shinsou after they sit through an unbearably tedious lecture from the Warden about violating the safety protocols put in place to prevent accidents involving Dr. Shinsou. Turns out the only reason no one interrupted them is because they’re all too fucking afraid of going in there when the intercom is on – there’s an accident history behind such caution that Aizawa can only guess at the messy outcomes of.
Shinsou announces with an air of cheerful vitriol, “Well. That was fucking terrible.”
Aizawa almost wants to police him on his language, but then they’re not in a classroom where that shit matters, and Aizawa’s been just as bad today. Shinsou is only reading the cues.
“Unfortunately, I think it went quite well,” Aizawa counters morosely, fiddling with a bottle of eyedrops in his pocket, turning it over and over even though he’s rinsed his eyes out enough. Recentering habits die hard.
“I guess you’re right,” Shinsou admits begrudgingly, and then tacks on. “Thanks.” There’s a heaviness to his tone that wrenches Aizawa’s gut. He almost asks, “What for?” until Shinsou expands into the pensive silence, “You didn’t have to say what you did, and I’m not dumb enough I’d think you’d say anything you don’t mean, but… thanks anyway.”
“It deserved to be said.” If and when Aizawa has ever been seen as harsh, it’s only because his bleeding heart has a wicked saw-edge that turns his protective instincts into a powerful weapon. The strongest, most intense urges Aizawa experiences – some of them – are to protect others. He would and almost has died for it. Repeatedly.
With a whole class of students, it takes a little time to get to know them, and longer still for the handful each year that become really special. By contrast, Aizawa’s only spent about a day with Shinsou, one-on-one pearl diving in the belly of the beast. But he’s already imprinted like a broody hen that’ll sit on anything helpless enough to let him. Not that Shinsou is helpless, but he still needs help; Aizawa wants to give it to him. He can’t even pretend to deny it anymore.
With all the signs of a great Hero-in-the-making, Shinsou simply pushes on. “So now what?”
Aizawa itches for a cigarette, but resists the urge – normally, he never goes through them at this rate. It’s not a good habit to indulge in front of Shinsou, not least because the boy will probably smartmouth him about it. Aizawa understands that smoking is bad for him, just like sleeping too little, eating irregularly and putting himself between homicidal villains and their innocent would-be victims is dangerous. And he does all of those things with great regularity. So he'll just have to find another reckless habit to indulge.
Catching sight of a mostly-abandoned building that has all the signs of a hideout for gangs running contraband operations in and out of the conveniently-located prison. Aizawa settles on his vice. “We keep working.” He jerks his head at the building, now shaded in twilight as the evening falls.
The darker shadows of Shinsou’s face lighten as he tips his head back a little and casts his gaze at the rundown building. Boarded-up windows are mixed in with intact panes that have just been painted over from the inside. Not that well, going by the hints of light visible from within here and there.
Shinsou takes Aizawa’s inference effortlessly. “Guess we better check it out.” It can’t always be this easy having an intern, not that Aizawa would know from experience. Maybe just the right one. Aizawa can work well with certain people; even so, he prefers working alone when and where he can. It’s less complicated that way.
But even for being complicated (in his own way), Shinsou makes it awfully easy sometimes.
There’s an old fire escape on the outside of the building, which Shinsou starts to scale while Aizawa throws a roll of his weapon up to the top and free-climbs it, using the structure in a way that it’s surely not intended. But it gets him up there much quicker than Shinsou manages.
When the boy finally catches up with him at the top of the warehouse, Aizawa thoughtlessly remarks, “You should think about some support gear.”
“General Studies don’t get support gear,” Shinsou replies with a sharp edge that’s not really directed at Aizawa. After all, it’s not like he did anything to stop Shinsou getting into the Hero Course.
“Think about it anyway,” Aizawa says defiantly. “All you need to do is approach the right individual in Support and see what they’d have to offer.”
“Won’t I get in trouble?” Shinsou clearly isn’t a boy terribly preoccupied with sticking exactly to the rules, but he obviously doesn’t want to risk getting expelled.
“No.” That is, as far as Aizawa’s concerned, the end of the discussion. He wouldn’t allow it.
“You sure about that?” Shinsou doesn’t sound sure, but Aizawa is.
Perhaps he’s just a simple faculty member, but Aizawa likes to think he has enough sway to make sure no repercussions would fall on Shinsou for testing out support gear to use in his extra-curricular activities. “I’ll take responsibility,” he says firmly. “If it ever comes to that.”
Shinsou is bolstered by this sentiment, but still not entirely sold. It’s understandable he might still feel a little rattled after the prison. “Will it?”
“Probably not.” Aizawa lets his voice hush even more as he paces across the roof to a dirtied skylight that hasn’t been painted out and drops to a crouch, beckoning Shinsou after him.
It’s unusual he’d have to talk through something like this, but Aizawa made a deal with himself to do something useful for Shinsou after how much of a help the kid was engaging his monster of a father. o it’s with cautious, raspy tones that Aizawa quietly lays out the basis of his operations. “Watch, listen, and stay out of sight until you’ve confirmed criminal activity and determined the best way to engage.”
The inside of the warehouse is split over a few levels visible from the rooftop-view, and at first glance there isn’t anything immediately culpable out in open view – but there never is. One of the panes in the pitched-roof skylight has broken and been replaced with a board, presenting as good an opportunity as ever to get in. Aizawa digs a multi-tool out of his belt and starts prying up the nails holding it down.
Shinsou notices this apparent break between Aizawa’s actions and words. “We’re going in? What happened to watch and listen?”
“Sometimes you have to get a little closer.” Aizawa pulls out the last nail and then throws it over his shoulder, lifting the board up carefully and setting it down without making too much noise. “As long as you see them before they see you.” He reaches to his neck and lifts a coil of his capture weapon free, then flings it at a bit of exposed pipework nearby that seems sturdy enough to hold his weight, testing with a few firm tugs and then deciding it’ll do, even with Shinsou in tow. On which note, Aizawa glances over to deliver his instructions to Shinsou with full eye contact and all the ‘I mean it’ foreboding he can muster. “Stay close to me, stay alert, and don’t use your quirk.”
There’s a slight sigh from Shinsou at this last order – of exasperation, or maybe resignation. “Understood.” This isn’t a game, and when Aizawa sets such rules down (or reiterates them) it’s not because he wants to ruin Shinsou’s fun, but for his safety and the legality of what they’re doing.
The boy can help, just not by using his extremely potent quirk extra-judicially. Even if Aizawa wouldn’t turn him in at this point, that doesn’t mean Shinsou couldn’t be caught, and a blot like that on his record would only make the path to being a Hero even harder than it already is. More than anyone else, especially in competition with kids who have been given all the chances Shinsou hasn’t, he needs to do things the right way.
Dropping the rest of his capture weapon down into the darkness, Aizawa glances over at Shinsou one last time before putting his goggles on. He looks calm, but Aizawa knows still waters are often the product of opposing currents crashing against one another. Peace on the surface is no indicator of the struggle that could be taking place underneath.
Yet speculation is lost to the flow of real-time, so all Aizawa does is pull up his goggles, securing them against his face and then taking a firm handful of the means to their descent. There are more ways to learn than being talked at in a classroom. And Shinsou is proving to be a receptive student. “After me.”
This, Aizawa thinks as the two-by-four breaks across his back, is not at all how he intended for things to play out.
It’d started well enough.
Surveillance and stealth are Aizawa’s bread and butter… usually. Because in spite of being the rookie, Shinsou isn’t the cause of this situation derailing. At least, not directly. It was supposed to be a quiet, covert operation to establish if this place is indeed a contraband trafficking base of operations, followed by a swift lockdown of any complicit criminals. That’s what the plan was. And when creeping quietly around the warehouse, much to Aizawa’s (pleasant) surprise, Shinsou’s as quiet as a mouse. A natural, dare-Aizawa-say-it, which he doesn’t. Not out loud.
So the manic escalation that takes place a short while after is all on Aizawa. In the first instance, his instincts are right and there are a few men to-and-froing across the main warehouse space packing boxes with smaller packages made up to look like food. After creeping along badly lit walkways and getting up close to the shipping container-esque building-within-a-building, through the dirty, not-blacked out windows Aizawa spots a couple more guys filling the packages with everything from cigarettes to drugs. That’s enough proof to justify action.
Shinsou does as he’s been told and stays out of it, while Aizawa uses handfuls of his capture weapon as he springs from the blind spots of the two packers crossing the warehouse floor. Binding their arms and mouths, Aizawa drags them into the shadows and knocks each out with a careful thump to the head. Next he sets to the guys inside the prefab building, using his multi-tool to pry open one of the windows while Shinsou bangs on the single door to the room as a lure. Aizawa has to admit: it’s quite useful having him here – at least initially.
Aizawa gets the window open and sneaks in while the criminals react to the diversion, then sees to them in much the same way as the first – snatching each with a strip of his capture weapon and pulling them backwards crash into the table, knocking themselves out on it without a single one ever seeing Eraserhead coming.
And that’s when Aizawa makes his first mistake.
He lets his guard down for a critical moment, when Shinsou opens the door and strolls into the interior of the building with his eyes on the two newly unconscious criminals on the floor. “Well,” he says with a funny balance of admiration and frustration – after all, he’s been on the sidelines spectating, which isn’t quite what Heroes or their not-quite-interns sign up for. “That was eas–”
Why Aizawa doesn’t sense it coming is the biggest failing. His gut feeling of just-beforeness doesn’t kick in, maybe too drawn into the words Shinsou doesn’t finish. Because that’s the point at which a knife flies through the air and cuts Shinsou’s arm. He lurches out of the way, but not fast enough to escape the blade in its entirety. One of them still has some semblance of wits about them: it’s just not Aizawa.
Instinct kicks in a moment later. “Get down!” Aizawa barks, vaulting over the table. The flying dagger that cut Shinsou comes back around, carving through the air with a billowing strip of something like fabric wrapped around the handle controlling it. Aizawa flings one of his own wraps to snatch the blade out of the air before it slashes for Shinsou again. There’s obviously more opponents here than he’d thought, and Aizawa can’t help considering that if he’d been alone, or even if Shinsou had been closer rather than forced to the sidelines, this might not have happened.
Shinsou drops into a crouch, one hand clamped tightly around his upper arm and the dark fabric of his hoodie concealing any blood as he puts his back to the wall and crab-walks into cover. It’s never more evident than at a moment like this that they’re playing for keeps. The danger is wholly and undeniably real. That means if Aizawa says get down, Shinsou fucking gets down and stays there.
Aizawa leaps through the open door, pulling hard on his capture weapon to reel in the assailant. It’s a woman who stumbles on the end of his fishing line, two long tendrils coming from each of her hands that whip through the air like scarves with exceptional control. The daggers give her dangerous range, coiled as they are at the end of each quirk-sponsored extension to her body. It’s when he’s facing in her direction – confronting a very real threat – that Aizawa gets hit by the two-by-four from behind. Aizawa’s second mistake: fixating on the person who attacked Shinsou, overlooking whether there could be more still.
Stumbling forward from the force of the timber smashing across the back of his shoulders, Aizawa catches sight of a new dagger shooting straight for his belly. He grabs the knife just before it plunges into his gut and feels the edges bite into his palm. Activating his quirk as he stares at the woman who wields the blades, the controlling tentacles – if that’s what they are – fall limp and Aizawa is able to rip one dagger away and throw it down. He takes two fresh handfuls of his capture weapon and throws one forwards as he stomps on the dropped tendril and the woman lets out a shriek. The other handful he casts behind him, spreading like a net to catch whoever was stupid enough to get this close to Aizawa and break their own weapon on him. Because Aizawa can take a beating like a pro, and now the idiot’s unarmed.
Both captures land, and with a strong tug in either direction, Aizawa drags each immobilised attacker off their feet. He knocks out the one behind him on the sole of his boot, lifting it as a surface for the man to unwillingly headbutt as he falls to the ground. The woman he gets coiled up like a caterpillar and knocks down with an elbow to the chin.
This is when the third, fourth and fifth criminals come charging out of the back room they were all playing cards in or something, and Aizawa finally comes to the conclusion that he might have bitten off more than he was wise to try and chew on this occasion.
Aizawa will freely admit that it took many long years – and still happens semi-regularly – of getting his ass kicked to become proficient at multi-person fights. This isn’t one of those times, thankfully. However, the three who rush him are enough of a handful to keep him too busy to have an eye on Shinsou in the interim.
One of the criminals has a speed-enhancing quirk, so Aizawa needs to keep him the focus of his gaze if he’s to keep up with his movement. The other keeps bending when Aizawa punches him and needs to be stared at for any strikes to land in an incapacitating fashion, and the last just hits like a fucking truck, even when Aizawa’s using his quirk. Even he has limitations, but being able to take three experienced fighters in hand-to-hand and come out on top is as essential a part of Aizawa’s ability as a hero as his quirk is. It’s over about as quickly as it starts, but not without a battering in the meantime.
After Aizawa’s taken care of the three he looks urgently back at the doorway where Shinsou first ducked into cover, spotting the outline of a large figure moving past the windows of the building-within-a-building; his gut drops accordingly. A few running paces and Aizawa’s leaping through the door after the last (hopefully) of the criminals, only to almost charge into the guy’s back as he stands dead still in the middle of the floor.
Shinsou is still bunched up against the wall as he was when Aizawa left, but there’s a new streak of blood that runs from his forehead up through the peaks of his hair, another smear that looks to wrap around the back of his neck. Must have forgot his hand was bloodied and reverted to nervous habits, most likely. Shinsou looks a little pale, but still in control as his gaze draws to Aizawa with caged worry.
The attacker is a huge man, a head-and-a-half above Aizawa at least, and the crowbar on the floor by his feet suggests he came in armed and ready to cause serious damage. Now he simply stands like a statue, eyes vacantly staring forward with just a hint of conscious panic in them as Aizawa paces around to the front.
With a single strike from his own bloodied fist, Aizawa throws an uppercut at the man’s chin and knocks him out, dropping like a sack of bricks tied to an anvil. From behind him, Aizawa hears a simple statement. Not justification, but the facts as they are. “It was self-defence.”
Aizawa pulls a couple of first aid packs from his belt and throws one at Shinsou; no more than dressing pads with adhesive straps, but they’ll do in the short term. It’s all anyone does – what they can, or need to, in the heat of the moment. Aizawa can’t deny or penalise someone for that. Especially not Shinsou.
So it’s with clear understanding, even compassion, that Aizawa replies, “I know.”
Notes:
SO I might have mentioned this already (and I've touched on it in comments) but to assuage any fears people have that this fic will go on hiatus or drag between updates......... not gonna happen. This would be because I take my projects very seriously, and not least because I've got 20+ chapters of backlog that guarantee I'll be regularly updating (my editor's graces permitting) well into 2019. This also means I'm absolutely planning to shoot to the top of the 'longest Aizawa & Shinsou-tagged fics on a03' and we will be riding this train for SOME TIME.
To knock a few common misconceptions, this means I'm not writing these chapters between updates (not even I could manage that), and I don't need (or even like) comments that say things like 'please keep updating' or otherwise encouraging me to keep posting chapters - trust me fam, I'm gonna keep updating. That's not to say there's *anything* wrong with that kind of comment, it's just not my personal preference!
I know a lot of fic writers operate in that write-and-post by chapter way, and do love those kinds of motivating comment to encourage them to keep writing, but honestly the most motivating thing for me is to hear how people feel/react to what's been posted so far - knowing that you're excited about the story and look forward to more (as well as what in the posted work you really like/stands out to you) is the most enjoyable response for me, at least compared to requests/suggestions to do things. I don't really 'do' requests in a conventional sense, because as mentioned the next 150k of this story is already drafted, so I've got a clear idea of where we're going and am just excited to take people on that ride.
If it feels superfluous to say 'I liked this bit' then I can also knock a misconception by saying - it really isn't! I pack a lot of details and little moments into my work, so seeing someone else pick out something I've done that they liked is a validating rush I can't even describe. Often people pick out different stuff too, so it's really interesting (and helpful for me) to see what things really resonate with people. As the author I'm 'in' this story and won't know what's really resonant with different readers, so that's something I love finding out about through comments.
This was quite a beefy chapter, and of course, as always, I will see you in about a week, lovelies.
Chapter 8: New Findings
Summary:
Aizawa and Shinsou take a few steps forward, and slightly fewer back. That's… progress?
Notes:
This is an interesting chapter, especially coming off the back of the last two Doc-heavy ones. Lots of interesting bits in it, and going up a day early in hon. of the delightful sunny from my fanfic/mha-fanclub discord who has been keeping me alive with her exceptional detective work trying to pick this story apart. Enjoy it!
I almost ALWAYS forget to say this, so here's me actually saying it! This fic is set in the last 2 weeks (or thereabouts) of the first year of the canon events of MHA, so that moment where Midoriya and Shinsou see each other in the hallway in the manga - when Shinsou is following Aizawa (to be told about Aizawa wanting to visit the Doc in this fic) - is meant to be this story's tie-in to the canon.
This puts these events after the sports festival, around/just after the vs. teachers final exams, and of course before Aizawa goes away with 1A for the forest camp training arc. I'm a big fan of large stories encapsulated in very tight periods of time that don't really touch the canon, so this is NOT going to be one of those long sprawling fics that takes us over familiar pieces of canon. It'll be one of those long sprawling fics that you'll be amazed takes place literally in a 2 week period, and just for pacing purposes I'll mention this is a Thursday (and the story started on a Tuesday).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Officer Tamakawa looks as if he’s lived through several of his nine lives in the past week. Aizawa feels for him. “I swear, Eraser. Do you get into things like this just to get collected by the police?”
“No, but good idea,” Aizawa replies from his position slowly melting onto the hood of Tamakawa’s car. Ostensibly leaning back against the bonnet as he talks to Tamakawa, Aizawa can feel himself tilting back ever so slightly more and more each moment, but does nothing to stop it. “You are gonna take us to the station, aren’t you?” Shinsou is getting checked out by a medic nearby. Luckily, it seems like the cut to his arm was pretty superficial. In all likelihood he’s probably going to reflect on this moment as his first bloodshed in the line of being a Hero. Something to be proud of – and why shouldn’t he?
When Tamakawa sighs, his ears drop a little, one of them twitching like a nervous tic brought about by fatigue. Aizawa’s not one to talk, but still wonders if Tama’s been getting enough sleep. Wonders why he’s here at all. Yamaguichi was off-duty when she took them to the prison a few hours ago. “Are you working a double shift?”
“Yeah.” Tamakawa gives another tired huff, whiskers flexing, and Aizawa feels a resonant pang of empathy-meets-concern. Tamakawa’s golden eyes fix on Aizawa, then close a little from each side in a truly feline narrow gaze. “Don’t look at me like that.” It’s always odd for Aizawa to be on the other side of this feeling – but he’s always had higher standards of acceptable living for other people than for himself.
“Wasn’t looking at you like anything,” Aizawa denies expertly. Tamakawa is no detective, but as a police officer with a truly feline sense of curiosity, there's no telling what he's dug up in the time Aizawa and Shinsou have been occupied with the mad doctor. “Work keeping you busy?” Aizawa probes innocently, and assumes Tamakawa can guess the rest from context.
“Always does.” Aizawa definitely feels that. “We should catch up.” Tamakawa turns over his shoulder to throw a quick glance at Shinsou standing with the medic nearby. “Grab your…” It's clear he hesitates for a moment, but it's only a moment, “–kid and let’s go.”
Aizawa scrapes himself off the hood of Tamakawa’s car like a wind-splattered insect and has already beckoned Shinsou over when he wonders if he ought to clarify that Shinsou isn't actually his son. Nonsense, he writes off before considering it any further. There’s no way anyone would think that… right?
Aizawa gets into the passenger seat, and a few moments later Shinsou slips wordlessly into the back. After a once-over, Aizawa updates his mental records on Shinsou and concludes that the boy looks tired too. It’s with a weird clarity Aizawa realises that he might be the most well-rested person in this car right now. Which is saying a lot. He’s a little roughed up from the fight in the warehouse, but nothing he isn’t used to. The bleeding on his palm has mostly stopped, if only because he’s taped it to all buggery.
Keeping himself alert behind the wheel, it’s not a minute before Tamakawa starts unwinding to Aizawa like a tightly wrapped spool of wire. “So I’ve been looking into the first victim’s workplace, and they won’t tell me who else they interviewed for his promotion, but I’ve been able to get the names of everyone who would’ve been eligible at that level of the company. Narrows it down to about thirty.”
“How many women in that group?” Aizawa asks to slice the numbers more in their favour.
“Hm… five or six?” Tamakawa recalls with a little effort. The gender imbalance is striking as usual, but certainly useful for narrowing down suspects on this occasion. As well as being the trigger Dr. Shinsou spoke of, it dawns on Aizawa. To be at a constant disadvantage, passed over by people in positions of power with no basis in merit or what’s good and fair. Aizawa can’t help but feel this killer gets angrier with every new victim. To miss a promotion, literally take out the competition, and still get nothing; except sexually assaulted on the train home.
Aizawa narrows it down a little further. “Anyone the given name Shiyoko?”
Shinsou interrupts before Tamakawa can even answer. “That won’t work.”
“Why not?” Aizawa prompts automatically, slipping into teacher-mode like a pair of worn boots.
“Didn’t you hear what the Doc said?” Shinsou states like it’s obvious. “If she’s hiding in plain sight, it probably means she’s not using her real name.”
“That’s what he meant?” Aizawa hadn’t mulled Dr. Shinsou’s words over that closely yet, but it makes sense his son would be better at digesting this breadbasket than Aizawa is. With every passing moment, Aizawa comes to terms with how legitimately useful Shinsou is to have around on this case. Even when he gets caught in the crossfire and has to use his quirk with utter illegality but startling competence. Especially then.
“Jeez, old man, you could at least try to keep up,” Shinsou riffs, paying no mind to who hears the way they go on. Though this is a little more audacious than usual.
“Alright, smartass. Nobody likes a brat,” Aizawa delivers like a verbal cuff around the ear. “If her quirk isn’t registered and she’s using a fake name, what does that leave us with?”
Shinsou’s not the only one in this car Aizawa feels himself pruning like a bush that needs cutting to grow to its fullest potential. Because Tamakawa answers this one. “I checked the addresses of the women against the train station of the second death, and only one of them had any reason to be on that train at that time.”
“Sounds like we should pay her a visit,” Aizawa suggests, testing out Tamakawa’s flexibility like a plastic school ruler.
“Not without a warrant,” Tamakawa lays down the law. Like, literally. “That’s police information, I can’t just leak it to you.” Even if he already has with earlier evidence, Aizawa supposes he can’t begrudge a police officer for drawing the line somewhere.
So Aizawa teases more than he actually complains, “I suppose that means we ought to speak with a Detective.” Too bad Tama isn’t one, he thinks not for the first time.
“Oh, Chief Tsuragamae wants to talk to you, did I forget to mention that?” Tamakawa surely knows he didn’t bring it up, and has been deliberate in waiting until now, when he’s got Aizawa trapped in a confined space, to spring it on him.
Aizawa resists the urge to talk about throwing the dog a bone and just sighs as he finds the lever on his chair and tilts himself back several degrees. Might as well enjoy this moment of peace while it lasts. “Of course he does.”
“Looks to me like you two have had a rather ruff day,” Police Chief Tsuragame must be trying to throw them off, Aizawa thinks as he sweats a little more than usual in his jumpsuit. This has to be a trap of some kind.
It's not that Aizawa is personally worried, but should the Police Chief decide to want to talk about why an unlicensed schoolkid who isn't even in the Hero Course has been using his brainwashing quirk on criminals, all the way up to the level of his mass-murderer father in maximum security prison they were just at – while also in the presence of a pro Hero who technically should have reported all of this – is something for Aizawa to get a little clammy over.
But maybe that's not it, so Aizawa keeps his poker face stiff and answers, “Not too bad, Chief. How are you?” It's a cheeky fliparound to deflect attention, and might not work, but there's no harm in trying.
Tsuragame answers, “Well, I'm tired of chasing Tamakawa around the station trying to divine what on earth he's working on.” The literal image scarpers through Aizawa's mind and he feels a twitch under one of his eyes from trying to hold his amusement below the surface. “So I believe it's high time to bring this out of the shadows: I hear you think you’re onto a serial killer.”
“Maybe not fully fledged, but potentially… yes,” Aizawa hesitantly confirms. “I already told Tsukauchi it was worth a detective looking into.”
“Tsukauchi is just one detective; I am the Chief of Police.”
Aizawa doesn't stir from his oil-spill slump over his chair. It'll take more than this to ruffle his feathers, and as long as they’re not talking about Shinsou’s involvement, this is a dance Aizawa’s done plenty of times before – the Translegal Tango. “I assumed he would pass on the message.” Evidently, Tsukauchi did pass it up the ranks, it just took a while to reach the right level – the top, in this case.
“When you're using police resources so liberally I should like to be aware of what you're doing with my men.” And women, Aizawa adds thinking of Yamaguichi, even Kuwabara and Dr. Iwaya. All that police resource that’s just been there, ready for Aizawa to make use of. Of course he helps himself when it’s a literal serve-yourself buffet.
Besides, if the police were more responsive to Aizawa’s cues, then he wouldn’t need to sit here explaining it after the fact; the persistent thought sits at the forefront of his mind. But process can’t or simply won’t be rushed. Unfortunately. “So assign the case to a detective, and I'll tell them everything.” Aizawa does dare to sigh. “Again.”
“Micromanaging one of my detectives isn't a solution to this problem, Eraser.” Chief Tsuragame is especially dogged in his approach today. Aizawa does not micromanage. “Let's start with you telling me what you know so far.”
“Three people have died in as many days.” Shinsou busts into the conversation full of impatience and a lack of respect for authority; Aizawa's almost proud of him, if only his timing were a little better. “All staged to look like suicide, but it's actually someone with a brainwashing quirk taking them out.”
Chief Tsuragame glances at Shinsou then across to Aizawa like he means to say, “Is this yours?” What he does say is, “And you are who exactly?”
“This is… Jack,” Aizawa puts in before Shinsou comes around to answering. “He’s helping me with my work.”
“You’ve actually accepted help?” Tsuragame remarks. “I’m impressed.” Aizawa resists the urge to fidget in his seat. “I assume he’s licensed.” The Chief makes it sound like he doesn’t assume this at all. First landmine, Aizawa thinks with a cagey sidewards glance at Shinsou.
“Not… yet,” Aizawa finds himself offering. It could be true, which makes it not a lie, technically. “I’m taking full responsibility for his actions in the field.”
“Never thought I’d see the day you take on an intern, Eraserhead.” There’s no denying that Tsuragame is an exceptional Police Chief, it’s just that Aizawa would rather avoid these kinds of grillings around his Hero work. For a teacher who is constantly assessing the ability of others, Aizawa’s always been utterly atrocious at allowing others to monitor what he’s doing.
“They say there’s a first time for everything.” This comes from Shinsou, who Aizawa suspects gets bolder and bolder the more he learns how unique his position with Aizawa really is. Boy better not get an ego – more of an ego – about it. “So unless you have any more questions, Police Chief, might we get back to the serial killer on the loose?”
There’s a chill in the way Shinsou says it that’s uncannily like… his father, Aizawa realises with a peculiar pang of recognition. Something not necessarily good or bad, but unstable enough to go either way and then be back again in time for breakfast.
The moment of stunned silence lands like a butterfly, holding itself still for a moment before taking off into the air again. This could go one of two ways, but thankfully it goes the one where Chief Tsuragame breaks into a woofy chuckle. “I see why Eraser’s taken you on, young man.” He folds his fingers together and leans over the desk. “So tell me about this killer of yours.”
Aizawa has resisted the urge as long as he can, but right after they come out of the Chief’s office, Tamakawa catches his eye across a hallway and mimes two fingers in a smoking motion in front of his mouth. With a single gesture, Aizawa’s willpower dissolves like alkaline in acid.
Managing to slip away from Shinsou without an overt reason behind the need for his temporary absence, Aizawa heads out the front door of the police station, then makes a beeline around the building for the alley. By the side-door he finds Tamakawa, a cigarette already lit in his mouth as he holds a half-empty pack out to Aizawa.
“So what did the Chief say?” Tamakawa wastes no time in pouncing, but Aizawa takes a lighter out of his belt and lights the cigarette he sets between his lips. Takes a nice long drag first, tipping his head back to blow the plume of smoke upwards before coming around to answer.
“Tsukauchi is going to ‘look into it’.” Aizawa attempts not to let this sound as dour as he feels about this result, but it’s not very successful. It’s natural that a whole organisation is slower than a single individual, and all the detectives have multiple cases to juggle. But if it isn’t frustrating to be paces ahead of them trying to hurry the horse-and-cart along before anyone else dies.
“That’s something.” Tamakawa hardly sounds thrilled either, and Aizawa wonders how things would differ if Tama made detective. In theory, Aizawa never consciously plays favourites, but in practice he tends to discover his attachments to individuals long after the bond has already formed. Hizashi, for one. Aizawa was bleeding out and full of broken glass in a gang hideout before he realised quite how important his best friend was to him. The person he wanted one last word with before he died. Still does.
Aizawa drags on his cigarette again and lets the nicotine rush push back his residual frustration with how slowly things are moving. He’s doing everything he can, which is all he can do, and that has to be enough. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. “Just about.”
“Cheer up, Eraser. We’ve been trying to break that smuggling ring you stumbled onto for months.” Tama’s trying to be uplifting, but he’s faking it and looks like he’s due several consecutive catnaps. “If you were an officer, you’d probably get a commendation.”
Aizawa shrugs and pulls again. Accolades don’t mean anything to him and never have. He just wants criminals stopped in their tracks. Let everyone else have the credit, and he’ll take the satisfaction of a job well done.
At the end of a silent-but-comfortable pause in their smoke break, Tamakawa starts more conversationally than most people would give him credit for. “So about your kid.”
Aizawa is about to jump in with “he's not my actual kid” when the side-door opens and the brat in question steps out with a smug mile-wide grin. As if he's the teacher who just caught his students smoking behind the gym. “I knew it.”
Aizawa takes a vindictive pull on his cigarette and says, “Yeah yeah, you got us,” on the exhale. “What?”
Shinsou looks a little assaulted by this inquiry. “Nothing. I just didn’t want to wait for you alone in a police station,” Hitoshi explains sheepishly as as he slips out the fire-escape door, letting it swing almost-shut and bounce off a well-worn wedge behind him. Aizawa feels a little guiltier, if not quite guilty enough to actually put out his cigarette.
“Say, kid, I was about to ask,” Tamakawa picks up after his latest puff on his own machine-rolled health hazard; Aizawa’s not a wholly positive influence, he accepts that. But nobody’s perfect, and vices that are good for you aren’t really vices. “What’s your quirk?”
For a moment, Aizawa could swear he hears pure white noise. An insane deafening blare that makes no sound and literally pauses his ability to think for a moment. It seems to be centred around Shinsou, but when Aizawa’s actually able to try and think about what it was, the moment’s already passed. He’s stuck trying to remember something that wasn’t even there in the first place.
“Nothing,” Shinsou says with a voice that’s pure control. There’s no way Shinsou could have, or would have, used his quirk on Tamakawa. But even if he’s not using his quirk, a naturally commanding tone can be just as effective in some settings. “I’m quirkless.”
“Really? Then you must be pretty special for Eraser to take you on.” Pretty suspicious, Aizawa corrects icily in his head. Here’s something he didn’t expect having to deal with. After being ‘busted’ by Shinsou for sneaking off with Tamakawa, now he needs to sneak off with Shinsou. Perhaps that’s exactly what the too-smart brat wants.
“What can I say?” Shinsou has a vindictive little twist at the corner of his mouth when Aizawa meets his gaze. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and relishes doing it. “I’m a special guy.”
The conversation starts with the subtlety of a breezeblock swinging on the end of the chain. “So. Quirkless, huh?”
They’re at the school gates, dropped off out back of UA by a weary Tamakawa who’s simultaneously at the end of his shift and wits. Aizawa can finally broach the subject with Shinsou that’s been burning on his tongue like a cigarette almost burned to the stub.
“People talk,” is Shinsou’s weary answer. It’s late enough to be well past dinner, but Aizawa’s never been one for adhering to much of a routine. The boy should eat, though, and Lunch Rush has promised that he’ll always have a hot meal ready for Aizawa at any hour of the day or night. So in spite of it being quite clearly going-home time, it’s towards the canteen they both walk in stilted chunks of awkward conversation and stony silence.
“Tamakawa can be trusted.”
“By you.” Shinsou’s unwavering on this point. “Not me.” Aizawa remembers the shock of white-noise mental energy – that’s what he thinks it was, now – that Tamakawa’s question had generated. A defence mechanism maybe? If Shinsou’s even aware that he did it. If he did do it.
“Not yet,” Aizawa amends in his finest 'teacher does know best' tone of voice. Shinsou rolls his eyes and tries to move his arm then stops himself. The medic said the cut wasn’t deep, barely a quarter of an inch. He’ll just need to go easy on it in training.
“No matter who they are, people always talk about my quirk,” Shinsou clarifies with all the gravity the subject matter calls for. “I don’t want the police knowing about me.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa softly chuckles, more of an engine that tries to start and fails to get going. “That makes two of us.”
Shinsou fires Aizawa a doleful look, and they walk a little further in electric power-line tight tension, cruising quietly until the next break into conversation. “Back there, you said I wasn’t licensed yet,” Shinsou picks like a thread he’s had his eye on for a while.
“So you better pass the provisional license exam.”
The hope in Shinsou’s voice is like embers under a blanket of ash. Just a breath and they’ll light. “I’m allowed to take it?”
“If you’re there, and show them you have what it takes to be a hero, there’s no way they'd be able to refuse you,” Aizawa speaks from the more animated, fist-banging-on-the-table angrier section of his gut. “I’ll make sure you’re there. You have to do the rest.”
“With your help.” Shinsou doesn’t say this with insecurity, like he’s looking for validation. He says it like he knows damn well that Aizawa’s fully committed to helping him and just doesn’t want to admit it.
“Until you wear out my patience.” Aizawa lifts his arm and looks at the back of his wrist as if he’d have a watch on it. “Which will be any minute now, if you keep this gloating up.”
“Alright, teach,” Shinsou chuckles, but not sincerely. “I get it, you’re an ego-crusher.” They take a few more steps in the echoing arena of an empty school playground. “You know, I’m actually kinda glad you’re not my real teacher.”
“You couldn’t hack it,” Aizawa baits, inviting Shinsou in the best possible way: come and prove me wrong. Show me how much better you are.
“Maybe you couldn’t,” Shinsou suggests with a far too crafty air. Yet again, Aizawa visits the notion that he does not want this little mentalist provocateur in his damn classroom. Let Vlad have him.
“Maybe we’ll find out one day,” Aizawa concedes with a shrug. “Until then, you need to go easy on your injury, but that doesn’t mean you can drop physical training altogether. Especially not if you expect to take the provisional license exam next term. Keep up that 5k run every morning. Aim to get it under 30 minutes.”
“Eugghhh, you really don’t let up, do you?” Shinsou groans worse than when he’d had his arm cut open by a crazy trafficker earlier this day, worse than before meeting his mass-murderer father. It occurs to Aizawa that this teen could be quite accurately described as fucking lazy, at least with regards to physical training.
“Heroes don't let up,” Aizawa brings back around. “Amateurs quit when they're tired.”
“Guess that explains why you always look like that.”
Aizawa doesn't do this kind of thing often, but when he does it's always on impulse he's got no more say over than asking the wind not to blow. He reaches across the buffer of space between him and Shinsou, walking parallel to each other like a set of rails, and gives him a (friendly) shove. “You're one to talk, brat.”
Shinsou starts a laugh, but settles fast like gravel stirred up from a riverbed. “Aizawa… thank you.” He hesitates a moment before specifying. “For the opportunity. For taking a chance on me.”
“A chance?” Aizawa quotes back, and he's never been much good for mushy moments. “I can count three you made me take on you today.” Allowing Shinsou to lie to a police officer (1), not questioning his need to use his quirk in self-defence (2), and perhaps most notably, arranging to meet Dr. Shinsou and picking a mass-murderer’s mind for case details together (3).
Shinsou sniggers and it sticks this time. “Fine. For taking as many chances on me as you do.”
“Then don't let me down,” Aizawa replies. Shinsou hasn't yet, but that's no reason to let him get comfortable. They reach the cafeteria, and Aizawa knocks on the shutter. “Yo, Rush. Can I have two of those emergency bentos you promised?” Aizawa glances at Shinsou and thinks about where he’s going back to, what he knows about the kid so far. Not much, but some. “Make it three, and to go,” he adds as the shutter rolls up.
Lunch Rush bobs his head wearily, but still gives a thumbs up. Another workaholic: always in the kitchen coming up with some wild new dish, even after hours. Aizawa’s had more 4:00 a.m. breakfast-dinners with Lunch Rush than either of them would likely care to count. They sit in complete silence, which gives Rush the honour of being the faculty member Aizawa has spent the most time with and knows the least about – therefore his favourite. After Hizashi.
Shinsou ribs, “Did you miss lunch or something?” Aizawa tries to remember if he did, but draws a blank.
“For your mother. You said she works, right?” Aizawa returns, and Shinsou looks so mollified by it that he could even be said to have blushed a little. Trust a teenage son not to think of something like that.
“... Yeah. Thanks.”
“Thank Lunch Rush, not me.” Aizawa knocks his knuckles idly on the counter as he leans against it, eyeing the matching cuts where the double-edged dagger he grabbed sliced his palm in perfect symmetry. It’s going to be annoying for a few days; he could ask Recovery Girl to heal him, but the lecture he’ll have to endure might be more burdensome. Aizawa can repair himself the old-fashioned way.
“Thank you,” Shinsou repeats more politely to Lunch-Rush, who gives a completely identical thumbs up.
Aizawa's phone rings embarrassingly into another comfortable lapse back into silence. It's hard to tell, but Lunch Rush’s shoulders shake as if in silent laughter. The novelty seems to have worn off for Shinsou, who just looks like he might fall asleep standing up if he’s left unattended for too long. Aizawa answers.
“Shoooooootaaaaaa,” Hizashi drawls in the way he loves to maximise the use of. “Where are you?” After almost a decade calling each other Aizawa and Yamada, the transition into using given names had been like a duck to water – for Hizashi. For Aizawa, it was more like a just-hatched duckling wearing swim-fins and a snorkel set. Sometimes, he’ll still spit out a “ goddammit, Yamada!” when he's yelling, and Hizashi will get all upset and distracted from whatever they were fighting about. Works like a charm every time.
“I just got back to school.”
“I hate to break it to you, babe, but school doesn’t start for another eleven hours. Try coming home.”
“I have a lot of work to do.” Knock-on effect of spending all the time most teachers spend grading and planning lessons talking to deranged doctors and fighting crime: Aizawa spends time catching up on work while other teachers use that time to have lives.
“That ain’t my problem, honey.” Hizashi sounds like he’s on speakerphone, and is periodically bashing pots and pans together. Attempting to cook, most likely. Aizawa’s safer where he is.
In spite of it not having been all that long since Aizawa was home, he feels the roosting urge to return much stronger than usual. It's been a weird day, but rather than staying away from his sanctuary, Aizawa wants to crawl into it and curl up in the fetal position. Funny how that works. “I’ll be back later.”
“So, I should expect to find you asleep under your desk in the staff room tomorrow morning?”
“Usually, yes, but I mean it this time,” Aizawa insists.
“Why? What's different?”
A picture flashes into Aizawa's mind: Shinsou slamming his hand against the glass of his father's cell and yelling “you never loved her!” while Dr. Shinsou smiles like he's watching the boy's first steps. “Nothing,” Aizawa as good as lies, needing to appendix it with, “I'll tell you later.” Aizawa isn't good at telling people he needs them. But Hizashi understands that more than anyone else.
“Alright, Shota.” There's an important gravity in his tone that says ‘I get it’ far more than his casual, “See you later,” would suggest.
“Bye.”
With impeccable timing, Lunch Rush sets a stack of three bentos on the counter, nods, and then gives Aizawa another emphatic thumbs up. A double-thumbs up.
Aizawa takes the first off the top and announces, “Alright, kid. You're on your own.”
“Just like that?” Shinsou sounds like he's been conned. “Not even a bye or goodnight?”
“Bye. Goodnight.” Aizawa only just remembers not to tuck the bento under his arm like a book and holds it flat, picking up a capped styrofoam cup of miso soup with it. “Try not to get in any trouble on the way.”
“Should be easy without you around,” Shinsou retorts, but the lively cynicism falls flat when he breaks into a yawn. Aizawa wonders how far from home the boy lives and if he’ll stay awake on the train home. Lunch Rush bags the couple of hot dinners for Shinsou and passes them over with a solemn nod that the boy returns.
When he turns his gaze back to Aizawa, Shinsou wears an expression that could be mistaken for a mirror. Aizawa could peer into those violet-bagged eyes and be eye-to-eye with himself, fifteen years in the past. Looking for Heroes in a world of villains.
Shinsou’s hand lifts and he waves gangly-long fingers before he turns away, a puppy with paws slightly too big for itself. “G’night, teach.”
With a smile on his face shielded behind the heaped coils of his capture weapon, Aizawa waves first and realises he’s done it later, as though the thought didn’t come from his own mind.
Eating bites of Lunch Rush’s bento in-between marking write-ups of his actual student’s exercises in Hero class, Aizawa has a running itch of a thought. Just how many leagues away are these exercises, designed to test the ability of twenty-odd kids in a fully artificial environment, from being cornered in a warehouse by more armed traffickers than Aizawa had originally anticipated?
As he reads through every page of analysis – or five in Midoriya’s case – Aizawa finds himself considering what each student would have been like in the situations he’s been through with Shinsou in the past couple of days. Who would have fared better, or (more likely) worse?
Aizawa could try to apply the same rules to Shinsou as he does to his day students’ homework, but reality is a simple pass/fail – with a little room for notes. There would be no point in grading or having Shinsou write up what they’ve been up to. Not when it can be broken apart in the quiet moments among all the other things happening. And besides, no one wants a paper trail.
Aizawa doesn’t have time for one-to-one pep-talks with every kid in his normal class, but the night-class of one has no contest on his attention – apart from the criminals they’re dealing with. Without meaning to think it, a kind of unconscious shuffle in Aizawa’s head sets Shinsou aside because he’s obviously different from all Aizawa’s other students. Just for a moment, Aizawa feels glad things are the way they are. Like everyone is in the place they’re meant to be.
Sort of, Aizawa amends with a glance around the wonderfully peaceful teacher’s lounge, emptied of the nuisances he calls colleagues.
Aizawa’s phone doesn’t ring. He doesn’t even get a message. Long enough passes that he’s conscious of the fact that it hasn’t gone off. If Hizashi isn’t pestering Aizawa, he’s either found a suitably engaging way to occupy himself or he’s asleep. In Aizawa’s experience, the odds are about 50-50 each way.
So it’s Aizawa’s lack of patience for reading any more laborious over-descriptions of the same damn exercise that gives out in the end. He leaves the homework but picks up a wad of school-something-related paperwork and unopened mail that he’s seriously got to go through, and just goes home like an almost-normal person.
Knowing that half an hour’s free run is about as far as Aizawa is willing to go before giving up and sleeping in his bag, Hizashi was sure to find them an apartment Aizawa can usually be bothered going back to. If he’s not up to the run or simply too far away to make it worthwhile, Aizawa still sleeps wherever he damn well pleases – and is almost never disturbed. Whereas at home, Hizashi is sure to disturb him almost endlessly, if in a good way.
There’s an inevitable amount of glorious time-wasting when he and Hizashi are together outside work. The slowing-down moments of just living their lives around each other, trying to keep some semblance of synchronicity; Aizawa tends to slip in and out of rhythm with Hizashi’s own, regular snare-drum tempo.
When Aizawa gets home the lights are on, but Hizashi isn’t around – at least, not in the main room or bedroom where Aizawa might expect to find him. Narrowing it down to one location – also the only place Hizashi wouldn’t hear Aizawa coming home – Aizawa makes his way across the apartment until he gets to the studio.
Now, it’s worth remembering that Hizashi spent an indefinite amount of time picking out and fitting-out this place before Aizawa ever got close to it. Which means Hizashi’s home-studio might as well be called the grown music-man toybox; Hizashi does his radio show from here, as well as endless tinkering with instruments that only occasionally results in an album. How Hizashi keeps up so many hobbies amazes Aizawa. So when he comes into the studio and catches Hizashi behind the mic, he doesn’t dare to interrupt.
Aizawa waits for the song Hizashi’s singing – English, and therefore incomprehensible to him – to finish. By which point, Hizashi’s wearing a grin bright as a chest full of diamonds behind the soundproof glass. Taking off his headphones, he pops straight out of the insulated sound booth, a custom-built cubicle Hizashi had built at one end of the expansive studio that Aizawa’s pretty sure takes up at least one-third of this apartment’s floorplan. Not that Aizawa needs the space for anything anyway. His possessions all fit in the broom cupboard – just about, if you prop the door shut. He did it once, to prove a point, and won’t hesitate to bring it up if Hizashi is sniffy about Aizawa's things being in the so-called “wrong place” again.
“You waited for me to finish,” Hizashi purrs like he’s impressed. “You never do that.”
“I do so.” Aizawa receives Hizashi in his arms simply by lifting them, holding himself out like a scarecrow to be hugged, waiting slightly impatiently for Hizashi to wriggle his way into the sweet spot of being fully entwined with Aizawa, before dropping his arms to complete the hug. Hizashi’s just the right height for Aizawa to try and hang himself from like a wet towel on a towel rack – blanket mode, Hizashi calls it.
But Aizawa’s only ever been like this around Hizashi, some soporific effect of Hizashi’s proximity that always sets Aizawa at ease. Actually being relaxed when he sleeps has been an almost Hizashi-exclusive experience for Aizawa, running many years longer than they’ve actually been together.
“Hard day at the office, dear?” Hizashi teases, then draws a sharp breath as Aizawa scrapes his bristles clumsily across Hizashi’s bare neck – uncovered when he’s at home. Hizashi’s tattooed all the way around his throat with the opening bars of his first single. He'd almost crushed Aizawa's hand having that bit of ink done.
More invested in forming himself around Hizashi like plaster taking a cast of a sculpture, Aizawa just murmurs, “You don’t know the half of it.”
Notes:
Okay so just as like, a general warning, because I know there's not a lot of info about this in the story so far but I feel very strongly about it so I should warn y'all, but I will kill anyone who tries to attack Shinsou's mother. I'm serious. Fucking fight me. I don't expect all of you to understand why I feel this way because I'm coming from a point of knowing a lot more about the background that the story so far hasn't even touched on, but just... understand that if you want to cast aspersions onto her I will knife you up. Muchly.
But also more broadly, for a/n corner this time there's a couple of very important things about trauma, both Big T Trauma for the really extraordinary things that don't just happen to everyone, and the little t trauma that's how everyone grows up flawed in different ways as a result of their environment, is so deeply misunderstood and misrepresented in a lot of fanfic and that really frustrates me. I understand some of it is about fantasy and wish fulfilment and coping mechanisms, but when you reach a saturation point of MOST stories about Trauma are perpetuating unthoughtful misunderstanding of what trauma is, how it affects people, and how they deal with it then it becomes a problem, because people start to think that's what it's really like.
This story is primarily about Aizawa tracking a killer, but at heart it's also very much about trauma, but of course most of the time traumatised people aren't exactly the most forward with talking about or addressing their baggage. That's what makes dragging it out in a (I hope) realistic way so gratifying, because so much of trauma is about dealing with stuff that's NOT the trauma itself, but how it affects everything else a person interacts with. Even how Aizawa copes with the trauma of the work he does (poor Hizashi). I feel like we don't see that depth enough in trauma stories (at least in the current mha fic), much less the kind of understanding that allows these things to reveal slowly rather than exposing it all in an ugly run-down straight out the gate.
Oh there's also one VERY SPECIAL moment in here that had my editor reacted to with the comment "what the fuck just happened?!?!?" in the best possible way so I am VERY excited about all the little intrigues that we're going to see coming through in this story nice... and... slow...
Anyway, that's it for this week! See you next week, the chapter's gonna be a little *coughs pointedly* incendiary...
Chapter 9: A Step Forward (a step back)
Summary:
Aizawa tries to pull out in front, but just seems to end up further behind.
Notes:
Well here we are again, and will be so again, and again, and again. I know it's only chapter 9, but the fact that at this stage I know the story is going to go to be well over 200k and we're gonna be here for A WHILE makes me wanna just rock my old lady self back and forth in a rocker while I wait for all you poor fools to realise how much of a rollercoaster you're in for with this story. So it's with great pleasure that I continue this Steaming Hot Mess of an Aizawa fic that I'm insulted and terribly grateful no one else seems to have written yet. I love making a mark on fandom history that way.
Or in other words: STRAP IN BITCHES.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The day starts well enough, having ended well enough the night before. A second almost-full night of sleep, at home, in bed (with Hizashi). In a row.
“You know, if you keep coming home all the time I’ll start to get concerned.” Hizashi is swigging some kind of green drink from a protein shaker that almost matches the lime green leggings he's wearing, paired with a vest top so skinny it’s a wonder why he’s wearing it at all – it sure doesn’t cover much of his ridiculously over-sculpted chest. Not even his barbell-pierced nipples.
It’s only relatively recently that Hizashi decided tattoos weren’t enough and piercings started to feature on his living landscape of a body. First was the one in his navel – a tiny microphone charm, obviously – and isn’t visible in this top… just. The nips came about six months after that. Hizashi’s just got those three adornments to set off airport metal detectors, for now. He keeps ‘joking’ that he’ll get his junk pierced for Aizawa’s birthday this year, though Aizawa likes to question how would it be a gift to him if Hizashi’s cock is out of action from having an unnecessary piece of metal put in it. Works just fine how it is.
Aizawa assumes Hizashi’s been for a run in this day-glow tats-out look; so help any civilians, or worse yet paparazzi, who caught that early morning spectacle sprinting around the neighbourhood. A run would also explain why Hizashi was so sweaty when he woke Aizawa up bellowing some pop song at the top of his lungs this morning.
Naturally, when Aizawa didn’t leap to wide-awake attention in a second, this was followed by a slow pulling-up of the covers while Hizashi climbed onto the mattress to wrestle Aizawa out of the fetal position. Aizawa’s way of conveying “I'm awake” was to flip on Hizashi at the last minute, using that extra mass and the element of surprise to pin Hizashi to the mattress before he could even say “good morning” back. At least, not with words.
This inevitably resulted in Hizashi getting even more sweaty in bed right after. But he put this ridiculous running gear back on afterwards, which means he's surely about to disappear off to the shower for fuck-knows how long. Aizawa can nap on the couch with his coffee until the resident six-foot-one bird is finished preening. It’ll be glorious.
“Oh, I guess I’ll move out then.” Aizawa boredly rifles through the pile of paperwork and mail he dumped on the counter last night and sips the coffee Hizashi always puts on for him when he's here. And Hizashi dares to wonder why Aizawa’s been coming home all the time.
“Hey! That’d be great!” Hizashi zings with a million-yen grin. “I was getting sick of you cluttering up the place anyway.” The contradiction in these words is that Hizashi says them while literally draping over Aizawa like a clothes rack to dry himself on. Soon he’s reaching over Aizawa’s broad shoulders, the reach of long arms easily enough to filter through Aizawa’s unopened mail.
“Hm,” Aizawa murmurs as if giving it proper consideration. “Five years wasn’t a bad run.”
“Five? We’ve been together longer than that.” Hizashi’s indignant, and as if out of spite grabs the envelope – which looks a lot like police stationary – right out of Aizawa’s fingers. He turns it over a few times, but by all appearances it’s just a plain envelope that happens to be sent from the police station. There's no official marking beyond the stamp that sent it there. Snail mail is a little outdated, but also an awful lot less traceable, even if it is on police stationery.
“Are you sure?” Aizawa knocks back a little bit like he’s just rallying the ball rather than trying to win a point. Keeping Hizashi going to see where he lands.
Hizashi cranes over Aizawa’s shoulder to catch the corner of his gaze. Like he’s talking to a kid in class, but even more patronisingly than that, he asks, “How old are you, Shota?”
Aizawa snatches the envelope back off Hizashi. “Younger than you.”
That he’s not looking at Hizashi anymore in no way means Aizawa’s not aware of his smile, because the can’t-believe-it grin of false outrage is positively radiating against his cheek. “By four months.”
“And a day.”
Hizashi wraps his long hands around Aizawa’s head and shakes it in mock-frustration. “It was five years, like, two years ago.” Aizawa’s kind of impressed – has it been that long already? It feels like barely a couple of years ago that he was living alone in an apartment full of dead plants, sleeping on the sofa at Hizashi and his (then) girlfriend’s place more nights than he ever spent with the plant-corpses. Loads more time with real corpses too.
So it has to be even less time than that since Hizashi had a complete freakout after the night they took out a notorious motorcycle gang together. Aizawa had gotten a belly full of glass and said some stuff (he actually doesn’t remember) over short-wave radio to or about Hizashi as he bled out on-air. Naturally, once the glass had been taken out of all his organs and his internal bleeding stopped, the first night out of the hospital was when Hizashi started tearing his hair out and decided they had to find out “once and for all” if they were attracted to one another. They have the answer to that one now.
Aizawa replies a touch inattentively, “If you say so,” and starts trying to open the letter, minding the slice on his palm with a hiss.
Hizashi reaches past Aizawa's arms to filch the police envelope back. “This looks important.” He scores it open with a guitar-plucking fingernail and slides out the contents. “Oh, are these photos?” They are. A moment later Hizashi works out what they're photos of. “UGH-GROSS!” He throws the instant polaroids down abhorrently, and they fan across the mail-pile as Hizashi peels himself off Aizawa and backs away.
Aizawa laughs and picks them up. “You’re a Pro Hero. How can you be so squeamish?”
“I don’t mind it when they’re alive,” Hizashi clucks, going back to finish chugging the rest of his green-drink. “Only you would get so excited about getting pictures of dead people in the mail.”
“Just the right ones.” Aizawa starts straightening out the pictures: Kuwabara’s pulled it off again.
The first picture is an attempted reassembly of the sliced wrists of the first victim; the put-together puzzle resembles a series of strokes too damaged to be recognisable as words, but it’s better than the first time they looked. In the second picture, the man who jumped in front of the train, two kanji are shown in complete clarity, but it’s only two: 世子.
The third picture is also familiar: a hand again, like the second victim, but with a new skintone, size and extra kanji in the string of three that run across the wrist of the man who smashed his own head open on the pavement. Not Seiko or another reading, but Shiyoko: 死世子.
The final picture is new, and probably the one Hizashi was getting upset about – along with the slit-wrists. It’s an attempted reconstruction of the back of the man’s fractured skull, but it’s another kanji: 又. There’s one more kanji that would have completed the name written on the back of his head, before he cracked it open past repair on the ground, but it's illegible.
The overall picture is unmistakable: a killer who writes her name on her victims, compelling them to take their own lives.
Aside from the last kanji of her name, one question remains a mystery: how long before Shiyoko strikes again?
As it turns out, not long at all.
Aizawa specialises as much as anyone can in teaching Heroics, but at a faculty dominated by Pro Heroes, UA teachers have to be able to teach at least one classroom subject in addition to their specialism (unsurprisingly, in Heroics). For this reason, Aizawa occasionally passes as the least enthusiastic Japanese teacher in the world. During a Hero Ed. class he wouldn’t notice his phone ringing until after lesson’s end, but during this early morning Nezu-must’ve-timetabled-it-just-to-spite-him session, Aizawa will at least check a caller ID when his phone is going ballistic on vibrate for about the final third of the class.
Tamakawa picks up immediately when Aizawa returns his call, which Aizawa thinks he already knows what it has to be about. “Another one, huh?”
“You've seen the videos then?”
“Videos? How did it happen?” Aizawa grabs his things under one arm and leaves the classroom without any further interaction with the class, who – let’s face it – are about as awake as he is at this time of the morning.
“Self-immolation. Fella set fire to himself in the middle of a busy intersection.”
Aizawa’s a man of reasonable limits, but even his response is gruesome. “Holy shit.” He heads back to his own classroom, which will be empty for the next period while 1A are outdoors for P.E., while Tamakawa unfolds the rest of what they know so far about the latest incident – single male, no connection to previous victims, didn’t seem like a suicide risk, but decided to take a lighter fluid shower and play with matches in the middle of a crossing surrounded by rush-hour traffic. Worse yet, it's been filmed in all its glory by some horrified bystanders, so is now rapidly circulating the internet. As Aizawa turns the last corner and ambles into his classroom, there’s a distant noise that sounds an awful lot like someone running towards him as fast as they can.
News travels fast, and as regular surfers of social media, Aizawa’s students often know about current events faster than the sources that inform the teachers do.
That’s why it’s surprising but not that surprising for Shinsou to sprint into the doorway and skid to a stop once he's over the threshold, breathing hard. Like he’s literally crossed the campus to get here as fast as possible in the break between classes.
Aizawa leans back against the edge of his desk, wondering just how many people might have seen Shinsou legging it across campus to get here. Somehow he doubts what anyone thinks is going on to be even close to the grisly truth. “I assume you’re here about the incident this morning.”
“Yeah.” There’s no need for further explanation; never know who might be listening. But Shinsou wouldn’t hotfoot it over here for nothing. Aizawa notices Shinsou’s phone clenched tight in his hand, knuckles white around it as he says, “I saw something.”
Aizawa can’t quite figure that one out, a confused wince as Shinsou comes further into the classroom and lets the door shut behind him. “Where?”
“In one of the videos,” Shinsou blurts more than anything, coming over to the desk next to Aizawa with his phone screen held out. The lock-screen appears to be of a very large black cat, but Aizawa only catches a glimpse before Shinsou pulls up what must be a screenshot taken from one of the videos that’s already made it online, easy for a prodigious student to find. Aizawa hasn’t had a chance to look. Supposedly being in class, Shinsou ought not have had a chance either. Instead, he’s been going over the footage so closely he’s picking out a single frame to show Aizawa.
The person in the picture is seated with his legs crossed, unmoving even as he literally burns to death. How long does the grip of the killer’s quirk last, Aizawa wonders? How awake and aware was her latest victim as he burned? The victim who jumped from the roof screamed on the way down, but control on this man seemed to hold all the way until the moment he slumped over backwards, dead. Did he watch himself strike the flame as a prisoner in his own mind? Feel the flames engulf him, eating up his flesh as their fuel? What vile purpose could such an end be made necessary for this man? If he did anything to deserve it at all, but no one deserves that. Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Right here.” Shinsou taps on the screen to zoom. “The resolution isn’t great, but it’s there on his chest.”
Shinsou is right. The exact kanji aren’t legible, but knowing what most of them are already, Aizawa can fit the detail to the remnants left on flesh engulfed by flames, just visible for a moment as his shirt burns off his body.
Aizawa’s not the kind of teacher that goes in for a lot of praise, because being right is its own reward. Recognition of good work is different, though, so when he simply says, “Let me see,” and takes Shinsou’s phone off him, the undercurrent is one of achievement.
“This is more elaborate than before, just like D... Doc said.” A lingering tic, but a sure tell that all is not as well with Shinsou as his focused attitude makes out. A hidden struggle, one that Aizawa must try and track.
“I’ve seen this kind of thing before,” Aizawa mutters, and even he can tell it sounds ominous. “She won’t stop now, not until someone catches her.”
“So when are we getting the hell out of here to do something about it?” Shinsou asks urgently, and Aizawa can’t stop a sigh.
“So eager.” Aizawa lowers the phone but keeps hold of it. “I just spoke with Tamakawa. There isn’t much we can do for now.”
“That can’t be true!” Shinsou insists. “There has to be something-”
“Heroism isn’t about rushing into every foolish dogfight just to feel useful,” Aizawa cuts in. “In spite of the example All Might sets doing it.” Unfortunately, crowding a scene where more people aren’t necessary just slows the work down: Aizawa would know. “All this means is we’re trying to beat the clock on whoever’s next.”
Shinsou bursts like an overblown balloon, “By doing nothing?!”
“By weighing up the situation carefully.” Aizawa settles Shinsou like a strong hand on a tiller through choppy waters. Aizawa’s pooled into his chair behind his desk, while Shinsou cranes over him, and if he were so inclined – the impulse exists, even if it’s not pursued – Aizawa would be able to easily reach for Shinsou’s shoulder to physically steady him on this reckless course. Instead Aizawa just contemplates the negative space in-between them. “The police are also working on this, so thinking it over until the end of the school day is a perfectly rational choice.”
Shinsou struggles, but he’s not so blinded by his feelings that he can’t see the sense in what Aizawa’s saying. “Fine. What can we do then?”
“Nothing… yet,” Aizawa steadies. “It takes balance to do this thing well. We have to figure out how to get one step ahead of her.”
“How do we do that?”
“By thinking about it, not rushing out guns blazing,” Aizawa instructs like the swipe of sandpaper over a rough surface. “Now, don't you have a class to get to?”
“Yeah, fine, but what about later?” Shinsou demands with a big shot of that youthful determination that's so natural to young bucks. He’s still tucked close to Aizawa’s side, and Aizawa feels a gentle nudge against his shoulder. “I don't want you to leave me out.” Ah, the shadow cast by arrogance in all its forms: insecurity.
Aizawa was considering it already – meeting at a convenience store at an imprecise time isn’t the most reliable arrangement. So he might as well. It breaks the rules he sets down to try and keep the two distinct halves of his life separate from one another, but Shinsou has already made himself a bridge between those dimensions. The least Aizawa can do is make it easier to hop between them.
“Fine.” He brings up Shinsou’s phone again and takes it back to the main page. The background is a sunset shot of the city, probably taken from a bedroom window in an apartment block. There’s a cat sprawled against a window in the distance, though that’s surely not the reason he took it. Maybe. “Don’t share this information with anyone.” Aizawa starts keying a number into the phone. “Don’t show it to anyone, don’t even mention that you have it. Understand?”
“What is it?” Shinsou asks as Aizawa hits call, and a moment later his phone starts to vibrate on the desk.
“My phone number.” Aizawa hands Shinsou’s phone back to him and picks up his own, dropping the call but saving the number. “Call only if it’s urgent. Messages for everything else.”
“One question.” Shinsou’s face is an enigma as he looks at his phone. What might this gesture from Aizawa might mean to him? Being brought in closer, instead of pushed away. His gaze lifts to Aizawa, one eyebrow arched a little higher than the other, and for a second there’s a flash of what he could be – glimpses of the man he’ll become, from the kid he still is. “Do I get a personal ringtone?”
“No.” Aizawa lays that one to rest like burying roadkill in a shallow grave. “I’ll contact you after school, let you know where we’re headed.” Subtle cues, but enough to reassure Shinsou: I’ll tell you where we are going – don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you out. It works.
“Okay.” Shinsou pockets his phone, and the air shifts a little, one tiny step into being awkward. They’re not supposed to be together in school like this, the division between day and night classes blurring more and more every passing day. “I better get going.” Shinsou only pauses at the door for a moment, turning back to lift one of those magician’s hands in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it illusion of a wave. “Catch you later, teach.”
Catch the killer, more like.
“Detective Pot!” Tsukauchi sounds about as jubilant as someone who’s received dinner guests they weren't expecting. “The Chief mentioned I should expect a shadow partner on this case. Figures it’d be you.”
“Hey.” Aizawa walks straight past Tsukauchi into the office he shares with another detective that Aizawa struggles to remember, who's out at the moment anyway. “Weren't you the pot?”
“No, no, I was the kettle,” Tsukauchi insists as his gaze turns onto Shinsou standing at Aizawa’s side. “Who's the little spoon?”
“Little?” Shinsou echoes scathingly.
“This is Mind Jack,” Aizawa introduces impatiently, waiting for the day he stops having to explain Shinsou to people. “He’s helping me with the case.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Tsukauchi suggests with a dry chuckle as returns to his desk and drops into his chair. “Make yourselves comfortable.” He gestures at the empty chairs of his colleagues, and while Aizawa remains standing, Shinsou crosses over and slumps into one.
There’s a slight squeak from the chair as Shinsou puts his weight back into it, his heels sliding across the carpet tiles as long legs extend under the absent detective’s desk. Aizawa takes a mental snapshot of the picture Shinsou makes: a what-if image of the future, the who-and-what’s of what the boy could be. Being a Hero, even a professional one, but especially an underground one, doesn’t always pay the bills. Aizawa can just imagine him with a wad of papers jammed in a every pocket, a cup of shitty office coffee permanently clutched in one hand, and a nub of a pencil jutting out from his mop of purple hair. With his analytical skills and unique quirk, Shinsou would make an incredibly effective detective – with or without the oversight of the police.
“So are we actually gonna talk about this or what?” Shinsou folds his arms across his stomach, making himself look utterly at home with a distinctly feline authority.
“Then I’d invite you to start talking,” Tsukauchi returns as he starts flipping through the pages of a notebook. Other cases, different sets of scales where human lives hang in the balance.
Shinsou catches Aizawa’s eye and rolls his own. Aizawa just returns a flat stare: this is the reality of the work, growing pains and all. Learning how to deal with the everyday obstacles is often the larger part of this job. “Four dead as of this morning. The killer is literally writing her name on them. We-” Shinsou stops and then fires a long, hard look at Tsukauchi. “Well. You know where she works and presumably lives, so what we’re doing sitting here on our asses is beyond me.”
Aizawa remembers how much he actually likes this kid. “You also said she was using a fake name at work.” A modest contribution to the conversation, but Aizawa’s not one to do work that can be competently done by someone else who could use the experience. Shinsou’s already behind the pack who made it into the Hero Course, so he needs all the experience he can get.
“Tamakawa sounded like he had it narrowed down all the same,” Shinsou comes back, gaze touching Aizawa for just a moment before turning back to Tsukauchi. “Aren’t the police supposed to be able to you know, investigate these kinda things?”
To his credit, Tsukauchi takes the tsunami of Shinsou’s attitude head on without letting the pleasant smile fall from his face. “Surprisingly, it’s not our policy to communicate the police force’s every activity to anyone who hangs around the station asking what we’re up to.” Now Tsukauchi turns to Aizawa, like he thinks Shinsou’s just the puppet on the end of the strings – wrong, but Aizawa can see why he’d think it. Aizawa and Shinsou are cut from remarkably similar cloth. “I know you probably think nothing has been done on this, and we’re terribly slow and laborious in picking it up, but I do have to point out that it’s only been three days.”
“Four now, so that’s a death a day,” Shinsou comes back even before Aizawa can. With a little more practice, Aizawa wouldn’t even need to be here – he’d like to farm out this part of the work, he thinks, before realising the implications of the scenario he’s spinning for himself. One where Shinsou is a more permanent fixture in his line of work, not just a one-off case. “So shall we wait until tomorrow, when someone else is gonna die, or get out there and actually try to do something?” Shinsou puts forth with an uncanny air of his (not) dear old dad.
Tsukauchi glances at Aizawa briefly. “I see why Eraserhead picked you.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Shinsou brushes off with outright nonchalance now. Aizawa reckons he’s going to have a problem on his hands in no time with this one. “You want me to carry on, or is it time for you to tell us something we don’t already know?”
Aizawa would intervene and stop Shinsou roasting a police detective alive, but it’d be pretty hypocritical; if it weren’t Shinsou, Aizawa’s got no doubt he’d be manning the barbeque instead. If anything, this makes Aizawa seem more rational – the reverse good-cop bad-cop.
Tsukauchi finishes writing in his notebook and flips the cover shut, folding his hands over each other on top of it. “Alright. We have a suspect profiled, and your assumptions about a false name are correct. There’s a Hakazaki Seiko who worked at the company of the first victim who fits the security footage Tamakawa obtained from the train station.”
So they have done something, Aizawa realises with a warm surge of reassurance. “Hakazaki Seiko?” Aizawa pounces on. “Written how?” He takes a step closer to Tsukauchi, waiting as he opens the notebook back up.
Shinsou even sits up as Tsukauchi finds the page and turns it out. “Like this.” As clearly as Tsukauchi’s skewed handwriting permits, it reads 墓世子.
Aizawa and Shinsou’s eyes meet a moment after leaving the page, the final piece falling into place. “That’s not her name,” Shinsou announces while Aizawa reaches past Tsukauchi for the book, pulling it around to face him and picking up a pen from the desk.
Tsukauchi is no fool, but he’s been on this case less time than Shinsou and Aizawa, so it’s understandable he’s a little behind in the game. He takes it pretty well, but there’s an edge of warning in his voice when he says, “So what is her name?”
Aizawa’s just finished writing it. Simple, really, to drop a few kanji like pushing books off a shelf. All the pieces in place: 墓又 死世子.
Tsukauchi reads with growing surety, “Hakamata Shiyoko.”
“So we’ve got her name.” Shinsou’s voice is full of gravitas, and rightly so: they’re one step closer to catching this woman. “What are we gonna do about it?”
“That’s for the detective to answer.” Aizawa’s pointed look pierces right between Tsukauchi’s eyes.
“If it’s the same woman, we can pay her a visit, but we won’t get inside without a search warrant.”
“If there’s even anything to find,” Shinsou points out. “She’s supposed to be good at hiding. There’s hardly going to be hard evidence just laying out in the open.” Unless it’s something the killer wants them to find.
Thinking out loud, Aizawa sounds out, “We could try to predict her next victim, but that’s a field with a lot of room for error.”
“Have you talked with Dr. Iwaya?” Tsukauchi suggests. “That is what we have her for.”
“I have, but I suppose we could stop by again,” Aizawa sighs, and maybe that’s what tells Shinsou enough to fill in the gaps.
“Let me guess: the Psych?” Shinsou suggests, and Tsukauchi nods. “Then you better leave me out of it.”
“You don’t get to pick and choose what you do,” Aizawa retorts with a stern look. “You’re coming.”
“If you want to catch her, you ought to go soon,” Tsukauchi urges. “Dr. Iwaya will be finishing for the day about now.”
“What about Hakamata Shiyoko?” Or Hakazaki Seiko, whoever: the killer.
“I’ll look into getting a warrant, but I can’t do any more on it this evening,” Tsukauchi says not quite as remorsefully as Aizawa would find tolerable. In fact, he almost sounds like he’s hurrying them.
Aizawa knows – having just lectured Shinsou on this very point – that sometimes there isn’t something useful that can be done right away, but that doesn’t stop him feeling frustrated and that it’s pointless to just do nothing and wait for the bodies to pile up.
“What, you got better plans or something?” Shinsou’s baiting Tsukauchi, which Aizawa should really stop… but doesn’t.
“If I do, it’s no-” With perfect awkward timing, there’s a knock on the door. This is apparently just a warning before the door starts to open as the knocker invites himself in.
Aizawa hears and recognises the voice before he ever sees who comes pacing into the room on gangly spider-legs. “Tsukauchi? Are you ready to-oh.” All Might stops halfway through the door, surveying the scene inside with his jaw hanging open.
“We’ll just be going then,” Aizawa fires into the silence like a warning shot. “Sh-... Jack. With me.”
Shinsou doesn’t need telling twice, bolt upright on his feet with saucer-eyes fixed on All Might as he follows Aizawa silently out of the room. All Might steps aside to make way for them, but Aizawa pointedly doesn’t meet his eye, even as he senses the beam of Toshinori’s gaze cast like a searchlight in his direction. Aizawa’s not explaining Shinsou again today, and definitely not to Toshinori.
Maybe it’ll come to nothing, Aizawa considers like a glimmering ray of hope. He doubts it, nosey busybody that Toshi is. But he can hope all the same.
As they’re walking down the hallway on the way to Dr. Iwaya’s office, Shinsou asks, “Is it me, or was that super awkward?”
Aizawa knows what he’s referring to: the look on All Might’s face as they accidentally ran into each other in a place and with company they didn’t exactly expect. Aizawa knows Tsukauchi and Toshinori are friends, but Shinsou certainly doesn’t. He probably wouldn’t have recognised the Symbol of Peace crashing this little shake-down at the police station in his boiled-down form, which is a small mercy. “It wasn’t you.”
“Thought so.” Shinsou is quiet without being sullen, hands in his pockets and keeping up with Aizawa’s quickstep up to Dr. Iwaya’s office. “Am I gonna be in trouble?” Even if students don’t realise the scrawny ‘assistant’ of All Might actually is him, Shinsou’s smart enough to recognise Toshinori from UA, someone who might recognise him and wonder what a General Studies student is doing in a detective’s office after hours with one of the Hero Course teachers.
“You? No,” Aizawa reassures as they head into the stairwell and start to climb. If anyone's due a lecture, it's Aizawa. “Don't worry about it.”
Shinsou doesn’t quite scoff, but it’s close. “Oh, we've got worse shit than that to worry about.”
Aizawa gives a vaguely affirmative grunt as he pushes on the door out of the stairwell. Iwaya’s office is only a floor above Tsukauchi’s; not worth taking the lift for, even if Aizawa would prefer to walk rather than let himself be trapped in a small metal box with other people and social norms.
When Aizawa comes out of the stairwell, he spots a willowy figure standing by the lifts. “Ah, Dr. Iwaya. Do you have a minute?” Iwaya turns to face him with a smile polished like the face of a mirror… that cracks when her gaze widens to take in Shinsou stepping out the stairwell behind Aizawa.
It’s remarkable in a way, the sheet of terror that pulls over her transfixed expression. Eyes wide and darting, checking the lights on the ascending lift to take her away. “No, I can’t… I-” The lift emits a quiet bing and the doors slide open. “I have to go.”
Aizawa goes after her, but only gets as far as “Wait-” before the doors shut again. Iwaya slips out of their net like a fish.
Shinsou’s tone is full of ‘I told you so’ gloom. “I did say to leave me out of it.” But Aizawa is a determined fisherman if nothing else.
“C’mon.” He doubles back and goes through the door they just came from, pulling a strip of his capture weapon from the reel around his neck and securing it on the edge of a railing in the wraparound staircase that runs the height of the building. “We’ll catch her at the bottom.”
“You can’t be seriou-” By this point, Aizawa’s already jumped the railing and shoots down the stairwell like a one-man lift, using a loop of his capture weapon around his forearm as a brake on his speed. A few seconds later his boots hit the floor. Aizawa steps back and looks up, watching the lithe figure Shinsou cuts coasting down after him, landing with all the grace of a newborn giraffe.
With a deft flick up the length of his capture weapon, Aizawa releases the end from the distant railing five floors up. It drops into a coil that Aizawa coaxes over his arm, which he then throws back over his neck and heads for the door.
They make it to the lifts just in time for the doors to open. Dr. Iwaya looks about as pleased as expected to see the pair of them standing there across the doorway like a police roadblock. “Nice try, Doc, but no dice.” Only after he’s said it does Aizawa realise the possible insensitivity of calling her Doc, but he’s about to have much worse to worry about.
“Relax, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Shinsou adds a little more ominously than could be considered fully constructive to the conversation. It can’t be missed that Iwaya’s gaze is fixed wholly and entirely on him. She’s pressed to the back of the lift like a cat at the end of a catbox, as if Aizawa will need to reach in and grab her by the scruff to get her out onto the vet’s table.
But Iwaya is a professional, not a pet, so she peels herself off the back wall and in a voice that doesn’t shake that much says, “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected to get away so easily.” She takes a few steps out of the lift, into the space Aizawa and Shinsou make by backing away from each other.
“Yeah, you shouldn’t,” Aizawa affirms. “So those five minutes of your time.”
“Alright,” Iwaya cuts him off, a sigh that’s more impatient, more human than the paralysed fear she was dominated by initially. “We shouldn’t talk here. I know a place nearby we can go.” Her gaze is still lingering on Shinsou, who’s clearly starting to feel uncomfortable about it. This discomfort intensifies with the ominous note of interrogation in Iwaya’s voice as she adds, “As it happens, I have a few questions of my own.”
In the cosy trappings of a cafe with adequately private rooms, Dr. Iwaya opens the play, her pose stiff and precise as origami. “I am forced to come to the conclusion that you’ve been keeping secrets from me, Eraserhead.”
“Can you blame me?” Aizawa answers plainly, stirring sugar into his coffee with an unflinching deadpan. Shinsou’s quiet and still at his side, making it easy to tell when Iwaya’s attention circles warily back onto him like blood down a drain. “This is-”
“I know who he is.” It’s a brisk, wrist-slapping interjection. “I would recognise a Shinsou anywhere.”
“Shinsou Hitoshi,” Shinsou offers with all the enthusiasm of a reluctant hangman. “Crappy to meet you too.” He pauses to sip soda through a straw for a moment, eyes remaining fixed on Iwaya across the table. “Gotta say, though, the psychs usually run towards me rather than away.” He stops to sip again, practically chewing on the straw like a child with a teething toy – Aizawa almost wants to slap it away from his mouth, tell him to drink like an adult. But that’s a bit rich coming from a man who lives on juice pouches if he’s allowed to. Plus, Aizawa doesn’t want to be domestic with Shinsou in public. Sends the wrong signal, even if Iwaya knows who Shinsou’s father is better than any of them.
Dr. Iwaya is an ice carving, a winter-witch who watches Shinsou with glassy eyes and says calmly, “I wasn’t running away.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Shinsou replies as he brings the straw away from his mouth. “So what did my father do to you?” There’s a quick cast of Shinsou’s gaze up and down Iwaya; the controlled, chiseled expression, the neatly styled hair and painted face of makeup. “You’re still alive, so it can’t be that bad.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying!” The ice melts, and from within the frozen palace Iwaya’s temper emerges ferociously. “Some of us have spent years trying to forget what he did! Who are you to-”
“That’s enough,” Aizawa states very carefully, his address directed at Shinsou. “Dr. Iwaya is on our side.”
“You sure about that?” Shinsou brings the bottle and chewed-end straw back up to his mouth, but it never reaches his lips because quick as a flash, Aizawa snatches the candy-striped plastic and throws it down on the table.
“Let’s keep this professional.” It’s a scold, and comes across as such if the lowering of Shinsou’s head is any indication. Baggage from the past has no business getting in the way of a Hero’s work. Granted, this is a particularly large luggage set for an extremely specific piece of work, but if Shinsou can master it here and now, he’ll be set for life. Something being difficult only makes it worth doing more, as far as Aizawa is concerned. “We’re looking for a woman. A killer,” he adds like a correction on a sheet of hastily done homework.
“She was one of my father’s research subjects back in the day.” Shinsou’s settled, but it doesn’t quite take all the edge out of his tone. Even more so than when Aizawa and Iwaya first met, Shinsou and Iwaya are guarded – almost to the point of being set against each other. “A mind control quirk that works by writing her name on someone. Ring any bells?”
Going by the return of the terrified, deer-in-the-headlights look on Iwaya’s face, it does more than ring a few bells; it burns down the entire church. “Unfortunately,” Iwaya begins solemnly, and Aizawa wonders if they’re in for a drop – or worse yet, a lie. But they’re not. “I know exactly who you mean.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Aizawa puts simply.
“I don’t know anything else about her, other than her quirk,” Iwaya explains. “But he… Dr. Shinsou was obsessed with her.”
Aizawa echoes with all due suspicion, “Obsessed?”
“The strength of her quirk, the totality of control she gained over people. That was what he sought more than anything else. I was his assistant at the time, but he never let me… he didn’t want me around him when they were together, so I just helped with his notes and the experiments. I never met the girl.” Iwaya’s looking down, long eyelashes fanning her brown eyes. “I never even knew her name.”
“We can help you there,” Shinsou pipes up. “Her name is Hakamata Shiyoko. She’s been making men kill themselves.” He pauses for a soft beat, like a drum with a muffler on it. “No wonder my dad was obsessed with her.”
Notes:
It was never my intention when I started out that Dr. Iwaya would be so key to the fabric of this story, and yet here she is. I'd love to know people's thoughts on her, or what they think happened to her, as it fascinates me seeing the different reactions that she evokes in people. An important lady, through and through.
Oh and also "gee I hope this personality I made up for Tsukauchi works out alright" - me at repeated points throughout writing this story. Seems to be going ok so far.
ALSO some of my favourite erasermic interaction at the start of this chapter. I'm UGHHHH for them and as you can see my tattoos-Mic headcanon collided with my piercings-Mic headcanons and now I'm burning in the throes of a fiery passion. It's *super* convenient that Aizawa loves Present Mic for the purposes of my writing, that's all I'll say.
OH and finally I had some fabulous comments from my editor about being 'giddy as a schoolgirl, teach' during some of the Shinsou & Aizawa interaction this chapter. I'm about to have SoooooOOOOOOooooo much fun with y'all. See ya next week!
Chapter 10: Nightcrawler
Summary:
Aizawa loses some baggage, but gains some insight.
Notes:
I don't have much to say this time around, just to reiterate my very loving support for anyone who's reading this story. You're the real Heroes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa’s phone gets a few notes into its most absurd ringtone before he jumps down from the wall he’s running along and picks up a second before the chorus that makes it so damn recognisable kicks in. Hizashi’s choice of song is effective at getting Aizawa to answer quickly, if nothing else.
“Shotaaaaaaa, where did you go?”
“Work, idiot.” Aizawa makes the words much fonder than the title would otherwise indicate, slowing to a walk on the flat, gravelled rooftop across a long strip of offices. “Where are you?”
“... Work. But it’s boring.”
Aizawa feels himself smile, but there's no one around except Shinsou to see – if he can tell past the coils of Aizawa’s capture weapon and the bad lighting. “Why?”
“They just don’t make ‘em like they used to! I can hardly get a ‘Hey Ya’ out before the baddies’re dropping like cooked noodles.”
Aizawa suggests with a wry smile, “Maybe you’re getting stronger.” Hizashi is; he just doesn’t have the measure for it.
“Yeah, but I expect the forces of villainy to keep up.”
This is a little more solemn. “They will.” They are, if Aizawa’s work is any indication.
“Maybe I’ll come crash your party. You pick up trouble like a magnet.”
“Negative.” Aizawa glances at Shinsou next to him – two compartments of his bento-box life that aren’t ready to go together. “I’m with… someone.”
“The kid, right?” Hizashi has always known Aizawa too well to need much in the way of guesswork.
“Yeah.”
“I thought you told me you didn’t want a family.”
This is meant as a joke, but it catches Aizawa like an uppercut to the chin. “I don’t… that’s not-”
“I’m yanking your chain, baby! Chill.” Aizawa’s heartrate drops again, only to shoot back up when Hizashi adds, “You’re pretty sold on him, aren’t ‘cha?”
Shinsou’s right there but doesn’t necessarily know he’s the subject of discussion. Better if he doesn’t – no further ego boosts needed there. “Guilty.”
“Don’t feel bad about it! You’re doing a good thing.”
Aizawa glances at Shinsou again, who meets his gaze this time. A knowing lift to one of Shinsou’s eyebrows makes a suggestion that doesn’t need putting into words – so much for not knowing Aizawa was talking about him. “I hope so.”
“Hey! Hold it right there!” Hizashi’s shout charges through one of Aizawa’s ears and out the other like a freight train, and he knows instinctively it’s not for him. “Gotta go, babe! YEAAAAAAA–” The phone cuts out before Aizawa’s speaker explodes with the volume, and Aizawa clips it back onto his belt. He’s lost more phones than he can count after Hizashi blew the mic out with his ineffable loudness – he’s got a sponsorship deal that means he’ll always replace them with a top-of-the-line model. Aizawa’s half-convinced that’s why he does it; some contractual clause he has fulfils by frying as many of their competitors’ models each year as he can.
“Your missus getting jealous or something?” Shinsou’s teasing, or he damn-well better be.
“Not likely,” Aizawa replies, cards so close to his chest they’d show up on a scan of his lungs. He’s not in the business of correcting people on mistakes in their assumptions about his personal life. The more wrong assumptions the better, really – keeps them away from the truth.
Shinsou is learning hard and fast about the flex in his boundaries with Aizawa. Almost too well for his own good, because he changes the subject at just the right time. “So that psych lady was pretty spooked.”
“You had quite the impact on her.”
“I usually do,” Shinsou says with no love. “Everyone usually wants a piece of the grand lunatic’s legacy.”
“Except Iwaya.”
“Seems like she’s had enough of him already,” Shinsou comments. “Figures.”
Aizawa senses something under the surface, a serpent beneath the waves that Shinsou knows but doesn’t want to speak its name. “Why?”
With just a small prompt, a sign of progress if Aizawa’s ever seen one, Shinsou drags the monster into the light. “Dad always liked the cool beauties.” There’s neither joy nor anger in the way he says this; it’s just a statement of fact. An unpleasant note on Dr. Shinsou’s file. “Poor Dr. Iwaya’s right up his alley.”
It’s another step closer, but Aizawa decides to hazard it. “What about your mother?”
“What about her?” Shinsou acts like he doesn’t know, but Aizawa reckons he does. They just have to dance around a little first.
“Iwaya told me she also used to be his research assistant.” Thought not at the same time as Hitoshi’s mother was, one might assume.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” Shinsou’s words could be shards of broken glass he finds in his mouth, spitting each bloody piece on the floor with an exorcising satisfaction. “That was his MO, to borrow the lingo.”
“I didn’t know,” Aizawa admits freely. Making someone feel powerful through their possession of information is a sure way to get more of it. “He had a pattern?”
“Dear old dad never worried about abusing his authority when he picked his assistants,” Shinsou draws out like he’s pulling a length of barbed wire out from between his ribs, but he does tell. Aizawa knows he wouldn’t have gotten this much honesty before now. “He was such a big name in the field, you’d be crazy to turn him down.” Crazy to take it, too. But Aizawa doesn’t imagine Dr. Shinsou as a man who tolerated rejection. “Too bad he only offered the spot to beautiful girls who let him… anyway.” There’s always a limit, and Shinsou reads like a book that’s about to close. Shoulders high, neck craned down. He looks even more tired than usual. “That’s how I came along.”
“Your mother told you all this?”
“She never kept secrets from me,” he replies just as quickly. “If I asked about my dad she gave me an honest answer.” He’s a touch bitter when he adds, “Too honest, probably. I stopped asking.”
“So why your mother?” Aizawa probes, and Shinsou’s gaze goes out to him like a mayday signal. Aizawa wants to help – he just has to know how to do it. “What set her apart from the others, if they married and had—” You, Aizawa finishes in thought; something incredible, brought about by stormy circumstance.
“She got pregnant.” Shinsou shrugs. “He wanted an heir. A legitimate one.” Shinsou’s cheek moves, like he’s still swilling around that mouthful of broken glass, picking out the next piece to spit with the tip of his tongue. “Didn’t stop him taking on more assistants… not that it came to anything.”
“You mean no more children?” Legitimate or otherwise, by the sounds of it.
“If there were I wouldn’t know,” Shinsou admits morosely. “None like me, that’s for sure.”
“Because of your quirk.” Aizawa fits the next piece of the puzzle in.
“Right.” Like confessing the crime of the century, Shinsou remarks, “I was everything he ever wanted.” His gaze flicks sideways at Aizawa, a couple of violet marbles along a chute in a dark tunnel surrounded by neon lights, like they’re inside a grand-scale pinball machine. Shinsou pulls back the plunger and lets go, bouncing wildly from surface to surface as he shoots for the next high score. “There’s a paper all about it, you know.”
“About what?”
Shinsou scoffs. Not in a friendly way, but Aizawa isn’t the target of his vitriol, so he’ll take it without complaint. “Me.”
“You said you weren’t part of his research.”
“I said I never wanted to be part of it,” Shinsou corrects. “I didn’t get a choice at first." Aizawa and Shinsou are walking along an indiscriminate rooftop in the death-throes of dusk, but at this Aizawa skips a solid step, stalling for a moment as the implications of Shinsou’s revelation go down like a mouthful of poison. Just before Aizawa’s sick to his stomach, Shinsou book-ends, "But Ma realised something was wrong soon enough.”
Relieved in ways he can’t explain, Aizawa doesn’t quite sigh. “So she left him.”
“Too fucking right,” Shinsou affirms. “He was furious. She took her maiden name back, practically got a restraining order to keep him away from us. We almost left the country at one point.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“The massacre happened.” Shinsou’s distaste is obvious: a ‘keep up, old man’ if Aizawa ever heard one. “No need for a restraining order when he’s in prison for life, right?”
A sudden chill sweeps Aizawa. He’s no fan of the death penalty, at least not on principle, and it’s admittedly been convenient having the Doctor still… well, alive. But it’s impermanent, only as strong as the walls that hold him. Death is final, but confinement can come to an end.
Aizawa launches himself across a gap between the office block and the next building, which is a little farther and higher than he’s been making Shinsou jump. A soft rush of air followed by a scuffle as Aizawa lands, rolling and remaining crouched in wait for Shinsou to follow.
Without hesitation, Shinsou flies through the air, a shape cut out of darkness backlit by the hazy night sky. There’s more confidence in his pose than Aizawa saw even days ago. Shinsou sticks the landing, rolling forward over his shoulder and bouncing back up with the rubbery vigor of youth. Aizawa stands as Shinsou does and with all the sincerity in the world says, “We’ll have to hope so.”
An hour’s odd patrol and parkour-training later, they’re getting closer to Shinsou's neighbourhood, and Aizawa has a mind on the rest of his night. He likes this kid, but Aizawa has to have a life outside him.
Not that Shinsou’s happy about it. A sullen accusation takes the form of, “You’re going to keep working the case without me.”
Aizawa’s unimpressed. “I’m a Hero, not a babysitter.”
However, Shinsou’s got almost too good a handle on his off-the-books teacher because his next response is, “You still need to eat.”
Like he’s the contrary teenager between the two of them, Aizawa semi-sullenly responds, “So do you.”
“Exactly.” From their current strip of rooftop, Shinsou turns to watch a few people coming out of a nearby restaurant, then back to Aizawa with a look that needs no explanation. No prizes for guessing what the puppy at the table with begging eyes is after.
“… Fine.” Aizawa’s probed Shinsou on some of the more difficult parts of his past – and his father’s, more importantly – and the kid played ball. There’s no harm in a little return of favours. It’s a small gesture, easy to make, and means far more than the sum cost of the effort it takes. Plus, it’s true: Aizawa does (technically) need to eat. “Dinner, then home.” For Shinsou of course. Aizawa’s fully charged on two good nights’ sleep and is ready to go for miles.
“You’re the boss.” Shinsou sounds like he knows damn well it isn’t true.
They choose a streetside ramen place with no other customers; Aizawa pays for them both and sends another portion home with Shinsou for his mother. He talks a bit about the history of underground Heroes – a (no surprises there) little-known subject Aizawa never gets to teach as much as he’d like. The sole bastion of a noble profession that remains untainted by the catastrophic collision of celebrity and Heroism in the mainstream media. Less of a lesson, more of a rant.
“What are you gonna do now?” Shinsou asks just before they part ways at the end of what must be his street. It’s a dull suburb lined with apartment blocks, suitably anonymous for any family trying to keep a low profile. Unremarkable is a positive, where Shinsou's come from.
“Background research.” That’s what Aizawa calls it, at least. Night Goblining is Hizashi’s terminology. And the list of things that he seems to think Aizawa does at night grows ever longer and wilder. The last one was something like ‘watching arthouse films in reverse to check them for subliminal messages’. Aizawa tried to explain the film was supposed to be like that, but it’s a lost cause when Hizashi has something he wants to think.
“Well, good luck.” Shinsou bids as Aizawa lifts up his goggles. He likes this kid, but the dawn of a long, silent night going solo is a prospect to be relished. He’s always rested easier when the only life that depends on his actions is his own.
Aizawa has never been exceptional at being comfortable around other people. So as comfortable as he is with Shinsou personally, the eagle-eye that watches for danger can’t switch off if he’s around. “Heroes don’t need luck.”
“That was corny, teach,” Shinsou groans. “Even for you.”
Aizawa’s cutting retort (not) is simply, “Go home to your mother, brat.”
“Yeah yeah, I’m going.” He starts waking, waving with his back to Aizawa. “See ya tomorrow.”
Aizawa waves back, and then leads the motion into a grab for a piece of his capture weapon; so by the time Shinsou’s taken a few steps and stops to look over his shoulder, the shadowy figure of the Erasure Hero is gone.
The first order of business is that Aizawa finds a convenience store and buys five tins of cat food and a pack of cigarettes – he’s convinced Hizashi’s pinched his last pack – and then goes on a three-hour surveillance trek across the city. He uses three tins of the cat food. On cats, obviously. People are far less suspicious of a man they assume to be homeless feeding stray cats in suspicious places than they are of one who isn’t feeding cats. And the cats like it too.
Finding nothing unremarkable in the course of his journey, Aizawa ends up at his destination ahead of schedule: a library with an extensive catalogue of newspapers and online archives. He has to slip the security, who close the place up about half an hour after he arrives – to be expected – and spends an indeterminate amount of time combing every article in the past twenty years about Dr. Shinsou.
From the highs to the lows, Dr. Shinsou is a man with a career of wild extremes. Even before he compelled a class of his most devout students to commit mass suicide then self-published an academic paper about it the next morning. Hell of a confession to read out in court. “Primal impulse control in humans, or Freedom from Life” he titled the piece. Aizawa doesn’t read further than that. But he does read that they had to dismiss the first Judge as unfit, after he ruled not guilty for the majority of the murder charges – swayed by Dr. Shinsou’s philosophical ‘justification’ of his experiment, which argued the loss of life for the two-dozen people who drank a poison cocktail under his control was ‘voluntary’ and by answering the Doc’s fatal question they had merely committed an ‘elaborate form of suicide’, for which the Professor of Mentalism could not be held accountable.
However, the first five police officers who came to arrest Dr. Shinsou were all unwilling victims, so there was no arguing with how voluntary that was. Under the control of the Doc’s quirk, two were shot by their colleague, who turned then turned the gun on himself. The next slit his throat – with a scalpel handed to him by Dr. Shinsou, no doubt. The final one gutted himself and wrote on the walls of Dr. Shinsou’s study in his own blood – it doesn’t say what he wrote in any of the media. Though Aizawa supposes, with a revulsed chill, they could always ask the Doc, who apparently sat through the whole scene calmly ‘taking notes’. Eventually, they sent in a full SWAT team with noise-cancelling tech to take him out. There’s a full-page picture from the day they wheeled Dr. Shinsou into court and sentenced him to life in prison, a gag-mask covering the lower half of his face like something out of a well-known horror movie.
Pre-massacre news alternates between hailing Dr. Shinsou as a saviour to those with mentalist quirks, to a dangerous force whose research poses a threat to the very fabric of society. The answer’s surely both, but journalism makes even greater extremes out of it than reality. From Japan’s Hannibal to The Father of Modern Quirk Psychiatry, reports of Dr. Shinsou are a bizarre dimension Aizawa slips into between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.
Aizawa also finds the article Shinsou spoke of – the one about himself. A description of a botched study, heavy with vindictive undertones about the research being insufficient to draw conclusions on how powerful Shinsou’s quirk really is. Enough to make Aizawa glad the Doc is in prison but sorry they didn’t execute the bastard. Dr. Shinsou had a strict methodology for assessing the strength of mentalist quirks: both the duration and intensity of control the wielders had over subjects. The things they could make a person do before the test-subject’s quirk – or the victim’s instincts for self-preservation – gave out. Shinsou Hitoshi comes up as an ‘exceptional specimen’, who at the age of five could make a man hold his breath until he passed out. Aizawa feels his teeth clenching as he realises the kind of ‘research’ Shinsou’s father made him party to. Too fucking right his mother left the Doc.
Unable to stomach anymore and practically gagging for a cigarette, Aizawa leaves through the roof and perches on one corner of the library, a lone beacon of smoke. He waits there for a while, crouched elbows-to-knees, keeping a watch on the area to make sure no one gets in through his way out. Does a bit of grading. Considers he should really send the library a note about their security… as soon as he doesn’t need the all-hours access.
From there, Aizawa heads home, which by foot is only a journey of about three hours. He breaks up a mugging on the way, and (separate occasion) uses the remaining tins of cat food. This means he gets back a little after five, making it half an hour’s cuddling and about an hour of sleep before Hizashi gets up in the morning. Aizawa lets him go, remaining in bed for another hour or so, until Hizashi’s practically got his keys in the ignition before dragging himself up.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” Hizashi‘s got a perma-on-the-brink-of-cracking-up grin, the top of his hair just brushing the roof of the car. Aizawa’s sure it’s calculated to the millimetre to fit without bending.
“Not enough hours in the day.” Aizawa cranks his seat back, slinging his hand across the gap to rest on Hizashi’s thigh in a loose grip, and shuts his eyes to the sound of Hizashi’s laughter. “Wake me up when we get there.”
“You asked for it.” Hizashi drops a hand from the wheel to rest over Aizawa’s for a moment, a comfortable grasp that has unconsciousness pulling him under like a riptide dragging a sinner to hell. Back into the soothing darkness.
Aizawa’s next aware of the dulcet tones of his life partner bellowing a showtune that just seems to go “I LOVE YOU BABY” repeatedly until Aizawa tries to punch him.
It’s another cup of coffee and a quick doze into his hand in the teacher’s lounge before homeroom. Unfortunately, with no class of his own to coddle like an overprotective hen, Toshinori has nothing better to do than make a beeline straight for Aizawa before they all scatter for the day. “Aizawa… I was wondering if we might—”
“If it’s about what happened at the police station yesterday,” Aizawa cuts in before this can go any further, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That's fine,” Toshinori rushes out just as hurriedly, only to counterproductively keep talking. “I just wanted to, well, thank you, I suppose.”
Aizawa’s not expecting that, and his don’t-wanna-deal-with-this guard drops. “For what?”
“Whatever it is you're doing to help that young man. His name’s Shinsou, isn’t it?” If Toshinori knows about Shinsou Senior, his tone doesn’t show it. Toshi’s more caught up in his own pensive musing, worry deepening every harrowed line in his angular hard-worn face. “I must admit, I rooted for Midoriya at their match at the sports festival, but—”
“I didn't.” Aizawa interrupts just to throw Toshi for a loop, if he’s honest. “If Midoriya had lost that round, he never would have injured himself like he did when he fought Todoroki.” The scenario has played again through Aizawa’s head, more and more since he’s been trailing Shinsou around like a – okay, he admits it – an intern. His intern.
Because anyone who thinks that Shinsou’s quirk – applied to the pursuit of being a hero – is anything but one of the gamechangers of their generation must be out of their mind. So Aizawa takes it a little further, just for the hell of throwing it at Toshi like a handful of sand in a playground pit. “Shinsou would have won without hurting himself or his opponent.” Instead of hurting himself, breaking his own bones, in order to land a hit. If Shinsou had won, then the faculty would’ve suffered the humiliating defeat of declaring a General Studies student they rejected the victor, making mockery all their so-called would-be Heroes. They’d have had to transfer him then. Shinsou knew it then like Aizawa knows it now.
Toshinori always seems a little surprised by Aizawa’s standoffish attitude, like a big lanky dog that just can’t understand why not everyone wants him to jump up on them all the time. Or why Aizawa doesn’t want anyone talking to him in the mornings.
Too bad other people get the hint, while Toshinori takes long comfortable strides alongside Aizawa. “... You may be right,” he muses, while Aizawa just hopes he can shake this tagalong off before he gets to his classroom. “If Midoriya had lost, Young Shinsou would have been given a better chance to shine.” When he’s thoughtful, Toshi’s got a look about him like a large seabird resting its wings on a salty rock; it’s one of his more likable moods, enough so that Aizawa finds it hard to begrudge. “Perhaps he’d have even been victorious against Young Bakugo and Todoroki.”
“Are you kidding me?” Aizawa scoffs. “He’d wipe the floor with them.” Aizawa’s considered it before: Shinsou would’ve mashed those two’s buttons like a teen at an arcade game. There’s every chance he could have beaten them. The only factor would be protecting himself from the offensive nature of their quirks long enough to get his hooks in – but Aizawa’s got first-hand experience and plenty of faith: Shinsou’s a really top-notch provocateur.
Toshinori laughs, and it changes every line in his gaunt, angular face. Aizawa likes this appearance way more than the overinflated facade he puts on for the students. He’s still inexperienced as a teacher, but like everything Toshinori does, he has to take a simple thing to the most literal extreme – even the everyday experience of having a persona around his students.
“The boy does show great potential.” It’s a smart observation, and then much more slyly Toshinori adds, “Although, I'm sure I don't have to tell you about that.”
“You don’t.” Aizawa manages to make it sound more like, ‘You better not.’ Toshinori backs down fast enough, large head hanging from his long neck like a bucket over the end of a mop. So Aizawa has a little sympathy. “That doesn't mean he wouldn't enjoy hearing it… even from a tacky hero like you.”
It’s not that Aizawa doesn’t like Toshinori; in fact, the truth is he likes Toshi just fine. It’s just what Toshinori stands for that grates on his nerves. Aizawa understands why the Symbol of Peace exists, and why a world of all Eraserheads with no All Mights wouldn’t work, but that doesn’t mean he has to personally like All Might’s way of doing things. In fact, Aizawa loathes it, but that should be no slight on Toshinori. Aizawa hates a lot of things; and playing along with what it means to be a so-called ‘Top Hero’ in the public eye is just one of the ones he hates most. Even (and especially) because Aizawa also has to do it sometimes, and it makes his skin crawl while Toshi always makes it look so damn easy.
That All Might caters to the false truths the public want to eat up is understandable, in its own terms: a clever white lie to keep them all feeling safer. As if it really is that simple, even though if anyone thought about it for a minute they’d realise it can’t be. However, most people don’t think – don’t even want to – and the towering figure and false smile of the Symbol of Peace lets the sheep sleep easier at night. Aizawa would choose the bitter pill any day, but the choice isn’t up to him.
It’s taken a while, but Toshinori is starting to understand that Aizawa ribbing him is sometimes a sign of endearment rather than (or as well as) disdain. So he doesn’t always look entirely kicked-puppy when Aizawa takes potshots at him. It is still the morning, after all, and Aizawa’s rude to most people before noon.
So it’s with a tentative, I-don’t-think-you-meant-that smile that Toshi replies, “Then you must be sure to pass on my regards.”
“Pass them yourself,” Aizawa retorts. “You’ve always been better at the mushy stuff.” This tickles Toshinori enormously, such that Aizawa’s keen to take another dig as they turn a corner in the hallway, lest Toshi get too comfortable. “If you think this means I’m going any easier on you about Midoriya, think again.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t ever… I still feel like I have so much to learn about being a teacher,” Toshinori confesses unprompted, and a love-in was not on Aizawa’s plans for the day. He needs more sleep, coffee or both to handle all this. “You’re far more experienced than I am, so really I should be learning from you.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Aizawa replies firmly, and that sets Toshinori for a loop. Aizawa already has twenty-one students (counting Shinsou), plus the rest of the classes he takes for odd sessions here and there. “Everyone has their own teaching style. You’re better off finding yours than imitating others.” Especially not Aizawa’s: he’s expelled more students than the rest of the faculty combined. Nezu makes a point of remarking at nearly every staff meeting that they don’t require two teachers of Aizawa’s “unique calibre”.
“Of course.” Toshinori’s taken so long to answer that Aizawa forgot what he said – something about teaching style. Aizawa’s total consciousness of what he’s saying slips in and out like a drinking-duck desk-toy on mornings like these, but whatever Toshinori’s saying finishes, “You’re quite right. Teaching, like everything, must come from the heart.”
“If you want it to have any impact,” Aizawa admonishes as much as he answers. Being underinvested emotionally isn’t quite Toshinori’s problem – the opposite, more usually – but reaching for a template to hide his vulnerability definitely is. Insincere teaching breeds insincere learning: there’s a lesson for Toshi to pick up on quickly.
“Well, I only hope to be as good a mentor to Young Midoriya as I am sure you are to Shinsou.” Okay, twenty-two students – including Toshinori.
“Keep it down,” Aizawa urges quickly as they pass some – thankfully, totally self-absorbed – second-years in the stairwell. So far, none of the students have cracked that the skinny fellow seen rushing around the school sometimes could have anything to do with All Might, but that’s no reason to go getting careless. “My… thing with him is off the books, technically. That’s why I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Toshinori looks a little like a dog that knows its owner isn’t going to be happy about the torn-up curtains in the next room and already feels guilty about it. “Ah, but I thought—”
“You assumed, which I wouldn’t,” Aizawa returns curtly. They’re getting close to his classroom now, which increases the likelihood of Toshi wanting to talk to Midoriya during homeroom. What Toshi hasn’t realised yet is this will cause a scene the moment he’s not there – Bakugo will go off at the slightest provocation with totally ‘unrelated’ anger, then Aizawa’s peaceful homeroom will go into a tailspin and wreck itself against the track wall. “I also don’t use up my students’ homeroom time with personal matters.”
It takes a good thirty seconds of sustained eye contact – which Aizawa almost never has to do without using his quirk – before Toshinori gets the point. “Oh. Yes, you’re right… again.”
“Don't turn into a suckup, Toshi. It doesn't suit you.” This is another lighter, intimacy-breaking dig into the hard ground of their personal-professional relationship, but it yields a little fresh earth.
“Wouldn't dream of it.” Actual sarcasm from Toshinori, albeit only mild. Aizawa must be making progress. “Well then, I'll leave you here.” Toshinori stops further up the hallway from 1-A’s classroom.
Aizawa keeps walking without him. “Later.” As he gets closer to his room, a sigh slips Aizawa's chest like someone hopping a gate; if the boy is there – which he is, along with most of the class. “Midoriya.” Aizawa beckons him with a finger. “A word.”
There's a few curious glances between students as Midoriya shoots out of his seat and zips across the room, a target laser-sighted on his back from Bakugo all the way – but thankfully no triggers are pulled.
Once they're outside the classroom and can't be overheard by anyone – except Jirou, who had her earphones in an ipod so they might be in the clear – Aizawa manages to say without a completely sour expression, “All Might was just looking for you.”
“Really?” Midoriya’s eyes light up at the mere mention of All Might, and Aizawa has a sudden urge for a cigarette. It’s too early for this.
Aizawa’s hand feels heavier than usual as he points down the hallway. All this puppetry is wearing him out. “He went that way.”
“Won’t I miss homeroom?” No points awarded for observation, Aizawa settles for an are-you-kidding-me glare at the ever-restless Midoriya.
“Just make it quick.”
The boy doesn’t need telling twice, bolting off down the corridor with a hasty, “Thanks!” Aizawa’s way too soft, he reflects as he strides into the classroom and launches into his pre-lesson rant.
“Alright, you lot,” Aizawa begins with the weight and momentum of a descending sledgehammer. “If I’d wanted to read five watered-down versions of Yaoyorozu’s homework I’d have used a photocopier.” Pulling out of his sleeve a wad of written exercises that he finished marking on top of the library around 4:00 a.m., Aizawa starts with Ashido and blazes a path through the shortcut-brigade who thought they could get away with such a middle-school trick, slamming papers down on culpable desks as he goes.
“The point of a scenario exercise is to assess how you would react to the situation.” Free with each Yaoyorozu knock-off Aizawa gives back, there’s a stern, “Again” that he delivers student by student. This repeats per owner of a (badly) rehashed Yaoyorozu report to (ill) fit their own quirks in the written assignment. “Again. Again. Again.” Kaminari, Kirishima and Sero fall in turn.
Aizawa stops at Hagakure’s desk with the final knock-off. They were sincerely done and probably better than what the kids would’ve come up with themselves, but that’s useless to them as heroes so Aizawa can’t tolerate it. “Again, and a second write-up on why you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”
“Awww, why me?!” Hagakure bursts.
“Ringleader.” Aizawa’s sure she constantly pulls faces at him, he swears he can hear it.
“But it was Kaminari’s idea!”
“Include that in your report,” Aizawa deadpans. He’s not joking, either. Talking to Toshi already wore out his patience to handle anyone with kid gloves today, starting with these dolts. “Heroes are who people look to for guidance. If you’re turning to someone else to tell you what to do, give up now.”
“Aw jeez, Mr. Aizawa.” Ashido huff-puffs over her paper like she can blow Aizawa’s erratic, wrote-it-against-his-leg scribbles into a better grade. “Can’t you give us a break?”
“You want a break, leave.” Aizawa points at the door. “Just don’t come back.” Somehow, the students don’t even have the gall to look scared. It might be because they’re almost at the end of the first term and thinking of their vacations – no excuse – or the fact that no one’s been expelled yet, so they don’t think he’s being serious.
Yeah, Aizawa resolves as he gives out the rest of the homeworks and finally slumps in behind his desk, just as Midoriya silently slips into the room and slides into his seat looking a cross between concerned and overjoyed. He’s definitely going soft.
Aizawa wakes up with one cheek against the desk and a paw pressing insistently into the other. He opens his eyes a crack, but his phone alarm isn’t ringing, so it can’t be the end of his naptime – sorry, free period – yet. “Can I help you?” Aizawa’s question is a little distorted by the fact that Nezu’s paw is still pushing firmly against his cheek, which he thankfully removes.
“Ah, wasn’t sure you were awake there, Aizawa.”
“I wasn’t.” He sits up rubbing his face, then feels in his pockets instinctively for eye drops. He hasn’t needed his quirk recently, but dead-stare reading half the night was almost as bad for drying out tired eyes. Hizashi claims he’s dependent on them now – the eye drops – but Aizawa just threatens to break the hairdryer and he shuts up about who’s dependent on what in their household. “What is it?”
“I thought you might like to join me for a cup of tea,” Nezu offers cheerily.
With his face still pressed to the desk, Aizawa’s eyes shut. His answer is a concise, “No.”
“Oh, I’m afraid it wasn’t a question,” Nezu replies with that same polished cheer, only now with the sharp edge turned out. “You see, when you asked about Young Shinsou’s father, I hadn’t assumed it was because you wanted to make his acquaintance.”
“Ah.” Aizawa sits up now, putting his hands to the desk and pushing the rest of himself up thereafter. His head takes a second to level out, like the bubble in a spirit level settling between the lines, and then he’s calm. Whatever this is, he can handle it. “Guess I’ll be having that tea after all.”
Notes:
Lots more good shit in this chapter, including some great content from my creative squad who I pitched the prompt 'what does Aizawa do at night instead of sleep' and gave me some absolutely top-notch suggestions. This one also goes out to the one commenter who wanted to know whether we'd get much Toshinori in this fic. This is the MOST we're gonna get of him for a good long while, maybe at all, but I was pleased to be able to get a touch-point with scarecrow husband to share some of my very important thoughts about him as well as his relationship with Aizawa, which my editor described as 'dichotomous' and I LOVE because it is and I'm so ABOUT it.
Uhhh big Shinsou backstory in this chapter too! That's cool, I think something trauma!fics do wrong a lot is go in at the very beginning to tell us EVERYTHING that happened to a character and EVERYTHING it did to them, rather than taking a more holistic approach and revealing someone's fucked-up backstory piece by agonising piece, which feels much truer to life.
Uhhhh... that's it for now I think. Meep me a comment if you want to make me happy :3
Chapter 11: Alley Cat Strut
Summary:
Aizawa's got some explaining to do. He doesn't do it very well.
Notes:
Hey so fun fact I love this fic a lot but this is one of the chapters that I love VERY A LOT and it's just... important, okay. It's the kind of chapter that I put the 10 before in for just so I could get plausible, meaningful context to start throwing the things I'm about to hurl at ya like a kitchen sink.
Also just as a heads up this fic is definitely going to be over 200k, so keep those seatbelts fastened and make sure you get up to have some water or take a pee break regularly, because we are gonna be cruising at peak altitude for A GOOD WHILE. Pls enjoy your in-flight entertainment (& for those reading these live as the chapters come out, see you next week lovelies).
To that end, trust me that I mean it when I say: we're only just beginning.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Principal Nezu finishes pouring perfectly brewed tea into a couple of cups set on an ornate tray, and carefully sets down the teapot before turning his gaze up at Aizawa. “So then.”
A canny introduction, but Aizawa's not playing ball just yet. “I thought you didn't want to know about all that.”
“I don’t.” Nezu is perfectly still; not the way a hunted creature freezes, but the way the predator does when it’s caught sight of its prey. “However, I have certain liabilities to cover as the caretaker of this establishment.” If that doesn’t sound familiar.
Aizawa makes a disgruntled noise that’s not quite a word, then remembers he has to use actual words sometimes. “Meaning what exactly?”
Nezu lays out the matter at hand with a quiet magnitude. “Did you take Shinsou to visit his father in prison?”
The fact that Nezu clearly knows whether Aizawa did or not means this is a very specific dance they’re having to do – writing up the formal record, should anything come to questioning. Aizawa can’t deny something there’s a heap of easily available evidence to prove that he did, so he simply answers, “Yes.”
Nezu’s tail swishes from one side to the other behind him on the sofa, and Aizawa’s eyes follow it like a cat watches a mouse. When Aizawa’s gaze lifts back to the Principal’s face, his glassy stare remains as cool as ever. “So if an inquiry from outside this institution were made to me regarding the visit, your reason for going would be?”
“As a security detail for Shinsou Hitoshi,” Aizawa answers without as much as a twitch in his expression. “On account of my quirk.”
Nezu smiles, lifting one of the cups of tea between his paws. “Ah yes, that would certainly follow reason.” It’s supposed to, of course, but they don’t need to discuss the subtext behind this conversation. “And as for the purpose behind this reunion?”
Aizawa borrows a phrase from Shinsou himself – the younger. “A boy can’t visit his father?”
Nezu’s eyes are unflinching, but his tail gives a tiny flick. Smart as he might be, everyone has tells; this means Aizawa’s beginning to test his patience. “He surely can, but should a media firestorm be sparked from such a story, I'd like to be adequately prepared.” There's a steely intensity to Nezu’s critter eyes, black and shiny. Alert to every movement in his environment. “You should be too.”
“I know.” Aizawa doesn't like catering to the media, but he does have to accept it. “We just… talked to him.” That much is true; Aizawa has a surgeon's precision when it comes to cutting close to the truth.
Nezu leans over to reach for his cup, bringing the rim almost to his mouth before murmuring over the surface of the hot tea, “A dangerous pastime.”
“Not for me,” Aizawa insists, even though that part isn't true. He needed Shinsou there against the Doc just as much as Shinsou needed him. Still needs him.
“And what, should it inevitably be asked, did the three of you talk about?”
Finding the most logical path through the mire like wading waist-deep through a swamp, Aizawa offers up the truth. Part of it, at least. “We discussed Hitoshi’s future as a Hero.” In the heat of the moment, it's natural to differentiate the two Shinsous this way, but after the fact it feels… excessive. Even if it's just a name. The one Dr. Shinsou uses – and why wouldn't he? Parents call children by their given names.
The principal gives a tentative “Aizawa?” that helps him snap back to reality from the hazy edges of need-some-sleep thoughtspace.
Aizawa reaches to take his cup of tea by the brim, lifting it to cradle in his hands before he sits back on one of Nezu’s generous antique sofas. “Yeah?”
“Your prognosis of the boy’s future.” It’s not entirely clear if Nezu already asked and Aizawa was just zoned out, or if it was merely an implication Nezu would like Aizawa to elaborate on anyway. Aizawa hopes for the latter but fears the former. After all, it’s not like he’d notice if he stopped paying attention.
Aizawa forces his focus back onto Nezu, pretending he’s prepared for what he’s about to say and isn’t just flying by the well-worn seat of his pants. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that – I’m going to need him to be registered for the next provisional license exam.” If Shinsou does pass he’ll be able to use his quirk legally with Aizawa’s supervision – and won’t that be a happy day?
Nezu’s long nose is bowed low over his cup of tea when Aizawa finally lifts his own to his mouth. One hot sip soothes instantly, heat spreading through his chest like the ripples cast from a stone in a pond. Nezu brews exceptional tea – Hizashi swears it’s the teapot, which he claims must be hundreds of years old and imbued with magical brewing properties. Aizawa thinks he’s just being fantastical, but it’s certainly the more interesting story to believe.
When Nezu’s face finally rises up to gaze at Aizawa, his smile has a polished simplicity. “General Studies students don’t typically take that exam.”
“He’s not a typical student.” Aizawa’s reply hits like a clean strike from a baseball bat against a ball. “Or would you rather he be arrested?” Nezu knows that Aizawa wouldn’t actually endorse Shinsou using his quirk illegally (much), but accidents still happen. Emergencies can sometimes dictate a route around the most literal interpretation of “the law” as Aizawa has only occasionally said with the physical quotation marks gesture. And law enforcement certainly has little reason to look kindly on the son of the infamous cop-killer, who butchered every officer who came to try and arrest him one after the other.
But Nezu isn’t ready to give up the fight just yet. “Registration of students on the Hero course for the exam is automatic, it’s not a case of simply adding Shinsou to the list.” Bullshit, Aizawa thinks, but he’s got a more elegant solution to the problem.
“Then move him to the Hero Course.” Aizawa shrugs and takes a sip of tea. “I don’t care.” That’s not true. He definitely does care.
Nezu probably knows it too, because it’s with a you-don’t-fool-me cool that he remarks, “You know as well as I do that the Hero Course is full.”
“Then I’ll expel someone.” Aizawa’s not really joking. “I could name ten kids in my class whose place he deserves more than they do.” To hell with it: all twenty of them. If Nezu wasn’t sure Aizawa had a level head about this, he must be crystal clear by now: Aizawa’s wholly and unashamedly biased. No point denying it.
What Nezu makes of Aizawa dealing him this card isn’t a hand the Principal seems keen to play just yet. His tail just flicks up and resettles with a bolt of giveaway restlessness. “I shalln’t disagree with you, Aizawa. But you might see why from my perspective, Young Shinsou is receiving an education perfectly suited to his potential as a Hero.”
“You mean underground.” Aizawa isn’t asking because that would suggest he has any doubt over Nezu’s meaning, which is as clear as the bottom of Aizawa’s teacup through the green hue of his tea.
Aizawa wonders if Nezu saw this coming right from the start, from the very moment Aizawa first mentioned Shinsou’s name. There’s enough confidence in Nezu’s tone when he says, “I would even be so bold as to say that it’s your speciality, Eraser.” Given to him so long ago (but by Hizashi so it's still good) the name fits Aizawa through and through: do all the work, cleaning up mistakes, and never leave a trace.
Aizawa usually prefers to be in less of an antagonistic position to the ultimate mastermind, who, like it or not, is still Aizawa’s boss – at least during school hours. “Underground Heroes still get licensed.” Aizawa’s expression is ironed flat and dry enough to be folded like sheets. “Unless you’re suggesting we turn vigilante?” He would lose his license for letting Shinsou run loose and get arrested for illegally using his quirk, which isn’t in his plan for the boy’s development or his own career, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Aizawa can’t rule anything out at this point, if the obstacles against Shinsou are really this great.
“Most certainly not.” Nezu sets his cup down, gazing at Aizawa with his head slightly askew – his eyes aren’t positioned as close to the front of his head as all these humans, so he’s almost always giving you a sideways look of some sort. “I will look into an arrangement regarding the provisional license exam, but he remains in General Studies for now.”
“Fine.” That was all Aizawa planned to come out of here with anyway. Pushing for more was a way to make what he wanted seem like a concession, though Nezu would have most certainly known that too. It’s only wise to assume that most scenarios with Nezu end exactly the way the cunning critter wants. Aizawa finishes his tea and settles the cup on the tray. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Nezu sits up, and his head shifts from being angled on one side to the other, like turning over a record to play the other side. “Are you taking care of yourself? Yamada says you’ve been receiving pictures of corpses in the post.” He pauses for just a moment before adding, “Again.”
“That’s work related,” Aizawa points out, assuming Nezu is still keen to remain woefully uninformed about his faculty’s lives outside this school.
“Ah yes. Work.” Nezu might be a mouse, or a bear, but perhaps there’s a little weasel in him too. “I wonder, Aizawa. If you were to theoretically do such a thing, would you be able to teach Shinsou in a classroom the same way you could outside of it?”
Aizawa imagines taking 1-A to any of the crime scenes he’s hung out at recently and almost shudders. Then he imagines Shinsou being in his class and actually shudders. But that’s no excuse. “I could do both.”
Like he can tell exactly how too-close Aizawa is to this already, Nezu remarks, “Could you?”
“Probably not.” Aizawa’s not going to bullshit Nezu about that one. After all, what if Shinsou does get transferred? “Better to put him in Vlad’s class.” Flopping back in his chair, Aizawa doesn’t disguise his sigh – he wishes he was asleep right now. Turns out two full nights’ sleep doesn’t equal one skipped one; he knew that, but it’s easily forgotten when the game is afoot. “My lot this year aren’t completely awful, but he’s got some real asswipes.”
“I think you’re trying to tell me you’d like to leave, Aizawa,” Nezu says with a politely muffled chuckle behind his paw. “Very well, then. I’ll let you get back to your nap.”
Aizawa stands feeling like a scale that’s been rebalanced – a little less weight on one side and a little more on the other, but adjusted in the middle to sit level all the same. “Good talk.” He doesn’t really mean that, but the next one he does. “Bye.”
“Farewell, Aizawa,” Nezu replies with the same cheery gloss he paints over all his veiled threats and insinuations. “Do be sure not to send Shinsou my regards.”
“Of course not,” Aizawa returns. “After all, that would imply this conversation ever happened.”
Nezu lets out another of those sinister-ish chortles as Aizawa walks away. And Shinsou worries about him getting in trouble. Trouble’s the name of Aizawa’s game.
The message – the first Aizawa ever receives from Shinsou – simply reads ‘where do we meet?’ and arrives minutes after the bell for the end of Saturday classes, earlier than the rest of the weekdays.
Aizawa was expecting… something. Maybe not this, but he hadn’t been so bold as to assume he’d lack Shinsou’s presence at his side for… whatever it is he’s going to do this afternoon. And a killer on the loose is certainly an issue requiring a lot of Aizawa’s free time, though there is something he could make time for right now.
‘Alleyway behind the convenience store. Come ready for a fight.’ With Aizawa being Aizawa and Shinsou being Shinsou, no confrontation between them is going to last that long. Stags ramming their horns together just for the sake of a tussle, shaking it off once it’s clear who’s bigger.
However, young bucks being as they are, Shinsou still postures like he’s got a fighting chance, sending the reply: ‘If that’s supposed to scare me you’re ridiculous.’
Says the kid Aizawa is about to stomp on, he thinks with particularly savory satisfaction all the way to the convenience store. He buys a jelly fruit juice and an energy drink, then asks his friend – the grandpa who sits behind the counter all day while his children run the shop – if he wouldn’t mind letting Aizawa out through the back. Which of course, the grandpa nods and waves Aizawa through.
This lets Aizawa out deep into the alleyway that Shinsou arrives at the entrance of about five minutes later. He’s heavily out of breath, which if he ran all the way from school means he’s still got a ways to go before he can keep up with Aizawa’s almost- leisurely pace on the regular parkour route to make it over here. Aizawa’s got a perfect run down to about twelve minutes, but could hit ten if he really went for it.
Aizawa doesn’t move from his position, clinging to his chosen patch of shadow like damp creeping up a wall, waiting. When Shinsou can’t get any closer before realising his wrong assumption – that he got here first – Aizawa springs out of the dark with a handful of his capture weapon flying.
Shinsou actually manages to dodge, if only by dropping to the floor like he’s taken a bullet to the head. Faceplanting a grimy alleyway isn’t pretty, but it does work. Shinsou rolls to the side and scrambles back to his feet, launching into Aizawa’s close-quarters range before the missed tendrils of the capture weapon even touch the ground.
Imitation as a sure sign of flattery, Shinsou tries a sharp upward strike – the same style Aizawa has used to knock out much larger men in a single blow. He’s about ten years of practice off, but it’s the thought that counts.
Aizawa dodges Shinsou’s attack like stepping around a person holding a large umbrella and gets closer still, lifting a forearm to press horizontal across Shinsou’s throat and walking them across the short width of the alley until his back hits the wall. Just as Aizawa expects: a struggle for dominance between them doesn't last long. But the tenacity to keep trying, not to go in like the fight is lost – refusing to give up is more important than being able to win when it comes to being a hero. At least at this stage.
Shinsou seems like he's got every belief he could come out on top – given the right circumstances. “If you let me use my quirk, I'd have you,” he declares with absolute confidence. A springtime violet gaze trained on Aizawa over the chokehold of his arm across Shinsou’s whole neck.
“So use it,” he replies, not joking. Definitely not joking a second later when Shinsou activates his quirk a split-second after Aizawa does, an erasing stare cutting off the grab Shinsou makes for Aizawa’s mind. This exercise is going off the rails a little bit, but Aizawa’s not fooling. “You didn't think I was going to make it that easy for you, did you?”
“Worth a shot.” Shinsou keeps his cool, then with all his strength shoves Aizawa back and slips free. Aizawa lets him, but only the way a cat lets a mouse go for the sake of catching it again.
For a mouse, Shinsou moves pretty quick. At least when it comes to skittering away from Aizawa, snatching some distance between them. But only for as long as it takes Aizawa to throw his capture weapon again. So about five seconds.
“Admit it, you were never going to let me use my quirk.” Shinsou’s head is a tufty purple sprout growing atop a capture-wrapped body, and he still makes it look like he planned it this way. “You were just winding me up.” Aizawa blinks, his quirk and hair dropping, but doesn't bite on Shinsou’s baited hook. Yet the boy’s a persistent fisher. “You're afraid, just like everyone else.”
Aizawa’s quirk rises back up like fur on the back of an aggravated cat. “And you're trying to provoke me.”
Shinsou flashes a crafty grin. “Is it working?” His arms shift in their tight binding to his body, like he's testing the leeway. Maybe just getting comfortable.
Aizawa remains steadfast, laser-glare targeting Shinsou like the sight on a sniper rifle. “No.”
“Shame. That's kinda my deal, yanno.” Shinsou’s restricted movement makes the lift of his eyebrow more exaggerated. “You are scared, though.”
Shinsou’s said it before: he can be very persuasive.
It’d be a lie to say Aizawa hasn’t thought about it. Wondered, more like. There’s a conversation they had, just a few days ago, when things were very different to how they are now: I’ll trust you if you trust me. Fear and trust are incompatible – one erases the other. So what Shinsou’s really testing Aizawa for, even if they’re not quite at the stage of admitting it, is a vouch of trust.
A normal alleyway brawl would also turn out differently when the other party doesn’t know what happens if they answer Shinsou. In most situations that advantage will always be in his favour, as long as they respond to Shinsou’s crafty stream of answer-me provocations. But Aizawa does know, and wouldn’t be so foolish as to put himself up unintentionally.
Intentionally, though…
Aizawa's quirk drops with the rest of his guard. “Try me.”
The hold is immediate. Like velvet-gloved hands taking hold of Aizawa’s head, and then putting it in a vice. Everything is quieter, just the elevated beat of his heart thumping in his chest up to his ears. Shinsou is watching him carefully, no smug look of satisfaction on his face. “Release me.”
If he wanted to, Aizawa could struggle against the movement of his body beyond Shinsou’s iron will. He doesn’t, but he could – not that it would make much difference. His motions are fluid and natural, just as he’d act if he were doing this of his own volition. A quick flick of his wrist and the capture weapon uncoils from around Shinsou, dropping in a ring at his feet.
Shinsou rolls his shoulders and takes a deep breath, gaze fixed on Aizawa and no sign of strain in his countenance. “Turn around and face the wall.” Aizawa’s body is already following orders when Shinsou adds, “Hands behind your back.”
The throb of Aizawa’s pulse in his neck accelerates from a jog to a run. His face comes close to the wall as he turns towards it, a slight flex in his arms as he crosses his wrists behind his back. It’s just poor coincidence – perhaps more indicative of Aizawa’s own tendencies than he’d care to dwell on – that the last time he was in a pose like this was a few nights ago with Kayama. Very different circumstances. But just similar enough to make Aizawa sweat a little, heart rate increasing like he’d rather get this over with sooner rather than later – just not for the fact that it’s uncomfortable. Too comfortable, more like.
Aizawa feels the familiar touch of his own capture weapon wrapping around his neatly-presented wrists. There is a purpose to this little off-the-rails exercise, beyond the no man’s land currently under exploration. It’s to see how Shinsou would handle the particular scenario they’re playing, what he’d do if this were a real confrontation.
So far, it’s something this purple-tipped spring shoot has clearly given more thought than Aizawa expects. Tying someone up is one thing but it leaves plenty of chances for escape. To be really sure they aren’t getting back up, the lights should be out. That would have been the subject of Aizawa’s post-brainwashing lecture, until Shinsou says, “Now, hold your breath for me,” and Aizawa’s chest just stops.
This is the point where Aizawa tests against Shinsou’s quirk, pushes himself to keep breathing and finds he can’t. Shinsou could do this as a five-year-old, Aizawa knows, he just hadn’t expected Shinsou to do it now. It isn’t for long – just enough for Aizawa’s head to start spinning a little, exacerbated by the struggle of trying to fight the absolute control he handed over to this precocious-doesn’t-cover-it teenager. There’s no yield on Shinsou’s side, like trying to dig a hole in a concrete floor with your bare hands, but Aizawa wonders if Shinsou can feel the push the same way Aizawa does when he’s using his quirk to erase others.
Without any warning, the vice releases and the gloved hands clamping Aizawa’s chest disappear. He takes a deep, gasping breath of relief as his head spins to a stop, then tries to bring his hands around before remembering they’re bound, struggling against himself even after Shinsou’s quirk has released its hold over him, his cheek chafing against the wall he faceplanted at the boy’s command.
Before Shinsou can come to his aid, Aizawa’s taken care of it, slipping his bindings with easy familiarity and putting one hand to the wall, turning far enough to catch Shinsou in a sidelong glance. “Even just to prove a point, what you did is incredibly dangerous.”
“I know,” Shinsou answers calmly. “That’s why I didn’t let you actually pass out.”
“What if you get it wrong?” Aizawa challenges. What if someone dies, he means.
“I won’t.” There is an intimidating stillness to Shinsou right now; standing tall, unmoving with calculating eyes on the subject of his experiment. For as different as they are where it counts, there is a striking resemblance between the boy and his father. “I know exactly how long it takes.”
Aizawa knows why he knows – the fabled research Dr. Shinsou engaged his son in. “That was a long time ago.”
“Weirdly enough, it’s not something you forget easily,” Shinsou replies lightly, like it’ll brighten the darkness of why he knows what he does.
“Everyone has different thresholds,” Aizawa starts to lecture as they return to normality, turning the rest of the way around and leaning back against the wall. “You’d need to add another few minutes before I’d drop.”
“Bullshit,” Shinsou retorts. “You’d have been down in another thirty seconds.”
“Wrong, but if you say so,” Aizawa bats back, crossing his arms over his chest. “You should avoid restraining people with their own equipment too.”
“Gee, teach, never thought of that one.” Shinsou rolls his eyes. “Don’t we have something more important to do, like catching a serial killer?”
“Right.” Aizawa picks himself up the wall and starts to reel the erratically-strewn spools of his capture weapon back in. “Tsukauchi contacted me about this so-called ‘Hakazaki Seiko’ who worked in the same department as the first victim. They’ve got her address, and he’s going around with a warrant in a couple of hours.” The exchange of messages with Tsukauchi started up while Aizawa was waiting for Shinsou in the alley, so when he checks his phone again the address has finally come through.
“Sounds like we better get going,” Shinsou announces without resentment – almost like he’s getting used to the way Aizawa works and doesn’t need any further explanation. A couple of hours free-run across the city also doubles up as some all-important one-on-one training for Shinsou. Aizawa might even teach him how to throw a punch right if they have the time.
Aizawa admittedly doesn’t know much about it, but as far as interns go… he likes this one.
They get to the apartment block before the detective does, which means Aizawa has let Shinsou punch him in the jaw enough times for it to almost hurt by the time Tsukauchi actually shows up at the address he sent to Aizawa.
Emerging from an entrance to an underground car park shortly after his only vaguely-inconspicuous car rolls into it, Tsukauchi’s wrapped in his iconically overkill trench coat and hat. He strides up the ramp and over to Aizawa and Shinsou with all the unnecessary flaps of the coat beating in the wind, which tears between the channels created by the densely-packed high-rise apartment blocks.
Only after Tsukauchi has completed his high-drama wind tunnel walk, a grimace against the breeze that makes him look like something off a pulp novel cover, and come to a full stop in front of them does he break into a characteristic grin. “Ah, Detective Pot and the Little Spoon, right on time.”
“You've definitely become too invested in this scenario,” Aizawa replies with a tone like an EKG flatline. He and Shinsou are leaning on a railing out front of the building, matching hands-tucked-in-pockets poses and their backs to the howling wind – probably cutting quite the picture. It's totally unintentional, so making any effort to act differently feels like an acknowledgement that Aizawa isn't prepared to make about what this looks like. At least not right now.
Tsukauchi is, as ever, nonplussed. “You’d rather I refer to you as Eraser and Jack?”
Aizawa shrugs. “I don’t really give a shit either way, it’s just your grasp on reality I’m worried about.” Even as he says it, Aizawa’s thinking that it’s the kind of dig Shinsou would make if he were looking to get a rise out of Tsukauchi. Maybe if he knew the detective for as long as Aizawa has.
However, Shinsou’s in the early days of his acquaintance with Tsukauchi and sticks on-message as rookies often do. Someone’s got to be on the straight and narrow. “Let’s go already, I wanna see what this chick is about.”
“According to neighbours, she hasn’t been seen for a while.” Tsukauchi cracks open case details like a tin of biscuits as he begins a leisurely stroll towards the building entrance.
“I don’t imagine she wants to be seen,” Shinsou remarks, right on the dark edge of comedy as he and Aizawa fall into step behind Tsukauchi.
“Or she’s abandoned this place already,” Aizawa adds even more morosely as they get to the door, waiting to be let into the building. They’re met and escorted in by a shifty-looking maintenance man who seems very determined not to speak to any of them. An impish creature who leads their curious party through the soulless building and straight up to a door exactly like any other door in the long corridor.
Without even checking the warrant that Tsukauchi has to hand over, the handyman unlocks the apartment and pushes the door wide open, already turning around and stomping back off down the corridor before they’ve even set foot in the place. Maybe he knows it’s better not to have anything to do with the lady who lives in this apartment.
They’re left looking on a relatively normal – at least so far – apartment hallway that shows few signs of being inhabited.
“Don't touch anything,” Aizawa slips to Shinsou as he practically shimmies past Aizawa to overtake him and be the first in, an invasion of personal space that Aizawa doesn’t think is entirely necessary, but he lets the kid have some excitement as he bounds enthusiastically into a new formative experience.
Shinsou gets a couple of steps ahead down the hallway and stops, turning back to address Aizawa with a monstrously dry tone. “You mean, like it's a crime scene? But I was about to start spitting everywhere.”
Aizawa gives a tired huff and doesn't respond. His attention is on the environment, not Shinsou’s current channel of keep-talking-to-me sass. A habit of his Aizawa’s starting to figure out; no wonder all he wants to do is feel recognised, after being misunderstood and overlooked for so long.
The apartment is messy but in a way that points to being uninhabited rather than the cleaning habits of its occupant. An even dust covers most of the surfaces, ones that would be clear if they were in use. The lone pot-plants are dead, and there probably isn’t a scrap of edible food in the entire kitchen. The last part is a guess, but it reminds Aizawa of his own place, from the age of about twenty, until… until he moved in with Hizashi.
“This place looks like it’s been empty for a while,” Tsukauchi observes from a squat right at the threshold of the door, rifling carefully through a sizable pile of untended mail. Starting at the start: a true sign of a thorough detective, not that Aizawa will have the grace to mention it. Tsukauchi doesn’t need any telling he’s doing a good job, which suits Aizawa down to the ground – didn’t want to talk to him anyway.
Aizawa follows Shinsou to the middle of the room, standing in the center to get a feel for the space while the kid goes straight to a solitary window on the outside wall. Shinsou’s determined gaze sweeps their surroundings and then finds what he’s clearly already looking for. “Someone came in through here.”
Aizawa moves across to check but stops dead when Shinsou’s palm lifts flat to face him. It’s a universal gesture, but for how suddenly Aizawa obeys the command, it could’ve been a lingering effect of the kid’s quirk. That’s not it, of course, but Aizawa’s thoughts wander that way as Shinsou beckons his approach from a different angle. The blurry overlap between persuasion and the total control of a brainwashing quirk.
Dr. Shinsou’s book, The 90% Mind, takes a walk right through that particular strip of no-man’s-land. Aizawa has learned from flicking through the chilling manifesto – usually in the bathroom, the only context befitting such a read – that the choice of title reflects the Doctor’s belief that most people have mentalist abilities, they’re simply unable to access them.
In his theories, those born with mentalist quirks merely have a stronger connection to the 90% mind, an oft-quoted but utterly false notion about humans only using 10% of their brains. According to the Doc’s – frankly, lunatic – body of work, studying children of developmental age with mentalist quirks contains the key to unlocking the secrets of the hidden 90% for everyone. He then postulates that if society had the ability to cultivate the power of mentalist quirks at will, those born with a naturally heightened dispensation for them wouldn’t be so stigmatised. They’d merely be geniuses at something everyone can achieve if they work toward it.
At least, that was the mad Professor’s theory. The newspapers’ take on it is that the Doc’s exploration of how far ‘persuasion’ could be taken before it became mind control reached its apex in his final experiment – the one where he persuaded his most devout admirers that they all wanted to die, little by little then all at once.
When Aizawa gets closer, slowly approaching the window from the new direction Shinsou indicates with a wave of his palm, he sees the signs of entry. There’s a footprint marked in the dust on the sill, just visible when the light catches it right. The shape indicates the direction the person was coming from. This kid could make a detective yet.
“Good find,” Aizawa says quietly, not really meaning to, but it slips out all the same. Even in Tsukauchi’s presence, who comes over a moment later to get a look for himself.
“She’s meant to be good at hiding, right?” Shinsou mutters to Aizawa, but it’s Tsukauchi who fixes on this question as he finally clears the doorway and steps into the room.
Directing a cursory look around the room before settling an intrigued one on Shinsou, Tsukauchi asks, “What makes you say that?”
Ah. The minor black hole in the case details Aizawa handed over to the detective: the part where he and Shinsou paid a visit to his famous mass-murderer father to fish for information on their suspect.
“Intuition,” lies Shinsou – ‘Jack’ as Tsukauchi knows him, or maybe something to do with spoons. “She’s making this place look more abandoned than it is.” Hiding in plain sight – or thereabouts.
Aizawa follows the notion all the way through, looking out through the window at the narrow – a little dicey, but not impossible – ledge that leads to the external fire escape. “I noticed a fire escape on the back of the building before you got here,” Aizawa turns around to address Tsukauchi face to face. “It wouldn’t be too hard for a person to get into this apartment from it.” Saves using the front door, and letting anyone know this place is still being used.
“As long as you knew the window was unlocked,” Tsukauchi points out, looking through the window
“It’s not locked now, is it?” Shinsou’s head quirks in a curiously personable manner, his gaze darting to the window fastening. True to form, the fitting has been taken off the window entirely, unscrewed and set aside on a nearby shelf. Aizawa caught most of this at first glance, but it’s more rewarding to let things play out this way, seeing what the people around him can figure out on their own.
“Smart boy you’ve got here, Eraser,” Tsukauchi remarks cheerfully as he takes a notebook out of his pocket, scribbling a couple of notes in it before he turns his gaze back around the room. Shinsou catches Aizawa’s eye and rolls his own, but that’s his only reaction to Tsukauchi’s charmless optimism. Such determined do-goodery is an instant explanation for why Toshi likes the detective, which naturally means Aizawa wants to treat him with a generous pinch of salt.
They break back into different directions again. Aizawa heads to the kitchen, confirming his theory about there being nothing sanitary to eat – always a good indicator of how long a place has been abandoned: how rancid the fridge is. The fridge here isn’t actually that bad, but when Aizawa checks the freezer he finds an unsavory treat that he’ll wait until Tsukauchi is back in the room to trade notes on. No sense in alarming anyone just yet.
Shinsou stays near the window initially and looks around as if he’s trying to map a path the person would take through the room, creeping in and out of the trappings of civilisation between the bloody jags of a murder spree. Watching Shinsou find and open the bathroom door, Aizawa has an unwelcome flashback of the bathtub in the home of the first victim – good thing Shinsou wasn’t around for that one, not that he hasn’t seen as bad or worse already.
This bathroom is thankfully far less distressing. In fact, not distressing at all, just a normal bathroom. Aizawa’s almost at the point of thinking they might not find anything troubling in this place. Aside from the missing hand in the freezer, obviously, but he’ll get back to that later.
Because from deeper into the apartment, Tsukauchi’s voice echoes loud and clear. “Can the both of you come in here?” There’s absolutely no good will in his tone at all, so whatever he’s found in the final room is nothing to take lightly.
Shinsou steps out from the bathroom and glances at Aizawa first, waiting until he shuts the freezer and leaves the kitchen, passing Shinsou to go first towards the open doorway.
The bedroom has thick blinds and tape over the windows to ensure no daylight from outside enters the stuffy, confining space. There’s a neon strip light that has been pulled down from the ceiling in a piece of manic electrical engineering, and it lies instead on the floor casting its glare up the wall instead of down.
A futon in the corner looks at least vaguely used, just like Aizawa’s old place – but the similarity ends when it comes to the bedroom wall. Because Aizawa certainly never had a larger-than-lifesize poster of Dr. Shinsou Masaru pinned to his wall, that’s for sure.
Aside from the absolutely massive square-on headshot of the infamous Doctor – the same portrait that stared at Aizawa on the toilet until he finally took the tacky hardcover sleeve off the damn book – there’s pages after pages stuck into the wall with tacks.
There’s a multitude of scribblings on the wall at the world’s creepiest idol shrine, in pen that’s simply been gone over in enough times to make chaotic, angry lines. In a central strip of space between the pages, a series of numbers have been carved out, violently scribbled over, and then rewritten again so it reads…
50% MIND
Aizawa is staring at the numbers, but Tsukauchi’s gaze is entirely on the poster. The face. Dr. Shinsou Masaru’s features are striking in a way that barely even convey on paper the terror they embody in the flesh. Even from behind a pane of glass. The charismatic, calculated cut of his expression, staring straight down the camera in this shot like he intends to bend the viewer’s mind to his will just from a picture alone.
Shinsou – Hitoshi, that is – watches Detective Tsukauchi. There are some things they didn’t count on being solved by this little visit to the suspect’s home. The resemblance between Shinsou Hitoshi and his father are inescapable. Anyone could tell they’re related, least of all an admittedly competent police detective.
A police detective who now takes his gaze from the photographic Shinsou on the wall to the mini-mirror of him in the room. Hitoshi’s face isn’t quite the same as his father’s: angles a little softer in places with that might-be-babyfat roundness that tells of youth not quite left behind.
“Jack, was it?” Tsukauchi has an unreadable quality to his tone that makes Aizawa’s sense of urgency itch. Like something could go very bad very fast if he doesn’t act soon.
But the kid beats him to it.
“My real name is Shinsou Hitoshi,” he says in a calm, you’re-not-going-to-panic-if-I-don’t- let you way, and Aizawa has a sudden thought about what he’d do if Shinsou used his quirk on a police detective. He’s probably not that dumb, but Aizawa can never be too sure – not when he’s announcing as plain a day but in a completely unnecessarily ominous way. “And yeah, that is my father.”
Notes:
Important features of this story.
1. Nezu is a mastermind and literally took even me by surprise with how important he is to this story. Also I love him.
2. The growth in Aizawa's own character as catalysed by Shinsou is SO important to this story too, so the fact that he goes from being afraid and resistant to letting Shinsou use his quirk to allowing it here is but the START of a process for that I'm so fucking stokeddddddd to be sharing with y'all.
3. This kind of dramatic drop at the end of a chapter is WHAT I AM HERE FOR AHHH *drops the mic*
Chapter 12: Reasonable Doubt
Summary:
Aizawa needs to get his story – and his head – on straight.
Notes:
Finally letting you off that cliffhanger! This was a big drop to keep you in suspense for, so I hope the unfolding chaos pays off.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Detective Tsukauchi’s smile might as well be a google image search for the word ‘fake smile’ printed off and taped to the front of his face. “Eraser, would you care to explain this?” Meaning the uncanny resemblance between Aizawa’s new intern and the mass-murderer whose face is printed on a giant poster inside the neon-list room. Aizawa doesn't really blame him for that.
“I thought that’s what I was doing,” Shinsou offers instead, holding up his hands to peer at them as if he’s perplexed. “Weird. Am I see-through or dead or something?”
That’d fit, Aizawa thinks with a wry grimace. The ghost of Dr. Shinsou, haunting them on a killer’s trail. “The Detective just wants to know why I brought you here.”
“Why you think you brought him here,” Tsukauchi cautions. Aizawa can’t tell if he’s serious or not, but either way it’s an insinuation that would make Aizawa’s blood boil if he thinks about it at all. Like, grab-a-detective-by-the-front-of-his-big-stupid-coat-and-yell-at-him boil. Which is to be… avoided.
So, the only rational option Aizawa has left is to shove the problem out of his lap as fast as it hops into it; Aizawa is just done at the outset. “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
“Why not?” Tsukauchi sounds almost as if he’s asking if Aizawa can.
Even if Aizawa was being controlled by Shinsou, he wouldn’t have the ability to respond to anyone else anyway. Not that Aizawa would let it happen, except in hush-hush backalley training exercises. Tsukauchi seems to be making some wild logical leaps, which is part and parcel of the territory. Consider every angle, Aizawa does it himself. But some things are too illogical to dwell on for more than a moment. Whatever Tsukauchi’s got in his head must be one of those utterly dismissible wildballs, if he suspects Shinsou of anything.
“Because it’s against the law to punch you,” Aizawa replies bluntly. He’ll definitely at least pretend-accidentally shoulder Tsukauchi if he gets a chance. Instead, Aizawa stays still and uses bigger words than he could actions. “Hitoshi isn’t like his father.” As soon as he says it, Aizawa wishes he’d gone the other way. Except that saying ‘Shinsou’ reiterates the connection Aizawa wants to disprove: why Shinsou is – Hitoshi is– different. Not like his biological father, he’s like–
Aizawa needs to get his head on straight. The piercing down-the-lens stare of Dr. Shinsou Masaru’s face plastered four-foot high on a poster isn’t helping one bit.
Tsukuachi remains unapologetic. Like some kind of professional. “You understand that as a Detective, it’s literally my job to consider every possibility?”
Done has become done-er. “You’ve considered it. Move on.” Aizawa doesn’t put it lightly, because he’s one shred of remaining rationality away from actually clocking Tsukauchi. He can’t, but that doesn’t affect the amount of wanting to. Even if Tsukauchi is just doing his job, and rationally Aizawa knows that. He just isn’t terribly rational about Shinsou anymore… seeing everyone think the worst of the kid before they dare to consider the best. Why should Aizawa be unbiased, when everyone else clearly isn’t?
Dislike it or hate it – those are the two options – Tsukauchi remains ever the skeptic. Which is supposed to be Aizawa’s job in the first place, being the biggest cynic in the room. “So I’m supposed to take this for a coincidence?” The Detective is standing with Dr. Shinsou’s face as his accidental backdrop, and it’s unnerving the shit out of Aizawa. Which in turn makes him more defiant.
“You’re supposed to take me at my word,” Aizawa snaps like the crack of one of Midnight’s whips. His quirk is dormant, but there is still an erasing aspect to Aizawa’s gaze as he finds Tsukauchi’s and locks it the hell down. “I’m responsible for him.” That means doubting Shinsou is calling Aizawa’s credibility as a hero into question, and he’s handed the police too many aces in too many holes to be challenged on that front.
Tsukauchi holds Aizawa’s stare for a moment, then turns it back to the wall, tiled in an irregular mosaic to the illustrious Dr. Shinsou, mass-murderer, PhD. Aizawa is asking for a little more than usual, and the detective makes this known. “So you keep saying.” Tsukauchi could use his quirk on Aizawa – the oh-so-pleasant (not) experience of being mentally probed by the human lie detector. The detective could try it, and Aizawa might actually let him, just to prove he’s being completely honest about Shinsou. It’s insulting, but Aizawa would do it for the kid.
“The connection between me and the Doc here is obvious.” Shinsou steps closer to the wall, peering close enough to read the text of the pages. Aizawa knows what they are already, but he won’t stop Shinsou drawing his own conclusions. “Isn’t the connection with the killer what we’re supposed to be interested in?” Turning back, Shinsu affixes an accusatory look on Tsukauchi. “Or maybe I’ve got this policework thing all wrong.”
“Then perhaps that’s something you can tell me about.” Tsukauchi drags his ‘are you seriously asking me to go with this?’ gaze away from Aizawa and drifts closer to Shinsou, moving to get a better look at the pages pinned across the wall.
Aizawa follows his hunch and asks – without thinking, like an idiot – from the back of the room, “Are they from his book?”
Shinsou’s head whips around, looking entirely spooky by the eerie floor-lighting in this unpleasant little karaoke booth of a room. “How did you know?”
“The writing on the wall,” Aizawa indicates before this can look any weirder than it has to.
Shinsou’s attention pulls over to the scrawling mess of numbers converging in the middle of the wall adjacent to the Doc’s neon-lit stare. Aizawa recognises the page layouts from across the room too, but that would imply he’s actually been reading Dr. Shinsou’s book more closely. Which would not help this delicate situation with Tsukauchi right now, so Aizawa keeps it under his hat, so to speak.
“What does that mean?” Tsukauchi presses on, the last uninformed party of the situation. Unfortunately, also the only party with actual legal jurisdiction.
“My father wrote a book called The 90% Mind,” Shinsou answers, just like Aizawa wants him to. Just because Shinsou has shown all – well, most – of his cards doesn’t mean Aizawa has to give the game up himself. Only one of them needs to look suspiciously well-informed on the subject of the Doctor's body of work right now.
“And what does that have to do with Hakamata Shiyoko?” Tuskauchi asks. “If that even is her name.”
“I can prove it is,” Aizawa interjects like a fool, getting straight to the point and directing the investigation like a class plan. “Check the freezer.”
Tuskauchi gives Aizawa a look he's gotten from Hizashi too many times to count. It’s the ‘you're about to gross me out’ face. “Why? ” Tsukauchi sounds unduly concerned. “What's in the freezer?”
“The missing piece of the puzzle,” Aizawa answers as he finally steps closer to check the individual pages torn from Dr. Shinsou’s book. They're fixed to the wall in a disjointed order, like someone tried to map out the Professor’s insane theories in real space. Hitoshi is right – it's the relationship between the Doc and Shiyoko they should be worried about. When Tsukauchi urgently passes Aizawa on his way out of the haunted bedroom, Aizawa allows his shoulder to bump the detective’s by merit of not giving way as he’s coming through. Like that small jostle of contact shakes it out of Aizawa, he flings a handful of vindictive, dared-to-doubt-me salt at Tsukauchi. “One of them.”
Tsukauchi’s got other priorities than letting Aizawa get a rise out of him, disappearing across the apartment like a bloodhound following a scent. There’s the plasticky thwump of the freezer opening and the cry, “Fucking hell, Eraser! You could've warned me!”
“Language,” Aizawa nags drearily as he plods through to the main room, where Tsukauchi’s glaring at him from in front of an open freezer containing a perfectly preserved chunk of man's hand.
“Would you care to explain this?!” Tsukauchi bursts like a blocked hosepipe after the water’s been turned on a few minutes.
“Settle down,” Aizawa sighs. “I know whose hand that is.”
“Why is that supposed to reassure me?” Tsukauchi tries to outdo Aizawa’s sigh by several hundred percent. Shinsou shuffles in after Aizawa and quickly becomes a victim to the demand, “Did you know about this?”
“About wh-eugh!” Shinsou reacts pretty authentically. Aizawa wouldn’t put it past him to overact for the drama of it. “I heard the police were shorthanded, but this is something else.” All hell breaks loose shortly after.
So the ‘missing piece’ Aizawa spoke of was a frozen two-thirds of a human hand. So what? There’s no reason for Tsukauchi to make such a fuss over it.
Even if Aizawa can appreciate that it could be construed to look a little… suspect. That's no reason for Tsukauchi to actually suspect them. So Shinsou is the son of a mass-murderer professor of mentalist quirks who their prime suspect is obsessed with? So Aizawa knew about the hand in the freezer (because he looked) and exactly whose it was, how long it'd been there, and why it proves the killer's real name?
It's typical: do some good detective work and end up looking like a serial killer. Or a serial killer’s accomplice(s). Some thanks Aizawa gets for doing the police’s job for them. Again. Sure, perhaps that wasn't the best line to drop – angrily – while trying to explain it all to Tsukauchi, but Aizawa only has so much patience. Or perhaps it should be not much.
Tsukauchi could always use his quirk on Aizawa, but the judges and lawyers have a lovely way of calling everything into question when a ‘suspicious’ quirk like Aizawa’s factors into the police report during a trial. They’d say there’s no way of knowing Aizawa didn’t erase Tsukauchi’s quirk, and only make it seem like he wasn’t lying, counteracting the Detective’s inbuilt ability to whiff a falsehood in someone’s brain like bad cheese at the back of the fridge. Because Tsukauchi can only do it when he’s sticking his head in there for a sniff, and Aizawa can deny him the second he feels it happen – which Aizawa can and will, if those meddlesome fingers start testing the locked handle to his mind. Aizawa would also be offended if Tsukauchi actually felt the need to test whether Aizawa's complicit in this clusterfuck, so they’ll have to settle this the old-fashioned way. With a quarrel.
It's obviously still in the middle of arguing and with Detective ‘I need reasonable doubt’ Tsukauchi that Aizawa's phone starts to sing its most attention-grabbing of ringtones. He ignores it the first time, but by the third pick-me-up cycle Aizawa finally breaks away from squabbling about how much police evidence he’s ‘allowed’ access to and answers it.
Aizawa tries not to snap, and surely fails at it. “What?”
“Sort your shit and get back here, bitch.” Ah, Hizashi’s classic no-fooling term of address. “We’re going out.”
“This isn’t the time.”
“You know as well as I do there’s no such thing as ‘the time’,” Hizashi counters fiercely. Aizawa wonders if he’s at home yet, or maybe still driving. Pulling faces at himself in a mirror either way, no doubt. “Saturday night means no excuses.”
Tsukauchi looks annoyed that Aizawa decided to answer the phone, which is already a good enough reason to have done it. “I have to finish up with an…” It's Tsukauchi he's looking at, not Shinsou. Never Shinsou. Well, sometimes. “Annoyance over here. I’ll text you when I’m on my way.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Okay, I won’t,” Aizawa repeats back to Hizashi: a firm tug to hoist him by his own petard. “Bye.”
“WAI—” Hizashi’s shout has barely gotten started when Aizawa hangs up.
Reverting to their heated topic of discussion, Tsukauchi adjusts his hat and declares, “Give me one good reason I shouldn't call the Chief and tell him you've been withholding evidence.”
“Because without me the evidence wouldn't even exist.” Aizawa has run this damn case so far and Tsukauchi knows it. He just needs the law to actually pick the damn thing up once he’s snatched it hot off the stove. Which means not pissing around wanting to know why Aizawa knows certain things, no bitchfits over his methodology, and no talk on whether or not the things he’s done could be considered unprofessional or ‘technically illegal’ or would hold up in court. Aizawa’s job is to catch the killer: the police’s is to prove they did it.
It’s lucky that Aizawa hasn't had to make mention of the ‘father-son visit to famous mass-murderer in high-security prison’ part of his and Shinsou’s recent casework thus far. There’s no need to get pulled into that murky world of suspicion. Neither Aizawa or Shinsou could be in any way responsible for these deaths, of course, but to someone who doesn’t think too hard about things it could be possible, and that’s enough to sensationalise.
“You gotta admit, arresting someone for doing your job wouldn’t look great to your boss.” Shinsou’s leaning against the kitchen counter as Aizawa and Tsukauchi argue around the open freezer. Tsukauchi has pocketed his hat and puts on a pair of latex gloves, then produces a large evidence bag from one of his seemingly endless coat pockets.
“I'll get to you later, kid,” Tsukauchi doesn't exactly snap, but Aizawa doesn't appreciate his tone one bit. “I can't believe I have to say this to you, Eraser, but if you find human body parts at a crime scene, I expect you to tell me about it.”
“I did.”
“Right away.”
“Well that's just pedantry,” Aizawa counters stiffly.” I was going to tell you once we’d looked over the whole place.”
“Sure, right after we stopped off at the shrine to your intern’s father.”
“I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Then you could act a little more surprised.”
“How's this?” Aizawa's expression doesn't change, he just deadpan stares at Tsukauchi wondering how much longer they're going to have to do this.
“Crappy.” Shinsou isn't exactly helping, but he can't really make things much worse either. And Aizawa finds him amusing, so that counts for something. “What about this?” Shinsou points at his face, mimicking a kind of concerted surprise. “Oh no. We found a piece of critical evidence in the home of our prime suspect. How terrible for us.”
Tsukauchi looks as if he'd like to tell Aizawa to keep his intern under control but for the fact that this is Aizawa's intern. Expectations will have to be managed about what constitutes ‘under control’ in the first place. Aizawa’s not gonna stop Shinsou saying or doing things he'd probably do himself. In fact he'd probably be even worse if it was just Aizawa and the poor, frustrated detective – he is at least trying to set a reasonable example for Shinsou. So really Tsukauchi ought to be thanking Shinsou; he’s the reason Aizawa’s using the barest form of restraint and not actively encouraging the shit talk.
Thankfully, Aizawa can also just prove his innocence, and sometimes that works too. “The level of frost buildup should indicate how long the hand has been there. There’s no way I could have planted it recently.” A delicate icing has crept across the irregularly butchered piece of human wrist-and-hand that stands neatly preserved in the back of the freezer. It’ll be solid all the way through, no way Aizawa could have had it on him – even pre-frozen – and placed it in this freezer just to make the police look silly. Why on earth would he even want to ?
Reasonable doubt Aizawa’s ass.
But Tsukauchi remains unflapped. “Your kid pointed out this place has been accessed from the outside before. What if I'm asked why it couldn't have been you?”
“One, I only got this address when you sent it,” Aizawa begins.
“Two, the shoe has to fit,” Shinsou jumps in right after. “The footprint isn't big enough to be either of ours.”
Tsukauchi writes all of this down in his notebook and flips it shut. “Fine.” He takes a picture of the hand in the freezer and then reaches in to snap it out of its frosted mount.
The tension seems to hold like a roof of uncertain thickness, no one falling through the ceiling into a packed biker den. Maybe reasonable doubt can be reasonable, now and again. “Look for the writing,” Aizawa instructs when it seems like they’re out of the weeds – for now.
Tsukauchi finds it, exactly as Aizawa expected even before looking himself some time earlier: 墓又 死. “Hakamata Shi.”
“Shiyoko,” Aizawa finishes. “You'll find the rest on the body in your morgue.”
Tsukauchi frowns as he drops the hand into an evidence bag. “I sometimes wonder who Kuwabara thinks she works for.”
“Whoever’s on the case,” Aizawa interjects wearily. They've done this dance before. “Can we put the pissing contest on hold and finish up?”
“Why – you got a better invitation?” Shinsou teases.
“Than this?” Aizawa replies scathingly, but he’s looking right at Tsukauchi in comparison. “Would've thought that's obvious.”
“Unless you've hidden any more body parts around here that you’ve yet to tell me about, Eraser, I've seen everything I can stomach for the night.” Tsukauchi’s also got a handsicle in a bag that's no longer on ice, which is a frozen treat that no one wants melting in the back of their car. Hizashi wouldn’t drive Aizawa to school for weeks after they learned that invaluable lesson.
Aizawa clears out a list in his head scrawled on the mental equivalent of the back of a receipt. “Nothing springs to mind." Unlike the not-all-that-unfortunate molester who sprung to his death after launching himself from the platform, striking the train with so much impact the shattering windscreen sliced him literally to pieces. A piece that Shiyoko found and kept.
Aizawa feels a few blocks shift in his mind; the first death was the trigger, complete with motive and premeditation. But then, like Dr. Shinsou said, one is never enough. She didn’t get the job, or it stopped mattering. Shiyoko was assaulted on the train home and instead of accepting it, instead of going to an authority that would look this with unkind indifference, she grabbed her attacker and pulled him back – Aizawa remembers the tape from the station still. How startled the man was for Shiyoko to come after him, allowing her to write her name on the back of his hand while he fell into a brainwashed trance.
Shiyoko left, or went to hide, and waited while her victim stood on the platform waiting to die. Was he aware, in some level of his consciousness, as he stood there, staring blank ahead and not moving a muscle until the train came charging into the station? When he leapt with unnatural force to launch himself in front of the train, butchering his body like a kobe cow, with the finest cut set aside for Shiyoko. That’s why Aizawa believes the hand was left here, in the apartment she abandoned when the pattern truly began. A physical statement of intent, left for them to find on the cold part of her trail.
This is where – how – a single act of vengeance became a warped killing spree, each death more angry and brutal than the last. The real question, it inevitably follows, is how far will it go before she’s stopped?
The car ride back to the police station is quiet and prickly, like invisible barbed wire is strung through the back of the police car in all directions.
Not really wanting to be in the separated front of the police car, probably not even technically “allowed” to ride passenger – though he does it with Tama all the time – Aizawa sits in the back with Shinsou rather than with Tsukauchi up front.
“So this is what it feels like,” Shinsou murmurs as they first settle in. Being in the back of a police car, Aizawa assumes, though Shinsou has ridden in the back plenty of times while Yamaguichi’s driving. Maybe she’s different – at least to Shinsou.
“You get used to it.”
Shinsou looks around and narrows his eyes at Tsukauchi in the driver’s seat. “Dunno about that.”
“What are you two murmuring about back there?” Tsukauchi pipes up from the front. “It better not be the case.”
“Just planning our next murder,” Shinsou announces with completely deadpan defiance. Aizawa jabs him in the arm with his elbow. “Joking. Geez, you’re lame.”
“Horses are lame,” Aizawa counters, which Shinsou seems to find cringeworthy. “I’m sticking my neck out for you, try not to make me look like an asshole doing it.”
Shinsou’s expression turns sheepish. “Can’t believe it took you this long to work out my evil plan.” Ah yes, the ultimate strategy: make Aizawa look soft by taking so many liberties on a bratty shit-talker of a kid. Aizawa would be ashamed if he wasn’t so proud.
Aizawa gives Shinsou another shove, and then his phone starts to sing its impassioned love song once more. Aizawa would change it, but that takes effort and a mastery of phone settings he has absolutely no grasp on, the secrets of its operation kept like a dragon hoard. Hizashi has fried every single mobile phone Aizawa has ever owned, and always replaces them with some new and fancier model that Aizawa has only just figured out how to use when Hizashi blows it out again. Aizawa suspects he gets them for free from one of his ad deals.
“I'm definitely getting a personalised ringtone,” Shinsou seems to be muttering as Aizawa picks up.
Rolling his eyes at Shinsou, Aizawa answers, “Yeah?”
Hizashi is indignant. “Yeah!? Where the fuck are you!”
“Back of a police car. On my way to the station.”
“Oh, did you finally snap? Do I need to come bail you out at long last?”
Normally that'd be a funny joke. Right now it's a little awkward. “No.”
“Alright alright, chill baby. So you're on your way home.”
“That's overstating it.”
“Yes you are.” It's not a negotiation: it's a declaration of terms. “Saturday night means—”
“No excuses,” Aizawa answers quietly. “Except work.”
“Fuck work.” Hizashi is right, of course. “You know I'm right.”
“I do.”
“Then stop screwing around and get back here.” Back at home is where the screwing around will happen surely, but Aizawa’s not going to dwell on that just yet.
“Soon.”
“I'm going to pregame without you.” Hizashi sounds like he already has, going by the irregular volume of his voice and what sounds like music in the background.
“You always do.”
Shinsou is watching Aizawa out the corner of his eye, pretending he's not.
“Love you.” Hizashi is testing him, surely. Calls it free therapy, making Aizawa declare his love over the phone in a variety of public places – or get called a coward. In court was one of the weirder ones. This is baby tier in comparison.
Aizawa’s no coward. “Love you too.” Aizawa catches the subtle shift of recognition from Shinsou, desperate as ever for those morsels of teacher’s life outside school hours. Outside of the school hours that fall outside actual school hours, at least.
“Good.” Hizashi is content with this offering. “Now get your ass back here, slut.”
This time it's Hizashi who hangs up. Aizawa is left smiling, still holding the phone to his face.
“Looks like someone's getting laid tonight,” Shinsou doesn't really joke, but Aizawa lets him get away with it – it’s just a bit of banter. Teachers and students aren't really meant to joke about that kind of stuff; then again, they aren't really teacher and student.
That's why Aizawa replies – much to the ever-so-grownup delight of Shinsou – “I goddam hope so.”
Aizawa has no sooner crossed the threshold of his own door than a pair of flying jeans strike him clean across the face.
This isn't the work of Best Jeanist, but one Yamada Hizashi, who in spite of having hours ahead of Aizawa to prepare, seems to have drunk disproportionately more whiskey than he's actually gotten himself ready to go out a la Saturday Night. In fact, going by the music blaring and rocking movement of Hizashi’s body as Aizawa comes through the door, he’s gotten the party started already. Aizawa’s best guess is Hizashi was swinging the only pair of jeans Aizawa tolerates wearing around his head like a lasso before he walked in.
Hizashi takes a swig of his drink, and a solid sphere of ice clinks against the side of one of his fancy whiskey glasses – the ones Aizawa isn’t supposed to touch. Aizawa wonders if Hizashi washes them first, because Aizawa’s definitely stuck his balls in them – out of principle, obviously – more than once. Usually after Hizashi clucks at him for drinking coffee out of them when he can’t find the mugs. Serves Hizashi right for rearranging the fucking cupboards all the time.
The alcohol would probably kill off anything suspect in the glasses, Aizawa concludes as Hizashi takes another thirsty swig of whiskey. Like he’s got to load up his tongue and ready his quirk to spit actual fire at Aizawa. But all Hizashi offers is a smuggish, “Took your sweet fucking time.”
Aizawa looks the love of his life up and down and wonders – not for the first or last time – how on earth he ended up with such a creature. “You've got to be kidding me.”
“Hey!” Hizashi’s outraged, of course, but he knows exactly what Aizawa’s referring to. “These used to belong to Eddie Murphy, I'll have you know.”
Aizawa doesn't have the faintest idea who that is, but whoever that is, he clearly likes bright red leather pants. Going by the way Hizashi fills out the skin-tight layer wrapping around his thighs, this Eddie guy also liked his pants intimately tight.
Naturally, Hizashi’s got no shirt to speak of either. With a bare chest and his arms outstretched, Hizashi could be posing for one of his ridiculous album cover photoshoots, or god forbid advertisements he makes all this outrageous cash off. Being a teacher and pro hero are satisfying careers, sure; being a musician is another ‘side piece’, as the entrepreneurial all-rounder calls it. But Hizashi has to get the cash for his literal mansion of high-end living somewhere, and it’s no secret that adverts are great money.
Aizawa spots the familiar outline of his goggles – not the actual ones, but a cleverly depth-deceiving tattooed set – wrapped around Hizashi’s bicep. An addition that came shortly after they became an item, so to speak. The band sits nestled between the start of the keyboard that goes all the way down Hizashi's arm, and the matching sun and moon that wrap around each of his shoulders.
The rest of Hizashi’s shoulders and neck is hidden parts of the story for now, curtained by the loose tresses of his unstyled hair. This could mean two things. Aizawa’s about to find out which. “What if we don’t go out?”
“Oh no!” Hizashi’s hand shoots out with the whiskey glass at the end of it, a single finger outstretched to point at Aizawa. “Don’t you dare, Shota.”
“You’re barely ready.” After fifteen years beside Hizashi, Aizawa’s judgement for these things has been whittled down to a perfect needle point. He takes a few steps over to the lounge area Hizashi is set up in, if the bottle of whiskey on the table and pack of – Aizawa knew he’d pinched them – cigarettes is any indication. “Someone at work bought those for me,” Aizawa tells Hizashi as he gets close enough to be certain it’s the nice cigarettes Yamaguichi picked up.
“I haven’t had any,” Hizashi purrs, starting to shake and shift to the music again. “Yet.”
Then why steal them? Aizawa barely considers before returning back to the point they were vying away from. “What is there to do outside that we can’t do here?” Aizawa takes a step closer and then stops on the other side of the sofa. Not to mention, there are things they can do here that they can’t do outside – not without getting arrested for indecency.
“Saturday night means–”
“I know what it means,” Aizawa cuts him off, putting a hand down to vault across the sofa and rapidly close the distance between them. He only has to straighten up before Hizashi’s half-assed (but what an ass) dancing collides with the shock-absorbing punchbag of Aizawa’s body. He wraps an arm around Hizashi and looks straight at him. They’re just about the same height when Aizawa’s in boots and Hizashi's barefoot.
There aren’t many people Aizawa stares at like this without using his quirk. As always, Hizashi adores the eye of his beholder, stationary barely a moment before he sprawls backwards against the sure weight of Aizawa’s arm folded behind him. Hizashi has less raw power than Aizawa in his body – doesn’t need it with a voice like that – but makes up for it in limberness, spine flexing like a spring as he flicks rockstar hair behind his shoulders.
A mantle of inky lanterns hangs across Hizashi’s collarbone, stretching from shoulder-to-shoulder. The face of the largest lanterns are painted with the names of the people who mean the most to Hizashi: his parents, siblings, Aizawa again – though that stylised stencil of his name dates back to when they were just friends. ‘You’re my best friend, of course I want you up there,’ he’d scoffed at the time, totally blasé about having Aizawa’s name inked on him forever. Awkwardly, Hizashi’s then-girlfriend had gotten a spot too – a lantern that’s now been filled in with a solid green that sets off Hizashi’s eyes as he gazes lovingly back at Aizawa.
Below the string of lanterns, on the left of Hizashi’s chest, sits a styled heart, anatomical in design but bursting with musical notes instead of blood cells. His right pec is covered in a piece of manuscript, the notes mixed in with figures like kids’ toys playing heroes and villains. A musical comic strip of his life as a hero. He picked it from a fan design competition; Hizashi took Aizawa with him for dinner with the winner instead of his then (different) girlfriend. It’s always been sensible to keep girls who dated Hizashi away from his more intense fans, and Aizawa was the perfect nameless stand-in – who got free dinner and drinks all night at such events. At a time when Aizawa didn’t really ‘buy food’ for himself in a conventional sense, a three-course dinner and as much as he could drink was sometimes the most he’d have eaten in weeks.
Then again, there was the whole thing where the fans who looked feverishly at the publicity that came out about these things thought that Aizawa and Hizashi were… together. They weren’t at the time but had probably let the rumour run on longer than if they’d not been a little too comfy with people thinking they were a couple. They hadn’t been, but that was mostly because it’d never occured to Aizawa to think of Hizashi as attractive – he was just Hizashi, or Yamada back then. Aizawa hadn’t made a point of ogling the physical assets of his friends on a daily basis. Or ever. It wasn’t something he looked for at all, much less in friends he already had an important relationship with. What was the need to change something that already worked?
It’d taken direct confrontation for Aizawa to even consider whether Hizashi was attractive or not. More the fool Aizawa. Or he’d have realised what a stone-cold knockout he’s been best friends with his whole adult life.
Hizashi’s grinning at Aizawa like he sure knows it too. When Aizawa does fall: it’s hard. However, perhaps because of the notion that he’s already got Aizawa right where he wants him, when Aizawa leans in Hizashi tries to wriggle away. Just to be sure Aizawa will catch and reel him back.
Too damn right.
With just a squeeze of his arm around Hizashi’s back, Aizawa draws him into a whiskey-tasting kiss that escalates fast. Aizawa’s palm slides down the patterned skin of Hizashi’s back, until he hits tight leather, giving Hizashi’s ass a no-nonsense grope. It’s a well-known fact that Hizashi’s a flirt, but Aizawa is all hands. “Let’s stay in,” he poses devilishly in Hizashi’s ear; the voice of a lethargic do-nothing tempting him into bed.
Hizashi settles for the sofa, which he achieves by sitting his ass down on it with Aizawa’s hand still on it. Because Aizawa allows it to happen, this results in Hizashi’s asscheek planted square in Aizawa’s hand as he spreads himself out across the sofa, dragging the rest of Aizawa over him like pulling up a cover.
With the far more prolific and varied dating history (or lack thereof, in Aizawa’s case) between them, Hizashi is without a doubt the smoother operator between them. This means he knows exactly what he’s doing as Aizawa comes in to boldly straddle Hizashi’s lap, unfastening Aizawa’s belt and pulling down the zipper on his jumpsuit with a well-practiced fluidity. Right before grasping fingers snake into the hollow between Aizawa’s bare skin and the fabric. Hizashi’s got his hand around Aizawa’s cock so fast it’s amazing there isn’t a small breeze left in his wake, squeezing a grizzled noise of encouragement from Aizawa’s sandpaper throat.
Hizashi looks up at Aizawa with a billionaire’s smile and a hand deftly working inside Aizawa’s boxers. “We can go out after.”
Aizawa has a feeling he’s in for another long night; just in the best way possible.
It’s past ten before Aizawa and Hizashi have both taken all their clothes off – gotten very sidetracked – and then finally put different ones on, respectively getting ‘ready’ enough to go out for that Saturday night on the town Hizashi’s adamantly been calling for. In Hizashi’s case, this means an only marginally less outlandish outfit (Aizawa hid the red leather under the sofa), and in Aizawa’s case changing into his people clothes and a quick catnap on the sofa.
This makes it nearly eleven before they even arrive at the seedy bar that they finally agreed on going to halfway through the drive to another place, Hizashi paying the driver extra for changing the destination in his enthusiasm to go back to their old regular. The destination in question is a bar they’ve been avoiding for a while, on account of Aizawa getting stabbed the last time they were there. Just lightly, but it’s a powder keg they figured it’d be good to stay away from… at least for a bit.
It’s hard to stay away from a favourite, and this is the kind of dive where the cheapness of the drinks undercuts all classes and social strata. Everyone in here must have some reason for wanting to get fucked up on the cheap. For Aizawa and Hizashi, it’s a good place to cruise for illegal activity; hence why ‘Mic’ has his hair pulled into a simple ponytail and contacts instead of glasses.
Hizashi’s straight-up shirtless under one of his many leather jackets, putting a fair amount of his skin – and tattoos – on show on top of the black drainpipe jeans that make him look like some kind of stick figure caricature dashing around all excited once they get out of the taxi near the bar. Only people who are thinking really hard about it will equate this Yakuza-esque looking motherfucker with the popular voice Hero Present Mic. If anything, Aizawa’s the one they’re going to remember – the busybody they knifed for trying (and succeeding) to break up a drug trafficking ring running out of the men’s bathroom three weeks ago.
Aizawa is out of his usual garb as a gesture to date night being more than getting drunk on the job with Hizashi, even if that’s usually exactly what it is. There’s only one outfit that Aizawa has agreed to wear ‘out’ in years upon years of Hizashi pleading for Aizawa to let Hizashi dress him. It consists of one pair of jeans Hizashi brought back from a trip to America, the only pair he’s found that actually fit Aizawa and haven’t split open the first time he squats in them, and a generic black t-shirt that Aizawa is certain Hizashi buys for him a size too small on purpose. That’s his ‘going out’ outfit, and until it stops being Hizashi-approved for such purposes Aizawa won’t be getting another one.
After an only slightly awkward stare when they first stroll in, Aizawa and Hizashi mosey up to the bar for a couple of drinks – more whiskey for Hizashi, beer for Aizawa – and then settle in on a pair of high stools tucked in a corner around a table that’s extremely tacky both in style and texture.
“Alright, lover,” Hizashi breaks into a smile that’s like sun burning through cloudy skies. “How the fuck are you?”
Notes:
A/N soapbox time again! Bit of an essay but here goes nothing.
We're reaching a place in the story where big things are going to start happening (on a lot of levels), and given some of the issues I've had with readers understanding/respecting my creative choices for the story (on multiple occasions, about different things, which would only increase if I don't go on record with this stuff now), I'm taking a moment to put out here as clearly as I can that this is a highly developed, pre-planned piece of work. I have over 100k of backlog written ahead of these chapters, several people supporting me with feedback and creative consultation where I'm writing it like 20 chapters ahead, and what that means is if you do not personally like or agree with something that happens in this story as it's coming out, there is a 99.9% chance I have already given that thing careful thought and decided it is still what I want to do. And I'm not being true to myself as a writer if I don't ultimately be true to myself and deliver the story *I* want, even if it's controversial, or my fiery defence of my choices seems harsh. This is just the deal with me for the Good Shit I deliver literally for free every week.
This means that I'm more than happy to explain why I made a particular choice, but I do not like having to defend it by being challenged over some issue with what I've decided to do. If you're not sure something is challenging or could come off critical, please take a second to consider your tone. It's easily lost over text formats. In general, 'I'm not sure why you did this, would you mind telling me more about your process to come to that decision?' is going to go down a lot smoother than anyone trying to point out something in this story that is negative or try to air a grievance about not liking/approving whats happening.
This is because I'm not going to change anything that happens because of a grievance or preference by one of its readers. My stories just... don't work like that. By the time it hits you, it's *done* and you can either like it or not. If you *don't* like it, unless you feel you've got a really important reason and want to understand more about why I chose to do it, then I am really not likely to respond positively to those comments. It doesn't mean I think I never deserve criticism, just that I get to reply to it how I want on my own story that I made and love very much :3
This is going to become more and more relevant as we go through the story, because I called this fic You Want it Darker for a reason and that's only going to get MORE evident. I hope this a/n can be seen as me taking a necessary step at a critical time in the story itself, and laying some basic boundaries for how I as an author would like to be engaged with on the topic of my serialised fanfic - I know it comes out every week, but that doesn't mean I write each chapter week-to-week (which would also result in a bad story). Everything I'm doing, I've chosen to do. One of the deals with my shit is the characters *are* changed by the events of the plot, which means moving 'away' from canon in order to tell a story that stands on its own (canon is my bitch and I mean that with the utmost love). Including, for example, the ensuing Messy Bitch Erasermic date night we're about to roll around in.
I hope this doesn't discourage people from commenting, because I do LOVE hearing from people who are enjoying the story! In fact, the sections in this chapter about Tsukauchi's quirk are because a commenter (hi Jun) observed that Aizawa, Shinsou *and* Tsukauchi all have mental(ist) quirks and I was like WAIT HIS QUIRK IS WHAT. Sometimes I do get info and even ideas from commenters, just ones who tend to be making observations about something they're enjoying and what it means to them and I'm inadvertently inspired by their insight. It really is as simple as pointing at stuff you like, so if you think it's obvious to me that you loved a particular thing or line that I wrote... it might be, but that's part of the excitement. I've been getting some great comments too! I'm sure you all know who you are and also want to say it's really enthusing knowing there are people who want to invest in the yarn I'm spinning in a positive, mutually enjoyable way! THANK YOU.
I'm very excited to be sharing this story, and I hope it's going to become a somewhat iconic fic in the fandom landscape for its length and the scale of the storytelling. It's a lot bigger and beefier a baby than I had ever imagined, but dangit I love my beefcake. What kind of mha fandom wouldn't want to go Plus Ultra when it comes to its fanfic? GO BEYOND!
Chapter 13: When it rains (it pours)
Summary:
Aizawa and Hizashi’s date night goes about as well as could be imagined.
Chapter Text
Hizashi skips formality, which he first passed with Aizawa about fifteen minutes after they met some fifteen years ago. This was by remarking, “Hey, you look like a goth fucked a garbage bag. What's your deal?” Aizawa probably said something disparaging about Hizashi’s hair in return, and they've never looked back.
So it’s without the need for the airs – two people who have never been anything except brutally honest with each other – that tonight Hizashi’s line of inquiry runs, “Do you wanna talk about the kid?”
Aizawa’s content to play dumb and will live to regret it. “Which kid?”
“Your kid, duh.” Aizawa’s regret arrives a lot earlier than expected, and he has to grapple with the fact that this might be one of those Important Things he Talks About With Hizashi.
“You’ve taught Shinsou,” Aizawa starts carefully, drawing his thoughts out with precious caution. “Do you think he’s capable of murder?”
“Of what?!” Hizash’s voice leaps six feet into the air, but Aizawa’s terse glare brings it back down again. “What have you been doing with that poor boy?”
“Dealing with more accusations from the so-called police than I like,” Aizawa replies stiffly. “Because of his… background, everyone that meets him jumps to assuming the worst.”
“You once asked me if I thought he’d ever used his quirk in class.” Hizashi is thoughtful, raising the point with enough gravity that it’s not supposed to be an accusation, even though it kind of is. “He tried to use it on you, didn't he?” Lest Aizawa forget he once thought of what Shinsou does as creepy too – little did Hizashi know.
“Yeah.” Even Aizawa’s reminiscence of that early memory of Shinsou has turned fond, like the flip of a perfectly timed pancake. He breaks into a smile and mutters, “punk,” like someone scolds a pet they love too much to be really angry with.
Hizashi gets thoughtful over his Old Fashioned. “I didn’t think it at the time, but looking back there’s a couple of times I wonder if he didn’t…” trailing off, because Aizawa has a pretty good idea of what Shinsou probably did. Hizashi leans forward to emphasise, “But I don’t think he’d ever hurt someone.”
“Thank you,” Aizawa heaves off a weight he didn’t know he’d been carrying, taking a triumphant swig of his beer and sitting back against the wall of the bar. “Why’s that so hard to see?”
“People don’t know him, I guess,” Hizashi replies. “You can’t deny he gives off a pretty shady impression.”
“Yeah, but he’s just a kid,” Aizawa sighs. “Just because his father is–”
Hizashi notices right away when Aizawa cuts himself off. “His father’s what?”
This is the moment, Aizawa supposes. He’s never been any good at lying to Hizashi – if he even wanted to, which he doesn’t.
So Aizawa just goes for it.
“A convicted murderer serving life imprisonment for using his brainwashing quirk to make a class of his most devoted students commit mass suicide.” This all fits in one breath, just about, but Aizawa’s deeper breath afterwards makes it seem like more of an exertion than it is to come clean. It’s not that Aizawa dislikes doing it, just that telling people the truth means they’ll inevitably react to things, which slows up his work.
Predictably, Hizashi takes this about as well as everyone seems to; Aizawa doesn’t blame them, but he’s getting a bit tired of the overreactions. “Fucking hell, Shota! You mighta mentioned that a little earlier.”
“It’s hard to explain.” At least in one breath.
“Is it really?” Hizashi rocks back and swills his drink in his glass. “Just because his dad’s a wackadoo doesn’t mean anything.”
“Exactly.” Aizawa leans back in and remembers why he’s had Hizashi by his side half his life. “So what is it about him that sets everyone off?”
“His quirk doesn't help,” Hizashi picks up. “You gotta admit, it can be kinda creepy.” It’s always the same word, Aizawa realises – creepy. Some predisposition lodged in their collective memory, drawn from a media frenzy that rose up around Dr. Shinsou and then crashed like a wave, permanently changing the landscape forever.
“I used to think that way too, but I’ve changed my mind since.” It’s actually quite rare that Aizawa turns his analytical skills on himself. Now he has the first-hand experience of being under Shinsou’s quirk, it's far less intimidating than what lay in the fearsome unknown. Aizawa supposes – in some resentful corner of his mind – that Dr. Shinsou’s book has contributed in some small, twisted way too. Amidst all the madness, the Doctor did lay out a detailed study of mentalist quirks that makes Aizawa realise why Nezu so openly called him a genius. Even fractured, not even Aizawa can deny the Doc has a brilliant (of sorts) mind.
“Or it’s been changed for you, ooowoooohhh.” Hizashi does spooky-fingers across the tiny table at Aizawa, who makes an exasperated face.
“You’re joking,” he points out as he takes a swig of his beer, already starting to feel it unwind the screws in his joints slug by slug. “But most people aren’t.” Aizawa doesn’t make much of a habit of drinking, so compared to Hizashi’s any-excuse tolerance, a little goes a long way. Beer suits him just fine, while Hizashi’s favourite here is anything with a lot of whiskey in it.
Hizashi takes a sip, one of his legs jiggling in tight black denim to the beat of the music playing at drink-more volume in this bar. Also a great place to not be overheard, needing to be intimately close to even hear someone right next to you. “Then I guess he’s lucky to have you looking out for him.”
Aizawa airs a worry of unfamiliar shape, unable to place what’s making him so cagey more eloquently than, “Do you think it’s weird?”
Hizashi pulls a face. This is an unusual amount of self-doubt from Aizawa’s typical steadfast surety, so it can't be blamed that Hizashi’s confused. “Is what weird?”
“I don't know.” Aizawa doesn’t know, truly. He’s used to (mostly) having a handle on things, yet around Shinsou they fly off it all the time. “I haven't had an… intern before.”
Hizashi pulls no punches. “The impression I get, Shota, is that he's a little more than an intern.”
“Yeah.” It feels good to make this admission, like correctly aligning pieces of a puzzle that's only half-solved. “I worry about taking advantage of him.”
“If it's something you worry about, that's a pretty good sign that you won't,” Hizashi replies thoughtfully. “But are you sure he's ready for all this? You're dealing with murder, and not the pretty kind.” Hizashi long-laments the fact that Aizawa has to spend so much time chasing after corpses instead of focusing his efforts on the living – unsurprisingly, there’s far fewer heroes who go after such cases: where the people you’d usually be expecting to thank you are already dead. But someone’s got to do it. Aizawa’s been thanked by more grieving families than he likes to think about.
And really, there is no pretty kind of murder. So he just shrugs. “Is anyone ready for it?”
“I guess not,” Hizashi agrees with a squeamish shudder. “Still, he's just a kid.”
“A kid that's already been through so much,” Aizawa muses a little too morosely for his present company.
“Cheer up, Sunshine,” Hizashi goads accordingly, and takes a rousing swig of his drink. There's a band setting up for another set on a grotty stage on the far side of the bar, and Hizashi's eyes are all over it. “By the sounds of it, you probably can't fuck him up worse than his actual father did.”
It's sneaky, and slips in on a booze-loose tongue that always speaks more freely – and loudly – than it should, but Hizashi's carefree chatter touches to Aizawa's nerves like wiring a battery back around on itself. His actual father leaves a negative space on the other side for something else; some not-a-real dad that isn't trying to and doesn't want to be a replacement for a father (even a bad one), but Aizawa's taught enough kids with missing male role models to know the signs of a teenage-shaped emotional vacuum. It just isn't usually so reciprocal, the magnetic pull towards Shinsou as fast as Shinsou has stuck to him. He likes the brat, more than he can possibly try to explain.
Hizashi is watching the band again, the jiggling of his leg only increasing. Aizawa's held the love of his life for shop talk long enough. “Go on,” Aizawa announces, and Hizashi’s gaze snaps back to his. “I know you want to get up there.” Hizashi's grin could power the entire Tokyo electric grid for an entire night. That's how dazzling the light of his smile is.
Aizawa can’t keep him here all night, in a dark corner where no one’s supposed to be looking. Hizashi’s a bird that needs to be able to fly free – major sticking point for the many mostly-girlfriends who broke up with Hizashi, some of them also convinced he and Aizawa were in love with each other. Which… they kinda were, looking back on it.
Hizashi lurches over the table to plant a delighted kiss on the scratchy corner of Aizawa's mouth, spitting, “Love ya!” before he dashes off to fast-talk his way on stage. This takes all of two minutes, so by the time the first few phones have come out to start streaming this impromptu concert by an elusive rock star, the stage has gotten significantly more crowded. By the time Hizashi’s warmed up his voice, another dozen or so people have come into the bar. There’s a familiar crew of fans who will turn up soon enough, and Hizashi knows them all but Aizawa certainly doesn’t. Not being involved in that part of Hizashi’s life gives Aizawa the ability to just kick back and enjoy the show.
An hour and a half of watching Hizashi jam on-stage with the band that don’t quite seem to believe their luck – Present Mic has sold far more records than they have or probably will – is more than enough time for Aizawa to work up an appreciation for his partner that borders on the obscene.
Because Hizashi is a chameleon at heart, and although he can camouflage when he needs to, if left to his own devices he’s always front-and-centre, rainbow skin rippling and a golden whip of hair as he thrashes it out with the best of them.
It might have taken Aizawa seven years to realise he could be – and was, if he’d ever thought about it hard enough – attracted to Hizashi, but he’s done his damned best to catch up in the seven years since. The upshot of all that is Aizawa has plenty of motivation, especially after a couple more quickly drunk beers, for wanting to drag Hizashi from the throes of an excitable crowd into the grotty back-corridor of the bar to make out. And not just because it's also a good place to watch the men's room for evidence of that drugs operation he's been trying to shut down.
Hizashi, as ever, loves a spectacle, so is more than happy to oblige by necking like a couple of teenagers until someone starts a fight. Which is, truth be told, half the reason they even do this kind of thing. No finer way to find the biggest assholes in a bar than being two men in a happy, committed relationship daring to be affectionate in public. Straight couples make out (and worse) back here all the time and no one says boo.
Hizashi’s a rarely undone mess like this: all sweaty and out of breath from leaping around on stage, a guitar swinging from his hip and a voice to die for. Aizawa can taste the salt and whiskey on patterned skin, a pulse throbbing in Hizashi’s neck that’s hyperactive but not even close to being tired. Aizawa might be the regular night owl, but when Hizashi goes out, he means all night.
The current state of affairs is that Hizashi's not-so-subtly encouraging Aizawa to grind into his thigh with a firm handful of the back of his hair, while Aizawa tries playing a melody tattooed across Hizashi’s neck with a new kind of mouth-organ (his). Then the restroom door opens and shuts – it's a long time the guys Aizawa's watching have been in there – and a low voice grunts, “Hey, don't they have bars for that homo shit?”
In a second, Hizashi pulls Aizawa out of the sandwich he’s made of himself between Aizawa and the wall. This he achieves with a firm tug on the back of Aizawa’s head, like lifting a cat by the scruff. It’s a little too much in a way that’s not enough, and Aizawa wonders if the bigots had to come around exactly now, and couldn’t have left it another few minutes.
Hizashi turns to address the guy, and it's a big temptation on Aizawa's part not to lay a kiss on the tattooed mouth spitting a treble-clef behind Hizashi’s ear that this move reveals. Usually hidden under his headphones – as are all his tattoos by ingeniously artful design, the Rolling Stones-esque lips are plenty inviting – and sensitive, so used to being coddled behind thick protective earphones. Aizawa knows full well if he kissed Hizashi’s tattoo right now the messy blonde would leap sky-high, and though he resists the urge, it’s only just.
“Yeah well, we like the drinks here better.” Hizashi plays jovial at first, openly offering these guys their first chance to get out of here civilly – and without getting hurt.
A shifty look of recognition passes between the guy who just came out of the bathroom and the totally-unconnected (not) guy who just came out after him. Now, it’s anyone’s guess whether that’s recognition of the bombeshell who’s been onstage playing with the band half the night being a pretty well-known Hero (unlikely), or that the guy currently humping him into the wall is the same busybody who busted their last distributor and got knifed in the process (probably it). One thing’s for certain: when it rains, it fucking pours.
Aizawa swings into the ‘conversation’ with the grace of a teetering grand piano hung from a crane, the likes of which need lowering into an apartment because the absurd instrument wouldn’t fit in through the door of Hizashi’s damn studio. They didn’t drop the piano, but there were a couple of moments – usually when Hizashi was screaming about something (anything) – during the move-in that Aizawa had thought about cutting it loose out of pure spite. Even if it meant delaying their cohabitation by the number of years Hizashi would have needed to forgive Aizawa for dropping his piano off a building (a lot). But Aizawa would be a liar if he doesn’t think what if he’d actually done it from time to time?
He’d miss out on all this, for one. “Why?” Aizawa addresses the dealer who offered the comment, who doesn’t look like he was expecting to be so directly confronted for a bit of everyday homophobia. “You got a problem?”
This chump is also presumably in front of his new boss – if not new to Aizawa, who has seen this underdwelling fellow in here a handful of times before, but never actually having to dirty his hands with the exchange of narcotics. Until now. Not wanting to come off weak, the homophobe breaks into fiery aggression. “We shouldn’t have to look at that, you know!”
“Don't look, then,” Hizashi returns playfully. “Or maybe you can't look away? Are you so insecure in your sexuality that you're afraid of catching the gay just from watching?”
Amazingly, now the guy turns to address Aizawa like it's an appeal for rationality, even as a small blue glow starts to pulse in his knuckles. “Look here, you better keep your bitch under control.”
“Oh.” Aizawa registers the before-ness grab him by the jugular, then a slight rush of air as Hizashi draws in a long breath that’s not about gathering power, but paring it back. He doesn’t have his support gear on, which means the effects of his quirk can be devastating if emotion is allowed to run rampant. Aizawa looks the guy in the eye and sticks his fingers in his ears. “You shouldn’t have said that.”
The guy utters a caveman, “What the fu–”
“Oh HELL no!” With a punch packed like a knuckle sandwich in a cage-fighter’s lunchbox, Hizashi quirk-smacks the guy – and his boss – head on, both flying onto their asses. “You did NOT just say that.” This is back to Hizashi’s normal volume(ish), but the guys already look suitably assaulted.
Technically, that’s a pretty brazen first-blow from an off-duty hero, but Aizawa and Hizashi don’t come to this lawless concrete hole of a bar for nothing. If the men recognise the quirk of the Voice Hero, no signs of it show as they scramble back onto their feet. The more reckless one's fists start to glow again, while the other just pulls a knife.
“They're all yours, love,” Hizashi offers graciously, taking a step back as Aizawa takes one forward – right in the path of the incoming blue-lit fist heading straight for his jaw. Which is a little achey from letting Shinsou knock him around earlier (brat can throw a punch… just), so Aizawa's in no mood for another round.
Aizawa's hair stands on end, and the black-hole vortex of his quirk activates; the shiny-blue fist heading towards him goes back to being a regular one. He's got no desire to find out what the shiny stuff does, so just grabs the man's wrist and finishes the punch for him. Namely, by steering the guy’s fist into the wall, directing his own power against him. A crunch and a scream come from his knuckles and mouth respectively, while a knife with Aizawa's organs written all over it slashes for his gut.
“DROP it!” Hizashi scolds with another targeted blast, which in its uncollared nature sends Aizawa as well as his opponents flying back. Hizashi’s quirk still hits Aizawa like a truck struck by a train – but he’s endured his best-friend’s lack of an inside voice for fifteen long years now. So even if his hearing will probably be fucked when he’s older, Aizawa’s built up a pretty strong threshold for being drowned in the sounds of his lover. He'd have to, what with the noises Hizashi makes unless Aizawa uses his quirk on him while they're… getting back to the fight.
Hizashi’s shout succeeds in disarming the boss, who seems overall like he wandered into the wrong argument and is looking for the door. So much so that he actually goes for the door, breaking into a dash away from Aizawa and Hizashi that just screams ‘I'm carrying a shit ton of drugs and don't want to be caught with them.’
Aizawa finishes the lackey with a quick combo-punch to the gut and jaw, lets his quirk down and then sprints down the corridor after the boss, who disappears through a fire exit into an alley behind the bar that hosts one of the city's finest collections of used needles and condoms.
Rushing in with three-beer confidence, Aizawa lurches through the door and catches the swinging two-by-four at the last possible moment before it smashes into his face, breaking across his forearm instead as he manages to block the move that no-beers Aizawa would definitely have seen coming.
Right after the shattered piece of wood, the boss hurls a punch that tipsy-Aizawa is too busy mooning over his splinter-ridden forearm to catch, clocking him in the face right over his left eye. Aizawa staggers back and dodges the next punch, missing his capture weapon – or Shinsou, who would have had these two after the first ill-fated reply. Then Aizawa would've been spared the wooden acupuncture and what's sure to turn out a truly ravishing black eye.
Not that Shinsou is supposed to be in a place like this at his age, Aizawa remembers a little late in the game. But Shinsou does plenty of things he's not supposed to – almost makes a habit out of it, in fact – and it's yet to show much of an impact on him. Not like the impact of Aizawa's fist, retaliating against the battery he's suffered at the hands of this middle-management-looking fuck. Aizawa socks the dealer back double what he gave, then snatches him by the collar before he drops to the floor.
“Wanna take a trip down to the station?” Aizawa breathes with hot beer-breath as a little blood from his splintered arm trails down his wrist, staining the man’s jacket as it’s collared in Aizawa’s fist. That’s not great, but what’s a little DNA left at a crime scene?
“Not especially,” answers the mid-tier boss, who Aizawa has finally cut away enough ground-level dealers to draw out into a position like this; he’s vulnerable, but still within certain rights. Aizawa can’t help the thought of exactly how useful Shinsou would be in this situation. At the very least for his quirk, but also for how he would behave. A little overconfident sometimes, but attitude and intentions usually in the right place. Persuasive.
But when Hizashi comes up behind Aizawa and slaps his ass so hard he actually jumps, Aizawa thinks maybe it’s not such a bad thing Shinsou’s not here after all. “Friend of yours, baby?” Hizashi asks as he perches his arm conversationally on Aizawa’s shoulder, which Aizawa only tolerates because he wants to be sure this guy hasn’t found a way to drop whatever stash he’s hiding and can't focus on Hizashi right now. Bastard knows it too.
“Not especially,” Aizawa parrots, eyeing the guy carefully in case the police aren’t able to charge him. On which point. “Grab my phone and call Tama.”
“Who the fuck’s Tama?” Hizashi squawks in amusement but still fishes Aizawa’s phone out of his pocket – with a little extra pretend-looking-that’s-just-plain-groping thrown in for fun. “Your furry friend?”
“Yeah,” Aizawa scoffs in reply. Hizashi will feel stupid when he realises who it is, but that depends on whether Tama’s on shift tonight.
Hizashi knows Aizawa’s unlock code – he would, it being his own birthday and all – and hums as he pulls ‘Tama’ out from the contacts directory then puts the phone to his ear, an inflection in his tone that lifts when the call must be answered. “Hello? Oh, hey! What’s new, Pussycat?” Hizashi recognises Tama’s voice, going by the term of address – English, but Aizawa’s had it sung at him enough times to recognise the phrase. “Hang on, I’ll put you on with him. Hold please,” Hizashi trills as he turns the handset around and puts it to Aizawa’s ear.
“Eraser? What the hell are you up to at this hour?”
“Bumped into someone you might like to meet,” Aizawa answers coyly. “I’ll text you the address.”
Tama only sounds a little exasperated when he says, “Do you ever stop working?”
Aizawa gives a stiff chuckle. “Do you?” Takes one to know one.
“Yeah, alright. I’ll be there soon as I can.”
“Bye.” Aizawa pulls his cheek away from the phone, and Hizashi withdraws the handset, holding it out with one hand as he offers the other to the guy kneeling on the floor. Who's looking pretty worse for wear and had only pulled a knife on them, rather than being outright homophobic. Which could be a lot worse, truthfully. This guy seems content to take what he’s offered, allowing Hizashi to tug him onto his feet without complaint. Game’s up, and some of them like to go quietly.
But even so, no sooner has the dealer stood up than Hizashi uses the hold on the man’s hand to fold his arm behind his back. Aizawa catches the other one and slips over it the loop of cable-tie that he fishes out of his pocket. “Tama’s gonna be a while,” he remarks as he finishes restraining the guy. Aizawa reaches up to take the phone from Hizashi, sending a GPS drop to Tamakawa before putting it back in his pocket. He looks at the guy, who is in all likelihood looking at a long stint in prison for this, and the reality is sinking in all at once. “You wanna drink?”
“Me or him?” Hizashi grins, sweeping a rogue hair back from his face as he gives the criminal a heavy slap on the back and leaves his hand there, arm draped across the man’s shoulders like they’re the oldest of friends. “Guess we have time for one more, huh?”
They have another drink each and the dealer gets the fifty-year aged whiskey he orders with a straw in it. The homophobe also gets cable-tied, but is left in the hallway until Officer Tamakawa shows up to do a ‘random inspection’ and books the men for brawling, then ‘discovers’ they’re in possession of Class A drugs during a routine search before putting the guys into the police car.
“Where’s Yamaguichi?” Aizawa asks from the backseat, shoulder-to-shoulder with the tight-lipped not-saying-anything-without-my-lawyer dealer and the woken-up-arrested-and-mad-about-it homophobe, while Hizashi luxuriates up front in the empty passenger seat. Just because Aizawa’s technically still bleeding he’s been relegated to the back, where he gets blood all over the seats only partly out of spite, and partly because the homophobe keeps elbowing Aizawa (and Aizawa elbows back).
“She clocked out already. We were just finishing up for the night when you rang, so I said she should go,” Tamakawa answers. His golden eyes meet Aizawa’s in the rearview mirror for a two-way you work too much accusatory look. “Looks to me like you’re supposed to be off duty.”
“I am,” Aizawa answers like he believes it.
“Guess that makes two of us,” Tama practically purrs.
“Ooooh, he’s gotcha there,” Hizashi teases from the passenger seat, and Aizawa just kicks the back of his chair.
But this isn’t work, it’s just date night.
Date night continues, with the addition of a stray, right after they finish up at the police station. Aizawa's sitting with an ice pack over one eye while Hizashi’s picking the iddy-biddy bits of wood out of his arm with tweezers – because of course he’s carrying tweezers (in the ridiculous moustache grooming travel-kit that Aizawa bought for him one birthday as a joke, but he kept the thing). Aizawa would almost kill (but not really) for a cigarette right now, hissing through his teeth every time Hizashi digs some new splinter out of his flesh.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Hizashi diagnoses after he finishes up, dousing Aizawa's arm in antiseptic. Aizawa grunts, mostly from his stinging arm, and Hizashi asks, “Is that a yes?”
“You're going back out after this?” Officer softpaw has managed to lurk in the background without drawing much attention to himself, until now.
“Yeah!” Hizashi always wants drinking buddies. Or music buddies… teaching buddies… all the buddies he can get. “Hey, you wanna come?”
“Fuck yes,” Tama purrs, and this is how they all end up at a local cop-bar with a fresh round of drinks in front of them. Aizawa still hasn't had his cigarette, but with Tama here it's only a matter of time before they’ll steal away for a smoke. Aizawa forgot the good cigs at home after getting sidetracked. With sex. (Sex-tracked, Hizashi calls it).
“Kinda surprised you don't have your kid with you,” Tamakawa remarks casually as he laps a bit of foam off the top of his beer, and makes it sound so normal Aizawa forgets it isn’t, for a moment.
“It's a bit late for him,” Aizawa answers stiffly. Shinsou talks a good game, but he's only… Aizawa realises he doesn't know how old Shinsou is. Fifteen or sixteen, surely, though Aizawa is fairly sure he could play older than that if he wanted to. Young enough Aizawa shouldn’t be thinking about taking him to bars. Even if he'd surely love it – playing grownups. But the drinking and partying kind, rather than the taxes and work-in-the-morning (hungover) kind.
“I thought you took him everywhere.” It's a tease more than a genuine accusation. Aizawa wonders if this is what he gets for attracting so many snarky upstarts, like moons around a planet.
“Not tonight,” Aizawa answers and by it means, “I’m done talking about this.”
Hizashi slides an arm around his shoulders. “He's got me,” Hizashi crows this as if he and Shinsou are in any way comparable. The main commonality between them is Aizawa and a flair for big hair. And drama.
But Tama surely knows all this, as it’s not the first time he’s worked or gotten drunk with Aizawa and Hizashi. There's much more familiarity than awkwardness around the table as they get roped into a new round of drinks by some over-attentive service staff. Hizashi gets on with most people, so anyone who can handle Aizawa is likely to find his partner a breath of fresh air. Or a hurricane of fresh air.
Tamakawa’s good company, but Hizashi also had another plan in inviting him: Tama will agree to things that Aizawa's against, making him a deciding vote on matters such as “let's go to a karaoke bar.” Before long – as in, after another round (or few) of drinks – Tamakawa and Hizashi are warbling joyously through songs while Aizawa drinks himself into a comfortable, I-won’t-ever-be-drunk-enough-for-this stupor.
Eventually – as in, several more rounds of drinks later – they make it home, still tagging along Tamakawa for a ‘nightcap’ before calling a cab to take him home. Because nothing can ever turn out well after a round of White Russians, Aizawa takes a short break to throw up – cocktails already disagree with him, so milk cocktails are a double-no. Hizashi brushes his teeth and puts him to bed after that, so it's anyone's guess how long Tama manages to keep up with Hizashi thereafter.
All Aizawa knows is that at some point in the night the bed stops spinning, and Hizashi shows up in it slightly after. The next thing after that is his phone ringing, and – oh, the bed’s started spinning again. Definitely still drunk, Aizawa fumbles blindly for the source of the noise. Beside him Hizashi becomes another source of noise by letting out a distinctive woe is me groan.
“What?” Aizawa croaks into the phone, mouth feeling like an ashtray someone threw up in – even though he’s sure he remembers Hizashi brushing his teeth for him last night.
“Well, you sound like shit.” It’s Shinsou, which isn’t what Aizawa’s expecting. He’s not in much of an expecting mood, to be fair.
“I told you to only ring me for emergencies.” Especially not first thing on Aizawa’s one day off.
“Then it sounds like you need to turn your TV onto the news,” Shinsou replies with complete confidence. Aizawa’s not stupid, so he drags himself out from a comfortable tangle with Hizashi and stomps blearily into the main room. As he locates the remote and turns on the TV, a few more details of what happened last night are jarred by the sight of Tamakawa fast asleep on the couch snoring like a tractor.
Wearing a white vest and his uniform trousers, no sign of his shirt or jacket, Tamakawa lays flat on his back, his awkwardly sprawled hands on either side of his head and holding an especially paw-like pose. His palms have slightly enlarged and fleshier pads than most hands, not totally feline or human but something subtly in-between. They look kinda… soft.
But then the tv comes on, and Aizawa turns it over to the 24-hour news channel. Greeted at first by a tired-looking newscaster, Aizawa’s soon treated to a sight he had not been expecting to see first thing on a Sunday morning.
Aizawa realises a few things all at once; he’s still on the phone to Shinsou, Tamakawa is stirring at the sound of the TV but has yet to actually wake up. And oh, he’s also totally stark naked. This is his home, after all. He shouldn’t have to wear clothes in it all the time.
But none of that really matters, because on the TV there’s a building – the front of some office block that didn’t mean anything when Aizawa searched for it online, the legal firm where Shiyoko didn’t get her promotion – and in front of it there’s a cluster of policemen and a body under a sheet. “Shit.”
“I assume that means you’ve seen it.” Shinsou’s not particularly sarcastic anymore. Not at all, in fact. He practically rushes into what he’s about to say like he’s been itching to spit it out to Aizawa since the moment he picked up. “This has something to do with my father.”
Aizawa gives a toneless, “What does?”
“Are you that hungover?” Shinsou spits impatiently. “The murder. The way she made them do it.”
“What makes you so sure it was her?” Aizawa finally starts slotting the triangle block in the right-shaped hole, and not just mentally banging it against the square one over and over.
“The message on the wall. It’s how Dad killed one of the policemen who tried to arrest him,” Shinsou steams with growing irritation, because there’s a piece of information Aizawa did technically know – but probably didn’t need to be reminded of it in that liminal space between still-drunk and hungover.
Aizawa crawls over the facts like a man dying of thirst through the desert. Message, okay – what message? Focusing on the TV, the police officers in the way of the camera finally move, and Aizawa catches a glimpse of it. Not long enough to read, but enough to recognise what it looks like when someone has written on a wall in blood. The scribe’s own, presumably – if the model is like Dr. Shinsou’s. “What does it say?” he asks without wanting to know but needing to all the same.
“Are you glad I called yet?” Shinsou taunts, probably knowing he’s ahead of the curve (this time) and only gets to hold it over for Aizawa for a moment. It’s early in the morning, and golden light streams through the wall of windows that takes up almost a whole side of apartment, basking the fish-tank room in a tranquil glow that’s sorely at odds with the grim reality Aizawa’s woken up to. There’s a balcony built into a nook of the roomy penthouse that fills up with pure sunshine, protected from the blustering winds that usually blast up this high. Funny how it can seem so still and safe inside – especially inside here – while all manner of storm rages outside.
“No,” Aizawa replies. “But it was the right thing to do.”
When Shinsou next speaks, there’s a moment when Aizawa thinks he’s talking about the TV, realising a second later that’s not it; because these are the words etched onto a smooth concrete wall with someone’s dying blood. Piercing the drunken haze like lightning in a storm, the message the killer wants to send suddenly makes sense to Aizawa.
With impeccable timing, the news channel finally zooms in fully on the writing. When Aizawa’s mental process makes it to the point like the man in the desert reaches an oasis, Shinsou’s voice is already narrating the words.
ARE YOU WATCHING NOW?
Notes:
Oh, did I neglect to mention the crushing cliffhanger. Whooooooooppsie-daisy.
For 'date night' there's also a lot of hella important stuff going on here and I love basically all of it. So... uh, yeah, that about covers it. Me big love. Thanks read.
No wait there's more: for the people out there catching the AizawaTama feelies I support you and you're valid. Me big love them too, and a dynamic or chemistry can exist between characters that doesn't contain an obligation to be acted on by them. That's gonna be a P. important thing to remember for this fic too, especially with the close tie between this narrative and Aizawa's own biased view of the world, including the things he notices or remains completely and utterly oblivious to. My precious clueless demisexual-as-fuck dearly beloved. My trash husband.
Last thing: I love Hizashi SOOOO much. You can all probably see that now... do I get to call the slow escalation of what we get to see with my pre-established background ship a slow burn? I don't know if there's a tag for that, but given the large number of Aizawa-related tags (and no Aizawa & Tama relationship tag fandom HEATHENS) I wouldn't be surprised.
*Tries to add the tag 'slow burn but they've been together 15 years I just slowly include smuttier stuff as the sleazy background to the main plot' but A03 rejects it because it's too long*
Chapter 14: Obviously
Summary:
Some people just can’t hold their milk.
Notes:
HAPPY HALLOWEEN UPDATE!
Best part of a chapter where Aizawa gets rawass drunk: subsequent chapter where he's got a rawass hangover. Some people don't get them, but I have always gotten absolutely horrific hangovers, and I lovingly bequeath this gift to my garbage husbando.
Let the suffering commence.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Wake up, Tama.” Aizawa shakes Tamakawa by the shoulder, his sprawled arms jiggling like an upturned beetle. “We have to go.” Tamakawa’s eyes snap open super fast, pupils dilating instantly to tiny slits in the harsh light of day.
“I feel like shit.” Tama shares this valuable information with great urgency, then zips to sit bolt upright, glancing around around like he’s trying to re-remember what happened last night. “... Did we end up at a karaoke bar?”
“Unfortunately,” Aizawa replies with both a demeanour and breath like death warmed up. After a cursory look around the place, he spots Tamakawa’s shirt and jacket hanging off the back of a chair in the kitchen, next to a box of – goddamit, empty cigarettes. That must be why Aizawa’s mouth tastes like an ashtray, even with the thorough brushing Hizashi gave Aizawa’s teeth for him last night. Probably the best clean they’ve had in weeks, even though Aizawa wasn’t super cooperative at the time, if hazy memory holds up.
“What happened?” Tamakawa’s not talking about last night – Aizawa’s certainly got no better an idea of that than he does – but the newsreel playing its sombre deathmarch on TV.
“Another murder.” Aizawa spares the details, and then more for scorn than to suggest Tama is actually in the position to do it, hazards, “Any chance you could drive?”
“Are you kidding?” Tamakawa scoffs, feeling around and eventually finding his phone. “I’ll call Yamaguichi.”
“On her day off?” Aizawa pads barefoot – and bare ass – into the kitchen and heads straight for the fridge.
“Day off?” Tamakawa’s eyes narrow like he doesn’t understand the question. “We’re back on in a few hours.”
Aizawa’s opinion of Tamakawa shifts and resettles like land after an earthquake. Here he thought Tama had his shit together slightly more than Aizawa does; no wonder they’re friends. “You’re insane.”
“Excuse me, I wasn’t the one who couldn’t hold my milk last night,” Tamakawa snaps back with I-hate-everything fatigue just as Aizawa's opening the fridge. Even the word milk brings back a lurch of nausea in his gut, staring into the cooler like he wants to just shut his head in it for a while. He feels entirely too hot, and that’s still fully nude – something Tamakawa has had the decency not to remark upon yet. Aizawa’s certainly not all that bothered about being seen naked – he wouldn’t walk around that way if he were.
Grabbing one of Hizashi’s weird smoothies from the fridge, Aizawa swigs straight from the bottle and then turns around to traipse back into the bedroom; he does need to be dressed to leave the house, obviously. Somehow Aizawa manages to get his shit together enough to head out, which only really leaves time to brush his teeth a couple more times and give himself a quick lobotomy – anything to relieve the screaming pressure in his head like a rock about to fissure.
Before jumping straight to open brain surgery, Aizawa turns to Hizashi’s bathroom cabinet full of wild and wonderful meds. Hizashi’s taken to labelling them with emoji stickers for Aizawa rather than trying to get him to remember all the names, much less read the labels to find out what they do or how much you’re supposed to take. Dosages are just guidelines anyway. Aizawa grabs a couple of ‘barf face’ pills and a packet of 'plaster in middle of forehead' dissolvable solution, and then picks out an extra round for Tamakawa. If the cop feels anywhere near as bad as Aizawa does, Tama’s going to need all the help he can get.
As it happens, Tamakawa’s asleep again when Aizawa comes back through to the kitchen. This time he’s sitting on a stool, slumped over the breakfast bar, almost seeming to purr instead of snore. When Aizawa gets closer, he notices the end of Tama’s tongue sticking just far enough out of his mouth to touch the counter. It's… kinda cute.
Aizawa slaps a hand on Tama’s back, and he startles like a spooked cat – which he is, in a sense. “Ask Yamaguichi to meet us at the bakery a block over from here. And drink this.” Aizawa holds out one of Hizashi’s fancy whiskey glasses with the hangover cure dissolved in it.
“Mm’kay.” Tamakawa reaches for the glass and knocks it back like a badly made White Russian. Although Tama didn’t throw up last night (as far as Aizawa knows), he might still yet. He’s certainly looking peaky right now, with his fur all ruffled in the wrong direction, a kitty equivalent of bedhead – not that Aizawa’s one to talk with his ‘didn’t brush it, wouldn’t let Hizashi brush it’ resistance of a drunk Aizawa who very much wanted to be allowed to go to sleep.
Tama groans into his hands and then gives a visceral shudder – one of those fuck-my-life moments that Aizawa really feels for. “I’ll see if she can pick us up some smokes and coffee on the way.”
Aizawa thinks it over, then hears Tamakawa actually gag when he requests, “No milk.”
Yamaguichi’s not yet in uniform, so when she collects Aizawa and Tama outside the bakery it’s strange to see her in everyday civilian clothes. She has the same spectacles and long well-kept ponytail, which swishes when she shakes her head as Aizawa and Tamakawa rock up looking like a couple of guys who slept in a trench. “What happened to you two?”
“Don’t ask.” Aizawa just climbs into the back of Yamaguichi’s car and lies down, stretching all the way across the backseat as Tamakawa gets in the front. The engine starts, rocking Aizawa like a colicky baby as they pull away, finding the disorientating movement of the car almost cancels out what feels like the sloshing around of his brain inside his head.
“Hey, Mr. Eraser,” Yamaguichi pipes up minutes in, and Aizawa wishes she wouldn’t. “Where’s Jack?”
Never mind. She’s actually being helpful, and a hangover is no excuse for negligence. “We should pick him up on the way,” Aizawa answers with his cheek pressed soothingly against the seat. He checks his messages and finds a string from Shinsou, time-stamped from before and after he called. When Aizawa sends a message back, Shinsou responds quickly enough he must be hanging on his phone pretty urgently – understandable. They agree a plan: pick him up and crash a crime scene no one invited them to. “He’ll meet us at the nearest train station to the crime scene,” Aizawa announces. Hitoshi's already on his way, in fact. Smart kid.
“Jack? Oh, your kid,” Tama fills in groggily as he finds a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment of the car and puts them on, sliding back in the seat in a pose that’s truly Aizawa-esque in nature. As in he wishes that was him.
“He’s not my–” Aizawa’s just in the business of explaining more to the seat cushion than actually to Tama, but gives up on the attempt – save it for a time when he’s less hungover-drunk. Or has any idea how to explain what his relationship with Shinsou is: other than defying explanation.
This is never more evident when they pick up the rare purple bamboo scarecrow from a corner near the train station. Aizawa’s still laying down, so doesn’t see Shinsou until the door opens – or vice versa. After that, they have a pretty good view of each other along the car's backseat, though Aizawa is slightly blinded by the harsh light of day flooding in. He sees enough to make out Shinsou’s expression shifting from surprise to smug satisfaction at the sack of human garbage he finds.
“Wow, I can’t believe you actually managed to look worse than you sounded on the phone,” Shinsou just about cackles. Aizawa is basically curled up on the backseat cradling a hot cup of coffee, admittedly, but that's no reason to be a little shit about it. “What were you up to last night?”
“I wish I could tell you,” Tama groans over his own steaming cup of blessedly black coffee, which is the moment Shinsou realises he’s a mess too and that they – Tama and Aizawa – were presumably out doing grown-up things without him.
The mood settles like a thick curtain. Shinsou shoves Aizawa’s feet off the seat and sits down in a way that’s almost stroppy. “Fine, don't tell me.”
“Ohoh, was it a hard night on the tiles, boys?” Yamaguichi teases with a much lighter air, pretending to elbow Tamakawa as she drives. It's no skin off her nose if her partner was out getting wasted with an underground Hero last night. All the more ammunition to tease him with.
“Let's just say I hate myself and leave it at that,” Tamakawa declares like he’s closing a case file. Aizawa murmurs wordlessly in agreement from the backseat.
Yankumi chortles in delight. “You're lucky I was around, we're not supposed to start for a few more hours but I decided to run some errands in the area.”
“Shifts are overrated.” It’s all well and good for Tama to say this, but he needs the time to sober up more than anyone. “Crime is around the clock.”
“That's almost corny enough to be one of your lines,” Shinsou mocks, pushing his leg against Aizawa's foot. It is almost in his lap, so Aizawa can't blame Shinsou for resisting the invasion of his space, though he just grumbles non-verbally in reply.
Aizawa picks up his head to take a sip of his coffee and gets most of it in his mouth, while Tamakawa drops his seat back in a classic don’t-talk-to-me pose that Aizawa knows and loves. Laying an arm over his face, Tama lets out a long, creaking-timber sigh. “Wake me up when we get to the gates of hell.”
He couldn’t be more right.
Aizawa awakes to the sensation of Shinsou shoving Aizawa’s leg off his knees, which logically means that it must have been on them prior to that moment. Without addressing the thought a second longer, Aizawa pushes himself into the world of the re-awakening like a zombie extra crawls off a horror movie set. To mean, he drags his lifeless corpse out of the car and takes a steadying breath of fresh air as he adjusts to being both vertical and awake again.
Then Tama says, “Cigarette?” and Aizawa thinks fuck fresh air.
“Thought you’d never ask.” Aizawa reaches for the pack Tamakawa offers – Yamaguichi really came through for them – and pretends he doesn’t know (or care) that Shinsou is watching as he lights up. Dragging tired eyes across the the crime scene in the distance, Aizawa picks out Naomasa’s baggy profile by his distinctive coat and upside-down bucket hat; figures he’d be here already, though it’ll make as many things difficult as it does easy in the grand scheme.
“Shouldn’t we uh, go over there?” Shinsou prompts impatiently, but Aizawa just fishes out a lighter and sparks the cigarette, sitting back to rest on the still-warm hood of Yamaguichi’s car. He takes a bottom-of-the-gutter first inhale and then breaks into a distinctly wet morning-after-smoking-too-much cough that he spits into a nearby drain. Shinsou is looking a touch more grossed out than anything, which is probably a good thing. Hopefully it’ll stop Aizawa’s bad habits catching like the spread of a burning trash fire in the dry season.
“Not yet.” Aizawa attempts to blow the smoke away from Shinsou, like it’s going to make a difference when Tama’s already halfway through his own morning-after I-hate-myself cigarette. It’s in the air whether or not Aizawa’s personally contributing to the bad habit, not that it’s any excuse.
“Why not?” Shinsou accuses. “So you can finish feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Because that’s not our crime scene,” Aizawa snaps as much as he counters, but the point remains. “It doesn’t always pay to go barging in somewhere like you own the place.”
“Isn’t that what you usually do?” Shinsou baits without respect for Aizawa’s delicate condition this morning, which is only fair, he supposes. Aizawa doesn’t cut Shinsou (much) slack either, so he’s at rights not to treat Aizawa any different just because one of them made the inadvisable decision to get shitfaced last night.
“I’ve earned that right.” Aizawa takes a harrowed drag on his cigarette, watching Shinsou the way he’d watch a large fly buzzing around him, weighing up the moment he can actually be bothered to swat his hand at it. “Ever heard of ‘do as I say and not as I do?’”
“It’s cool, I’m used to shitty role models,” Shinsou jokes, but there’s a thread of truth there – one he apparently wants to announce in front of Tamakawa and Yamaguichi. Shinsou can be pretty offish with Tama, but Yamaguichi manages to get on with most people.
Even if her earnestness can sometimes overspill, because Yamaguichi props her hands on her hips and looks outraged at Shinsou’s lacklustre dig at Aizawa. “You’re Mr. Eraser’s intern, Jack! The way you act with him is a reflection on you too.”
“I’m kidding, Yankumi.” Shinsou seems comfortable enough with Yamaguichi to actually be teasing her more than anything. It makes Aizawa wonder if they’d talked in the car while he and Tama were punched-out.
“Well, we are at a crime scene, you know,” Yamaguichi insists as a lone voice of reason. She’s kinda in the wrong company for normal reactions to the gory scene they’re observing at a distance. “Someone died here.”
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Shinsou returns the serve with a touch more sarcasm. “But apparently,” he turns to look most pointedly at Aizawa “we’ve got to stand around looking edgy a while longer before we can actually do something about it.”
“Patience, kid,” Aizawa nags unenthusiastically over his cigarette. Because just as Aizawa expects, and not least because they’re making kind of a ruckus, Tsukauchi notices them soon enough. He comes over a few ego-preserving minutes after that, hands shoved deep into the bucket-pockets of his overcoat.
He doesn’t look happy to see Aizawa, but this is the scene of a murder. “Figures I’d see you here when I turn around, Eraser.” Tsukauchi turns his gaze from Aizawa to the three-person lineup of Shinsou, Yamaguichi and Tamakawa at his side. “But did you have to bring the whole gang?” His gaze moves from a beaming Yamaguichi to finally settle on one smoking, sunglasses-wearing Tamakawa. “Aren’t you two meant to be working for us?”
“Only when we’re on-duty,” Tamakawa replies stiffly. It could be the hangover or tension (maybe both), but Tsukauchi certainly seems wary of Tama’s ambiguous answer. Aizawa must be rubbing off on him. Funny; it’s usually the other way around with him and cats.
Even if the rest of them are happy to start with a pissing contest, Shinsou’s not about the bullshit today, not when it comes to this case. “So you know why this relates to–” his freeflow cuts off like Shinsou’s pinched it with wire clippers, and then he resumes again with a more carefully phrased, “Another famous killer.” The kid’s instincts for keeping things to himself are alright, but he’s still fumbling, Aizawa evaluates like taking notes for an assignment review. Thinking before he starts to speak would be key to avoiding such mishap.
Thankfully, Tsukauchi picks up the baton before the awkward silence becomes outright suspicious. “You mean Dr. Shinsou?”
“Yeah,” Shinsou affirms without having to say the words himself. Like he’d give it away by just having to say his (own) name. “It was one of your guys he did like that, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t know him, but there was an officer from our division, yes,” Tsukauchi answers frostily. Tamakawa’s ears pick up.
“Did like what?” he asks, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette.
“I thought you were off-duty, officer?” Tsukauchi reminds him tersely, and Aizawa thinks there might be a little more tension than hangover in there, at least on Tsukauchi’s part. Aizawa supposes he understands – it’s a hierarchy, and Tsukauchi’s worked to get where he is, not to be undercut by any drinking buddy of Aizawa's.
But Tsukauchi can’t do it alone. No one can.
“You.” Tsukauchi points at Aizawa, who’s letting a lazy plume of smoke pour out of his mouth like some kind of incense burner, and then shifts his finger onto Shinsou. “And you.” Shinsou doesn’t look surprised to be called on by Tsukauchi, but Tamakawa and Yamaguichi sure do. That’s as far as the detective goes before closing with a soft, “Come with me.”
The detective crooks the finger he just pointed at Aizawa and Shinsou and then turns round on his heels, strolling back in the direction of the police-taped crime scene. Naturally, they follow. A few steps in, Tsukauchi announces, “I’d like to think you and Tamakawa keep each other out of trouble, but I somehow feel that’s not the case.” They walk across the empty cordoned-off street and stop just next to the perimeter of the crime scene proper.
It’s still early, and the morning light is struggling to bring warmth to the breezy morning chill, which sweeps like a broom across the pavement outside Shiyoko’s former workplace, stirring just the tips of Tsukauchi’s gigantic coat as they walk over. Normally this place would be swarming with busy commuters by now, but is instead laid as dead as the body underneath the sheet in the distance. Guess everyone working here got to enjoy an unexpected day off – Shiyoko’s parting gift.
“We can’t be friends?” Aizawa proposes, getting an eye-rolly ‘that’s not what I meant’ look from Tsukauchi on one side and an ‘I’m not jealous you’re jealous’ glare from Shinsou on the other. He goes out for one night off work and everyone gets mad. Aizawa doesn’t take much time for himself, so it only makes sense he lets loose when he does, like screaming into the woods just for the feeling of release.
Tsukauchi signs a timesheet that’s handed to him by some kind of attendant, not looking up to Aizawa as he remarks, “Friends are meant to discourage each other from recklessness.”
“Maybe your friends,” Aizawa retorts. He can believe Toshinori needs reining in, but Aizawa can handle himself – as can Tamakawa. They’re just having fun.
Tsukauchi can try to draw lines, but all this picking-and-choosing really means is that Aizawa will wait until the detective isn’t there to tell Tamakawa everything he needs to know. Tama found the first victim, called Aizawa when he wasn’t listened to because of petty hierarchy; he deserves to be involved in this case. Aizawa will minimally tolerate following some separation according to authority, but that’s as far as it goes. They can’t just let anyone wander around an active crime scene – especially not if they want to avoid mistrials on police malpractice charges. He’ll catch up with Tama later.
Right at the bottom of the crime-scene ranking food chain, there’s a hustle of reporters in the distance struggling to get a good shot, which Aizawa had barely been able to make out on tv this morning. He gets a good look now.
The body is under a sheet, but the pool of coagulated blood under it slightly exceeds the area of the sheet itself. There’s… quite a lot of it. Not including the blood painted carefully down a smooth expanse of the wall. The strokes are careful and consistent all the way through the end, which Aizawa suspects to be because of the mental stronghold of the killer’s quirk, stopping the victim from reacting to the pain they were in.
The question hangs in simple strings of words across the wall, a few broken trails where the flow of man-made ink was too heavy and fell like raindrops down a window: ARE YOU WATCHING NOW?
They’re all quiet for a moment, the ominous silence that proximity to such a gruesome scene offers. Then Shinsou says, “So are you going to talk about the connection with the Doc or shall I?” Which, as dark as it sounds, is a promising reaction for the boy to show.
If Shinsou wants to be a Hero, especially one in the shadows, it means dealing with a lot more grisly shit than the pomp and honour Heroes ever get to report to the ever-eager masses. Underground work of Aizawa’s creed is rarely the kind to make it into the public sphere, and if it does, it’s almost always for the worst reasons. People are looking to be told things are alright and there’s nothing to be afraid of, not that there’s a powerful killer on the loose with a brainwashing quirk that can make people commit suicide. They’re underground for a reason.
But Shinsou has a deadpan so hard you could cut diamonds on it before you’d scratch the ‘I give a shit about this’ mask he’s wearing. That’s good too. If he can be stoic about this – even dealing with his own father – then he’s got the emotional durability to be a Hero. To do it for no thanks or recognition, but the satisfaction of righting a wrong.
“Why don’t you start?” Tsukauchi offers pleasantly.
“Well, it goes without saying that there’s a message in everything he does,” Shinsou launches into this with the enthusiasm of a very wet, cold fish. “Even with the people he made kill themselves, there’s always something D–” a very slight trip, but the sound is covered convincingly enough that only those with close familiarity would recognise the change of direction – and Aizawa’s certainly not telling. “Doc wants to tell us about the way he made them die.”
“Which is what?” Tsukauchi probes with what seems like genuine interest. After all, it’s not every day you get unprecedented access to interview the one-and-only son of Dr. Shinsou Masaru, the infamous mass-murderer who is currently being copycatted by someone he once studied. Aizawa knows firsthand what Shinsou learned from his father’s ‘research’ before his mother pulled him out of it, so he can only imagine what Shiyoko could have been exposed to under the influence of an 'obsessive' Dr. Shinsou by his former assistant's account.
Shinsou – Hitoshi – is standing with his arms crossed close over his chest, the tips of his hair moving softly in a morning breeze that nibbles more than it bites. Shinsou grips his arms, maybe for warmth, and Aizawa finds himself thinking that the boy could use a good functional bodysuit. Then almost as if he could read minds, Shinsou declares, “This is an affront.”
“To what?” Tsukauchi asks, because what Shinsou’s really talking about is the message scribed outside the old workplace of their chief suspect.
“To who?” Shinsou corrects Tsukauchi like he thinks nothing of it. He probably doesn’t.
“Anyone. It’s a cry for attention,” Aizawa adds simply.
“Or a declaration against someone,” Shinsou counters. “We were in her home yesterday, how do you know this isn’t directed at us?”
It’s a scary thought, but a valid one. “Would she know if we’d been there?” Aizawa runs through like scribbling a lesson plan on the back of a receipt while sitting in an alley late at night, pretending to be a bag of trash while he waits for a drop-off.
“We took her trophy, didn’t we?” Shinsou lays out like a practised card player, pleased to be playing anything other than solitaire, maybe. “Or, you know, she could always be trying to reach the Doc.”
“What?” Tsukauchi doesn’t like that implication, which might be exactly the reason Shinsou would say it.
“It’s the kind of stunt he’d respond to,” Shinsou’s remark tips the balance from fun to freak-out, and makes the whole thing seem more creepy than lighthearted. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, she’s showing him she’s capable of the same things he was.” It’s an idea worth mulling over, Aizawa considers without offering up comment just yet. The pattern matches that of the last and most brutal of Dr. Shinsou’s murders, so it’s possible Shiyoko is starting where he stopped, as if she’s going to continue his legacy… and wants them all to watch. The Doc certainly is susceptible to having his ego massaged.
“Dr. Shinsou’s in a maximum security prison, there’s no way he would find out about this,” Tsukauchi talks like it’s something he needs to believe more than he wants to.
“You and I know that, but should we really take this lady for the mentally reasonable sort?” Shinsou replies nonchalantly. Aizawa’s grateful to have him here, picking up the slack while Aizawa just puffs on his cigarette and waits for the coffee to kick in. “People always talk.” Especially about these kinds of things, Shinsou leaves the unspoken implication as they lull into another eerie, looking-at-a-murder-scene silence.
“Or maybe she’s taunting the police, now they’re finally bothering to look for her,” Aizawa suggests a little coarsely, but it’s a coarse-feeling kind of morning.
“I know which I’d prefer,” Tsukauchi seems to offer quite freely, and Aizawa has a stab as to whether the detective is worried about a cop-killer or a cry to the Doc. “She can taunt the police all she likes, we’re going to catch her anyway.”
“Not without some help,” Shinsou’s quick to point out with a narrow look that seems to know exactly how much they seem to need him rather than the other way around. It’s important to have as accurate a measure of your value as possible, but at this rate the boy is going to end up with even more of an ego. “Obviously, the killer was a part of the Doc’s research when she was young, but I can’t help feeling that couldn’t have been the end of it.”
“I’m sorry,” Tsukauchi intercedes. “Obviously?”
“We got that intel from a reliable source,” Aizawa assures Tsukauchi.
Yet Tsukauchi remains unimpressed. “You always say that.”
“She works for your branch of the force, how’s that for trustworthy?” Aizawa retorts as he finally accepts his cigarette has gone out and shoves the butt in his pocket. It stinks up his jumpsuit even faster than usual, but he can’t be dropping litter around an active crime scene.
“Aside from the Psych thing – obviously.” Shinsou must be deliberately making fun of Tsukauchi with the ‘obviously’s by this point.
This clearly catches Tsukauchi by surprise. “You mean Dr. Iwaya?”
“You told me to go talk to her. Didn’t you bother to take your own advice?” Aizawa tries not to outright taunt, but it’s hard when Tsukauchi apparently doesn’t know enough to check under his nose for his own moustache. If he could grow one.
Tsukauchi seems more distraught by this discovery than would make sense if he’d never talked to Iwaya at all; or perhaps that he’s misjudged their relationship in some way. “I thought she would have told me.” The second, then.
“She’s not exactly falling over herself to talk about it,” Shinsou answers with an edge that almost feels defensive, though Aizawa would have said the same if he’d gotten the chance. “No one is, when it comes to that man.” There’s only a moment of silence before Shinsou asks, apropos of nothing, “Can we see the body?”
And people wonder if Aizawa is going to traumatise Shinsou with exposure to this stuff: he’s practically got to hold the damn kid back. This request seems to catch Tsukauchi further off guard; he’s already been unnerved – Hizashi is right, that's exactly what Shinsou is when he wants to be. Unnerving. The detective’s gaze finds Aizawa’s, because like it or not, Aizawa has a responsibility for Shinsou in this situation. If there’s anyone to check with, it’s going to be him.
Aizawa nods, and Tsukauchi turns to one of the people standing by. “Help me lift the sheet. We’re going to inspect the body.”
Looking like he won the worst jackpot of all time, the officer carefully takes one corner of the sheet while Tsukauchi holds the other. With a quick, quiet rustle it lifts and the sad, curled-up body underneath is revealed.
“Early investigations suggest he’s homeless,” Tsukauchi reveals as Aizawa and Shinsou move closer in almost equivalent steps. Aizawa steps around the body and then drops to a crouch, just at the edge of the shore between asphalt and blood. The man is old and dirty, coiled on one side with hands to a gut that has produced the ocean of blood, both for the wall and floor. He looks peaceful now but wouldn’t have been when he bled out like a slaughtered animal and scrawled someone else’s parting message with his viscera.
“Time of death?” Aizawa asks.
“Around six to ten hours, but it’ll hard to tell until we can get the security feed from outside the building.” Tsukauchi doesn’t sound like he’s got much in the way of good news on that – or any – front. “We got an ID, but there isn’t much to say about him. No job, no address, just a few minor crimes on his record.”
“Any history of sexual assault?” Aizawa asks sharply.
Tsukauchi frowns. Not because of the question itself, but rather because he doesn’t understand it. Aizawa’s not going to help him, so he better keep up. “... No.”
“Not that you know of, you mean,” Shinsou corrects. He’s right, too. Crime goes unreported – particularly crimes like that – every day. “What about the weapon?”
Tsukauchi doesn’t look entirely comfortable answering an inquiry of this kind from an actual teenager, but it’s something they all need to know, so he does it anyway. “A pen-knife, based on the incision.”
“You’re not sure?” Aizawa searches for the facts, cutting away any room for assumption that in turn creates doubt, like a surgeon removing dead tissue.
“Haven’t found it yet,” Tsukauchi replies.
“Maybe she took it,” Shinsou suggests, looking side-to-side like it might drop in his lap if he's lucky. “We did steal her last trophy.”
“That’s evidence,” Tsukauchi says with a little sigh.
“To you,” Shinsou points out absentmindedly, the rest of his attention focused on the scene. “To her, it’s proof.”
“Of what?” Aizawa asks – having his own ideas, but testing Shinsou for his.
“That her power, that all of this, is real,” is Shinsou’s best guess, and it’s a pretty good one at that. Who else could understand what a fractured mind wielding so much power over life and death is capable of? What it feels like to be forced by Dr. Shinsou to explore those limits as a child, learning how their unique quirks could be marshalled to cause the most harm. Shinsou turned out all right, but the same can’t be said for their killer – or her victims. “Have you found the mark?”
Tsukauchi echoes warily. “What mark?”
“Her name, obviously, ” Shinsou replies, and glances between the detective and Aizawa. He nods in Aizawa’s direction. “He’s hungover. What’s your excuse?” Aizawa’s busy looking for the killer’s mark now, executing a sort of ground-squat crab-step that he uses to make his way around the body at the dried edge of the blood pool.
Tsukauchi figuratively staggers and then recovers. He knows all this – well, most of it – and it'd be good for his reputation to at least keep up with the teenager on his first run out. “Not yet,” Tsukauchi is replying when Aizawa interrupts. They're not trying to make the Detective look slow, but if this murder were a snail race, he’d still be touching the start line.
“Found it.” Aizawa points, stopped square to the back of the man’s neck, where it reads in two precise formations of a normal ink pen on his skin: 墓又 死世子.
“There she is,” Shinsou’s voice pours like the smooth black coffee Aizawa finally feels hitting his system. He moves close to Aizawa to get a good look, and almost as if reading announces, “Hakamata Shiyoko. The Doc’s unlikely successor.”
What Shinsou means by ‘unlikely’ (Aizawa dares to speculate with a distant horror for the thought of how fucked the world would be if Shinsou wasn’t on the side of Heroes), is that this successor is not Shinsou himself.
Tsukauchi takes a phone call at some point and leaves Shinsou and Aizawa alone. Tamakawa and Yamaguichi didn't wait for them, taking the car and disappearing – in the direction of breakfast before they have to punch the clock, Aizawa guesses. With a quick nod, Aizawa and Shinsou stride over to a side-alley, somewhere they can talk out of the earshot of the rest of the people working the crime scene.
Trapped between soulless office blocks, the alleyway is reminiscent of a crevice in the most boring part of hell, cast in the kind of permanent dimness that screams of somewhere that never sees the sun. A large mound of empty computer boxes is piled up among some useful-looking debris that Aizawa would have rummaged through back in his ‘bringing home garbage’ phase that Hizashi worked hard to shut down in their more tender years.
Shinsou kicks one of the empty boxes as he passes the pile and it lets out a soft thunk. “You’re not going to like this,” he announces with his back to Aizawa, hands in his pockets.
“I hate everything this morning, so it’s not personal,” Aizawa remarks as he leans back against the wall and gives a weight-off-his-feet sigh.
Shinsou turns around and speaks with enough consideration that it feels like what he says has an inalienable weight to it. “I want to talk to him again.”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
Aizawa thinks about it for a second. He does. “Shit.”
“I said you weren’t gonna like it.”
“No, you’re right,” Aizawa admits, and thinks about ringing up the Warden, and how they’re going to have to play this. “... Fuck.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Shinsou tries to insist. “I convinced the Warden once, didn’t I?”
“It'll be harder now,” Aizawa forewarns, rubbing his eyes before remembering his eye drops. He freshens up with a round of bottled tears, and then as he sets a wary eye back on Shinsou warns, “No funny business.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Shinsou provokes in a way that’s more fun than foul.
With a long look, Aizawa considers the trap that he senses just before him and decides to proceed anyway. “You know what it means.”
A velvet glove worn over an iron fist closes around Aizawa momentarily – Shinsou’s quirk working on him, until Aizawa’s own rises up and breaks over Shinsou like a wave. If Aizawa hadn’t been staring at him already it might not have worked. But the way the cards fall is Aizawa’s quirk smothering Shinsou’s like a bucket of water over hot coals.
Shinsou’s mouth cracks into a grin. “Almost had ya.”
Aizawa lets his quirk drop and rolls his eyes – to stretch his ocular muscles (obviously). Then he replies, “Obviously.”
Notes:
I remember getting a comment in the early chapters of this story that expressed concern over Shinsou seeing dead bodies, ah, what innocent times. I suppose it's relevant to point out that I'm also a big fan of 'maverick' dramas and we'll be seeing plenty of that as we sink comfortably into this new phase of the story.
A good few of you responded to some recent notes to affirm you wanted it darker. Well, here it is - and I'm still just getting started.
Chapter 15: Backseat Driver
Summary:
This is so not Aizawa’s day.
Notes:
I can't even begin listing the things that I love about this BEEFBOI chapter, so all I'll say is that I literally couldn't wait any longer before updating and I sure hope you enjoy it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Hello, this is Warden Tanaka speaking.”
“You're not going to like this.” Aizawa gives the Warden the nominal warning he’s due, catching a, “What? Who's calling? ” before he hands the phone over to Shinsou.
“Hello, Warden,” Shinsou delivers in his most velvet tone. “Remember me? Dr. Shinsou's… Yes. Well, I have another request for you.” There's a fairly long pause, and then Shinsou frowns. “But last time—” He stops again as if being talked over, and this is exactly what Aizawa thought would happen.
Aizawa holds his hand out for the phone again, fingers twitching impatiently. After a brief ‘I can do this’ resistance, Shinsou hands it back with an exasperated look of something not working out the way he thought it would.
“I did say you weren't going to like it,” Aizawa reiterates. This is a near-mirror of Shinsou's earlier exchange with Aizawa on this subject, so it’s only fair he pass the misery along.
“It was Eraserhead, wasn't it?” The Warden says all full of stuffing that Aizawa will rip out of him before long. “I told the boy already: you've caused enough of a disturbance in my prison.”
“What if I were to inform you the good Doctor has just become a person of interest in a homicide investigation?” Aizawa says with the cool of an arctic cucumber. “Would you prefer for me to talk to the police and come back with a warrant, or for us to make another nice, low-profile visitation on your terms?”
There's a promising pause. “So that's how you want to play it.”
“We just need access,” Aizawa says flatly. “The paperwork you attach to it is your own choice.”
“I suppose you want to see him right away again.”
“Oh, that'd be helpful,” Aizawa answers like it's an offer. “How would tomorrow work?”
“Excellent for you, I assume.” The Warden speaks with the resignation of a man who knows his best course of action is to cooperate with as much plausible deniability as possible. “Come, but cover that boy up for god’s sake. We don’t want to ignite a media firestorm.” That’s the same term Nezu used, Aizawa logs in some task-sheet in his mind. It’d make sense that the Principal’s sources are right at the top too.
Aizawa manages a little smile, which is impressive on a hangover like death’s ugly cousin. “You’ll hardly know we were there.”
“I certainly hope so, Eraser,” the Warden says forebodingly. “Goodbye.”
“Bye.” Aizawa hangs up and shrugs at Shinsou before slipping his phone back into his pocket. “We’re in.”
Shinsou’s eyes narrow as he suddenly works out the game Aizawa just made Shinsou a piece in. “You used me as a gambit.”
Aizawa’s quietly pleased at how Shinsou’s observational skills are coming along. There are some brainboxes in Aizawa’s class, but only the very best minds – so, Yaoyorozu and Iida – could turn over situations like these fast enough to remain ahead of the curve. Especially when it’s all happening in real time, no space to go back and repeat the assignment for better marks next go around. But while Yaoyorozu’s problem is doubting herself before she acts, Shinsou’s is being halfway through doing whatever popped into his head before he even thinks about it. Instinct is great, just in more controlled doses.
“You did well at it.” Aizawa congratulates Shinsou as a kind of appeasement tactic. Normally, he wouldn’t be so easygoing, but on a hangover, Aizawa would rather just not with everything, which actually makes for a more tolerant self than usual.
“Oh, that's alright then,” Shinsou proffers insincerely. “Glad to have been of service to you.”
Aizawa has a few – okay, a lot – of rough edges this morning, which also makes the barriers between what he thinks and says a lot more permeable.
It's only after he's muttered in his scratchiest old-record vinyl tone, “Do you really wanna fuck with me today?” that Aizawa wonders if it's exactly the wording to be bouncing around. Shinsou, for one, looks a touch stranded by such a question; like he knows the answer but doesn't think he should say it. He probably shouldn't.
What Shinsou does instead is leap back to business. “Now what?”
Aizawa knows what he wants. Aside from a quick and merciful death, obviously. “It's my day off,” he announces wearily. “I'm going home.”
Shinsou looks appalled, and Aizawa’s sorry the boy was probably looking forward to a full day of training with his hero, but this is Aizawa’s day off and that means even from Shinsou sometimes. “What about crime’s around the clock, Heroes never quit?”
“Everyone has a breaking point,” Aizawa lectures like a drunk man staggers to hang onto a bar – Aizawa to the bar in his own apartment, last night, after trying out far too many of the cocktail ‘inventions’ that Hizashi had insisted on plying Aizawa and Tama with until one of them barfed. At least Aizawa made it to the bathroom – this time. “Better to rest when you’re able than collapse when you can't afford to.”
“So which are you about to do?” Shinsou taunts back far more energetically than Aizawa’s got to spare after the pitiful hours of sleep he spent asleep on that rollercoaster in his bed, head spinning with the volatile mix of alcohols coursing around his system. Even now, if Aizawa stands still and stares too long his hangover makes the floor feel like it’s ever-so-subtly melting.
From just about anyone else, Aizawa would respond to such provocation with unrestrained vitriol – if it were Hizashi punches would’ve already been thrown – but by now Aizawa’s accepted that he's entirely too soft on Shinsou.
“Both.” When Aizawa isn’t leaning against something he sways on his feet, like he's standing on the deck of a boat. What to do with a drunken sailor, Lilts Hizashi’s voice in Aizawa’s head while he takes another slug of the 1lt water pouch doubling up as a bit of free body padding in his jumpsuit.
Then, as if he's the responsible adult between them, Shinsou lifts an eyebrow and says, “And whose fault is that?”
‘Hizashi’s’ Aizawa would claim if he were playing the blame game, or at least in a place to admit any such thing to the present company; Aizawa hadn't even wanted to go out in the first place, but Hizashi had convinced him. “No one likes a brat,” he admonishes instead, and Shinsou just seems to find that even more amusing. Maybe because it’s something Aizawa’s said before, and each time he repeats it it’s less true than before.
“You do,” he asserts so confidently that Aizawa couldn't possibly deny it. If Aizawa didn't already know what Shinsou’s quirk feels like, he could swear there’s something more than personal persuasion at work when Shinsou tips his head slightly off-kilter and asks, “How are you getting home?”
It’s an innocent question, so why do the hairs on the back of Aizawa’s neck lift? Has to be down to Shinsou being a wind-up merchant or Aizawa being far too hungover for this situation. Probably both.
Aizawa shrugs, and Shinsou’s pitying scoff puts a high-gloss finish on the bizarre role-reversal they’ve settled into this morning. Pulling his phone out of his pocket like it’s the most terrible chore in the world, Shinsou rolls his eyes even more unnecessarily at Aizawa as he pulls up a number and calls, huffing impatiently as it rings. “Hi, Ma–” Shinsou cuts himself off like he’s already being talked over. “No, I’m fine. I just need a lift.” His gaze jumps back to Aizawa. “There’s someone I wanna drop off on the way.” There’s a pause which must be a question, though what it could be isn’t made much clearer by the infinitely amused grin that appears on his mouth. “You could say that.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll send you the address. See you soon.”
Shinsou hangs up, which is when Aizawa fully digests the fact that he’s going to meet Hitoshi’s mother. Hungover.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
Aizawa’s not in the mood for any alleyway scrapping, much less to be caught punching a kid when his mother rolls up, so Shinsou plays with his phone while Aizawa slumps slowly down the wall like a bucket of black paint, coagulating into a cross-legged pool on the floor. Trying to prepare himself for the reality of meeting Shinsou’s mother with a head like a box of broken glass, and mostly failing at it.
Blinking slower and slower each time like his eyelids are gathering rust, Aizawa certainly doesn’t intend to drift off, but is lured by the persuasive thought to rest his eyes for just a moment, drunk on the soporific mid-morning sun that has finally become warm enough to soak into Aizawa’s heat-swallowing mass of black hair and fabric.
So instead of preparing himself for a get-your-shit-together first meeting with Shinsou’s mother, Aizawa ends up taking an inadvertent sun nap on the street as they wait for their ride to arrive. Someone even throws some change in his lap at one point, and he stirs to the sound of Shinsou’s scornful laughter before slipping right back under. Tips are always appreciated.
Aizawa finally wakes up with Shinsou kicking him in the leg and hissing with a touch of urgency, “Get up.”
The car stopped in front of them would have been quite nice when it was bought, but that was clearly a long time ago, even if it’s been well-kept since then. The window rolls down, and a woman’s voice with just a hint of a rasp to it calls out, “Hitoshi?”
Aizawa’s still standing up as he drags his palm across the coarse scratch of his stubble and terribly dry lips, and only appears above the edge of the car window when Shinsou’s mother asks, “Where’s your frien–” The part of this that was meant to be a question drops off at the sight of Aizawa, which he doesn’t blame her for.
Shinsou’s mother is young for anyone with a teenage son, probably not that much older than Aizawa. A conventionally pretty lady who puts Shinsou’s ‘cool beauties’ comment about Dr. Iwaya in a far more logical context. Round eyes with the same purplish bags that Hitoshi has underneath them, and a kind of sadness that can’t be described. Her hair is fair lilac, practically silver, with just a hint of colour where the light catches it – whether that’s natural or aging, maybe even stress-induced is anyone’s guess. Although she has prominent cheekbones, a little plumpness to her jaw that softens her face more than the harsh angles of her estranged husband. What's plenty clear is that her expression is one of being sorely unimpressed at the adult she sees getting up from a nap on the pavement next to her son.
“Who are you?” Shinsou’s mother demands with the attitude of someone who is not in the mood for fucking around. Which is good: neither’s Aizawa.
“Aizawa Shota,” he answers clearly. “I’m a teacher at UA.”
“You said he was a friend,” she addresses Shinsou, who’s stopped looking at his phone and turns his attention back to the scene at hand. The what-the-fuck-do-you-call-this edge of his mother’s tone might be a factor, because right now the former Mrs. Shinsou is looking like Aizawa’s lucky she won’t run him over, much less give him a ride.
“I said you could call him that,” Shinsou echoes, sounding for once exactly like the teenager he is. Aizawa wonders if they can – he supposes, thinking about it in the logical components. He and Hitoshi have a formal relationship of sorts, but there’s a lot of banter and familiarity that utterly flies in the face of an even remotely strict arrangement. Most of the time, what he and Shinsou have isn’t anything close to formal. Basically a hot mess – much like Aizawa right now.
“I've taken on your son as an intern,” Aizawa offers before he comes off entirely too dodgy to still catch a ride. He’s gotta get home, after all.
“So you’re a Hero?” Shinsou’s mother deduces whip-quick.
Aizawa nods. “You won’t have heard of me.”
“I can believe that,” his mother replies with lips pursed so tightly together her mouth could be used as a paperclip. Even so, she gazes at her son for a long moment and then sighs. “You two better get in.”
“Thank you.” Aizawa remembers his manners and bobs his head, waiting for Shinsou to get into the passenger seat before he slinks into another backseat.
Aizawa and Shinsou’s decision to walk a block over from the crime scene to be collected seems a wise choice, given the already rocky grounds Aizawa has started on with his “intern’s” one responsible parent. Aizawa supposes there aren’t many people who have met Shinsou’s mother and father, then comes onto wondering if she knows about their soon-to-be visits to the Doc. How much Shinsou’s mother knows about anything, for starters.
However, that’s not a conversation Aizawa’s looking to start right now. After giving Shinsou’s mother the address of the bakery he uses as a close-to-home-but-not-home drop-off zone – also a good source of breakfast to bring back for the slumbering lion – Aizawa is spacing out in the backseat when that rusty-toned voice shakes him out of the stupor he was happily sinking into.
“So, Aizawa,” Shinsou's mother starts with the determination of someone swinging a hammer at a very large window. “You must be why my son’s obsessed with murder lately.”
Perhaps not the reason, Aizawa considers in his own mind. But certainly an enabler. “Hero work isn’t all saving kittens in trees and daring, last-minute rescues,” he replies instead, crisper than a perfect autumn leaf. But then, she’d probably know all about dark sides.
“I couldn’t agree more,” responds Mrs. Shinsou, if that’s a name she even uses anymore – Aizawa ought to find out what he can call her. “I realise it’s the prerogative of sons to worry their mothers, but I’d have liked if he found a way to do it slightly less.” Aizawa’s no help there, so he doesn’t say anything at all.
Shinsou's mother keeps up the pressure, which is easy on a captive audience. The air inside the car seems to tighten, like clothing that’s been washed too hot and clings to Aizawa’s body much more than when he first acquired it. Aizawa swears Hizashi does it on purpose. “How long have you been a Hero?”
Aizawa attempts an accurate count and quickly realises he’s far too hungover for that 'I’m how old' shit. Long enough. “Over ten years.”
“And I still haven't heard of you,” Shinsou’s mother replies frostily. “You must be unsuccessful or skilled at keeping a low profile.” That’s probably something this woman knows plenty about, keeping herself and her son out of her estranged husband’s clutches before he was finally put in prison.
Aizawa knows there’s a fairly sizable gap from the time when Shinsou and his mother left the Doc and the date of the 99 Massacre, a little over six years ago now (Shinsou would have been what, nine or ten years old?), but Aizawa’s yet to work out exactly how long it was. Shinsou might’ve been around five when they left, long enough for his quirk to have developed and commenced the Doc’s infamous ‘research’ that quickly drove their family apart. A story that Aizawa’s seen the results of far too often, time and again throughout his tenure at UA, watching the next generation of Heroes inspired by both the best and worst that this generation has to offer.
“Define success,” Aizawa replies trickily. Most of the people he saves are potential-future victims who never know his name, and don’t count towards any crime statistic or ridiculous popularity polling that apparently affects how good of a Hero you are these days. It might not be ‘successful’ in the ways the media or entire horse-and-pony industry circus cares about, but what Aizawa does makes a difference. Righting injustices for the already-dead might not invite much in the way of thanks, but Aizawa’s put a lot of bad people away before they could hurt anyone else, and brought plenty of bittersweet comfort to bereaved families.
“He's a pro, Ma,” Shinsou snaps in return to his mother’s niggling. “It's what I've always wanted to do.” Even if what Aizawa does specifically might not have been the thing mother or son would’ve imagined when he was growing up. But it’s the best Shinsou’s got on offer right now, so Aizawa’s doing his best. Shinsou sure seems to love it.
“I know,” Shinsou’s mother sighs like a woman against insurmountable odds – so a normal mother, basically. Her eyes have found Aizawa’s in the rear-view mirror when she remarks. “When Hitoshi was accepted into the General Course, I thought that might’ve been the end of my sleepless nights.” She doesn’t look like she believes it, so Aizawa’s not convinced either.
“And my dreams,” Shinsou bites like this is a familiar argument they’re about to tear into.
Before he can become party to a domestic, Aizawa announces as easily as a remark about the weather, “I disagree with the decision the school made about that.” While he’d been falling asleep on the street earlier, Aizawa’s wide awake now, more adrenaline coursing around his system than if he'd just taken a swan dive off a building; driven for some strange reason by an urgency, a desperate need to declare, “Your son deserves to be in the Hero Course.” In wondering whether he should add what’s on the tip of his tongue, Aizawa decides he surely should. “That’s why I agreed to take him on.”
—AND IF YOU LET ANYONE HURT HIM I WILL MAKE YOU PAY
Out of nowhere there’s a sensation of both ringing and deafening white noise, a blare in Aizawa’s head that isn’t spoken out loud so much as sounded like a foghorn stuffed inside his own mind. This jarring, all-wavelengths broadcast shakes Aizawa more rudely awake than an electric cattle prod (not to be recommended).
Aizawa jerks bolt upright at the sensation of having someone just burst into his mental living room and yell through a megaphone, and Hitoshi snaps, “Ma! I can hear you!”
“Leave a mother at least some of her prerogatives,” Shinsou’s mother bargains like giving people a psychological shakedown is on that list. Although it apparently kind of is. Aizawa reaches for one of his ears out of instinct, finding it a lot stickier than he thinks an earlobe should be. Best case: spilled cocktail. Worst case: vomit. Aizawa’s stumbling into thinking about whether Hizashi will drag him into the bath if he goes home, and how that might not be such a terrible thing when Shinsou’s mother offers an unexpected, “I’m sorry. I ought not have sprung my quirk on you like that.”
Aizawa makes a vaguely noncommittal murmur, half-tempted to use his own quirk just to prevent any more unwanted mental broadcasts like that terrifying scream inside Aizawa’s head. What a legacy for a kid to draw on, Aizawa finds himself reflecting as the mood in the car falls back to pensive silence. If any of what Dr. Shinsou believes about mentalist quirks is even remotely true, Shinsou could have access to a greater capacity of his ‘mentalist’ brain than both his parents combined.
Other people’s quirks – any that make it onto the damn Hero course for one – get assessed and benchmarked for their strength, but it’s never even occurred to Aizawa how anyone could quantify the strength of Shinsou’s quirk. Apart from the botched study when Shinsou was five years old, there’s never been a similar quirk on record – aside from Dr. Shinsou’s, and now Shiyoko’s to some degree, but that went unregistered and may not even work the same way as Shinsou’s. All Aizawa can tell from being under the Shinsou quirk’s influence is that it’s powerful. If Shiyoko could do what Shinsou can, there’s no telling how many more would have died by this point. Something they can all be glad for.
“It’s not that I’m against Hitoshi becoming a Hero,” Shinsou’s mother seems to feel obliged to say out loud, defending an accusation she brought solely on herself. “I just… worry.”
Aizawa makes a point of being sure she’s finished before he speaks again. “That’s only natural.” He’s trying not to fuck this thing up completely, but it’s hard to do when he’s already so independently fucked up.
“I should… thank you, I suppose.” Shinsou’s mother fails in the attempt to make this sound sincere. They’re still a little way away from Aizawa’s drop-off, and he has to fight himself not to check the time on his phone like it’ll have any bearing on how long it takes to get there, and this uncomfortable grilling can be over. “Hitoshi's wanted this for such a long time. Part of me was relieved when he didn’t get into the Hero course, but I… knew he wouldn’t give up.”
“Ma, you’re literally embarrassing me,” Shinsou bemoans, but he doesn’t seem too begrudging overall.
Aizawa settles his hand against the window, resting his face against the glass in such a way that it’s barely uncomfortable at all. Enough to tactically doze his way out of making his abominable first-impression any worse if he’s lucky, although not without trying to salvage something from the wreck.
“There’s no need for thanks.” Aizawa might be a mess at first glance, and have a handful of change in his pocket acquired from being mistaken as homeless, but he can at least try to communicate his appreciation for his (unofficial) intern’s support. However, because Aizawa’s been grated past the rind and pith by this hangover, all the way to tart, juicy fruit of his raw brain, what this comes out as is an utterly unfiltered, “I like having Hitoshi around.”
It feels natural in the moment to skip the Doc’s titular name, igniting reference to a figure so loathed by both mother and son. And it’s only when the swaying of the silent-swept car finally lulls Aizawa into a bleary half-conscious sleep that he realises he’s called Shinsou Hitoshi in front of both his parents.
They’re about to cross at an intersection when a fight breaks out.
What this means, practically speaking, is the scream of a car horn stirs Aizawa from groggy sleep to disorientated wide-awake in about two seconds. Another two seconds later, the car crossing the junction in front of them ploughs straight into the mammoth leg of a reptilian man-monster, who is charging through the intersection after another figure entirely engulfed in thick smoke.
Shinsou’s mother brakes hard, tyres squealing as she tries to avoid smashing into the car in front. Shaking off the last vestiges of waking up to a full-blown shit-on-the-fan scenario, Aizawa opens the car door he’s been snoozing against and climbs out while they’re still screeching to a halt just short of rear-ending the car that wraps around the creature’s leg. The transference of momentum becomes a springboard for Aizawa to leap off, casting out a handful of his capture weapon as he launches himself into the fray.
Aizawa activates his quirk on the cloud of smoke first, choking it out as two tendrils of his capture weapon sneak around the brawny man in the cloud’s centre. Pulling the weapon tight as he continues flying through the air, Aizawa throws another strand of his capture weapon over the top of a lamppost and swings off it, yanking the smoker out of the clutches of the lizard man-monster and hauling him in a neatly parceled bundle to dangle from the lamppost.
By this point, when Aizawa drops to the ground and turns back around in the direction of the accident, Shinsou is out of the car and facing down a reptilian man four-times-his-height and several more his width, who currently seems pretty pissed about the car bonnet clinging to his leg like one half of a really unusual pair of chaps.
However, when Aizawa fixes his quirk-erasing glare on the scaly back, it immediately starts to shrink. This is why it pays to be sure what kind of quirk they’re dealing with, because an assumed mutation quirk turns out to be transformation. In a matter of a seconds Shinsou ends up standing head-to-head with a meek salaryman-type character who looks rather ridiculous in his torn clothing, clutching his stretched-out underpants to stop them falling down round his scrawny ankles.
Aizawa’s only taken a couple of steps over when Shinsou punches the guy square in the jaw – just like he’s been taught – and the man drops to the asphalt like the sack of shit he is. By the time Aizawa’s gotten there, the more pressing issue is the driver of the wrecked car, unresponsive over the deflated airbag.
“We have to get her out of there.” Aizawa tries the handle, and finding it locked or broken, smashes the driver’s window with an elbow and reaches through to open the door from inside.
The noise and movement rouse the woman in the car, who starts making sounds that increase in urgency as Aizawa reaches over her to tear the mangled seatbelt out of its fixture and then lifts her out of the car.
Shinsou stays close as Aizawa backs out with the woman and sets her down on the ground; the cascade of fresh blood staining her slacks is hard to ignore. So is the whimper that upgrades to full hysterical wailing as Aizawa rips the leg of her pants off to expose the wound. A piece of shrapnel from the impact has cut deep into the woman’s thigh, perhaps even nicked the femoral, which means the situation is urgent and her panicked shrieking isn’t going to help.
“Calm her down.” Aizawa looks right at Shinsou, banking on the kid understanding his implication. Shock and panic increase the heart rate, which will reduce the time she’s got if they can’t control the bleeding. “Now.”
Shinsou nods and then drops to his knees, leaning close over the woman. “Can you hear me, ma’am? What’s your name?”
After a few hazy moments, the woman’s focus closes in on Shinsou. “I’m Yui–” That’s how far she gets into answering before he takes control. She stills. To any bystander, and there are a few, the change could just be chalked up to Shinsou’s soothing tone, that ‘help is here’ aura of having Heros on the scene. The woman’s face is no longer contorted into a panicked scream, mouth twitching into a transfixed mona lisa smile. But Aizawa is closer, so he can see her pupils dilate and then constrict, eyes becoming glassy as she’s pulled into the numbing mental embrace of Shinsou’s quirk.
“Good.” Shinsou sounds relieved – after all, if he couldn’t get a response they’d be in much more trouble. “Take a deep breath for me.” Aizawa hears the long intake of breath from the woman as he yanks a tightly rolled strip of dressing off his utility belt, shaking it out with one hand before he checks the wound for any fragments still inside. The cut seems clean, it’s just deep. “That’s perfect.” Shinsou keeps going while Aizawa spreads the wad of high-absorbency sticky-sided dressing against the wound and presses down. “And now out… great. Just like that.”
Either Shinsou has been taught (even self-taught) how to respond to a situation like this, or he’s a natural at it. Aizawa feels the woman’s pulse slowing from the frantic high before Shinsou took control. Not to mention, she’s not thrashing or screaming with the pain – and it surely has to hurt, but her panic won’t help anyone.
“Hold this down,” Aizawa instructs, and Shinsou’s hands slot between his quickly, their fingers overlapping as the task is handed over. “Use all your weight. Her life might depend on it.”
“I know,” Shinsou snaps, but it’s not at Aizawa or out of irritation. Just a natural shortness that the situation calls for. “I’ve got it. You can go.”
By the time Aizawa’s gotten back up, the smoking chandelier hanging from the lamppost has turned into empty loops of his capture weapon, so it’s another few minutes chasing the culprit back down – luckily, he leaves a pretty conspicuous trail.
Aizawa vaults a few cars and dives between some traffic before he finally gets a clean shot, lassoing the fleeing cloud by an ankle so that he faceplants on the road and knocks himself out on impact. By the time Aizawa’s dragged both fighters back to the scene of their crime on lengths of his capture weapon, an ambulance has arrived.
Shinsou is locked into concerned conversation with one of the paramedics while the woman is carried into the ambulance. Yet again, Shinsou’s managed to touch bloody hands to his face at some point, leaving an ugly red smear across one temple all the way down to his ear. When Aizawa approaches, he can just make out the tail end of the paramedic saying something about “don’t know what you did, but she’s very lucky,” before his presence derails the conversation.
“Are you the Hero?” the Paramedic asks immediately, and Aizawa nods. “This young man has given a statement already, so if you’d be willing to sign it then we’ll have the situation fully under control.”
“We don’t need to wait for the police?” Aizawa queries, and the peppy young paramedic shakes his head.
“If you're happy handing over custody to me, I can supervise the restrained criminals until the police arrive!” The paramedic seems utterly thrilled by this responsibility, or maybe he’s just jazzed to be interacting with a Hero. The ambulance shoots away with sirens blaring, while this first-responder waits near his car, acting as a kind of interim handler and nice stand-in for Aizawa, who doesn’t want too many people realising he or his unlicensed intern had any involvement with the situation. Even if it’s to save the frigging day.
“What do you think?” Shinsou turns to ask Aizawa, and doesn’t seem convinced.
Resisting the urge to rub the side of Shinsou’s head with a sleeve is a serious temptation, but Aizawa manages to remain on-topic and directs his gaze to the paramedic. “If you think you can handle it.”
“Yes, sir!” The paramedic shoots back in a way that reminds Aizawa instantly of Yamaguichi – she might have a brother, for all Aizawa knows. “If you help me secure them, then I’ll keep watch until the police arrive.”
Aizawa nods and then quickly goes over to give a practical lesson on the correct way to lock people up with cable ties – for Shinsou and the paramedic both. Finally, they dump the unconscious criminals by the paramedic’s car and return to Shinsou mother, who has parked by the roadside while the traffic is hurried on around the wrecked car stranded in the middle of the crossing.
The streak of blood Shinsou has inadvertently decorated himself with makes his mother’s frightened gasp understandable when they first approach. Given the rest of the blood drenching Shinsou’s hands, he figures out what she’s so shocked by quickly enough. “Don’t worry,” he assures his mother word-by-word with an excuse Aizawa’s given Hizashi many a time. “It’s not my blood.” She is slackjawed at the normal presentation of all this.
Aizawa notices Shinsou’s mother is smoking by following the fragrant wisp down to her hand. Without really thinking about the flow of conversation, he interrupts to ask, “Can I have a cigarette?”
“Oh? Yes, I suppose,” Shinsou’s mother replies a little disjointedly, fumbling in her purse for a crumpled pack that she offers to Aizawa. Tamakawa kept the pack Yamaguichi picked up earlier, and Aizawa can’t be expected to just stand there watching someone smoke without being able to partake.
“Thanks.” Aizawa leans in with the filter between his lips and waits until Shinsou’s mother produces a light, sparking the flame while Aizawa shields it from the wind with his hands. Although the sun is shining, a rousing breeze kicks off in swirls and eddies around them, shifting the lingering smell of smoke given off by broken car engines and apprehended criminals. Aizawa pulls on his cigarette as it lights and then stands back up, releasing the drag and slowly beginning to unwind from the recently passed madness. Sure as shit put enough adrenaline through his system to clear out some of that hangover. Some of it.
Aizawa turns to Shinsou and indicates the side of his face with an energy level that’s practically undead. “You have something here.”
Shinsou’s hand flies up to his face and immediately hits the dried blood he got up there. He rubs it unsuccessfully for a moment before giving up, and instead relates to Aizawa, “The paramedic said whatever we did to keep her calm, it probably saved her life.”
“You did it; I just told you to,” Aizawa replies coolly, sure to place credit where it's due without necessarily admitting to exactly what happened. It’s still illegal, after all. Shinsou's mother glances at her son before settling a questioning gaze on Aizawa, but it's best not to dwell on who ordered whom to use their quirk on a civilian without a licence. Even if it did potentially save a woman’s life.
“I think I… owe you an apology,” Shinsou's mother phrases very carefully indeed as she takes another pull on her cigarette with anxious hands. Not quite I’m sorry, but enough to admit that she must have judged Aizawa harshly, if there’s something to make up for. “I understand why Hitoshi wants to work with you now.”
But for all that's true, if Aizawa had been alone in this situation, things might have turned out very different. Shinsou's quirk and reliable pair of hands count for plenty, and Aizawa's not too proud to admit it.
That's why Aizawa finishes a no-nonsense drag on his cigarette and with his eyes on Shinsou simply remarks, “The feeling’s mutual.”
When Aizawa finally gets home bearing a box of fresh pastries and hot drinks – coffee for him, matcha latte for Hizashi – he discovers his best beloved is still in bed. Which is so unlike Hizashi, it can mean only one thing. Hearing Aizawa move around the bedroom, the sorry-for-itself mound in the middle of the bed lets out a groan and then with perfect clarity announces, “I'm so fucking hungover.”
“You're hungover,” Aizawa growls. All Hizashi has done is sleep, Aizawa's been up since fuck ‘o clock checking out gory crime scenes and breaking up rush-hour punchups while he meets his intern’s mother – and he's hanging just as bad as Hizashi. Probably more.
Hizashi rolls over enough to emerge from underneath the mess of drunk-sweaty sheets. A pair of eyes fix on Aizawa, but not Hizashi’s own emerald pair. It's inked eyes that rest their unblinking gaze on Aizawa, belonging to a traditionally styled lion, golden mane and sharp teeth bared, which spans Hizashi’s entire upper back. So Yakuza that Hizashi has occasionally had to prove he's one of the good guys before he’s been allowed into certain bathhouses.
“I bought breakfast,” Aizawa offers as he sets down his delicate cargo and starts to unzip himself, airing out the inside of his jumpsuit with a feeling like a tropical greenhouse mixed with a tidal salt-cave.
The tattooed lion ripples as if roaring when Hizashi rolls his shoulders and stretches into the squishy ‘won’t say what it costs’ mattress. “I love you,” Hizashi gurgles like a drain and rolls again, lifting an arm. It remains aloft like the mast of a sinking ship until Aizawa crawls into bed, slotting into place before Hizashi curls it around him. “Eugh,” he grunts as Aizawa gets closer. “You smell like an ashtray full of garbage.”
“I had to work this morning.” Hizashi’s no spring flower himself, but Aizawa’s sure he wins at this particular fragrance contest. He buries his face against the patchwork hotplate of Hizashi’s skin, slotting around him so that his cheek rests on Hizashi’s chest, and it’s almost as if the heartbeat Aizawa hears comes from the tattoo and not the real deal inside his lover’s ribcage.
Aizawa draws a deep breath and lets it out, finally allowing himself to relax.
“How’s work?” Hizashi asks as his fingers play a chaotic rhythm along Aizawa’s arm.
Aizawa sighs again. “Nothing worth talking about.”
“Are you sure?” Hizashi doesn’t probe much, which means he has to be a little more than casually interested if he’s actually prying.
Aizawa tallies up the exertion of packing up everything that’s going on and parceling it out to Hizashi, and then compares it to pushing all that shit away and being at peace for a while – taking his own damn good advice to rest while he’s still got the chance.
“Yeah,” Aizawa answers, hearing his voice resonate in Hizashi’s chest, like the reassurance will have more traction that way. “Everything’s fine.”
“You only say that when it isn’t,” Hizashi points out with a touch of irritation, but he is ingloriously hungover, so he probably realises that this isn’t the time to get into it. “But alright, have it your way.” He shoves Aizawa off, if only to sit up and reach across the bed for his matcha latte, pressing a kiss to Aizawa’s forehead as he flops back down and takes a long slurp. “Thanks for breakfast.”
Aizawa tunes his ear back to Hizashi’s heartbeat and swears to himself he’ll get around to explaining all of this soon. Hizashi deserves it, even when Aizawa doesn’t always deserve Hizashi. “You’re welcome.”
Notes:
*BANGS POTS AND PANS TOGETHER* SHE'S HERE SHE'S HERE SHINMOM IS HEREEEEEEEEEEEE.
Lots of feelings about this. Like, a lot. There's something very special about being able to anticipate introducing Shinsou's Ma SO MUCH and to feel that same desire among the readership to meet this character for the first time - and trust me, this is just the starter course in a 7 course dinner that I CANNOT WAIT to keep sharing. And oh, we're still due to go see the Doc again, so it's prettymuch a parent-sandwich of a chapter-run we're tucking into.
I've surely bitched about this before, but one of the things about the 'fandom norm' for Shinsou being to make him an orphan/foster kid of some kind and not have to come up with parents for him is we miss out on great stuff like this!! It definitely is easier to avoid needing to think about/incorporating parents for Shinsou into a story (and it was work to put together these two), so I also GET why people may do that to save time if they don't want to get bogged down in all the messy familial stuff, but I loooooooOOOOooooOOove it and am sooooOOoOOOOOooooo psyched to be buckling y'all in for the ride of a lifetime. This story is my most ambitious project by a long way, and if the feedback of my trusted creative team is any indication, you're all in for a WONDERFUL time.
I've got many more thoughts about a shit-ton of the stuff in this so do leave me a comment or pop into discord where I'll be yelling about the above as long as any of you will entertain me.
h(hope this works)ttps://discord.gg/gWJrUBv
Chapter 16: The Godfather
Summary:
Daddy’s home. Then again, he’s always home when he lives in prison.
Notes:
Loved the hype last chapter for Shinmom. Now, HOW would I top that, hmm?
Oh yes, let's go see BadDad :3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Put this on.” Aizawa holds out the wool hat he’s had in a drawer of his desk for… actually, it might have been in there when he inherited the desk. A hat is a hat.
“Why?” Shinsou questions suspiciously, but he’s not far behind Aizawa's train of reasoning. This makes his next statement more of an accusation. “Are we actually gonna deny this is happening?”
Truth be told, the larger part of the day has whipped past Aizawa. It feels like he’s barely slept off his hangover and been dragged into the shower by Hizashi than the school day is over already. Shinsou met him at their usual spot after classes finished, and they made their way to the prison from there – a trip which did include at least some portion on the train for the sake of sensible travel-time, though they’ve taken a more scenic route to the prison from the nearest station.
“No, but it pays to be careful.” Aizawa takes a step closer and shoves the hat against Shinsou’s chest, who flexes a little from the force of Aizawa’s balled hand, but pushes back enough to remain standing firm. “Just wear it.”
“Yessir,” Shinsou issues sarcastically, taking the hat at long last and dragging a hand back through his hair to flatten it before he pulls the hat on over the top. Aizawa doesn’t know if Shinsou’s unruly mop is a deliberate act of defiance against the oily, slicked-back look of his father, but the family resemblance would certainly be even more uncanny if they cut the same profile.
Even under a hat, with just his basic features to pick out, it's clear how strongly Hitoshi takes after his father. But at times the angles of the younger Shinsou’s face are less harsh; partly youth. But now Aizawa’s seen her to compare, there are a few points in which he takes after his mother. Like the shape of his eyes: a little rounder than Dr. Shinsou’s, and sporting the same purplish tint underneath them as his well-wearied caretaker.
“Here we go again.” Shinsou heaves a sigh as they finish their rooftop run, scramble down, and begin a more solemn walk towards the gates.
“Try not to let him get to you,” Aizawa councils, perhaps a little inadvisedly.
“Gee, I never thought of that,” Shinsou rips mercilessly in return. “Don’t forget you’ve only met him once.” Whereas Shinsou’s had the entirety of his life to experience his father’s idea of parenting. Before the prison time, at least.
“And that one time I had to stop the two of you choking each other out,” Aizawa reminds with an unwavering flatline of a tone. They’re not here to play denial games or go around testing the nerves still running through this familial relationship. “We have a case to solve.”
“What makes you think he’s even going to help us?” Shinsou shoves hands into his pockets as he walks close by Aizawa’s side as they draw closer to the prison entrance, his shoulders hunching up like a tortoise retreating into its shell. The rows and rows of fences topped with barbed and electrical wire convey what this otherwise nondescript building holds at bay, which is a lot of very dangerous criminals, but for now it’s silent as the dead; as if not a living soul occupies the entire complex.
“That’s easy,” Aizawa remarks as they come to a stop at the first set of gates and wait for a guard from inside to open them. A sprig of Shinsou’s hair has escaped the front of the hat, standing upright in stark contrast to the black wool. Aizawa has the urge to tuck it back under with a finger, but resists, even though he's got a hunch Shinsou would let him do it. There’s even more casual contact between them now than when they started out, but it makes sense they’re both a little prickly right now. “Quid pro quo.”
Because Dr. Shinsou might have something they need, but Aizawa’s got something the Doc wants: a relationship with his son.
“You're looking well, Warden.” Shinsou clearly doesn't mean this, but Aizawa wouldn't mean it any more if he said it either. “Prison must be good for you after all.”
“It is Eraserhead, isn’t it?” the Warden directs at Aizawa. “If you could keep your ward under control.”
Aizawa shrugs like he doesn’t care: he doesn’t. “Thought I was.”
“So did I.” Shinsou reaches for his head and pulls the hat off, his hair springing back up with a quick ruffle through his fingers. “If you think this is out of control, you seriously don't want to see me acting out for real.”
“That's something we can both agree on,” the Warden replies stuffily. “So perhaps we can avoid it coming to that.”
“I'll behave if he does.” Shinsou is vitriolic, no doubt over what “he” is being referred to.
“As the Warden of this establishment, I can authoritatively say the last thing you should expect from Dr. Shinsou is for him to behave.” The Warden has taken them up to his office for this little chat, a finely decorated study of rich mahogany and leather-bound books. “To that end, we've taken some extra precautions, seeing as you made such light work of the last set.”
“Hitoshi is safe with me,” Aizawa states plainly and with only a hint of irritation about having to go through this rigmarole again.
“You and the boy aren't the only ones in danger,” the Warden returns sharply. “As it happens, you two are at the bottom of my priorities. These new precautions are to ensure the safety of my staff, assuming you intend to ignore all our protocol and converse directly with Dr. Shinsou again.”
“That's pretty much the plan, yeah.” Shinsou Hitoshi is going into full insolence mode, which Aizawa can understand even if he can't fully tolerate it. If the world were made exactly as Aizawa likes then Shinsou would be free to run wild as his rebel spirit yearns for, but sadly (and fortunately) they don’t live in such a misshapen universe.
“So what,” Aizawa interjects. “You're going to lock us in a soundproof room in the basement?”
“Actually, it is in the basement,” the Warden replies like the soft turn of a key in a lock, and then dares to smile at the way Aizawa’s expression drops. “We took the liberty of moving Dr. Shinsou to one of our older cells, in a less-used part of the facility.” Aizawa can guess any number of purpose the Warden might have for doing something like this, suffice to say – he’s got his reasons. Urgent ones at that, going by the way he stands up and wipes a sheen of sweat off the top of the bald spot that dominates his head. “If you’d come with me, this is a rather time sensitive issue.”
“So what you're saying,” Shinsou throws in, “is ‘the Doctor will see you now’?”
“Quite the comedian, aren't you?” the Warden asks like he couldn't care less for the answer, hurrying them out the door like a pair of hissing geese. “You must get it from your father.”
Shinsou sours at that – or maybe it should be Hitoshi. Aizawa rebrands him for the environment they’re about to enter. Aizawa doesn’t really do given names for his students.
But then, Hitoshi’s not his student.
The Warden leads them to a cellblock in a different building than the prison’s main unit, all the way on the other side of the yard. A much older structure, more rudimentary and crude in its design. It occurs to Aizawa as they walk across the open prison yard that Dr. Shinsou must have been transferred this way in some fashion or another. That he would have felt fresh air on his skin, and seen the sky as he was moved between different windowless cells.
Aizawa wonders if the Doc misses his freedom, and finds an obvious answer.
There is an abundance of surveillance, peppered with stony-faced guards like ancient statues at the outer reaches of the building the Warden leads Aizawa and Hitoshi to, but both peter out as they descend deeper into the bowels of the building.
“Anyone would think you’re trying to hide us,” Hitoshi remarks in an echoey stairwell where their footsteps cause a dissonant racket, almost reminiscent of the interior of an old submarine.
“As I said before.” The Warden stops at a heavy metal door with a small window in it and turns to face them. “These precautions are to guarantee the safety of my staff and the other prisoners.” Presumably, none of whom carried out a massacre. Anyone else who did what Dr. Shinsou did would’ve gotten the death penalty, but the Doc was able to negotiate to consecutive life sentences. Not least because they’re afraid to try and kill him.
The Warden withdraws a heavy ring of meticulously labelled keys, thumbing through them until he finds the one he’s looking for and unhooks it, holding it out to Aizawa. “This will let you through the door on the other side of this transfer zone.” The transfer area is visible through the window in this door – a room barely the size of a cupboard, similar to the one where they collected headphones in the usual cell. Anti-breakout measures to prevent anyone making a clean run through the facility.
“What about the key to this door?” asks Hitoshi – a slight adjustment, swapping from one name to the other, but Aizawa feels the better for it already.
“I keep that key,” the Warden replies. “I’ll lock the door after you.”
“And when we’re finished with the Doc?” Hitoshi’s basically leading the operation so far, which Aizawa likes. Shows initiative, as well as saving Aizawa the trouble of doing it himself.
“Once you’ve locked yourself back into the transfer area and demonstrated your… sanctity of mind,” the Warden chooses his words very carefully, “I will let you back out.”
“Are there cameras in there?” Aizawa asks, and the Warden’s bilious cheeks ripple.
“One. Recording to a secure harddrive in my office.” Seems like the Warden wants to be able to deny this ever happened if he needs to – Aizawa’s fine with that.
But Aizawa’s not fully content yet. “Off the facility network?” As if what they’re doing is less culpable when there’s no proof, but it’s just being careful, knowing where the data points are. The Warden just nods, and Aizawa relents. “Fine. Let us through.”
“I should probably warn you,” the Warden remarks as he fishes another key off the ring and unlocks the first door. “You’re not likely to find the Professor in a good mood.”
“Oh good,” Hitoshi replies jovially. “It’ll be just like the old days.”
Aizawa wonders if this is a good idea, then remembers it doesn’t matter, because it’s what a Hero would do anyway.
Moments after the sounds of the Warden locking them into the tiny breakout area have ended, before Aizawa has even slid the intricate key into the lock that will let them out of the other side of this room, he turns to Hitoshi and asks, “Are you ready?”
“No, but that’s hardly the point,” is the sincere reply. Aizawa slots the key into the lock but doesn’t turn it, moving instead to place his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder. Aizawa looks right at Hitoshi and recalls several important facts about him: dealing with personal trauma the depths of which Aizawa can’t even dare to estimate, on his first trip out into the murky world of crime and killers, and still a fucking teenager who doesn’t have all the answers. So his listless, dead expression could indicate a lot of things, but not caring about this won’t be one of them.
Hitoshi takes a deep breath that lifts Aizawa’s hand as his frame adjusts to holding such a big sigh. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I know, Aizawa only thinks. Because it’s his fault Hitoshi’s here at all – for better or soon-to-be-proven worse. Aizawa should be here.
He withdraws his hand from Hitoshi's shoulder and picks up the goggles hanging loose around his neck. Last time Aizawa forgot to wear them and lived to regret it, but he won’t make the same mistake twice. “I won’t take my eyes off him.” Aizawa lifts the goggles over his eyes, pulling up the strap until the lenses are secure across his face.
“You better not.” Hitoshi lifts a hand and turns the key where it sticks out of the door, hauling the rarely-used mechanism into action. The bolt slides back with a tired groan, and the Warden meant it when he called this part of the facility old and less-used; abandoned would be the better word for it.
Aizawa pushes the door, and it swings open, heavy under its own weight. Hitoshi steps through first, and his steps echo through the sparse corridor, empty cells shrouded in darkness. Except one, where a dim pool of light spills out, a single shadow an island across it.
“Dad?” Hitoshi calls out, his voice dripping with sarcasm and seeming to come from everywhere at once in the unforgiving soundbox. “I’m back from school.”
“Welcome, son,” an eerie voice replies as Aizawa takes the key but doesn’t lock the door behind them. If the Warden’s already locked them in, it hardly makes a difference on their end. “Come closer and let me get a look at you.”
Aizawa moves step for step with Hitoshi, so much so that their strides are fully in sync when they get near enough to the cell to see the Professor of mentalist quirks.
Dr. Shinsou stands, as last time, ramrod straight with his hands folded behind his back. His face is a portrait of austere indifference, with just a drop of insincerity in the polite way he announces, “Oh, and you brought home a friend.”
Not quite the mood (or phrasing) Aizawa’s looking for. “Not exactly.” Aizawa’s voice comes out a raspy threat. There’s been no open questions yet, so no need for his quirk. But his gaze remains fixed wholly on the lithe figure of Dr. Shinsou.
The Doctor’s surroundings are less becoming of the air he projects, more squalid and dingy. There’s no furniture in this room, none of the comforts a man of Dr. Shinsou’s influence has negotiated for himself in his usual accommodations. This captivity he permits himself to be kept in, like a bird that’ll sit in a cage as long as the door is shut. But that doesn’t mean the talons and beak won’t come out when something should happen to disturb that stalemate, as a few subtle signs on Dr. Shinsou’s face betray. He keeps his hands behind his back as if they’re cuffed – they might be, but the Doc can’t hide the slight swelling of his lower lip on one side, or a tiny scratch around one of his eyes. A struggle while he was being transferred, perhaps.
“Must you look at me with those things on? It’s so impersonal.” Dr. Shinsou’s charisma drips in such a way that Aizawa’s no difficulty believing that women like Dr. Iwaya and Hitoshi’s mother would fall for him – at least, for a while.
All Aizawa makes from it, aside from an observation about Hitoshi being a great inheritor of looks, charm and quirks from his parents, is a deadpan, “I must.”
The view through Aizawa’s goggles is such that thin bars bisect Dr. Shinsou’s face, as well as the physical wall of bars between them adding further stripes to obscure his expression. The snapshot of the Doc this presents is a single dead eye and segments of a square jaw, far harsher in its angles than Hitoshi’s. “What brings the two of you back for my council? I was made to suffer quite horribly because of your insistence.”
“Seems like you had fun to me,” Aizawa replies gruffly. Dr. Shinsou raises a single eyebrow, which is where Hitoshi must get that little characteristic too.
“So what’s the deal with you and Shiyoko?” Hitoshi says carelessly, tossing out a new piece of bait to lure the predator’s eye. “I know there’s more to it than your little research session way back when.”
The Doc looks privately amused. “Do you now?”
“Well, she nailed your book all over her bedroom wall, so I kinda got the impression she’s obsessed with you,” Hitoshi lays out like he hasn’t got a fuck to give about his father’s fangirls. It’s only been hints, but Aizawa’s pretty sure Hitoshi’s got plenty of experience with nutty fans of the Doc’s work – his famous dislike of Psychs has to come from somewhere, for one.
Dr. Shinsou’s eyes are narrower than Hitoshi’s, but they get narrower still at this remark. “Hardly the first,” he replies calmly, and unfortunately, Aizawa can believe it. The more he digs, the easier it is to see how the Professor’s cult of personality would have supported him all the way up to – and into – his final ‘experiments’ into the extent of human self-preservation against brainwashing quirks. The resounding answer: quirks win.
“You did something to her, I assume,” Hitoshi accuses tonelessly, and before it can turn into a question from the Doc, he adds, “You do something to everyone.”
Dr. Shinsou continues to smile faintly. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Aside from the fucked-up entirety of my childhood?” Hitoshi accuses. “Do weird experiments, brainwashing at the dinner table, and pulling me out of school for fake medical emergencies ring any bells?”
Dr. Shinsou’s expression shifts, like a beautiful landscape painting that’s slightly different each time you look back to it. Still a pleasant, idyllic scene, but some important detail subtly shifts every time you blink. But paintings are not supposed to move, and the overall effect is entirely sinister. “I was trying to help you.”
“Did you help Shiyoko too?” Aizawa reaches in to steer the conversation in a new direction, more able to shape it as an observer than he could as an active participant. The outsider looking in.
Dr. Shinsou moves slightly, and his full gaze settles back in on Aizawa eye to eye – not that he should be able to know it, but somehow, Aizawa thinks the Doc knows when he’s got his eye on someone. “I tried, but she wouldn’t let me.” The Doc shakes his head. “At least, not back then.”
“So you’re saying she came around in the end?” Hitoshi suggests. “Let me guess. You wanted to see if her quirk was strong enough to make someone kill themselves?” Hitoshi’s a smart boy, there’s no doubt of that – another thing he gets from his father.
“That’s very good,” Dr. Shinsou says in a congratulatory way. “Given your presence here, I’d say we’ve succeeded in finding an answer to that question.”
“The answer I want is what you did to make her so goddamn crazy, but we all have to make compromises,” Hitoshi says derisively. “I’ll settle for what contact you had with her after the end of your research.”
“And I would share that information because?” There’s a backhanded suggestion in there, which only shores up Hitoshi’s insistence of Shiyoko’s supposed further contact with Dr. Shinsou. No one sleeps in the same room as that poster of the Doc without having enough complexes to build a whole apartment block. If Aizawa can believe it then it’s worth looking into. Because if you cut the bullshit, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
“Because you want to help your son prove the worth of his – of your – quirk.” Aizawa strides back into the conversation with his own quirk in full force, flaring from his eyeballs up to the tips of his hair. “Hitoshi is living proof of how powerful it can be in the hands of a Hero.” Quickly, Aizawa bounces his gaze over to Hitoshi to check how he’s faring. Aizawa could be wrong, but the tips of Hitoshi’s ears are definitely pinker than usual, the colour difference all the clearer against the violet backdrop of his hair. It’s a little ballsy, but Aizawa decides to push the cringe factor further. “It’s what a father would want for him.”
Dr. Shinsou’s face sours like a milk-and-lemon-juice mixer – aka one of Hizashi’s (in)famous cocktails. Better than one of the Doc’s infamous cocktails. No waking up with a hangover from one of those deadly tonics.
“That sounds rather like something you want,” Dr. Shinsou sneers, which is a great sign. Aizawa’s main purpose here is just to get under the Doc’s skin like he’s trying him on for a onesie. Rattle the cage a bit.
Aizawa blinks, and his quirk flickers and then carries on. “A good father would want to help Hitoshi achieve his dream,” Aizawa delivers in a dull monotone, as if specifying a particular spelling for some dry piece of literature he has to teach to an equally reluctant audience.
There go the signs of tension in Dr. Shinsou’s face again. “Is that what you fancy yourself?”
Then Hitoshi goes and throws it all to hell when he nudges Aizawa with a bony elbow and says, “Well, you did meet Ma yesterday.”
There’s a feeling in the room like an anchor hitting a lightless sea, the heavy throng of the metal churning through cold water and plummeting to the bottom of the ocean. Aizawa had wanted to provoke Dr. Shinsou… a little. Enough to loosen up his bolts. What he’s ended up with is the entire engine ripped apart.
“You met Akiko?”
That must be her name. Aizawa sticks on a post-it note in the back of his mind. There’s a cold terror in the Doc’s expression, a mist that clings to the surface of the water and creeps until the whole lake looks like a hole in the sky. Hitoshi doesn’t seem so sure of his gag anymore, but they’ve committed now so there’s no backing out.
“Nice lady.” Aizawa offers a concise report, his gaze still fixed wholly and immovably on the imposing figure of Doctor Shinsou. Fuck it, Aizawa thinks: stake the challenge. “You got a problem with that?” Aizawa has almost unlimited access to something the Doc doesn’t: actual quality time with Hitoshi. Teaching him, helping Hitoshi grow into the antithesis of what his biological father is (and wants for his son), but also just… getting to be a part of his life.
Perhaps the Professor has already taken measure of that intimacy, read the signs like runes to know just how much closer Aizawa and Hitoshi have become since their first meeting. A bonding experience is what the Doc said back then, and he’s been bitterly right so far.
“Has anyone wondered about you spending so much time with this boy you’ve no relation to?” Dr. Shinsou poses with a darting look between Aizawa and Shinsou like a lizard tracking a fly. His tone begs to be interpreted a certain way, but they’re not playing bite-the-hook on this one. A short silence passes before the Doc digs deeper. “People might talk.” People always talk, Aizawa hears in Hitoshi’s voice in his memory. Something he’s been told from an early age, perhaps. Us vs. Them, a classic tactic to try and retain control over his unruly progeny. Gaslighting that must have been carried out over years , while Hitoshi’s mother got herself and her son away from this monster.
“Not everyone’s into teaching the way you are, Dad,” Hitoshi warns like he knows exactly what a sordid, egotistical trip his father passes for being a mentor. “People call our quirk creepy, but it’s just you. You’re the creep.”
Dr. Shinsou looks to take this as a compliment. “Some would call it character.”
“Only people who’re as fucked up as you,” Hitoshi retorts angrily. “You realise I grew up with you, right? I know your pattern.”
This provokes a devilish smile, white teeth bared in Dr. Shinsou’s mouth like the fangs of a predator. “Enlighten me.”
“You pick someone vulnerable, screw with their head to rationalise your own twisted worldview, and then break them when they try to leave,” Hitoshi lays out like an autopsy report. Aizawa’s got no reason to doubt that’s exactly how it happens. “So which was it with Shiyoko?”
“Little Shiyoko wasn’t ready for what I had to teach her,” Dr. Shinsou finally starts to let slip. This is the trap they’ve sprung – a conversation with his son in exchange for information about the killer. Unstable bargain to strike, but one Hitoshi seems to be managing so far. Aizawa’s equal parts proud and worried for him. “Such a shame I can’t be there to see how she’s come along.”
“You wanted her to kill,” Aizawa says like it’s true, rather than a almost-confirmed hunch, but the Doc’s face is unreactive, so he keeps trying. “How did you get back in touch?”
Dr. Shinsou turns his carnivorous gaze back to Aizawa, and his expression shifts between the combined bars of his cell and Aizawa’s goggles. Both the Doc’s eyes – they’re violet, but in this light look practically black – find Aizawa’s through the shuttered view. Dr. Shinsou’s gaze burns like acid, and Aizawa is quite certain he can feel the Doc’s murderous intent as he asks, “Did you enjoy meeting my wife?”
“Can’t say I did,” Aizawa replies bluntly, activating his quirk as he feels the swooping talons come for his mind, only for them to glance off without finding purchase. Let the Doctor grab at air and come up with nothing. “But it wasn’t anything to do with her.”
“Yeah, you were pretty hungover,” Hitoshi jokes with Aizawa in a way that’s mostly gloss; there’s a part of this that’s just a “fuck you, dad” show of familiarity with his new (Aizawa bites the inside of his cheek a little at the term, but if the boot fits) father figure. They’re stuck somewhere between that, a big brother, and an irresponsible uncle. If there were only something that captured all three, in a not-actually-related package. Not that Aizawa really cares what the exact details of his relationship with Hitoshi are. It is what it is.
Dr. Shinsou does care, though, and that’s rather the point. “You’re setting such a fine example for my son.” The intention in the tone is naturally opposite to what the mere words convey. What the Doc is really trying to say is how dare you.
“Well, I haven’t killed anyone.” Aizawa lets his quirk down, and if Dr. Shinsou notices the connection in the movement of his hair, it’s a card he’s keeping in his hand for now. “So I’ve got that going for me.” Aizawa’s proud of that stat, actually. The only one that matters to him. Ten years, no manslaughter. Endeavour sure as shit can’t claim that. Neither can All Might, though the people he’s put in the ground certifiably deserved it.
“Or against you,” Dr. Shinsou contradicts.
Aside to Hitoshi, as if the simple bars that separate them from Dr. Shinsou are in some way soundproof, Aizawa suggests, “If Shiyoko’s obsessed, maybe she went to him.”
Hitoshi rocks his head back as if contemplating the scenario. “Yeah, that’d figure,” he replies with a diagnostic arrogance, staring his father down like he does presume to know how the Doc’s mind works. “I wonder how old she was? He likes them young, but not too young.”
“I don’t dabble with children, if that’s what you’re alluding to,” Dr. Shinsou snaps into the conversation with savage disgust, like he’ll commit murder but he’s clearly so far above anything as distasteful as that. Insane torture experiments with minors – yes, but nothing dirty about it, whatever sense that makes in this man’s minotaur-ridden labyrinth of a mind. Then the Doc’s attention moves slowly back over Aizawa, an uncomfortable prickle in its heat. “Do you?” This is played as a straight question, like asking which lunch menu to pick. “You said you were a schoolteacher, no?”
It’s just a trap, but Dr. Shinsou’s no less of a provocateur than his son – so up goes Aizawa’s quirk again, dumping the bucket of sand over the threatening embers of the Doc’s quirk. Not that he’s going to dignify such a rancid question with an answer anyway.
“Little Shiyoko makes me think she wasn’t… your type, let’s say.” Hitoshi drags on the reins of the conversation, saving Aizawa the temptation of biting on the Doc’s newest hook.
“What is it you’re trying to work out?” Dr. Shinsou asks as if he’s getting bored of the conversation. “Why should it matter what contact I had with her in the past? She’s killing now. ” His distemperment returns to a snide smile. “You can’t blame me for that.”
“Oh, I can try,” Hitoshi retorts, and Aizawa’s quirk is still going strong, so they can speak freely – that’s got to be uncommon for this father and son. “It’s your method she’s copying, the fruits of the research you just had to pursue.”
“The mind is naturally averse to limitations.” Dr. Shinsou’s sound-bite could be snipped out of one of his famous lectures. Aizawa’s found them online, though he’s never been able to get all the way through one. This squalid cell is far from the plush, intellectual trappings of a lecture hall, though somehow the Doc still makes it work. “It is a human trait to seek out ways to overturn the laws of nature.”
“That’s a lot of glamourous words for forcing people to commit suicide,” Aizawa points out crudely.
The Doctor begins to wax lyrical. “Like it or not, my experiment was the final frontier of mentalist quirk research. Before then, we had no proof it was even possible.”
“Well now we’ve got proof coming out of our ears,” Hitoshi drawls. “The trick is how to make her stop.”
“That's where the Doc comes in,” Aizawa interjects as more of a bargaining chip than realistic expectation. If they could just get him to fucking cooperate. “You drew the roadmap for how she’s killing. If anyone knows how it’ll end—”
“You suggested Shiyoko has been paying homage to my work.” Dr. Shinsou turns to Hitoshi like Aizawa isn’t talking at all. “They don’t tell me these things, of course.”
Aizawa’s starting to lose his patience, whatever small shred of it he had to begin with. Time for a change in tactics. “Hitoshi, there’s a camera in the corner pointed at this cell,” Aizawa begins without taking his eyes off the Doc. “Cover it.”
After a moment of stunned silence, Hitoshi stirs. “What are you gonna do?”
Aizawa toughs it out, his gaze still fixed on Dr. Shinsou, who’s looking right back. “I won’t ask twice.” Without further delay, Hitoshi complies, taking a few steps down the abandoned corridor to reach up and stretch his palm over the camera’s lens.
Aizawa has a sudden moment of realisation: that it makes perfect sense if mentalist quirks are seen as extensions of humans’ own ability to persuade, a fact evidenced now by Hitoshi’s performance of an order from Aizawa. It’s just that the Shinsous can bypass the person’s option to choose not to do something, to resist or act differently according to their own judgement. Aizawa realises how the Shinsou quirk isn’t brainwashing, but the suppression of free will through some use of their mental faculty. In Dr. Shinsou’s words, from somewhere deep within the 90% mind .
The Doc is standing just out of arm’s reach from the bars of the cell, but Aizawa’s got a solution to that as well. As quickly as he can move, which is pretty fucking quick, Aizawa flings himself to the front of the cell and drives his arm between a gap in the bars, flicking out a short length of his capture weapon, which he threads down his arm like a string on a puppet.
The end of the capture weapon whips behind Dr. Shinsou’s slim form and flies into the reach of Aizawa’s other hand, diving through a gap in the bars a few spaces down to grab the other end of the loop before the Doc can slip away.
As easily as lifting a basket of shopping, Aizawa pulls the Doc into his grasp and takes two solid handfuls of his faded grey overalls. A second after that, he’s stepped back and pulls Dr. Shinsou firmly against the cell bars, lifting his feet from the floor. “If you think I won’t hurt you to get our answers, then you’re wrong.”
In spite of his discomfort, the Doc still manages to look barely unsettled at all, hands remaining tucked neatly behind his back. Maybe they are handcuffed after all. “How Heroic of you.”
Without thinking much about whether he’s saying anything on-topic to the line of questioning they’re trying to pursue – try not to let him get to you , Aizawa had counseled Hitoshi like a damn hypocrite – Aizawa spits defiantly, “A criminal’s treatment should befit their crime.”
“Ohhh ,” the smooth vibrations of the Doctor’s murmur runs through Aizawa’s hands, clenched tightly in the coarse material of his prison-issue clothing. “Then you are familiar with my work.”
This is getting him nowhere, Aizawa relents with a final ‘worth a try’ huff of resignation. “Speaking of which.” Aizawa lets go and the Doc drops to his feet, the flash-in-the-pan of Aizawa’s bad cop act well and truly doused. Time for another change in tactics. “Forget Shiyoko. Let’s talk about your work, Professor.”
Dr. Shinsou gives Aizawa a long look of consideration and then carefully brings his hands up in front of him to smooth out the wrinkles left in his overalls. So his hands weren’t cuffed, meaning he kept them behind his back even while Aizawa dragged him to the front of his cell and off his feet. Thinking back on it, Aizawa’s not even sure he saw the Doc blink when he was grabbed. Maybe he was waiting, wanted Aizawa to do it all along. How would Aizawa know?
“What did you make him write?” Aizawa asks with a rusty hacksaw voice. “The policeman you commanded to gut himself when he came to arrest you.” If they’re going to have to play the game like this, indulging the megalomaniac’s vanity, the least they’ll do is put to rest some of Aizawa’s tormented late-night thoughts, missing pieces of the puzzle that is the evil Dr. Shinsou.
“That’s what Shiyoko copied?” Dr. Shinsou deduces effortlessly, or so it looks from the surface. “How the little girl has grown.”
“Answer the question,” Aizawa asserts more firmly, and when the Doc doesn’t yield, he broadens the scope. “Why did you do it?”
“Simple,” the Doctor responds with a smile that’s almost pleasant, if it wasn’t a vial of pure poison poured in a shot glass. “To prove that I could.”
“But there’s more to it, isn’t there?” Shinsou butts in. “You’re making a statement about something.”
“Then tell me what it is,” Doc tests playfully – still messing with Hitoshi, Aizawa can practically see the strings of the father’s maniacal hands over his the marionette that is his son.
“Give me the message, and I will,” Hitoshi states fearlessly.
“Alright, Hitoshi,” Dr. Shinsou says spitefully, and an actual chill runs down Aizawa’s back when the Doc continues, “but only because I love you.” It’s an ugly thought, and most certainly true, in whatever form of reasoning his twisted mind permits. “Death is Freedom. That’s what I made him write.” Dr. Shinsou lifts a hand to hold one of the bars of his cell, putting his face to the gap as if to get a full view of Hitoshi without these meddlesome, necessary barriers between them. “So then, son. Tell me what it means.”
Notes:
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsorrynotsorryihadtodoit.jpg
Taking a breath to recover from this, this chapter gives us SO many important moments and also features a couple of tribute/homages to the inspirations of this fic - both popular literary characters.
I also bought a house today and why not celebrate by dropping this bombshell of a chapter, because go me I guess?
Chapter 17: Wolf at the Door
Summary:
Death is freedom — and other concepts.
Notes:
Most readers: omg i hate dr. shinsou
Me & other weirdoes (heartxkisses lookin' atchu): BIG STAN THE MURDER DADI also know it's a good chapter when my editor calls the villain a "nerd-ass punk-as biiiiiiiinch" so I hope it pleases/enrages y'all just as much too.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“It means you think people want to die,” Aizawa answers for Hitoshi, who’s still reeling from the recent outpouring of fatherly affection and probably isn’t swinging at full speed right now. The dazed look on Hitoshi’s almost-mirror of Dr. Shinsou’s eerie visage suggests as much. But Aizawa’s quirk is still going strong, so he knows that Hitoshi’s just shocked, not brainwashed. “You believe you’re granting them the ability to act on a primal impulse to end their lives.”
“Now, now, that’s cheating, Eraser,” Dr. Shinsou polices like he’s had a sudden bout of morality. “You’ve clearly read my article, and I was talking to my boy.”
“I’m not your anything,” Hitoshi snarls, which is a key sign for Aizawa to remain involved before the situation goes into a full tailspin. Doubly so when Hitoshi turns on Aizawa and with a tone full of betrayal accuses, “You read his article?” Really it’s more of a confession, or perhaps a manifesto in the Doc’s eyes – the ‘academic paper’ that he self-published following the 99 Massacre, still easily available online for those who want a trip into the macabre mind of the mad Professor.
“It was research.” Aizawa shrugs. Best not mention how he’s been working his way through the book too – even if it was Hitoshi’s suggestion to read The 90% Mind in the first place. That was written long before the massacre, and though still tinged with the Doc’s unique egomania, is a great deal more sane than his “Freedom from Life” publication.
“What did you think of it?” Dr. Shinsou tracks back to Aizawa – like they're supposed to keep up with the quick-change of his whims over who’s the favoured subject of his attention. Whoever wants to talk about him, more or less.
“Cool paper. Still murder,” Aizawa deadpans. “That’s not important right now.” He’d steal a glance to check in on Hitoshi right now, except that Aizawa needs to keep his unblinking stare trained on Dr. Shinsou or he’s going to be taken over by a powerful brainwashing quirk. Aizawa feels it. The wolf at the door to his mind. It’s not as strong as Hitoshi, just entirely more desperate; but Aizawa would always fear the hungry beast more than one who's not a maneater.
“It means death is the only true escape from other people's control,” Hitoshi offers without further prompting. “Whether it's from a quirk, in a job or by society, we're always being manipulated in one way or another.”
“And people want to be free, don't they?” the Doctor poses craftily.
“Not the way you see it, but yes,” Hitoshi answers calmly, seemingly confident in the protection Aizawa’s quirk will afford him. But Aizawa feels the Doc’s claws scratching under the door Aizawa holds shut between the wolf and his pup. “I suppose this is all part of your sick plan to help people.”
“Of course I'm helping them,” Dr. Shinsou tuts. “That impulse belongs to us all. Well-” he diverts with suave confidence. “Most of us.”
“Sure, someone has to stick around and make sure people fulfil their innermost dreams to die in bloody agony,” Hitoshi scorns, then with an irony that hits just a little too close to home with Aizawa standing right there drips, “My Hero.”
Dr. Shinsou’s face still presses against the bars of the cell, close enough for Aizawa to see his mouth begin to move as if in reply and then stop as the exchange goes off textbook. “I–”
The Doc’s face is a wiped-down blackboard, wide-eyed and a mouth more sheer than the face of a cliff.
Hitoshi says, “Tell me how you got back in touch with Shiyoko.”
Lifeless, a picture-perfect example of control that has been taken from him, Dr Shinsou replies like a puppet worked from within, “She wrote to me.”
Aizawa shifts his gaze for a second to rest on Hitoshi, like a quick slap on the wrist to make a toddler drop something they just picked up off the ground. Whether it was Aizawa’s quirk or Hitoshi backing off, the Doc blinks, and the usual savagery returns to his expression. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see that,” Aizawa warns.
“You didn’t see anything,” Hitoshi contradicts.
“It’s really coming along, isn’t it?” Dr. Shinsou purrs. “Such a shame your mother wouldn’t allow me to study your quirk properly.”
“I hated your research and you know it,” Shinsou snaps, then like he’s ripping the knife straight out of his body to drive back into his father’s chest. “Ma was right to leave you, I’m only sorry she didn’t do it sooner–”
Dr. Shinsou’s hands leap to the bars of his cage, his fingers seizing the wrought iron in a grip so tight it aspires to twist the metal like pipe-cleaners, knuckles balancing as he snarls, “She had no right at all! It’s my quirk! My legacy you refused to–” Dr. Shinsou regains control of himself all at once, almost like he’s turned the stilling force of his quirk on himself. Aizawa permits himself to blink, and the moment he does, the Doc has turned back into an ice sculpture, hands folded neatly behind his back. “You continue to disappoint me, Hitoshi.”
“It’s my pleasure, dad,” Hitoshi replies vitriolically. “Literally nothing makes me happier than knowing what a fuckup I am in your eyes.”
“Shiyoko wrote to you,” Aizawa drags up with all the joy of pulling a body from the bottom of a river, “and then what?” But truly, he knows the moment’s gone.
“You know, I don't feel inclined to share that information anymore,” the Doc says coldly. Perhaps if Hitoshi hadn’t sprung his quirk the way he did, or if he hadn’t provoked the Doc the way only parents and children can needle each other. Aizawa senses the boat drifting away from the shore, closer to the waterfall’s current – the loss of Dr. Shinsou’s desire to have some kind of relationship with Hitoshi. Even the force of all his fatherly 'love' only overwhelms the Doc’s animosity toward anyone on the other side of the bars in passing spells. The Professor’s session concludes with a stiff, “I think you’ve learned quite enough for today.”
It’s irritating, but Aizawa has to accept it. Don’t tap a spring so hard it dries up, he’s learned that the hard way. “If you say so, Doc.”
“But we–” Hitoshi’s not ready to go, which is a pretty good sign they should get out of here. As the only level-headed member of this little party, Aizawa’s making the call to leave before this thing gets any uglier.
“I said we’re leaving.” Aizawa’s not negotiating. This might be the first thing he and Dr. Shinsou have agreed on, because there’s a shade to Dr. Shinsou’s numbing stare that’s not hostile...but rather approving. Aizawa suppresses a shudder of disgust.
“Yes, remove that failure from my sight.” The Doc dumps a generous handful of salt in the wound that runs head-to-toe through Hitoshi, and Aizawa sees him tensing, the clench in his jaw and defiance of his glare.
Spite for spite, Aizawa sets his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder and gently tugs. It’s not a sure thing, but this time Hitoshi yields, letting Aizawa peel him back from his father like pulling an IV out of his arm.
The safety of Aizawa’s gaze moves away from the Doc, his and Hitoshi’s backs turning as they walk away. But then the voice that caused a massacre echoes around them, as if it’s coming from everywhere. “One more thing before you go, Eraser.” This isn’t a suggestion or even an invitation, just a naming of terms as the Professor of Mentalism sees fit. “What was the message Shiyoko wanted to send?”
Aizawa keeps his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder, and they walk a step further, stopping only when he's about to lose peripheral vision of the Doc. Looking back over his shoulder, Aizawa’s able to lock one last quirk-erasing stare onto Dr. Shinsou, and goes for one more stab in the dark. “You know the drill, Doc. Quid pro quo: what happened after Shiyoko wrote to you?”
Dr. Shinsou’s mouth pulls thin across the cliffside angles of his face. Not a smile, something far more sinister. “You first.”
Aizawa feels Hitoshi trying to look back, to turn into a pillar of salt, but Aizawa holds him firmly by the shoulder and answers for them both. “She wants to be seen. To know that we’re watching her.” It’s a risk telling the Doc this with the hope of being reciprocated, but Aizawa hasn’t much to lose. “Your turn.”
“What else would one do upon receiving a letter?” Dr. Shinsou purrs condescendingly. “I wrote back.” Played, Aizawa thinks bitterly. All they have after this exchange is a tray of grit, and it’ll take a lot of panning to find the specs of gold among all the gravel. The Doc must know that too, because he sounds shit-eatingly amused when he says, “If you see my wife again, send her my love.”
Aizawa sees Hitoshi starting to turn, trying to regress and let himself be dragged back in on the riptide. Placing a palm square in the middle of Hitoshi’s back, Aizawa guides him gently forward. “Goodbye, Dr. Shinsou.”
The Doc doesn’t wave, but he gives a miniscule nod. “For now.”
The civilised negotiation had become a bare-knuckle boxing match; Aizawa’s not sure who won.
Aizawa walks Hitoshi into the transfer room, where the Warden can no longer be seen with his face pressed anxiously against the other side of the glass. With his free hand, Aizawa pulls the door shut and closes off the rest of the world. He can practically hear the strung-out internal scream coming from Hitoshi. Knowing more about his mother, and what could be possible with a quirk like the one Hitoshi’s inherited from both his parents, Aizawa wouldn’t put it past him. Something more knocking around in that dark matter 90% mind of Shinsou Hitoshi.
The first order of business is to ensure the door is locked behind them, so that maniac can’t get anywhere, which Aizawa attends to with greatest urgency. He checks and then double-checks that the door is definitely secure, enclosing the two of them in the smallish transfer room. Like the entire world has been put behind lock and key, Aizawa turns to face Hitoshi. Offering his foot to a landmine, he hazards, “You okay?”
“What the fuck do you think?” Hitoshi’s seething, like steam would shoot out of all his joints if he moved another muscle. The only reason Aizawa’s not going to talk about Hitoshi using his quirk back there is because the fact that he did means emotion has gotten the upper hand. If the kid had his head on straight, he wouldn’t have done what he did. Even if it was incredibly useful (and incredibly illegal).
However, Aizawa has handled his fair share of freakouts – he’s dating Hizashi – and knows what to do with a tightly wound coil. Hitoshi’s eye level isn’t far apart from Aizawa’s to begin with, so he only has to duck his head a little to be eye-to-eye and not looking down. At the same time, as if the lowering of his neck pushes up his arms like some kind of prehistoric bird, Aizawa lifts his hands to perch on each of Hitoshi’s shoulders.
Hitoshi’s eyes are downcast, even after Aizawa’s effort to get on his level. So he’ll need a little nudge. “Look at me.” That’s enough, and dark-ringed eyes lift up to Aizawa’s. As well as the purplish tint of the delicate under-eye skin, Hitoshi’s irises are ringed with a deeper violet band as if to match, flecks of the darker colour creeping from the outside in. Even Hitoshi’s eyelashes might be a very dark purple, rather than pure black of Aizawa’s… everything. Pitch black or grubby white: his two-hue colour scheme. Hizashi’s joked before that he knows Aizawa’s a relic because he’s printed in shitty monochrome, and even Aizawa can see it when he looks at himself in the mirror first thing in the morning.
With great care, Aizawa delivers the next instruction. “Breathe.” In that funny space where a followed order swims in the same vein as mind control, Hitoshi takes a deep breath at Aizawa’s command, and then slowly starts to deflate. Aizawa lets it sit a moment, just long enough to feel the soothing air of a moment to be present, allowing the chaos of the universe to hit true centre every now and again. “Better?”
Hitoshi gaze pinballs wildly around the cramped space of the transfer room like he’s going for a new high score. The epitome of teenage angst, he gives a low, “If this is better, I don’t wanna know what’s worse.”
It would be bad manners to laugh, so Aizawa goes for a sincere, “Me neither.” He gives Hitoshi one more solid pat on the shoulders, then turns his attention back to the locked door. It sits between them and Warden Tanaka, who can now be spotted sitting on a folding chair outside the door, doing a sudoku by the looks of it.
Aizawa knocks on the glass, and the Warden startles like Doc Shinsou’s popped out of the shadows to lay a hand on his shoulder – he hasn’t, thankfully. But Aizawa can’t help but feel these back-of-house cells are more isolated, and by merit of that bottleneck, easier to escape. It’s one long twisting corridor all the way from Doc Shinsou’s cell to the prison yard, which would be a powerful villain’s playground. Something that feels safer might not be safer, and stashing a monster in the most remote corner of a prison only means it’ll take that much longer to realise something has gone wrong.
The Warden gets up and comes close to the glass, looking suspiciously at Aizawa and Hitoshi. Like he could spot invisible puppet strings. Their ‘sanctity of mind’ was what the Warden wanted to ascertain, but in the moment of truth, how would he ever really know if Aizawa or Hitoshi (or both) were being controlled by Dr. Shinsou?
This makes it seem rather ridiculous when he raises a hand with two fingers outstretched. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
Aizawa rolls his eyes, like Hitoshi’s extravagant displays are rubbing off on him. “Is this for real?” He considers if this test is something they’ve actually developed with (or for) the Doc. It’d require risking someone being taken control of by him, which surely doesn’t bode well for anyone.
Because whether any of these defences against Dr. Shinsou would really work is not a fact you’d ever want to have to prove. The Warden’s face betrays a little of that fear, clinging to something he can do, even just to escape feeling totally resigned to his fate. “Answer the question, please.”
“Two,” Aizawa snaps. “Which is how many seconds you have to get us out of here before I lose my patience.”
The Warden complies after that, letting them out and re-locking the door before he leads Aizawa and Hitoshi away. “If you plan on coming back here again, it better be with a warrant,” the Warden grumbles on the way out across the deserted yard; the pastel sky above them is the only view of the free world Dr. Shinsou got today. Possibly for years.
Police involvement in this angle of their investigation seems much more likely when Aizawa and Shinsou get to the prison gates and find a cop car waiting outside them. Sitting against the bonnet of his undercover (but cop-if-you’re-looking-carefully) muscle-car, hands plunged into the cavernous pockets of his coat, Detective Tsukauchi looks all too interested in the pair he finds coming out of the prison gates on a Monday just as the sun is in the business of setting.
“Well, Eraserhead,” he practically whistles. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“I’ll tell you in the car,” Aizawa steamrolls over any attempt to banter; he’s not really in the mood for that fresh off the back of another sinister psychiatric session with Dr. Shinsou. “You can take us to the police station.”
“Why, is there something you’d like to confess to?” Tsukauchi keeps digging as he gets off his car bonnet and unlocks it without removing his hand from his pocket.
“Not me,” Aizawa murmurs ominously, opening up the back door of the car and waiting for Hitoshi to get in first. Without it ever being made clear that this would be what happened before it does happen, Hitoshi slides along the backseat to the other side and makes room for Aizawa to get in after him. It’s not just because sitting in the passenger seat will make Tsukauchi think he can chat to Aizawa more familiarly, and that’s a distance Aizawa would rather keep as large as possible; he can keep a better eye on Hitoshi back here too, rather than needing to crane around in the front of the car.
On which point, Hitoshi is sullen and withdrawn, but that’s so far so good. This kettle doesn’t give much warning before it’s about to start shrieking, but Aizawa doesn’t see any signs of it yet.
Hell, maybe Hitoshi’s up for just a little more. Aizawa leans forward and sticks his head between the seats in front, addressing Tsukauchi with the suggestion, “If you contacted Dr. Iwaya to ask if she’ll stay late to speak to us, it’d save her needing to come back to the station.”
“That urgent, huh?” Tsukauchi tuts, mucking around with his phone – hopefully sending that message Aizawa wants – before putting his key in the ignition. “Should I get the siren out?”
“Not necessary,” Aizawa replies as Tsukauchi starts the car and they pull away. Aizawa decides to preempt the inevitable by socking the issue in the face in round one and announces, “I’ve been accompanying Shinsou Hitoshi as a security detail while he visits his father in prison, and yes, we’ve spoken to him about the case.”
“I don’t need to ask why you’d do a thing like that,” Tsukauchi grouses as he accelerates to cruise at easily twice the speed he really needs to. The added sensation – of moving too quick to keep track of what’s coming next – has the adrenaline really pumping through Aizawa’s veins. “But I would like to know why you thought that wouldn’t be of interest to the police,” Tsukauchi continues, “especially after I just accused you of withholding evidence.” The detective’s no-bullshit smile is one of Aizawa’s least favourite things to look at, until with a particularly hard turn the car corners around a junction, throwing Aizawa into the backseat he belongs in with a meaty thump. Bearing cheer that sits wholly at odds with his aggressive driving, the Detective concludes, “That was yesterday, remember?”
“It’s not withholding evidence if I find it first and it takes you longer to catch up.” Aizawa tries to keep his cool, more interested in doing the work than the initial catfight. Tamakawa seriously can’t get promoted soon enough. “But since you asked nicely, we’ve confirmed that the killer had several periods of contact with Dr. Shinsou, and that he may have been grooming her to use her quirk to make people hurt themselves, even commit suicide.” Hitoshi is smirking next to Aizawa, which only makes Aizawa more glad for giving the detective the mouthful of brass tacks he deserves.
“Dr. Shinsou’s been in prison for nearly six years,” Tsukauchi cites like he could really spit pins. “If you’re suggesting he’s behind this, it’s a long time to wait.”
“An architect can claim to have built a house just as much as he could claim to have committed Shiyoko’s murders,” Hitoshi offers up like an unwilling witness under oath, glowering from the farthest corner of the police car that he’s managed to work his way into. If the door opened behind him, Hitoshi would tumble out into the road in seconds, rolling at high speeds, and just the thought alone makes Aizawa’s teeth clench. “The Doc’s hands didn’t create the final product, but they sketched out the blueprint.” Hitoshi’s got a way with words, that much is for sure, though it sometimes does him as many mischiefs as favours; he does sound awful creepy when he waxes morbid like an ancient poet – or a teenager.
“There’s no way he could have used his quirk on Shiyoko for that long.”
Hitoshi’s derisive scoff of laughter shows Tsukauchi’s ignorance.
“There’s more ways than quirks to get inside someone’s head.”
Tsukauchi’s speechless, so Aizawa decides to shift them on a bit with the announcement, “The Doc knows plenty about Shiyoko, but he’s not keen on sharing. Having his son there is the only way I can get him to talk.” Hitoshi scoffs at that too, and Aizawa resists growling that he didn’t mean for that to include Hitoshi using his quirk on his father – which is again, super illegal and the evidence would never hold up in court – because that would mean admitting it happened to the police. Which is the last thing Aizawa wants.
So in a way, it’s better Tsukauchi doesn’t know too much about all the technically illegal shit, given he’s supposed to build a case that stands on solid ground. Even if the detective is working to Aizawa’s design, painting by numbers after Aizawa casts the linework like the tip of a master’s inky paintbrush. After the way Tsukauchi has trotted after All Might with a paperwork mop and bucket all these years, he’s a self-professed expert at ‘handling’ Heroes (and their unorthodox ways… and egos).
“It kinda sounds like you don’t want me to pay a visit of my own,” Tsukauchi points out like that’s very suspicious, which is only (kinda) fair.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Aizawa mutters. “The Warden also wants a warrant before he's letting anyone back in there again.”
“Oh good, I wanted to do some more work anyway,” Tsukauchi replies with more false cheer; a ‘thanks for fucking it up, buddy’ if Aizawa’s ever heard one. “Are you at least any closer to catching the killer?”
“Get us to Dr. Iwaya and I’ll let you find out,” Aizawa replies.
“Better yet, why don’t I come see Dr. Iwaya with you, and we can cut out all this to and fro,” Tsukauchi suggests like a fussy waiter ‘recommends’ a particular wine. “Unless you’d like to refuse to cooperate with the police in this investigation.”
Aizawa gives the biggest, most upheaved sigh in the world – Hizashi would be proud of the drama. “I guess so.”
Dr. Iwaya is waiting for them in the lobby of the police station, perched on one of the waiting room benches and wrapped in a large felt coat with a collar that almost totally obscures her face. She stands when she sees Tsukauchi approaching, and Aizawa’s eyes are good enough to discern the slight change in her face when she recognises himself and Hitoshi strolling a few paces behind the Detective. More people than she was expecting, maybe.
This hunch is all but confirmed when the first thing Iwaya offers is a chilled, “When you asked if I wanted to meet you after work, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“Surprise,” Aizawa opens with a merciless deadpan. “Shall we use your office?”
Dr. Iwaya looks like she misjudged far more than she’s trying to let on, a twitch under one eye and a frown that’s pulled into a pained smile. She looks ridiculous, which is actually endearing on her. For once. “I suppose we shall.”
“Sorry, Doc, I’ll make it up to you,” Tsukauchi offers benignly, not knowing how wrong that term of address could sound to the wrong crowd.
Dr. Iwaya’s gaze lingers on Tsukauchi for a moment longer than Aizawa would call necessary, and then her doll-like eyes shut, thick eyelashes batting as she averts her gaze. “I should hope so.”
I wonder, Aizawa thinks of the moment, before casting it aside for something more relevant. “Don’t worry, Iwaya. This shouldn’t take long.”
“I’ll hope for that too,” Iwaya replies frostily, walking ahead of them with the large collar of her coat practically swallowing her whole head. Any overcoat enthusiast (like Tsukauchi) would surely be proud of the jacket’s enormousness in relation to her willowy build, and that’s when Aizawa has the solidified thought there could be a vested interest behind Tsukauchi’s desire to closely follow the contact they’re having with Iwaya. She’s a sad, beautiful woman, and a lot of men (Aizawa not included) seem to find that irresistible.
Iwaya removes the coat once they get back to her office, though Tsukauchi remains bundled up. Aizawa slumps into the single chair for guests, while Hitoshi makes straight for Dr. Iwaya’s comfortable office chair on the other side of the desk, settling himself in it like a cat who knows exactly which spot is most obnoxious to sit in.
Hitoshi is the first out the gate with a question, which he pitches while lolling back in Iwaya’s chair, looking suspiciously like he wants to put his feet up on something. “So how old was Shiyoko when you helped the Doc carry out his research on her?” Maybe Hitoshi’s got his head screwed back on after all — the wonders a nice, quiet ride back to the police station in a cop car can do for a person. Aizawa told Hitoshi he’d get used to it.
“Four or five years old, but I never met her. I told you that already.” Iwaya’s gaze shifts from Aizawa back to Tsukauchi by the time she leads into pregnant silence. Iwaya never told Tsukauchi about her history with Dr. Shinsou or the connection to the killer, in spite of it being a case he’s working. That gap in the detective’s knowledge was clear when Tsukauchi first heard about Iwaya’s history from Aizawa and Hitoshi, rather than from her.
“What else did you tell them?” Tsukauchi presses, and it’s hard not to detect a note of black-coffee bitterness in his tone. It’s probably hurt them both, this slight misjudgement of what they know about each other. Tsukauchi’s quirk might have prevented some of this, but it’d be a violation of trust if Tsukauchi ever used his quirk on Iwaya without her consent. If she’s lying to him (to anyone), it’s for a reason; for Tsukauchi to try and root those sneaky mistruths out like mice under the floorboards would only drive her further away from sharing the truth willingly.
“Dr. Iwaya used to work for my dad, way back when he was still a bigshot and hadn’t killed all those people,” Hitoshi jumps back in. Aizawa certainly can’t fault his tenacity. The teen makes a show of stopping, deliberately waits for Iwaya to look at him, and then offers, “Or did you want to tell them?”
“Please, go ahead,” Iwaya invites distantly, turning back to watch Tsukauchi on the other side of the room. “But you did say this wouldn’t take long.”
The detective loiters by the door, facing Aizawa and Hitoshi over toward the back, Iwaya between all of them like the true centre of this galaxy. At least when they’re in her turf; Dr. Iwaya’s office is all blue and grey tones, a higher ceiling than most of the detectives’ dingy offices on the lower floors, and everything about it feels as if it’s been put together to establish an air of a controlled safe space. For her and the patients, probably.
This comforting effect is somewhat ruined by Hitoshi spawled behind the Psych’s desk and Aizawa slumped in front of it. An image Hitoshi seems to be leaning into: “I assume that by the time Shiyoko got back in touch with Dr. Shinsou, you and him had long since fallen out.” Hitoshi lays this out like it’s barely even worth confirming, like he’s that certain no one would stay in touch with his father for long.
Aizawa’s conscious of how sketchy their timeline continues to be, in spite of all the Doc’s ‘helpful’ advice that he definitely didn’t give – like how old is the killer, and what age was Hitoshi when all this was happening? If Iwaya would answer Hitoshi’s questions, they might get to fill in a few of those blanks, but Aizawa wouldn’t bank on it.
“You could call it that,” Iwaya assents quietly. She takes a couple steps more, passing Aizawa like a cool breeze before coming to rest against the end of her desk, like she’s deliberately choosing to position herself between Aizawa and Hitoshi.
“What kind of things did you do with Dr. Shinsou?” Tsukauchi surges back into the fray, but the attention that Iwaya gives to his question comes off a little glarey. His phrasing could definitely have been better, because whatever happened between Iwaya and Dr. Shinsou is clearly hidden behind a fortified icecap littered with landmines.
What comes out of Dr. Iwaya, the former assistant of the murderous Dr. Shinsou, is an utterly methodical and sterile recitation, like she wrote these words a long time ago for an occasion such as this. “I performed setup for his experiments, writing up the notes, dealing with the cleanup. He wouldn’t allow me to be in the lab with the subjects, said it was more…” Iwaya pauses for a second, then hardens like steel in a fire, “intimate.”
Aizawa feels a terrible chill bite into his back and linger. But they do have a case to solve. “Do you still have those notes?” This is the question he came here to ask, the thing he’s banking on existing in some neatly filed notebook at the very back of Iwaya’s physical and mental closet. Skeletons indeed.
“Yes, but I–” Iwaya cuts herself off, lips pressed tight together. “My notes are confidential.”
“Dare I remind you that this is a police investigation.” There’s a touch more foreboding than sarcasm Tsukauchi allows to seep into his tone.
“I’ll talk to you about it, Detective.” Iwaya’s retort is a quick slap, and then her gaze whips across the room to land on Hitoshi, the insolent teen reveling in his literal invasion of her space. “I just don’t have to talk to him.”
“Touchy,” Hitoshi singsongs. “What did I ever do to you?” It might be after the fact that Hitoshi realises this is something his father said earlier, and the resulting scowl he breaks into is likely because of that let-him-in fumble. Iwaya really isn’t the woman to try out Dr. Shinsou impressions on.
“Nothing, I just don’t want to discuss this matter with a… child.” Hitoshi takes this well, all things considered. Meaning he doesn’t react by throwing a tantrum, which would be the childish thing to do.
“If what Shiyoko did for Doc’s ‘research’ is anything like what I had to do, I wouldn’t worry too much about my innocence,” Hitoshi puts forth in a way that draws those velvet-gloved fingers right up the back of Aizawa’s neck. The ‘I don’t have to use my quirk to get you to do what I want’ tone of voice. “But she probably got more of it than I did, so it’d be good to check the finer details.”
Iwaya doesn’t sound sorry at all as she says, “I'm sorry, I just don't feel comfortable with it. That work I did with the Professor falls within Doctor-patient confidentiality. Even if I did have the notes, I wouldn’t share them without a warrant and some form of…” She pauses again, that checking of herself before she reveals something from high up on that glacier of her true feelings. “Protection afforded to me.”
“Wow, are you that scared of him?” Hitoshi says with derisive glee.
“Of his quirk,” Iwaya accuses. “Which I think you know plenty about.”
Hitoshi looks a little taken aback by that, and Aizawa tries to remember if they’ve ever let on to Iwaya that Hitoshi inherited his father's quirk. Maybe Iwaya doesn't need to have it said out loud; she did say she'd recognise a Shinsou anywhere. Or maybe she only means that Hitoshi also knows what his father is capable of.
“Hey Eraser, why don't you and the kid take a walk?” Tsukauchi suggests like a hammer suggests a nail into the wall. It goes down about as well as can be expected.
“Why don’t you start, and we’ll follow on after?” Hitoshi comes right back at the Detective, and Aizawa knew it would only be a matter of time before Hitoshi also settled into a pattern of squabbling with Tsukauchi. Aizawa does kind of set the example, though, so it’s on him as much as the kid.
“How about this isn’t a joke, and I’m actually asking you to go.” Tsukauchi’s gone all Serious Detective on them. There doesn’t seem to be much of a way around Iwaya’s refusal to talk to Hitoshi. Unless Aizawa goes back to see Iwaya without Hitoshi, which still requires both of them leaving in the first place.
“C’mon, Hitoshi.” Aizawa lets out a grizzled grunt as he gets out of the chair he’d been happily melting into. “This would’ve been a drag anyway.”
Hitoshi doesn’t like it, but he does leave, getting up from Iwaya’s chair and skulking past her with a belligerent look. It lingers so long that Tsukauchi bristles when Aizawa and Hitoshi pass him on their way out. Tsukauchi withdraws a hand from one of those endless pockets and gives them a faux-cheery wave. “Don’t wait up now.”
When Aizawa and Hitoshi arrive in defeated commiseration at the police station break room, they find Yamaguichi pouring over a dogeared police training manual, seemingly alone. The station break room could be better considered a break-down room, as Aizawa has mostly only known people to spend time here when they’re desperate and have nowhere else to go.
Yamaguichi is here, but maybe that’s because she’s so new the soul-sucking aura hasn’t kicked in yet. Everything about this space is tired, from the grubby paint-job to the humming vending machine that cast artificial light where there might have once been windows, to the barely comfortable couch that holds the essence of a thousand asses. It’s dreary, drab and awful, but it’s at least a little brighter with Yamaguichi sat slap-bang in the centre of it.
“Hey, Mr. Eraser and Jack!” Yamaguichi seems as genuinely enthused to meet them – especially Hitoshi – as ever, and Aizawa has a funny thought about Hitoshi’s mixed results with women. The early forays of an inexperienced but occasionally smooth operator.
This all culminates in a grandiose show of teenage emotion, when Hitoshi’s deadpan drawl actually drops for once. He smiles at Yamaguichi and simply says, “Hey, Yankumi.”
Hitoshi’s already moving a chair from another table to join Yamaguichi when Aizawa asks, “Where’s Tamakawa?” He’s thinking that Tama might be outside smoking, and Aizawa would love to join him.
The answer he’s not expecting is a cheerful, “Oh, he’s asleep on top of the vending machines.”
This one, it has to be admitted, takes Aizawa a second to register. It does register, but there’s still enough to merit a follow-up. “Why?”
Yamaguichi elaborates with a cheery grin that’s obviously nothing to do with the chair Hitoshi’s pulled up to join her. “He says it’s real warm up there, and no one would ever think to look so he can actually get some sleep.” Yamaguichi shifts in her own chair to make room for Hitoshi. ‘Yankumi,’ as Hitoshi apparently calls her, is looking particularly like a fresh-faced rookie in her early twenties this morning. Understandably, she is perhaps of more illustrious status to a bushy-tailed teenager getting to experience the real world of Heroes for the first time.
If she’s fresh from the academy, only a week into the job when Aizawa met her last week, then it’s just as possible that Yamaguichi is also enthused with the newness of all this real-life experience like Hitoshi is. And all she really knows about Hitoshi is that he's Aizawa’s intern. The impression Hitoshi has given off so far around Yamaguichi is more of a mysterious, vaguely teenaged sidekick—someone who’s stood up for Yamaguichi, and then given her a cute nickname to boot. It’s a hell of an improvement on how he's been around Iwaya.
So rather than sit in on all that, Aizawa grabs a chair and uses it to climb up in front of the vending machines. There’s several machines in a row, so the overall space it creates is easily big enough for Aizawa to climb into. Not that he does right now, as toward the back of the narrow-ish space, but just about comfortingly close to the ceiling, Tamakawa is fast asleep with his face all smooshed up against one of his hands. Aizawa wonders whether Tama’s aware of the world of sleeping bags or if he actually enjoys snoozing like that.
Tama’s clearly not very fast asleep, as it doesn’t take more than a curious tap of Aizawa’s fingers against the top of the vending machines for Tamakawa’s eyes to shoot open, his pupils almost reflective for a moment as the light catches them from behind Aizawa. They dilate and then quickly contract into narrower slits. It occurs to Aizawa that Tama’s night vision is probably pretty good, and he should make use of that more often.
What Tama doesn’t look is super pleased about being disturbed from his nap, though he could surely be said to growl more than hiss, “What?”
Aizawa understands Tama’s irritation, though it doesn’t make Aizawa any more empathetic to be on the other end. He suffers from interrupted naps all the time—why shouldn’t Tama have to as well? Aizawa pretend-obliviously gazes around the cozy vending machine-nook. “This is a nice spot.” So nice he might steal it sometime.
With half his furry snout still smooshed against his hand, only one of Tama’s eyebrows visibly rises, but it’s more than expressive enough. “Unless you want to spoon, get your own damn spot.”
“Not now,” is Aizawa’s only half thought-out response to that particular inquiry, which just means that he doesn’t need to sleep urgently so whether it’d be practical or not to spoon isn’t an issue Aizawa has to deal with right now. He’s better off focusing on the decisions he does have to make, at least about how to get around this Iwaya-Hitoshi rut they’ve gotten into.
Tamakawa’s eye narrows, and he says, “Are you waiting for me to offer you a cigarette or something?”
“Let’s go for the cigarette,” Aizawa settles. Or something is far too big a pool to dive into head-first.
“Fine.” Tamakawa pulls his hand out from under his squashed whiskers and stretches.
But when Aizawa gets back down from the chair to let Tama out, Hitoshi’s no longer in the break room. This bemusement on his face must read, because Yamaguichi claps eyes on him and says, “Are you looking for Jack? We were chatting about Dr. Iwaya, and then he suddenly said he had to go.”
Without me? Aizawa almost says out loud in his shock. He turns around for a minute and the kid slips him so quick it’s practically insulting. Instead, his brows form deep furrows of worry. “What did you tell him about Dr. Iwaya?”
“Oh, just about how she helps us with counseling and stuff,” Yamaguichi gushes with a little colour in her cheeks, though that might also be factored into a lingering flush that’s fading post-Hitoshi’s departure. Aizawa wouldn’t know but doesn’t really care to anyway. “After the week I’ve had, it’s really great having her just upstairs to talk to whenever I want.” Maybe Yamaguich’s just glowing with the therapeutic qualities of Dr. Iwaya after all. At least someone finds her comforting to be around. “That quirk she has is really amazing.”
Shit. It hits Aizawa like a lightning rod. Hitoshi didn’t know about Iwaya’s quirk – it certainly hasn’t come up in the limited, tense contact he’s had with her. But if Yamaguichi let him onto it now… pieces fit into place in Aizawa’s head. Never mind the smoke break, he heads towards the break room door. “Which way did he go?”
Aizawa already knows the answer, but Yamaguichi confirms it. “Left, like he was going–” Aizawa is already out of the room, but he doesn’t need it to finish – back to Iwaya’s office.
Without wasting time explaining to Tamakawa, who probably just returned to his nap, Aizawa hits the stairs at about a sprint and just keeps running until he’s going vertical up the wall. From there, he jumps across the stairwell, leaping from side to side in the empty space down the centre of the column that runs through the whole building like a spine. With the aid of a few helping capture-wraps, Aizawa scales the few floors back up to Iwaya’s office in under thirty seconds.
This means that Aizawa gains some time on Hitoshi, but only enough that by the time he catches up, Hitoshi is already in front of Dr. Iwaya, stranded in front of her office in a pose like a poster for a noir film. Tsukauchi is off to the side looking kind of clueless, and as Aizawa gets closer he sees two things.
One: That Hitoshi’s hand is outstretched, palm turned upwards, and in it he clasps Iwaya’s slim fingers with great delicacy.
Two: That Iwaya is crying.
Notes:
Worth noting my editor also called Aizawa furry trash in this chapter too. And I mean......... *voice pitches up* I meaaaaaan....
ALSO catch me riffing a line for Aizawa from *another* famous TV detective... also a good reference for the more comedic aspects of this story. Someone got my Sherlock Holmes line from a recent chapter, so I'd expect *someone* to pick up this one too.
I KEPT forgetting a detail from the early part of this chapter to mention in this a/n as well and it's this - I started writing this fic looooong before Shinsou showed up again in the recent manga chapters, so while Kaminari 'you're definitely a ladykiller with a face like that' Denki validated my entire being of ladykiller!Shinsou in one fell swoop, they also *tried* to undermine all the mentalist quirk stuff by specifically stating something like 'a character can't be made to say information they know' to Shinsou while being brainwashed, although my earlier theory that he's a liar liar pants on fire remains unchanged.
Finally there's some big stuff with Iwaya coming up next - she's been a really divisive character who took a much more significant role in this story than I ever envisaged when I first introduced her, and I've been very pleased with how few/late people have been able to get any kind of read on her. Definitely tickles me little mystery writer bones, so I'm interested to know how the next chapter goes down following up on this. Wish I could say I'd stop leaving cliffhangers, but I definitely won't so uh... cya next week!
Chapter 18: Another Long Night
Summary:
Typical: Aizawa turns his back on Hitoshi, and in minutes he's reduced a woman to tears.
Notes:
At least the regularity of this fic's update schedule means that the cliffhangers won't last all that long, so with a relatively predictable amount of anticipation here's the continuation of this mess of a fic.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“What did I miss?” Aizawa addresses Tsukauchi, whose eloquent offering in return is a puzzled shrug.
“He just… said he’d prove it to her,” Tsukauchi murmurs softly, like he’s in the audience at a theatre while Iwaya and Hitoshi are performing on the main stage, but the play’s in a language he doesn’t speak.
“I'm sorry.” Iwaya’s voice is breathy, tone shattered like an expensive plate dropped on the floor. Tears building up in her eyes streak down her cheeks when she blinks, taking her carefully applied makeup with them. Her hand is still sitting in Hitoshi’s like an afterthought, until she quickly withdraws it, turning in a rush for her office door. “There's something I have to give you.”
“Easy, Doctor I.” Hitoshi's voice is velvet and crushed silk. He says it Dr. Eye, which is apt given Iwaya’s ability to look into a person’s mind with the lightest touch. Aizawa wonders if there's anyone Hitoshi won't pin a nickname to like a badge of honour.
“Is everything alright?” Tsukauchi sounds rightly concerned as he follows them all back into Iwaya’s office, and Aizawa wonders if he's put the pieces together. Doesn't seem like he's got much of a clue, though the mystery of women remains beyond the abilities of many a man. Not Aizawa: it makes no difference to him. All people are equal parts easy to read and the rest defiantly, humanly unpredictable.
“It’s nothing, just–” Iwaya's still doing an impression of a leaky tap, stopping and starting again as her painted face cascades down her cheeks to reveal the human underneath.
Her gaze flies wildly around the office as she takes a few steps and stops in the middle of it, but she keeps coming back to Hitoshi, soon fixing on him inescapably as she blinks a fresh sheet of saltwater down the panes of her face. As if it’s the most important thing in the world, Iwaya reaches for Hitoshi’s hand again. She clasps it in a fairy-light touch that must relight the connection of her quirk to Hitoshi’s mind, evidenced by the powerful new wave of emotion in her voice as she tells him, “You're nothing like your father.”
Hitoshi's voice is soft, an actual walking cliche as he replies, “I know.” Their hands break again, but Hitoshi stays close to Iwaya, who drops into the empty guest chair in front of her desk while Hitoshi leans back against it, less than an arm away from her. “But I don't blame you for not being sure.”
“What has this got to do with the kid's whack-job father?” Tsukauchi asks jealously from the back of the pack, and Aizawa's certainly not filling him in at such a crucial juncture.
“If I were anything like that man, no one in their right mind would share information about his work with me,” Hitoshi explains calmly, glancing up at the detective for a moment before taking his purple mist gaze back to Iwaya. “We're on the same page now though, aren't we?”
Iwaya nods, eyes cast down. “I'm sorry to break down like this in front of you all,” Iwaya says into her lap. Then, in a remarkable show of confidence and intimacy, Hitoshi reaches over to gently blot the trails of tears down Iwaya’s cheeks with the back of his fingers. More surprising yet is that Iwaya actually lets him, even though – perhaps especially because – it gives her another dose of looking into Hitoshi’s mind when they make such a natural but unnecessary contact. Iwaya’s eyes even flutter shut for a moment, and it occurs to Aizawa that if he used his quirk on her right now it'd throw a bucket of water over this bushfire. He’s not going to, yet, but it remains an option.
Because, as a terminal boundary-pusher, Hitoshi just has to take it that little bit further. Hitoshi waits for Iwaya’s eyes to open and meet his before he says in a voice so smooth it could be spread on toast, “Cheer up, beautiful.” He turns away to pull a tissue from a box on the corner of Iwaya’s desk and holds it out to her. “No one's pretty when they cry.”
Tsukauchi looks gobsmacked, like he can't believe he's watching a kid half his age put the moves on the same woman he's got his eye on. It's a little audacious, Aizawa will give it that. But he's fully accepted the reality: for all his tender years, Hitoshi is a bit of a flirt.
Iwaya gives a strangled laugh-sob, which is hopefully Hitoshi’s intended effect, and takes the tissue like she can’t believe she’s being hit on by a(nother) Shinsou. Aizawa can acknowledge, if not appreciate, just what it is about Iwaya that makes her so irresistible. The lonely beauty who waits patiently for her one true companion to join her.
Aizawa’s of the opinion that anyone of Dr. Iwaya’s looks and position who is alone wants to be so – or certainly isn’t looking for anyone in a hurry. But try telling the scores of people who step into the ocean at a siren’s call.
It’s with a soft sigh that Iwaya pulls a compact mirror out of her bag, beginning the cleanup operation after stemming the downpour on her face. It’s into an almost comfortable never fully realised silence that Tsukuachi offers, “So would anyone care to fill me in on what just happened?” The Detective is caught somewhere between bitter and butthurt, which isn't the best of looks on him.
“The Doctor’s had a change of heart about sharing those notes with us,” Hitoshi answers with all the composure Tsukauchi is lacking right now. He tilts his head back to meet Iwaya’s gaze. “Isn't that right?”
“I’ll get them now,” Iwaya says with shaky breath that's just starting to settle, reaching for her bag to withdraw a bundle of keys to unlock her desk.
“Wh– you had them here this whole time?” Tsukauchi comes off a touch conflicted. Serves him right for thinking he could take a Psych at face value: one hard-learned lesson for the naive detective. “What about the warrant, the protection?”
“I trust him.” Iwaya is looking at Hitoshi first, but turns over her shoulder to tar Aizawa and Tsukauchi with the same brush. “All of you.” For perhaps the first time, Aizawa thinks he's looking at Iwaya's true face, tear-streaked and divested of the many walls she's built to keep herself safe all this time. “Please find a way to stop her, to stop all of this.”
“We will,” Hitoshi assures before anyone else can get a word in. “I give you my word.” That's equivalent to a contract in blood, the way his family go. Whether Heroic or Villainous, it’s sure enough that a Shinsou achieves what they set out to do, or gets sentenced to consecutive life sentences for trying. And if it is a blood pact, Hitoshi's got an incredible propensity for spreading the stuff all over himself, though Aizawa's solution is to wear black at all times, so he's not one to talk.
“Or you could leave it to the police, you know. Not put us out of a job and all.” It's hard to tell if Tsukauchi is joking or not, but the feeling Aizawa gets is he's probably not.
Iwaya composes herself and gets up, circling her desk and unlocking the drawers, from which she produces a locked file. From another drawer she takes out a combination-locked capsule, and from that produces an intricate key that unlocks the file. Anyone would think she’s paranoid about the security of her information. The drawer is neatly organised with dividers, which Iwaya walks her fingers along until finding the section she wants.
She withdraws a wedge of papers and holds them out to Hitoshi of all people. “These are just copies. The originals are in my safe at home, but I trust this will be sufficient for now.”
It’s like a bad joke: A Police Detective, a Licensed Pro Hero, and a Qualified Psych are in an office together – and the Psych hands her critical evidence to a first-year General Studies Student with a brainwashing quirk.
“You're awfully prepared for this,” Aizawa observes without trying to make it accusatory.
“Not for this, but I have prepared.” Iwaya is marbled and cold, but Aizawa has learned enough of her to know this is no reflection on the people she's with, just the subject she's handling. No one shuts down emotion without a reason, and with the shadow of Dr. Shinsou looming in the past, Iwaya’s got plenty to be afraid of.
“Prepared for what?” Tsukauchi asks, only to get a pitying look from everyone in the room.
“To give evidence against Professor Shinsou,” Iwaya answers solemnly. Aizawa catches a look on Tsukauchi’s face that seems to envy the very tissues that have touched her cheeks. She does cut a compelling picture, and Aizawa acknowledges how it might affect some people – not him of course. He's just interested in the evidence.
“You’ve been waiting a long time, huh?” Hitoshi puts to Iwaya, sliding a little further back to go from leaning on her desk to actually sitting on it. He starts to flick through the notes, but his face quickly falls, followed moments after by his hands as he lets them down. Not ready for what they contain, perhaps.
“I had thought it might not be necessary, after—” Iwaya trails off. They all know: he’s already in prison, the finite point in the Shinsou Family timeline, post-massacre.
“Doesn’t feel much safer knowing he’s behind bars, does it?” Hitoshi isn’t feeding Iwaya a question for a certain response – like some admission to prove she’s afraid. It’s a hand of empathy, Aizawa thinks, probing to see if she feels the same way he does. Iwaya shakes her head, an agreement in this context, and sniffs as the waterworks start up again. She reaches for another tissue that’s just beyond her grasp – they’re not usually meant for the person on her side of the desk.
Hitoshi pulls the tissue out and holds it out to her, another quick brush between their fingertips that Aizawa catches with sharp eyes. Tsukauchi might notice too, because he looks crossly bemused by the reality that he’s been ousted by a teenager—which, if anything, reflects Tsukauchi’s underestimation of this particular teenager.
Aizawa crosses the room and stops about an arm’s reach away from Hitoshi, holding a hand out expectantly. He expects Hitoshi to know that he sure as shit doesn’t want to hold Hitoshi’s hand. Dr. Iwaya’s world might light up when she touches Hitoshi, suddenly positioned in the centre of all floodlit “hundred percent” of Hitoshi’s mind. But Aizawa's been a teacher long enough to have seen all manner of flourishing adolescent romance, and he’s much more interested in the notes than Hitoshi and Iwaya's newfound love of skinship.
“Extra homework for you,” Hitoshi remarks as he offers up the wad of papers, which Aizawa takes and quickly starts to flip through. Dr. Iwaya has neat handwriting, dated entries of a meticulous student getting a big chance to work for the most famous professor in the field. An opportunity that turned so sour she kept the tear-stained evidence against him for years in a triple-locked safe.
“And you,” Aizawa replies without looking up. The notes cover more children than just Shiyoko who underwent the Doc’s ‘assessment’, but with a careful eye it’s easy to pick out which numbered subject is Shiyoko. Named 44 by a cruel twist of fate, the number and nature of the different assessments dwarf any others in Iwaya’s notes, amended with frantic scribbling in the margins and less neatly kept than the earlier ones. There are more scanned coffee stains on these pages, copied and printed on office paper that’s become perfectly flat the way only long-settled sheets can get. This file could be anywhere from six to sixteen years old – however long it’s been since Iwaya assisted the Doc with his ‘research’, long before the man went to prison.
Aizawa scans a line or two, and the findings are as unsavory as he expects. It’s mostly requests of equipment from the Doc, along with instructions on how to set up the room and documents for recording the results. But the experiments sound… strange.
For example, 1 jar of cockroaches (live), chopsticks and soy sauce (optional); or the one requiring marker pens (3), scalpel (1) and first aid kit (1) to plot information in a table mapping length and depth of incision; and of course the classic time until quirk stoppage against minutes until unconsciousness, with an additional note on the margins of that one reads scale for time too short, and another one that reads 5+ mins = and then there’s a little skull and crossbones drawing, but it’s amazing how such a trivial detail can jar so much. Like biting into a ball-bearing in a mouthful of food.
Aizawa stops reading, and when he lifts his eyes from the page his gaze falls straight into Hitoshi’s; he’s looking right at Aizawa, waiting to be seen. Aizawa glances back down and sees hammers (1) and mice (live) written on one of the setup lists, and like a static shock, Aizawa reminds himself these are the same experiments Hitoshi was made to participate in too. There’s something in Hitoshi’s intense stare that knows it. A ‘look what he made me do’ call for… something. Not pity, but certainly understanding. Compassion, maybe. Why Hitoshi is the way he is. Even if he’s got nothing to be sorry for.
“Did you notice the date?” Hitoshi asks Aizawa carelessly, though it’s a cover and they both know it.
Aizawa glances again and sees nothing that clicks for him. “So?”
Then Shinsou says, “The first test is from about a month before I was born.”
It hits Aizawa like a fist to the gut, something he didn’t know before and had no need to think about until now. The next realisation that falls out of this information is that Hitoshi must have turned sixteen recently. Maybe even since he and Aizawa started… training. He didn’t say anything about it being his birthday, but then, Hitoshi wouldn’t.
Somehow, the first response from the jostling crowd of thoughts that makes it out of Aizawa's mouth is, “Guess I owe you a happy birthday.”
Hitoshi settles for a gobsmacked, “Thanks?”
Things get a little awkward after that, which Aizawa takes as a cue to return to examining the notes. Iwaya recomposes herself and then puts her secure file back in her locked desk, while Tsukauchi just loiters, waiting until he can get an explanation that makes some kind of sense to the poor detective.
They’re on their way out of the police station, Aizawa and Hitoshi at the front followed by Tsukauchi and Iwaya at the back – swaddled in her great big coat again – when Tamakawa finally catches up. Maybe he decided to finish that nap, or maybe he just couldn't find them fast enough. A few paces behind Tama comes Yamaguichi, bounding like a puppy and almost skidding into Tama’s back with how quickly she has to stop.
“What the hell, Eraser.” Tama’s voice is low, sort of growling but without an air of intimidation to back it up. It just comes out like a husky purr, “You drag a guy out of bed and just run off like that?”
Tsukauchi and Iwaya stop whatever conversation they were having in secretive murmurs and look over at Aizawa. A second into the questionable pause, Hitoshi and Yamaguichi both burst into laughter that defuses the moment entirely.
“C’mon.” Tama tugs on Aizawa’s arm, which isn’t going to budge him one bit, but that doesn’t mean the attempt isn’t appreciated. “Don’t I owe you a cigarette?”
“Sounds right to me,” Aizawa replies with a shrug, letting Tama move him, peeling away from Tsukauchi and Iwaya only to find Hitoshi stall in the middle. “You coming?” Aizawa asks simply, and Hitoshi’s glance leaps from the Detective and Iwaya back to Aizawa, before finally coming to a stop on Yamaguichi.
In profile to Aizawa’s line of sight, just one corner of Hitoshi’s mouth lifts, curling open as he tells Aizawa, “I’ll catch you later.”
“So.” Tamakawa takes the filter of the cigarette from his muzzle with long-nailed fingers and blows a puff of smoke up into the alleyway that just about constitutes Aizawa and Tama’s informal office. “You’ve been busy.”
Aizawa lets out a long sigh and drags on his cigarette. “Where do you want me to start?”
Tama’s a smart cat so doesn't disappoint Aizawa with the inquiry, “How does Dr. Iwaya factor into all this?”
“Have you ever heard of Dr. Shinsou Masaru?” is Aizawa’s response, which Tama can’t figure out as a logical counterpoint to his question, going by the disgruntled shake of his whiskers.
“It rings a bell, but I can’t remember why.” Tama takes another lazy pull and waits for Aizawa to carry on.
“He’s a famous Professor of mentalist quirks. Firstly for his groundbreaking research, and then for all the people he killed using his brainwashing quirk.”
Tama stops dead with his cigarette midway from his mouth. “Wait, that’s the cop-killer?”
“His original plan was just to kill his students,” Aizawa replies dryly. “But he also murdered the officers who tried to arrest him.” And an unpublished, closely guarded number of individuals since then, Aizawa reckons. The Warden doesn’t have the security controls he does for the Doc without a good reason.
Tama’s putting the pieces together, puffing thoughtfully, and it’s interesting to watch. “By making people kill themselves?”
“Exactly,” Aizawa congratulates. “Before he committed the massacre, Dr. Iwaya used to work for him.” After a quick break to drag on his cigarette, Aizawa adds, “It’s around that time he first met our killer.”
If Tama’s got the right instincts – which Aizawa thinks he does – the questions he asks will follow a chain of logic, narrowing down the options like whittling a stick into a fine point. “What for?”
“The Doc conducted research on children with mentalist quirks,” Aizawa replies. “The killer was one of his subjects.”
Tamakawa looks about as impressed with that as any sensible person should be. “And Dr. Iwaya was complicit?”
“Yes, although it happened long before he killed anyone,” Aizawa sets down carefully. Iwaya’s clearly been troubled by her experience with the Doc, if her incredible defences and crying jag are any indication, and there’s no need to go undermining a good lead with a poor telling of her backstory. “It means she’s a valuable contact to Dr. Shinsou and the killer.” And has the human equivalent of Caution: Fragile Goods stickers plastered all over her.
“For you, at least.” Tama gives a more spiteful puff. “I’m going to end up on report if the Chief finds out I’m still following this case.”
Aizawa doesn’t like that, so he just says what he’s been thinking this whole time at long last. “I’d prefer if you were a Detective on it.” Especially because Tama’s the one who found this damn case in the first place. Without Tama’s call to Aizawa slightly less than a week ago, Aizawa would still be none the wiser, and the police would be chasing their tails over this newly sprung killer.
“So would I, but that’s not really a surprise, is it?” Tama replies bitterly.
“Why hasn’t it happened?” Aizawa asks. He’s not great at sensitivity, but he can do direct and honest, which often counts for more.
“There’s no ‘openings’ for a detective, Chief says,” Tama replies tersely, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette.
“Ah, because there’s clearly not enough crime to go round,” Aizawa mutters. It’s hard not to let it grate on him – good people denied the advancement they deserve, unrecognised for their ability because of some petty canine-feline bias. He’s a real sucker for that.
“It’s fine,” Tamakawa says like it isn’t and he knows that. Aizawa would be wise to let it alone, and probably won’t. He can simmer a grudge like no one else – at least according to Hizashi. “So what’s so special about Dr. Iwaya that’s worth your kid bolting like that?” So Tama did have his feline ears pricked from on top of the vending machines.
“She’s kept notes from the experiments Dr. Shinsou conducted on the killer,” Aizawa replies without addressing the ‘your kid’ bit just now. Especially when it’s slightly more true every time Tama says it – which is when it first occurs to Aizawa that maybe Tamakawa had it right all along. If so, he’s too good a Detective to pass over: Chief Tsuragamae must be out of his doggone mind.
“That creepy mentalist shit?” Tama makes a face, clearly still put off by the whole mentalist angle. He’s a little too squeamish about that aspect to be as useful as he could be on this case, and the instant counter-thought that occurs to Aizawa is that Tama should experience Hitoshi’s quirk – because then he’d understand there’s nothing bad or creepy about it. Not when the person who holds your mind in his hands hands is worth calling a Hero.
And Hitoshi might not be a hundred percent there yet, but Aizawa will admit he’s respectably good for his age.
“The sort of thing that’d deeply traumatise a young child, sure,” Aizawa only confirms as much to Tama as he needs to know. Even if Hitoshi took Dr. Shinsou’s worst and still came up roses, not every plant grown from that particular training ground smells quite so sweet. “And we found out from another source that the Doc and Shiyoko started to correspond again at some point after that.”
“Correspond how?” Tama queries like Aizawa’s choice of words puzzles him. “You mean they wrote each other letters?”
“Seems that way,” Aizawa confirms.
“Huh, retro.” Tamakawa shrugs and finishes his cigarette, stubbing it against the wall and then binning it in the ashtray that’s been bolted to the wall sometime in the past week. Maintenance must have finally got the hint. “So what happens next?”
Tamakawa smokes faster than Aizawa, so Aizawa is still pulling the last gasps from his cigarette, the pungent cloud on his breath when he finally speaks again. It’s not to directly reply, because for now there’s nothing they can do, except keep looking for a lead hot enough to follow to the killer. Which inevitably means one thing.
“It's just a matter of time,” Aizawa says before he finally chokes out the cigarette, sucking it right to the filter and stubbing out with attentive purpose. “She could be murdering her next victim right now.”
It comes out a little morbid, but Aizawa’s point stands true. Fresh bodies give hot leads, while obscure experiments from sixteen years ago are colder than Dr. Iwaya herself. Nights and mornings are Shiyoko’s prime windows, too, though Aizawa knows – as much as he wants to – he can’t try to patrol the whole city for one girl with a murderous marker pen. Onwards goes the game of cat and mouse.
All they can really hope for, Aizawa thinks morosely, is that the next one will be the last.
Somehow he’s not convinced.
Their party reunites back at the entrance of the police station, where they first found Iwaya waiting for them. She's waiting again, but now so is Detective Tsukauchi, sitting patiently in the chair next to her. On the other side of the corridor, Yamaguichi and Hitoshi are huddled around a phone – Hitoshi’s, Aizawa thinks. He wonders if Hitoshi and Yamaguichi traded information. Hitoshi could surely get the digits, though what he’d use them for is beyond Aizawa.
“You all coupled off nicely, huh?” Tamakawa teases primarily to get a rise out of Yamaguichi – at least, she’s the one who reacts most. This is by going bright red almost immediately, while Hitoshi sniggers like he’s proud of it. He probably did get her info, Aizawa reckons. That… should be useful?
“You’re one to talk,” Hitoshi rips right back with an oh-so-amused scoff on his lips; he pushes himself onto his feet, swaying for a moment like a rod of bamboo in the wind. Strong but still flexible. His glance flits around the room with playful accusation, still good-humoured as he suggests, “So, who’s giving me a ride home?”
“I guess that’s… me.” Yamaguichi’s just going even redder in the face, even if there’s nothing strange about it – she’s been giving them lifts since the start, before Hitoshi was even involved in this case. It’s just the context that’s making her flustered, which Hitoshi (and Tamakawa) both seem to find delightful.
“You can drop me on the way then,” Aizawa offers like it’s a convenience. It isn’t really, but he’d like a ride too.
“Not so fast,” Tsukauchi intercedes, standing while Iwaya remains seated – her gaze lingering thoughtfully on Hitoshi. “We aren’t waiting for a bus, you know.”
“Does the nosey detective route not stop here anymore?” Aizawa returns dryly, but Tsukauchi ain’t fooled.
The detective holds his hand out, fingers curling in invitation. “Remember that talk we had about police evidence?” Aizawa releases a deep sigh and tugs the zip of his jumpsuit down a little, reaching inside to fumble with an interior pocket and pull out a wad of paper. He place it in Tsukauchi’s hand and a moment passes. “Eraser,” the Detective remarks politely. “This is a camping equipment catalogue.”
Aizawa takes a second look. “So it is.” He fumbles in the same pocket again, and this time withdraws Iwaya’s notes. But these Aizawa hangs onto, keeping them clasped in his fingers just out of reach of Tsukauchi’s. “I haven’t had a chance to read them yet.”
“Neither have I,” Tsukauchi points out. “You see our dilemma?” Iwaya’s looking a little impatient, and Aizawa has the sudden realisation that she’s waiting for Tsukauchi. Maybe he’s going to make it up to her sooner than expected.
Aizawa contemplates the situation a moment, settling on the only logical solution. He keeps hold of the notes and slumps into one of the deliberately uncomfortable waiting room chairs. “I’ll stay here and read, then,” he suggests. “I’ll leave them on your desk when I’m done.”
Tsukauchi’s face twists like there’s a joint hidden somewhere behind his ear that tightens every line of his expression. This technically doesn’t inconvenience him at all – police evidence stays in the police station, and the Detective clearly wasn’t about to dive into the notes anyway. Dive into Iwaya, perhaps, and who knows what information a clever detective might be able to drag up that way. Tsukauchi is better at his job than Aizawa usually gives him credit for – he doesn’t need it, guy knows his own value.
“Fine, fine,” Tsukauchi begrudges in the end. “Use my office if you like.” He waves the camping catalogue at Aizawa, who quickly snatches it back.
“Not necessary,” Aizawa says with a quick glance at Tamakawa. After a moment’s consideration, he offers the magazine to Tama. “I’ve got a spot sorted out.”
“Then I guess this is goodbye.” Tama takes the catalogue with a critical eye but sticks it in a pocket and pats Aizawa on the back fondly before he walks over to join Yamaguichi and Hitoshi. They’re probably back on duty soon, getting ready for the night shift as the afternoon ticks over into evening. “See ya later, Eraser.”
“Later, Tama,” Aizawa returns, swiveling around to hang his legs over the armrest and flopping flat on his back against the unforgiving row of plastic seats. He holds Iwaya’s notes up above his head and flips to where he left off – it’s about to be another long night.
“Guess I’ll catch you tomorrow too.” Hitoshi’s tone is a little more distant this time, even though he still wants a goodbye from Aizawa; maybe it’s being in front of all these people, disguising the intimacy he’s usually keen to flaunt. Maybe Hitoshi’s feeling a little exposed, knowing Aizawa’s about to scour the details of what Dr. Shinsou did to children just like him.
Hitoshi might be Aizawa’s intern, but that doesn’t mean they have to do everything together. The kid’s presumably still got homework to do. Aizawa gives a lax wave, tilting his head far enough to catch sight of Hitoshi, towering over Aizawa from this position. With a wry grin, Aizawa offers, “Try to stay out of trouble.”
Hitoshi manages a tentative smile back, passing as softly as an owl flaps between the trees. “You know me.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa puts his attention back to the pages over his head, a smile of his own that’s there for all to see. “That’s half the problem.”
Everyone else finally leaves, and Aizawa reads in the waiting area awhile before going to check out Tama’s spot on top of the vending machines – he’s right, it’s pleasantly warm, and the low humming even lulls Aizawa into a short sleep for an indeterminate number of hours as the evening turns into night. Aizawa’s awoken by the impassioned ballad of his phone, and he sits up too fast in a startled state and knocks his head on the ceiling.
Rubbing his forehead as he flops back down and answers, Aizawa’s already sighing when Hizashi’s dulcet tones come bellowing down the line. “And where the fuck are you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Aizawa replies coarsely.
Hizashi gives a whinny like a horse that’s had enough of its tiresome day-job. “You sound like you just woke up.”
“Thanks to you.” Aizawa rubs his face; it is a good thing Hizashi woke him, really. He didn’t come here for a nap. “I’m working on something.”
“Napping doesn’t count as work,” Hizashi scolds. “We’ve been over this.”
Aizawa smiles, wondering what time it is and what point Hizashi’s reached in his evening routine. “Are you at home?”
“Not yet, but if you’re not gonna be there maybe I’ll sack off domestic bliss and go for a drink with Kayama after all.” After the weekend’s drinkathon, Aizawa’s got no desire to get back into that rotten stuff anytime soon. How Hizashi manages it is a feat to Aizawa – something about being a rockstar, Hizashi would surely claim.
“Have fun.” The coded implication behind this, a subtle language built up over fifteen years of friendship, is that Aizawa’s got no interest in joining Hizashi for this pursuit, and moreover wants to be left to whatever it is he’s doing. A shriekathon with Kayama and Hizashi is alright for people who like being stuck in a cage with two equally loud canaries for a few hours, but Aizawa’s got things to focus on, and he knows what those two do to his attention span.
“I’m always fun!” Hizashi caws; that’s mostly true. “Love you.”
“Love you too.” Aizawa hears a couple of people in the break room who aren’t visible from this top-tier napping spot. He wonders if they’re confused by the vending machines making random declarations of love, but Aizawa can’t tell so it effectively doesn’t matter. Hizashi’s still making kissy noises as Aizawa says “See you later,” and hangs up.
Much later.
In a bid to actually stay awake, Aizawa leaves the soothing mechanical womb of the vending machines – to a few weird stares from the night-shift workers, but no actual questions – and retreats to Tsukauchi’s office. The shared room is blessedly empty and far less comfortable in a way that allows Aizawa to actually concentrate on reading Iwaya’s notes. As well as a few of Tsukauchi’s that he’s left lying around.
There might be nothing in these notes, but if there’s just one thing that gets them closer to catching the killer then it’s worth the whole night. After a while Aizawa starts to build up a rhythm for reading the experiments, following Iwaya’s format and able to digest the purpose of the Doc’s ‘research’ with Shiyoko more easily. There’s a series of requests for chemicals in doses that have been scribbled out and written in larger quantities several times – they could be for anyone in the room with Dr. Shinsou. Hopefully not for him, though there’s more than enough uppers in there to hotwire a man of Dr. Shinsou’s stature, if he’d be so inclined. Aizawa can’t picture it, but that might just be because he really doesn’t want to.
Looking over the notes from other subjects mixed in at intervals, Aizawa can immediately see why the Doc would have become obsessed with Shiyoko. Most of the subjects, if they have a brainwashing quirk at all, don’t have the strength at that age to make someone hold their breath longer than ten to twenty seconds, much less hurt themselves – no dangerous tools on the equipment list for their ‘assessments’. But with #44 – Shiyoko – from start-to-finish Aizawa can determine the escalation, even the point when what the Doc wanted to do with her stopped being about careful measurements and devolved to pure violence. The experiment in which the Doc requested a box of live frogs and a large vat of acid is a wonderful highlight in that division. So are the ones with the knives, hammers, and in one case a set of pliers to be recorded against teeth.
There’s a well-worn page among the notes that has a phone number underlined several times, dogeared as if Iwaya referred back to it frequently. Scattered around it a bullet point list of questions that just say things like, Treating acid burns, cauterising wounds and on one occasion how much blood with the skull drawing again. Aizawa checks the number and finds the answering machine of a Private Doctor. He doesn’t leave a message but saves it in his phone as ‘The Doc’s Quack’ and keeps going.
The last experiment Aizawa can find in Dr. Iwaya’s notes for #44 is far milder than any of the previous, requesting simple children’s toys, coloured blocks and other mundane things that could be used to demonstrate a person’s faculty under the most basic form of mind control through a brainwashing quirk. Aizawa has the thought of it being a session the Doc wasn’t alone for – a spectator invading the intimacy that he clearly liked to preserve when he was making subjects torture animals and sometimes themselves.
When Aizawa’s finished, there’s no bolt of lightning, no illuminating strike in the darkness that makes all the pieces jump together. That’s not really how this work goes most of the time. It’s just grubbing around in the darkness looking for something that isn’t a handful of dirt. Aizawa’s crawled through a lot if it here, and maybe he hasn’t got any one thing that’s more important than all others.
But what Aizawa does have, like it or not, is a chillingly accurate picture of exactly what Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko are capable of.
Notes:
Lots of big reveals this chapter! Points to anyone who can assemble the timeline based on the info in this chapter. I had to draw it out myself and am pretty sure it makes sense.
Also some very good guesses about Iwaya's deal in the last chapter, we've gotten a lot more of her story now, although there's more to find out yet. She's a truly mysterious character, which makes for a LOT of fun and I hope the resolution was the right kind of reveal. Ladykiller!Shinsou, meet tragic Femme Fatale (a classic noir trope if there ever was one).
Also inb4 a bunch of Doc hate... he's terrible, but didn't we know that already? No???? WELL NOW YOU KNOW IT MORE.
Chapter 19: Gravedigger
Summary:
Unpacking baggage is a hell of a task.
Notes:
I always think of this chapter of a very transitory gap-filling one, then I remember the second half of it is just one of my favourite things ever for more reasons than I can ever hope to list. Just... the kind of scenes/interactions that writing this fic earns and deserves.
It's been wonderful seeing the investment and support for this story grow, particularly in the case itself alongside the Aizawa & Hitoshi dynamic. It's been remarked on before (and not just by me) that for such a deep and rich canon there's not so many fics that really tackle those themes from a plot-driven perspective rather than as an accessory to a shipping vehicle. Which, don't get me wrong I love shipping (and in many ways this story is still a love story), but it's definitely rewarding to feel that appetite in readers for a fully-blown mystery/detective-driven story that lives in the mha canon. It's truly one of the most wonderful things about fanfic, getting stories like this to share and enjoy.
So on that note, I hope y'all enjoy this chapter!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa gets home a little after midnight, and Hizashi’s not back yet. This is good news in a way, as it means Aizawa has even more quiet time to process the glut of information he’s taken on tonight like a snake that’s swallowed a rat – and maybe add a few more mice, if he can bear to keep preying on the facts.
Because until they’ve got a fresh lead to follow, it’s all Aizawa can do to keep tearing up the past like robbing a grave. It won’t tell him what the killer is doing now, but it might tell him what she’ll do next.
He goes the e-detective route, late-night tumbling down the rabbit hole of articles and angry blog posts about Dr. Shinsou and the so-called ‘culmination of his research’. After rising to a terrific high of his career, the Professor of Mentalism started to prepare an experiment he claimed had never been performed under controlled conditions. That it would prove the superiority of mentalist quirks, and break new ground in society’s understanding of what people in possession of such quirks are capable of. How instead of being outcast, they should be revered – and feared, if necessary.
To prove the mastery of mind over matter, the subjects Dr. Shinsou used for this deadly experiment were even ‘volunteers’ – so he claimed. This was proven by the question they were given to answer, the one that put them under the Doc’s control and made them clink glasses before they drank a poison cocktail. Simply: “Who wants to die for me?”
This much Aizawa knows from reading the Doc’s article, published the morning after the massacre had taken place. The parameters are laid out in full: anyone who hadn’t wanted to die, hadn’t believed that this was the ultimate form of submission to a higher power, could have simply left the room – so the Doc lays out in precise, scientific steps.
The subjects answered Professor Shinsou’s question with fully informed consent, and not a person in the classroom had failed to answer, or to drink the poison that ended their lives thereafter. The final erasure of the already blurry line between persuasion and a mind control quirk: human survival instinct fatally eroded by the cultish ‘teachings’ of the charismatic Professor. Either way, the patients all perished. There are threads after threads of fanatics sharing information that’s slowly been leaked over the years – stories passed on from people who cleaned up after crime scenes, who worked at the University when it all happened, even colleagues who had known Dr. Shinsou in everyday life.
From these snippets, a few devoted individuals built niche corners of the internet in which to trawl cases of Dr. Shinsou’s variety (among many others), usually with that damn terrifying portrait photo of the Doc, giving the camera his endless evil stare.
The police officers who came after Dr. Shinsou were untrained for the situation, not realising how easy it’d be to fall under the Doc’s control. The first few simply pulled their guns and shot their partners and then themselves, but the Doc got creative on the last couple. The first cut his throat on a scalpel the Doc purportedly handed to him; the second slit his gut open and used his blood to scrawl “Death is Freedom” on the wall in the Doc’s study – where he presumably sat and watched. They didn’t publish those details in the news but Aizawa’s been close enough to the horse’s mouth to know things he wished he didn’t. Not even the message boards know about that little detail, though a few have speculated.
So, Aizawa reasons, if Dr. Shinsou made contact with Shiyoko, even met with her in person at a time in his life when he was building this body of ‘work’ to be put into practice, he easily could have been grooming her to do what he eventually did himself. Even if it didn’t work then, it’s definitely worked now: Shiyoko’s not a born killer, but a trained one.
In the deserted amphitheatre of being home alone, Aizawa lays out the photos Kuwabara sent him and takes the whole thing from the start.
First, a girl taught from a young age how to use her quirk to make people do dark, hurtful things. Frenetic activity, followed by a complete cut-off from the Professor and his star subject. Around this time, the Doc’s son is born. He will later grow up to undergo the same experiments as Shiyoko—but during the tender years when Shiyoko was happily making people play tunes on the mouse organ, Hitoshi violently rejects the programme of ‘research’ his father presents to him. He isn’t like his father, and he’s even less like Shiyoko. It’s not just the strength of the quirk that matters, but the heart of the individual behind it.
Dr. Shinsou’s estranged wife and child leave him soon after that, and the accomplished Professor pours himself into his work, laying the groundwork for his ‘final experiment’ that will prove his supremacy over the common man. He’s got a cult of personality, a string of devoted followers, all the usual tools to build himself up as a charismatic figure that eventually oozes into the media. Talkshow appearances, a series of online lectures, even one ill-fated appearance on a gameshow that even his most devout fans agree was a total disaster.
Somewhere along the line, the girl from all those years ago comes back into his life – the one who could be pushed to test the dark limits the Doc wants to explore, who was willing to submit herself to his ‘research’ for as long as they were able to get away with it. Though perhaps not quite as willing as the Professor would like, because the story ends with the Doc putting the theory into practice with his own hands – mind, technically.
One quickly escalating bloodbath later, the Professor goes to prison, and the girl – still a teenager, presumably – goes back to a normal life. Hiding in plain sight with her unregistered quirk, scrambling to get ahead at work – years pass, until she gets passed over for a promotion against a man. That’s the trigger for Shiyoko to return to the only guidance that was ever available to her in a world even more critical of quirks like hers for the fall of the mad Professor. She stages the suicide of her first victim with motive and a plan (of sorts). And if that had been the end, she probably would have gotten away with it, but as the Doc himself said – more than proved with his own bloody trail – one is never enough.
Someone assaults Shiyoko on a train soon after she kills her first victim, and she kills again on impulse, using this quirk she’s been taught to hide all her life to make another man who mistreated her end his miserable existence. Drawing on those experiments with the Doc back when she was only four or five years old, Shiyoko changes from prey to predator and quickly finds her next victim at a hostess bar; he throws himself off the roof the same night. Another man burns himself to death in traffic first thing in the morning – last seen the night before in the arms of a ‘cute girl’ he’d picked up at a bar, according to his friends in the news reports about the tragic loss that ‘no one could have seen coming’. Finally, Shiyoko returns to the Doc’s example with her most recent victim, slashed guts and death notes written in blood. A direct homage to the leadership of the deadly Professor Shinsou and perhaps even a direct call for his attention.
If the Doc is watching, the next murder, Aizawa concludes with almost inevitable certainty, it will be another escalation – after his fifth police officer, it took a fully equipped SWAT team to arrest Dr. Shinsou without fatalities. But if he hadn’t been captured, what would the next step have been?
It occurs in some background corner of Aizawa’s mind that it’s getting late and Hizashi still isn’t back – he must have talked Kayama into going to Karaoke, and will no-doubt be bursting with energy when he gets home at long last. As for the case, like the completion of a model he’s built painstakingly from toothpicks, Aizawa envisions the natural progression of the killer’s pattern. It’s surely for the owner of the brainwashing quirk to be more active in the division of life from death. The next stage, therefore, is not to use mind control to make a person kill themselves, but to allow themselves to be killed.
Shiyoko’s random selection of victims and changing methods for each ‘suicide’ have protected her somewhat, but if she does take the almost inevitable step from indirect murder to direct, there’s a chance of more evidence, greater proximity between the killer and her victim at their time of death. She might even make a mistake in the new realm of hands-on murder, and as long as Aizawa can be there to catch it, they’ll catch her.
But any prodigious student of Dr. Shinsou is going to be no walk in the park.
Aizawa smokes on the small apartment balcony and mulls the thing over like a bout of indigestion. This makes the disturbance when the door is just about kicked open and the made-for-radio-and-TV voice of Yamada Hizashi bellowing, “PAPA’S HOME!” through the entire apartment even more alarming than usual. Aizawa almost inhales his damn cigarette.
Unresponsive in any meaningful sense to the one-man band that bursts through the door, Aizawa keeps hanging over the balcony with his thinking cigarette, waiting until Hizashi hones in on his whereabouts and finally comes out through the sliding door.
“You out here thinking about jumping, babe?” Hizashi’s probably half-pissed by his own standards, three-quarters by Aizawa’s judge for it. It’s in the brash, boisterous tone of his voice, and his animated can’t-be-still fidgeting as he almost bounces on the spot.
Aizawa takes a sullen drag on his cigarette. “That’s not funny.” Not now, not ever, really. They just normalise it to take the fear factor away.
“Ohh, don’t be like that,” Hizashi teases, vibrating closer to Aizawa but without reaching out. For all the times they stick together like magnets, there’s still moments when the stark differences between them repel instead of attract. This might be one such time.
“I’m not being like anything,” Aizawa says grouchily. His train of thought has left the station, stranding him on the platform with Hizashi. Who’s clearly in the mood for fun, which is the last thing Aizawa feels like.
Then Hizashi’s hand finds the back of Aizawa’s shoulder. Firm grip, squeezing like he’s testing the ripeness of a melon. His high-paced radio yammer slows to an amble. “That bad, huh?” If there were a meter for reading Aizawa’s moods, Hizashi would’ve never needed it.
Aizawa takes a pull on his cigarette that turns into a sigh, while Hizashi melts over him like soft wax, an arm snaking around Aizawa’s shoulders until they’re basically side to side. Hizashi starts making a pinching gesture with his free fingers, and Aizawa passes the cigarette; the terminal filch is compelled to claim his puff on anything that’s Aizawa’s. Hizashi would even claim ice cream is sweeter when he’s stolen it from Aizawa. Maybe it is.
Hizashi leans on his hand with the smoking cigarette trapped between his fingers, elbow resting on the wall of the balcony as his other arm sits across Aizawa’s shoulders like a persistent cat. “You wanna talk about it?”
“No.” Aizawa has been living and breathing this case every moment he’s not in school – except when he’s with Hizashi. If he loses that, lets this venomous work creep into his home, his personal life, then he’ll have nowhere left to retreat. That’s not something he has to explain to Hizashi from experience, but there are moments when worry gets the better part of trust.
So when Hizashi takes a final drag his stolen cigarette and ducks his face close, lips pursed in a cartoonish pout, it’s a bid for reassurance. Aizawa turns enough to grant the suckerfish a kiss on the cheek, ignoring Hizashi’s exaggerated smacking sounds and kissy squealing noises he manages to make.
Hizashi knows this, of course, but he helps just by being here, casting the light he does over a world basked in shadows – Aizawa himself among them. So Aizawa turns his head further, aligning to press his mouth firmly over Hizashi’s and muffle the ridiculous noises he’s making. The arm slung across Aizawa’s back curls to hook around his neck, and soon they’re face-to-face, deep kissing that’s more needy on Aizawa’s part, but hell if Hizashi doesn’t enjoy taking advantage of a cry for affection.
They part but stay close, breaths mingling and every inhale-exhale cycle that fills Aizawa’s chest with the fragrant, sun’ll-come-out-tomorrow positivity that Hizashi emits like a six-foot star that just happens to walk the earth instead of sit in the sky.
“You’ve been drinking sake,” Aizawa observes as he diagnoses the taste on his tongue under all the cigarette smoke.
“How do you do that?” Hizashi scoffs, loosening the chokehold on Aizawa’s neck but adding another arm after he’s binned the finished cigarette butt. “All you taste of is ass.” A loving way of saying Aizawa needs to brush his teeth more and smoke less, which is surely true. He ought to cut back, the way the habit’s going, but it’s always the same with tough cases.
“That’s funny,” Aizawa murmurs. “I haven’t eaten any ass.”
Hizashi’s grin gets a little more wicked. “Yet.”
It’s already late, far later than teachers who have to be up in the morning should be, but that’s hardly stopped them before. “Alright then.” Aizawa moves and Hizashi allows himself to be taken along for the ride, walking backwards as Aizawa steps forward like some bizzare synchronized routine. Hizashi laughs at his own fooling and it passes to Aizawa like a super-contagion; but sometimes that’s exactly what he needs. He laughs and throws Hizashi off him like tossing a boomerang. “I’m feeling better already.”
One of Hizashi’s ferret-hands escapes the circle around Aizawa’s neck and heads south, darting through the new space between them to grope at his crotch. “I can tell.” There’s nothing there to grab (yet) but that’s beside the point of the stunt. Hizashi’s just being himself, and Aizawa wouldn’t have it any other way.
All these late-night shenanigans (and some more) are regrettable in the morning, when even Hizashi reacts to the pealing of his 6:00 a.m. alarm with a cranky, “Oh fuck off!” Hizashi flips himself in bed like a pancake and whips Aizawa in the face with his hair in the process.
When Aizawa’s alarm goes off another twenty minutes later, they surrender to the crush of the world. Hizashi gets up, taking all the sheets with him as he retreats into the bathroom like a textile-turtle, effectively freezing Aizawa awake with the ripping away of his duvet-cocoon.
Still technically asleep, or at least that’s what it feels like, Aizawa piles into the car with his sleeping bag under his arm and is this close to actually getting into it on the drive. The only reason he doesn't is because Hizashi keeps punching him in the arm on the drive to keep him awake; if Hizashi’s not allowed to nap on the way in – being the driver and all – then apparently Aizawa can’t either. The things he does for love.
It’s midway through the commute that Aizawa’s phone buzzes with a message that turns out to be from Hitoshi. All it says is, ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Aizawa responds with a single question-mark, and he gets a picture in response. It’s a picture of all eight miles of Hitoshi’s legs resting on a box, but more importantly looks an awful lot like Aizawa’s classroom, taken from behind his desk no less.
If Hitoshi is in 1-A’s classroom, he’s playing a dangerous game, but probably knows full-well that he’s doing it. Aizawa supposes it was only a matter of time before Hitoshi’s transgressive nature would address the division between Aizawa’s life as a teacher and a hero, like he’s got to get the hands-on proof of which one matters more.
Both are of equal importance, or so Aizawa will insist if he’s made to answer, but that’s not what Hitoshi will think. Or what’s true when push comes to shove in the real world of Heroes and villains, rather than the trainee playground he makes for his ‘real’ students. But Aizawa’s not admitting that to anyone, not even Hitoshi. Especially not if he’s already tempting fate by camping out in Aizawa’s classroom when his class could show up at any point and wonder why the General Studies student who turned their classmates into zombies at the last Sports Festival is inexplicably cozy with their homeroom teacher all of a sudden. Hitoshi will also undoubtedly start causing arguments in Aizawa’s classroom unless he can get there first. Even then, he’ll probably just start them with Aizawa instead.
“Aren’t you coming to the teacher’s room?” Hizashi questions as Aizawa breaks away the moment they arrive on campus. Being punched all through the car ride woke him up somewhat, and he’s ramped up enough speed to not quite be running, so as not to raise any alarm, but still be moving fucking quick.
“I’ve got a…” button-pushing brat who wants attention, “work-thing to sort out,” Aizawa excuses weakly.
“Mhmm,” Hizashi hums like he doesn’t believe it, but lets Aizawa go without further questioning anyway. He can probably guess exactly what it means, and will pick Aizawa like a vulture tears up a carcass over it for lunch.
Luckily, Aizawa supposes, 1-A’s classroom is still empty when he arrives, bar the tall drink of grape juice who’s doing his best to turn Aizawa’s desk chair into a recliner, judging by how much he leans back in it. Hitoshi's looking bright-eyed and bushy-haired – at least as bright-eyed as his perpetually sleep-lacking look can be. As per his picture, Hitoshi has got his feet propped on a raggedy cardboard box that Aizawa doesn’t recognise, though he recognises some of the colourful language that graces the side of it in faded marker pen.
“G’mornin’ teach,” Hitoshi drawls, and it’s almost a snapshot of what things might be like if he was in the Hero Course, in Aizawa’s class. Namely: Trouble with a capital T. More than ever, Aizawa is certain that his being Hitoshi’s teacher in any formal capacity is a disaster waiting to happen.
“What are you doing here?” Aizawa questions with a good impression of a deadpan, pulling the door shut behind him and tossing his sleeping bag behind the desk.
“I finished my run early so thought I’d stop by.” Hitoshi drums his heels and doesn’t cease looking any less smug. “Got something for ya.”
“Which is?” Aizawa’s the un- side of impressed and his expression and tone probably convey as much, but that’s not much of a deterrent to Hitoshi in any case.
Hitoshi swings his feet off the box and sits upright, shifting from don’t-give-a-shit levity to full of foreboding in a heartbeat. “My dad’s fanmail.”
Aizawa doesn’t filter his thoughts into his reaction, meaning that his immediate response is an entirely natural, “Oh shit,” that leaves Hitoshi grinning.
“Yeah, I know.” Hitoshi remains in Aizawa’s seat, still managing to look like he owns the place in spite of his uniform. “Ma got all his stuff when he went to prison. She would’ve gotten rid of it, but you know.”
Aizawa does. It’s the same reason Iwaya held onto that neatly organised triple-locked file all this time. The women Dr. Shinsou’s hurt – smart women, who are defined by more than just their trauma at the hands of a cunning genius – know better than to destroy evidence against the Professor that might one day be needed. “You think Shiyoko’s letter might be in there?”
“I think if it’s anywhere, it’ll be here,” Hitoshi replies with careful detachment. There’s no mistake that he’s managing a certain level of stress right now, it’s just with a classic teenage veneer of not giving a shit. “Only, there’s quite a lot of the stuff.”
Aizawa doesn’t disguise his disgust. They don’t have long until 1-A’s students are likely to start pouring in, but it might be enough time. “Alright.” Aizawa stays cool, even moreso knowing he’s about to unpack some very unpleasant business. But it can’t be helped, and he’s really addressing the unspoken undercurrent: Hitoshi doesn’t want to do this alone. “Open it up, then.”
Pandora’s box never held so many horrors.
–––
Dear Dr. Shinsou,
I loved your appearance on the TV last night, it was so cool how you made the whole audience ballrooom dance! I wish I had a quirk just like yours, so I could make the popular girls in my school do something stupid, like when you made the gameshow host lift up her shirt in front of the cameras. It was SO funny, haha. That’d show them!
I’ve been reading your book, but I don’t understand all of it. When you wrote that everyone has the power to use the 90% mind, but they just can’t access it, are you saying that even someone like me would be able to learn how to use a mentalist quirk? I’ve already got a quirk, but it just makes me really oily all the time. Sorry if some of it’s gotten on this page, I always make more when I’m excited.
If I could learn how to do any mentalist quirk, I’d want to learn yours, Professor Shinsou. I’ve watched all your online lectures and demonstrations! Do you know one of your students writes a blog about taking your class? She’s so cool! You should hire her as your next Research Assistant, her name’s Hatake Sakura. I want to study Psychology and then specialise in Mentalist quirks like her, so one day I’ll be taking your class. Then I’ll have to call you Professor Shinsou, tee hee. Could you write another book about how to use the 90% mind to teach yourself mentalist quirks, then I could start learning how to get one by the time I’m old enough to take your class!
I almost forgot to tell you my name, Dr. Shinsou. It feels like I know you, so it’s weird that you don’t know me. I’m Wantanabe Reiko. I’m sixteen years old (almost), and you have my address in case you want to write back. I heard you say on the tv that you prefer letters to emails. It does feel more intimate, just like you said.
Love,
Reiko-chan
–––
Aizawa’s rolled his eyes so much in the past few minutes that he feels them beginning to strain. He’s used to a little eyestrain, sure, but this is taking the piss.
Whatever Hitoshi is scanning doesn’t seem much more pleasant, going by the thunderous pall cast over his expression. He quickly sets it down and murmurs, “What the fuck is wrong with some people?” as he fishes out another from the box.
There’s still another fifteen or so minutes until homeroom begins, and Aizawa has a very good idea that Hitoshi’s not going anywhere until Aizawa throws him out. Hitoshi didn’t even give up Aizawa’s chair for god’s sake—Aizawa’s got one of the kids’ and is sitting on it backwards, ousted from his own desks as he does naughty school-time detective work with his off-the-books-intern. He’s an underground Hero after all, there’s an inherently secretive nature in his line of work… just sometimes under the convenient cover of his other job.
Aizawa picks up a new letter and gets as far as ‘Dr. Shinsou, I just found all your videos online and I’m your biggest fan ever! I still need to read your book, I tried but it didn’t make sense. You’re so smart, Professor, I prefer when you explain things in your online lectures– before he writes it off and tosses onto the loosely kept pile they’ve rapidly been accruing in the middle of the desk. “Beats me.”
Aizawa grabs a whole handful of letters still in their envelopes and starts shuffling through them based on the names alone. They don’t need to read every single letter line for line, and really it’s just about finding Shiyoko’s rather than looking for anything other than a bad time from reading any of the others. He did look for that blog written by one of Doc’s students, but predictably, it’s been deleted. He still took down the name – a potential lead to follow up on if nothing better comes along.
That thought – if nothing better comes along – hits an inlet in the stream of Aizawa’s mind and stalls for a moment. Funny how something good for the case is something very bad for an unsuspecting person. Aizawa wonders who Shiyoko’s next victim will be – someone who deserved it, or just someone who was there for her to take out her endless rage on.
He’s stewing in this thought like a hot spring when the classroom door flies open and the towering whirlwind of diligence that’s Iida Tenya gets stranded at the threshold, looking like they somehow managed to open the door on him. This sight probably isn’t what Iida was expecting, but his poker face is still absolutely awful. “Oh! I… oh, uh—” Iida makes elaborating gestures with his hands in spite of not actually offering anything concrete.
“There’s still another ten minutes until homeroom starts,” Hitoshi remarks without lifting his eyes from the stack of letters and envelopes he tosses one after the other into the heap on Aizawa’s desk. “You must be desperately keen to learn.”
Only now does Hitoshi’s gaze lift, something Aizawa only notices because he’s watching the kid(s) out of one eye, dropping paper duds on the mound between them on the desk. They’re about halfway through the box, but it’s not looking likely they’ll get through everything by the time the bell rings.
“I… well, um—” Iida’s engine still hasn’t managed to get started, and Aizawa has that sudden pre-emptive sense to use his quirk on Hitoshi just as he’s sure the brat was about to make a grab for poor Iida’s mind. In that split-second where things can go either way, Aizawa senses his quirk landing over the embers of Hitoshi’s like sand over a campfire. Aizawa’s annoyed with Hitoshi for trying it, but probably not as much as he should be. He’s seen the example Hitoshi’s father sets for possessive behaviour, and even if they’re nothing alike, there are certain things that get passed on without the recipient realising.
Understanding this doesn’t excuse Hitoshi of anything, but it does deepen Aizawa’s bank of sympathy, even tolerance for the way Hitoshi acts out in front of him. After all, he probably doesn’t want to do anything with Iida’s mind, just to test if Aizawa was going to be quick enough to beat him to it. It’s attention-seeking at heart, but nothing that a kid like Hitoshi doesn’t deserve – to have someone paying attention to him at such an important time in his life. Even if that someone is… well, Aizawa.
That all said, swiping for the unconsenting minds of Aizawa’s students does not count as fair game. “Shinsou is just leaving,” Aizawa mutters, deliberation in his – while appropriate to the context, impactful in the subtext – choice of address for Hitoshi. Like Dr. Shinsou would pull shit like that, but Hitoshi should be above it. Or at least try to be.
Hitoshi has the decency to look slightly ashamed in response, but then he just says, “Am I?” with a new angle of vitriol in his tone. He’s literally been reading over fanmail written to the father he detests; if there’s anyone he has a right to take out some frustration on, it should be Aizawa.
“Yes,” Aizawa renews the fire of his quirk, training his gaze on Hitoshi and feeling the upsurge as Hitoshi’s quirk amasses against the barrier of Aizawa’s. The power is nothing like his father’s, the claws at the bottom of the door. Erasing Hitoshi’s quirk means standing as the floodwall against a tsunami.
Aizawa can almost sense Hitoshi’s frustration, like the baby-fists banging on the door of Aizawa’s mind are just audible in the physical world. Hitoshi’s scowl twists for a moment and there’s a sudden scream of that white-noise pitch in Aizawa’s head. Aizawa flinches, but keeps his eyes open, holding back the rising floodwaters by the skin of his teeth.
But it was almost enough that for a moment, Hitoshi might have had him. The realisation staggers Aizawa, and he backs away in wary recognition of that fact.
All at once Hitoshi’s quirk lifts, and Aizawa’s able to let his own down. “Are you okay?” Maybe Hitoshi doesn’t know he’s done it; maybe he does, and just doesn’t want Aizawa to know that he knows. What Iida makes of this is anyone’s guess.
So without letting on to anything just yet, Aizawa gives a noncommittal, “Yeah.” He finishes shuffling through one last stack of letters and gives up, throwing the final duds onto the pile and – not wanting to put them back in the box – making the quick decision to just sweep the mail straight off his desk onto the unrolled end of his sleeping bag, rolling it back up and actually fastening the ties this time so it doesn’t drop its volatile cargo all over the classroom floor; not something he’s keen on having to explain to the Principal, who might as well be skittering around in the vents here for all Aizawa can tell.
Iida has gone to his seat, none the wiser for the battle for his mind that just happened. He does look suitably concerned by the quick back and forth between Hitoshi and Aizawa anyway, but only in the same way he puzzles out other problems before being confident in its solution. If only there were a solution for Aizawa and Hitoshi’s dynamic, but there’s no known formula for figuring that one out.
“I'll keep looking,” Aizawa says quietly. Iida is the forerunner, but it's usually not long before the rest of the class pour in after him. “If I find it, I'll let you know.”
Hitoshi remains unamused. “Is that your way of saying I should go?”
“Yes,” Aizawa answers more quickly and freely than is good for him, because without his quirk active Hitoshi plucks Aizawa's mind like an apple from a tree. Fruit that Hitoshi takes in his soft gloved hands, cradling like he’s considering whether to take a hearty bite.
“Tell me if you mean it,” Hitoshi demands in a calm, controlled murmur. Iida seems no wiser for the fact that his teacher is under the thumb of a student he doesn't even teach – at least not here, like this.
“I do.” Hitoshi didn't need to use his quirk to get an honest answer from Aizawa, but Aizawa realises why he'd want to be sure. The rest, however…
“Touch your nose,” Hitoshi lilts, and Aizawa’s hand lifts like it really is on strings. Those velvet-clad hands wrought in iron; Aizawa can choose to resist and fight the feeling, or he can surrender to the control, knowing it’s a lost cause to fight the phantom hands bending his arm.
Then the classroom door goes again, and Hitoshi is startled, or maybe just realises he's pushed far enough and wants to save his own skin from the steamrolling Aizawa will give him later as payback in training. Hitoshi's quirk releases, and Aizawa is left with a finger hovering just in front of his nose.
The next entrant to the classroom is Shouji, so thankfully there's no gossip likely to come from that source. Aizawa finishes the gesture anyway, scratching his nose like that's what he'd been planning of his own free will from the start. Blurry lines getting blurrier every day. “Shouldn't you be going?” he reminds Hitoshi, who gives a small impatient sigh and stands up.
“Suppose I should.” Hitoshi doesn't sound annoyed but perhaps a little disappointed. This is where he wants to be, after all.
Aizawa finds himself stuck between competing thoughts of making sure Hitoshi gets what's coming to him for cheeky misuse of his quirk, under Aizawa's students’ noses no less, and making it up to Histoshi for his not being in this classroom in the first place.
Notes:
Anyone who knows me from my Kacchako vehicle DADT might be able to spot the parallels between Dr. Shinsou's fanmail to fan culture as an experience in general, the way people talk/communicate with someone they admire the work of, and can often (without realising it) come off a certain way by nature of that fan-creator dynamic. That makes this quite a meta moment for this story as a whole, not to mention extra treats on Dr. Shinsou, who I know is obviously everyone's favourite character in the whole world and y'all totally want to know more about his rabid fan-following.
Sidebar to that, it's great when fans of the Doc DO emerge among the readership of this story, because it's my character doing what he was designed to do in real life as well as in fiction - which is to be Trouble with a capital T, but charismatic and compelling in spite of (and also because of) all that crazyhot energy that he's got in spades.
Lastly, and also for anyone who's familiar with DADT, I will *always* find a moment to have by best son Iida stumble in at just the wrong moment. Never doubt it.
Chapter 20: The Slaughterhouse
Summary:
Aizawa never prepared Hitoshi for this, but he seems right at home.
Notes:
A few people in the comments have suggested that something 'big' is coming in the story, and this is a chapter that when my colleague saw the title on my computer screen was like uh what are you looking at to do with a slaughterhouse and I had to explain it was a story I'm writing. So there's that.
Remember when we agreed that you wanted it darker? Well here it comes.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa’s floundering through another of those hate-myself (or Nezu hates him) first-period Japanese lessons when his phone vibrates nonstop for over five minutes. He checks the ID and confirms his hunch: Tsukauchi. Unable to answer the phone, Aizawa’s mind is already spinning, making plans for what to do if the thing that’s happened is what he thinks it is.
Then with no warning at all, the classroom door shunts open as if cast by psychic hands. A weary Aizawa and a wearier-still class snap their attention all at once to the empty doorway. A moment passes, and then All Might levers himself into the opening with a characteristic, “I’m here!” like he’s a traffic signal rather than a person that actually exists.
Aizawa’s mid-lesson, mid-sentence even, but that makes no difference when All Might shows up in any given classroom on campus. The students rises up with an instant injection of enthusiasm, while Aizawa breaks into a dead inside-and-out stare at Toshinori.
“Aizawa!” Toshi’s puffed up to his usual shape in front of the children, but the usually booming sound of his voice shakes a little – closer to his actual tired drawl. “It’s… can you step out for a second? There’s an issue of slight,” he hesitates, picking words like letters out of a Scrabble bag, “importance needing your attention.”
Aizawa casts a calculating eye over his class, revived from their near-catatonic state by All Might’s sudden appearance, and considers their loss over not fully understanding the passage of text they’re crawling through like a guy who’s been kneecapped down a hallway. There'll be more lost evidence from letting a fresh crime scene go cold than these students will gain in Aizawa’s classroom. Because there’s now, and there’s don’t bother going at all. The stakes are real, and being hot on a lead matters just a bit more than literature that’s existed for hundreds of years already.
When Aizawa turns and leaves the room without a word, he’s sure he can hear the students’ sigh of relief chasing him on the way out. “What?” Aizawa prompts after he steps into the empty hallway, now facing Toshi, who stands in his scarecrow form. Maybe he only inflated himself from the waist up, just to peer around the door and summon Aizawa with some semblance of authority. It’s annoying as usual – Aizawa’s never been one for a costume – but that’s not the point right now.
“It’s Naomasa—I mean, Detective Tsukauchi.” Toshinori splutters, though it’s more likely due to his shapeshifting than a sense of embarrassment. Or a little of both. “He’s been trying to get in touch with you, but realised you must have been in class so he asked if I would uh—” So Tsukauchi sent his man on the inside; Aizawa doesn’t have time for these pointless explanations.
“It must be important,” Aizawa interjects as an invitation for Toshinori to actually get on with it than dither in the rhetoric.
“Oh—yes,” Toshinori hops to it, probably not fully aware of the stakes and ambling through this more than he needs to. He almost seems nervous, though over what Aizawa can’t imagine. “Tsukauchi needs you to meet him right away. He also said ‘bring the kid’ and promised you'd know what it means.”
Aizawa does, but that's half the trouble. After Hitoshi's playful testing of the boundaries between Aizawa’s two professional lives, the moment of truth has come along much sooner than he expected. Underground Hero and teacher: it's not exactly a marriage made in heaven. And while clashes have occurred between his jobs before, it’s never involved a sketchily legal intern who should be in his own classes in General Studies like he's supposed to be.
Before Aizawa can agonise a moment further over this thought, his phone rings again – only it's not Tsukauchi this time. Maybe a personalised ringtone would be useful after all, is Aizawa’s fleeting thought as he checks the ID and answers with an indignant, “Shouldn't you be in class?”
“Shouldn't you?” comes the response. “ Hurry up, we're at the gates.”
“We?”
“Yamaguichi and your Favourite Feline,” Hitoshi answers impatiently. “Why are you still talking and not running?” This next part isn’t addressed to Aizawa: “Yankumi, start the engine.”
Aizawa hears the engine as he’s hanging up, which is his cue to shove his phone into his pocket and give Toshinori a quick, “Hey, think you could finish teaching my class?” before he breaks into a run, dashes to the end of the hallway, and then leaps out the nearest open window.
Abseiling to the ground on a piece of his capture weapon, Aizawa considers that he’s going to have hell to pay from Nezu for this. But if Hitoshi’s already ditched class, then at least Aizawa can make sure he gets back to it as quickly as possible. After they check out the crime scene that Tsukauchi’s presumably got on ice for them.
Aizawa sprints toward the campus wall and heads straight up it, scaling the sheer face with a well placed run-up-and-grab before vaulting clean over the supposedly absolute barrier. Landing streetside, Aizawa stands up and spots the police car rolling past on its slow trundle away from the gates. Whether that's planned or an accident is anyone's guess. Either way, Aizawa breaks into a fresh sprint. He gets closer, and without the car actually stopping, the back door facing the pavement swings open. Hitoshi’s visible in the opening, an absolutely maleficent grin that invites Aizawa to take a leap of faith. Like Aizawa hasn’t been jumping for days.
This is how Aizawa comes to launch himself into the backseat of a moving car and accidentally lands on top of his intern.
Hitoshi’s not completely under Aizawa at the moment of impact, but he's shuffled far enough across the backseat to get the door open on Aizawa’s side. This means Hitoshi occupies more of the space Aizawa leaps into than originally anticipated. Hitoshi is also at least eighty percent arms and legs alone, so the original tangle of limbs soon turns into a furious knot, though Aizawa manages to get the door slammed shut behind him so Tamakawa can actually put his foot down while he and Hitoshi keep tussling on the backseat.
“Watch it!” Hitoshi growls as Aizawa bundles the almost-six-foot bag of coathangers back onto the other side of the backseat. “ Ugh, you’re heavier than you look.” Hizashi has said the same thing, claiming that Aizawa’s so dense it’s a miracle he floats in water.
Aizawa feels like snapping that the only creatures that could possibly need this much leg are flamingos but decides that a domestic probably isn’t the best look to go for right now. He settles for shoving the trainer-clad foot Hitoshi’s managed to get all the way up to armpit level back where it’s supposed to be – on the floor on Hitoshi’s side of the car. Aizawa finally manages to separate himself from his student with some shred of dignity, though Yamaguichi is tittering away in the front passenger seat.
“You know, we could have stopped,” Tama points out from behind the wheel. He puts on the siren and keeps steadily accelerating. “Hi, by the way.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Hitoshi replies unenthusiastically, even though it was his ill-advised stunt in the first place. Aizawa’s fault for jumping, really.
“So what are we dealing with?” Aizawa buckles in, making a finger-wagging gesture for Hitoshi to do the same, suffixed with a quick follow up directly to Hitoshi, “And how did you hear about it first?”
“Yankumi texted me,” Hitoshi answers smugly. Turns out their swapping information is working out after all. “As for the what, I’ve no idea.”
“Tsukauchi hasn't given us any details, just to pick you two up as soon as possible.” Tama’s behind the wheel for this one and it shows; Yamaguichi is still a rookie cop, not as experienced as her partner when it comes to driving like a maniac, cutting every intersection crossing by a whisker. Hizashi and Tama would probably have a ball drag racing each other, they're both terrifying drivers in their own right.
“I've got a pretty good guess,” Hitoshi declares with what's probably best described as morbid delight. Which is sort of a good sign?
“Yeah,” Aizawa grunts with that two-ways split of electric anticipation, knowing they're probably about to see something very nasty indeed. “So do I.”
Tamakawa parks outside a courthouse, and for a building that would normally be bustling on a Tuesday morning, it's silent as the grave. Layer after layer of police tape cordoning the whole street off might be part of that, and even Tama and Yamaguichi only come with them as far as the door.
“Our orders are to remain on guard outside. Tsukauchi is waiting for you in there,” Tama says stiffly, which Aizawa understands. Frustrating as it is, they all have to know their place from time to time – even if it means dropping everything else and deserting a second job to tend to the first and original job: being a goddamn Hero.
With a deep breath and momentary glance at Hitoshi, Aizawa prepares to duck the police tape. Hitoshi returns his ‘are you as ready for this as I am’ grimace. Answer: there’s no such thing as ready to see the things they’re about to see. They do it anyway.
After a quick nod from Hitoshi, they’re both stooping under the tape and moving forward on the other side. Aizawa puts a hand to the door and pushes. It rolls open smoothly, silent on its bearings, and opens into a festival hall-like lobby, complete with a balcony that stretches like a theatre circle across the upper level, presiding over a large ground floor laid with huge slabs of black and white marble.
The first thing is the blood. Lots of blood. This would be because of the body hung like a wet towel from the open gallery, which is the source of the sizable pool that’s spread across the cold, polished floor.
But that’s not all. It’s impossible to miss what’s been written next to the perfectly circular disc of blood, drained from the body like sap from a tree. Neat columns of text aligned just in front of the place this poor sucker finished bleeding out like a butchered animal. The message is unnervingly fitting.
MEN DIE — PIGS GET SLAUGHTERED
“Fucking hell,” Hitoshi murmurs quietly as they take the gruesome picture in. Aizawa couldn’t agree more.
“You both managed to make it. Good.” Tsukauchi tumbles out of the shadows, and it’s easy for a living person to be overshadowed by the spectacle of death—especially death like this. “What a mess, huh?”
“Who is he?” Aizawa looks up and takes in key facts in quick succession: dressed in a good quality suit and tie, hung brokenly by the neck from the balcony rail up above on a sturdy, properly knotted noose. Oh, and the body is missing its nose. Puts the pig thing into an even more unsavory context.
“A lawyer,” Tsukauchi answers like he’s wearing lemon dentures. “Relatively well-known.”
“What for?” Hitoshi asks, snatching the question right off Aizawa’s tongue.
“Mostly… assault and rape cases.” Tsukauchi’s tone conveys his distaste.
“Let me guess,” Aizawa slips back into the conversation. “It wasn’t for the prosecution.”
“Got it in one.” Tsukauchi’s face never suits frowning, like right and left shoes on the wrong feet, but that casts the grim air the subject deserves. “The deceased was famously employed by a number of influential businessmen accused of… misconduct with their female employees.” That’s an overly pretty way to put it. Not the words Aizawa would choose, but probably the more tasteful ones.
“That’s what they call it?” Aizawa comments like he’s swinging a scythe across swathes of courtesy. Things should be seen for exactly as horrible as they are, and sometimes bad things do happen to bad people. Doesn’t make it right, but does make it a touch more bearable.
“According to the judges who ruled in his favour,” Hitosh sticks on the end. He’s eyeing the corpse without any signs of strain, at least not to Aizawa’s covert gaze, sneaking peeks of Hitoshi investigating one of the nastier crime scenes Aizawa’s had the displeasure of attending the arrival party for. A lot of people would find a scene like this intolerable, like being boiled alive in the worst of humanity. But Hitoshi’s eyes just narrow like he’s sliding into a hot spring and needs a minute to adjust. “Guess he was a pig after all.”
Aizawa hisses at Hitoshi rather than call him by any of the names he wears that don’t fit in this context. A short staticky sound that’s meant to scold Hitoshi for pushing his usual dark humour and teenage-angst don’t give a shit attitude in a place like this. Even if he’s right. Especially then, in fact. You can think it, but don’t be dumb enough to open your mouth and actually say it.
Hitoshi just glances over at Aizawa and lifts an eyebrow, like he knew Aizawa would do that and did what he wants to anyway. “How long has he been dead?”
“A couple of hours,” Tsukauchi replies, also looking up at the corpse. “The guard over there just came in to open up and found all this, called it in.”
Aizawa goes next, giving the champion of sex offenders another long look. The once-white of the victim’s shirt has taken on an incredible plume of crimson, spreading across his chest from the waterfall of blood that’s come from the now-removed nose. What would it feel like to be trapped in your own body, conscious but powerless as the cartilage and all was sliced away? Aizawa tries to think about something else. Anything else. “Security footage?”
“Working on it.” Tsukauchi looks like he wants a cigarette about now. Maybe Tama would spare one for him, in exchange for a few morsels of information, no doubt. Maybe Aizawa should take that deal himself. “Seems like they arrived together early in the morning, and went straight up to the gallery.”
Aizawa looks up past the disjointed, wide-open dead eyes in the mutilated face of a man who deserved a lot but definitely didn’t deserve this. His gaze climbs the blood-spattered rope hanging from up to the balcony railing. It’s a fairly long drop, and at least from this angle the victim's neck looks like it could be broken. If there’s any mercy in the world, he died on impact. But the world isn’t always merciful. “Can we get up there?”
“Yes.” Tsukauchi nods across the room, and a security guard doing his best not to look nods back, jangling some keys as Aizawa, Tsukauchi and Hitoshi walk over to the signposted stairwell.
Aizawa catches Hitoshi looking around, stalling at the back of the group even as they start to climb the stairs. So he starts to linger too, falling enough behind to be naturally almost elbow-to-elbow with Hitoshi. Only when he’s sure it’ll go no further than the few inches of space between them does Aizawa quietly ask, “What are you looking for?”
Hitoshi’s answer is a knowing stare and then a quick motion of his hand, raising with a finger outstretched until his fingertip touches lightly against his nose. It’s almost a mirror of the move Hitoshi made Aizawa do this morning for shits and gigs, but as usual, the meaning here is radically different. There wasn’t a nose anywhere in sight on the ground floor, so there’s only a few more places it might logically be before the most obvious location defaults to ‘in Shiyoko’s freezer’ – or somewhere else in her possession, at least.
There’s a locked door at the top of the stairs. The security guard jangles his keys nervously, finding the right one for it. He’s the person who found the crime scene, and it shows. “Was this door locked when you arrived?” Aizawa tries to be gentle, waiting until the guy’s got the key in the lock and steadied his shaking hands.
“No sir,” he replies with a voice that’s as delicate as a very thin layer of ice atop a lake. “I just came up here and locked it because—I thought it’d be, you know—”
“It’s alright.” Tsukauchi lays a hand very gently on the man’s shoulder and gives his best beaming smile – must be something he gets from Toshinori. Aizawa can never be sure which of them is rubbing off on the other, and usually tries to avoid thinking about them rubbing on each other at all. “Thanks for your help.”
“Yes well I, uh… I didn’t know him or anything.” The security guard is of middle-to-late age, thinning hair and lines upon lines in his face. This alone’s probably aged him another twenty years.
“Did you know him by reputation?” Hitoshi probes with the ease of a serpent sliding on its belly across warm sand. Only now does the guard seem to realise that Hitoshi’s clearly not an adult like the rest of them. Or as sombre. Hell, he’s acting like a kid skipping school to do something awesome. Which is somewhat true.
Hitoshi’s… everything, makes the guard a lot less certain of answering his questions, and this is without knowing a thing about his quirk. The double-deadeye stares of Aizawa and Tsukauchi seem to shove the nervous guy over the line on this occasion, but it’s only to stammer, “I… I wouldn’t want to speak ill of the dead.”
Aizawa considers what they could pick from the minds of people like this man; those who want to help, but can’t quite seem to get the words out. People who could give consent, and be calmed enough to give controlled answers to clear questions. What Hitoshi and his quirk could accomplish if he was empowered to do so.
But then, Hitoshi’s doesn’t need his quirk when he can wrangle his way by other means. “That’s enough of an answer,” he remarks coyly, and then does his stalk of grass waving in the wind bit where he manages to slip around Aizawa, Tsukauchi and the guard to get through the door first without any of them having to move a muscle.
In the cavernous space of the courthouse lobby above their heads, Hitoshi’s voice echoes like he’s talking to them from inside some morbid cathedral. “Well, lookie here.” It occurs to Aizawa that with a quirk like Hitoshi’s, the ability to disguise the origin of his voice could be terribly useful on occasion. He reminds himself to go with Hitoshi to the Support Department sometime. There’s a breadbasket first-year in there who would almost certainly sell them gadgets without worrying about which Course the customer is in. Aizawa sees way too many students shooting around with jetpacks during lunch break for those rules to be strongly enforced.
Aizawa steps through the doorway next, catching up to get a look at what Hitoshi’s already studying. Another pool of blood, smaller and tackier where it’s dried on the worn carpet. The other end of the rope is tied firmly around a rail that’s bolted to the short wall separating the gallery from the drop below.
“Looks like the site of our budget plastic surgery,” Hitoshi comments, as if Tsukauchi and Aizawa can’t see that just by looking. Then Hitoshi turns his face up to the adults in the room and smiles. Not a good smile—one of those uncanny Shinsou smiles that feels like a plaster being torn off. Aizawa feels his pre-emptive senses lurching into action, too slow to stop the ridiculous brat from continuing, “Who nose where it’s gone.”
Aizawa drops decorum and whacks Hitoshi on the shoulder, a catlike swipe of reprimand. Tsukauchi looks like he just inhaled a bug. Maybe Hitoshi is a little too much of a natural at spooking people – but then, how the things he went through at a tender age have affected him is a floating question-mark that’ll probably never have a definite answer. Is it easier to confront the dark side of humanity and mentalist quirks after being forced to be a part of it?
Probably, but Aizawa can’t imagine anyone likes to think about it. Except Hitoshi, who embraces the darkness. Turns it into a sick joke that he uses to make sure he’s always the person in the room freaking out least —at least on the outside.
Getting closer to the bloodstain, Aizawa drops down into a crouch and looks carefully for the signs he’s expecting to see. The escalation. “Here.” He points to faint but discernible scuffs on the floor, a slight disturbance in the fibres of the rug, not far from where Hitoshi’s stopped, knowing to keep his distance rather than rush right in and walk all over the evidence. Even evidence he doesn’t know is there. “Signs of a struggle.”
“What?” Hitoshi’s expression crumples, not understanding the divergence from what he came in here to be proven right about. He drops down next to Aizawa to look closer and sees the long scrape, indicative of something like a heel sliding rapidly forward. Say, from someone being pushed, a rope already around their neck and nose cut off out of spite. “But that means–”
“She released her quirk,” Aizawa finishes, squatting in conference with Hitoshi while Tsukauchi looms above them both. “Maybe even on purpose.”
“Interesting chat, boys?”
Aizawa looks up disparagingly but feels the impact might be lost on Tsukauchi. “The killer is evolving,” he recites in a dry monotone. “She was here while he died.”
“Well duh,” Hitoshi comments, and Aizawa would cuff him round the head if he didn't want Tsukauchi to get the wrong idea about the dynamics of their relationship. Aizawa tries to remember if it was always so physical and seems to recall it was, more or less. Kids, especially teens – and doubly so ones like Hitoshi – need human contact. Everyone does. Aizawa has no qualms about granting that to others. “Someone had to do all the bloody fingerpainting down below.”
The observation lights a shadow in Aizawa’s mind, a corner he hadn't looked in yet, but would have probably made the same conclusion once he reached the point. It's obvious, but no one's minds work exactly the same. It’s a relay race, not a dead heat. “Of course,” Aizawa murmurs thoughtfully, and Hitoshi looks absolutely chuffed.
“So you're saying she didn't make him kill himself?” Tsukauchi derives with a slight ‘you two’ impatience.
“We're saying she pushed him,” Hitoshi retorts. “But if he put the noose around his neck and cut off a popular appendage first, then what difference does it make?”
“You think she made him do that?” Aizawa questions Hitoshi; not because he disagrees, of course, just to assess where the kid’s head is at.
“I think it'd defeat the point if she didn't,” Hitoshi shoots back, and then after mulling over a thought like mouthing a hard candy decides to announce, “My dad’d just love this,” in what could probably be described as the worst possible tone.
Maybe he and Aizawa need a talk about the risks Private Detectives run of ending up being accused of the crimes they're trying to solve. Detectives like Aizawa do at least; his fourth job that's sort of part of his Hero job, but not exactly, because there's not too many Pros that do their own casework in parallel to the police. Even if it's the only way Aizawa can be sure the police are doing a good enough job.
“Would you care to explain what that’s supposed to mean?” Tsukauchi has been setting little number markers against the clues as Aizawa and Hitoshi point them out, but Hitoshi draws him away from the tedious rank-and-file stuff that Tsukauchi seems to not hate doing with every fiber of his being like Aizawa does.
“You really want me to say it?” Hitoshi actually pauses, giving Tsukauchi the chance to back out of this. Aizawa almost recommends that Tsukauchi does. But this is surely something they have to hear. “Fine. The reason they do this is power. They–”
“Who’s they–”
“Don’t interrupt,” Hitoshi butts in like firing a round to Tsukauchi’s head. But if he were really annoyed, Hitoshi could’ve used his quirk to shut the Detective up – and gotten them in trouble – so really, he’s still being pretty well-behaved by Aizawa’s ever-looser standards. “The reason people like my father and Shiyoko do this is to demonstrate power. The power of this —” Hitoshi brings a finger to his temple, and then slowly moves it like the sweep of a clock-hand over to the balcony railing and corpse that dangles therewith. “—over that. ”
Hitoshi pauses for effect, and Aizawa wonders if this kid’s sense of dramatic timing will ever take a break – though if Hizashi’s any judge, it’s not something natural-born drama queens just grow out of. Grow into, more like. “Using their quirk to make victims torture themselves is proof of being better than everyone else, bending people they see as lesser to their will.”
It makes sense, Aizawa has to agree. But it can make a little more. “What about the end?” Aizawa dares to ask. “Why did she kill him?” Rather than make him kill himself, that is.
Hitoshi doesn’t look glad that Aizawa swings things this way, but he’s going to have to answer anyway. “Releasing control and pushing him over the edge is… purer. It makes dying the last thing this guy did with a clear mind.”
“Death is freedom,” Aizawa utters without even meaning to, and now Hitoshi’s giving him the ‘cut that shit out’ looks. A Dr. Shinsou fanatic isn’t something any of them need.
Tsukauchi’s not buying it. Good for him, he can’t be twisted totally out of shape just yet. “What’s so pure about killing herself instead of with her quirk?”
“The ninety percent mind is what the Doc thinks mentalist quirks can accomplish given the right training,” Aizawa offers up now he’s occupying the uncomfortable corner as the resident expert on Dr. Shinsou’s body of work. Hitoshi once told Aizawa to read the Doc’s book if he was so curious. Well: Aizawa’s read it, and he’s just as curious as before – but about different things. “The remaining ten percent is supposedly the same for everyone, but you can’t master a hundred percent without using both parts.” That’s where it came from – the Ninety-Nine massacre. By using ‘logic’ and ‘persuasion’ to groom his victims into answering the final question from their beloved Professor Shinsou, before his quirk brought about their intoxicated deaths, the Doc claimed in his article to have made use of ‘ninety-nine, if not a hundred percent’ of his mental faculty to sway his ‘volunteers’ into embracing death.
“Gold star for you,” Hitoshi purrs in a way that makes Aizawa want to slide out of his own skin. As if it’s a syllable-for-syllable mimic for Dr. Shinsou’s old endorsements, back in the day when gold stars might have been incentive for a young child undergoing a traumatising series of tests. Maybe it’s not accurate at all, but the worryingly plausible image is unnerving enough in Aizawa’s mind.
“She’s proving she has what it takes to be a killer worthy of his approval.” Hitoshi casts a look up at Tsukauchi that could burn through solid steel. “Does that about cover it, or do you want me to go into the more grisly details?”
“That’s fine.” Tsukauchi doesn’t sound like he believes it for a moment. None of this is fine; they wouldn’t be here otherwise. But the Detective recognises someone in his element, and Hitoshi’s so fluid right now you could tip him over the balcony, and he’d pour like water right onto the bloodstain. “What else do you need to see?”
“I’m guessing you can’t cut him down just yet,” Hitoshi murmurs like he’s thinking out loud, still squatting on his haunches. “This guy used to be somebody. She must have done her homework to track him down.”
“She’s getting more complex,” Aizawa agrees. “If only we knew where she was hiding.”
“That’d be giving the game away, wouldn’t it?” Hitoshi’s gaze locks onto Aizawa’s, the shadow of his father hanging particularly dark over his expression at this exact moment. “Whatever happened to the thrill of the chase?” Hitoshi wants to be a Hero, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a few screws loose here and there. Look at how Aizawa chooses to live his purportedly functioning adult life.
But like all things, there’s a time and a place. “I prefer my thrills with less bloodshed,” Aizawa replies calmly, trying to wrestle the situation under control like a horse in a rodeo.
“Tch,” Hitoshi scoffs like he can’t believe how vanilla Aizawa is. He wouldn’t think that if he’d ever been on a night out with Aizawa, but being that Hitoshi is sixteen and Aizawa is meant to be a responsible role model the chances of that happening are slim to not-a-chance. “What about her place?”
“The apartment we visited?” Tsukauchi barely puzzles before concluding with a simple, “Abandoned.”
“Are you sure?” Hitoshi keeps pressing. “We know she’s got a talent for hiding in plain sight.” It’s possible Shiyoko might be using that talent to slip into her old home from time to time, Aizawa supposes. He makes note of it in his mental logbook on how to get close to this psychopathic killer—and not just through her victims. Who’s to say Shiyoko hasn’t been in and out of her compromised apartment, paid her tributes at the Professor’s shrine?
“Why?” Tsukauchi follows up, and at least now they can give him straightforward answers.
“Dad told me so.” Hitoshi draws out the term of address, like he can pull it thin as a wire and garotte Dr. Shinsou with it.
“Has the building been watched since we went there?” Aizawa questions before Tsukauchi can dwell too long on Hitoshi’s creepier touches on this fine morning crime scene.
Tsukauchi shakes his head. “We… didn’t think it was necessary.” Hitoshi starts to click his tongue as if in scolding, and Aizawa nudges him with the end of his boot. He’s had better behaved preschool classes.
Even if it is an oversight on the police’s behalf, Tsukauchi said we and not I, and that leaves open a possibility he’d asked for something and been denied. No one can be everywhere at once, especially not a police force that loses all its shine (and funding) in comparison to the glitz and glam of being a Hero. Tsukauchi won’t admit it, smiling poster boy that he is, but there’s a good chance the police don’t have the resource to watch one abandoned apartment for three days, just to check no one’s been sneaking back in to leave more ‘presents’ in the freezer. Not with the rest of everyday crime alive and well in a city where society is slowly peeling apart as Heroes do an increasingly poorer job of keeping the forces of Villainy at bay.
“Now I’m not familiar with all this policework stuff, but that sounds like a good opportunity for a stakeout to me.” Hitoshi finally stands up, and his height seems to creep up all at once until Aizawa remembers there’s only a couple of inches between them – if Hitoshi doesn’t stop growing he’ll shoot past Aizawa in no time and be even more insufferable. What a prospect.
Tsukauchi gives Aizawa a look that seems to say, “And you just let him be like this all the time?” Which Aizawa responds to with a simple shrug.
“If you’re volunteering,” the detective begins cautiously, before a buzz in his pocket draws his attention, phone slipping out a moment later to check emails or messages that are the mere tip of an iceberg that’s all the Detective’s other cases within the overstretched safety net. It’s easy to let holes wear thin here and there in an operation that’s pretty much always running at shoestring level, so although the boys in blue are lagging and that’s not good, Aizawa’s practiced at forgiving them for not being perfect. He does try to steer clear of hypocrisy.
“Whaddya think, teach?” Hitoshi asks with a blanket of cool thrown over hope that’s hard to hide. Wanting his idea to be right, following those good instincts and being relevant – the kind of Hero he wants to become.
“It’s a good idea.” As usual, praise catches Hitoshi out far more than any reprimand, a smile dashing across his face that’s almost bashful before he stomps it out for the same teenage armour of being nonplussed about anything. “But you,” Aizawa reaches out with a finger outstretched, prodding Hitoshi in the shoulder, “are going back to school.” Fun’s over: it’s teacher time.
Hitoshi doesn’t fight this accusation so much as revel in it, a grin of far-less-sincere quality sneaking onto his lips as he meets Aizawa’s gaze and sends a hot-cold chill running up the length of Aizawa’s arm. “Not without you.”
Aizawa lets his arm fall and gives Tsukauchi another resigned “What can I do with him?” shrug. There’s can’t and won’t, the differences between them worthy of much philosophising. But rather than dwell on the finer details, Aizawa just remarks, “Can’t argue with that.”
Yamaguichi drives them back to school, and Tama smokes out the window while Aizawa spills exactly the amount of information he thinks it’s practical for them to know. So the interruption of Aizawa’s phone’s tackiest love-ballad ringtone is obviously a bit of a clash with the mood. Hitoshi – Aizawa’s pretty sure – is just browsing the internet on his phone.
Aizawa’s got his own phone to his ear and doesn’t even have time to speak before Hizashi cuts in with a brutal, “Nezu is not happy with you.”
“He should be,” Aizawa replies more caustically than he’d have started out if Hizashi had allowed him to get a word in first. “I’m bringing the truant back now.”
Aizawa hears background murmuring and then gets an earful of, “Toshinori says you’ve been gone nearly two hours.” The irony is that’s not too bad, given they’ve raced halfway across the city to poke around the freshest gory murder in the spree of a serial killer who’s surely not going to remain low-profile anymore. “Where have you been?”
“I can’t tell you,” Aizawa says, and it’s the bare, honest truth. Tsukauchi would have his ass over coals for disclosing information like that so carelessly.
“Shota.” Shit, Aizawa thinks in a back-reach of his mind. Hizashi only names him like that, the buzzcut version of Shota that’s an uncomfortably close shave, when he’s legitimately annoyed. And in front of other people, even their colleagues, means double trouble.
“I’ll explain over lunch,” Aizawa negotiates, and if Hitoshi’s noticed that his mentor’s life has the structural stability of cooked noodles, he’s looking pretty fucking smug about it across from Aizawa in the backseat.
“Yeah, you will.” For someone who almost never really shuts up, it’s always disquieting when Hizashi’s like this. Short words, no enthusiasm or emotion; those gifts of his company are spent on people who deserve them. “You’re buying.”
“Sure. See you soon.” Aizawa hangs up and tries not to allow his sigh to inflate the ‘relationship strife’ balloon right above his head. But then, Hitoshi just scoured a crime scene with far more subtle clues and picked up as many details as Aizawa.
“Are we in trouble or just you?” Hitoshi asks as Tamakawa puts on the siren for Yamaguichi so they can cut through some traffic at a junction. She’s probably a little too righteous to do it on her own initiative, but this is sort of an emergency. A domestic one. And a professional one too, depending on how pissed off Nezu is.
Aizawa feels himself starting to sweat a bit. “Me,” he conveys as happily as he feels about it.
Hitoshi ought to be relieved, but he’s mulling it over with one cheek cupped in a hand he’s still got to finish growing into. “It shouldn’t be you who gets the blame. I left first, and I wouldn’t have let you stop me.” Aizawa just chased – but if Aizawa had been a teacher first and a Hero second then he would’ve brought Hitoshi back right away, and he didn’t.
“I’m the adult.” Aizawa might as well be standing in front of a mirror lecturing himself at this point. “I have to take responsibility for you.” Including and almost exclusively when the decisions Hitoshi makes (and Aizawa endorses) are reckless, bad ones. Only problem being they’re the decisions Aizawa would make for himself. The similarities between himself and Hitoshi are wonderful in many ways, but it does mean some of their more troublesome traits align and allow shit like this to happen.
Aizawa can barely take responsibility for feeding, washing and resting himself half of the time. After he’s scraped through that and then added on the huge demanding mass that is his teaching job and those twenty little terrors (twenty-one including Hitoshi), Aizawa’s flat out of mature, sensible decisions to make on behalf of Hitoshi. Decisions like whether Hitoshi needs to be in school all the time when he could be snooping around horrific murders or maximum security prisons. Aizawa’s position was surely clear from the moment he put his foot to the floor and whizzed past the good-sense checkpoint in his head in the first place.
Stewing himself in much-deserved criticism, which is no less true for being directed at himself, Aizawa’s completely zoned out until Hitoshi says, “If it helps, I’m glad you didn’t.”
Aizawa falls off his thoughts like a new skier from a chairlift. “What?”
“Take responsibility,” Hitoshi reiterates. “You didn’t do the mature thing.” What Aizawa did, when it comes down to it, is make a decision that considered Hitoshi as more of an adult than a child. Children get sent back to school, but a genuine asset to the case – a Hero in training, interning for a Pro – gets pulled from class because he can make classes up. But there’s no replacing a fresh crime scene.
Legal or not, Hitoshi’s an asset to this (or any) case. Even when he’s being a tasteless, wise-cracking boor with as little respect for authority as the dead. It drives Aizawa up the wall that he’s apparently the first Hero to step the fuck up to a legacy like Shinsou Hitoshi.
Hitoshi’s found a means of resting in the car backseat that allows him to have one leg bent up and his foot propped on some crevice on the inside of the car door, putting his knee up to the level of his arm, which wraps around it and folds back as a rest for his face. He switches his gaze from out the window to focused right on Aizawa. With a rare moment of no-sarcasm or fake-bravado sincerity, Hitoshi simply tells him, “This is the coolest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
If Aizawa’s heart could be launched from his chest hard enough to punch a hole through the boot of the car, he’d be ass to the tarmac right about now. He wants to throw an arm around the kid’s shoulders with one arm and snap Dr. Shinsou’s neck with the other. He wants to expel a student at random and tell Nezu he quits unless Hitoshi gets a transfer. Aizawa would rather irrationally tear the world to pieces for Hitoshi than let it continue to cheat him as badly as it’s cheated him his whole life.
Alarm bells are ringing in Aizawa’s head (and on top of the car), but instead of saying any of that, Aizawa just diverts his eyes from the wind tunnel of Hitoshi’s gaze and says to the curved glass window, “It shouldn’t be.”
Hitoshi makes an amused kind of noise, a few further sounds making it out like he’s fidgeting from his oh-so-surprisingly not-that-comfortable position. It’s that or the heightened air of emotion in the air, the sudden burst of sincerity like a too-tight hug. “Thanks anyway.”
Notes:
This chapter marks the LAST chapter coming out of my first masterdoc, which totals a whopping 120k almost for this story as it concludes/moves on from what I'd loosely consider the first 'act' (yes, really). What a slog!
There has been concern raised (well-intentioned and politely of course) about the toll all this stuff has on Hitoshi, and if it seems like it's not being addressed now then have faith as I am definitely conscious of how heavy the subject matter is, but also there's a reason true crime is such a popular genre, and while this stuff IS definitely having a negative impact on Hitoshi on some level (even if we don't quite see it) he's also uh... thriving in a way. Morbid lil shit.
Oh also if anyone would like to contest/fight me Aizawa's emotional internal narrative about 1-A vs. Hitoshi I will slap your face off your face. There are things happening in the story that make the way Aizawa behaves, even within his own thoughts (which this narrative is anchored in), by definition irrational. Irrational things are not what someone believes with a perfectly level and calm mind. Gotta read a lil deeper, yanno?
Chapter 21: Collateral
Summary:
Aizawa does damage control the way someone disarms a minefield by tap-dancing across it.
Notes:
New chapter, new masterdoc, new nonsense for my fav trashdad and purplenurple to get themselves in & out of.
I'm planning take a week off from updating this murdery business over the holidays, but instead I'm going to post the first part of a side-fic set in the YWID universe that actually takes place *after* this fic ends (but still within the canon timeline). It's a shipfic pairing Hitoshi with a popular character from 1-A sooooooooooooooooo have fun making what you will of that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa and Hitoshi get exactly ten paces inside the school grounds before one of Ectoplasm’s clones – or perhaps the man himself – looms out of a hidden spot so suddenly Aizawa stifles the urge to jump and throw a handful of his capture weapon at the unwelcome messenger. “The Principal wants to see you.”
“Uhuh,” Aizawa agrees in the broadest strokes possible. Whatever this situation is, it’s going to need handling head on. He lifts a hand and jabs at Hitoshi with his thumb. “What about him?”
Ectoplasm’s shiny-toothed maw moves slightly as the mathematics veteran takes an audible breath. Maybe this Ectoplasm is the real deal after all. Aizawa’s not punching him to find out. “Shinsou too.”
“Oh goody.” Hitoshi’s snarky demeanour drops off when Aizawa jabs his elbow into the kid’s upper arm. If Ectoplasm’s got an opinion about seeing an exchange like this, it’d be difficult to tell on his face anyway. A legendary poker face and countenance that’s generally frightening makes him a terrific envoy for the Principal, to say nothing of the thirty-odd clones he can use as errand runners if Nezu so desires it.
On the silent walk up to Nezu’s office, Aizawa tries to guess if Hitoshi’s ever met the Principal before. Surely not in close quarters, on the Principal’s home turf. And probably not when they're on such thin ice that Aizawa’s legitimately afraid of feeling the ground give way underneath them.
There’s a million ways that Hitoshi could misjudge an opponent of such immense intellectual power as Nezu and put himself into even more danger at UA. For that reason, Aizawa finds himself slipping a quick, “Don’t try anything stupid in there,” to Hitoshi as they’re climbing the stairs.
“You calling me a dumbass, teach?” Hitoshi mocks with a rock of his head askew, watching Aizawa almost like a cat tilts its head at a creature it doesn’t fully understand – but means to pounce on anyway – while still keeping a wary eye on the (maybe) Ecto-clone ahead of them.
“Just don’t underestimate the Principal,” Aizawa warns as they climb a set of stairs fast enough to call it free cardio. “It’s something people only do once, and they always regret it.”
But a look of amusement fresh as spring rain sweeps across Hitoshi’s face. “Oh, didn't you know?” he remarks with his most insincere charm. “He and I go way back.”
Aizawa senses several pieces of the mental machine he’s been building shift. The contraption still works, just perhaps in not quite the same way as he’d initially thought. Dawning on Aizawa like a broken rib only noticed the morning after, he realises there’s every chance Nezu has been keeping secrets of his own about the extent of his connection to Dr. Shinsou. That’s what people who’ve had contact with the Doc do: bury it so deep the corpse won’t see the light of day until the apocalypse is truly nigh.
Unfortunately, Aizawa’s got a real doomsday feeling about all this.
When they arrive at his office, Principal Nezu – as ever – has prepared a fresh pot of tea. It's brewing on the table between the sofas on which Nezu holds these ‘little chats’. A thin wisp of steam that smells fantastic escapes from the spout of the magical teapot. However, the glint in the dark, glassy depths of the Principal’s eye is not fantastic at all. Not that you would know it from the polished courtesy of his tone as he calls out, “Welcome, welcome!”
Luckily, Aizawa’s been getting a lot of experience dealing with super-intelligent animals lately. Not stopping at the doorway, Aizawa strides confidently into the room, Hitoshi almost entirely within his shadow. At least Nezu’s on the right side. Not that this affects the Principal’s ominous tone of authority in the slightest. “Please take a seat.”
Aizawa does as he's told, while Hitoshi makes a spectacle of it. Flopping onto one of the antique sofas that aren't made for slouching, Hitoshi throws his arms out along the back and positively lolls, his feet shades away from being put up on the coffee table. If he did Aizawa would break his feet off, but thankfully Hitoshi just heaps around like a sack of potatoes instead. It’s a terrible habit of his, though not quite as bad as some of his other manners.
“Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it?” Hitoshi delivers to Nezu like he's catching up with old friends. As if no semblance of authority exists in the dimension he’s currently occupying. Aizawa feels some responsibility for that, having plucked Hitoshi so suddenly from one world to another that it might have – okay, has – gone to the boy’s head. A little. Okay, a lot. “What like, ten years?”
Nezu naturally appears to know what Hitoshi is talking about. Aizawa can't wait to be enlightened. “Not quite. Nine years and eight months, as I recall.”
“Since what, might I ask?” Aizawa invites like this is the weirdest parent-teacher meeting he's ever been at, where he's simultaneously both and technically neither.
“I see. I must have neglected to mention,” Nezu remarks with innocence that flies about as much as an Dodo. “I once joined the Shinsou family for dinner many years ago.”
Of course he did.
“You and my Dad were the best of buds back then,” Hitoshi says with a level of disdain that matches how he must feel, and Aizawa's blood boils. But he just told Hitoshi not to do anything stupid, which goes for them both. Allowing feelings to get in the way of what has to be done falls under that large umbrella. So even if Aizawa’s quietly furious about the fact that Nezu has kept this from him, Hitoshi’s going to do enough damage all by himself, and Aizawa better not make it any worse.
“I wouldn't go that far, but Dr. Shinsou and I were certainly peers for a time,” Nezu relates with a fearless chill to tone, relaying the facts simply as he sees them to exist. It's likely he’s offering this information specifically for Aizawa’s benefit, but far be it for a creature of such devious intelligence not to play with his prey a little first. “I attended one of Dr. Shinsou’s lectures on Mentalism, after which The Professor extended an invitation to join him in private discussion. Our acquaintance continued for a time after that.”
Of course, Aizawa thinks: Nezu’s quirk is in essence mentalist, and furthermore manifested in the brain of a… non-human animal. Of course the Doc was all over that.
“You never came back for dinner.” There’s a bitterness to Hitoshi’s voice, like the aftertaste of whiskey on Hizashi’s mouth. “Did we fall below your expectations?” We means Hitoshi and his mother, Aizawa can sense instinctively.
“Of course not,” Nezu replies with perfect decency. “I dined with Dr. Shinsou a number of times after that. But you and your mother had already left by that point.”
“Figures,” Hitoshi spits like a tack. “I'm sure he appreciated your support while he was getting busy with the Ninety-Nine massacre.”
“I tried to dissuade him from pursuing that body of work,” Nezu actually sighs, and so far this conversation is exactly 0% what Aizawa expected. Serves him right for thinking he has all the answers. “As you can imagine, we had a falling out as your father's position became more… radical.”
“So experimenting on kids is okay,” Hitoshi scoffs. “It's just the murder you couldn't hack.”
“I too know what that's like, Young Shinsou,” Nezu replies like there's a switchblade in his words that will pop out any second now. “I even permitted your father to conduct some of his assessments on myself, so interested was I in his approach.”
“Oh, well that's alright then.” Hitoshi manages to sit himself even further back on the sofa. “Who cares about consent? They’re only kids, right?”
“Hitoshi,” Aizawa delivers like a strong hand on the reins, pulling Hitoshi back from champing at the bit quite so recklessly. Attention turning back to the Principal, Aizawa begins his damage control. “We’re here to apologise. My actions today were rash and unprofessional.”
“Our actions, don't hog all the credit for yourself,” Hitoshi pipes up, and Aizawa appreciates the sentiment but would love if his kid could just shut up for a second.
“I’d like to say I expected more from you Aizawa, but alas, I know your work as a Hero takes precedence over your duties as a teacher,” Nezu pontificates like he’s been in casual dialogue with himself about this for hours. Aizawa wouldn’t put it past Nezu. “Unfortunately, what I must take issue with is your involvement of one of UA’s students in this matter.”
“Which was your idea, as I recall,” Aizawa finds himself pointing out like he’s turned into a teen just as angsty as Hitoshi. The genuine article looks shaken by the notion that Aizawa’s invitation to work with him could have originated with the Principal, so Hitoshi must make an amendment to his records for the history of their relationship. It’s good to get used to that feeling, as Nezu arranges most of the ongoings at UA like an experienced conductor commands an orchestra.
“My recommendation was that you kept any such arrangement from coming into conflict with your respective requirements to this school.” Nezu tilt his head sharply to one side. “Tell me: do you think that commitment has been upheld?”
“Well gee, Principal,” Hitoshi starts as he’ll mean to continue, while Aizawa bites the inside of his cheek in anticipation. “If you wouldn’t mind telling the serial killer butchering people like animals to only commit murder outside of school hours, that’d be just swell.” Hitoshi’s all doleful puppy-eyes as he delivers this with simpering sarcasm, and Aizawa’s hand moves on reflex to lightly thwack Hitoshi’s arm with the backs of his fingers. He’s got his own issues with authority, but if this brat thinks he’ll make it anywhere without an ounce of respect and no education, he’s got another thing coming.
Except the gesture turns out more play than punishment, which Hitoshi not only knows but fucking basks in. His arm is still stretched like an impossibly long cat along the back of the sofa, but after a quick movement of Hitoshi’s hand, Aizawa feels a characteristic tug on the back of his head. They’ve legitimately reached the stage of hair-pulling. If not the kind Aizawa’s more typically used to. What the hell is he gonna do with this kid?
Nezu is watching all of this through his volcanic glass eyes, and Aizawa feels like he might as well paint ‘emotionally compromised’ on his chest and strip naked for how transparent he’s being right now. What happens when you put the two of them together? Fantastic detective work; atrocious school attendance.
“This killer that you are pursuing,” Nezu remarks calmly. “Is it a former patient of Dr. Shinsou’s?”
“Did you work that out all by yourself?” Hitoshi jibes. Aizawa’s not going to swipe at him anymore like a cat batting around its kitten, but he’ll grab this renegade by the scruff if he needs to. Which they're currently very close to.
It thankfully doesn’t become necessary, as Nezu remains gleefully unaffected by Hitoshi’s mountain of charm. Or, since they apparently have a history of which Aizawa was heretofore unaware, maybe Nezu’s just used to the kid behaving like a six-year-old. “So then. What am I going to do with you two?”
“It won’t happen again,” Aizawa tries to insist, but it’s an offer he’s sure to default on, and they all know it.
“Until it does, naturally.” Nezu’s nose twitches, and with an excitable wiggle of his tail leans forward to lift the teapot, maneuvering it with mastery to pour three identical cups of fragrant tea. “When an issue of such urgency arises again, then what?” Another killing, another bloodbath with a brainwasher’s quirk all over it. Aizawa knows what decision he makes every time. There’s just a caveat to it now: what to do with his kid.
“I go alone.” Aizawa gives the answer Nezu is waiting for. Even if it breaks his heart a little; the old leathery thing’s tough enough to withstand the strain.
“What?! You’re just giving in to him?” Hitoshi’s gone from toddler to screaming newborn. The cracks in Aizawa's chest cavity deepen, as if there’s a massive boot slowly stomping down on him. The thick sole of the system and what society does or doesn’t consider appropriate. Aizawa gives Hitoshi a ‘my hands are tied’ look and hopes it translates.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Shinsou. Aizawa is acting in your best interests,” Nezu observes amenably. At least Hitoshi acting like a terror makes Aizawa seem more reasonable by comparison; bad cop and worse cop. “Now on this occasion I can overlook your absence as an undisclosed family emergency, but if you decide to be absent from classes again I ought to remind you that there are as many students coveting the place you hold in General Studies as ardently as you desire a spot on the Hero Course. It would be a terrible shame to have to expel you from this institution altogether.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Aizawa insists. He’ll take being stepped on, but hell if he’s giving in. “This was a…” He stops just to flick Hitoshi a cautionary glance, “moment of madness. I’ll make the right decision next time.”
Hitoshi seems kind of amazed by Aizawa dragging himself over the coals like this, but every word of it is true, and he means most of them. It was a moment of madness, letting the thrill of the chase – fuck, just like Hitoshi said – take over for long enough to think taking a sixteen-year-old skipping class to check out a gory crime scene is something Aizawa can get away with. Even if that teenager is Shinsou Hitoshi, and he’s all kinds of into that godawful shit. Give Shinsou ten years of doing this work, and he might be a little more hardened like Aizawa. But for now a world of possibilities is unfolding in front of Hitoshi, and he’s too excited to hold back of his own accord. Aizawa should have been the responsible adult, but it would’ve made him a bad detective and an even worse Hero. His priorities have always been the opposite direction – until now, he supposes.
“Yeah.” Hitoshi doesn’t sound quite so annoyed anymore, though Aizawa knows better than to think he’s going to get away from this clean. Today is basically due to be one long character assassination from here on out. Aizawa hasn’t even gotten started with Hizashi yet. “I promise, you won’t catch me cutting class again.”
Nezu leans forward to select one of the cups of tea, bringing it to rest first in his lap. “If you think you’re being clever, young man, I can assure you that you’re quite transparent.”
“Oh, I think we’re pretty clear.” Hitoshi waves a hand in front of his face with a smile he probably supposes is charming, and then follows suit after the Principal and picks up one of the cups of tea, lifting it as if to toast. “Shall we drink to it?”
“A toast, then,” Nezu agrees, his voice layered with a dormant control that hums underneath the conversation like a powerful machine running deep underground. The same kind of atmosphere Dr. Shinsou gives off. Maybe, Aizawa wonders, maybe even the mark of a powerful mentalist. “To Shinsou’s academic career at this school.” Namely the dropping of his underground Hero internship program with Aizawa. As if.
Hitoshi lifts his teacup delicately, the violet sunflare of his hair fanning around his head with that striking Shinsou face, and lilts with an assaulting, dry sarcasm, “Kampai.”
Aizawa’s next cycle through the dryer starts almost immediately after leaving the Principal’s office, while he and Hitoshi are walking shoulder-to-shoulder in almost-comfortable silence down the hallway. There’s nothing more to say between them than was already said in Nezu’s office. At least, not until Aizawa’s finished mulling over what the compromises they’ve made will actually mean in a practical context.
“Well LOOK who it is!”
The blast of sound comes from behind them, giving Aizawa just a enough time for one reaction before impact; he uses it to push Hitoshi out of the way. This mean it's only Aizawa – though with his support gear on, Hizashi was probably only targeting Aizawa anyway – who gets punched in the back with the uniquely dulcet tones of his best beloved in a bad mood.
Hizashi’s quirk hits like a rocket-powered hi-kick to the back, taking Aizawa off his feet and winding him as he hits the ground with a heavy thump followed by a grisly moan. “I deserved that.” He rises into a push-up and is back on his feet by the time Hizashi has closed the distance between them. Hitoshi stumbled a couple of steps but faces the two of them now, looking astonished.
“I had to cover your second period today. You owe me big time.” Hizashi comes close enough to throw his arm over Aizawa’s shoulders, but he shrugs it right off before Hizashi’s got a chance to settle. Hitoshi is too smart to miss any hints about Aizawa’s personal life, which Hizashi will surely give away in a heartbeat if he’s allowed to, especially when he's in a pissy mood.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Aizawa replies drolly, and then, settling a quick division of different compartments of his life turns to Hitoshi and says, “I’ll see you later.”
“Well, alright then.” Hitoshi dresses this brattishly enough to banish any wrong impressions of this being something he’s actually okay with. It’s pretty much guaranteed that Hitoshi will always want more of Aizawa’s time, but there are other people in his life. Ones who don’t need a quirk or lunatic father to hold a definitive sway over Aizawa; Hizashi fucks him, and that’s plenty of leverage.
“I’ll text you about our next move,” Aizawa offers for pure practicality, and if it’s a little appeasement, that’s just a convenient side-effect.
“Not if I text you first,” Hitoshi quips to Aizawa, but he’s eyeing Hizashi instead. “Mic,” he offers as a simple means of acknowledgement. Hizashi just offers his million-yen smile (as in, that’s what he actually paid for it) in return.
“Try and keep him out of trouble, won’t you?” Hizashi appeals to Hitoshi with a clever back-pocket implication that it’s Hitoshi who needs to keep Aizawa in line, which might be true, but doesn’t mean Hizashi should say it. Aizawa doesn’t love him just for his leather fetish and extremely dexterous hands; Hizashi’s got an amazing mind too. Keeping him and Hitoshi suitably distanced from each other isn't because they won’t get on. No, Aizawa just dreads to think of the force they'd make if they both teamed up against him.
“Let’s go, you.” Hizashi tugs on Aizawa’s sleeve, and he lets himself be moved, shoving his hands into his pockets and breaking into a stroll that matches Hizashi’s lanky-legged pace.
Because Hitoshi stands still and just watches them go, they’re away from him in no time, not that it has any bearing on the stormy air of tension. Opens up the plains for even more rain, in fact. However, rather than a hurricane, Hizashi’s no more than an exasperated breeze. A sigh pushes out of Hizashi’s incredible lungs like bellows. “So what is it about him?”
Aizawa wishes he were following enough to be able to answer, but frankly he’s lost. “About?”
“Shinsou.” Side-by-side, it’s possible to see Hizashi’s eyes behind his tinted glasses, and actually catch the point where he rolls them in defeat. “What is it about that kid that makes you so stupid?”
Aizawa takes the beating like he deserves, he supposes, but he’s always been a good punching bag. Especially for Hizashi. “I don’t know, I just… want to help him.”
“Do you see why people might have difficulty understanding that reasoning, based on the choices you’ve made for him?” Most teenagers wouldn’t exactly thrive on an intellectual diet of skipping class to pick over corpses that make a slaughterhouse look like daycare centres for farm animals. But then, Hitoshi’s not most teenagers.
“You don’t get it.” Aizawa knows he’s being defensive, but everything he’s done has been for a good cause. It’s just that sometimes the true path of justice cuts against the grain of society. It’s against the rules, but the rules are made in specifics; Hitoshi is unique.
“You haven’t exactly given me a chance to,” Hizashi points out, hooking his thumbs into his jacket pockets. “Where are we going for lunch? I fancy something–” outrageously overpriced, no doubt. Hizashi loves trying to extort extravagance from Aizawa, especially if Hizashi’s in a sour mood. It usually backfires on both of them anyway – they’ve been banned from several Michelin Starred restaurants across the city for having blowout arguments over overpriced food before. Better to avoid such fraught, emotionally hostile environments. Aizawa’s got a better idea.
“The usual.” Aizawa pulls out a fallback they’ve always used. A reliable family restaurant in the area: a long-patronised, historic establishment in his and Hizashi’s past and a suitable arena in which to hash things out. “The decisions I made were right for Hitoshi. The kid practically falls over himself thanking me, while everyone else loses their fucking heads.”
“That’s unfair.” Hizashi’s edict is harsh but deserved. “You’re always erratic, but I can tell when something’s different, Shota. I’m not an idiot.”
No, Hizashi is far, far too smart to be fooled for a second by all this. Aizawa starts trying to explain anyway. “The… it’s the whole chain of events.” They’re headed straight off-campus, as Aizawa had the decency to return to school just in time for lunch. “Everything's connected, the events in isolation seem irrational, but there’s something big coming.” It’s not easy to explain, and he doesn’t like it, but once he starts talking, Aizawa’s truth pours out as strong and hot as a pot of tea that’s been brewing for days.
“I’m telling you, Hizashi, I’m so close to something and he’s the key and I–” Aizawa stops unloading as soon as he consciously catches up with the fact that he’s doing it. Hizashi is the only person who ever gets to hear these moments of spewing back all the pressure Aizawa’s been accumulating like a boiler with the valves all closed. “I’ve… got a handle on this.” Aizawa considers if he’d believe this coming from him, and sacrifices, “mostly.”
“Oh yeah, you’ve got us all really convinced of that,” Hizashi replies in a way that reminds Aizawa of a certain brat.
“I do.” Aizawa rubs his face, tactile confirmation he still exists and holds form. “Hitoshi is just… hard to control sometimes.” As in, he does what he wants, which is usually what Aizawa also wants to do, so Aizawa lets him get away with it.
Hizashi veers close enough to Aizawa to bump their shoulders together as they walk down the street, sunlight casting stumpy shadows behind them and making the day seem nicer than it deserves to be out of pure spite. A beautiful day for some, if not Aizawa. “Seems to me more like he’s got you under this thumb.”
“He wishes,” Aizawa scoffs, lifting a hand to the back of his head and ruffling through his hair. He gets a sudden flash of Hitoshi tugging a lock of his hair back in Nezu’s office, like a child playing with a cat’s tail. It’s insane how many people seem determined to know what’s good for Hitoshi without spending a lick of time around the kid. If they did, they’d surely see he’s right where he wants to be.
Dragged in so many conflicting directions, Aizawa wonders if the world couldn’t stop trying to tear him apart anytime soon. But nothing changes without some agency, so Aizawa continues in his disheartened cleanup operation. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been… distracted.” Aizawa would be lying if he claimed to have total control over his situation right now. But he can at least say he’s remained on his feet, managing to stay balanced against a myriad of demands, some of them tufty lavender mop-tops that require an exhaustive amount of attention. “I’ve just got a lot of competing priorities right now.”
“Sure, but you realise you’re setting an example for him, right? The way he looks at you, Shota.” There’s a moment of silence after Hizashi spouts this latest pearl of truth, and Aizawa knows what’s coming. He does. He just doesn't want to think about it. “You’re the centre of his whole universe.” Hizashi is only telling Aizawa the things he needs to hear. He has trust in that – the weight he assigns to his partner’s reprimand. Whatever Hizashi has to say, it’s important. (Unless it’s about TV. Then it’s utterly meaningless.)
Aizawa and Hizashi turn onto the quiet side-street that houses the restaurant they’ve been a fixture at for over a decade. Students into Heros into teachers; places they grew up in together. They’ll order the same thing each time, favourites that are too deeply embedded to change and talk it all(most) through.
“Believe me, it’s not like I wanted that to happen,” Aizawa offers in resignation. It wasn’t in the plan for Hitoshi to stick to Aizawa like an orphaned monkey clings to a soft-toy version of itself, but the desperation with which he holds on is too heartbreaking to resist. “But he’s such a bright kid, he’s got so much potential, and they just–” Aizawa’s getting ranty again, but if there’s anyone he can pour this out to, it’s always been Hizashi. “If they’d just let him prove it.”
“They will, babe.” Hizashi’s tone has changed to that soothing, an on-air aural velvet that settles Aizawa without fail. “Nezu told us he’s been put forward for the Provisional License Exam.”
Aizawa looks over, expression wiped blank. Little rat neglected to mention that during the Principal’s routine hiding of Aizawa’s rear end. “Really?”
“You didn’t know?” Hizashi’s about to go into storytelling mode, Aizawa can sense it like the moist rush of air before a heavy rain. “Well, Toshinori came to ask me to cover him covering for you on the class after the one you ran out in the middle of and I was like ‘Hey what?!’ so then we were both wondering what the hell was going on.” Against the backdrop of Hizashi’s steady yammering, Aizawa finally starts to relax.
But that doesn’t mean he’s letting Hizashi completely off the hook. “So you went straight to the Principal?”
“Are you kidding?” Hizashi squawks. “I saw him climb out of a kid’s backpack at the end of class, Shota. I swear it .”
“Wouldn’t put it past him.” Aizawa’s accommodated Nezu’s desire to nap in a huddled nest of his capture weapon too many times to argue with that little scenario. “Then what?” Aizawa doesn’t encourage Hizashi’s raconteur habits all that often, but after such a harrowing interruption to his morning, it’s reassuring to listen to the chatterbox natter away, like the wittering of a tropical bird.
“Well he got me and Toshinori together in his office and told us you’d left school and taken Shinsou without any warning, and I was like ‘UH OH’ and they asked me if I knew where you were.” Probably around the time Hizashi called him – Aizawa’s glad he didn’t let on any details. It might upset Hizashi from time to time, but it keeps Aizawa’s information secure. “Obviously, I didn’t know, but then Toshi goes off on one about how they should transfer ‘such a bright flame’ onto the Hero Course after the way he proved himself in his match with Midoriya at the sports festival. He was getting kinda into it – that’s when Nezu told us about the Provisional License thing, to shut him up I think.” Props to Toshinori, Aizawa notes like writing a mental message on the back of his hand. He's not always wrong.
“Can’t believe Nezu actually did it,” Aizawa murmurs, scratching behind one of his ears. Of course Nezu wouldn’t have told Hitoshi up front that he’s already entered for the exam. Of course Nezu would keep that secret for a time when it could be used for greater leverage. Or maybe he just knows Hizashi will spill to Aizawa anyway, and they’re all still running inside the Principal’s giant hamster wheel.
“I know you like the kid, Shota, but you gotta get some perspective, for fuck’s sake,” Hizashi turns more to nagging as they pass rows of houses set far back from their high front gates, then faded signs of shops that are technically open, but look as if they’ve been shut for ten years or more. The place they’re headed to was a hidden gem back when Hizashi discovered it over a decade ago, and the surroundings have only fallen further into obscurity in the many years since, making the whole area feel like a sleepy, quiet bubble away from the chaos of the rest of Aizawa’s world. But that’s the way it’s always been with Hizashi; the eye of Aizawa’s storm. “Not even the first-years on the actual Hero course are doing the shit you’re making that kid do.”
Something screeches to a stop in Aizawa’s head like a car careening off into traffic. “I’m not making him do anything.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Hizashi makes up quickly. Aizawa feels like a hen squawking on top of her nest, but if he were making Hitoshi do anything he didn’t want to that’d make Aizawa as bad as the Doc. And Aizawa’s nothing like that fucking lunatic – he hopes. “You just have a lot of influence over him. You’re meant to at least try and act like you’ve got your shit together.”
If that isn’t the godawful truth.
Aizawa lets out a defeated sigh as they stop outside their old favourite of a restaurant, carried on the flow of their subconscious. “Believe me,” he says as they step inside to a rush of hot air and orders being slung back and forth. “I’m trying.”
They take their usual seats and order without looking at a menu. Aizawa’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He takes a wild guess about who it is and is right. The itching fingers of youth too impatient to wait for inspiration, Hitoshi buzzes him with a one-word question: ‘Stakeout?’
Hizashi must guess who it is almost immediately, but he doesn’t let onto that fact just yet. No sense in disrupting the careful balance they’re trying to achieve; things aren’t great right now, but they’re supposed to be looking up, which requires a certain amount of faith. But that faith still requires navigating around the fact that Aizawa’s got an actual case to work and an over-eager intern to go with it like a matching set.
‘Go home after school and pack first. We’ll meet outside the closest train station to the address.’ No sense in raising suspicion by travelling together to do the questionably legal thing they’re about to do. Plus, Aizawa needs some time to set things up with Tsukauchi, whose approval for this operation – and implicit drain on precious police resource – is still tentative at best. But he’ll deal with that after settling things down with Hizashi.
“So I’m guessing you won’t be home tonight,” Hizashi remarks as he drums his fingertips against the tabletop in a distinctive beat. A song he likes, maybe – or one he’s trying to write.
“It’s only working on the case during school hours that I’ve gotten in trouble for,” Aizawa replies drearily as he feels the arrival of another message from Hitoshi that he doesn’t check right away. It's probably an ‘okay’ or ‘thanks’— the endless gratitude that Hitoshi bestows on Aizawa for making all these supposedly bad decisions regarding his education. “Working it outside of them is still fine.” Otherwise, Aizawa would get nothing done at all.
If it ever came down to the two halves of his professional life no longer being compatible, there’s no question about which side Aizawa would jettison. He never even applied to be a teacher in the first place; Kayama just put him up for it, and he said yes because it got him off the streets at a worthy cost. So teaching is important, but not more important than Aizawa’s true calling.
“You haven’t gotten in trouble, Shota,” Hizashi scolds idly. “We’re just concerned about you.”
“Be concerned about the people who are dying,” Aizawa bats back indifferently, slumping over the table as they wait for their orders to arrive.
“Someone has to care about you,” Hizashi snaps. “You won’t do it yourself.”
“I’m fine,” Aizawa returns, and this exchange is still more prickly than he’d like. That delicate balance keeps teetering back and forth. “I just need some…” Not trust – he has that already – or space, which Hizashi gives him in buckets. “... patience.”
“And whaddya call this?” Hizashi spits with an insolent wiggle of his moustache. “Chopped liver?” His voice doesn’t bear real anger, but it does carry a certain exasperation that makes Aizawa feel even guiltier than he does already. But he can’t do everything, and that means choosing being a Hero over a teacher (or Hitoshi over everyone else) sometimes. No matter what decision he makes, someone’s unhappy on the other side. Hizashi’s an adult; Hitoshi is a kid. Hakamata Shiyoko is a little bit of both, but also – rather importantly – a crazed serial killer.
There’s no escaping that Aizawa’s priorities are the way they are for a reason. So even as he endures the collateral damage he causes knowingly, he’s happy with his decisions. He wouldn’t change them.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Aizawa says openly across the dinner table, one he’s sat at with Hizashi hundreds or even thousands of times before. Aizawa’s made his peace with sometimes not having all the answers. “I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
Hizashi emits a centering sigh, his eyes lingering shut as he blinks – only just visible through the tint of his glasses. “I know you are.” But his fingertips are going into a drum solo on the table. “Just make sure you tell me when–”
“I know.” Taking out two birds with one stone, Aizawa slides one of his hands forward to close over Hizashi’s, stilling the hyperactive fidget and sneaking a little physical affection – and in public, no less. Aizawa knows how to get through to Hizashi, and anything that’d grace the screen of the soap operas Hizashi watches with such delight is sure to hold some sway. “Everything’s under control.” For now.
But Hizashi knows Aizawa too well. “For now.”
“Yes, for now,” Aizawa admits with a ‘you got me’ groan that he keeps in the back of his mouth. Swallowing his frustration because he’s got every idea how bad it looks , but Aizawa’s in the middle of this, so if anyone knows if something’s not right then it’s going to be him. “And as soon as it isn’t, you’ll be the first to hear about it. I promise.”
“You better be right, hot stuff,” Hizashi’s saying as their food arrives, breaking apart his chopsticks with ravenous glee.
Aizawa continues his tightrope walk a little longer.
Notes:
Straight up I love the Nezu scenes in this fic (I love Hizashi too, but we can all tell that already). That lil snickerdoodle was another of those characters I DID NOT expect to be so influential or goddamn enjoyable to write in this story, but he's a personal favourite and my editor absolutely lives for his scenes which means I know they gotta be good so my love for the bear-mouse-what must be doing something right.
I'm a bit behind on my inbox of recent - so many wonderful comments, so little time to reply the way I'd like to! I'm still hanging out in discord which is a faster hotline to my thoughts & feelings on the story, and I will try to get on top of the backlog of messages, but I read all the comments and I'd love to reply to everything, I just might not be able to manage it as reliably as before. The price of success, or something similar.
Chapter 22: The Stakeout
Summary:
Aizawa makes more promises he can only hope he's able to keep.
Notes:
Happy new year one and all. What better way to start it than with one of my favourite chapters? I love this story dearly, but this is definitely one of the ones with a special place in my heart. It also contains one of my creative team's favourite lines from the whole story, so that makes it extra-special.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi’s easy to miss (exactly like he should be) when Aizawa meets him at the suburban train station nearest to Shiyoko’s apartment a little after eight in the evening. The kid is wearing a black hoodie and tracksuit bottoms with a kitbag that’s seen better days hanging over his shoulder. A couple stray wisps of violet hair sneak around the edges of his hood, like his true nature straining to get free. His face shows no signs of that struggle, the same deadpan panda-eyed stare.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Hitoshi sounds tired, which isn’t a great indicator for the night ahead of them. But maybe he’s just keeping a low, if churlishly teenage, profile.
“Quietly.” Aizawa’s not trying to be a buzzkill on purpose; well, maybe a little, but there's a point. Discussing covert operations in public is generally discouraged. He starts to walk, and Hitoshi follows. A worrisome thought occurs in one of the back-drawers of Aizawa’s brain, which by the time he fumbles around to pull it out, turns into the question, “Does your mother know you’re not coming home tonight?” It sounds even worse when he says it out loud. But he has to ask.
“Said I was staying with a friend,” Hitoshi replies with a grin so cunning it could wear fur and pass for a weasel. Aizawa must be showing his trepidation over such a casual lie too obviously, because it’s barely a second before Hitoshi teases, “Chill out, teach. It’ll be fine.”
“If something happens, I’ll have to explain why you lied,” Aizawa points out with an unspoken “don’t do that to me” plea in his tone. Not least because it will look awful for Aizawa. If it all went horribly wrong, he could lose his (teaching) job. They might even… stop Hitoshi seeing Aizawa anymore, as weirdly out of turn as the phrase sounds. Though the meaning holds true, and he’d hate for it to happen. So as much as Hitoshi’s a genuine help on this case, Aizawa’s also on good enough terms with himself to know he’d miss the kid too. More than he cares to think about.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” Hitoshi insists, then amends himself. “Well, I hope something does.” Just nothing bad to him, the delicate cargo of this more-delicate still operation. Aizawa tries to remember why he’s bringing the brat along on this. Oh yes: because it was Hitoshi’s idea in the first place, and getting his way could be the kid’s part-time job. At least where an indulgent sod like Aizawa is concerned.
Hitoshi may have had the idea first, but he pre-empted a thought Aizawa would have likely arrived at anyway; it makes sense to put a pair of eyes on Shiyoko’s old apartment if the Police haven't established whether the place is really abandoned or just looks abandoned – they saw some signs of the latter when the three of them inspected it a few days ago. But if the days haven’t moved fast enough to make that feel like weeks ago. However, after the murder of the lawyer this morning, if there’s ever going to be a time to make an offering to the Dr. Shinsou creepatorum, a victim with no goddamn nose is a reasonable place to start.
“So you better not fuck it up by trying anything stupid,” Aizawa grizzles like the stomach of a bear post-hibernation. “This is a surveillance operation.” Tsukauchi was a bit cagey about making the arrangements initially, but Aizawa had dropped the notion that if the detective wasn’t going to see to it then maybe Tama would be up for squandering a little police resource, and that soon turned the tides of phone call that went down short and bitter like a line of shots. It has to help that Aizawa and Hitoshi covering this means Tsukauchi can do other stuff too – not like he’s got a partner on the force to help him out. (Yet).
So although it’s just a stakeout, the stakes are still high, and Hitoshi’s never even done this before, which sets Aizawa on edge like he’s pretty sure of his footing along that slippery edge of a rooftop, but that doesn’t mean he – or Hitoshi, more importantly – won’t fall.
For all this concern, which stews into worry inside Aizawa like a slimy brew from a witch’s cauldron, Hitoshi gives a non-committal ‘if you say so’ shrug. “Unless she shows up.”
“Pedant.” Aizawa snipes, but Hitoshi’s too close to him to allow any such detail to slip his careful ear.
“I learned from the best.” This is meant as a joking retort, but Aizawa finds himself circling back around Hizashi’s warning earlier in the day like water down a drain. The centre of his universe. If Aizawa lives and breathes this case, so does Hitoshi. It’s surely not good for either of them. But then, a killer on the loose isn’t good for a lot of people. You don’t see Shiyoko handing herself into the authorities because of the inconvenience caused by her slaughtering all those not-quite innocent men.
Except Aizawa doesn’t believe in sheltering his students, allowing them to pass their school years in an idealistic bubble that’d leave them unprepared for the real world. There’s no point, not if they really want to be Heroes. Even the ones stuck in the wrong course. So Aizawa might not be the best, but he’s the best Hitoshi’s got.
Aizawa leads Hitoshi to the address he cleared with Tsukauchi, who was in there earlier today getting all the right permissions and setting up the surveillance equipment he managed to wrangle from the old dog. Bugged the room to high hell, probably. Hopefully the detective won’t want to show up and helicopter them half the night. That’d be a bummer. Aizawa would prefer it’s just him and Hitoshi, which has easily become a happy norm.
They arrive at the vacant apartment in a building opposite to Shiyoko’s block, with a view of the fire escape she’s been using to get back into the flat from the outside. It’s over ten floors up, which makes her fearless or desperate. They’re often the same thing. The lookout from across the street is through a badly foiled one-way window, a few strategic seemingly natural tears in the sun-reflecting film allowing enough space for a pair of night vision binoculars, which Aizawa had the foresight to dig out of his broom cupboard while he was at home before coming here.
In a special concerted effort, Aizawa actually had dinner with Hizashi, not talking about the case or school and definitely not Hitoshi. Putting in that little bit of maintenance a relationship needs to keep going; Aizawa’s learned the hard way. Plus, a little time to fool around on the sofa never hurts. It was actually kind of a hardship to drag himself away from a half-naked and getting-nakeder Hizashi, but duty called. It’s still calling, if in a ten-hour-long drone kind of way.
Hitoshi sits himself down on a rickety camp bed against one of the walls in the single-room apartment they’re going to be occupying for the foreseeable future. There’s a working bathroom thankfully, though Aizawa’s had to make do with far worse in the past. There’s only one of those horribly uncomfortable police-issue cots that Hitoshi’s slumped on, but Aizawa’s got his sleeping bag. Not that he’s planning on doing much sleeping.
“So this is it?” Hitoshi queries in a totally normal indoor voice, and Aizawa turns over his shoulder with a reprimanding finger to his lips. Stealth is of the essence here, and whether Hitoshi can actually shut up for long enough to sit something like this out will be a good test of his fidgety teenage nerves. “What, we're supposed to sit here in silence all night?” Hitoshi whispers with comical over-emphasis, but Aizawa just lifts his binoculars back to the glass and makes sure he's absolutely sure which window is Shiyoko's, and the route she'll potentially use to access it.
Aizawa hears Hitoshi moving, the sensation of someone close behind him without needing to look, and then a much closer whisper. “Can I at least take a look?” Aizawa backs away from the spot and basically into Hitoshi, who keeps enough feline liquidity to move around Aizawa rather than bumping into him.
Hitoshi settles into Aizawa’s place on the low stool in front of the window, raising a hand to Aizawa for the night-vision goggles, which he carefully hands over. It might be that famous ‘micromanaging’ Aizawa apparently does, which he simply calls being thorough, but Aizawa stays close. Almost stooped over Hitoshi, Aizawa’s mouth is close enough to Hitoshi's ear that he doesn’t need to do more than set his words adrift on the lightest breeze of a breath. “Eleven floors up, three across from the fire escape.” Hitoshi nods, his knees practically up under his armpits as he positions the binoculars to his eyes and stills. “See it?”
Hitoshi's answer isn't a word but a hum in his throat when he presumably finds his target. Aizawa stands up, which means he’s got a bird's eye view of the unkempt lavender bush of Hitoshi’s hair. He wonders if letting it grow so wild is a conscious or unconscious rebellion against the boy’s father, and then has a stranger thought. What would Hitoshi do if Aizawa were to ruffle his hair? Pretend he hated it and actually love it, most likely. It's not completely off-menu for the two of them, the way Hitoshi has tugged Aizawa’s hair like a child in the playground. Which is exactly what Hitoshi is, in a sense. They're just playing for keeps.
“So we just do this all night?” Interesting phrasing. Probably unintentional. Then Hitoshi pulls away from the binoculars to swing an expressive glance at Aizawa that makes him think – or maybe not.
Aizawa lets slip a breathy noise of amusement, more of a wheeze than anything. His voice comes out a soft rasp, like the meow of a cat as round as a barrel. “Basically.” Aizawa moves his hand to brush the highest mauve peaks of Hitoshi's incredible mop-top. Family resemblance or not: kid needs a haircut. Testing his fingers against it, Aizawa finds a surprising amount of body in the gravity-defying structure, which Hizashi would surely envy. Hitoshi doesn't stir with the contact, his eyes pressed indifferently back to the binoculars. Calm, at least on the surface.
Deciding to test the kid's attention, Aizawa turns aside and takes a couple of steps away to sit cross-legged on the floor by his bag, which is one of Hizashi’s previous generations of gym bag. He pulls a wad of homework out of it that’s been growing by the day and fishes a pen out of one of his pockets. He knew it was there on account of the ache it gave him from napping on it earlier today, catching up sleep where he can in preparation for tonight.
Hitoshi lasts about five minutes until he starts to fidget but pulls another ten after that before he finally loses the battle and shoots, “Is that schoolwork ?” venomously across the room, only to dart his eyes back to the binoculars when he catches Aizawa’s stern glare for abandoning his post. It's a ridiculous, petty reaction; like if casework isn't allowed during school then schoolwork can't be allowed when they're on the case.
But Aizawa has a job to keep, and twenty other children who also need guidance. Aizawa can't grant his learnings exclusively to Hitoshi just because he wants them all for himself. If it even worked like that, which it doesn’t. Hitoshi’s only been on the scene for a week and already caused enough havoc. If he were anyone else, Aizawa would have shut his shit down days ago. Instead he leaves a teenager from the General Studies Course watching his stakeout while he tries to unravel the fifteen concurrent trains of thought that constitute a paper from Midoriya Izuku.
“Don’t ignore me.” At least Hitoshi uses the true words for it. So much for Aizawa being able to get anything done.
Aizawa drags in and releases an enormously exasperated breath, drawing a quick line to connect two of Midoriya’s points scattered way across his winding narrative with a sharp arrow. The proposed reduction of his workload by taking on an intern has unfortunately added an unaccounted for amount of intern-entertainment.
“I've got to do it sometime.” Aizawa’s not giving up on the paragraph he's trying to digest like a bad tonkatsu. He’s got a (second) job after all.
Hitoshi is quiet. For a moment. “It doesn’t have to be right now.”
Aizawa speaks normally, but softly, “And yet it’s still going to be.”
This time the silence stretching at Hitoshi’s behest is surely minutes long. Aizawa actually makes sense of Midoriya’s first page enough to translate his overenthusiastic stream of consciousness into a four bullet point list, leaving a note that just reads “ wordcount ” with two lines underneath it. Midoriya is smart and remains right in most of what he’s saying, but Aizawa deals with plenty of over-eloquence teaching classic literature to some very bored second-years. He’s not putting up with it from his Hero students too.
Then like a birdwatcher calling out the species he spots, Hitoshi remarks to the window, “Oh look, there she goes.”
Aizawa suddenly doesn’t care anymore what follow-up points on his points Midoriya’s about to make. He draws a line at an entirely reasonable length for the assignment and scribbles “I stopped here” in the margin then gives Midoriya a grade he should be happy with.
Aizawa’s on his feet, moving toward Hitoshi when the brat turns to look right at Aizawa for a sick moment before hissing, “Kidding,” and then turns back to the binoculars.
Aizawa’s already up now, clenching his hands into fists and racking his brains for how he’s going to deal with this wildcard that he’d let get away with murder. Not that Hitoshi would ever do it – except maybe his father. Which Aizawa would probably let him do, so the proverb holds true. “This isn’t a joke.” He tries to sound stern, but the strangled attempt to remain quiet without actually whispering comes out extremely… husky. Hizashi would probably laugh at him. But that’s Hizashi.
“I wanted to see what you would do,” Hitoshi gloats, at which point Aizawa hushes him back down with a satisfying shush. Wanting to prove something so absurdly true is a child’s pursuit, but Aizawa has wondered too much about Hitoshi’s interaction with his purported father when he was still fully a child: before the Doc took an important piece of that childhood away from him. Being more important than his father's ‘ work’, knowing he's a priority. Simple things, easy to grant.
So Aizawa isn’t going to play the game exactly how Hitoshi wants it, but he does step closer, dropping into a squat at Hitoshi’s side to explain in an over-hushed whisper, “If anyone enters the apartment, we wait.”
“For how long?” Hitoshi might be gunsure, but Aizawa’s hardly shy of it himself.
“A few minutes.” Long enough they might be starting to let down their guard. Maybe. Hitoshi probably has every idea what happens if (not when) someone – who might or might not be the killer – climbs into that apartment from the outside. It’s important to run through these things ahead of schedule, and Aizawa would go through the same paces with someone who’d done this a hundred times before as he does now with a rookie like Hitoshi. It never hurts to recap the basics, at any level of experience. “Then we go in.”
“Across the gap?” Hitoshi prompts. He’s spent plenty of time in the past week following Aizawa across slacklines made from his capture weapon, so the distance between this building and Shiyoko’s a trifle.
Aizawa just gives an affirmative murmur. It’s only been a week, but Hitoshi’s taken to it pretty naturally – young brains learn fast like that – and only fallen so badly he couldn’t catch himself once or twice. Which is Aizawa’s cue to yank him out of the air and try not to go into cardiac arrest. He ought to get the kid a safety line, but by the time he’d remember to pick it up Hitoshi will probably be turning out flips and laughing at Aizawa for daring to doubt him.
“Once we get in there… what if I can make them talk?” It’s an ominous question from Hitoshi’s lips.
Aizawa thinks it over before concluding, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Fine.” Hitoshi stays at his post, a sigh escaping him that bows Aizawa’s heartstrings like an out-of-tune cello. “Go on, then. Duty calls.”
Aizawa doesn't really want to go back to the stack of homework. But he must, so he does.
It occurs to him halfway into Ashido’s paper – and yet to make a point – that if Hitoshi were in the Hero Course his work could be among these. If he were in Aizawa's class, of course, which is still most certainly a bad idea. In either of the Hero Course classes, Hitoshi would be at a disadvantage to many of his peers, particularly in exercises using robots as stand-ins for people, but he could have an interesting impact on group exercises. Hitoshi isn’t really suited for a facsimile of being a Hero: all his ability is cut out for the real world.
But Hitoshi would make it work. Or get expelled almost immediately – both one after the other, probably. Expelled for the way in which he made something work outside all the ‘rules’ they set for how to achieve an outcome, winning at any cost. One of Aizawa's classics.
The point at which Aizawa gets bored of grading is about as long as Hitoshi can be expected to maintain concentration on watching the same blank face of a building. So about twenty minutes. Whenever Aizawa looks over Hitoshi is perfectly still, actually showing a lot of control for a task many of the kids Aizawa teaches would struggle with. Maybe he’s trying to impress, which is bound to bolster anyone’s motivation – but especially Hitoshi’s, at least for Aizawa.
Approaching him quietly, Aizawa taps Hitoshi on the shoulder and he backs away from the aged rubber of the binoculars, blinking a few times before turning to look up at Aizawa. Doesn’t move just yet.
“I’ll take over,” Aizawa says quietly. A bit of light conversation isn't too risky, and now Hitoshi has settled Aizawa finds himself easing off on the kid (as usual).
Starting with a roll of his head, Hitoshi grabs his neck in his hand and takes a deep breath, a flex rolling down his spine like a tiny wave on calm seas. “Is it always this exciting?”
“Usually.” Aizawa finds Hitoshi's visible disappointment so funny he allows himself to remark, “So much for the thrill of the chase.” He bumps Hitoshi in the back with his knee when the gangly fawn-legged teen still doesn't vacate the seat. “Shift.”
They swap positions almost exactly, meaning that Aizawa takes up post on the short stool, and Hitoshi goes to inspect the stack of homework. Aizawa locks in on the fire escape through the binoculars, orientating his gaze back on Shiyoko's window. Aizawa doesn't look away but hears the rustling of a meddler.
“Don't mix them up,” Aizawa requests more than he's capable of ordering. He'll get halfway through something he's already read and be re-grading it before he realises the mistake.
“This is Midoriya’s?” It's not a real question – if his name is on there and it's five times longer than it should be, it's Midoriya’s.
“If that's what it says.” Aizawa steals a glance and sees Hitoshi sitting cross-legged over the papers much like Aizawa was. He's actually reading, though.
“He's… smart.” This is begrudgingly admitted, like a bitter seed Hitoshi crushes between his teeth.
“He works hard.” Aizawa considers it further. “Harder than the rest of them.” Whatever the real story is with Midoriya – and Aizawa has a couple of theories – the kid’s imposter syndrome shines through in all his nervous over-performance. An interesting contrast to Hitoshi, who knows where he should be but has been denied it. No wonder he's resentful.
Hitoshi is quiet, and when Aizawa wants to steal another glance, he has a tangential thought about whether Hitoshi was peeking at him like this. Does it anyway. Hitoshi is just reading with his face in his hands. Aizawa has a thought, buries it, then exhumes it and asks anyway by the time he’s put his dryish-feeling eyes back to the binoculars. “Go on, then.”
There’s a light rustle of Hitoshi turning a page. “Hm?”
“How would you do it?” Aizawa doesn’t look away from the binoculars again, but there’s only them and there’s not so much space in this room that eye contact is necessary to maintain a conversation. The exercise he’s grading 1-A on is a hostage scenario: five armed attackers, fifteen hostages in a bank, Heroes and police on the outside trying to find a way in without startling the criminals, who will start killing hostages at the first sign of trouble.
“Are you testing me?” Hitoshi questions scathingly, like how dare Aizawa presume to assess him the same way he does his other students.
“Don’t answer, then,” Aizawa replies. Naturally, Hitoshi pulls the other way in response to his disinterest.
“Do I have radio contact?” Hitoshi’s first question, a detail that was explained in class but not incorporated into the notes on the homework. It’s important for him, though.
Everyone else got to run the scenario with the same advantage, so Aizawa throws Hitoshi that bone, though in a more challenging mood he’d surely take it away just to make it harder for him. “Yes.”
Hitoshi is quiet for a while, almost a minute, before he begins to carefully lay out his plan. “I make contact posing as a negotiator, say we’re going to grant all their demands.” Aizawa thinks he knows the way Hitoshi will go. Turns out he’s wrong. “But first they have to prove to me all the hostages are still alive. I make them put each one on the radio with me and tell me their name.”
“You’d brainwash the hostages?” Aizawa prompts with carefully managed concern.
“They’re safer that way,” Hitoshi insists without hesitation. Aizawa can’t – or won’t – argue with that, at least until the exercise is over. Brainwashed hostages means no sudden breakdowns, no dashing for the door or trying to be a Hero and risking everyone's lives. Leave that stuff to the real Heroes. It also means if something happens in there, he’s got the ability to call on a perfectly synergised army that’s just lying there in wait. A last-reserves backup plan, though it runs plenty of risks, to say nothing of the shady moral implications of turning a dozen unwilling people into soldiers.
So Aizawa’s only question is, “You could control that many?”
Hitoshi’s response is just a soft chuckle that sends a chill skipping down Aizawa’s spine. “Once I’ve got all the hostages, I take the captor on the radio with me.” Aizawa sneaks a peek, and Hitoshi’s looking right at him, a wicked grin on his face. Busted. Aizawa looks back to the surprisingly sharp picture of Shiyoko’s building in these dated night-vision goggles, while Hitoshi continues, “Where are the others?”
This is a more interactive version of the exercises Aizawa’s been mind-numbingly grading this evening but actually breathes some life into the tired routine. He plays along. “Two more guarding the hostages, one at the front of the room and the last one at the back.” Based on a real heist Aizawa broke up many years ago. Well, him and Hizashi.
“I ask whoever’s on the radio with me to put their boss on the line,” Hitoshi keeps going confidently. “He’s already brainwashed, so there’s no question he’ll do it.” The next part’s directed for Aizawa’s input again, the edge of play that makes this more interesting than reading tired words in frantic handwriting. “Who does he go to?”
Aizawa can picture the scene vividly, though his eyes still gaze on the greyish-green outline of Shiyoko’s apartment cloaked in darkness. “He takes it to the guy at the front.”
“I ask the boss if his demands are the same, then take control when he answers me,” Hitoshi explains as easily as if he’s thought this all out months beforehand and is only just getting the chance to share his work now. Maybe he has thought about it, if not within these exact parameters.
Hitoshi checks his workings. “That’s two of them.” He pauses again, clearly thinking his next steps out, which Aizawa doesn’t rush. If only it were this easy to work through a scenario with all his students. “I tell those two to unload their weapons without letting anyone else see. Then say I’m done dealing with him, and to put me on with someone I haven’t heard from yet.”
“He puts you on with one of the two guards by the hostages.” Aizawa feeds into the scenario easily, wondering how smoothly something like this would go in practice. Maybe time for a spanner in the works – not something the kids in the written exercises had to deal with, but Hitoshi will have to work twice as hard as them to get a fraction of the recognition. “But they don't respond to you. They're getting suspicious.”
“I tell the boss to gather everyone together.” Hitoshi overwrites his previous plan hurriedly.
“Why?” Aizawa asks, then eases off and amends, “Asks one of the two guarding the hostages.”
“I take him too,” Hitoshi answers with sly satisfaction, which only gets slyer, “and say I have something important to tell all of them.”
Aizawa feels himself grin, but Hitoshi probably can’t see it from where he’s sitting. Hizashi calls his smile ‘a living horror story’ anyway. “They gather.”
“I tell them the game is up.” The grin on Hitoshi's face is almost audible. “I make the three under my control disarm and hold down the two who aren't. Then I have the hostages stand and leave in an orderly fashion, waiting until the police can take over restraining the criminals before I let everyone go.”
There's a million different things that could go awry in such a scenario, but the only thing Aizawa questions is, “You’d be able to keep control of everyone for that long?”
It's a simple question that gets a chilling answer. “I could make them blow their heads off.” Point made. After a moment Hitoshi softens a little. “Not that I would.”
“I know,” Aizawa reassures him. Then a question. “What's the most people you could control?”
“The most?” Hitoshi puzzles. “I don't know.” Never been able to test it. Aizawa’s frustration burns like coals, coated in ash and seeming as if the fire has gone out most of the time. But if you tried to touch them, you'd most certainly get a nasty burn.
Aizawa’s lapsed into pensive silence, mulling over how someone would go about trying to train a quirk like Hitoshi’s, when out of the blue (it seems) Hitoshi asks, “So then?”
The binoculars stop Aizawa’s eyebrows from furrowing properly, and he has to resort to using words to express his confusion. “What?”
“How did I do?”
“Oh.” Aizawa forgot that grades might not be as arbitrary to him outside of a classroom as they are for other people. Hitoshi’s just a kid, one who wishes his homework was there amongst all the others’. “Good.”
Aizawa doesn’t check to see, but can imagine Hitoshi’s eyes narrowing, the heat of his gaze on Aizawa’s back like infra-red. “Just good?”
The corners of Aizawa’s mouth twitch again, a phantom smile of endearment that would spoil Hitoshi with praise if it wouldn't bloat his ego past salvation. “Don’t push your luck.”
“That’s funny,” Hitoshi remarks as he resumes wistfully rustling through the sheets of 1-A’s homework. “I don’t feel very lucky.”
It’s been a few hours, a liquid dinner, and a couple changes of shift before Hitoshi really starts getting the fidgets. Aizawa knows this because he’s been listening to the kid try to get comfortable and clearly fail in the attempt for the last fifteen minutes.
After Hitoshi's last in a long series of ‘I'm bored’ sighs, Aizawa offers, “I brought the letters,” apropos of nothing, and practically hears Hitoshi’s interest pick up.
“Whose?”
“You know whose,” Aizawa responds. It’s been at least four hours, making it sometime between midnight and 1:00 a.m., which is about the time to start busting out the creepy fanmail.
“Oh good.” Hitoshi almost makes it sound sincere. Which almost makes it funny.
“You can watch the window if you want,” Aizawa suggests.
“I’ll look at the letters,” Hitoshi sighs. “Where are they?”
“In my bag.” Aizawa hears him get up and the rustle of him going into Aizawa’s unzipped stakeout bag, which probably still contains some of Hizashi’s ridiculous workout clothes. Hopefully the kid doesn’t find any of that.
“Wow, you mean you literally put the whole box right in here.” Hitoshi’s getting a little loud, and Aizawa gives him a hissy ‘quieten up’ sound to tone it down again.
“What else am I going to do with a box labelled ‘cunt’? ” Aizawa comments at a volume he wants Hitoshi to match. Not leave it at school, that's for certain.
Hitoshi scoffs, still a bit too loud. “That's Ma for you.” Aizawa hears him settle again, followed by the slow shuffle of papers starting to be sorted. With his gaze trained on the fixed scene across from them, the static fire-escape and window of Shiyoko's apartment, Aizawa’s hearing takes on the larger part of painting the scene he pictures. The minute sounds of letters being lifted, inspected and then tossed aside with as much love as anyone would expect Hitoshi to hold for his father.
It's a while again before Aizawa hears a timid, “Oh,” from Hitoshi that lifts the hair on his arms. There's a pause almost long enough for Aizawa to prompt him when Hitoshi continues, “I found it.”
Aizawa wants to look away but doesn't, getting distracted and missing something important will make this whole thing a bust. So he just asks, “You're sure?”
“Do I recognise the same name written on all those fucking bodies? Yeah,” Hitoshi shoots back sarcastically. Then less surely, “What should I do with it?”
“Read it out,” Aizawa suggests. Maybe that's a terrible idea, but it would mean Hitoshi isn't alone in unveiling the contents of such a dark omen.
“Okay.” Hitoshi pauses to take a breath, and then in a whisper like the hiss of a gas leak begins. “Do you remember me, Dr. Shinsou? It's,” Hitoshi pauses to add a dose of cringe-worthy sigh, “Shiyoko-chan. I remember you. I remember what we used to do together. It's been a long time, hasn't it? I've seen you on TV, but no one believes me when I say I know you. Everyone says I was too young to understand, but I remember everything.
“Back then, you said I was special. The most special little girl you'd ever met. We never got to finish what we started, did we? I always blamed my parents for getting in the way of that. But I'm older now and they can't control me anymore. If you still want to see me, Dr. Shinsou, please write back. Use the address on the envelope, it's not my home because I don't want them to find out I'm doing this. We can pick up right where we left off. My quirk is even stronger than it used to be, but no one understands. No one ever understood me like you do, Professor. I hope you do write back, otherwise I'll just have to find you. But I think you missed me too. We can go back to how it used to be. It'll be even better now that I'm older, I know it will. Lo–”
Hitoshi cuts off, and Aizawa can figure the rest of the sign-off. Most of Doc’s fangirls signed with their love, it's just that much creepier coming from a former patient who was only five or six years old at the time of first meeting him. For as much as the Doctor’s charismatic poison drove his son away from him, it drew in others.
An eerie silence falls over the room, like the air at a funeral. “So there's that,” Hitoshi announces with an acidic tone.
Aizawa’s not really thinking straight – never has – and doesn't police his language like he would if he knew better. That's why his initial response is a what-the-shit-esque murmur that just goes: “Fuck me.”
It's only when Hitoshi jokily responds, “That a request?” that Aizawa remembers he's a fucking idiot.
“No.” Aizawa tries swallowing the lump in his throat and rehearsing the ‘no, officer, I'm just really really stupid’ bit he'll end up using with child services at this rate. Aizawa does his best, but still occasionally forgets that kids are, well… kids. Especially Hitoshi. “Is that the only one?”
“Only what?”
“Letter.” Aizawa doesn't know when the tension in this room climbed onto the ceiling, but he'd love for it to crawl back down anytime soon.
“I haven't finished looking, but there aren't many left,” Hitoshi answers, and if he's feeling awkward it's not detectable in his voice. Just Aizawa then.
“Finish them.” Aizawa catches a sound he suspects to be Hitoshi yawning. “Then try to get some rest.” He’s acutely aware of how this comes off, in spite of Aizawa’s best efforts not to sound like a parent sending their kid up to bed.
“Chill out, you're not my dad,” Hitoshi retorts like it’s all still a game, and with his cabin-fever brain Aizawa thinks ‘too fucking right’. Some dad he’d make. Some dad Hitoshi’s got.
With a tongue loose from the mind-numbing boredom of staring at the same static image for hours on end, Aizawa sums up his response with the words, “And a good thing too.”
Hitoshi does sleep, in the end. Maybe more from the boredom than anything else.
But it's while he's just in the process of drifting off, some thought that seeps through the gaps between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. where emotions seem that little bit stronger, and everything feels that bit more dire and important, that Hitoshi asks Aizawa in a very sleepy murmur, “Hey, Aizawa?”
Aizawa gives a resonant “Mmmm ” of acknowledgement, echoing in the vacuum of silence in the room, and waits to see if Hitoshi is awake or already drifted off.
Aizawa’s wrong, because any pause must be Hitoshi packing all the weight his baggage allowance will permit into a few simple words, such that they weigh on Aizawa’s heart like a 100-ton anchor. “What'll happen when this is over?”
Aizawa stills his hummingbird heart and reminds himself he's only been training Hitoshi – though it feels like a lot more than that – for a week, and that there's no reason anything would happen to stop this… thing continuing for as long as they want it to. So why that air of desperation should seem so important is surely just the rule of this time of night, when the emotional prism of the early-hours transmutes everything into raw energy.
“It's not over yet,” Aizawa remarks cooly, though the underlying sentiment that seeps into his voice is a sure tell of his investment.
“Yeah, but…” Aizawa thinks Hitoshi’s drifted off again, but no such luck, “I'll keep being your intern, right?”
Like Hitoshi was ever really just an intern. Whatever they have is much more, and has been almost from the start. But labels help, and this might not be quite the right one to stick over the indescribable mix of teacher, good-and-bad role model and the simultaneous paradox of parent and not-parent, but it'll have to do.
“Yes, Hitoshi,” Aizawa says as softly as such a delicate worry calls for: a fragility that's been earned all the wrong ways.
The kid sighs and moves a little, the cot that’s supporting him letting out a mousy squeak. “Promise?”
Aizawa hears his heart thumping in his ears like the tiny guys in his head are playing a timpani solo on his eardrums. He’s just stakeout-crazy; everything with Hitoshi is going to turn out alright, there’s no terrible monster in the shadows that they can’t even see with night goggles. It’s all in his head. “I promise.”
Notes:
Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuushy.
This story is called you want it darker but of course it's contrast that really makes the extremes feel all the more extreme, so we *must* be soft in order to make the hard parts really pack a punch.
Another point I'll make here is about the background here on Hitoshi's quirk, which we've covered before, but this little theoretical exercise connects back to the fact that I started this story before the manga set certain restrictions on Hitoshi's quirk (which I think are BALONEY anyway) but suffice to say that the moral ambiguity and the sheer terrifying power of Hitoshi's quirk is thematically key to the story and very much intentional, so pointing out either as being divergent from canon is 100% part of my vision.
I'll also remind y'all this is a derivative fanwork that we're 120k into so I'm now at the point of trying to tell a good story rather than present the most canonically consistent and believable take on all these characters and the story at large. Hopefully that's working out alright, but if not I ain't making you read it so no one HAS to agree with or enjoy my creative decisions, I'm just not going to change them based on whether anyone does have a difference of opinion with my interpretations.
Chapter 23: Thrill of the Chase
Summary:
Aizawa gets to the point of this stakeout. Well, a point.
Notes:
So you mean my last chapter was.... SOFT???? Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. Soft. Good.
But this is You Want it Darker so whenever things get soft you better strap your butts on too, as we're definitely in for a bumpy ride.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa wakes Hitoshi up by gently shaking him with one hand while his other presses over the kid’s mouth. It’s an old Hizashi precaution, but always good with unfamiliar sleepers in sensitive environments. Hitoshi’s eyes open, wild for a second before they focus in on Aizawa, then drop to half-mast before his eyebrows lift in expressive question of what the hell Aizawa thinks he’s doing.
Aizawa explains soon enough. “Someone just entered the apartment, we’re going in.”
It's a decision Aizawa had to think through while he watched the unidentified figure climb the fire escape and then take the ledge into the apartment with surprising authority. Whether to wake Hitoshi or leave him to sleep past the dicey stuff. The deciding factor isn’t so much whether it’d be easier or harder with Hitoshi in tow; and it isn’t even whether it would be more or less useful for Hitoshi’s growth – but whether Hitoshi would ever forgive Aizawa for leaving him behind. Which is never, so Aizawa wakes him.
Hitoshi picks himself up quickly and does a remarkable job of not seeming like he was so deeply asleep that Aizawa’s been listening to him murmuring away in his dreams for the past hour or so. Nothing that made sense, but also nothing that seemed to distress him, which is good. Hell knows the kid has lived through plenty of nightmare material.
They head over to the door of a tiny balcony, more of a window with a railing in front of it, but it’ll do. When Aizawa slides the door back, a rush of cool night air floods in. The gap between this building and Shiyoko's is more than ten metres but fewer than twenty, probably slightly on the longer end of that scale after Aizawa throws a length of his capture weapon across the gap and locks onto the fire escape across from them. The thin width of fabric is their only bridge over the space below, which is more of a back alley than a proper road.
Aizawa secures the other end to the railing, tests it and is about to hop up when he suddenly thinks about Hitoshi. He pulls another length of the weapon out of the spool around his neck and wraps it tightly around the railing, spooling the rest out to entrust to his pupil. Using this material takes a special kind of person, and Hitoshi might not necessarily be one of them, but starting him on it little by little is a surefire way to find out.
“I’m not gonna fall,” the teen whispers defensively, sounding very much his age as he snatches the coil of highly classified material with poorly disguised pride.
“You better not.” Aizawa hops onto the railing, then takes a couple of testing steps out on the makeshift slackline of the wrap spanning the gap. Hitoshi will wait for him to get across then follow, but Aizawa bounces a few times in the middle to be absolutely sure there’s no give. He’s more paranoid than usual today, but then they’re not usually doing this ten fucking stories up in the middle of the night. There’s enough hazy streetlight below them to dimly light the scene, picking up the white strip of his capture weapon just enough so that he knows where to put each foot, one after the other.
Aizawa crosses quickly, then turns around as Hitoshi starts to follow, chewing on his heart for dessert after it rises up into Aizawa’s mouth just watching Hitoshi. Just like he’s been taught, Hitoshi stays low to the strap he walks along, only stopping a few times with a wobble to recenter his balance. He trails the makeshift safety line behind him and once or twice Aizawa sees him tug on it for an extra bit of support. The strip comes alive in his touch, but with such bare, instinctive movements nothing wild happens. The support-line simply jumps to attention and holds true. By the time Hitoshi's made it all the way to the fire escape, Aizawa has only prematurely aged by a few years. They’ve just got the perilous ledge to venture across next.
Aizawa goes first, climbing over the fire escape railing then dropping onto his hands and knees on the ledge just wide enough to crawl along, the pale shade of the painted concrete barely visible in the low lighting. It takes a couple minutes, and Aizawa goes a little slower than the figure scaling the building had gone a few minutes ago, but if he rushes and Hitoshi rushes after him it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth. Like, teenager-plummeting-ten-floors and Aizawa having to jump after him not worth it.
Unlike the closed and curtained windows they pass on the way – people who probably have no idea they live next door to a serial killer – Shiyoko’s window is still open. Aizawa sticks his head through the opening first, looking around to see… nothing. Safe enough to enter.
Climbing carefully inside, Aizawa steps to the side of the window and holds out an arm like a coat peg. Hitoshi takes it, hanging his weight on Aizawa for a moment as he swings himself cleanly inside. Not because Hitoshi needs the help, but because if Aizawa can grant it – and it does help – then there’s no reason not to. Hitoshi’s palms are cold from the concrete and just a little clammy – nerves, probably, but that’s normal. Even if nothing else about this is normal.
The room is shrouded in darkness, the only light a distant sickly glare coming from the shrine to Dr. Shinsou at the very end of the hallway of this boxy apartment. Rather than charging straight in, Aizawa stands still and Hitoshi does the same, just the mix of their breathing and no other sounds. But Aizawa saw a figure come in here, so unless it’s a phantom there has to be someone else in this apartment.
It’s too important to risk making a sound by talking, even whispering, so to keep Hitoshi close and informed on their movements, Aizawa resumes only-recently-broken contact and takes Hitoshi’s wrist in a firm grip. After the first step with a steering tug on Hitoshi’s arm, he starts to drift silently in Aizawa’s wake. From the fingers pressed into the vulnerable skin of the wrist, Aizawa can feel Hitoshi’s pulse racing. So is Aizawa’s, but that’s natural. They need their wits about them.
With dreadful inevitability, Aizawa moves along the corridor towards the illuminated doorway at the far side of the apartment. The light level increases enough that Aizawa lets go of Hitoshi part-way along, gesturing instead at the way the shadows shift slightly on the opposite wall to the doorway, confirming the soft-footed inhabitant within. They hear only a curious scratching sound, like the scrape of pens on desks during exams.
The shadows suddenly move and settle, painting the wall in elongated demonic shapes. The scratching stops and there’s the lightest creak of feet on the floor from within, before all becomes still again. When Aizawa’s almost at the edge of the doorway, he holds up one hand while the other reaches for the folds of his capture weapon. Three fingers unfurled on his free hand, Aizawa starts to curl them into his palm one by one, with his back pressed to the wall next to the doorway.
After he folds down the second finger, Aizawa steals the quickest glance at Hitoshi.
The harsh neon light pouring from the doorway catches off Hitoshi’s eyes, half his face bathed in a sickly glow. He looks just like his father for a second, then blinks – or perhaps Aizawa does – and turns back into a teenager looking very much out of his depth. This has all become real very, very suddenly. But Hitoshi doesn’t have to do anything, just be here, exposed to what it all actually means and soaking it in like their brains do at this age. If Hitoshi does need to act, Aizawa trusts that his gut will kick in and he’ll know exactly what to do. But maybe it won't come to that.
When the last of Aizawa’s three-finger count falls to zero, he springs around the door and lurches into the room. He’s no sooner past the threshold than a flash of silver dashes from the corner of his vision, and something cold bites into his arm.
Aizawa stops the knife, but that it’s with his forearm could be questioned for efficiency. To mean it hurts like a bitch, cutting deep enough that he feels a hot pulse of blood pushing against the invasion of his flesh. But instead of backing away, Aizawa thrusts his arm against the blade, probably doing himself even more damage as he buries the short kitchen knife almost up to the handle. He might even feel the point coming out on the other side of his, uh, arm.
The attacker’s not Shiyoko, but that was Aizawa’s suspicion all along. The proportions of the person he spied climbing in here were wrong. It’s a decrepit man of inestimable middle age, who clumsily wields the knife that Aizawa is trying to wrench off him using Aizawa’s own flesh as a trap. The brainwashing victim’s eyes are stretched wide, but more notable is the pattern that covers every exposed stretch of his skin, stencilled on him like an all-over print. Hakamata Shiyoko Hakamata Shiyoko Hakamata Shiyoko, the name has been written all over him, fifty, even a hundred times. Under the harsh neon strip that sits on the floor of this room, the man’s skin shines a sallow bluish colour in stark contrast to the black ink that marks his face, arms, the hand that Aizawa grabs with one of his own and twists until he feels it break. The handle of the knife releases from the mind zombie’s fingers. Not that it falls, still buried in – through – Aizawa’s arm.
The man doesn’t cry out when Aizawa crushes his hand and instead starts to claw at him wildly, broken bones and all, gouging a few scratches out of Aizawa’s face. The noises he does make are distorted and animal, like something permanent has been removed to void his claim on humanity.
Aizawa flips out a stretch of his capture weapon to bind one of the man’s arms and whip him off-balance, then delivers a sharp punch to the man’s temple that smacks the bare remains of consciousness out of him. He thuds back against the wall with a guttural grunt and slumps to the floor. Finally free, but still alive. Go fuck yourself, Dr. Shinsou, Aizawa thinks as he glances across the permeating stare of the supersized photo of the Doc that adorns the wall in here. Now with a few fetching additions to the poster, in what looks a lot like blood.
A normal person would assume the knife in Aizawa’s arm is the priority here, but even with the etch-a-sketch lunatic knocked out there’s still not quite a single functional person in the room between them. This is all the more clear when Hitoshi’s opening remark is, “Look at the wall, teach.”
Aizawa’s gaze goes over to Hitoshi like he's shot a signal flare, then casts back across the room. On second look, Dr. Shinsou’s augmented headshot reminds Aizawa of the times Hitoshi’s managed to give himself bloody facepaint; that inescapable resemblance. There’s also a human nose – Aizawa can guess whose – and maybe something else, freshly cut and bloody, set on a pile of torn pages clumped together by the wall.
But what Aizawa thinks Hitoshi is drawing his attention to first and foremost is the angry line of scribbled numbers that works between the pages of ‘The 90% Mind’ that are nailed all over the wall. The last time they were here, the only legible figure read 50% MIND, but that’s since been scribbled over and updated, perhaps even moments before they entered the room. Now the wall reads for the poster of Dr. Shinsou’s viewing pleasure…
70% MIND
There’s a powerful throb of white-hot pain from Aizawa’s arm, which is almost certainly due to the knife stuck clean through it at the moment. He’s probably got about ten minutes, half if he’s stupid enough to pull the thing out. That leaves enough room for a moment of reflection. “She’s getting more powerful.”
“Oh, you think?” Hitoshi replies sarcastically, and then directs his gaze to Aizawa’s arm with a worried sheen of sweat the neon light picks out across his brow. “Are you going to do something about that?”
“Soon.” Aizawa steps a little closer, using his free hand to clamp down around the blade piercing his flesh and staunch the blood from his injury. Trying, perhaps hopelessly, to stop it from contaminating the crime scene anymore than he already has.
“Soon? You’ve been stabbed.” Hitoshi’s starting to sound a little more urgent, while Aizawa bends at the knees a little to inspect the nose before he has to give this untapped crime scene – that he’s a part of – up to the police. Who are probably due in here any minute.
Right on time, Aizawa hears the front door of the apartment opening in the distance and turns to look at Hitoshi over his shoulder, the movement sending a twinge to the ordinary kitchen knife awkwardly sticking through his arm – it hurts a bit, he’ll give it that. The last words Aizawa gets out as the shape of Tsukauchi, defined by the distinctive profile of his overcoat, looms into the doorway behind Hitoshi is, “Only a little.”
“Well then, Eraser.” Tsukauchi’s pretty optimistic for someone who’s presumably also been up most of the night, waiting for something like this to happen. “You look a little cut for time, but why don’t you get me all caught up on your way to hospital?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Aizawa insists, standing up and walking back towards Hitoshi to address him with the quickly-formed plan Aizawa’s cobbling together. “Can you get my phone out of my pocket?” He offers his side in suggestion.
“Is this really the time?” Tsukauchi fields before Hitoshi can question Aizawa’s apparent diversion in a less polite and more “you’ve been stabbed, what the fuck are you doing?” kind of way.
“To call Recovery Girl,” Aizawa finishes bluntly. “You can drop us back at UA.” Tsukauchi considers it a moment, then nods. Aizawa steals a glance at Hitoshi and sees a little more coherence in the boy’s face. As if another adult in the room also not totally freaking out about Aizawa’s ‘knife in arm’ situation is enough to reassure him it might be okay after all. Maybe not okay, but… manageable.
Of course, Aizawa would definitely prefer not to have a piece of critical evidence skimming just between his bones and hopefully missing the arteries in his arm. The blood loss doesn’t feel squirty enough to be arterial, though there’s still quite a lot of it. Tsukauchi is rummaging around in his bucket-like pockets and comes out with a strap that looks to be usable as a tourniquet. Aizawa has something similar too, but his hands are a bit tied up at the moment.
“Phone,” Aizawa reiterates, and Hitoshi jumps to attention and hurriedly complies, diving his hand to fumble around in Aizawa’s pocket.
There’s only a moment of perilous incidental groping around, in which Hitoshi doesn’t find anything he shouldn’t (thankfully), before grabbing hold of Aizawa’s phone and whipping his hand back out of the pretty expansive pockets in Aizawa’s suit. Not the only pockets in there by a longshot but certainly the most accessible for things he uses all the time, like a phone. Less awkward for other people to get to: he’s needed Hizashi to get him half-naked to get something out of an interior back-pocket before, and if it was awkward with Hizashi it’s only going to be worse with anyone else. That was before they were together, admittedly, and of course they’d thought nothing of it at the time. Just professionals helping each other out. Aizawa recalls he’d been recently stabbed on that occasion too.
Aizawa remembers he’s losing blood when some of it drips onto the floor, and shoots, “C’mere and I’ll give you the code.” He beckons Hitoshi with a jerk of his chin, who’s lit by the illumination from the number pad of Aizawa’s lockscreen. Hitoshi leans in with his ear turned to Aizawa’s mouth. Tsukauchi rolls his eyes jovially, but Aizawa has rules about who he allows to have certain pieces of information about him. “0707,” he rattles off quickly, and Hitoshi’s thumb moves in the distinctive pattern.
“Birthday?” Hitoshi prompts slyly.
“Not mine,” Aizawa responds as the code is accepted. It's Hizashi's – helps him remember it – but giving that piece of critical information away would be telling. The blurring effect of the lockscreen disappears to reveal Aizawa’s phone background in perfect clarity.
What’s unfortunate about this, is that Aizawa’s background was obviously set by Hizashi, and in a bid to make it as embarrassing without being outright dead-giveaway as possible, the picture his beloved chose is a close-up of one of Hizashi’s (several) tattoos that represent his relationship with Aizawa. This being the one of a jacket pocket stitched in ink onto Hizashi’s front, in which sits a bulky black cat with a heap of bandages sitting around its neck as if a collar, paws hanging over the edge giving one of those indisputably grumpy half-mast glares. So he’s figuratively and literally got Aizawa in his pocket, or so Hizashi claimed when he insisted on getting it done after losing an ‘embarrassing tattoo’ bet with Aizawa that never specified who was supposed to be embarrassed by it. That sure taught him.
Hitoshi snorts but thankfully doesn’t dwell on the ‘whose tattoo is that?’ nature of Aizawa’s phone background, as there’s a few things a bit more urgent at hand. He quickly brings up the contacts directory and picks out Recovery Girl without needing to be asked. “Let me talk to her,” Aizawa instructs, not wanting to inflict the savagery of her 4:00 a.m. temper on anyone else – Aizawa deserves it, not to mention Recovery Girl will go ballistic when she finds out Hitoshi is with him. Aizawa knows she’s going to find out sooner or later, but it can still always be later.
Hitoshi puts the phone to Aizawa’s ear as it’s starting to ring, which goes on for awhile then with certainty Aizawa never doubted picks up with a fierce, “This better be good, asswipe.”
“Don’t try and fool me, Old Lady. I know you’d be getting up in an hour anyway,” Aizawa retorts fearlessly, and if he weren’t overall more concerned about his level of blood loss and whether he caught any diseases from that zombie’s filthy nails, he might have laughed at how shocked Hitoshi looks with this opening form of communication. “I’ll be hitting up your ward in an hour.”
“Oh, you want me to put a pot of coffee on? Cook you up some eggs and rice for breakfast?” Tsukauchi comes over to apply the tourniquet and Aizawa holds his arm out cooperatively, his conversation with Recovery Girl continuing in full view of an ever more-bemused looking Hitoshi.
“You don’t have to go to that much effort, coffee’s fine,” Aizawa retorts with the thought of a grin somewhere in his head, though it never makes it to his face. Instead it’s a grimace, gritting his teeth as Tsukauchi pulls the tourniquet tight around his arm. Not tight enough. “Put some muscle into it,” he scolds, then with a flick of his eyes across to Hitoshi adds, “Help him.”
“Who are you talking to? I swear if you bring half a police station in here again, Aizawa, I’ll-”
“This really isn’t the time,” Aizawa interrupts as he lifts his shoulder, clenching the phone between his ear and shoulder so Hitoshi can take his hand away. This frees them up to put basically all his gangly strength into helping Tsukauchi pull that little bit tighter on Aizawa’s Kobe-beef bicep, as Hizashi’s labelled them.
“You don’t say!” There’s bustling around noises that suggest the Old Lady's gotten up and is rattling around getting ready. There was never any doubt, really: Aizawa only calls these favours in rarely enough to get away with it. “It’s been ten years since you graduated and you haven’t changed a lick, still the same irresponsible punchbag you were as a teenager. You won’t make it past fifty if you don’t learn how to take care of yourself…”
With two of them on the task, Tsukauchi and Hitoshi’s combined efforts succeed in getting Aizawa’s tourniquet tight enough to be some use. He grunts a little as the strap shuts off his circulation, pulse thumping in protest against the constriction. “That’ll do it,” Aizawa mutters with a wince, and Tsukauchi pulls the fastening over so the tourniquet locks down fully. Aizawa keeps the pressure he's applying around the knife-and-wound, but there’s no sense wasting any more blood than he already has. Recovery Girl’s still going strong, something about, “And Yamada’s just as bad for enabling you, suppose you think because you’re not Toshinori that makes you better then him, well let me tell you–”
“Can we finish this later?” Aizawa interjects before Recovery Girl’s puckered lips pop all the way out of his phone to literally chew his ear off too.
“You bet we will, Mister.”
“Later, Grams.” Aizawa hangs up to her huffy exasperated tutting – she hates being addressed that way, making it the primary reason Aizawa does it when she’s delivering one of her world-famous lectures. Pre-empting another tiresome formality, Aizawa turns his attention to Tsukauchi. “We entered by the window a few minutes after the suspect,” Aizawa starts to deliver his mentally rehearsed statement. “We didn't hear or see anything until I was attacked, and he was clearly under Shiyoko's control.”
“You're sure?” Tsukauchi checks, like the all-over writing isn't enough of a giveaway.
“He's got a couple of bones in his hand that he didn't react to being broken,” Aizawa points out, and in case there's any doubt left. “So yeah, I'm sure.”
“Did he say anything?” Tsukauchi’s got a faithful notebook out. Meanwhile Hitoshi approaches the unconscious man like he's an armed mine, dropping to one knee and reaching out tentatively, like Shiyoko’s signature would burn to touch.
“I don't think he can,” Hitoshi offers as he takes hold of the man's jaw, dragging his mouth open to peer inside like he’s looking for treasure.
“Because of the brainwashing?” Tsukauchi suggests with his eyes on the notepad he scribbles notes onto like the faithful detective he is.
Hitoshi pauses long enough for Tsukauchi to look over. Maybe Hitoshi even waits on purpose; dramatic brat. It doesn’t help appearances that the strip-light behind them projects Hitoshi’s shadow in an exaggerated spectre on the wall he’s crouched by, entirely encompassing Tsukauchi in the dark cutout he casts. It also doesn’t help that Hitoshi’s grinning at Tsukauchi with sick, proven-right satisfaction as he replies, “Because he’s got no fucking tongue.”
Tsukauchi looks like he’s come home to discover the dogs he’s sitting for an annoying neighbour have left a series of messy accidents all over his apartment. Aizawa had the same suspicion about this puppet Shiyoko’s been pulling the strings of – those characteristic noises when he was trying to rip Aizawa’s eyes out. She’s too clever to leave such an obvious loose tie flapping in the wind. It’s good Hitoshi had the same thought in parallel, then took the steps to confirm what Aizawa couldn’t with this fucking knife in his arm. Recovery Girl is right: he really ought to be more careful – though he’s gotten away with it this time.
Tsukauchi makes another note, looks around the room and then flips his notepad closed with a papery thwip. “I’ve seen enough.”
Too fucking right, Aizawa thinks as the ache of steel in his arm turns to a nerves-shutting-down tingle. For once, he’s couldn’t be happier to get out of a crime scene good and early. Probably because he’s been made a part of it.
“Yeah,” Hitoshi agrees with a furtive glance at his dad’s poster accompanied by a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shudder. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Recovery Girl takes one look at Aizawa in her doorway and says, “I know you’re a terrible cook, Aizawa, but the knife is supposed to go in your hand.”
“Is that what I’ve been doing wrong?” Aizawa replies. He’s not so much thinking clearly as drifting from the blood-loss. He tasked Hitoshi with keeping him conscious in the car ride back, which mostly involved sticking an earbud in one of Aizawa’s ears and blasting heavy metal, and then elbowing him once or twice if that didn't do the trick. Not in the arm with the knife sticking out of it, obviously. Which Aizawa would really love to be rid of anytime soon.
Thankfully, they're in just the right place to get something like that sorted out, so Aizawa slumps gratefully into the chair Recovery Girl points out for him. She's pulling on a pair of gloves, while Tsukauchi stands by with an evidence bag. Hitoshi is lingering by the door, though no doubt Recovery Girl's noticed his presence and will start being a pain about it as soon as she's finished with inflicting actual pain – necessary, sure, but that doesn't mean it's not about to hurt like a bitch.
“Ready?” Recovery Girl asks after she's done a quick inspection of Aizawa’s arm, which looks and feels pretty dead thanks to the tourniquet. Aizawa just stuffs a handful of his capture weapon in his mouth and nods, not taking his eyes off his forearm. Without any further notice Recovery Girl whips the knife out even faster than it got into Aizawa’s arm. That's not the bit that hurts – just feels super weird – but it isn't over yet.
Without the pesky knife in the way, which Recovery Girl drops into Tsukauchi’s open evidence bag and then quickly vanishes into one of his pockets, Aizawa’s sleeve can actually be pushed up enough to expose the wound, still managing to surge with fresh blood in spite of the tourniquet. Recovery Girl is already at arm height, so only has to move forward to lay a sucker of a kiss on the slice before Aizawa feels his flesh knitting back together.
Now Aizawa bites down on the wad of wraps in his mouth, which also muffle the strangled grunt as the signal fires of his nerves send notice that “hey idiot, we've been stabbed (again)” message to the control room even as they're fusing rapidly back together. Aizawa grips the arm of the chair in his other hand and writhes a little, while Hitoshi starts looking a little more doe-eyed worried as he lurks in the corner of the nurse's office. Aizawa’s worked out the dial for how ill at-ease Hitoshi is tends to fluctuate with information like whether Aizawa’s clearly in pain or not. Heroes are meant to be indestructible, so when they aren't it always scares people, even if that's just reality.
Thankfully, the worst of it is about to be over. Recovery Girl flips Aizawa’s arm over and gives him a quick peck on the other side. Aizawa reaches up to release the tourniquet with his horrendously bloody free hand, spitting out the capture weapon with a hiss as his remaining blood starts to rush urgently through newly repaired muscle tissue.
“That's gonna ache tomorrow,” Aizawa grumbles, which is when Recovery Girl slaps him literally on the wrist.
“That'll serve you right for using your arm as a knife rack, careless boy!” she scolds, and then without hesitating turns over to their scheduled browbeating lecture. “And since when did you start keeping students up all night?”
“He's my intern,” Aizawa tries, and gets another rapid series of slaps for his trouble as Recovery Girl beats him like a drumroll.
“He's a General Studies student without a provisional licence and a father in prison! You can’t pull your bullshit on me, Aizawa,” Recovery Girl machine-guns into him like this is a gang shooting. “Nezu’s told me all about you and the boy’s little racket.” It goes without saying that Nezu will hear all about this, though as long as Hitoshi makes it to class there's technically no issues to report. Whether he stays awake might be a factor, but Aizawa can only achieve so much.
“Worth a try.” Aizawa shrugs and gets another smack on the wrist for his trouble.
Hitoshi looks like he’s slipped back into the zone of being unafraid, but still slightly unclear on what dimension he’s currently occupying. He’s sunk into a chair a little way from Aizawa, looking an awful lot like a sixteen year-old who’s been up half the night. “We’re already famous, huh?” Hitoshi remarks in a sleepy drawl, eyelids hanging low like he needs staples to keep them open any longer.
“It’s not a good thing–” Recovery Girl is getting to scolding when Aizawa makes a zip it motion with his hand. Maybe the gesture itself is what causes the old girl to pause mid-spew, how uncharacteristic it is for Aizawa, leaping so urgently to a student’s – if not his, technically – defence. Aizawa’s usually so open to inviting a lashing on himself. But Hizashi and Kayama aren’t the only people with an understanding of the depths of Aizawa’s masochism. He’s a teacher, after all.
“Let him have this,” Aizawa urges under his breath, and Recovery Girl gives him a look that couldn’t scream “busted” anymore than if Aizawa were literally posing for a mugshot. After a moment of slightly awed staring, she slaps him on the wrist again and Aizawa finally snatches his arm up with a hiss of, “What was that for?”
“For dragging a growing boy out all night and setting a horrible example for him,” she schools fearlessly. “You just make sure if anyone has to get knifed it’s you.”
“Was that somehow not the impression I’ve given off?” Aizawa replies sarcastically, and gets another slap – on the knee, this time – for his trouble.
“I’m the one who has to deal with these broken children who never learn their limits because their teachers don’t either.” Recovery Girl gives a disparaging crow that cuts clearly through the room, but Hitoshi looks half-asleep in his seat anyway, so he might not be catching much of this.
Aizawa pulls a disgusted face. “Don’t compare me to Toshi.” He hates that. Even if Aizawa came in here a bit of a state. “We both know I’m nothing like that walking cold case waiting to happen.” Recovery Girl thwacks Aizawa one more time for being a smartass, and then finally seems to settle. After all, Aizawa’s more or less recovered now, at least once he replaces the blood he lost in the crime scene… in the lift in Shiyoko’s building… quite a bit in Tsukauchi’s car, too. Maybe Recovery Girl has a point after all.
As lovingly as any four-foot tall cranky old lady can deliver a little before five in the morning, Recovery Girl suggests, “Why don’t you pull up a bed and try to get some sleep for once, Aizawa? You look like a present my cat left on the doormat.” Aizawa’s met her cat – a delightful ginger tom that purrs like it fought with and then consumed a small motorbike.
Aizawa would argue with Recovery Girl, if he didn’t have faith that she’s totally and completely right. He’s fucking exhausted. “Thanks, Grams.”
Recovery Girl makes a fussy sound and trots past Aizawa, about to disappear into her back-of-house office where Aizawa knows for a fact she’s got a fully made-up futon rolled up in the cupboard, when she shoots quietly enough for him alone to catch it, “And put that kid of yours to bed, too.”
Feeling a yawn come on that he swallows, Aizawa settles for a sigh and pushes himself out of his chair on both arms. He crosses the room in a few paces to set a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder, startling him awake until he locks tired eyes onto Aizawa’s and calms. Centre of his universe, back in orbit.
“C’mon, Sleepyhead,” Aizawa drawls wearily to Hitoshi as he guides him up out of the seat he’s been melting into. If he’s going to pass out, might as well do it in a bed.
“You’re one to talk, Stabby Mc… Stabs , ” Hitoshi grumbles back, rubbing one of his eyes on the back of his hand and looking super sixteen.
“You’ll be hearing from me tomorrow,” Tsukauchi reminds them both, and Aizawa’s too over it to even roll his eyes.
“Yeah, sure. Bye.” Aizawa sees Tsukauchi off with a limp wave as he steers Hitoshi by the shoulder to the curtained-off ward of Recovery Girl’s office. There’s no inpatients luckily, though if there were they would surely be sleeping too, so two spare beds aren’t hard to come by.
Hitoshi crawls onto an empty bed looking so pitiable Aizawa wants to laugh, but the tank of humour’s been drained along with the couple pints of blood he's really going to miss in the morning. This is the morning, but later in it. Hitoshi’s got his face squished to the mattress, a soft cheek for a pillow and the bags under his eyes even more pronounced than usual. “What a night, huh?”
Aizawa thinks about Recovery Girl’s scolding: students that never learn their limits because their mentors disregard them too. Bit hard to balance that with the UA motto: Plus Ultra, Go Beyond – but only if you can handle it. How do you find out where your limits are but for pushing past them?
Aizawa’s still close enough to Hitoshi’s bedside to allow himself to be overtaken with a wave of affection, meaning he reaches a newly functional arm for the wild lavender thicket of Hitoshi’s hair and ruffles it. “Yeah,” he murmurs softly, knowing that there’s no tucking kids into bed and checking for monsters at this age – there are monsters all right, they just don’t live under the bed anymore. “Try to get some rest.”
Hitoshi makes a pleased little noise with the contact, eyes drifting shut, and Aizawa hasn’t even finished saying it when he realises Hitoshi’s already drifted off, the deep, distinctive breathing pattern of desperately claimed sleep. Aizawa pauses there with his fingers buried in Hitoshi’s hair for a moment, before he slowly withdraws and makes his way over to the adjacent bed, rolling onto it and shutting his eyes for a few precious hours.
Notes:
SOFT??? Yes. More softtttt.
I have a long piece about how I don't believe in gratuitous violence against characters just because the author gets enjoyment out of it, but I do believe in earned hardship, and Aizawa has MORE than proved himself as a highly willing punch-bag as long as it's him instead of someone else. Mr. Smash-my-face-against-the-concrete USJ-incident bitch-ass-looking-ass mothertrucker. That masochistic bitch sure does love pain huh?
Also ready for Recovery Girl MVP of this chapter. This IS You Want it Darker, so even sweet gram grams will have a mouth and attitude to match the tonal shift of this fic. Also she WOULD cuss like a sailor when the kids aren't around and you can't convince me otherwise.
Chapter 24: Breakfast Boogaloo
Summary:
Aizawa and Hitoshi rise, even if they don’t necessarily shine.
Notes:
I know I've been saying/have said it a lot but this is well and truly one of my favourite chapters and not JUST because of the title (even though that is one of my favourite things about it too). Like just uhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
As is the tradition with chapters I REALLY LIKE it comes to you a day early because UGHHHHHGGGGHHHHHHHH.
If anyone would like a thematically appropriate song off my Aizawa playlist for this chapter, check out 'Eggs and Sausage' by Tom Waits.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa is awoken by his phone singing a love ballad. Without moving any more than is absolutely necessary, he digs it from his pocket and jams the handset between his face and the mattress, which he appears to have drooled a sizable damp patch on. Hopefully it’s just saliva, in comparison to the blood he's smeared all over the sheets. Probably should have washed his arm and hands before passing out, though Recovery Girl's dealt with much worse before.
As always, Aizawa’s wake-up call is a sonorous, “Shotaaaaaaaa.”
“M'at school,” Aizawa mumbles into the rumpled sheets as much as the phone, knowing that it can't be much later than 6:00 a.m. if Hizashi is ringing him from bed, which means he’s got a solid hour's sleep working in his favour.
“You have fun last night?” Even freshly woken up: hell, especially then, Hizashi's bubbling with the energy of a good night's sleep. Bastard. It makes Aizawa think he should go home at some point and be structured, or at least get caught up on the slippery slope he's heading down to full-blown hallucinations. Can't fight crime when the real villains are indistinguishable from sleep deprivation-induced visions. Aizawa terrified a class once by not being able to make that particular distinction early on in his job-juggling days. A lesson learned for all of them.
“Sorta,” Aizawa answers with a creaky groan, rolling over and seeing Hitoshi opposite him in the next bed, still blissfully unaware of the waking world. “I got stabbed.”
“Oh good, I was starting to worry you were becoming a responsible person,” Hizashi riffs sarkily. “Was it worth it?”
“Kinda,” Aizawa hears himself croak and gives a tired sigh. “Something big is coming.”
“Yeah baby, you know it,” Hizashi's voice pours like whiskey on the rocks, a distinctive string of pants undercutting his tone that tells Aizawa of exactly what he's up to first thing in the morning. “It's gonna come everywhere.”
Aizawa has had just enough sleep to have energy for a tired laugh. “See you at school.”
“Wait! I'm almost there–” Hizashi's wheedling when Aizawa hangs up. Nice as the sentiment is, Aizawa would rather not listen to his partner orgasm in the company of an unconscious teenager in the next bed over.
Aizawa fumbles for a bottle of eye drops, letting his eyelids droop for just a second (in theory), then goes completely lights-out until the next rude awakening. This takes the form of a spray bottle squirting in his face an indeterminate amount of time later.
The water is so refreshing that Aizawa lets it continue for a while on purpose, before finally opening his eyes to lock gaze to tired gaze with Recovery Girl. Only she’s tired of Aizawa’s crap, and he’s just regular tired.
“Made a mess of my sheets as usual, Aizawa.” Recovery Girl squirts him again and Aizawa keeps his eyes open, meaning he doesn’t even really need the eye drops he finds balled in his fist from before he fell asleep. “It looks like you slaughtered a pig in here.” Wrong phrasing, but she’s not to know that.
“You’re a nurse, you can't complain about a little blood.” The bottle makes a distinctive shhhht sound as Recovery Girl sprays him another couple of times in the face. Who needs showers at this rate?
“A little? I should’ve made you sleep outside with the rest of the animals.”
“That’s your mistake, Old Lady.”
Recovery Girl keeps drenching Aizawa in a light mist, and he brings a hand to his face, remembering a little too late that last night – well, a couple of hours ago – his hands were mostly covered in blood. Dried on, but newly rehydrated with the misting Recovery Girl is giving him with a bottle he thinks she uses on the plants. Aizawa has probably turned himself into a scene from a horror film by the time he sits up. The sheets are clearly ruined already, so he uses them to mop up the worst of the leftover blood over his hands, arm and now face before turning to the next bed.
Hitoshi’s still asleep, turned over on his side with his back to Aizawa. He feels bad about what he’s going to have to do, but the kid signed up for this when he wanted to join Aizawa on an all-night stakeout in the first place.
“Rise and shine,” Aizawa delivers like he absolutely does not mean it. He lays a hand, perhaps a little too heavily, on Hitoshi’s shoulder, because he jumps awake like he’s been wired with a thousand volts. Hitoshi stalls, reorienting himself with his surroundings – what it means if he’s being woken up – then lets out a long, gurgling groan of self-loathing that Aizawa recognises all too well. “I know.” Aizawa’s hand remains in an absent-minded perch on Hitoshi’s shoulder, shifting as Hitoshi turns and levers himself upright, coming up to sit on the bed with a look like death warmed up.
Still behind Hitoshi, Aizawa mostly gets stuck on how perfectly flat the newly lifted plane of Hitoshi’s bed-head is. Lolling to one side like a badly fitted mop head, Hitoshi revels in sharing his opening remark on the morning. “I feel like crap.”
“I can tell,” Aizawa replies, which is a bit softer than ‘you also look like crap’, but Hitoshi shakes Aizawa’s hand off his shoulder resentfully all the same.
“I think I need a coffee,” Hitoshi mumbles mostly into his hands as he brings them up to his face. Aizawa doesn't usually recommend kids on coffee in first year, but he usually recommends they get more than three hours sleep too. It's going to reflect badly on both of them if Hitoshi shows up to class but can't stay awake. Is that worse than giving a teen coffee? Hell if Aizawa knows.
“I'll get you one,” Aizawa bribes as much as he concedes, using the hand Hitoshi shook off his shoulder to pull Hitoshi's feet off the end of the bed. Kid didn't even take his trainers off before falling asleep last night: still in stakeout mode. Even Aizawa finds the transition from Hero work back to school bumpy sometimes, so Hitoshi might benefit from a sliver of separation between those two worlds on this occasion. Hell, so will Aizawa. “Come on, there's a place just outside the school that does a good breakfast.” Food isn’t exactly compensation for sleep, but it certainly helps, especially with a growing teen in tow.
“Have we got time?” Hitoshi isn't exactly going to question extra time with Aizawa, but if there's time for coffee and breakfast, there’s surely time for extra sleep. There is, some half-hour-ish closing window until they need to flip back over into being a student and teacher who have nothing to do with each other. But the fresh air and walk will be good for both of them – put on at least some appearance of being fully conscious by the time homeroom kicks in.
“If you move your ass, yeah,” Aizawa replies unceremoniously, and that gets Hitoshi moving a bit quicker. He trails furtively after Aizawa as they head out of Recovery Girl's office and bounce off-campus just as the early birds are starting to trickle in. No one seems to recognise them, but then again, Hitoshi's got his hood pulled up on an all-black tracksuit, looking more like a harrowed old man than a teenager. Aizawa recognises the look all too well – he’d find it on his own face if he ever bothered looking in a mirror.
Hitoshi’s edgy appearance shifts after they arrive at the little cafe where Aizawa’s had many an early breakfast following a sleepless night. Hitoshi heads to the bathroom moments after they’re shown to a tiny booth in the frantic breakfast joint, while Aizawa orders his usual for both of them, which has been hurriedly set out even before Hitoshi returns in his school uniform.
Hitoshi has to dodge various wait-staff and busy tradesmen on the way back, and if the circles under Hitoshi’s eyes had already looked like he was missing out on rest, now he’s got a matching set of hair, irises and and eyebags like purple is the new black. Hitoshi’s dead on his feet, bumping a few people coming down the narrow aisle towards the booth Aizawa’s sat at. The air is full of the shouts of kitchen staff and clatter of crockery together, warm and humid from endless kettles of tea and coffee, complimented somehow by huge bubbling saucepans of soup and broth. A place you get hungry just sitting in.
The school uniform of this haggard student of the General Course is extra-crumpled from being stuffed in Hitoshi’s bag throughout the stakeout that is not part of his curriculum, and hell if it isn’t a little apt. Hitoshi slumps into the seat opposite Aizawa looking like a sack full of tired schoolkid again, dragging his fingers through his hair to comb out his lop-sided bed head.
The first thing Hitoshi does to his promised cup of coffee is add sugar, but not so much that Aizawa judges him to have butchered it with sweetness. (Not like Hizashi does.)
While most of the customers of this establishment wouldn’t blink twice at a schoolkid with what probably looks like his super-grotty uncle, there’s still a chance of someone from school popping in. Probably not a big one, but enough that Hitoshi’s given it thought too.
That’s gotta be why Hitoshi takes a noisy slurp of his coffee, pulls a face and then not-so innocently announces, “I wonder what someone from school would think if they saw us here.”
“Doesn’t matter what they think,” Aizawa grunts as he takes a hearty slug of his own coffee, breaking apart his chopsticks and beginning to fuel up on his hearty breakfast. He’s got a lot of blood to replenish, and there’s still a killer on the loose who might want more.
“Maybe that we’re related.” Hitoshi makes the observation as naturally as it’d surely seem to the right spectator. Perhaps that’s what the businessmen in here would think if they ever paid attention enough to have such a thought.
“Might do,” Aizawa offers without too much thought, more invested in clearing his rice bowl and waving in a top-up with his chopsticks – along with a refill on his coffee. Hitoshi is mostly mooning over his food and letting the coffee go cold, but Aizawa’s not parent enough to maintain interest in nagging the boy to eat. Aizawa barely gets himself to eat; he’s not going further than putting food in front of Hitoshi. If Hitoshi just wants to stare it down then good luck to him.
Hitoshi’s mulling something over, which finally comes out with the prognosis, “Fuck knows, I could do a lot worse.”
Aizawa gives a chesty laugh as a server refills his coffee cup, taking a scalding hot swig to wash down a mouthful of greens (if he makes it home tonight maybe he'll raid Hizashi's medicine cabinet for lost nutrients). Hitoshi could certainly do much better than Aizawa, sitting here feeding a teenager coffee to keep him up through class after dragging him through another messy crime scene at fuck ‘o clock in the morning. But when the comparison is Dr. Shinsou, anyone looks good.
“Yeah,” Aizawa concedes between bites, then caveats with a more morose, “Says a lot if I'm the best you've got.” At least for some kinda male role model.
“I've got Ma,” Hitoshi fairly points out in turn; perhaps reconnecting with the concept of his mother’s worry, he finally starts taking an interest in his food. Slightly more into his coffee, but Aizawa can't begrudge him that.
There's probably a large part of Hitoshi's astonishing normality in the face of his extraordinary circumstances that's entirely down to his mother, who managed to raise a devilishly smart boy with the makings of a Hero while she is a single, working parent – and supporting the two of them while also fending off the maniacal claws of the pre-massacre Doc would have been no small task. Aizawa’s sure Hitoshi’s Ma is entitled to vastly more recognition than she's ever likely to receive.
“Being a parent is a tough job to do alone,” Aizawa observes somewhere over his third cup of coffee – Hitoshi sneaks in a refill too, but he's started eating so Aizawa’s not going to worry about over-caffeinating him just yet.
Hitoshi scoffs, “You can say that again,” as he resugars his coffee and takes a thirsty slurp. He still looks tired, but the colour's coming back to his cheeks – what little there is to begin with.
The conversation flows a little more naturally while they both eat, running like the turn of a stream widening out. “You help out much at home?” Aizawa asks as he takes a glug of soup.
Hitoshi looses a ‘how dare you’ scoff, like he can’t believe Aizawa’s audacity to ask such a ridiculous question. “Oh yeah, I’m a regular homemaker.”
Aizawa casts a look of some scepticism across the table at Hitoshi, his eyebrow lifting behind the curtain of his hair. “Really?”
“I cook, do laundry, I even iron,” Hitoshi rattles off like he’s a disenchanted housewife’s gadget – the helpful son – rather than a teenage boy. Not his own clothes, going by the creased shirt visible inside his even more crumpled blazer, but maybe his mother’s.
If the intended effect of this tirade is to make Aizawa laugh then it works, a rusty chuckle that slips out over his next slug of coffee. “That’s more than most kids your age.” The boys, at least.
Hitoshi returns as smoothly as a letter with return to sender stamped on it, “I think we’ve managed to establish I’m not like most kids my age.”
Aizawa makes a noncommittal noise over his cup before setting it back down, pointing at one of Hitoshi’s untouched bowls of greens. “You gonna eat that?”
Hitoshi lifts an eyebrow at him, figuring out if it’s a nag, probably. The issue settles when Aizawa reaches over the table to take it for himself. They don’t have much longer before they need to be back on-campus for the start of school. Aizawa needs the vitamins.
As if in acknowledgement of that looming fact, Aizawa’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He slips it out and is checking the message from Hizashi, which just reads ‘Breakfast?’ and to which he simply replies ‘Cafe’. If Hizashi’s already arrived at UA, then he might not be far out, though Aizawa has no certainty his best friend-lover will come to find him. But he might. Nothing wrong with an air of mystery to keep things fresh.
Barely a moment after Aizawa’s put his phone back down, Hitoshi pops the question, “Does your old lady mind you being out all night?” like he’s being clever, which he probably thinks he is. All his couldn’t-be-wrong assumptions that’ll come out sooner or later.
“Wouldn’t have lasted if that kind of stuff mattered,” Aizawa replies with careful concealment of anything slightly too informative, like gendered pronouns for a start. Not because he gives a flying fuck about what Hitoshi or anyone else thinks about same-sex relationships, but because it’s Aizawa’s relationship and he’s entitled to keep it private. Even if it’s just a matter of time with Hitoshi and there’s be a point where it’ll become inescapable, until that moment Aizawa’s keeping his cards good and close to his chest.
Hitoshi gives this some consideration as he puts more of a dent in his breakfast, then makes the ill-timed observation, “Not sure I can picture you with a girlfriend.” Hitoshi is trying to be scathing, but obviously has no idea how right he actually is.
Because right on time, in fulfilment of his hunch about Hizashi texting when he’s already on the way, Aizawa catches the canary-yellow plumage of a ridiculous bird strutting through the doorway of the cafe. With an amused smirk that Hizashi calls Aizawa’s ‘scaryface', Aizawa answers, “Me neither,” and watches Hitoshi's curious expression shift to outright puzzled. A piece of the story that’s not fitting – and how long until he realises what assumption he’s been making without questioning it?
“Hey!” Mic’s shout rips across the restaurant like a labrador whose owner has come home for the hundredth day in a row, in possession of all the information to know what’s coming, yet still reacting like it’s the surprise of the century. Hizashi gets a little closer and drops a few decibels before following up, “Well if it isn’t the Gruesome Twosome.”
Radiant in his freshly blow-dried morning glory, Hizashi raises a boot on the end a pipecleaner leg and plonks it square on Aizawa’s side, dropping into a lunge to shove him closer to the wall in the booth and make a sliver of space for Hizashi’s to wedge his ass into.
Hizashi’s no sooner got his butt on the seat than he’s in fully engaged scavenger mode, picking over the food Aizawa’s yet to finish like a vulture stripping a carcass. Unwraps his own set of chopsticks and just starts stealing Aizawa’s food as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world.
Hitoshi looks… a little suspicious. Aizawa and Hizashi have always been friends and colleagues at UA. It’s just the estimation of how much further it goes that people tend to vary on. Hitoshi’s probably still trying to get a fix on it.
Hizashi’s naturally not bothered by anything; Aizawa would have more success trying to reason with a parrot not to eat birdseed than for Hizashi to behave any other way than whats comes naturally to him. It’s while munching on the rest of Aizawa’s veggies that Hizashi takes stock of Hitoshi’s half-empty cup after he puts it down from drinking, and voices an all-channels DJ Mic out-loud thought, “Should you be drinking coffee?” This turns into a follow-up that overrides Aizawa and Hitoshi’s mutual lack of enthusiasm for this line of questioning. “Should you be buying him coffee?”
“Go easy on Aizawa,” Hitoshi cuts into the fabric of the conversation like a pair of smooth-moving scissors. “He’s had a tough morning.”
“Oh I bet.” Hizashi directs this at Hitoshi, peering over the top of his mirrored shades with those piercing green eyes, eyebrows raised and his top lip lowered so he’s got a kind of over-groomed set of brackets framing his face. “But I thought I asked you to keep him out of trouble?”
“Don’t look at me,” Hitoshi replies pretty easily for a kid chatting case details with one of his teachers – part showcasing, and the rest parading his claim on Aizawa as he tries to get a grip on just how Hizashi factors into that equation. Hitoshi hasn’t quite got it yet – no telling what it’ll take to flip his current thinking into considering Aizawa and Hizashi as anything other than friends. It’d taken them seven years, so Aizawa’s not in a place to judge anyone. “Trouble just finds him.”
“Sure does,” Aizawa jumps back in before Hizashi’s got a word to get in edgeways. “You’re here.”
Hitoshi’s grinning with a pretty manic edge, but maybe that’s the scarce amount of sleep talking. “As I recall it, you came looking for me.” He takes a defiant sip of coffee, a glance he flicks at Hizashi like marbles in a playground before centering back on Aizawa. “That still makes you the trouble.”
Hizashi laughs like the crow of a rooster. It was Hizashi's class that Aizawa pulled Hitoshi from in the first place, so Aizawa’s got no deniability. “Kid’s got you there.” He elbows Aizawa and simultaneously goes for the rest of his soup, at which point Aizawa moves just fast enough get there before Hizashi. Aborting his swipe at the last moment, Hizashi takes a conciliatory pinch of Aizawa’s rice.
“How long do we have before school?” Aizawa has a clock on his phone, but when Hizashi’s a talking one, who needs the tech interaction?
Hizashi’s head gives a perplexed quirk. “Oh no, you’re both already like, ten minutes late.”
Aizawa starts to move first and hears Hizashi snort second. Hitoshi’s looking a little concerned, but hasn’t actually moved as of yet, making Aizawa the person who cares the most about being at school on time by default. Likely because he’s the one most likely to lose his job over it. And Hizashi is just winding him up.
Aizawa levels a narrow a glare at Hizashi, then sinks back into his seat with a low murmur that chugs like an engine, “You don’t mean that.” Hizashi’s been yanking Aizawa’s chain for fifteen years, he’s gotten pretty good at sniffing out his bullshit.
“Okay, it’s not for ten minutes, but that gotcha moving.” Aizawa shoves Hizashi, but it’s mostly to push him out of the booth and get up after him. They’re basically done here anyway.
“Mic said we’ve got time, what’re you in such a rush for?” Hitoshi cajoles from the seat he’s yet to vacate, hand still wrapped around his coffee cup like he wants to hang onto this moment just a little bit longer. But they’ll have lots of time.
“Students should get to the classroom before their teachers,” Aizawa drones as he plucks Hitoshi out of his seat like a fresh radish from the ground, depositing him on his feet with a tired friend helping a tired friend kind of resignation. “We’re making this sacrifice on your behalf.”
“Gee, thanks a lot.” Hitoshi reaches up to push Aizawa’s hand off his shoulder, but that act in itself merits a moment of contact. One that takes a moment of sitting before moving on, Hitoshi’s too-big-for-him teen hands tangling fingers with Aizawa’s to flick them off his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Believe me, I really should,” Aizawa replies with all the authority he’s been slowly jettisoning with Hitoshi as they sail down this river. A still moment in the stream before it all turns back to white water.
Hitoshi finally breaks away just before the gates onto the UA campus. He might not have minded being seen walking around with Aizawa, but chumming up with Aizawa and Hizashi might be too suspicious a story for even Hitoshi to explain if he runs into any of his classmates. Keeping a low profile isn’t exactly compatible with being buddy-buddy with any of the teachers here. Especially the school’s most famous sports commentary double-act, or so Hizashi insists on referring to them at the staff meetings. It gets them paid by the TV companies in any case; Aizawa doesn’t mind that.
When they’re almost at the gates, Hitoshi delivers a record-breakingly low-energy “Bye,” and slumps off looking about as awake as most teens first thing in the morning – which is an achievement, given he was up most of the night.
Hitoshi is no sooner out of view than Aizawa hooks Hizashi by an elbow and yanks him close enough to press a scratchy, mostly-stubble kiss on the cheek. It’s a rare show of affection, but he misses Hizashi plenty when they’re apart, so he takes his opportunities when he can get them: any time where they’re truly alone, no intimacy-cancelling presence of someone they’re (but mostly Aizawa’s) unfamiliar with in that way. Like Hitoshi.
It takes Hizashi about three seconds to work the rest out thereafter.
“You can’t be serious!” Hizashi gasps excitedly as he links his arm around Aizawa’s neck and grins, hanging back for a second as their amble drags to a stop. “You’re keeping us a secret? ”
“Not a secret,” Aizawa replies aloofly. “He just hasn’t figured it out yet.”
Hizashi’s laugh is as bright as a rising sun, and he uses the arms he’s placed around Aizawa’s neck like a garland to swing them into changing places, pressing Aizawa’s back to UA’s exterior wall. Anyone could see them, but Aizawa doesn’t care about anyone.
“So we can’t be together in front of the kid?” Hizashi poses with a wiggle of his quaffed-poodle moustache. Aizawa once shaved half of it off for a laugh when Hizashi was passed. Hizashi was outraged and got him back by shaving off Aizawa’s eyebrows the next time Aizawa was the one passed out beyond reviving (later that week). The joke ended up being on Hizashi in the end, because far more people noticed he’d shaved off his beloved ‘stache than they noticed Aizawa’s having no eyebrows underneath the unruly mop of his hair.
“I never said that,” Aizawa replies carefully, still figuring out which way Hizashi’s going to fall on this particular discretion. His reactions are still a lottery Aizawa plays for fun, even knowing he won’t always win.
It doesn’t take long. Hizashi plants a kiss square on Aizawa’s mouth, grins with his full set of pearly whites and declares, “It’s just like a drama! I love it!”
Aizawa grins, straining around his and Hizashi’s respective neck-gear to steal another smooch. “Of course you do.” Finally, Aizawa pushes him away, backing the leather monstrosity off him. “Come on, idiot, I can’t afford to be late.”
Hizashi falls into step beside Aizawa obligingly but doesn’t let off too easy now that Hitoshi’s gone. Hizashi’s a certifiable lunatic most of the time, but he’s also an adult and can filter the things into an appropriate time and place.
“So this hard morning of yours,” Hizashi offers like an invitation to a party Aizawa doesn’t want to go to. “Anything you wanna tell me about?”
“We don’t have time for that.” Aizawa dodges like someone making the barest adjustment to not smack their head on a low doorway, just chipping the top of their scalp instead.
“Because you won’t make time for it,” Hizashi replies with a tighter-wound tension in his voice. “ Shota–”
“I know,” Aizawa interjects before Hizashi says the things he’s obviously going to say; they’ve been through all this before, too many times to count. He knows the drill, what he’s supposed to do, it’s just actually sticking to it that’s the problem. “I’m trying.”
Hizashi turns to one side to catch Aizawa in his mirrored ‘I see you but you don’t see me’ gaze. “Are you?”
Aizawa puts a hand to his face, realising as he brings it back down that his fingernails are particularly filthy – it’s the blood, always gets into those hard-to-budge crevices. “Trying isn’t synonymous with succeeding.” Fuck knows that’s a lesson he’s learned plenty of hard ways.
“It shouldn’t be that hard for you to talk to me.”
“It isn’t– just…” Aizawa sighs, knowing that Hizashi is being reasonable, and he’s the one sitting in his box unable to explain what it’s made of. So he tries a different approach. “What do you want to know?”
That’s easier – give the impetus to Hizashi, let him direct Aizawa to the things he wants to know. Even if Aizawa can anticipate those questions in his sleep, it’s easier responding to the external query than trying to grab each live snake by the head as they writhe around in the chaotic pit of his head right now.
Hizashi breaks Aizawa’s heart with a few simple words, but then, he’s gotten used to it being smashed of recent. “Are you in danger?”
“No.”
“Yet you got stabbed last night,” Hizashi points out neutrally. “Where was that, by the way?”
“Here.” Aizawa thrusts out an arm, dragging the sleeve up. It was handled so professionally that there’s only the barest mark where the incision was healed back up by Recovery Girl, but Hizashi fingers it like he wants to be sure all the same. “I was just in the way of a lunatic with a knife, it wasn’t personal.”
“Just because they’re not out to kill you specifically doesn’t make it safe.” Hizashi drops Aizawa’s arm, pushing it away to swing back by his side. “What about the kid?”
Aizawa feels Hizashi’s razor intuition cut slightly closer to the bone. “What about him?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Hizashi scolds, tapping a finger on his cheek: the spot of Aizawa’s newest scar following the USJ incident. “We both know what you’re like.”
“I was supposed to watch a kid die instead?” Aizawa knows he’s being prickly, but if Hizashi’s about to get up his ass over the fact that Aizawa will risk his own life to save a child’s they’re only going to head into choppy waters.
“You’re supposed to keep them out of a situation where anyone has to die,” Hizashi comes back.
Aizawa’s head is certainly spinning. “I didn’t have a choice at USJ.”
“I’m not talking about USJ!” Hizashi snaps this time, and Aizawa stops in the almost-deserted schoolyard before they enter the main building. “I’m talking about you taking Shinsou into environments he’s not ready for and paying the price for it yourself.”
“It’s not like that.” Aizawa doesn’t rise to Hizashi’s flaring temper: a screaming match is a terrible way to start the day.
“I don’t know what it’s like if you won’t fucking talk to me about it.” Hizashi’s black-gloved hands flutter like agitated crows, so Aizawa snags the closest to him and gives it a squeeze.
“It’s… hard to talk about just one piece in isolation,” Aizawa tries to placate. “But having him around, if anything, it’s safer.”
This is harder for Hizashi to process, but oh, he’s still trying to get it. Still believes in Aizawa. “Why?” The snare is set very gently, but it’s there all the same. “He’s not allowed to use his quirk.”
When Aizawa caveats, “Except in emergencies,” Hizashi slips his grip to punch him lightly in the arm.
“I knew it,” Hizashi triumphs. “I knew you were getting mixed up in that–”
“Don’t call it creepy,” Aizawa jumps in urgently.
“Creepy?” Hizashi’s head quirks, fully cockatiel. “I was gonna say shady, but if you say so.”
“It’s not. Creepy, I mean,” Aizawa stutters like a train that keeps getting the power shut off before it can leave the station. “That’s just a perception brought about by his father. Hitoshi’s quirk is powerful, a lot more powerful than anyone’s realised, I think, but it’s not like that.”
“How would you know?” Hizashi skips any rigging and full-on throws the next bear trap. “I thought you weren’t gonna let him use it on you.”
The revelation – that Hizashi hasn’t even got this level of knowledge – makes Aizawa understand just how much he’s truly been keeping Hizashi in the dark. And how smart Hizashi really is, for being able to work out everything he has – all the nuances of how Aizawa feels about Hitoshi in ways he can’t even explain himself, based on the limited information Hizashi’s been given. Aizawa would fall for him all over again.
“I… changed my position,” Aizawa phrases carefully, conscious of what he’s saying in a place where rat-bear-mice could be running through the walls for all he knows. “Further exposure leads me to believe the experience someone has under a brainwashing quirk is a reflection of the user’s mentality.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Professor?” Hizashi jests, but doesn’t realise what he’s dancing over. Or maybe he does, which is even worse.
“Don’t call me that,” Aizawa growls, but it’s more playful than real resistance. “It means being controlled aligns with the kind of person the brainwasher is.”
“So a creep feels creepy? Makes sense,” Hizashi remarks thoughtfully, and then with a much more canny air, practically bristling his moustache like he’s taken up detective work himself, “So, what does Hitoshi feel like?” The phrasing is super not good language to be said literally on school property, but Nezu can’t be everywhere all at once.
Hizashi packs neat layers of implication into his remark like a meticulously made bento. The suggestion that Aizawa has relaxed his ‘no brainwashing’ policy and has allowed Hitoshi to use his quirk on Aizawa – not to mention the echo of Aizawa using Hitoshi’s given name, instead of referring to the family curse. Being a Shinsou certainly didn’t do Hitoshi’s mother much good either.
But Aizawa is immune to any feelings of doubt or even guilt over his choices or opinions about them. He’s only done and said what he feels to be right, and there’s no shame in that.
It’s for this reason that he shifts his tired gaze a few degrees around to meet Hizashi’s, and without the slightest reservation, lays his cards flat on the table; Aizawa keeps a lot hidden from a lot of people, but not Hizashi. Never Hizashi. “A Hero.”
Notes:
It's literally a constant source of joy and energy to me to write Aizawa and Mic together in front of people behaving the way that we see them acting in canon with each other, because they DO act very familiar and that's a wonderful very-real-canon aspect I would be insane to miss out on incorporating exactly as it is. A couple doesn't always have to act like a romantic couple in public, and especially when their history is of being very good friends first, that part of a relationship is unchanged by (or if anything, enhanced for what it is) by a romantic counterpart. They're best friends AND romantic partners and showing both sides of that is so important to me.
To mean, in summary, that depicting Aizawa and Mic interacting like they usually do in canon in front of other people and then being romantic with each other in private is my way of saying IT'S CANON BINCHHHHHHHHH.
Chapter 25: Firestorm
Summary:
Aizawa embraces the inferno, and it tackles him back.
Notes:
Now I KNOW what I said last chapter. I know. Believe me, I do.
But would you believe me if I said this is also a favourite chapter?
Well it is, so here it is.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
In an improvement on yesterday, Aizawa has a relatively calm homeroom, where Iida and Bakugo are the only students who throw a fit – and it’s at each other, so that really only counts as one – and then gets through teaching his horribly bored second-years classic lit without falling asleep more than twice. In fact, Aizawa makes it all the way to the end of second period without departing from the normal no-case-eating-his-whole-life day before being disturbed by a knock on his classroom door. Which is an unfortunate disturbance of Aizawa’s nap, rather than a lesson.
It’s another of Ectoplasm’s clones, drawing the door open with a dead, toothy stare that makes Aizawa feel like a pounced-on deer looking up at a panther. “The Principal—” the clone starts.
“Wants to see me. Yeah.” Aizawa rubs his face and tries not to groan out loud. So much for thinking he was going to get a day out of the grinder. “Okay.”
On the way up, Aizawa hazards the question, “Do you know what this is about?” This must be one of Ectoplasm's clones, because it just nods and seems unable or unwilling to answer further. Unless– “Are you allowed to tell me?” The clone shakes its head this time. “Great,” Aizawa says out loud and sarcastically enough that the clone shakes its head once more at him, and more disapprovingly. But this is hardly what Aizawa needs after a long, restless night.
The smell of freshly brewed tea wafting from Nezu’s office is the only comfort to be found in what's sure to be another unpleasant experience. It's in world-weary recognition of this fact that Aizawa drones, “What now?” as he strides through the door in a way that almost makes it sound like, “kill and bury me in a shallow grave”.
“Aizawa, please come in and make yourself comfortable. Recovery Girl mentioned you had her up at unsociable hours removing a piece of kitchenware from your body this morning, so you must be tired.” It's small, but Aizawa catches a curious reactionary noise from the Ecto-clone.
“It's fine, just cut myself chopping some carrots,” Aizawa bullshits like a pro, more as an act of defiance than needing to keep secrets from Nezu – the man-mouse likely knows the full story already. Aizawa's just batting him around like a mouse between a cat's paws. Or vice-versa.
“A likely story.” Nezu’s sitting all the way back on his sofa with his clunky shoes bouncing merrily over the edge of the antique furniture with which he adorns this scholastically twee office-come-teahouse. “Now, can I presume you know what this meeting is about?”
“No.” Aizawa reaches the sofa opposite to Nezu and slumps into it, sliding all the way back and then – he wouldn't do it in front of Hitoshi, but Hitoshi's not here – props his legs up over the corner of the coffee table, so his boots hang off the end but he manages to lay almost flat. “Enlighten me.”
Nezu’s tail flicks. “Yesterday afternoon, a number of enquiries were made to the school regarding your and Shinsou's involvement in an investigation into the murder of a high-profile lawyer.”
“Did you answer them?” Aizawa asks boredly. Which would be because he’s bored.
“I felt there was little other choice.” Nezu puts his paws together and drums the soft beany pads on them against each other. “They also asked us to confirm that our Shinsou is indeed the son of the imprisoned Dr. Shinsou.”
Now Aizawa’s getting the picture. “Press?” he asks limply.
“Then I take it you haven't been privy to the morning news?”
“Clearly,” Aizawa replies unenthusiastically. “Do I wanna know?”
“I'm rather afraid you're about to have no choice in the matter,” Nezu says with his cheeriest “you're fucked” tone. The Principal lifts a folded paper at his side and unfurls it like a person trying to put out a beach towel on a particularly breezy day.
The front cover is a long-lens shot of the courthouse Aizawa and Hitoshi were ducking the police tape in front of yesterday – and oh, there they are in the corner of the shot. That's… fucking annoying.
“Do they know about the prison visits?” Aizawa questions with all the reluctance he feels bursting out of him over this topic.
“Thankfully, no,” Nezu answers. “However, it’s already quite a pickle, so I’d thank you not to make it any worse in the coming days.”
“I’ll call up the killer, let her know,” Aizawa returns frostily, and this is all a bit deja-vu from yesterday, sans Hitoshi lolling all over the sofa like Aizawa’s doing now. They’re so similar, even Aizawa can see it at moments like this.
“Speaking of making things worse,” Nezu introduces with another flicky-flick of his tail – he must be quite agitated. Aizawa hears footsteps outside the door before Nezu speaks again, and the premonition of what’s coming hits him like ocean spray in a fresh breeze.
Aizawa turns his head at a truly unnatural angle, neck pinching as he cranes over the back of the sofa and sees Hitoshi stomp into the doorway with another of Ectoplasm’s errand-clones behind him. Turns out the kid was missing from this scene after all.
When Aizawa last saw Hitoshi, he was half-asleep but still half-awake, and didn’t look more unhappy about it than most stroppy teens of his age and particular disposition. But now he’s got a face like rolling thunder, like lightning would spark from the friction of his gaze whipping around the room, releasing the tremendous buildup of energy he’s holding. He looks like fury had a child with indignation, and the baby kept them up all night screaming. He’s, for lack of a better word, pissed.
Without knowing exactly what’s happening around him, but understanding that it’s something big, Aizawa locks gazes with Hitoshi. “What did you do?”
Hitoshi snorts with more contempt than Aizawa likes, while his pre-emptive sense for when shit is about to hit the fan bangs pots and pans together in his head. “Why’s it have to be something I did?”
“Please sit down, Shinsou,” Nezu says with a gloss of etiquette over freshly sharpened steel. “I had hoped we wouldn’t have to meet like this again.”
“Me too,” Hitoshi grumbles as he throws shut the Principal’s door more heavily than he needs to, letting out a thunderclap bang as it hits the edge of the frame. Hitoshi skulks around the sofa Aizawa’s melting on and then flops into it with such a sigh it’s a wonder the teenage angst doesn’t waft out of him in a thick fog.
“Now then. Is there anything you would like to say to start us off?” Nezu invites of Hitoshi, who Aizawa thinks will start raining on the floor if his expression becomes any more stormy.
“Nope,” Hitoshi replies defiantly, and not even Aizawa wants to intervene and invite such a wrathful god’s temper.
Nezu’s tail thumps on the sofa cushions. “That’s a pity.”
Aizawa addresses Nezu, trying to keep the worry from his tone and probably failing as far as the Principal’s sensitive ears are concerned. “What happened?”
“Shinsou, would you care to tell Aizawa?” Nezu suggests to Hitoshi in a way that’s not a suggestion, but Hitoshi’s not much in the mood for being budged. Another trait he shares with Aizawa. Hitoshi just stares blankly at Nezu, the unspoken “make me” hanging in the air between them like a noose.
“They were asking for it,” Hitoshi spits in the end, and Nezu’s tail gives a swish back and forth, his nose beginning to twitch more noticeably.
“Who was?” Aizawa’s getting annoyed with this now, and he was already fed up when he got pulled in here for the second day in a row. “Can someone get to the damn point already?” It’s an understatement to say Hitoshi being in trouble for something Aizawa didn’t give him permission to do puts Aizawa on edge; he’d bite bullets if it’d stop his teeth grinding together.
“Shinsou brainwashed his classmates a short while ago,” Nezu reveals ominously, and it takes Aizawa a second to digest the coded terms.
“All I did was make them go back to their seats and shut up,” Hitoshi growls, and Aizawa wonders how much of his sour mood is due to the lack of sleep and perhaps ill-advised caffeine coursing through his system – the crash after the high. Brings them back to the looming question of whether this is on Aizawa as much as the kid: to which the answer is always yes. “Really, they should be thanking me for keeping order.”
“You used your quirk on your classmates?” Aizawa puts to Hitoshi directly, and gets a ‘not you too’ sideways glare, but Aizawa’s not accusing – he just wants to know what the fuck’s going on. “All of them?”
There’s a lift in the corner of Hitoshi’s mouth, more of a twitch, but the fact that Aizawa sounds (and is) impressed is a bone this puppy’s ready to catch.
“That this is your initial reaction only confirms my suspicions, Aizawa,” Nezu remarks politely, shuffling forward on the sofa to reach for the teapot. “The rate at which yours and Shinsou’s dynamic has… developed is far ahead of the schedule I anticipated.”
“You planned this?” Hitoshi accuses like he shouldn’t have worked that bit out already. Maybe he has, but just wants to be a little shit about it. To say the Principal hadn't calculated all of this before he even suggested that Aizawa teach Hitoshi about being a Hero outside of the classroom would be to say a bear doesn't shit in the woods; of course the fiend did.
“I made some predictions,” Nezu rephrases cannily as he pours their three identical cups of tea. “However, it seems I miscalculated the speed at which the two of you would,” Nezu pauses for just a second to pluck the word like a chocolate from a box, “bond. ” Aizawa has an unpleasant flashback to the first meeting with Dr. Shinsou, how he said this would be a bonding experience for Aizawa and Hitoshi. He continues to be infuriatingly right about it, too. “By my original calculations, you wouldn’t have reached this level of attachment for about six months.”
“Gee, teach. Sounds like we really hit it off.” Hitoshi fires a lacklustre elbow-jab at Aizawa. The comment is pitched as if an aside, except that Hitoshi’s staring right at Nezu like he’d snatch the Principal’s mind if he thought it wouldn’t get him expelled in a heartbeat. That’s if he’s not about to get expelled. Shit.
“What were your classmates doing?” Aizawa turns to Hitoshi with a level of calm and respect he hopes will curry him some favour. That and all the attachment between them, which has to be good for something aside from getting them both in trouble.
“They found out where I was yesterday, and about my dad,” Hitoshi answers morosely. Nezu is quiet, no doubt deliberately allowing Aizawa to draw this information out of Hitoshi. “I tried telling them I couldn’t talk about it, but they wouldn’t fucking shut up so I just—” Hitoshi takes a deep breath, blinking slowly, and shifts his gaze from Aizawa to Nezu and then back again. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, if that’s what you want me to admit.”
“I can safely assume you’re aware of that much,” Nezu remarks. “The question remains, therefore, of why you proceeded to do it anyway.”
Hitoshi shrugs. “I wanted them to stop.” And it goes without saying, the quiet undertone of all that Shinsou legacy, that Hitoshi could have found much worse ways to silence his classmates than compelling them to return peacefully to their desks. Hitoshi crossed a boundary – ninteen of them, presumably – when he took control of his classmates without their consent. But if truly every one of them was pestering him, maybe even all at once, how far had Hitoshi’s boundaries already been crossed when he finally snapped? Made them leave him alone, when they wouldn’t be asked, didn’t respect the boundary Hitoshi laid out in words before he backed it up with his quirk. If Hitoshi was wrong, his classmates were wrong first. Maybe that’s not the fair, teacher-ey view to take, but Aizawa’s not feeling too much like a teacher right now.
In fact, Aizawa almost wishes he’d seen it go down – a whole class moving together, strung up under Hitoshi’s quirk like the Puppetmaster General. And after Aizawa questioned whether he could control that many people in a theoretical exercise. Sure proved him wrong.
“Perhaps you also wanted to be relieved of your obligations to the classroom,” Nezu points out coyly, and Aizawa feels a cold sweat breaking out. Hitoshi promised not to be caught skipping class anymore, but if he’s not meant to be in class then…
“What, because being in General Studies is so fucking enriching for me?” Hitoshi puts exactly as bluntly as the feeling deserves to be felt – a rusty axe chopping up rotten wood. Aizawa would stand and applaud him if he weren’t bone-bastard tired and already standing on extremely thin ice with the Principal. “If you’re going to expel me then just do it. I’m sick of pretending to be something I’m not.”
Aizawa’s mouth is too full of his heart to say anything right away, because Hitoshi’s right, he’s so fucking right that Aizawa wishes he could punch a hole through the Hero Course just for Hitoshi to walk through. Like if they won’t open the door, Hitoshi will just have to kick it down, with Aizawa behind him every step of the way.
“You’re too young to understand what you are yet,” Nezu tries to lecture, and Aizawa has the strongest urge to stomp on the man-mouse’s stupid fidgety tail.
Aizawa’s talking before he realizes the voice belongs to himself: “But I’m not.” His heart thumps in a way that it usually reserves for Hero work, adrenaline pumping through his veins screaming fight or flight, but Aizawa’s not running away from shit today. “Hitoshi deserves to be in the Hero course, and you know it.” Chomping on the bullet he's had clenched between his teeth since yesterday, Aizawa accuses, “You wouldn’t have put him forward for the Provisional License exam otherwise.”
“What?” Hitoshi sounds devastated by this revelation, and for a moment, the only sound in the room is the bouncing of Nezu’s tail against the sofa.
After a pause like white noise between channels, Nezu merely takes a relaxed sip of his perfectly brewed tea. “Ah, yes. I realise some of my actions might seem at odds with each other in that respect.”
Nezu doesn’t deny it, which is all the confirmation they need. This meeting is even more of a parent-teacher conference than yesterday’s; it’s just now Aizawa’s the disgruntled parent giving the Principal a bollocking for failing his son. Except Hitoshi’s not his son, just… Hitoshi.
However, Aizawa’s worked alongside Nezu a long time and knows the Principal’s easy touch with the delicate cargo of frazzled parents. “As the Principal of this institution, I can assure you this isn't the best way to proceed with young Shinsou's Academic career.”
“Then what is?” Aizawa’s the one growling now, but he’s fucking frustrated, and it’s not even his own future that hangs on the Principal’s shiny gold scales here – just a kid he cares about too much. Aizawa could be fired today and still wake up a Hero tomorrow, but Hitoshi’s life would take a very different turn if Nezu actually expels him over this. Which is Aizawa’s damn fault for pulling him into in the first place.
“I don’t think that’s a conversation either of you are ready for just yet,” Nezu says stiffly, and Aizawa’s hands tighten into fists. “I fear your personal investment has clouded your judgement, Aizawa.” No shit. Because if Hitoshi’s expelled over this: he’ll quit.
“I’ve always been clear about my priorities,” Aizawa says very, very carefully, because he’s holding back a hurricane of fire and if he lets the lid off that, Hitoshi’s expulsion will be the least of their problems. “I’m a Hero first–” and a human being, who forms attachments and will throw in every scrap of teacherly impartiality if it means standing up for what Hitoshi deserves.
“And a teacher second. I remember. Please, have some tea,” Nezu invites like he’s dosed it full of valium. Hey, maybe that’s what makes it so good. Nezu drinks it too, so it’d explain why he’s always so fucking calm. But maybe it’s just good tea – or magic, a la Hizashi.
With a deep breath of control, Aizawa reaches for a cup, lifts it to his mouth and downs the whole drink like knocking back a shot. It burns down his throat and only stokes the heat in his belly until he's ready to spit magma.
“There. I’ve had my tea,” Aizawa replies fiercely. “Whatever you mean to do, Principal, I’m sure it’s already laid out in your mind quite magnificently, so if you wouldn’t mind telling us.” So Aizawa can tell him where to shove it, if that’s what it comes to. It might. Fuck, this one’s going to take some explaining to Hizashi.
“You have left me few other choices.” Nezu’s obsidian eyes glint, the animalistic movement of his head as he adjusts his gaze between Aizawa and Hitoshi like he’s trying to divine how he allowed this scheme to go so wildly out of control. Aizawa can give him that answer easily: by underestimating Aizawa’s compassion for the disadvantage that school and society as a whole have stacked up against Hitoshi so unfairly, for no fucking reason at all. “I have to suspend you, Shinsou. You know that using your quirk is prohibited.”
“Woop-dee-fucking-doo,” Hitoshi replies in time with an unenthusiastic waggle of his finger, but Aizawa’s not corralling him for language or disrespect anymore. Not when Aizawa feels like being just as rude: as long as one of them’s giving authority the boot up the ass it deserves.
But if one of them is the rebel without a cause, the other still has to have some grip on reality. And Hitoshi’s a fucking teenager, which means Aizawa’s got to be the one to get his feet back on solid ground somehow. “Suspended for how long?”
Nezu’s nose twitches, like there’s something in the air of that question he’s trying to sniff out from Aizawa. Well, maybe even this cunning genius won’t see this one coming. “Until the resolution of this issue with Dr. Shinsou, I expect.”
It’s interesting how Nezu frames it, confirming far more in Aizawa’s mind than has ever been really put on the table. Even though it’s Shiyoko out there killing people, Dr. Shinsou remains the spider in the centre of this sinister web. And it’s something that’ll only become more clear if the dark instincts of Aizawa’s gut are anywhere close to foretelling the future.
“Is there something you’d like to add, Aizawa?” Nezu gives his tea a sniff before cementing it with a sip. Hitoshi isn’t expelled, that’s something. Not exactly good, but it could be much worse. A little more rope before they reach the end of it, though hopefully not to hang themselves with. Because here it is, Aizawa thinks as he stands on the precipice. Being a Hero — but even more than that, being what he is to Hitoshi — is an all-or-nothing kind of deal. He’s got no time for half measures now.
“I need to take a leave of absence from my duties as a teacher at UA. Effective immediately.” There’s only a handful of times Aizawa has needed to do this and never in solidarity with a student. But he’s never had a student like Hitoshi. Who isn’t even his student, technically. More.
A wry smile is fighting to appear on Hitoshi’s face, like he’s got to bite his lip to stop it cracking into a grin long and thin like a crescent moon.
“I see.” Nezu doesn’t sound too taken aback just yet. “And your reason for this absence?”
Aizawa doesn’t hesitate. Hesitation would suggest he’s unsure. And he’s never been more sure. The only thing he does is snatch the quickest look at Hitoshi, then return his deadpan gaze to Nezu. “Family emergency.”
“Well, well.” Aizawa can’t be sure, but he thinks he’s accomplished something very rare indeed: he’s surprised Nezu. “In light of your record at this institution, I suppose you can consider that request granted.”
Aizawa lets out a deep breath that’s not a sigh of relief, but the decanting of a rage that doesn’t have to be unleashed today. As in, that sneaky critter got away with it this time.
But of course, Nezu probably knows that too, smiling politely with those cutthroat eyes as he sips from his teacup. “I’ll make arrangements to cover your classes until such a time as you’re able to return to your post.” Another threatening look, this one a steel garotte. “Do try to make sure it’s before the end of term.” That's right: Aizawa’s got to take his class to the fucking woods or something in the Summer Break. That’s going to be a problem if this case isn’t wrapped up in good time.
Aizawa wonders if Nezu had this stitched up from the moment he set foot in here. Even if the exact moves aren’t always as the Principal expects, the outcome is certain in his unreadable super-animal eyes. Aizawa stands like the pathway in front of him has been opened up by a bulldozer – with Nezu at the controls, as usual. No more school-life standing in the way of his real calling – their calling.
“Thank you, Principal,” Aizawa pays credit where it’s due to Nezu, but still comes with an ominous glare. “Come on, Hitoshi.” Hitoshi rises by his side as if commanded by powers beyond Aizawa’s mere request. “We’re done here.”
Whatever happens after the dust settles, they’ll find a way through it. Together.
In silence, they exit the Principal’s office, and it’s a bizarre testament to the helter-skelter dimension they’ve fallen into that it’s Hitoshi who asks Aizawa in the hallway, “You alright?”
“Yeah.” Aizawa doesn’t sound it, but he is. Alright, that is. This is simpler, no more split attention, vying back and forth between fundamentally incompatible responsibilities. Just a few loose ends to tie up. “I need a few minutes to pack up. Do you want to go home?”
“No. Ma won’t be there anyway,” Hitoshi replies easily. “I’ll wait for you.”
Aizawa doesn’t care anymore; not about who sees them together, what they think, or who he owes explanations to. Except for one person, who Aizawa knows will be teaching right now and can’t be pulled out of a lesson to deliver this kind of bombshell – and not in front of Hitoshi.
It’s going to get his ass busted, but Aizawa can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. In this case, a message he sends to Hizashi and hopes for the best. It simply reads, ‘Dropped out of school for a bit. Talk soon. Love you.’
Tamakawa picks up before Aizawa’s first ring is even through, and as always he remains magnificently dedicated to the point. “Eraser. Need a lift?”
“Right as always,” Aizawa compliments. “Me and the kid. How long will you be?”
“To UA? About forty minutes. We’re just at the station.”
“Then we'll meet you halfway,” Aizawa replies. “I’ll drop a GPS pin.”
“Thanks. Catch you later.” Or sooner, but it’s the sentiment that counts.
Hanging up, Aizawa puts his phone away and then sets his weight back a bit before launching forward. Breaking into a high-powered sprint, Aizawa hits the wall, which is no more than a couple feet in front of him, running and scales it with the ease of a fly. Just before gravity kicks in, he pushes off the wall and leaps across the alleyway to grab onto an opposing balcony railing, then scales the next couple of floors in a few well-timed leaps.
When he gets close enough, Aizawa shoots a tendril of his capture weapon at the railing on top of the building where he’d started, swinging back across the alley and wall-walking the rest of the way up. Aizawa clambers over the balcony of the communal roof-terrace on top of the apartment block he’s just climbed, then turns around to sit on it, peering down to watch Hitoshi as he makes his own way up.
Hitoshi isn’t nearly as athletic as Aizawa, and he’s only got one coil of Aizawa’s capture weapon rather than the dozens Aizawa has, but he does nail the run-up and jump off the wall. In the air, Hitoshi twists his body and launches his single length of capture weapon at the first-floor balcony on the other side of the alley. The synthetic fabric latches onto the guardrail, and Hitoshi drops into a swing underneath it, like a purple spider at the end of a strand of web. He swings his feet forward to make contact with the wall and follows this maneuver with a scramble up to the first-floor balcony –the one that Aizawa reached in a single leap. Hitoshi’s less practiced at scaling the balconies Aizawa takes in mere seconds; at one point, he has to shift out of sight when a concerned housewife comes to peer out her window as he’s a little too clumsy in climbing past her second-floor balcony. Aizawa sniggers, and would probably light up a smoke if he had one. At least he’ll be able to leech off Tama soon enough.
Rather than leap across the alleyway several floors up, Hitoshi goes all the way up the building on one side, using his strip of the capture weapon to help him where his core body strength falls short. Aizawa’s pretty okay with that; he doesn’t want to have to jump from the top to catch Hitoshi if he doesn’t succeed at such a challenging leap. Hitoshi needs to have a good judgement of his own limits if he’s ever going to be able to keep up with his peers; he still needs to learn a huge amount to catch up with the growth all the kids in the Hero Course have experienced just by merit of being around each other. Allowed and encouraged to use their quirks on each other, rather than suspended for doing it. Aizawa’s blood begins to boil again, but he sets the pan to simmer on the back-burner and focuses on the path ahead.
When Hitoshi gets to the top of the building, Aizawa’s staring at him from the opposite rooftop. Instead of waiting (or worrying) about Hitoshi stringing a slackline between the two buildings, Aizawa sets it up himself. The line hangs at a slight incline from Hitoshi’s building, spanning the distance between the two structures. Aizawa perches on another guardrail, feet hooked around the middle bar to secure his balance as he watches and takes mental notes.
After performing these sorts of acrobatics in much more challenging settings, Hitoshi takes the line like he’s skipping down the beach boardwalk; fearless and controlled as he sets one foot confidently after the other, arms held slightly out for balance, legs moving smoothly as he treads his way up to Aizawa.
Because Aizawa’s sitting right next to this tightrope, it’s natural that Aizawa’s shoulder should happen to be the first hand-height support for Hitoshi once he reaches the end. Hitoshi’s hand is firm, pushing a decent amount of his weight into the sure anchor of Aizawa’s shoulder as he swings himself down to the ground. Aizawa doesn’t mind being used like a piece of human obstacle course.
Aizawa’s still facing out over Hitoshi’s tightrope when he hears, “So are we gonna talk about what happened back there, or is it all just taken as read?”
Hitoshi speaks with his back turned to Aizawa. Maybe that makes it a bit easier to say, given Aizawa’s hardly been forthcoming about going into what happened back in Nezu’s office. About what they’re doing.
Aizawa knows his class will barely miss his presence: hell, they’re probably overjoyed at the contact time with another Hero from the UA faculty. Whereas Hitoshi’s just been given a blank check with his personal Hero’s name on it, and it’s normal for that to take a minute sinking in. Physical exertion is a common trigger too – Aizawa’s seen plenty of teenage emotion unlocked by breaking a sweat.
So Aizawa makes it simpler. “Is there anything you want to say?”
“I know I keep thanking you, but–” Hitoshi puts a hand to his face, fingers groping across his forehead. “It’s just, no one’s ever–” Maybe Hitoshi’s realising they could have ended up here after his being expelled and Aizawa even being fired, but instead they’ve got a window of opportunity – a chance to prove once and for all where Hitoshi belongs. Where he’s going to get, if Aizawa’s got a goddamn thing to do about it.
“It’s okay.” Aizawa steps up behind Hitoshi’s sapling form and sets his hand on Hitoshi’s springy young shoulder. Not a gesture of practicality, but familiarity. “I just want what’s best for you.”
Hitoshi’s head hangs low as he takes a deep breath, which Aizawa takes to be the sign of someone reaching his saturation point: catching up with the rocket-speed of his own life, and needing a moment just to stop and fucking breathe.
Aizawa waits with him, until Hitoshi crushes the heel of his hand against a closed eye and mutters, “Guess I’m a lucky guy after all.”
Tama’s smoking against the hood of his police car when Aizawa and Hitoshi drop into the side-street in near-perfect sync on their respective abseiling capture-wraps. There’s no Yamaguichi riding shotgun or grinning merrily behind the wheel, which might be a disappointment for Hitoshi. Aizawa’s sure that, before they’re through at the station, Hitoshi will seek her out like a metal detector zeroes in on a needle in a haystack. Maybe even the other way around.
“I saw the guy Tsukauchi brought in this morning.” Tamakawa doesn’t quite growl with this statement, but he’s raspy with bitterness: thinking about places he could’ve been, if he were in the right shoes. Another bright spark Aizawa’s stuck fanning in the unforgiving dark. “That bitch sure went off the rails fast, huh?”
“I’ll be sure to mention to the Chief that it was you who called in her first victim,” Aizawa says with a warmth that tells him he’s missed Tama, even though he technically only saw his furry friend yesterday. Time stretches when sleep is only optional.
“Shame I won’t get the credit for catching her,” Tamakawa replies with a defeated shrug, turning around to open the door and climb back into the car. Hitoshi gets in the back, but Tama’s got cigarettes, and Aizawa’s had a hell of a fucking morning.
“Smoke?” Tamakawa offers right on cue as Aizawa settles into the passenger seat. There’s still half of a cigarette growing ash in the corner of Tama’s fuzzy mouth, but he's got an open pack in his hand, holding it temptingly out to Aizawa as Tama pulls the door shut and starts the car with the other.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
Aizawa’s lowering his window, but feels at least reasonably guilty about having Hitoshi in the backseat catching their fumes. However, Aizawa’s had to accept he’s not always good for Hitoshi, especially when he’s digging a lighter out of the deepest reaches of one of his inside pockets, igniting with an almost delirious sigh as the fresh nicotine rushes his system. And Hitoshi seems to like Aizawa’s influence whether it’s good or bad, still struggling just to find the words to thank Aizawa for the desperate gratitude he feels toward his benefactor and champion rolled into one.
It’s powerful to be believed in, even more so by someone you idolise, and Aizawa walking away from his job in solidarity with Hitoshi must seem like a big gesture to the kid. But Hero worship can be dangerous, Aizawa muses over his cigarette as Tamakawa zips through the daytime traffic on the way back to the station. Just as Midoriya turns himself into a sacrificial lamb in the vein of his own personal Hero, Aizawa’s more aware than ever of the ways his own vices will become the wrong kind of example for Hitoshi. But Aizawa’s not perfect; he just has to try and do the best he can.
The silence begins to drag, and Hitoshi leans into the gap of the two front seats to ask Tamakawa, “What do you know about the guy they brought in from our stakeout?” He does it on purpose, wanting to recognise his own contribution, but Hitoshi’s picking the wrong wound to rub salt in.
Tama finishes a final, sour pull on his cigarette and sticks it in a disposable, dashboard coffee cup that’s clearly been modified for such a purpose. “They’re calling him the zombie. Seems like he’s pretty messed up in the head.”
“Oh, you think?” Hitoshi replies sarcastically. “I don’t know much about how her quirk works, but if the effect is concentrated every time Shiyoko writes her name on him, I’d guess that guy’s brain is basically a milkshake.”
“The less you know about those kinds of quirks, the better,” Tama grouses with clear distaste, and Aizawa remembers this loose end they’ve left flapping. “Creepy as fuck.”
Aizawa leaves his smoking hand hanging out the window and chances a glance into the back, locking gazes with Hitoshi at once. A silent “do you wanna tell him or shall I?” conversation takes place between them. Hitoshi seems more amused by this fix than frustrated. It figures he’s desensitised to people reacting the way Tamakawa does.
“Oh, you’d be surprised by what I know,” is the only way Hitoshi chooses to reply in the end, a suave secret-keeping smugness held in the grin that Tama doesn’t notice, with his eyes rightly fixed on the road.
Aizawa does a little news-surfing on his phone and soon finds out why Hitoshi would have been pushed enough to use his quirk on his classmates. The media has broken out in fucking hysterics, drawing wild theories about the ‘Deathnote killer’ who’s ‘cleansing the city’ of men like the lawyer and the rapists he defended. Hitoshi’s picture is plastered over all the articles, identified as being ‘at the crimescenes’ then jumping straight to his relation to the infamous Dr. Shinsou and spiralling into unnecessary details of the 99 Massacre, in lieu of any information about the actual Killer on the loose.
No messages from Hizashi yet, which means he either hasn’t looked at his phone yet, or he’s waiting to chew Aizawa’s ear off the side of his head when he’s got adequate time for the task. Hizashi will understand (he’s lived with Aizawa this long), but Aizawa knows he’ll be worrying, and a worried Hizashi behaves much less rationally than a reassured one. That’s on Aizawa too – leaving his lover in the dark selfishly. Just because it comforts Aizawa to have Hizashi and his home life uncontaminated by all this mess.
“Have you kept up with the news coverage of this case?” Aizawa questions Tama carefully as he swipes over another article in which the zoomed-in shot of Aizawa and Hitoshi entering the courthouse – Tama and Yamaguichi stationary on each side – is followed by that same fucking headshot of Dr. Shinsou. Plus the journalistic spin-doctoring of how ‘suspicious’ it is that the Doc’s son should be spotted around this mess. It’s only suspicious if you half-chew the facts and spit them back out, but that’s journalism for you.
“I try not to,” Tama replies resentfully.
That’s on him, or he’d have realised who Hitoshi is by now. Tamakawa’s got all the makings of a good detective, and Aizawa feels for his frustration with the lack of opportunities given to him, but he’s got some work to do growing past the boundaries of his own bias. Being good at this work means leaving personal perceptions behind, interpreting the facts as a blank slate and reading only what’s there without tuning it to fit a palatable narrative. Of course, if anyone would tell Tama that, mentor him to reach his full potential…
“That’s a little short-sighted, don’t you think?” Never mind, Hitoshi’s got the base covered. “What if you miss some important piece of information, just because you had too much of a chip on your shoulder to look for it?”
“When you grow up watching people around you, people you’re just as good as, getting the chances you want, then you can talk to me about the chip on my shoulder, brat.” Tama doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but his enlarged hands are gripping the steering wheel tight, and when his golden gaze hits the rearview mirror for a moment, Aizawa suspects the glare Tama burns into it is all for Hitoshi.
“You don’t know what I’ve been through, furball,” Hitoshi retorts with rising antagonism.
“Easy, you two,” Aizawa intervenes as he stubs out his cigarette and drops it in the coffee cup. They’re almost back at the police station, thankfully. “The brat has a point, furball. That frustration should drive you forward, not back.”
“And who asked you?” Tama turns on Aizawa with the same all-purpose aggro, which is a shame, but not impossible to understand. People deal with things different ways.
“No one,” Aizawa replies patiently. “Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself blindsided by something you should have been more careful to look for.”
“I’ll skip the lecture, thanks,” Tama says with a tone caustic as paint thinner. They drive past a cluster of press people outside the police station (Aizawa makes a mental note) and into the protected police car-park.
They get out of the car and are heading toward the building when there’s a heavy thudding of someone running down the corridor from inside. The owner of the running feet bursts through the door before Aizawa’s even set a foot on the first step that leads up to the station’s side entrance. It proves to be Yamaguichi, flush-faced and explosive as she points an accusing figure at the youngest member of their party.
Then, with all the indignation that might have come from Tama if he’d taken the advice he was just so resistant to, furiously shouts, “Shinsou Hitoshi!”
There’s a moment of static silence, Tama staring in wide-eyed ‘did you fuckers plan this’ shock before Hitoshi raises both his hands on either side of himself as if in surrender. “You got me.” There’s an undeniably creepy lilt to his tone, a dose of that intoxicating Shinsou charisma as Hitoshi continues, “What can I do for you?”
Notes:
*Holds Aizawa to my ear like a shell* listen children, you can hear the sounds of a parent in there.
Chapters like this are what I think 'Dadzawa' stories should be about - not starting at this point, where Aizawa's already committed heart and soul, but to go all the way back to the beginning and then *arrive* at this point where it's so meaningful and important. All the best payoffs are earned, and this fanfic must prove it if nothing else does.
Oh and in before anyone coming at me over Aizawa actually quitting over this, see the above point and understand that just because it's a narrative doesn't mean it's always going to be an *unbiased* narrative.
Also! FUN THINGS HAPPENING SOON!! I like the coming bit of the story an AWFUL lot, and off the back of some of my fav 3 chapters you know that's a ringing endorsement. Catch ya next week!
Chapter 26: Bomb Disposal Squad
Summary:
Aizawa tries his hand at defusing a couple of live situations. The results are… mixed.
Notes:
Okay okay okay, so this finally isn't one of my tip-top "favourite" chapters but I do love it a whole whole lot because it's got some fabulous stuff in it, and *does* have one of my all-time favourite fic moments in it, so there's that going for it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“So let me get this straight. You’re the son of that brainwashing cop-killer?” Tamakawa, all things considered, could be taking this a lot better. He glares at Aizawa with his sunflower gaze narrowed, ears twitching and just a flash of feline teeth in his mouth in the accusation, “And you knew about this?!”
“Of course,” Aizawa replies calmly.
They’d at least made it into an empty interrogation room before Yamaguichi started running around the police station hollering about the cop-killer son of Dr. Shinsou on the loose in the precinct. Aizawa always forgets the way cop-killer becomes something different within the police force, tinged with that dogmatic fervour of us versus them. Without a doubt, there’s plenty of people in here who’d consider the officers the Doc killed as an equivalent – even greater – tragedy than the students who still to some degree voluntarily entered into a death pact with the Professor. The cops he butchered were sent in unprepared for capturing a monster, and though their numbers were fewer, their deaths were certainly more brutal. Especially the one who came from this particular branch: the last of the Doc’s cop-killing spree, author of the Death is Freedom note written with his own entrails.
“So you just fucking failed to mention that fact to us?” Tamakawa can’t fit Aizawa and Hitoshi in the same angry stare, because Aizawa’s leaning against the wall on one side of the room next to the door while Hitoshi’s slumped over the table in the middle of it, looking kind of like he could use a nap after they’re through with this next round in the washing machine full of bricks that is today so far.
“I’ve inherited his brainwashing quirk too, seeing as we’re clearing things up,” Hitoshi offers with great disinterest. That and a little extra, Aizawa wants to add, but doesn’t. He can’t see it affecting this powder keg of a situation any way but explosively. No, they’ll tackle those nuances should they ever need to.
The amount of explaining they’ve already got to do is definitely enough, because Tama’s really losing his shit now. It’s actually kind of interesting to see him totally unhinged, a first for Aizawa. “You told me you were quirkless!”
Hitoshi’s unphased, the curl of a grin crouched in the corner of his mouth. “I lied.”
“Why would you lie to us? We’re the police, we’re supposed to be on the same side,” Yamaguichi appeals a little more rationally, though with a little more confused-hurt than angry. She’s closer to Hitoshi, after all.
“He thinks quirks like mine are creepy, fucked-up shit, right?” Hitoshi accuses with a corpse-cold look he casts over Tamakawa, who promptly looks away – like he’s afraid of making eye contact. “I didn’t want you to think I’m a bad person just because I have this quirk.”
“And because your father is an actual, locked-up villain,” Tamakawa delivers with a snarl.
Before Hitoshi can respond, Yamaguichi reaches a hand for Tama and grips his arm. “That’s not fair. He can’t help who his father is.”
Aizawa watches the light shine a bit brighter in Hitoshi’s eyes: the effervescent relief of someone not reacting the way… well, the way Tama is.
However, they're not quite out of the woods yet. After the dots connect in the almost-visible thought bubble above Yamaguichi's head, she says a very clever thing indeed. “Is that what happened the first time we met?” She looks at Hitoshi, whose face is an open book for her in return. “The guy you told to lay in garbage…” The cogs turn, and Hitoshi’s little indiscretion comes back into the spotlight. “You… used your quirk on him.”
“And you thanked me for it,” Hitoshi says with a control so perfect it reminds Aizawa all too uncannily of Dr. Shinsou. That tranquil, painted landscape stretched over a scene of total devastation. “Would you like to take it back?”
Aizawa has seen Yamaguichi have a moral meltdown before and remembers this is only her second week on the job – and to stumble into this. Aizawa can only hope Hitoshi gets through to her. “I… that's illegal, I'd have to…” Yamaguichi visibly starts to struggle, plumbing the hidden depths of Hitoshi’s actions. The risks he took for no other reason than he felt it was the right thing to do. “You didn't even know me.”
Aizawa remembers the night well. He'd sworn he would report Hitoshi himself, but in the moment had found every fibre of his gut telling him it would be wrong to let Hitoshi be punished for what he did. Standing up for someone he hardly knew, teaching a lesson to an everyday villain: what Heroes do.
“Please, Yankumi,” Hitoshi asks in plain terms. Before they cart Hitoshi off and arrest him for doing a good deed. Over Aizawa’s dead body. “I just want to talk.”
Yamaguichi may be stalled, but Tama's powered on rocket fuel and takes over the moment he realises his partner’s actually listening to them. “No way, this whole thing is fucked. If he’s been using his quirk on civilians, you can't expect us to–” Tama’s walking for the door, which is when Aizawa takes a tactical side-step and puts himself between the exit and Tamakawa.
“We’re just talking, Tama,” Aizawa echoes more calmly than he feels, watching Tamakawa’s denied grip hover just in front of Aizawa’s abdomen. Though his hands are relatively human, Tamakawa’s got more noticeable pads on his palms and the tips of his fingers. His pointed nails are well-kept, and would surely do a nasty bit of damage if he scratched anyone. Hopefully they’re not about to find out how much damage.
Tama’s saucer eyes meet Aizawa’s, and they’re a lot of things: betrayed, angry, afraid. They’re supposed to be friends, and secrets of this scale, such a harsh misjudgement of the lay of the land, hurts. It’s never easy seeing someone Aizawa cares about upset, but he juggles so many conflicting priorities these days it’s a wonder he hasn’t run off to the circus to become a clown.
Steadying himself with a single slow blink, Tama issues a stiff, “So talk.”
Aizawa takes a deep breath, and tries to figure the best way out of this mess.
Thankfully, Hitoshi steps up to the plate first. “I want to be a Hero. I’ve always wanted to be a Hero.”
“You’ve got a funny way of going about it.” Tama turns just enough to glare over his shoulder at Hitoshi, still sprawled on the table like a specimen for examination. That’s largely Aizawa’s fault; he’s got a funny way of going about being a Hero himself.
“I haven’t been given many chances,” Hitoshi replies simply. “Just by Eraserhead.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tama chews on like cod liver oil tablets. This is hard for him, but it’s a language Tamakawa still understands: denied opportunity, being noticed by Aizawa at the back of the pack. Aizawa’s got an eye for dark horses – he used to be one himself.
So Aizawa decides to just dish up the truth once and for all, see who can stomach it. “He’s not in the Hero Course at UA.”
It’s a testament to the way Hitoshi’s worked things with Yamaguichi that her initial comment to this is a shocked, “You’re still in school?”
Slightly behind this, but still overlaid with it, comes Tama’s more reasonable shout, “He’s not in the Hero Course?!” Aizawa’s glad that he’s between Tamakawa and the door right now, though he doesn’t doubt Tama would try to claw a hole through his torso to open it up, were he determined enough.
“My quirk only works on people, so I couldn’t pass the entrance exam for the Hero Course,” Hitoshi explains like he’s as dead on the inside as he looks on the outside. “I got accepted onto General Studies, but I’m going to be a Hero.”
Tama’s staring back at Aizawa again. He’s a smart kitty, quickly putting the puzzle together now he’s finally got the full set of pieces. Aizawa gives him a moment to figure it out, sure he can see it happening in a slight dilation of Tama’s eyes as he focuses intently on Aizawa. “That’s where you come in.”
“I wanted access to Dr. Shinsou,” Aizawa states as plainly as the whole mess can be put down to a strict timeline. “I found out about Hitoshi’s connection to the Doc and promised to help him into the Hero Course if he helped me with this case.”
“Not quite the way you put it at the time, but close enough,” Hitoshi teases from his pose in the centre of the room. One foot up on the table, knee bent, while the other dangles loosely over the edge. Hands spread wide behind him, the epitome of me-me-me posturing that he probably never does consciously. That’s how it is with kids who’ve had to fight for attention – at least, the positive kind. Programmed to put themselves in your way, so you have to notice them front and centre, desperate for something that’s so easy to grant.
Hitoshi’s quirk might be brainwashing, but his secret weapon is how he makes helping him feel so good , like correcting a mistake in the world’s homework.
“Is he even your intern?” Tama searches desperately for a grain of truth, and this is exactly why Aizawa hates to play favourites: they get upset with each other when they work out they’re not unique in their special relationship with teacher. Or that teacher sometimes lies. A ‘logical ruse’ he’ll claim if and when his bluffs all turn to bluster.
“Our arrangement sits outside of UA’s jurisdiction,” Aizawa answers cagily, probably making it sound much worse than it is by merit of being overly conscious of it.
“What he means is I don’t have a provisional license, so I’m not technically allowed to be his intern.” Hitoshi pauses for a second and flashes Yamaguichi a look that seems to bring the flush back into her cheeks. “But I do all kinds of things I’m not allowed to do.”
If Aizawa thought Hitoshi could flirt his way out of this mess, Aizawa would probably let him. Just because being party to the kid's Romeo routine makes Aizawa feel… odd, wouldn’t be an incentive to shut Hitoshi down if he were likely to get anywhere with that silver tongue (which he’s more than demonstrated the capabilities of). It’s just that Aizawa’s not sure this is quite the moment.
“So you’ve got an unlicensed intern, using his quirk illegally, and oh, he’s related to a famous cop-killer, which has brought the press up our asses?” Tamakawa has a go at summarising with about as much disdain for the situation as Aizawa’s come to expect from a member of Law Enforcement. Sympathetic as individual officers can be on a personal level, Aizawa knows their blood still runs blue. “Does that about cover it?”
“I got suspended from school this morning too,” Hitoshi adds with a terminally bored stare he directs up at the ceiling, tipping his head back and letting loose a sigh that makes Aizawa think he needs to put this kid down for a nap at some point. Fatigue-induced temper tantrums are no fun for anyone involved.
“Fucking brilliant,” Tama growls, only to find himself on the end of a stern glare from Aizawa that makes all his whiskers bristle. But instead of being cowed, Tama comes back stronger. “How about you, Eraser? Been fired? Have your license stripped away and forgot to tell me?”
“Those things won’t happen if you keep this to yourselves,” Aizawa replies masterfully, putting the consequences right out there for these law-abiding officers to pay heed to. Do the lawful thing and watch the damage it does, or do the right one and understand that the circumstances sometimes call for leniency of what’s considered a ‘crime’.
Aizawa doesn’t deny any of the things he’s done with Hitoshi that technically constitute crimes – and a few more Aizawa’s done all by himself. But they’re petty crimes of necessity, committed in the natural course of pursuing a far greater evil. And keeping anyone as talented and deserving as Hitoshi in the General Studies Course should be a crime. Yet here he is, a renegade on suspension when he should be earning valuable class credit.
“You’re asking us to lie for you?” Yamaguichi’s voice trembles a little, but the rest of her is solid.
“Only if someone asks,” Hitoshi replies deviously. “How about for a start, you just don’t arrest me?”
“Even though that’s literally our job,” Tama voices immovably, and although he’s inched little-by-little away from the exit Aizawa cut off, there’s still a chance the spooked cat might bolt and run. Like he’s holding himself in place to resist that urge, Tama’s arms are crossed, grip tight around his own biceps. “You’re breaking the law.” There he goes again, blue through and through. Aizawa tries not to begrudge either of them for it: they can’t help being Police officers.
“We can’t catch Shiyoko if you throw Hitoshi under the bus,” Aizawa lobbies harder, looking right at Tama like he’s got him against the wall, even though Aizawa’s the one with his back to the door of this room they’ll have to hope no one is due to use any time soon. “Remind me, did you become a police officer to put kids in jail?”
“He wouldn’t get put away, not for a first offence.” Yamaguichi tries to soften the blow, but Aizawa’s been bare-knuckle fighting for days.
“Someone else wouldn’t.” Hitoshi relishes the words like he’s taken a bite out of a raw lemon. “I would.” His accusatory gaze burns into Tamakawa, who stays focused on Aizawa, like Tamakawa’s afraid he’ll turn to stone if he dares to look back at Hitoshi. “Look how badly Tama reacted. A judge would take one look at my file and order me bound and gagged.” Just like they did with Dr. Shinsou during his trial, Aizawa remembers from old newspaper articles.
Aizawa wonders what it must have felt like being the Professor’s ten-year-old son at the time of his arrest. Relieved maybe, from what Aizawa’s heard about the time before the Doc got put away – knowing he’d finally been taken into custody could have been the end of years’ worth of worry. Hitoshi’s mother leaps to mind, pinning a note on the corkboard of Aizawa’s thoughts to make sure he tells her what the fuck’s going on with her son. Also Hizashi, who could, frankly, ring at any moment, and given Aizawa’s not bleeding out, he’s got no excuse not to answer.
So Aizawa needs to hurry this shit along. “If you want to report Hitoshi later… fine ,” Aizawa says even though it’s not fine and he definitely doesn’t mean it. He’s just buying time. A logical ruse. “But only after this case is closed.” Aizawa’s gaze goes past Tama to meet Hitoshi’s, and he says quite simply, “I can’t do it without him.”
That’s not strictly true, but what Aizawa really means is it wouldn’t be the same without Hitoshi. As a Shinsou, he’s so close to the heart of this wicked tale, tied up in the same twisted history that cultivated the deranged killer Shiyoko under the influence of Hitoshi’s demented father. If they arrested Hitoshi, the police might be able to keep him safe… but not safer than Aizawa can.
Hitoshi looks right back at Aizawa with an adoring grin, his lips splitting from a smile to a fully fledged sarcastic, “Awwww,” at Aizawa’s probably-starting-to-get-embarrassing outpouring of support. At least, embarrassing in front of someone Hitoshi’s trying to impress. But Aizawa’s pretty sure that boundary where affection goes from being cool to uncool is one of the honoured hallmarks of guardianship.
“What if something goes wrong, and it falls back on us for failing to report you?” Tamakawa challenges Aizawa with the attitude of a poker player betting their last chips. He’s already struggling to progress in his career, in spite of having all the qualities for the job. And if Tamakawa had been the detective on this case, he’d have been with Aizawa and Shinsou the first time they went to Shiyoko’s apartment, maybe even before she’d abandoned it. So Tama might be reacting badly now, but if he’d been in a position befitting his ability in the first place, not only would this not have happened, but they might be further ahead on catching Shiyoko.
“I’ll take responsibility for everything. It’s all on me.” Aizawa puts down his usual bluff, then adds a new one that he’s yet to start circulating as his working relationship with Hitoshi develops like a piece of film in a dark room. “Hitoshi only uses his quirk when I approve of it.” (Most of the time. But that part isn’t as important.)
Tama sounds more like Aizawa’s confessing to a meth habit than an extremely powerful mentalist quirk. “You can’t be serious. You’re letting him use his quirk?” Sort of the same thing as a meth habit, to some people, Aizawa supposes.
“Do you want a demo?” Hitoshi offers cheekily, but his approach is perfectly sound.
“Fuck no,” Tama hisses, while Aizawa and Hitoshi make eye contact over his shoulder. Hitoshi’s ‘I’ll do it’ eyes meet the barrel of Aizawa’s ‘not if I can help it’ revolvers, an erasing gaze already loaded into the chamber. A tense quickdraw that will give the game away if Tama catches Aizawa whipping his guns out on Hitoshi, but hell to pay if Aizawa doesn’t stop Hitoshi snatching Tamakawa’s mind without permission. Hitoshi should know better when it comes to consent, though, so a part of Aizawa doesn’t believe he’ll really do it.
“Wait,” Aizawa mouths at Hitoshi, then turns his gaze back to an ever-more suspicious Tama, whose shoulder Aizawa’s hand comes up to perch on. “It’s not a bad idea. If you let Hitoshi show you what it feels like to be under his quirk, you’ll realise it’s not the way you think it is.”
“You don’t know what I think it’s like,” Tamakawa retorts sharply, and steps back a bit. Ostensibly to remove Aizawa’s hand from his shoulder, but also moving away from the door. Aizawa doesn’t doubt that Tama would shake him off and charge straight past Aizawa if he really wanted to. This is contested territory, so there’s still a chance to win.
“I know what I used to think it was like,” Aizawa offers instead. “But it’s only frightening when you don’t know what it is.”
“I’m not frightened!” Tama shoots indignantly, and then whips his head around to look at Hitoshi. “Alright then, kid. If you’re so fucking special, go ahead and prove it.”
Hitoshi looks like his birthday’s come round again scarce weeks after he just had one, his jaw hanging in an open grin of surprise for a moment before he says with a wicked, competitive edge, “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Fuck it . Show me–” Just the end of Tama’s word is pinched off as Aizawa watches him go quiet, almost sensing that phantom connection between the communication of brain and body go down.
Aizawa has a sudden thought about nights when Kayama would be free this week, when Hitoshi suddenly addresses him next. “You want to help me with this one, teach?”
It’s not even a deliberation in Aizawa’s mind, just a matter-of-fact, “Sure.” The way someone agrees to downing a shot they didn’t have to pay for. The next moment, Hitoshi’s velvet-fuzz fingers slip around Aizawa’s scalp and pluck his thinking brain out of his body’s control room, coddling it in those gangly grow-into-them teenage hands.
“So first of all, deep breath, everyone.” Hitoshi starts out easy, and Aizawa welcomes the soothing rush of feeling his chest lifting like Hitoshi’s pumping a set of bellows gently into his lungs. Aizawa’s watched Hitoshi use this technique to stop a woman with a lethal wound and literally buy the extra time that saved her life. He knows it’s the good shit.
Tamakawa looks completely and utterly amazed, short-circuited almost. Like a cat with a piece of sliced cheese on its head in a viral video. His mouth hangs open, perfectly round, gong-bronze eyes that tighten almost to perfect slits then widen out as he breathes rhythmically.
“Now, if you’re agreeing not to arrest me for using my quirk, you two should definitely shake on it,” Hitoshi says like it’s a suggestion, a child playing with dolls, acting out a scene as he’s fancied it in his head.
Aizawa doesn’t resist the motion of his hand and arm lifting, but it looks like Tamakawa’s giving it a go. He can try, but struggling with Hitoshi is like trying to push into a void: there’s simply nothing there to push against. Unless you’re Aizawa, using his quirk to try and fight back (if he wants to), but that’s a battle Tama’s never going to experience.
The softer parts of Tama’s hands are exactly as squishy as Aizawa suspected them to be when their palms meet and fingers clasp in a firm shake. Hopefully this is going to work, and Tama doesn’t end up even more freaked out and paranoid about Hitoshi using his quirk. Hopefully this (literally) hands-on demonstration will show Tamakawa that Hitoshi’s quirk is only as fearful or frightening as the actions he’s being puppeted to do are. So shaking hands is pretty innocent, and his quirk, by turn, is only something to fear if you believe he’s capable of anything worse than mischief.
Then again, mischief could still be Hitoshi’s middle name, so when his voice shifts in tone, that slyness Aizawa’s come to expect from him, it only seems natural Hitoshi should say, “You two are usually pretty friendly though, so maybe that’s not enough.” There’s a short moment of shock, letting that sink in – Yamaguichi even does a little gasp. “Better hug it out.”
Aizawa would laugh if he were in control of his body right now, which is, in the meantime, raising its arms around Tamakawa in a bear-hug that Tama reciprocates with a little added tension in his body. Still resisting a little, perhaps; not as wholly submitted as Aizawa is when Hitoshi’s got him by the strings. Aizawa wonders if Hitoshi can feel those kinds of differences in the people he’s got control of, and imagines he probably can. It’s a fucking weird way to be outed as a secret sub, though perhaps the kid won’t cotton on.
Tamakawa’s face is incomparably fluffy against Aizawa's face and neck, and he would be a liar to say he hadn’t thought about rubbing his cheek on Tamakawa before. He didn’t want to be rude, so he hasn’t done it, but now that he and Tama have been folded together like paperchain men, there’s no reason not to enjoy the delightful fuzz of a man-sized cat.
Hitoshi doesn’t keep them held more than a second after that, lifting his quirk like it’s as easy as flipping a switch. Tama’s arms drop right away, but Aizawa doesn’t have an immediate reason to move on from what’s proving to be an incredibly comfortable position in his post-brainwashing headspace. Aizawa’s so relaxed, it could practically be called an afterglow.
“Didn’t you let Eraser go?” Tama questions Hitoshi suspiciously, though he hasn’t actually tried to back away from the yoke of Aizawa’s arms around him yet.
Aizawa hears – he’s shut his eyes, feeling terribly disposed to a powernap all of a sudden – Hitoshi scoffing, “I did.”
This is around the time Aizawa’s, “Soft,” thought about Tama’s fur turns out to be something he’s saying out loud, evidenced not least by the way Tama shoves Aizawa off him with a burst of hysterical laughter.
“You’re a weird fucking guy, you know that?”
“You’re not the first to point it out,” Aizawa replies blankly, shaking the last vestiges of Hitoshi’s quirk off. He wonders if Hitoshi can put people to sleep – something to test out. Later. Once they’ve got this Tamakawa shit sorted. “So. Are we good here?”
Tamakawa looks agonised for a moment, but Hitoshi’s little wind-down trick might have worked on him too. Hopefully this wasn’t too much; Aizawa would hug Tama without any quirks involved, and with a bit of luck he’s not the only one on that particular wavelength. He’s pretty sure Tama likes him enough to be okay with it, but Aizawa’s ready to apologise if this was all a massive misjudged fuckup.
However, it seems like they’ve gotten away with it, as with a grinding reluctance Tamakawa says, “As long as no one’s getting hurt I… I guess it’s okay.” Tama weighs Aizawa’s proposition like the latest flavour of gourmet catfood: well-packaged and plated up like a meal, but still fucking catfood. “But only until this case is over.”
“That’s fine,” Aizawa insists. By that point Tama will likely either be too grateful for being credited with his part in catching a famous killer, or the situation will be so fucked he’s looking for a scapegoat, which Aizawa will willingly accept if that’s what it comes to. It’ll mean he’s failed to catch Shiyoko, so it will be the least that he deserves.
Tama turns to address Yamaguichi, who’s looking rather perplexed by what she’s been witness to, which is, if anything, an indicator that she’s still sane. “What do you think, Rookie?”
“I think… if you’re sure it’s okay.” Yamaguichi’s gaze keeps oscillating back and forth from Hitoshi to Tama, like if she had trouble getting a read on him before, then her equipment’s been totally smashed to bits now. The next part she says when her gaze has flipped back to Hitoshi, and bursts with sincerity. “I don’t really want to arrest you.”
“Thanks for that,” Hitoshi rolls with a ‘cheers, love’ matter-of-factness before ploughing onwards. “So now that’s all–”
“Actually,” Yamaguichi interjects before Hitoshi can get too far ahead, and he pauses with a ‘now what?’ lift of his eyebrow. “There’s still something I was wondering… about your, you know , the way you…”
“What, feeling left out?” Hitoshi flexes right back to teasing, but going by the guilty way Yamaguchi jumps, he must be right.
“Well I, uh… if everyone else had a go.” Yamaguichi’s actually bouncing her fingers together, looking down past her glasses in a way that brings the rookie back into her appearance. Wanting to be on the same level as her peers, to be sure there’s nothing she’s missing out on.
Hitoshi’s grin is a sure thing of mischief when he says, “Come here.” Yamaguichi takes a few obliging steps towards him, and for a moment Aizawa’s not sure if Hitoshi’s already used his quirk or not. But then Hitoshi raises a hand, opened up in invitation for Yamaguichi’s, and he marks the occasion with the question, “Ready?”
Yamaguichi’s cheeks flush day-glow red, already moving her hand towards Hitoshi’s as she responds with an ungainly, “Uhuh,” and goes blank a moment later. If there were such a thing as mastery of the 100% mind, Aizawa wonders how much of it Hitoshi’s using now.
Yamaguichi’s fingers freeze in the air at the exact place where she lost control, and Hitoshi lifts his hand up to close the distance and tap her palm curiously. Aizawa wonders how much he’s been able to test these kinds of things before, using his quirk in a situation that’s not frantic and rushed.
He says, “Touch your nose for me.” Yamaguichi’s hand moves slowly, making it all the way up to boop her forefinger against her nose when she blinks heavily and moves her hand freely back down.
“Oh ,” Yamaguichi honks more than speaks. “That wasn’t what I was expecting.”
Hitoshi gives a pleasant laugh, at least judging by his laughter scale that more often hangs around disdainful and outright fucking scary. “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know.” Yamaguichi gives a nervous laugh, almost girlish for a sweeping moment. She adjusts her glasses, crossing her arms over her front thoughtfully. “You better get your record straightened out soon, okay? This is a serious warning.”
Hitoshi seems tickled by Yamaguchi’s attempts to browbeat him and retaliates by turning her back into a flushed-face figuring-it-out girl with a smooth, “Sure thing, Yankumi.”
Tamakawa’s looking less frantic, which is good, but he’s also using his head clearly enough to ask tricky questions like, “Does Tsukauchi know about the kid?” Thankfully, a battle Aizawa and Hitoshi have already fought.
“Yeah, he’s up to speed,” Aizawa answers. That’s tougher for Tama again, realising that he’s been left out in the dark, especially when this has been his case from the very start. It must be agonising to watch the gem of a killer he found being cut and polished by someone else. “I actually came by because I wanted to see the Zombie. Do you know where they’re keeping him?”
Tamakawa gives a scornful laugh at the lot he’s been left with. Aizawa truly feels for him. He needs to buy the poor guy a beer (or several) sometime soon. Maybe not tonight, though. Aizawa’s got a long list of activities lined up already. One loud blonde one in particular.
“Fuck it,” Tama declares as he raises his hands in ‘I give up’ resignation. “He’s locked in one of the holding cells up by the Psych’s office.” Aizawa steps away from the door, finally sure that they’ve managed to defuse this powder keg and lets Tama go before him to leave the room. “Before you ask why he’s up there, Tsukauchi wanted him moved for some reason.”
Close to Dr. Iwaya’s office… Aizawa turns over like a new piece in a 3D puzzle, when his phone bursts into amorous song, and Aizawa’s heartbeat rockets up a few dozen BPM.
“Oh, I know who that is,” Hitoshi’s ready to taunt, but if he only fucking knew.
“I have to take this,” Aizawa announces to a council of faces that range from ‘what an awful ringtone’ to ‘teacher’s old lady has him so whipped.’ If Hitoshi ever puts two and two together with Aizawa’s personal life and his over-willingness to mess around with Hitoshi’s quirk, he might get a lot further with his guesstimations of what Aizawa’s got waiting for him on the other side of that phone. Which is somewhere between a full-scale natural disaster and the end of the world – at least according to Hizashi.
Striding out the side-door of the police station the way they all came in, Aizawa answers the phone approximately the entire length of his arm away from his ear, which is the very closest he wants to be, for the microphone-blowing voice of Hizashi belts the accusation, “YOU’VE GOT SOME ‘SPLAININ’ TO DO!”
With that out of the way, Aizawa brings the phone up to his ear and only has a slight ringing in it as he says, “I know. I’m sorry.”
Hizashi’s next offering is a big exasperated sigh, and Aizawa thinks it must be the break for lunch at school. Not that he’s got to worry about getting back to that routine anytime soon. “So: dropped out for a bit?” Hizashi brings back Aizawa’s hastily dealt words with appropriate scathing, but Aizawa always knew that would happen.
“I’ve taken a leave of absence. Nezu’s okay with it,” Aizawa supplies methodically. “He suspended Hitoshi this morning.”
“Fuck,” Hizashi replies emphatically, so Aizawa figures he must be somewhere alone. “What for?”
“Used his quirk on 1-C.”
“Double fuck. Used it on all of them?”
“That’s what I said,” Aizawa replies with a hopeful grin. He was preparing for the worst, but maybe Aizawa’s luck’s going to last a little longer. Hizashi knows enough about Aizawa and Hitoshi to realise why things would end up this way. “We’ve got to solve this case. I don’t think there’s much time.” Aizawa can sense a terrible wave approaching, and he has to stop it before it breaks on a cursed shore.
Hizashi’s not gone full apocalyptic, which fills Aizawa with a desperate relief and appreciation that only intensifies when his partner simply asks, “Do you need help?”
“No,” Aizawa replies solidly, and before Aizawa can ‘Shota’ him pre-empts, “I’ll be home tonight. We can talk then.” He doesn’t mean all of that – Aizawa doesn’t really want to talk with Hizashi at home at all. It’s everything else he can do with Hizashi at home that Aizawa craves: the antidote to this wretched fucking case that has taken over his life in all other respects.
“Don’t you dare say you will if you’re going to get ‘caught up’ and then drop off the map,” Hizashi warns tersely, but Aizawa’s aching for him. He’s so tired he almost fell asleep on Tama, for fuck’s sake.
“I’m coming home, Hizashi,” Aizawa says for keeps, and his heart lifts at the new huffy sound of exasperation on the other end of the line.
“You better.”
This time Aizawa’s the one who offers, “Love you.”
“Yeah yeah, love you too,” Hizashi groans. “See you tonight, assface.”
“Bye.” Aizawa hangs up and takes a moment to breathe. That could have gone much worse. Now he just has to figure out how the fuck he’s going to make it home tonight.
Easier said than done.
Notes:
This chapter goes out to all the readers, new and old, who are ABOUT that fucking furry snack known as Tamakawa. Me love the kitty, and Aizawa (also me for the purposes of this story) ALSO love the kitty.... is fav.
SPEAKING of favs, to those of you who are all suspecting of Yamaguichi and stuff, this wholesome Hitoshi/Yankumi content is part of my soul and you must reconcile this if you mean to suspect her of anything. It's EVERYTHING to me.
DOUBLE-SPEAKING of favs.... next chapter... ohhhh next chapter. It's one of my favourites (I KNOW OKAY AUGH) but not only is it significantly beefier than my usual already-beefy chapters, and it's really unlike any other chapter of the story so far, and for that I love it lots. Therefore, very excited to be bringing it to you next week!
Chapter 27: The Hospital
Summary:
Hitoshi takes a trip. Aizawa doesn’t.
Notes:
SO this is another chapter that ranks very highly in my favourites, it's the longest of any chapter in the story to date (including from my large vault of backlog) and that's because of the very specific nature of what happens in it, I couldn't possibly stop mid-way through and had to keep going until the proper resting point.
Good songs to compliment this chapter include White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and Roads by Portishead, or any song that makes you feel a little bit like you're losing your mind. You'll see why later, as without further ado, off we go.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Following a hunch, Aizawa leads three-person procession he’s trailing through the police station to Dr. Iwaya’s office, rather than going straight to the padded cell of the so-called ‘zombie’ who Tsukauchi brought in at the crack of dawn. The police’s unsavory nickname for the the mind-melted puppet of a man who stuck a kitchen knife through Aizawa’s arm in the early hours. Not that anyone here would know about it.
There’s a deal in which Aizawa’s only ever referred to as a John Doe in police reports, the clear sign of an underground Hero. It’s why he has no statistics, and the so-called rankings of Heroes never includes the name Eraserhead, except to occasionally acknowledge that such a Hero exists. Aizawa will let them in on that much: he exists.
Aizawa knocks, but hears nothing from inside the office, so takes it on himself to be bold and opens the door anyway, leading with a vaguely apologetic, “Sorry to disturb you like this, Iwaya–” There’s a noise of frantic movement from inside, and when Aizawa gets far enough past the door, he comes across a fantastically interesting scene.
Dr. Iwaya is behind her desk, but then, so is Tsukauchi. The detective is also at such a height that only his head is visible above the desk, and what parts of him that are visible have gone very red indeed.
“I, uh– oh, it’s–” Dr. Iwaya flustered is a funny sight indeed, but with Tamakawa, Hitoshi and Yamaguichi backing up behind him, Aizawa thinks better than to let the trio burst in. As quickly as he intruded, Aizawa extracts himself from the situation, reversing out the door and closing it behind him as his baby-duck procession crowd around with questioning eyes.
“She’s not in?” Yamaguichi guesses first.
“Nah, I heard her voice,” Hitoshi counters with a shake of his head. Aizawa holds up a ‘give it a second’ waiting finger, and watches the grin blossom on Hitoshi’s face. “Interrupting something, maybe?”
Tamakawa gives a cough and amends, “Someone,” in a way that clearly fills Hitoshi with delight, a momentary flash of eye contact between them that gives Aizawa some hope they’ll actually manage to get along at some point. He doesn’t like his kids to fight amongst each other – wasted energy, when there’s monsters like Shiyoko and Dr. Shinsou out there.
It’s barely half a minute before Aizawa senses feet thumping up to the door at his back, which opens so suddenly he’s only got time to half-turn and meet Tsukauchi standing red-faced on the other side. “Sorry we didn’t answer you, Eraser. You, uh, the Doc had an accident, and I was just–”
“Not a problem,” Aizawa settles, not leaning around Tsukauchi to look inside but sure as hell tempted. “Is she ready for us now?”
From inside, Aizawa hears Dr. Iwaya’s windchime voice calling, “Yes. Please come in,” as her white knight steps aside to permit them entry.
Dr. Iwaya is still tending to something behind her desk, and with a quick sweep of the scene Aizawa notices a mug on the edge of the desk that sticks out, the positioning wrong for someone to be naturally drinking from it. Not that there is much left to drink, going by the remnants of a large spill across the surface of Iwaya’s roomy desk, one of her notebooks with a wet corner moved well out of reach from where the Psych would usually keep it. Knocked over her tea, probably. Question is why.
There’s no reason for Aizawa to let Iwaya know what he’s noticed, and given the way she and Tsukauchi reacted, there might be plenty more to find out about just how the detective was assisting Dr. Iwaya after she dumped tea all over herself. It’s hard to imagine her being graceless, but Aizawa’s seen far enough past Iwaya’s defences to know there’s every likelihood a clumsy girl could be hiding in those otherwise-composed depths. Or a very clever woman – which she surely is, regardless.
“Let me guess what brings you here.” Tsukauchi relishes this like a game to be played for distraction, a still-fading flush of colour to his cheeks that he covers with a brassy, “You want to confess it was you all along?”
This is so ridiculous it actually provokes a laugh from Aizawa, while Tsukauchi’s wholesome grin makes him think that the detective must be in some kind of good mood. Patched things up with the Ice Maiden, perhaps. “Not quite. I’m here to talk about the zombie.”
“Please don’t call him that.” Iwaya remains frosty as always. Aizawa steps further into her office and sees she’s patting her wet skirt with a cloth, which is creased and doesn’t sit like her usual perfectly tailored A-line suits. Perhaps it’s been adjusted to ensure she wasn’t burnt when the scalding hot tea soaked in. Maybe Tsukauchi was lending a hand with that. But those are just theories.
“How bad is it, Dr. Eye? ” Hitoshi swans up with his usual bucketloads-full of overconfident charm, but Iwaya just looks enchanted to see him.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” she queries with the faintest of smiles. Hitoshi’s still got his uniform and everything, though it’s so badly crumpled from being stuffed in his bag all night that Hitoshi looks more like a UA student someone screwed up and threw in the bin.
“I’ve been let out early,” Hitoshi lies easily, and Yamaguichi lets out a shocked gasp from behind him.
“That’s a fib,” she protests grumpily, perhaps a little set aback by Hitoshi’s familiarity with Dr. Iwaya as well: the perils of a ladies’ man.
If Iwaya registers Yamaguichi’s correction of Hitoshi’s truth – or the daggers she’s glaring at him – it’s not something she chooses to dwell on. She’s surely used to all sorts of devious behaviour from a Shinsou. At least Hitoshi is one she actually likes. “Mr. Honda is in a very unfortunate condition.”
“Because of how many times Shiyoko used her quirk on him, right?” Hitoshi gets close enough to hop up on the end of Iwaya’s desk, which is a rather bold play, but the Psych just leans back in her chair and adjusts her gaze to meet Hitoshi’s.
“Yes, I believe so.” After a moment of consideration, Iwaya looks down and straightens out the misaligned seams of her skirt.
“Shopping for inspiration?” Tamakawa spits a lowball that Aizawa wants to cuff him for, but Hitoshi just whips his gaze from Iwaya on one side to Tama on the other and waggles his eyebrows.
“Lucky for you, my quirk doesn’t work like that.” Hitoshi adds salt for the wound.
Then Iwaya sets the whole thing on fire with a knowing, “A Shinsou wouldn’t need to.”
Tamakawa’s expression darkens, but it’s Yamaguichi who comments, “Oh, you know about Shinsou too, Dr. Iwaya?” Credit to her, Yamaguichi sounds it out like a chirpy thing to ask about rather than the huge drama Tsukauchi and Tama have made it out to be. If only there were a cure for male ego.
Dr. Iwaya’s expression doesn’t change, that same knowing coldness – a lake frozen solid – as she says, “I’m familiar with the Shinsous.”
If Aizawa had to guess how many people in this room know what Iwaya truly means by that comment, he’d put it at about half-and-half. He knows what it means. However, as terrifying as the notion is of what a Shinsou brainwashing quirk could do in the way of permanent brain damage, Aizawa’s got other things to chat about with the Psych right now.
“The guy we brought in," Aizawa pushes ahead. "The one covered in Shiyoko’s handwriting.” Honestly, zombie falls off the tongue much easier than the alternative. “Have you been able to read his mind?” Iwaya looks startled by this presumptive question, but Aizawa just shifts his gaze knowingly to Tsukauchi and back again. “That’s why Detective Pot had him moved up here, right?”
“For the last time, you’re the pot and–” Tsukauchi joshes like this is something he and Aizawa discuss with great regularity. “... I’m the kettle.” Iwaya looks at the pair of them as if they’re schoolboys who’ve run inside with their muddy shoes still on, and Tsukauchi comes over much more bashful. “Yeah… I asked if the Doc would use her quirk to read his mind. The guy’s been unresponsive since he woke up, but he’s the only person who’s had contact with Shiyoko and lived.”
“If not to tell the tale,” Hitoshi adds impishly, getting more comfortable on Iwaya’s desk by the minute. Aizawa gives him a quick ‘behave’ glare and has absolutely no certainty it’ll work; not with Hitoshi sending back his ‘make me’ one in return.
“Any chance he’s still being affected by Shiyoko’s quirk?” Aizawa directs at Iwaya, changing the subject before they can get to squabbling, while Hitoshi brings his hands up to his face in fidgety thought.
“That’s possible,” Iwaya replies, “but I don’t believe it’s the case. He’s free from her quirk, but the damage to his brain has already been done.” Iwaya continues in a slightly more impassioned, melting ice-princess way, “What he’s been through is so severe that I just couldn’t–” Iwaya stops herself and resettles with a deep breath, and Aizawa wonders if this is the explanation for the recently spilled tea. Shaken up by something.
Aizawa takes a guess. “You’ve tried already?”
“Only for a second,” Iwaya answers before realising she’s just confirming something Aizawa couldn’t have been sure of. It’s just an educated hunch, but a solution even Aizawa can understand often proves to be the right one.
Hitoshi’s grinning away behind his fingers – how is he now sitting cross-legged on the end of Iwaya’s desk and getting away with it? The oh-so-slightly Hero worshippy flavour of the look Aizawa’s getting reminds him of Hizashi’s echoing ‘the way he looks at you’ mantra. Aizawa’s aware of how his professional deadpan can make him seem more infallible than he is. Aizawa could be wrong, but if he is he’ll handle that at the moment of being proven wrong, rather than hedging his bets like he’s uncertain with his jumps of logic. He doesn’t leap buildings with the expectation of falling short, so why would this be any different?
“I can’t imagine that guy’s brain is a very nice place to be right now,” Hitoshi muses against his fingertips, pressed together in front of his mouth as he rests his elbows on his legs. A little thinker. If Iwaya’s not going to make him take his feet off her desk, Aizawa’s probably not going to either.
Then they all get a refresher course in how truly weird mentalists are, when Hitoshi pulls away one of his hands like peeling a petal from a heavy violet bloom, offering his open palm out to Iwaya with a pervasive offer of, “You want some sugar?” Dr. Iwaya, a woman of at least twice Hitoshi’s age, gives a breathy titter and rests her face against her hand, like she’s got to weigh it down with something to stop her taking Hitoshi up on it. Tsukauchi looks like he might be about to swallow his tongue.
“Suit yourself,” Hitoshi might be teasing as he brings his hand back up to rest again his face once more, but it’s not always easy to tell with him. “Why couldn’t you read his mind for longer?”
“It’s too much… I can’t control how much of a person’s consciousness I merge with,” Iwaya explains in terms that start losing the less keyed-in members of this group – Yamaguichi’s definitely starting to drift out of touch with the mentalism talk. But Aizawa thinks he follows – if Iwaya were able to use her quirk on the zombie, she would be no more coherent than he is. The violent trauma of instantly becoming one with someone who has been through the mental equivalent of a meat grinder must be too much for even a steel fortress like Iwaya to withstand.
Hitoshi, as ever, seems right at home in all this shady shit. Without shaking his pensive pose, he offers, like he’s thinking it aloud, “I probably could.”
“What do you mean?” Aizawa’s curiosity lands first, probably the closest observer of Hitoshi’s quirk at present. Excited about new possibilities for his diamond in the rough.
“I could establish a barrier between Iwaya’s mind and the zombie,” Hitoshi puts in a way that makes Iwaya frown, but Aizawa thinks that’s at the nickname rather than the suggestion. The man is a victim after all, they should at least try to be sympathetic. Even if he did stab Aizawa, which might be some of it.
Aizawa appreciates the kid’s boldness, but reckless ideas have consequences, and it’s important not to misjudge what’s actually within his reach. “Are you sure?”
But Hitoshi’s lack of certainty seems to reinforce rather than undermine him. “I think so,” he utters thoughtfully, brows furrowed a little as he rests his face against his knuckles. “It’d be like making someone stop seeing or hearing, numbing the right parts of the brain so they’re unaware of what’s around them.”
“If you shut me off entirely, we won’t learn anything,” Iwaya offers with measure, like she’s seriously considering this wild scheme. “It has to be structured, organised.” She pauses for a moment, and then just as she’s saying something, Hitoshi says it with her, so perfectly in sync it comes out as one doubled-up mentalists chorus.
“A mind palace.”
There’s a moment of silence that stands in testimony to why a lot of people find psychs and mentalist quirks… unnerving, if not actually creepy. From an outsider’s perspective, it looks like they’re all plugged into some unfathomable network, pulling information off the same mainframe. Really, they were just both victimised by the same psychotic motherfucker.
“What’s a mind palace?” Aizawa comes out in front, perhaps by merit of being the person disturbed least by all this quirky mentalism stuff. Tamakawa looks like he’s about to run up the curtains, and Yamaguichi just looks plain confused.
“It’s a form of memory technique in origin, the method of loci,” Dr. Iwaya explains with her trademark pristine, emotionless grace. “Using a spatial map to organise and recall information. It’s been modified somewhat since the dawn of mentalist quirks. I use a form of it myself to organise my interaction with other people’s consciousness without becoming confused within my own.”
“Keep the monsters in their cages, you mean,” Hitoshi paraphrases slyly. Aizawa wonders where Hitoshi learned about the technique – the same term that Iwaya used – and then realises he already knows.
“Is it something Dr. Shinsou developed?” Aizawa guesses again, and Hitoshi gives him one of those wicked grins.
“Now aren’t you clever?” Hitoshi purrs sardonically, and Aizawa’s got the petty urge to knock his feet off the desk, uncrossing Hitoshi's legs after he’s made himself so excessively comfortable. Hitoshi’s got the approach to personal space of a cat, which naturally means it’s all got to be on his terms, but everywhere is free game. Double points for places he’s not supposed to be.
“You really think you can do it?” Tsukauchi’s question seems indiscriminate, and Hitoshi and Iwaya look at each other in conference before coming to a conclusion.
It’s Iwaya who answers in the end. She’s the one who’ll be handing her state of mind over to Hitoshi for safekeeping. That it’s her making this commitment is no small achievement, and one that lays solely at Hitoshi’s feet.
“I think we can try.”
Aizawa hadn’t expected the mentalists to need so much preparation time. After dragging the other chair in the office right around to Iwaya’s side of the desk, Hitoshi and Iwaya have been cosied up poring over abstract notes in hushed conversation for the better part of half an hour.
Yamaguichi is already bored and surely has work to get back to, slipping out of the office around the time Tama and Aizawa sneak away for a cigarette. Tama’s fur is still a little ruffled, but he seems to be coming around on Hitoshi. Aizawa’s trust in him is clearly a big part of that, but a little one-on-one time can do wonders for shaken faith.
Besides which, Tama’s still got a few things left to straighten out with Aizawa; they’ve no sooner stolen into the alleyway and lit up than Tama announces unceremoniously, “I thought he was your son.”
“Hitoshi?” Aizawa checks even though he knows full well who Tama means. He can really feel the fatigue biting into his tired mind now, especially when the nicotine rush hits. “I had a feeling you might’ve.” It doesn’t explain everything away, but at least contextualises Tama’s explosive reaction earlier – being so sure of something, only to find out that it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Tama smokes pensively, looking up at the sky in the narrow gap between these buildings. It’s bright and breezy, taking the edge off the warm weather, and even more tolerable in the shade. “Thought I was real fucking clever for working it out too.”
“I’m not exactly parent material,” Aizawa replies over his next thoughtful drag. That, and he’d have to be the most reckless teen parent in the world if he were biologically Hitoshi’s father. Aizawa would’ve had to become a parent at about Hitoshi’s age for it to even be possible, and at that time he was focused relentlessly on his pursuit of being a hero – no time for knocking up mystery women. Aizawa didn’t have sex with anyone (and even then, not women) until his twenties – far more important things to focus on.
“I don’t know about that.” Tama turns his gaze back down to ground-level, one arm crossed over his front, fingers tucked into the elbow of the arm his smokes with. “Guess I’m not ready to make detective after all.”
“Not yet, maybe,” Aizawa puts as honestly as he can. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trying to get the experience to move up when you are ready.” Feeling the inkling of a lecture coming on, Aizawa wonders if Tama will be responsive to this one. “Hitoshi was denied the opportunity to make it into the Hero Course, but he hasn’t given up pursuing that goal.”
“He’s got you,” Tama points out not quite enviously, but a glint of jealousy might tinge his golden-eyed gaze. “It’s different.” Aizawa’s no kingmaker, but he can pick an underdog from the best of them.
“Hitoshi was still trying, long before I came along,” Aizawa shares. “I just gave him the chance to prove he’s got what it takes.” And how. Aizawa takes another drag and shrugs. “I didn’t even want an intern.”
“You’re definitely two of a kind.” Tama flicks ash from his cigarette. It crumbles into dust on the tired tarmac of this closed-off alleyway where the sun barely shines, but that’s why Aizawa likes the place. Maybe Tama will take Aizawa’s words to heart, but sometimes it takes a while for advice to soak in. That’s okay too.
Aizawa lets out a chestful of feels-good but bad-for-him smoke with the simple agreement, “Yeah.” It’s hardly escaped his attention just how easy it’d be for people to look at Aizawa and Hitoshi and think ‘oh, they must be related’. Even moreso now they’re so… familiar with each other. Aizawa doesn’t mind. He’d be proud to have a kid like Hitoshi. “Are you coming back upstairs?”
“To catch that shitshow?” Tama takes another drag, a litter of snowy grey ash at his feet surrounding him like a circle of salt to keep the demons out. “Think I’ll leave it to you mentalists. I’ve got my own job to do.” Finishing first, Tama stubs out his cigarette and gives Aizawa a friendly pat on the arm before heading back inside. “See you around, Eraser.” Aizawa gives him a smokey wave in return.
‘You mentalists’ is an interesting turn of phrase, Aizawa considers as he silently smokes out the rest of this short break in his day. His quirk has certainly never been classed as such, but that’s in the context of a poorly understood field riddled with stigma. Dr. Shinsou did express a desire to study Aizawa’s quirk, which suggests there has to be something about it that’d pique the interest of the crazed Professor of all things mentalism.
Maybe Aizawa’s got more in common with Hitoshi than he thinks.
When Aizawa arrives back upstairs, he finds the occupants of Iwaya’s office ready to ship out. What this means, practically speaking, is Hitoshi serenades, “Good timing, teach,” as he strolls past Aizawa out the doorway that Aizawa just entered. “We’re ready to give this thing a shot.”
Tsukauchi stops in front of Aizawa, while Iwaya’s still finishing up something at her desk at the back of the room. “It’s good we have you here, Eraser.” Tsukauchi leans in and says conspiratorially, “I want you to pull the plug on all this at the first sign of trouble, okay?”
There’s more than ordinary fear of the unknown in Tsukauchi’s eyes: all this mentalism shit for one, and their using an actual sixteen-year-old as Iwaya’s protection from a man whose brain has been turned into a ‘milkshake’ in the aforementioned teenager’s words. It’s certifiably top-to-bottom bonkers, so if Tsukauchi is allowing it, then he has to have fuck-all else for leads.
“Dr. Iwaya agreed to help me, but she’s… fragile,” Tsukauchi says quietly. Perhaps not so quietly Iwaya can’t hear him, but enough that Aizawa hears what he’s really saying. He’s worried about the delicate flower.
Aizawa feels for a man with such a terminal affliction: conflating his own anxiety about seeing a woman hurt with the misconception that she’s weak. A statue might chip and wear away over time, even crack, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to break. Many stand for hundreds of years. Aizawa sincerely doubts he’ll see a day that Iwaya falls: not if she’s still standing after Dr. Shinsou.
Patting Tsukauchi on the shoulder, Aizawa attempts to reassure him by saying, “She’s stronger than you think,” and just gets a ‘how do you know?’ look in return. That’s what Aizawa gets for trying to comfort a grown man agonising over a grown woman doing something she agreed to do in the first place.
“Ready, Dr. I?” Aizawa calls to the back of the room around Tsukauchi, coining Hitoshi’s nickname just because.
“As ready as one can be,” she answers calmly, waiting behind Tsukauchi, who, rather than just keep going through the door, shifts sideways like he’s got to let her out first if he can’t hold the actual door open. Aizawa thinks, not for the first time, that heterosexual men are strange, pitiable creatures.
Hitoshi is already waiting for them a few doors down. Maybe Aizawa’s joking thought about this being a padded cell isn’t such a joke after all. Secure cells in close proximity to a Psych’s office makes all kinds of sense. Especially given the difficulty in keeping people needing that kind of support down with the rest of the petty criminals and addicts.
Hand to the door, Hitoshi calls, “Come on, slowpkes.” Ah, they’re back to teenage champing at the bit again.
“Mr. Honda isn’t dangerous, Hitoshi: you can go in,” Iwaya calls clearly across the corridor. Aizawa and Tsukauchi both turn around to glance at her over the name she uses so casually.
Aizawa gets it, why Iwaya would rather call him Hitoshi than Shinsou. Tsukauchi is a good enough detective that he should be able to get it, though the odds might be staggered by his little complex for Iwaya: the infamous Dr. Eye who’s about to look into a witness’s fractured mind, if Hitoshi can give her the protection to endure it.
The door opens, and Hitoshi disappears inside before Aizawa has a chance to get around on it. He was stabbed by ‘Mr. Honda’ literally less than twelve hours ago, so he’s got a right to be a little on edge around the purportedly not-dangerous man.
As Aizawa comes past the edge of the door, like drawing back a curtain, he takes in the scene held inside the soft-walled cell. It's a little more comfortable than the holding cells downstairs; Aizawa’s woken up in a few, so he's got the firsthand experience. This room has padding on the hard edges, a softer bed than the benches downstairs, but still no sheets on it. Nothing a person could use to hurt themselves, though Mr. Honda doesn't seem inclined to do much of anything.
Hitoshi is on his feet facing the zombie, who's also risen to stand from his seat on the sheetless bed. Aizawa thought he heard Hitoshi's voice before, but he's quite sure of it when Hitoshi says, “Touch your nose.”
Mr. Honda's hand lifts obligingly, and Aizawa is staggered for a moment. “How did you use your quirk on him?” Aizawa asks just as Iwaya's presence arrives behind him. Honda's got no fucking tongue, after all.
“I didn't,” Hitoshi replies with a grimace like old barbed wire.
Iwaya strides into the room with understated gravity. “Sit down, Mr. Honda,” she says with a caustic touch, and Mr. Honda does that too. “He's not a toy, Hitoshi. Treat him with respect.”
It's a testament to Hitoshi's sordid charm that he makes the, “Yes ma'am,” he answers Iwaya with quite so enthralling.
“So this is what Shiyoko did to him,” Aizawa muses sadly as he takes in the zombie under the bare light of day – what little sunshine filters through from the narrow window at the end of the room. They've managed to wash most of the pen off him, but not all, faded marks here and there on his face dappling him like a lichen. His eyes are empty and staring, unlike before when they were more night of the living dead. Aizawa understands why he's not dangerous anymore: he's been lobotomised.
“I don’t think it was intentional,” Hitoshi suggests before casting a look over his shoulder at Iwaya. “What do you reckon?”
“This kind of damage could easily be a side effect,” Iwaya relates coldly. “To do it deliberately would require some detailed medical knowledge.” That’s a good reason for it to be an accident, but Aizawa feels like Hitoshi’s got a better one.
“What makes you think it was unintended?” Aizawa’s curious for the cogs in Hitoshi's mind that make him seem so sure in spite of his lack of experience.
“Because she let him live,” Hitoshi answers simply, gaze flitting to Aizawa’s like the movement of a bat around a dark sky. “Dad would consider that a failure.”
If Aizawa treats this killer the way his gut tells him to, which means admitting that she might be trying to continue the Doc's bloody legacy, or even just seeking his approval. Disjointed as the pattern may be, Hitoshi remains an invaluable piece of that puzzle. Their man (boy, really) on the inside of Dr. Shinsou's world.
This is in comparison to their woman from Dr. Shinsou’s world, and who knows what differences that would bring to Iwaya’s experience compared to Hitoshi’s? Anyone with a box full of manic fangirls sending him handwritten letters and a string of beautiful women he’s traumatised clearly has some ingrained issues. How those factors combined to affect Shiyoko… well, they're looking at it.
“Would you bring the chair, Hitoshi?” There’s a sterile flavour to Iwaya’s doctor-voice, but when she’s talking to Hitoshi, it’s a very slight amount softer. Because of his age, perhaps, or maybe also a little smoothed-off edge that Hitoshi’s won on his own merit. Aizawa certainly hasn’t endeared himself to Iwaya in any meaningful way, but Hitoshi’s cosied up in a heartbeat.
Hitoshi moves over a metal folding chair that’s out of place with the rest of the room (brought in from the outside, Aizawa guesses). Iwaya is unreactive, apparently used to men wanting to do things for her. Perhaps Mr. Honda isn’t a suicide risk – unless someone gives him the right command. Setting the chair next to the bed, Hitoshi stands behind it as Iwaya sinks to a careful perch. Her hands remain folded neatly in her lap, and she begins to speak in a tone so measured it could have been portioned out by the thimbleful.
“Hello, Mr. Honda. Perhaps you remember me from earlier. It’s Dr. Iwaya.”
Aizawa doesn’t know if Iwaya’s choice to speak to the zombie as if he’s fully conscious is a medically informed decision or simply an attempt to humanise him. If there were even 1% of a person left within his mind, awake although he couldn’t respond, it'd be worth it on the chance that he can hear. Or so Aizawa supposes, never having needed to make such decisions. His experience is more of the punching and getting punched-out variety, though his quirk does give him some inroads to the weird world of mentalism. More inroads than usual lately.
“We’re trying to find who did this to you, so we can make her stop,” Iwaya continues. “I’m going to touch you, and our minds will be together again, but it’s going to be slightly different this time, Mr. Honda.” There’s a prepared atmosphere to the way Iwaya speaks that points to the intense, covert plans Hitoshi and Iwaya were hushing to each other earlier. “We’re going to a place. Not a space in this world, but one in the mind. It’s a hospital, where we’re going to try to help you.”
Aizawa takes a view of the scene from the doorway: Mr. Honda sitting on the bed, Iwaya and Hitoshi behind her in the chair. All facing away from him.
Slowly, like he can’t risk disturbing the scene for shaking off the magic dust sprinkled over everything like a light snow, Aizawa steps around Hitoshi and Iwaya. He walks to the other side of the room, leaning back against the wall next to the window, where he’s got a view of everyone head-on. Hitoshi watches Aizawa go, but he’s focused on Iwaya and seems to be taking this seriously. That’s a good sign.
“Would you please lie down, Mr. Honda,” Iwaya charades like there’s any question of it, and the middle-to-old-aged man with the faded inkwork face and eyes that don’t blink often enough lies back on the simple bed. “In the hospital we will go to in our minds, we might see some bad things, but you’re perfectly safe. Nothing there can hurt you.”
Hitoshi finally picks up on Aizawa’s curious stare right at him, and a hint of a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. He’s a full head and shoulders above Iwaya as she sits in the simple folding chair, looking even more tired than usual, but in a way that’s like he’s dropped straight through the floor of exhaustion and become unstoppable.
“There’s someone else here with me too.” Iwaya’s voice could lure sailors to shipwreck, and Hitoshi’s grin deepens as his part in this approaches. “He’s going to help me understand you, if you’ll cooperate. Can you do that?”
Hitoshi’s gaze locks with Aizawa’s, and his eyes roll back in his head. It’s a rhetorical question surely, but if the Psych wishes to humour her patient, far be it from any of them to stop her.
Without hesitation, Hitoshi begins, “Are you ready to take your trip, Dr. Eye?” It’s just a means to an end – something, anything to get a response – but Aizawa catches the worry dashing across Tsukauchi’s face like a startled herd of deer. Like the detective would shut this whole thing down if it hadn’t been his idea that Hitoshi muscled in on in the first place.
But it’s Iwaya that Hitoshi's waiting to answer him, and the Psych is unflinching in her reply: “I am.”
Hitoshi stands still behind Iwaya, close enough to touch her without making any motion to do so, but Aizawa knows without any external indicator that Hitoshi’s already taken control.
“You know where you’re going, don’t you?” he says so naturally that at first Aizawa thinks Hitoshi is talking to someone else in the room, before realising it’s part of the recitation. “The hospital where you got your first clinical experience. You spent more time there than you ever did at your apartment.”
Aizawa figures out a little more about what Hitoshi and Iwaya must have discussed to be able to do this now. A place Iwaya is familiar enough with to strongly visualise, that Hitoshi knowingly leads her into with his velvet-soft put-you-under drawl. “You’re going to the waiting room in the lobby, at the very front of the building.” Aizawa wonders if they composed this word-for-word ahead of time or if Hitoshi’s just pulling it off the cuff, filling in the outline they drew to complete a masterpiece with his own personal flair.
Iwaya’s eyes have shut, which surely wouldn’t happen unless Hitoshi willed it. Not all his instructions are verbal, though perhaps saying them helps manifest whatever happens in his head when he’s telepathically linked to someone with his quirk.
The soft walls seem to make Hitoshi’s voice even quieter, like his words are no louder than the sound of a pin dropping when he asks, “Are you there?”
The most like a statue Aizawa’s ever seen her, Iwaya calmly answers, “Yes.”
“Good. Unsurprisingly, you’re waiting.” Hitoshi lets an ironical hint slip into his tone, but it soon smooths back down. “I’m in the room with you, and there’s no one else here.” There’s a slight pause, as if resting on a walk before carrying on up the path. “Nothing that happens around you now, nothing you see or hear, nothing you feel through your quirk, gets to you through the walls of this waiting room.” Hitoshi’s wearing a half-lidded, hypnotic gaze as he stands over Iwaya, guiding her through a mental space Aizawa’s unable to reach. It makes him a little nervous, as anything beyond his control does, but there’s nothing Aizawa can do but watch in fascination. “It’s just the two of us in here, cut off from anything else.”
Hitoshi’s gaze lifts, more awake as it settles on Aizawa, and the intoxicating quality to his voice is lessened. A simple instruction as he tells Aizawa, “Call to her.”
Aizawa hesitates for a second, perhaps letting himself be lulled along more than he realised, and then says, “Iwaya,” as if he’s reading out her name for attendance in a classroom.
“Do you hear anything?” Hitoshi asks Iwaya, who’s still sitting there with her eyes shut. She shakes her head. Hitoshi makes an again motion, and Tsukauchi edges closer from his position near the entrance of the room.
“Dr. Iwaya, can you hear me? It’s Tsukauchi.” He steps a little closer as he says it, but Iwaya’s unmoving.
“Hear anything at all?” Hitoshi turns enough to hook Tsukauchi like a fish on a narrow, amused look. “Except for me, obviously.”
“No,” Iwaya answers dutifully. “Only you.” Hitoshi grins at Tsukauchi, who in turn looks at Aizawa like he wants this whole thing cancelled right now. But the weird cousin of jealousy is no reason to disrupt what could be a valuable fact-finding mission.
Without dwelling on Tsukauchi’s ‘don’t get it, don’t like it’ lack of enthusiasm, Hitoshi moves on. “Now, we’re in the hospital waiting room at the moment, and there’s no one else here, but a patient will be coming in very soon. He’s in a bad condition, so it might feel like you’re going to be overwhelmed, but even if the whole hospital is filled, he’s not allowed in the waiting room. This place is safe, where no one except for us can go, and the only thing you hear is my voice. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Iwaya echoes, and Aizawa wonders what the purpose of the call-response is. Perhaps a reaffirmation their mental connection; perhaps just because Hitoshi can.
“Good,” Hitoshi says with the steady, soothing quality of a morphine drip. “Then I’d like you to reach out and touch Mr. Honda’s hand.”
Iwaya’s hand swings with lax confidence, and her slim fingers tuck around Mr. Honda’s hand. The second they make contact, Iwaya sucks a deep gasp from the air like she’s been thrown in the ocean and is struggling to keep her head above water.
“The patient’s here. I feel him too,” Hitoshi says calmly, and there’s no instruction, not mind control as such. More like definition, even reinforcement of the construct he and Iwaya have built to protect her from the horrors of her own quirk’s power. Aizawa wonders, if one were thinking about things in percentages, if on her own Iwaya goes from zero to one hundred percent of a person’s mind with no moderation or restraint. Then, having Hitoshi around would mean that same 100% is bundled behind a bunch of closed doors that they can consciously choose how to open. If they even dare to do that much. “He’s not going anywhere: we’re here, and he’s there. Isn’t that right?”
Iwaya’s refrigerated reply: “That’s right.”
The balance achieved, Hitoshi reaches out to give it a testing tip. “We’re going to go see him now. Do you know which room holds his memories?”
“I do.” Iwaya is still again after her initial strained reaction. Aizawa wonders if Hitoshi can choose to let his control slip little by little rather than all on or all off, so he can allow certain normal reflexive behaviours – like breathing – without shaking his grip on their footing in the mind palace– mind hospital, something like that.
“This way.” Without either of them moving a muscle, Iwaya and Hitoshi travel somewhere on a plane Aizawa can’t perceive. He can at least imagine the roomy corridors of a hospital – he’s been in enough of them.
The one that jumps to Aizawa’s mind is where he was taken with a gutful of glass from the gangfight in which his last words were almost something he doesn’t even remember about Hizashi. If he really tries to think – makes a mind palace of his own to seek the truth out, wandering through the littered hallways of his mental architecture – Aizawa reckons it was something like, “it’s been fun,” which would be so utterly underwhelming after all this time that he’s not sure Hizashi even wants to know. He remembers seeing the lights go past overhead and thinking he hears Hizashi’s far-off yelling, right before they put him into surgery. Luckily (and it was luck, anyone could have died on the table that night), Aizawa made it.
“Are you at the room, Dr. Eye?” Hitoshi asks his next leading question. “Don’t open the door just yet.”
“Yes,” she responds.
“We’re trying to find out about the woman who did this to him.” Hitoshi pauses. “Open the door. Is she in there?”
Iwaya stalls more with this answer than the others, but she’s not in distress. “No. Somewhere else.”
“Find it and go there,” Hitoshi instructs, and then with a more curious air, “Why wasn’t it in the room before?”
“Because he stopped being the same person after he met her,” Iwaya answers with the same perfect deadpan that she’s said everything else, but the content makes it seem much more chilling. “We’re here.”
Aizawa swears he can sense the swell of momentum, like something in this room is moving, it’s just not in the physical world. Being underwater, even nowhere near the shore, you can still feel the movement of the waves.
“Can you… open the door just a crack?” Hitoshi asks, and it’s a sincere question, Aizawa thinks. His eyes are just open, barely, but not looking at anything. Aizawa wonders if Hitoshi is really in the hospital with Iwaya, or more above, on the outside looking in. If he can sense it, though perhaps not see.
“Yes.” Iwaya’s breath pulls in, another of those almost-drowning gasps, but only like the shock of going into water too hot or cold, taking a moment to adjust.
“What do you see?”
“She’s there…”
“Where?”
“At a… bar, somewhere… he’s buying her a drink.”
“What does she look like?”
Iwaya takes a little while to answer – inching that door open a little more, maybe. “Her shirt unbuttoned… large breasts… she’s smiling at him.”
“Hair?”
“Bleached blonde, black at the roots. She doesn’t come up higher than his shoulder.” That shouldn’t be too hard to work out, then: they can measure Mr. Honda. They have the security footage of Shiyoko from the train station too, but it’s too poor quality to do much with. “He embraces her and then… they’re leaving.”
“Where does she take him?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of…” There’s a twitch of tension in her face, not much, but it’s there. “Wait.” Aizawa swears there’s a pang in the air, some unreadable piece of static on a frequency he’s not tuned into. “This room… it’s… I know it.”
“You know every room in here,” Hitoshi reaffirms, but something starts to go awry.
“No… no no no.” Iwaya’s voice becomes more strained. “This isn’t…”
Aizawa’s about to do something, but then Hitoshi freezes him with a look. “Where are you?” He’s lifting his hands to either side of Iwaya’s head, fingers splayed.
Iwaya’s eyes clench, and Aizawa spots the tears that squeeze from them and break down her face. She’s whispering, “How did I end up in his office?” as Hitoshi's fingertips jump to her head, then himself takes a gut-punching gasp.
Aizawa doesn’t know if this was part of their plan, but if Hitoshi wasn’t in the room with Iwaya earlier, now he surely must be. His eyes open wide, panicked with something Aizawa doesn’t see, and Hitoshi utters only a horrified, “Oh fuck,” before Aizawa activates his quirk and shuts it down like a party after curfew.
The universal conductor is Iwaya, so she’s the target of Aizawa’s erasing glare and not Hitoshi, who probably releases his quirk as soon as whatever it was hit him, and Iwaya is stopped.
It’s that, or Hitoshi simply wills Iwaya to snatch her hand away from Mr. Honda’s. But then she starts scrambling around on the squeaky metal seat, an urgency to her actions that’s surely unplanned. Aizawa lets his erasing glare roll over Hitoshi, but more by natural habit of watching what the fuck’s going on with his quirk active than the belief that Hitoshi’s still controlling Iwaya: he isn’t.
It’s of Iwaya’s own free will that she kneels up on the chair, turned around to face Hitoshi. Well, not face, so much as throw her arms around him in a hug like he’s the life preserver the crew threw over the edge to pull her out of the water.
Tsukauchi yet again looks like he can’t believe what he’s seeing as Iwaya clings to Hitoshi – who meanwhile looks like he’s been hit around the head with a length of pipe – and lets the Psych heave panicked breaths into his crumbled school blazer.
“What happened?” Aizawa asks, but Hitoshi’s (rarely) got his attention focused on someone else. His arms close around Iwaya’s back, and there’s tension in them.
Hitoshi’s eyes are lowered, maybe fully closed as he turns his head into Iwaya’s loose hair. Aizawa wants to know what happened, what they saw when Hitoshi says, “He’s gone,” and Aizawa knows everything he needs to.
Slowly, with Aizawa and Tsukauchi powerless on the outside, Iwaya calms.
Hitoshi’s gaze lifts, seeking out Aizawa like his own life preserver. “I saw her.” It was only for a moment, but when Hitoshi touched Iwaya, could he have gained access to the imagined hospital, actually seen what she was seeing within Mr. Honda?
Aizawa replies with the foreboding he knows is due: “That’s not all you saw.”
“No,” Hitoshi agrees, and it can’t help but be noticed he’s still entwined with Iwaya, which surely means she’s immersed in his mind. Going by how tightly she hangs onto him, she doesn’t seem too bothered. Got that sugar Hitoshi offered her after all. “I know where Shiyoko took him.”
Aizawa’s voice is gravelly, to-the-point rough in a world of soft, silky boundaries that move whenever you try to grasp them. “Where?”
Hitoshi answers, “The place where I grew up.”
Notes:
A/n corner essay incoming:
There are SO many important parts of this chapter that I assume y'all can see why I had to let it go on for a whopping 7.5k. First among these things, it is a catalyst point for Aizawa's own perception of himself in regards to mentalism, and this is going to become even more prominent as we keep going. One of the most wonderful things about this story is the deep-lore mentalist universe that I laid all the tracks for simply because they felt right at the time, and then the train suddenly pulls into the station and I'm like 'holy shit this is COOL' and it's really the gift that keeps giving, because I don't plan this stuff so much as work organically through the foundations I've laid and watch each little sub-plot grow into a story in its own right. This bit of it is one of my favourites, as I'm a big believer in an aspect of 'magic' enhancing the emotive power of a story, and even though we're in a world of quirks, it's kind of normalised, so mentalist quirks are the 'magic' of this universe in a sense.What this also gives us developments that feel new and exciting even when we're literally 150k into this story, and the only way an epic of this scale can STAY fresh is to be adding new components and seeing the characters themselves change, even a protagonist as stable in himself as Aizawa is. What makes a story compelling is how the characters change each other, and what we're really going to start moving into is the reciprocity of Aizawa and Hitoshi's relationship in a really big way, which I think a lot of stories (especially those fixed on an adult mentoring a child) can easily miss due to the apparent 'stability' of a 30 year old compared to a 16 year old. But really, we're all changing all the time, and Hitoshi's having as profound an impact on Aizawa as Aizawa's having on him (and to be real, Hitoshi's got that wow-factor in spades). Basically, I'm sooooo excited about this dynamic, y'all. You don't even KNOW (or maybe you do, but still times that by like ten).
Moving on, the main thing I WANTED to reflect on here is that the whole hospital/mind palace sequence in this story is one of my favourite kinds of writing, so a scene like this is actually one of the closest things to a style that I admire and truly want to cultivate in my own writing. If that's not for you that's fine, it's a kinda 'neurological' style, but that's absolutely what I love and so this chapter is special to me for providing an opportunity to really flex those muscles that I don't use so much in my other fanfic. Some of my favourite books, to inform this preference, are Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Catch-22. Writing that feels very visceral and *in* someone's head, particularly when reality starts to bend (and bends us with them), is a big mood for me, and my post-YWID project (which is already in the works but that's a very long pipeline) is even more in this ballpark than ever before.
So basically, if you like this kind of writing, I've got'cha covered baby. It's not going to completely dominate this story from now on if you're not as much of a fan, but I'm definitely going in for some more mindfuckery as we get into the mentalist deep-lore and really start rolling around in Aizawa's head like a dog in garbage. Hope you enjoy it, I sure as hell do!
Chapter 28: Fine
Summary:
Another stubborn trait Hitoshi and Aizawa share: saying they’re fine when they’re not.
Notes:
I have a feeling this is a much-anticipated chapter, and a lot of content within it has been anticipated quite excellently by at least a couple of commenters. Needless to say, I'm very excited to finally share it.
I also realise after saying the last chapter was the longest to date in the story, this one is literally barely 100 words shorter than it, so enjoy your double-serving of BEEF with a side of BEEEEEEEEF.
This one's a touch late as I came down with a cold on the very eve of my regular update, so I had to wait until I had a bit more gas in the tank to get this one out.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It takes the mentalists a while to calm down, though Hitoshi covers for it better than Iwaya, which is saying a lot when it comes to the Ice Maiden herself. What it really means is that Hitoshi is very close to hitting the instant boiling point that Aizawa’s learning to anticipate, so there’s no pushing or demanding what means what or where in the aftermath of their foray into the mental landscape of the zombie. Aizawa and Tsukauchi just get the pair of them away from Mr. Honda and back into Iwaya’s office.
Tsukauchi flaps around a bit like an overcoat-wearing bird, and eventually gets some info from Iwaya that isn't exactly forthcoming from Hitoshi: an address, probably. Wherever the Shinsou family home is – or used to be, if it ever was at all – it’s surely soon to be checked out. And after Iwaya insists that “really, she’s fine” with an edge like freezer burn, the detective quickly disappears. Better leave some work for the poor guy to make himself useful with.
Aizawa expects he'll hear from Tsukauchi if he needs to. Amazingly, he isn't keen on taking a trip to the home of Hitoshi's childhood trauma in a hurry. Hitoshi’s barely let slip more than a few crumbs about his upbringing, but Aizawa knows better than to pry. By the time he and Iwaya have settled, it’s already rolled around to lunch, so Aizawa leaves Hitoshi with the Psych and heads out to pick up something for them to eat.
Using the side-door of the police station, Aizawa jumps a fence to avoid the gaggle of press still camped out hopefully at the police station main entrance. There’s more of them than when they arrived, if he's got any eye for it. Not going far, Aizawa buys a couple of hot lunches and collects Hitoshi from a semi-catatonic state in Iwaya’s office. They’re simple, practical things, but it allows them all (Hitoshi especially) a moment of convalescence.
For a change of scenery (and company), as well as a table to eat on, Aizawa drags Hitoshi out to dine in the station break-room. They run into and subsequently have lunch with (surprise surprise) Tama and Yamaguichi, so obviously break off into pairs almost immediately.
But Tama and “Yankumi” as Aizawa keeps hearing Hitoshi raucously call from the other side of the breakroom, must eventually go back to work. Which they do, leaving Aizawa and Hitoshi alone again, sat on opposite sides of the break-room watching each other like cats from opposing apartment block windows. Finally, the wave of lunch breaks over a night of less hours sleep than Aizawa has fingers on his hand, and what Hitoshi can’t stop himself doing – even though he tries – is yawning.
Aizawa concludes from across the room, “You need a nap.”
Jaw clenching, Hitoshi replies, “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask,” Aizawa knocks back. “I said you needed a nap.”
“And I said I’m not a baby,” Hitoshi insists while quite ironically throwing his toys out of the pram over a simple piece of advice. The bags under his eyes have deepened even more than usual, and Hitoshi looks like Aizawa feels.
Aizawa had at least managed to grab a nap in his free second period earlier this morning, though that’s not to say Hitoshi hadn’t snuck one of his own in while he was sitting in General Studies, waiting for his classmates to provoke him into using his quirk on them. Yeah, if Aizawa had a quirk like that, he’d be a terror in the window right after he’s been woken up too.
Dragging the chair he was sat on over to the vending machines, Aizawa states, “I’m taking one, so don’t have a meltdown at me later when you’re overtired.” He throws his sleeping bag up into the vending machine alcove, starting to climb up on the chair.
Aizawa’s just lifted his weight onto his arms when Hitoshi mumurs, “Why haven’t you asked me about the place I grew up yet?” Aizawa holds himself there for a moment, gripping the top edge of the vending machines, then eases back down.
Turning just enough to look down on Hitoshi, looking really fucking tired – there’s a sofa in here, but if Aizawa takes the vending machines Hitoshi can pass out on it to his heart’s desire – Aizawa says, “I trusted you’d talk about it when you were ready.” Although it’s been burning a hole in Aizawa’s brain, he didn’t think it was the right time to ask. And Hitoshi’s come on his own terms, just like he was meant to.
“You mean, Iwaya already gave the police what they want, so it doesn't matter if I have anything to say.” Oh, the teenage angst is especially pronounced under this shower of emotional and physical exhaustion.
“It means I didn't want to push you when they already have the address,” Aizawa rephrases as his arms cross over his front. “What about it?” Tired. So very tired.
Hitoshi unloads like a cocked gun. “Why didn't you want to go? What if she’s there?” This has clearly been weighing on him, though not enough to dampen his spirits as he ate lunch with Yamaguichi. Or maybe that was deliberate too, pulling himself out of the funk he's sinking back into with her departure by focusing on someone else. And now Aizawa’s about to temporarily leave too, if unconsciousness counts. Hitoshi will be alone, just in time for everything to come crashing back down.
“If Shiyoko’s there, they'll catch her,” Aizawa answers surely. At least they know what they’re dealing with – and it’s a bit harder to let someone write her name on you than to answer a question. Answer at all, in Hitoshi’s case.
Hitoshi’s unrelenting, “If she's not–”
“If there are clues, Tsukauchi will find them,” Aizawa settles once more. “He's not as foolish as he looks.” Or acts around a certain icy Psych.
That amuses Hitoshi, although he’s too tired to even smile properly. Aizawa supposes he might have to be a little more hands-on with this one. He gets down off the chair and walks over to Hitoshi. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Aizawa turns back around. “Then I'm sleeping.”
“Fine,” Hitoshi heaves like pushing out poison. “I’ll talk.”
Aizawa reverses once more and heads for the beat-up sofa, dropping to sit and tapping the cushion next to him like coaxing a cat. Amazingly (or maybe it's not so surprising, when Aizawa thinks twice about it), Hitoshi comes when called, shifting from the uncomfortable break-room chair to the uncomfortable break-room sofa, slumping against it like he's been thrown out of a bucket to slosh over the high-durability faux-leather, complete with holes offering a view at the tired, picked-out foam inside.
“And?” Aizawa prompts when it seems like Hitoshi thinks the information can just be passed between them by osmosis. If only: Aizawa would spend even more time hanging around dead bodies if that was how it worked.
Hitoshi releases a fatigued sigh. “It's the house I grew up in – where I was born.” Hitoshi muses on himself like he's making the usual sarcastic observations about gruesome crime scenes; with a wry joke and a sense of humour so dark it technically constitutes a black hole. “Thing’s practically a fucking fortress.”
Aizawa’s brows furrowing like they want to burrow together and nap in the middle of his forehead. “You weren’t born in a hospital?”
“Dad delivered me himself, at the clinic he practiced from on the same compound,” Hitoshi replies sourly. “Didn't trust anyone else to handle his legacy.” With an even less pleasant flair he continues, “Ma almost died, in case you were wondering. Put her in the hospital for weeks.”
Leaving Dr. Shinsou to tend to his newborn son; meanwhile, his assistant of the time, the future doctor (and future victim) Iwaya helped him set up the experiments he carried out on – and with – Shiyoko. Perhaps Iwaya even heard Hitoshi crying as a child, unaware that the Doc had just become a father and almost a widower. All the trauma timelines overlap, tangling together into a mat so dense there’s no brushing it loose – just grab a knife and cut the bugger out.
Aizawa doesn't kill, but it's a good thing Dr. Shinsou is in prison, or Aizawa would rip the Doc's head off with his bare hands. And for what? A sense of ownership over a whole life that was never his to begin with?
Aizawa forces himself to focus on some other detail, to manage his bloodlust if nothing else. “Is it where he would have seen Shiyoko?”
“Duh,” Hitoshi responds rudely, but Aizawa’s gonna let him off it this time.
“What happened to the place?”
“Abandoned, I guess,” Hitoshi replies nervously. “Closed up and condemned. It’s where they all died, you know. There was a lecture theatre he taught from when he wasn't at the University.”
Aizawa can’t imagine much resale value for a place so steeped in death. Maybe it even still belongs to the Doc. By the time he reached the peak of his career, he’d become a very rich man. Wealthy enough to buy a place outright and then leave it to ruin as his legacy crumbled under the weight of his own ego.
Aizawa asks somberly, “Why do you think Shiyoko took Mr. Honda there?”
“To be closer to dad,” Hitoshi answers without hesitation. He looks fucking wrecked, head lolling from side to side like he’s struggling to keep it balanced on top of his neck. He takes a deep breath, wincing like his eyelids are heavier every time he tries hauling them back up. “It’s all so fucked up.”
“I know.” Aizawa sees how hard he’s trying to hang on, and would swaddle Hitoshi like a baby if he thought it’d get him anywhere at all. Instead, Aizawa just turns to the side and takes a soft grip of Hitoshi’s shoulder, a gentle shake as he says, “Let yourself rest, Hitoshi.” He needs it. Aizawa needs it. It’s hard to do – fuck, Aizawa knows, but if it’s him saying it, then it must be bad.
As if compelled by Aizawa’s words, and in some indeterminable way by the proximity of his self-appointed guardian, Hitoshi slumps to the side with a huffy, “Fine.” Aizawa’s arm shifts down to his side, repositioning naturally as the teen’s head comes to lean against the ‘in-flight pillow’ (Hizashi’s words) of Aizawa’s shoulder.
If Hitoshi did see everything for that single moment he was plugged into Iwaya – Shiyoko’s face, the place where he was raised by a madman – it’s not hard to believe he would be reluctant to sleep alone. Like the images might come for him on the inside of his eyelids.
So out of that compassion, well, mostly – the rest Aizawa chalks up to being a soft bastard – he stays where he is, waiting for Hitoshi’s breath to even out, and then a little longer than that.
Aizawa’s phone buzzes in the meantime, and he pulls it out to find a selfie of Hizashi making an inexplicable gesture: two fingers split it on either side of his mouth, tongue protruding between them. He surely learned it from Kayama, though why he’s making it at Aizawa is anyone’s guess.
Only because he knows it pleases Hizashi (and because he’s still a soft bastard) Aizawa snaps a picture of himself in return. It's quicker than writing, in any case. That Hitoshi’s head is in the corner of pic, eyes closed and looking very much zonked out on Aizawa’s shoulder, is incidental. Aizawa’s not hiding anything, definitely not from Hizashi.
Not that it would matter, because Hizashi’s reply is a bunch of cry-laughing emojis and over-punctuated, ‘Did you break him???’
Not me, Aizawa thinks, but he can’t be such an optimist. Instead, he responds, ‘Not yet.’
Aizawa doesn’t dare consider what he’d do if Hitoshi actually broke – nothing rational, that’s for sure. He’ll just have to do everything he can to make sure it doesn’t happen. Which includes waiting until he’s absolutely certain Hitoshi’s fast asleep before Aizawa carefully extracts himself, substituting shoulder for palm as he supports the teen and then carefully lowers him down to lie on the couch, picking up his feet to bundle on the end like trying to get a pair of shoes back in a just-big-enough shoebox. He’s more innocent and baby-faced when he sleeps, as most are. Looks so very much his age it wracks Aizawa with guilt all over again: for dragging him into this, even though he wouldn't change it for the world.
Like a magnet trying to pull itself off the fridge, Aizawa lingers next to Hitoshi. Indulging himself, he leans over to brush his palm against Hitoshi’s hopelessly chaotic thicket of hair for a moment (soft bastard), before tearing himself away and crawling on top of the vending machines to promptly pass out.
Aizawa wakes up to his phone ringing, but it’s only Tsukauchi with an update on the Shinsou Family Manor. It’s abandoned, as Hitoshi predicted, and apparently looks to have hosted several generations of drug dens and squats before something (someone – no prizes for guessing who) cleared them all out and left the place in “quite the state” according to the detective. There’s no leads hot enough to have made it worth Aizawa going so far, doubly so for Hitoshi, who, when Aizawa pops his head out from the vending machines, is still fast asleep on the sofa catching up on some much needed Zs.
After rolling his sleeping bag back up – Aizawa forgot he’d left all the Doc's fanmail inside it but can’t be bothered to gather it back up, given it’s just creepy scrap-paper spread all over the top of the station vending machines at this point – he emerges from his cove. Hitoshi’s still sound asleep, so Aizawa uses the bathroom, wanders around the building a bit, and thinks about going down to the basement to see Kuwabara but doesn’t quite make it. He gets caught up near the entrance using his quirk on a lady trying to resist arrest with her ability to keep slipping the handcuffs and the several officers trying to restrain her. After she's been safely booked, Aizawa finally goes back to the break-room and wakes Hitoshi.
Aizawa’s first attempt at doing this results in a grouchy, “Piss off,” as Hitoshi turns over and tries to keep sleeping. That’s par for course, but a nap at the wrong time of day doth not equal a full night’s rest. Aizawa has suffered and would know, so he shakes Hitoshi again. And again. When Aizawa’s a few seconds away from just fireman-lifting the brat off the couch, Hitoshi finally snaps his eyes open and relents to getting up, but only if Aizawa buys him a coffee.
In a fantastic example of why Aizawa is a spineless wimp of a guardian, he gives Hitoshi what he wants – vending machine coffee, if not more sleep – and ruminates on how a teacher famed for being tough on his students turned into such a fucking soft touch. He gets his answer when Hitoshi gives him a mopey, “Thanks,” over his plastic cup and Aizawa’s heart kicks like a horse trying to break out of the barn in his chest.
On a suggestion from Tsukauchi, Aizawa leads Hitoshi up to his shared office (empty again) and does some trading of notes – turns out the detective’s been pretty busy on this case after all. They end up spending a few hours going over all the legwork: backgrounds on each victim, statements from witnesses, character references people the victims knew, even people who knew Shiyoko. None of them speak of her as anything other than ‘a normal girly-girl’ and all instantly jump to thinking something happened to her rather than been done by her. Hiding in plain sight indeed.
Leafing through a mountain of papertrail, Aizawa remembers why he’s a Hero and not a detective, although Hitoshi’s patience seems to hold up admirably for work that makes Aizawa want to chain-smoke. He doesn’t smoke, but probably only because he has no cigarettes. Rather than dwelling on that, and primarily as a way to not think about smoking, Aizawa indulges a curiosity and asks Hitoshi, “Do you enjoy this kind of work?”
“What?” Hitoshi’s flicking through transcribed interviews with a listless air, so maybe it’s a stupid question.
“Detective work.” Aizawa does a fair amount of his own. But not all this peopling part of it – not if it can be helped. Bores him to tears.
Hitoshi makes a funny face. “You’re suggesting I become a cop?” He makes it sound like a dirty word, though maybe that’s just because of how wary his experiences with the police have made him around them so far. Hitoshi’s wary around most people, if Aizawa thinks about it. A classic reaction to his difficult upbringing – Aizawa’s got a couple of them in his class too.
“Not all detectives work for the police,” Aizawa points out indifferently. “Just a question,” he adds with a shrug. “Being a Hero doesn’t always pay the bills.” Especially not an underground one.
That puts Hitoshi back in line a little, and his eyes scan the pages again. Looking at them in a different light, perhaps. “Maybe,” is his astonishingly unoriginal conclusion. But that’s alright. He’s still young – though growing up fast. Faster than usual since he met Aizawa, it seems. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Making money as a Hero and being good at the job aren’t synonymous,” Aizawa lectures instead; they're barely even compatible half the time. There's giving Hitoshi the support he needs to grow, and then there’s wrongly coddling him from a reality that’s always going to be out there – quite often pushing deliberately against him, being who he is, with the power he has. “Especially for people like us.”
That little bit of solidarity might sweeten things some, because Aizawa knows what boys this age can be like. But they need to be in touch with their emotions and reality, not letting the distortion of one dominate the other. Not feeling alone, being encouraged to share, to connect with others, isn’t just good practice: it’s a survival technique. For people in general, but especially Heroes. No one lasts long in the real world without a support network. Aizawa would fucking know.
“So you mean, you’re not a teacher for the love of it?” Hitoshi makes a decent show of his usual irreverent humour, so he must not be feeling too bad.
“For you horrible lot?” Aizawa responds with equal amounts of mockery. “Forget it.”
Hitoshi finishes what he’s reading and picks up something else. His eyes linger on Aizawa in-between, like he’s trying to determine the number of folds that a piece of origami requires. His pronouncement at the end of it all, is an unbearably smug, damning and absolutely true, “Liar.”
There’s an… incident leaving the police station.
While there are some problems that can be ignored away, the press – as much as Aizawa has tried – aren’t one.
It started out with a few bored-looking reporters and their assistants, some would-be journalists camped outside the station when Aizawa and Hitoshi first arrived several hours before. They arrived by car, straight into the secure car park rather than the main entrance. By lunch, those few had called some friends and colleagues, word spread, and their numbers had swelled. When the siege seemed to determine their target was in the police station and would presumably have to leave at some point, an otherwise slow news-afternoon means that by the time Aizawa and Hitoshi head out the side-door, the buggers have cottoned on and are waiting for them even on the other side of the goodam fence Aizawa has to boost Hitoshi over before jumping himself.
“Shinsou Hitoshi!” Aizawa hears even before he lands, coming down heavily next to Hitoshi with his back to the fence. “Shinsou Hitoshi!” The small group who spotted them rush around the corner, charging towards Hitoshi gushing, “Is it true you were arrested in suspicion with the murder of the lawyer Shiro Motoi!?”
“He hasn’t been arrested, idiot!” one of the same cluster of journalists hurls derisively, elbowing the saggy-looking middle-aged man out of the way. Survival of the fittest, the wiry younger journalist throws a look dead at Hitoshi and shoots, “Shinsou, do you believe this new Deathnote killer is a copycat of your father?”
Hitoshi’s puzzled enough to echo, “Deathnote killer? Is that supposed to be some kinda reference?” like he’s actually opening for conversation with these animals.
Scenting blood on the water, more arrive, their activity becoming more frenzied as they speak over and around each other in much more rapid succession. “Do the police know the killer is targeting sexual offenders?”
“What’s your reaction to the women from his firm who have stepped forward since the Lawyer Shiro’s death to accuse him of sexual assault?”
“Do you believe Shiro deserved to die!?”
“People are comparing this killer to the Hero Killer Stain, calling them both vigilantes purging bad people from the world.”
“Is it true the Deathnote killer is Dr. Shinsou’s spiritual successor?”
“Shinsou! Has your father found out about the killings? Does he believe the messages are directed at him too?”
Hitoshi’s moving by Aizawa’s side as the mob pursues them but now falters a step, whirling around to the microphone-swinging reporter who’s broken to the front of the pack. “You want to know what my dad thinks?” he poses ominously, whirling all the way around to face them before Aizawa’s got the good sense to stop him. “Swing by prison and ask him your-fucking-selves.”
“Hitoshi.” Aizawa drops his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder like a lead spider and pulls him back on track. “Don’t encourage them.” This isn’t usually Aizawa’s scene, and he’s frankly keen to get away from these vultures before he decides he wants something that tastes like chicken for dinner.
They’ve gotten a few more steps away and almost recovered when the voice of one guy in particular – Aizawa’s got his fucking eye on him is why, same one from before – comes out with a barbed, “Isn’t it kind of suspicious that the police want to question Dr. Shinsou’s son, considering the Deathnote Killer’s mode of killing?”
Hitoshi freezes. So does Aizawa, and the shark circles closer, teeth coming to shred them into ribbons. This reporter is one of those journalists driven by ambitious desperation, anything he can sell to climb a little higher up their greasy pole. The whole cluster draws to a stop as the oily twenty-something journalist adjusts his glasses and continues, “If it weren’t for the Professor’s massacre, this killer wouldn’t have an example to follow.” The motherfucker doesn’t know how right he is.
Hitoshi looks dazzled as if by headlights, while Aizawa takes three steps until he’s so close that he can see the pores on the guy’s greasy nose, and says, “The boy isn’t responsible for the actions of his father.”
The journalist’s eyes bulge behind thick lenses, like he’s trying to work out who the fuck he’s talking to – then he remembers. “You’re the ‘underground’ Hero who’s always hanging around Shinsou, right?” The shadow at Hitoshi’s heels, who will show a journalist exactly what happens to people who try to put him in the press. “You better watch your back, bud,” the guy declares with vile triumph, like he’s got Aizawa’s fucking number, unaware that he’s trying to cash a parking stub at the dry cleaners. “They say like father like son, so if I were in your position–”
The journo doesn’t finish the sentence, on account of Aizawa’s fist slamming into his jaw. It hits with enough force, and takes the reporter so by surprise, that the blow actually knocks him straight off his feet, lifting from the ground as his glasses fly off into the crowd. After crashing into several more press officers clustered behind him, he takes the lot of them down like a row of dominoes.
Aizawa glares across the rest of the crowd with an expression like thunder, swinging his hand back around to close in on Hitoshi’s shoulder. “No further questions.”
Then Aizawa starts marching both of them away on the double, Hitoshi seeming so shocked that Aizawa’s guesses he’s actually just shorted-out the poor kid’s brain. Aizawa did just deck a guy for casting aspersions on Hitoshi. It might take a moment to sink in; it certainly does for Aizawa.
Usually, Aizawa is good at not coming to blows with the press. It’s easier when he’s acting in his capacity as a teacher at UA, knowing that Nezu is behind the scenes with a steel ruler to whack Aizawa’s knuckles if he steps out of line (or fails to corral Hizashi’s wilder rebel urges in that domain too). But when it’s just Eraserhead, the Z-list Underground Hero that barely anyone knows exists, there’s no front-page headline to grab onto like an attack dog: ‘Scruffy Hero that no one knows punches no-name reporter’ doesn’t zing quite as well as ‘Dr. Shinsou’s son questioned by the police over Deathnote Killings, chip off the old block is just like his mass-murderer father’ appeals to a perennially hysterical readership. It’s not a great PR insurance policy for Aizawa to be worse-behaved than Hitoshi around the press, and there might be a side-story somewhere about that scruffy Hero no one knows for Hizashi’s scrapbook, but they still don’t know anything about Aizawa’s quirk or his own involvement in the case, and that’s not much, but is something.
If Aizawa had his head on straight he wouldn’t have done it, but even the thought of the press twisting Hitoshi’s involvement in this case into something negative smashes every button in Aizawa’s head all at once, reacting first and thinking later. Hardly thinking at all, as if some deeper power has taken hold of him like brainwashing-by-proxy. So whatever instinct made Aizawa do it once, the pitbull within him would do it all over again.
Aizawa’s got a keen eye trained behind them for any more try-hards that want to follow Aizawa and Hitoshi speeding away from the scene of their latest technically-a-crime-scene. Sure, in strictly legal terms, Aizawa’s at fault in the situation, and punching that guy was a risk he shouldn’t have taken. But only because journos count as people, rather than livestock, in the current legal system. Hell, he’d go back there and beat the bastard up a second time if he needed to. Because if he’s not here to be a Hero to Hitoshi, what’s the damn point?
They get a little farther away, scaling a bike shed to get up onto the rooftops when Hitoshi says, “So you wanna talk about that?”
“I’m fine,” Aizawa responds dourly. Not really meaning it, but whether he’s really fine or not is irrelevant – they must continue as if they are.
“I didn’t ask, ” Hitoshi parrots vindictively. “Will it cause trouble for you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Aizawa replies as he butts his back against a wall and puts his hands together, becoming a ladder for Hitoshi to climb onto a balcony that he jumps up after him to scale. When Hitoshi's trainer is pushing down on Aizawa’s thigh, stretching upwards for the railing over their heads, Aizawa says, “That’s not the first journalist I’ve punched out, you know.”
Hitoshi manages to give an indifferent ‘I could figure that out’ shrug even while scaling the fire-escape-linked balconies like a monkey – he’s coming on fast. But when Aizawa’s following him up, he catches Hitoshi quietly comment, “First you’ve punched out for me.”
Aizawa can’t deny that.
“What time does your mother get home from work?” Aizawa asks when they’re in a lull between sections of their cross-city trek. They’re not traveling in particular aid of anything, but the walk gives Aizawa some processing time to turn over all the information he’s absorbed since putting the rest of his life on hold for all this.
Hitoshi watches Aizawa suspiciously. “What does it matter?” While surly, he’s back on better form now than the unstable dark clouds of earlier. Fresh air and exercise is good for the mind as well as body; Hitoshi’s even managing to keep up a little better than before. Still leagues behind Aizawa and where he needs to be, but improvement doesn’t always come in leaps and bounds.
“I expect she’ll be wanting to know why you got suspended from school,” Aizawa remarks, drawing to a stop for a breather. If there aren’t moving, there will be fewer opportunities for Hitoshi to wriggle out of talking about this.
“Oh.” He slows to a stop too, a little out of breath. Aizawa throws him a soft water pouch, which Hitoshi catches with a slosh.
“Thought you were going to get away without explaining it, huh?” Aizawa challenges.
“No…” Hitoshi drawls awkwardly, then tips his head back to squeeze a mouthful of water that doesn’t all make it entirely into his mouth, but does the trick enough for him to cap it up again and throw back to Aizawa.
“Bullshit,” Aizawa says as he catches it. “Do you want me to come?”
“What?”
“To explain,” Aizawa clarifies.
“I mean… it’s not like it’s your fault,” Hitoshi says dolefully, and Aizawa doesn’t quite agree. He’s the reason Hitoshi was tired, up all night doing something he shouldn’t have been. Aizawa’s also nurtured Hitoshi’s frustration, created the conditions of knowing that if he wasn’t in class anymore he'd be… well, here. Aizawa made himself the alternative to Hitoshi staying in school, so of course the teen did what he did as a result. This couldn’t be any more Aizawa’s fault if he’d brainwashed those kids in 1-C himself.
But he’s also not going to fight the kid for taking responsibility, which is is good habit to have. They've both got shares in the blame. “We’re in this together.” Aizawa gives a ‘not a big deal’ shrug that’s the least sincere he’s been with Hitoshi all day. “I could give you some credibility.”
“That’s what you think you do for me?” Hitoshi almost guffaws, except that he’s a teenager and it makes it more snotty than anything.
Aizawa isn't trying to intrude by offering to go home with Hitoshi (his phrasing might need a little work), he just feels enough responsibility to think that he probably should. He wants to make sure Hitoshi does tell his mother, though it seems like they're close enough that Hitoshi wouldn't deliberately keep something this big from her… hopefully. Maybe Aizawa’s overthinking it.
“I guess Ma will probably have questions for you anyway,” Hitoshi ponders with the casual attitude of deliberating over flavours of soda at the convenience store. “But she won't be back for a couple of hours yet, so unless you have any better plans…”
Aizawa does have better plans, he thinks, as the time he can get home to Hizashi slims even further. He’s got to – he will – make it back home eventually, like Cinderella trying to beat the clock before her coach turns back into a pumpkin. But the evening’s young yet.
“No,” says Aizawa, like he’s not thinking about Hizashi’s tongue in the picture he sent earlier – another thing he’s been talking about getting pierced, which Aizawa’s a little less resistant to than the piercing he’s talked about down south. “No better plans.”
Aizawa knows roughly where Hitoshi lives, but he’s never made it up to the exact building before. For how close they’ve become in the past week, there’s still a level of privacy around their home lives, something Hitoshi is now giving up as he leads Aizawa through a door controlled by keyfob that Hitoshi plucks from his jangling keyring.
The reasons for Hitoshi’s secrecy are much the same as Aizawa’s, he imagines: not letting people know where your safe space is, keeping it hidden like a weak spot in armour. Hitoshi’s building is a nondescript apartment block near a lively cluster of businesses, close to the hustle and bustle of people that often make the best camouflage of all. There are some dodgy-looking lifts in the disused lobby, but Hitoshi heads straight for the stairs, climbing just a couple of flights before leading Aizawa along an open-air corridor that rests level with the streetlights from the shopping district below, casting different sheens of luminous light over each stretch of the long hallway.
It’s the early evening, and the quiet background noise of humanity flowing like a lazy river below must be of some comfort, in a way. To be close to escaping back into the faceless masses, unlike Aizawa, isolated in his glassy penthouse in the sky.
Aizawa waits while Hitoshi unlocks enough locks to definitely spell the words justified paranoia until he can finally push the door open. Hitoshi steps inside, and Aizawa follows him through a narrow entryway, hooks with coats and shoes Aizawa takes off before padding into the apartment proper.
Hitoshi’s home is nicer than Aizawa had set himself up to expect, pitching low to be pleasantly surprised rather than horribly disappointed. It’s not huge but feels comfortable enough to walk into – like a home. There’s a few containers of half-eaten takeaway on the table, which Hitoshi clicks his tongue at like a disapproving housewife, but he slings the bag of groceries on the counter like a half-assed teen.
“Ma won’t be home for a bit, but she always gets back starving, so I hope you like chopping vegetables.” Hitoshi appears to be joking, unpacking the groceries they stopped on the way back for – Aizawa might be putting off Hizashi, but he’s certainly getting his share of domesticity tonight.
The main room of the apartment sprawls from lounge to diner to kitchen, with a balcony tucked behind a glass door at the far side, facing away from the shopping street that’s at their backs out the front door. There is nothing exceptionally stand-out about Hitoshi’s home at first glance, but when Aizawa looks closer, he catches hints here and there – fluffy pillows on the sofa, decorations dotted with flowers and hearts, things that could be described as much cuter than any teenage boy would be likely to choose for himself.
Yet Hitoshi seems quite at home in the feminine accents of his home environment. Aizawa’s done plenty of home visits as a teacher but never anything like this. Before all else, this place feels safe, a soft space to curl up in after being hard enough to run the never-ending endurance race outside.
Hitoshi stands behind a long counter protruding from the wall into the room like a spit of land, charting off the kitchen from the living-dining space that fits both a small table and chairs and the sofa adorned with cushions and a blanket the color of freshly pulled taffy.
“Alright, teach.” The violet bud in the centre of this heavy bloom, Hitoshi dusts his hands off and then leans across the worktop to pull a large knife out of a rack, holding it handle-out to Aizawa with a smile that seems more sincere than the others Aizawa’s caught on his face so far today. Like he's actually fine, and not just putting on a brave face. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a bad idea after all. “Let’s put you to work.”
Aizawa’s been set to task chopping carrots when he hears the door, and moments later a call, “I’m home!” ripping through the apartment like torn silk.
“Welcome back!” Hitoshi yells from the cooker, where he tends to a simmering pan of soup – taken out of the fridge and reheated. The contents of Hitoshi’s fridge put Aizawa (and Hizashi) to shame, with real food in there to feed real people. There’s also a cat bowl of food and water on the floor over by the balcony door, which suggests at least one more resident who might not be home.
Aizawa’s presence isn’t known yet, and he doesn’t know if he should say something or wait for Hitoshi to, so just keeps chopping. Human rummaging from the door punctuates this scene of domesticity, and Aizawa supposes it’s similar to a home visit he might make as a teacher. It's just that Aizawa doesn’t usually help cook dinner for his students’ parents.
“Did you have a good time staying over with your friend?” Hitoshi’s mother still hasn’t come in far enough to notice Aizawa, making him invisible for this brief moment of observation. Hitoshi might have a monster for a father, but at least he’s got a mother who loves and takes care of him. And vice-versa, if Hitoshi’s routine motions in the kitchen are any indication: the familiarity with which he knocks around the space, banging pots and pans like he could do this in his sleep. He probably cooks more – and better – than Aizawa’s ever managed in his dysfunctional life thus far.
“Oh yeah,” Hitoshi calls back with a cheeky ‘I know something you don’t' tone. “In fact, I invited him over for dinner.”
It’s about this time Hitoshi’s mother sets foot in the main room and clocks Aizawa standing slap-bang in the middle of her home. “Hi,” he offers uncreatively, stopping dead – just as Hitoshi’s mother does – the minute they lock gazes.
There’s one of those moments that could go either way, in which Aizawa is at the mercy of Hitoshi’s only true parent, who might not take kindly to this intrusion. His palm feels clammy against the handle of the knife; Aizawa’s always been much better in physical trials than social ones. This woman might be angry, but that’s only fair: Hitoshi’s her son, and Aizawa’s just… a guy she barely knows. Who she’s trusted with Hitoshi, for better or worse. A bit of both, usually. And now he’s in her safe space, a knife in his hand to boot.
Thankfully, Hitoshi’s mother heaves a deep sigh and declares, “Why am I not surprised?” She’s straight out of work by the looks of it, wearing a study pantsuit with her lilac hair up in a high ponytail. Looks tired, but if that isn't a mood.
“I can leave if you want,” Aizawa finds himself offering out of anxiety over what feels like a bit of an overreach in coming here. Hitoshi made him feel like it’d be alright, but Hitoshi would.
“No no, if Hitoshi’s invited you for dinner you should stay.” Aizawa doesn’t hide his relief, though it might not be that noticeable anyway. Invited for dinner is a strong word – roped into might be better suited – but Aizawa’s here now, so he might as well.
“Thanks… uh–” It’s not who but what Hitoshi’s mother is that’s making Aizawa so awkward. This is admittedly a pretty fucking weird situation to have blundered into.
“Please, call me Kiki,” she supplies for Aizawa with an ease that might account for Hitoshi’s easy social manner (when he wants to be pleasant, that is). “Everyone does.”
Aizawa remembers her full given name – Akiko – spilling angrily off Dr. Shinsou’s lips, and identifies yet another Shinsou reluctant to wear the family name. Maybe she doesn’t use it at all, sticking to her maiden name in practice, if not on paper. She and Dr. Shinsou are still married, as far as Aizawa’s been able to work out. Not that any amount of counseling will save that shipwreck.
“Thanks for inviting me into your home… Kiki.” Aizawa knows the social practices, even if using them is like trying to take out a ten-years-rusted bike for a ride. Calling her Kiki feels weird, but it’s better than ‘Hitoshi’s mother’ and fucking leagues above ‘Mrs. Shinsou’. Kiki lifts her eyebrows at Aizawa, and he adds, “Retroactively,” out of pure guilt, like a dog that knows it shouldn’t have been on the sofa and left hair all over it anyway.
Catching Hitoshi’s gaze from the corner of his eye, Aizawa gives him a ‘go on then’ look that’s more of a shove than a request. Hitoshi sighs through his nose and announces, “So don’t freak out, Ma…”
“Oh I know that tone,” Kiki interjects. She’s brimming with motherly disapproval, though her gaze manages to hit Aizawa more than her son. “What did you do?”
Aizawa’s never felt like such a horrendous influence in his life than when Hitoshi answers, “I got suspended from school this morning, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.” It sort of is, but Aizawa’s not going to undermine him at this point.
Rather than erupting – the worst case scenario – Kiki just mutters, “For fuck’s sake,” as she walks over to the fridge in bare feet and rips it open with great vigor. Aizawa doesn’t turn all the way around to watch her, feeling conspicuous enough already, but then he hears, “You wanna beer?” and has to assume she’s not talking to her son.
“Uh… sure,” Aizawa replies clumsily, then makes it more awkward still with another stiff, “Thanks.”
Hitoshi is sniggering away over the cooker, like he thinks this is peak comedy. Probably is for him. His personal Hero bumbling like an awkward schoolboy. Aizawa would laugh at himself, if he weren’t too busy cringing inside like he’s being compressed in a vacuum.
Kiki passes Aizawa on the way to the dining table and sets a single can of beer on the kitchen counter next to him, snapping the tab on her own as she sinks into one of the chairs and immediately puts her feet up on another. So that’s where Hitoshi gets it from.
“Alright,” Hitoshi’s mother announces before taking a gratifying swig of the cheap convenience store beer. “What's the damage?”
“I used my quirk on the other kids in my class,” Hitoshi starts simply. Aizawa just keeps chopping until he’s finished the carrots, then reaches tentatively for the beer. He could fucking use a drink, that’s for sure.
Kiki seems unimpressed, which makes sense. “Because?”
Hitoshi stalls for a moment, shadows over his face like crows passing across a sunset sky. “They were annoying me.”
“Oh, well that’s a great excuse. Not like your piece of shit father at all.” Kiki takes another vindictive swig before her gaze settles back on Aizawa. “Did you know about this?”
“Not until after he’d done it,” Aizawa answers dutifully, and then without jumping into too many explanations, offers, “The press have also discovered Hitoshi’s involvement in the case I’m working.”
“Don’t forget Dad too,” Hitoshi adds with false cheer. “They all found out I’m the son of a fucking murderer – again.”
Kiki just sighs and takes another drink. “So you got suspended, and the press are back up our asses.” The way she says it confirms for Aizawa that this isn’t her first time around this particular rodeo. Her gaze shifts onto Aizawa with an accusing weight. “Guess that explains why you’re here.”
“I’ve taken a leave of absence from school to focus on the case,” Aizawa offers while they’re getting it all out on the table. “That’s where Hitoshi and I have been today.” And last night, but Kiki’s probably figured that much out anyway.
“Wow.” Kiki rubs her hand across her chin – same jawline as her son – and Aizawa notices the polish on her nails matches her eyes and hair. The source of the light that Hitoshi’s inherited, sitting here before them slurping cheap beer. “It must be serious.”
“It is,” Aizawa echoes. He sees an opportunity come through with the wondrous, hopeful feeling of seeing the fin of a dolphin break through waves. “There’s actually a few questions I’d like to ask.” Aizawa hears Hitoshi stop moving behind him at the cooker and considers he could’ve warned the boy beforehand. But he hadn’t thought of it then. “About your estranged husband.”
“Oh he’s strange alright,” Kiki retorts with hard-earned sarcasm, taking another fortifying drink before she proceeds. “So: what do you want to know?”
Notes:
One commenter definitely described parts of this chapter as 'goblin puts his troll doll son down for his nap' and couldn't have known how right they were. This chapter also marks a pick-up in the role the press plays in this story, which is ANOTHER new thread to kick in 160k+ down the road. I might be an old dog, but this story's definitely got plenty of new tricks coming (along with our favourite old tricks: soft fuckin dadzawa and 'who wants more reasons to hate dr. shinsou?').
Another commenter for sure also anticipated the wonderful prophesied return of Kiki. Yes!!! Kiki!!! I can *FINALLY* call her that openly. Why I decided to wait 10+ chapters to actually reveal her name is a mystery to even me, but needless to say, I'm hype as FUCK to finally be getting the time with her that we all deserve.
So, needless to say... and you hear this from me a lot, but...
....... the next chapter is one of my favourites.See you next week!
Chapter 29: Family Dinner
Summary:
Aizawa deals with several awful truths. Some more awful than others.
Notes:
You know how I keep saying that THIS is my favourite chapter? But I say that every time?
Well it's still (one of) my favourite(s). And I think y'all are gonna see why.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa hardly knows where to start. But he tries. “Tell me about his relationships with women.”
In honour of their subject matter, Hitoshi's Ma is pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her handbag. A lock of lavender hair slips from behind Kiki’s ear when she looks down, swinging like a curtain across striking features to frame a disgruntled expression carved out in shades of such raw maternal power that it only reaches its peak congregating back into a cold hard stare at Aizawa. “Excuse me?”
“Doesn't have to be yours,” Aizawa specifies. “The killer we're tracking is a girl Dr. Shinsou used to study, then she got back in touch with him during her teens.” Aizawa considers the next part more carefully. “I think he might have groomed her into the way she’s killing now.”
“Fucking hell, they didn't put that part in the news.” Kiki glances covertly at Hitoshi over in the kitchen, then sets a cigarette in her mouth. So she's been following the media coverage after all. Kiki’s got a high-stakes poker face; lighting her cigarette, she drags and plucks it from her lips, blowing the smoke vaguely away from Hitoshi – there's a struggle Aizawa empathises with. Being a flawed human, as they all are, and trying not to expose Hitoshi to the negative side-effects as a result. “In answer to your question, he sees us as objects.”
Hitoshi makes a sound over in the kitchen; Aizawa never doubted the kid's culinary ability, but it's strange to see him this way, so domestic and ill-matched to the chores usually carried out by a sixteen-year-old boy. But if his mother never had anyone else, just the two of them while she worked long hours to support them both… Aizawa can see a young child, desperate to take care of the only loving parent he has. A smart, industrious boy who learns fast and is eager to do things for the people he cares about. Once he’s let them in through the mile-deep defences that just scream survivor.
Hitoshi’s got his back to Aizawa and Kiki, a sizzle at the stove as he moves noodles around a wok. “We're all pawns to him.”
Kiki knocks ash from the end of her cigarette into an ashtray on the table that already holds a few stubs – her night home alone, probably. Aizawa wonders if it's worrying for her, being apart from Hitoshi, before realising that it almost certainly is. “Women especially,” she responds as if the smoke leaves a sour aftertaste in her mouth.
Hitoshi scoffs again, and Aizawa wonders if it’d be easier having this conversation without him here; after all, he was just a child when most of this happened. The resentment Hitoshi carries is different, makes it harder for him to hear some of the things that his mother might be about to say. He keeps looking over to Aizawa too, and not the same glances that might usually be exchanged between them. These are fiercer, resentful, even. It’s natural he wants to shield his mother from danger, but if Kiki has valuable information it could help to keep them both safe.
This sparks a worrying thought that Aizawa puts into words. “Have you ever been targeted because of your relationship to him?”
Hitoshi’s mother has a laugh like a crow’s caw, taking another scowling puff on her cigarette and then a sip of beer. Aizawa’s got a beer, but quietly envies the rest as he takes a drink. “You want the highlights or the full anthology?”
“How about the time one of them kidnapped me from school pretending to be you?” Hitoshi offers from the wings, and Aizawa almost inhales his sip of beer.
“Oh yeah, that was a good one,” Kiki replies like they’re going through baby pictures – Aizawa remembers Hitoshi referencing his mother’s honesty with him about Dr. Shinsou. “I got Hitoshi back, obviously,” she adds with a funny sideways look at Aizawa. “Stupid bitch just picked him up and took him to the park.”
“Nice lady – at least to me,” Hitoshi banters back like maybe he’s making a show of this for Aizawa’s benefit, though the dynamic between him and his mother is very apparent. The source of his pitch-black humour, if Aizawa’s any judge of it. “Weird, of course, but they all were.”
“I think I get the picture,” Aizawa rumbles like far-off thunder. Battles long-since fought for Hitoshi by his original and best guardian. Aizawa's only known him a week, he's got nothing on Kiki – but that's how it ought to be.
“The bastard kept me a secret as much as he could, but diehard fans always found out about us in the end,” Kiki elaborates as she pulls on her cigarette again and then flicks off more ash. “I don’t know what you expect it to tell you about this killer, though.”
“Me neither,” Hitoshi snarks as he turns down the heat on the cooker. “Plates, Ma.”
Kiki stubs out her cigarette half-smoked and wafts her hand as if it’ll disperse faster – cover-up for not always setting the best example – then gets up and goes to the kitchen. Aizawa doesn’t need to be in the cramped area anymore, especially not standing by one of the counters being useless, so he goes to the table with his beer and checks his phone. He has a message from Hizashi: less of a message, more a string of food emojis and a question mark. Aizawa sends back, ‘I'm eating out, back late’ and doesn't get a response to that at all. Which isn't a great sign.
But when Aizawa looks up from his phone to the kitchen and sees a picture-perfect snapshot of domesticity, Hitoshi and his mother serving dinner on the other side of the kitchen counter, he feels things are too critical to leave just yet. Besides, if he's been invited in and cooked for, it would be rude not to stay.
Hitoshi is the same height as his mother and probably soon to surpass her if the stature of his father is any indication. That inspires another thought. “What about his family? Parents, other relatives?”
“Well, he just about fucking worshipped his mother if that helps,” Kiki replies easily, and Aizawa catches a frustrated look on Hitoshi’s face. Aizawa understands Hitoshi wants boundaries, averse to talk of his father in the shelter they've built away from him. But when will Aizawa get another chance? Better that it's from Aizawa, like this, than a detective who might not be so sensitive.
“It might,” Aizawa replies ambivalently, keeping the feel of the conversation still chatty rather than the tone of an interview, even though these questions are off page one of the How to be a Detective manual no one ever printed, but still exists in the collective mind of snoops everywhere. “What was she like?”
“A mean old hag who definitely had a touch of his quirk, though she was from a generation that never recognised it.” Back then, quirks had to be slap-your-face obvious to get noticed, so it makes sense an early-gen mentalist quirk would simply slip by as feminine wiles without ever being registered.
“I don't remember her,” Hitoshi comments as he follows his mother to the table to set out dishes. It's simple food but wholesome and home-cooked, which is better than Aizawa manages most of the time.
“You were lucky to never meet the cantankerous bitch,” Kiki snipes more than she explains, sitting down at the head of the table and taking a fresh slurp of beer. “She and Masaru fell out while I was pregnant. Mrs. Shinsou seemed to hate me on principle.” It's textbook, practically Oedipal in flavour, and Aizawa can imagine all too well what kind of austere woman could turn out a psycho like Dr. Shinsou.
Aizawa swigs his beer while Hitoshi sets a plate and bowl of soup in front of him; he's bought Hitoshi a few meals, but there's a different edge to cooking for someone. Aizawa murmurs a modest “Thanks,” in honour of it, eyes averted from Hitoshi’s little bursting-with-sincerity grin. Hitoshi sets his own place and then takes a seat in the chair opposite Aizawa. As quickly as it dawns on Aizawa he’s just sat down to a family dinner with Hitoshi and his mother, he draws his attention back to Kiki and the case. “They never reconciled?”
“She died while they were still feuding, when Hitoshi was just a baby.” Kiki sounds like she'd dance on the bitch's grave if she weren't so tired from work. Aizawa realises he has no idea what Kiki does for a living. “Out of spite, probably.”
“What about his father?”
“Masaru once told me if his bitch of a mother ever knew who his father was, then the man was most certainly dead,” Kiki replies as ordinarily as her birthday or blood type; Aizawa almost regrets not talking to such a key character witness earlier. This is all very enlightening, shaping the profile of a deformed mould who cast Shiyoko in turn. The chain of abuse is rarely just two links long, even if they’re all bent out of shape in different ways. “She was a widower five times, maybe even more.”
Aizawa jumps to a conclusion, but it's staring him right in the face. “Do you think Mrs. Shinsou killed them?”
“Oh, I assume so,” Kiki remarks carelessly as she starts to eat, Hitoshi also tucking in with a stormy expression, while Aizawa sits more in contemplation of his food than consumption of it. “My husband famously liked to say he was always more comfortable at a funeral than a birthday party.”
Aizawa’s appetite, which wasn't much to begin with, dies completely. But his desire for one of Kiki's cigarettes shoots through the roof. Imagining the young Dr. Shinsou at his mother’s side, dressed in black attending the funeral of yet another failed male role model, who became yet another victim.
“Fuck me,” Aizawa murmurs thoughtlessly.
Hitoshi swoops in like an eagle snatching an egg with a cheeky, “Not in front of Ma.” Whether it’s about scolding crude language at the dinner table or making fun of a misinterpreted proposition – maybe a little of each – Aizawa wonders if perhaps he couldn’t just die here instead.
“Hitoshi.” Kiki’s scolding comes with a heavy buzz of foreboding like the vibrations of an industrial saw, bursting with cut-that-shit-out-mister energy. Hitoshi instantly recoils like a hermit crab retreating into its shell. Maybe he was trying to insert himself back into the conversation, cashing in some of that ‘I’m a grown-up’ reputation he’s cultivated by shadowing Aizawa in the adult world, dealing with some very adult things – if not this thing, the boundary-pushing, I’ll-say-anything-to-make-you-react motormouth habits of a teenager who’s caught among a lot of conflicting emotions.
Aizawa’s gotten accustomed to knowing that Hitoshi only rarely means everything he says, and in another setting – if they were alone – this stupid boundary-crossing game might not have backfired so spectacularly. But he’s with his mother, and that makes anyone regress back to being a lot more of a kid than they’re ever going to be comfortable with.
Kiki’s attention shifts to glaring at Aizawa, something between a ‘your intentions with my son’ meets a ‘don't think I won't poison your beer’ ocular threat. Aizawa hardly blames her. But he can't die yet; he's got to get back to Hizashi. Though if Hitoshi could stop making Aizawa look like quite as much of a shitshow in front of his mother in the meantime, that would be great.
With great reservation and a mistrust that makes Aizawa wonder if there was something cold and hard within Kiki that drew Dr. Shinsou to her in the first place – wonders whether they’re at least similar, if not the same – Hitoshi's mother remarks, “They minded their manners more than morality in that household, from what I could ever tell.” Kiki continues calmly, as if she’s not contemplating whether to let Aizawa live or not, though that doesn’t mean she isn’t. “But I still don’t know what it’ll tell you about this killer.”
Hitoshi looks smug in agreement, while Aizawa gives it some consideration. “If Dr. Shinsou just saw Shiyoko as a tool he programmed to test out his research, her pattern of killing would be more… emotionless.” It’s hard to capture these thoughts, like blowing smoke rings inside of each other. It’s good practice to be made to explain them out loud, really. “Although he told us he never messed around with her that way, the fact that she's killing men with sexual abuse records can't be a coincidence.” Dr. Shinsou could also be lying, of course, though whether that falls under amorality or bad manners is anyone’s guess in such a fractious mind.
“He told you that?” Kiki echoes harshly, and now Hitoshi seems to want to poison Aizawa’s beer with a look.
“You just had to say it, didn't you?” Hitoshi sighs, and maybe Aizawa will poison his own beer to escape this.
“You didn't tell her?” Aizawa counter-accuses across the table, not quite next door to yelling, but only about three houses down from it.
“Hitoshi…” his mother starts ominously.
“It was his idea!” Hitoshi bursts like a teenage drainpipe, gesturing at Aizawa with his chopsticks across the table. This has to be some kind of insane clown dimension that Aizawa’s slipped into by mistake, falling slap-bang into the middle of a family argument over the dinner table.
But this is reality, unfortunately, so Aizawa just takes a deep breath and looks from Hitoshi over to his mother.
“I can explain.”
“You better fucking start,” Kiki replies viciously.
Aizawa takes a second, then decides if he’s about to be kicked out, the least he can manage is to finish his beer. He tips his head back and downs the rest of the can, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he sets it back down on the table. “I wanted to use Hitoshi as a cover to visit Dr. Shinsou in prison, so I could question him about the killer I’m tracking.” He looks across at Hitoshi and lays down the brat’s part of the bargain. “He agreed to do it in exchange for my taking him on as an intern.”
There’s a tense moment, punctuated by a tentative suggestion from Hitoshi much gentler than Aizawa’s heard from him with anyone else. “Don’t freak out, Ma.”
“So you just… used Hitoshi to see him?” Kiki surmises with a foreboding that runs severely at odds with her cutesy nickname. Perhaps that’s a rebellion of sorts too – Mrs. Shinsou is clearly the Doc’s mother. And a young, single mom would have plenty of reasons for wanting to seem softer to a world that’s not particularly forgiving to people in her position.
“Twice,” Hitoshi adds glumly, and Aizawa swears he feels a pulse rip through the room. It hits like a brick to the skull, actually makes him wince. A burst like static on shortwave radio, but there’s no words to the impulse like Kiki’s quirk has taken the shape of before. Just a mentalist brain-punch, and Aizawa feels a tingling on that frequency that he’s not quite tuned into. He blinks heavily, noticing that Hitoshi also flinched.
“Twice,” Kiki echoes, and Aizawa feels pressure like a cluster headache building just behind his brow. Not quite pain, but the anticipation of something that’s got Hitoshi looking pretty uncomfortable in his seat too. Or maybe that’s just the guilt. “You exposed my son to that fucking monster?”
It was technically Hitoshi’s idea the second time, but Aizawa figures he’ll take seconds of the blame. He’s the adult, after all. “I did.” Aizawa has no excuses or rationale, it just is what it fucking is. “I’ll leave if you–”
“Oh no,” Kiki interjects. “You’re not going anywhere, Aizawa.” She remembers his name, then. Aizawa thought he was done getting his ass handed to him by authority figures, but turns out he was wrong.
“Ohhhhhhhh,” Hitoshi slurs like a bratty sibling who knows the elder is going to get in trouble they were both complicit in.
“You’re not getting off easy either!” Kiki snaps across to the other side of the table at Hitoshi, and his expression pings back to awkward worry. “When were you planning to tell me?”
“Guess I was saving it for your deathbed.” Maybe Hitoshi’s joking. Maybe.
“Cut the bullshit.” They’re still eating, but the tension is ratcheting up by the minute. “You should have told me.” This is addressed to Hitoshi, though Aizawa feels like he could have made a lot more effort to communicate with Kiki than he’s done so far. So that’s on him.
Hitoshi’s looking conflicted, muttering, “I didn't want you to worry.”
Kiki's temper goes like a thunderclap, chopsticks slamming to the table. “Then don’t fucking lie to me!”
Now Hitoshi looks outright mournful, and Aizawa can’t help feeling responsible; the lamb he’s led astray has been snatched by a she-wolf. “I didn’t realise Hitoshi had kept this from you, but that’s not an excuse,” Aizawa starts to offer, and though Kiki doesn’t seem convinced, she lets him play it out. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask for your permission.”
“How about you don’t associate my son with that bastard in the first place?” She shoots straight and true, but Aizawa’s not trying to dodge. He’ll just take the hit and keep on going. The last man standing. Hopefully.
“I’m chasing a killer, and talking to Dr. Shinsou got us closer to catching her,” Aizawa delivers calmly, fighting fire with ice. “People are dying.” Almost daily, though none today means one of two things: either Shiyoko is slowing down, or she's planning something big.
“Scumbags are dying,” Kiki retorts vitriolically, and Aizawa's jaw clenches.
“They're still people, Ma. None of them deserved to go like that,” Hitosh urges gently, and Aizawa’s filled with pride. How in spite of so much, Hitoshi has grown up this strong and moral.
“If it were anyone else, or any other case, I wouldn't have done what I have with Hitoshi,” Aizawa lays out simply. “Don't get me wrong, I realise how fucked-up it is. He's just…” Aizawa trails off, looking at Hitoshi and trying to find the right words – doesn't get them. “Your son has an amazing gift,” Aizawa settles on. He believes it wholeheartedly, even if it's not quite the right fit for this wrong-shoes-on situation. “He’s going to make a great Hero.”
It feels unfamiliar for Aizawa, making statements so grand and hopeful compared to his usual grim prognosis of a future-Hero’s chances. But Aizawa’s honest prognosis of Hitoshi? He’s going to be a fucking great Hero one day, if the bastards will let him.
“Jeez, teach, you’re gonna make me blush,” Hitoshi teases lightly. His Ma is staring in hands-up desolation at the state of play between her son and this complete stranger, when Hitoshi suddenly snatches her beer and tips his head back to steal a couple glugs.
“Hitoshi!” Kiki squawks, swatting his arm playfully as she snags the can back with an air that’s more habitual than outraged. And that’s where he gets it from too: the affectionate banter Aizawa’s easily fallen into with his wayward ward. And being so damn cheeky all the time.
“C’mon, Ma,” Hitoshi nags like he’s asking for a new bike for his birthday, and Aizawa initially thinks he’s talking about her beer. “I know he looks like shit, but Aizawa’s a good guy.” His violet eyes aren’t quite misty, but given Hitoshi was just poking fun at Aizawa for being soppy, this is a pretty rousing show. “He’s helping me follow my dream.”
“By seeing your father?” Kiki accuses.
“By using what dad did to me to stop people like him,” Hitoshi retorts victoriously. “I know it scares you, but if I become a Hero I can use my quirk to help so many people. If they’d just let me prove it–” He cuts himself off like slamming a faucet off after scalding hot water gushes out of it way too fast.
“I just want to help,” Aizawa adds like a piece of punctuation on the end of Hitoshi’s statement, changing the weight of his gaze from mother to son and then back to her again. “If you’ll both let me.” Hitoshi's a dead cert. It's just his Ma Aizawa’s got to win over.
With a hard-wearing groan, Kiki throws an exasperated, “When you put it like that, how am I supposed to refuse?”
That’s kind of the point, but Aizawa’s relieved anyway. He’s basically shoved the rest of his life and priorities to the back-room of his mind; it’d be a humiliating defeat to then get banned from seeing Hitoshi by his disapproving mother. It’s so out of a TV drama that Hizashi would surely find it hysterical; at least someone would get a laugh out of it.
Hitoshi reaches out and grasps Kiki’s fingers, which are settled loosely around her beer, though it’s not the drink he’s making a move on. “Thanks, Ma.”
Dinner manages to conclude without staggering across any more landmines, though it’s getting late enough that Aizawa might not make it home before midnight, which is another minefield entirely. Hizashi isn’t chasing Aizawa with messages or calls, which means it’s down to Aizawa to prove he’s a man of his word. That might occasionally result in a high-paced sprint across the city, or worse yet, trying to squeeze himself onto the last train to get home before the ‘broke your promise’ time-bomb goes off. Hizashi will forgive him, but he’ll raise hell at Aizawa for a while first, and that’s the last thing Aizawa wants tonight.
Thankfully, Kiki offers Aizawa a lift – though that might just be a way to get him alone. He doesn’t blame her. Hitoshi’s clearly not all that pleased about being left out, or by the knowledge that his parent and not-parent are going to be talking about him, but that can’t be helped either.
Just before they set out, Aizawa addresses the half-smoked cigarette Kiki left in the ashtray before dinner with a pragmatic, “Are you gonna smoke that?”
“If you wanted a cigarette you just had to ask,” she replies like Aizawa’s joking.
“That’d be good too.” Aizawa plucks the end out of the ashtray anyway – shame to waste good tobacco – and sticks it in his pocket. He’s smoked far worse, and it’s a filthy habit to begin with, so having principles with it is kind of besides the point. Beggars can’t be choosers – also his approach to sex, according to Hizashi, just because Aizawa’s accepted sexual favours in the past from informants who just so happened to be homeless...
Kiki’s giving him an ‘are you for real?’ look while Hitoshi simply says, “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen you do.”
Aizawa scoffs; maybe he’s finally taking some of that Heroic gloss off in Hitoshi’s eyes after all. “Then you don’t know me very well.” Just ask the homeless guys he’s fucked.
That shuts Hitoshi up quickly enough, though it adds something potent to the air as they say goodbye. Aizawa follows Kiki to the parking lot, getting into the passenger seat of that mid-range car he’s already christened by having fallen asleep in the back of before.
Hitoshi’s Ma waits until they’re both in the car – Aizawa takes a fresh cigarette she offers from the dwindling pack in her handbag – and starts the engine before opening with, “So, are you gonna talk about your relationship with my son, or should I go first?”
“Go ahead.” Aizawa lights up and takes a relieved drag. It’s been a hell of a day. And he’s in for more of it yet.
Kiki’s not mincing words, but she’s hardly given off an impression of being a person who’d do it in the first place. “I don’t like it.”
Aizawa expects this much, but it’s still more of a blow than he’d like to admit. He takes a long pensive breath, which happens to be through a cigarette, watching the wind whip the smoke away out the slice of the rolled-down car window. “I don’t blame you.”
“I know it’s what Hitoshi’s always wanted, but is this really the right way to go about it?” It’s easier talking to Kiki one-to-one, getting things out in the open without the heartstring violinist of Hitoshi there, bowing them both through their weakness for him into playing the same tune. In spite of their agreements on some broad points of Hitoshi’s safety and general wellbeing, the overlap in their range as formal or informal guardians isn’t all that much.
“The right way was closed off to him,” Aizawa says sourly, followed by a presumptuous, “You’ve met Nezu before.”
“Oh, we’ve been in touch.” Kiki’s lilac eyes remain on the road ahead. Figures Nezu is ahead of the game here too. The motion of the car is soothing, and maybe Aizawa can get more people to have these little chats with him while taxiing him around; it’s quite convenient, not to mention time-limited. “He assures me that you’re a Hero of great capability, who puts his life on the line without hesitation for the sake of your students.” ‘Fights like he’s got a fucking deathwish’ is how the other teachers have more often expressed this notion, usually when they want to mock Aizawa’s accident record during staff meetings, but it’s the thought that counts. Almost die once in the first week of term and they never let you live it down.
“Nezu shouldn’t have.” Aizawa doesn’t quite mean that, so has to clarify it by adding, “I should’ve gotten in touch with you myself. I’m sorry about that.” He’s apologised once already, during dinner, but there’s no cost to him saying it again. He is sorry.
“Of course, as his mother, anything I tell Hitoshi not to do is only going to make him want to do it even more,” Kiki observes disparagingly, and Aizawa has an awful idea of where her train of thought is headed. “I could ask you, though.” To spend less time with Hitoshi, even end their arrangement entirely. Or just to change the shape of what they have, make it more formal and less… what it is.
Except Aizawa doesn’t want any of those things. But it’s not about what he wants.
“I need him to finish this case, but afterwards…” It breaks Aizawa’s heart to even think of it, especially after he promised Hitoshi the very opposite of this. Maybe Aizawa can get him into the Hero Course before then; even if Vlad is his teacher (still a better idea than Aizawa doing it), Hitoshi will be on-track to become a Hero with or without Aizawa’s support. Which he still desperately wants to give, but as mentioned, what he wants isn’t important here. Aizawa’s an adult; he’ll get over it. Hitoshi might not, but Kiki is his mother, his sole true guardian. Hopefully she’ll make the right choices for her son. Aizawa hopes (against his better judgement) that one of those choices is him.
“You don’t have to do that, for fuck’s sake,” Kiki sighs in exasperation, and Aizawa lets out an actual sigh of relief. “I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.” She glances at him quickly from the driver’s seat, while Aizawa’s gaze holds steady in return. “You can’t deny it seems a little…” Inappropriate? Dangerous? Generally shady and weird? The list goes on. “... unusual.”
Aizawa thinks very carefully, and speaks even moreso. “He reminds me of myself.” It occurs to him that there are some details in this comparison that Kiki’s probably missing, so without any kind of springboard just launches into, “My quirk erases other quirks.”
“Seriously?” Kiki gives him an interested look. Just before it actually hits, Aizawa anticipates her mentalist shout of CAN YOU STO– and before the thought is even finished, Aizawa activates his quirk and snuffs out Kiki’s like pinching the end of a candle. “Fancy that.”
Kiki seems impressed, though she could have noticed the last time they met – other things to worry about then, perhaps. Her son: the only worry, that runs at full-volume in her mind at all times, and only occasionally results in her mentally screaming at people she’s just met.
Aizawa deactivates his quirk with a tired blink, his cigarette to growing ash in the corner of his mouth as he rummages through his pockets with both hands for eyedrops, talking out the other side of his mouth in a distorted murmur, “It’s not exactly comparable to Hitoshi’s situation, but I wasn’t always so popular for my quirk either, and I still got accepted into the Hero Course at UA.” Aizawa dwells on it a little more as he uncaps the eyedrops and doses himself, cigarette re-suspended between his lips with an overblown grimace. Once he’s done, he pockets the bottle and plucks the smoke from his mouth so he can continue to speak freely. “I already told you I don’t agree with the choice Nezu made about that, and since then I’ve been doing what I can to make sure Hitoshi moves towards his goal of being a Hero regardless of what the school thinks.”
“And just how have you been doing that?” Kiki asks coolly. Aizawa decides to skip over stories about where they were last night, or helping Hitoshi wind down from the Dr. Shinsou-induced meltdowns that Aizawa’s been witness to, and settles on the closest thing he’s got to the ‘right way’ despite all the doors that have been shut on Hitoshi.
“He’s going to take the Provisional License Exam next term,” Aizawa explains patiently. “Nezu might be dragging his tail on allowing Hitoshi to transfer Courses, but taking the exam shows the Principal’s recognition of Hitoshi’s ability behind the scenes.”
Which might be where Hitoshi has to stay where he is a while yet, but Aizawa wouldn’t mind that either. Just the two of them, on a focused crash-course to get Hitoshi where he needs to be to catch up with the rest of the Hero Course. Hitoshi’s marvellous in all kinds of ways, but Aizawa doesn’t kid himself that there’s any way he’s ready. Yet.
“And you seriously think they’ll let him use his quirk?” That Kiki phrases this the way she does tells Aizawa plenty about the challenges Hitoshi faces: a situation so set against him that even his own mother worries society will never accept a Hero with a brainwashing quirk. Aizawa thinks they shouldn’t be given the choice, they’ll accept Hitoshi as a Hero whether they like it or not.
“While he’s working with me, yeah,” Aizawa answers like a non-issue. Being underground has its advantages, so Hitoshi’s use of his quirk being covert and supervised by someone who already spreads sand over his trail as a matter of course is a convenient alignment of their work styles. “I’d show you my license, but I have no idea where it is.”
If it’s not in the broom cupboard, it must be on his person, but Aizawa feels like Kiki wouldn’t appreciate him getting almost-naked in the car with her in order to pull it out of one of those easy-to-lose inside-zipping pockets he uses for such a valuable piece of identification. Hizashi jokes that the only place Aizawa’s guaranteed to remember where he’s keeping his ID is if it’s up his ass. Aizawa’s traditional response is that’s where he keeps his keys, which is why he once got a keychain for his birthday that’s an actual butt plug. It does make them easier to find – as long as Aizawa can find the remote to make it start (or stop) vibrating.
Kiki seems conflicted, which Aizawa understands more than he has true sympathy for. He’s biased; he wants her to fight the instinct to coddle her son and let him move forward on his chosen path. It would be a crushing defeat to see Hitoshi lose touch with his dreams, convincing himself that assuaging Kiki’s worry is worth trading it all in. She's a mother, she’s always going to worry.
Case in point: “I just… don’t want to worry about what kind of trouble he’s getting into with you,” she sighs as they pull to a stop at some traffic lights. Aizawa stubs out his cigarette and pockets the end, hopefully not to be mixed up with the still-smokable stub he stuck in there somewhere too. “He just got fucking suspended, and you want me to believe everything's under control?”
“Nezu didn’t expel him,” Aizawa rationalises. “He also granted my request for leave, basically giving us free reign to work this case without repercussions.” And Nezu would have gone the hard way if he didn't believe in them. Aizawa has full certainty of that.
“What would you have done,” Kiki starts thoughtfully, “if Hitoshi was expelled, and the Principal wouldn’t allow you to leave work?”
“Quit,” Aizawa answers simply. It’s the truth, which is all he deals in.
“You two have become very… attached to each other,” Kiki observes tensely, and if it ain’t the godawful truth too.
Aizawa doesn’t have any complex answers for her, summing it up with, “He’s a great kid.” But he doesn’t really have to tell her that.
“Oh, I know how easy Hitoshi is to love,” Kiki replies easily, and it’s a huge weight of understanding off Aizawa’s chest. “But you must realise why I’m careful about who I allow to get close to him.” Aizawa knows: after all, Dr. Shinsou claims to love Hitoshi and Kiki both. And Aizawa is as familiar as he ever wants to be with the Doc’s idea of love. “He’s just a child.”
Aizawa gives it a long, hard thought; flicks through the scrapbook in his mind filled with pages of Hitoshi’s mannerisms and character since Aizawa’s gotten to know him. Pictures him innocent and asleep, on Aizawa’s shoulder earlier today in the police station, but also standing over Iwaya commanding a whole world with his words. Even charming the pants off any lady who’ll let him get away with it (which is most of them). Sixteen years old: it’s a confusing time for just about anyone.
“At times,” Aizawa concedes, and if Kiki wants to haze him for forgetting how much of a child Hitoshi can be, that’s fair enough. He forgets it more than he ought to. “But they grow up fast at this age.” Aizawa’s seen it by the tens of dozens, year after year. This isn't quite the same as that, but bears enough similarity for some crossover. He didn’t plan to step into these shoes, but now Aizawa’s here hell if he’s going anywhere. So he dares to add, “Boys his age need role models.” Because that’s true too. Even if they're like Aizawa, dredged from the bottom of the functional adult barrel.
“I know,” Kiki heaves with a gasp-like groan, and Aizawa wonders who she has to talk to about things like this. Who she even trusts enough to speak openly with. “Don’t get me wrong, I want what’s best for him but I–” The car stops in traffic again, and Kiki turns fully to face Aizawa for a look that’s not angry anymore, just someone who has been carrying a lot of weight and worry for a very long time. “Are you sure he’s ready?”
“No,” Aizawa answers gently as he can. “But no one’s ever ready. The fates just call and we answer.”
“Wow that’s corny,” Kiki scorns immediately. “No wonder you’re a Hero.”
“Really? Hitoshi said I should switch to writing fortunes for cookies,” Aizawa muses, and Kiki cracks into a long-term smoker’s laugh.
“Please take care of my son,” she delivers with another world-weary sigh that makes Aizawa want to drive her home out of gratitude. If he actually knew how to drive.
Aizawa can’t promise anything, but he can still be honest. “I’ll do my best.”
Kiki drops Aizawa outside his actual apartment building, seeing as they’ve come from her house. It somehow feels necessary to make sure she knows where this place is, some sense like a high-pitched tone in Aizawa’s ear for a moment before it disappears.
He gets out to the cold night air, breath almost mist as he leans into the open door just before closing it. “Thanks for the ride.”
Kiki’s tired, and will be more tired yet for taking Aizawa all the way here. Hopefully it was worth it. She doesn’t look around at Aizawa, gazing ahead at the deserted street as she says as calmly as if brainwashed, “Just don’t make me regret this.”
It’s tentative, but she’s trusting Aizawa, allowing this… whatever it is he’s got going with Hitoshi to continue, on the basis of how much they both want the relationship. That it helps Hitoshi grow into the Hero he deserves to be is almost secondary now, a side-effect of a bond that’s far deeper than the mere slice of his life that relates to Hitoshi’s wish to become a Hero. Aizawa’s not exactly said it, not yet, but he’s in for the whole deal. That includes getting along with Hitoshi’s Ma.
“If I’m dead, you’ll know that I failed,” he offers with a scratchy old-cat meow to his voice. He’s fucking tired too, but Hizashi’s so close now – and hopefully not too pissed with him.
Kiki gives a fairyish laugh that’s not quite there. “Goodnight, Aizawa.”
Aizawa thinks it over a bit – or more specifically, how many years there actually are between him and Kiki. She’s definitely older than him, but he doesn’t think it’s by that much. Aizawa boils this consideration down into the formality of his goodbye, somehow ending up going so far the other way from being over-formal that he simply drops, “See ya, Kiki,” and slams the door harder than he means to. He gave it his best shot.
But now there’s more important things to deal with, and having finally cleared all other obstacles from his path, Aizawa heads with all due haste to his own front door and his home behind it. It’s well after 11:00 p.m. and the place is all closed up for bed already, but Aizawa doesn’t let that stop him. After a quick stop at the bathroom, Aizawa makes it into the bedroom just as he starts to undo the zip of his jumpsuit, shedding his shell like a beetle in pieces across the floor before he makes it to the pillow-strewn plinth Hizashi lays himself up like an offering to the gods of hedonism every damn night. And Aizawa has the gall to miss it so regularly.
Aizawa finds Hizashi with sure grip in the pitch darkness of the room, a sigh heaving off him like he’s finally casting off a heavy metal yoke from his back. In the space of ten seconds or less, Aizawa goes from not touching Hizashi to pressing entirely along him front-to-back, feeling his lover stir at the intrusion.
“And what time do you call this?” the sleepy lion growls.
“It’s before midnight,” Aizawa says to the back of Hizashi’s neck, which technically makes it tonight still. He would desperately love not to end up with the cold shoulder, not today.
Not that he’s really afraid of Hizashi kicking him out. Especially not once Hizashi returns with rousing eloquence, “Who are you, fucking Cinderella?”
Aizawa laughs against him. “You’re the one with glass shoes.” And Hizashi looks better in a dress.
“For fuck’s sake, they’re not glass.” His perspex ‘stripper heels’, Hizashi calls them. Aizawa thinks they might have been Kayama’s once, as Hizashi’s raided his bestie’s closet periodically over the years. What else would they bond over as fresh graduates, except for learning how to maintain a leather fetish on a budget?
But Aizawa’s got other things to dwell on at this particular moment in time. Like how great Hizashi’s ass feels against him, his hot rainbow skin like a snake that’s been dozing in the desert sun. “I missed you.” Hizashi wriggles like he’s disgruntled, and the fact that it involves a lot of supposedly unintentional grinding is surely a happy accident Hizashi's got nothing to do with whatsoever. Aizawa grunts and moves his arm further around Hizashi, pleased when Hizashi lifts up to let Aizawa hold him more fully. “I’m sorry.”
“Is everything okay?”
It’s a simple question, and Aizawa reviews his day. They were meant to talk, him and Hizashi. But everything else gets in the way, and Aizawa can only balance so many spinning plates in the first place. You’re not even supposed to spin bloody plates in the first place.
“It is now.” Aizawa squeezes Hizashi a little tighter, then slides his hand down Hizashi’s front, twiddling the charm in his navel before letting his hand sink all the way to Hizashi’s crotch. The fact that Hizashi sleeps naked whenever he can get away with it – and sometimes when he can’t – is a long-lived habit. Aizawa’s been different levels of comfortable with it over the years, but suffice to say that now he’s very very in favour of this convenience.
“I’m still annoyed at you,” Hizashi claims, but it kind of gurgles in the back of his throat before making it out, like he’s saying it from the gutter where they’re already spooning. Hizashi’s not that much more functional than Aizawa, he just covers for it better by being so high-energy all the damn time.
Aizawa closes his fingers around Hizashi’s cock, familiar in his hand, and gives it a responsive tug. “Doesn’t feel like it from here.”
Hizashi makes a noise that tells Aizawa he’s not truly mad, certainly not enough to want him to stop. Hizashi's gone the other way entirely – thank fuck, Aizawa couldn’t be sure, but he’s horny enough to accept a handjob from a hobo at this point.
With a quick movement, one of Hizashi’s hands darts from under the sheets to stretch for the bedside table, grabbing something he brings back to offer to Aizawa, who has to relinquish – at least, temporarily – Hizashi’s hard-on to receive. There’s a bottle of lube in just about every room in the apartment, at this point, but they all have the same vaguely greasy texture on the outside, so Aizawa knows what Hizashi passes him the moment it’s in his hand.
Hizashi’s voice is a low purr, a promise full of perversity. “Make it up to me.”
Notes:
So by now we know a lot more about Kiki and people might understand why I was so quick to jump to her defence in earlier chapters when commenters speculated negatively about her based on the very little information available. Not that it was wrong to cast those aspersions, I just love her a LOT and wanted people to have faith rather than conform to a very common fandom trope which is 'character can't have ANY good parents in order to create space for a surrogate parent' (and do NOT come for me about her healthy suspicion of Aizawa being anything other than good-mom'ing in action).
I know a single parent can be *everything* to their child, and it doesn't detract from or compete with that for another figure to come along and provide a different kind of support. Non-nuclear families are VALID and IMPORTANT so it's really key to me to show that rather than mushing everyone to fit a cookie-cutter expectation that has no reason to apply to any of these characters in a fictional world of random superpowers in the first place. (Also more info about Kiki's quirk! YAY!!!)
My writing is always very much about capturing the way reality doesn't colour neatly inside the lines, which I could talk at length about but will spare y'all for now, suffice to say that everything in this story that crosses a boundary of some kind is intentional and about trying to capture that magic of real experience distilled into a story that resonates with the real people who read it. If one part of it doesn't resonate with (or even is offputting to) you that's fine, I'm not out here trying to please the greatest number of people, I'm just putting out a product exactly as *I* want it and how much of that people like and feel connected to is entirely down to them.
That said, I am always thrilled to hear from those who do have that connection with what I'm trying to do, particularly those of you that I see coming back time and again to share your thoughts and reactions with me (sorry i can't respond to everything, I've literally lost all control of my inbox). As a disclaimer, I'll also note that if you have problems with my choices in the story, or even me as a person, I'm not in the business of courting favour and you're fully entitled to have those issues with me or my work, and I am happy to explain my position and why my choices are the way they are, but neither myself or my work is going to change to suit the tastes of would-be critics. Not trying to be shady, I just like to put it out there sometimes so I've at least *tried* to be clear about my way of working/being.
Or as Bakugo put it in my last mha chapter-fic: THIS IS THE PACKAGE.
NEXT chapter is...*drumroll* NOT one of my official 'favourites' (not in the same way this one is), finally, but it does have possibly one of my favourite opening lines in the whole story, picking up sorta where we leave off at the end of this one, ehehe...
Chapter 30: The Successor
Summary:
A new day unfolds, full of terrible surprises.
Notes:
A new day! People sometimes reflect on the interesting density/pacing of my stories, fitting so much into such a small space of time, and all I can say is that it appears to be a consistent aspect of my style, and the more into a story I get the longer it seems to take me to write through a single day.
And last chapter I SAID that this next one wasn't my favourite, but it *did* say it's one of my favourite opening lines of a chapter (and the host of some good juicy developments), and as we head right into it I stand by that 100%.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After fucking Hizashi into the mattress until the early hours of the morning, Aizawa sleeps like a corpse on heroin. And for the first time since his last vacation – several years ago – Aizawa doesn’t have to wake up for school in the morning. It’s glorious, only vague memories of Hizashi kissing him goodbye and calling him a “shit-eating no good bastard” for not having to go in. Sure, there’s a serial killer on the loose, but Aizawa can have at least one lie-in after putting a hold on one of his jobs, if only temporary.
So Aizawa rolls around and sleeps until his phone wakes him up some hours into the mid-morning. Seeing it’s Hitoshi with blurry just-awake eyes while he fumbles to answer it, Aizawa decides maybe he ought to let the brat have his own ringtone too. He picks up with an urgent, “This better be an emergency.”
“Remember how you asked if me and Ma have ever been targeted by dad’s fans?” Hitoshi poses fresh in the face of the morning – fresher than Aizawa five seconds after waking up, at least – and there’s a dark cloud over his tone that has Aizawa from half-asleep to adrenaline-pumping awake in about three seconds.
“What happened?”
“Chill.” Now he’s hooked Aizawa’s attention like a fat fish with a particularly juicy worm, Hitoshi settles down. “It’s just a letter.”
“A letter?”
“I’ll send you a pic.”
Aizawa rolls out of bed, trying to calm his heartrate with steadying breaths that just seem to sharpen the fight or flight instinct to a razor’s edge. “Does your Ma–”
“She knows. She found the fucking thing,” Hitoshi grizzles so much he practically growls. Aizawa empathises.
“This letter,” Aizawa worries. “Do you think they could still be–” close, a danger – does he have to come get them?
“I’m fine,” Hitoshi snaps briskly, shutting down Aizawa’s instinct to worry like a chicken ruffling its feathers. “I’ll be leaving soon anyway. What’s our plan?”
“Meet me at the police station,” Aizawa sets without a better coordinate to give him. “Tsukauchi’s probably got something for us to muscle in on.”
“What fun,” Hitoshi quips sarcastically, but it surely beats falling asleep in Hizashi’s English class – no offense to the love of Aizawa’s life, but that stuff puts him to sleep too. “See you soon.”
“Bye.” Aizawa hangs up and waits for the picture to follow. It arrives just as he’s made it into the kitchen to brew his wake-me-up coffee. The ‘letter’ is handwritten in immaculate calligraphy, capturing a level of obsessive attention that went into it. The contents are about as disturbing as expected.
TO THE BITCH AND BASTARD WHO LEFT HIM,
YOU SQUANDERED THE LOVE PROFESSOR SHINSOU GAVE TO YOU.
THIS INGRATITUDE HASN’T BEEN MISSED.
YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO HIM. THAT IS A PROMISE.
– THE TRUE SUCCESSOR
The last part is the sign-off – Shiyoko’s, presumably, but Aizawa is careful not to assume anything too fast. Mistakes like that can cost dearly, and with this case hitting the media there could be any number of the ‘diehard fans’ who might do something like this.
Even though he’ll be seeing Hitoshi soon enough, Aizawa messages back the question, ‘Sent or hand-delivered?’ and gets the worst possible response just as he’s deigning to put on some clothes.
‘No stamp. Slipped under the door in the night.’
Unable to resist, Aizawa offers, ‘Do you want me to come get you?’ It didn’t work the first time, but the idea that whoever put that note through Hitoshi’s door could still be close makes Aizawa want to hotfoot it there and make sure Hitoshi's never out of Aizawa’s sight when he’s outside. But that would be impractical, and Aizawa’s not his mother. If Kiki's doing all the worrying for them, Aizawa has to at least try not to helicopter Hitoshi, even if it’s against all his better instincts.
Hitoshi’s response, somewhat predictably, is a bratty, ‘I’m FINE’, so Aizawa leaves it at that.
It’s still a wholly terrifying thought, Aizawa contemplates as he packs himself up, downs the rest of his coffee and sets out for the police station. He messages Hitoshi a few times more on the way, just asking for an update on his location until Hitoshi outright rebels and calls Aizawa ‘especially clingy’ this morning and then stops responding.
The insecurity of not knowing and knowledge that if Hitoshi – who just about adores Aizawa’s company, it oughtn’t be missed – is calling him clingy, the brat might be at least partially right brews like one of Hizashi’s extremely questionable cocktails in Aizawa’s stomach all the rest of the way on the warm-up freerun to the police station at speed nervous. It’s nothing in particular, but anything beyond Aizawa’s control creates some level of anxiety, and being about Hitoshi seems to magnify that by at least a thousand percent.
So it’s not entirely rational, some brainstem response that’s why the first thing Aizawa does when he sees Hitoshi approaching is flick out a tendril of his capture weapon and lasso Hitoshi from afar; there’s just enough time for a surprised look to land on Hitoshi’s face before he flies off his feet like a grasshopper, yanked into the alleyway out back of the police station as Aizawa waits him out like a frog hunting a bug.
Aizawa yanks Hitoshi to him like a hairy purple yo-yo, scooping the brat, cocooned in Aizawa’s capture weapon, to fold Hitoshi into the crook of Aizawa’s arm. Aizawa puts enough brawn covered in high-durability mystery-fabric around Hitoshi to have him basically walled off from the rest of the world for a moment: a space even smaller than this alley Aizawa more usually smokes in than uses to enter the police station.
Their eyes meet for a moment of mischief, and despite wriggling like a live eel, Hitoshi’s utterly incapable of stopping Aizawa from bending him like a sapling in order to rub his knuckles in the violet-blooming thicket of Hitoshi’s hair.
“If I ask you where you are, you answer me,” Aizawa lays out like it’s a new directive the government just passed into law this morning. Hitoshi still definitely needs a haircut, the feathery depths of his striking violet plumage almost swallowing Aizawa’s fist as he knuckles the brat’s scalp more playfully than he’d be with most people – how he used to be with Hizashi back in school – and still is, though that’s besides the point. Being other things never changed what Aizawa and Hizashi fundamentally are, which is best friends.
“Alright, alright.” Finally Hitoshi succeeds in getting free (because Aizawa lets him) and steps out of the loosened ring of capture weapon before he scornfully announces, “Jeez, someone’s in a good mood today.” This observation comes complete with a theory to back it up. “Did you get laid last night or something?”
‘And how,’ Aizawa thinks as he spools the wrap back into his master-coil, but opts for saying, “None of your damn business.”
“Yeah, yeah, I see how it is,” Hitoshi replies like he’s got every idea what he thinks Aizawa was doing. Somehow, Aizawa doesn’t think he’s got it entirely right, but maybe he’s not too far off.
Change a few key specifics (a mystery-female for a heavily tattooed male), but someone was getting ploughed senseless by Aizawa and his so-called above-average equipment last night. The first time Hizashi saw Aizawa’s fully erect cock, he literally slapped himself in the face to be sure he wasn't dreaming, and then Aizawa for “keeping that python a secret all these years!” How was Aizawa supposed to know? Comparing dick sizes isn't a pastime of his. Not literally, at least.
“Did you bring the letter?” Aizawa asks instead of diving any more into his sex life. Kiki might have given her tepid blessing to all this with Hitoshi, but that’s no reason to start taking the piss.
“I’ll show you upstairs,” Hitoshi diverts, hands slipping into the pockets of his staple black, unmarked hoodie.
Aizawa thinks about that onesie for Hitoshi again, but expects that’s something he can figure out on his own. Not all Heroes care about costumes, but it’s still unique and personal, so Aizawa wouldn’t think of impressing his own ideas on the blank slate – well, sorta blank – that Hitoshi has in front of him. Unless he asks. In which case: tactical onesie it is.
They get in through the back door when an officer slips out for a smoke and head straight to Tsukauchi's office, finding the detective behind his desk with a cup of coffee. Amazingly, Tsukauchi has taken off his coat for once and is hunched up over the desk in a shirt with the sleeves pushed all the way up to his elbows, sunless forearms twitching as he worries away at a notepad when Aizawa and Hitoshi stroll in.
Tsukauchi is only meant to have half the desk space in this slightly cramped office. It definitely has two desks crammed in it when it’s clearly cut out for just one. But the other detective is, as usual, absent, and Tsukauchi’s all spread out into the absentee’s space anyway. Individual offices are a luxury, and detectives usually work in pairs. It’s rare to catch Tsukauchi alone, due in no small part to the amount of time he spends chumming around with Heroes. It’s amazing they haven’t run into Toshinori again, though by the looks of him, Tsukauchi probably wasn’t answering calls to go out socialising much in the last twelve hours. To say, the Detective looks like moss is about to start growing on him.
“Detective Pot and Little Spoon, make yourselves comfortable.” Tsukauchi sounds like he needs the night's sleep Aizawa just had, waving his hand at the vacant desk opposite to him without looking up from what he’s doing. His coffee cup is ringed with progressive circles of left-to-go-cold residue down the inside, though Tsukauchi drinks from it anyway as he sets aside several pieces of paper and discovers a half-eaten bento. This, he picks up and holds out as if he’s offering to Aizawa, before dropping it in the bin that’s almost overflowing with screwed-up paper and food packaging.
“Brought a present for you, Detective,” Hitoshi announces as he unzips his fatigued backpack and withdraws a zip-lock bag for food with a piece of paper in it that Aizawa’s only seen a picture of so far. It's little things, but Hitoshi's attention to detail and senses for this work – makeshift evidence bags to preserve fingerprints, not letting Aizawa get his greasy paws all over it first just because he's worrisome, makes him proud of Hitoshi. “Hand-delivered to my front door some time last night.”
Tsukauchi opens a hand to receive Hitoshi's offering. He gives the letter as cursory a look as anything so simple (yet effective) requires to get the gist of before remarking, “Well fuck me sideways.”
“What is it with you lot and that expression?” Hitoshi scoffs with a scornful look that connects Tsukauchi to Aizawa on the same tired clothesline. “Are you all repressed or something?”
“Him?” Tsukauchi's gaze follows Hitoshi's to settle on Aizawa with an utterly amused snort. “Hardly.” Not only does Tsukauchi know about Hizashi and Aizawa's relationship (because Toshinori is a horrendous gossip), but he's also ‘met’ (arrested is a kind of met) one of Aizawa’s “exes” in the now-distant past; though of course Tsukauchi will die before he ever lets Aizawa live it down.
Hitoshi's taken off-guard by the detective’s unexpected bond of knowledge with Aizawa, going so far as to pout as Tsukauchi gloves up. He gets out a fingerprinting kit before he carefully opens the bag with the note inside. Since this is one of the most iconic detective tasks of all time, Hitoshi is naturally fascinated by dusting for prints, even as he settles in behind the empty desk in Tsukauchi’s office that supposedly houses a detective Aizawa’s never seen – no space for extra detectives indeed.
“I suppose I’ll find your fingerprints on here too,” Tsukauchi remarks amiably to Hitoshi as he lays the paper flat on a space he hurriedly clears on his desk – mostly by pushing the mess onto the desk Hitoshi’s just sat down at. Then Tsukauchi delicately twirls the large-headed brush in fingerprint-dusting powder and moves over the paper, spinning the brush carefully around the edges of the paper
“And my Ma’s,” Hitoshi supplies. He’s not quite climbing over the two back-to-back desks to get a closer look, but he’s stretching out of his chair so much he looks like a purple-tufted meerkat. “Does that mean you'll need my prints as well?”
“Do it yourself, there’s probably a kit in Morishita’s desk somewhere,” Tsukauchi remarks cheerfully. It’s not like he wants or needs to run Hitoshi though such an easily intuitive task anyway, and Hitoshi immediately starts to search the stranger’s desk with nosey delight.
“Where is that guy?” Aizawa decides to pick, even though he knows it’s a scab he’d be wise to leave alone.
“He’s been seconded to another division. Seems like they’re keeping him busy,” comes Tsukauchi’s pre-packaged answer. But Aizawa’s got a solution for that too.
“Then they should transfer him there, and open up this desk for someone else,” Aizawa suggests like he doesn’t have anyone in mind, even though he does, and they probably all know it. Things better left unsaid, if just because there’s no need to state the obvious.
“I’ll pass your orders on to the boss, Acting Police Chief Aizawa,” Tsukauchi rips with a little more sarcasm this time. He’s found some prints, that’s for sure, but practically the only thing they don’t know about Shiyoko at this point is when and where the fuck she’s going to strike next. Unless it’s already happened, and they’re just waiting to find out.
Hitoshi’s rummaging around in the ghost detective’s desk, finding the promised fingerprinting kit and relishing the novelty of taking his own prints for the first time. It’s fun at this stage – less so when they’re being taken for genuine suspicion. Better this way for a first experience than when it actually matters. Though Aizawa might get Hitoshi’s prints pulled from the case file after all this is over anyway. A little organised data-loss in exchange for buying Tsukauchi a nice bottle of sake, which they almost inevitably end up drinking with Toshinori. And in return, Aizawa’s prints sure as shit get conveniently overlooked in any crime scene he’s had the displeasure of tromping around in.
“Have you recovered the killer’s prints from any of the crime scenes yet?” Aizawa asks to shift a little more on-case.
“We got Shiyoko’s at the scene of the lawyer, Shiro,” Tsukauchi answers routinely. “At least, we think they’re hers.”
“Was it from the bloody deathnote?” Hitoshi pounces like a young tiger learning how to hunt – the instincts are there, it’s just refining them.
Tsukauchi makes a face, but perhaps it’s because of the media-coined terminology. ‘Deathnote Killer’ has a pretty harrowing ring to it, and what news Aizawa has been cruising as a matter of habit makes it exactly as much of a fiasco as expected. “Yes, although there were some partials on the body too.”
“Did Kuwabara also find Shiyoko’s signature on him?” Aizawa adds. A small detail, but good to be sure.
“And how,” Tsukauchi replies grimly. “Shiyoko cut it into him with a scalpel.”
“What?” Aizawa shoots, and even Hitoshi looks up from doing his fingerprints. “Not by writing on him in pen?” Shiyoko has clearly been effective at getting people to allow her to write on them in the first place, but cutting seems like a hard sell even for all her persuasive ability.
“Kuwabara mentioned it could have been written on first, but she definitely went over it with a blade,” Tsukauchi explains. “Go downstairs if you want. I’m sure she’ll show you.” Tsukauchi seems like he could fancy being left alone for a bit to get on with the rest of his work, but Aizawa’s not quite done with him yet.
“Maybe,” Aizawa muses roughly. Kuwabara would eat up Hitoshi for breakfast, which is bound to be hilarious, but not a reason in itself to go if they’re not finding out anything they don’t already know. “What about the Shinsou place?”
Hitoshi’s head lifts again, but he’s otherwise silent as Tsukauchi responds, “What about it?”
“Were there traces of her there?” Aizawa presses.
“We only got into it yesterday. You have to give the lab at least twelve hours to process,” Tsukauchi nags, though he’s familiar with Aizawa’s impatience. “In spite of what the news is spitting, this isn’t the only crime in Tokyo right now.”
“Only killing spree,” Hitoshi slides like a card across a table.
“As far as you know,” Tsukauchi retorts curtly, which has Hitoshi shut up pretty sharpish. Aizawa thinks Tsukauchi’s bullshitting, but there’s nothing wrong with a touch of ego adjustment. Especially for Hitoshi.
“Did you find some incidental clues at least?” Aizawa persists, half-wishing he’d gone himself if Tsukauchi’s going to be this vague about it, besides the essentials he’d shared on the phone what feels like a while ago, although it was only yesterday.
As it turns out, Aizawa’s wishes are due to be half-granted anyway, because it’s not a moment later that the footsteps passing outside Tsukauchi’s office stop rather than continuing on past it, followed moments later by the opening of the door.
A familiar voice calls out, “Hey fuckface, the reports you asked for came bac–”
Tamakawa trails off flat as he catches Aizawa just inside the room like a shadow cast from the lone window on the other side, his back to the wall and Hitoshi behind the desk that’s got Tama’s name written on it in invisible ink. The soft cardboard folder in Tamakawa’s hand drops a little, his expression much like a cat that’s been caught sharpening its claws on the antique sofa.
Tamakawa observes with only a little exasperation, “Of course you two are here.”
“Hey Tama.” Aizawa sneaks the file straight out of his paws as he stands in the doorway, flipping it open – looks like they can turn around labwork in decent time after all. He pays no notice to the fact that Tama’s clearly helping Tsukauchi out, even if it is with a bit of an attitude. It’s good Tama’s getting some more experience on this case – hopefully with the old Dog’s permission this time.
“What, didn’t you miss us?” Hitoshi poses like maybe he believes he’s teacher’s pet and wants to lord it over Tama a bit. But Aizawa’s pet right now is this damn case, which he’s picking over for new details as he processes the combination of hospital death records, criminal backgrounds on at least a dozen people arrested on drug charges, cross-referenced to DNA samples found at the ‘Shinsou Estate’ as the report stiffly titles. So someone's been busy.
“Did you go with him?” Aizawa asks Tama with a jerk of his head at Tsukauchi.
“Yeah,” Tama confirms with a shudder that makes his whiskers all bristle.
“No, no, please carry on doing my job for me, Eraser,” Tsukauchi intervenes over-cordially at Aizawa, who’s doing just that, thanks very much.
“So you’re sure this is right?” Aizawa queries of the considerable legwork that Tsukauchi sure as shit didn’t manage all by himself. And Tama’s still just a beat cop whose name doesn’t go on the case file in any meaningful way. That won’t do.
“No, I made it all up for a laugh,” Tama growls, but it’s amiably so. There’s still a slight tension in the air, but nothing too serious. Tama seems at least half-rested for once, or maybe he’s just better than yesterday. The wonders a new day will do for perspective.
“What does it say?” Hitoshi queries before anyone else can get the same question in.
“Twelve out of fifteen convicted drug users whose DNA was recovered at the crime scene have died of an OD.” Aizawa checks the numbers, then checks them again. “All in the last few days.”
“Are you serious?” Tsukauchi actually gapes, which is about how Aizawa’s feeling with it too. It’s different from the others to date, but in the shape of Dr. Shinsou’s shadow, his true successor as the note so claims, it still fits.
But Aizawa’s not going to let Tsukauchi know that. “No, I made it up for a laugh,” he repeats caustically as he delivers the file into the detective’s open hands and catches Tama chuckling quietly next to him. “Are any of the stiffs downstairs?”
“One,” Tama confirms like he's already seen some shit this morning. “She was arrested on the streets sometime last night, died in our overnight cell.”
“She?” Hitoshi and Aizawa pick up almost in unison, but Aizawa’s the one that continues. “Looks like we’re headed downstairs after all.”
Tama turns to Aizawa and with all manner of seriousness requests, “Tell Kuwabara she owes me money.”
Aizawa’s sceptical. “What for?”
Tamakawa makes a pensive noise that’s not quite a meow or a purr, but a trilling sound in-between them that a human without a mutation-quirk like Tama’s could never make. “I bet her this killer would top a dozen bodies by the time the week was out.” If all those names on the file Aizawa just handed to Tsukauchi are Shiyoko’s victims too, she just tripled her death toll. And here things were feeling quiet – Aizawa never should have doubted.
“That’s awful.” This protest comes from Hitoshi, who must be feeling especially moral this morning – or looking for high ground over Tama.
“For her, ” Tama scoffs, and there’s a predatory pride to his declaration: a big cat lording over the kill that he took the first hit at. Without Tama, they’d be even more in this killer’s dust. “She’s the one who lost.”
“Eraserhead!” Kuwabara’s midway through an autopsy, putting her behind the monstrous table at one end of the cavernous basement morgue. “How long’s it been, fifty years? A hundred? You never come to see me anymore.”
“I was here last week, Kuwabara.” Aizawa sounds like he's trying to give the corpses a run for their money in the ‘most lifeless being in the morgue today’ contest that Kuwabara has been running daily since she started working here. He’s got the bundle of faded ‘you won’ stickers in a pocket somewhere to prove it. “We want to look at the junkie who croaked in the drunk tank overnight.”
“We?” Kuwabara casts her laser sights straight at Hitoshi the second he sets foot in her territory – the first time she’s met him somehow. Amazing what can happen in a week. “What is it, bring your kid into work day? No one up there tells me anything.”
“This is my intern.” Aizawa lifts his hand into a really underwhelming gesture at Hitoshi, who’s mostly looking around with ‘wow it’s a morgue’ curiosity for the first time. They’re interesting spaces – probably especially for a mentalist. All that residue left behind by minds no longer living, like the watermark after a high tide.
Aizawa’s limp reaction obviously runs at sore contrast to the incredibly exaggerated way Kuwabara reacts, her mouth hanging open far enough that the toothpick that she was chewing in the corner of it drops and falls into the open chest cavity she’s standing over at the mortician’s table.
“Your…” Kuwabara’s gaze shifts between Hitoshi and Aizawa, landing on the former as she finishes with an amazed, “intern?”
Hitoshi’s introduction spreads like a pool of water across a hard floor, covering as much and as fast as possible. “I’m Shinsou Hitoshi.” The choice not to use his Hero name is telling of the sensitivity that his mere presence creates. Maybe he’s given up on using it for now, or just wants to avoid anymore ‘finding out’ situations. At least with the police, though Kuwabara’s kind of a rogue agent amongst them. Maybe that makes revealing who he really is a smarter idea than Aizawa’s giving Hitoshi credit for.
Announcing his presence this way generates what could be known as the Shinsou effect, and in Kuwabara’s case, this manifests with the same kind of morbid curiosity with which she currently examines a dead man’s organs. “You mean like the Dr. Shinsou who went crazy and killed all those people?”
“The very same,” Hitoshi replies with the same ruthless efficiency. He’s vacillating through the boundaries between being a Hero and a real person; though some situations require a little of both. Today he wears the moody air his reputation usually brings with him in a way that’s even more deliberate than usual. Hitoshi examines the way Kuwabara is literally wrists-deep groping around in a (dead) dude’s chest cavity, and then absolutely on-purpose offers, “Need a hand?”
But Kuwabara isn’t any old lady Hitoshi can just smooth-talk his way around. In fact, this redhead who’s definitely old enough to be his mother just laughs and fishes the toothpick back out, throwing it into a nearby bin with a dismissive air. “Yanno, I ain’t one for jumping to conclusions, Eraser, but…” There’s a moment while Kuwabara rolls the focus of her attention from Hitoshi to Aizawa like wheeling a morgue drawer open. Aizawa lets himself feel a flicker of doubt, then Kuwabara says, “You’ve definitely got a type.”
And now Aizawa’s just confused. “What?”
“Come off it!” Kuwabara barks like a seal loudly requesting a helping of herring to swallow whole. “This kid is so you.”
Aizawa considers it for a moment, and is forced to conclude that Kuwabara kind of has a point. Tall, dark, and moody just got a mini-me with a different haircut and even more of an attitude. “No one asked you.”
“Ouch,” Kuwabara retorts with a terrifically amused grin, before her gaze shifts back to Hitoshi. “Kuwabara Shizeru, pleased t’meet’cha.” It’s surely a joke, but Kuwabara pulls one of her hands out with a wet shuck sound and holds it out like she’s about to shake Hitoshi’s hand, thick rubber gloves coated in viscera that only gets less pleasant after death.
Hitoshi steps a little closer but just regards the hand suspiciously, and like he really doesn’t mean it returns, “Pleasure’s all mine.”
Kuwabara seal-barks again and then withdraws her other hand, starting to pull off her elbow-length gloves, peeling them back like a second skin. “So you wanna check out the junkie, huh? Crying shame, that. Barely older than my own daughter – if I had a daughter,” she chuckles comedically. Maybe she does have one, maybe she doesn’t. It’s part of Kuwabara’s mystery; she likes to keep them all guessing.
“Did you find any markings on the girl?” Aizawa probes the more pressing puzzle at hand.
“Funny you should say that,” Kuwabara remarks, even though it's not funny at all. She throws the soiled gloves in a bin marked with a biohazard sign, whistling as her hard-soled shoes click against the cold tile floor to approach the right drawer. “Seems like that chick who signs her autograph on fellas has been branching out.” Kuwabara wraps both hands around one of the morgue drawers and heaves, sliding it open with a clunky metal racket.
Hitoshi has seen dead bodies before, more than any sixteen year-old should, and even the guy Kuwabara was chest-diving in counts toward that. But nothing counts quite as much as a girl who can't be older than her mid-twenties, grey from the cold, with a messy route of track-marks up her pale, lifeless arm. Someone who deserved much better than this.
“Show me the name.” Aizawa’s voice echoes in the crypt-like hall of the morgue. Hitoshi is quiet, standing close by Aizawa just looking at the body, letting the awfulness of what being a Hero – one like Aizawa – really involves sink in.
“Right here.” Kuwabara is on the other side of the body, so Aizawa must walk around to get a proper look, and once he has, almost wishes he hadn't.
Down the girl's upper arm, the same way foreigners get kanji they don’t understand that are supposed to equate to their names, there’s a crudely done tattoo still crusted with blood reads simply:
SHIYOKO WILL SET ME FREE
Hitoshi follows in Aizawa’s footsteps curiously and tries to mark this with a wry quip, but it comes out small in this big space, like a mouse that dashes between safe spots along the edge of a wall. “Well, that's not creepy at all.”
The shi has the most attention of the statement – for the obvious reasons – and the rest has been more hastily dragged out. Aizawa wonders who did the job, perhaps Shiyoko had to herself, an inexperience reflected in the scabby lines. It reminds Aizawa of his own self-inflicted home-job tattoo, the sole piece of ink gracing his body. Young, drunk and stupid one night, he’d mouthed off one time too many about how getting tattoos couldn’t hurt as much as Hizashi – Yamada back then – claimed they did, until Kayama whipped out a gun she’d borrowed from a friend and dared Aizawa to prove it.
Obviously, being equal parts idiot to wasted, rather than back down, Aizawa had yanked the gun off her and proceeded to tattoo his own name – first thing that came to mind – onto the most accessible part of his body, which is why he’s got a dodgy Aizawa inked on the side of his left foot. After making a dog’s ear of the first part, Yamada had wrestled the gun off him, insisting that if Aizawa was going to do anything so stupid he had to let his best friend finish the job. Which is why the Shota that follows it is much cleaner, and for some reason it had hurt more with Yamada gripping his foot firmly in one hand and the needle gun in the other. Having someone else in control, most likely. Extra points, in hindsight, for it being Hizashi.
Whenever Aizawa’s asked about his somewhat extreme form of self-identification, the running explanation for why anyone would have his own name tattooed on his foot ranges from ‘in case he doesn’t sleep for so long he forgets who he is’ to ‘for IDing his body if and when he shows up dead’. Both are true, but the reality is just that he’s a stubborn moron who’ll inflict a worrying amount of abuse on himself to prove a point.
Speaking of inflicting abuse on oneself, there's something missing from this grim picture laid out in front of Aizawa right now. “Where's the rest of her name?” he asks, looking to Kuwabara for answers.
“If the Hakamata is there then it ain't anywhere I’m able to see,” Kuwabara responds thoughtfully, hands curling into fists that rest on her hips.
“Maybe she doesn't need it,” Hitoshi offers quietly, and Aizawa doesn't much like that implication, but he understands where it’s coming from. This means he likes it even less when Hitoshi expands, “Who says she was even using her quirk at all?” Hitoshi shifts from the messy lines of this badly done tattoo to the many clean ones that define Kuwabara’s age-weathered face. “They say she overdosed?”
“That was the assumption,” Kuwabara replies like she’s a lady who doesn’t sit well with leaps of logic founded on mere expectation. “I’m still waiting on the toxicology report.”
“Wait too long and you’ll have even more bodies to test,” Aizawa points out ominously.
“It was probably poisoned,” Hitoshi declares like he’s got a blood-testing quirk that he forgot to mention. “Maybe she wasn’t even…” he trails off.
“Wasn’t what?” Aizawa prompts out of some sycophantic need to know what he thinks Hitoshi was about to say.
“What if she wasn’t being controlled by Shiyoko’s quirk at all?” Hitoshi poses with a look that pierces straight through Aizawa’s own powerful gaze, like his quirk-erasing eyes have nothing on the cool stare of a Shinsou.
Aizawa gives Hitoshi the boost to move forward, because he’s sure as shit not saying it. “You mean-”
Hitoshi’s looking back at the dead junkie. Dyed blonde hair with thick roots, a face and body ravaged by drug use that makes her look older beyond her likely-tender years. Aizawa wouldn’t put her past 25. Hitoshi looks sad. Which is good, in a way. Showing the right reaction for this situation – not lost touch with reality or morality, both of which have been taking quite the battering of late.
“What if she took it knowing she was going to die but just…” Hitoshi lays it out like drawing a scalpel across living skin, “... believed in Shiyoko.” Like all Dr. Shinsou’s students had, when they drank their own poison cocktail. It fits the model, even reaching that fabled 100% mind that not even Dr. Shinsou reached. But then Hitoshi’s expression actually manages to darken further, shaking his head as he breathes, “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” Aizawa tests.
“She’s not that good.” Hitoshi’s eyes narrow, no longer looking at the corpse in itself, but what it says, representing the work of an active killer. “At least, not yet.” He’s thinking something other, but rather than coax it out, Aizawa just waits, the quiet hum of the morgue echoing through a space with no soft surfaces to absorb the noise, bouncing around until every last vibration is finally soaked into the people inside it like they’re in aural embalming fluid.
Finally, Hitoshi puts the vile creature out of its misery. “I think Shiyoko can use her quirk as long as she writes part of her name.”
As soon as Hitoshi says it, Aizawa realises it makes sense, so he's already adding, “And the more of it she writes, the stronger her control is…”
“Exactly,” Hitoshi confirms like he doesn’t give a shit, which is a clear sign he’s getting distressed. Figures. Aizawa’s pretty fucking distressed too. Unfortunately, he can’t exactly go off with Hitoshi for a stress cigarette, even though it’s what his body is calling for, like he needs something to make him feel just bad enough to dislodge this godawful picture from his mind.
“Put her away.” Hitoshi turns up and doesn’t instruct Kuwabara or anything, but he’s not really asking either. He’s already taken a step when Aizawa realises he’s going, needing to quickly wave off Kuwabara and go after Hitoshi.
Every inch between them that Aizawa removes adds another notch of worry to the battered bed frame Aizawa’s heart sleeps on. That this is too much, he’s finally broken Hitoshi, this was a terrible idea and Kiki is going to kill him… when he crashes into the back of Hitoshi after he stops to check his phone.
“Watch it!” Hitoshi spits more on instinct than out of real anger.
Aizawa catches Hitoshi by the shoulder and stills him like a stalk of grass swaying in a breeze. “You okay?”
Hitoshi seems puzzled by this inquiry. “Me? Yeah, fucking fantastic.” Sarcasm, which means he must be… sorta okay. Aizawa’s not always sure he’s getting this thing right, but fuck if he knows when he’s going wrong either.
“Wanna get some air?” Not smoke. Definitely not smoke. Not even if there’s someone out there already smoking.
But Hitoshi’s not going to give Aizawa the chance anyway, because it’s with precise certainty that he declares, “I want to see Iwaya.”
Notes:
Fanfic more than anything else is about indulgence, and I indulge myself by writing what I do the way I do, so all I can hope is that the people following this story enjoy it too. It seems like there's a fair few of you at this point, though the numbers aren't important for me - a thousand, a hundred, or ten readers are just as valuable to me, because the real joy is the feeling of having some people who look forwards to this every week (and I know some of you do). It's definitely the magic of writing to be able to bring people into this world and story that was just in my head before I splurged it all over a series of escalatingly long googledoc master documents (five and counting).
So a big thank you to everyone, including those of you who just quietly read every week (or however often you can/do) just as much as those have commented and popped up in my discord. I am not going out of my way to court your appreciation or enjoyment, but having it regardless, purely for the appreciation of my work exactly as it is, is a truly unique pleasure and I am very grateful to have captured all of y'alls' interest.
SO HOW BOUT THAT MURDER THO???
See yous next week :3
Chapter 31: Turnabout
Summary:
Aizawa discovers things he barely knew he didn’t know.
Notes:
This is another very exciting chapter for me, I'm trying not to indulge the cliche of it being a favourite because they're clearly ALL my favourite but all I wanna say is this is a big one for me and one of the most exciting new plot threads in the story in my humble opinion. Happy reading!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dr. Iwaya is with a patient, or so reads the sign on her door that’s been added underneath the larger “Do not disturb” sign taped to the middle of it. This means Aizawa and Hitoshi have to wait, and that means it’s only a matter of time before they’ve reunited with Tama and slipped out the back of the police station for a quickie stress-smoke. Not for Hitoshi, but hell if Aizawa can shake him off at this point.
The bad habit is clearly starting to catch as well, because Hitoshi cheekily asks, “Can I have a drag?” as he watches Aizawa and Tamakawa put their health into reverse. They’ve encouraged this habit horribly in one another recently; Aizawa won’t even try to deny it.
“No,” Aizawa answers sternly.
“Oh go on, he’s just a kid,” Tama chuckles counteractively.
“Exactly,” Aizawa delivers with the subtleties of a brick to the temple.
“He’ll hate it.” Tama keeps lobbying like he works for a cigarette company or something. “The best way to stop ‘em being curious is to let them try.”
“Then you share with him,” Aizawa says grouchily, not believing that Tama will actually do it. More the fool him, because Tama finishes an inhale-exhale cycle and reaches out like he’s actually about to offer the smoke to Hitoshi, until Aizawa whips out a piece of his capture weapon and knocks the cigarette from Tama’s sneaky feline fingers.
“Hey!” Hitoshi and Tama call in unison while the cigarette falls to the floor, still smoking.
“Not until you’re twenty,” Aizawa cites crisply. “If you must.” Which he shouldn’t.
“And since when did you start giving a fuck about the law?” Hitoshi accuses sourly, annoyed about being denied something his teenage curiosity and roster of bad role models have turned into an allure instead of a health hazard.
“Since it applies to you,” Aizawa replies like a true grump. Maybe he should start to cut back on smoking, at least make an attempt not to be such a garbage example for Hitoshi to follow. Moreso for knowing the influence he holds.
“Bullshit,” Hitoshi challenges, while Tama stamps on the dropped cigarette and pulls out a fresh one. Aizawa would’ve picked that up off the ground before, but not now. Not unless he was desperate – which he isn’t.
Of course, Aizawa’s flexed the laws around whether Hitoshi can legally use his quirk so much they could be used as a trampoline by a class full of kids at an out-of-control birthday party, but this is different. Being around their second-hand smoke is bad enough. So for as much of a hypocrite as it makes him, Aizawa’s not going to be the one who enables Hitoshi getting hooked on such a bad habit. Not on purpose, anyway.
“Your mother will kill me,” Aizawa tries instead, and Hitoshi hates that one even more, especially in front of Tama.
“Then don’t tell her,” Hitoshi taunts, but Aizawa just gives him a dead stare, straight through the wisps of his hypocrite’s cigarette as it smokes away between his fingers.
Aizawa takes a long breath, almost finishing his smoke in a single fuck-it-all drag, and then blows out a huge cloud before breaking into a cough – that’ll do it, no doubt. “I said no.” It’s been a while, but just because Aizawa doesn’t always use the authority slipped into his back pocket doesn’t mean it’s not there – or that he won’t get it out when he needs to.
Hitoshi scowls, and then pouts, and when neither of those works does the grown-up thing and gets over it. He likes pushing boundaries, and Aizawa isn’t so foolish as to not know what Hitoshi’s really after when he asks to be enabled to do things he’s not allowed to. Aizawa might let him get away with a lot, but he’s got to take some responsibility, and even prodigious boys like Hitoshi need discipline now and again.
“So tell me about my beloved childhood home.” Hitoshi turns to Tama and lets his voice drain like spilled wine running off the edge of a table. “Did they shit in any of the rooms?”
Tama looks temporarily blindsided, then figures this is what Hitoshi is always going to be like when it comes to dealing with this barbaric topic that’s so close it’s literally home. “And then some,” Tama replies coarsely, puffing away on his replacement cigarette for the one he lost trying to be a bad influence on Hitoshi, which is usually Aizawa’s thing.
“What about the study?” Hitoshi presses like maybe he’s not just picking scabs for the hell of it, and it makes sense he’d know where the most significant places on the estate are.
Tama, however, is just a cop who went along with the detective to the Shinsou Family Estate – for ‘security’ probably. Aizawa wonders if Yamaguichi went with them too, or if this is really just a Tsukauchi-and-Tama kinda thing. It seems like it might be. “Study?” Tama’s eyes narrow.
“Above the lecture theatre. It was also his lab and clinical practice,” Hitoshi explains impatiently. “Where all your cop buddies died.”
Tama doesn’t like that one bit, but it gets the picture across alright. “Oh. There. ” Tama’s much quieter now, so much that the hiss of his cigarette as he burns the acrid tobacco seems loud in the alley. “There was something, now you mention it.”
Aizawa gets that feeling again, the one of something important that’s just on the tip of Tama’s sandpapery tongue. He hasn’t felt it to find out, but it only makes sense. “Place was all done up like a fucking…”
“Shrine,” Hitoshi supplies for him. Like the one in Shiyoko’s apartment. But this is her home away from home – and Hitoshi’s former home.
“Yeah. If crack-dens had temples,” Tama replies unpleasantly. “Looks like they’d been dug in for a while. A few of the junkies were still in there.” The ones who all OD’d, it goes without saying. “Still had the needles in their goddam arms.” Or maybe it does merit saying.
“How many?” Hitoshi asks solemnly, like there’s a tally he keeps somewhere of how many lives have been sunk into that cursed place.
“Four,” Tama returns in equal measure. Wouldn’t be much of an aspiring detective if he didn’t hang onto something as simple as ‘count the dead bodies.’
“Was there anything written on the wall?” Aizawa adds to the fray, already itching with what he thinks he’s about to find out. The only real question is how much?
“Yeah,” Tama responds only half-suspiciously, but he’s used to Aizawa’s mysterious ways by now and presses on. “80% MIND, written up three feet high.” Tama’s answers are always thorough, his reports equally capable. He’ll be a good detective, eventually. “Next to the–”
“The place where my dad made your guy write ‘Death is Freedom ’ in his own blood all those years ago, right?” Hitoshi interjects, fulfilling his part in the ‘creep Tama the fuck out’ special the pair of them are running today.
Unsurprisingly, Tama looks suitably weirded out. “That place is massive, how’d you know it was there?” It must be frustrating for Tama, finally allowed into this case he found, only to be met at every turn by a surly know-it-all teenager.
Hitoshi just mutters, “His study is where all the magic happened.” If by ‘magic’ Hitoshi means ‘torture and experimentation on children’ then sure, Hitoshi’s hit the nail right on the head. His body language is shut up tighter than a coffin, hands stuffed in his pockets and shoulders high, half-lidded gaze closer to the gutter than any of their faces.
Hitoshi obviously knows more than anyone would need to about the Shinsou family estate, but if he’s setting down flags they’re wise not to venture past, it’s not Aizawa or Tama’s place to cross those boundaries. It must be tough for Hitoshi to balance the trauma of what he’s been through with unearthing information that helps them get closer to the killer; even with Aizawa the chances of hitting a landmine are no lesser when encroaching on such dangerous space.
Aizawa doesn’t even know why Hitoshi’s so keen to see Iwaya, if it’s connected to this or something else entirely. Patient or not, he’s itching to find out.
“You’re sure it was 80%?” Aizawa queries, taking a little focus off Hitoshi for the meantime.
“Am I sure? Yeah,” Tama answers curtly; defensive of his work, which is only natural. Aizawa takes it as his cue to go, putting his cigarette out of its misery and resolving not to have anymore today. See how well that goes.
“Maybe Iwaya’s finished by now.” He coaxes Hitoshi with a jerk of his head, leaving Tama to finish in the alley with just a business-focused nod.
They climb the stairs because fuck the lift, and Aizawa spends every second of it thinking about asking Hitoshi what he wants with Iwaya without actually coming around to saying it.
These things seem to happen like mirages, passing fever dreams in which they stood in the morgue and Hitoshi decided this was what he wanted. So like following the gentle sways of a divining rod in search of water, Aizawa has charted their path according to Hitoshi’s design. Which is a weird way to approach a case, but this is a fucking weird case. Maybe it’s indulging Hitoshi, but if it gets results, what the hell does Aizawa care?
In fact, by the time Aizawa’s gotten to the door, shoulder-to-shoulder with Hitoshi, he doesn’t know that he’s sure of anything.
The sign has thankfully been taken down. They’ve all been through a lot together recently, but Hitoshi still raises a knuckle to rap on the door before just barging in. From inside, Iwaya’s voice rings out like a tuning fork. “Enter.”
Hitoshi opens the door, Aizawa following as he heads in to find Iwaya behind her desk attending some notes. “Ah, and to think I would get through a normal day of work without seeing you two,” she remarks without looking up from the page. Which is a little offish, but this is Iwaya they’re talking about. Her preferred distance for other people seems to be set perpetually at arm’s length; but Aizawa gets that. “Please sit down.”
“Have they told you about the dead junkies?” Hitoshi opens like the first order at the start of a particularly large lunch-line at the deli.
“Hello, Hitoshi.” Iwaya is yet to look up, though no doubt she’s aware of the comfortable way Hitoshi crosses the room and flops into the chair in front of her desk. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.” Finally, she lifts her gaze, though only as far as to grace Hitoshi’s presence right in front of her. Aizawa lurks somewhere more towards the back, an understated shadow in the room – just how he likes it.
“Dad’s old clinic – the whole house, I guess – had a bunch of druggie squatters living there,” Hitoshi unspools like barbed wire. “They all overdosed… on purpose, I think.”
Aizawa has a thought about case confidentiality before deciding that it won’t be an issue, some logical ping returned from one of the many layers of caretaker programming he’s running simultaneously. One of Iwaya’s important services in her position for the police is counseling, as well as her specialising in all things mentalist. Maybe that’s the reason Aizawa hasn’t been pushing for just why Hitoshi wants to see her so much. Because, what if it’s just because he needs to talk about it? Not just with Aizawa, but with a trained Doctor, one who knows; someone who understands what Hitoshi has been through by having gone through something like it herself.
Dr. Iwaya has been trained to handle these matters in all manner of ways that Aizawa mostly bullshits his way through as a teacher. For all the hands-on experience and doing-his-best Aizawa puts in with Hitoshi, there’s definitely no substitute for a specialist. Aizawa might be a pro Hero, but Iwaya’s a pro at handling mental (and mentalist ) trauma. And getting Hitoshi connected with the right experts is just another thing Aizawa can do to help him grow.
Maybe Iwaya’s got wind of that too, because she simply folds her hands together on top of her notebook, face as flawless and still as the marble she tries so hard to be made of. “I see.”
“You remember it.” Hitoshi isn’t asking, or even using his quirk to guide Iwaya through some ethereal mind palace of the past as it exists in memory. But the effect is almost the same. “His study. ” Unassuming name for a house of horrors. That’s surely the point.
“I do.” Iwaya’s got an admirable sense of pacing, in which even her silence seems meaningful enough to be saying something, lasting until the important moment of quiet has passed and the world is ready for sound again. “Is there something you want to talk about?”
“I wish they’d bulldozed the place,” Hitoshi reveals resentfully. Aizawa leans until his back touches the wall behind him. Maybe they’re gonna be here awhile. “Should have burned that shit-heap to the ground the second he got put away.”
“It’s just a building.” Iwaya’s voice is gentle, like settling a blanket around shivering shoulders. Normally, it’s the kind of thing that would put Aizawa off immediately, this softening around the school of hard knocks. But this is different; the things they’re going through are strange, and Hitoshi’s just a teenager – an incredible one, sure, but that makes it even more important to recognise he’s young. Aizawa’s seen it plenty: the most brilliant kids are often the most fragile.
Aizawa’s urge to look out for the kids he teaches is one thing, something he’s familiarised himself with over the years. And there’s some of that instinct right now, but with Hitoshi there’s also a lot more, things that don’t sit inside any particular set of lines. Aizawa can be, and is almost criminally afflicted with, as it happens, soft for him.
Hitoshi looks up from his hands to take Iwaya square in his gaze. “A building that’s claimed the lives of what? Thirty people now.” Hitoshi’s tone darkens a shade more, “And that’s not even the worst of what went on there.”
“No.” Iwaya’s agreement is small but monumental. The swell that comes after it indicates the underwater earthquake that shook the ocean bed many years before. “It truly isn’t.”
Hitoshi gives her a hard look and then with a certain teenage brashness says, “He couldn’t touch you, right?” and doesn’t stop to let Iwaya actually give a response she’s obviously not likely to give, not her. “That’d make it hard for him to do the kind of thing that usually went on with his assistants.”
Iwaya is unflinching, which if Aizawa knows anything about her, could mean she's unaffected or positively reeling. The detached, clinical cut of her tone makes him think it's something in between. The scar left behind after heavy surgery, still aching in the rain all these years later. “He found ways to accommodate that.”
Hitoshi has a lot of his own trauma to hide too, and perhaps it's his instinct not to be vulnerable that makes him dig at Iwaya like this. To share how they were both victimised, albeit in different ways. “Yeah, I bet he did.”
Iwaya is gracious, but not a charity. “What did you come here to talk about, Hitoshi?” Other than picking at her war-wounds like it makes up for avoiding his own.
“I used to cry just thinking about having to go in there,” Hitoshi lets out like letting poison from a wound. “Knowing what was going to happen. Sometimes, I–” he speaks in uneven, shunting confessions, breath catching like fabric snags on a rough surface, “–still wake up hearing his voice, telling me to do things.”
Aizawa’s heart thumps like the bounce of a mallet against the skin of a drum. He’s damn lucky to even be in this room right now, but then again, he’s good at turning into wallpaper.
Like a large lake on a completely still day, where the surface of the water has turned into an exact mirror of the landscape around it, Iwaya remains perfectly composed. “What kind of things?”
“Hurt people. Hurt myself,” Hitoshi murmurs. If Aizawa had a gun pressed to Dr. Shinsou's temple right now, he'd have already pulled the trigger. Splatter all 100% of his brains across the tired office carpet tiles. “It goes away, but I wonder if it'll ever stop.”
“Do you think if they pulled the building down that would make it stop?” Iwaya puts to him, and if it were that easy Aizawa would tear the place down brick by brick.
“Probably not,” Hitoshi answers lowly, but picks up a little when he adds, “Worth a try, though.”
“I feel like Detective Tsukauchi might take issue with that,” Iwaya replies just wryly enough to slice a layer off the thick tension in the room. “Thank you for telling me about the other victims, Hitoshi. I appreciate it.” Maybe she does, but Aizawa can’t be sure. It’s probably one of those things no one wants to know, but having the knowledge feels safer than leaving it to the wind.
“Shiyoko also found out about me and my Ma,” Hitoshi continues a little more smoothly. “Tsukauchi’s checking out the letter she sent, but it basically just says we’re in her sights.”
“Oh.” A flicker of light and warmth passes over Iwaya like sun coming through clouds on a day in early spring. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay. We used to get much worse,” Hitoshi mutters. “I thought you might wanna know, if she’s targeting people the Doc used to…” Love, in Dr. Shinsou’s words. Torment, in their own.
“Thank you, Hitoshi,” she says gracefully. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
Aizawa understands the broad strokes of what’s going on here, if not the finer details. Survivor trauma works like that sometimes, and some find it easier to worry about other people rather than themselves. Aizawa mostly worries about everyone.
“I hope not,” Hitoshi replies with a little more warmth, a little less wound-tight tension that makes him seem like a watchspring ready to snap. Aizawa remembers Kiki’s observation about her son, about how easy he is to love. No wonder Iwaya’s falling into those well-populated those ranks.
Iwaya must know better than anyone what kind of horrors Hitoshi has been through – and how incredible he has turned out in spite of it. She’s literally read his mind, knows his morals and values – that desperate desire he feels to be a Hero, against all obstacles. Iwaya has experienced those beliefs as if they were her own, so it’s no small wonder that she’s so fond of him, even after they got off to a slightly rocky start.
“I have another appointment soon. Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”
Iwaya goes back to her notebook; this one looks more like a planner than the heavy lined books she makes notes in. Not hurrying on in blunt terms, but ensuring if there’s more Hitoshi wants to get through, he better get on with it now. Aizawa wonders if they need to arrange a regular session with her and Hitoshi. Something for the shelf in the back of his mind. See what Kiki says about it. Which is another reminder – to get Kiki’s number from Hitoshi so he can call her and check-in on her status. He’s still got no idea what Kiki does for a living, whether it might expose her to any risk. The mental shelf’s quite crowded by this point.
“Yeah.” Thankfully, Hitoshi’s got his mind on current business. “Do you think Shiyoko’s quirk could become active from the moment she starts writing her name on someone?” Maybe Hitoshi did have reasons for coming here beyond comfort after all. Sometimes Aizawa’s not sure which one of them is leading this case – if he’s just the enabler, a baby crawling in comparison to the long strides of these experienced mentalists.
“I believe it could be possible,” Iwaya responds authoritatively. “There seems to be a connection between how many times she writes her name and the strength of her hold, so it would make sense that ability is active from the moment she first begins to write.”
Aizawa thinks it’d explain why Shiyoko has been able to write her name on some of these people so easily, if they’re going under from the moment she puts a pen – or worse – to their skin.
Hitoshi has another question. “Do you think she’s getting stronger?”
Iwaya considers this one for longer. “Yes. She must be.”
Hitoshi seems glum. “I thought so.” That 80% on the wall in the Shinsou Estate certainly seems to reflect Shiyoko’s own belief in her growing mastery of her deadly quirk. But what that means to Hitoshi, and why it’s brought him here with such insistence, is the more appetising morsel. “You said you could help me yesterday. With my quirk.”
This is new to Aizawa, an offer that must have been made between Iwaya and Hitoshi during their close conference yesterday, before taking a trip down nightmare lane.
“If you would like me to,” Iwaya answers primly, while Aizawa picks himself off the wall and takes a step back into the arena.
“Help how?”
“The combination of my training and quirk gives me a detailed understanding of how mentalist quirks function,” Iwaya answers methodically, her gaze still trained on Hitoshi. “I can help to refine and strengthen them, even examine the areas someone is able to expand into within the broader mentalist landscape.”
“Expand?” Aizawa takes another step closer, slipping back into the conversation like lukewarm bathwater.
“Since Hitoshi is the child of two people with mentalist quirks, the abilities he has inherited from Dr. Shinsou are evident. However, there’s a good possibility that some degree of his mother’s quirk has been passed on as well,” Iwaya explains, and it’s like Aizawa’s heard this before, even though it’s the first time such words have ever been spoken out loud. It also means Iwaya knows all about Kiki, which is a casual revelation to drop in the ocean with the rest of the crashing surf. “There are also some deeper abilities that seem to be open to most mentalist quirk users, regardless of the exact type.”
“Isn’t that one of Dr. Shinsou’s theories?” Aizawa says knowing damn-well it is, although the mechanics of quirk inheritance are well-established in other fields. Though it follows that fusions among physical quirks are better understood than mentalist, as with the respective fields on the whole.
“That’s correct,” Iwaya affirms calmly, while Hitoshi is a little combative in his response:
“Just because Dad's a deranged mass-murderer doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything.” Hitoshi pauses for a savage moment before he bitterly adds, “Unfortunately.” And if Aizawa hasn’t felt that divisive urge before – hating how horribly right the Doc is about something. A truly mad genius, for what it’s worth.
Then Aizawa puts one foot square into it by asking, “Is that the reason for the thing you do?”
Hitoshi looks puzzled. “What thing?”
“When you, uh–” Aizawa realises he has absolutely no way to describe the thing he’s thinking of, the scattered handful of times he thinks Hitoshi might have done something Aizawa can’t explain. He spends more time around Hitoshi than most, so it makes sense he’s the one to have caught those moments, but hell if he’s got a clue how to articulate something he’s barely aware of. But Hitoshi and Iwaya are watching him expectantly, so Aizawa is forced to continue, “It’s a buzz, or kinda like… static.”
“You feeling okay, teach?” Hitoshi jokes. “You can’t be so old your hearing’s gone just yet.”
“Piss off,” Aizawa grunts to Hitoshi’s apparent delight.
“Cranky.” Hitoshi’s grinning like a jackal over its next meal, needing something, anything to keep him going. “Did someone keep you up all night?” More like someone Aizawa kept up all night, but that’s not the point.
“I’ve been meaning to ask.” Iwaya starts perfectly cordial, because to her what she’s saying isn’t notable at all. But she’s looking right at Aizawa now, maybe even the first time she’s actually fixed him right in that statuesque gaze since he set foot in this room. “Have you considered exploring your own mentalist aptitude?”
“Mine?” Aizawa queries like a rush of ocean water this suggestion throws up, a wave striking water-carved rocks and throwing spray in wild directions. “But I’m not…”
And then he thinks: Is he?
“What, are you in denial?” Hitoshi's relishing in this. “Afraid to be one of us?”
It almost violently occurs to Aizawa that the only person in here who thinks he's not a mentalist is himself. And even that's a shaky belief at best.
“But my quirk–”
“Works on physical and mental quirks,” Hitoshi interjects. If Aizawa’s quirk had no mentalist synergy, he wouldn’t be able to erase the Shinsou brainwashing or Iwaya’s touch-telepathy quirk. Aizawa knows that, but he didn’t think about what it might mean.
“While your quirk has a physical manifestation through your eyes, that may only be symptomatic of a predominantly mentalist quirk in action.” Iwaya sounds like she's talking around Aizawa as he sits inside a glass case, on show in front of a lecture hall of eager students. “Your suppression of my own quirk, at least in my experience, is entirely mental.”
“Mine too,” Hitoshi chips in, swerved around in his chair to fix Aizawa with an accusatory stare. “What did you think your quirk was?”
Aizawa doesn't self-reflect an awful lot – not like this, at least – and defaults to the only reference that comes to mind: the registration forms at the quirk bureau, included as part of renewing Hero licenses. “I usually just tick ‘other’,” he replies simply, which has Hitoshi cracking up in seconds. That’s always been Aizawa’s approach: sexuality, gender, marital status: other, other, other. He has to write it in extra on the forms a lot, but seems like the record-takers have gotten the hint.
When they were busy identifying quirks, a long time ago when Aizawa was about four years old, the thought of mentalism was niche, and ill-thought of at that. No one would’ve gone out of their way to establish if his erasure quirk had anything to do with mentalism, so Aizawa never stopped to think about it – until now.
“Jeez, teach.” Hitoshi's mirth recedes to a trickle, the barest hints of a chuckle in his tone. “Guess even you have blind spots, huh?”
Aizawa rapidly reconsiders a lot of things he thought he knew about himself. “Guess so.”
When the knock on the door shakes Aizawa from an entirely new world he’s been grappling with for what feels like hours (but has barely been a half of one), he’s had about all the expansion the borders of his mind can take – for now.
Unlike Hitoshi, who waited to be told to come in, the door starts to open without further warning. “Dr. Iwaya, are you ready to–” Her ‘other appointment’ – namely, Tsukauchi – stands awkwardly in the halfway-opened door and says, “Oh.”
“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” Iwaya replies with a quick glance past Hitoshi’s shoulder at the headlight-struck detective, before returning to dwell on Aizawa and Hitoshi. “Is that enough to keep you two busy?”
It’s nothing world-shattering, at least on paper. Strange eye-puzzles involving infinite shapes, visualising a radio, then trying to tune into a frequency – that particular test Aizawa’s been sensing himself miss, but apparently has the capability to develop, just like you’d train a muscle or a quirk under any other circumstance. A lot of people have active quirks with accompanying passive abilities, Aizawa’s have just been hidden until now by the curtain of not-me and stigma of mentalism that made him overlook it all these years.
“Oh yeah,” Hitoshi replies confidently. He’s the star student here, after all – Aizawa the grown adult in remedial classes, still trying to learn his ABCs. And they’ve still got a killer to hunt, much less mentalist homework, or whatever the hell it should be called.
Aizawa’s not sure what to make of any of it, so he defaults to pragmatism and shoves everything he’s been given to take on right into the corner of his mind. “Thanks, Iwaya. This was…” completely devastating, revelatory, amazing, fucking terrifying, “interesting.”
“I hope so,” she replies icily, closing her notebook and slipping it into her bag. She stands and Hitoshi remains in her seat, while Aizawa’s been standing the whole time. “I’ll lock my office over lunch, so if you wouldn’t mind.” This compels Hitoshi to stand, and Aizawa wonders if he’s feeling waterlogged too – like the sponge of his brain has been saturated so much it’s a wonder his nose isn’t dripping cerebral fluid.
Even though he’s been in this office many times before, Aizawa feels like there’s some bubble of alternate reality encasing him as he leaves the office with Hitoshi at his heels, Iwaya bringing up the rear. Like his perception has been altered, some key piece of fundamental information in the fabric of reality that was moved in his conversation with Iwaya, rebranding himself as something new – not just interested in mentalist quirks, but in possession of one. Somehow the world when he leaves this office isn’t quite the same as the one before he went in.
Iwaya and Tsukauchi split away from them in the hallway – having lunch together, by Aizawa’s guess – leaving Aizawa and Hitoshi to soak. Aizawa has read Dr. Shinsou’s manifesto cover to cover by now, so he was familiar with much of what Dr. Iwaya had to say about the form and function of mentalist quirks as she ran Hitoshi and Aizawa through a series of foundational mentalist training exercises. What was different was how she tailored it to them – not just to Hitoshi but with respect to Aizawa too. Things Aizawa had taken as guts or instinct most of his life being more than that. Not thinking about what it really meant, because who had time for such in-depth analysis of how his quirk worked? It does work, and for the past twenty-something years that was all Aizawa needed to know.
“You alright, teach?” Hitoshi jokes when they step into the hallway, Aizawa blinking like he’s a cave-dwelling creature coming out under the harsh light of day. “Was all that a bit much for you?”
“No,” Aizawa answers gruffly. It was, but he’s not giving Hitoshi the chance to feel smug about it. “We’ve still got a case to work.”
“What do you think this was?” Hitoshi retorts cheekily, and he’s back to brash and over-confident, but Aizawa isn’t convinced. “Shiyoko is getting stronger. That means I need to as well.”
This takes Aizawa like an unexpected tackle during a training exercise. “Why?” Hitoshi’s quirk is strong enough, surely. But perhaps not.
“You read the letter, didn’t you?” Hitoshi puts to him bluntly. “If she’s the true successor and my Ma’s the bitch that left him, that makes me the bastard.” He quietens for a moment, and Aizawa senses where he’s going. “I have to be strong enough to take her.”
“You don’t,” Aizawa settles gently, feeling that urge to take everything on alone, the sure dependability of the self. He sets a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder comfortably, the weight of Aizawa’s arm hanging as they walk very slowly towards the stairs. “I’ll be there too.”
“So you need to get your shit together as well,” Hitoshi retorts. “You saw what she did to that guy yesterday, what she’s done to those fucking junkies.” There’s a flutter of not quite panic but something very close in Hitoshi’s voice. “She’s trying to become like my dad, and if that doesn’t scare the shit out of you, it should.”
Aizawa’s hand is still on Hitoshi’s shoulder, and he squeezes lightly. “I understand.”
“No you don’t,” Hitoshi hisses, shaking himself out of Aizawa’s grip, putting more space between them. “If she’s coming for me and Ma, I have to be able to do this by myself, or what’s the fucking point–”
“Hitoshi.” Aizawa stops them dead, briefly retakes his grip with a double-handed steer on each of Hitoshi’s shoulders, squaring him up to face Aizawa before releasing the hold that Hitoshi’s signalled he doesn’t want right now. Respect the bubble, Aizawa knows that much. “No one can do everything alone.”
“Bullshit, look at you,” Hitoshi sends back like a frisbee, and there it is. That shining idol of Hero worship: holding Aizawa up as something much greater and more infallible than what he is.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’d be nothing without the people who support me.” There’s so many of them, too many to count. Hizashi first and foremost, but all the others who have done so much to keep Aizawa on the brink-of-disaster trajectory he’s maintained just this week, let alone for the years before that.
“You work alone,” Hitoshi says churlishly, eyes downcast from Aizawa’s gaze. “And you’re strong enough to protect those people in return.”
“Not always,” Aizawa counters – if only he were strong enough to protect all those people. Reading the air right (he hopes), Aizawa reaches up to takes Hitoshi by the shoulders again. He isn’t shaken off, so maybe he’s in the clear. “And I’ve got you, so I don’t work alone anymore.” This is it, one of the most important lessons Aizawa’s ever had to learn, much less teach to others. “If you need help, Hitoshi, you have to ask for it.” Fuck knows it’s taken Aizawa long enough to grasp that, and even then he doesn’t always manage to keep that rule for survival in his head.
Aizawa’s arms sit like rails in parallel to each other, resting on Hitoshi’s shoulders – it’s early days yet, but Aizawa feels like Hitoshi’s gaining a little muscle mass, and gauges how Hitoshi’s weight leans into him. An unconscious pull inwards, like a magnet jumps to connect when it gets close enough to an opposing pole. He’s strong, Hitoshi is so strong for a sixteen-year-old who’s been through what he has, but today’s developments have clearly taken more of a toll on him than Aizawa’s been properly conscious of. Until now, at least.
So he asks a very simple question, hoping for a simple answer. “Do you need help, Hitoshi?”
Hitoshi gazes at Aizawa like he doesn’t even know where to start. The darker ring of deep violet that encircles the brighter purple of his irises, marking the boundary of darkness as it sits against the light. Everyone is made up of both, Heroes just have a lot more of one than the other.
It’s with tentative fear-come-gratitude that Hitoshi softly answers, “I think so.”
Notes:
This one goes out to all the commenters who were like 'shit Hitoshi get some therapy' (check) or that Aizawa's clearly got some kind of mentalist quirk (double check).
The thing with stories is that often people pick up what's coming down the line before it does happen, and it's about trusting the story to take you there rather than expecting everything to happen as soon as the thought occurs to us as a reader. These things take time sometimes, especially when I'm writing them and love letting the moments build until they become nearly unbearable before we finally release, so your patience and understanding as readers is essential to letting this story play out the way my imagination wanted it to, which isn't always at the same pace an individual reader would expect or write themselves.
That's also kind of the beauty of writing, each twist and turn might be possible to foreshadow, but the same idea can turn out very differently for every writer/artist who creates their own version of events. It's also a mainstay of fanfiction in general, and allowing each person to present their vision without needing to align with a popular fandom vision, or even just a particular reader's vision, is (at least to me) a defence of the truly indulgent self-expression that makes fiction so liberating.
Chapter 32: Headshot
Summary:
Aizawa’s aim holds true, though the same can’t be said for everyone else’s.
Notes:
The end of this chap has the messiest end-note I've ever written, so with that in mind let's get straight into it, shall we?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It takes quite a lot to get a spur-of-the-moment audience with the Chief of Police, but Aizawa’s a Hero with that kinda leverage. Mostly, it involves strolling into Tsuragame’s office uninvited while the Chief's secretary is out on lunch, but if it works it works.
“Ah Eraserhead, do come in.” The Chief sounds like the tired principal of a school whose problem child has been sent to his office yet again. Except that was yesterday. “They tell me you’ve been making recommendations on what I should do with my own detectives lately.” Tsuragame sounds as thrilled as ever that Aizawa dares to speak his mind about things that aren’t necessarily his business. But what else are Heroes for?
“Just a couple,” Aizawa replies easily, “and you haven’t even made one of them a detective yet.” Leave the old hound to figure that one out.
“Have you ever heard of the tail wagging the dog, Eraser?” Tsuragame steeples his perfectly human fingers in front of his jowls.
But Aizawa is unrelenting. “Depends on the tail.” The Chief might be due a look at the cause of Aizawa’s ‘wagging’ before he gets so opposed to doing what he’s told.
“Very funny.” Tsuragame sounds like he means this approximately not at all. “So, what trouble brings you to me this time?”
“Shinsou Hitoshi has received a written threat to his home address,” Aizawa reels off more emotionlessly than he actually feels, boiling the thing down to its component parts. “Tsukauchi is in the process of confirming who actually delivered the letter, but it’s clearly come from the killer Hakamata Shiyoko.”
“This is the ‘Deathnote killer’ I keep hearing the media yap about?” the Chief suggests like he’s reading the menu at a restaurant that serves exclusively cat food.
“That’s the one,” Hitoshi confirms before Aizawa does, but Aizawa’s in there right after. Making up for the fact that he involved Hitoshi in the first place. If Aizawa hadn’t pulled Hitoshi out of class that day, many of these things would still have happened, but at least Hitoshi would be living a quiet, anonymous life in which no serial killers were sending threatening letters to his house. That much is on Aizawa.
It’s not quite a request that Aizawa makes, but a demand that comes from a deep pit of desperation. “I want a security detail on location. Twenty-four hours would be best, but at the very least when Hitoshi and his mother are at home.”
“Tsukauchi reported your apparent promotion, Eraser, but I must say.” The weathered Tsuragame maintains an ‘I’ll talk, and you’ll listen’ disposition that hits like a baseball bat to the shins. “You do presume to tell me how to do my job an awful lot.”
“It’s the most logical course of action. Does it really matter whether it was your idea or mine?” This morning alone, Aizawa’s discovered he’s a mentalist, the killer has tripled her death count, and she’s threatening Hitoshi and Kiki. So Aizawa is not in the mood to take the Chief's sense of authority out for walkies. “I’m just giving you my professional opinion. Whether you decide to ignore it or not doesn’t exactly seem relevant.” Unless the Chief does, and Aizawa gets to say ‘I told you so’, but it’s usually over the people that might have been kept alive. Always puts a fucking dampener on the thing.
Setting Aizawa aside like a much larger dog ignores the persisting barking of a smaller one, Tsuragame turns his nose to inspect the pup. A heavy breath that’s not exactly a pant gushes in and out of the Chief in contemplation of Hitoshi, then he simply says, “And where is your mother right now?”
“Work. Her office isn’t far from here, actually,” Hitoshi answers like this is a casual catch-up between old pals. After another wheeze from Tsuragame that’s still not a pant, Aizawa’s itching for the Chief to ask what Kiki does – saves having to do it himself – when Hitoshi pre-empts this very thought. “She’s a social worker, though, so she moves around the city a lot. You probably won’t find her in the office.”
Having finally discovered Kiki’s profession, Aizawa’s even more curious about what Hitoshi’s Ma does for a living. If it's where Hitoshi gets his heroism from, to take up such a thankless profession after surviving Dr. Shinsou. But everyone deals with things in their own ways.
“I’ll send someone to do a ruff scout of the area and guard you both overnight, ” Tsuragame actually woofs. “In fact, I have just the officer in mind. Her partner’s been tied up in some other business, so the poor rookie’s been knocking around without anything much to do.” He’s going to say it, Aizawa realises with certainty as the Chief winds his way through the explanation like an ambling walk in the park, thinking they don’t know exactly what he’s about to do. “Perhaps you’ve met her before: Officer Yamaguichi Kumiko.”
“Oh, Yankumi?” Hitoshi remarks like he’s hanging at the mall with his friends – if that was something he ever did. Aizawa doesn’t have him pegged for it. “Yeah, we’re pretty familiar.”
“Good.” Tsuragame puts a hand to his jaw, resting his nose in his palm almost. “Then she should be fully briefed on your situation.”
Hitoshi's got a lurking smile, easy to miss as he replies, “She's briefed alright.” This is a serious matter, Aizawa knows, but he can't help feeling that Hitoshi’s a lucky bastard, the way these things go for him sometimes. Aizawa can’t wait to see what Kiki will make of ‘ Yankumi’ or whether Hitoshi will be forced to drop the cool guy act in front of his Ma. Either way, it’s sure to be amusing.
“Officer Yamaguichi will be staying with you overnight for security, so perhaps it’s convenient she’s a woman. Hopefully, you’ll both feel more at ease that way.” The Chief remains in dogged ignorance to Hitoshi's smug undertones, if sensitive to the gendered subtext, which is always nice to see. “If you’d share your mother’s contact information with me, I’d like to personally call to explain.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that.” Hitoshi sounds rather like he’s grateful for anyone who’s not him having to explain this one to his Ma, pulling out his phone to share Kiki's number with the Chief pretty promptly. But his patience doesn’t last long, as Hitoshi begins to fidget while waiting for Tsuragame to make a note. He asks with a touch of urgency, “Will Yankumi be armed?”
“Officer Yamaguichi?” The Chief seems a little bemused by Hitoshi's nickname, which is fair for anyone unfamiliar with Hitoshi's devoted irreverence in the face of formality. “Yes. Our officers always carry firearms for operations of this nature.” An operation in which someone might be coming for blood, he means. Lots of blood.
“Good.” That Hitoshi sounds relieved, genuinely relieved, tells Aizawa more about how worried the teen is than every piece of denial or distraction he's thrown so far. Aizawa dreads to think what could have happened if he hadn't spotted this disaster waiting to happen early enough to intervene. If only he were as good at spotting it in himself as he was in others. “Thank you,” Hitoshi adds like an afterthought, but it’s heartfelt all the same.
“No more than my duty, young man,” the Chief replies gently enough that some of Aizawa’s fighting instinct backs down. “Now then, is there anything left for us to discuss?” Tsukauchi’s probably got the boss(dog)man pretty well-versed on the case by this point, but there is one thing Aizawa’s a little puzzled not to have heard about recently.
“Did Tsukauchi have any luck with getting a warrant to see Dr. Shinsou?” Aizawa feels Hitoshi move sharply to look at him, but Aizawa keeps his own gaze trained on the Chief. Hitoshi might not like it, but after Shiyoko’s letter, the Doc moves ever closer to the centre of this black hole of a case. That makes access to him even more critical.
“Luck? Why, I handled one only yesterday,” Tsuragame relates with an innocent bemusement, before making the simultaneous realisation that Aizawa does, which is that perhaps the detective hadn’t deigned to tell Aizawa that. The Chief’s demeanor turns thoughtful and after a mouthy sound that’s not quite a licking of chops, says, “I recall reading a recent email from the Warden recommending the pair of you not to join such a visit, though I expressed some doubts to Tsukauchi that the Professor could be persuaded to talk by any other party.”
“Sounds like the detective thought he’d give it a try anyway,” Hitoshi observes coolly, which is better than Aizawa answering, which wouldn’t be cool at all. Fire-spitting what-the-fuck’s-he-thinking how-dare-he hot anger, as it happens. But all Aizawa can really spare in honour of that fury is a clenched jaw and an irritated twitch under his eyes. It’s always the side with the scar he got from USJ that goes, some permanent short circuit in his facial muscles that makes Aizawa’s expression betray his annoyance without ever having to open his mouth.
“Yes, well, I can advise my detectives, but if they choose to ignore that it’s up to them.” The Chief picks up and dusts off Aizawa’s own observation, and unfortunately, the bit of common sense still holds true. Unless Tsuragame felt something strongly enough to make it a direct order to Tsukauchi, which he clearly didn’t, then it’s at the detective’s own discretion whether to bring two pieces of flint into the tinder box of Dr. Shinsou’s cell.
“You realise how dangerous it is sending someone in there with him, right?” Hitoshi appeals right when Aizawa’s about to call Tsukauchi a stupid bastard who’s going to get himself killed, and that’s close enough to being basically the same thing.
“I don’t go along just for the Doc’s company.” Aizawa’s tone drags like wire wool across a particularly rusty length of pipe. “My quirk is the only thing that allows us to speak safely with him.”
And Hitoshi’s quirk is the only thing that’ll make Dr. Shinsou talk when he doesn’t want to. If they can get back in there to see the Doc, Aizawa already knows he’d let Hitoshi go to fucking town on his dad to get the answers they need. It’s almost enough of a reason to visit. Luckily, Tsukauchi’s got an operation for them to muscle in on.
There’s a moment when the Chief might look outright doleful, though that’s perhaps just his thinking face. Or it isn’t, because Tsuragame seems truly concerned as he murmurs, “I had a similar worry, but Tsukauchi seemed adamant the Warden’s assurance of his safety would be enough.”
“The Warden’s full of it,” Hitoshi retorts crudely. “If you wanna see your guy come back in a body bag, by all means let him go see my dad alone.” It’s no lie that Hitoshi has a special capacity for sticking things in the chiller, so his words come out encroached on by frost like a hand in a freezer. It’s more effective than anything Aizawa has to say to the same point.
The Chief seems thoroughly weirded out. Aizawa’s only got a rough idea of just how awful it is being alone with Dr. Shinsou and his tricky questions, and even he knows Tsuragame’s better off not knowing. “Well… I don’t believe Tsukauchi was planning to visit until later this afternoon, so in light of these revelations, I’ll have to insist that the two of you accompany him.”
It’s frustrating when the police can’t even agree among themselves, but that’s just the danger of organisations made up of many people, rather than just one crusty underground Hero and his intern. And not even Aizawa and Hitoshi are going to agree all the time, which is a step more complicated than Aizawa’s worked for the past ten years. Not that he begrudges it: Hitoshi is worth it, after all.
Aizawa’s just thinking about how to wrap up this impromptu meeting when the Chief’s ears shoot up a split-second before the phone on his desk rings. With a shake of his jowls, the Chief looks so alarmed for a moment that Aizawa would swear he’s about to bark. Instead, Tsuragame simply lifts the old-fashioned handset and gives a serious, “Yes?” There’s complete silence, not even a scratch of static as the person on the other end of the line replies. “I see. I’ll send someone right down.”
Without even a goodbye, the Chief lowers the phone and announces, “They tell me someone claiming to be the Deathnote Killer has just handed himself in downstairs.”
“Himself?” Hitoshi echoes scathingly. “That can’t be right.”
“And thus, the reason I said claiming,” the Chief replies in turn, raising one of his hands to gesture outwards at Hitoshi and Aizawa. “I believe Tsukauchi is out at lunch right now, and I need to speak with him urgently when he gets back.” It’s with just a little touch of ‘you made this bed, so now you’ll lie in it’ determination that the Chief continues, “You ought to be useful to us somehow, so why don’t the two of you head downstairs and take a look at what lunatic has come in claiming to be the latest serial killer?”
“Am I not always useful?” Aizawa decides to return with a bad sketch of extremely dry humour. He pushes himself out of one of the matching chairs he and Hitoshi have been slumped in with enough defiance to make the whole thing almost comparable to an open shit-talking.
“Goodbye, Eraserhead,” Tsuragame declares soberly, a slow drop of his ears before appendixing, “for now.”
Aizawa’s trash mood feels compacted by the fact that there’s no soothing tea in Chief Tsuragame’s office, which is a terrible shame. At least Nezu knows how to take care of the people he’s scolding – on which point, a word from the Principal would have surely been a vote to sway the Chief in favour of not letting Aizawa and Hitoshi get back in touch with the Doc. Or maybe Aizawa’s paranoid… though he supposes Nezu might see it as for their greater good, acting for their safety in a way they wouldn’t choose for themselves. It would probably be some nosey shit like that, but Aizawa knows his limits, and keeping Hitoshi safe is well within them.
Hitoshi gets up and follows Aizawa without comment, perhaps listening – as Aizawa is – while Tsuragame dials the number he just made a note of and pauses for a moment or two as it rings. They’re almost at the door when they hear the Chief speak, his voice gradually trailing off as they move further out of earshot. “Ah, Mrs. Shinsou? It’s Police Chief Tsura– no, no they’re fine. It’s about the letter you received…”
The door clicks shut behind them, and the noise stops entirely, leaving Aizawa and Hitoshi to share a suspicious look from the Chief's secretary. They did sneak in while she wasn’t at her desk, after all.
There’s no time to dawdle, so they set off with all haste for the stairwell, using a trademark capture weapon abseil to get from the top floor (only the best for the Chief of Police) down to ground level. Hitoshi’s getting used to this move, especially in the familiar stairwell where – when the time of day is just right – the skylight at the top lets a beam of sunlight drop straight down, lighting up the off-white of Aizawa’s capture weapon almost gold as it whips through his hands. There’s a moment of fluid tranquility as they descend the five-floor drop one after the other, wordless inference from Hitoshi of what Aizawa’s going to do before he even does it – which is an item in Iwaya’s mentalist homework, technically.
Dr. Iwaya – for that is what she was during their 'lesson', if it must be called that, albeit instructing students of drastically different levels – took it upon herself to mention several times to Hitoshi and Aizawa that their familiarity with each other would make the exercises easier. Bending that mentalist elastic and seeing just how far it would stretch. Aizawa’s opinion is that his mind has the elastic qualities of a very old school eraser, which crumbles as soon as it’s put under the slightest pressure. But something about Hitoshi resonates with him, so he can be a little bit more flexible where the boy’s concerned.
Landing next to Aizawa and giving his capture weapon the all-important wiggle to get it unravelled from a bind, Hitoshi doesn’t quite nail the movement of his arm to naturally coax the cloth to drop in a coil. That one takes artistry, and what Hitoshi has is a chaotic spool of hypersensitive fabric flapping around and dropping in a messy pile all over his head.
Aizawa snorts, but before they break into conversation, Hitoshi scoops the capture weapon off him and just looks at Aizawa. There’s a beat like a dying pulse, but one that can be brought back with a shock of electricity, which comes a moment after. There’s a jolt and then a thump in Aizawa’s head, like Hitoshi left a couple of fingers in there to give Aizawa’s mind a prod every now and again.
But Aizawa has to be sure. “Did you just do something?”
Whatever it is Hitoshi can do, dormant as it’s been under the overpowering strength of his brainwashing quirk, is likely similar to his mother’s own telepath abilities. Aizawa knows one more telepath mentalist, he realises – Mandalay, one of the out-of-town pros they’re meant to be taking his class to in barely a week. Maybe, if Aizawa gets an entire five minutes to himself while he’s on that trip dealing with whatever nightmare is sure to blow in as it usually does, he’ll actually have a conversation with Mandalay about mentalism and listen with his ears open for once.
But Aizawa needs to get this case wrapped up first, and fast, if he’s to keep up all his commitments. Except it’s hard to prefer his school obligations when being in the work with Hitoshi is so much more exciting. Not just on this case, but with how Aizawa’s learning more about himself than he ever would playing shepherd to that gang of liabilities in 1-A.
Hitoshi grins in a way he usually reserves for people he’s trying to charm. “You felt it?”
“Yeah, something,” Aizawa responds shiftily, a little less comfortable in this almost-role-reversal than he’d like to admit. Thankfully, they’ve only got a second before Aizawa’s at the door. Hitoshi has finished coiling and slinging the loop of Aizawa’s capture weapon around his neck, apparently having decided to claim the piece of equipment for himself. It cuts corners on going to talk to Support like Aizawa suggested, which is going to be a bit more challenging now Hitoshi’s suspended – but maybe still worth a try.
Aizawa pushes the door open and is slapped in the face with a wave of contrast between the relative peace of the stairwell and the bustle of the police station’s main floor, which is crowded to the point of being frantic. Aizawa spots at least three reporters whose faces he knows and who are presumably undercover and ought to be shown off the premises at some point. Especially the one he gave an absolute shiner to not recently.
The space is a writhing mass of people to-and-fro-ing back and forth, so much that Aizawa has to elbow a few civvies out of the way and hook a police officer by the arm to get anywhere. Aizawa pulls the officer closer like scooping a koi out of an ornamental pond and tells the fish-mouthed cop, “I'm looking for the guy who thinks he's the Deathnote Killer.”
Half the room goes suspiciously quiet and looks over. The other half is listening but pretending not to look.
The hapless officer starts to guide Aizawa, who in turn drags Hitoshi – by the back of his hoodie, no less – all the way to the front of a packed desk. Loudly, the officer repeats Aizawa’s request to the woman behind the desk, who replies curtly, “Are you the one the Chief sent down?”
“How would you know if we weren’t?” Hitoshi points out very unhelpfully, and the receptionist looks at him like he's the killer.
Aizawa elbows Hitoshi in the ribs and says, “I'm Eraserhead: a Hero working with the police on this case.”
“ID?” the woman says suspiciously, then gets the expression to match when Aizawa starts patting himself down with great thoroughness. Maybe he should start keeping his ID up his ass, if only to hand over to petty snits behind desks who doubt his credentials at critical moments like this.
Before the administrator can get properly weirded out by Aizawa feeling himself up any more, a familiar voice calls across the room, “He's on our side, Yamamoto.” Tama's ears are visible before the rest of him comes into view, his squishy palm settling on Aizawa’s shoulder before their eyes meet. “There you are – he’s being held just over here.”
Aizawa glances at Hitoshi for just a moment before Tama gives a ‘come hither’ tug on his shoulder, peeling Aizawa away from the desk like a perfectly moistened beer-bottle sticker. Falling into step behind Tama with Hitoshi at his heels in a tight line through the busy room, Aizawa watches the square of the officer-come-detective’s back, a goal that seems closer than ever, given it’d be Tsukauchi doing this with them if he weren’t out to lunch with Dr. Iwaya right now. Maybe he’s doing his own investigations; maybe Tama’s got the easier interrogation.
“And I thought only dogs played fetch,” Aizawa comments as he shadows Tama through a ‘Police Only’ security door and into the interrogation rooms that lead out to the side-entrance of the station, a place quiet enough to actually allow conversation.
Hitoshi snorts, so at least one of them’s amused. Tama’s is more of a ‘ha ha asshole’ scoff. “With jokes like that, you’re wasted as a Hero.” Tamakawa comes to a stop by one of the doors and turns straight to business. “I haven’t gotten much chance to talk to him, but it seems like he knows all the facts.”
“About the murders?” Aizawa stalls a minute longer, making a plan for what might go on in there. He’s got his quirk, and Tama’s got a gun in that holster on his hip. So will the police inside the room already, just in case the confessor tries to grab for one of their guns and actually gets it.
“Which ones?” Hitoshi supplements, and that’s the question Tama actually answers.
“The Lawyer,” Tama says first. “He knows things about the crime scene only someone who’s seen it would.” The wording of the bloody messages leaps to mind, though the press has unfortunately gotten hold of that detail somehow. The fingerprints wouldn’t match anyway. “And the homeless guy who was killed outside the workplace of the first victim.” Shiyoko’s former employer, he means. Her original prey, before she gave up on a conventional way of life and went full mass murderess. That Tama found this when others might have overlooked mean it’s all the more frustrating he’s only just getting the level of involvement he deserves to have in this moment.
“You mean the 'are you watching' one?” Hitoshi recites although no one asked him to.
The press are the ones frothing the hardest over those murders. One clever journo also put them together with a sexual molester who smashed himself to death on the last train home, which prompted the police to put out a statement listing all Shiyoko’s known victims up until the junkies. It’s a lucky thing Shiyoko hasn’t put her name anywhere publicly yet – except in tattoos on dead drug addicts, who the piranhas haven’t gotten a scent of. They might still.
Hitoshi sobers up a bit more after that, perhaps realising Aizawa might leave him outside if he makes any more of an ass of himself. Aizawa might leave Hitoshi out here anyway, but only because it’s dangerous. If there’s any chance this suspect recognises Hitoshi… but then, what a way to spot a fake.
So Aizawa just takes Hitoshi softly by the upper arm and guides him a shade closer, more behind Aizawa than next to him. Human shield positioning, Hizashi would call it – as well as unacceptable, because Aizawa is meant to remove them both from the danger rather than put himself as the barrier that breaks first – but at least it’s something. And Hizashi isn’t here. “Stay there.” In Aizawa’s protective shadow, he means, even if that suggests it’s dangerous enough that he shouldn’t drag Hitoshi in there at all. But when’s that stopped Aizawa before?
Hitoshi surprises Aizawa by whipping out a supple, “Yessir,” that’s closer to one syllable than two, but it’s a shade more obedient than he usually is. Aizawa feels a lurch of pride that’d make him weak at the knees, if his knees were ever weak (for anything except Hizashi and bullets). This is important stuff, so it’s good Hitoshi’s buckling down. The ability to work hard when needed is a critical skill for any aspiring Hero. But especially him.
Tamakawa catches a look like a fly in honey, where Aizawa’s the fly and the honey is Tama’s golden saucer-eyes. Aizawa nods, and Tamakawa reaches for the handle, guiding the door open with a click like the hammer of a pistol being cocked.
Inside, a man of indiscriminate age sits at the table with his hands splayed flat across the surface, his eyes staring dead ahead and straight through the couple of police officers stood across from him.
“Alright, fellas,” Tama calls across the room with enough salt in his tone Aizawa reckons they’re familiar. “Here come the big guns.”
The two detectives look so similar, the generic kind of policeman a child would draw on the back of a restaurant menu to kill time, it seems genuinely astonishing they aren’t related – they might be, Aizawa supposes, but it would be even more peculiar if they were. A difference thereafter becomes obvious when one’s expression shifts to that of an impressed ‘oh shit’ eyebrow-raiser, while the other morphs to an unimpressed scowl.
“You mean that homeless dude who sleeps on top of the breakroom vending machine and a kid?” the nonplussed officer scoffs, both his hands propped wide on the edge of the table, the handle of the gun tilting forward on his cocked hip.
“And if we’re the cavalry, what does that say about you?” Hitoshi counter-proposes without a moment’s hesitation. If the challenge were to get one of these officers under the control of his quirk, Hitoshi would have already achieved it.
“Who the hell do you–” The guy’s less-angry lookalike reaches for his partner and draws him back by the shoulder, cutting off the tirade with another scowl. Aizawa didn’t realise the good cop and bad cop combo actually came in a matching set.
“So, you’re the famous Deathnote Killer?” Hitoshi opens like he’s the highest-ranking among all of them, but that kind of comes with the territory of being a headstrong teenager. Hitoshi keeps his barriers so firmly up that they carry on several feet past the ceiling, but Aizawa can understand that at a time and place like this. He’s grown up in an environment of mistrust, where seeming indifferent or even arrogant is better than anyone knowing where the cracks in his fractured past might have made him weak.
“Yes,” the mysterious man answers dutifully, even turning to look at Hitoshi as he says it. “I killed them and made it look like suicide.” That’s interesting, and Aizawa makes note of the deliberate sidestepping of Shiyoko’s brainwashing quirk in this supposed account.
“Yeah, remind me who you killed again?” Tama takes over, and the suspect’s glassy gaze swings expectantly over to the next speaker.
There’s a slight hesitation, but otherwise, the man seems calm as he answers: “The lawyer Shiro Motoi, and a man whose name I don’t know, but I cut open his belly and wrote on the wall in his blood.”
“That’s all?” Hitoshi says incredulously, though he stays behind Aizawa and just kind of leans out and around him. Putting a hand behind himself, Aizawa guides Hitoshi correctively back into his shadow.
“Why?” Aizawa deliberately speaks the loudest, noticing the way it commands the man’s otherwise brain-dead attention.
“... Why?” he echoes like it’s difficult to understand.
“Yeah. Like, why did you kill them?” Hitoshi picks up Aizawa’s track-change quickly, chaining it further. “Or why hand yourself in now?” There’s another important question, Aizawa thinks as soon as he hears it.
“I… I…” The man starts to stall.
“Pull up his sleeves,” Aizawa suddenly orders, and the matching cops give him a puzzled look.
But Tama’s got the idea, hopefully. “Do it,” he growls at the guys, who split either side of the table and quickly hold the suspect’s arms, starting to unbutton his shirt cuffs. Meanwhile the guy just keeps going, “I, I, I–” without actually taking it anywhere. It’s a couple of agonising seconds before the good-cop on the far side finds what they’re looking for. The bad-cop is on Aizawa and Hitoshi’s side, the table with the suspect between them, Tama on the opposite side of the table.
Right here on the man's forearm, among all the needle scars – because anyone can be a junkie – the infamous tattoo: SHIYOKO WILL SET ME FREE. This time it's encircled with a wreath of ‘Hakamata Shiyoko’s written in marker pen, which explains the detached panic in the next victim's eyes.
“What the fuck–” the bad cop snarls as the man suddenly lunges for the good cop's gun. Tama's hand goes for his weapon, while Aizawa shoves an arm urgently behind himself again to grab Hitoshi, whose wrist is there, waiting and willing to slip into Aizawa’s directive grasp.
“Drop your weapon!” Tamakawa roars as he raises his police-issue revolver to point at the tattooed man. “I said drop it!”
But the man is already grabbing the not-so-good-now cop’s gun and raising it with unnatural force that overpowers any attempts to wrestle the weapon back.
By the time Aizawa’s barked, “Get down!” and dropped to the floor, pulling Hitoshi with him just to be sure, the foul-tempered cop has whipped out his own weapon, and they've got themselves a regular shoot-out. Aizawa knows the drill, and anything he can do to help this situation can be done from the goddamn ground, as far as he's concerned. Hizashi would be outraged if Aizawa dared to come home with any(more) bullet holes in him than when he left. Hizashi knows exactly how many Aizawa has: seven, and that’s the number Aizawa promised to keep it at. Not that he minds; Aizawa’s no fan of being shot.
From the floor, it strikes Aizawa that the funny thing about this particular shootout is that all three of them are aiming at the same person.
Such consensus means a series of shots fire in quick succession, skull-splitting at such close range and in the concrete room. Aizawa feels Hitoshi flinching behind him, hands smartly clasped over his ears to prevent the strong ringing happening in Aizawa’s. (Hizashi’s quirk has Aizawa’s hearing shot to shit anyway.) The first gunshot is the brainwashed drone, who – in a spin on a classic Dr. Shinsou murder – brings the cop's gun to his temple and pulls the trigger.
With the barrel to his forehead, the bullet tears straight through the man's frontal lobe and blows out the other side of his head. The explosion of his skull is little impediment to the trajectory of the bullet, which keeps going and rips through the bad cop's arm, throwing off his own shot, which, thankfully, misses his partner and thunks into the heavily reinforced wall of the interrogation room. They shouldn't have had guns in here at all, really, but try convincing nervous police of that around a potential cop killer.
The third and final shot is Tamakawa’s, and it goes straight through the man’s chest – an unnecessary insurance policy, seeing as he’s missing the rest of his head. The fur of Tama’s face is literally splattered with it, some caught in his whiskers as his wide-eyed expression of fear turns his pupils into slits. The body, sans the parts that’ve been painted all over the room, falls off the chair from the force of the shot and hits the floor with a very-dead thump.
Aizawa’s less glad to be on the floor, after initially missing most of the gore, but the biggest problem on his hands right now is that of the cop with a big fucking hole in his arm. The danger has passed, even if the horror remains. Running down the goddamn walls, as it happens.
“Hitoshi,” Aizawa drills with focused intensity. “Go to the front desk and have them call an ambulance.” By the time he gets this instruction out, Aizawa’s already stepped up to the wounded officer, grabbing him by the arm and eliciting a tortured scream as Aizawa clamps down over the fresh bullet hole. It hurts like a bitch, Aizawa knows, but the guy will thank him later. With his other hand, Aizawa whips a medpack off his belt, shaking it open as Tama lowers his weapon and blinks a few times.
Hitoshi’s already gone by then, and Aizawa does feel a pang of panic at the kid’s absence. The press are out there, and they know who Hitoshi is, no less. But this is an emergency, and it’s no good having an intern if not for things like this. If Aizawa has to put a bag over Hitoshi’s head so no one recognises him and he can still be of actual help, so help Aizawa where’s the bloody bag? It also gets Hitoshi out of this room right away, and that’s a small mercy Aizawa wants to give him after what they all just saw.
Tamakawa finally speaks while Aizawa is wrapping the wad of dressing over the injured cop’s arm, reapplying pressure to the sound of another pained groan. It’s not to say anything good. Typical cop reaction, in fact. “She sent him here to mock us.”
Maybe, but Aizawa’s not convinced. His voice comes out a hoarse croak, barely audible above the ringing pitch in his ears. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Notes:
BOOM... literally.
I considered giving a graphic violence warning at the start of this chapter but felt it'd spoil the dramatic climax by setting y'all up to expect it to happen. Ah, the eternal struggle of trigger warnings vs. suspenseful storytelling. But then I figured my disclaimers at the start, in the tags, and throughout the a/n of this fic should have been enough that if you've read this far then you're probably just as into it as I am.
As a rule I don't like gratuitous violence that's purely an end in itself or just out to shock people, but I think when a narrative builds and creates a context that enables graphic violence to feel right for the moment, it becomes all the more impactful - see my utter adoration of the Kill Bill films, which are right up there among my stylistic influences, and seeing as they're Tarintino doing a homage to Japanese revenge/samurai films, and mha is a Japanese take on superheroes that I'm writing fanfic of in a homage to noir, we've just got a lot of metalayers in this that only really comes from this hyper-evolved nothing-is-original-anymore kind of fanwork, and I think that's just *super* neat.
OH BUT I'M SCREAMING OVER HITOSHI AND YANKUMI ALSO JSYK. One of the funnest things about a bigass story like this is me as the creator discovering the character dynamics that naturally evolve from the cast that the main plotline generates and seeing how everything plays out. In other words, I didn't plan it, but I *do* ship it.
P.s.
AHH THE FIRST MENTALIST HOMEWORK/LESSON STUFF TOO. I FORGOT HOW MUCH GREAT SHIT IS IN THIS CHAPTER. (Bc I'm writing 20 chapters ahead and only come back to these chapters when I edit them every week for update night). This one's giving me LIFE yo.
pppppps - ALSO FORGOT this is my shoutout to Hitoshi stealin' him some of Aizawa's capture weapon and that being how the thing happens. I'd actually come up with some original stuff for Hitoshi + support gear as a contingency when I was first writing this story, but then canon came out and was like bitchhhhhhhhh they're bondage babies 2gether and i was like yes ma'amsir.
Chapter 33: In the Blood
Summary:
Aizawa remains unconvinced – of anything.
Chapter Text
“What the hell do you mean, you ‘wouldn’t be so sure’?!”
Tama seems to be taking this rather personally, which is a shame. But Aizawa’s tolerant enough to cut him some slack after someone’s head just exploded in the room with them; not to mention, Tama put a round in the guy’s chest on the way down. At least Aizawa definitively knows that Tama shoots to kill.
Aizawa’s got both his hands wrapped around the arm of the wounded police officer, whose countenance could be likened to the colour and consistency of wet concrete. That isn’t a great sign, especially compared to the only white-as-a-sheet complexion of his uninjured lookalike on the other side of the room. The shaken cop, whose gun Victim #19 just used to blow his own brains out. The disarmed officer is starting to babble, “I-I didn’t think he was gonna…”
“Don’t think about that now,” Aizawa spits with his teeth grinding so hard against each other he’ll wake up with a mouth full of dust if he’s not careful. This piece of direction applies to just about anyone in the room; both Tama’s outrage at Aizawa’s expression of doubt, and his own internal dwelling on why he didn’t expect a mad suspect who’s snatched a cop’s gun to turn it on himself with such determination. Aizawa wishes he’d seen it coming, and he almost had, but not enough to have done anything to stop it. He needs to refine those mentalist sixth senses a lot more to keep ahead of a mess like this. Who would have thought those moments he writes off as gut instinct, the before-ness of something about to happen, was actually the swaying of a mentalist dial in his head, the needle rusty and unmeasured in its crude readings of the room?
“Tama,” Aizawa speaks clearly, coaxing Tamakawa like he’s talking a suspicious alleyway tom out of a cardboard box with an open tin of cat food. With a pivot of his ears, followed by his gaze a second later, Tamakawa breaks away from his dead-ahead stare to look straight at Aizawa, those big searching eyes full of curiosity. At least Tama’s still alive and unhurt. “Help me get him onto a chair.”
The wounded officer sags at the knees. Aizawa’s strong enough to hold him up, but there’s a chair right there, next to the half-headless body that’s spilling a truly atrocious amount of blood all over the floor. The cleanup crew are going to have fucking nightmares about this. Hell, Aizawa might.
Tamakawa holsters his gun – finally – and moves fast, dragging the chair around the table on the side of the room without a small lake of blood spreading across it. He swings the chair underneath the drooping cop’s ass as Aizawa slowly lowers him down to sit.
Around this time, Hitoshi bursts back through the door. “The ambulance is on the way,” he updates first and foremost, then tunes in to the state of affairs with the living and dead people in the room – thankfully, the balance between those two categories hasn’t changed since he left. “What else can I do?” He’s staying proactive in an emergency: good man – good kid; maybe something between the two.
Aizawa continues to address Tama. “Where the fuck is Tsukauchi?”
“I’ll call him,” Tama answers with just a tiny quiver in his voice. He did just shoot someone a minute ago, though the guy was already dead when it happened.
Now Aizawa turns back to Hitoshi. “What was the state of the lobby?”
“Well, they heard the shots,” Hitoshi answers gravely. “So they know somebody’s been fucked up.” Because what’s a fresh murder without a gaggle of press to deescalate the situation, circling like vultures over a buffalo dying of thirst?
“Were you recognised?” Aizawa’s trying not to worry, really he is.
Hitoshi's tired eyeroll doesn't show much patience for that fact, though. “I took care of it.”
Maybe Hitoshi is playing him on purpose, Aizawa thinks in a moment of split indecision. There's no way Hitoshi would be reckless enough to use his quirk on people – not even the press, who are barely people – in a situation like this. But maybe Hitoshi wants to be sure Aizawa knows that too.
“Fine,” Aizawa replies stonily, as this isn't exactly his priority at present. Hitoshi seems to accept that, and it's hardly the time for tests of faith anyway.
“Hey, asshole,” Tama’s voice rises as he addresses the hapless detective on the other end of his phone. “Yeah, yeah, I've got a fucking emergency for you, alright. Get back here now.”
“Tell him the Chief wants to talk to him too,” Aizawa calls over, and Tama's gaze darts back and forth in recognition.
“Eraser says the Chief also wants you for something.” There's a slight pause, for which Aizawa could fill in the words like a game of hangman. “How the fuck should I know?” Another stall, and Tama’s expression sharpens, his nose wrinkling until a set of incisors are just visible past his top lip. “I don’t care, just walk out of the damn restaurant then… well, Iwaya will just have to pay, won't she? The bitch makes more than I do. She can afford to–yeah, yeah, can you save the fucking chivalry for a time I'm not covered in little bits of brains, okay?” Another of those Tsukauchi’s talking pauses before Tama replies, “The fuck do you think it means? Drop your stupid date and get over here.”
Whether the conversation is brought to a natural close (unlikely) or not, Tama hangs up like someone getting off their once-monthly call with a parent they hate. So it was a date, according to Tama at least, but he might only be repeating what Tsukauchi told him.
“You two are gonna make terrific partners one day,” Aizawa comments only slightly sarcastically.
“Fuck off, Eraser,” Tama growls territorially. “I'm really not in the mood.”
‘Are you gonna shoot me?’ Aizawa would rib if Tama hadn't just sorta-actually killed a guy, though this victim could perhaps be written off as doomed from the start. If there were any chance of it working, Aizawa would have used his quirk on the tattooed victim, but he knows that unless his gaze is fixed on Shiyoko herself, then there's nothing he can do.
“I'll… check on the ambulance.” Hitoshi’s already halfway out of the door; Aizawa doesn't blame him for wanting to get out of this room in a hurry.
“Watch yourself out there,” Aizawa crows like a broody bird that can only sit on one person in need at a time. And Hitoshi isn't really in need, Aizawa’s just worrying – one of the tell-tale symptoms he's gotten really stuck on someone, but that's nothing new at this point.
In fact, Hitoshi is so accustomed to Aizawa’s worry that he treats it with a shrill, “Yes, mother,” which he throws backward as he's striding down the hallway. It reverberates off the walls to distort his voice even more, and that’s an interesting concept. At least Hitoshi seems to be holding up from the trauma of watching a man blast his brains across the wall a few minutes ago. Or he isn't, and all this front is just a disaster shoved off for later. Aizawa’s might be.
Another problem – one that's going to hit sooner rather than later – is that the pulse underneath Aizawa’s palm is getting weaker. The concrete of the cop’s face seems to be slowly beginning to set, forming a mask that’ll become permanent if they don’t get help soon. But they already watched one person die today, so no way is Aizawa letting anyone else slip away without a fight.
“Hey,” Aizawa calls to the uninjured lookalike cop, who’s standing more or less in the same place as when the victim grabbed his gun, looking overwhelmed as ever. This is now an active crime scene, not to mention a lot for anyone to take in all at once. Especially when it was this officer’s gun that put this leaky hole in his partner’s arm. “Come and talk to him.”
“What?” The cop starts to try and walk around to the two of them, only to stop at the expanding pool of blood as it creeps across the floor. He loops back around past Tama, who’s also standing in the same spot as if his boots have been glued to the floor.
“Talk to him. Keep him conscious,” Aizawa snaps a little more this time, and the timid cop comes closer to his injured doppelganger.
“H-hey, Kaito, can you hear me? It's Honda.” The movement of the now-named Kaito’s eyes is sluggish, but it's there. Honda – same name as the zombie they probably still have upstairs, but it’s so commonplace there’s unlikely to be any relation – stoops closer while Aizawa maintains his tight grip on Kaito's badly done arm piercing. “I'm real sorry you got hit, man. I'm so sorry. It was my gun and now you're–”
Fear is dominant like no other emotion, a carnivorous wraith that consumes and keeps consuming until nothing else is left. Aizawa could use a little help fighting it.
“Tell him he's going to be alright,” Aizawa orders, and he could say it himself, but who the fuck is he? It's better from a friend. Or at least a partner.
Honda stutters, but he makes it. “Y-you're gonna be alright, Kaito. They're bringing the ambulance ‘round soon. I'm gonna buy you beers for a whole year after this.”
A low gurgle rises in Kaito's throat as his chin lifts, and the throb against Aizawa’s palm feels a little stronger than before. Like the slurring of a hard alcoholic in the depths of a drinking binge, the wounded officer burbles, “Y’better.”
Honda breaks into laughter tinged with hysteria and reaches a shaking hand to squeeze Kaito's shoulder on the side opposite to his injury. “You betcha, buddy. Just as soon as you're out of hospital.”
Speaking of which, Hitoshi bursts through the door a moment later trailing a couple of paramedics and – oh look, it's rookie cop Yamaguichi Kumiko, right on his heels.
The change that takes place in Yamaguichi’s face from her being just outside the room to being inside it tells Aizawa that Hitoshi did not warn her about what she was walking into. This conclusion is reinforced by her high-pitched, “AHH! What happened?!” She ducks round Hitoshi and rushes forward, almost slipping – yep, that’s a little bit of human brain – when Tama catches her with a blood-flecked paw on her shoulder.
“Easy, rookie.” Tama steadies Yamaguichi on her feet with something that’s very nearly a purr, but the warmth only lasts a moment, a brief appearance of the sun behind clouds. “It was someone being… controlled by the true killer,” Tamakawa explains with carefully caged terms, just enough for people who know what’s going on to recognise the words, vague enough for anyone out of the loop to remain that way. “He grabbed Honda’s gun and shot himself before we could stop him. The bullet hit Kaito.” By mistake? Maybe. But Aizawa’s not convinced of that either.
The paramedics quickly take over with the injured officer, so it’s a short moment before Aizawa can withdraw his bloodied hands, shaking out the tension from the tight grip he’d been clenching Kaito’s arm with. A splatter of tiny blood drops fall from Aizawa’s fingers, mingling with the ocean let out by Shiyoko’s latest victim. Will the blood ever stop?
Or more accurately, with whose blood will it stop?
Aizawa wipes his palms on his front and catches Hitoshi’s eye; a lavender gaze that hangs like stained glass windchimes in the open doorframe, almost as if he’s waiting for Aizawa to find him. A slight gesture of Aizawa’s head, accompanied by a more fully realised Thought – capital T, like the sharpening of a blunt pencil to a pinprick point – suggests that they should make themselves scarce. While Yamaguichi is starting to squawk over her partner and the nearly partner-less Honda, Aizawa and Hitoshi slip out the room like dishwater running down a drain.
“Not sticking around, huh?” Hitoshi asks – sort of – as he leads the way out of the room, lagging to draw even and then letting Aizawa take the lead. They're (mostly Aizawa) tracking a terribly conspicuous pattern of bloody footprints as he heads to the nearest fire-escape stairwell. But it’s not important. He needs… space. Just some liminal zone, where there are no people or twice-shot bodies or policemen with holes in their arms or lakes of blood encompassing the floor. Fuck, Aizawa could use a cigarette.
“First rule of being an underground Hero,” Aizawa says gruffly as he hits the fire-door into the stairwell like ocean surf, pushing shoulder-first into the open and filling the space with his walking-scream presence. He takes a deep breath as he steps out in the airy column of cut-out space in the building, stairs wrapping up the floors like a coiled serpent. Aizawa’s voice echoes off the unforgiving concrete walls and metal bannisters. Nothing soft in here – except them, all flesh and blood, easily broken. “Only stick around other people’s crime scenes.” Aizawa learned that lesson far too late in his career.
“Ooh, that sounds pretty shady.” Hitoshi’s forced gregariousness chafes. There’s no room for such cheek in a harsh, stripped-back space like this.
“Cut the shit, Hitoshi.” Aizawa walks to the staircase and drops into a squat on the second step up.
“Jeez.” Hitoshi is watching him more carefully now. “Are you alright?”
No, Aizawa thinks, but Hitoshi’s the one who needs to be able to lean on him, not the other way around. “Yeah,” he groans into the heel of his palm, fingers splayed across his brow, only to remember too late where his hands have been. His jumpsuit is pretty absorbent, but his fingers have enough of that moisture-turned-tacky quality to make it clear Aizawa hasn’t escaped some inadvertent self-decoration. Which is usually Hitoshi’s move.
Pulling his soiled mitt back, Aizawa tumbles straight into Hitoshi’s smile, tucked away in the corner of the boy’s mouth like a cosy nook to curl up in with a book. It’s barely there, but what is there is more genuine. “You got a little something up here.” Hitoshi gestures to his forehead, and the smile lifts a fraction more, adding a skylight and pot plant to the nook to make it more homey.
But Aizawa’s not ready for comfort. “I know,” he grunts, rubbing his face on his sleeve and then taking a few long breaths. Trying to figure out how much of the ringing in his ears is gunshot-aftermath and how much is him losing his mind. Does it even matter?
But Hitoshi’s too smart for that. “So was all that ‘if you need help’ stuff just bullshit then?”
“What?” Aizawa shoots caustically, like he doesn’t know and is just pretending not to.
But Hitoshi’s not playing. “Ask for it, then.”
Except nothing’s ever that simple. If only Hitoshi could solve all Aizawa’s problems, this case first among them. But that would defeat the point of teenagers being teenagers and adults being adults. Even when most adults act like teenagers half the time anyway. Like right now; Aizawa’s not meaning to be hurtful, but he does mean it when he says, “You can’t help me.”
That smarts a little. Aizawa sees the twitch, if not a flinch, in Hitoshi’s troubled face. Aizawa’s babysat two visits to Dr. Shinsou; he knows Hitoshi can bluff with the best of them.
Aizawa knows he's behaving badly, from the viewpoint just outside his body where he can watch himself disassociating. It's just inside this horrible meatsack that he can’t seem to get the literal or metaphorical blood off his hands. If Aizawa hadn’t been guarding Hitoshi so preciously, fixated on keeping him safe, maybe Aizawa would’ve been able to… get himself shot, probably.
Hitoshi can’t read minds, at least as far as Aizawa’s aware, but he can pick up vibrations like he’s got his fingertips touched to the piano strings of Aizawa’s mind in particular. That’s something Aizawa’s got more experience with, a door Hitoshi's ever-more comfortable inviting himself through.
So when Hitoshi simply tells him, “You couldn’t have stopped it,” for a terrible moment, Aizawa just wants to slam the lid on Hitoshi’s dextrous pianist fingers. He doesn’t want someone in his head all the time. Not at moments like this.
“You don’t know that.” Aizawa’s croak is hoarser than a cigar-smoking bullfrog. Hitoshi’s just a kid… even if he’s not just anything, and Aizawa’s just in denial.
“He was dead from the moment Shiyoko put her name on him,” Hitoshi says defiantly, and maybe this is what he needs to believe, to cope with all this. Aizawa shouldn’t take it from him. It’s just Aizawa who remains at war with a world he cannot change. It'd be reckless to share that darkness with others.
“Maybe.” Aizawa’s tone bleeds like rust from corroded metal, running red across the sand at low tide. Or a corpse beached on a riverbank. Something gone, irrevocably past the point of being what it’s meant to be.
“Look at me, teach.” It’s a trick Aizawa’s used on Hitoshi before. He knows it well. Usually the eyes coaxing Aizawa’s gaze in moments like this are Hizashi’s emerald beauties, but not today.
Aizawa can’t stand to look. Except Hitoshi’s got one more layer of intimacy to peel back like tearing dead skin, revealing the shiny raw flesh underneath. “Aizawa.”
Aizawa looks.
Hitoshi is standing a few paces in front of Aizawa, long and willowy compared to the squat pile of bitter regret hunched on the stairs like a goblin. He really does look like his father, but Aizawa’s beginning to separate the Doc’s sinister spectre from what Hitoshi truly is – which is a Hero, through and through. Not broken yet, not crushed under the terrible weight of what can’t be stopped. All the Heroes in the world, the Symbol of Peace clinging by his fingertips to a dream that can’t last, aren’t enough to stop the fact that innocent people suffer and die every single day, and they’re but shovels against an avalanche.
Aizawa’s seen that part more than most people. He senses the tremors underground like the warning of an earthquake. Something big is coming, and that’s why this new generation, the ones in his class as well as the would-be Hero before him, need to be ready for a world darker than they’ve ever known. They’re the last lot that will have been born in the light for a while – though Hitoshi sure as shit came from the darkness. Maybe as long as Heroes like Hitoshi keep crawling out of the woodwork, there will be hope enough for all of them. Just about.
“Even if you could've stopped the bullet, Shiyoko’s quirk had already destroyed his mind.” Hitoshi seems so tall like this, his posture a sharp upward cut as he stands up straight with his gaze directed at Aizawa below him. The ring of Aizawa’s capture weapon that Hitoshi has so expertly filched – Hizashi would be proud – sits around Hitoshi's shoulders like a clingy cat. His shoulders seem broader than Aizawa has noticed before now, though maybe that's because the lanky teen isn't slouching for once. At times like this, if Aizawa squints, he’ll see the man Hitoshi’s going to become, one day, many years from now.
A rare notion occurs – one Aizawa’s unfamiliar with, after seeing the back of so many students he’s dusted from his mind like chalk off a blackboard – which is that he would like to see Hitoshi grow up.
And it just might be happening in front of Aizawa’s itchy, dry eyes. Because it's with wisdom that echoes beyond his years that Hitoshi delivers, “None of this is on you.”
Aizawa has never been so fucking wrong, because Hitoshi can help him; by saying things Aizawa didn't know he needed to hear, relieving the pressure of guilt he's been allowing to cave his chest from the inside.
Aizawa has a thought – less of a thought, more of a thirst. “Are you sure?” What Aizawa means is that all of this has been on him, the one who chose to start pursuing this case with such self-destructive intensity. It's swallowed him whole and then regurgitated back a pitch-black mass to go over like a cow chews the cud. Aizawa didn’t have to bring Hitoshi into it – but he did.
Aizawa has verbally responded to Hitoshi so many times that his mind must be a slow-spinning door at this point. It's just as Hitoshi starts to speak again that he finally slips his quirk over Aizawa like one of those easy-going coils of their shared capture weapon. “I'm sure,” Hitoshi soothes in his lazy river voice, the persuader using all 100% of his mind, then flows into a sedating, “Deep breath,” that fills Aizawa like the wind of the gods.
Inflating his tarred-barrel smoker's lungs, Aizawa feels the tension purging from his body under Hitoshi’s inescapable willpower. Hitoshi separates Aizawa’s worry from its perch on his brain stem, gets him to just let go for a moment. Hitoshi breathes in time with Aizawa, the conductor leading a soloist while the rest of the orchestra rests.
Hitoshi stops inhaling, and Aizawa freezes on instinct – or something deeper. If Aizawa does his homework and focuses on the sensation, fiddling his fingers around the delicate dials of that decades-old radio he's trying to tune rather than nod along to the static, he can just barely sense the connection between Hitoshi's mind and his own. It's like fumbling to connect a phone charger cable in the dark. After a few seconds of Aizawa holding his breath as if spellbound – he is, in a way – Hitoshi breathes out, and the charger suddenly connects, a rush of electricity surging through Aizawa as his exhale follows at Hitoshi's command. Whatever Hitoshi is doing in that mentalist fiberoptic that’s streaming straight into Aizawa’s brain, he’s already fucking good at it.
Based on the way Hitoshi used several of his competitors as mounts to get himself into the tournament section of the Sports Festival (and Aizawa only checked the footage a few times just to be sure of what he saw), Aizawa’s worked out that Hitoshi can make the people he's brainwashing act out his commands without needing to deliver every instruction verbally. Anything (anything) can be forced with a Shinsou brainwashing quirk, though going against the grain seems to make the mind foggier, less aware of what’s going on. The pure clarity of Aizawa’s own thoughts in this controlled headspace makes him think that Hitoshi is being gentle with him, and if that isn't an utterly peculiar revelation.
As delicately as Hitoshi's ironclad grip reached out to take Aizawa’s mind, it's returned a little less frantic than it started out. Aizawa feels Hitoshi disengage his quirk, but the connection remains, a not-quite-humming something that makes all the neurons in Aizawa's brain vibrate at a slightly higher frequency. Or maybe that's the gunshot ringing in his ears again.
After a pause so poignant it could be called an experimental poem, Hitoshi blows the dust off a little piece of the past. “Better?” Aizawa is only prepared to forgive the frosting of sarcasm on account of what Hitoshi just did for him – what Aizawa couldn't do for himself.
With one more deep breath and a nod, Aizawa heaves himself back to his feet. No wonder Iwaya can’t keep her hands off Hitoshi, if being brainwashed by him is anything close to being completely at one with his whole consciousness. Aizawa can try to imagine, but it’s like trying to fly to the sun on wax wings. Aizawa’s got no doubt that for a mentalist of any calibre, Hitoshi’s mind is a paradisical wonderland. When he wants it to be.
“Thanks.” Aizawa says about plenty, because not everything needs to be chopped down to specifics.
Hitoshi wears a grin that could light dark alleyways with just enough of a lunar glow for someone to feel safe walking at four in the morning. He's going to make a wonderful Hero one day. “You're welcome, teach.”
Tsukauchi follows the bloody footprints and finds Aizawa and Hitoshi both copping a squat on the stairs in comfortable silence. Hitoshi is on the step below Aizawa, the chaotic peaks of his hair like an exotic plant sitting out on a ledge. It's been a while since Tama called Tsukauchi, but maybe not long enough to catch up on the latest killing and his word with the Chief about this visit to Dr. Shinsou that's a bad idea through and through. But that’s what they’re about to find out.
“I must say, Eraser.” Tsukauchi's voice rebounds like a ball bouncing around a squash court. “You have an express talent for fucking up my plans.”
“I didn't do anything,” Aizawa says and means even more than he can say. Hitoshi gives him a wary ‘not this again’ glance before returning his watchful gaze to the detective.
“So, you were gonna visit my dear old dad and didn't invite me?” Hitoshi poses more maliciously than he ought to be allowed to get away with, but there's no way Aizawa’s stopping him. If it were Aizawa’s call, he'd punch Tsukauchi in the mouth for attempting anything so damn stupid, so it’s probably better that Hitoshi’s dealing with the perpetually behind gumshoe.
“Yeah well, you've bollocksed that up too,” Tsukauchi answers bitterly. So the Chief spoke with him already after all – Aizawa must be less of a priority than he thought.
A serpent slumbering in Aizawa's belly begins to stir, wary in his next question. “What do you mean?”
“I had to cancel my whole afternoon to come and clean up this mess,” Tsukauchi grumbles more than berates, but they go through the paces because that’s just the way they are. Maybe Iwaya’s mad at Tsukauchi for ditching their date, but she doesn’t seem like the type. There has to be something else.
Because if Tsukauchi’s here, that means he couldn’t be somewhere else in the time it’s taken him to get back to the station, catch up on the mess back there, and then track Aizawa down in an empty stairwell with a trail of bloody footprints leading out of it for his side of the story.
“We didn’t make the poor bastard blow his brains out,” Hitoshi growls like a cub protecting his parent, the hibernating black bear licking emotional wounds in his mental ‘Aizawa cave’ (Hizashi’s compromise after Aizawa objected to ‘man cave’ ). But someone did make the victim kill himself, and it has to be for more than a spiteful fuck you to the police. They’re not important enough to Shiyoko’s vision. There’s only one thing that she cares about more than anything else.
“Doing what?” Aizawa presses as that serpent climbs higher up his chest, winding between his ribs like tangling between the branches of a tree. The sinister realisation coils tighter. “Visiting the prison?” Visiting the Doc, the poisoned fruit at the heart of Aizawa’s hunch. And it’s only a hunch, but Aizawa bets he hates to be kept waiting
“Yeah,” Tsukauchi sighs the affirmation. The detective’s mouth is pulled into a tight line, lips pursed like he’s been sucking on lemons all the way back to the station. Aizawa would wonder where he took Iwaya for their (maybe first?) date, if it was anything he cared about. “Fat chance of that now. I haven’t even called the Warden to explain why I didn’t show up on time.”
The snake has finally wrapped around Aizawa’s neck, closing the deadly loop. He identifies the cause of this slithering uncertainly: why Tama was wrong about Shiyoko mocking the police – not in the first instance, at least.
“It was a distraction,” Aizawa says so quietly the boa constrictor closing off his airway could be real. But Hitoshi hears him.
“A distraction?” Hitoshi queries. “For what?” From what, that should be.
“Throwing timings off, pulling police attention by making someone appear to confess to the murders.” And then the latest victim’s untimely death. “It’s all misdirection.”
“From what?” Hitoshi pushes again, on the right track as usual, but now there’s a drop of fear in his voice, like ink spiralling through water. Aizawa pulls his phone out, taps the passcode and brings up the Warden’s number. The prattling fool has done it this time, but there’s a chance it’s not too late. “Who are you calling?”
“The Warden,” Aizawa answers, and sees the scowl land on Tsukauchi’s face like a blackbird on power lines. Overstepping his bounds again, but Aizawa’s not calling to tell the Warden they have to rearrange the ill-planned visit he and Hitoshi weren’t meant to be privy to. The whole thing’s a fuckup, one great, bungled–
The ringing phone picks up. “I should have expected it would be you, Eraserhead.”
Aizawa’s got no patience for the Warden’s tart small talk. “Is he–”
“You’re too late,” Warden Tanaka cuts Aizawa off, and the snake’s fangs extend and bite, digging deep into Aizawa’s neck and unloading the venom hat has no known cure. The irrevocable, irreversible tragedy that Aizawa still didn’t see coming until it was too late. “He’s already gone.”
Aizawa drops the phone from his ear and puts it on speaker, the worried and curious faces of Hitoshi and Tsukauchi crowding closer. “Say that again,” Aizawa prompts, voice echoing in the bottom the stairwell.
“Dr. Shinsou has escaped the facility,” the Warden reiterates in full, and the undetonated shell finally explodes. Tsukauchi looks shocked. Aizawa probably just looks depressed (as he always does, according to Hizashi). But Hitoshi looks afraid.
“What the hell do you mean? ” Tsukauchi says in spite of it being a desperately obvious question, but turns something more sensible out of it with a follow-up. “He… how?”
“One of our guards entered the Professor’s cellblock a short while ago and removed his noise-cancelling headphones,” the Warden relates in a piece so practiced it could have been a prerecorded sound byte. “We’re still trying to determine why.” Oh, Aizawa’s got a pretty good guess why, but it’s Hitoshi who speaks next.
“How many?” Hitoshi asks, then contextualises, “Did he kill, I mean.” Of course Hitoshi knows this is the question to ask without doubt, confident that if this beast is on the loose, the question is not if but how many?
“Eight,” the Warden answers with the heavy tone of an extremely regretful man, “and one more missing.”
Aizawa and Tsukauchi issue in surround-sound the word, “Fuck,” with great emotion.
Hitoshi’s face is a blank, unreadable slate, but he’s probably saying something similar – or worse – on the inside.
“Where were you keeping him?” Aizawa has to be sure, even if it’s torture to know, because it’s torture not to know.
“In the basement. He’d been moved again… in advance of the detective’s visit.” The Warden and his shady fucking security power plays – the ones motivated by what feels safe to him, high up in his office with the Doc as far away from him as possible, shifting the monster around like he’s wheeling a caged tiger out for show. Putting other people at risk to sate his own twisted cocktail of fear and pride.
“Exactly when did he escape?” Tsukauchi demands with the hard grimace of a man who’s standing in a puddle that turned out to be much deeper than he thought it was. Like six feet over his fucking head.
“The alarm was raised about fifteen minutes ago, by which point Dr. Shinsou was already gone.”
“He killed eight people in fifteen minutes?” It really shows that Tsukauchi’s got no fucking idea what he’s dealing with – and if he’d been allowed to go there, the chance is good his body would be among those others scattering the Doc’s pioneer trail to freedom.
“The guards and prisoners Dr. Shinsou was able to gain control of killed that many… themselves included,” the Warden relates for the detective’s benefit more than Aizawa and Hitoshi’s: they know what the Doc’s capable of.
“Oh fuck.” It’s actually starting to sink in for Tsukauchi. About damn time.
Because it’s more than his lunch-date and afternoon that has been disrupted, not just another victim of the currently active serial killer, not just an interview with a captive person of interest to the case who’s not supposed to be a threat anymore. What Tsukauchi finally sees is that a new killer – the hands that have shaped Shiyoko, no less – more maniacal and practised, hardened and made bitter by his long years in prison, is now on the loose.
Notes:
Couple of important things to state outright here to pre-empt some inevitable questions or 'issues' people may notice.
The narrative of this story is an extension of Aizawa, and because he is a fallible human being with his own bias, experiences and opinions that makes him unreliable by nature. The trick of course is that he sees himself as a reliable narrator, and can convince us of that too by being so based on logic and reason, but we know it isn't really true. My favourite kind of writing is where the reality of a narrative bends with our narrator, so it may *feel* like things are exactly as Aizawa sees and portrays them, but this is by design only one perspective to the story.
This tilted narrative means that there are things Aizawa doesn't notice, but it doesn't mean they're not there - such as any the 'how is Hitoshi coping so well after what he just saw'-s, because in that moment Aizawa isn't able to perceive what's going on with Hitoshi because he's busy losing his fucking mind, and sees instead what Hitoshi is to him in that moment, which is heroic and strong, someone who can help Aizawa when he's struggling not to completely disassociate from the trauma of something he exposed himself to much more than he let Hitoshi be around it.
This also applies to Aizawa's working relationship with Tsukauchi, which seems to be another easy one for people to misunderstand by merit of assuming that Aizawa's biased perspective of Tsukauchi as always being in the wrong place at the wrong time is true to reality, and not just the perspective of someone who thinks they're always right observing a person who works and thinks differently to how they do. Tsukauchi is Aizawa's professional foil in this story, meaning that while the approach and choices Aizawa makes are representative of his flexible morality and interpretations of the law and protocol, Tsukauchi is more diligent in following it and typically doesn't make the same decisions that Aizawa would - this doesn't mean that Aizawa is right and Tsukauchi is wrong, just that they are different and Aizawa *sees* Tsukauchi as wrong, because Aizawa doesn't do a lot of putting himself in Tsukauchi's shoes and considering why the only official detective on the investigation might have made the decisions he did.
Their back-and-forth relationship may also seem to reinforce this friction, but it isn't meant to indicate that they genuinely oppose (or dislike) one another, I just find it really fucking funny when Aizawa doesn't get on with people, and that kind of digging-each-other-out working relationship where they're ultimately on the same side but pursue that in very different ways is a nuance that I enjoy showing, rather than a unrealistic (to me) portrayal of the Eraserhead Best Friends club, where everyone thinks he's amazing and right all the time and listens to everything he says. The entertaining part of someone who is an underdog/underground character is that they have to work across or against the system sometimes; so that friction, for any of you who see it and struggle with my specific characterisation and portrayal of Tsukauchi (or Tama for that matter) in relation to Aizawa and this story, it's meant to be there, and I believe there's an interpretation of events from outside Aizawa's own specific biased narrative that tells a much more balanced story, it's just not the one I've chosen to tell.
Oh also GOTCHA if you thought we were heading for another prison visit with murderdaddy. This one goes out to everyone who guessed at the Doc getting out, and doubly for the at-least-one commenter who speculated Shiyoko would be connected. But triply for anyone who got blindsided and didn't see it coming - actually being able to drop genuinely surprising plot twists almost 200k into a story is an honour I can only dream of.
Thanks and see you next week!
Chapter 34: Trust Fall
Summary:
Aizawa and Hitoshi keep moving, but it isn’t all smooth sailing.
Notes:
Last chapter was a big one, oof - thanks so much for all your reactions. I'm a bit slow/non-existent at responding to comments at the moment, my inbox is sitting at around 400 un-responded-to comments, but I read them all and it's been wonderful seeing those reactions come in.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi has never put on a bulletproof vest before, so Aizawa does it for him. The over-the-head-part is pretty self-explanatory, but Aizawa’s taken the lead on adjusting the fit to hug Hitoshi’s torso snugly enough, ensuring there are no vulnerable gaps where a stray bullet could slip between his ribs and cut his life tragically short. He can still get shot elsewhere, but Aizawa can only do so much – fitting a bulletproof vest is a basic act of care. That Hitoshi feels the need to fidget like a weasel while Aizawa does this is a mere distraction from his overarching purpose, which is to keep this boy safe. And a city with Dr. Shinsou running loose in it is inherently unsafe for Hitoshi. They're all on edge.
That's the more likely reason for Hitoshi's cranky, “Watch the goods,” while Aizawa paws at him, yanking the already-tight straps tighter like there's anything either of them can really do at this point. Aizawa scoffs at the notion of what ‘goods’ Hitoshi thinks he's referring to, but concedes to take pity on the teen, finishing up and overwhelming his more obsessive impulses to make extra-extra sure the vests fits properly… but not without one final test.
Aizawa grabs Hitoshi by the scruff of his bulletproof vest and lifts him on one arm, making sure the vest doesn’t open up any unexpected spots that Aizawa would hate to have not checked if they do end up getting shot at. Again.
This disconcerts the gangly all-legs teenager, who flails and swings his heels wildly at a floor that's just out of his reach. “C’mon, quit it!” Hitoshi nags as he tries to grab Aizawa’s wrist behind his back. Aizawa lets him drop again, landing with a soft thud of well-worn soles on the police station equipment room floor.
“Still nothing from your Ma?” Aizawa asks like he needs to be fixated on someone's safety to quiet the long roar of danger-panic in the back of his head.
“No,” Hitoshi answers in muted concern, and no wonder he’s worried. Kiki spoke to Chief Tsuragame earlier, but that was before the news landed of the Doc’s escape, and no one’s been able to get in touch with her since. Aizawa’s got no idea what Hitoshi must be going through right now – agony even worse than his own fear of what must lie in wait for them all with that psychotic killer on the loose. Let it not be forgotten that Dr. Shinsou’s killed more people in the first fifteen minutes of his freedom than Shiyoko took out in a week – though she’s bumped up her numbers of late: the ever-increasing cult of doomed drug addicts that Shiyoko has taken on in lieu of the devoted students the Doc rallied around him. Who knows what they’ll accomplish together?
Aizawa doesn’t know if the police are going to publicly release the news about Dr. Shinsou’s escape to the public, which is a decision that will happen at a much higher level than Aizawa will ever climb to from the gutters he's worked in for years. Gods on the mountain, discussing the little people’s fates like a game of Shogi. All anyone, Aizawa and Hitoshi included, can do while the chaos is all fresh and subject to escalation is prepare as best they can.
They all had a quick powwow, the key players of this case, in the alley out back of the police station where Tamakawa has been chain-smoking since giving Tsukauchi his statement and washing all the viscera off his face; his fur still a little damp, Aizawa could tell from the way it sat in places and stuck up in others.
Tsukauchi and Tamakawa decided to head over to the prison regardless of whether the Doc was there or not – if only to try and track where Dr. Shinsou might have gone after making his escape. It wasn’t total consensus at first, but they all came to agree that the Doc’s escape was Shiyoko’s plan all along, after an emphatic and appropriately shit-your-pants scary piece from Hitoshi that Shiyoko was “god-tier crazy-bitch obsessed with my dad.” Accepting that much, it only followed that Shiyoko would be positioned to meet with the murderous Professor as he took his first steps of freedom in six years.
Unfortunately, they’ve had fuck all luck finding Shiyoko so far; always on the move and off the grid, her semi-abandoned apartment the warmest trail they’ve had. That ability to stay hidden is going to come in handy for concealing the Doc’s whereabouts.
Yamaguichi joined them out back for the camaraderie, but already had her orders from the top – headed straight to Hitoshi’s neighbourhood to start scouting the area, keeping an eye out for any more of Shiyoko’s drones maintaining a watch for their Queen. But there was one major player missing; after her jilted date with Tsukauchi, the Ice Maiden Iwaya was hardly going to leave her office in the middle of the police station, especially now Dr. Shinsou has escaped. Which she probably doesn’t know about. Not unless someone tells her – Aizawa’s money is on Hitoshi, if he gets the chance.
But that might not be for a while, because Aizawa and Hitoshi are going to get Kiki as a first and foremost priority. She could be almost anywhere across the city, blissfully unaware of the danger she’s in. Although that doesn’t really sound like Hitoshi’s Ma, so she’s probably on-guard anyway. Anyone who knows her psychotic murderous ex-husband is still alive is always going to be just a little bit on edge.
Having all parted ways to their respective pieces of work, Aizawa had decided to take Hitoshi to the police’s musty equipment room and get him kitted out with something a little tougher for body armour than a grubby black hoodie. Even Aizawa’s jumpsuit has enough insulation in it to give him a little protection, though it’s not impenetrable to bullets. So he’ll just have to not get shot and definitely not mention such a bullshit plan to Hizashi, who would wrestle him to the ground and try to wrestle a proper bulletproof vest on him the way Aizawa just did to Hitoshi. (Being Hizashi, he’d probably get distracted and probably end up taking more stuff off than he puts on.)
Aizawa and Hitoshi’s primary destination is Kiki’s office, fortunately not far from here, to see if they have any information on her whereabouts. At least, that’s the plan unless (or until) she responds to Hitoshi’s missed calls and messages. All of which means getting out of the police station without attracting a verbal battery from the by-now ravenous throngs of press crowding the whole building.
After a brief consultation that could also be considered a childish squabble, Aizawa accepts that there will be journalists on every exit of the police station, and they might as well go straight out the front like Hitoshi wants to, tackling the infamy head-on. This means one very flashbulb-and-camera-phoney barge through the lobby and down the steps of the police station while multiple people repeat, “Shinsou Hitoshi! Shinsou!” and the timing could really be a lot better to be hearing that family name called over and over.
“Shinsou! Can you confirm the officer who’s been taken to hospital was indeed shot by the man claiming to be the Deathnote Killer?”
“Over here, Shinou! Is this attempted murder the first-known copycat of a copycat?”
“Your father Dr. Shinsou murdered several police officers, one belonging to this very station. Do you think this murder is another homage to his crimes?!”
Hitoshi doesn’t seem perturbed by the influx of press squawking – they’re low hanging fruit to him, probably. Above the rabble comes, “–Shinsou Hitoshi! Earlier you said the cause of the gunshot we heard was someone pulling the trigger!”
Ah, a flashback of Hitoshi’s ‘handling it’ with the press earlier on, when the largest of their problems was the guy who’d just blown his head up in one of the interrogation rooms. What Aizawa wouldn’t give for those innocent times.
Hitoshi turns to look at the reporter who’s managing to keep up with them as Aizawa barges out of the station with Hitoshi cruising in his wake. Perhaps this press hound’s fitness level is better than his intellect, as this question seems to tickle Shinsou in its simplicity. There’s more humour than vitriol in his voice, like a kid playing with his food. “You’re familiar with how a gun works?”
In blind ignorance to Hitoshi’s obviously baited question, the reporter brandishes a digital recorder and rushes, “Could you elaborate on just who pulled the trigger?”
Hitoshi scoffs, and even Aizawa’s got a smirk threatening to pry his lips out of a practiced scowl that no one can see anyway. “Easy,” Hitoshi lilts, “that’d be the shooter.” They’re almost at the door anyway, and Aizawa reaches for Hitoshi’s shoulder more on instinct than decision. Finding a firmer grip to accommodate the bulkier layer of Hitoshi’s bulletproof vest, Aizawa steers his ward away from laughing at the hyenas and out onto the street.
There’s even more of a crowd hanging outside the police station this fine Thursday afternoon than yesterday, just in time to grab a scoop for the evening news cycle. Civilians camped out in and among the rabble, some of them waving signs of sympathy for sexual assault victims and support of the killer, others in opposition.
In front of them, rushing up the station steps like surf, comes a wave of fresh reporters, microphones waving. “Shinsou! People are calling the Deathnote Killer a guardian for the abandoned victims of sexual assault. Why are the police focusing their resources on chasing the killer instead of seeking justice for those victims?”
“Shinsou, do you think it’s more important that the victims of the Deathnote Killer get justice than the victim’s victims get justice?”
“Hey, over here! Do you think the Deathnote Killer’s justice is a righteous one?!”
Justice? They’ve gotta be fucking kidding. Aizawa doesn't let go of Hitoshi's shoulder and keeps marching, not saying, but at least thinking a sledgehammer “ignore it ignore it ignore it” on a loop in his head like he can broadcast it telepathically to Hitoshi. Maybe he'll be able to, one day.
“Shinsou Hitoshi! Teen Hero and Villains has named you their hippest hottie on the ‘Who's Who? Fresh Villains’ reader poll. Any comments?”
Aizawa feels Hitoshi stall against him, like a donkey that suddenly doesn't want to walk down a seafront any longer. Hitoshi confronts the ‘journalist’ behind this stat – youngish and female, a wild hungry energy in her heavily made-up eyes – with a simple four-word rebuttal.
“I'm not a villain.” There’s a calm control to Hitoshi’s tone that Aizawa recognises all too well, an intention he projects like he’s inherited more of his Ma’s quirk than he realises.
The female reporter literally stops in her footsteps when Hitoshi addresses her, as if held back by a wall of willpower that he can hotline straight into her spinal cord. Or maybe that’s just Aizawa’s imagination running wild. Tricky thing about mentalism, so Dr. Iwaya explained, is that at this point – given their current understanding of how the human brain works without a quirk alone, much less with one – literally anything is possible. The only way they’ll find out if anyone can do the things mentalism is trying to accomplish is by someone actually doing them. All mentalists, Hitoshi and Aizawa included, have to do is try.
Or maybe this woman just found Hitoshi rude and it made her stop wanting to chase him, along with the rest of the press mob that drag back like the tail of a kite. Aizawa did punch someone off his feet the last time they got too close, so if anything it’s effective.
Just when Aizawa thinks they might be clear, a voice he recognises for all the wrong reasons remarks, “But you do have the same quirk as your father, don’t you?”
The sneering drawl makes Aizawa’s knuckles start to tingle in anticipation of clocking the greasy tabloid hawker in the chin once more. Aizawa spotted this journalist snake hanging around in the lobby earlier too, it only makes sense he'd inevitably catch up with them again, dropping out of the forest canopy like a waiting viper. Maybe he wants a black eye to go with that fat lip after all.
“That’s publicly available information,” Hitoshi replies as if he’s more prepared for this than Aizawa realised. Then again, the fact that Aizawa loathes press interaction doesn’t mean Hitoshi has to be incapable of it as well. It’d actually be helpful if Hitoshi were at least competent, and then Aizawa can just be the blurred-out guy in the background as usual – like he is whenever Hizashi’s in the picture. Hizashi has a scrapbook filled with press cuttings of himself next to various black blurry blobs from when they were younger and worked together a lot more than they do now. Aizawa’s still a fuzzy blob in pictures with Hizashi every now and again, which is treasured all the more for its rarity.
Hitoshi’s not playing with this reporter, hitting him with a barren, “I’m not hiding anything, so what do you want from me?” The open invitation throws this dirt-digger off guard, because if he knows how the Shinsou quirk works, he realises that Hitoshi would be able to brainwash him if he answers. Or at least, so he thinks.
Except that’s when Hitoshi flips the script. “You can answer me, you know, I’ve got no reason to use my quirk on you.” Aizawa’s pace slows from a charge to a regular walk, allowing this conversation to regrettably continue. If there’s a chance at Hitoshi being willing and able to talk through the stigmatisation of his quirk in the media, he’ll be closer to his goals. Aizawa has to at least allow him to give it a shot.
This promise throws the guy for even more of a loop, his face becoming more suspicious. “Why not?"
Hitoshi – when Aizawa sneaks a quick look over at him – is smiling pleasantly at the reporter, even though he’s a total piece of shit. “Because you’re not in danger.”
“And you don’t have a license,” the reporter contradicts spitefully. “You’re not even on the Hero Course at UA.”
Aizawa wants to punch him again already, but Hitoshi just stops for a moment, looks at him square. “What’s your name?”
“S… Sugiyama,” the reporter replies hesitantly, still seeming unsure of speaking in response to Hitoshi in spite of knowing Hitoshi can’t (or won’t) use his quirk.
“You’ve done your homework, Sugiyama,” Hitoshi compliments so unnervingly that Aizawa doesn’t even want to punch Sugiyama anymore, because this distinct discomfort is even more satisfying. “What do you need me for?”
They’ve stalled on the other side of the road to the police station, and Aizawa’s getting cagey – it won’t take long to get to Kiki’s office, but that’s just a fallback and timekiller until she rings her damn son back. There are a few clusters of people starting to watch them too, one of the pods of ‘justice for victims of sexual abuse’ fanatics that seem to have been camped out for a while waving their pro-Deathnote Killer signs rather pointedly. It’s frustrating; they’re right that the police don’t spend nearly enough resources bringing justice to the victims of sexual abuse, but supporting a psychotic serial killer isn’t the way to solve this problem. Especially not when said killer is deliberately targeting the police as well.
“I need you to give me something that I can use for a story–” Sugiyama is still speaking with a kind of entitled impatience when everything goes quiet. Aizawa feels a pulse of something, the plucking of a string in the air so loud he can feel the vibrations deep inside his head.
Just as he turns around, Hitoshi yells, “DUCK!”
The order isn’t fully necessary so much as instinctive. Sugiyama folds himself forward so suddenly that Aizawa’s under no doubt whether Hitoshi has used his quirk. Aizawa’s attention is rather tilted towards the hunk of broken concrete flying towards them, some rubble picked up off a building site and hurled at them from that pod of fanaticals.
Shoving Sugiyama and Hitoshi out of the way, Aizawa breaks the brainwashing hold with how roughly he bumps the staggering reporter. But for a moment, Sugiyama reacted far more quickly and effectively to the danger than if he’d been left to his own devices.
Getting the dolt out of the way, Aizawa lunges past Sugiyama to catch the hunk of stone hurtling rapidly toward them, diverting its course safely down to the ground rather than letting it smash into them. The chunk is about the size of a brick, and breaks in two as it hits the pavement. If that’d been Sugiyama's head, like its trajectory suggested, he’d be lucky to be alive right now, much less still alive by the time they’d get him to hospital.
The other straggling reporters who’d been tailing them at a distance have scattered completely, but the pro-Killers are still there. Aizawa storms towards the cluster he thinks was responsible for the projectile.
“Who threw that?!” he roars at the group, who start scrambling to leave in the face of his scourge of anger. “Get out of here! All of you! Mindless fucking idiots!”
“If you’re not on the side of the true victims, then you’re part of the villains!” a female voice yells back from the group as they’re scampering away, and Aizawa would take explicit pleasure in hunting the bitch down and reporting her for hatespeech, if they didn’t have much more important things to do.
But Aizawa does have better things to do and feels Hitoshi’s gaze pulling him back like the sea draws back a wave that’s already broken. Is that mentalism, he wonders? The sensation of being called, even though Hitoshi hasn’t said anything at all. Because Aizawa still almost-hears the not-yet-said “teach” that drags him away from the meaningless fight he’d love to have. Or maybe Aizawa has a sense of responsibility kicking in. Finally.
Sugiyama is still hunched over with a dazed look on his face, staring at the broken hunk of concrete on the pavement by his feet and realising all of that shit just happened.
“How’s that for your story?” Hitoshi remarks caustically as he offers his hand to Sugiyama, perhaps just to remind him to actually stand up so they can start moving again.
“You… you just used your… that’s illegal,” Sugiyama’s babbling, and Aizawa gets a bolt of ‘uh oh’ that shoots all the way up his spine. He really needs Hitoshi not to be arrested right now – or ever, as a matter of fact.
“And if I hadn’t, your head would be spilled on the sidewalk right about now,” Hitoshi points out coolly. “Are you seriously going to have me arrested for saving your life?”
“You don’t know that I… that…” Sugiyama keeps staring at the broken concrete, realising with sure inescapability that everything Hitoshi says is true, and everything he did was for good reasons. And having been momentarily lassoed by Hitoshi’s quirk, maybe Sugiyama’s even trying to reconcile the fear reaction he’s been taught with the firm protective grip of what he probably experienced, which was a mental hand that grabbed him when physical ones wouldn’t – saving his goddamn life.
“Obviously, don’t actually write a story about that,” Hitoshi remarks matter-of-factly, because he can’t get away with this stuff if it’s publicly acknowledged. The inherent greyness of Hitoshi’s quirk means they operate under a goodwill blanket of individual moments of trust, changing perceptions little by little to undo the damage of Dr. Shinsou’s legacy. But something’s fundamentally different in that moment, after Hitoshi’s been given the chance to prove what he can do as a Hero, rather than forever labelled as a villain.
Sugiyama fiddles with his glasses, the sure sign of a person who’s been stripped of their socialised prejudices for a moment and has reverted to pure animal instinct. A being that’s 99% chimp at the level of DNA and can be quite easily reprogrammed given the right opportunity, and this particular monkey is so disarmed that the only question he has left to ask is, “What should I write about then?”
Most of the other reporters have long since scarpered, none of them looking to get as close to Hitoshi as the tenacious Sugiyama, with his thick-lensed glasses and welper of a bruise from where Aizawa punched him yesterday, and who almost got his head smashed open mere seconds ago. But who’s still looking for a story. He’s got guts, if little else, going for him.
“Write about the stigma of mentalist quirks,” Aizawa stakes like he’s driven a formidable hunting knife into the middle of a wooden table. “And how the mainstream media drives that prejudice by focusing on the villains and ignoring all the good work Heroes with mentalist quirks do.”
Sugiyama is still a little shaken from his near-death experience, and wipes his oily forehead on his sleeve with a steadying breath. “Good work like what?”
“You mean, aside from this?” Hitoshi retorts, as they’ve already established no one can actually talk about the still very-illegal things Hitoshi is being allowed to do. And Aizawa calls himself a Hero, with the amount of lawbreaking he permits on a daily basis.
“Do some research,” Aizawa says bluntly, landing the crow of his hand back on the perch of Hitoshi’s shoulder, moving him away from Sugiyama as a sign of intention more than anything else. “You’re a reporter, aren’t you?”
Sugiyama looks like a bear who’s just been told he shits in the woods. He’d come in here trying to provoke Hitoshi (as usual), looking for a way to dig out the Shinsou family and spread scandal like manure over weeds. Instead, he just had his fucking life saved by the person he’s trying to tear down, and all at once, everything he thought he knew about quirks like Hitoshi’s has turned out to be wrong. Aizawa’s been through this process himself too, and he knows it hits with a peculiar punch. Learned behaviour is so hard to unravel without a proper catalyst, but boy, does Hitoshi get a reaction.
There’s a clicking in the mid-ground from someone approaching in ponyish high-heels, and Aizawa locks onto the female reporter who looks more like a beauty blogger finally catching up after Hitoshi hit her with a mental equivalent of a stop sign.
“Oh, I get it now!” she declares enthusiastically as she totters over to where Aizawa and Hitoshi are about to climb a fire-escape. “You’re like, more of a ‘bad boy for a good cause’ type, right?” The young lady sounds so ecstatic with this revelation that Hitoshi’s well and truly hooked – he’s not used to people easily accepting he’s not a villain. (And he’s a sucker for a pretty face.)
Whatever Hitoshi hit this girl with earlier on, when he told her he wasn’t a villain and it stopped her in her designer-heel tracks, it’s definitely done the trick now – she is all smiles for him. “That’s still hot.” She whips out a bulky, bejeweled phone and asks with a shiny lipgloss smile, “Can we take a picture?”
Aizawa has the sudden startling realisation that this reporter might be more of a personality-focused, social-media star kind of presence than a tabloid junk writer like Sugiyama.
Aizawa’s about to say no when Hitoshi says, “Sure, but only if you write nice things about me.”
It’s… weird. Definitely weird, how charming Hitoshi is with the people who drink up his carefully calculated charisma. It probably looks effortless from someone experiencing it for the first time, but Aizawa’s had long enough to observe Hitoshi that he sees the precise measurements and treatments Hitoshi portions out as methodically as a scientist when he’s talking to normals.
And if Hitoshi wants to control his image in the media, which he’s already got, whether he likes it or not, by dealing with it head on, then it’s not even close to Aizawa’s place to stop him. If he were a better teacher, with any experience with the press other than being assaultingly rude (and sometimes just actually assaulting), then Aizawa might be able to do more for Hitoshi in that arena. But Hitoshi’s better off talking to someone like Hizashi or Midnight, who know how to merchandise themselves like products to be consumed.
Hell, Hizashi’s got about five different versions of himself that he markets to anyone who’s willing to buy, all five of which he has in action figure form on his home-studio-desk. Aizawa’s sat through enough second-hand conversations Hizashi has with his ‘brand agency’ to never want to hear the fucking word again, but for someone like Hitoshi – who doesn’t have the choice whether or not to be public – such image-control could be important.
“Okay cool!” The young ‘influencer’ style reporter shimmies in next to Hitoshi, while Aizawa covertly hauls himself onto a nearby fire escape. Having removed himself from the picture, Aizawa stays crouched on the first-floor platform, keeping close because you never know what’s going to come out of the next pothole of crazy in this winding country road of a case they’re trying to speed-run – like chunks of concrete from thin air, for example. Aizawa will make himself scarce, but he definitely won’t be taking his sights off Hitoshi anytime soon.
Crawling further along the landing, Aizawa hangs his head far enough over the edge to watch the cutesy girl position her face close to Hitoshi’s, raising her phone to take a selfie of the two of them with a practiced pouty grin.
Hitoshi just looks neutrally at the camera, but when the girl says, “So Shinsou, what’s your favourite thing to do on a date?” Aizawa gets a firmer idea of what the readers of ‘Teen Hero and Villains’ want to know about the new would-be idols on their listicles and who’s hot/not polls that Hizashi cares about so much more than Aizawa wishes he did.
“I just like to talk,” Hitoshi answers simply, though it’s a clever thing for him to say as usual: the hint of his quirk like an aftertaste of whiskey in his tone. A ‘bad boy’ type indeed. “I’m interested in what you have to say.”
Of course Hitoshi is, Aizawa eyerolls as he watches the girl giggle like a corny ringtone. This leads Aizawa’s bored mind into wondering when Hizashi’s going to call, which might be sooner or later, but it’s definitely going to happen. Aizawa’s got to figure out what to tell him, which is supposed to be everything, but might end up being very slightly significantly less than that.
It’s selfish, and he knows he shouldn’t, but Aizawa feels like telling Hizashi about these things opens him up to the danger of them. And if Aizawa’s safebox gets invaded by the chaos of the rest of his life, it risks being completely overwhelmed. The only thing that keeps Aizawa sane will be gone, because he couldn’t keep the darkness out. So it can’t ever come to that, and if – when – Hizashi asks what’s going on, Aizawa doesn’t know what he’s gonna say. Depends if he can withstand the flood a little longer yet.
With his actual, not-hearing-things ears, Aizawa catches Hitoshi saying, “I gotta go, hon,” and the girl giggles again. Hitoshi finally looks up, finding himself being watched by an Aizawa-gargoyle that looks like it was carved for the express purpose of making people think some stony monster is totally unimpressed with them.
Hitoshi smirks and draws back for a run-up as the reporter backs away, launching himself into and then up the wall until he’s got enough height to reach for Aizawa’s arm as it zips out. Their hands clap together palm-to-wrist, and Aizawa hauls Hitoshi up the rest of the distance. He’s improving every day but certainly performs even better when Aizawa’s offering direct support, emboldening the teenager to be more confident and ambitious in his movements and decisions while they’re in on-the-job training.
They’ve only just gotten onto the roof, and thankfully haven’t had to discuss the clearly apparent difference in their personal styles with the media (and women), when Hitoshi’s phone rings at last.
Aizawa’s heart lurches to his chest, while Hitoshi quickly stops dead and whips it out, tumbling over himself as he answers. “Ma! Are you okay? Where are you?” There’s barely even a pause, suggesting they’re talking right over each other as Hitoshi spits, “I’m fine, Aizawa’s with me– I’m safe. It’s you, I need you to go somewhere, a cafe or something, and stay where people can see you. We’re going to come and get you.”
There’s only the smallest pause necessary for Hitoshi’s Ma to ask him just why she has to go and wait in a safe public space for a collection by her son and Aizawa. And she’s not a foolish woman, so it’s just long enough for Hitoshi to explain, “He got out.” Another short pause. “Yeah, we just found out from the Warden.”
Hitoshi’s face reads much younger when he’s worried, the slightly fat bottom lip of a toddler threatening a fit. But the furrows in his brow iron out after a moment or two longer of Kiki speaking, and then Hitoshi’s gaze finally rivets on Aizawa’s. “We’ll be there as fast as we can, Ma. See you soon.” There’s a pause of a length Aizawa knows extremely well, and a response that signals the crushing gravity of the situation. “I love you too.”
Hanging up, Hitoshi’s already pulling up an address on his map, holding his phone out as Aizawa walks closer. “Is she oka–”
“She’s fine,” Hitoshi cuts off, bringing up the journey that’s going to take them a while whichever way they try to get there. “This is where she’s going to wait for us.”
Aizawa studies the map a moment and makes a decision. “We go this way and take the express train, then go the rest of the way on foot.”
Hitoshi nods and puts the phone away, then drops to alternating knees to tighten the laces on his beaten-up trainers. The amount of running they do, he’s going to need something a little more durable. But there’s no helping that now.
The rooftop they’re on is long and flat, dropping down to a lower row of commercial units that stretch like a steeplechase course in front of them. “Remind me how far you can jump again,” Aizawa dictates, and with dedicated purpose Hitoshi breaks into a sprint and jumps, crossing a reasonable length on the flat surface of this roof. Not stopping, Hitoshi builds speed and jumps again at the edge of the building, landing on the level below and having already made it over the first dividing wall between the commercial units when Aizawa’s started his own catch-up sprint.
“Alright.” Skipping the long jump section, Aizawa just launches himself from the edge of the building and bounces once to land a few running paces ahead of Hitoshi, close enough alongside him for a moment to say, “After me.”
They’re almost at the end of their journey across the city to get Kiki, an intense parkour sprint book-ending an oppressively tense ride on the packed express train, worrying and waiting for the agony of do-nothing transport to end. Aizawa has worked out an obstacle course ahead of them that’s within Hitoshi’s ability, and also the most direct route to the well-known cafe where Hitoshi’s mother is waiting for them to arrive. But Aizawa forgets to adjust for fatigue, especially when their drive has been hardened to a cutting edge by the heat of Hitoshi’s desperation.
Either way, what it means is that Aizawa hears a distinct “shit!” from behind him as they’re flying across a particular gap between building rooftops over four floors up, and that means it’s time to freak the fuck out.
Aizawa can’t change direction in mid-fucking-air, so he’s got to twist around and get sight of where Hitoshi’s gone off-trajectory over a gap that should’ve been within his ability to jump – maybe he’s tired or just got it slightly wrong: mistakes happen.
Hitoshi understandably looks a little concerned, grabbing for the length of Aizawa’s capture weapon around his shoulders, but having not much time and not many anchors to even try to grab onto before he’s going to fall a serious distance.
Finally hitting the wall on the other side of the alleyway gap, Aizawa flips back and shoots a strand of his capture weapon straight up to lock around some metalwork that’s bolted to the wall. It’s a firm tether as he launches himself backward and down, diving to grab Hitoshi around the middle. Aizawa scoops him in one arm and pulls the tether tight with the other, yanking the two of them back towards the other side of the gap, swinging to land heavily against the solid wall of an apartment block and not a breakable glass window. Aizawa hates when that happens.
They come to a stop against the wall with a guttural grunt, as Aizawa shoves Hitoshi up over his own centre of gravity, sort of becoming a capture-weapon suspended platform that Hitoshi’s half-stranded on, his flamingo legs sprawled awkwardly below.
Hitoshi takes a terrified gasp, and Aizawa can feel the kid’s heartbeat hammering like a hummingbird’s wings against the cage of his ribs. It’s okay; that’s why Aizawa’s here, to keep Hitoshi safe, even when Hitoshi fucks up. Not that he should be making a habit of it.
“I’ll be more careful,” Hitoshi says with a fluttery breath. He turns far enough to catch Aizawa’s eye, still hanging against the vertical face of the apartment block wall like it’s a normal place to chill out and shoot the shit.
Aizawa’s hardly struggling, but he is at least tense in order to hold this pose firmly enough that Hitoshi can use him like an urban jungle platform. It shows in the timbre of his voice when he retorts, “Oh, you think?”
Hitoshi’s attention is elsewhere already, his words seamlessly overlapping Aizawa’s as he starts to swing his legs and haul himself up. “Do you reckon I could reach that rail if I stand on you?”
“You–” better not, Aizawa’s gonna say in a warning-meets-don’t-tread-on-me protest, but then he realises, what’s the better alternative? None. “Just make it quick.”
Hitoshi starts to scramble in greater earnest, only kneeing Aizawa in the back once or twice as he gets his legs up over the small but sturdy impromptu platform of Aizawa’s torso. When Hitoshi actually gets his feet down and straight-up stands on Aizawa’s chest, he wheezes just a little, but he’s had plenty worse than Hitoshi standing on top of him before. Sometimes just for fun.
Carefully, adjusting his weight so even Hitoshi’s best wobble can’t throw him seriously off-course, Aizawa transfers his resting position against the wall from two legs onto one, lifting the other at the knee to hold firm as a step-up for Hitoshi to reach the nearest balcony, just one below the place they were actually shooting for.
“I know they talk about walking all over someone, but I didn’t think it was meant to be this literal,” Hitoshi crows as he places a foot carefully over Aizawa’s shin and readies himself to spring.
“Just hurry up,” Aizawa grunts, and then moves his leg up as he feels Hitoshi launching himself, adding an extra boost that sends the brat shooting most assuredly up to his target balcony-railing, grabbing on and then climbing up as Aizawa starts to wall-walk himself up until he can do the same, following Hitoshi all the way up to the roof and stopping for a moment to catch their respective breaths.
Hitoshi checks their location on his phone, reorients himself with where they need to head next, and his gaze on Aizawa’s is withdrawn and serious. “We’re almost there. Let’s keep going.” But maybe there’s a moment spare for a fizzle of emotion after all. “Thanks.”
“S’okay.” Aizawa’s not going to hold Hitoshi’s mistakes against him unless it’s clear he doesn’t already understand them. He knows he screwed up, and he doesn’t do it much, so Aizawa’s not going to nag at him for being ‘careful’ when it’s clear he does the best he can; like they all do.
Kiki’s sitting at a table with an empty plate and a half-full cup when she looks up and sees Hitoshi – and Aizawa, a few paces behind – running right at her.
“Hitoshi!” Kiki grabs her son right as he flies into her arms, and the outburst is enough to make a few patrons look over with awkward curiosity. They just hug for a moment. This is quite literally their worst nightmare, so no wonder. Then Kiki says into the thicket of her son’s hair, “Everything’s gonna be alright.”
“I know, Ma,” Hitoshi muffles against his mother’s shoulder. Aizawa gets a little closer but then stops, waiting on the outside, where he should be, by all rights. This might be his case, but it’s not all about Aizawa; it’s hardly at all about him, really.
This is Hitoshi’s story.
Notes:
Not only does this chapter take us over the 200k threshold for this story, and uhhhh, 200k when the Big Bad actually gets out is a fair indication of how not-done we are with the story, but it's the last chapter from my 2nd masterdoc, which only really matters to me but it's a milestone all the same as those separations tend to mark different 'acts' of the story, so now we're finally about to head into act 3, which I'm very pleased/excited for.
In light of that, this is a nice little breather-chapter, or as much as we 'breathe' at a point like this in the story. I truly never planned for this fic to end up as broad and winding as it is, but can't say I'm sorry. Rather, I'm very grateful to have y'all along for the ride, and hope I continue to keep you entertained for many (MANY) more chapters to come <3
Chapter 35: Boundaries
Summary:
Aizawa had expected to learn more about Hitoshi after taking him on as a… whatever he is, but never anticipated learning about himself in the process. Now he’s changing a little bit more every day, and that’s, somehow, the last thing Aizawa saw coming.
Notes:
Sorry this chapter's a little late, I was on a work trip Mon-Wed this week which ate up my usual fanfic time and then LAID ME OUT energy-wise once I got back, today's the first time I've actually felt like I can think enough to do anything writing-based and I wanted to get the update out good and early so it doesn't hover over me all day.
To make up for the lateness this one's a real beefer, which I didn't really realise when I was writing but creeps up like that sometimes so a nice chonky update to keep y'all fed til next week. I might still try to get it out on Wednesday, but may be Thursday-ish as I play a bit of catch-up. Hope I didn't worry anyone too much, I know that a lot of people's reaction to late updates is just to worry if everything's alright with me rather than being impatient for a new chapter (if that too). So I'm fine! Enjoy the update :3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It takes a little while to explain everything, and a lot longer than that to get back to Hitoshi’s neighbourhood with Kiki added to their party. It’s clear that Hitoshi’s mother is shaken – just as Hitoshi is, deep down – but like any true survivor, in the face of a new threat she just puts on a brave face. Preparing for the worst while saying everything is going to be alright: a parenting classic. Aizawa knows that losing hope is the only way to guarantee the best outcomes will always be out of reach, and subsequently keeps his gritty nihilist realism to himself. Just because he uses the looming not-an-option threat of the worst-case scenario to drive himself to any lengths necessary doesn’t mean everyone else has to hear about it.
Because they don’t know if Dr. Shinsou is going to be targeting Hitoshi and Kiki, but it sure seems fucking likely he’s going to go after his ‘beloved’ wife and child, who he sees as objects that belong to him. So it’s when, not if, and they can’t be sure of anything else. Maybe it won’t be alright – things weren’t alright for the combined 26 victims between Shiyoko and the Doc and counting. Not including his original killing spree seven years ago, which finished at a comfortable 29. Just three to go to make this spree equal or greater. Sinking into that realisation isn’t going to help, but no one tries to drown in a bog, you just put your foot down on what looks like solid ground and suddenly you’re neck-deep in suffocating mud.
Aizawa’s itching all over with how static it all is. There’s so much uncertainty in the air, scattered comfortably beyond the point where Aizawa’s got the slightest ability to reach it, like the ‘where, when and how many?’ of the next victims. Talk about feeling helpless.
Whatever mental energy Aizawa’s kicking out adds to the coarse-static blare inside Kiki’s car as she drives them all back, which could be likened to swimming in tar. Everything slows down, from movements to soundwaves and even light through the air. All that Aizawa’s perceiving has slowed to a crawl, and time itself pauses when they’re stuck at a red light until he can hardly seem to breathe.
“You okay?” Hitoshi asks simply, considering how zoned-out Aizawa is against the glassy window, and Aizawa just blinks a few times. “Seriously, Aizawa…” It’s quieter this time, a don’t-tell-Ma way Hitoshi hushes this one across the backseat at him. “Be cool.”
“I’m fine,” Aizawa tells the glass, and probably doesn’t even convince anyone of that. Checking his phone, Aizawa’s got no messages from Hizashi either. Which is a little weird, but it’s almost the last days of school, so Hizashi’s probably running around making a thousand nuisances of himself, all without Aizawa there.
It’s a sore fact of life that when Aizawa was still having to divide his time between school, his personal life and this case, he yearned for the case more than any other. But now he’s got more case than he can handle, and aches for the missing parts of him that he was – and always is – a fool for thinking he’d be lighter without. He might be lighter now, but from being incomplete.
“... If you say so,” Hitoshi murmurs in an offish little niggle that Aizawa shrugs away rather than allow to annoy him as much as it would if he thought about it. Aizawa’s not good as a caged animal, and tired car interiors count just as well as any confinement. Anything that denies Aizawa the ability to do what comes naturally to him – move forward, at any cost. Run until he drops, drops hard, then pick himself back up and keep going.
Kiki says nothing, and it puts Aizawa even more on edge. It probably doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with Aizawa, her pensive, worried silence – she’s got a mass-murderer ex-husband on the loose whose killer fangirl has sent them actual death threats. There are bigger problems in Kiki’s mind than the human-shaped pile of trash bags currently feeling disassociative in her backseat.
But Aizawa being here, and who is he is, might not exactly help. Kiki’s hardly advertised herself as his biggest fan, and tense coexistence preDr. Shinsou breakout might not hold up so well under the strain of this new threat. Except they’re still allies. So even if they hate each other all the more for being forced closer, that’s just how it's gonna be. It’s no coincidence that Aizawa’s not always the most popular guy, but he’s got a great track record of keeping people safe.
The way Aizawa actually manages to achieve these high-success, no-one-died outcomes is usually by being as much of a professional downer as possible – and amazingly, not by making easy decisions that most people wouldn’t hesitate to make for themselves and their loved ones. If it were that easy, they wouldn’t need Heroes like Aizawa in the first place. So Aizawa doesn’t mind being ugly wallpaper, his presence a regrettable fact to coexist with. It's for all their safety.
Without being wholly awkward, the silence all the way back to Hitoshi and Kiki’s home is ever-so slightly uncomfortable, like new shoes that aren’t broken in yet. They get all the way up to the doorstep before sunlight breaks through the clouds, and it comes in the form of one Yamaguichi Kumiko, who is discovered sitting neatly on their doorstep as if she’s been delivered by a giant bird.
“Jeez, Yankumi, you could have called me,” Hitoshi crows when he sees her. “You look like a stray cat hanging out here.” She’s even neatly arranged on the doormat, her knees tucked up under her round babyface chin. Aizawa knows that Yamaguichi’s got to be at least twenty if she’s graduated the Police Academy, but there’s a reason even the Chief refers to her fondly as a rookie. She’s got that feeling of someone with the new gloss still untarnished, all that optimistic cheer that makes her so uplifting to be around. Aizawa’s pleased that she’s here – turns out Chief Tsuragame is a clever dog after all.
“That’s alright, I haven’t been waiting too long.” Yamaguichi bounces up onto her feet and stretches, then neatly pivots ninety degrees to face Hitoshi and Kiki head-on. Her hand zips to her temple as Yamaguichi salutes at Kiki without a moment’s hesitation, beaming like headlights. “Pleased to meet you, Ma’am. I’m Officer Yamaguichi Kumiko.”
Kiki gives Yamaguichi a meticulous look up and down, before turning to look at Hitoshi with a powerfully maternal omniscience. A wordless “she’s got your phone number, and you call her 'Yankumi'?” glare if Aizawa’s ever seen one. But all Kiki actually says is, “Pleased to meet you, Officer Yamaguichi. Call me Kiki.”
As Aizawa expects, Kiki dispenses no Shinsou or even the maiden name she might use elsewhere. Aizawa’s got no doubt that Hitoshi’s mother knows every trick in the book to keep their on-the-grid presence as small as possible. A cleaning fluid with a high alcohol content, whose residue evaporates into nothing, leaving no trace of memory about the tired-looking woman with the smartass son. “So you’re the one who’s here for our ‘protection’?”
“That’s right! I graduated top of my class at the academy… last month,” Yamaguichi adds a touch more shyly, perhaps feeling a little less certain without the authority-bolstering presence of Tama nearby. Maybe she’s only just twenty – fresh off the rack, still steaming like all the other dumplings from the convenience store cabinet. It only now occurs to Aizawa, which is admittedly a little late in the game, that the age gap between Hitoshi and Yamaguchi isn’t that much at all. Hitoshi’s just starting his vocational training, and Yamaguichi has just finished hers, which makes all the difference. But they’re closer to each other than to Kiki and Aizawa, who’ve lived through enough shit to become bitter with age.
“Yamaguchi’s a good cop,” Aizawa commends like he’s got no ulterior motives at all, and even if Kiki doesn't seem to buy it, such a compliment lights up Yamaguichi’s face like floodlights on a stadium. It’s a miracle she doesn’t start shining straight out of her glasses. “She’s been working this case with me from the start.”
If by ‘working’ Aizawa also means ‘consoling from late night meltdowns’ after the poor rookie got thrown into this on her first week in the job. Which isn't totally fair, because Yamaguichi has done well. The fresh-faced graduate is still here and keeping afloat, which counts for plenty.
“Thank you, Mr. Eraser!” Yamaguichi cheers graciously, and Kiki gives Aizawa a massively amused look.
“Eraser?” Kiki cites wryly.
“You didn’t think I was a Hero under my own name?” Aizawa suggests like maybe Kiki did – maybe she tried searching for ‘Aizawa Shota’ online and never found the slightest bit of evidence to link him with an underground Hero by the name of Eraserhead, who the world knows exists and not a damn thing more than that.
There’s a noise from the public stairwell behind them that has Aizawa’s head moving like a whip. A low-toned scratchy call echoes from the partially outdoors hallway, and Hitoshi riffs, “Speaking of strays.”
A cat built like a couple of brick shithouses plods around the corner and meows again at them, sounding as if it’s smoked a pack of cigarettes a day since it was twenty in cat-years—and that must have been half a century ago. Aizawa spotted food and water bowls in Hitoshi’s home the last time he was here, which suggested an unseen feline resident, but he hadn’t presumed to ask if they actually had a pet. It didn't seem a super appropriate thing to ask last time he was getting yelled at by Hitoshi’s Ma. Hopefully this won’t be a repeat.
Kiki is opening the front door while the black-but-clearly-dirty cat meow-croaks again and starts rubbing itself between Hitoshi’s legs. Like he’s presenting a school report, Hitoshi wryly declares, “This is Trashbag.” The cat croaks again in agreement. “Yeah, asshole. You.” Hitoshi shifts to bump the tom’s sturdy belly with a leg as he rubs dusty brown muck all over Hitoshi’s black sweatpants.
Yamaguichi is doing a funny little huff-puff over Hitoshi’s crude moniker for another piece of found-family, while Aizawa drops into an immediate crouch, holding out a hand for the flat-faced cat who looks like he’s barely retired from the streets. Aizawa knows alleycats, and no creature with a big scratch across his nose and raggedy ears is anything except a veteran from alley life. “Trashbag, huh?”
The cat turns its eyes on Aizawa’s crooked fingers, and his hand is usually a banquet of interesting smells for most creatures on any given day. Today is no exception, and Trashbag pushes between the slightly too-small channel of Hitoshi’s legs and then waddles over to start sniffing Aizawa’s knuckles.
“That’s where we found him,” Hitoshi remarks mirthfully. “Should’ve figured you two would get along.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aizawa challenges, looking up at Hitoshi and being especially aware of also being a sturdy guy dressed all in black with a propensity for hanging around the streets and not washing enough. It’s at this point Trashbag pushes his face affectionately against Aizawa’s hand and kicks out a purr like a tugboat engine.
Hitoshi smiles and says, “Nothing,” but Aizawa knows what he really means.
Sat cross-legged on the floor of the main room in Hitoshi’s home, Aizawa is walking his gaze around an infinite, never-ending staircase over and over until he feels exceptionally stupid. He doesn’t like feeling stupid, so voices this displeasure by saying, “Try the other card.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the card,” Hitoshi scolds like he’s playing teacher today, his fingers pinched in the corner of one rectangular card in the stack of ‘visual aids’ that Dr. Iwaya left them with for ‘homework’. They’re meant to practice being aware of this sixth sense that Aizawa always had, but better understands now. “Focus, teach.”
Aizawa tries. He does. But walking his gaze around a pointless loop is underwhelming enough that it’s hard not to think about something, anything else that’s more important than this right now. Which is literally everything.
Dr. Shinsou, for one, and how easily Yamaguichi’s going to settle into watching over Kiki and Hitoshi without any backup. Aizawa has no doubt that she’s competent, but she’s untested, and going up against a hardened killer like Shiyoko and the Doc means maybe Aizawa should–
“You’re not focusing.”
“Because it’s distracting when you do that,” Aizawa replies pettily, and it’s frustrating to be thirty and feel like such a fucking chump at this. Especially sitting cross-legged across from Hitoshi, who’s so smug and capable – when it comes to this, at least.
It’s chronically awkward that Hitoshi and Aizawa’s ‘homework’ from Dr. Iwaya largely consists of Hitoshi trying to send telepathic signals to Aizawa and seeing if the bonehead can actually hear them. Aizawa knows this move well: putting a strong student together with a weaker one to help them both, pairing their abilities with the care that Hizashi spends on picking out cheese and wine. Aizawa just hadn’t expected to find himself on the low end of the see-saw.
“You wanna hand?” Hitoshi lilts like he’s holding out pilfered cigarettes to try behind the school with cooler friends, and doesn’t mean literally. At least, Aizawa doesn’t think so.
“I have to learn how to do it myself.” Aizawa’s strict on his students, and it comes from being strict on himself. Not going easy on either has worked out just fine so far. Sure, Aizawa’s almost died a lot – but he’s not dead yet.
“You should know your limits and let yourself be helped when you know you need it,” Hitoshi lectures almost well enough for it to be one of Aizawa’s lines. Kid’s coming on. But screw taking his own advice.
Aizawa re-disciplines his mind, and gets a little bit better at falling into the rhythm of following the steps down and down on the printed card that Hitoshi holds up for him. These ‘paradoxical’ images have been proven to help activating mentalist brain areas, or so proves the early research of the infamous Dr. Shinsou. Children he tested performed up to 40% better at using their various mentalist quirks after contemplating the infinite loop puzzles for up to a minute. Aizawa’s read the fucking stats, it just makes him feel stupid to try and ‘heighten’ the senses he didn’t realise were more than a horsey kick of gut instinct in the first place.
Or maybe that performance boost just comes from having a Shinsou egging you on, the effervescent power of such powerful mentalist energy heightening it in others.
The voice in Aizawa’s head hits an edge on this thought and splinters, shattering into spindles that shoot off in every direction from the never-ending stair, over the consideration that it might not be the puzzle at all when Hitoshi urges, “Ask for it, then.”
Aizawa feels a pull like an electromagnet coming on. Hitoshi wants Aizawa to do it, obviously he does. Small wonder the brat loves lording something over his hero-worshipped ‘teach’ – being above the idol itself for a glorious, dizzying moment. And it doesn’t happen too often, but is getting slightly more frequent.
“I don’t want your help,” Aizawa mutters. With a bolt of paranoid security – proven right – Aizawa activates his quirk as he lifts his gaze from the card onto Hitoshi’s ever-so-amused eyes hovering right behind it.
Hitoshi’s quirk flares and then sizzles like a match dropped in water. But there’s a thin enough of coat of gasoline across the soggy pond of Aizawa’s mind that it's set alight for the short moment as Aizawa’s quirk shuts down Hitoshi’s own powerful colossus. One slingshot to the head and even the successor of all that raw Shinsou mentalist power can be taken down. Because Aizawa’s mentalist range might suck, but at doing what he does – suppressing his target’s mind, and in turn body, from activating their quirk – at that, Aizawa is un-fucking-beatable. Now more than ever, he understands what he’s really been doing all these years. It’s an exertion of willpower, an oh-no-you-don't, and Aizawa’s one stubborn bastard.
Hitoshi knows it too, posing the question “Because you’re stubborn, or because it’s me?” almost coyly, if a smartass sixteen-year-old can ever be called such a thing. Boys of his age tend to possess the subtlety of dynamite-powered roller skates, so it doesn’t quite land – but still a fair attempt.
That doesn’t mean Aizawa’s got any reason to admit to any of this. “Both,” he responds like he’s been chewing on lemon rind. For the third time in no more than fifteen minutes, he feels the proddy paws of Trashbag trying to climb into his lap. Aizawa releases his quirk and moves his hand to stroke down the cat’s broad back, encouraging him to settle when Hitoshi qiuckly drops the card and reaches over to yoink the furry distraction out of Aizawa’s grasp.
“Focus.” Hitoshi scoops Trashbag into his lap with one arm and lifts the card back up with the other, positioning it just a couple of inches in front of Aizawa’s face.
Then Hitoshi says, “Deep breath,” and he doesn’t use his quirk, but he doesn’t need to: what’s Aizawa gonna do, stop breathing? Mentalism is tricky like that. It’s hard to tell where one thing ends and another begins – like a lot of things about Hitoshi.
It gets a little easier for Aizawa to walk himself down the endless step-after-step after that, letting the underlying rhythm draw him to the awareness of that high-vibration muscle deep in his thinking mind. It’s not something physical so much as a memorised pathway, a way for Aizawa to tune himself to that unhearable frequency; until he’s harmonised with the hum of other minds – mentalist ones especially – in the cosy space of this two-bedroom apartment.
Hitoshi is sitting opposite to Aizawa on a sofa cushion brought to the floor, and at this proximity, the sheer overwhelming might of his mental power makes Hitoshi the most noticeable of several elephants in the room. This is nothing new for Hitoshi’s mode of operation, the look-at-me-but-I-won’t-look-back mentality. Needs to know you’re watching but doesn’t want you to know that he cares about it.
If Aizawa really applies himself, he’s sure he can move past Hitoshi’s overwhelming presence and pick out a singing pitch from Kiki back in her bedroom. There’s not a blip from Yamaguichi, who swings her feet merrily on a stool by the kitchen counter, though Aizawa doesn’t know what her quirk is – if she even has one.
Then, just when Aizawa thinks he’s got it – his mind the perfectly tuned guitar string playing to pitch – Hitoshi reaches out to pluck a thwangy note out of him.
Suddenly not looking at the infinite stairs graphic anymore, Aizawa's eyes widen, sucking in a breath that comes out, “Sshit,” because he swears Hitoshi just fingered his fucking brain somehow and his head is buzzing. The first time Hitoshi did anything like this, it was a pure white-noise scream that Aizawa could hardly comprehend, done out of reflex and not by intention. This is very different.
What Aizawa can tell, based on his experiences alone, is that they’re not even fucking close to figuring out how a quirk, and mind, like Hitoshi’s actually works. They’re pissing into the wind with the limited science that exists – studying it sent Dr. Shinsou off the deep end – but it fits under the explanation ‘brainwashing’ well enough to be afraid of.
Because Hitoshi’s inherited a far more subtle quirk, drawn from both of his parents combined, and it hits like fucking morphine. Whatever the hell it is Hitoshi can do, if it works on anyone else like it does on Aizawa, the kid will be able to cause all kinds of trouble.
“Seriously?” Hitoshi sounds sceptical, or maybe even thrilled, that Aizawa’s reaction is so strong. That it’s worked at all. He’s just a kid, fumbling around with shit for the first time; now he’s actually getting a chance to develop what he’s got, rather than being stuck in a corner where he can’t pursue all the incredible potential he’s been bottling up for years. Aizawa’s just glad he can help to decant some of that intoxicating talent.
“Yeah,” Aizawa grunts more than he says, and then pushes away the card Hitoshi’s still holding with a couple of loose fingers. He drops his face to rest in his hands, pressing his fingertips down over dry eyes. It must be an ingrained habit, not to blink while he’s pushing his mentalist capacity – even when it’s unnecessary.
Aizawa’s digging around in his pocket for some eyedrops when Yamaguichi asks, “What are you two doing?” with innocent curiosity.
“Uh… mental exercises, kinda,” Hitoshi answers vaguely, lacking the non-mentalist words someone like Yamaguichi would understand, rather than from any sense of discomfort about it. Now more than anywhere else – in his home, close to his Ma – Hitoshi’s truly in his element.
“Oh, so you can do that kind of thing too, Mr. Eraser?” Yamaguichi asks cheerily.
Aizawa blinks the overrun of eyedrops down his cheeks as he answers, “Sorta.” He tosses a cagey glance at Hitoshi, who’s idly patting Trashbag’s butt so the cat’s purr is ever so slightly interrupted in time with each soft thump of Hitoshi’s palm against him. Aizawa’s vaguely jealous that Hitoshi stole the cat off him, because it was ‘distracting’. Maybe he wanted to be distracted.
Kiki emerges from her bedroom, having changed out of her work-clothes into a pair of matching pyjamas and a soft bathrobe. The sound of clip-clop footsteps draw close, like she’s popped on a pair of horseshoes, and it’s at exactly that moment that Yamaguichi – with all the best intentions in the world – remarks, “It’s really great that you two are so compatible, huh?”
“Great isn’t the word I’d use,” Kiki cuts in like this is her house and she’ll enter the conversation at any moment of her choosing. She strides into the kitchen wearing a pair of fluffy, kitten-heeled slippers that might as well be stilettos for the attitude she stomps around with. Stopping at the fridge, like it’s someone’s last request before their execution, Kiki calls out, “You wanna beer?”
Aizawa has to assume, given that Yamaguichi’s on duty and Hitoshi is sixteen, that Kiki’s talking to him. “Yes please,” he answers with careful reservation.
The next moment Aizawa reacts, swinging his head backwards and reaching up to snatch the can Kiki pitches right across the room at him out of the air. Right at his head, as it happens.
If Aizawa’s not mistaken, he thinks he’s being tested by more than one Shinsou today.
Cracking the tab of the beer and sucking down the head of foam that spews from the can after it’s been hurled at him, Aizawa slurps noisily while Yamaguichi – still springtime fresh in her immaculate police uniform – swivels around to face Kiki in open curiosity and queries, “Do you not like Mr. Eraser, Ma’am?”
Kiki chokes on the swig of her beer that she was also taking, dropping the can to the counter and coughing with a hand to her mouth. Yamaguichi’s a little more direct than she expected. Good.
“It’s not like that,” Kiki tries to deny, and it’s perfectly okay if it is like that – Hitoshi’s mother doesn’t like Aizawa. That's fine. She’s got her reasons not to. She doesn’t have to.
“Well that’s good, because he’s a really excellent Hero.” Yamaguichi lovingly heaps praise onto Aizawa without realising that she’s putting whipped cream on a turd sandwich. “My partner in the police has told me so many stories about him.” Tama’s stories about Aizawa would be best left untold, but Aizawa might be shit out of luck on that front.
“Is that so?” Kiki’s a little more sly than disagreeable by now. Her problem with Aizawa is probably that she only sees him for as good as he is on the surface, which is extremely hot garbage. Being a flaming trash fire isn’t something Aizawa does on purpose, it just happens as a result of the decisions he consistently makes in favour of being good at his job before having his shit together as a person. Not everyone can be like this, but that doesn’t stop people like him existing.
It’s just unfortunate that many of the very best things Aizawa does are only known by the sole person that he does them for, and some (a lot) of those people are dead. That doesn’t stop the good of the thing being done, it just means no one fucking knows about it. The living ones do talk to each other sometimes, so Aizawa’s reliability by word of mouth – and the odd extremely niche internet hole – will occasionally tell you that Eraserhead’s an incredible Hero, though you’ll never catch Aizawa repeating such a thing.
None of this bothers Aizawa, but it does make him easy to doubt. Kiki is just being a good mother, wary of any new influence who wields so much power over Hitoshi. It would be easy, terrifyingly so, for the balance to tip enough that Aizawa’s positive impacts on Hitoshi lose out over the negatives. Aizawa thinks he would be able to tell if that happened, but he would think that. It’s being sure that’s the problem.
Aizawa remembers Hizashi telling him ‘if you worry about it, that’s a good sign you won’t’, and gets another pang of where-is-he longing. His phone proves again to be utterly silent rather than exploding with the nonsense-messages Aizawa’s used to getting throughout the day. That Hizashi’s not having the impulse to share these little thoughts is a bad sign, but what’s Aizawa supposed to do, leave Hitoshi and Kiki alone while Dr. Shinsou is running free? Yeah, right.
When Aizawa tunes back into the conversation, Yamaguichi appears to be telling tales of his exploits in an animated chatter, which has Hitoshi seemingly enthralled from his cross-legged position on the floor but is leaving Kiki to be impressed.
What Kiki does, when Yamaguchi’s enthusiasm slows from a gush to a trickle, is throw a look like a dart at Aizawa and say, “You want a cigarette?” like she’s out to prove he’s not even half as good as other people make him out to be – but Aizawa agrees with her on that.
Aizawa wasn’t gonna smoke anymore today, but when it’s Kiki asking, and when it’s not about the cigarette – it’s about getting Aizawa away from Hitoshi – then the rules are slightly different. “Yeah,” he answers with the thought that if he’s due for some kind of a bollocking, it might as well be with a head full of smoke. Something that cleanses as it scourges. Especially after Hitoshi’s been messing with his mind, maybe a little bit of distance between them isn’t so bad after all.
Kiki grabs her handbag and goes out the front door. Aizawa gets up and follows, catching no more than a puppyish glance from Hitoshi. Who’s pouting, as usual, at being excluded for something he feels more ready for than he is. That’s a lot of Aizawa’s fault, too. Which is why Hitoshi sometimes needs holding away, even if it’s the opposite of what he wants – more time, always more time and grown-up interaction with Aizawa.
Kiki only goes as far as the stairwell before she stops and turns, offering the pack of cigarettes from her purse to Aizawa as he sets himself against the railing of the long first-story balcony beside her. He takes a cigarette and waits patiently while Kiki takes her own and lights it before tossing the lighter at him. Hitoshi’s mother takes a long pull and then delicately pinches the filter between two slim fingers, bringing it away from her lips to say, “You don’t have to stay the night.”
“It’s no trouble,” Aizawa replies in spite of that not being what she asked.
“Then I’ll stop being polite.” Kiki takes another drag, tapping ash away like she can flick Aizawa off with as much ease. “I’d like you to leave.”
Aizawa’s a little torn, and it comes out with him saying, “Look, I know you hate me but–”
“I don’t hate you, for god’s sake.” Kiki gives an exasperated huff. “You Heroes are so dramatic.”
It doesn’t matter a huge amount to Aizawa whether she does or doesn’t hate him at this point. He’s interested in her safety more than the level of annoyance he generates. “Either way, if the Doc tries someth–”
Cutting him off again, Kiki delivers like the results of a series of medical tests with very dire implications, “If my husband is stupid enough to come for me and Hitoshi now, which he isn’t, then he will get exactly what’s coming to him.” The contents of Yamaguichi’s pistol, most likely. And anything else Kiki has in her arsenal to hold such a terrifying force at bay, some of which unloads like firing a blank next to a person's head from her words alone.
It reminds Aizawa that Kiki’s handled this before, as easily as he let himself forget it. And that he’s only trying to keep them safe enough for himself to feel safe. The logical double-bind. Aizawa’s frustration spits a little more steam, as he tries to rationalise something that makes his presence as necessary as he feels it is, but inevitably realises it isn’t. He’s just being overprotective because he’s afraid.
Except Hitoshi and Kiki have lived in fear of Dr. Shinsou for years – before the massacre, admittedly, but this is a threat they’re far more accustomed to than Aizawa’s ever been. It’s just Aizawa freaking out. He’s supposed to trust that a trained police officer can watch over Kiki and Hitoshi and leave them with Dr. Shinsou on the loose? Yeah, right.
“I’m… sorry.” Aizawa drags on his cigarette, running his fingers through some of the growing tangles in his hair. He should do something about them, before it comes to trying to secretly cut his hair with the kitchen knives when Hizashi isn’t looking – which is always, when Aizawa’s touching actual cooking implements. “It’s been a weird day.”
“No shit,” Kiki replies, leaning back against the semi-outdoors railing. The long corridor her apartment opens up to is just about the level of the streetlights, which pour bleachy fluorescent glow over the pair of them, casting elongated shadows that make their smoking seem more ethereal and elegant.
“I’ll leave,” Aizawa announces in case it’s not totally clear that he’s taking the hint, checking himself on his well-intended but nonetheless overbearing clinginess. He could be wrong, but Aizawa thinks Kiki might be relaxing a little, knowing that she doesn’t have to fight Aizawa to back off. He doesn’t mean to, he’s just… a control freak, at heart. Or with heart, as Hizashi might say. “I’ll just say goodbye to Hitoshi.” He would be hurt if Aizawa leaves with no warning, and that’s a thing too. This balance is hard to keep; Aizawa’s trying not to fuck up any worse than he has already, but with a serial killer in the double-digits who’s just got unlimited access to her idol, he doesn’t feel so good about anything.
The terrifying thought of what Shiyoko and the Doc could be doing right now, at this very moment, chills Aizawa to the core. He tries not to think about it, but the horror has an addictive quality that makes it impossible to resist. Focusing on Hitoshi and mentalist training is a way of not contemplating that, but it’s no excuse to stay where he’s not wanted.
“You don’t have to go right now.” Kiki sounds tired and impatient, but she’s got every right to be both of those things and much more. “You can finish your beer and… whatever it is you two are up to on my floor.”
“Mentalist training exercises,” Aizawa supplies, and Kiki looks suitably worried, which naturally means Aizawa has to make it worse. “Based on Dr. Shinsou’s research.” Pre-empting the further appalled face Kiki makes, Aizawa offers, “I know, but Hitoshi asked to learn them.”
“He did?” Kiki queries like she’s struggling to understand her son as much as the rest of them sometimes. “Where did you even learn about that shit?” Spoken like someone who knows far too much about it. Aizawa’s got no doubt of the horrors Kiki could speak of – but he won’t ask unless he actually needs to, rather than just wants to. It isn’t fair on her, dragging things up for his own morbid curiosity.
“There’s this Psych at the police station,” Aizawa starts to unpack such volatile cargo very delicately, knowing he might be in for a bumpy ride. “Dr. Iwaya, she’s very… knowledgeable.”
“A Psych, huh?” Kiki flicks ash dismissively from her cigarette. “She was probably one of Masaru’s students, then.” Kiki gives Aizawa a thoughtful look, and then decides to expand, “Or was she even one of his ‘assistants’?” That's a quick guess, but all the pieces are there, and Kiki's certainly smart enough to assemble them.
“Like you?” Aizawa bounces back without thinking about it as much as he probably should.
“Exactly,” she retorts bitterly. “So I know the type.” Kiki takes one more spiteful puff and spits like smoke from the mouth of a dragon, “Answer the question.”
“Yes, Iwaya was once his assistant,” Aizawa rushes out with the information before it looks like he's trying to hide it. “Around the time Hitoshi was born.” Kiki doesn’t like that either, but she wouldn’t.
Iwaya’s time with the Doc wasn’t for too long, but certainly long enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever it was Dr. Shinsou did to ‘accommodate’ her quirk that prevented him from having dubious relations with her like he did all his other assistants. Aizawa’s not the straightest ruler in the desk, but he’s not a total idiot. He knows what the Professor surely did with his star pupils and extra-special helpers.
“And she works for the police now?” Kiki hisses like an extra-mean alley cat. She comes across as a femme fatale from an old film like this, smoking in a monochrome hallway in her fluffy slippers and candyfloss-pink bathrobe.
It also shouldn’t be overlooked that Iwaya’s still alive, which means she couldn’t have been one of the Doc’s most fanatical fans, sent ahead of him to the afterlife. “From what I gather, Iwaya’s experience with the Doc wasn’t pleasant,” Aizawa relates coolly, wondering what Kiki and Iwaya would make of each other, similar-yet-different as they are.
“Mine sure fucking wasn’t,” Kiki murmurs, then like she’s trying to disprove Aizawa. “Hitoshi doesn’t like Psychs.” It’s delivered with such confidence that Aizawa’s certain there’s a wealth of evidence to back the claim up.
“Dr. Iwaya doesn’t seem to much like Shinsous either,” Aizawa replies without trying to push anything too far. “However, they seem to have made an exception for each other. But I…” This is the moment, tender muscles that haven’t borne proper weight before, but Aizawa’s got to try, at least. “I wanted to know what your thoughts on it are.”
“On what?”
“Hitoshi… seeing Dr. Iwaya,” Aizawa explains a little laboriously, forgetting as usual that not everyone knows what he knows. “She’s a trained counsellor as well as mentalist, and seems to have earned Hitoshi’s trust enough for him to ask her for guidance on developing his quirk.” As well as talking in precious fragments about the shrouded trauma of his past. Aizawa could ask Kiki about what Hitoshi’s been through, of course, but it seems like cheating. And Kiki might tell him to fuck off, which she’d have every right to do.
All Kiki offers Aizawa is a steady stream of suspicion like thick cough mixture. “Developing it how?”
“I think… Hitoshi’s quirk is capable of more than the brainwashing ability he inherited from Dr. Shinsou,” Aizawa lays out like the chalk outline around a body. “He can also do something similar to what you can, it’s just not as refined.”
“Oh, I know about that.” Kiki's hovering somewhere around spiteful indifference. It makes sense that she would, and even more that she’d never say anything about it. Why make Hitoshi’s already-complicated lot even more complex? He’s powerful enough just looking at the tip of the iceberg that’s his true ability. “So you want me to do what, give my blessing for him to see this woman?”
“I wanted to ask if you think it’s a good idea,” Aizawa offers honestly. “Hitoshi wanted to, and he seemed… I thought it would help, so I didn’t stop it happening, but I’m not his mother.”
“Or his father,” Kiki doesn’t hesitate to remind Aizawa, and they’re still smoking, but it’s not about the cigarettes.
“No,” Aizawa confirms lest Kiki think he’s getting any weird ideas. Aizawa cares for Hitoshi – a lot – and wants to be many things to the boy, but he’s no father. That’s the Doc’s distinct, fucked-up honour. “If you don’t think it’s a good idea, I’ll put a stop to it.”
And if Kiki does give tacit approval for Hitoshi to spend more time with Dr. Iwaya, who knows what they might accomplish? Aizawa doesn’t know what he even wants Kiki to say – he’s sincerely waiting to hear what she thinks, in the desperate hope it’ll give him guidance. Aizawa’s got a good nose for a case, and a passable one for teaching, but this is more than any of that put together.
“I don’t like it, obviously, but… you say he trusts her?” Kiki says so disbelievingly it almost makes Aizawa laugh, “How?”
“Iwaya has a quirk that allows her to read minds,” Aizawa explains. “Hitoshi offered to let her read his to prove he wasn’t like his father, which she did and it just… all went from there.” It’s hard to explain, actually, how Hitoshi came to develop this bond with the distant, men-fall-at-her-feet Dr. Iwaya. But Aizawa’s just trying to keep up, ensuring Hitoshi’s as balanced as anybody in his position can reasonably be expected to be. Good thing Aizawa’s a practiced juggler. “I know it sounds a bit weird, but–”
“She must be a looker, right?” Kiki cuts across Aizawa like slicing a block of room-temperature cheese with a wire, looking at him sideways across the almost-ended stub of her cigarette. Then with a sly narrowing of her eyes. “If Masaru went for her.”
“If… that’s the kinda thing you’re into, then I… guess so,” Aizawa replies with plenty of unconvincing awkwardness to make his implicit lack of heteronormativity a little obvious.
“Not for you, huh?” Kiki suggests far too sharply to be anyone except Hitoshi’s Ma. “If you think it’s good for him, why ask me?”
“Because you’re his mother,” Aizawa answers simply. “I haven’t been around Hitoshi long enough to know what’s best for him.” Aizawa’s life-guidance is only useful if Hitoshi wants to be a professional wreck like Aizawa, which he wouldn’t recommend. A good Hero? Sure. A well-balanced person who deals well with stress? Forget it.
“That’s for sure,” Kiki concurs, but with a pleased purr hidden in the wings of her tone. She dawdles a little bit into watching Aizawa silently as they continue smoking. Aizawa’s used to being given hard consideration, which for Kiki – this time – results in her saying, “I seriously don’t hate you, by the way.”
“It’s fine,” Aizawa insists without having to think about whether or not he believes her. “So what do think about Iwaya?”
“I think… if Hitoshi’s willing to actually talk to someone, a trained professional, even one like that… then I won’t stand in his way,” Kiki measures out carefully, but then adds a wary, “But keep an eye on them.”
“For what?”
“Shinsou blood runs hot, I’ve figured out that much by now,” Kiki answers with an enigmatic clash of mother-knows-best meets mother-knows-worst, and it leads into foreboding like a walk down a very quiet, increasingly dark forest path. “But there’s something else about them.”
“Them?” Aizawa dares to probe.
“Hitoshi and his father,” Kiki confirms forebodingly. “The way they are, it… it builds slowly sometimes, but people are just drawn to them.” Or not-so-slowly, in Aizawa’s case. Kiki looks sadder now. “It’s not something Hitoshi even realises is happening, I think.”
Brainwashing of the non-quirk variety builds up slowly as well as fast, over time until it’s so engrained it becomes permanent. The pervasive cult of personality that grows like moss on a sun-soaked rock. Dr. Shinsou certainly made full use of it – his so-claimed 100% mind. When he asked his devoted students whether they wanted to die for him, and they all answered with a resounding yes.
It makes sense, really, accounting for that methadone feeling of being under Hitoshi's quirk, the hit-me-again intoxication of his presence, why being close to Hitoshi feels so desperately necessary sometimes. It makes a lot of sense. Aizawa’s pensive, wandering thoughts that eventually turn into a question that’s only semi-related. “Can I ask you something about your quirk?”
“Mine?” Kiki tilts her head. “What about it?”
“The limits,” Aizawa muses. “What are you capable of doing to someone’s mind?”
“Masaru used to tell me I was the only person he’d ever met who could commit mental battery,” Kiki relates with a chilling deadpan, only made more eerie by her continuation after she takes a final puff and stubs out her cigarette. “But I think he was just trying to get me into bed.”
Aizawa thinks he knows what she’s talking about, that feeling of being sucker-punched in the head without Kiki laying a finger on him – not the being seduced by a mass-murderer bit. “Can you show me?”
“You sure?” Kiki tests.
Aizawa’s got plenty of strengths and just as many weaknesses, but taking a punch is among his finest assets. “Sure. Hit me.”
A second later he feels like Kiki has launched a pool ball from a slingshot to smack Aizawa right in the forehead. He almost inhales the smouldering stub of his cigarette, biting down on the filter before he chokes on it.
“Enough for you?” Kiki’s got a little smile tucked away in the corner of her mouth.
Aizawa just finishes his cigarette and says, “Can you go harder?” For the briefest moment, Aizawa swears Kiki actually smiles at him.
—YOU ASKED FOR IT
This one hits like a truck, striking in tandem with the intrusive projection of words into Aizawa’s head – not so much telepathy as telyellpathy, the only volume Kiki seems able to communicate at mentally. Aizawa puts a hand behind him and grabs a cool balcony-hallway railing, steadying himself as he gets an even better idea of what Dr. Shinsou might have meant by ‘mental battery’, the assaulting violence of how Kiki can knock someone’s head around like a tennis ball on a hard court.
Aizawa has a fleeting moment of illumination in which he wonders if this is also what Kiki meant by Dr. Shinsou getting “what’s coming to him” if he dares to try and get close to her and Hitoshi. It’s hard to remain in control when there’s a bundle of screaming-baby-foghorns banging around inside your head.
Aizawa catches his breath, shaking his head a little like it’ll clear the tingling aftermath of Kiki’s quirk, and then looks directly at her. “One more time.” Kiki makes a face like she might be about to accuse Aizawa of being one of those people who enjoys being beaten up (true, but not the point) and takes another swing at him.
YOU MUST BE—
Aizawa activates his quirk after Kiki has already started the internal scream and squashes it as if treading on the head of a snake. Just to be sure that he can, so he knows what it feels like with his new internal frame of reference to store things against: Aizawa the mentalist.
There’s a moment of sizzling silence. “Suppose you think you're hot shit, with a quirk like that,” Kiki snips a little more play-sarcastically than outright rude. People have such a visceral reaction to being denied their natural-born abilities; Aizawa’s experienced it many times before. And he might be some kinda shit, but not like Kiki means it.
“Trust me,” Aizawa's voice is a big-cat growl, and he knows he has to leave soon, but with Kiki's blessing it doesn't have to be just yet. “I really don't.”
Aizawa stops using his quirk, and Kiki gives him the passing impression of another tentative smile. “You can stay for a bit, but leave before dinner.” That means Aizawa will go home to Hizashi, and it’s definitely the smarter, better self-care thing to do – and therefore why Aizawa wasn’t going to do it unless he’s made to.
“Sure.” Aizawa gives it a bit of extra thought and adds, “Thanks.” He truly hopes he can get along with Kiki. For Hitoshi's sake, if nothing else.
Notes:
This is a wonderfully exciting chapter for me, and is probably so chonky because I cannot possibly resist writing the hell out of scenes with Kiki. I love every conversation Aizawa has with just her alone, but I love each one a little bit more as we go on because they all build on each other. Plus nothing amuses me like Aizawa being CONVINCED Kiki hates him because he's such a fucking drama queen sometimes.
This chapter also brings out a lot of exciting stuff on the deep-lore quirk/mentalism side of things too, both with Kiki's quirk, Aizawa's newbie experiences with Hitoshi, and then the mysterious other element Kiki talks about here that I'm SURE some commenters have suggested before. In this case I built most of this deep-lore before commenters have guessed it, which I like to think means that I'm drawing good conclusions if they can be extrapolated from the story by inference even before I lay it out in black and white.
Anyway, next chapter is a delicious one for me too, so YOU BEST BELIEVE THE TASTY TREATS WILL KEEP ON COMING, DARLINGS. Til next week!
Chapter 36: Runaway
Summary:
Aizawa gets carried away.
Notes:
Late again! So fresh off the back of travelling for work, I get sick... during deadline season at work... and update time... I just can't catch a break, huh?
Anyway, this is a chapter I really like for a lot of reasons, *another* meaty long one, which seems to be characteristic of this 'act' of the story, so not to over-introduce but here it is and I hope you like it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I should go.” The fifteen pounds of vibrating fur on top of Aizawa’s chest begs to differ. It is an immovable weight that cannot be stirred for love nor money.
“So go, then.” Hitoshi is curled up at the other end of the sofa like he’s part cat himself, wearing a thin smile that conveys his endless amusement. Because Aizawa should go, but thinks he might die if the cat moves. It’s an achievement in itself that he’s slumped near-horizontal enough in the corner of the squishy sunflower-yellow sofa to allow Trashbag to have successfully perched all of the cat’s fairly-sizable mass on Aizawa’s more-sizable-yet pecs. The furry deadweight is fast asleep and snoring up a storm. And Aizawa’s strong enough for a lot of things, but not to disturb a sleeping cat.
“Just move the cat and get up,” Hitoshi challenges with his amused grin fattening on the picture Aizawa must make.
“No.” When Hitoshi leans along the sofa as if to reach for his pet, Aizawa growls, “Don’t,” and Hitoshi breaks into a laugh that wakes Trashbag anyway.
“Does he remind you of home? Is that it?” Hitoshi coos at the sleepy countenance of his cat, who elicits a sound like a meow that grates like a block of hard cheese. Hitoshi offers his hand for Trashbag to rub his whiskery cheeks against without getting off Aizawa’s chest just yet.
The deal Aizawa cut with Kiki specified leaving before dinner, which he’s going to get awfully close to if he doesn’t get up soon. Kiki was understandably given the rest of the day off work due to the ‘family emergency’ of a murderous ex-husband breaking loose from maximum security prison, so she’s home in plenty of time to cook for Hitoshi, and has fully embraced the task, nursing a second beer while she prepares a tasty-looking dinner for three – just that Aizawa’s not the third.
Chair number three for dinner at Hitoshi’s house tonight goes to Yamaguichi, who has been bouncing from wall to wall, checking the place from top to bottom like the dedicated professional she is, and is now helping Kiki with dinner. Kiki tried to resist, truly she did, but her instance that it really was fine for Yamaguichi not to lend a hand crushed her helpful spirit so much that Aizawa’s pretty sure Kiki just took pity on the rookie.
Hitoshi looks pleased as punch to be lolling on the sofa while two of his favourite ladies cook for him, and Aizawa’s caught the tail end of lingering looks between the teen and Yamaguichi a few times already. This is probably a weird space for them to interact in. Yamaguichi has to reconcile the way Hitoshi first appeared to her with the actual-sixteen-year-old, who lives with his mother and has a bedroom decorated with faded posters of Heroes. Yamaguichi checked Hitoshi’s room just as thoroughly as the rest of this place, but might have been a little redder in the cheeks after she came back to declare to Aizawa that it was also secure. Aizawa started to wonder if she found something unexpected in her search, then decided that he definitely didn’t need or want to know what was in Hitoshi’s room to make a lady police officer blush like a cherry, and put the thought to quick eternal rest.
Aizawa wonders if there’s a factor of the Shinsou Effect that Kiki warned him of, the charismatic presence of Hitoshi’s company (his father’s too, if in an entirely more sinister way) working on Yamaguichi as well. Or perhaps she’s less susceptible to it, numb to those out-of-range mentalist frequencies that Aizawa’s finding harder and harder to switch off – now he’s finally booted the awareness into action. It’s reassuring to know there’s a reason for Aizawa’s feelings: a definite effect, byproduct almost, of Hitoshi’s quirk that secures the new rules of gravity for Aizawa’s priorities. What makes him so easy to love, in Kiki’s own words.
But Hitoshi’s also got buckets of charm to back up his inbuilt magnetism – when he wants to. And when Yamaguichi’s concerned, he usually does want to. It’s Yankumi this and Yankumi that whenever they’re chatting, if not quite the lothario-esque level of flirting Hitoshi might attempt if he weren’t in front of his Ma.
However, Kiki’s clearly got a good enough read of the situation that when Yamaguichi leaves to go to the bathroom, she eyes her son with a knowing heat and remarks, “Isn’t she a little out of your league?”
“Ma– ” Hitoshi nags with a long vowel, dragging it out like he knows that she knows but he would die before admitting it. “We’re just friends.”
So far. But he’s barely known Yamaguichi a week, so that’s no sign of what might be yet to come. Kiki’s scathing gaze finds a partner in Aizawa’s own “yeah, right” disbelief, and watching Kiki smirk over her beer makes it pretty hard for Aizawa not to do the same.
“Mhhmm.” Kiki hums like an unconvinced message notification, and it reminds Aizawa of the texts from Hizashi he still doesn’t have. Not even one. It occurs to Aizawa far later in the day than it should that he can actually message Hizashi first. Without disturbing the cat, Aizawa clumsily fumbles his phone back out and does just that.
It’s simple, no more than ‘What are you doing tonight?’ because Aizawa’s never had the digital communicative qualities of Hizashi, who lives and breathes into as many social media platforms as can contain him – which is all of them. Hizashi is so plugged into the network that it’s less than a minute before Aizawa has a reply, which comes in the form of a picture.
It’s been taken in a crowded bar, with what looks like other teachers in the background, but the foreground is Hizashi front-and-centre. It’s the last-but-one night of school, after all – of course they’re out for drinks. Hizashi’s taken off his neck gear, meaning the spidery lines of his neck tattoo are just visible in the shot. His mouth is open wide, corners turned up in an ecstatic grin, and Aizawa can definitely see why a brightly coloured piercing in the middle of Hizashi’s tongue would further freakify his look. And feel great on Aizawa’s cock. Though, only if it doesn’t screw up Hizashi’s voice – maybe why he’s more in favour of the one down south, thinking about it.
In the picture, long manicured fingertips clasp Hizashi’s jaw in a powerful grip, and immediately next to him, crushed into the having-all-this-fun-without-you selfie, Kayama is in profile to the camera, her tongue arching as she exaggeratedly licks the side of Hizashi’s face. Actually licks, obviously; they’re no fucking fakers.
Aizawa feels something inside him uncoil and let out a howl at the moon. Why can’t they give him a few more hours of the day? It’s unfair that everything happens so at once all of the time.
‘I miss you.’ Another simple message.
But maybe Aizawa’s been wearing his partner’s patience a little too much, because the reply is, ‘Then make some time for me, fucknnuts.’
Ouch. But Aizawa deserves it. ‘I’ll be home tonight.’ If only because he’s being kicked out of where he is, and that makes Aizawa feel more guilty, but he doesn’t do anything about it except stew. He’s good at stewing.
‘Ok’ is all Hizashi sends back, and is hopefully more busy than angry. Hopefully. If he’s out with Kayama and the rest of the staff, it means he might be – okay, will definitely be – back late. Aizawa can’t help that either. But it does leave Aizawa with the looming actuality of some time to himself which it feels like it’s been an awfully long time since he had much of. He doesn’t really know what to do with it.
When Kiki just so happens to feed Trashbag, the cat finally gets up off Aizawa to waddle off in pursuit of his own dinner, and Aizawa doesn’t have a reason not to go anymore. He mustn’t overstay his welcome any more than he already has. So Aizawa gives Hitoshi a well-intentioned pat on the shoulder as he’s getting off the sofa, offers a wave to Yamaguichi across the room, and an “I’m off, then,” to Kiki as she tends pans over the stove. “If anything happens–”
“I’ll call you,” Kiki finishes for him without looking around. They swapped numbers at the tail end of their little smoke-break council, a bit more conscious communication on both their sides to keep the crazy at bay. “Goodbye, Aizawa.”
“Bye.” Aizawa lets himself out, and figures out what in the fuck he’s going to do next.
Aizawa’s swinging his way into the entertainment district, ostensibly to join Hizashi and the rest of the UA teaching staff, when he hears something – not just hears, senses. A sharp pulse of distress that he’s already moving towards before thinking about what it means – which is danger, the just before-ness of something bad about to happen. It’s probably the psychic footprint of a frightened mind, if Aizawa’s thinking mentalist. A siren that goes out specifically for him, and Aizawa flies towards the cause like a homing pigeon returning to the coop.
Aizawa’s already getting better at placing these signals with his improved radar. As he approaches, a voice in a distant side-street behind a noisy bar grows louder. “C’mon, I just wanna kiss g’nite.”
So too comes the reply with even greater clarity, long before Aizawa gets them in sight. “No thanks, I’d really just like to–”
Aizawa gets there in enough time to literally drop two storeys and land right next to the man, who’s holding the wrist of a hostess who looks very much like she just wants to go home. Wrapped in a thick jacket that she pulls tight around her glitzy evening wear underneath, just visible past the end of the coat that hugs her hips and long legs with shoes that can’t be comfortable to walk (or run) in.
“Seems to me like she’s off-duty,” Aizawa remarks to the guy – normal, frighteningly normal-looking, salaryman type – as Aizawa goes from being several metres above to being right next to him in the space of a few seconds. “You wanna give it a rest?”
“The fuck’re you?!” the guy bursts with surprise and then embarrassed anger. “My friend owns this place, you know! He said I can have any girl here I want!”
Aizawa’s already boiling over, especially in the midst of this terrible case. To be exposed to the same disgusting behaviour that drove Shiyoko to murderous ends. Never has he sympathised more with a killer he’s hunting than the moment when the man tugs on the woman’s wrist as if to say ‘we’re leaving’ and she remains stationary. But then it does get worse, because then he pulls harder and she lets slip a strangled noise, painfully resisting his attempts to drag her somewhere she doesn’t want to go.
“How about this?” Aizawa says like he’s pushing bones into a meat grinder. “You’ve got literally three seconds to let go of her before I make you.”
The braggart gives a derisive scoff, “You can’t tell me what to–” And three. Aizawa punches the guy square in the nose and feels an entirely satisfying crunch against his knuckles. Now that might not have been strictly necessary, but the guy’s still got a nose, even if it’s now gushing blood that he brings both hands up to stem the sudden flood. He should consider himself lucky, the way types like him are going down in this city at the moment.
However, Aizawa appreciates that he might have gone overkill when the girl shrieks, “Ohmygod!” and starts hyperventilating like she’s about to burst into tears.
“Uh… I’m a Hero,” Aizawa tries to explain while the guy drops onto his ass, grabbing at his face and moaning. “Sorry, I should have said earlier. Are you alright?”
“I’m… I’m…”
The girl’s panicked, Aizawa can tell, and what he wouldn’t give for Hitoshi’s interpersonal skills – with or without the assistance of his quirk – right now. Aizawa comes on a bit strong sometimes, especially dropping out of frigging nowhere and almost-breaking guys’ noses at the drop of a hat. Maybe he needs to lay off for a night, he considers, instead of pushing all his frustration onto any target he can find.
But then the girl shudders and finally shunts out, “I’m okay – thank you,” as she catches up, and Aizawa’s glad he did it. “But we shouldn’t stay here,” the hostess urges with a clearer voice. “He was serious about knowing the owner.”
“Let me go part of the way with you,” Aizawa murmurs, and she nods gratefully.
Aizawa only walks a short distance with the hostess, and he doesn’t really invite conversation, but it tumbles out of the girl like she’s got a mission: to ensure the space between them is never free of chatter. She’s actually a student at university, doing this work in the evenings to make enough money to pay for her course fees and textbooks, but her grades are falling and she’s been making enough money here that she’d thought about dropping out to do it full-time, except creeps like that remind her why she’s getting an education, so now she’s going to push herself even harder to catch up and graduate and so on.
After she’s trundled into talking about how she’s going to treat herself to an entire ice-cream cake from this one special bakery after a night like this, Aizawa decides he can’t take another moment of small-talk, and they’ve gone far enough for the threat to be acceptably reduced. He makes his excuses to the girl’s bemused acceptance, and then Aizawa heads back up onto the roofspace, where his thoughts are that much clearer. Clear enough to decide that even if Hizashi is there, Aizawa’s not ready for all the ruckus of a bar full of his colleagues (and their nosey questions) right now. Though he would love a drink. Another one.
That’s how Aizawa ends up buying a single can of beer, a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from a convenience store, then copping a squat in the alleyway behind the store for a cathartic drink-and-smoke his problems away. Which is where he is when the gang of homeless-maybe-thugs approach him to ask what he’s doing ‘stinking up their turf’ and how this is their spot and such and such.
Now, Aizawa didn’t have to escalate. He could have moved on, rather than resolutely resisting and remaining in his stoic crouch against the wall, puffing obliviously on his cigarette. But he had every right to be there, and wasn’t going to be moved. He definitely didn’t have to stub his cigarette out on one of the guy’s shoes, either, and promptly get himself almost-kicked for such an insolent action. Aizawa didn’t have to start the resulting alleyway brawl afterward. He did it, though. All of it.
If Aizawa saw a student doing anything so belligerent he’d probably expel them on the spot. But he’s better at teaching the principles of being a good Hero than he is at upholding them in his own life. At least after a never-ending trainwreck of a day like this.
And that’s how Aizawa ends up getting two-beers stabbed during a drunken hobo knife-fight behind a convenience store. A stupid mistake that he ought to have known better than let happen, but it’s always the dumb moves that cost him the most. The crusty old bastard barely got the blade in at all, just a little dig into the top of Aizawa’s forearm, but it’s enough that Aizawa has to tape a dressing around his arm to stop himself leaving a trail of evenly spaced blood-drips over the pavement. Not really doing it properly, the dressing slowly soaks through, until even the edges have filled out red by the time Aizawa’s finally given up on the night and just goes fucking home. Whether Hizashi is there or not.
Remembering Hizahi’s blood-in-the-bedroom rule, when Aizawa arrives back to a deserted apartment he starts running a bath, heading back into the main room to pick one of Hizashi’s liquor bottles from behind the evening bar. It’s one of the ones with an English label that Aizawa remembers hating the taste of least. Bringing it with him into the bathroom, Aizawa strips and sinks into a steaming tub, submerging his whole head until the noise of the world finally goes quiet for a moment.
Dr. Iwaya had warned Aizawa about this too. Overstimulation. Training a new sense is all well and good, but when it’s constantly running, all that brainwave energy banging around can get… overwhelming, is how Iwaya phrased it. Hitoshi had surprised Aizawa by casually remarking he’s got noise cancelling earphones to ‘help him with that’ without batting an eyelid, and Aizawa had foolishly written it off as something he could handle.
Like any muscle Aizawa’s only just started using in a new capacity, it’s natural for there to be a little ache after exertion. It’s just weird to feel like your whole brain is aching from front to back, electric pulses running across Aizawa’s cortex in waves that become so much fainter when he’s underwater, holding his breath and looking with blurry eyes at the lights dancing on the underside of the surface.
Aizawa dunks his bloody arm along with the rest of him initially, then remembers he’s been poked with a knife when he sees the spiraling cloud of blood released through the water from his soaked dressing. Aizawa thrusts his arm out of the bath like surfacing a submarine, pulling the soggy dressing off to slap onto the tiles and hanging his elbow over the edge of the tub, dripping wet.
The wound had stopped bleeding by the time he got home, but seems to have started up again – Aizawa registers it on a low level as he slides up in the bath and puts his head back, hair warm and sodden down his back. He’ll tape his arm up soon, he thinks, but instead uses the arm to swig Hizashi’s liquor straight from the bottle and just stares into space for a while. Turning the events of the day, and further beyond that, over and over in his head, as if working a hard candy all the way down to a tiny seed in the centre.
The sound of the front door perplexes Aizawa more for its timing than actually causing any outward surprise. Physically Aizawa’s unresponsive, practically melting against the tiles with the square glass bottle hanging loosely from his fingers. With blood or water – a little of both, maybe – oozing down his arm and Aizawa’s hair laying in thick wads across his shoulders, it might almost look believable that he’s finally changing from solid into liquid once and for all.
Footsteps follow the door, and the cause for Aizawa’s bemusement is that it’s not that late, which means Hizashi left a party early. To see him, it goes without saying. Thinking, maybe even hoping, that they’d get a chance to… talk, Aizawa supposes. Though hopefully a little more than talking, if Aizawa’s not inescapably shut in the doghouse all night. Aizawa knows he owes Hizashi communication, but that’s also draining, and he’s already so drained.
“Shota?” Hizashi calls throughout the apartment, and Aizawa returns a kind of gurgling noise from the bathroom in reply. Pulling back the door, Hizashi takes one look at Aizawa and shoots, “Jesus-Fucking-H-Christ. What have you done to yourself this time?”
“S’justa lil' stabbing,” Aizawa’s slurring more than he remembers, but then, the last normal conversation he had was back at Hitoshi’s place, and he’s had more to drink – and blood to lose – since then.
“You look like a goddamn crime scene.” Hizashi’s pissed, Aizawa can tell, so the fact that he isn’t straight-up yelling right now, and is instead going to his bathroom cabinet for something to patch Aizawa up with, means Aizawa has fucked up even worse than he thought.
“The first,” Aizawa says with his mouth under the surface of the water, so his words just come up as unintelligible bubbles.
“What?” Hizashi calls over his shoulder at Aizawa. His headphones are around his neck, hair finally having lost its tenacity and bundled into a messy topknot on top of his head like a pile of dead canaries.
The look Aizawa gets from Hizashi across the bathroom could best be described as fucked-off meets fearfully worried. Which of the two wins out is probably strongly influenced by the lazy trickle of blood Aizawa has allowed to run all the way down his arm and away over the wet tiles.
But Aizawa just about manages to properly enunciate, “The first victim was forced to slash his own wrists in the bath.”
Saying it out loud means that Aizawa imagines it, for a moment. Being a prisoner in his own body, watching his hands clumsily slice his wrists to shreds as he bled to death in the bath, listening to the TV blaring in the background. All over a promotion at work – though Aizawa doesn’t know what that first victim was like to work with. Whether it’s who and what he was that pushed Shiyoko to murder him and frame it like suicide.
“By this killer you’re after?” Hizashi fills in snippily, and Aizawa nods against the surface of the water. “So you’re what, going for a re-enacment?” It wasn’t Aizawa’s intention, but it’s hard to shake the feeling now he’s let it eat into him. A pocket of dark matter that keeps pulling everything else into its endless, infinite void.
“I picked a fight with some bums on the way home,” Aizawa answers bonelessly, limp as Hizashi comes over with a bottle of antiseptic and a fresh dressing. “Got a bit stabbed.”
“That seems to happen to you a lot recently,” Hizashi observes as he lifts Aizawa’s arm and pours antiseptic over the wound, making Aizawa clench his teeth together and hiss as the burn eats through him. That helps dim the mentalist noise too, incidentally. Physical pain, dragging him back into the body from the cavernous infinity of the mind.
“Just twice,” Aizawa mutters while Hizashi starts to dab and prod at the cut until he can see Aizawa’s not exaggerating, and it’s only a tiny stab-wound. He’s seen Hizashi do worse to himself with a kitchen knife trying to cut an avocado.
“And your hand,” Hizashi adds as he speeds through drying off and wrapping up Aizawa’s arm in a dressing. The matching slices on Aizawa’s palm have closed up now, but mostly because they were rounded up in Recovery Girl’s healing after Aizawa took the knife straight through his arm… two days ago? Three? He can’t fucking remember anymore.
Aizawa’s arm gives a reflexive twitch when Hizashi moves it. “That wasn’t stabbing.”
“Right, because the knife has to actually penetrate you before it counts,” Hizashi replies cattily, and gives Aizawa another dose of the antiseptic for spite, probably. “Do you wanna talk about what’s really going on, or do I just keep patching you up, and you just keep saying you’re fine when you clearly aren’t?”
Aizawa reaches for the bottle liquor and takes a glug in protest of Hizashi’s scathing look. But when he offers the bottle to Hizashi next, obviously he takes it, slugging for twice as long as Aizawa did – like he bought it, so he’ll get his money’s worth – before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Aizawa says, “You remember Hitoshi’s dad in prison?”
“The one who did the massacre?” Like Hitoshi’s got another dad (not really). Hizashi licks his lips and takes another drink of the – Aizawa thinks it’s whiskey, but the American stuff. John Dangus or something. “Yeah, bit hard to forget when they’re plastering the bugger's face all over the news.”
“Really?” Aizawa sits up, reanimating extremities that his body swore had simply become part of the water. He’s been willfully out of the loop for too long. “What for?”
“Comparing Dr. Shinsou’s crimes to this new…” Hizashi gets it all at once. “Oh Shota,” he utters like it’s a variant on ‘oh shit.’ “Is that the one? You’re trying to catch the Deathnote Killer?”
“We just call her Shiyoko,” Aizawa replies dully, and then turns to look more insistently at Hizashi. “Don’t let anyone write on you.”
“Write on me?” Confusion dashes across Hizashi’s face like a herd of panicked giraffes. “Why?”
Because you’ll die, Aizawa can’t even say out loud. Too big. “It’s how she traps her victims,” he explains. “There’s no reason she’d have to target you, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.” Hizashi might not be a sex offender (except for one sorely misunderstood charge of public nudity), but he’s close to Aizawa, who is close to Hitoshi; there’s only so many degrees of separation before the heat is hotter than Aizawa’s comfortable exposing the love of his life to.
“Okay, I won't.” Hizashi’s playing appeaser, slipping off his jacket to toss the clammy leather over the bathroom counter, and he’s just saying it because Aizawa’s all strung out. “So the dad in prison?”
“He’s not in prison anymore,” Aizawa corrects, and Hizashi’s jaw visibly drops.
“He got out?” Hizashi pulls his t-shirt off and drops it on the dry side of the bathroom, revealing his patterned true colours beneath. A living mural, vivid and so alive.
“Today,” Aizawa answers morosely, sinking back down in the water. Next, Hizashi’s dexterous fingers go to his belt, Aizawa’s gaze lingering on Hizashi’s buckle like salt clinging to the edge of a rock pool. “There’s a police officer staying with Hitoshi and his mother.”
“Fuck me,” Hizashi reacts as he shimmies out of his pants. The leather-shedding cha-cha.
Or me Aizawa's thinking sordidly as Hizashi steps out of today’s rotation in his large collection of supposedly not-identical black leather pants collection. They’re all black and leather pants as far as Aizawa’s concerned, but Hizashi will suit himself.
“No wonder I came home to find you pissed, bleeding and drinking all my Jack Daniels in the bath,” Hizashi declares as he sheds the last of his clothing – a pair of tightly fitted day-glow boxers, and it’s just a coincidence of their respective levels that Aizawa’s staring straight at Hizashi’s junk. A familiar sight; Hizashi’s soft, but this is hardly the mood for that. At least not yet. But if Hizashi’s stripping that means–
“Move up,” Hizashi orders as he struts to the edge of the tub. “You’re at least going to let me wash your idiot hair.”
“M’okay.” Aizawa shifts and it sends a tidal wave of water back and forth, spilling a little over the end of the tub as he makes room for Hizashi to sit on the edge of the bath behind him, legs slipping into the water behind him.
When Hizashi’s fingers grasp and trail across Aizawa’s scalp with a hairdresser’s confidence, Aizawa makes a noise that anyone in their right mind would assume is highly sexual.
Hizashi clicks his tongue as if he’s saying, “Don’t get any ideas.” Lest Aizawa forget he’s still in the doghouse. But it’s just intense, a wave of stimulation that’s all-encompassing for the moment it hits.
“Don’t stop,” Aizawa pleads as he rolls his head more fully into Hizashi’s lap. It makes sense, he supposes – all this mental strain, the amount of nerve endings in the scalp and proximity to the brain. How it’s been at least a week since he’s properly washed. Either way, Aizawa’s well and truly clay in Hizashi’s hands right now. As if he could just melt into a couple of inky black and red swirls in the water.
Aizawa hinges his head back further, watching himself in the reflection of Hizashi’s mirrored lenses, trying to make eye contact even if he can’t see the green of Hizashi’s gaze behind the shades. “I’m sorry.”
Hizashi’s mirrored glasses cover up the true nature of his mood, which always sits tucked into each wrinkle at the corners of his eyes. Hizashi despairs over the lines that deepen whenever he smiles and laughs (so, most of the time), but Aizawa likes watching him age, the physical signs of the time they’ve spent on this rock together.
However, Hizashi’s voice is and always has been a dead giveaway.
So when he sighs, “I know, baby,” it’s with an exhaustion that longs for relief. “But you realise that you do this to yourself?”
This is a familiar question; Hizashi’s testing how much of Aizawa’s still here – that he hasn’t forgotten how to be a person, rather than a discombobulated cloud of fears and anxieties. A relentless force that knows how to hit hard and push through and do nothing else but work; but that’s not how to be a person, even if it is how to be a good Hero.
“I do.” Aizawa rolls his head to one side, meaning that his face comes into contact with Hizashi’s inky thigh, where the oceanic scales of a sea dragon wrap around one leg all the way down to his knobbly knee. A warrior towers over forests on the other leg, but Aizawa’s got the dragon side on this occasion. These epic folklore scenes don’t cover Hizashi’s inner thighs, though, which remain untattooed, and are somehow an erotic statement as a result. On Hizashi, bare flesh feels truly naked.
Hizashi peruses his many grooming products on a shelf along the edge of the tub, selecting one like a choosy maitre’d picks out wine, while Aizawa mouths the border where Hizashi’s inked dragon swims up his inside leg. Opening the bottle to squeeze a generous dollop onto his hands, Hizashi brings them together and then back down over Aizawa’s scalp. Aizawa releases another guttural sound against Hizashi’s thigh while Hizashi lathers up Aizawa’s hair in a way he absolutely does not bother with when he’s washing it himself. This is one of those (many) things that Hizashi just does better than Aizawa, and it would be illogical to stand in the way of that.
Aizawa softly bites a patch of bare skin almost next to Hizashi’s crotch, and Hizashi shakes his leg and directs Aizawa’s head back up into centre. With his fingers buried deeply in Aizawa’s inky mantle of hair, holding Aizawa firmly in place, Hizashi bends all the way over to look at Aizawa up close, shades falling down his nose so they’re eye-to-eye for a moment. “So would you stop doing it to yourself?”
Aizawa wishes he could. “Twenty-six,” he tells Hizashi without breaking their nose to nose gaze.
“What?” Hizashi sits upright and resumes shampooing (okay, he knows the words) Aizawa’s hair.
“People they’ve killed.”
“They?”
“And that’s separately,” Aizawa adds – what Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko will do now they’re reunited, that’s something to be afraid of.
Hizashi’s frowning, as so many people do when they finally learn the truth. “The news didn’t say anything about that.”
“They wouldn’t,” Aizawa mutters, sinking further down in the water. “Dr. Shinsou killed eight people when he was escaping earlier today, and in the last few days Shiyoko has been making drug addicts deliberately inject themselves with lethal doses.” Like unrolling a large ball of tightly wrapped yarn, Aizawa starts to unravel. “Usually after carrying out her bidding, all the way up to making someone blow their own brains out with a cop’s gun in the police station earlier today.” Aizawa builds steam, which rises off his broiled flesh in long wispy blooms. “Really it’s 27, if they count what she did to the zombie.”
“Zombie?” Hizashi’s worked Aizawa up into a lather by now, but with magical fingertips that trail therapeutically across Aizawa’s scalp and make it feel like everything is being worked out, bit by agonising-yet-relieving bit.
“Someone she used her quirk on so forcefully he’s been turned into a vegetable,” Aizawa explains unhappily, and Hizashi doesn’t say anything, just makes a face that says it all. The ‘oh Shota’ look of compassion for the darkness Aizawa willingly subjects himself to.
Hizashi urges Aizawa back down into the water. Aizawa’s eyes are shut, and his whole face doesn’t slip under, but his ears do. Then he takes a deep breath and floats. For a wonderful moment’s he’s free, tethered to the world only by Hizashi’s hands gently cradling his skull.
Half-submerged, Aizawa opens his eyes to half-mast and gazes up at Hizashi, whose halo of messy golden hair flows from the light above their heads, like he’s the actual sun in Aizawa’s sky. The soothing blanket sound of being underwater distorts Aizawa’s voice in his own head, making it a distant, frog-in-a-well croaky echo that he hears himself saying, “I love you.”
Aizawa sees Hizashi’s lips move while warm water still swaddles his head, and Hizashi’s either saying, “Love you too,” or “I eat glue,” but Aizawa takes a wild guess as to which it probably is.
Swishing his fingers from side to side, Hizashi expertly fans out and squeezes Aizawa’s hair, careful grasping handfuls to tug his scalp, squeezing long undulating groans out of Aizawa like wringing out a wet flannel. Aizawa might not expend much time or energy on personal hygiene and grooming, but he does love when Hizashi washes his hair, and is grateful beyond words that Hizashi’s overlooked Aizawa’s unworthiness tonight and done it anyway.
When Aizawa next comes back above the water, Hizashi tells him with a fondness buried fifteen years deep, like a seam of gold in a dirty coal mine, “But you’re such a messy bitch.”
Maybe, Aizawa thinks. But Hizashi’s always been right there getting trashed alongside him, albeit in a bunch of different, but still dysfunctional, ways. That’s why Aizawa’s assured, like the gentle lap of waves against a shore, in telling Hizashi, “You love it.” Or he eats glue, but Aizawa’s pretty sure if Hizashi had a solvent abuse problem he’d know about it by now.
Hizashi brings him back above the edge of the tub and applies another product to Aizawa’s hair, packed with the scent of springtime flowers that fills the air around them. Aizawa’s too used to smoke and the tang of blood, a much-needed cleanse to his palette.
“Maybe I do, Shota, but we’ve all got limits.” Hizashi’s hairy shins shift from behind Aizawa’s shoulder blades to hanging over them as he crafts Aizawa’s slick hair into an ice-cream whip on top of his head and leans him back in the tub.
“Whatever happened to plus ultra, go beyond?” Aizawa asks with his eyes sliding shut again, the echoing sounds of further bathroom-bottle fussing from Hizashi, including a point when he briefly stands and fetches something from across the room.
“That’s shit we say to the kids and you know it,” Hizashi replies. “You know just as well as I do that it isn’t supposed to involve plus ultra-ing yourself into the hospital.” Aizawa’s not in hospital (this time), but that kind of pedantry is beside the point of what Hizashi’s saying – which is right and true as always. Aizawa pushes himself too hard, and crashes equally hard as a result. But what’s he supposed to do, when the pressure is this high?
If Aizawa dared to let himself think about what could be going on right now, the evil that is being committed in the world on a rolling basis, he’d drag himself out of the water like a sea cow trying to take to the land and keep going. What the Doc, what Shiyoko are about to do, could even be doing right now, while Aizawa just lays here and soaks. But Aizawa has to accept the limits of the world, including himself within it. That means sometimes allowing himself to stop, be distracted from the great inestimable darkness by thinking of literally anything else.
Aizawa opens one eye a crack, watching Hizashi coming back toward him with a razor and shaving foam. He’s a great distraction. Always has been.
“Does that make you my sexy nurse?” Aizawa asks with as much hope as humour – Hizashi’s got the outfit somewhere in his closet and all, though most nurses don’t wear PVC dresses (one of Kayama’s cast-offs). But Aizawa’s probably not going to get that lucky tonight, if at all.
Hizashi scoffs and then primly announces, “I’m shaving you,” like it’s somehow related as he comes back to the side of the tub.
“Why?” Aizawa’s feeling better, if also drunker. The liquor must be kicking in. He takes another swig from the bottle and Hizashi clicks his tongue, swiping it back for himself as he climbs back into the bath and this time sits on Aizawa’s stomach, knees folding on either side of Aizawa in the blessedly roomy tub, facing Aizawa head-on.
“You’re coming into school tomorrow, and you need to look presentable enough that Nezu doesn’t realise what a hot fucking mess you are.” Before Aizawa can argue that Nezu definitely knows that much, Hizashi snips him off with “Principal’s orders, Shota. It’s the last day of term: you have to be there.”
“Fuck, alright,” Aizawa groans, lolling his head to the side as Hizashi foams up his sandpaper jaw. It stings that he’s being summoned to school on pain of firing in spite of his supposed ‘emergency leave’, while Hitoshi remains indefinitely suspended. What about his last day of term, in the wrong class on the wrong course?
Until Hizashi flips everything on its head. “Nezu said to bring your kid too,” he adds as he turns Aizawa’s jaw the other way and lathers the rest.
“Hitoshi?” Aizawa’s eyebrows rise, forgetting not to respond to Hitoshi as ‘his kid’ as the natural thing it feels like.
“Yeah, something about 'reviewing his position at UA',” Hizashi parrots with an impressive mimicry of Nezu’s cheery voice. “Do you think he’s going to get transferred onto the Hero Course?”
“Not likely,” Aizawa mutters, keeping his face still as Hizashi starts to pull the razor carefully over his cheeks and jawline, flicking off the black-flecked foam so it can dissolve into the water. “It’s in the rat’s interests to keep Hitoshi out of the spotlight as long as possible.” Especially now, when the media are circling the Shinsou story like vultures around the site where a whole herd of buffalo were slaughtered and left to fester in the hot sun.
“How’s Hitoshi holding up?” Hizashi makes it sound very easy to echo the way Aizawa refers to Hitoshi, using his given name like it’s a different kid to the moody Shinsou he teaches in his English classes. Maybe they are, in his mind. Hizashi’s good at drawing flexible separations like that. Better than Aizawa is.
“Better than I am,” Aizawa says in a moment between strokes of the razor, a compliant pile of putty that Hizashi can shape at will. It’s the truth, too – Hitoshi’s a more experienced mentalist and accustomed to living in fear in a world where Dr. Shinsou’s not behind bars. With any luck, he’s fast asleep in bed right now, watched over by all the protection Kiki and Yamaguichi can offer him. But Aizawa doesn’t feel that lucky.
“Roadkill is doing better than you, Shota,” Hizashi scolds. “That’s no basis for comparison.”
Aizawa keeps quiet as Hizashi shaves around his mouth, tickly on his upper lip and gentle touches to guide his jaw from side to side. It occurs to him that he should talk to Hizashi – to actually tell in any capacity, at least – about the recent recategorization of Aizawa’s quirk and his new understanding of himself as a (horribly inexperienced) mentalist, but somehow he can’t find the words.
The words Aizawa can find, when Hizashi pauses shaving, are, “I don’t deserve you.”
“Well duh,” Hizashi bounces back like he’s made of elastic, a limber demon covered in tattoos, grinning at Aizawa with his unnaturally white paid-for teeth. But then Hizashi curls down over Aizawa, grip sure on Aizawa’s jaw to guide his mouth up into a wet-lipped kiss that practically squeaks it’s so clean.
Backing away to finish the shave, Hizashi gets a touch more serious. “I know you’re caught up in case-world right now.” Aizawa looks honestly at Hizashi, wishing he would change his glasses so Aizawa can see his eyes properly. “I know you probably think you’ve got it under control too, but if the heat is on I want you to–”
“To call you,” Aizawa finishes for him as Hizashi’s rinsing off his clean-shaven jaw. “I know. I will.” Maybe. Probably? The problem with the heat is that Aizawa’s usually on fire before he realises what’s happening. And the problem with bringing Hizashi in is that it increases the risk of people Aizawa loves getting hurt by a shit-ton. The greater the fear, the higher that feeling of risk crawls in Aizawa’s chest, and the more he doesn’t want to do it. And the Doc and Shiyoko are something to be that afraid of.
“Shota.” Hizashi’s not playing, and knocks his glasses down with a finger, leaning close so Aizawa’s in focus for him. “I need you to promise me.” Aizawa hesitates a little and Hizashi’s too smart not to catch it. “Shoootaaaa.” It sustains, and will continues to do so until–
“Yes.” Aizawa buckles like he’s been nailed in the gut. “If shit hits the fan, I’ll call you.”
“Promise.”
Aizawa seals his own fear like a wax seal on an envelope. “I promise.” Hizashi sits up straight and seems barely content with the offering. “But can you do something for me?” Aizawa's tentative, gaze crawling up and down the intricate tattoo canvas of Hizashi’s body. Swallows, his tongue feeling thick and a lump heavy in his throat.
“What?” Hizashi reaches for the bottle and takes another swig.
Aizawa puts his hands on Hizashi’s thighs and scoots him backwards just far enough to brush Aizawa’s cock in the water. “Fuck me ‘til I can’t think straight.”
Hizashi laughs boldly and resettles his weight to more obviously grind over Aizawa’s crotch. “I hate to break it to you, darling, but I don’t think you’ve had a straight thought in your life.”
“Good,” Aizawa growls as he presses up against Hizashi and raises his uninjured arm from underwater to wrap around Hizashi’s back, pulling them into a messy-bitch kiss to top them all.
Notes:
Honestly my heart goes out to all of you who got really worried about Hizashi prior to this. I couldn't SAY anything of course, but it's fascinating as an author seeing how the things I put down affect people - Hizashi being fine but just having fun/giving Aizawa the cold shoulder causing so much worry for a LOT of people, I never even thought of it that way because I knew as the creator what was happening, but that's the joy of seeing the story go out week-by week.
Also in the venn diagram of people who like killer-thriller mystery-detective stories, people who like Dadzawa fics and people who like Erasermic, this is one of my top-rated chapters for people in the last circle. I love them so godddddamannmnmn muchhhchchhch fuck.
Thanks and see you next week for a much-anticipated chapter (again, ha ha) tellingly named: 'The Shinsou Effect' !!!
P.s. shoutout to all my grownup readers who as late-20-30-somethings can identify with being an adult but also having those self-destructive-spiral moments like Aizawa do here. Adulting at its finest.
Chapter 37: The Shinsou Effect
Summary:
In which getting what Hitoshi wants is easier said than done.
Notes:
*Whispering that gets louder as we approach this chapter* yesyesyesyesYES!!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa wakes up with a mean hangover, but a much more sympathetic Hizashi, who’s tangled up with Aizawa in such a way that they're both halfway out of bed from Hizashi getting up before Aizawa even wakes up. Being dragged partly onto the floor, combined with an okay-ish amount of sleep, makes it easier for Aizawa to crawl into the world of consciousness, even on a raw fucking hangover. He's also lured into the kingdom of the waking by the smell of coffee, which Hizashi puts on as soon as he’s up like a poacher sets a trap, coming back to the bedroom to drag Aizawa the rest of the way out of bed by the time the smell is wafting through the apartment.
It’s a simple fact of life that Hizashi is the uncontested champion of getting Aizawa out of bed in the morning – a record he has maintained for fifteen consecutive years. So it’s with the confidence of having spent half a life together that Hizashi pushes a cup of just-off-scalding coffee as black as a goth’s funeral into Aizawa’s sleep-curled hand; it’s a trap, but Hizashi is a skilled hunter.
Because drinking the coffee requires sitting up, a calling that Aizawa cannot ignore, and must – even though he doesn’t want to – haul himself upright with what feels like ninety percent of his hair physically in his mouth. He has to spit it out before he takes that first revitalising sip of the day.
It’s here, when Aizawa is vulnerable, that Hizashi descends with a hairbrush to straighten out the five dozen different directions Aizawa’s hair goes after being slept on half-wet and washed properly (for once). Aizawa’s ‘haircut’ – namely, the different lengths of his hair based on when another chunk of it got most recently cut out on purpose or by accident – has been described by Hizashi as "the result of a knife fight in a hairdressers’ during a tornado" before. Aizawa doesn’t argue, except to occasionally contest that it's more likely to be during an earthquake, but that’s mostly because he doesn’t care to begin with.
Physical appearances have been important to Aizawa literally never, though it doesn’t make him against grooming for practical purposes. He attempts to look ‘presentable’ if the situation calls for it. He’ll just never make any effort himself, and resists Hizashi’s (and/or Kayama's) attempts to do so unless he’s feeling particularly tolerant. However, today Aizawa’s fully stocked in tolerance, after Hizashi slowly and then very-not-slowly fucked Aizawa last night until every last mentalist ache had been wiped out of his mind. Coming so hard he went blank for long enough to hit the big reset button in his head. Slept like a log, woke up ready to do it all again, if that’s what it takes. Hizashi even brushed Aizawa’s teeth for him (again) last night, while Aizawa was going pruney in the bath. It can’t be denied that Hizashi takes good care of him.
Except crashing so hard – to say nothing of drinking half a bottle of liquor between them – takes a little longer to come out of in the morning, even moreso with age. So it’s with the chugging of an older engine that needs a little bit more time to fire on all cylinders that Aizawa sheds his mound of blankets and shuffles like a zombie to relocate to the kitchen. This is mostly for the purpose of procuring more coffee, and partly because Hizashi brushing the tangles out of Aizawa’s hair is getting annoying. But like a dog that leaves the bathroom in the hopes of not getting a bath anymore, Aizawa’s relocation is fruitless: Hizashi follows and continues to tinker with Aizawa's hair as he settles in behind the breakfast bar.
“Do you think Nezu would freak out if I gave you bunches?” Hizashi’s speculating as he plays hairdresser with his favourite model – let it not be forgotten how many of Aizawa’s weirder haircuts were because a tipsy Hizashi ‘wanted to try something’ and usually fucked it up. Hizashi's own precious locks are sitting loose and damp over his shoulders this morning, taking a moment to air-dry before going in the industrial hairdryer.
“I don’t care what he thinks at this point,” Aizawa replies more like an irate parent than a teacher describing his boss. Which reminds him: if Nezu wants to talk about Hitoshi’s future at UA… Aizawa messages Kiki, handing her the opportunity to come (bringing Hitoshi, for one) and also going up to bat for her son like the rightful parent she is. Aizawa could use the backup, honestly.
“Pigtails, maybe?” Hizashi’s teasing doesn’t get anywhere, and he huffs before finally twisting Aizawa’s hair into the only bun he can manage – messy. “What’s up your ass this morning?” Compared to what was up Aizawa’s ass last night (Hizashi’s cock, for starters).
“I have to talk to Hitoshi’s mother again and I’m dreading it,” Aizawa replies simply, and it seems to disarm Hizashi, getting such a straightforward answer. But Aizawa is trying to keep Hizashi more looped in, fighting that deadly fear, which in the light of the morning seems that little bit less intense. Hitoshi and Kiki not being on the morning news as the victims of the Doc’s most recent double-murder is part of that, but if anything it proves Aizawa’s intense urgency of the night before was a reaction that he experienced more than the rest of them. Or he’ll see, once he actually speaks to Kiki.
“What, doesn’t she like you?” Hizashi acts as if he’s joking.
“Not really,” Aizawa answers as he grabs his coffee and puts his phone down, only to pick it back up again a moment later. He sends a message to Hitoshi this time, letting the kid know he’s being summoned to school and how Aizawa’s waiting to hear from his Ma. That does the trick, because a few minutes later, Hizashi's just kissed Aizawa’s temple and swanned off to stick his head out the back end of a jet engine when Aizawa’s phone rings with the caller ID: Kiki.
“Was everything alright last night?” Aizawa shoots straight out of the gate, with a back pocket full of reasons why they wouldn't or couldn't have called him if something happened, and this is the dreadful call where he finds out.
For a moment of stilted silence, Aizawa hangs like an anvil suspended by a piano string, and then Kiki says, “Hitoshi's right, you're pretty clingy.”
“My concern is just for your safety,” Aizawa replies stoically. “Did you get my message?”
“Yes… thanks for passing the Principal’s ‘invite’ on.” Kiki doesn't quite begrudge this, but she's certainly not singing Aizawa’s praises either. Nezu certainly could’ve contacted her rather than going to Aizawa via Hizashi. Then again, maybe Nezu was hoping Aizawa wouldn't tell Kiki, who is going to be even less tolerant of Nezu's habitual scheming than someone who's still technically his employee. “I'll drive over soon – Hitoshi’s just out for a run right now.”
Aizawa’s stomach lurches at the thought of Hitoshi jogging solo through the neighbourhood they know Shiyoko has been active in; it's Aizawa’s own fitness challenge, but feels like a gaping liability right now, even though he knows Hitoshi can't just stay inside (or with his Ma, or Aizawa) until the Doc has been captured. It's just what Aizawa would like. “Is he safe? Did he–”
“Easy, Aizawa. Yamaguichi went with him,” Kiki prunes back Aizawa’s worry like rapidly growing ivy. That does make a more comforting picture – Aizawa can imagine Yamaguichi being fun to exercise with, the way Hizashi is in contrast to Aizawa’s stoic discipline.
But Aizawa’s not done yet. “What about you?”
“If Masaru were foolish enough to come for me alone, my safety’s the last thing you need to worry about.” It's a bold play, and not even remotely true, but Aizawa appreciates the ominous threat in Kiki's voice. He’s got no doubt she’d mentally whip Dr. Shinsou to within an inch of his life if she got the chance (maybe even an inch or two more than that), but not getting the chance is what Aizawa’s worried about.
“He probably won't be alone,” Aizawa replies.
“I don't think you know my husband as well as you think you do,” Kiki observes frostily, and she has several notable points. If Shiyoko is obsessed enough with the Doc to threaten Hitoshi and Kiki – as ‘the bastard and bitch who left him,’ no less – and if the Doc still professes to “love” them, it might not be Dr. Shinsou they should worry about at all.
“I know what Shiyoko is capable of,” Aizawa lets only an appropriate amount of gravity slip into his tone. “That's plenty.”
“They're just running around the block, Mother Goose,” Kiki chides with a wit every bit as sharp as her son’s. “He has to have a normal life still.” Aizawa hadn't really expected to find himself being the overprotective one, being lobbied for greater leniency about what Hitoshi is capable of doing without supervision from a guardian. A routine, keeping that ‘normal life’ must be important – as important back then as it is now. Horrors only Kiki would know, raising Hitoshi single-handed all these years.
“As long as you're okay with it.” Aizawa cedes to the higher authority, distracting himself from fretful worrying by taking a fresh sip of his second cup of coffee; he’ll probably sneak a third in somewhere before he goes to face down Nezu. “So I'll see you both at school?”
“Yes.” It's a little tense, but if Kiki didn't want Aizawa there, he's certain she'd mention it in no uncertain terms. “I'm sure Hitoshi will let you know when we're close.”
“Okay.” Aizawa closes his eyes and opens them again, not a blink so much as a refresh, checking the world is still the same and hasn't changed in some dangerous, critical way that means Aizawa ought to be panicking. But it's just the long howl of things not changing that he's got to be worried about – knowing that at some unforetold point it's all going to go tits-up again, and the most Aizawa can do is just wait for it. “Thanks, Kiki.”
“Relax, Aizawa.” Kiki very-almost sounds more fond than irate, like maybe she understands why Aizawa’s being like this and has more patience for it than she’s letting on. “I'll see you soon.”
The call ends, and Aizawa takes a steadying breath. He sure hopes he's ready for this.
They meet in the car park. Aizawa spots Kiki’s car rolling in while he’s smoking an early-morning stress cigarette in an out-of-sight corner, stubbing it only half-finished and pocketing the niggling habit before Hitoshi can catch him in the act. Trying to be better – mostly failing.
Aizawa already made some time to go and show face with 1-A, making up (excuses) for his absence the past couple of days and reminding them all of the looming commitment of their summer training camp, before unleashing the terrible rugrats for the rest of their final day of term. They’ve all got a few free days before leaving for the hills, thankfully, so Aizawa will have to make extra good time on this case or drop off the radar, the same way he's ditched the recent days of school. But now this “Family Emergency” has dragged Aizawa back into school – just not in the role of a teacher.
Aizawa doesn't want to neglect his students, but he's got priorities, and sitting at the very-very top of that pyramid is the skinny paintbrush loaded with purple climbing out of his mother's car right now.
It's sure as shit not a normal last day of term for Hitoshi, who stalls for a moment upon seeing Aizawa, like a bicycle’s pedals spinning wildly as it rolls down a hill. His mauvish eyebrows twist toward each other, eyes narrowing as if in contemplation of some inestimable puzzle that could be used as a mentalist training exercise, and surmises all this bemusement with the comment, “You look… different.”
“He’s shaved, that’s all.” Kiki hits like she’s swinging a baseball bat at a grenade, tossing a handbag by the strap over her shoulder as she strolls around the car in a well-ironed suit and shirt. One of her eyebrows lifts high upon further, up-close study of Aizawa, and she concludes with a curt, “Nice man-bun.”
“Just a bun,” Aizawa corrects tersely, long-resenting the pointless affixation of ‘man’ in front of things like it’s a more fitting identifier than being exactly what it is, free of weird over-gendering that doesn't suit him. Aizawa can be biologically male, but it doesn't make him a man by sheer obligation – especially not the kind Shiyoko has been making messy ends of in recent weeks.
“Smoking already?” Hitoshi is in top insolent form, automatically placing himself close enough to Aizawa to get a good whiff of the guilt and tobacco stink. It’s invasive yet observant—and, therefore, Hitoshi all over. “You stressed about something, teach?” Little shit’s too good of a detective already.
“Not something,” Aizawa mutters with his jaw ducked low behind his capture weapon, like a tortoise retreating into its shell. “Everything.” Already busted, Aizawa roots the half-smoked cigarette out of his pocket to relight and speeds through it in a couple of long drags as they’re heading into the school and up to the Principal’s office.
When they get to the fateful door on the top floor of the UA tower (the one with the nicest view), Aizawa doesn't knock, knowing he's expected. Hitoshi and Kiki follow him wordlessly into Nezu's domain, the air heavy with caution. Never let it be forgotten that Nezu is himself, in essence, a mentalist in a league entirely of his own.
The magical teapot is already brewing. Three cups set out on the large table seem to confirm Aizawa’s hunch that Nezu wasn’t expecting Kiki, or doesn't want it seen that way. Though, of course, the Principal shows no sign of disgruntlement when Aizawa strolls in with Hitoshi and his Ma, ready for a fight.
“Mrs. Shinsou, what a pleasant surprise,” Nezu greets cordially, shuffling forward on his sofa to rummage for an additional teacup that he sets beside the others. “I hadn’t been expecting you.”
“If you’re discussing my son’s standing at this that institution I pay through the nose for, I would’ve expected to at least get a call.” Kiki clicks over in her low heels and takes a seat at one end of the sofa. While comfortable enough for two, with Aizawa at one end and Kiki at the other, it leaves only a thin wedge of space in the middle. Fortunately, Hitoshi doesn’t seem to mind one iota slotting himself in, shifting like a slinky cat to squeeze perfectly between Kiki and Aizawa, thigh-to-shoulder on each side. Hitoshi’s perhaps even a little smug about it; he’s probably never had anything like this – albeit in a not-so-nuclear little family unit.
“I do apologise if that was your impression,” Nezu says with practiced dexterity. “My primary purpose for calling this meeting with Aizawa was to discuss his leave of absence from teaching at UA, and to review his commitment to accompany his class on a training retreat a few days from now.”
Hitoshi picks up on this as fast and indignant as is to be expected, turning to Aizawa with an aghast, “You’re leaving?”
“Not if this case is still open,” Aizawa settles stoically, the unspoken ‘I won't abandon you’ screaming from every corner of his mind. Not being willing to drop other commitments to protect Hitoshi is the least of Aizawa’s problems right now; not letting the rest of his life go into a total fucking tailspin while he drops everything to protect Hitoshi is more up to speed. Namely, the (one of them) purpose of this meeting.
“Then why am I here?” Kiki asks icily, trapping Aizawa in the frostiest part of her gaze. “I'm not his mother.”
“Well, it's also true that I intended to review the arrangement made with Aizawa regarding Hitoshi's status at UA.” Nezu's tail gives a distinctive swish as he gazes at Kiki with his glassy rodent eyes. Aizawa tries to gauge if this is the first time they've met face to face since the fated occasion Nezu dined with the Shinsou family over a decade ago. “I ought to have contacted you personally. I apologise for the indiscretion.” If they ended the meeting now, Aizawa would feel it was worth it just to watch Kiki screw those words out of Nezu with a ribbon-cutting glare.
There's a silence, still and well-balanced as an antique teacup on a delicate saucer. Aizawa might be a beginner with his mentalist sixth sense, but even he can feel the powerful minds sizing each other up across this antique dollhouse Nezu calls an office. Like a tiger and a bear circling each other in a small room, evaluating whether they have to fight.
“Let's discuss my son, then.” Kiki jumps to the point. “Are you lifting his suspension?”
Nezu's gaze shifts from Kiki to Hitoshi at her side. “It's my understanding that Shinsou is not yet ready to return to his academic commitments.” The Principal’s head tilts, one of those animalistic gestures that grounds what he is for a solid moment, then tars Aizawa with the same sticky-black brush of a look.
“Depends on the course,” Hitoshi slips like a hand into a stranger's pocket.
“We didn't convene to discuss a transfer.” Nezu speaks as if there’s a glass wall between him and them, like the walls of the cell that couldn’t hold Dr. Shinsou. “In fact, I had rather thought we'd speak about–”
“Let's talk about the transfer anyway,” Kiki interrupts, startling Aizawa from languishing in the befuddling haze of his hangover – Hitoshi's proximity might not help either.
Aizawa can pick out the effect more clearly now, after the slow-build poison of yesterday has been (literally) washed away. Just from sitting next to Hitoshi, Aizawa’s ready to fight, kill and die for him all in one uncoordinated catastrophe; it's a distinct emotional pitch Hitoshi's presence catalyses, if inseparable from the deeper well of emotion that Aizawa draws on where his feelings about Hitoshi are concerned. The Shinsou Effect – though it's not so crude as to generate something that isn't there, it does sharpen everything that is. All Aizawa’s empathy and loyalty, how strongly he feels for Hitoshi's cause, and wants to see his charge succeed against the cruel odds put against him, narrowed down and funneled to a point so focused it's like a laser. Strong enough to burn through Nezu's defences, hopefully.
Not knowing quite what's going to come out, Aizawa opens his mouth and says, “Hitoshi is a strong candidate for the Hero Course and should be transferred at the first available opportunity.”
“And when would be a good time for Hitoshi to return to normal classes, Aizawa?” Nezu questions slyly. “I understand you've got rather a lot on your plate right now, and we wouldn't want to deprive you of the clearly invaluable support of your intern.” Excuses, Aizawa thinks vitiriolically, but fuck if Nezu isn’t right.
“I can't legally be Aizawa’s intern unless I get a license.” Hitoshi thrusts into the mix with youthful determination, and there’s a lot more control to his tone than the last time he was in this office with Nezu. It’s amazing how far he's come on, bolstered a little more every day by the security of Aizawa’s (much-deserved) devotion to him. “Are you seriously gonna let me take the exam?”
Nezu gives a chuckle like a wind-chime swinging on a grandparent’s porch, and shuffles forward on his spacious couch to reach for the teapot. “That is the current arrangement, yes.” Aizawa’s not sure, but he thinks he feels a buzz of some kind off Hitoshi for a moment, like a bumblebee whizzing past his ear before disappearing into the blue sky. “But these things may be easily unarranged, should your attendance at this institution be called into question.”
“Isn't that what you wanted to speak about in the first place?” Kiki reaches for one of her ears to fiddle with an earring. Aizawa is magnificently thankful that she's here. Maybe he's inside the yawning hole left in Hitoshi's life where the Doc demolished anything that stood for a father, but Aizawa’s not even close to a mother, and even further away from that than Hitoshi's Ma.
“And how do you feel about this matter, Mrs. Shinsou?” Nezu puts to Kiki forebodingly, though his tone maintains the same well-mannered polish. “When we discussed your son’s future earlier this year, you raised no objections to his placement on the General Course.”
“Because I was rejected for the–”
Kiki puts a hand on Hitoshi’s knee, which is bent up high from being crammed in between her and Aizawa, and he goes quiet. “I think–” She stops, and then starts again, and Aizawa’s got just enough of a read on Kiki to suspect this is a little difficult for her. But it’s not something that anyone thinks, it’s just what is.
“My son wants to be a Hero,” she tells Nezu. “Aizawa, who you assure me is a Hero of exceptional quality, also says that Hitoshi has great potential. So I would be interested to know what reason you have for thinking he shouldn’t be transferred to the Course most appropriate for pursuing that goal.”
Aizawa never doubted, not really, that Kiki would pull through. But that doesn’t undermine the power of the moment. He practically wants to kiss her (weird feeling, won’t follow up on it) and can feel the effervescent happiness radiating off Hitoshi to have his Ma embracing his dream when push comes to shove. Not that Kiki wouldn’t, but privately she voices her worries, and that’s enough to seed doubts in the fertile ground of an insecure teenage mind.
Nezu is a canny creature, and now he's outnumbered. So he does what any wily being would do in this situation, and creates a diversion by beginning to pour four almost-identical cups of tea – but for the last, which comes a little short. This is the one he takes for himself, head bowed over it as the Principal utters, “I think we're all aware there are certain risks associated with Shinsou's quirk.” Nezu looks up at Hitoshi, and Aizawa almost feels the humming energy of their gazes on one another. “Some of which he demonstrated all too recently on his classmates.”
“I didn't do anything bad to them,” Hitoshi drawls. But when Aizawa reaches for that phantom muscle, the mentalist radio-tuner that listens for frequencies he doesn’t usually pick up, there is so much dissonant everything in the air that Aizawa almost wants to use his quirk on the goddamn lot of them to quieten up this din. Like a bunch of saucepans being banged together inside the bottom of a tin pail.
“You frightened them, Shinsou.” Nezu's reply is a sweet and subtle knife, slipped between the ribs. Sharp enough to cut so the blood comes first and cutting sensation later.
Hitoshi shrugs his shoulders in defeat more than defiance. “I can't help that, can I?”
“If Hitoshi transfers into 1-A I can control him,” Aizawa offers with an urgency that sneaks up on him and then springs all at once. This wasn't supposed to be a conversation that hung Hitoshi's future in the balance, but that Shinsou effect keeps kicking strong, and now Aizawa’s gunning for a hill ( any hill) to die on. No wonder the Doc’s followers all told him they wanted to die, slipped into a brainwashing strait-jacket before drinking the poison cocktail that would end their lives. But the things Aizawa wants to do for Hitoshi are all good things that Hitoshi deserves, and it makes all the difference.
Nezu's head moves to adjust his gaze. “And how would you rate your performance at controlling Shinsous so far?” The pluralisation is deliberate. Of course.
“That's not fair,” Hitoshi rushes, but Nezu's not wrong. Aizawa couldn't even keep Dr. Shinsou behind bars, and Hitoshi’s so much more than that quack could ever be.
Aizawa knows an indulgent guardian in a critical position of authority is a loaded die, but it’s not the only piece Nezu is trying to roll against on this occasion. Thank fuck Aizawa’s got some backup here.
“You can’t discriminate against my son because of his quirk.” Kiki moves back into the fray with the ease of a swimming shark, leaning forward to reach for one of the teacups, which she holds in her lap for a moment.
“Pray tell why not,” Nezu invites cordially, which makes it fucking creepy.
Kiki swirls her cup of tea under her nose and takes a sip without breaking from her dead-eyed stare at the Principal. Then she smiles like it’s perfectly simple, and a second before she says it, Aizawa realises what she’s going to say. “Because I’ll pull him out of UA.”
“No.” It’s fitting, really, that Aizawa and Hitoshi should say this so completely in-sync that even the sharp stop where their protest ends is sheer as a cliff face. But they’re playing in the big leagues now. Nezu and Kiki are going head to head, which leaves Aizawa and Hitoshi’s little racket in the crossfire.
“There are other schools with Hero Courses,” Kiki carries on like this really couldn’t bother her less. “Perhaps I don’t care to keep my son in an institution that will hold his quirk against him, and will find a more sympathetic caretaker for his talents.”
It’s a bluff, Aizawa thinks – hopes.
“That won’t be necessary.” Nezu remains as calm as ever in the face of rising tempers. “I had hoped to come to this discussion at a later point, but… while there are many challenges facing Shinsou’s possible transfer onto the Hero Course, I have contemplated some… options, you could say.” The options are that Hitoshi will transfer or he won’t, surely. But Aizawa’s not as smart as Nezu.
“Keep talking.” It’s Hitoshi who gives the order, and for just a moment Aizawa feels like this could be a scene of his orchestration – not deliberate, by some thinking action of the mind, but by the power of what and who Hitoshi is, triggering circumstance after circumstance to bring them all to this.
Maybe the Shinsou Effect is still kicking strong, because Nezu continues almost as if he were bound to do so. “There are areas of your performance that are still well below the standard we require on the Hero Course.” The cunning critter begins to unreel the markers he plans to set out on this freshly turned ground. “What you lack physically you make up for in the power of your quirk, but that is in itself one of the greatest challenges.”
Aizawa understands it, sort of. Even to those who don’t know what Hitoshi’s already capable of, the true extent of his ability and terrifying power-for-good that rests between his ears. Of course it frightens people, children especially, to feel the magnitude of all that force held over them. Hitoshi hasn’t been taught how to use his power responsibly and needs more time, dedicated attention Aizawa would literally die to be able to give him. If they’ll just give them a chance.
“So then what?” Hitoshi’s fluid, listening now Nezu’s finally talking, like he’ll take any shape he needs to if it gets him what he wants.
“The two must come further together. You continue training with Aizawa in private, developing your practical and physical abilities as a Hero, and–” Here comes the kicker, Aizawa reckons; he’s got a hunch… “—the strength of your quirk should be disguised.”
“Disguised?” Aizawa echoes, because it's not what he was thinking. “Never use your quirk on classmates without permission,” is what Aizawa was anticipating, or maybe even that Aizawa would have to teach Hitoshi himself, and just do a better job at keeping his pup on the leash. But to make Hitoshi’s quirk seem weaker than it is? “How?”
“By lying about it,” Hitoshi answers so fast that Aizawa must be an idiot, because of course it’s that easy. “How much do you want me to cover up?”
Aizawa would turn to Hitoshi, but they’re packed tightly enough together that the motion might push Kiki off the sofa like the popping of a cork in a bottle of champagne. “You don’t mind?”
It would drive Aizawa fucking nuts, being made to lie about his own ability – among his peers, no less. Now, Aizawa wasn’t exactly popular among his classmates back in his days as a student of UA, but the oppressive qualities of his quirk merely aggravated people rather than outright terrified them.
“I’ll say whatever they want me to, as long as I can be on the Hero Course,” Hitoshi answers with an expression like one of those giant stone heads on a remote Pacific island; he’s made of tougher stuff than Aizawa is.
“You’ll say you’re limited to using your quirk on one person at a time,” Nezu dictates like he’s typing a bullet-pointed list. “Your classmates in 1-C have been asked to remain quiet about what happened the other day, and most of them can’t remember enough to talk about it in the first place.” Hitoshi used his quirk on more than one person during the sports festival too, but only the most scrupulous detectives would bother to unravel that knit of falsehoods.
“Done,” Hitoshi lilts, wearing a laid-back expression as easily as a mask. “And?”
“You’ll lead your peers in the Hero Course to believe you can only make them perform basic tasks, and can't force them to reveal sensitive information or harm themselves,” Nezu continues with enough confidence that Aizawa’s sure this is all within the confines of the Principal’s original plan – a little accelerated, perhaps, but still on track. “You'll also conceal the ability of your quirk to work over digital mediums, and use it only where you are within hearing distance of your peers.”
“Annoying, but okay,” Hitoshi responds dryly. “You want me to cut off my tongue so I can’t talk either? Stoppit–” he snaps like a puppy as Kiki and Aizawa elbow him on opposite sides. But it gets Hitoshi back into line, settling with a grumpy, “So if I do all that, I can transfer next term?”
“Patience, Shinsou,” Nezu schools gently, and Aizawa feels the spiky energy coming off Hitoshi almost physically. Aizawa squeezes out of the sofa-crush to pick up the two remaining cups of tea, holding one out to Hitoshi wordlessly. The tea is the best part of a Nezu shakedown, and Hitoshi might benefit from the therapeutic qualities with which the Principal imbues his drinks. Taking his own sip, Aizawa realises it soothes the mentalist static he’s been feeling grate on his mind like a hunk of hard cheese, and if that isn’t an interesting detail. “You will return to General Studies, and continue private study with Aizawa in advance of the provisional license exam – on which point, I have been considering another option concerning your participation.”
“Let me guess,” Hitoshi pounces. Aizawa re-impresses the cup of tea onto Hitoshi, who ignored it at first, but this time he takes it. “You want me to wear a disguise?”
“Your mind is truly every bit as formidable as those of your parents, Young Shinsou,” Nezu puts it as a compliment, but Hitoshi doesn't exactly take it as such. Aizawa doesn't blame him. “I will talk to Aizawa regarding a process for your transfer onto the Hero Course, but you will need to practice some temperance in this matter; it may take some time.”
Hitoshi sips his tea and makes a face that tries to say it’s not a big deal, even though it totally is. “I waited this long, didn't I?”
Nezu smiles pleasantly, which is a sure sign to be worried – about what, Aizawa doesn’t know. But something. “So you have.” The Principal sips his tea. “And so you shall continue to do a little longer.”
“But in the meantime, I take it Hitoshi’s suspension is lifted?” Kiki watches over her son with a maternal eye, as careful as a hawk's.
“Effectively, yes,” Nezu answers. “However, practically speaking, it seems unlikely that Shinsou will be in a position to return to the classroom today.” His gaze fixes on Aizawa. “Am I correct?”
“There’s better things I could be doing than bumming around in General, sure,” Hitoshi agrees before Aizawa gets a chance to. Perhaps especially if he spooked all his classmates, and would have to smooth things over, answer questions he’s not comfortable answering, rather than just not being around until it’s water under the bridge, fading from their minds like a high tide mark drying to only the faintest line.
“Better things indeed,” Nezu concurs emphatically. “Which is the very point I had been meaning to address.” The Principal looks back to Aizawa. “How fares your investigation? I understand there has been a rather significant escalation of late.”
“My husband's escaped from prison, if that's what you're alluding to.” Kiki deals like unloading a six-shooter into a pile of concrete slabs (drunk, at the end of the night after a costume party in which Hizashi’s cowboy outfit included a working antique revolver). As if the Doc’s not bad enough, Hitoshi also seems to get the provocateur instinct from his Ma as well. It’s a security-building habit the two share, quickly establishing that they’re never the least-informed person in the room. The I’m faster and smarter than you Shinsou vibe because estranged or not, Kiki’s still a Shinsou in her own right. “That’s what you wanted us to confirm, isn't it?”
Aizawa has two guesses as to who would have slipped that information to Nezu, and Aizawa doesn't figure it for the Police Chief, so his money's on Warden Tanaka.
“You're as sharp as ever, Mrs. Shinsou,” Nezu seems to congratulate, but it's a poor appearance at that. “It's easy to see why the Professor was so enamored of you.”
“Interesting use of the past tense.” Kiki is twice-frozen black ice on a road in bad lighting. “I'd think you of all people would understand Masaru better than that.”
“Quite so,” Nezu agrees. “It's for that very reason I wanted to extend an invitation to you both to relocate to some of our facilities within the UA campus. We've been considering such measures for greater security of the student body, and could easily accommodate the two of you.”
“You want us to move into the school?” Hitoshi scorns like burning a line of gunpowder.
“Thanks for the offer, but we’re quite happy where we are,” Kiki replies politely, but there’s a hardness behind it that says ‘don’t push me’. “The police have been taking care of our security, and should Masaru attempt contact, I will personally see to it that he gets exactly what he deserves.” Aizawa thinks that not one of them in the room right now have a single doubt about what Kiki means when she says such a thing, and it’s almost enough to chill their tea so much they’d have to break through the frost on top to get a sip.
“Of that, I have no doubt at all.” The Principal posits more cheerfully than the subject matter deserves, drumming his booted feet against the cushion of the sofa. “Well then, I feel we have addressed everything we needed to discuss, have we not?”
“I guess,” Hitoshi interjects brattily, but if it weren’t him, then it’d surely be Aizawa shaking the mood up like one of Hizashi’s shitty cocktails.
As with most of his conversations with Nezu, Aizawa finishes his tea and is left with the distinct idea that all they’ve done is play further into the Principal’s paws – maybe not entirely, given Kiki’s refusal to move onto campus. Naturally, that’s the only part of it Aizawa wishes Nezu could’ve gotten his way on. Even if Aizawa’s (supposedly) got faith in the police, who haven’t had the kind of incidents that UA has, he would still feel safer if they were on campus rather than off.
“Mrs. Shinsou, is there anything you would like to add?” Nezu invites.
“Seems to me like we’ve got it covered,” Kiki replies stiffly.
“There is one thing,” Hitoshi says like lifting the latch on an unlocked side-door, addressing Nezu with a steely look that pierces through their status as Principal and Student and hits mentalist-to-mentalist. “The reason my quirk doesn’t work on you – that’s because you’re not human, right?”
Aizawa wants to grab Hitoshi in a headlock immediately and lecture him for hours on just how he knows his quirk doesn’t work on Nezu, namely he tried it and that was the bumblebee sensation Aizawa felt earlier – a failed attempt to entrap Principal Nezu, of all people. Stupid and reckless and shouldn’t have–
“Quite right, Young Shinsou,” Nezu almost chuckles, so if he’s irritated by the attempt it doesn’t show. “Your father held a similar fascination, intrigued by the curious unattainability of my mind.” The Principal finishes his tea and sets the cup down. “I hope you don’t mind my saying, but you share more with him than you perhaps realise.” The Principal doesn’t hesitate, but does stop a moment to let the distressing thought settle. “He was a man of mixed extremes, good as well as bad.”
“Agree to disagree,” Hitoshi cuts before Aizawa can fully transfer his urge to put someone in a headlock onto Nezu, “but I do know exactly how much like my dad I am.”
Somehow, Hitoshi’s gaze ends up on Aizawa’s at this point, lingering like a drying splash of whiskey across bathroom tiles. Something unsaid, a feeling like a phantom, calls into question the notion that there could be more than one person for Hitoshi to compare to in that regard.
As if drawn by the talk-to-me power of the Shinsou effect, Aizawa quietly mumbles the truth he holds deeply within. “Not at all.”
Because for all their inbuilt similarities, Hitoshi and his father couldn’t be more different.
And neither could Aizawa.
Notes:
NEZU CHAPTER!! IMPORTANT!! STUFF!!! CANON TIE-INS!!! I love these Principal-chats, especially because there's always one more family member involved each time they happen. While these chapters are getting slightly shorter, this one is still a bit longer than I usually aim to make each chapter, which is aprox 5.3k as a very specific yet arbitrary point I tend to shoot for because I'm weird like that. BUT! IMPORTANT! I mentioned before I don't think Hitoshi is on the level about his quirk in the manga, so having that come out while still writing this was a wonderful little opportunity for a tie-in that's about as close to canon as I'm truly interested in getting.
As we walk out of the room backwards from canon, props to anyone who put their finger on the concept of something like the Shinsou Effect before I laid it out in clear terms, and extra love to the commenters who've been geeking out on the deep-lore mentalism aspect. I'M SO ABOUT. Yesyesyeyesyessssss
Speaking of things I'm ABOUT, Aizawa casually correcting gender-related things and his lowkey non-binary/agender preferences gives me fucking LIFE. Another one of those things I didn't plan but ended up coming through as an organic part of my writing.
Thanks a lot y'all! See ya next week for OH, I DUNNO, ANOTHER CHAPTER I LIKE A LOT????
[I don't know how to do emojis in ao3 so just imagine a bunch of the eyes]
Chapter 38: Lovers' Leap
Summary:
Aizawa might have been going for awhile, but Dr. Shinsou’s just getting started.
Notes:
We have a long weekend of holiday for Easter in the UK so I straight up forgot it was Wednesday and that's the reason this update is a day late, but I figure that's probably okay at this stage in the story. Also it's a THICC one as usual for this 'act' of the fic so enjoy that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa, Hitoshi and his mother have no sooner set foot outside Nezu’s office than Aizawa cuffs the errant teen around the back of the head, though he lets his hand linger in Hitoshi’s exotic bird’s-nest hair for more of a punitive ruffle than a true reprimand. Aizawa at least tries to sound stern with his, “You should not have tried to use your quirk on Nezu.”
“Lay off. It’s not like it worked,” Hitoshi growls as he shoves back against Aizawa’s hand; they’re sorta-playfighting and sorta-not – bouncing around on the slackline of mixed intentions, as usual. Pushing Hitoshi just to feel that satisfying tension of pushing back, someone – student or otherwise a part of his life – learning to hold their own against Aizawa’s brand of tough love. He’s hard work, he knows that, but also knows it’s the only way he’s capable of being. Better to make peace with it now than trying to change his nature like transmuting lead into gold.
“That’s no excuse.” Kiki comes in quick on the other side of Hitoshi, which makes for a double-assault on the boy that must feel like a page out of a forgotten family manual. “How are you supposed to convince the Principal you’re ready to be a Hero if you insist on playing silly buggers?”
“Oh, I don’t know, by catching real life criminals?” Hitoshi finally succeeds in shoving Aizawa off like a horse kicking an unwanted rider. Lolling his head to one side like it was all a game after all, a palm wrapped around the back of his neck, Hitoshi remarks as if he's kicking his feet up in a lounger and couldn't be more at ease, “Right, Aizawa?”
Aizawa might as well have a bullseye painted on his forehead, because it’s into the centre of it that Hitoshi and Kiki’s complementing violet gazes shoot like a couple of arrows. Aizawa feels the inexplicable urge to hold up a card with his name and Hero ID number on it, taking a mugshot for the code violations he’s gotten written up on more times than he’d care to count. It doesn’t bear thinking about what the Hero register authorities would do if they found out about Hitoshi being his ‘intern’ without a piece of paperwork between them – and Aizawa hopes to never find out.
While Aizawa knows what he’d say in response to Hitoshi’s question if he were speaking for only himself, he’s got a greater responsibility than his own garbage opinion now.
What this amounts to is Aizawa begrudgingly starting to mutter, “Hitoshi, listen to your mothe–” but he never finishes, because it’s that very moment that Todoroki barges through the stairwell doors that Aizawa was just about to head into, putting them face-to-face – if not for the large stack of differently sized containers in Todoroki’s arms.
They’re all plastic – the containers, that is – and Todoroki stops suddenly while the unsteady stack does not. It tips forward so that Aizawa has to reach up and grab it to steady the structure before the whole lot topples over. Being the last day of school, there’s a lot of tidying-up and putting-away-of-things, which Aizawa’s guiltily pleased to be missing out on. Todoroki must be running some helpful errand to that effect, but when he regains balance of the tower and looks around it, recognising the trio of people in front of him to varying degrees, Aizawa’s student looks so surprised his mouth actually appears to be hanging open.
It takes Aizawa a moment, but then he realises what it looks like: Aizawa, Hitoshi… Hitoshi’s mother. Hopefully Todoroki doesn’t go getting any ideas. But then again, this is Todoroki.
With everlasting mercy, Aizawa’s phone starts ringing, and for a second they remain stuck in exactly the same position after Todoroki burst through the doors, like a jammed automaton that stops when a single piece moves out of joint. If that’s the case, Aizawa answering his phone shoves the rest of the machine into motion. Hitoshi and Kiki move a little further ahead while Aizawa holds the door open for Todoroki, nodding at him with narrow ‘we don’t talk about this’ eyes as they walk along the hallway. Maybe the conspiracist won’t tattle. Maybe.
Aizawa checks his caller ID and answers the phone with weary about time irritation. “What’ve you got for me?”
“Tama’s on his way,” Tsukauchi announces without hesitation. “I just got the call, but you remember that ninth security guard who was ‘missing’ after the Doc’s escape? Well someone just found what’s left of him in a back alley a couple miles from the prison.”
“Great,” Aizawa answers like it very definitely isn’t. “We’ll be over there soon.”
“Are you sure you wanna bring the Little Spoon? ” When this became Hitoshi’s codename is beyond Aizawa’s knowledge, but he’ll be damned if it isn’t a little useful. “This one might be… I mean, it could be Shiyoko, but my gut’s saying–”
“I know,” Aizawa interjects, eyeballing Hitoshi, who’s lagging behind his mother on purpose, earwigging on Aizawa’s call. “I’ll ask him.”
“Alright. I’ll see you soon, Eraser.”
“Later.” Aizawa hangs up, and then just like that, Hitoshi’s next to him.
“So what is it?” Hitoshi pries like Aizawa is a box he just has to get into.
Aizawa can’t mince words. “Another murder, but it… might not be Shiyoko.”
Hitoshi’s sharp, especially when Aizawa is projecting the answer at him on all frequencies. Perhaps he picks a few of them up. His face certainly twists in a grotesque way before he answers, “So you’re saying what? It was my dad?”
“Already.” Kiki sounds like she’s equal parts disappointed to angry; which happens to be an exasperated-Hizashi classic, but even more effective when it's bursting with Kiki's powerfully tired energy, like she's so fucking done with this stuff that she doesn't know what she's gonna do if she gets her (mental or otherwise) hands on the Doc – wrap them around his throat, probably. Aizawa wouldn’t stop her.
“It might not, but Tsukauchi thinks it could be,” Aizawa explains more gently than he would if Kiki weren’t right there, ready to sucker-punch Aizawa in the brain if he crosses the line. Sure as shit keeps Aizawa toeing it. “Is that gonna be okay?”
“What, for me?” Hitoshi’s expression hits a snag like a brush through matted hair. “I know he’s a psychotic murderer. Seeing the proof is hardly gonna make a difference.”
Aizawa’s tackled by a rush of pride at Hitoshi still going from strength to strength in his handling of this demonic case, his devotion to seeing the work through no matter how tough it gets. Giving Hitoshi a firm pat on the shoulder, Aizawa murmurs a fond, “Good lad.” It’s a funny turn of phrase, but drifts – like Hitoshi – somewhere in the shallows between boy and man. “Tama’s on the way.” However, it’s not just Hitoshi that Aizawa’s got to check things over with, so his next question is put to the Winter Queen by Hitoshi’s side. “Kiki. How about you?”
“How about me what?” Kiki remains as Arctic as Aizawa could expect. They don’t have a lot of time and are descending one of UA’s long winding staircases – takes a little longer than the lift, but worth it for the free cardio. “If Hitoshi really wants to see his father’s handiwork up close, then I’m not going to stand in his way.”
“What about your safety?” Hitoshi hops in before Aizawa gets a chance to cluck to the same effect. It’s more palatable coming from her son than the weird paranoid shadow who has been following him around for weeks. No wonder she hates Aizawa. “Are you gonna be okay going back to work?”
Kiki’s wearing a trimly fitted suit that suggests she’s planning to be all business today, and Aizawa has a feeling Hitoshi is heading off Aizawa’s clingier instincts by repeating a conversation they’ve probably had in private. He appreciates the consideration.
“I’ll be staying in the office,” Kiki soothes as much as she informs, a telling flit of her lilac eyes over at Aizawa as they turn another corner in the stairwell. Kiki’s work attire includes heels, which aren’t Kayama-levels of tall but clip-clop like there’s a pony coming with them down the echoey student-deserted stairwell. “They’re aware of my… security concerns at present, and no one is allowed into the building without an ID card anyway.”
“The prison guards who helped the Doc escape had ID cards,” Aizawa points out. “You could still be in danger.” Being a professional downer is what keeps people safe and alive, and it’s not always Aizawa’s biggest problem if the people he’s trying to protect don’t like it.
“So what would you have me do?” Kiki shoots impatiently. The clicking of her heels punctuates their speech as regularly as a metronome. “Traipse around a crime scene with you?”
“Not in those shoes,” Aizawa retorts, equal parts distraction to petty. Kiki’s heels are black, and not even that high, but bordered in a hot pink Aizawa reckons just might be her favourite colour. Aizawa has the thought of whether embracing bright, girly things is a move away from the Doc, who presumably likes his women as austere as he is. Not that Aizawa has ever seen the Doc out of a prison uniform; in the media, before he went to prison, it was rare to see the Professor in anything except an exceptionally tailored dark-toned suit.
Thankfully, Kiki actually seems to enjoy Aizawa’s playful dig, because she stifles a chuckle. If she and Aizawa can shit-talk each other amiably, they might get along yet, so his next request beds into slightly softer ground. “Just stay in touch.”
“I’ll message you every hour: how’s that?” Even if Kiki is a little blunt, offering anything this attentive to Aizawa confirms she must hold the true measure of danger in her mind, reassuring without actually needing to say it all out loud. It’s hard, reconciling that need to be strong by playing down the threat to being ready enough to deal with it. A balance Aizawa and Kiki are still trying to strike, especially with Hitoshi caught between them like a child splitting his time between separated parents – which is true, in a way.
“That’d be great,” Aizawa replies with open relief, his unconscious so soothed enough to mutter an almost involuntary, “Thanks.” Because there’s one thing of which he’s got no doubt: they’re all scared. It just manifests in different ways.
“How’s it going, assholes?” Tama must be in a very good or a very bad mood, and by this greeting alone, it’s not possible to tell which it is.
“Oh, just great.” Hitoshi slides into the backseat and melts like a cat, while Aizawa takes the front-passenger spot. “What's not to love about a day when my cop-killer father's been set loose in the world, right?”
“Yeah, good-fucking-morning to you too,” Tama growls, and Aizawa offers him a sympathy cigarette from the pack he picked up last night. Aizawa would like to say he was drunk when he bought them, but by that point he was tipsy at best, and only has his own down-the-drain spiral to blame rather than the couple of beers he’d primed with in advance of his string of deliberately poor decisions. “Thanks.” Tama takes one of the cigarettes, but slides it into a pocket rather than his whiskery mouth. Seems fair that Aizawa pays Tama back some of the many cigarettes he’s been lifting off his buddy for the better part of two weeks. Stops Aizawa smoking them too.
Aizawa tries not to fall into rumination as they settle into a drive of more comfortable silences than small talk, but his mind seems intent to wander whenever the silted note-trading chatter between driver and passengers ceases. After almost toppling Todoroki in the hallway by the Principal’s office, Aizawa and Hitoshi ‘coincidentally’ stumbled onto Midoriya crossing the campus after seeing off Kiki in the parking lot. The Todoroki-loving sneak had several bags of rubbish in his arms, yet suddenly dropped them all (and spent a very long time picking them up) while Aizawa and Hitoshi made their way over to the main gate.
It was probably innocent, but Aizawa sometimes got the feeling his students were mentalists in their own right, communicating across a network not even his newfound skills could detect. Or that was the assumption when Kaminari was ‘coincidentally’ sweeping the same four leaves by the gate. (Funny how only Aizawa’s class were scattered all across his path through campus like breadcrumbs). Aizawa pulled away from the main gate and went immediately for a side-door used by teachers and staff, which was when Ashido came skating up as a last resort to “thank Aizawa again” for still letting those who'd lost against their teacher in the end-of-term exam come to the summer camp, but spent a lot of her time going “mhm” while Aizawa talked and eyeing Hitoshi next to him instead.
Not really understanding their curiosity, Hitoshi was spitting envy like a snake does venom, resentful of the intrusion by Aizawa’s other kids into what was supposed to be Hitoshi’s time with him.
Aizawa didn’t let the congress last long, and clobbering together a moral for Ashido about how she and the others who’d lost had an advantage over their peers who'd been successful, because they had no false comfort of feeling like they'd won against a handicapped opponent (Aizawa had personally been disgustingly hungover to boot), and consequently knew what the true challenges against them were.
It probably didn’t matter what Aizawa said, because what the curious little pests all wanted to know was where their teacher was taking the General Course student who had just shot to infamy in the back of a police car.
Except Aizawa's pretty confident that even 1-A’s wildest guesses couldn't have been further from the truth.
“One of the business owners found him this morning.” Tsukauchi sounds like he’s reading a eulogy for a beloved family pet and grandparent, who were both killed in the same tragic accident – his birthday party. “They've obviously closed up shop for the day, as have the other businesses on this street.”
And no shit.
The prison guard is still in his uniform, but the once-blue shirt has been stained a dark red by the huge quantity of blood lost from his torso. At first glance, Aizawa thinks ‘multiple stabbing’ for the coroner's report and is already casting around in the vain hopes that a murder weapon might be nearby, only to return to the body like swinging a pendant over a magnet.
The not-missing-anymore guard is on his knees, in front of a wall that’s been pasted with old posters, many of which have bleached in the rain or peeled away to blanche the backdrop just enough to make it feel a like a stage. The alleyway is mostly stacked with refuse from the businesses nearby, but this area is a little clearer (maybe it was even cleared on purpose). The lifeless body is holding the pose he finally died in: kneeling, with his head thrown back, the victim’s torso opened up to the sky like a vulture was going to swoop down and eat his liver for the rest of eternity.
Aizawa walks slowly around the body, noticing some cable ties that bind the victim’s wrists together behind his back – not so sure he wouldn’t retaliate, then – and then expands his scope to take in the whole backdrop. Spindly trails of blood droplets that have been flung against the wall behind the body, telling the dynamic story of action. A bloody knife moving so fast the fresh blood was whipped off the edge of the blade, casting spidery legs around the body between one violent stabbing and the next. The effect is repeated so many times to seem as if a great gory insect was in the process of climbing out of the victim’s much-perforated chest.
This cobweb of blood splatters accents the deathnote that has been written out down a plain strip of wall beside the body. The blank slate is too deliberate in its vacancy not to be chosen on purpose; the Doc has plenty of attention to detail. Bloodied fingers hint at who authored the note, as does the message itself, forced as it was into being the victim’s final act – to scrawl in his own blood…
I WANTED THIS
“Subtle,” Hitoshi quips, and Aizawa gives him a low glare that he shrugs off.
But the note is subtle, in that it leaves more by implication than spells it out in blunt terms like “death is freedom” or a simple statement of condemnation such as “pigs are slaughtered”. This is more insidious, the escalation Aizawa anticipated all too well when he theorised the next leap in Shiyoko’s paradigm: to evolve from the forced self-slaughter of a victim to allowing themselves to be killed. Even embracing death, if the significance of the victim being on his knees and message are read together. Not just to believe the slogans and repeat the Doc’s mantras without feeling, but to truly live the emotional state of giving in to those primal urges and just dying – or so Dr. Shinsou theorised.
There's another meaning, too, in a statement as simple as “I wanted this”, not in relation to the victim but the killer – for this is what the puppeteer wanted more than the puppet. Such a bloody, violent end for a man whose only crime was being alive and part of the system that had imprisoned Dr. Shinsou for six long years – summarily parted from his life like a splitter drives apart two halves of a log.
Aizawa doesn’t want to leave anything down to chance, which is why he turns to address Tsukauchi, “So why do you think this one was the Doc?”
“It’s the final victim of his escape spree,” the detective declares with an attitude like quicklime. “You don't think that’s obvious?”
“I think we look like fools for assuming anything,” Aizawa responds. “Can you account for this man’s movements after the prison break?”
“He appears to have fallen victim to the Doc's quirk at some point during the breakout,” Tsukauchi lays out efficiently. “There’s a short exchange, caught on camera. The last visual shows him leaving the prison during the chaos by a different route than Dr. Shinsou took, and he wasn't among the guards or prisoners who attacked each other or tried killing themselves in the ensuing riot.”
“So what, dad just made him take the day off?” Hitoshi suggests wryly, and then with a sideways look that would heat a saucepan of water to the boil, gives a ticklish, “What did he do to the ones he killed in prison?” As if he’s trying to sneak the details from Tsukauchi’s deep pockets without the detective noticing.
“Simple stuff, mostly to cause panic,” Tsukauchi answers without reservation for who he’s addressing anymore. They’ve been through enough now that it’s not about questioning each other, because the enemy they’re united against is a far greater threat. “Those who were armed shot through the crowds before turning the gun on themselves, and a couple of the prisoners who fell victim to Doc’s quirk beat a guard to death.”
“Are you sure his quirk made them do that?” Aizawa suggests like he’s suddenly inspired to the lunatic’s defence, but the reality is that many prisoners will seize any excuse to kill a guard, and it matters to Aizawa to keep the death tally clear.
“Well they beat some other prisoners to death after that, and then one used a shiv to slit both their throats,” Tsukauchi lands unpleasantly, like a cow pat he’s launched into Aizawa’s garden from next-door. “So I kinda figured it was the Doc, but hell, maybe I’m doing this policework thing all wrong.”
Hitoshi sniggers, but Aizawa doesn’t feel bad for testing Tsukauchi. Maybe he doesn’t need to, but what’s the harm in saying it out loud? At least then they’re all on the same page now; if Aizawa doesn’t ask the question then he won’t get the answer.
“How would this guy know where to go?” Aizawa asks, ignoring Tsukauchi’s bitterness as they’re well past squabbling. “If we assume the Doc did brainwash this guy to leave the prison and meet him after dark.” Perhaps the man went home first, or did he simply go somewhere and wait for the Doc to come and ‘free’ him?
“Dad would remember the local landmarks,” Hitoshi answers in turn, staring at the crime scene like he’s channeling his father’s malicious spirit itself. “He’s got a photographic memory. As long as he saw a place once, even if it was from the prison bus window the day he was transferred in, he’d be able to remember well enough to…”
“To what?” Aizawa has to nudge when Hitoshi drops off spoken frequencies, though his mental energy is going like a heavy-duty vibrator-keychain that Aizawa can’t find the remote to switch off when it gets accidentally switched on during class.
“To plant the command in someone’s mind,” Hitoshi says. “I don’t think… it doesn’t make sense that he'd keep control over this guy with his quirk for so long, not while he had other things to worry about.” Namely: escaping, meeting up with Shiyoko, and then vanishing into the night. “I think he just put the thought in this guy’s head, you know? A memorable place to go to and wait for him.” Before Aizawa says it, Hitoshi confirms the very thought. “It must be some kind of… a new way to use his quirk.”
The Doc did say he hadn’t been idle in prison all these years, and, Aizawa considers, perhaps this was his first chance to put into practice a new ‘experiment’ Professor Shinsou designed to test the murderous limits of his quirk.
“So he persuaded the victim to come without brainwashing him the whole time?” Aizawa rephrases for confirmation. “Why?”
“Just to see if he could,” Hitoshi supplements obviously. “But maybe even…” Aizawa doesn’t need to prompt this time, because Hitoshi naturally unwinds, “Maybe dad told him that he was going to die.” It’s chilling, but this kind of dead-on ringer of an observation is exactly what Hitoshi’s been on this case to provide, and Aizawa’s both horrifically proud and sorry that he’s ever dragged the kid through such a godawful mess – where Hitoshi needs to do this stuff in the first place.
He does regret it, even if without these events, Hitoshi wouldn’t be ‘the kid’ or even Aizawa’s student in the first place. Now Hitoshi is The Kid, it's more apt to say than any student Aizawa has taught for a few years at a time and parted ways with. He cares and cared for all his former pupils, but there are a lot of them by now, and Aizawa can’t lend lasting consideration to every star in the night sky. Aizawa accepts that they come and go. And it’s still early days, but Hitoshi’s got a fuck-ton more staying power than that.
“Fucking hell.” This comes from Tsukauchi, but it could as easily have been Aizawa who uttered such a heartfelt statement. “Where would the Doc have made him go?” This alleyway is hardly memorable, at least, it wasn’t until now.
“There's a park close by here.” Aizawa recalls from his long stares out of various car windows, while he's been driven to and from the prison that couldn't hold Dr. Shinsou. Parks at night are good for crime – dark paradises of the illicit, uninhabited by the normal people who clutter them during the day, and instead given over to the underbelly activities that cling to them when the light has gone. Aizawa always remembers them – and so might the Doc.
“That'd be enough,” Hitoshi affirms, and then turns away from the body to tell Tsukauchi, “You should check security tapes anywhere between here and there that might have caught them arriving.” Acting Police Chief Shinsou has an unnerving ring to it, but the detective never scolds Hitoshi the way he'd scold Aizawa for directing the police's work. Maybe he's got bigger things to worry about. Or maybe the detective’s got a soft spot for Hitoshi too.
Tsukauchi is scribbling in one of his notebooks while a breeze whistling down the unkempt alley barely nudges the heavy tails of his overcoat. Perhaps the detective is content without further questioning, but Aizawa’s got a few more curiosities to try on their resident divining rod of the macabre.
“If they met in the park when Dr. Shinsou wasn’t actively brainwashing him, what’s the next step that gets us to this?” Aizawa questions Hitoshi in a way that's not supposed to be accusing, but the hard edge of this bloodbath – another death, another one he couldn't save – sounds demanding even to his ears.
Except Hitoshi's powerful gaze just moves over Aizawa and holds, like being clenched in a fist so tight Aizawa can't even breathe. Then he says, “Ask a simple question, get a simple answer.”
The fist seems to tighten, and Aizawa takes a breath just to prove to himself that he can. He finds a voice, but it's hoarse as if rusted. “What about Shiyoko?”
“What about her?” Hitoshi returns a hard rally to Aizawa’s serve.
“Was she here?” They can do the detective work – footprints, camera footage – to find out what happened, but it's faster proving (or disproving) a theory than it is to do the legwork and go from scratch. And Hitoshi has never been better positioned to tell them what the man who's tormented him would have done. So Hitoshi could be wrong, but he hasn't made much of a habit of it so far, and Aizawa has to get ahead of these murderers somehow. Like it or not, Hitoshi could be his ace in the hole. One of them.
“... No,” Hitoshi finally answers, staring hard at the scene like he can suck up the mentalist after-image left behind, develop it like a negative into a picture. Maybe he can. “I don't think so.”
“Why not?” Tsukauchi questions, and Aizawa thinks he knows the answer, but he's not the expert.
“More intimate,” Hitoshi answers with a note like the dissonant ring of an old, barely-functional grandfather clock. Aizawa hates it already, making things worse when Hitoshi continues, “Dad always wanted to work alone, just him and the… subject. ” A poor substitute for victim, which is what they are (what they all are, Hitoshi included), but Aizawa understands why he might shy away from the word. “If Shiyoko were here, he’d see it as contamination of his message.”
Or the Doc didn’t want Shiyoko to be scared by the true face of the violent, angry man she worships going into a frenzy, stabbing to death one of the faceless guards from the prison that had held him six long years. Perhaps Shiyoko wouldn’t be scared, but maybe Dr. Shinsou had other reasons for not wanting to be seen like that. Too undignified, being so out of control, finally unleashed after all this time behind bars.
“So what’s the message?” Aizawa prompts before the feeling of a callback to their last visit with the Doc fully sinks in. He hates this even more when Hitoshi turns to give Aizawa an uncannily Dr. Shinsou smile.
Aizawa wants to wipe that wry grin off Hitoshi's face, because it's fake and makes Aizawa’s skin crawl and he hates it, because it means Hitoshi is afraid. Without prompting Aizawa hears Hitoshi’s, “Ask a simple question, get a simple answer,” in his head in a characteristic sing-song, and Aizawa knows what it means but wants to hear someone else say it. Maybe Hitoshi understands that, because he doesn’t hesitate with his answer.
“That he does what he wants.”
“So you're also sure it was Dr. Shinsou?” Tsukauchi tests for confirmation with a sideways ‘told you so’ glare at Aizawa that's not necessary – Aizawa never doubted this was the Doc's work, he just wants to be sure they know why.
“Oh yeah,” Hitoshi replies. “This is Dad all over.” Hitoshi is back to staring at the bloody writing on the wall, and Aizawa tries to assemble the events like building a chain link by link. A moment of opportunity, where Dr. Shinsou planted the thought in a weak, frightened mind – “Leave your post. Meet me later at the park outside this prison, if you want to die.” Injected into the mind like a bad vaccine, triggering the very disease it was meant to prevent and putting the victim into a feverish state.
What was it like in the mind of the guard? How did he feel, as he obediently did as he was told without thinking clearly – the dried mud and blades of grass stuck between the ridges on the soles of his shoes corroborates the theory of a park – waiting in the dying light, foggy and confused from the Shinsou poison in his mind. How much awareness remained, like the flame of a candle almost drowned by its own wax, until the Doc finally returned? The Doc must have stolen away from Shiyoko – perhaps she was even unaware that her idol had left at all – to return to the site of his escape. It's arrogance, a one step ahead ‘you can't hold me’ statement of ego, how powerful and untouchable the Doc is now he's been set free. The revenge he took – and may still take – on the people who dared to put him away.
What did the Doc ask, Aizawa wonders? When the mad Professor went to the park he had seen only once, and found his final prison escape victim waiting, just as Dr. Shinsou wanted. Was he kind or cruel? Was it both those things and more – rolled up into a deadly question, asked with cool detachment like the one he asked his followers. “Are you ready to die?”
“Yes, Professor,” they had answered, but it didn't matter what they said. Any answer was enough.
Aizawa feels, with a heave like a nasty bout of food poisoning, that the Doc is mocking them. This isn't what the victim wanted, it's what Dr. Shinsou wanted: his will annihilating any others, like a hydrogen bomb scorching the landscape past recognition. All that remains to be seen is where the next warhead is going to land.
Aizawa would kill – okay, maybe not kill – for a cigarette right now. He has some, but he’s still with Hitoshi, and is trying to cling to having the decency not to smoke in front of him. Anymore.
That’s what Aizawa had originally tried, of course: before Hitoshi got wise to it and was so permanently screwed to Aizawa’s hip that it became impossible to keep the habit from him. Students aren’t supposed to know their teacher smokes the very cigarettes he busts them for smoking around the quiet corners of campus when he’s running low. And parents struggle to keep the habit from their kids (look at Kiki) all the time.
So the only way, realistically, that Aizawa isn’t going to be a bad role model for Hitoshi is by quitting. Except he’s not sure if he can manage that (at least, not now). His relationship with smoking has always been a series of peaks and troughs, mostly tied to how barbaric the case he’s working is and his subsequent work-life balance. But he can try. Maybe.
Tama left soon after dropping Aizawa and Hitoshi off at the crime scene; as Tsukauchi’s informal partner, they’re avoiding doubling up when there’s surely something useful for both of them to be doing somewhere else. It just so conveniently means they also don't have to spend time around each other. Doesn’t stop Aizawa missing his smoking buddy, or feeling the too muchness of everything sit on him, like crude oil across the surface of water, smothering the life out of everything it comes into contact with.
Tsukauchi is driving them back to the police station, Aizawa stewing in the backseat next to Hitoshi, when the intercom in the car crackles with a staticky ray of hope. “You fuckers there?”
“Copy that, Tama,” Tsukauchi answers without a flicker of his unimpressed look and needlessly high-adrenaline driving. “What's up?”
“More like what's down,” Tama answers coarsely. “Couple of people just took a dive off a bridge in a pair of steel-chain straitjackets.”
“Shit. Were you there? What happened to them?” Tsukauchi quickfires.
“I just got here, but some shitheads on the sidelines filmed it.” Tama’s snappish on the other end of the police-only frequency that Aizawa pretends he doesn't listen to from his own pirate mod on his phone. “An officer who got there earlier jumped in but couldn't get them up. I had to call it off before they all fucking drowned.”
“And you think there’s something fishy about it?” Tsukauchi is either developing the same dark humour as the rest of them, or he stumbled into that one by mistake.
The radio scratches in a way that could just be static, or Tama’s most scornful growly laugh. “I think if you see the footage you'll feel like an idiot for asking me that.”
“Found it,” Hitoshi declares over his phone from his side of the backseat – lightning fast Internet surfer as always. Aizawa shuffles closer to get a good look, reaching his hand to cup around Hitoshi's and steer the screen into a better position for them both to see. It's hard to be sure without checking exactly, but Hitoshi's hands are about the same size as Aizawa’s, maybe bigger. Puppy paws he still has to grow into. Hitoshi's frame is relaxed against Aizawa’s as he crowds closer, pressed shoulder to shoulder to both eagerly see the footage. But that calm and sense of… not peace, but some kind of safety, at least, might help with what they’re about to watch.
“Lemme see,” Aizawa mutters in the scarce space between them, which permits more privacy of conversation by merit of being sorta squished together rather than each in their own distinct seats.
Although guarded at first, Aizawa’s a very tactile person with people he trusts enough to open up to like that, and with Hitoshi it’s entirely likely to be the same. Aizawa recognises the specific touch-starved defensiveness to some extent, especially at Hitoshi’s age – although he’s got Kiki, Hitoshi has probably struggled to maintain a positive male relationship that can sustain this kind of friendly contact. Aizawa doesn’t mind – far from it, actually. It’s relaxing to the animal-brain, the reassurance of contact. Being next to someone, close enough to touch casually, as an important reminder of not being totally alone in the world. Especially with the shit they’re about to see.
The film starts when the two figures have already climbed up onto the wall of the bridge, shrouded in coats that obscure the torsos of both the man and woman who stand on the narrow ledge, facing each other in the blustery winds that gush upriver. The couple are balanced on the narrow ledge over the deepest part of the river and appear to be embracing like lovers. Almost.
Because there's something not quite right about the scene, starting with the dead expression in their eyes but escalating with the name written in thick strokes of permanent marker on the woman's cheek. The shapes are not new to Aizawa or Hitoshi, but no other victim had Shiyoko’s marker displayed right in the open like this. Who knows what the public will make of that revelation, which the police will surely have to comment on now. It’s not close enough to make the exact kanji out, but there’s nothing else it could be except Hakamata Shiyoko.
No such mark is seen on the man's face, at least, not on the side facing the shakily filmed recording. Aizawa has two guesses as to what that means: one, that Shiyoko’s deathmark is on the other side; or two, that the brainwashing quirk holding the man isn't Shiyoko’s.
The doomed lovers are unresponsive to the shouts of people around them, which is nothing new, and it’s only when the wind blows open the man’s coat in a certain way that the ‘strait jacket’ Tama spoke of is visible. A vest of shining chains, wrapped many times around his torso – presumably one to match on his partner as well – shimmers for a moment in the light. Then as the screams of passers-by around them become more alarmed, someone finally stepping forward as if to grab them, both the man and woman tip sideways towards the water, plummeting head-first over the water and dropping out of sight as the phone footage begins to shake with the camera’s wild movement during the ensuing panic.
There’s a moment of stunned quiet, just the static air and human weight of Hitoshi against Aizawa’s side. “Tama’s got a point.” Hitoshi speaks first, while Aizawa starts to rewind the footage to the moment when Shiyoko’s name is visible. The resolution isn’t quite high enough quality to make out the kanji for certain, but the shape is right enough to be terribly wrong.
“Why make them die like this?” Aizawa thinks out loud, while a tuft of hair keeps tickling the side of his face. Clustered this close together, with errant strands escaping the messy bun Hizashi packed Aizawa’s hair into as his nerves fray in direct proportionality, it could as easily be Aizawa’s own wild locks as Hitoshi’s at this point. Aizawa blows upward out of the corner of his mouth, trying to dislodge the nuisance that way, but perhaps mostly blows in Hitoshi’s ear, because the teen jumps like touching against a livewire.
“I… I think someone got jealous,” Hitoshi settles into after an unsteady beginning, slipping his hand, and phone within it, from inside Aizawa’s grip and sliding it into his pocket with a wriggly shuffle. Aizawa clocks how close they are – personal space is a boundary he easily forgets, at least with some people – and has to police himself to be more aware of other people’s bubbles beyond the object of his hyperfocus, like a parent stopping their child from pressing their face against the window of a sweet shop.
“Jealous?” Aizawa echoes, realising the tuft of hair was his own – freed from the attempts to bind it that Hizashi boldly made. He tries hopelessly to tuck the errant strand behind his ear, only for it to spring back out into the corner of his peripheral vision. He’ll cut it off if he gets his hands on anything sharp. Does it all the time – when Hizashi’s not looking. “Of who?” Hopefully not Hitoshi and Kiki, Aizawa worries with a swift undercurrent in his mind ready to drag him under the surface of his fear – just when (not if) Shiyoko or the Doc is going to come for his ‘beloved’ wife and child. Aizawa doesn’t know which of the two would be worse.
“Of what,” Hitoshi corrects. “Dad was out killing without her.” He’s wincing, negating the illusion that this could be easy for him; Hitoshi is guessing as much as any of them, it’s just that his guesses are better than most. “This is supposed to be something they’re doing together.”
“You getting all this, Tama?” Tsukauchi calls to the intercom, which scratches like a cat on a piece of furniture.
“Yeah yeah, double-murder’s a real cute idea for a date.” Tama’s voice spits over the scratchy police frequency, or maybe it’s just his attitude fraying the channel like a well-worn rope. “There’s a team going in to drag the bodies out now. You better get here before the fucking news crews roll in.”
“Copy that,” Tsukauchi replies, and then without skipping a beat turns on his siren and hares through a busy intersection with the hidden light on his undercover cop-car flashing, zipping past a couple of cars so closely that the air between vehicles pounds with the shock of a near miss.
Aizawa’s heart leaps out of his chest with the sudden fright, pumping into adrenaline mode with nowhere to go – he hates being in cars, honestly, especially because he doesn’t drive and has to hang helplessly on for dear life while he puts his life in the hands of what is usually a certifiable lunatic. Tsuakauchi’s the most sane of any of them, but he’s still a cop, and therefore has an inbuilt ability to drive like he doesn’t want to live anymore.
The detective’s final address to Aizawa and Hitoshi runs to the tune of, “Hold onto your hair, boys,” before putting his foot all the way down. They rev into high speed city-crawl that precludes much in the way of conversation, and more in the way of Aizawa gripping fearfully to the interior of the police car in a cold sweat, hoping Tsukauchi is as good of a driver as his confidence makes him out to be. Because with three people dead before lunch, and the dreadful knowledge that Shiyoko and the Doc are just getting started, Aizawa feels more like tearing his hair out than hanging onto it.
Notes:
NAUGHTY CHILDREN IT'S TIME FOR MURDER!!! *Sets off a bunch of party poppers*
Chapter 39: The Riverbank
Summary:
Aizawa goes to see what’s washed up; apart from himself, obviously.
Notes:
I can't think of anything good to say, so just go ahead and enjoy MURDER TIME NAUGHTY CHILDREN!
EDIT: Formatting ate a paragraph of text and I only just saw and put it back in, sorry for that!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The drowned lovers have been dragged onto the riverbank by the time Aizawa and Hitoshi roll up in Tsukauchi’s undercover cop car, parked at the foot of the bridge the two victims jumped to their deaths from. In spite of Tsukauchi’s best high-speed efforts, the detective and his passengers have arrived later than several journalists and their cameramen, who have the cameras pointed at the car door before it’s shoved opened by a bitch-faced Aizawa, forming the first surly line of defence.
The press reaction when Aizawa gets out of the car is pretty close to the usual, and can best be described as wary disgust. He's punched too many of them for that lesson not to sink in – and speaking of people he's punched, the tenacious Sugiyama is in the thick of the pack as usual, recoiling a little when Aizawa locks eyes with him right away. Aizawa soon turns his back to the wall of lenses, standing over the car door as the other passenger in the back of Tsukauchi’s secret muscle-car slides out. Because the reaction when Hitoshi gets out of the car is akin to setting off a fireworks display in an explosives factory.
Camera lenses start to flash, but Aizawa’s shadow falls over Hitoshi for most of them, and so too do his shoulders bear the brunt of the forceful jut of press inquiries.
“Shinsou! Is this suicide being treated as connected the work of the Deathnote Killer?!”
“No, over here! What did the writing on the woman’s face mean?”
Hitoshi walks alongside Aizawa stride for measured stride, and a strong wind blows across the bridge, light with the smell of river silt. The bridge has been closed off from traffic, giving it a strange deserted feel, apart from the hoarde of reporters who give hungry chase like a mob of zombies. “Over here, Shinsou! Who's Hakamata Shiyoko? Why are the police refusing to give comment?”
Then Hitoshi’s head weaves, peeking past the edge of the protective censor-bar Aizawa makes of his body between Hitoshi and the press. The mischief of Hitoshi’s stare strikes the reporter who asked such an obvious question head on, scattering the other journalists like swinging a broom at a flock of pigeons. “If the police won't offer comment, what makes you think I’m going to?”
By this point Tsukauchi has locked his car and caught up with Aizawa’s spritely pace from where the detective parked and the entryway down onto the riverbank, where a couple of policemen stand guard like a peculiar pair of gargoyles. Remembering that a representative of the police is there only boosts the enthusiasm of the press, who turn on Tsukauchi with a fiery, “Detective! What have the police got to say about Shinsou Hitoshi's involvement in these murders?!”
“He’s the son of the famous Dr. Shinsou, mass-murderer extraordinaire. How can the police associate with anyone related to such a high-profile villain?!”
“Detective, why won’t you comment on the reason Shinsou’s been spotted at the crime scene of every Deathnote Killer murder to date?”
“Yeah! Are you trying to hide something!?”
Like Hitoshi has anything left to hide after the jackals ripped open his past and made a feast of everything they could find. The only thing they don’t know is that before Dr. Shinsou’s escape from maximum security prison, he was visited by his son not once but twice – some pertinent factors of the second visit could even be considered responsible for the Doc’s aforementioned escape, which Aizawa’s trying hard not to blame himself for. He should have said something when he first thought that the Doc’s cell in the basement was a Bad Idea all over. Okay, several things the press don’t know about.
Before Aizawa’s gritted teeth can turn into outright baring his fangs at the reporters, Tsukauchi stops walking and lays his hand on Hitoshi's shoulder. Hitoshi and the detective both stop, turning as one to face down the cameras as Aizawa gets just two paces further ahead and must grind to a resentful, just-out-of-the-picture halt. This isn’t his area – but it is kinda Tsukauchi’s.
With a beaming smile, Hitoshi willowy by his side and looking more like a Junior Detective than Aizawa’s intern, Tsukauchi announces to the cameras, “I’m authorised to tell you that Shinsou Hitoshi has been engaged to assist the police on this case due to his unique skills and experience.”
Hitoshi’s beaming too now, and it’s a weird moment for Aizawa – because although he hates this, that doesn’t mean Hitoshi has to. And like it or not, Hitoshi’s already got a media presence to account for. Never better evidenced than when the press begins its newest assault.
“But he's just a kid!”
“And the son of a murderer who killed people exactly the same way!”
“How do you know Shinsou’s not connected to the murders? What about his father?”
“If there’s a link between Dr. Shinsou and the Deathnote killer, who’s Hakamata Shiyoko?!”
Tsukauchi's smile remains on his face without faltering for even a second, as if it's been painted in glaze and fired in a kiln. There’s an advantage to the detective’s unflagging optimism, even if it’s been taking some scuffing as of late, which is an ability to engage with the press without showing a single point of weakness, as well as offering a legitimate front for Hitoshi to actually be doing good in the public sphere. Aizawa would love to see the look on Nezu’s face if the General Studies student he’s refusing to transfer to the Hero Course gets some kind of commendation from the police for capturing a deadly mass-murderer (or two).
But that requires actually catching them first, so it’s natural that Tsukauchi responds, “The police have no further comment at this time,” and then steers Hitoshi back into motion. The fact that Tsukauchi has his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder pings every antenna in Aizawa's animal brain, not over anything in particular, but just to be sure-as-shit aware that someone is close to his cub and needs an eye keeping on. No wonder Kiki’s so protective of who she lets near Hitoshi; that Shinsou Effect comes on strong sometimes.
Sugiyama – the reporter who Hitoshi saved from having his head smashed open not two (or four? What is time?) days ago – has been present in the thrashing mass of the media posse but has remained quiet so far, which is unlike him. However, the oily-faced journalist with jamjar glasses makes up for it by throwing his first question like a dagger into the centre of Hitoshi’s back, just as they’re about to reach the top of the steps that lead down to the riverbank. “Shinsou, the maximum security prison your father is held at has issued an alert for an escaped asset, following a riot yesterday afternoon. Can you confirm if the escapee is indeed Dr. Shinsou?”
Hitoshi, Aizawa and Tsukauchi all freeze like someone hit pause. There's a lull of stunned quiet as the other reporters hone in on this information, which lands like a rare steak in the middle of a lion pen. The crowd stares in plain-faced shock at Sugiyama, astonished that anyone would ask such a ballsy question and actually expect an answer. Problem is: it’s true. Maybe this snake’s not such a bad reporter after all, Aizawa thinks resentfully. But if the guy can’t pick his moments.
Hitoshi turns around slowly, fixing Sugiyama in one of his intense Shinsou stares with a single eyebrow raised and asking, “Do you not know the meaning of ‘no comment’? ” Hitoshi’s a real fucking double-act for his father at times like this, if Aizawa’s bold enough to admit it (he isn’t, at least not outside his own thoughts).
Sugiyama is unflinching, perhaps knowing a little better than most that Hitoshi is actually nothing to fear. It’s with that confidence he steams on. “I know that if Dr. Shinsou has escaped, the public has a right to know if they're in danger.”
“Wasn’t that obvious?” Hitoshi gives a very distinctive Shinsou purr. Tsukauchi reaches for Hitoshi’s shoulder innocently, but it’s too much too fast – Hitoshi shakes him off, bending like a tree in a storm, which is when Aizawa steps in to take over. Not pulling, Aizawa simply rests his hand over the curve of Hitoshi’s shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze of indication instead of any attempt to pull him away.
“We gotta go,” Aizawa says quietly, and Hitoshi’s listening, he’s just not done with Sugiyama yet. Before Aizawa can have a PR-savvy thought, like fireman lifting Hitoshi away from the reporters, the motormouth has already sneered, in just about the creepiest way possible, “Whether my dad's escaped or not, you've all got plenty to be afraid of.”
This goes down like the smoking remains of the explosives factory have just caught back on fire. A million more questions launch like rockets, spinning catherine wheels of who-what-why-where. Aizawa takes another step closer and now slings his whole arm around Hitoshi’s neck. Aizawa breathes a tense, “Now,” in Hitoshi’s ear and finally succeeds in corralling the little press-baiter away from the ravenous beast. His arm remains comfortable and photo-obscuring around Hitoshi’s shoulders, moving the pair of them together as they duck the police tape Tsukauchi holds up and descend onto the riverbank, chased by a media tsunami.
“Shinsou! Is that a confirmation of your father's escape?!”
“Was Dr. Shinsou the Deathnote Killer all along?!”
“Hitoshi! You've been named Teen Heroes and Villains Freshest Bad Boy, while Dr. Shinsou has topped the creepiest crush for the third time in the magazine’s history! What’s your hot take on which of you is a better kisser?”
Aizawa feels Hitoshi resist shepherding again, stalling halfway to the steps, so Aizawa swings his head back around to croak a private, “Don’t,” to Hitoshi, an arm still braced around his shoulders. Aizawa has to keep guiding them toward the grim fate laid out on the soggy riverbank, instead of the feeding frenzy in front of the cameras. Talk about the lesser of two evils.
That seems to do the trick once and for all. Hitoshi's much more responsive with Aizawa literally breathing down his neck, or perhaps finally hearing words he’s used to treating as empty. Being told what to do has been a traditional marker for what Hitoshi’s absolutely not going to do, regardless of how much it’s in his interests or not.
“Alright, jeez.” Aizawa backs off as soon as Hitoshi's taken the first step away from the speaker's corner. Some Heroes would stand up in those spots and feed the media circus, building their image and ‘personal brand’ by bothering to inform the public of what they’re doing, like the masses are owed that knowledge.
But Aizawa doesn't owe them shit, which means that for now, Hitoshi doesn't either. When Mind Jack’s got his own cases (or at least a license), the kid can make his own decisions about that kinda thing, but it’s definitely not about to start now. Now they have to focus on the two bodies the forensic divers have just finished dredging out of the river, set out within the crime scene perimeter like a couple of matches in a matchbox.
The victims were submerged long enough to drown, but thankfully not enough for water to start doing the horrible things it does to bodies. Both the man and woman have their eyes closed, looking like they could just be revived, if not for the grey pallor and bluish lips of their subtle deathmasks; it’s worse than when the bodies are horribly mutilated, in a way. The line between saved and not-saved is so much thinner here, where it feels as if being just a little bit earlier – one more step ahead of the game than they are – would’ve meant these people lived instead of died. Aizawa feels a familiar knot of anger tighten in his chest, pushing up that tally in his head to equal the figure Dr. Shinsou set in his original killing spree years ago. They’re neck-and-neck now.
In the video Hitoshi showed Aizawa earlier, only the man’s makeshift chainmail vest was visible. But now they’re laid out on their backs, both figures are fully on display: they’re each wearing a length of chain anyone could buy at a hardware store, wrapped round and round their torsos from shoulder to hip in a bulky X shape. The woman has the fateful Hakamata Shiyoko written on her cheek, clear and true in some form of permanent marker, but there’s no such symbol on the man. Above all else, they look like normal, everyday people. It’s fucking terrible.
Getting closer, Aizawa drops to a crouch, while Tsukauchi bends over and carefully flicks part of the waterlogged woman’s coat back from her body, revealing more of her clothing underneath. She’s got a skirt of middling length, a heavy-duty material that clings to her grey calves. The colour is so deliberately neutral that Aizawa feels an inescapable thought crawling around like a ferret in his jumpsuit (not Nezu, thankfully).
“It’s a uniform,” Aizawa observes, trying to peer past the steel serpent that has coiled fatally around the woman’s chest for further identification. Shiyoko doesn’t usually kill women, so it’s distressing starting to see more innocents (not the first, unfortunately) falling prey to her ravenous thirst for the Doc’s approval. Aizawa thinks he spots something like a name badge pinned to the victim’s chest, obscured by the chains on top of it.
“A hotel uniform,” Tsukauchi gets in moments before Aizawa would have said it himself. The male victim’s trousers are of the same wallpapery colour, topped with a red-trimmed high-collared shirt that screams dreadfully of being the help. Can’t help anyone now. “They’re cleaning staff at The Embassy.”
It hits Aizawa like a brick dipped in liquid nitrogen, shattering against his skull into a thousand brittle pieces. He knows the place well, a hotel notorious for the discretion of its services and clientele, who’ve included some of the most notorious villains and gangsters to have flouted the authorities for too long. Of course the Doc would go straight there – how stupid not to even think of it, even if the place is a fortress that would never let the likes of Aizawa through its doors without a briefcase full of warrants and a blindfold. (Which is why he usually has to sneak in.) Who could’ve expected Dr. Shinsou would escape from prison and simply stroll into the most infamous five-star hotel in the city? The audacity alone means they didn’t see it coming, sure that Shiyoko had spirited him away into one of her traceless bolt-holes that Tsukauchi despairs over finding, even with the police's resources at his disposal; Aizawa’s kicking himself that he didn’t even consider it, when in hindsight it’s so fucking obvious what a snooty pedigree like Dr. Shinsou would do on his first night out of Sing-Sing. Stupid. Slow.
Just when the pack of dogs in Aizawa’s mind are getting into ripping him limb from limb, Hitoshi asks, “What’s the Embassy?” and Aizawa remembers there are other people in the world, and he doesn’t have the time for an existential crisis. He’s just got to keep moving.
“A hotel famous for its privacy and shady customers,” Aizawa mutters as he shifts from focusing on woman to the man, looking anywhere on his skin obvious enough to place Shiyoko’s mark – or whether his gut’s right, and these two drowned ‘lovers’ are supposed to mirror Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko, and do so with their respective quirks, as well as presenting genders.
It keeps circling back in Aizawa’s mind that the Doc said he didn’t mess around with children, but Shiyoko’s not a child anymore – if she was about five when she first met the Doc as his research subject, when Hitoshi was just a baby, then she’s around 21 now. That doesn’t make the possibility of the terrible thing Aizawa’s contemplating any less wrong or change the fact that the grooming started when Shiyoko was very much still a child – but it might mean the Doc’s policy on whether Shiyoko is such a ‘little girl’ anymore has changed. Aizawa has to consider those implications, especially looking at a tableau like this laid out on the stony riverbank.
There’s also the way Dr. Shinsou's quirk affected the objects of his interest – especially women, as the boxes of fanmail have more than proved. Aizawa tries not to think about it, honestly, but that subliminal passive-factor of the Shinsou effect is certainly potent, and Aizawa’s not stupid enough not to be afraid of what it could do to Shiyoko. Much less what Shiyoko’s impassioned devotion might do to the Doc, fanning the flames of his infernal ego to make them both behave more recklessly – writing Shiyoko’s name, her secret weapon, in plain sight for all to see.
Hitoshi’s dropped to a crouch too, slightly further up the riverbank, set almost dead between the two corpses. He’s pressing his fingers together in thought, doing another of his little Thinker poses with a bitter turn to the corners of his mouth. “So you think Dad was staying there? At this hotel? ” There’s something sleazy about the way Hitoshi says it too, and Aizawa wishes he didn’t have to think about whether Shiyoko and the Doc shared a bed in the hotel or not, but it’s unfortunately his fucking job to think about it. He’s going to need a night of getting well and truly fucked up with Hizashi to erase this degree of filth from his clogged-strainer mind.
“I think it’s possible,” Aizawa murmurs, glancing quickly at Tsukauchi as he paces around talking to the coroner and other police on the scene – one disheartened cop wrapped in foil, visibly shaking. Tama probably saved his life by pulling him out – especially if the Lovers were likely to do anything as sinister as hold their would-be rescuer down so that they might all drown together.
Aizawa knows Tama dragged the other cop out of the water in the most literal sense, because he is – only slightly hilariously, with the truly disgruntled way it makes him look – wet.
Aizawa wants to go over and say hi, check Tama’s alright, but he’s in a cluster further down the riverbank, with at least one paramedic among them looking very unhappy about the state of the policeman who would've become an everyday victim before an everyday hero.
There are still clues to be found on the bodies, though Aizawa reckons this pair are more of an open-and-shut than the first victim this morning. Shiyoko’s involvement has the Doc a little lacking in complexity, throwing together any old deathpact to make his biggest fan feel close to her beloved mentor.
If Hitoshi’s right, is this the product of a jealous lover, wanting to be made up to with a gesture? Something that feels grand and dramatic but is ultimately lacking in depth; after the slight of discovering the Doc had slipped away from their first night together for a cheeky bit of murder on the side, did Shiyoko – or the Doc, for that matter – want them to kill together? Shiyoko’s victims are usually more curated than this, these people hadn’t done anything wrong. Their deaths were orchestrated simply by merit of being there, and the M.O. remains forced suicide rather than something stronger – if they even put the chains on themselves.
Aizawa can’t help feeling the Doc and Shiyoko muddy each other’s pattern, becoming more indiscriminate and not so justifiably angry anymore. There’s no anger in the way they killed these two. It wasn’t an act of indignation or revenge; it was just for the sheer fucking hell of it. “Prove to me you can do it, one for me and one for you,” like those sick experiments the Doc did with Shiyoko all those years ago. Aizawa always suspected from the notes that the Doc used his own quirk as the ‘control’ for measuring the strength of the quirks he studied against, but this seems to confirm it.
“What’re you frowning at?” Hitoshi catches Aizawa with his mental pants down, shaken out of his thoughts with a bemused blink.
Aizawa’s not quite sure how to phrase what he’s thinking, but perhaps Hitoshi out of anyone would be able to understand – to take the unfiltered thoughts like raw sewage. “I think this is just them… fucking around,” Aizawa declares unhappily.
Hitoshi looks at Aizawa like he’s just announced the Doc and Shiyoko were humping on his mother’s grave, but it’s fleeting expression, and gets buried so fast the feeling must still be alive, thrashing down there in all of the dirt Hitoshi shovels on top. “That’s one way to put it.” Hitoshi sounds a little forced, but it’s probably good that Kiki has been honest with her son about Dr. Shinsou’s womanising (amongst all his other failings, which Hitoshi’s more aware of), if it even remotely softens the blow at a moment like this.
The only loving thing about Dr. Shinsou’s idea of romance is his narcissism – because there’s clearly no one the Doc thinks is more important or deserving of everything he wants than himself. This morning’s murder proves that without a doubt.
Before they’re able to carry on any further, Aizawa and Hitoshi are shooed out of the way by a police team pitching a tent over the bodies, protecting them from the ever-swelling numbers of the press up along the edge of the bridge with cameras pointed down at the stranded lovers (Aizawa shouldn’t even call them that) on the riverbank. The jackals should be careful hanging around a place like this – a danger Hitoshi tried to warn them of, in a way. Monsters bigger than them still roaming the streets – maybe even close to here, if still inestimably beyond Aizawa’s grasp.
Aizawa takes the disturbance as an opportunity to make a break for Tama, who’s moved away from the drip-by-drip increase of people flowing onto the riverbank. Tama’s leaning back against the concrete river wall when Aizawa gets to him, looking pretty sorry for himself – and not just because he looks like someone put a cat in a bag and tried to drown him. The cigarette Aizawa gave Tama earlier is surely a write-off now (should’ve smoked it while he had it).
“You okay?” Aizawa remarks with his dry pack of cigarettes held out like an open tin of tuna for a rained-on alleycat. Tama takes one without hesitation, setting it in his damp muzzle with a disgruntled murmur that conveys as much as a ten-minute rant followed by an emphatic crying jag. Aizawa knows that sound all too well.
Hitoshi hasn’t followed Aizawa for once, still hovering eagerly around the tent-pitching forensics team; he looks ready to get back in there as soon as possible. Tsukauchi is still with him, close enough – and trustworthy enough – that Aizawa’s lax enough to step away for just a couple of minutes. But he keeps Hitoshi fixed in the corner of his eye, a lingering speck of purple like the afterimage from looking directly at the sun.
However, Hitoshi’s not the only one of them going through something today. “Do I fucking look okay?” Tama shakes a wet lighter that won’t strike, then throws it away in misdirected fury – just one more thing that won’t go right for him.
“Here.” Aizawa leans out with his own lighter already sparked, bringing the flame to Tama’s cigarette. Holding his other hand up to shield it from the wind, the tips of his fingers brush Tama’s whiskers, which flick back as Tama brings his own hands up to expand the windbreak and take the light. Tama’s already sucked a first destressing puff from the cigarette and spit it from the corner of his furry mouth by the time Aizawa pulls back upright. Doesn’t take a smoke for himself. Yet.
Aizawa isn't much for platitudes, but sometimes it's all they've got. “You did everything you could.”
“How the fuck would you know?” Tama’s not trying to take it out on Aizawa, but Aizawa doesn’t mind if he does. He understands that frustration, and would probably be just as foul-tempered if it had been Aizawa here while there were still attempts to rescue the drowned lovers. Attempts Tama had to call off before the death count went up. Though, maybe if Aizawa had been here earlier, he and Tama together would have managed to haul out the rescuer and two people covered in chains out of the water before they drowned. No, Aizawa catches himself, don’t think about that.
Except like being in the water with ten metres’ worth of solid steel chain wrapped around his torso, Aizawa can’t exactly help sinking.
“The ones who drowned,” Aizawa says like he was actually down there, under that icy blanket, fighting the numbing cold with breath held as he swam for the dark, glittering blur of the chains. “They pulled down anyone trying to rescue them, right?” Not to be saved, but to drag them under – all die together.
Tama takes a long drag on the cigarette Aizawa has given him, his nose wrinkling while his pupils dilate to tight slits, contrasting the vivid gold of his eyes to the dreary landscape of the low-tide riverbank. The sun is fighting (and failing) to burn as anything more than a dull disc behind the clouds blanketing the sky. Waves lap gently against the sand, amid a breeze that’s slightly bitter. Sticks in the back of Aizawa’s mouth, like sucking on a seashell that leaves sand between your teeth. Finally, Tama breathes out an acrid cloud, which mingles on top of the scent of gritty brine and begs to be inhaled. “How did you know?”
“Because it’s what the Doc would have wanted,” Aizawa thinks without daring to say; Tama’s not in the place to hear something like that at a fragile moment like this. There was more footage than the iconic video of the lovers taking their dive off the bridge; different clips, which Hitoshi kept pulling up on the drive over – even as they raced through the streets with the police siren wailing and stomachs dragging some ten metres behind the car.
Aizawa’s sure that one of the blurry phone videos had included Tama. Although Aizawa had only glanced at the screen for barely a few seconds at time in the car, gut already heaving with the motion of Tsukauchi hurling them around the city, like they’d turned Tokyo into a police-only racetrack for him to get a new best time on. How Hitoshi managed to watch full clips during the drive is a little beyond Aizawa, but he’d get a nudge in the ribs when something important was happening to sneak a glance.
In one of the clips, Aizawa pieces back from the hurried snapshots of action he tuned into – before the next lurch around a street-corner clustered with pedestrians and things to be crashed into – was definitely of Tama breaking the surface with the other policeman. Another panicked glance back out the window, and when Aizawa had next looked back both figures were struggling to stay above the surface, Tama seeming to fight his fellow officer not to dive down to his death, until Tama forcefully shoved the cop onto his back, perhaps even his clawish nails digging into the officer’s chest to force him to back away, while Tama fought against the currents to get them both to shore. Cutting their losses. It’s hard fucking decision to make – letting two people drown to stop it being more – by not letting the desire to preserve life inadvertently expend it. Tama did make the right choice.
“Call it a guess,” Aizawa evades the details of why he seems to know so much about people who have recently died. With a lingering glance at Tama’s cigarette, Aizawa finds himself asking in lieu of a healthy distraction, “Can I steal a drag?”
Tama takes a disbelieving puff, managing an almost-snooty, “They’re your cigarettes.”
“I only want one,” Aizawa’s accidentally negotiating, with a furtive glance back at the now-constructed tent Hitoshi’s gone into with the detective. But he can be honest with Tama. “I’m trying to cut down.”
“Tch,” Tama scoffs, but gives up the cigarette to Aizawa’s skeeving fingers. “Of course you are.” Aizawa sneaks a couple of secretive drags, like he’s the kid hiding from teacher and not the other way around, then passes it back to Tama before he yields to temptation for one of his own entirely.
“If you hadn’t pulled the other guy free, he'd have drowned,” Aizawa rephrases with more context, and Tama still doesn’t look convinced.
“If I was a good cop, I’d have saved them all,” Tama murmurs. It’s exactly the thought Aizawa would have, and that’s probably why Tama says it. Because he knows Aizawa understands.
“You know we can’t save them all,” Aizawa replies, grousing, already hankering for another pull on Tama’s cigarette. He’ll bum a drag off anyone. Especially when they’re talking about miserable shit like this.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Tama’s got a tone dipped in sarcasm like salt around the edge of one of Hizashi’s (in)famous cocktails, Aizawa feels the urge to take Tama out for a beer when all of this is over, and they can actually just stop and feel like this isn’t going to keep happening again and again – at least, not for a while. Make it up to Tama, after what he’s been put through, for all his intuition to spot this case in the first place. How fast would they have caught Shiyoko, if Tamakawa had the authority of a detective right from the start? No, don’t think about that either.
Maybe taking pity on Aizawa’s envious glances, Tama wordlessly offers his cigarette back to Aizawa. The riverside breeze that’s picked up a little suddenly dies, leaving the soft waves breaking on the riverbank to be the loudest sound.
Aizawa accepts the shared burden back for another drag, placing the filter between his lips and inhaling a hot chestful of smoke to shroud the hard knot of anger and frustration. A foggy cloak of the nicotine hit that almost feels like being okay, even if it isn’t. “That doesn’t stop us trying.”
Passing the cigarette back, Aizawa catches Hitoshi’s head popping out from around the edge of the tent, followed by an arm waving him over – thinking in the back of his head: busted, for being caught shaking smokes with Tama.
Tama gives a nod that shoos Aizawa away, and they part with a barely warmer, “We can sure as shit try.”
The failure’s implied.
Things aren’t much better in the tent and not just because 50 percent of the people inside it happen to be dead.
“There’s been another murder,” Hitoshi announces the moment Aizawa sets foot inside the newly erected white-plastic tent, put up to shield the bodies from the unforgiving lenses of the media. At first Aizawa doesn’t understand what Hitoshi could mean; he only stepped away for a couple of minutes to talk to Tama, and it can’t have happened that fast.
“I just got the call,” Tsukauchi contextualises before Hitoshi can fill Aizawa in himself. It doesn’t really matter which of them’s the bearer of this next bit of bad news. “A man on the other side of the city has been discovered dead with a bloody deathnote next to him.”
“And they’re sure it was Shiyoko?” Aizawa replies without thinking, his mind struggling to grapple with such closely packed murders spread across such distance – at some point, they can’t all be the same killer (or can they?). Unless Shiyoko was there while the Doc was with his own victim, but then what about the drowned lovers? There could be all kinds of reasons, but something in Aizawa’s gut gives a wail of protest, like distant whalesong.
“Sure?” Tsukauchi echoes with a hiccup of wry laughter that interrupts Aizawa’s bemused attempts to reconcile how the pieces fit together (if they do). “Because there’s more people out there signing suicide notes in blood?”
It’s meant to be facetious, but that’s exactly what Aizawa’s beginning to fear.
Notes:
PHEWEE THE MURDERS COMING IN FAST NOW HUH? So just to prepare y'all, I still have around 100k of 'backlog' as in already written drafted chapters for this story, but in said backlog I have only JUST finished the day that we started last chapter. So to this I say get ready, cuz it's gonna be a LONG day (much like the first chapter title OOH HOW'S THAT FOR A THROWBACK).
Chapter 40: The Frame-up
Summary:
Aizawa’s trying, but he can’t be succeeding if this is the outcome.
Notes:
An early update brought to you from my vacation, which is going well so far! Busy day tomorrow so getting this one out now. Another chapter on the large side, which is typical for this 'act' of the story, but hopefully full of good stuff and NO FORMATTING ERRORS eating entire paragraphs like last week. (I restored a missing para/line from the reporter during the press questioning scene about Dr. Shinsou in case anyone missed it)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After finishing at the riverbank, Aizawa and Hitoshi get back in the car with detective Tsukauchi, stopping to pick up a couple of bentos that they eat in the car on the way to the next crime scene. There’s slightly less urgency with this callout; the body has been found in a private property and hasn’t been discovered by the ravenous media machine (yet). This makes Tsukauchi’s driving much less stressful, which Aizawa truly appreciates.
“Busy morning, huh?” Hitoshi says. He and Aizawa are in the backseat as usual, but now with a couple of bentos wedged between them to use like an impromptu buffet table, fueling up while they’ve got a chance. Hitoshi’s still a growing kid, and Aizawa has the terrible honour of knowing what it looks like when a person’s grown up without enough to eat. Perks (not) of being a teacher. And even before then, Aizawa’s memory has always been of scraping by on a living that’s borderline at best.
The way he grew up, staying above the poverty line was an achievement – even if it was just to slip back down when business was bad and there wasn’t quite enough to go around again. It was just for a while, always just a while, until things would pick up and they’d scrape by a little longer. Being proud his better-off classmates could never tell (Hizashi could tell, but he just helped and it never needed mentioning).
Hitoshi’s lucky he hasn’t had to worry about that stuff, comfortable on whatever income Kiki’s been able to earn and siphon away from the Doc’s vast riches to sustain his estranged family. Dr. Shinsou's fortune has surely been well hidden – and could even be doing things like paying 5-star hotel bills right this very minute. Yet here they are in the suburbs. It just isn’t Dr. Shinsou’s style. Aizawa doesn’t think so, at least.
“Too busy if you ask me.” Aizawa’s busy shovelling rice and vegetables drowned in leftover sauce down his gullet with a pair of cheap disposable chopsticks. Hitoshi’s been picking at his food at best, and there’s a couple of times Aizawa’s nudged him into eating – the greens and protein at least, stuff he needs to keep building his strength rather than sapping it.
When the kid finally gives up grazing and Aizawa’s content it’s enough, Aizawa will polish off the rest off – human waste disposal, Hizashi used to call him. Still does, actually. But it was more frequent when they were younger; the long years when leftovers that Hizashi brought home from restaurants and ritzy industry events were a free source of food for his disastrous best friend (who exes-and-friends kept saying to just admit he was in love with already, and looking back, guess he was).
Back then, Aizawa had poured every yen he made as a fledgling Hero back into being a Hero, and that didn’t leave much left for things like regular meals, hot water or having a fixed address – or any address, when his lease on a dive apartment of dead plants ended unexpectedly, though it was always unexpected when he didn’t pay attention to the end dates, and Aizawa was convinced not to bother looking for another that fit his shoestring budget. Hizashi’s fridge and sofa – or bed, if Hizashi’s perennial girl-(or occasionally, boy)-friend wasn’t there that night – had been a running source of food and shelter that kept Aizawa literally off the streets (not that he minded the streets, so really it was more about keeping the streets off Aizawa) and a point of continuity in Aizawa’s life far outlasting any others.
“Too busy?” Hitoshi echoes, and Aizawa can’t be sure, but he’s got a pretty good notion that Hitoshi’s imitating him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hitoshi punctuates this with a noisy slurp of the gigantic soda that he asked for with his lunch and Aizawa didn’t see a reason to say no to. Anything’s better than cigarettes, which is what Aizawa would love after a big meal, but must (try to) resist.
Aizawa sticks to grousing at Hitoshi for his vices. “Especially when these things get out into the media, you can’t always be sure it’s the same killer.” Maybe he’s being a suspicious bastard, but Aizawa’s learned that if his gut is telling him something’s wrong, that quite often means it is.
The journey they’re on is long enough Aizawa’s been asking himself why Shiyoko or the Doc would come here to murder some salaryman? This victim must have either done something to really deserve it, or it’s another distraction, and they’re in the wrong frigging place. Again. At least Tama’s still out there with his ear to the ground where it’s shaking the most, as far as Aizawa’s instincts are telling him. Which rings ever-so-slightly mentalist, if Aizawa bothers to think about it. Those sixth senses he doesn’t have time for dissecting right now.
“You think Shiyoko had someone else do it?” Hitoshi probes with puppyish enthusiasm, his connoisseur's taste for the morbid still going strong. “One of the mind zombies?” Who are still out there, let it not be forgotten.
“I think we don’t assume anything,” Aizawa lectures over the remnants of his lunch, which is the leftovers of Hitoshi’s. “Better to stay still in the dark and wait for an opportunity to strike than to stab blindly in it.”
“Tell it to the fortune cookies, teach,” Hitoshi dismisses quickly, a tone that warns of boundaries urgently staked out for a reason that soon becomes clear. “You sound like my Dad.”
That was one of Dr. Shinsou’s lines, now Aizawa thinks about it. “Presumption leaves margin for error.” After meeting him only twice, the Doc’s already buried deeply in Aizawa’s psychosis. It must be hard for anyone so profoundly fucked-up by his father as Hitoshi has been, getting exposed to all that mania from the moment Hitoshi was delivered by the Doc’s own obsessively brilliant hands. Hitoshi probably doesn’t want reminding that the Doc gets into people’s heads and sets up shop in there with a notebook and a tray full of surgical tools.
They also can’t discount the Doc’s new uses of his quirk, refined enough to convince people to wait hours just for the chance to be killed by him. They could be headed to the location of another loose end, using the Doc’s technique to spread the victims over distance (and certainly wasting their time), but that only creates more questions. If the Doc sent someone all the way out here to die, someone else would need to be there to do the killing. It just doesn't add up, not yet; so the only thing Aizawa can be sure of is not being sure of anything.
“Well I’m not your Dad,” Aizawa puts out as bluntly as it should be able to be said. As important and meaningful as Hitoshi is to him – in a way that’s parental along with a lot of other (even conflicting) feelings – Aizawa is still not and never going to be Hitoshi’s father. Something else, maybe even like a parent enough to truly be called one, eventually, but still not – and never – Dad. It helps sometimes to say it out loud.
“Stop acting like him, then,” Hitoshi snaps like he might as well have reached across the gap to slap Aizawa’s chopsticks away from his mouth. Aizawa’s hands stop moving for a moment, gaze pulling across the car until the resentful violet flare catches him entirely. Aizawa dares to think, for a dark moment, like the shadow from passing under a bridge at high speed, that there are a couple of similarities, as well as stark differences, between himself and the Doc.
The precise, clinical approach of someone methodical and ‘logical’ before all else. Stubborn, strict even; strong-willed enough to handle a child as precocious as Hitoshi, surely at any other age as he is now. It takes a certain type of person to negotiate with Hitoshi’s dangerous mix of knowing exactly how clever he is with a wicked defiant streak that didn’t come from nowhere. Aizawa likes the challenge – always has had a soft spot for rough diamonds, being one and all. Perhaps the Doc liked that less, and turned these teachable moments into a twisted place to exert his iron will over Hitoshi, trying to mould his ‘legacy’, the (failed) successor of his power, into being a tool of the Doc’s design alone. More the fool him, for thinking Hitoshi would be so easily controlled.
“I didn’t mean to,” Aizawa replies carefully, treading lightly on ground he knows is still so unsteady under pressure, not wanting to trigger a landslide.
It’s only been a couple of weeks, and what weeks they’ve been; it can’t be forgotten that Hitoshi isn’t used to this kind of relationship. Not yet, or not without having to navigate the monstrous crater left behind by Dr. Shinsou. Artillery-beaten tracks of Hitoshi’s emotional landscape, which have been churned up where the tanks of authority figures and male role models brutishly rolled through. Then throw the struggle of Heroes and Villains in there, just to amp up the volume. But they’re okay. It’s normal to hit sore spots sometimes. It doesn’t have to turn into an argument or irrational behaviour – on anyone’s behalf.
Aizawa’s tone is smooth and sippable, like tea that’s ready to drink. The verbal equivalent of Nezu’s special blend. “I just meant that we all have to keep an open mind.”
“Gee, teach. I’ll try,” Hitoshi counter-nags, but it’s lighter. Playfully sarcastic, just wry enough that Aizawa senses he’s being let off.
Aizawa doesn’t push Hitoshi any further, and sets himself to hoovering up the leftover food, stacking the empty containers and bagging them up to throw away when this torturous drive is over. To kill the last of the time, Aizawa props his face against his hand against the window in a lunch-fogged haze, getting drowsily lost in the consideration of whether he’ll manage to be any better for Hitoshi than Dr. Shinsou was. But gee, he tries.
The site of the newest murder is so far away that Aizawa dips his toes into the shortest of power-naps while they’re diving deep into suburbia. It’s not much, but just enough to trigger the mental reset Aizawa needs to prepare for the upcoming reality of checking out the next in the day’s rapidly stacking murders.
The apartment Tsukauchi finally parks outside is a luxurious block, situated in a prestigious neighbourhood, where people probably think the security and locked gates will keep them safe. More the fool them.
A shiny lift carries the three of them up to one of the highest floors, under the supervision of a private security guard and a pale-faced police officer who was called to the scene first. Neither look like they're used to handling these kinds of crimes. The cop is no one Aizawa knows, and Tsukauchi doesn’t seem to either – different divisions, this far out from the city centre.
The shaken officer begins unwinding in the lift like a ball of yarn bouncing downstairs. “The call came from his wife… she went out and when she came back, noticed her husband had come home early from work, and that he’d… the Deathnote Killer had…”
Tsukauchi sets a hand on the rattled officer’s shoulder before he unravels completely, soothing with a beaming grin. “You leave all that stuff to us, alright? Thanks for holding the fort.” Better to start on a blank slate than one covered with messy notes from someone who doesn't even know what they’re looking for.
A sigh of relief slips out of the officer, falling in time with the sliding lift doors, which roll open on a long hallway lit with tacky golden lamps and plush carpeting that leads the way like some kind of morbid red carpet event (of which Aizawa has attended three, and hopes it will stay at that number) to the premier of a new murder.
Maybe Hitoshi’s feeling the conveyor-belt mentality of the day too, because as the security guard opens up the apartment door, Aizawa swears he catches Hitoshi murmuring, “Here we go again,” to himself like a little pre-crime-scene mantra. Maybe Aizawa could use one of those too. “This will be the last,” maybe. Only, a mantra is supposed to be inspirational.
The apartment is roomy and well-furnished; awkwardly, it reminds Aizawa slightly of his own home (at least nowadays). But Hizashi breathes life into anywhere he dwells, so while fancy, their home is still warm. This place has the feel of a newly constructed airport lounge, everything in a grey or beige, decked out with the accoutrements of people who don’t have to worry about the utilities being shut off because there was no money or time to pay the bills that month. But Aizawa can attest, there are plenty of problems that can afflict people who don’t have to worry about money.
There’s a woman sitting very still on a sofa deep within the apartment, like a doll set up by a child in a playhouse. Another of the security guards stands watch near her, but is staring quite surely at his phone and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Tsukauchi didn’t say how long ago this call had come in, and Aizawa could believe a few people have come and gone already – none too keen to stay.
Tsukauchi makes straight for the woman and introduces himself, “Good afternoon, Mrs….”
“Shimizu,” the woman answers quietly, delaying a moment before she turns to look at the detective.
“Mrs. Shimizu.” Tsukauchi smiles. “I’m detective Tsukauchi. How are you holding up?”
Turning her gaze back to contemplate the empty space just to the side of Tsukauchi, the listless housewife says, “My husband’s body is in the other room.” Which is not what the detective asked, and might fool the others, but doesn’t convince Aizawa for a second. Not talking. That’s not a good omen.
“Gee, a body,” Hitoshi whispers to Aizawa next to him as they draw closer. “Think we oughta check it out?” This is intended to be sarcastically obvious, but Hitoshi’s got this one all inside out.
“Not yet,” Aizawa corrects, taking a few more steps to close the distance between themselves and Tsukauchi, the friendly-face icebreaker who takes a seat on the sofa that’s clearly designed for aesthetics rather than comfort. “Just keep your mouth shut and pay attention.”
Hitoshi’s a little puzzled and even more offput by Aizawa’s blunt marching orders, but it must be intriguing too: why the freshly killed body is the last thing Aizawa’s interested in seeing right now. Hitoshi’s got enough of a sense of professionalism to pace quietly behind Aizawa as he joins the haunted widow.
“Mrs. Shimizu, I’m Eraserhead, a pro Hero assisting with the investigation,” Aizawa introduces himself bluntly, and sees a twitch in Shimizu’s face; he doesn’t spare much for his bedside manner, but that’s kinda the point. Or maybe it was something he said. “Can you describe the events leading up to your husband’s murder?”
There goes the flinch in Mrs. Shimizu’s face again, like the vibration of the skin of a particularly tight drum. The widow says, “I thought he committed suicide.”
“Then who wrote the note?” Hitoshi offers up suddenly, and Aizawa almost hisses at him to be quiet, but Hitoshi’s consulting another authority – the detective. “There’s a deathnote with the body, right?”
“That’s what they said. I’ve not seen anything more than you have,” Tsukauchi replies to Hitoshi more positively than Aizawa would've. Crafty little sneak knows where to play for the most favour now, and poor Tsukauchi might have his nose on the wrong scent.
“Then why don’t you two go and look at the bedroom?” Aizawa invites crossly, and Hitoshi and Tsukauchi both fix him with a ‘what’s crawled up your butt?’ of a look. So Aizawa tries another tactic, spying a balcony, and an expensive-looking thing stood on it that just might be an overpriced ashtray. “Do you smoke, Mrs. Shimizu?”
“I… a little,” she confesses weakly, and sensing where this is going, Tsukauchi rises back up from the sofa he settled onto in an attempt to seem non-threatening, but it mostly just makes him look like a sack of potatoes.
“Me too.” Aizawa invites Mrs. Shimizu to stand with a gentle curl of his fingers, spitting aside to Hitoshi and Tsukauchi. “You two go ahead with the body. I’ll catch up.” Or get ahead, more likely.
Suspicious but cooperating, Hitoshi leaves with Tsukauchi while Aizawa leads the timid form of Mrs. Shimizu toward the fresh air, like a little bird to the open door of its cage, curious yet afraid of the outside world.
Hitoshi flings one last perplexed look at Aizawa before they’re separated, wanting to see the body and not understanding why Aizawa doesn’t – not yet, at least. This is because Hitoshi’s new school shoes and Aizawa’s a pair of old, well-worn boots. Hitoshi will go with the gumshoe for now and eventually realise there’s less to learn from a dead body than a living person beside it. Tsukauchi, for the most part, knows three’s a crowd with a timid witness, and if Aizawa wants to talk to her first – undisturbed – the best thing to do is give him room to do that.
No other scene they’ve investigated so far has had a chief witness – or possible suspect – as critical as a grief-stricken widow who found the body. If it was grief that caused those wiped-away tears under Mrs. Shimizu’s eyes, mascara stains that never quite budge for any amount of trying. Again, Aizawa reminds himself he can’t assume anything.
Figuring out the door mechanism onto the balcony on his second try, Aizawa and the freshly widowed housewife step onto an airless balcony, tucked into a pocket of the towering apartment block so the wind simply howls across rather than into it. Mrs. Shimizu steps out behind Aizawa and shuts the door behind them, and when she’s turned back around, Aizawa is already holding out the pack of cigarettes he’s trying to get through by giving away as many as he smokes. The one he takes for himself is part of the casework, Aizawa has to do it – suspicious to ask a lady out for a cigarette and not smoke one himself. This is a negotiation tactic. The fact that Aizawa enjoys it is purely a perk of the job.
Going for a smoke, even with a stranger, is a familiarising tradition that can ease up even the most skittish of witnesses. The air is far less formal when Aizawa leans back against the railing and lights up, taking a long first drag and exhaling before he asks, “Could you tell me about your husband?”
Aizawa offers the lighter to Mrs. Shimizu, who is watching him with confused fear but reaches out slowly to take the modest offering. Aizawa wants to try and make her feel comfortable, perhaps even safe – for a few minutes at least. But Mrs. Shimizu doesn’t look like she’s used to feeling safe. Her movements are too sudden, like every action she takes is a nervous twitch backed by fear. Giving over the lighter provides a reason not to feel obliged to answer right away, and Mrs. Shimizu clearly gathers herself around the action of lighting her cigarette, taking the soothing rush of nicotine and a long exhale before she answers, “He was a busy executive and… under a lot of pressure at work.”
Mrs. Shimizu takes another drag on the cigarette that seems to steel her nerves, no longer looking so much like she’ll blow away with the first gust that curls around the balcony. She’s of a middling height and age, kept youthful by advanced technologies and cold hard cash, but has the anxious, darting eyes of a person who’s been on their guard for a very long time. Her black hair is cut into an executive's wife haircut that screams corporate schmooze, and she wears a necklace dotted with jewels (Aizawa wouldn’t like to guess the value of anything that shiny) over a high-necked jumper.
Jewelry would normally be worn over skin, so the glitter of gems against dark fabric goes onto on a long list in Aizawa’s head of possible reasons for suspicion, though he keeps the knowledge palmed. Casual, as if this is a smoke-break between colleagues for the same shitty business.
“Pressure, huh?” Aizawa echoes innocently. “How did handle it?”
“Badly,” Shimizu clips just a little closer than she imagined bringing the razor against her scalp, if Aizawa’s any judge of it. A moment of oversharing, short and not-all-too sweet. “If he committed suicide.” If that’s even what he did.
Hitoshi’s question earlier was a good one and is still valid – if it was suicide, not the brainwashing kind, who wrote the note? This leads Aizawa into another thought – what people think they understand about things they’ve barely scratched the surface of. Like Hitoshi, and what he thinks he’s chasing a killer is all about. There’s not a lot of rules, but one of the first is that the living maker for better conversation than the dead, who can’t answer questions; and unlike the still-breathing, the dead can always wait a little longer to reveal what they know. All they’ve got left now is time.
“You’ve heard about the Deathnote Killer, right?” Aizawa hasn’t got much skill for witness interrogation, but he can make most things sound like he doesn’t care for them any particular way, and combined with a premise – going out for a cigarette, the chatting back and forth of supposed ‘small talk’ – can be effective at unpicking details that might not have been pulled out otherwise. If only Hitoshi were here to benefit from the lesson, but that might get in the way of this sensitive piece of Aizawa’s work. Aizawa doesn't relish the people-part of being a Hero, but that doesn't mean he wants anyone else to get their greasy, insensitive mitts all over it.
They certainly won’t find out as much about the victim’s personal life from his dead body than his still-living wife, even if the corpse is next to another bloody deathnote. Aizawa wants to know what the note says, of course, but he wants to know what he thinks it’s going to say before he does – if he’s right, then maybe he’s getting closer to knowing what’s coming next. How this thing finally ends. Aizawa’s half-tempted to put in a call to Nighteye. Then again, maybe it’s better not knowing. There’s too many possible outcomes for this tale that Aizawa can’t tolerate, and if Sir Nighteye gave Aizawa an answer he didn’t like, the response would be a resounding over-my-dead-body “no”.
“They say… it’s someone getting revenge on men who mistreat women.” Mrs. Shimizu might be cold, or simply troubled by the events of the day, but either way – her hands are shaking. She taps ash delicately into the weird chrome spaceship-looking thing that is an ashtray and brings it quickly back to her lips, a little hesitation and distraction, but still talking. “That she’s making them kill themselves as punishment for what they’ve done.”
She, not Shiyoko, Aizawa notes, trying to keep track of how much has dripped through the media filter – and what brew could turn into within the hearts and minds of the public. “That’s right, isn’t it?” Aizawa realises he’s being questioned, the stormy grey eyes of Mrs. Shimizu fixed on him for confirmation, validation of the narrative she’s gleaned from the way the news has spun the story for greatest sensation.
Aizawa takes a thoughtful drag on his cigarette, summoning the drowned faces of the lovers from his memory – innocent, wholly and truly – and also the drug addicts, whose only vice was their own addiction. But there’s also the lawyer who defended rapists, the serial molester, the men who frequented hostess bars. That’s the stuff fuelling the public narrative of justified killing: vengeance by a woman turning the tables for all the things her gender goes through at the hands of men, and what the system endorses at the cost of women’s safety and wellbeing. It’s a prettier sell than the whole truth. Lying’s all the more effective for being based in reality. And the reality is awful.
Meeting Shimizu’s searching gaze, Aizawa has a pretty good idea of what this woman wants to believe. What she wants Aizawa to believe too, an echo chamber for the rationalisation she needs to hear. Busy Executive, bad under pressure, Aizawa thinks back on. Committed suicide – sorta; murder’s murder, as long as he didn’t actually want to die.
So Aizawa’s answer isn’t what he actually thinks, or not all of it at least. But it’s what Mrs. Shimizu – and the case – requires. And it is still partly true.
“You’re not wrong.” Aizawa takes another pensive puff, pausing for just long enough to let the feeling of affirmation sink in, like watering a plant that’s been wilting for who knows how long. “That’d mean your husband was a man deserving punishment.”
Aizawa doesn’t phrase it as a question so much as a statement that he’s waiting for Shimizu to deny, to say no, he was a good man and didn’t deserve this. But Mrs. Shimizu just takes another stormy sky-eyed puff on the cigarette Aizawa used to loosen her up, and her silence speaks volumes.
Looking harder, Aizawa notices the way the top Mrs. Shimizu wears covers her from neck-to-wrist. That could be innocent. Could be. Aizawa spots a bulge on the arm that Shimizu is smoking with, hidden under the clingy fabric of her clothing, and from it draws out an opportunity. “Have you got the time?” he asks innocently, even though his phone is in his pocket, and he knows it’s around one o’clockish.
Mrs. Shimizu’s pinches the cigarette between her lips as another eddy of the breeze into the hollow of the apartment balcony blows a strand of hair across her face, and a look of utterly human irritation crosses her expression. Flicking her head back to sweep the hair away from her face, Mrs. Shimizu pulls up her sleeve with her other hand and uncovers a watch (which Aizawa also wouldn’t like to guess the cost of), but more importantly, exposes with a simple gesture what Aizawa’s waiting to see.
Because of the kind of things Aizawa does for work – Hero work, mostly, though sadly enough it comes into teaching sometimes too – he’s got a good eye for the age of bruises. What it looks like when it’s been half a day, a day, a couple of days since someone was grabbed, hit, beaten hard enough to leave a mark. He knows what all three of those look like together; the blushing layers of yellow and purple that can be crudely painted into human flesh – and if Aizawa didn’t already know, now’s a perfect example. That clouded triangle of Mrs. Shimizu’s bare wrist is all Aizawa needed to see. Didn’t want to, but there it is. Wrists are common targets, weak points that are easy to cover up. But grabbale, crushable. Good for holding people down.
“It’s about twenty past one,” Mrs. Shimizu answers without realising what she’s given away, and that’s the best way for now. Aizawa doesn’t want to think about what kind of ugly reality could be hiding under the high collar Mrs. Shimizu dresses with diamonds, but Aizawa’s still not fooled. She pulls her sleeve back up, gazing at Aizawa more seriously. “You said you were a Hero? What’s your name again?”
“You won’t have heard of me,” Aizawa replies with a nonchalant puff. “So the events leading up to your husband’s suicide.” Not murder, Aizawa’s not going to make the same mistake again – she corrected him the first time, and it took them away from the point. Aizawa can accept that Mr. Shimizu is a man who killed himself, regardless of who was forced into actually doing it.
“I… my husband went to work in the morning as usual, and I went out to the shops, like I normally do,” Mrs. Shimizu regaleas as she gets towards the end of her cigarette, over-emphasis on how normal and usual everything was, in spite of the cadaver in the other room. “But he must have… turned around and come home while I was out… I got back and he was in the bedroom all… like that.”
“Did anyone see you leaving?” Aizawa asks, and gets a fearful look in return. “When you went shopping.” Nothing else, just proof of the events, corroboration that could be important. Aizawa can ask about Mr. Shimizu presumably leaving the building separately. He'll probably make a point of it, in fact.
“Oh… the security guards, in the lobby,” Mrs. Shimizu answers, closing up a little as the realisation of what Aizawa’s doing to her sinks in. This is still questioning a witness, just dressed up different to how she might have prepared herself – with a detective or Hero that seems like a Hero, and not a crusty mop of a person joining her for a smoke on the windswept balcony. That’s intentional too, shifting the victim-suspect into a different environment, where the things they rehearsed with themselves are less familiar to how they practiced. An easier way to shake them up than with aggressive questioning – especially for a woman who’s gone through what Mrs. Shimizu looks to have gone through.
“Do you know if your husband had any enemies at work?” Aizawa takes weight off the nerve that seems raw. Not to say he won’t return to it, but to move away for now before the needle of panic climbs high enough to ring the alarm.
“I… yes, he certainly seemed to,” Mrs. Shimizu answered more comfortably. “He was often… unhappy… because of the way his colleagues treated him.” Specific words, too many for Aizawa to go through one by one. He has to snatch the whole card pile now and check the value of his hand later.
“He took that badly too, I’m guessing.” Aizawa stubs out his cigarette with a look that tells Mrs. Shimizu she probably doesn’t have to say anything. If Aizawa carves out the slimmest moment of time to think like a mentalist, he could wonder if it’s something he can project – that air of understanding, the hidden trade of words that make “took badly” into “took out on you.” They don’t have to say it.
Because if Aizawa asks Mrs. Shimizu if her husband liked to beat the shit out of her to feel better about himself, Aizawa’s surely going to initiate a denial sequence she’s probably practiced hundreds, even thousands of time. Even if it’s not barefaced denial, she’s still going to be triggered, panic and most likely retreat out of fearful instinct. She’ll stop talking, and that’s what Aizawa needs her to keep doing, because there’s more to be found out yet. Build the trust, make her feel like it’s gonna be alright. Fuck, it’s gotta be alright for someone, eventually (right?).
But not before Aizawa takes a proper look around, now that he’s gotten a read on the widow, and has an idea in his head of what the bloody deathnote is going to say. Time to see if he’s right.
Aizawa spots Hitoshi and Tsukauchi coming back into the main room – looking for him or perhaps the mournful Mrs. Shimizu. She stubs out her cigarette in the elegant, alien ashtray and pats her palm to her face, fingertips under her eyeline like she’s blotting away a line of tears that never grows fat enough for falling. Or maybe it’s just her eyes watering in the wind that sneaks in gusts to invade the balcony.
“There’s a few questions I’d like to ask you, Mrs. Shimizu,” Tsukauchi announces as Aizawa slides the door back and they step inside, shrouded in tobacco smog and the stench of private conversation.
“And there’s something I’ve got to show you,” Hitoshi addresses just Aizawa.
Aizawa exchanges no more than a brief nod of understanding with Tsukauchi, and a quick glance for Mrs. Shimizu. Hopefully, the detective will be gentle with her, but this is Tsukauchi they’re talking about. If Aizawa can manage, any friend of Toshi’s is going to be enough of a bleeding heart to do fine.
Hitoshi is walking ahead of Aizawa, and the dimensions of this place are big enough it takes a while before they reach the doorway of the (un)happy couple’s bedroom. Aizawa can see the edge of a pool of blood from here, creeping into view like a sinister finger running along the polished floorboards. Watching Hitoshi’s back down the hallway, Aizawa has another flash of that man-he-could-be outline, seeing Hitoshi’s profile as the workings in process rather than a completed piece. The colours and broad lines are all there, the formative sketches have been done. Hitoshi just needs some finishing off to be a fully completed masterpiece, even if life’s a constant work-in-progress. If that's the case, Aizawa’s a chaotic charcoal scribble, whose lines get heavier and angrier as the years pass.
“Enjoy your smoke break?” Hitoshi might be teasing, but he still wants to know what Aizawa was up to.
“Not really.” Aizawa shuts it down and pauses before he gets through the door, stopping at the threshold to watch Hitoshi instead of straining for the out-of-sight view that Hitoshi’s itching to show his mentor. “I’ve got a guess, though,” Aizawa begins cautiously.
“A guess about what?” Hitoshi turns to face Aizawa, his head titled just askew, perplexion the mood he’s been wearing in regards to Aizawa from just about the moment they walked in. Being similar doesn’t mean always agreeing.
“What the note says,” Aizawa answers without moving. This is a silly stall, but he wants to know if he's figured it out. He wants to make this a teachable moment, which means showing Hitoshi what can be learned from talking to the living before consulting with the dead.
“Come in and see if you’re right then,” Hitoshi responds dismissively, but Aizawa doesn’t budge. It’s about more than being right – it’s about having your finger on the pulse of what’s actually happening.
So Aizawa says the only thing he knows about the victim’s death so far, regardless of whose hands were behind the act, and tells Hitoshi, “He deserved it.”
Hitoshi’s smiling, or was, until the comfortable time-with-teacher grin falls from his face. The gaze become tense and hot, like holding a hand over heat that’s blistering to the touch. Hitoshi turns to glance at the wall out of sight to Aizawa, and then back to him with unnerved surprise.
“How did you know?” Hitoshi’s tone is a highball of awe mixed with just a little fear, and when Aizawa finally steps into the room, the heartbeat of this crime is throbbing live under his touch. It's frightening for some, just how Aizawa manages to know the things he does, before he’s ever seen the proof they all take for granted.
Well, it’s because Aizawa looks, and that’s why it’s no surprise to him that the deathnote painted in blood on the Shimizus’ bedroom wall reads…
I DESERVED IT
Notes:
This chapter is a fun and interesting one for me, because it should be obvious that something isn't quite right, and within the larger fabric of the whole story's intrigue it's nice having mini-intrigues along the way. This chapter is almost the last in my 3rd masterdoc too, although it's the shortest of the 5 I am currently working on, so we're still a ways to go before I have to sweat about running out of backlog.
Still on vacation next week, but I should be able to keep the updates running. Thanks y'all!
Chapter 41: Just Desserts
Summary:
This kind of thing happens to him far too often, in Aizawa’s opinion.
Notes:
I started getting obsessed with this story again (like I wasn't always obsessed) because this is definitely an uhhhhh... favourite run of chapters...... very excite.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“So what did you want to show me?”
Aizawa’s trying to move forward, really he is, but if he’s the unstoppable force, then Hitoshi’s an immovable object. It’s as if Aizawa hasn’t even spoken, an irate expression scrawled on Hitoshi’s features like an angry parking ticket for one of Hizashi’s heroically bad parking jobs. It’s a look that inescapably suggests Aizawa’s got some explaining to do. Again.
“How’d you know what the note said? You haven’t been here before.” Hitoshi’s accusation is frustrated at best and defensive at worst – just because he picked the wrong detective to shadow this afternoon. Not that Hitoshi could have easily listened in on Aizawa's talk with Mrs. Shimizu anyway. Hitoshi’s pretty good with people, but he hasn’t got the sensitivities to handle a grieving widow just yet; it’s better that Aizawa was left alone with her, teasing the hidden truth without causing any(more) unnecessary suffering.
“I just talked to his wife,” Aizawa replies efficiently, like a machine that digests information and pops out conclusions. “She gave me the impression this guy was a real piece of work.” Aizawa appreciates that his feats of deduction might seem inexplicable from an outside perspective, but the deathnote accompanying Mr. Shimizu’s body is simply an essential piece of information for anyone wanting to know more about the so-called victim on the floor.
Abusive piece of shit, comes a distant call from the darkest corners of Aizawa’s mind. Deserved it. Aizawa doesn’t listen to the voice, but it is there; and just because he’d never kill someone with his own hands doesn’t mean Aizawa can’t tell if someone got what was coming to them. This guy surely did.
“Well someone made him into a real piece of work,” Hitoshi echoes back frostily, but it’s no fault of Aizawa’s if his logical jumps make Hitoshi feel out of the loop. Or maybe it’s the dark undercurrents of Aizawa’s implication, like anyone deserves a violent death. Aizawa would usually say no, never… but then the image of Mrs. Shimizu checking her watch swims back into Aizawa’s head, graceful yet distorted, like a mermaid coasting along the underside of waves with scales of black and blue.
“What did you want to show me?” Aizawa neatly sidesteps Hitoshi’s minefield mood that they simply don’t have time for. They have to get back to the point, which is the corpse of Mr. Shimizu on the floor.
The victim is wearing a suit, which fits with the story of Mr. Shimizu heading to work in the morning as usual. But instead of being at his desk, Mr. ‘busy executive under a lot of pressure at work’ is lying face-up in a pool of his own blood. Mr. Shimizu’s got a particularly flat and round face, like someone struck it with a frying pan, and hair that’s been combed into trying (and failing) to cover up a receding hairline that’s about to connect to his bald patch. There’s nothing about him that screams of a man who handled his wife so roughly that her skin turned into an ugly bouquet, but there never is.
If they could tell abusers just by looking, killers like Shiyoko wouldn’t exist. Because she was made, not born into this destiny as if some people – or some quirks – are just bound to turn out bad. There’d be no Dr. Shinsou in that world either, and how different would things be then? A world without the Doc, but also without Hitoshi. For all the extremes of good and bad, Aizawa would have to mourn any world that exists without Hitoshi's insolent light burning brightly in it.
“There’s something off with this one.” Hitoshi finally dishes up his findings, staring right at Aizawa instead of the body. This isn’t Hitoshi’s first time seeing the corpse, so he's looking for fresh clues – which just so happen to be on Aizawa’s face, from where Hitoshi's standing.
Aizawa returns Hitoshi’s gaze evenly, almost eye-to-eye and barely blinking (Aizawa’s obviously great at staring contests), but Aizawa’s just that little bit higher up still. “I couldn’t agree more.” Aizawa takes his gaze back to the body of Mr. Shimizu, directing his attention to the hands that surely left all those pretty bruises on his wife’s wrist. Mr. Shimizu’s fingers – on both hands – are clean, and that means, among other things, he didn’t write the note. “What did you find?”
“The note wasn’t written by hand– I mean, with a hand,” Hitoshi explains over himself, pointing at the wall where the neat kanji have been strung like a street sign on a section of the wall between the door and a long wall of cupboards. Moving closer to the note by circling around the body, Hitoshi steps into a slice of space between the corpse and the wall, and gestures without touching the declaration: I DESERVED IT. Clearly pleased with his discovery, Hitoshi proudly points out, “Brushstrokes, see?”
“Good,” Aizawa rasps, which has Hitoshi swallowing the instant grin such a compliment produces. Quick to cover up any moment of thrilled approval, Hitoshi straightens his mouth and eyes Aizawa warily, as if he's suspicious of praise and is waiting to be faulted. “The killer didn't want to get her hands dirty,” Aizawa murmurs instead and never says which her he means. “What else?”
“He's been stabbed several times,” Hitoshi continues more enthusiastically than anyone should have to refer to someone being murdered, “but there's no blood on his hands, or any sign of the knife.”
Another good point: if Mr. Shimizu had done this to himself, he wouldn’t exactly have time to stash the weapon. Not without getting his blood everywhere, which he hasn’t. Apart from the precisely painted memorial on the wall, Mr. Shimizu’s blood has simply welled up and pooled on the floor around himself. He’s barely more than a metre inside the doorway of his bedroom, which has the feeling of a hotel inside an airport. Soulless doesn’t even begin to cover it, this place feels sterile.
Aizawa has a tangential thought about where he might find the murder weapon, but keeps it to himself for now – Hitoshi’s still debriefing. “What does that tell us?”
Hitoshi makes a face when he suddenly realises he's being teachered, but it’s still exactly what he wants: the devoted attention that’s so unfamiliar. The glow of the spotlight soon has Aizawa’s star pupil unable to keep from delivering his conclusion, “This man didn't kill himself.”
Wrong, Aizawa thinks instinctively, his eyes lingering on the elegant blood calligraphy on the wall, but he keeps his lips sealed, because it’s more complicated than right or wrong. Everything that happened to this man was as a result of his own actions. What if he hadn't been so bad under “pressure”, hadn’t abused his wife until this dire end was the very least he deserved? Aizawa doesn't like to think about it, but it's hard not to when the body's laying right there.
“Aizawa?” Hitoshi notices Aizawa’s reticence in a heartbeat, and seems a little fed up to boot. “What is it? You look like you've seen a ghost.” Aizawa can come off a little weird when he’s in at the deep end of his own head, he knows that. It’s a sign of familiarity with someone if he'll do it at all, taking a quick wander outside himself to figure things out without worrying for his company. So it’s not a ghost – just the slight disconnect of external and internal while Aizawa’s pulling together the pieces of his conversation with Mrs. Shimizu and the corpse of her deceased husband.
Staring at the body, Aizawa can’t help questioning whether this would have happened if there were no Shiyoko to inspire acts of vengeance – by fighting back when enough is finally goddamn enough. Would Mr. Shimizu still be alive? And then, how long before it would’ve been his wife who wound up dead instead?
Aizawa’s seen far too many of these cases to want or need to count, and patterns of abuse don’t regularly do anything except escalate, usually while the police wash their hands and do nothing, flimsy laws that make it ‘difficult for them to intervene in domestic matters’. Yet the single greatest cause of unnatural death for women is men. In situations like the Shimizus’, it’s just a matter of time, a ticking clock that could be stopped at any moment. Aizawa knows which body he’d rather be looking at right now – old flatface certainly deserved it far more than his wife ever will.
Carried on those swirling winds of contemplation, Aizawa finds himself searching for the trigger, the thing that made this happen, as all spilled blood has something tangible right behind it – another of Dr. Shinsou’s lessons (though Aizawa knew it already), which must be swallowed like a particularly chalky tablet. Did Mrs. Shimizu follow the media coverage of the Deathnote Killer and become enamored by the rhetoric of a woman who turned on the men who hurt her and made them hurt? Could that resonance, and Mrs. Shimizu’s empathy for the ‘pro killer’ movement, have provoked conflict between the husband and wife, inviting the defensive aggression of a man exactly like the ones Shiyoko was murdering?
If the snapshot of Shimizu’s wrist Aizawa saw is any indication, her husband’s violence must have intensified recently; she’d already be long-dead if that was normal. This deathnote was also painted up for a reason, not just to say something about who wrote it, but what message this death stands for in the public eye, searching for a certain narrative to affirm. That a man like this earns his messy demise.
Aizawa puts a puzzle to himself: What happens when an abused woman takes comfort, and then even inspiration, from what Shiyoko is doing to predators?
All roads lead to the same conclusion… he’s looking at it.
“The Deathnote Killer is responsible for this,” Aizawa mutters like he’s truly haunted.
“What?” Hitoshi refines the question around an ugly scowl of not-understanding. “How?”
Aizawa shakes his head. “You don't get it.”
“So explain it to me,” Hitoshi snaps like a piece of elastic that doesn't understand why it needs to be stretched, and sometimes giving away the answers isn't going to do the trick. “We couldn’t find Shiyoko’s name on him.” It's a petty, almost spiteful ‘we’ that refers to Hitoshi and Tsukauchi, the authority figure that Hitoshi’s feeling empowered by and informed, rather than fumbling in the dark.
Too bad fumbling in the dark is the only indication of being on the right track with this case. If it's not a blind grope, then the solution is too easy, and nothing's ever so clear as to be written out in black and white. They’ve got to read deeper, peer through the fog for the answer most chilling to the core. Then go even darker.
Mr. Shimizu’s balding head is positioned toward the door, face upside-down from where Aizawa’s standing; the victim’s legs are pointing further into the bedroom, where Hitoshi hangs between the deathnote and the wardrobe like a frustrated purple-fringed tapestry.
Aizawa takes a couple of steps around the body, bending slowly at the knees as he hones in on the torso. He counts three… four stab wounds in the chest, but more importantly, the way Mr. Shimizu’s shirt and jacket have been dragged up his back, like they rode up from being dragged somewhere by the feet.
“He was moved,” Aizawa murmurs, painting the scene with broad splashes of colour – red, mostly.
“Not before he got stabbed,” Hitoshi counters bitterly, growing resentment over Aizawa’s cryptic behaviour. “There’s no blood trail.”
“Good point.” Aizawa stands, turning to face Hitoshi’s tart, lemon-peel expression like it’s of no consequence to him (it isn’t, at least not now). All else aside, Hitoshi is still Aizawa’s intern, if not with the right so-called paperwork.
However, they're also more than that; the clash of personal and professional isn’t totally unfamiliar to Aizawa (basically his entire early-twenties with Hizashi), but he acknowledges the tincture can be… volatile, sometimes. Hitoshi looks torn between the compliment and his bitter frustration over Aizawa keeping answers from him, like children playing marbles in the playground. But Aizawa’s got a reason to do this, he swears. “Have you looked anywhere else?”
Hitoshi frowns, maybe even pouts. Aizawa gets the notion Hitoshi thought he had more to show for his lightning investigation with Tsukauchi, instead of only cracking the big solve without bothering to address all the little questions that come after it – the whys as well as the whats. But an excess of confidence is how even the best detectives miss huge things every single day. That’s why they’ve all got to watch out for each other, because no one can catch everything.
Hitoshi is still learning that lesson, quietly answering, “Not yet,” and lapsing into a dragging-it-out-to-die pause before he suffixes, “but I was gonna.”
If Aizawa’s any judge of it, Hitoshi’s a little prickly, perhaps getting frustrated with how the carpet keeps getting yanked out from under his feet today. Well, that’s normal too – Aizawa’s been staggering for weeks. Sure, Hitoshi can be a little temperamental, but what sixteen-year-old isn’t? At least he’s got a good reason to be on edge.
Aizawa lets off a throaty murmur that suggests instead of talking about it they’re better off just doing the thing. Aizawa’s never been one for coddling egos, and Hitoshi knows that too; thankfully, it means swallowing his attitude. Hitoshi follows Aizawa with mute curiosity, waiting to be shown what his amethyst eyes missed.
The Shimizus’ bedroom doesn’t turn up much, but in a scout of the roomy ensuite bathroom, Aizawa goes straight for the medicine cabinet and finds exactly what he’s looking for with a crusty, “Bingo,” on his lips like he’s won the daily jackpot.
“What is it?” Hitoshi’s more timid now, attentively shadowing Aizawa now he’s gotten a measure of the great, vast something he’s missing in this case. Aizawa doesn’t like to give out answers, which defeats the point of guiding people to draw their own conclusions – so they can do it even when he’s not around. Fortunately, there’s usually more than one path to reach the same destination, and it corroborates Aizawa’s theories in the process. He’s used to hoping to be proven wrong, but is so rarely anything except chillingly right. This is no exception.
Hizashi might label their medicine cabinet with emojis, but Aizawa can recognise the drugs that show up in toxicology reports at a glance – a common culprit for date rape, this particular flavour of fast-acting ‘sleep aids’. Maybe that’s why Hizashi does it, to remove the association when Aizawa’s at home. “Tranquilisers,” Aizawa announces quietly, not touching the bottle at first; then with a second thought, he reaches out to take the innoccous plastic-capped container. Maybe he’ll smudge some fingerprints, risk destroying some evidence that could prove who touched this bottle last. Never mind.
Hitoshi is as sharp as one of the razors sitting in a shiny holder by the matching his and hers sinks in the luxurious bathroom. “He was drugged?" And after a thoughtful pause. "That'd explain how the victim was moved before being murdered."
Aizawa shakes the bottle, hears the rattle inside, then holds it out to Hitoshi, who rises to the occasion. Fingertips brush palm as Aizawa places the bottle in Hitoshi’s open hand, then Aizawa withdraws to fold his arms and just watches the teen with an unspoken question: “tell me what it means.” It’s another moment they've shared with Dr. Shinsou, though Aizawa never says the words out loud.
Carefully, Hitoshi studies the bottle, his violet calligraphy eyebrows drawn together in concertation. “This label says they’re prescribed for the victim.” Even after Hitoshi’s wobble in the car, over those unignorable ways in which Aizawa and Dr. Shinsou are basically doing the same thing – trying to develop Hitoshi, to lead him into achieving his full potential the way they see fit – Hitoshi’s being a champ. Aizawa’s already proud, but then, he always is.
“And,” Aizawa prompts, feeling the spirit of a smirk twitch in the corner of his mouth at the new burst of righteous struggle this ignites in Hitoshi’s face.
It’s easy to get distracted with a body, pick out the big points and then miss the finer details. But a good detective doesn’t skip the little things, even if they think they’ve figured it out already. Skimming the small print can lead to dire errors. Aizawa’s done it, and if Hitoshi can’t learn from Aizawa’s mistakes then there’s no damn point to any of this. It's why he fell into teaching, after all; to make sure the next generation of Heroes coming up have their heads screwed onto their shoulders, and can handle the almost impossible job they’re going to have to do.
“And… it’s half-empty,” Hitoshi draws out, a bout of nervous laughter in his tone, ticklish as Aizawa prods him into making all the connections and not just some of them. If Aizawa tries tapping into his mentalist frequencies, he finds the energy between them kind of… bouncy. People get giggly when they’re being taught, sometimes, and although Aizawa can almost never explain it, he’s certainly used to it happening in even the weirdest of environments.
All this puts an even sharper contrast of moods to Hitoshi’s conclusion. “Someone dosed him with his own pills.”
And just what did Mr. Shimizu use those pills for, Aizawa has to wonder with dark dread.
“Why?” Aizawa prompts again, and at last, one of those nervous laughs escapes Hitoshi, as if a tiny bird has just taken flight from his mouth. There and gone in a few beats of little feathery wings.
“Gee, teach,” Hitoshi rails with an unexpected psychic shove behind his words that hits Aizawa’s skull like a length of pipe. “I dunno, so he couldn’t fight back?” Hitoshi’s almost right: it’s not so he couldn’t fight back, but so she couldn’t – at least, until the inspired housewife flipped the script on him.
A psychic wave hits Aizawa like a punch – one of Kirishima’s, specifically. Good and hard, like being swung at with a tyre iron. The champagne-bubbly teacher moment with a shot of mentalist liquor dropped in it. Perhaps that’s what Aizawa gets for putting his ear to the glass in the first place; Hitoshi can probably tell, knowing him. Maybe their mentalist brain waves have been ever-so-slightly heightened by the shove, or maybe Hitoshi’s just always got the direct line into Aizawa’s head.
Either way, when Hitoshi tilts his head to one side and says, “Seriously, Aizawa. What’s gotten into you?” Aizawa knows his number’s up.
“I just… figured out what the drugs are for.” Aizawa tries to keep moving forward, knowing that much is true.
But Hitoshi’s not fooled anymore. “No, you’re being weird. What is it?”
Sometimes, telling the truth is an involuntary function that certain people can just draw out of Aizawa, like when Hizashi fixes him with those ‘don’t bullshit me Shota’ looks and whatever it is, Aizawa’s gotta come clean. But Hitoshi’s not Hizashi, thankfully, and doesn’t have that long-brewed potency of so much history together. So Aizawa’s still got some stubbornness left in him – albeit for a good cause. “I can’t just tell you.”
“Why not?” Aizawa can tell Hitoshi’s taking this personally, but at the same time, Aizawa can’t just go hemorrhaging information without confirming with Mrs. Shimizu herself, not properly. Not to mention anything that Tsukauchi has managed to parse from the newly bereaved widow, with all his smiles and sincerity that radiates out of him like a set of high-powered fog lights. So although Aizawa’s sure he’s right, he can’t assume he is without getting the proof.
“Because you can figure it out yourself.” It’s a dodge, but Aizawa knows Hitoshi can get this, and more than that, he has to be able to, if he wants to be the calibre of Hero he aspires – and deserves – to be.
“What do you want me to say, that his wife knocked him off and wrote the note to make it look like Shiyoko?” Hitoshi spits as if it’s inconsequential. But that’s not the reason Aizawa’s acting so weird, and they both know it.
“Keep it down,” Aizawa hushes, conscious that Tsukauchi and Mrs. Shimizu are still in the apartment and could theoretically hear those as-of-yet unfounded accusations. “What’s the motive?”
Hitoshi stalls over what he was about to say, turning instead to echo, “Motive?” He knows what the word means, of course, but in the context of all this meaningless killing it’s easy to forget to ask themselves those basic questions for every fresh victim (or killer).
“Different killer, different motive,” Aizawa lectures with tension that keeps notching up by the minute, feeling an itch to get back to Tsukauchi, suddenly fearing what the detective could and couldn’t yet know about their chief witness and prime suspect. Aizawa’s gaze drops to the pill bottle still clasped in Hitoshi’s hand. “Hang onto that.”
Aizawa turns to leave the bedroom and is chased by Hitoshi’s most dulcet don’t-you-walk-away-from-me tones. “Where are you going?”
“We have to finish this,” Aizawa announces with his back turned, almost exactly inside the doorway as he stalls just long enough to give Hitoshi the one tug he’s going to get in the right direction. “We don’t have the time to wrap everything up neatly." As valuable a learning experience as this is for Hitoshi, it’s not what they need to be doing, which is getting closer to the Doc and Shiyoko.
When Aizawa walks, Hitoshi follows. Of course he does. Falls into step behind Aizawa along the softly lit hallway without argument, though Aizawa’s still getting a stormy vibe off the teen. That’s okay, Hitoshi doesn’t have to be in a good mood, they’ve just gotta keep working.
A wild thought occurs to Aizawa on the moderately long trek back into the barren living room where they’d left Tsukauchi and Mrs. Shimizu. “Hitoshi,” Aizawa begins with a slight slowing of his long paces, which Hitoshi matches as well.
Not a word from Hitoshi so much as a guttural teenage, “Uhuh?”
“Mrs. Shimizu… if she starts getting… agitated, I might ask to use your quirk on her.” Aizawa doesn’t mean to sound dire, he’s just trying to piece together that worst-case scenario when everything goes wrong at once. Aizawa needs Hitoshi on his side more than it makes him comfortable to admit.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Hitoshi’s response is full of warning, reminding Aizawa they might not always agree on the correct approach to a situation. But when push comes to shove, Aizawa’s still the experienced Hero, and even sidekicks have to follow the orders of the Pro they’re working for. That’s a lesson Hitoshi’s got to learn fast – taking orders as well as he clearly loves to give them.
“I’ll ideally ask first, but if it’s an emergency I don’t want you to hesitate,” Aizawa pieces out carefully. Tsukauchi would no doubt throw a fit, but Aizawa can deal with a disaster of those proportions if he gets to it.
Hitoshi’s reply has a ring like metal on metal, the reverberation of one powerful thing clanging off another. “I won’t.” After they take a few more steps in contemplative silence, Hitoshi’s head tilts towards Aizawa to slip him a deceptively lax, “Do you think she’s dangerous?”
Aizawa considers Mrs. Shimizu, what she’s been through – and was driven to. This makes his response full of remorse more than anything; remorse that it should come to this. “Not anymore.”
When they arrive back into the main room, Tsukauchi is on the sofa doing his impression of a sack of potatoes with a smiley face drawn on it again. Mrs. Shimizu is sitting where she was when they first came in, looking very still and solemn.
“There you are, Eraser.” Tsukauchi turns over with his usual dash of it'll be alright sincerity. Aizawa certainly hopes it will be. “I wanted to have a quick word with you.”
Aizawa’s watching Mrs. Shimizu and can't help seeing the bars closing around her like a mouse in a trap set for a rat.
Then Aizawa does something radical.
“I don't see why,” Aizawa says coolly. “This is clearly the work of the Deathnote Killer.”
Aizawa feels the shift beside him. Hitoshi draws a shocked breath, but there's something punchier behind it – a twang on the taut strings of mentalist energy that Aizawa senses like a mosquito whizzing past his ear.
But in tandem to Hitoshi's confusion, a look of relief skitters across Mrs. Shimizu's face, which just puts another nail of confirmation in this coffin Aizawa’s building for himself. The course of justice doesn't always run smooth, because if the law had done what it was supposed to, then Mr. Shimizu would’ve been taken away and charged for his brutality long before it came to his dead body (or his wife’s).
Tsukauchi’s gaze becomes clouded while the perennial grin remains on his countenance, the detachment of eyes and mouth faltering the sincerity of his expression. “Come again?”
“You heard me,” Aizawa replies bluntly. “This is a distraction to lead us out of the city. We should move on as soon as possible.” It’s inadvertently true, but there’s only a small chance that this is something Shiyoko or even the Doc could have planned; Aizawa would rather they’re lucky than that clever, and the simpler explanation is often the right one.
Tsukauchi stands, and finally doesn't look so cheerful anymore. His tone is harder, the way a boxing glove feels soft until someone smacks you in the face with one. “That word I wanted, Eraser.”
Aizawa reckons he knows the word Tsukauchi’s thinking of. But Aizawa’s no liar, just a… manipulator of the truth.
The detective strides out of the apartment with his coat flowing behind him like the beige anorak trail of a meteor, deliberately going somewhere the grieving (which she is, just a different kind of grief) widow can't hear them. Aizawa stalls for a moment – longer than he should, really – and then with a weighty sigh starts to drag himself around and follows Tsukauchi out into the hallway. Hitoshi’s so close on Aizawa’s heels he’s practically under Aizawa’s feet, and no sooner has Aizawa set foot outside the Shimizu residence than it’s Hitoshi’s hand pulling the door shut behind the three of them.
“Alright, Eraser,” Tsukauchi starts like Aizawa’s his least favourite relative in the chair next to him at a wedding. “What are you up to?”
Aizawa deadpans, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Drop it, already!” Hitoshi snaps first and hardest, like a puppy lunging for a much bigger dog’s face in play-turned-serious fighting. “You know this wasn’t Shiyoko.”
“I said it was the Deathnote Killer,” Aizawa drones pedantically, and then checks the watch he doesn’t have in time with the caustic lifting of an eyebrow. With his hair pulled into the bun-tuning-ponytail Hizashi did for him this morning, Aizawa’s razor-blade eyebrows can be used for more sarcastic effect than usual. “We’re wasting time.”
Tsukauchi ignores this gesture entirely, turning straight to Hitoshi with a perplexed, “You haven’t told him?”
“He knows,” Hitoshi glowers, and Aizawa can guess the missing pieces they’re all referring to, but that doesn't mean he has to act like he does.
“How was your talk with Mrs. Shimizu?” Aizawa prompts the detective like a mechanic sticking his ear to an engine that doesn’t sound quite right.
But that’s when Hitoshi bursts like an overblown balloon, “You know she killed her husband, why are you defending her!?”
“Quiet,” Aizawa hisses at Hitoshi without diverting his gaze from Tsukauchi. “I already gave you both my conclusion.” However they look at it, this is the work of the ‘Deathnote Killer’ that the rhetoric has crafted like a horror story, drawn from once-truth, and the number of degrees that’s by isn’t important right now.
“And you actually believe it?” Tsukauchi poses like the unloved relative is bragging all about their incredible supermodel partner they're dating who just couldn’t make it to the wedding.
“Yes.” Aizawa's tone is ironed so flat it could be slipped under the door behind them like a flyer. Aizawa almost wishes it could, so Mrs. Shimizu would hear him say, “The Deathnote Killer did this, as far as I'm concerned.” One more dead abuser that no one’s going to miss; forgive Aizawa for not shedding a tear.
“But–!” Hitoshi tries, but Aizawa holds up a single finger, not quite laid on Hitoshi's mouth to silence him, but close enough that the gesture does as much.
Tsukauchi is staring right at Aizawa, and even before awakening his fuller mentalist faculties, Aizawa could always tell when the human lie detector wanted to get his prying fingers into Aizawa’s head. Now it's like a bell for class ringing loud and clear, the loaded polygraph beating behind Tsukauchi's questioning gaze. “Is that the truth, Eraser?”
Aizawa feels the invasive presence of Tsukauchi’s quirk surging forward, crowding around that word – truth – like a car bonnet wraps around a tree. But the detective said it himself: he’s talking to Eraser.
Aizawa activates his quirk in return, matted hair lifting like the tail of an aggravated alley cat, and his angry red glare pierces Tsukauchi hot enough to burn a hole right through him. This is why Tsukauchi doesn't use his quirk on Aizawa; the human lie detector is unplugged from his power supply.
“Did I stutter?” Aizawa puts coldly as he shuts Tsukauchi's shit down good and hard. Even if refusing to be lie detectored is as good as proof of what Aizawa’s trying to deny, how dare Tsukauchi try that shit on him without asking. When they’re supposed to be setting an example for Hitoshi.
Of course, what Aizawa gets for this is all his good, considerate work blowing up in his face. “What's wrong with you?! Why are you acting so crazy?” Hitoshi blasts while Aizawa lets his quirk drop, settling his arms into crossing sternly over his chest.
“You talked to the widow,” Aizawa tells Tsukauchi stiffly. “Don't tell me you missed it.”
“Missed what?” This one comes from the detective and Hitoshi almost in unison, before Hitoshi takes over with the extra clue Aizawa found. “We found these in the bathroom cabinet, but he won't tell me what they're for.” A testament to unlikely innocence.
Hitoshi holds out the bottle of powerful tranquillisers to Tsukauchi, who looks suspicious and pissed in equal measure. But Tsukauchi’s countenance takes on a new shade of ‘oh shit’ when he clues in on just how much he might have missed by going straight to jail without collecting any extras on the way. An experienced detective should know better, but it’s okay, sorta, because that’s why Aizawa’s here.
The detective takes the bottle and directs his gaze back to Aizawa’s with a new shade of worry in his eyes. Aizawa was relying on Tsukauchi to pick this up, it's so huge and fucking obvious to anyone who was looking. The sad fact is how few people are ever looking for the signs of abuse, even (and especially) when it's right under their nose. Not for the first time, Aizawa despairs how men can be such fools.
Aizawa lets out an impatient sigh that shapes into the grumble, “have to do everything myself.” Hitoshi is still gripping the door handle, as if to control access to the apartment, but Aizawa just lays his hand unhesitatingly over Hitoshi's and pushes it down, letting himself back into the apartment regardless of whether Hitoshi’s ferreting around trying to resist him in the meantime.
“Mrs. Shimizu,” Aizawa calls out in a tone of voice he tries to keep level out of consideration for her, the truly undeserving target of his bubbling anger. She’s had enough of that shit to last a lifetime. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this,” Aizawa leads into as he approaches the still-life widow poised on the sofa, exactly where they left her.
Hitoshi’s right next to Aizawa again – as always – but if he’s anticipating being called on for his quirk right now he better think again. Aizawa can’t trust Hitoshi when he’s losing his damn head, and if that isn’t something they need to get ironed out before anyone’s passing the Provisional License Exam, when the looming threat of illegality goes away from Hitoshi using his quirk. Not that Aizawa’s opposed to a little bending of the law.
“Ask me what?” Mrs. Shimizu actually looks at Aizawa when she talks now, and that’s what he gets for taking her aside and talking like he gives a fuck about what state she’s in, and not just whether or not she killed her abusive husband who deserved it.
Aizawa hears Tsukauchi’s footsteps behind him, as with true remorse Aizawa requests, “Would you mind lowering your collar?” He's truly sorry that it had to happen this way, but after a moment of frozen shock, Mrs. Shimizu doesn’t look quite so surprised anymore – maybe that moment with Aizawa on the balcony was enough; convinced her that he was a Hero and it’s still okay to believe in them. Aizawa certainly hopes so.
“Alright.” Mrs. Shimizu’s motion is quick and methodical, but she’s careful when it comes to pinching the high neck of her clingy-knit jumper in dainty fingers and peeling it back from her neck.
Aizawa had seen enough on the balcony, he well and truly meant that. Which makes the godawful ring-around-the-rosy circle of bruising all around Mrs. Shimizu’s throat the utterly unnecessary overkill he didn’t want to have to see. It was bad enough guessing it was there; why does he have to be so wretchedly right all of the time?
More stock is added to the theory that the couple had a particularly intense fight, if it can be called that when it’s just one person needlessly brutalising the other, from which Mrs. Shimizu’s survival was no certain thing. Aizawa’s seen worse bruising on a goddamn cadaver – can make out the distinct fingerprints where Mr. Shimizu's hands crushed his wife’s throat repeatedly, perhaps rendering her barely conscious on top of the debilitating tranquilisers that have been so liberally made use of, going by the half-empty bottle. Tsukauchi was smart enough to recognise one of the most widely available drugs used for date rape when he saw them, and probably feels a right fool now for overlooking a mess like this right under his goddamn nose.
Tsukauchi’s mouth hangs open, and Aizawa wants to scold him for a week for missing this one, but it’s Hitoshi who utters the involuntary, “Well, fuck me.”
Aizawa elbows him. Hard.
“That’s enough, thanks,” Aizawa mutters forlornly. Mrs. Shimizu places her clothing back as it was, and thankfully, the private security guards have already made themselves scarce since the real cops showed up. Well, real cop. Even if he’s only doing an average job on this particular case-within-a-case. That's why they're supposed to work with partners, and why it makes all the difference that Aizawa was here. No one can be right all the time (not even Aizawa).
Aizawa feels a surge of a familiar desire. The need to save someone. Just one person who gets out with an ending that’s bittersweet rather than an outright tragedy. It’s not too much to ask, is it?
That’s why when he takes another desperate step towards Mrs. Shimizu, the question on Aizawa’s lips is, “Do you have somewhere to go?”
“To go?” Mrs. Shimizu echoes like she can't quite understand.
“Where you’re safe, somewhere you can… get help,” Aizawa fumbles through at best, but he’s rushing, they don’t have time for this and he just wants to get this situation stable for now. The rest can be properly sorted out later, when it’s not about how many more lives are going to be ruined before this mess of a killing spree is finally over. Aizawa can’t take another loss today. If that’s selfish, so be it.
“Oh… yes, there’s a private hospital I’ve stayed at before,” Mrs. Shimizu answers with flinchy stolen looks at Tsukauchi, who is the one here with the power to stop the subversion of the law happening right in front of his stunned eyes. But he does nothing, just watches like he's running behind a train that's already left the station.
“Call them and arrange to go there right away,” Aizawa urges. “Pack now if you need to.”
“Right now?” Mrs. Shimizu suggests timidly.
“Yes. Go.” Aizawa just about orders, but it’s Tsukauchi who moves first – approaching Mrs. Shimizu, who he offers a gloved hand to as if in apology.
“I’ll come with you to the bedroom,” the detective remarks in a way that’s plenty conciliatory, and Mrs. Shimizu doesn't take the helping hand, but she does get up and go with the detective to prepare herself to get out of this horrible mess. Somewhere she won’t be hurt anymore and can piece together the fractured shards of her life, the cycle of abuse smashed like a mirror – seven years bad luck, but it’s still better than the alternative.
Aizawa’s got no doubt that Tsukauchi will work out all kinds of sneaky things with the suspect-victim now he’s realised what a chronic oversight he made – why Aizawa’s throwing blame the way he is. But at least Tsukauchi probably won’t arrest the poor widow (for now), and that’s all Aizawa’s gunning for at the moment – get her into hospital, get her safe and treated before they go around splitting hairs over which of the Deathnote Killer’s murders turned out to be a copycat further down the line.
As if the press would have listened or done anything but spin this story to fit the inflammatory payback model they're thriving on anyway. Mrs. Shimizu would probably be let off if they decided these things with a jury, but for now they can at least keep her out of a damn prison cell. Enough is enough.
All that leaves, unfortunately, is the simmering pillar of foolish-feeling resentment by Aizawa’s side. Aizawa doesn't even have to consciously tap into his mentalist senses to detect the nails-on-blackboard screech emitting wordlessly from every inch of Hitoshi.
Here Aizawa thought he was about to have less problems, but when Hitoshi hisses like a piston, “And you call yourself a Hero?” Aizawa gets the distinct impression he's got some more explaining to do.
Notes:
And this one ends the third masterdoc!!! It's a BIG one to close out the act of overly large chapters. We're moving into the 4th act now, which has some WONDERFUL chapters in it, the next one especially is just... unf. Can't have our main characters in perfect harmony with each other *all* the time, can we? Where's the fun in that ;)
Also if Tsukauchi seems particularly shitty as a Detective right now, make sure to take Aizawa's personal bias and perspective into account, because at least some of the unflattering narrative on the Detective is coming from the chip on Aizawa's shoulder about how common it is to miss/overlook domestic abuse as a whole in society. I was challenged about this specifically when I wrote this scene, but I stood by my position because unfortunately Japan has a really serious domestic abuse problem, and although it's gotten a little better in recent years it's still extremely unlikely that the police would ever get involved in it.
With that in mind, a largely Hero-work-based Detective like Tsukauchi isn't really the worst person ever for not thinking of/clocking domestic abuse right away, it's just a product of a system and society that regularly treats these problems as invisible. Tsukauchi would be very unlikely to have ever been trained to look for domestic abuse the way Aizawa does, so the broader reading here is more about the differences between Status Quo Institutions and a counter-culture underground Hero like Aizawa - how the former misses problems that Aizawa as a queer non-conformist Hero makes part of his personal manifesto to seek out, and so on. Basically, I'm trying to go easy on the dude, and I as an author do NOT think Tsukauchi is a bad Detective or doing absolutely terrible in this case, he's just the representative of something bigger than himself, just like Aizawa is. THEMESSSSSSS.
Chapter 42: Blowout
Summary:
Hitoshi finally meets Aizawa’s ugly side. Well, uglier side.
Notes:
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!
Another chonky single-scene chapter... oof. I sure do love to write extremely long things, huh?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa casts his gaze through the windows to the sheltered balcony of the Shimizus’ apartment and hankers for a cigarette he won't let himself have. Instead, he reaches for Hitoshi's shoulder. Not to pull, but just to initiate a familiar touch. A conciliatory, “Come on,” falls from his lips as he tries to persuade his ready-to-blow intern into a space where the ensuing freakout will be less easily overheard.
But Hitoshi doesn't even want that much, bucking Aizawa’s hand with a hissy, ‘Geddoff,” that has Aizawa’s arm retreating like Hitoshi's whole body is top to bottom red hot.
“I just want to talk,” Aizawa says gently, almost a ballet dancer for how lightly he treads around these fragile broken-glass people everywhere he looks. He took a ballet class once, many years ago, when Hizashi insisted they had to go together because… that’s what Hizashi does. Aizawa turned out to be better at it than anyone expected, and Hizashi lost interest as his passing trends are wont to do, especially when so clearly outmatched by his lifelong rival.
“So you can handle me the way you’re handling everyone else.” Hitoshi overflows with resentment, and he’s not wrong, but Aizawa’s just doing the best he can – what his moral compass tells him is right. What’s he supposed to do when someone like Hitoshi, or even the law, disagrees with that? Aizawa has never bent himself to meet others’ morality before and isn’t about to start. Not even for Hitoshi. Aizawa can only explain himself and let the judgements come as they are.
But Aizawa appreciates this one might be a little difficult for anyone as early into this game as Hitoshi, and young too, younger than Aizawa was when he got into this grim shit. In honour of that inexperienced vulnerability, Aizawa leads with a soft, “Please, Hitoshi.”
There’s something important Aizawa’s trying to do here, which is make it clear that he is not Dr. Shinsou, running against every scream in Hitoshi's head telling him that this time is going to be like all the others before it; the kind of damage where even if it’s a different person, different situation, the behaviour is still imprinted like a mark left by exposure to too bright a light. There was a flash of it in the car earlier, but now Aizawa’s truly gone and blown the bulb.
“Please what?” Hitoshi snaps in frustration, and Aizawa is ready to use his quirk if he thinks he needs to – but hopes his sixth sense is good enough to get Hitoshi just before Hitoshi gets him.
Not that Aizawa’s afraid of what Hitoshi might make him do if the Shinsou’s high-powered quirk wins their one-round knockout boxing match, it’s just not what Aizawa wants right now. Especially after Tsukauchi made an ass out of himself by trying to lie-detector Aizawa without so much as a whisper of warning or asking nicely. Tsukauchi’s lucky Aizawa owes him for not freaking out over Mrs. Shimizu, or Aizawa would’ve blown a hole through the detective like a shotgun for even attempting that kind of mental burglary.
“Just… come outside and tell me what’s wrong.” Aizawa doesn’t have clever, persuasive words like Hitoshi and his father do. He’s just got honest ones, the ones he means.
Aizawa gets that Hitoshi’s upset, he just doesn’t understand why. He’s not some mind-reader, nor a perfect match for how Hitoshi expects his personal Hero to behave – certainly not when Aizawa’s shoved way up on that pedestal he’s never been comfortable on, being rocked more and more from its already-unstable foundations. All Aizawa can do is ask, and listen if Hitoshi’s willing to answer; maybe that’s enough, though.
Perhaps it’s so polar to Dr. Shinsou that Hitoshi can let go, just a little, of that fear written into his DNA. Trauma changes people on a molecular level, it’s something they’ve been able to prove. Much less psychological trauma of this scale – what it’s like being cast under the very large, very dark shadow thrown by the Doc’s warped mind.
Growing up with Dr. Shinsou for a father, it goes without saying that Hitoshi must have been subject to the Doc’s quirk many a time. And when Hitoshi’s quirk developed, even stronger than his father’s at just four or five years old, there’s no telling what kind of mind games took place between father and prodigious son; when Hitoshi wasn’t the successor that Dr. Shinsou planned on having. The struggles between them must have been intense, given the first time time Aizawa was in a room Dr. Shinsou and Hitoshi together he had to stop them suffocating one another.
Aizawa wants to tear his skeleton out of his own body just thinking about what growing up the Doc's successor must have been like – flee to the hills a clean set of bones, finally light enough without all that skin and bloody muscle weighing him down to this world like lead.
“Ugh, fine,” Hitoshi grumbles, but a tight fist in Aizawa’s chest relaxes a little. This time – now he’s familiar with the mechanism – Aizawa gets the balcony door open on the first try.
Hitoshi walks right past Aizawa and stops at the end of the short concrete-paved balcony, kind of disappointing in its dimensions given the rest of the apartment’s luxury. A greyish shoebox with a greyer view. Hitoshi waits until Aizawa’s shut the door at least, before turning around to accuse, “So you’re just going to let her walk?”
Into a hospital, Aizawa wants to correct. But it’s not about what he wants. “It isn’t that simple,” he goes for instead, but it’s a crap job because any bullshittery is exactly what the Doc would have gone for. Hitoshi’s appalled look just about guarantees it.
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.” Hitoshi’s tone scours like wire wool on the bottom of a really burned-on mess at the bottom of a wok, a.k.a. Hizashi’s most-cooked dish. And much like when he’s fighting with Hizashi, Aizawa just stands there and takes Hitoshi unloading like a revolver in a game of russian roulette. Each silent click passing the time before hitting the bullet of finally revealing what’s really wrong; Aizawa’s just got to be patient – he took Hitoshi out here to explain what is wrong, and will wait until Hitoshi does that. Within reason.
Hitoshi’s turned to look out from the balcony, standing with his face to the fierce wind – always so much stronger this high off the ground – letting the gusts that whip across the edge of the balcony toss his hair into a violet stormcloud around his face. Both Hitoshi’s hands sit loosely around the chrome balcony railing, like he’s holding onto something more profound than a physical barrier – a principle, perhaps. Something he thought he knew about the world. When Hitoshi turns just enough to catch Aizawa from the corner of his vision, the errant wind casts a vivid lock of hair across Hitoshi’s forehead, obscuring his eyes for a moment.
But though the wind is strong, the mentalist connection between Aizawa and Hitoshi is stronger; some yawning metallic thronging that fills the air, like the creaking hull of a titanic cruise ship. It means that even with the noise of the wind snatching much of Hitoshi’s voice, between reading his lips and whatever the hell else is going on out there, Aizawa can perfectly hear Hitoshi telling him, “Heroes are supposed to stop people who do bad things.”
True, and Aizawa won’t deny that. It’s just… not as easy as saying this person did one bad thing, even murder, and that makes them unredeemable. As if their actions – what anyone does, ever – exists in a vacuum and can be sorted as simply as socks mixed up in the wash. (The trick is, Aizawa’s socks are black, and Hizashi’s are all the other ones.) Good vs. Bad is never the whole story, and Hitoshi knows that better than anyone, he’s just not seeing it right now.
A beast of stress inside Aizawa bays for some kind of relief, tobacco-laced or otherwise, but instead Aizawa just stands and faces Hitoshi, offering himself with defences dropped. Maybe he’ll treat himself to a smoke after this round’s over – especially if Hitoshi’s not around, worst-case scenario permitting.
“Heroes are meant to help people too,” Aizawa counters without dismissing what Hitoshi says as wrong, because it isn’t, but things are still complicated.
“By letting a murderer walk free?” Hitoshi steps back from facing the harsh wind, but the coldness he carries in his tone could make Aizawa actually shiver. A dark shadow falls over the characteristic Shinsou sharp features, feet dragging around to face Aizawa head-on as he positions himself square across from Aizawa, hands loose by his side – until they curl into fists. “My dad would be thrilled with you right now.”
Aizawa tries not to react, even though it cuts like a samurai sword. Hitoshi’s just upset, and saying whatever he feels is true to get a reaction. But if it doesn’t make Aizawa’s pulse thump in his neck a little faster, to be compared to anyone as vile as the Doc. And for the reason behind it to make sense, because Aizawa is trying to sweep over a crime that he sees as… not forgivable, but unjust if the criminal is treated to the furthest extent of the law. But if Dr. Shinsou, Shiyoko, and Mrs. Shimizu could all be called deserving of exactly the same treatment by the law, Aizawa’s a monkey’s uncle. (He does have an uncle that looks like a monkey.)
“I’m helping a victim escape her abuser,” Aizawa phrases how he sees it, and that wasn’t exactly how he’d planned for this to go. He was just going to get Hitoshi to tell him what was upsetting him, deal with those feelings and move on. But that’s not going to be enough.
This isn’t as simple as an upset child who wants to be heard, it’s a clash of ethics. Everyone has a slightly different fabric to their morality, especially in this business. It’s the kind of thing a Hero might argue about with a sidekick, rather than a parent with their kid. But Hitoshi’s a little bit of everything, and that just makes the solution all the more volatile.
“So what, that makes killing him alright?” Hitoshi says fiercely, only cementing Aizawa’s feeling that this argument runs on the rails of a moral crisis instead of a personal one – or maybe it’s a combination of both. Seeing the Hero that Hitoshi has held up as a paragon of good doing something so personally unconscionable; the clash of what Hitoshi thinks Aizawa should be, and what Aizawa actually is. But Hitoshi hasn’t lived Aizawa’s life, hasn't seen things that would make anyone more relieved when a woman kills her abuser than is killed by him.
Hitoshi’s new to this, and doesn’t have the slow-build calcification of the soul, ground down by hard-learned lessons to see just where society fails people worst, not like Aizawa has. To know why letting a woman escape becoming another lost statistic is so important, even if it means pushing back in the opposite direction of the law itself. Why shouldn’t they make the bastards afraid of what their victims can do? No Billboard-ranked Heroes go on record bragging about how many abusive partners they lock up, some are even abusers (or victims) themselves. No one in the ‘business’ dares to talk about the irreparable damage they’re all causing to themselves and each other, concentrated by the Hero industry like focusing the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass.
Aizawa can’t make his own peace with being a part of any system so fatally broken, but he can ensure no students get past him without being ready to deal with that shit and still have what it takes to be the Heroes their world needs: Heroes like Eraserhead, as much as ones like All Might. Except Aizawa’s not Toshinori, so he doesn’t talk like there’s hope for everyone to be saved, and that all the villains will be caught. Aizawa just puts it in the bluntest possible terms he can.
“Better him than her.”
Fighting domestic abuse isn’t Heroic enough, at least according to the bastards who make the polls, to count in their tilted big picture ranking built on lies and bullshit. Funny how a corporation of powerful men turn out a system as sexist and regressive as they are. There’s a reason successful female Heroes have to be better than their male peers on a 10:1 ratio and built like catwalk models, because if they don’t go ass-and-tits into the business they’ll never stand a chance at climbing the ‘popularity’ rankings, which hang around the industry like one of the Doc and Shiyoko’s chainmail swimsuit accessories.
“And that’s what you call being a Hero?” Hitoshi provokes once more, and Aizawa’s got to shake this extremes-only viewpoint out of him some way or another. Of seeing only the villain and not the victim.
Sometimes it’s easy to tell which is which in the fight of Good Vs. Evil, but the trouble starts when they’re tangled up in the same person. It becomes a question of who to deal with first – the victim or the villain, like trying to guess whether the chicken or the egg came first. It’s why there’s really only two kinds of Heroes in Aizawa’s coarse opinion (salty, like a large ocean rock that’s been dried under consecutive suns): the Heroes who are trying to catch bad guys, and the ones who want to help people and will do anything necessary to achieve that in the process. There’s a reason for both, but they still need more of the second, less of the first.
“Mrs. Shimizu is… vulnerable,” Aizawa relates carefully, not wanting to set a wrong foot and trigger an earthquake. Aizawa’s a lapsed anarchist at best, but his slanted views on how much their so-called ‘civilised’ society does to protect women like Mrs. Shimizu – and what the responsibility of Heroes should be towards it – are easy to mistake for the ideology of the media-constructed Deathnote Killer. Aizawa can’t deny he's sucked up the rhetoric like a sponge in dishwater too, found himself sympathising more than he probably should. “Tsukauchi is the one who’ll decide what happens to her, I just wanted to make sure she goes to a hospital first, somewhere she belongs instead of–”
“Criminals belong behind bars.” Hitoshi’s wearing a scowl like a knife to the ribs in a dark alley. With sarcasm that ripens like fruit and turns to rot he sneers, “Aren’t you supposed to be a teacher for Heroes?”
But Aizawa’s not being a teacher right now, he’s making calls on the job as an underground Hero, and that’s half the problem. At least now he gets why Hitoshi’s upset, even panicking maybe – there isn’t much showing on Hitoshi’s surface right now, but that’s not to say there aren’t stronger currents underneath. From the outside, Aizawa’s a pro Hero disregarding a major crime to take sympathy on the criminal – and also the one person Hitoshi has been counting on for justice (especially as it applies to him) seeming to divert its course so easily. Except Aizawa’s moral centre is a fixed point, just that emotionally there can be some… drift. So it’s fair enough if Hitoshi wants to challenge him at a moment like this; Aizawa’s just trying not to take it too personally.
Although, if Aizawa’s meant to be some kind of teacher, this is a weird fucking classroom. “Real life isn’t that simple.” Aizawa’s careful with himself, feeling the heat but not coming to the boil. “You saw what he did to her.”
“Because she was trying to kill him!” Hitoshi snaps, and there it is, isolated like a stray thread pulled loose in a jumper. The misunderstanding of inexperience.
Aizawa shakes his head. “Those bruises are much older than the victim’s time of death,” he explains patiently. “Mr. Shimizu did that to his wife long before she– that woman is lucky to be alive,” Aizawa feels himself unloading bit by bit, and maybe he’s more bent up over this than a properly detached Hero should be – maybe he is taking it personally, and aligning himself somewhat-less-than-Heroically as a consequence. But one woman’s Hero is another man’s villain, and that’s always how it’s been; no Symbol of Peace ever changed it, just lied to the people for long enough to make it feel real enough to believe.
“So she’s what, just a poor, misunderstood victim?” Hitoshi parodies. “Accidentally spilled some of her husband’s sleeping pills in his breakfast, dragged him into the bedroom and then stabbed him to death?” And then wrote up in his blood that the pig deserved it. But what if he did?
“After he almost killed her, yeah,” Aizawa hears the rasp in his voice, that ragged edge that comes out when he’s angry. It makes him… blunter. Not cruel, necessarily, but less sorry about telling Hitoshi, “after using those sleeping pills to make sure she couldn’t fight back while he raped her.” More than once, if the half-empty repeat prescription is any indication. The pieces Hitoshi was missing. Abuse, right there if he just knew how to look.
This catches Hitoshi like a slap across the face; confusion and shock that Aizawa’s thrown something Hitoshi never thought of, never connected that kind of crime with those chemicals on the pill bottle label. Aizawa knows the drugs for all the wrong reasons, and it’s not Hitoshi’s fault he’s lucky enough not to know the same. Still some innocence to mournfully part ways with.
“She told you that?”
Aizawa feels his jaw clenching, while that beast inside him howls. “She didn’t have to. I put the evidence in your hand.” The pills Hitoshi couldn’t make head or tail of, which is a good thing in some ways, but it also means there’s something he’s not seeing – that threshold where a killer is more victim than villain. When they need help and not punishment – the imperative of a true Hero: to help the people who need it.
Hitoshi's staring blankly, so Aizawa has to spell out the thing he was hoping not to say out loud, only because it’s so fucking miserable having to be the one to tell someone, “It’s one of the most common drugs used for date rape.”
Regardless of how safe it feels putting anyone who’s done something ‘wrong’ behind bars – or trapped out on a balcony and made to defend themselves – Hitoshi’s missing the part of Mrs. Shimizu’s story that’s spelled with a capital T for Trauma. That her act was one of desperation. Something Hitoshi should know all about, but being conscious of it would likely trigger Hitoshi’s own deeply buried pain, so no wonder he’s got his fingers stuck in his ears.
“So…” Hitoshi is thinking it over, Aizawa can see it in the way he stalls, still wobbling to keep the see-saw balanced. “So what?” Of course not, because sexual assault is hard to prove and easy to deny. A cold sneer appears on Hitoshi’s mouth, and it’s so reminiscent of the Doc Aizawa’s skin crawls for a moment. “Just because he had the pills doesn’t mean he did that with them.”
Hitoshi is humming away to drown out the chance of letting in the truth. He’s better than this, but has been blinded by his defensiveness. The way Aizawa came in and ripped everything out from under him probably didn’t help; if they didn’t have other pressures perhaps Aizawa would’ve been more gentle about that. They just have scarce time for gentleness.
“You’ve got no real proof.” Hitoshi’s the one losing grip on what it means to be a Hero now – that the black and white of wrong and right is really a mess of grey, and if that’s terrifying and scary: welcome to the real world.
“You think I don’t want to be wrong!?” Aizawa swings like they’ve been hitting balls in batting cages, and this one just took out the floodlights. “A woman doesn’t flinch like that and have bruises from being choked and held down because her husband was an angel.” Funnily enough, men who see their wives as things to be beaten usually don’t draw the line when it comes to raping them either. Again, Aizawa would be thrilled to be wrong, he just isn’t, most of the time. They say a cynic is just a disappointed idealist, and Aizawa been let down too many times to expect anything but the worst.
“Why are you so obsessed with this?” Hitoshi accuses, and really, he’s right. Aizawa is obsessed – with not letting a woman go to prison over an act of survival. Sure, there were other ways, ones that didn’t involve Mr. Shimizu in a pool of his own blood. But this is the one Mrs. Shimizu choose, maybe the only one she had, and Aizawa’s still not sorry the bastard got what was coming to him. Of course, if it was down to him, Aizawa wouldn't have killed Mr. Shimizu, but only because death puts an early end to his ability to suffer. In Aizawa's world, men like that should live out long, misery-ridden lives ostracised from the civilised society they voided their right to be a part of. "Just do your fucking job," Hitoshi drops like a guillotine blade. "Be a Hero."
Hitting the familiar, deeply-buried frustration, an ache of too many years dealing with this shit, maybe that's why Aizawa bursts like a tyre on a hot road. “I’m not putting an abused woman in prison because you think it’s the right thing to do!” Not the first time he’s had to yell that at someone, unfortunately. Hitoshi eyes Aizawa like a dog watches a window on fireworks night, and he’s sorry he shouted already.
The calm of Hitoshi’s voice is a blatant accusation of Aizawa’s temper, “Like you can tell right from wrong.” It’s an impossible ask, being expected by someone who looks up to you to always be the thing they think they want from you; to never mismatch that idealistic drawing done by a child. Aizawa doesn’t want to tear that picture up, but it can’t be taken for who he really is – not anymore.
“I’m sorry for yelling.” Forget the cigarette – Aizawa wants to smoke the whole pack. Light all the rest at once and take one long inhale until he’s no more than a cloud of tarry smoke. “You don’t have to agree with me, but you do have to accept my decision.” Aizawa was serious earlier, they are losing time, though he’s hoping to any gods that exist that Tama’s having more luck than they are.
“Because you’re such a fine, upstanding Hero,” Hitoshi drops like a box of eggs off a tower block, just to watch them smash.
“Because like it or not, you work for me,” Aizawa cuts in so fast after Hitoshi it startles him, like being reminded of this fact is the last thing he expected. The wind is still howling across the balcony tucked into the face of the building, and across the city Aizawa can see endless rows of condos and complexes, cast under a dreary sky that threatens to rain. “... And if you don’t want to work for me anymore, you don’t have to.”
Why this comes out like a threat is beyond Aizawa, because it’s not what he’s trying to do – Hitoshi has a choice, can revoke that at any time if he doesn’t feel like this is what he wants anymore. If it’s not good for him.
Right now, Aizawa doesn’t feel very good for Hitoshi.
Hitoshi looks crushed, but if the crux of their disagreement is professional, not personal, that's how Aizawa has to treat it. Hitoshi – paperwork or not – is Aizawa’s intern, but these things aren't carved in stone. “So you're getting rid of me?”
“No,” if Aizawa could stumble over his own tongue, he trips on getting the words out fast enough. “You get to choose if you want to follow me or not, but you can't change my decisions when you don't like them.”
“Your decision to overlook a murder,” Hitoshi reiterates.
Aizawa decides to take this in another direction, move the abstract a little closer to home. “What if it was your Ma?”
Hitoshi's brows kink suspiciously, and he looks more like Kiki when he's like this – expressive, showing emotion that the Doc would hide under a mask of disdain. “If what was?”
“If she was the one who'd been… assaulted,” Aizawa explains tentatively, and this is a mess of a way to prove a point, but if he can just show Hitoshi through the grey areas so dark they're almost pitch black, maybe they'll get back to the light. “If your dad nearly killed her.”
“Ma would never let him do that,” Hitoshi defends crossly. It’s childish and ages-dates him instantly, to deliberately not see what’s in front of him as a way to claim it don’t exist, because it feels more stable than admitting to the darkness they all hang under. Socialised not only to never consider anything so unsavory as the inherent vulnerability of women, but to overlook it even when the signs are right there in front of him.
“She wouldn't have a choice if she’d been drugged,” Aizawa fills the rest of the story in, and it's a cruel way to do it, but he can't help feeling like if he can just help Hitoshi to understand then they can move past this impasse. He dares to make things a little bit realer, tweaking the scenario to really hit home. “If Dr. Shinsou used his quirk and then wrapped his hands around her neck until it looked like that.”
Hitoshi looks like a scared foal in the back of a stable. This is a lot for him, and Aizawa can give the best help he’s able to, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy experience either. “And then she… killed him,” Hitoshi supplies like it’s half a question, half an accusation.
“If she fought back,” Aizawa counters in grayscale, where there is no firm line and there never was, they just pretend there is to try and cope with any boundary that’s so constantly in flux. Kiki has more ways to fight back than Mrs. Shimizu had, sure, but this is just an example. One Aizawa’s about to wrap up. “If it was him or her, and she made sure she was the one who survived.” Aizawa digs deeper, and maybe this is his grave, but he might as well do the job properly. “If I wanted to send your Ma to a hospital, not prison, after killing your father in self-defence, would you still be out here arguing with me?”
“It's… that’s different,” Hitoshi mutters like he wants it to be different more than he believes it is. Aizawa knows how smart Hitoshi is, if he can't work this out it's because he doesn't want to. “What Dad did was–”
“It’s not different,” Aizawa interjects before Hitoshi can rationalise why the degrees of abuse matter, when they don’t. “I’ve seen these situations before, Hitoshi. It’s always got to be one of them sooner or later.” Who winds up dead or behind bars, and even Hitoshi can surely tell which of the Shimizus was more deserving.
“So now you’re saying he had to die?” Hitoshi accuses like he can see as clearly as reading a map that Aizawa’s lost the plot.
“You really want to be a Hero?” Aizawa feels his temper banging harder against the stable door, but keeps it shut into its quarters in his head. “This is what means: making the impossible choice between wrong and wronger.” There’s no good-time answer for everyone, a clear pathway of right and wrong to skip along the fixed border of with a basket full of daisies. Maybe for the ones who lie to themselves, who say it is that simple and eventually end up getting it wrong. “I’m not putting that woman’s arrest on my conscience.”
Hitoshi scoffs, “It’s not all about you.”
“It’s not about you either!” Aizawa snaps this time, again, and it’s not at all what he meant to do; if Hitoshi was struggling with his personal Hero not meeting the gold standard he wants Aizawa to be, they’ve definitely sullied that image now.
Aizawa’s just a… person (not a man, not by choice), more or less. Feeling like much less right about now. “You just want to feel like you’re achieving something, but it’s a hollow win to catch a copycat killer when we can’t even get close to Shiyoko and the Doc.”
“But she did it!” Hitoshi roars with the wind, and if he were Hizashi Aizawa would have dampened his voice with an erasing stare by now.
“The real threat is still out there,” Aizawa replies at a consciously lower tone, trying to urge Hitoshi to muffle his voice by implication rather than direct order. “Arresting Mrs. Shimizu would be a distraction, the press might even pin the other murders on her.” It might not happen, but if the tabloids wouldn’t swallow that shit up – if Mrs. Shimizu wouldn’t fit the profile well enough to be taken for Shiyoko, and then they’d be even farther away from the real killers. Aizawa sure as shit wouldn’t risk it, and by his quick compliance, maybe Tsukauchi wouldn’t either. They know better than to pull risky shit like that… unless they’re really desperate. Not desperate enough, yet.
Hitoshi’s looking unimpressed, and it’s that truly youthful naivety, still burning bright even for someone as fucked-over as Hitoshi. Perhaps even brighter, for coming from so far into the dark. Aizawa should be glad the kid’s still got so much hope. “We know those were a different killer.” Killers, with the Doc’s debut in the early hours of this morning.
“The press might disagree, and the police could use a win,” Aizawa replies without meaning to be unfair, but he has been around this rodeo before. They’re all under pressure to come up with someone, but making that someone Mrs. Shimizu could be the thing that finally kills her. “We’re lucky Tsukauchi’s a better detective than that.” And they are lucky.
Aizawa’s still pissed at Tsukauchi, but at least he hasn’t brought Mrs. Shimizu back in handcuffs – he’s waiting actually, with the tear-stained widow at his side bundled in a large coat, an overnight bag dangling from the detective’s gloved hand. They’re both back inside the main room, waiting for Aizawa and Hitoshi to finish… talking.
Turning back around to face Hitoshi, Aizawa tries to nudge them forward. “She’ll probably get charged with her husband’s murder eventually, just… not right now.” It’s just time they need – time for them all. For Mrs. Shimizu to start her road to recovery before having to pay the price for her freedom. For Aizawa to feel like maybe, just one person can get through this case alive and move onto something better, instead of it all getting worse and worse and worse.
“So that’s it,” Hitoshi says coldly. “We let murderers walk free to feel better about ourselves now?”
Aizawa says something that in hindsight, is more hurtful than he realises. But at the moment it’s simply what he feels. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
Hitoshi’s so small he could be whisked away on the foul winds that beat against the building. Like he's seeing Aizawa for the first time as he really is, over the dead body of the Hero-idol who was murdered as efficiently as Mrs. Shimizu ended her husband's life. Dragged to the scene where the worst of the abuse took place, and stabbed the concept of a Hero named Eraserhead to death.
Many a former student of Aizawa’s has tumbled into this trap, when they cross paths with their old teacher outside the careful bubble UA creates and see him how he really is. What starts with yearning to get closer to their former idol ends in bitter disappointment, finding that Eraserhead is as fake a representation of Aizawa as All Might is of Toshinori. That they're all just flawed, broken people trying to fight back the darkness, even when that means sometimes becoming part of it. Getting close to your Heroes only ever takes the gloss off that you were too far away to notice, revealing the damaged goods beneath. Aizawa hopes Hitoshi is ready to handle that – not everyone is.
Aizawa’s phone rings before Hitoshi has a chance to say anything, though Aizawa isn't sure that he was even going to – it's a lot to take in, and there's no obligation to respond, Hitoshi just has to think a few things through for himself. The ringtone isn’t a characteristic lovesong, but if Hizashi did call Aizawa he’d answer it… probably.
Aizawa pulls it out of his pocket and checks the ID, announcing, “It’s Tama.” That means if Aizawa were standing in front of literally anyone else (except Hizashi) he would’ve already answered, but there are certain rules with people who’ve passed the high-water mark in Aizawa’s heart, and in the middle of arguments isn’t always the right time to take work-calls. He starts to ask, “Are we–”
But Hitoshi is a lot of different things to Aizawa, and their priorities aren’t always so distant. “Answer it,” he interrupts, settling Aizawa’s worry with a head-rushy gasp of maybe-it’s-alright that he was hanging onto like a held breath.
“Yeah?” Aizawa answers as he jams the phone to his ear.
“Drop whatever you’re doing and get the fuck over here,” Tama rasps like he’s been smoking non-stop since Aizawa left him. Maybe he has. “We just got invited to the fuckin’ Embassy.”
“Does Tsukauchi know?” Aizawa’s trying not to be so overly conscious of Hitoshi watching him. It’s hard, these moments of pulling back the curtains and showing Hitoshi the ugly side of what they do, but it’s a better education than he can give in a classroom. More practical, at least. Aizawa wonders what Hitoshi makes of him now, but doesn’t have long to try and place such a constantly shifting mirage.
“Bastard didn’t pick up my call, I tried you next,” Tama delivers curtly. “What’s on your end?”
Aizawa could bite his tongue, if he didn’t need it for further truth-avoiding excuses. “Same shit, different day.” Aizawa’s in no mood for explaining this clusterfuck again, and Tama’s pulled through on the real trail, just like Aizawa was hoping for. Thank fuck. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“You better,” Tama scoffs. “They don’t invite police in there unless it’s bad.”
“I know.” And it must be the Doc and Shiyoko – no other reason that it would be them specifically that the mob-like directors of the utterly amoral hotel have offered an invitation to. “See you soon.” Aizawa hangs up as soon as he catches the end of Tama’s obligatory goodbye, and then returns his attention right back to Hitoshi.
“What did he say?” Hitoshi pounces before Aizawa can ask if they’re still okay, which sort of answers the point anyway.
“We’ve been requested at the hotel the Doc and Shiyoko presumably stayed in last night,” Aizawa relates before tending to the frayed personal threads that don’t feel quite strong enough to take for back to normal. “So are you with me?”
“Me?” Hitoshi looks puzzled by the concept for a moment, but maybe it’s just unfamiliar – to be asked directly, instead of playing mind games or letting things simmer. But Aizawa likes to be clear, and it sparks Hitoshi to do the same. “Yeah… whatever. I get that this stuff’s important to you.”
That’s one way of putting it, and it’ll have to do for now. There isn’t enough time – not on their deadlines – to wrap this one up neatly with a bow either. Aizawa and Hitoshi have to just keep pushing forwards together, rather than against each other, and hope that whatever makes it out the other side between them is stronger than what went in.
When a particularly strong gust of wind seems to blow them back inside, Tsukauchi is looking intently at his phone, no doubt considering the missed call from Tama. The line was probably engaged if or when he tried to ring his unofficial partner back, busy talking to Aizawa already. Hitoshi skulks in from the balcony with shoulders high and hands bunched in pockets, but without another harsh word – for now.
Tsukauchi’s not smiling, which in the context of his face is a terrible worry. Aizawa can appreciate this isn’t a great day for him either. “Was that Tamakawa?”
“We’ve been invited to The Embassy,” Aizawa delivers one more time for the crowd, and then his gaze settles on Mrs. Shimizu. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes.” Although Tsukauchi is holding a larger overnight bag that must be for Mrs. Shimizu, there’s another handbag she clutches under one arm, like it’s her dearest possession in the world. Or maybe just to have something to hold onto tight. Her face is still tense, but looking at Aizawa almost seems to find some peace. “I also…” Mrs. Shimizu hesitates, and then unclamps from her handbag and takes a few skittish steps to reach for Aizawa’s arm. A grip so light, like the perch of a tiny bird’s feet, settles on his wrist. “I wanted to thank you.”
“It’s alright.” Aizawa sets one of his hands over Mrs. Shimizu’s and holds it just long enough, an eye-to-eye gaze to match – to affirm that he’s seen and heard her cry for help and he cares and will continue to do so – before moving swiftly on. Although it’s a moment that lasts barely seconds, Hitoshi is watching. Oh, is Hitoshi watching with those violet puppy-eyes, seeing the pieces fit into place that he hadn’t before.
The point at which Hitoshi and Aizawa diverged was over Mrs. Shimizu: Aizawa sought her out, and was in service of her first – the still-living and victimised – while Hitoshi went to Mr. Shimizu, who was already dead and gets nothing from so called ‘justice’ for his wife. No thanks come from a corpse for dragging this woman he tortured away in handcuffs, in contrast to the gratitude from Mrs. Shimizu, saved from a pressure that almost crushed her fragile body.
Because being a Hero is about evaluating how to do the most good in any situation, and not just by saving everyone and getting the bad guy regardless of any consequence. A lesson for All Might and his volatile prodigy too.
So although Aizawa and Hitoshi started out with different sums at the end of that equation with Mrs. Shimizu in the mix, Aizawa thinks he’s watching Hitoshi rub out his working and do it again. Finally fixed on the living rather than the dead, and in possession of all the facts he’d missed before, Hitoshi’s finally seeing Mrs. Shimizu – and maybe some of his mother, perhaps even himself – as a tired and desperate person who no longer wants to live a life of fear.
And there’s only one way to be sure their abuser is never coming back. Of anyone, Hitoshi surely knows that.
So if Hitoshi can understand that, why the scales of justice aren’t always set on the level – and that doesn’t make them villains, it makes them better Heroes – he’ll make it under Aizawa yet.
Notes:
Some of my previous work may have demonstrated how much I LOVE when the characters I love argue because it just shows so many different things, and when done right, ultimately brings them closer. It's also a fascinating balance of reconciling that admiration/hero worship for an authority figure and when they do stuff that's suddenly NOT part of the script for how someone expects them to behave.
I had some really fabulous input on this scene, particularly Hitoshi's role/mood from a longtime close friend who I met for the very first time IRL recently, so this one's for her!
Chapter 43: The Embassy
Summary:
Things go from bad to worse.
Notes:
Ooof! After the gut punch of last chapter, it's always good to take a moment and then keep moving, at least in this story.
Plus, I have to get ready to punch y'all all these other times too.... *winds up a big comical boxing glove on a spring*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Shimizu’s ‘private hospital’ where battered women can receive treatment without their husbands coming under fire is the same one that hosts Todoroki Rei among its long-term patients, or so Aizawa knows but hasn’t had to admit to knowing – yet. By a serendipitous turn of events, and also not at all surprisingly, the hospital is located in the same law-impartial district as the infamous Embassy Hotel, so it’s possible to make just one quick stop in their high-speed race to the next crime scene on the trail of the Deathnote Killer.
The real Deathnote Killer, that is, compared to the famiscile who sits terrified in Tsukauchi’s passenger seat while the detective speeds with siren blaring back into the city centre, without seeming to take his foot off the gas pedal even once. If Aizawa had hoped to have any kind of private or intimate moment with Hitoshi on the drive – tensions that still felt in need of tending – those notions were back with his stomach some hundreds of metres in the dust, where Tsukauchi left them before gluing his foot to the floor. Even Hitoshi is basically just pasted to the backseat like Aizawa, gripping their knees with white knuckles and wide eyes looking out at the city speeding past. They’ve ridden in a lot of backseats together recently, but none so cold or palpitating as this one.
Because while Aizawa and Hitoshi may have resolved the professional side of their disagreement, that doesn't mean everything’s back to normal. Aizawa might not be the most emotionally intelligent person, but he's learned that lesson too well to ignore it, especially where a sensitive teenager is concerned. Emotional spillage is like a puddle on a hard floor – easy to slip on if no one’s put a sign to watch your step.
However, possessing the will to want to do something isn't always enough to make the time for it. Swinging into a private hospital a person would only know for the wrong reasons isn’t quite the atmosphere for striking up an air of reconciliation, even when the emotional wound itches like a scab trying to come in. With the hidden siren in Tsukauchi’s car wailing (Aizawa admits it can come in handy sometimes) the detective hares up to the ambulance entrance and skids to a stop right by the doors – soon opened by keen-eyed attendants in nice white uniforms, who stand with patient eyes to watch as Mrs. Shimizu gets out of the car with shaking hands. Maybe that tremor’s just from Tsukauchi's driving – Aizawa’s heartrate is yet to drop below the line of being technically in arrest – but it’s also scary stepping into a great unknown future. Change, even desperately wanted and needed change, is always at least a little bit terrifying.
“Goodbye,” Mrs. Shimizu says through the open car door, and it’s Aizawa she’s looking at. He puts down the window on his side and leans out to speak to her more directly, looking up at the newly-christened widow in her black turtleneck, neck sparkling with diamonds to cover the bruises underneath. Aizawa has the strangest notion of how a woman like this compared to the infamous black widow mother of Dr. Shinsou. Would Mrs. Shimizu turn out like that? Hopefully not, and Aizawa makes a note to keep an eye on her, be sure she’s back on her feet and not about to fall prey to any more abusive pigs – sorry, men. Aizawa scribbles an action point on the to-do list in his head, and instead of giving a normal goodbye relies, “I’ll call you.” He means in a couple of days – before he goes away, when all of this is supposed to be over.
“That's not necessary,” Mrs. Shimizu says politely, but there’s a curl of hope in the corner of her mouth.
“I'd like to anyway,” Aizawa returns with a coarse warmth roughening the tones of his voice. After all, being unnecessary is the prerogative of Heroes. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Mrs. Shimizu smiles, not for long, but long enough. “That’d be nice.” After several days of rehab for escaping an abusive relationship through the most extreme means possible, she’s really going to appreciate it. Even if the danger’s gone, that’s when all the delayed emotions that were kept down for years start bubbling back up; it’s a scary time for anyone, and Aizawa knows a voice of familiarity – from before – is almost always welcome.
Aizawa hardly gets a “bye” out before Tsukauchi speeds off again, but it was enough for Aizawa not to count this one as a complete failure. Still doing something to fight the tides of darkness. Maybe Hitoshi has that figured out too, doleful violet eyes slowly burning a hole in Aizawa’s back while he leaning out the window to talk to her.
It’d cost them a few extra minutes, but Tsukauchi more than makes up for it getting them to the Embassy post-haste. The air’s thick in the car, almost enough to scoop if Aizawa cupped his hand through the miles-deep tension between him and Hitoshi. A mentalist rock like waves has been coming from the teen in ebbing tides, a back-and-forth pull in anticipation of something, but it not being clear what that something is until it’s literally happening. Aizawa wishes he could say something, but now’s not the time is an understatement – not when you’re rolling into the underground car park of the most infamous hotel in Tokyo in a red hot undercover cop-car.
There’s a row of stone faces that might constitute the Embassy's management team lined up in front of a door, watching as Tsukauchi pulls into a space between two cars that Aizawa’s fairly sure cost more than he’s earned in his entire life. The world of crime is alive and kicking – unlike its victims.
They get out of the vehicle without speaking, and clunky noises from the car doors echo around the blast-proof concrete of the underground bunker, which functions as the Embassy’s private garage. Even their footsteps seem too loud walking over – Tsukauchi leads the way while Aizawa and Hitoshi follow.
There's three of people from the hotel staff standing by the only door in this deathtrap, matching black suits and high-collared red shirts that feel almost as if they're in bad taste after the bodies they've seen, but these ambiguous titans are hardly ones to fear a little bloodshed.
“Detective Tsukauchi and Eraserhead,” the middle of the assembly announces, a woman at least a head shorter than her two male associates. There's no question in her statement, which would suggest they don't all know exactly who everyone is; a point made even more evident by the way all three golems direct their gaze to Hitoshi in what seems like perfect sync.
“Something on my face?” Hitoshi suggests like he doesn't damn-well know it's his face that's the issue.
“We had heard that the son of Dr. Shinsou was assisting the police…" begins the woman like she speaks for all three of them simultaneously. The more Aizawa stares, the surer he is that the broad, statuesque men on either side of her are bodyguards. This woman – some kind of general manager for the hotel, perhaps – has a painted war-face and hair styled immaculately enough to put any Geisha to shame. A House Madam through and through, if Aizawa’s ever known one. “But I couldn’t believe it until I saw with my own eyes.”
“What, don't I live up to your expectations?” Hitoshi teases out of spite, that instinctive habit to be sure he's ahead of anyone else by at least a smart word. “Did you think I'd be taller or something?” Or something is right.
“You can recognise his son, but didn't notice Dr. Shinsou walking through your doors?” Aizawa suggests coarsely, seeing as Hitoshi's already acting out and things surely can't get any worse if the General Manager is actually permitting police and Heroes inside her establishment. “Or did you just not care?”
“The Professor disguised his appearance at check-in,” snaps the austere woman, and of course the people here would call him that. “Furthermore, no one deigned to notify us of his escape in the first place, so it was not on our security protocol to expect the perpetrator of the 99 Massacre through our doors.” Not that they’d have been looking. Especially not if the Doc was booking out one of their exuberantly overpriced suites that cost more money for a single night than Aizawa used to make in a year – before he got this pocket-money job from Nezu, at his friends’ and family's desperate insistence that he “get a job and stop being literally homeless.”
While that was technically true, and Aizawa does have gaps of homelessness in his past like holes in an old pair of socks, it was only out of sheer avoidance of doing anything except this kind of work all day, every day. Back then, during the chaotic sleep-fever of Aizawa’s early twenties, he spent a more time crawling around this particular establishment looking for trouble than he did most of the chores of maintaining an adult life. Aizawa was very good at finding trouble, and very bad at life-chores.
It’s kind of a miracle they’re even letting him back into this hotel-come-haven for the super-rich and shady in the first place – at one point Aizawa’s picture was purportedly on a dart board in their staff lounge, or so he’d been crossly told whenever he was restraining their in-house security to go after criminals who’d scarpered to the Embassy in hopes of being left alone. It’s a given that most pro Heroes wouldn’t touch this place with a ten-yard stick – not if they care about maintaining their subsidised existence under the institutionalised Hero system that fed on surprisingly well-grown villains. Funny how that worked. But as an underground Hero, Aizawa didn’t have, and wouldn’t ever possess, even a single fuck to give about where the system tried to draw lines. He’s the Eraser.
“Because you and the police are all such good buddies, right?” It's a rare day that even Tsukauchi is on the sarcasm train, but here they are. The detecive’s face clouds over like a stormy sky. “Where's officer Tamakawa?”
Tama could be bricked in a dumpster out back, going by the scowl on the manager's face at the mention of his name. Or maybe that's just where she'd like to stick him. “Your colleague is waiting upstairs.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Hitoshi springs first, and without thinking – forgetting things between them might still be a little weird – Aizawa reaches for Hitoshi's arm to give a light squeeze. Aizawa doesn't push and pull, not with Hitoshi, but he might have made it seem like Hitoshi needs holding back. Maybe he does, but no one likes being reminded of it. Aizawa gets what he deserves in the form of a terse, “Watch it,” from the corner of Hitoshi’s mouth as he shakes Aizawa’s hand off.
They're meant to be putting on a coherent front, especially in a place like this, so allowing the fractious cracks in them to show is bad handling on Aizawa's part, who shouldn't have forgotten his new boundaries with Hitoshi, just because they're further back than they used to be. Aizawa withdraws the hand without a sound.
“We have to go over some ground rules before you're permitted on the premises,” announces the hotel manager – maybe not the highest station, but Aizawa's pretty sure she's top brass. “You are not to use your mobile phones inside the hotel.”
“So if there's an urgent call we're meant to what, jump out the window?” Hitoshi jokes, not realising either of those bodyguards would probably toss him out of one without a second thought.
“Yeah,” Aizawa answers before the displeased Madam can do any worse to Hitoshi, and maybe it steps on Hitoshi’s toes a little, but better Aizawa than someone else. “And?”
“You will not speak or interact in any way with any customers of our establishment that you come across, and we will take measures to ensure this does not happen,” the stern woman continued icily. “This invitation is for the four of you alone to examine the mess left by Dr. Shinsou and his companion, thanks to your lack of foresight in warning us.”
“Ouch.” This is Hitoshi, of course it is. “Bitter much?”
Aizawa comes up with something new before this woman can pick Hitoshi up, dunk him in her tea and then bite his head off. “What about the security footage?”
Now the Madam just looks like she wants to dunk Aizawa instead, though her voice remains a legal definition of indifference as she replies, “There are no recording devices inside this facility.”
Except theirs, she means, and Aizawa returns a cool stare like he knows it. “If you say so,” Aizawa answers after a hard staring match that he wins. He's yet to meet someone with eyelids he can't beat.
“Moving right along,” Tsukauchi intercedes awkwardly. “Anything else you’d like to add?” His gaze bounces between the two men on either side of the manager, who seem mostly like they’ve been told to keep their mouths shut and blink as little as possible.
The hotel manager transfers her cannibalistic gaze onto Tsukauchi, and gives the detective a moment of consideration before uttering, “Professor Shinsou better hope the police find him before his enemies do.” After whatever the Doc did upstairs, it's inescapable that the management of the Embassy certainly count themselves among the ranks of Dr. Shinsou’s enemies now. This hotel overlooks incriminating activities of almost any kind, but the cardinal rule is that no one is to lay a hand on the staff. And there’s already at least two of their ranks the Doc and Shiyoko have murdered, to say nothing of the ‘mess’ upstairs.
Naturally, this is the moment Hitoshi chooses to lilt, “Join the back of the line, lady,” like if there's anyone who gets to choose whether his father should live or die it's him. Aizawa wouldn't stop him, though he might try to talk the boy out of it. Taking a life is something that can't be undone, and not even Aizawa dares to cross that threshold that draws even the best Heroes into a murky world there’s little backing out from.
“Toto here will accompany you throughout this visit, and you are to obey any and all instructions he may give you.” The Madam nods to one of the guards on her left, and the stone-faced gargoyle steps up. Ridiculous name for such a box-faced man, a scraggly beard hanging to his face like a dog in some musical Hizashi’s insisted they watch for Aizawa’s ‘queerducation’.
Hitoshi lets slip a little scoff that sounds a lot like, “If you say so,” while one of the bodyguards walks up to Tsukauchi and stops uncomfortably close to the detective.
Taller than the detective by chin-to-eyeline, the interestingly named Toto gives the police detective a look that more or less says, “I'm watching you, cop.”
Tsukauchi, being a man of admirable character and more guts than a butcher shop, simply smiles and inquires, “Then are we ready to get this party on the road?”
“Yeah, let's not keep Tama waiting,” Aizawa says like the question was for him in the first place, though it works. The poker-faced manager finally turns around, opening the door purely meant for staff with a master key Aizawa would do things he isn't proud of to get his hands on a copy.
In stifling silence they walk in a procession, manager at the front with ‘Toto’, and the remaining bodyguard bringing up the rear. They trail like a line of very ugly ducklings up a narrow stairwell, which feels better crammed into a church bell tower than a hotel. The imposing architecture of this hotel is designed to spit on its surroundings, as if to demonstrate how much better it and its clients are than everyone else. However, the workings of any monster of such gargantuan grandeur must be cramped to make room for the extravagance, making most of the staff areas claustrophobic and always this weird kind of muggy, a mix of sweat, laundry and the heat kicked out from air conditioning units. The humidity provokes Aizawa’s hair to struggle more fervently from its binding, a few loose pieces splayed and bouncing as Aizawa climbs the stairs. Basically, he hates this place.
The manager parts ways with them silently after the first few flights, taking the nameless bodyguard with her and leaving Toto to guide them even further up the tightly-packed staircase. Finally, they split off into a stairwell and trail down a corridor, stopping in front of a door bolted from the outside.
Aizawa doesn't know how long Tama has been here, but he’s done his very best to fill the small interrogation room (at least, that's what Aizawa has experienced them to be in years past) entirely with smoke. It literally spills from the door after Toto slides back the bolt and opens it, while a cranky voice from within like the bellow of a dragon. “Took your fucking time.”
“Hey Tama,” Aizawa greets as usual, while Tsukauchi flaps away smoke from his face with a gloved hand. Tama’s on his feet now, but has just been sitting behind a table in the middle of the room, an ashtray full of cigarettes – not all Tama's, but perhaps mostly – in front of him. The feline profile solidifies as he moves through the haze to the door. Aizawa doesn’t blame Tama – they’ve got cameras in every fucking corner of this place, and filling the room with smoke is as good as any way to mess up the visibility and be obnoxious.
“Is this some kind of dirty protest?” Tsukauchi jokes, his nose wrinkling at the acrid smoke that Tama's generated out of frustration and fuck-all else to do.
“Only for you,” Tama replies, glancing past Aizawa and Tsukauchi to the stern Toto. With his ears set back, almost flat enough to be better placed on an owl than a cat, Tama inquires with a wary golden eye, “This our babysitter?”
“Sure is,” Hitoshi answers before anyone else. “Now that we're all back together, might I suggest getting our asses into gear?”
“Couldn't agree more, kid,” Tama answers Hitoshi in a way that could almost be called friendly, which is good. Personal differences aside, they have to be close to each other in a place like this.
Aizawa turns his gaze on the solemn Toto, wondering if he has a quirk – and if so, what could it be. “We’re ready to see the room.”
They're led to a service lift this time, which takes them all the way up to one of the uppermost floors of the towering hotel. The Embassy is a modern fortress of sorts, accommodating both short and long term guests with the kind of credentials that establishments with clean noses might worry about, but no such issues within this place’s self-titled ‘diplomatic immunity’ for the criminals who haunted its halls. Aizawa sure as shit didn’t recognise it, but he’s just one guy.
It seems wrong to speak on the walk from the top of the elevator to the hotel room, passing into the client side of the hotel so softly even their footsteps are muffled on thick plush carpet. Aizawa can hear each breath in and out taken by their party, four sets of lungs working (five, including his own) somehow like the crash of distant waves.
They come to a stop at a door that Toto identifies without hesitation – Aizawa hasn't got a read on this guy yet, but he's got to be plenty of trouble if they considered him alone enough to supervise the four of them. Hopefully the manager simply underestimated them. But if they remember the pain in their ass Eraserhead’s been over the years, then they probably haven’t.
Toto’s a man of average build, with so few identifying features beyond his raggy beard (and Aizawa’s clean shaven today, but is not one to talk) that it's almost like he was appointed to this role for his forgetfulness alone, even though it was clearly something else. He unlocks the door with a keycard, and then betrays a sliver of humanity – a grotesque wince, meaning he knows what's inside. So he’s already had a chance to go over the room for anything the management don’t want them to see.
Aizawa's got a guess over what they are about to see, based on a few of the factors. Messy, they've been told that much already. For the Doc and Shiyoko to take someone out here doesn't really make sense – a place they'd been able to stay anonymously, in luxury the Doc considers befitting for his station after six long years behind bars – at least, it doesn’t make sense as an act of senseless violence so close to their tail. It seems more likely someone worked out what was going on – who the Doc was, if not Shiyoko. They all know (but Tama and Tsukauchi especially) what the Professor liked to do with people who dared to try and bring him to justice. Combine that with a savage temper over any threat to the freedom he’s just reclaimed, the destabilising influence of Shiyoko, and the Doc's rage truly knows no bounds.
There's a moment where Aizawa wants to reach for Hitoshi just before they go in, an act of concern and mutual comfort, but he stops himself with his hand half-raised, remembering how Hitoshi threw him off in the parking lot and not wanting it to happen again. Aizawa’s tactile, he knows this about himself, but it doesn't make everyone else as easy to come by physical contact. Especially not in moments of stress, and if anyone’s entitled to be stressed by the scene they’re about to walk in on, it ought to be Hitoshi.
So Aizawa wants to help, but feels like it might not be welcome, so polices himself to be still rather than risk crossing a line. Hitoshi does give him a look, might even notice the hand Aizawa hovers before shoving in his pocket, but doesn’t say anything, like they’ve all been bound to a vow of mutual silence.
Stepping into the decadent hotel suite the Doc spent his first night of freedom in, Aizawa expected bad.
This is worse.
To start bottom to top, the hotel room has been – as they say – trashed. Like a pack of dogs tore through it during a bare knuckle boxing match, blood and chaos on every surface.
The body is on the bed, a fitting altar for anyone to have been sacrificed the way this man was, but the room was clearly already chaos before the mucky stuff started.
Aizawa's seen a lot of shit, but this is close to the worst, and he remembers very strongly very suddenly that Hitoshi is just sixteen years old.
“You don't have to stay for this,” Aizawa murmurs to him sideways, keeping that space between them, but Hitoshi's definitely close enough to Aizawa's side. “If it's too m–”
“He's talking to us,” Hitoshi talks over Aizawa like his concern is an unwanted moist towelette, his gaze transfixed on the Deathnote scrawled across the generic canvass of hotel art hung over the huge bed that dominates the suite. It might be even bigger than Aizawa and Hizashi's bed, though the Doc and Shiyoko clearly made full use of the space.
“You think?” Aizawa says softly, seeking a response more than truly doubting Hitoshi's statement.
“I'm sure,” Hitoshi replies solemnly, his gaze fixed on the bloody note scrawled on the wall.
TOO SLOW
The layout of the scene tells Aizawa a few important things right away. The mess of pillows by the headboard look more trampled on than bled on, with the pattern – long trails from the body in the middle of the bed towards the wall, telling the story of a back-and-forth ferry job as someone (Aizawa can guess who) energetically scrawled the note on the wall with their bloody inwell laid dying at the foot of the bed. A chair in the corner of the room, large and leathery, stands next to a low table bearing an empty glass and bottle of whiskey from the minibar – best seat in the house, for what the Professor was observing today.
Back to the body, based on what’s visible of a uniform that’s been cut away in crude chunks, this was another member of the Embassy’s security personnel. Perhaps even someone this Toto character knows. Maybe the victim recognised the Doc, or just saw what he and Shiyoko did with the cleaning staff earlier – how ‘the lovers’ ended up with those chains around them in the first place, perhaps. Either way, the guy’s deader than dead now, and even Aizawa has to pity an end like this.
In what feels like a chillingly on-message escalation, the convergence of the Doc and Shiyoko’s bloody intentions mean the body’s genitals have been mutilated. As in straight up gone. Aizawa can’t help a shudder just having to think about it, and he’s got no weird masculinity-based worth attached to his junk in the first place – so who knows what the men in here might make of such a ‘message’ from this duo of killers.
Unfortunately, that's only the start of the mess. The victim's face has been cut too, one long slit in each cheek to peel his mouth open in a chilling smile. Aizawa walks very slowly and carefully around the extravagant hotel suite that was the Doc’s hedonistic playpen on his first night out from prison. So much for slipping away quietly into the night. If anything, Aizawa’s certain that the Doc wants them to be following him, that they’re simply parts of a vicious cycle of attention-seeking that makes everyone else the victim.
“There's something in his mouth,” Hitoshi says so close to Aizawa’s side he could be slipped into a pocket of the ever-functional jumpsuit. Aizawa would tuck Hitoshi away if he'd only fit.
“I've got one guess for what,” Aizawa replies just as hushed, and their whispering puts Tsukauchi and Toto immediately on edge.
Hitoshi gazes at Aizawa with those soulful eyes drawn narrow, defending himself with wits and conscious detachment. “Gee, you think they're trying to tell us something?” It’s a terribly crude suggestion, but at this point if it’s anyone is practicing self-fellatio then it’s Dr Shinsou.
“I think they're trying to get a reaction,” Aizawa returns under his breath, because it's easy to use irreverence as a barrier to the true horror, but it is horror and not acknowledging it is to risk overlooking clues. “We keep moving forward.” And what if forward isn’t wasting time looking at all the nasty little details the Doc left for them? What if there’s a better way?
“So, when was the crime discovered?” Tsukauchi asks the steely faced Toto as Aizawa – Hitoshi in his footsteps – makes his way around the wrecked hotel room looking for more details.
“He's not gonna answer you,” Tama pipes up obnoxiously, wafting through the room like a kind of cigarette-smoke air freshener. It's better than the smell of blood, booze and sex…
Which brings Aizawa to the next point. Hitoshi keeps saying he's fine at these horrible scenes, and it's not that Aizawa doubts that Hitoshi thinks he can handle it, but if Aizawa's gonna be fucked up by this – what chance does Hitoshi have? This is nasty stuff.
Nasty like, used condoms on the hotel floor nasty. And they surely wouldn't have been used by the guy with no fucking dick. Well, he’s got one, it’s just been given a crude relocation.
Hitoshi is, practically speaking, in Aizawa's pocket right now, though without actually touching him – like they’ve somehow forgotten how – so anything Aizawa sees Hitoshi is going to as well. There's only so many logical jumps a person has to make to assume what spent rubbers are doing by the bed.
Hitoshi makes a noise next to Aizawa, but it's curious more than disgusted, which doesn't entirely make sense. Double so Hitoshi’s murmur of, “That's weird.” is even more interesting.
“What's weird?” Aizawa turns to Hitoshi for the most part not to have to look there anymore; now they're back to the victim's of Dr. Shinsou, there's a factor of Hitoshi being back in his element. Even if it’s in the grossest way possible.
“He didn’t usually, yanno… use contraceptives,” Hitoshi delivers with a chilling detachment that makes Aizawa stressed just thinking about what on earth he's possibly going to do to make up for what he's putting Hitoshi through. But it’s still important, relevant shit. Aizawa's watching Hitoshi intently, so it's just a flit of the teen’s purple butterfly gaze to lock onto Aizawa’s with the leading question, “How'd you think I came along?”
If the Doc was obsessed with continuing his ‘legacy’ then it does stand out, Aizawa supposes. Trust the Doc to be one of those anti-safe-sex quirk breeding kinda fucks too. At least, used to be. So Dr. Shinsou judged Kiki worthy to carry on his line, but not Shiyoko?
Tamakawa peers around to check what Aizawa and Hitoshi are contemplating, before declaring, “That's fucking gross.”
“Someone was,” Hitoshi answers cryptically; Aizawa decides that after his frustration over the Mrs. Shimizu debacle, the kid's allowed a little bit of holding it over them.
Except Aizawa’s not the only one making that decision. “Spit it out,” Tama rasps crossly, and he's got not appetite for mystery bullshit right now.
“It means he doesn't trust her,” Hitoshi delivers with tightly wound control, and it's a hell of an observation to draw from a nasty-ass clue like this, but it does make sense. “He doesn't see Shiyoko as worthy of his… yeah.” Finally, the teenager comes back out, and Aizawa's just relieved the child in Hitoshi is still alive. There's growing up, and growing up way too fast – Hitoshi's already wise beyond his years in the worst possible ways, and Aizawa knows doing things like this doesn't help.
But it gives him an idea, so Aizawa tilts his head at Hitoshi and says, “You know, we can step outside if it's too much for you.” Aizawa’s got a better idea for a way out of this – if everyone else in the room will let him get away with it.
“I said I'm fine,” Hitoshi answers gravely, but that's not what Aizawa’s getting at.
Locking gazes with Hitoshi, Aizawa beams deliberate mentalist intention that pleads “just go with it” and tries again. “Really, Hitoshi…” Aizawa grinds out through his clenched teeth. “You don't have to put on a brave face.”
Hitoshi’s the epitome of discontentment and annoyance on a long car ride together down a bumpy road, indignant that Aizawa’s trying to baby him. But it's not because Aizawa thinks Hitoshi needs it, it's a logical ruse and the kid just has to work it out. Faster.
Aizawa wishes he could reach for Hitoshi, cement the message with that easy flow of physical contact, but doesn't want to send the kid recoiling at a critical juncture, so just pleads with his eyes. “We'll just step outside for a minute, so you can calm down.”
Toto looks over suspiciously, and only then does Hitoshi finally start to get it, Aizawa hopes. “Well I… guess we can take a quick breather.”
“No one leaves the room,” Toto starts to object, but probably doesn't expect Aizawa to turn on him like a guard dog.
“He's sixteen, give the kid a break!” Aizawa barks with relish, scolding the insensitive guard for a reaction that'll tell him something, anything about the enigmatic guard. Maybe he's just a bodyguard, no hidden trick up his sleeves, but Aizawa's not gonna know until shit hits the fan. That shock-bombshell works too, the ‘what the fuck’ face of someone finding out that Dr. Shinsou’s dead-ringer of a prodigal son is traipsing around his muderfucky crime scenes at the tender age of sixteen.
This is enough to cow Toto for a moment, which is when Aizawa starts pacing assertively for the door. “Come on, Hitoshi. We won't be long.”
Hitoshi's footsteps scuttle after Aizawa, who barges past Toto back out into the hallway and shuts the heavily-soundproofed door behind them both. They aren't followed, at least not immediately, so Aizawa's adult-shaming bit might have actually worked.
“This better be good,” Hitoshi's starting with a begrudging tone, and probably resents losing face, as well as Aizawa reminding people of his age. Even if maybe they all need reminding sometimes. “I told you I'm–”
This is when Aizawa breaks his self-enforced rule and gives Hitoshi a quick tap on the shoulder, just a short signal to transmit the need for instant attention, not perched long enough to be shaken off – if Hitoshi was even going to – before he gives a one-word instruction and is already gone.
The order is: “Run.”
Notes:
AHAH JK this chapter isn't a rest moment at all! More like a MURDER AND RUNNING TIME NAUGHTY CHILDREN. And another no-scene-break seamless chapter too, though the breaks are kind of between the chapters at least some of the time.
It's somehow become typical of this story to alternate between heart-wrenching moments of emotional conflict and dissecting the grey areas of morality straight into NBCs Hannibal inspired graphic murder. You know, to keep it fresh.
Thanks for reading and see y'all next week!
Chapter 44: Tight Spaces
Summary:
And little closer, and a little closer.
Notes:
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes MA'AM I like this chapter. Y'all will surely see why.
Legit didn't realise what a cliffhanger I left it on last week so uh, here's the makeup for it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Don't get me wrong, but aren't we usually running towards the crime scene?” Hitoshi is actually keeping up with Aizawa’s just-below-max sprint down a hallway of the Embassy, so that he manages this while also questioning Aizawa’s intentions is a testament to his improved cardio. They’ve had an intense couple of weeks.
Aizawa doesn’t have time for long conversations, but he’s got enough for a four-word explanation. “There’s a better way,” he shoots before ducking into the first fire escape stairwell he comes across.
Aizawa almost throws himself down the narrow coiling stairway, taking the steps in four-or-fives at a time and using his capture weapon to swing around the cramped arterial service system that runs throughout this hotel like a critical artery. Just because Aizawa hates this place doesn’t mean he’s not familiar with it. Over-familiarity is how he knows he hates it so much.
Hitoshi is persistent, using his own thread of the capture weapon to follow after Aizawa, actually managing to leap enough stairs at once to interrogate his (supposedly) fearless leader further. “Where are we going?”
“Surveillance room,” Aizawa answers as he checks a floor-sign and racks his memory for the right number to stop on.
“They said there’s no cameras,” Hitoshi echoes this not because he thinks it’s true, but to make Aizawa explain why he knows it’s false.
Aizawa doesn’t answer right away, until Hitoshi leaps across an internal stairwell to bounce onto the banister right ahead of him, short-cutting to get ahead – and an answer. Even if Aizawa just dodges around Hitoshi without breaking his own stride. Kid can keep up, he’ll admit that. “Except theirs.”
Reaching the right floor, Aizawa lands heavily, pausing for a moment to take a breath. Hitoshi skids to a stop almost crashing behind him, catching himself on the tether of his capture weapon like a purple feathered fishing lure dangling on the end of a long line, reminding Aizawa of fishing with his father for the moment before he drops. Aizawa stands and shoulders the nearest door open, spilling out into another grandiose corridor just like the one they fled some fifteen floors up.
“How’d you know where to go?” Hitoshi’s voice is barely hushed, and Aizawa would tell him to pipe down and just focus on following and paying attention, but things between them are a little tense right now and… Aizawa’s afraid of upsetting Hitoshi, basically; even if it’s grossly unprofessional. He’s got the gross part covered at least.
Instead they pace in stormy silence side by side down a roomy corridor in the hotel’s customer-facing sphere of cushy grandeur and too-many-fancy-glass-sconces, steeped in the quiet hush that screams of a prison in lockdown – lest they forget this place is used by villains of such repute that they would face capture the second they ever stepped outside of this gilded cage. Beats prison, as long as they can keep the dirty money rolling into the hotel’s coiffers.
“Been here before.” Aizawa counts the doors with a familiar habit, dusty and not used for a while. Not since he last got thrown out of this establishment with an extra bullet hole and some more broken bones for good measure. Hizashi pitched a fit, rightly so, and Aizawa and had to relent to giving the place a wider birth if he didn’t want to literally end up dead. So maybe Eraserhead eased off on this particular hunting grounds, but its secrets are all still here in the archives of his mind.
Aizawa halts in front of a well-concealed service door that’s almost inlaid into the wall. The hallway carries on smooth and over-sconced, betraying no sign of secrets held behind it. But Aizawa’s an old dog with some older yet tricks. While subtly hidden, the door of the service room – for the likes of the housekeeping staff murdered earlier today – has no lock. The handle gives way easily under the weight of Aizawa’s touch. At first he only opens the door, waiting to usher Hitoshi in before following from the rear.
As Hitoshi slips past him, Aizawa steps inside and pulls the door shut behind them, instantly finding himself face-to-face with Hitoshi in a cramped service room of too many shiny surfaces, lit up in stark fluorescent glare. This is largely the product of the polished steel shelves on all sides of the room, which are stacked high with towels, bedding, housekeeping supplies, and even miniature toiletries for the bathroom all kept in impeccable order.
In the midst of this scene, Hitoshi's face is a picture of a faun in an exceedingly dark forest.
“Uh… are you sure we’re in the right place?” Hitoshi’s uncertain in more ways than one, so when Aizawa steps forward it seems natural that Hitoshi steps back in turn, backing up in the narrow room that’s fairly deep, but still not big.
“Yeah,” Aizawa answers, his voice still muted, making it almost husky with the addition, “I used to come here a lot.”
“Why?” Hitoshi takes another step back, giving Aizawa a three-volume encyclopedia of a look. Aizawa realises he’s not being as informative as he could, and that was part of their issue in the Shimizu place to begin with – leaving Hitoshi out while Aizawa bounded ahead with the wealth of experience under his belt that he’s supposed to be sharing. So they don’t have long, but he supposes they have a moment.
Aizawa stops moving forward. “The hotel has closed-circuit cameras throughout the building, they just lie about it to outsiders,” he begins to unpack with a hint of urgency because time is a factor, and this seriously can’t take long. “The control room is next door.”
Aizawa steps forward again and Hitoshi keeps the space between them even, effectively reversing through the narrow, towel-lined space until his back is against the shelf of cleaning supplies at the end. “So what’re we doing in here?”
Hitoshi’s got his gaze fixed on Aizawa, but to be fair there isn’t really anywhere else for it to go. Aizawa isn’t trying to deliberately push Hitoshi against the wall, but the preservation of the space between them is a way to move Hitoshi without touching him at least. Just a little push, while still trying to respect the distance between them. Hard balance to keep.
“The vent.” Aizawa comes to a stop and doesn't advance any further, not invading Hitoshi's bubble beyond than the buffer he's made apparent.
The twist of Hitoshi's eyebrow is a signature in purple ink on a document he doesn't understand. “The what?”
“Vent.” Aizawa gestures with his eyes. “Up there.” Hitoshi’s looking a bit like he wants a vent, his gaze following Aizawa’s for the metal grill high up in one corner of the room, then becoming more sullen as Aizawa continues. “It’s a tight fit for me, but you should get through easily.” By this, Aizawa means he usually gets stuck; being able to slip a long purple pipe-cleaner animal with a brainwashing quirk through his favourite rat-run entrance to the hotel’s surveillance suite is – as usual – incredibly useful to Aizawa’s work. He’s getting too old to fall through ceilings.
Aizawa thinks they’re about to move on when Hitoshi draws not quite out of the blue, but past enough clouds to not have been expected as suddenly as this, “Aizawa, I… back at the Shimizu place. I know I reacted badly.” The next words are pushed out quickly, like a cat knocks ornaments off a shelf. “IjustwantedyoutoknowthatI– I don’t think you’re a bad Hero.”
Aizawa’s heart shatters like a piece of crystalware knocked off the mantelpiece by the same devious cat. He wants to tell Hitoshi that nothing Hitoshi ever thinks of Aizawa will change the way Aizawa feels about him, so Hitoshi never has to have a look on his face like he does now – the fear and disappointment of having made Aizawa think less of him by calling Aizawa’s ethics into question.
That’s not how it works, at least not with Aizawa, but he can’t blame Hitoshi for not being sure. Maybe Hitoshi’s noticed the distance between them, even when it was put there because of and for him, but there’s no way of knowing if he'd taken it to mean something it’s not. Withdrawing can be interpreted a lot of different ways, so Aizawa’s got no certainty that Hitoshi will always understand what Aizawa means by his actions alone. Another hard-learned lesson: to communicate. In proper words.
“You had every right to react the way you did earlier,” Aizawa speaks like he’s walking across a frozen river that might not be strong enough to hold his weight, but fuck, he sure hopes so. “I’m not upset with you.”
It’s only a hunch, of sorts – a guess Aizawa has for why Hitoshi’s suddenly spilling not-quite apologies at a moment they really need to be moving forward. Like a shadow cast from a figure deep in a cave, made horrifying and monstrous across the rugged walls, Hitoshi’s reaction now tells Aizawa what the kid’s used to experiencing.
So the fact that Hitoshi responds with a fragile, “Really?” tells Aizawa everything he needs to know. There’s the Shinsou recipe for addressing conflict after a clash with authority: don’t touch it, not ever, just quietly burn with anger and resentment and grow further and further apart. Which Aizawa responded to by… not touching Hitoshi anymore. So perhaps the wrong choice in hindsight.
“Of course not,” Aizawa replies softly. “You’re allowed to question me.” Unlike Dr. Shinsou, it goes without needing to be said.
“Yeah but I… I didn’t wanna argue with you, and now it’s like we’re…” going backwards, maybe. That’s what Aizawa feels, but it’s never been about what he thinks or wants.
“I was trying to give you space.” Which is kind of the opposite to what’s happening right now, Aizawa crowding Hitoshi pretty much against this set of shelves, but if the proximity hasn’t made steam start shooting out under pressure. Aizawa didn’t mean for any of it to happen this way, because they do have a surveillance room to break into… in just a few seconds. Not before tending to a couple of sharp edges that could still draw blood with the wrong handling.
Aizawa lets himself fall slack, shoulders back and his posture barely off from slouching, because he can’t help certain aspects of his physical presence, but he can soften himself not to stand dominatingly over someone; it’s never been Aizawa’s style to put the authority boots on unless it's for their own good. And even then, Aizawa often feels sorry for the necessary harshness that he’s been forced to deal out over the years. Even when it saves lives at the cost of crushed dreams. “I shouldn't have raised my voice with you either. I'm sorr–”
“I yelled too, it's alright,” Hitoshi rushes like he can't bear the idea of Aizawa apologising (again). “I just wanted to make sure we’re…” not fighting, resentful. Not bottling up bitterness and anger to decant for later.
“We're fine,” Aizawa reassures, wondering whether the distance he’d assumed was helpful did any good at all, or if what was supposed to be respecting Hitoshi's space – giving him the flexible boundaries to choose when he did and didn’t want to be reached for – actually made things worse. That maybe even if Hitoshi pushes Aizawa away, he still wants to be reached for, until he’s ready to accept it again, knowing that support is unconditional.
Hindsight’s always 20/20. This shit's hard to figure out, harder than pure teaching, and Aizawa's not always gonna get it right.
But he'll keep trying.
Following the impulse he'd been denying, hoping this was the mistake he's been making, Aizawa offers a simple proposition to address the space between them. An inelegant solution to the problem of feeling distant, but one that’s been known to work. “Do you want a hug?”
Hitoshi looks amazed and terrified in the same fell swoop. Like there's a script for how he's used to these things going, and on the first table read Aizawa came in with a shredder, cut the thing to ribbons and is now dunking the pieces in dipping sauce before chowing them down. It's deceptively simple, but puts the ball back in Hitoshi's court with a way to address the emotional backlash that's healthy and honest, instead of playing the mind games he was presumably raised on.
Slowly, a smile works into the stiff corner of Hitoshi’s mouth. “You're so lame.” Can't let go of the mind games just yet, then.
“So that's a no–” Aizawa starts moving swiftly on.
“No. I mean… yeah.” Hitoshi isn't outright blushing or anything, but he's a little choked up, and Aizawa's heart goes out to him like a dog chasing a frisbee.
It's a mumbling, cripplingly sentimental, “C'mere,” that Aizawa lets slip as he reaches easily for Hitoshi, who's almost exactly the length of his arm away, like he's been waiting for Aizawa to do it the whole time. A broad hand comes to rest on Hitoshi's shoulder, the landing pad to coax him forward as they both lean in. Aizawa shifts his arm to fold behind Hitoshi's shoulders as the teen moves closer. They're almost the same height, putting Hitoshi's eyeline to about Aizawa's jaw as Hitoshi’s face fills the curve of his shoulder.
As naturally as the turn of a river, Aizawa lifts his arm and nestles a hand in Hitoshi's hair, holding him gently as he feels the teen relax into the hold. That “we're okay” moment of touching someone and just feeling better. Aizawa knows the value more than anyone; Hizashi's the one who taught him, many years ago. How it's so much better to just ask, and you'll be amazed who says yes, because people don't want to live in bubbles where they don't touch anyone. They just don’t always know how to ask for it.
Aizawa feels one of Hitoshi’s arms curl loosely around Aizawa's back, and the deep breath Hitoshi takes, hanging onto the moment of sweet relief like it’s been overdue for much longer than this afternoon. After a short pause, Hitoshi sniffs more distinctively and then murmurs into Aizawa’s shoulder, “Is that your hair?”
“Is what my hair?”
“The smell.” Hitoshi sniffs again. “It's… weirdly nice.” Hizashi to thank for that one.
“It’s clean,” Aizawa reveals the ugly truth, and Hitoshi backs away promptly with his eyes cast away from Aizawa, which is impressive in the tiny space. “I’ll give you a boost up the shelves.”
“‘Kay,” Hitoshi mumbles with those same aversive eyes, and Aizawa feels better if nothing else. It’s fine for things to take a little while to sink in, and Hitoshi’s uncertainty is a strong indicator of how unfamiliar this kind of resolution is to him. It makes Aizawa angry, if he thinks about it long enough, so he tries not to because they’ve got too much else to do in the meantime.
Aizawa moves into place directly below the vent, his back to one of the sets of shelves piled with bedsheets and towels that have surely absorbed all kinds of horrible matter in their service at this hotel. “The room will be straight on from where you enter, there’ll be someone inside monitoring the feed, so use your quirk to subdue them and then let me in from the access panel on the inside of the door,” Aizawa instructs as he laces his fingers together, holding his hands out like a sling while Hitoshi turns to face him, and then finally takes a step towards Aizawa.
But then Hitoshi hesitates, seeming like he might be about to ask something – a question of whether Aizawa’s sure about Hitoshi using his quirk, maybe, but then Aizawa wouldn’t ask if he wasn’t. If this place doesn’t respect the laws, they can’t expect to be protected by them either. As if any of them are strictly law-abiding in the first place. Except whatever it is Hitoshi was about to say never surfaces, because maybe not all of it needs to be said. Hitoshi just nods, then plants his well-worn trainer in Aizawa’s hands and takes the step up.
“The grate should clip off,” Aizawa adds as Hitoshi stretches into a full stand, one hand resting on Aizawa’s shoulder for a moment as he comes to be posed like a purple flamingo, perching on one leg in Aizawa’s pooled palms.
“I got it.” Hitoshi lifts his other knee to rest against Aizawa’s shoulder, warm from where his hand just left, using Aizawa's sturdy frame for added purchase as he removes the covering of the vent, which ensures a steady flow of air to and from the outside into these shut-off, windowless pockets within the hotel’s service structure. After a little wobbling around, and only the odd jerk where Aizawa has to exert a little effort to keep Hitoshi from falling backward, Hitoshi gets the vent cover off and passes it down to Aizawa.
They’re stable enough that Aizawa swaps to just one hand to support Hitoshi’s foot, the other hand taking the vent cover and stashing it on one of the shelves, wedged between stacks of folded towels. Then Aizawa takes a two-handed grip on Hitoshi’s foot again and lifts him higher, until he uses Aizawa’s shoulder as the next rung of a human ladder for well-worn trainers to tread, climbing up to wriggle on top of the shelves and then starting to disappear into the teen-sized ventilation shaft.
Hitoshi’s foot leaves Aizawa’s hands first, but then as he crawls further in, the other foothold on his shoulder lifts up too. Aizawa’s left with his back to the shelves and a sense of anxiety he must do his best to manage, if not outright ignore.
The last time Aizawa had tried to get into the Embassy’s top-secret surveillance room this way, he’d gotten stuck, and getting un-stuck had involved taking down the entire section of the vent through the ceiling, which had made him about as popular with the management as anyone would reasonably expect.
The sounds of Hitoshi shuffling away becomes more distant, and it’s normal to worry about him, Aizawa tells himself. He thinks he’s beginning to get a better handle on the fine-tuning of that dial to sit between keeping Hitoshi out of trouble and not being a helicopter hovering barely two inches above his head. After all, Hitoshi’s not in training to be a Hero because being in the line of danger is an unacceptable risk to him, so his choice to pursue that path is something his worrisome guardians must do their best to make peace with. Especially when it’s Aizawa’s job that puts Hitoshi in the way of all this danger in the first place. Such a hypocrite.
However, handling himself under pressure isn’t something Hitoshi has ever shown a huge amount of difficulty with so far; the distant sounds of him bumping around and then presumably pushing off the vent on the other side – into the surveillance room – echo through the small opening above Aizawa’s head, and there’s a distant thump before Aizawa can just make out the sound of Hitoshi’s voice going, “Now wait a minute, this isn’t the men’s bathroom.” Anyone would think he enjoys the moments like this – getting to feel like a real Hero.
“Who the fuc–”
Aizawa smiles, picking himself up off the shelves and heading back out of the service room, carefully peeking in either direction to check the way is clear before he steps out into the corridor again.
Running a palm along the smooth wall, Aizawa feels for a tiny ridge that tells of something behind the seemingly blank surface. Just as Aizawa draws his hand away from it, a seam appears as a panel in the wall slides back, moving on the almost invisible edge to reveal the hidden door that Hitoshi can easily open from the inside, while a strange chugging sound that’s definitely not the door emerges from within.
Aizawa steps from exorbitant chic to a sweaty metal shoebox in a single stride, pacing into a dingy room filled with the glare from a 32-monitor display at one end, which shows a shifting tapestry of security feed from all across the hotel. Thankfully, the management don’t film in the service areas, as it’d be obvious where all their own dirty dealings go on, but there’s more than enough action on show from the hundred-odd feeds from the Embassy’s suites being used by at least ten of the 100 most-wanted in Japan list on any given night (and even more if they’re having a convention at the inbuilt conference hall). It’s a hell of a view for anyone in the chair of this digital watchtower, which presently contains a guard who’s snoring like a tugboat.
“You put him to sleep?” Aizawa murmurs as Hitoshi hits the close switch and the door starts to roll shut as silently as it opened up.
“Out like a light,” Hitoshi replies smugly, and with a little time for their moment in the service room to sink in, he already seems more at ease around Aizawa. Like niggling doubt has been put to rest as soundly as the snoring guard in his chair. That they’re okay.
“Didn’t realise your quirk works like that,” Aizawa muses, although it becomes clearer and clearer that Hitoshi’s quirk works just about every way he wants it to.
“Depends on the person.” Hitoshi sounds pretty chuffed over Aizawa’s interest, but that’s surely a given at this point – what’s Aizawa like to control, he wonders? Does it change with his different moods, in each unique context of the times Aizawa’s let himself be brainwashed by Hitoshi? Or is it easy (just like you, Shota, Hizashi would probably lilt with a snotty smirk, and remind Aizawa about all the times he’s traded sexual favours for leads). “I just said that he was feeling very sleepy all of a sudden.” It’s a true hypnotists’ cliché, but hell if Aizawa wouldn’t be first in line to try the Shinsou-special sleep aid.
Aizawa gives a quiet scoff as he approaches the screen display, past the slumbering guard, and starts to manipulate the controls of the screen display. He's no whizz with this many-buttoned table, but Aizawa took note of the Doc and Shiyoko's room number, so can key it into a number pad to bring up the dedicated feed of that room on one of the screens full-time, using a turning dial that will allow the user to rewind footage as far as he needs. Blackmail galore in this room, for the right price.
Right now the screen is showing the gory scene they came upon and the challenge “TOO SLOW” spread on the wall in blood. It’s empty, which isn't a good sign. There’s supposed to be people in there, still inspecting the crime scene where Aizawa and Hitoshi are supposedly having their heartfelt reconciliation right outside of, and not in a service room for spying several floors below.
“Where are they?” Hitoshi questions suspiciously, and rightly so.
“We won’t have much time,” Aizawa warns, tilting the tracking wheel into reverse so the footage begins to rewind. Aizawa and Hitoshi, among others, appear back on the screen, and then past that to when the Doc and Shiyoko were ‘occupying’ this room. Aizawa has an important thought, which he shares with Hitoshi as he presses pause and looks over. “You don't have to watch.”
“We're back to this again?” Hitoshi scorns. “I told you already–” Hitoshi starts but doesn't finish, transfixed instead on the figures frozen on the screen, paused by Aizawa’s finger on the button.
“I’m serious, Hitoshi.” Aizawa doesn’t always call Hitoshi by name, not in settings like this, but there’s something important he wants to reach for, to tap into within Hitoshi so that Aizawa might be able to do something, just a little thing, to shield his kid from the awful shit that they don’t both have to see. “Only one of us has to look.”
“What if you miss something?” Hitoshi sounds rushed, which is sensible for the situation, but maybe it’s also discomfort. Dr. Shinsou cuts a static picture on the high-quality security footage feed. He's leaving the room with the fresh murder behind him, Shiyoko out of sight or already left, perhaps, with the bloody corpse behind him, and not a hair is out of place on the good Doctor's head. The Doc is almost looking right into the camera, his distinctive locks slicked back and coloured black, matching the expensive suit he’s wearing – another reason they didn’t recognise him at check-in, perhaps.
Maybe it's different than Hitoshi imagined, seeing his father on the outside. How fucking happy he looks for one, the smug, I-know-you’re-watching smile of a monster enjoying his freedom.
“If I see anything I can't make sense of, I'll stop and ask you,” Aizawa urges with his fingers resting lightly on the dial. He doesn't want to see this either, but someone has to, and Aizawa doesn't want it to be Hitoshi. “Let me take this one for both of us.”
If they hadn't… made up, call it what it is, in the laundry room just now, Aizawa is almost certain Hitoshi would have refused; made it a point that he has to see everything Aizawa does, and he's mature enough to handle it. But the truth is Aizawa isn't even ready to handle this, just that one them has to, and Aizawa’s better prepared to deal with the mess than Dr. Shinsou's actual teenage son. Hopefully, Hitoshi understands that Aizawa isn't saying Hitoshi's not ready or good enough to be a valuable second pair of eyes, it's just that Aizawa doesn't want to be the one to put him through this. That it’s not necessary so just don’t.
Hitoshi's piercing stare could say as much and far more, and it's important he understands now Aizawa isn't upset or trying to hold Hitoshi away out of disdain, but out of a desire to protect him from the very worst of something he doesn’t have to experience. “Fine.” Hitoshi turns his back to the screens, and a structure inside Aizawa gives way with a desperate scream of relief. “Just make it quick.”
“Keep a lookout,” Aizawa gives as a two-for-one excuse-distraction as his fingers tilt the dial, and then resumes winding backwards through the Doc and Shiyoko's first night together.
It goes about as godawfully as Aizawa expects.
Played backwards, the security footage actually shows the unlikely revival of the poor guard that the Doc and Shiyoko made butcher himself for the offence of trying to confront them. Shiyoko was the one to dirty her hands, while the Doc just watched from that chair: Aizawa fucking knew the sick cunt had sat there drinking whiskey from as he got to witness ‘little’ Shiyoko all grown up finally doing what he wanted her to, all with her beloved professor watching. Aizawa’s white hot with anger, and the only thing that makes it seem like there’s a shred of good left in the sick-bucket of the world is the fact that Hitoshi doesn’t have to see it too.
In spite of his initial deliberation over whether to look away as Aizawa suggested, Hitoshi has turned around and not stirred from that position, not even seemed like he’s tempted to look back. In reverse the story is marginally more palatable, but still fucking grim. As if the victim takes his dismembered organ out of his mouth, zips his cheeks back up with the scalpel that Shiyoko takes off him, which she then uses to fix his cock back onto his body while he sits completely unmoving, wide-eyed in smothered terror. Finally, Shiyoko returns the blade to the Doc – who is still prone in his chair, so unmoving throughout the scene that he looks the same forwards as backwards, but that the whiskey in his glass gets a little higher each time he sips.
Aizawa stops and watches the footage forwards for a section, just before the guard first enters the room and the bloody stuff starts, when it seems like the Doc and Shiyoko are in the process of getting ready to check out. It’s an exchange that doesn’t last very long, but it does tell Aizawa one thing – the brainwashing quirk used to subdue the victim is the Doc’s, and although Shiyoko leads in the murder, even writes the note just as Aizawa had thought, she never uses her own quirk throughout the killing – which, Aizawa supposes, probably makes this one about half-and-half for the pair of them, the true shape of their killing together: Shiyoko’s lust for violence combined with the Doc’s wrath against anyone who dares to stand in his way.
As someone who’s made rather a point of putting himself in Dr. Shinsou’s way – right between a father and his son, as it happens – Aizawa’s growing sense of unease feels remarkably well-placed.
Rewinding further, Aizawa catches the exchange where the two cleaning staff who jumped from the bridge were first brought into the Doc and Shiyoko’s power too, innocently knocking on the door and asking if the room was to be cleaned later in the morning, going by the timestamp on the corner of the screen. For what it’s worth, the four of them all left the room at the same time, without the chains that were responsible for drowning the doomed lovers later on. Must have got them on the outside.
Before that, Aizawa starts to find the things he was looking for – what the leftovers only hinted at, now completed in full twisted glory. It strikes Aizawa cold that makeup sex played backwards is just fucking followed by an argument – Aizawa’s definitely tried both ways around, and it’s definitely more unsavory in one direction. Doubly so when it’s the Doc and Shiyoko. Hitoshi might be ‘aware’ of his father’s sexuality, but Aizawa certainly doesn’t want to watch his own father having sex with anyone, so he can’t imagine a way Hitoshi would ever want to be witness to all this.
It’s angry fucking, at least starting at the finish, and Aizawa can’t help being struck by Hitoshi’s comment about the Doc not ‘respecting’ Shiyoko if he’s using condoms, never more poignant than watching the austere frame of Dr. Shinsou pound the buxom female on the bed underneath him. The camera quality is okay, best footage of Shiyoko they’ve seen so far, and the other snippets they’ve collected so far all align. She’s petite and curvy, bleached hair growing out at the roots, and for the most part fawns over Dr. Shinsou’s every action – when she’s not crossly confronting him over his disappearance midway through the night, waking up after the Doc’s slipped out to murder prison guard and pacing maniacally, even after he put Shiyoko to bed with another round of fucking – the first time, technically, played forwards, and a little less aggressive than the second round – the Doc’s certainly got appetite, but then who wouldn’t after six years behind bars?
There are specific details Aizawa’s looking for as he quick-scans the surveillance footage; the high-end shopping bags Shiyoko and Dr. Shinsou first arrive to the hotel with, a new suit and things to disguise their appearance, their initial movements after getting into the room, how they carry themselves fresh from an ingeniously planned prison break.
Playing it the right way once more, Dr. Shinsou strolls in like he owns the place and first of all takes a long shower, while Shiyoko paces nervously around the hotel suite in his absence, eventually stripping naked and getting into bed before the Doc emerges from the bathroom. She made it easy for him, Aizawa reflects, so even if not to his particular tastes – or up to his ‘standards’ as the Doc might have it – when offered a willing female body on a plate, desperate to please him, the person supposed to understand Shiyoko better than anyone else, not even Dr. Shinsou was going to turn down a free lunch.
“Aizawa…” Hitoshi leads worrisomely.
“Just a minute,” Aizawa barters, twisting the tracking knob back and forth to pick out the most striking exchanges between the killing double-act. Because for all they can agree on in bloody murder, the fractious tension between the revered Professor and his disciple is never more clear than in moments when Shiyoko reaches for the Doc intimately, only to be knocked away and then – once he’s made his mind up – held far too close.
Aizawa gets a sneaking suspicion that although they have similar means and a shared penchant for murder, Shiyoko and Dr. Shinsou want very different things from one another.
“Uh, I don’t think we've got a minute,” Hitoshi comes back around with a new degree of urgency in his tone, and finally Aizawa hits pause and looks over.
Hitoshi is watching a pool of dark… something drip through the ceiling. Aizawa hesitates to try and describe the substance any further, because it seems neither solid nor liquid and drips as much as it drops from the ceiling to land on the floor of the surveillance room in a form that rapidly takes familiar shape. One of a man in a black suit and red shirt, curled over like a hermit crab that slowly uncoils and then stands up; the one-and-only Toto, their ditched escort, whose quirk Aizawa’s got a pretty good idea of now.
“Just stepping outside for a minute?” Toto remarks sarcastically. Aizawa wonders if this guard was properly warned about dealing with Eraserhead, concluding that he must not have, because then the last thing he’d ever have done is let Aizawa lay eyes on him.
He knows what Hitoshi’s quirk is, Aizawa thinks first, before several things happen very quickly all at once.
They’ll have to do this one the old fashioned way.
Notes:
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh HUGS YES MA'AMMMMMMMM ON DAT HUG THO. On a serious note though, writing the growth and constant development of Aizawa and Hitoshi's relationship is THE thing that sustains me through this story, don't get me wrong I love the plot and action and mystery, but I also couldn't do it without that relationship component that I've previously used a romantic relationship to structure a story around, and for the first time, give or take some variations, I've actually done something different here.
How that affects the story, and whether it's a factor in how frigging LONG this story is I don't know, but it's interesting approaching the same 'milestones' of a meaningful relationship through a different pathway than I'm used to. Physical affection, fights and reconciliation, that ugly-sided process of getting to know someone you admire to learn all the things NOT admirable about them because they're real and not an idealised distortion are all universal aspects of an important relationship, and as a society we are used to seeing that interpreted and represented through romance, but the truth is they're not at all tied to it, because love itself is not inherently any one thing, and real feelings are far less easily defined than 'romantic' or 'sexual' and not those things. It's something I've thought about a lot while writing this story, so I hope that comes through and helps make these moments as powerful for you as readers as they are for me as the writer.
Oh and cookies for anyone who already figured the Doc and Shiyoko did the nasty. Talk about contrasting themes of what intimacy does and doesn't look like, batman!!
Til next week!
Chapter 45: Separation Anxiety
Summary:
Aizawa runs up a long list of people he owes big time.
Notes:
Okay so I know technically last week was *also* a cliffhanger, but I also love this chapter a wHOOOLEEEEE LOT TOO so we've got that going for us. It's also got actual scene breaks which means that the last 2-3 chapters which have been a sort of unbroken single scene is actually going to end. Me and my long sequence scenes, huh?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The guard, Toto, is a little easier to take seriously after he’s slipped through the ceiling and rooted out Aizawa and Hitoshi like a couple of deeply buried splinters. Turns out the scruffy bodyguard is good for more than giving dirty looks after all, and he goes for Hitoshi first, which is a reasonable thing for a trained professional to do in this situation.
Knowing what Hitoshi’s quirk is, or thereabouts, means knowing the kid’s toothless if someone doesn’t respond to him. The kid part’s another obvious one: Hitoshi’s just sixteen, as Aizawa had conspicuously bellowed at Toto earlier. Even if Hitoshi can handle himself, he’s still vulnerable in a situation like this, which makes him a chink in Aizawa’s armour. Because even in this short space of time, it’s already been made abundantly clear where Aizawa’s duty of care runs concerning Hitoshi.
Hitoshi’s much closer to Toto than Aizawa is to either of them as well, because while Aizawa was busy checking out Dr. Shinsou’s sex tape, Hitoshi attended to the mysterious puddle of liqui-solid falling through the ceiling. Toto’s dressed in that black-and-red high collared suit in the Embassy Hotel colours, which means his quirk presumably works on anything he’s touching as well. Like Hitoshi.
So while it’s perfectly rational for Toto to lunge at Hitoshi in an attempt to use the teen as a hostage – maybe even escape with him for greater ‘leverage’ against the not-so-good Professor – it’s everything that happens after that’s completely and utterly irrational.
Aizawa leaps from where he’s standing towards the pair of them like an involuntary spasm of every muscle in his body all at once, instinctively sending out a handful of his capture weapon that arrives in advance of the full force of his body slamming into Toto the second he reaches for Hitoshi.
Hitoshi, for the most part, pulls out his own slippery act, evading Toto for just long enough that Aizawa would’ve made decent contact, if not for the fact that Toto goes not-solid-not-quite-liquid again the moment Aizawa’s about to slam into him, passing harmlessly out the other side of the jelly-wobbling guard before he snaps back into shape. This also means the next thing Aizawa is due to hit with the full force of his mass, launched like a boulder from a trebuchet, is the lead-lined wall now immediately in front of him. Aizawa smacks into the wall with the kind of thunk that would flatten a cartoon character’s face, forming the shape of whatever object a mischievous critter struck them with in one of those American cartoons Hizashi loves.
Reminding himself that the Shinsou effect sometimes dictates Aizawa does the stupid right-now thing instead of the smart one, he shakes off the impact and then starts to charge back at Toto and Hitoshi – but this time, Aizawa grabs the person he knows isn’t going to turn to putty in his hands.
Yoinking Hitoshi out of the fray like snatching a fresh fish from the stream, Aizawa hurtles back toward the end of the room with all the screens, stopping himself – and Hitoshi, scooped around the middle with one of Aizawa’s tree-branch arms – from turning into glass-encrusted mincemeat by banging into the console table.
The weight of their impact stirs the slumbering guard, who lifts his head with groggy half-mast eyes. Aizawa’s busy trying to disentangle all Hitoshi’s spidery limbs from his own, instead of clinging onto Aizawa like a baby monkey clutches its mother as she swings through the jungle canopy. So Hitoshi notices the guard before Aizawa does, gaze already trained on bleary little pig eyes by the time a confused, “Whut th–” falls from the man’s droolly lips.
“You’re just dreaming,” Hitoshi announces as easily as rain falls from the sky. “Go back to sleep.” It’s not a question, barely even something for the guard to respond to, but whether it’s by Shinsou quirk, or the mere effect of Hitoshi’s presence alone – if any distinction between them even exists in the first place – the dupe’s eyes close again, and he resumes snoring like a bandsaw.
By this the time, Toto has resolidified and is looking extra-pissed after being jumped through twice. But Aizawa’s not making the same mistake again, leaping at Toto this time with one more ace up his sleeve: he doesn’t need the scruffy-bearded thug to do anything for Aizawa’s quirk to work just fine. So the next time Aizawa comes flying for a guard named after a dog from the fucking Wizard of Oz, it’s with his hair fully raised like fur on a cat’s back, his quirk firing a laser beam gaze like a sniper’s rifle’s sights right on Toto’s beardy box-like face.
Aizawa ploughs into Toto with you-can’t-use-your-quirk contact like he thought he wanted. Only Aizawa didn’t expect, and is immediately very annoyed by, the small handheld taser that Toto uses to send a paralysing shock of electricity through Aizawa’s nervous system.
Thrown off while the electric shock seizes Aizawa’s whole body like jammed cogs churning up a handful of gravel, Toto regains his bearings faster and looms over Aizawa on the floor.
However, no student of Aizawa’s would ever be worth their salt without means to act beyond their quirk, so it’s while Toto has his back foolishly turned to Hitoshi that a sole strip of the capture weapon wraps around Toto’s torso. The hyper-reactive fabric is naturally drawn by heat, provoking – among other things – an easy inclination to loop around warm things it comes into proximity with. Aizawa’s old favourite will wrap around most objects with the right coaxing, but there’s something very instinctive about the way this particular “bitch of a support item”, in so many people’s words, grabs hold of people in the right hands. Which so far includes Aizawa’s and Hitoshi’s. He won’t deny he’s proud of the kid's progress.
Aizawa’s quirk is also still active on Toto, meaning there’s no slipping the noose this time. With just a tug Hitoshi locks the easy-form loop of his capture weapon around Toto’s chest, while Aizawa sends out a new strip of his own to wrap around Toto’s ankles a moment later. Yanking in synergy, Toto’s simultaneously pulled from the top and bottom in opposite directions, spinning almost completely end-on-end as he’s thrown spectacularly head-over-arse to slam onto the floor by the time Aizawa’s back up on his feet.
And Aizawa’s quick, but so is Hitoshi, leaping into action while Toto is spreadeagled on his back and stamping on the guard’s tasering hand at the wrist before it can rise up to strike again. The resulting noise of this scuffle wakes the other guard once more, perhaps not all-that-deeply asleep anymore, but Hitoshi’s still ready with a cool, “Actually, would you mind giving us a hand? This guy’s gone a bit nuts, and we need someone to hold him down.”
Maybe the guard’s befuddled, already dosed up on the intoxicating hold of Hitoshi’s quirk – or perhaps he’s just a rube. Either way, after the pre-emptive silence of a response that would’ve been given and already wasn’t, the next move the guard makes is in clumsy obedience of Hitoshi’s request. A surge of relief rocks Aizawa like high seas; thing with Hitoshi’s quirk is, it’s either gonna work completely or not at all, and the only way of knowing which is the split-second where someone with their own willpower would have diverged from enacting Hitoshi’s wishes.
Right now, Hitoshi’s wish is for the guard to help them restrain a furiously thrashing Toto. Aizawa keeps his unblinking stare trained solely on Toto, lest the slippery character escape with his quirk and call for reinforcements. Taking a couple of quick steps over with dry eyes beginning to itch – though he’s held out much longer before – Aizawa’s is only mildly uncomfortable as he advances on the restrained Toto and drops to his knees.
“We're actually gonna need a few more minutes,” Aizawa mutters with great satisfaction before he punches out the very much solid Toto with a single strike to the temple. Rational or not, this guy tried to attack Hitoshi, and that puts him shit bottom of Aizawa’s favourite people list.
After a moment of consideration and a tentatively crusty blink, Aizawa swings his fist at the other brainwashed guard, who is still diligently holding down the now-unconscious Toto. “Lights out for you too.” Aizawa clocks the guard on the jaw, instantly belly-flopping onto his colleague for a much less subtle bout of forced sleep. At least Aizawa’s hands-on method keeps him down for sure this time.
“I could've done that,” Hitoshi’s comment is almost petty, his foot slipping off Toto's wrist to stand level. But his tone is more neutral than resentful, so that has to count for something.
“You already did enough.” Aizawa takes a breath with sandpaper eyelids scraping across his cornea, and searches for a bottle of eyedrops in one of his many pockets. “Which you can't tell anyone about, not even Tsukauchi.” Especially not that goody two-shoes detective as it happens. Tsukauchi would undoubtedly have some kind of moral objection, and the least they owe the poor detective is to not compromise him with confessions of illegal activity that he'd be obliged to act on.
Because it goes without saying that every part of this, start to finish, has been on the shady side of the law – using Hitoshi’s quirk to such full potential included. Shame it works so fucking well; Aizawa’s always worked in the shadows, and it’s easier in an awful lot of ways, but also much higher risk with Hitoshi’s totally illegal involvement that Aizawa wouldn’t give up for the world.
“Aww, and I was gonna go tell all my friends,” Hitoshi lilts, thriving as usual in the midst of shit that would make most people break down or shut down. But that's why Hitoshi's going to be a great Hero one day. So much resilience after the life he’s had – anyone thinking what Hitoshi and his Ma have gone through would make them weak is desperately wrong and misunderstands what going through hell does to some people. Makes them tougher than nails: to have survived and then thrive out of spite.
Hitoshi’s comment provokes Aizawa to wonder who the teen does count among his friends, any he still has after brainwashing his entire class in one fell swoop of the Shinsou power at its most terrifying. There's a few people Hitoshi has met through this case that he’s hit it off with too (one in particular), but it's not the same as true peers – other Heroes in training, who could support and drive Hitoshi to achieve even more than Aizawa’s best tutelage can impart. It’s a lingering tic in Aizawa’s subconscious: every lesson given on the Hero course widens the gap between Hitoshi and the rest of the Nezu-approved Hero-hopefuls that little bit more. No wonder Aizawa’s methods to keep Hitoshi at least within the learning curve for the next generation of Heroes are unorthodox. What choice does he have?
Aizawa finally locates some eyedrops and douses himself until his eyelids don't creak with rust anymore, standing with sure purpose and blinking out the excess before training his gaze back on the paused screen of Dr. Shinsou's hotel room. The footage shows two figures, sleeping at the very opposite sides of the bed – Shiyoko hadn't wanted it like that, but the Doc made it quite clear he didn't have the slightest inclination to cuddle in the afterglow. Affection is not the Doc's strong point; no wonder Hitoshi grew up starved for healthy ways to express it.
With a lurch in his gut like the aftereffects of a bad box of convenience store sushi, Aizawa presses several buttons until it flicks back the live feed, conjuring up the image of a totally empty, bloodstained hotel room – seems like they’ve disposed of the body as well, which Aizawa had possessed little appetite for inspecting anyway. He knows how these killings are going to go, and puzzling over the crime scene hasn't gotten them anything but more crime scenes to pick at like vultures on a carcass. Everything left in that hotel room is no more than what the Doc wants them to see, to keep circlejerking themselves by thinking they'll catch him by picking through the leftovers like a stalker going through their idol's garbage.
No, Aizawa won't give Dr. Shinsou the satisfaction.
The security footage, at least, shows what the Doc didn't want anyone to see – the raw, uncontrolled man taking an easy lay from a woman he doesn't like, much less trust, even after all she's done for him. Someone he's using no less than when he used her as a child or teenager, albeit in different and sick new ways, as well as satisfying his curiosity about the deadly applications of their quirks.
That deadly 'research' is still ongoing, based on the way the Doc watched Shiyoko mutilate a man just to see if she would, it's just the part where they're fucking that's new. And nothing that starts this badly can ever end well. Not when they want such different things, never clearer than the moment the Doc ensures Shiyoko is asleep, then slips out of bed to go chase his own murderous thrills in the early hours of the morning. Aizawa watched – forwards and backwards – how Dr. Shinsou returned to an agitated Shiyoko, clearly angry and upset the Doc left her alone.
Because the cruel reality, never more apparent than during the appeasing make-up fuck and double-murder that came afterwards, is that Dr. Shinsou was never hers, to begin with. Just pretending out of convenience and necessity.
So never has Aizawa meant a mood more than his tired announcement: “Let's get the fuck out of here.”
Fleeing the Embassy via one of Aizawa’s tried and tested rat-runs, he and Hitoshi finally get out of the hotel via a garbage chute that drops for at least three floors uninhibited like zero gravity slide. It's just as Aizawa remembers, or so he tells Hitoshi before they drop. Aizawa stops them both from falling straight into the heat of incinerator below with practiced ease, and Hitoshi only hesitates a little, but Aizawa still reckons they better not tell Kiki about that one.
Their escape hatch is out of a ground-level vent that Aizawa does fit through, punching the grate off so it pops like a can being opened from the inside, crawling out and sprawling onto the street under a yawning sky. It's hotter today, and the billowing wind carries moist air and the promise of a storm.
Hitoshi lands on Aizawa coming out of the vent after him, and Aizawa could pretend he resents being used as a crash-mat, but the reality is he's used to it, and Hitoshi weighs next to nothing. Aizawa barely needs a hand – could do it with a finger, even – to get up and help Hitoshi to his feet at the same time, no words when their bodies do the talking.
They've barely taken ten steps, scaled a security gate with some support from a strip of Aizawa’s well-placed capture weapon, and then taken another ten steps more into the free world when a familiar cop car rolls by. Not the undercover speed-freak vehicle Tsukauchi was perhaps foolish to leave in the bomb shelter basement, where it's now presumably being held as collateral while Tsukauchi hashes it out with that ferocious Madam who is no doubt as pissed as Tsukauchi is. This car bears the traditional police colours, and a driver behind the wheel Aizawa couldn't be happier to see. Even if the feeling isn't mutual.
“You could fucking warned me.” Tamakawa is the cat who did not get the cream, and lets it show as he addresses them out the open driver-side window with a cigarette hanging out the corner of his furry muzzle.
“It kinda just happened,” Aizawa answers without excuses he doesn't have to begin with, glancing at Hitoshi before making the split-second decision to get in the back rather than the passenger seat next to Tama.
Proof of this being the right call, Hitoshi gets in the car after Aizawa and slides all the way to the middle of the backseat almost as a matter of habit, though really the habit is more likely to be close to Aizawa. Aizawa certainly doesn't mind, comfortable with Hitoshi's naturally slouching weight next to him. Far better than any not-close-enough alternative, like the fear that grips Aizawa by the throat whenever he lets his mind flit back to that moment when Toto lunged at Hitoshi and Aizawa’s body moved without thinking. The points where Aizawa does the kind of things that put his life on the line for the sake of keeping someone else safe – he’s got plenty of scars to show for it. And Hitoshi just makes them even stronger, amplifies those already intense instincts until they’re like nitroglycerin in a washing machine.
“Yeah well, I had to leg it out of that shithole chased by half of their security staff because you kinda just happened.” Tama’s words ring truer than he could ever fathom; Aizawa’s whole chaotic existence seems to occur like a bout of freak weather. Sitting here, elbow to elbow with Hitoshi – being what he is to Aizawa – while working this case (of all cases), is a gale-force storm of proportions no weather equipment could ever have predicted. But they’re in it now, so it only makes sense to keep howling.
“I take it they weren't best pleased?” Hitoshi remarks just to be smug, Aizawa thinks. They all know the answer, but rookies always like to hear things said out loud – the novelty that’s worn off an old soul like Aizawa. Hitoshi might be a natural at this, but he's also greener than a fresh beansprout, so now and again (okay, as much at he wants) Aizawa feels the kid deserves to be indulged.
“Yeah, they were just thrilled to have the pair of you running loose about the place,” Tama coos like he's more pigeon than cat. They all know perfectly well that what Aizawa and Hitoshi did is exactly not what the stern-faced manager of the hotel wanted them to do. They just did it anyway – as bad as each other, it could be said.
“How about Tsukauchi?” Hitoshi says with about as much genuine concern in his tone as guilt, knowing he was party to Aizawa's decision to screw the good guy. Lucky thing Tsukauchi can handle himself in the best of fixes..
“Oh, he's furious,” Tama purrs. Aizawa can hardly blame the poor, lone detective having to clean up after their messes by the book. Tama’s certainly had enough of the Embassy’s idea of hospitality for the boys in blue, so Aizawa reckons they both deserve one of Hizashi’s nice imported whiskies that he hoards like a dragon in that room of their apartment he thinks Aizawa doesn’t know about.
Fortunately for all, Tsukauchi’s got a wealth of experience in following after Toshi with a mop and bucket all these years, so he knows about cleanup operations. Too bad for Tsukauchi, he just likes Aizawa less. The Symbol of Peace's PR boy in the police probably gets a lot more positive feedback standing behind All Might than he does for Aizawa's work, and he’s not shy about letting it show. Especially when they’re knee-deep in a bloodbath like this. But Aizawa can't help any of that, and it doesn't make the work less important. Just less glamorous.
Tama flips his siren on to swing through a patch of traffic with undeniable cop perks and an inherent authoritative swagger as he informs Aizawa, “Whatever it was, I hope you got what you needed.”
“Yeah,” remarks Aizawa with the fiery remains of yet another bridge burning behind him. “Me too.”
There’s no sign of Tsukauchi by the time Tama arrives back to the police station, but the unfortunate detective’s absence is to be expected, and probably for the best right now. Aizawa doesn’t mind Tsukauchi’s anger of course, but a little time for Detective Kettle to come off the boil might be kinder on Hitoshi, who’s less jaded than Aizawa, and more likely to be hurt if Tsukauchi’s genuinely fucked off with them – even if it is for a perfectly good reason.
Tsukauchi isn’t the member of the police that Aizawa’s after right now anyway. Not even Tama, whose company is always appreciated regardless, but seems a little ragged around the edges himself, still visibly ruffled after his unwanted river bath earlier today. The fact that Tama’s still on the job at all says plenty about his dedication as an officer and to this case. Aizawa reminds himself of the (several) crate(s) of beer he should buy Tama when this is all over too.
“So, what’s next?” Hitoshi asks as they’re getting out of the car in the secure parking lot, stretching for a moment in the beaming sunshine. The teen smiles and even waves at the frothing wall of the press kept at bay in the distance, desperate behind a high fence that seems to have been newly topped with barbed wire, lenses pressed up against it anyway – and none of that bodes well, but at least the police are being careful. Which is what Aizawa’s trying to do too, overriding his own reckless I-can-pay-the-price instincts; to take every spear in his back and keep going like a bison. Not to back down until he’s drawing one of his maybe-last breaths and thinking about the people he loves most. Kids aren’t ready to do that, and adults shouldn’t even do it either, so Aizawa’s literally helping no one by pushing them on without a single moment of convalescence.
That’s why the first thing Aizawa wants to do, now they’re back on police turf, is just stop for a minute and take a mental health check. It’s been a fucker of a day and it’s not even five. Which at least means Iwaya’s still going to be in her office, those open hours for counselling anyone who need it seeming especially relevant right now.
“I wanna check if Iwaya’s free,” Aizawa announces real casual-like at first, as if he’s got no ulterior motive in mind and this is just happens to be their next step. Maybe it feels to Hitoshi like they can’t possibly stop for a moment to breathe, like it always does to Aizawa, but that’s when people usually need to be encouraged the most; to be reached for when they’re too locked into the spiral to reach out themselves. Aizawa knows the whirlpool all too well, and the least he can do is be the one on the other side – for a change. The hand reaching out rather than the one drowning. He needs to get better at that.
“Why?” Hitoshi’s suspicious, but if he senses what Aizawa’s thinking, it’s because he knows why it’s a good call. Maybe Hitoshi can catch that in mentalist wavelengths alone – so Aizawa reaches for Hitoshi on the frequency, tentative as he fiddles the dial until that familiar humming comes back into that hidden muscle in Aizawa’s brain.
Reaching for Hitoshi also means that Hitoshi can sense back the other way, so rather than keep his machinations out of sight, lessons already hard-learned today, Aizawa flips the script and offers, “Would you like to talk to her?” It’s an impulse spit-the-truth moment (and Aizawa almost never spits), but he feels better for it already. Cutting through the instinct to hold back, far more himself and less Dr. Shinsou than anyone needs to be at this point.
It catches Hitoshi like a bunny staring down headlights, the wait-what of being denied the ability to protest something he refuses to be made to do, by simply being given the chance not to do it. Probably not something Hitoshi’s been given the chance to do all that much in the past: to simply say “no, I don’t want what you want for me” and actually be listened to.
But Aizawa’s giving it to him now, in plain terms, and it’s like Hitoshi doesn’t know what to do with it. Periwinkle eyes wide, Hitoshi’s mouth hangs very slightly ajar, and a noncommittal noise begins to emit from it; a soft, “Uhhhhhh,” that finally translates into a tentative, “–uuuoookay.”
When push comes to shove, Hitoshi knows what he needs better than Aizawa ever could, the same way anyone understands themselves more than the people around them do. So it’s not telling Hitoshi what to do, just giving the kid a chance to choose what’s good for him rather than pushing it anxiously on him the way a controlling parent tries to force their will on a child out of that persuasive ‘I know best’ logic. Hitoshi’s definitely had enough of dominating parents, Aizawa doesn’t need to join the ranks.
“It’s up to you,” Aizawa adds, just to be sure there’s no unintended pressure or Hitoshi feeling like he has to say yes because it’s what Aizawa wants. “I just thought you might–”
But lifting that weight is a much-needed release, because Hitoshi’s more sure, even confident of himself as he interjects. “It’s cool. If she’s free, I’ll talk to her again.”
“Good lad,” Aizawa’s voice carries the warmth he feels, a rising swell of pride at Hitoshi’s maturity and composure in recognising the smart thing to do. Assuming Iwaya is free, and Hitoshi understands that his talking to her means in a counselling sense, and not a trying-to-chat-her-up one. Although in all likelihood, Hitosh would probably try to pull off both – and might even manage it, some many years from now.
For now the precocious teen just walks the familiar route with Aizawa up to Iwaya’s office, Tama peeling away from them without more than a weary pat of Aizawa’s arm, like he’d curl up in a lap and go to sleep like the spoiled house cat he deserves to be after today. It occurs to Aizawa very suddenly that Hitoshi isn’t the only one who could probably use a little therapy with the mystical Dr. Iwaya.
There’s no sign on Iwaya’s office door, and when Aizawa gently raps his knuckles against it, her sonorous, “Enter,” rings like a bell tinkling behind a shop door.
Aizawa opens the door and steps into Iwaya’s cloister of calming pastels, where she sits tucked away behind her desk at the far end of a room, attending to another of her trusty notebook and looking like some enigmatic creature they're courting favour from on a terribly long-winded quest. Her long hair is tucked up into a bun today – like Aizawa’s is still half-heartedly attempting to be – and there’s an ornamental set of sticks protruding from the back, just visible with her head tilted down to the page.
“Ah, my two favourite students,” Iwaya says without looking up, and it makes Aizawa wonder if she can sense them by their mentalist energies alone. Aizawa would certainly be able to pick Hitoshi’s particular signature out of a thousand, like the cry a penguin just knows is their lost chick among the windswept flock. And Iwaya’s an empathetic mentalist of considerable power, who can perhaps read them by deduction of their state like knowing the model from looking at a mould. She keeps writing and simply remarks, “How are you, Hitoshi?” as if she both cares and is ready to listen to that answer.
“Oh I’ve never been better,” Hitoshi purrs with all those defenses pulled up high. “Did they tell you about him?” There’s only one him where these two are concerned, and it’s natural that it’s the first thing Hitoshi asks about.
“I was… notified, yes,” Iwaya replies frostily, finally looking up from her page to fix a gaze on Hitoshi that’s practically in mourning garb. There’s certainly enough for victims of Dr. Shinsou to grieve over right now. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“Not about that,” Hitoshi replies just as icily, but he still walks the length of Iwaya's office and flops into her chair like a cat returning to a favoured spot. “But we've done a lot of messed up shit today. Finding all his victims, yanno.”
To her credit, Iwaya's face is unchanging, not even a flicker of a reaction in that unbreakable ceramic mask she finishes with a perfect glaze of makeup. “I'm sorry to hear that.”
The next target of Iwaya's gaze, which lifts like a beam of light concentrated through a magnifying glass, is Aizawa skulking at the back of the room.
And all things considered, the look on her face is far from pleasant. “Are you leaving?”
If Iwaya had a quirk like Kiki’s, Aizawa feels like he’d have gotten a mental slap around the face about now. Fair punishment for putting Hitoshi through this – he doesn't blame Iwaya, or anyone who holds him responsible for damage done to his ‘intern’ in Aizawa's particular line of work. Iwaya's suggestion alone is enough to make Aizawa realise that his being here is in the way. Becoming a part of Hitoshi's life, especially so much and so all at once, means that Aizawa needs to remember to step away sometimes – give the boy room to breathe.
“Of course,” Aizawa replies humbly, watching as Hitoshi turns around to fire a parting glance at him, the sudden realisation of his safety net leaving. At least while he's in this office, Hitoshi is certainly safe from the worst his father can do – Iwaya has made sure of it. “How long do you need?”
“Call it an hour,” Iwaya answers with the careful touch of an exquisite flower arrangement, every light intonation and meaning mastercrafted from only the freshest cut blooms, assembled at their most beautiful and doomed to wilt and die.
“Then I'll… see you both later.” There is an overprotective beast inside Aizawa that champs at the bit as he makes himself walk back out the door, the one that doesn't believe Hitoshi is safe unless he's no further away than the length of Aizawa’s arm. But fanning the embers of those instincts won't do either of them much good, and seeing as this was all Aizawa’s idea in the first place – approved by Hitoshi's mother no less – he can't quibble now, just because it feels vulnerable leaving Hitoshi one place while Aizawa goes to another.
“Later, teach,” Hitoshi calls back comfortably, and it’s a tiny bit more bearable after that. Aizawa is at least aware that the sick-scared feeling in his chest right now is no more than his own demon of stress banging against the boney bars of its cage, making Aizawa feel like everything except total control is a liability he must eliminate. And that little gremlin shouldn’t become anyone else's problem.
So Aizawa doesn’t let any of his own fear or panic into his voice, and replies with a casual, “See ya, kid.”
Aizawa takes himself down a hallway paved with tired carpet and walls of chipped paint in complementary shades of grey, feeling the pull of that Shinsou effect like a bungee hooked to the back of his head. But even when snapping back to Hitoshi feels like the most irrationally right and necessary thing in the world right now, Aizawa knows better and has enough power over his instincts to make the right choices. He walks away, if only for now.
Not wanting to stray far, Aizawa only goes as far as the shabby police break room, empty except for a few empty containers and wrappers scattered on the tables. The humming row of vending machines purr like a great robotic cat, and Aizawa's only got half a hunch, but suffice to say when he reaches for the top of the machines and lifts himself up, he's not all that surprised to see Tama curled up at the back.
One yellow eye opens a sliver at Aizawa’s intrusion, then closes again as the wearied officer says, “Get your own spot, Eraser.”
Well, that won't do.
Aizawa might just be needy, aching without Hitoshi's reassuring nearness and missing Hizashi like a phantom limb as his stress level climbs. So it's not the typical sort of response, but Aizawa still feels like it’s the bare necessity to reply, “Didn't you say we could spoon?” and not really being joking.
Tama's lone eye opens again. “Are you for real?”
Aizawa’s hair is still in a bun that’s more messy than bun at this point, but it does hold the longer top-knot parts of his hair off his face enough to make the raising of a single eyebrow much impactful. “Are you seriously asking me?”
Tama watches Aizawa a moment longer, probably reflecting on just some of the lengths Aizawa has been known to go to when it comes to grabbing a catnap. “Good point.”
Tama’s eye closes again, which Aizawa takes as a cue to start climbing the rest of the way up into the alcove. There’s still a few of letters of Dr. Shinsou’s old fanmail scattered across the bolted-together metal sheets that top the vending machines, which vibrate at a frequency just low enough to be soothing, especially to anyone who could use a bit of not quite white, but maybe grey noise to blot out the ability to think for a while.
Because sometimes talking problems out is the right way to seek comfort, but other times it’s just shutting up and being comforted anyway. Aizawa and Tama don’t need to explain to each other why they’ve had a fucking horror of a day, understand perfectly why instead of going back over that vivisection, like there’s any good to come from reflecting on ‘shitty day was shitty’, they can just curl up and let it all be for a little while.
If Tama didn’t want Aizawa there, he’d have said something already, and the pussycat’s single spying eye is closed when Aizawa finishes clambering up into the space and rolls onto his side. It’s a simple fact of logistics that the closer Aizawa lays to the front edge of the vending machines, the easier he is to be mistaken for a homeless man trying to sleep in police station break room (again). Therefore, it’s rational that Aizawa slides back as far as possible, shuffling for the wall until he hits the only thing between him and it.
When Aizawa bumps him, Tama shifts a little bit so they’re more comfortably not-quite-touching, but the officer soon can’t find anything not-awkward to do with his arms. Eventually, Aizawa picks his head up in invitation, waiting for Tama’s hesitation to wear out before issuing a soft huff of relenting. Tama stretches his arm out straight, offering up a conveniently comfortable pillow for Aizawa’s neck as he lays himself back down to rest.
Aizawa moves a little bit in the premise of getting more comfortable, and does, just also getting that bit closer to Tama again – until it’s merely good sense that Tama rests his other arm to rest over Aizawa’s side. Hizashi says Aizawa is a great body pillow, and has certainly humped him enough to make the point seem pretty indisputable. Everyone has hidden talents, and one of Aizawa’s happens to be a certain cuddliness.
This is probably why it’s not more than a couple of minutes before Tama has given up any premise of not committing to the role of the big spoon, his topside arm slipping further around Aizawa to hold him almost tight enough to feel safe, just for a while.
There’s a rush of warm air on the back of Aizawa’s neck, and Tama says, “You smell like perfumed garbage.”
Hizashi’s shampoos are great (he pays what – ten thousand yen for a bottle?), but they aren’t so good as to override the smell of crawling around in an actual garbage chute less than an hour ago.
So Aizawa just sighs himself into sleep with a breathy, “It’s a long story.”
Notes:
People a million chapters ago when Tama first joked about spooning with Aizawa: THEY SHOULD!
Me, a million chapters later finally getting the chance to make this happen: oh fuck yeah they will!We remember Aizawa/Tama shipping, right? GUESS WE DO NOW!
And NO CLIFFHANGER! You're WELCOME! Tune in next week for more shenanigans, it's gonna be FURnominal! *demented cackling in the distance*
Chapter 46: No Coward
Summary:
Aizawa can only run for so long.
Notes:
We're right in the middle of one of my favourite runs of chapters in this story, so I know I always say I like the chapters, but I ALWAYS MEAN IT SO TAKE THAT. This chapter in particular has possibly one of my favourite lines of dialogue I've written ever. Not in this fic, I mean literally EVER.
Optional drinking game: take a drink every time a certain someone says 'fifteen years' ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa wakes to the vibration of his phone, or what he thinks is his phone. It turns out to be Tama’s famous snore-purring right in his ear. Tama seems to be more at the feline end of that scale if Aizawa’s any judge, going by the way the officer’s squishy-padded hand is unconsciously kneading his tummy right now.
Without disturbing the kitty (perish the thought) Aizawa fumbles out his phone to check the time. There's still another twenty minutes before Hitoshi's time with Iwaya is up. Unexpectedly, Hizashi has sent Aizawa a message instead of the recent you’re-busy-so-I-won’t-try radio silence: a photo showing Hizashi posed with Aizawa's class.
The camera-loving cockatiel is proudly puffed up over Aizawa’s brood, making up for the memories Aizawa’s missing. Hizashi’s right at the back of the height-ordered squeeze into the frame, and has a couple of fingers flipped up behind Kaminari’s head in the front row with all the girls, and an elbow propped on a ramrod-straight Iida’s shoulder. If Aizawa were there he’d probably be holding the camera, which would make him the target of Hizashi’s world-famous Present Mic smile about now.
For a moment Aizawa is totally consumed by melancholy, curling up tighter against the humming bed of the vending machine hidey-hole, missing his other half with every fiber of his being. And not just Hizashi, but his life as a teacher too, having some kind of structure and stability; although, that’s less so with this year’s batch of lovable troublemakers. Aizawa’s got a real soft spot for troublemakers. The one currently pawing his belly and purring fit to burst, for example.
Because it can’t help but strike that Aizawa’s kids in 1-A have other people to rely on, stand-ins and their own loved ones to take comfort from, even in their homeroom teacher’s absence. If not Aizawa, who's Tama got? And of course, they already know who Hitoshi's got in lieu of his failure of a father.
So as much as it hurts, an ache in Aizawa’s joints from sleeping on too hard a surface (shouldn't have forgotten his sleeping bag – he’s getting too old for this shit), Aizawa knows he's where he needs to be right now. Too tired and tangled up with Tama to type out a response, Aizawa just snaps his own picture back to Hizashi with Tama's whiskery face settled in the background. Even Aizawa can see the pair of them look rough.
Of course, Aizawa’s barely pressed send and alerted Hizashi to his existence in the digital sphere than his phone bursts into a lovesick ballad. Aizawa cuts it off quickly by answering, and Tama’s purring is only briefly interrupted with a snuffle before snoring on.
“How could you, Shota?” Hizashi declares when Aizawa puts the phone to his ear.
“How could I what?” Aizawa sighs, loathe to move away from the extremely comfortable blanket of Tama around him, but conscious he’s going to wake the guy up if he – or more likely, Hizashi – causes too much of a ruckuss on the phone.
“Fifteen years we’ve known each other.” It goes without saying that Hizashi is a wonderful actress, and right now this performance is indistinguishable from a real bitch-fit. “Fifteen fucking years, and you’re only just telling me NOW you’re a furry? Do you realise how much fet gear Kayama has for this?!”
Aizawa hates him. Loves him too. Sometimes in almost equal measures. “Piss off,” he replies wearily, leaving the phone balanced against the side of his face as he rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. “It’s not like that.”
“You fucking liar.” Hizashi hasn’t lost steam yet, and maybe he’s already started on the all-night pissup that’s sure to mark the end of the first semester among UA staff. The ones actually attending school, rather than just showing face at the start of the day before vanishing without a trace. But it could just be Hizashi’s relentless energy. It’s not like alcohol makes him any different, he’s just even more himself. The love of Aizawa’s life doesn’t need much help being Present Mic to the maximum amount, all day every day. “Just because you want that slice of pumpkin pie all to yourself, well I’ve got news for you, Slut, I’m absolutely–”
Aizawa senses it coming, not from his mentalist premonitions but another, far stronger power that he possesses: the sixth sense for Hizashi’s bullshit. “Don’t say it–”
“FURIOUS!”
Hizashi breaks into screaming laughter while Aizawa gives a groaning sigh. The tinny noise echoing around the cramped vending machine alcove finally tips Tama from ‘ trying-to-sleep’ tolerance to ‘ fuck-off-and-let-me-sleep’ irritation, and the paddy-paw that was previously wrapped around Aizawa’s stomach turns into a palm shoving the small of his back.
“Shut up or sod off, Eraser,” Tama lets out a cranky growl as he pushes Aizawa away. The division of their shared body heat remains in Tama’s custody, leaving Aizawa with a chill nearly strong enough to make Aizawa hang up and crawl back to Tama’s soothing embrace. Except there’s lots of ways to crave intimacy.
Aizawa slides like the worm he is out of the vending machine alcove and down to the floor. “Thanks for taking care of my class,” Aizawa mumbles in newly-awoken misery.
“We're worried about you.” The we is deliberate, a dart hitting bullseye on the first throw.
Aizawa relocates to the breakroom sofa, feeling closer to the puddle of goo the Embassy’s guard Toto could turn into than a being with fixed form, and resolidifies curled up across the sweaty-ass-smelling cushions. Aizawa probably can't smell much worse at this point.
“Liar,” Aizawa asserts as his cheek presses to the squeaky faux-leather plastic. “They're thrilled without me around to bust their asses.” For the greater good, for all the right reasons, and with a few exceptions who don't need busting at all, but Aizawa knows he's tough on his kids. Does it on purpose. If they can't survive three years of UA under him, they'll never make it as Heroes out there in the real world. There's far worse than Aizawa out there to face, and the 1-A kids know it better than anyone.
Hizashi laughs, rich and bold, like the perfect coffee roast. “They miss you, babe. Even the ass-busting.”
“I'll be there to push them through training camp next week,” Aizawa promises to himself. “Hopefully.”
Hizashi sighs this time, not revisiting ground they've fought over already – why Aizawa can't make hard commitments when he doesn't know how this thing is going to turn out. He only wishes. “And how’s that working out for you?” What he really means is how’s the case, of course. It’s only ever the case.
“Shitty,” Aizawa mutters. “We just got out of The Embassy.”
“You didn’t!” Hizashi crows. “Shota you promised–”
“They invited me, I swear it,” Aizawa interrupts before Hizashi can ream his ass in the un-fun way. “We were in and out without a scratch.” Fleeing, yes, and not entirely clean or as sweet-smelling as they went in, but still unharmed.
“Alright.” Hizashi doesn’t like it, but seems to let it go. “How’s Hitoshi holding up? That place is nowhere for children.” He’s got that right; Aizawa would love if Hitoshi never had a reason to set foot in the Embassy again. Given the terms of their exit, that might be a mutual feeling.
Aizawa lets out an instinctive gurgle of frustration, like a dog whining at the closed door while his owner is out – and coming back, but the what-if-they-dont anxiety is powerful in any form. Hizashi’s worry is immediate. “Did something happen?”
“No,” Aizawa soothes, and he feels better having to reassure someone else, when it's really himself who needs that comfort the most. “It's just… a lot for him.” It’s a lot for Aizawa too, he’s just supposed to be better at handling the world on Atlas’s shoulder.
“Are you taking care of yourselves?” As ever with Hizashi, the pluralisation is deliberate.
“Trying to.” Aizawa curls up a little tighter on the sofa. “He's seeing someone now. We're at the police station.”
That might actually reassure Hizashi, whose tone settles a little. “I caught you on the news earlier today.”
Aizawa tracks back the riverbank like he’s got a hand on the rewind dial in his own head: shielding Hitoshi from the cameras, only for Tsukauchi to present Hitoshi to them with a beaming smile and PR bit that probably did make things a little easier on the kid, at least in the public domain. Aizawa’s been fucking up their personal-professional relationship all day, so Hitoshi deserves the relief.
“Feels like a long time ago.” Three murders ago, which in this timeline means before lunch. Two more this afternoon so far, although only one of those was directly the Doc or Shiyoko’s.
Aizawa’s reticence worries Hizashi again, laying out careful terms like a diplomat in action. “We're going out for a drink soon, Shota, but if you need me–”
Aizawa needs him. Aizawa needs Hizashi like there's a bomb strapped to his chest and the combination to stop the timer is the date they first met. Like Hizashi is the cure to being himself that Aizawa’s been taking since he even knew who he was. But Aizawa needs Hizashi safe and alive too. It's already hard having Hitoshi so close to danger without Aizawa losing his fucking mind, and he doesn’t think he’d cope if Hizashi was in the line of fire too.
“Just have a good time for both of us,” Aizawa replies with a bloody hole through his torso – forget the heart, Aizawa’s entire chest cavity has been scooped out.
“You sound like you're about to croak, darling. That doesn't fill me with confidence.”
“I'm just being dramatic,” Aizawa admits because it's true. “It just doesn't stop, yanno?”
“It stops if you let yourself stop.”
Aizawa wishes he could. But he just says, “I miss you.”
“Oh no!” Hizashi cracks like a whip. “Don't you pull the ‘go have fun without me’ card then turn around and drop that bullshit!” Their ceasefire is fragile, easily disrupted with hostilities along the border. “You can't hold me away and say you miss me like it's not your decision.” Aizawa deserves this, as usual, but it doesn't feel like a choice he gets to make freely. A choice made under coercion, maybe: the lesser of competing evils.
“Sorry.” Aizawa makes this not a fight by merit of immediate surrender. He’s got no energy for fighting Hizashi, not after he’s been fighting everyone else, including Hitoshi, which was the worst of all. “It's just… hard.”
“Try your furry fuckbuddy to lend a hand with that.” Hizashi’s trying lighten the mood on purpose, probably. Aizawa’s enough of a downer for both of them.
“I told you, it's not like that,” Aizawa sighs, but it's with relief.
“If it were then you'd be the last to know,” Hizashi zings like one of his questionable cocktails, but whatever it is sure hits the spot.
“True,” Aizawa snorts, unwinding just a little from the hermit crab coil. “Are you still doing your show later?”
Hizashi’s back to bitch-fitting in an instant. “Shota! How dare you suggest I'd ever miss a show! We’ve been friends fifteen years ! You know me better than that.”
A thin smile fights its way onto Aizawa’s face like the last man standing in a barfight. “So you’ll be doing it drunk.”
“Well obviously I'll be pissed. What's the last day of term for? You sure ask a lot of dumb questions when you're wrecked and horny for–”
Aizawa senses it coming like a lead bar swinging at his head. “Don't say–”
“PUSSY!” Hizashi screams again in hysterics, and what Aizawa wants most is for Hizashi to keep being so happy and bright, not to dim the sun by pulling it into this darkness that chokes out everything it touches. Aizawa needs Hizashi to come home to, and he can't do that by dragging Hizashi into the mire. “You gotta admit babe, that's rare for you.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa's weak smile gains some extra legs. Hizashi once said the only woman's vagina Aizawa’s ever touched was his mother's on the way out, and he'd be right as usual.
Hizashi would know – he’s been playing the greek chorus to Aizawa's messy sexual past since it started. Although it must be said, Aizawa’s history is a fingerpainting compared to the Jackson Pollock piece of Hizashi's own record. Yet Hizashi settled down with Aizawa, after fucking his way from rockstars to pornstars and back again for good measure. “I don't know what I did to deserve you.”
“Not fucking much lately,” Hizashi snips, and Aizawa deserves it all.
“I'm doing the best that I can.” But Hizashi knows him too well and is too fucking smart to be anything less than Aizawa's other, currently missing, half.
“For who, Shota?” Good fucking question. But with Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko showing no signs of slowing down, Aizawa’s got a pretty good answer.
“For everyone.” It’s what Heroes are for – or supposed to be, when they’re not giving interviews and managing their ‘image’ in a public sphere that makes what it wants out of them, as if the quality of a Hero is something people’s opinions have any impact on. Aizawa’s never known a villain that gave a shit about it, except that killing more popular Heroes is far more effective than some nameless Underground who gives them no platform.
“Everyone except you.” Hizashi returns to the crushing sincerity that his pomp and humour is just a survivalist distraction from thinking about. “The best thing for everyone is you still being around, Shota. So don’t–”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Aizawa shuts his eyes and thinks about that huge bed at home, where he’ll be at the end of the night, even if it (nearly) kills him. “I’ll be home later.” After a moment of frightening silence that means Hizashi’s thinking, Aizawa adds an instinctual, “I love you.”
Hizashi’s last line before ending the call is simple. “I sure hope so.”
Aizawa’s outside the door of Iwaya’s office ten minutes before Hitoshi’s time with her up. He spends at least eight of those minutes pacing the corridor back and forth, determining that the safe space of the Psych’s office is indeed thoroughly soundproof, assuming Hitoshi and Iwaya are still talking inside. Aizawa can’t imagine they’d get much out of sitting in silence, but then, he doesn’t know much about Iwaya’s approach. Maybe they don’t need to talk with Iwaya’s quirk in the mix.
Finally, Aizawa hears footsteps from within, and has taken long steps to be right in front of the door as the hand moves and it opens inwards.
Hitoshi gets half-way through the doorway and can’t go any further without bumping into Aizawa. “Geez, you’re keen.” Hitoshi rocks his head back, eyebrows slightly aloft as he teases, “Miss me that much?”
“Not exactly.” Hitoshi isn't the one Aizawa's been missing the most during this break for emotional exhaustion. That honour goes to Hizashi, who’s probably clinking cups with Kayama and Toshi to cheer a delighted end-of-term “KAMPAI!” right about now. But Aizawa did still miss Hitoshi, and the reassuring rush of the Shinsou’s presence is almost immediate. Maybe it’s fatigue, but Aizawa’s senses all feel heightened, like the barriers of his mind against the world have thinned.
Into this visceral mood comes the voice of a charismatic witching woman, imbued with her own mysterious powers, calling from deep inside an enchanted cave. “Aizawa, would you mind stepping in for a moment?”
Aizawa gives Hitoshi a look that probably says “what did you tell her?” more than he means it to. Iwaya is calling Aizawa by his name for one, and that needs to stop right away. He goes by Eraser for a reason, and it makes sense that Hitoshi wouldn’t have known Aizawa didn’t want that information let out to this particular source. But leaks happen and Aizawa just has to accept it, along with whatever it is the Psych is holding in that sharpened cleaver of a tone.
“Looks like you’re up,” Hitoshi’s jesting, and going by the heady infusion of energies coming off the kid, his mood’s a lot lighter, which is good. Hitoshi’s mentalist aura is notably different walking out of the office than it was going in, and that powerful Shinsou effect still going strong. If anything it’s even stronger than before, like a fireplace that’s been cleared out of ash and cleaned, purifying the flame so it can burn that much hotter.
It’s left unsaid that Hitoshi isn’t any more welcome in Iwaya’s office while Aizawa is talking to her than Aizawa was during Hitoshi’s own session. Not that Aizawa’s about to commit to an hour of therapy with the eponymous Dr. Eye. Which doesn’t mean Aizawa has no need for it, just that he can’t make the time. They’ve got to get Hitoshi and Kiki safely back at home for one, as working hours draw to a close and things shift into a different gear for the evening. This needs to be a ten-minute deal at the max.
Aizawa steps into Iwaya’s soothingly pastel office, lit so softly it seems to extend the sunset out the window into the very room itself. He doesn’t sit, not making himself comfortable like he plans to linger. Iwaya doesn’t mind that, sitting with her hands folded neatly together behind her desk, a closed notebook by her elbow, as if she’s waiting for something.
“What’s this about?” Aizawa cuts to the point, but it doesn't hurry Iwaya one bit. No, she just opens up her notebook and checks a few lines, like there’s all the time in the world. That persistent ticking noise in Aizawa’s ear of the second hand to doomsday is just a figment of his imagination.
“How are you?” Iwaya finally looks up, and as if she’d needed to check that in her meticulously made notes.
“Fine,” Aizawa replies hurriedly. “I don’t have time for–”
“If that’s an honest answer, I’d be even more concerned,” Iwaya interjects, but it’s such a smooth move that it seems like she only speaks up at the moment when Aizawa had nothing more to say. Not an answer worth believing in, regardless of how Aizawa might have tried to convince anyone (even himself) that he’s got no time for being anything other than the keeping-it-together version of “fine”.
“While the details of my conversation with Hitoshi are obviously confidential,” Iwaya leads into like coaxing a deer to eat from her hand at a nature park, “after hearing what you and Hitoshi have been through today, I find it hard to believe anyone would be fine.”
“Fine means ‘I don’t need your therapy’,” Aizawa puts more bluntly than a brick to the face. He’d know, he’s tried it.
“Need is such a strong word.” Iwaya’s like a lake whose surface remains flat even when a log is thrown in the middle of it. Freaks Aizawa out, like he could be dragged in and never make it back out. “But would you benefit from my therapy?” The inkling of a coy smile quirks for a moment across Iwaya’s lipstick pencilled mouth. “Perhaps.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Aizawa drops like he’s throwing extra weight from a plane without enough fuel to make it to the runway. “If you’ve got a problem with my methods–”
“No problems,” Iwaya interrupts in that controlled way again, the settle-down air of a parent soothing a fractious child. “Merely concern for both of you,” she expands before Aizawa can assume anything else.
Aizawa feels himself bristle, even though he’s got no real reason to be defensive. “This is my job.”
“And jobs can be stressful,” Iwaya replies innocently. That question Aizawa hates hangs in the air like an ugly lampshade: “Are you stressed?” As if admitting the answer has ever made a difference. Of course he’s stressed: just look at his life.
“I said I don’t have time for this.” Aizawa’s a little harder now, but Iwaya’s the same glassy lake that doesn’t ripple no matter how hard the wind blows.
“I merely wanted to make the offer,” Iwaya reassures with the tranquility that seems so effortless, but Aizawa knows is surely the product of rigorous internal discipline. “Moving on, then, I wanted to talk about the nature of your relationship with Hitoshi.”
“My relationship with him?” Somehow, Aizawa doesn’t expect this. At least not from Iwaya. But then, she’s clearly grown fond of Hitoshi, cares about his welfare and the influence people like Aizawa have on him. Especially after days like this.
Iwaya must know all this and more, but not a lick of it shows on her face as she coolly reveals, “I would dread to think it surprises you, Aizawa, that the nature of my discussion with Hitoshi was more focused on your behaviour than that of Dr. Shinsou.” It shouldn’t, but still catches Aizawa in a way he doesn’t like. This sudden exposure of his soft underbelly.
Hitoshi’s scars from the Doc are old, and might not have healed straight, might’ve been opened by the recent jailbreak and fresh killing spree, but the damage Aizawa could do to Hitoshi? That’s newer than new. Altogether, this is some twisted shit to unload, sometimes by talking, and sometimes just spooning on top of vending machines and not talking.
Iwaya has returned to her notes again, and Aizawa resists the urge to try and upside-down read them, because it’s an invasion of privacy he shouldn’t even consider, but fuck if it isn’t a temptation. The soft flick of the book shutting again precedes Iwaya’s, “While I understand how Hitoshi sees you from his perspective, it would help to know a little more from your side.”
“Well… he’s…” Aizawa could drink a bottle of sake and rant for at least an hour about every single way Hitoshi deserves to be recognised and empowered by this fuckup-worshipping society and hasn’t, leaving the job to an even bigger fuckup like Aizawa, but he doesn’t have the liquor or time for that. “It’s… I… don’t know how to explain it.” Aizawa’s a person of actions, not words. But Hitoshi’s probably told Iwaya all about Aizawa’s actions, from the sounds of it.
“Try,” Iwaya invites calmly, but there’s steel underneath, and Aizawa supposes he must. It’s easier to boil down into the outputs Aizawa wants, the goals at the end of this twisted, emotionally-cramped tunnel he’s crawling deeper and deeper into. Which is for Hitoshi to beat the system set against him, rotten as it is on its corrupt foundations. “There’s a type of… role model Hitoshi needs right now,” Aizawa stumbles through with the grace of a newborn gazelle at an ice rink. “Not a parent, exactly, but something… similar.”
“Needs?” Iwaya picks out like a single shining gem among fool’s gold.
“Yes,” Aizawa confirms without hesitation. “No one learns how to make it in this business alone.” Aizawa sure as shit didn’t, and not all of the people he owes for that are around anymore, but they’re still important, and he’d never have become Eraserhead without them. “I want to help Hitoshi fulfil his dream of becoming a Hero.”
“And I believe he will be able to achieve that goal, with or without your support,” Iwaya’s not telling Aizawa this to dismiss his investment in Hitoshi’s future, or it doesn’t feel like that’s her goal. She’s just saying that it’s not all on Aizawa, the way he usually lets himself tunnel-vision on a goal and discount the help of unreliable people who aren’t himself. “However, is it just his ambitions as a Hero you care about?”
“No…” Aizawa’s forced to admit. “That’s just… where it started.” For tailspinning out of control so fast Aizawa hasn’t even gotten over the whiplash.
“You’ve become close very quickly,” Iwaya observes like a front-page article declaring 'Bear shits in the woods!' She’s got an unbearably knowing tone that Aizawa’s more used to giving than receiving. “Sometimes a new relationship needs time to settle into.” If they had all the time in the world, sure. But they don’t.
“What do you want me to tell you?” Aizawa hisses like a sudden vent of steam coming from a system operating at too high a pressure to resist much tinkering, suddenly wanting this conversation to come to a close almost as much as he wants to keep it going just long enough to feel like he’s explained himself for once. “That I love him like a son I didn’t plan on having? That I’d do anything for him?” Words Aizawa doesn’t think about before they’re already said, “I can’t fucking explain it, okay? I just… care.” So much. Even too much, sometimes.
“That’s plenty explanation,” Iwaya soothes again, even though Aizawa’s only cracked open because she banged him against a rock to do so; breaking the hard shell to reveal the soft, tender flesh of the fruit inside. “I just wanted to be sure it was more than simply… professional on both your parts.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa steeples his fingers against his brow. Got her answer to that one in raw, just-below-yelling outburst. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Hitoshi must be outside the door, waiting and wondering what they could be discussing. Perhaps not the what in general terms, which is obvious already, but the finer details are surely tantalising.
“Before you say it, I’m aware that being so… attached makes the work we do riskier,” Aizawa pre-empts the question he feels must be inevitable. It’s what Aizawa would comment on, if he were in Iwaya’s chair quizzing himself about what in the fuck Aizawa thinks he’s doing. Another type of therapy he won’t give himself the time for, lest he fall apart under his own self-interrogation.
“Perhaps, but even as a Hero, you’re clearly very motivated by your… emotions,” Iwaya chooses her words carefully, so the hesitation before choice of this one means it must have been important, picked for a sure reason. Anyone who thinks Aizawa’s not emotional just doesn’t have the manual for interpreting the signs. Thankfully, Iwaya’s a natural empath. “Humanity’s greatest strengths are driven by what we love.”
“So are our vices and weaknesses.” Aizawa contradicts, thinking of the Doc and his 'love' for his family. There haven’t been any more victims since the Embassy hotel room, which might mean the Doc and Shiyoko are on the run again and don’t have time for murder-play, or that they’re planning something still to come.
“You’re quite correct,” Iwaya concedes gracefully. “But I didn’t invite you in here to discuss moral philosophy.”
“No, just to quiz me on my intentions with the boy,” Aizawa paraphrases more crudely than he needs to, but if the shoe fits he won’t call it otherwise. “So if you’re satisfied we’ve covered that off, I’ve kinda got a job to do.” And fuck knows the Doc doesn’t like being made to wait.
“There’s one more thing I wanted,” Iwaya calls before Aizawa can make to leave.
Whatever’s coming seems to trouble Iwaya more than the other things she’s wanted from Aizawa – why she left it to last, probably – so Aizawa has to prompt her awkward silence with an irate, “Which is?”
It’s the last thing he ever expects, no reference to Iwaya’s notebook as she looks him dead in the eye and says, “I wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?” Aizawa’s reeling, staggered more than anything else the demure Doctor could’ve said. He’s never been great at accepting thanks, but especially when it comes out of nowhere like this.
“I won’t go into the details, but the… decisions you’ve made regarding your work, at great personal and professional risk.” Iwaya skips and then picks back up, like re-setting a needle into the grooves of a record; the lines seem smooth, but actually contain analogue detail etched in such a way that a masterpiece can be recorded and played back at will. “I’m just… relieved there are still Heroes like you in the world.”
It could be any number of things Aizawa’s done, but the decision he made about Mrs. Shimizu is a good guess: spotting the abuse because he looked for it when Hitoshi and even the esteemed Tsukauchi didn’t think, prioritising that injustice above condemning a traumatised woman for a murder of necessity. A woman like Dr. Iwaya could certainly appreciate that standpoint, rather than blaming a victim for their act of desperation. Assuming Hitoshi told her about that. Which he might have… definitely done, given the huge argument they had about it right after.
“Just doing my job.” Aizawa falls back on one of his classic acceptances, and this time actually moves to leave.
“Wait,” Iwaya calls softly, and actually rises from her chair, seeming less sure than she’s ever been in front of Aizawa. He wonders if she’s more usually like this alone, the intimacy of being one-on-one allowing for greater emotional expression. “Before you go, if it’s okay with you, I wanted to…” Iwaya doesn’t need to say it, because her outstretched reaching over the desk says it for her.
She wants to touch him.
This wouldn’t mean much to most people, but to Iwaya she might as well be placing her throat between Aizawa’s teeth—the way her quirk makes her as vulnerable to the savage minds of others as they become to her.
“Are you sure?” Aizawa tests, fighting the urge to decline just on principle. He’d once thought Hitoshi’s quirk was an unconscionable thing to experience too, much less enjoy. Wearing the term mentalist himself these days, Aizawa’s trying to be a little more open-minded.
“If it’s alright with you.” Iwaya’s hand remains an open invitation, fingers bent slightly up like the crease of a folded card. “I know you’re in a hurry, but it wouldn’t take long.”
“What wouldn’t?” Aizawa questions with suspicion he fails to iron out of his tone, though he tries with the best of intentions. Letting a mentalist into his head is a unique bond of trust, and for a powerful empath this must be even more the case.
“A therapeutic application of my quirk,” Iwaya explains patiently. “It only takes a minute, but the effects can be quite… surprising.” Perhaps that’s the reason for Hitoshis’ dramatic shift in energy, Aizawa’s forced to consider. Iwaya and Hitoshi are certainly fans of touching one another, and if Aizawa’s understanding of mentalist quirks as a reflection of their user applies to any kind of quirk, then it’s a moving experience for Iwaya to read the mind of a Heroic person.
This puts a question in Aizawa’s mouth. “Is therapeutic value the only reason you’re offering?” He did say he didn’t need therapy, even if need is a strong word.
“No,” Iwaya admits without difficulty. “The things I’ve heard about you from Hitoshi have made me a little… curious.”
So she does want to get inside Aizawa’s head.
“About what?” he probes further; if Aizawa can answer such curiosities in simple words, this might not even take a minute.
“Who you are at heart.” Iwaya gazes calmly over her lotus-flower hand, slender fingers splayed like the petals of a freshly opened bloom. “I feel like we… haven’t understood each other as much as we could.” And should, it can probably be acknowledged.
“There’s another understatement,” Aizawa admits freely, and then takes a modest step closer to Iwaya. “How does it work?”
“When we touch, our consciousnesses become linked,” Iwaya lays out carefully, beginning to walk around the desk and meeting Aizawa in the middle. “I’ll ask a question to direct the flow of your thoughts, but if you’re not comfortable you’ll be able to stop at any time.” After a moment of thought, she adds, “You especially.”
“You can say that again.” If Aizawa could’ve stuck his head through a hole in space and time to talk to himself a couple of weeks ago, he’d have laughed in his own face at the notion of giving his mind up to Iwaya like bedtime reading. But then, Aizawa’s done a lot of things he never would’ve imagined himself doing even a week ago.
A moment of stillness crosses several fluttering heartbeats, as if the soft click of a switch on a surveillance console has frozen them in time. Aizawa pictures himself walking away, refusing what’s being offered to him, and for what? Fear – of being known.
But Aizawa’s no coward.
The switch clicks back to play: Aizawa reaches for Iwaya’s lily hand and his roughened fingers touch to hers.
Illumination: every synapse in Aizawa’s head ignites like a fireworks festival held between his ears. He’s alight, Iwaya’s mind like a cluster of stars that strings Aizawa’s consciousness across a cosmic plane. When the door that connects Aizawa’s mind to Iwaya’s flies open, she must gain access to his thoughts, but he can’t read hers in return.
However, what Aizawa can sense is Iwaya’s spirit in a way that defies easy explanation. Not just what she’s feeling, but who she is. A gentle soul, too tender to expose to the sharp edges of a world full of cruel, hard people. This fairytale princess lives in a tall tower not against her will, but by her own choice and for protection.
Except now Aizawa has scaled the enchanted braid and clambered through the window to meet Iwaya as she truly is, and he finds her full of magic. More alive than he’s ever felt, Aizawa takes a breath that sends a new surge of obliterating sensation crashing through his body. If Hitoshi’s quirk is heroin, this is pure ecstacy. No wonder Iwaya’s careful about who she lets close enough to touch her.
Like Venus herself stepping out off a shell, Iwaya’s voice isn’t something Aizawa simply hears, but feels through every fibre of his being. “Show me what’s troubling you.”
With a sudden, instinctive flare Aizawa activates his quirk, eyes bursting into a fiery stare and his hair and capture weapon stirring around him. It only lasts a moment, because after cataloguing the feeling of erasing Iwaya’s quirk, Aizawa takes the manual route and simply lifts his hand away from hers.
“Are you sure about that?” he asks sincerely, even moreso after getting a taste of what Iwaya’s quirk does in a practical sense. Aizawa’s head – what he’s seen, felt in the dark pits of his mind that he barely even admits to himself – isn’t always the nicest place to be.
“I can’t help if you won’t let me.” Iwaya’s hand remains where it was, like a cold marble statue that’s somehow more beautiful than a real person could ever be. “And if it’s any consolation, I’m quite sure I’ve seen worse.”
Remembering Iwaya has probably had the honour of intimately knowing – and presumably, touching – two separate generations of Shinsou, Aizawa can fucking believe it.
Without speaking Aizawa resumes the contact, this time more prepared for the ecstatic rush that comes with contact; bathing in the waters of a night sky filled with stardust. Afloat in the galaxy, Iwaya picks up where they left off with a silky, “So then, Aizawa. What’s on your mind?”
Like scum rising to the top of a boiling pan, Aizawa’s worst fears all float to the surface. He understands now how Iwaya can channel the mind of her patient to see only what’s relevant to the session, the finer details of her therapeutic technique just fathomable through the chaos of all Aizawa’s doubt and worry and darkest nightmares.
It starts with bodies. Lots of them. A literal corpse mountain of Aizawa’s failures, topped most recently with the thirty fresh corpses of victims that the Doc and Shiyoko have slaughtered in less than two weeks, their blood running fresh down the mountainside.
Except Aizawa’s terror isn’t just made of the proof of the ways he wasn’t good enough to save someone. Hizashi’s hanging right up there on the summit, gouged eyes missing along with the rest of his jaw, jaw ripped off and murdered because Aizawa wasn’t strong enough to stop them – whatever dark force of villainy is out there to snuff out anything good. Aizawa’s students, the near-misses that haunt him still – Asui with the back of her head disintegrated, the other kids tortured and killed. All of them, everyone Aizawa’s ever cared about and let down, the boulder finally rolling downhill.
Hitoshi’s there, of course. On the very peak of the rocky outcrop that makes up Aizawa’s greatest fears, Hitoshi is dead on his back on the cliffside, chest cavity opened as if in autopsy and emptied like a trunk. But he’s not alone. Because there are things worse than death, and Hitoshi’s survived by his mother. In the blizzard of Aizawa’s mind, the howling wind echoes of Kiki’s screams in anger and sadness, the parent burying her child, ready to crush Aizawa like a glass bead under the heel of her shoe. He surely deserves it.
Kiki’s not alone either, as from the dark side of the mountain’s peak an ominous shadow looms from behind. Aizawa can’t protect Kiki if she’s trying to kill the guardians – all of them – who failed her son.
Aizawa knows who the icy shadow falling over Kiki is, but his mind-theatre isn’t empty, and the audience of one must have no love for seeing the face of such a terrifying phantom in Aizawa and Iwaya’s shared darkest fears. So it’s just before Dr. Shinsou’s face comes into focus that Iwaya’s fingers withdraw and the two-way street closes off between Aizawa’s tortured psyche and her own.
If Iwaya’s treatment is meant to be therapeutic, Aizawa doesn’t feel very soothed. He did try to warn her, but maybe Iwaya just doesn’t need to see anymore.
Although a little flustered, Iwaya’s still composed as she brings one hand to clasp in the other in front of her, and takes only a moment to respond. “That's a lot of fear.”
Aizawa takes a deep breath, and maybe he does feel a little lighter. Lke, although the spotlight was shone on the darkness for less than a minute, and it’s not by much, it has given clarity to ordinary fears that seem so much more powerful when they’re hidden in the labyrinth of Aizawa’s mind. Familiar monsters, so Aizawa knows the answer to this one already.
“I've got a lot to lose.”
Notes:
Wooooo I wanted to do another trippy headspace sequence so there u go. This one goes out to everyone who suspected Iwaya, which was a lot of people. One of the thrills of writing a story like this is seeing people try to guess ahead or figure out what's coming, and Dr. Iwaya is one of the most mysterious and significant characters in that sense. She's my loving tribute to a femme fatale, so being hard to read is one of her identifying traits.
Oh and the line that I love more than anything is Hizashi referring to Tama as 'a slice of pumpkin pie' it just GETS ME OKAY. Second to 'do you know how much fet gear Kayama has for this?!'
Oh yeah and I remembered during editing this that we get that big putting-it-in-words outburst from Aizawa about how much he loves Hitoshi already. LOLOL ENJOY THAT SOFT BITCH! See ya next week!
Chapter 47: Homecoming
Summary:
“Are you ready to go home?”
Notes:
Now, I could be WRONG, I mean, it's possible, it's feasible, it's entirely within the realm of belief, that some of y'all will like this chapter just as much as I do.
I also realised, not because of the content of this specific chapter, but of the fic in general so far, that I probably oughta up the ol' rating from Mature to Explicit (which I have). According to guidelines explicit is for 'porn' and 'graphic violence' and we've had or will have both of those things before we're through 8) We DID want it darker.... which is a fun note to lead into this more of a contrast chapter than archetype dark chapter, after the final scene of last chap, seems like the least we could do to lift the mood a little ;) AND HOW.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi looks tired. Not of the body, or no more than most teens usually do from always seeming to need another twelve hours sleep, but tired in the soul. The gloomy teen is standing in a grubby black tracksuit with his back against the wall opposite Iwaya’s door when Aizawa finally emerges from the Psych’s office. Hitoshi’s lost in his phone, eyes even more glazed and hung with purplish under-eye circles than usual.
“Ma text me,” the teen announces without looking up, perhaps explaining his concerned expression. “She’ll be on her way back home soon, we should get going too.”
Aizawa’s got an urge to throw his arm around Hitoshi’s shoulder and just hang onto him like a teacher-parent-shaped blanket, but it wouldn’t really work unless Hitoshi actually stands up straight and puts his phone away – actually drops those defences and becomes receptive to whatever comfort Aizawa might possibly be able to give him at a time like this. Which, just to recap, includes Dr. Shinsou carving his own bloody streak across the city alongside a killer specifically out to get Hitoshi. But Shiyoko can be the Doc’s true successor if she wants to, it’s an honour Hitoshi’s devoted to avoid at all costs.
Although it's not just Hitoshi that Shiyoko’s got her eye on, so Aizawa doesn’t hesitate to worry a little more. “Does your Ma want us to meet–”
“Relax, she’s fine going home by herself,” Hitoshi intercepts Aizawa’s meddle with the shutters still drawn, but when Aizawa doesn’t fight that casual boundary Hitoshi lifts himself from the wall. A deep breath pumps his chest like a bellows, maybe even a little pulse in that mentalist forcefield – a fresh breeze that can somehow blow in even the stillest of police station corridors, faded walls and long rows of lights that dot the sterile flooring.
Hitoshi’s taken another step to stand practically toe-to-toe with Aizawa before he stops, finally lifting his gaze to meet Aizawa's with a question drawn right off the top of the deck. “What did Iwaya want to talk to you about?”
It’s a fair question for a curious lad, and Hitoshi has to trust Aizawa a decent amount even to ask so directly. So it’s good, really. Aizawa knows he can be a bit of a walking mystery sometimes, and hasn’t left many clues for Hitoshi on this one. There’s no transformative shift in Aizawa’s state of being from when he went into the Psych’s office to coming out, but thinking that anything Iwaya could do for Aizawa would make such an easy difference was wishful to begin with. If his worries were easy to lighten, Aizawa wouldn’t be heaving all that weight in the first place.
“Oh, she just wanted to get to know me a little better,” Aizawa tries to make it sound nice and casual, only to land an implication that’s more than a little off the mark.
“Did she now?” Hitoshi’s got a tone and matching smirk that surely misunderstands what kind of getting to know he associates this with purely by the merit of being any kind of man around Iwaya, which is understandable (sorta) but also incredibly inaccurate. Even if Aizawa and Iwaya understand each other a bit better now, their sexual chemistry (shudder at the thought) will remain permanently frigid. “And what was the verdict?”
Aizawa starts walking forwards and Hitoshi turns with him, swinging like a set of saloon doors to face parallel down the corridor. “Same old story,” he answers as they fall into that familiar matched stride, pacing in tandem down the corridor between Iwaya’s office and the stairwell they use like a fast-track elevator. “Worrying about how I’m handling the pressure.”
It’s a worry older than time: The Pressure. For as long as Aizawa can remember, people have questioned whether he can handle the burden he puts on himself, but there isn't a damn thing he can do to help that – certainly not what other people think of it. Because the thing about having a quirk that erases other quirks is Aizawa’s only ever been able to level the playing field between himself and someone else, and sometimes not even by that much, and from there has to duke it out on fists and instinct alone. That's hardly easy.
So Aizawa’s always had to work ten times harder than someone with a Hero-ready quirk – or more lately, a quirk and that on-brand industry shine – that paves their path to being a Hero in easy-reach stepping stones. The story of how a Hero like All Might or any of the those twinky “top-ranking” Pros came to exist is entirely different to what a tooth and nail Hero like Eraserhead had to experience. Hitoshi’s probably got more of the Eraserhead experience coming his way, although the kid’s got a few more things in his favour over Aizawa – and a few more against him, to level the advantage back out.
“You too, huh,” Hitoshi echoes just like Aizawa was hoping he would. While Iwaya can’t (or won’t) talk to Aizawa about the details of her session with Hitoshi, that doesn’t mean Hitoshi can’t reveal them if Aizawa brings it up in normal conversation. These are just things they can talk about. “Is there any point in asking when there’s no alternative than just dealing with it?”
Aizawa can’t help it, and chuckles a gratifying, “Exactly.”
Hitoshi drops this particular truth as they come to a stop in front of the railing that separates the staircase from the ten(ish)-storeys down to the ground floor of the police station. Aizawa hops up onto the rail after he's wrapped a piece of his capture weapon around it in anticipation of the fast way down, and takes the opportunity to check Hitoshi’s matching binding before the kid jumps ten floors on an unreliable bungee. Better to check it now than find out on the way down.
“There’s different ways of coping,” Aizawa says right before demonstrating one of the weirder ones, which is to launch himself backwards with a leap into the middle of the open-air column, free falling at least halfway down to the ground before finally easing up on his speed with the aid of his capture weapon. Small coincidence that an adrenaline rush, that reckless release of calculated risk, is a hell of a drug. The all-natural empowerment of tricking your brain into feeling close to death for one heady moment. Aizawa didn't say it was a good coping mechanism, but if it works it works.
Hitoshi lands a couple of seconds after Aizawa’s death drop, giving him the opportunity to stand and watch Hitoshi shooting down the abseil rope of his own capture weapon with a practiced discipline that makes the kid seem like a natural to watch in just this one instance. But Aizawa’s seen all the previous attempts, and could mark out with a red pen how each try has been improved and fine-tuned to achieve the (almost) perfect finish.
Because the last step of this sequence is a careful flick the bottom end of the capture weapon to unfasten it at the top, a particular turn that runs up hypersensitive fibers and coaxes it to coil like a snake over an outstretched arm. Looks simple, but requires a good amount of dexterity and understanding the fiddly way the capture weapon operates. One of the primary reasons more people don’t use such a versatile tool is how much of a bastard it is to master, but Aizawa’s a stubborn bastard too and won out in the end.
Hitoshi's struggled with this part of using the capture weapon before, but must have been practicing in what little time he's had out of Aizawa’s sight, because his execution this time is nearly flawless. A turn of Hitoshi’s wrist flows up the responsive length of material and coils into a spool that lands over Hitoshi's raised hand, tossed nonchalantly a moment later over his shoulders, just like Aizawa does glossed over with the kid’s own swagger.
“You've gotten better,” Aizawa lets slip like the soft, proud bastard he is, and Hitoshi's face lights up momentarily, before setting the dimmer back down as they take a back-route to escape the artificially lit hallways of the police station. The place is deathly quiet with low occupancy of the once-bustling tower block, almost as if they’re visiting some church to the old hand of the law, crumbling under the weight of a battle fought by Heroes and Villains far over their heads.
Hitoshi's response is a resolute, “I've still got a long way to go.”
But through the old bursts the new: Hitoshi embodies determination from the soles of his feet to the swaying violet tips of his hair, the strong, striking lines of his face and form casting a shadow of what he could be if he keeps this up. And he will, if Aizawa’s got anything to do with it.
In honour of Hitoshi’s own acknowledgement of the gap he’s still trying to close, Aizawa pushes the kid a little harder on their urban jungle parkour route back to Hitoshi's home. Fleeing the police station around the side-alley by climbing a ten-metre security fence is both a physical and logistical challenge, not to mention dodging the press, who are even thirstier for news of the younger Shinsou's role in the hunt for the Deathnote Killer.
Speaking of the hunt, things have been also been quiet on that front, maybe even a little too quiet, which just magnifies Aizawa’s looming sensation of something he's missing, that shadow on the mountainside he's not turning around to see until it's too late. But he's also got a feeling that if they sit tight, trouble will make its way to them.
It usually does.
The journey to Hitoshi’s home is thankfully uneventful, which is truly a blessing. The worst they get is a moment on the regrettable public transport leg of the journey where a passenger seems to recognise Hitoshi, or at least finds him fascinating enough not to stop staring at the teen for the entirety of the train ride. It gets Aizawa’s protective instinct up almost instantly, back practically arched like the hackles of a cat ready to see off any new threat sniffing around his territory. Not that Hitoshi is Aizawa’s (or anyone’s but his own) territory, but try telling the Shinsou Effect that when it plucks the strings of Aizawa’s mentalist harp-brain.
Coming back around the throes of rush hour, Aizawa’s fully taken stock of the area surrounding Hitoshi and Kiki’s home, now believing it to be chosen by the formidable former-technically-still Mrs. Shinsou for a number of factors that make it suitable for a mother and son with skeletons in the closet for years. The on-top-of-commercial units condo block is located close to several transport links for a quick getaway, close to the heart of a busy shopping district that is almost never deserted, providing plenty of witnesses to the crimes a desperate man might commit in ruthless pursuit of his estranged family; although, Aizawa’s not sure if the latter was the case, merely his assumption based on the Doc’s character and tidbits he’s learned so far from the other Shinous in the family unit.
Hitoshi’s energy boost from the physical exertion fades back into fatigue as they get closer and closer to home, something Aizawa feels deep in his bones too. He yearns for his own home too (not now, but later, he promises to himself). It’s been a long fucking day and the sun hasn’t even set yet. Not that it’s easy to tell under the stormy clouds rolling in on hot, foreboding weather that promises to break any time.
Aizawa’s not sure how Kiki will take to Aizawa’s invasion of her sanctum again, but she probably (hopefully) expects it by this point. Aizawa’s sure as shit not leaving Hitoshi alone at a time like this. Not when they know Shiyoko (and now the Doc) know full and well where Hitoshi and his Ma live. If anything, the fact that nothing has happened is the most suspicious sign of all – if something had been attempted and botched, Aizawa could stop expecting it. Instead he’s just getting tenser, like he’s made of a single piece of knotted dockyard rope pulled tighter and tighter to almost take the shape of a man.
Aizawa’s expectation when Hitoshi put his key in the door and opens the last of several locks is that the apartment will be empty. This is an assumption, and one Aizawa shouldn’t have made, because he knows damn-well, if he thinks, who has also been staying at the Shinsou place for the family’s protection. A fact that becomes more apparent when he and Hitoshi stride into the main room and Yamaguichi freezes mid-step crossing the hallway that stretches through the apartment, a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth and her eyes like a pair of car headlights.
Diligent cop that she is, Officer Yamaguichi was presumably up all night keeping a watch over the apartment and surrounding area, the dutiful rookie acting out the orders of her Chief. What Aizawa hadn’t figured, and neither had Hitoshi, going by the crack into surprised laughter after clapping eyes on her, was that Yamaguichi would remain at the Shinsou residence even when it was vacant, catching up on her forgone rest, by the looks of those cactus-print pyjamas she’s wearing.
Hitoshi’s first out of the gate with a warm, “Making yourself comfortable, Yankumi?” on his lips to match the gigantic smile. Aizawa supposes Hitoshi wouldn’t be home alone if he took off and left these two to each other, but that’s not going to happen – as much as the other parties might be interested in such an arrangement. He's not trying to be a buzzkill for the sake of it, Aizawa's just nervous for something that hasn’t happened yet – and until it does he’s not leaving Hitoshi’s side.
The noise that comes from Yamaguichi’s mouth is an, “Oh” of some kind, distorted by the toothbrush sticking out of it. The next thing that happens is a ripe cherry blush racing into her cheeks, which has fully flourished by the good-and-long time it takes Yamaguichi to withdraw the foamy toothbrush from her gaping mouth – what she’s doing wandering around in the first place while brushing her teeth is another good question, although Aizawa’s not one to question someone else’s habits when he lives like an animal if he's allowed to.
“I didn’t… fink you’d be back so soon,” Yamaguichi manages after she’s removed the toothbrush, tone slightly altered by the mouthful of toothpaste she’s holding back. “Is everyfing alright?”
“Oh, just swell.” Hitoshi leans on sarcasm rather than getting too deep into a trench that’s not productive for anyone to start digging just yet. They all have to stop and take a breath sometimes, but stalling too long risks sinking in – better to keep moving, a rolling stone gathers no moss and all that. “But don’t you want to finish brushing your teeth and–” Hitoshi hesitates a little, but it’s hard to tell if it’s because he’s awkward or dramatic effect (or the first played off as the second), “change before we get into all that?”
Yamaguichi’s cheeks remain rosy, a perfect colour match to the various pink accents of Hitoshi’s home under his Ma’s influence. While the walls are painted a sunny yellow, anything around the place that can be pink, cute or fluffy most certainly is. A hundred frivolous rebellions against Dr. Shinsou’s dire aesthetic, Aizawa’s long since concluded. Each tacky heart-shaped window sticker a tiny “fuck you” to a husband who takes new meaning to the prefix ‘ex’.
With a stuttering, “Uuuhhhyyuuu– yeah,” like a bunch of train cars all shunting to a stop after the engine grinds to a halt, Yamaguichi scarpers back to the bathroom and pulls the door firmly shut behind her.
While Hitoshi is watching ‘Yankumi's’ exit stage left, Aizawa's got his attention trained wholly on Hitoshi's soft expression after her. While Aizawa is famously bad at paying attention to this sort of thing as applies to himself, even he can tell Hitoshi couldn't be sweeter on the indefatigable ray of sunshine if Yamaguichi was dusted with icing sugar and called a cupcake.
“I didn't realise she was gonna stay here all day.” Hitoshi’s eyes narrow to a half-mast, remaining fixed on the bathroom door as his tone becomes more serious, and Aizawa knows that worried tone better than the back of his own hand. It's how he feels about Hitoshi pretty much every waking second.
“We asked the police to keep this place under twenty-four hour watch.” Aizawa hopes to soothe Hitoshi's concerns a little, though truth be told it worries him too. Finally remembering to take a load off like recovering corrupted files on normal human protocol, Aizawa crosses the room and takes a seat on Kiki's comfortably saggy sofa.
“How's Yankumi supposed to watch the place if she's asleep?” Hitoshi points out with contention, even annoyance in his tone. But this kind of worry is the stuff Heroes are made of.
“They probably don't have anyone else available to take shifts with her,” Aizawa guesses, sensing a learning moment come on.
Hitoshi clicks his tongue and drifts over to sit sideways on one of the dining chairs. His black hoodie and jeans are dirty enough Aizawa feels a moment of self-consciousness about being spread out on the sofa so comfortably, given he's covered in the same layer of filth, though the damage has probably been done already so he's loath to get up now he’s comfortable. Aizawa will move when Kiki gets back and tells him to get down off the furniture like a misbehaving pet.
“So where is everyone?” Hitoshi’s demand smacks of novice naivety, which is hard to find fault with. Be kind on the rookies, or there won’t be any more.
“Tama's probably busy with Tsukauchi right now.” Defusing Tsukauchi like a car full of C4 explosive, more like. Aizawa hasn't heard from the Police’s formal head of this investigation yet (assuming he got out of the Embassy with his kneecaps in tact), but Aizawa can't possibly be the Detective’s favourite person right now after leaving him in hot water like that. But who knows, maybe Tsukauchi was able to throw Aizawa under the bus with the hotel staff and salvage something of the situation, he's resourceful like that. “Tsukauchi's supposed partner has been loaned long-term to another division.”
“There's more than three cops working there.” Hitoshi’s fingering the dirty edges of his hoodie like a true fidget, and if Aizawa isn't mistaken, he's waiting for something.
“The police have been stretched thin for years,” Aizawa admits the open secret you'll never catch on the police recruitment posters, but there's a reason Yamaguichi is known as “the rookie” all the way up to The Chief. They don't get all that many new recruits, and the good ones are all the more precious.
Much like the average underground Hero, or vigilantes everyone pretends aren’t out there carrying the weight registered Heroes hog all for themselves, most of the police work the jobs of several people for an orphan’s portion of the praise. Talk about thankless. “No one likes to talk about it, but the draw of the Hero industry has been kicking the legs out from under the police for years.”
“Seriously?” Hitoshi looks shocked, a testament to how easy it is to miss a fact so blindingly obvious to anyone who looks for it.
“Remember when I asked if you were interested in police work?” Aizawa lifts an eyebrow, his half-bundled topknot holding back enough of his hair to make the gesture barely visible.
“You're a Hero,” Hitoshi puts out there like Aizawa’s a hypocrite, which they surely knew already.
“Underground Hero,” Aizawa corrects. “And I'd make a lousy cop.” Aizawa rests his arms along the back of the sofa and lets his head tip back to rest against the wall. “You probably wouldn't, though.”
“Me?” Hitoshi remains sceptical, and Aizawa doesn't blame him. “Yeah, they'd be falling over themselves to hire the son of a famous cop-killer.”
“They wouldn't all hold it against you,” Aizawa tries to convince, but lacks confidence. Some people, the right people, would accept without question that a Shinsou on the side of good is a powerful asset. But fear culture is hard to get rid of, and if there's one thing Dr. Shinsou and the ways he uses his quirk (a quirk given to his son in even greater strength) achieves, it's to frighten the common man.
“Gee teach, better sign me the hell up then,” Hitoshi taunts about fifty-fifty bitter to joking. Odds Aizawa can live with. “Clearly no one wants me to become a Hero anyway.”
“I never said you can't do both,” Aizawa frames carefully, and just because it's not common doesn't mean Hitoshi couldn't do it. Hitoshi isn't even close to ordinary, why would anything he does be inside the box that he's been put in his whole life? “At least they pay cops a living wage.” Not so much Heroes, underground or overground, or society would crumble under the taxes of everyday working people paying their salary into the pockets of egoists and glory-hunters. It's bad enough that it happens as much as it already does. If being a Pro Hero didn't pay dick, why else would Hizashi endorse so many different kinds of toothpaste and hair products? Other than his incredible vanity, of course.
“I'll think about it, okay.” Hitoshi begrudgingly accepts his careers counselling session, cut short when the bathroom door opens and the teen whips his head around like a dog after a squirrel.
Yamaguichi is still in her cactus pyjamas, but has tidied her hair into its classic ponytail and no logger has the toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, lips instead pulled into a tight smile as she tries to dart from the bathroom into Kiki's room, where Aizawa can guess she was sleeping while Kiki and Hitoshi were out.
But Hitoshi gets up and heads promptly for the bathroom as soon as it’s free, crossing paths with Yamaguichi in the hallway by accident-on-purpose. Hitoshi must be going to take a shower, Aizawa reasons without lifting a finger from his exceptionally comfortable spread-eagle on the sofa. The last leg of their run back made even Aizawa break a sweat, to say nothing of the underlying stench of crawling out of a hotel via the garbage chute.
Aizawa’s just able to catch the look on Yamaguichi's face as Hitoshi moves swiftly into the bathroom she just vacated. Maybe she’s a little alarmed by the easy familiarity, even domesticity, of sharing a bathroom with Hitoshi, followed by a distinct wrinkling of her nose, eyes widening with a wordless ‘what's that smell?’ No wonder Hitoshi was waiting so restlessly; not everyone has Aizawa’s open mind when it comes to boasting the aroma of a wet junkyard dog.
Yamaguichi lingers for a moment before disappearing into Kiki's room, while the sound of water starts up just moments later inside the bathroom.
In the eerie alone-silence, Aizawa checks his phone, but has no new messages from Hizashi or Tsukauchi. The radio silence is grating. Before long, what feels like the scratching of the animal inside Aizawa’s head turns out to be an actual scratching at the front door. It spooks him at first, but with no one else to answer (and a pang of worry over any unexpected visitor), Aizawa heads warily to the door.
Seeing nothing through the peephole, Aizawa jumps when the scratching happens again, but then finally recognises the sound of little claws. Aizawa opens the door to a grouchy meow as Trashbag pushes his large frame through the narrow opening. The cat winds between Aizawa’s legs with great immediacy, taking pleasure in rubbing his feline face enthusiastically against Aizawa’s calves, which must smell pretty enticing to a former alleycat. Returning to the sofa, Aizawa’s pleased to be followed, and has settled the cat with a chugging diesel-engine purr in his lap by the time Hitoshi comes out from the shower.
Amusingly, after crossing paths once on the way in, Hitoshi and Yamaguichi run into each other again in the hallway on the way out too. Aizawa catches a view as he cranes his head through the hallway that the bathroom and bedrooms open onto.
Yamaguichi comes out of Kiki’s room after changing into her full police uniform, while Hitoshi’s taken off clothes that were certainly the fouler side of fair, and wasn’t going to be putting his dirty things back on. This means he’s wrapped in a candyfloss pink towel around his waist, held at the hip in one hand, while another smaller towel sits around his shoulders to catch the steady trickle of water that leaks from the sodden purple mop of his hair, sitting much lower than its usual gravity-defying spring. The rest is all skin and muscle wrapped around a teenage frame that’s still being grown into, all the proportions slightly skewed as he evens out over years still to come.
Aizawa doesn’t get much of a look, but it’s enough to assess the medium-ish build Hitoshi’s cultivated so far. He’s doing okay for his age, but most Heroes need to do a little better than average. Mentalist Heroes like Hitoshi especially, unable to fall back on a physical quirk that can hit for them. Which, Hitoshi’s quirk means he can make people hit for him, but it’s a good insurance policy to make sure he can throw a punch well enough to cut out the middleman.
Truly exceptional Heroes don’t leave anything to chance, building their physical strength and speed as well as training their quirk. All Might’s a slut for a press conference, but still worked his ass off – literally – to get where he is.
So Hitoshi’s got a long way to go, but at least the foundations are there.
Yamaguchi’s impression of Hitoshi’s foundations isn’t verbal so much as the instant tensing of every line in her face, mouth pulling into a tight line while her eyebrows almost fuse together. Aizawa would laugh if he wasn’t worried about disturbing the cat.
It only lasts a moment, but Hitoshi’s voice is warm like tea and honey, maybe just a nip of brandy to loosen the mood. “‘Scuse me.”
Yamaguichi dodges around Hitoshi quickly, her startled expression complemented by a rising flush that Aizawa gets a better look at as she barrels into the main room.
Hitoshi lingers long enough to spy Aizawa spying on him, head popping out past the end of the hallway to check on Aizawa’s whereabouts. If Hitoshi’s uncomfortable being half-naked but for towels, it certainly doesn’t show. This is Hitoshi’s home after all, he should feel comfortable in it. Aizawa’s naked in his apartment about as much as Hizashi and common sense between them will allow.
“Oh, of course you two are shacked up together already,” Hitoshi jeers with the one hand still gripping the towel around his waist as he pads further into view, raising the other hand to rub the back of his head as his hair presumably leaks down the back of his neck. “Traitor.”
Aizawa can’t be sure, but he thinks Hitoshi’s addressing the cat.
In confirmation of this assumption, Trashbag lifts his head from the near perfect ball he’s formed into and gives a scratchy record meow.
“Yes, you,” Hitoshi responds with a smile cocked in the corner of one mouth, and a shower if nothing else seems to have left the teen even more refreshed than his time with Iwaya did. Aizawa hopes that just maybe he’s doing right by Hitoshi, somehow, in spite of all the crap they’ve been dragged through in the past couple of weeks. That maybe this isn’t all headed for disaster on the fresh trauma express, with Aizawa in the driver’s seat and Hitoshi riding shotgun.
The cat doesn’t move despite Hitoshi’s mockery, and Aizawa’s hand slowly petting Trashbag’s back probably sweetens that deal, so he gets to keep the furry lap warmer as Hitoshi rolls his eyes and disappears back around the corner.
Footsteps and the door to Hitoshi's room sound thereafter, because as comfortable or not as the boy might be in his own skin, it’s highly inconvenient being caught out by an emergency without clothes on – Aizawa would know, even if Hizashi is the only one of them who got charged for public indecency on the occasion in question, which he claims in the retelling was because Aizawa was “too hairy for the public to get a look at his monster cock” while Hizashi’s crotch was ‘manscaped’ to perfect presentation and thus became his downfall.
Yamaguichi comes through to the main room with a look that’s a little dazed, dressed neatly in her uniform and only a fading promise of the blush that had tinged her face. She seems a little out of odds with herself, and it could be nothing, but it merits checking.
“Anything to report, officer?” Aizawa starts politely, which sparks a smile of reassurance.
“I didn't hear a peep all day, Mr. Eraser.” It’s presumably after saying this that Yamaguichi remembers Aizawa’s told her to drop the mister stuff with him, but knowing the dutiful rookie, Aizawa probably has a better chance at ordering back the tide.
“Were you able to patrol the surrounding area too?” Aizawa indulges his paranoid micromanagement instinct just a little, but doesn't mean badly by it.
Besides, Yamaguichi is a good cop, just two weeks out of the factory. “Yes sir!” she beams before catching herself again. “Oh, I mean–”
“Don't worry about it,” Aizawa settles. Yamaguichi can sir and mister him all she likes, if it makes her feel more comfortable. Some people like structure, even hierarchy. Especially people who become cops, as it happens. “Did you find anything suspicious?”
“No, not really,” Yamaguichi offers.
“Not really meaning?” Aizawa prompts.
“It might sound strange, but there were some homeless people who seemed a little… off.” Yamaguichi doesn’t sound sure of herself, but guts are important in this business.
“Why?” Aizawa doesn’t need to do much to provoke the elaboration, just as most people only need a nudge to believe in themselves more.
“Well most beggars at least smile or hold out their hand for people to give money to,” Yamaguichi spools off. “These two just sat there. I tried asking if there was anything I could do to help them and they didn’t respond, barely even looked at me.”
“Where were they?” Aizawa asks, sensing something that never comes through before the sound of two doors opening creates an echo in surround sound – one from inside the flat and the other from outside.
Although Aizawa knows the who to logically expect through each door, it's terribly easy to be wrong. So although Aizawa doesn't move, he’s still ready to move when he hears the distinctive cry, “I'm home!” ringing through the apartment.
“Welcome back!” Hitoshi bellows back from out of sight, not quite joining them by the time Kiki has changed her shoes into her kitten-heeled fluffy pink slippers and trotted into view of Yamaguichi, Aizawa and the cat.
Kiki takes a single look at them and without blinking shoots, “Off my furniture, you filthy animal.”
“Ma!” Hitoshi's voice precedes his physical presence, only stepping into view with a wry grin that could have been moulded out of a wire hanger. “Don't talk to Aizawa like that.”
“I meant the cat, but sure, you too.” Kiki eyes Aizawa like he was always the filthy animal and Hitoshi just called her out on it, which Aizawa’s certainly not going to argue with. Kiki’s arrival and beeline straight for the kitchen rouses the cat effortlessly, so Aizawa regretfully loses his lap-warmer.
Trashbag thumps to the floor and treats his owner to some classic blues singing-voice yowls, proceeding to wind as much as any cat shaped like an overstuffed garbage bag can wind around her ankles in the hopes of being fed. Aizawa would try the move himself, if he thought it'd get him anywhere with Kiki except kicked in the face. And while Aizawa’s not the kind to necessarily object to being stepped on by a bitch in heels (he's friends with Kayama after all), and Kiki certainly seems like the type to do a thing like that, it’s definitely not a place their particular dynamic is destined to go.
This leaves Aizawa with few options to his classic returning worry. “Was everything alright at work?”
“Yes, mother.” Kiki over-feminises her voice, which is more usually a little hoarser and lower, no doubt thanks to her smoking habit, and it reminds Aizawa so much of Hizashi for a moment that his heart skips a beat. Then there’s a click and from what seems like nowhere Hizashi’s real, actual-voice pipes in like an auditory hallucination.
Thankfully, Aizawa’s still sane (just).
“Alright alright alright, listeners! You’re listening to Put Your Hands up Radio with Present Mic! How’s everyone doing this rockin’ Friday night?!”
“I’m guessing you want a beer.” Kiki jolts Aizawa out of the fugue hearing Hizashi’s literally-for-radio voice puts him into, but rather than forming full words he just looks across the living space at her and nods.
“Whether you’re sad, glad, or just plain mad do I have the show for you tonight, listeners,” Hizashi’s tirade continues from the radio sitting on top of the fridge, and while it could be chance that Kiki switched the set on to this exact frequency at this exact time, there’s a more compelling explanation that’s far simpler: there’s a Present Mic fan in the house.
Kiki’s standing by the fridge in her well-tailored trouser suit, hair still neatly tied and the signs of fatigue in her face barely visible under a coat of concealer that doesn’t quite cover the darkness under her pale amethyst eyes. Perhaps it seems strange that she’s so collected at a time like this, but from the little Aizawa has learned of Hitoshi’s Ma, fear isn’t a colour she chooses to wear – not on the outside, at least.
“So untwist those panties, pull that stick outta your butt and let the bees outta your bonnet because we’re gonna party non-stop for the next two hours! I want those hands up, listeners!”
Aizawa catches the beer Kiki tosses to him, rather than throws directly at his head, which is definitely progress. Then Kiki snaps the tab on her own, taking a long drink and leaning back against the counter, fixing her sights on her son while Hizashi continues to natter on the radio.
“Our first track is from Pop Royalty Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and goes out to my very own problem chick who’s been giving me the freeze all day – you know who you are, baby! Here’s Mondai Girl!”
Hizashi’s got no way of knowing if Aizawa is listening to his show, but would surely say the things he does regardless. Aizawa supposes he is Hizash’s problem girl, at least recently. Although they talked on the phone barely an hour ago and Hizashi knows Aizawa is busy, so really it’s more of a bitch than a moan. Aizawa’s sure he’d learn all sorts of things about his own relationship if he pieced together all of Hizashi’s little thought-of-it-so-I-said-it moments live on-air over the years. He just doesn’t have the time (or patience) for it.
“So I’d ask how was school today, but you aren’t in school right now,” Kiki remarks over another cool sip of her beer, and in anticipation of a grilling Aizawa opens the one she threw to him. “So how was whatever the fuck it is you’ve been doing all day?”
“Well, Dad’s back on his bullshit,” Hitoshi answers unflappably, drifting closer to Kiki in the kitchen and then hopping up to sit on the counter opposite her. “He didn’t exactly wait around.”
Then Kiki throws a wild ball so wild Aizawa could swear it leaves him with concussion, asking her teenage son with a totally calm expression, “Sex or murder?” Like one of those twisted party games Hizashi likes to make people play with himself, Aizawa and Kayama (unsurprisingly, most people want to fuck Kayama, marry Hizashi and kill Aizawa).
“Both.” Hitoshi drums his bare heels against the under-the-counter cupboard, and although he’s calm, he’s not entirely comfortable either. Which is a very modest reaction for a kid discussing his own father’s deadly vices.
“Of course.” Kiki’s bitter, but that slight distaste is all she shows. “And the woman is the Deathnote Killer?”
Hitoshi’s head bobs. “Mhm.”
Kiki only knows as much as she’s been told or can guess from the context, but she’s a mentalist to be reckoned with, and Aizawa’s sure there’s no one who knows Dr. Shinsou quite as well as his dearly beloved wife.
So it’s all the more meaningful when Kiki pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her purse and says, “Well that’s a fucking disaster waiting to happen.”
Aizawa couldn't agree more.
Notes:
FAmmmmmmmilllylylyly times ahoy! AND ALSO YANKUMI Not to mention me actually trying to compile a believable playlist for one of Mic's radio sets. We know he's definitely an anglophile but I wanted to mix some Japanese and other Asian music in so it feels more appropriate to context rather than super Western-focused, which we're obviously gonna get more of as we head into ANOTHER GREAT CHAPTER?! NEXT WEEK?! It's more likely than you think....
Chapter 48: Grasping at Straws
Summary:
Aizawa has a lot of questions. Only some of them are answered.
Notes:
Okay but straight up, y'all don't even know how happy it makes me seeing how hype everyone gets when Kiki's around, and Yankumi too. MORE OF THOSE uGOOD LADIES AMIRITE???
Also I love this chapter. Call this one 'it's got Kiki in it so I updated early' woowoowowowowoo
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I don’t really feel like cooking.” Kiki makes this announcement over the spread of misfits currently occupying her home like the tired mother of four she never signed up to be, and Aizawa can empathise with her too-many-children syndrome more than he can say. “Let’s just get some take-out.”
“I’ll go!” Hitoshi leaps up before his mother can even put the full stop at the end of her sentence.
There’s an instinctive “absolutely not” on Aizawa’s tongue that he bites onto and holds, because although there’s a lot of times he’d make that call for Hitoshi without hesitation, he’s in the presence of Hitoshi's Ma, and she outranks him like hell. So instead of opening his big mouth, Aizawa just watches Kiki, who takes a moment of consideration that lasts exactly as long as a swig of beer.
“Not alone, you won’t,” Kiki decrees like a judge casting a sentence, though Hitoshi will be plenty pleased for company. No lone wolves here, socially speaking. Or: like it or not, this is the pack.
“I’ll–” Aizawa begins to offer his services, but he’s not alone.
“I’ll go!” Yamaguichi tramples over Aizawa like the doormat he’s been feeling an awful lot like recently, though not even the soles of Yamaguichi’s feet can be begrudged for long. Even the interruption beams with the pureness of her intention. “It’d be good to get out of the house, do a quick patrol, you know?”
“You can just say you want to go with me Yankumi,” Hitoshi delivers with a completely straight face, which makes the line even more effective.
“N-no!” Yamaguichi is doing her speed-blush in spectacular form, like a bird of paradise flourishing to attract a suitor. “That’s not it–I… I should just have an update ready in case the Chief calls, you know?” As if to prove that she really does have a reason for wanting to accompany Hitoshi (other than enjoying his company, which is okay – that’s a relatable feeling where Hitoshi’s concerned), Yamaguichi lurches into oversharing with nervy sincerity. “This is my first solo assignment for the Chief, and I really don’t want to bungle it.”
“Relax, this place is barely two minutes away,” Hitoshi practically guffaws in that teenagery be-cool nag that’s pointlessly endearing. “We’ve been going there for years, nothing’s gonna happen.” By the time he finishes, Hitoshi’s gaze has shifted meaningfully to his mother. “Right, Ma?”
It’s Aizawa’s cue to resume watching Kiki too, and she’s by far the most interesting sight in this room at the moment. She’s standing with a hand on the kitchen counter giving the peppy Yamaguichi a particular kind of deadass look that only a mother can muster.
One of Hizashi’s hand-picked tracks for the night blares in the background, breathing even more power into the presence of the formidable Ms. Shinsou than she already embodies on a day-to-day basis. It strikes Aizawa, especially after his experience with another of the Doc’s exquisitely hand-picked women today, that while he knows Hitoshi as much as most adults can hope to fathom the mind of a teenage boy, he hardly knows Kiki at all. Not like he should. And there's ways to change that.
“Just make it quick,” Kiki reinforces in a way that reads a lot more like chaperone trying to sway kids away from too much hanky panky on the side than worrying over their safety.
So maybe things work out the way they do for a reason, even when it’s not always Aizawa’s first choice to let Hitoshi out on the streets with only a rookie cop keeping an eye on him. Things are always different when Aizawa’s acting in a network rather than as a lone actor (or a two-person co-op at best). The isolation is easier in a lot of ways, but worse is just as many. Trust in others for alleviated pressure – a tricky bargain to cut just right.
With the kind of ease that understates everything that it means, Hitoshi’s gaze flits to Aizawa and he asks, “You cool?” like the kid knows exactly how clingy Aizawa would be if he’s not playing it – as currently under question – cool.
But Aizawa’s cooler than a cucumber. Or can act like it, at least. “Fine by me,” he acedes with an utter lack of respect for the importance of his say in the matter. Only a lunatic would disagree with Kiki about what her son is entitled to do. Not even Aizawa’s that much of a masochist.
“Alright.” Hitoshi’s already heading for the door, zipping up a fresh hoodie that’s a navy blue rather than black. Must be running low on black ones. Smart boy still flips the hood up before he starts pacing for the door, covering up that distinctive plumage while Yamaguichi checks the standard police five-shot revolver before slipping it back into a dainty holster on her hip. Hopefully she won't have to use it, though their country's once-great gun crime statistics have taken a beating since the rise of Heroes and Villains came in to destabilise the careful balance of law and order. Funnily enough, a world full of escalatingly powerful Heroes and Villains makes people much more inclined to see firearms as a leveler.
Hitoshi stalls at the door with an impatient, “Come on, Yankumi.”
“Ah! C-coming!” Yamaguichi only trips over her words rather than falls in her footsteps, quick on her feet, if only after a quick glance at Kiki followed by an equally authority-seeking look at Aizawa, just to be sure she’s cleared on all points to nip out with Hitoshi to pick up dinner at a time like this.
It goes without saying, because they definitely shouldn’t say it, but Aizawa expects Hitoshi will use his quirk if they get into any fixes that need an easy get-out. Which is the great thing about Hitoshi’s quirk, if he were legally allowed to use it. So either the kid won’t be that reckless unless it’s really necessary, or he'll do it without Yamaguichi noticing – like the first time. Although it works at Aizawa like a toothache, he's going to have to trust them. It's not that he doesn't trust, he'd just rather be there in case youthful vigor only goes so far, to pick up the slack where inexperience falls short. Sometimes literally.
Not helping this, Hitoshi’s too lackadaisical, even overconfident as he calls an easy, “Back in a bit,” to the sound of the door opening. Aizawa feels like he’s being tested – if Hitoshi can sense the anxious yearning that Aizawa’s probably broadcasting like a telephone tower right now.
But if Kiki thinks it’s alright without much in the way of hesitation, Aizawa will try to choke down his protective instinct and take the opportunity for time alone with her, if only to figure out why Hitoshi’s Ma is confident enough to give her son his independence at a time like this. Although, maybe that’s just the answer, and Aizawa smacks of worry like new car smell, still getting used to fears Kiki has lived with for well over a decade.
However, Aizawa’s new to this, and can’t resist a small worry, calling after them, “Keep an eye out for those homeless people Yamaguichi saw earlier.” Aizawa doesn’t see Hitoshi’s expression, but he does hear the yawning teenage sarcasm of the kid’s answer.
“Yes, Aizawa.”
He can’t help it. Like a tap being turned on Aizawa keeps going, “And if anything happens–”
“Yes, Aizawa,” Hitoshi cuts him off to repeat. “You two will be the first to know.” It’s a casual you-two Hitoshis strings together; Aizawa thinks he and Kiki must truly make a very weird double act.
Because for all Aizawa’s obvious fear, Kiki’s the queen of cool. “Make sure you get extra dipping sauce.”
Hitoshi leaves on a much fonder chuckle. “Yes, Ma,” he says with far more affection than his address to Aizawa, so there’s obviously something – probably several things – that Aizawa’s doing wrong. Hopefully Kiki’s going to enlighten him.
They file out and front door clicks shut. There's a silence of barely seconds before Kiki fills it. “I'm guessing you want a cigarette.” The pack is already in her hand, hanging by her side after getting out of her purse a few minutes ago. Maybe she’s calm on the surface, but a swan only looks graceful while its legs paddle like crazy underwater.
“I’m dying for one.” Of course that’s the phrasing that tumbles off Aizawa’s lips. Of course it does.
Aizawa’s been loitering in the living area since he was ordered off the sofa, and paces across the open plan living room to the kitchen area, where Kiki sets a cigarette of her own between her lips before holding the pack out for Aizawa.
Aizawa’s barely slipped one of the thin cigarettes from the pack, not even set it in his mouth, when Kiki pulls away and strides past him, heading for the sliding glass doors that open onto the tiny balcony in the apartment. Kiki brings up a lighter and sparks the cigarette with sudden urgency, sucking the first puff with clenched lips and no hands as she busies herself with unlocking and pulling back the door.
The back door finally cast open, it's after raising a hand and blowing the first exhale of her stress-relieving vice into the hot night air that Kiki tells Aizawa, “You're going to scare Hitoshi acting so paranoid all the time.”
Aizawa doesn’t expect it. But then, he doesn’t know what he was expecting. “Aren't you scared?”
“Of courses I'm fucking scared,” Kiki spits like a cobra's venom. “But I want to do better for my son than living in fear every day.”
The missing step, Aizawa realises as he follows Kiki to the window, reminding himself yet again that this is that this isn't their first time at the rodeo. Just Aizawa’s.
“Is that what it was like for you two back then?” Aizawa puts the question into the best shape he can manage: namely, with the finesse of a preschooler's model out of play-doh. He takes a few tentative steps after Kiki, the unlit cigarette clasped forgotten in his hand. “Before the massacre?” When the Doc was just out there while Kiki and Hitoshi lived, well… here.
Kiki offers the lighter to Aizawa when he’s close enough, making a little room at the open sliding door that looks onto a quiet alleyway between condos. Hitoshi's mother is in what must be a familiar spot, leaning against a railing leading out from the door to enclose what's as much a large window box than a true doorway to anywhere.
Kiki sighs over a second drag on her cigarette while Aizawa gratefully lights his own, watching the shadows cast by the light behind them, further distorted by the uneven surface what light there is lands on. Plumes of smoke spool into the air like falling silk in silhouette, vanishing into the night past the electric light pouring out from behind Aizawa and Kiki.
“I'm not saying there's nothing to be afraid of, but if Hitoshi senses you're worried he'll get even more scared than he already is.” Kiki flicks the filter with a lavender painted fingernail and ash jumps from the end of her cigarette into the grey alleyway below, stark in contrast to the bright lights and warmth of the home Kiki built for herself and her son.
“And you're really okay letting him go out with… without a guardian?” It's only a shade better than outright naming Kiki or Aizawa himself as the only acceptable escorts for Hitoshi outside of the house at a time like this, but the implication is there anyway. Kiki might not always like Aizawa, but if there's anything he'll do it's keep Hitoshi safe or die trying. He thinks Kiki knows that too, smart enough to figure it out by now.
“Yamaguichi might be young, but I trust her to keep a lookout if there’s anything Hitoshi misses,” Kiki replies with a high-gloss coat of confidence Aizawa can't chip. That’s important – reassuring, even. “It's actually her I'm more worried about.”
Aizawa feels his brow crease, folding in those lines he watches grow like a piece of origami folded and unfolded many times. “Why?”
“Masaru would never allow Hitoshi to come to any harm,” she says like a morbid statistic about suicide rates (like the sharp rise in deaths of quirkless children no one ever talks about). “Not physically, at least.”
“Dr. Shinsou’s not the only one out there,” Aizawa points out. “You saw the letter from–”
“If she's fucking my husband, the girl wouldn't dare.” Kiki takes another puff and knocks off more ash from her cigarette. “No matter how crazy the women eventually got, they never laid a hand on Hitoshi.” There’s a dark air of intimidation in Kiki’s speech by slow cigarette smoke – not like she’s scared, but that they’re the ones who should be scared of her. A quick sideways glance connects Kiki and Aizawa in a hard stare, and it’s not quite the same as the practiced mentalist synergy Aizawa’s specifically nurtured with Hitoshi, but it’s a similar enough to run a chill up Aizawa’s spine. “We already told you about the one who abducted him, right?”
Aizawa remembers. But it doesn't mean he necessarily believes Hitoshi is as safe as Kiki wants them all to believe. “You realise what Shiyoko is capable of?”
“And I know what my husband is capable of too,” Kiki replies sharply. “He wants us very much alive, and so help anyone who tries to change that.” She takes a pensive drag on her smoke, drifting across her doll-like features, fair lashes lowered as she looks down across the quiet backalley evening. Then with a glassy flick up to the front, doll eyes delivers a chilling, “That’s why I’m more worried about Yamaguichi.”
The final result of a codebreaking calculation that has been running in Aizawa's head since he first saw the footage of Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko in that hotel bed falls into place. How much Shiyoko wanted the Doc, compared to how much the Doc didn’t want her – no wonder Kiki called this a disaster waiting to happen. It’s not what they’d do to Hitoshi out there, it’s what the girl, police officer or not, would get hit with as a result.
“That's your expectation?” Aizawa tests gently. “An attempt to capture both of you?” And sending Hitoshi out splits them up – makes it more complicated. Aizawa can’t be sure it’s what Kiki’s thinking, but he could believe it if she was.
“A silly bitch might try to take a run at me alone, but she'll soon find out how well that works.” There's no doubt about it: Kiki can be utterly terrifying in her own right. No wonder Dr. Shinsou loves her, even from behind bars. “But my husband would never let anyone hurt Hitoshi, he's far too valuable.”
“Why?” Aizawa thinks he knows the answer, but he's not capitalising on time alone with Kiki to show off how he has all the answers already. He wants to know what she thinks.
“Hitoshi is Masaru’s only child, not for lack of trying,” Kiki confirms like Aizawa has already been told, but even the alignment between what Kiki and her son say reinforces Aizawa’s understanding of the tight bond between them. How they've been the only thing each other has had for a long time. Of course they’ve got their story straight.
“Well, not with Shiyoko,” Aizawa can't resist slipping in before he takes a thoughtful puff.
Kiki hesitates over the last quarter of her own cigarette, humanising herself with a question of her own. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, the Doc’s been…” If Aizawa had kept his aforementioned big mouth shut, he wouldn’t have to say this, but it’s as good as said now, “... using contraception with her.” Aizawa bears the fact up as distastefully as it went down the first time, and Kiki pulls an appalled face over a harsh drag.
“I don't want to imagine how you know that, but then I almost feel sorry for her.” Kiki turns to face out and rests her hand on the balcony railing, clenching the smoking end of her cigarette between two fingers.
“Why?” Aizawa repeats. Just as before, Aizawa knows what Hitoshi thinks it all means, but Kiki is in a very different position, and Aizawa needs all the insight he can get.
“If he isn’t trying to knock her up, the girl must fall below Masaru’s famously high standards.” Kiki takes the last harsh pull on her cigarette and stubs it out against the railing, tossing the end into an old plant pot in the corner of the ‘balcony’ filled with enough cigarette ends to sprout a tobacco plant. “Which means he’s desperate.”
“They both are.” Aizawa takes his own worried drag on his bummed cigarette, the nicotine rush soothing on frayed nerves, while the radio fades out of Hizashi's latest high-energy party anthem.
“Everyday I'm shufflin’... Put your hands up! That was party rock anthem ft. LMAO. A one-hit wonder that ages like a good bottle of whiskey! These guys sure know how to party! How we doing, Listeners? Still ready to rock with me?”
A deeply buried instinct compels Aizawa to glance over at the radio, like by some twist of quantum physics it'll be Hizashi sitting on top of the fridge chatting away at them. No such luck, but Aizawa can dream.
Except Kiki is too sharp, and standing far too close to miss such an obvious tell, following Aizawa’s hopeless gaze like a falcon after a sparrow. Lifting an eyebrow, she says, “Isn't Mic a teacher at UA like you’re supposed to be?” like she knows he is, but maybe doesn't want to come off too keen.
Aizawa could tell her the whole truth, but would she believe him? Most people don't, unless they see the proof. So all he offers is a, “We're familiar,” and it's true, if not the entire truth.
“Next up are the boys that have taken over the world! I met this crew at a party last year and they really know how to have a good time! Five out of seven members lasted through the night with me, earning themselves the Present Mic Party seal of approval! Which two passed out in my tub together? You guess! Tweet or text your guesses to me at PutYourHandsUpRadio and in the meantime here's their monster hit, it's BTS with Idol!”
With a fleeting look of struggle across her elegant features, Kiki asks with casual ease Aizawa doesn't quite buy, “Is he really like that in real life?”
Aizawa loses his internal battle and can't resist a grin, pausing to take the last salvageable drag on his cigarette, breathing out a fog of smoke as he returns Kiki's too-cool-to-show-it gaze. Aizawa doesn’t know their names, but he remembers the morning-after of that particular piece of carnage, coming home late from work and wanting to wash off some blood only to find a couple of Korean boys asleep in the bath.
So it’s with a returning gaze of deadpan cynicism that Aizawa delivers a cracked-desert dry, “Worse.”
This answer clearly pleases Kiki, so much so she walks back over to the radio and turns the music up. Aizawa stubs out his cigarette and drops it in the bucket, closing the sliding glass door to keep the humid night air at bay. Hitoshi and Yamaguichi better hope they don't get caught outside when the storm breaks, although far worse things could happen. Aizawa’s busy trying not to think about all of them at once.
So he goes for distraction. “Do you mind if I ask you a couple of things about your relationship with Dr. Shinsou?” There's a question, several in fact, that have been burning in Aizawa's mind, and hell if there's a way to bring it up in polite conversation.
Kiki is suspicious, but doesn't totally shut Aizawa down. Yet. “Like what?”
“Was your marriage ever happy?”
If Aizawa had walked across the room and slapped Kiki in the face she wouldn't have looked as shocked as she does now. Of course, Kiki doesn't need to cross the room to give Aizawa a good slap back, and he's acutely aware that it's a possibility after posing a question like that.
A silence stretches like elastic, tight enough to snap. Waiting for an answer.
“Sometimes… at the beginning,” Kiki finally answers with a long shadow falling over her face. “Why are you asking?”
“I'm just trying to understand all the factors.” Perhaps Aizawa comes off invasive, even creepy, thirsting after knowledge of the Doc's ‘softer’ side like this – what trace of it might have ever existed. But even monsters like Dr. Shinsou are made rather than born into their bloody destiny; Aizawa buys nurture over nature any day of the week, which means knowing the full history. “If he says he still loves you, I want to understand exactly how delusional that is.”
Kiki gives a stifled snigger, and Aizawa hopes he's curried favour by marking out the Doc’s lunacy in degrees of never-gonna-happen. But there's still a difference between the Doc believing that once-happy times can be returned to, however distant and unrealistic, to a monster who's ‘love’ for his family was always about their suffering. Especially if Kiki is so damn sure the Doc would never want to hurt them – and meeting him in prison, Aizawa’s not so fucking sure – so he’s just trying to figure it all out.
It’s not long before Kiki’s brief mirth fades into a sigh. “I was young and stupid back when we first met.”
“One of his students,” Aizawa supplies, filling in the gap he’s taken as read, but could still be wrong (at a push).
“Yes.” Kiki opens the fridge and takes out another beer – Aizawa shakes his head when she offers one to him. Doesn’t want to be too slow in his reactions, not at a time like this. “I was already familiar with the esteemed Professor’s work, actually disagreed with most of it – I only went into the class to challenge him on it.”
Aizawa would laugh, if he had any humour going spare in such extravagant quantities. He settles for a particularly feeble smile. “How'd he take it?” This is no Dr. Shinsou as he is now, but one of at least sixteen, probably more years ago. Aizawa can't help but wonder what kind of a man he was back then, or at least appeared to be on his smooth, polished veneer of the famous Professor of Mentalism. Confronted by a fiery young Kiki on his home turf, telling him he’s wrong.
“We had a huge argument in front of the whole class, then he used his quirk to throw me out of the lecture theatre.” Kiki pauses a moment, while Aizawa considers how many people she's told this story to. Not many, he suspects. “I came back to class the next week and we argued again, but he didn't throw me out that time… the third time he held me after class, then asked me out to dinner with him.” Another pause, this time while Kiki snaps the tab on a fresh beer and takes a swig. “Said I was fascinating.”
The Doc's right about one thing; Kiki is fascinating, so much poise and power, combined with strength of will that even Aizawa yields to.
Aizawa thinks carefully about what to say next, the points of clarity he needs to narrow down and define. Not just what's interesting, but what feeds his understanding of the complex, twisted-beyond-belief family dynamics driving this case towards the cliff like lemmings.
“So arguments were a natural part of your relationship, even early on,” Aizawa finally suggests, and Kiki gives a bitter laugh.
“I'll say.”
Crossing the kitchen, Kiki hops up to sit on the counter that reaches from the wall into the middle of the room, cutting off the living-dining area from the U-shaped kitchen. She sits with her knees apart in a way that could be called manspreading if done by anyone else, and something about the way she slugs beer in contrast with the soft beige of her suit, a couple of shirt buttons undone under the jacket, lays her out as precisely as a painting by a master artist. Along with with the fluffy pink kitten-heel slippers, it's easy to see why anyone, even Dr. Shinsou himself, would be able to fall besottedly in love with her. Aizawa isn't attracted to Kiki, so it's not like that, but even he can feel the fall. Simply marvelling at the incredible person that she is – just like her son, an apple not falling far from the tree. One thing is for sure: the Shinsou effect definitely isn't the only place Hitoshi gets his natural magnetism from.
Or maybe it's just mentalists in general that produce this siren-call aura, (Iwaya jumps irrepressibly to mind), and all the Shinsous just have more of that intoxicating energy than they know what to do with. Aizawa’s just a weird mortal on the ground, walking among gods.
“So what changed?” Aizawa dares to probe little further, still loitering by the window, where he's got a good eye on the front door.
“Like I said, I was young and stupid. Thought it made me special, thought the fighting was all part of the romance” Kiki takes another slug of her beer. “But I got older and wiser, for all Masaru tried to stop me.”
“From getting wise?” Aizawa guesses with narrowing eyes, not expecting even the Doc to think he can turn back the wheel of time.
Kiki delivers it without difficulty, but somehow that makes it more horrifying. “He persuaded me to drop out of college when I got pregnant, said I didn't need university education when I had him.”
Aizawa’s blood comes from a simmer to a boil, but there's one more question he wanted to ask. He looks at Kiki to pose it, an apology in his expression already. “Did you love him?”
She takes a moment, but that Aizawa isn't writing in mental agony on the ground right now must mean he hasn't crossed the line so badly just yet.
“When I still thought he was capable of love, yes.” It's a sad thing to hear, but there's little trace of it in Kiki's tone. “So, up until Hitoshi's quirk developed.”
“That's when things took a turn for the worse.” Aizawa isn't really asking because it isn't really a question – he's just putting it out there and waiting for Kiki to prove him wrong.
“Masaru was always… smothering around Hitoshi as a baby, but he still couldn't be sure that his quirk had been passed on.” Kiki can't hate Aizawa too much, if she's sharing these crucial pieces of the puzzle of Hitoshi's past with him. “When it did… he could hardly control himself.”
“Hitoshi’s quirk is stronger, too,” Aizawa observes. “Inherited from the both of you.”
“Yes. It was what Masaru thought he wanted – why he married me when I got pregnant,” Kiki reveals like lifting a piece of clothing to show a scar, but these scars aren't physical (Aizawa’s got enough of those to share).
“Thought he wanted?”
“We know that quirks are getting stronger with every generation, and in his head I believe Masaru wanted Hitoshi to surpass the limitations that frustrated him so much, but when Hitoshi could do it so easily–” Kiki cuts off, the blank for Aizawa to fill in.
“He was beaten,” Aizawa guesses in the direction his antenna for the Doc's warped mind tells him to go. The concoction of a brilliant mind poisoned by the perpetual fragility of the male ego, which is a vile mixture for anyone to stomach.
“Masaru couldn't handle it,” Kiki confirms direly. “To compensate he became even more controlling, like if he had complete dominance over Hitoshi, the power of Hitoshi's quirk was as good as his.”
Aizawa wishes he hadn't seen it before, but he has, too many times to want to count. It only takes one parent-teacher meeting to tell the parents who are proud of their children's achievements from those who want the credit to assuage their own howling egos, the ones to whom a child is just another channel for securing their own glory and legacy, continuing exactly the way their unhealthy pride wants to seek that twisted immortality. The curse of being #1 still going strong.
“I don't imagine Hitoshi took to that well,” Aizawa suggests over a finishing sip of his beer, feeling a little more relaxed, if only by increments.
“Exactly.” Kiki's slippers hang from her toes. “Things only got worse from there.”
This isn't a question directly about the case, but Aizawa asks it anyway, because he's got to know. “What was the last straw? That made you leave.”
“We… we fought so bitterly over whether Hitoshi was ready to be part of Masaru's research.” Kiki gives a sighing breath between jaunts of speech, like stepping stones across a melancholy river. “Masaru realised he had to show some kind of restraint to begin with, I think, but he still wouldn't let me near the study when they were in there together.” Kiki bounces her heels against the counter, gaze turned down – this is nothing she's proud of. “It wasn't obvious at first, so it took me a while to realise, maybe a month, not more than two, but…”
Aizawa doesn't say anything, doesn't push Kiki over the line. She's been pushed enough, surely.
It doesn't take long for Kiki to lift her misty lavender eyes to Aizawa’s solid brown-black gaze. “Hitoshi was scared of him.”
It's left a minute to sink in. Then Aizawa asks, “What was Hitoshi like with Dr. Shinsou before then?”
“Difficult,” Kiki answers precisely. “As soon as Hitoshi was old enough to exert any kind of will, whatever his father wanted him to do, Hitoshi wanted the opposite.”
“Can’t imagine the Doc liked that much.” Aizawa tries to keep to a line of wry cynicism that keeps the mood afloat like tying a party balloon to a brick. Won’t ever lift the damn thing off the ground, but it looks a little nicer at least.
“Exactly. They fought as badly as… Masaru and I did, I suppose.” She looks down again and Aizawa remembers the words Kiki used to describe herself back then – young and stupid. At least she sees the pattern now, unlike all those parents (Aizawa’s met plenty of those too) who scream and yell at each other and then wonder how their child learns to do the same. “Before the research started Hitoshi had no problem resisting his father, but once it started the fights stopped almost immediately… it took me a while to realise it was for all the wrong reasons.”
Aizawa's teeth are clenched so tight together at the back of his mouth he could crack his whole jaw. “Because Hitoshi was frightened of him.” And who wouldn’t be?
“I still don’t really know exactly what Masaru did to him.” Kiki reaches for her hair and picks strays from the hair-tie, soon getting fed up and taking it down entirely. Unbound, her hair sits just past her shoulders, that fair lilac that’s more silver than purple in the light. “Hitoshi was still so young, it was years before he had the verbal skills to even tell me, and by then I think he’d pushed it away.” It’s fair enough – even if Hitoshi remembers, could tell someone in every gristly piece of detail. What for? Some things are better left buried, when there’s nothing to gain from robbing that grave.
It’s hard for Aizawa to stay where he is, feeling a piece of him howl like a dog at the moon with the need to go find Hitoshi, wherever he is, and not do anything in particular but just to have him close and safe. How Kiki keeps it together on a daily basis is a feat of strength Aizawa has no choice but to bow down to.
“It was after that fucking dinner with Nezu, of all things,” Kiki continues unappetisingly. “Hitoshi was well-behaved all night, and Masaru was so pleased, showing off his perfect, obedient family.” This isn’t easy for Kiki to tell by any means, so Aizawa appreciates the privilege to know any of it. “Masaru did some uncharacteristically affectionate thing afterwards, like pat Hitoshi on the head I think, and I saw him–” she picks her words carefully, knowing they’re important. “It wasn’t a flinch, but the confusion and fear in Hitoshi’s eyes. I just knew.” That something was wrong, really wrong, when a child is full of terror from a display of supposed parental love.
Aizawa asks the question almost no one remembers to ask, but it’s one of the most important, because nothing is ever as easy as a single point of realisation. “How long before you were able to leave him?”
Kiki looks Aizawa dead in the eyes, not breaking the stare as she takes another drink, then slowly lowers the can from her lips. “Six months.”
It’s a good thing Aizawa’s opposed to killing, or he’d choke the life out of Dr. Shinsou with his own two hands.
Notes:
I forgot until editing this chapter that I listened to Party Rock Anthem almost on loop while writing a lot of this entire sequence. No one in the world can convince me Mic doesn't sing & dance that whole song and also own all the outfits for himself & Aizawa to couple-cosplay at parties. A one-sleeved leather & leopard print tracksuit?????? OBVIOUSLY HE OWNS THIS.
Love me these Aizawa & Kiki talks too, probably the best thing about having Hitoshi with an existing-parent setup in a 'Dadzawa' story is actually exploring those dynamics of how a new guardian figure fits in with the established system, so there's some wonderful exposition here that I've been looking forwards to revealing for a long time. Especially things like it taking TIME for Kiki to leave the Doc, because fleeing an abusive relationship, with a child no less, is no easy task and doesn't just happen overnight. (Take notes, Todoroki Rei)
Oh also who wanted more reasons to hate Dr. Shinsou??!?!??!?!? Everyone?? Cool.
Chapter 49: Take-Out
Summary:
Aizawa’s taken out by his lifelong nemesis: himself.
Notes:
Lovely comments on the last chapter! I'm always hit and miss on what I can get around to responding too, but I read everything and appreciate the following for this story a lot!!! You're all awesome.
This is a pretty major chapter for me, and y'all will see why ;)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As much as he tries to fight it, Aizawa’s heart is strung tighter than the final octave of a piano’s strings every moment Hitoshi and Yamaguchi are away. Staccato tunes of scenario after scenario of could-be would-be happenstances play in his head over what dire fates could befall the fresh-faced pair of rookies. Aizawa’s sure he’ll be at least five years older by the time they return, stewing like broth while Kiki just rolls her eyes and turns Hizashi’s radio show up a little louder.
“I'm addicted to you but ya know that you're toxiiic~ hitting you with some iconic Britney Spears, Listeners! An oldie but a goodie! How we all doing? Still rocking with me? Well if this one doesn't get you on your feet then you better make an appointment with your doctor to fix your broken taste in music! It's 젖어’S Wet by Flowski x Jessi!”
Maybe Aizawa’s being a rookie too, caught up with all this worrying around the clock schtick that he never had such a problem with in the past. When Aizawa’s with his kids in 1-A, or whatever combination of numbers-and-letters Nezu has allotted to him any particular year in the long blur of his adult life, he’ll worry with the best of them while they’re still his responsibility – especially when his back is turned, and double-especially with this recent rowdy lot. But once the school day is over and Aizawa’s shift has finished, his worry finds a natural perch to roost on, waiting until the sun rises again to crow and go back on high alert.
Except with Hitoshi, Aizawa’s realising there is no respite, no resting point in his concern over where the kid is and what might be happening to him. That fear is a simple constant literally whenever Hitoshi's more than three feet distance from Aizawa. He's not exactly accustomed, and Aizawa has to wonder if it’s anything like what being a parent is.
Although, there’s one way to find out.
“Does the worrying get any easier?” Aizawa asks Kiki, apropos of nothing, from the dining room chair she’s relegated him to while she lounges on the couch. Aizawa’s slumped to one side, reaching for the floor so he can soothingly brush his fingers down the cat’s back as it sleeps in a heap at the foot of his chair. This question might seem like a turn out of the blue for Kiki, but every step inside Aizawa’s head has been logical up to this point, and who cares if it makes sense from the outside?
It takes Kiki a second, but only a second. “About Hitoshi?” She’s sitting on the sofa with the rest of her beer and a glass of water to nurse it with. If she was drinking all evening perhaps Aizawa would have another kind of worry among the rest, but given the exclusively stressful circumstances he’s known Kiki in, he can’t blame her for wanting a couple of beers in the evening after work. And just because Aizawa’s a lightweight who can't handle more than a beer without becoming tipsy doesn't mean Kiki's the same.
Kiki gives a little more thought before answering, and Aizawa’s validated just to be considered for this long. “It comes and goes.” Maybe that’s sympathy Kiki holds in her eye while a cool gaze rests on Aizawa; whether Kiki likes it or not (and how could she?), Aizawa’s crash-landed into Hitoshi’s life with alarming speed, and the two of them cooperating is certainly a lot better than any alternative. They don’t have the luxury for division among the ranks, and Kiki out of anyone has to know that good and well.
As if conjured by his very worry, Aizawa’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes a pause from therapeutic cat-petting to check the notification. Nothing from Hizashi, who is still nattering away on-air, and has been of some comfort to Aizawa and Kiki both, he suspects – if for somewhat different reasons. But it's who Aizawa’s been desperate to hear from, and even if Hitoshi only sends a few words, they’re enough to set a soothing blanket over nerves worn raw with paranoia. ‘Heading back. Nothing happened.’
Maybe mother knows best, and it was fine for Hitoshi and Yamaguichi to head out on this little excursion, but they’re not in the door yet, so Aizawa’s only half-convinced.
“They’re heading back now.” Aizawa lifts his head to inform Kiki, firing a quick ‘ok’ to Hitoshi and then deliberately putting his phone away. Aizawa wonders how calculated it was that Hitoshi decided to message him instead of her. Surely Hitoshi's aware they would share the news with each other, but is perhaps sensing (and satisfying) the bigger worrywort among them on purpose. Or he likes the excuse to message Aizawa. Either way, Aizawa appreciates it.
“About time, I’m starving.” Kiki gets up and crosses into the kitchen to start getting out plates and bowls. Aizawa rises to help her but she orders him back down with a flapping hand gesture, rolling through the motions of a normal dinnertime routine while Trashbag breaks into a warbling alleyway aria about how he's surely due to starve if Kiki doesn't feed him immediately.
“Enough of you, Fatso,” Kiki scoffs as the cat is booted from the kitchen altogether, relegated back to wheezing at Aizawa’s feet and ignoring the conciliatory scratches Aizawa attempts to give him.
“How did he end up yours?” Aizawa asks to pass time, and small talk is rare for him, but he doesn't consider discussions about cats small in the least.
This takes Kiki a minute too, but a glance at Aizawa, still lop-sided as he reaches for the floor to pet Trashbag, closes any gaps in knowledge that might have remained. “The cat? Hitoshi found him on the way home from school one day.” Kiki’s pouring cups of water from a jug she takes out of the fridge, and the scene is almost everyday, except for all the ways that it isn't. “Poor creature had been hurt somehow, street fighting or got hit by a bike maybe. Hitoshi brought him home to recover and the squatter’s been here ever since.”
“And the name?” Aizawa hazards.
“He was in the garbage when Hitoshi found him, but I was the one who started calling him that,” Kiki reveals chattily, and then, as if nostalgia has tickled her senses, pulls a dreadful face. “The smell.”
Taking him by surprise, Aizawa manages a chuckle. Even if they're all still scared, he has to admit it's amazing the way Kiki can make the world seem like it's still turning just as ordinarily as any other day. Because worry isn't a state of environment but a state of mind, and it reminds Aizawa that it takes hard work and determination to lift a mood – not for himself, who can handle any dark and dreary reality, but for others. Loved ones who deserve better than to be afraid because you couldn't keep the darkness better at bay. It's the same reason Aizawa always tells Hizashi he's fine when he isn't – shielding someone them from the worst. Even when it’s– especially when it’s likely to happen.
“At first I thought it was because Old Stinky was too hurt to clean himself,” Kiki continues with a matter of factness that harks of a courtroom presentation, “but after he recovered, we realised he just likes being dirty.”
“Can't blame him,” Aizawa's voice has taken on a gruff lilt, finally drawing more of the cat's attention as he coaxes Trashbag to rub his face over Aizawa’s knuckles, which have definitely seen better days – fresh bruises rising and plenty filthy from the inside of the Embassy's garbage chute. He ought to wash them before they eat at least, Aizawa hears in Hizashi's scolding tones from the back of his head.
“Yeah.” Kiki's giving Aizawa a look like he's the newest filthy, raggedy-eared stray that Hitoshi dug out of the trash and took home after school. It's not entirely inaccurate. “I get that about you.”
Aizawa rises with the bare bones of a smile and heads to the bathroom to wash up a little, because he is human after all (just about). On the way back he decides to give the rest of the apartment a quick look-over for safety's sake.
Kiki’s room, for the moments Aizawa peeks into it to be sure there's no one lying in wait for them, is uneventful – and not as tidy as Aizawa would expect from anyone wielding such iron will. The bed is disturbed from Yamaguichi’s slumber, probably, but there's also a tall stack of books that overflows from the bedside table onto the far side of the bed. Picking out a sense of the stories from the titles and covers alone, Aizawa’s a little surprised to spot the kind of pulpy romance, even manga, that he’d have never guessed for Kiki in a million years. Perhaps that’s just why, though. A fantasy so removed from reality it can be consumed like popcorn. Aizawa only keeps his head past the door for a moment, not wanting to invite Kiki’s wrath for nosing around in his “paranoia”, but still does the same for Hitoshi’s room, door almost opposite to his Ma’s.
Hitoshi’s room is not so wildly different from the rooms of students Aizawa’s seen over the years, prepared to a certain recipe, complete with posters of obscure, early-era Heroes; Aizawa didn’t realise they even made posters for Rorschach, yet Hitoshi’s managed to acquire one: the unmistakable black-and-white mask that Aizawa’s only seen in ancient police reports. But there’s nothing in here that ought to have mortified a police officer, even a rookie like Yamaguichi, unless she’s mortally offended by the scattering of socks and underwear on the floor, among rumpled tracksuits that Hitoshi has stripped and dumped in a corner as each got too filthy (or bloodstained) to continue wearing. Kid could use a good functional jumpsuit is what.
Then Aizawa spots it. A book that’s surely been filched from his Ma’s collection on the table next to Hitoshi’s bed, dog-eared like it’s come second-and-then-third hand, before finally ending up in a teen boy’s possession. Hitoshi’s never shown discomfort with his Ma’s sometimes over-cutsey stylings, and who can blame him, after what he’s been through for a male role model, which apparently extends to sharing her taste in reading. Aizawa only takes a couple of steps into the room, but it’s enough to make out the lanky figures on the cover, drawn in that particular giraffe-like style mangas of a certain sort seem determined to stick to.
There’s a woman and a man posed together, though the latter might be perhaps better suited to the term boy, for his doe eyes and youthful appearance slots him into a bishounen shaped letterbox without a second thought. He’s also the only one wearing a school uniform, leaning over a desk for the purposes of courting the professionally dressed female. Alright, Aizawa’s a little curious, and takes another step closer.
The title: “Oh! Teacher” makes Aizawa roll his eyes so hard they could turn full circle, and the flustered bespectacled woman on the cover is roundabouts par for course with the way Yamaguichi had been blushing after she came back from ‘inspecting’ Hitoshi’s room the first time. So that’s one small mystery solved.
Before further consideration can be given to Hitoshi's tastes in pulp romance, Aizawa hears the front door and about-turns on instinct, pacing back into the main room to catch the return of Hitoshi and his uniformed lady-escort, laden with bags of delicious smelling food.
“We're back,” Hitoshi is calling through the apartment when Aizawa plods back into view, but the cat beats him to it; Trashbag barrels toward Hitoshi and attends to his saviour with great enthusiasm to the yowling and rubbing of Hitoshi’s legs like the poor creature might not make it another day without someone feeding him right now. “Nice try, Trashbag.”
Hitoshi's gaze finds Aizawa’s across the room as he finishes, and Aizawa feels that piece of him relax to be around Hitoshi, to know that anything that happens to the kid is something Aizawa will be the first to know about. It's not much, but it's enough for Aizawa to weakly return the charming smile Hitoshi shines at him.
“Miss me?” If Hitoshi were a cat, he'd be bathing in cream, and there's a needy pull to the energy between them that makes Aizawa think Hitoshi feeling missed is just as, if not more, important than Aizawa’s side of the equation. A tentative grin hidden in the hard edges of Aizawa’s face is all that tells the truth, but that’s enough between them.
“Did you see those homeless people from before?” Aizawa sticks to business, applying his address to Yamaguichi as well as the tall purple spring onion by her side.
“Nosir!” Yamaguichi bleats before catching herself halfway to a salute, remembering – after Hitoshi rolls his eyes and nudges her with an elbow – that Aizawa is most assuredly outside her usual authority structure and seriously doesn't care for the formality.
“Seems like they'd cleared off by the time we came back around.” Hitoshi’s carrying all the bags full of food, leaving Yamaguichi's hands wisely free and maybe cashing in on being a little chivalrous in the process. There’s something about the sight of the pair together that makes Aizawa think maybe he can let go just a little of the worry that makes it so hard for him to bear being parted from Hitoshi. Kid doesn't need another smothering parent.
Hitoshi crosses in front of Aizawa to hand the food over to his Ma and immediately starts plating, while Aizawa stays seated in his chair at the dining table.
“You weren't followed?” If Aizawa were thorough, he'd go out and scout the area himself, track down the suspicious people and eliminate any risk. But he'd have to leave Hitoshi and Kiki alone to do that, which is worse, because if Aizawa’s not here and misses the moment, anything could happen. So the impossible balancing act continues: to stay and eat dinner like nothing is wrong, waiting for it to go wrong, or go out and find trouble like it's Aizawa’s middle name – something Hizashi likes to say, usually while claiming his middle name is “The Power”.
“I don't think so.” Yamaguichi doesn't sound too sure, which is a good sign if anything; overconfidence causes more mistakes than Aizawa’s ever known overcautiousness to.
So to hell if it’s paranoid: it works.
“They don't need to follow us,” Hitoshi adds morbidly from behind the kitchen counter, helping to dish up alongside his Ma. “They already know where to find us.”
“Didn’t you ever think about moving?” The prying question doesn't come from Aizawa for once, but Yamaguichi. If Aizawa had asked, he’d have been less presumptions in his phrasing.
“We moved four times before Hitoshi was eight,” Kiki returns with the air of a cracking whip, and Yamaguichi bites her lip so fast it’s a wonder it doesn’t button. “It's never enough, so why bother?” Aizawa remembers Hitoshi saying once he and his Ma almost left the country. Aizawa wonders where they'd have gone, what life they might have had outside Japan.
“And besides.” Hitoshi uses his brushed velvet tone, the one that makes a person want to bury their face in the fabric and just block out the rest of the world for a while, the white noise mental embrace that Aizawa craves every time he thinks about it. “We like this place.”
“Oh! W-well, it's very nice,” Yamaguichi stutters like she’s embarrassed herself, which is as endearing as all her other overly sincere qualities and immediately makes up for any rookie mistakes. “I didn't mean to suggest–”
“Relax, Yankumi,” Hitoshi soothes with a smile that's terribly fond, but his gaze soon shifts to Aizawa. “If something happens to us, it might as well be in a place we're familiar with.”
“True,” Aizawa concedes, and then reverts to his honest conversation with Kiki. “What happened when you stopped running?”
“What do you think?” Kiki’s still sharp as she clicks over bearing several dishes to set on the table, one overburdened with an absolutely outrageous number of dumplings. She stops at the tableside and sets them down with a clack, her empty hands coming to rest on her hips, and Aizawa can feel the air of intimidation pressing down on him like a weighted blanket. “He stopped chasing us.”
Stalemate. It makes sense, Aizawa supposes, that the Doc would only be more intense in his pursuit of his family the longer they kept running from him. If they stayed still, Kiki could certainly keep the Doc from getting too close – after all, her quirk needs no response to work. Mrs. Shinsou could have her husband rolling on the ground with ‘mental battery’ before he got a single word out edgeways. A loggerheads that might have continued all the way up to the massacre, punctuated by rash actions committed by the Doc's roster of emotionally unbalanced ‘assistants’ who took a run at Kiki or Hitoshi from time to time, or Hitoshi’s not-so-fond remembrance of being abducted or pulled out of school for “fake medical emergencies”, every trick the Doc had up his sleeve to get a little closer.
Yamaguichi looks like she's trying to be serious but is also very hungry, perhaps needing a bib or napkin of some sort to mop her watering mouth over the enticing smell of the food as she drifts over to the table and sits down. The sound of one of Hizashi’s scratchy rock tracks, which had been filling the air like a flock of panicked birds, dies down as it strikes Aizawa that neither Kiki or Hitoshi made any mention of what any of this costs. But then, they wouldn't.
“That was ‘In Crowd’ by the rock legend himself, Miyavi! I don't know what they're feeding him down in LA but it seems to be working! Our time is almost over, Listeners, and I sure hope you're still rocking with me, because we've got time for one more tune, and this one is from my personal collection of classic rock anthems. It's dedicated to a very special person in my life, who has been making it especially difficult lately, and he probably isn’t hearing this so what does it matter but HEY, this one's for you, baby! It's Bon Jovi with ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’.”
Several things happen as the opening riff of a song Aizawa has watched Hizashi play air guitar to so many times around their apartment even he knows the English lyrics.
“SHOT THROUGH THE HEART AND YOU'RE TO BLAME! DARLING YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME!”
A bang blows the front door open, and every neuron in Aizawa's brain fires at once. He's on his feet, head running a thousand miles an hour while adrenaline floods his system because someone just shot the locks off the goddamn door, and they're not going to stop there.
Two figures barge into the apartment of evolving the chaos, set to the pumping guitars of Hizashi's beloved song – and what Aizawa wouldn't give for a little of his lover's magic about now. Hizashi's quirk at least, which could blast these two back out the door they came from without a second thought.
Instead, Aizawa’s staring down the barrel of a gun that's two hollow fingers held together, but going by the smoking knuckles of this shabby looking man's other hand (the disappeared homeless men Yamaguichi saw before, perhaps), which seems the likely source of the shotgun-like blast that almost took the door off, this guy's finger guns don't mess around.
The other is a woman who looks like she could fight a brick shithouse and the building would go down in the first round. Tall and broad, she’s brandishing and old-fashioned pistol in one hand and an especially long knife in the other.
Kiki had assured Aizawa, almost a convinced him, in fact, that anyone the Doc sent for herself and Hitoshi would be under express orders not to harm them. Only, these two don't look much like pacifists, and the one with guns for hands has his fingers pointed dead at Aizawa.
Every fragment of a second feels slowed down, time diced like carrots by the knife edge of Aizawa’s heartbeat; so it seems like a long time for Aizawa to consider that Dr. Shinsou might not want harm to come to his wife and son, but that protective instinct is reversed entirely when it comes to Aizawa himself. If anything, it’s a stretch to assume the Doc doesn’t want him dead.
In the time it takes to think this, the gunman’s thumb clicks back like a hammer, and Aizawa’s slowed-down experience of time gives him just long enough to conclude the next best course of action.
“My quirk isn’t working–” Kiki’s voice is disembodied and panicked, coming from the side of Aizawa as his gaze is focused wholly on the figures in front of him. It comes to Aizawa’s notice that the second assassin, the woman, isn’t aiming for him – because Shiyoko is a wild card, and Kiki herself admitted that one of the Doc’s jaded lovers “might try to take a run at her” and if Shiyoko’s anything, it’s capable of violence. So truly, no one is safe.
Kiki had been confident before to fall back on her quirk, and even Aizawa’s sure he gets that white-noise buzz from whatever Kiki tries to do to them, but what she hadn’t considered is If Shiyoko’s the one brainwashing these two – the all-powerful vice of her quirk written out-of-sight but not out-of-mind – then no amount of pain Kiki might try to inflict would work on a mind already paralyzed by such a deadly brainwashing quirk.
“Ma!” Hitoshi bellows while Aizawa’s plunging his hands in the coil of his capture weapon around his neck. At the same dilated fast-slow pace, Yamaguichi is drawing her own firearm. “Get down!”
Hitoshi leaps for his mother as Aizawa flicks both hands forward, sending out two strands of his capture weapon like a shot – but not as fast as a shot. The last time he was in a small room with several armed people turned out hellishly, and Aizawa’s determined not to let it happen again. And there’s only one way Aizawa can be sure to break the shootout, and that’s by completely removing the shooters from the scene.
With the man and woman blocking the front door, and the balcony door only a few feet behind Aizawa, there’s one obvious way out.
The gunman gets off a first shot as Aizawa’s capture weapon curls around him and pulls tight, yanking the aim off-trajectory just enough that the bullet skims past Aizawa’s shoulder rather than through it, cracking the heavy glass door of the balcony. The woman never fires, her would-be target tackled protectively to the floor before she can pull the trigger, and then lashed with the other piece of Aizawa’s capture weapon before she can take new aim.
There’s time yet for refires, but Aizawa’s not going to let it get that far. Clenching both hands into fists, he yanks hard to rip both shooters off their feet, dragging them like a couple of badly made kites behind him, and then turns and barrels through the balcony door shoulder-first.
The glass is already cracked from the first (and if Aizawa can help it, only ) shot fired, which helps, but it didn’t shatter the pane entirely, which it now does as the weight of Aizawa hits it like a train. No time to open the sliding double-glass panel, Aizawa just ploughs through it, locking one hand onto the balcony railing as he drags both tethers of his capture weapon to clench in his other fist.
The momentum shifts when Aizawa flips over the edge of the balcony, pulling hard to whip the assassins through the hole he made and then swinging them down into the alleyway fast and wild. No one in the apartment can get intentionally or accidentally shot if they’re not in the apartment, and turning Aizawa’s shoulder and arm into a glass pin-cushion to achieve that is a small price to pay for that kind of security.
Or perhaps not so small, Aizawa considers as his arm screams in pain at taking his weight plus the two hardly feather-light assassins underneath him as they bash into the wall underneath them. Alone this load would be a lot to handle, but the integrity of his muscles is being severely hampered by the shards of glass sticking out of them – probably being made worse by this struggle, it occurs in a fuzzy part of Aizawa’s mind, while hot blood runs from his arm and shoulder down past his neck onto his chest.
“Aizawa!” Hitoshi lurches into view above Aizawa on the balcony, hands locking like iron around Aizawa’s arm, trying to relieve but only worsening the force that is tearing his flesh apart. They’re only a couple of floors up, not that far to fall, but Aizawa’s probably in no state to drop any number of stories. “What the fuck just happened?! Shit, help me hold him– fuck he’s heavy.”
More hands arrive along with Hitoshi’s to grip Aizawa’s mangled arm, managing to alleviate some of the weight, though not doing much for the pain.
The fact that there aren’t further gunshots from below leads Aizawa to conclude the impact of bonking the assassins against wall like a couple of conkers managed to knock them out, but it does make for a dead weight that’s increasingly uncomfortable to bear.
Drawing on his last reserves of strength, and pulling on the extra anchor provided by the pairs of hands gripping his bloodied arm, Aizawa reaches up and lifts the arm bearing both unconscious criminals by trails of his capture weapon, groaning but just able to get a grip on the railing.
“Fuck me,” Aizawa hears in a voice that’s got to be Hitoshi’s, because it’s not Kiki or Yamaguichi, but it sounds different; distorted, or maybe just older. “Up on the count of three, okay?” Then aside, like flicking a playing card across a room. “Ma, call an ambulance.”
Working with the support Hitoshi and Yamaguichi give him on the count of three, Aizawa’s able to haul himself up to the railing at chest level with a pained grunt he can’t suppress as his arm yells “You’ve stuffed me full of glass, stupid fucker!” at max volume in his head. Which is probably what Hizashi’s going to be yelling at him later. Fuck, Hizashi.
Hitoshi’s hands leave Aizawa for a moment, but he can make out from the quick fumbling around Aizawa’s collar that's probably Hitoshi pulling out the rest of the lengths of capture weapon holding the villains and tying them securely to the rail.
“You can let go, Aizawa,” Hitoshi prompts while Aizawa’s vision swims, the light from inside sliding up and down while Hizashi’s rock classic blares merrily in the background. More disembodied sound, mixing up down Aizawa’s tunnel-vision like he’s several feet inside his own head. “You’re really something else.”
The radio cuts through, sharp and hard: “Whooooa you’re a loaded gun~ whoooa there’s nowhere to run! No one can save me, the damage is done! SHOT THROUGH THE HEART–”
Aizawa releases his grip on the criminals tentatively at first, then feels the binding Hitoshi fixed pull tight against the railing. The weight comes away, now just holding his own weight over the railing. Hitoshi’s hands return, this time scooping underneath his armpits – one of them soon soaked in blood – and hauls Aizawa like dragging a man overboard onto a life raft.
Barely able to lift himself anymore as adrenaline gives way to shock, Aizawa clumsily works with Hitoshi and Yamaguichi, the latter grabbing him by the scruff (like the alleycat he is) to clamber back over the railing. Aizawa lets himself plop like a soaked towel onto the small strip of concrete below, upsetting the planter of cigarette ends in the process. The rancid smell of stale tobacco floods the air, and Aizawa reaches for his shoulder, feeling for the protruding edges of glass curiously when Hitoshi’s hand clamps back down over his.
“Don’t you dare.” Hitoshi’s seriously not in the mood, and it reminds Aizawa of Hizashi for a moment, which sparks another panicked yearning of obligation to tell Hizashi what’s happened, before he goes insane with worrying. The same insane instinct that made Aizawa try to make Hizashi his dying words all those years ago, still beating stronger than ever. “You’re– are you listening to me, Aizawa? You need to–”
Before Aizawa can do a thing more, his consciousness slips away like water down a drain.
Aizawa’s sinking in deep water, falling through the dark. Down and down and down some more. But he resurfaces for a moment or two at a time, gasping for air as they’re moving him onto a stretcher, soaked through with a roar in the background that drowns everything else out. There’s a hand gripping his arm – the one that’s still in tact.
Trying to lift heavy sandbag eyes, grit across the lenses as he lifts the lids and sees only swimming lights. A voice from far away. “Aizawa? Aizawa? Can you hear–”
Back down under the waves, swaying motion as he’s carried out of the place. Aizawa’s disappointed in himself, going down so quickly. But then, the amount of blood he’s lost in stages over the past few days – not enough time to recuperate, fill the tank back up to full before going and losing a whole lot more. The fuel gauge that’s running desperately low, but he’s still here. In body, if not in mind.
There’s another bump, driftwood against the shore, and Aizawa lifts again above the surface to a voice he doesn’t recognise at all.
“Are you his family?”
Kiki, sharp as the glass piercing his skin, shouting above the wet torrent. “Of course we fucking are, can’t you see that?” The hand has left Aizawa’s arm, but Hitoshi can’t be far. Aizawa can sense the worried, anxious pulse that reaches the hidden muscle in his mind. “Get that out of my face– how about taking my gravely injured husband to the hospital first, and we can sort out the fucking paperwork later?”
If Aizawa could do anything, except lie here and bleed, he might have laughed at the thought of Kiki pretending to be his wife. What a cruel trick of fate, albeit logical in itself – they wouldn’t let non-family travel with Aizawa in the ambulance, would be forced to separate them at the hospital. It’s easy to assume, sensible even, and keeps them all close to Aizawa, which he likes – not that he’s much fucking good to them right now.
But there’s still someone else missing, the one they won’t call because Aizawa’s supposed ‘wife’ is here, even when he’s not – because he’s at home, listed as an emergency contact under ‘friend’ because there’s no way of registering that Hizashi is so much more, antiquated rules for an arbitrary status between people of an even-more-arbitrary gender. Aizawa’s phone is vibrates, he thinks (that or the butt plug keyring), but there’s no hands to answer it. Still, Aizawa knows who it is.
They must give him painkillers by the time he’s in the ambulance, because it hurts less, but more to the point, Aizawa’s pretty sure he’s melting. Blurry eyes cracked open can barely perceive depth, but there isn’t much space to see anyway. Blobs of complementary hues of purple to his side, which become animated as he stirs to the sound of a popular love song emanating from Aizawa’s side.
“Stay still, for fuck’s sake.” A firm hand presses down on Aizawa’s chest as he attempts to stir. “What on earth is that?”
“Gotta talk to–” Aizawa’s slurring his words, probably not words at all, and tries to reach for his phone only to discover he’s bound to the stretcher, and couldn’t move even if he wanted to.
“Seriously, Aizawa.” Hitoshi’s here too, a new pressure that reaches Aizawa’s forearm strapped to his side and squeezes it like needing to be sure he’s still real. “You’re gonna hurt yourself even worse if you keep struggling.”
“Hiza–” Aizawa gets to before being interrupted.
“Leave it!” Hitoshi snaps, and there’s a kick behind it that hits the back wall of Aizawa’s head. “They’ll call back – they haven’t fucking stopped calling, actually.”
But fighting is all Aizawa knows, so it’s with a groan of failed exertion that he attempts to answer his still-ringing phone, then passes out again in the process.
More movement, different lights that pass over Aizawa’s closed eyes, and distant voices.
“And you are–”
“His wife and son of course, you don’t see the resemblance?”
“But your ID–”
“Instead of bleating on about who the fuck we are, why don’t you focus on helping my husband before he bleeds to death over your sodding paperwork?”
Kiki is marvellous at the hospital, bullying her way past every well-reasoned attempt to find out who she actually is and remaining, her and Hitoshi both, right by Aizawa’s side as they wheel him like a cadaver through swinging sets of doors. They inject him with local anaesthetic that deadens his arm entirely – to pick out and patch up the mess he made of his flesh, when it was all that stood between Aizawa and protecting the people he needs to protect. Supposed resemblance or no, there’s no records to back up the fabrication of their being family, but Kiki’s confidence and sharp tongue slices through the red tape without ever giving away her true identity.
Eventually Aizawa comes to rest on a bed, drugged and dazed. Nothing hurts, but that’s only for now – it’ll come sooner or later.
For now, there’s the voice again, sharp like steel, strong where Aizawa’s become weak.
“–don’t know who you think you are, Aizawa, but Hitoshi’s already lost too much for you to join the ranks, so you’re not going anywhere. You hear me?” There’s a hand on his arm again, same place Hitoshi had been gripping so intently in the ambulance, but Kiki wouldn’t talk like this if Hitoshi were here, so they must be alone. “I’ll never forgive you for dying on him, so take care of yourself, you silly bastard.”
Aizawa’s heard this sentiment so many times he can only conclude that it’s not the people who keep saying it to him, but him that’s the common factor.
Maybe, eventually, he’ll learn to listen.
Notes:
Does this count as a cliffhanger? Not sure if it's... just.... dramatic. It's a lot of fun trying to find ways to be surprising so far into this story, and with the length that it is I HAVE to still be finding ways to keep it fresh or it'd be a slow death. Hopefully chapters like this ensure that the story pacing is still pretty dramatic.
HOW BOUT KIKI IN THAT HOSPITAL THO. We stan a queen.
Update: art of this chapter gifted by the amazing incredible Budderdomo!
Chapter 50: Safehouse
Summary:
Aizawa wakes up alone, but that's the least of his problems.
Notes:
I got super confused for a moment uploading this chapter because it turns out my personal numbering had two 42s (the meaning of life HAH) so I thought this was chapter 49 but it's actually 50 and we are officially OVER 300k!!!! THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND WORDS. That's how long this story is and it's still not even that close to being done!! What are you crazy buggers still doing here?!!?!?
Oh, right, incredibly dramatic events that took place last chapter... right....
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When Aizawa finally opens his eyes to vision that’s no longer blurry, the first thing he sees is a light above him pouring sickly light across faded ceiling tiles, but it’s at least in focus. He's in a hospital bed, alone, surrounded by a curtain and hooked up to an IV. A small testing movement starts a pain race galloping from his shoulder across his chest, pressing a startled wheeze out of him as the winner crosses the finish line. Gritting his teeth, Aizawa pushes on his good arm, the right, thankfully – he knows how to sacrifice a less dominant body part – and clumsily gets to sitting upright in the bed. The ward is deathly quiet, making him think it must be late already.
Then it hits all at once.
Hizashi is gonna be furious.
It strikes like a new shock of pain, but emotional rather than physical: Aizawa’s got to get the fuck home. Impeding that goal, they've fully stripped and put him in a hospital robe somewhere along the way, no sign of Aizawa’s jumpsuit or the belongings that he needs contained therein.
With a further grinding groan against his own ravaged body, a shoulder full of stitches and cocktail of drugs to blame for that, Aizawa turns and drags himself out of bed. Unsteady on his feet like a toddler, he fumbles to take out the IV, hissing through his teeth as he yanks the needle out and throws it down on the vacated bed behind him. Staggering onto his feet, Aizawa pushes back the curtain and then pads sluggishly through a sleepy ward on bare feet – and bare ass, the back of his robe left billously open to the elements. It's like some bizarre rebirth, or at least a respawn at the nearest medical establishment.
The hospital is blessedly quiet on the night shift, so no one notices Aizawa leaving his bed, perhaps not expecting an ICU patient up so soon, or so confirms the sign on the door Aizawa lets himself out through. He didn’t think he was that badly injured, to be in intensive care, but the decision was clearly out of his hands. They certainly drugged him to high hell for the pain of whatever he’s done to himself under that bandage. But if Aizawa’s a lightweight who gets tipsy after a couple of beers, he can take enough sedatives to down an elephant. They'll have to do better than that to keep him under.
Aizawa starts following the brightly coloured lines on the floor for the exit, hoping to come across a reception or nurses station that might help him in the process, but the hallways are dormant, the forced wall of quiet that always encircles an Intensive Care Unit. Aizawa’s almost at the point of switching plans, fuck the exit, and finding a damn payphone to ring Hizashi on just like the old days when he drifts like a spectre into a waiting room containing a couple of important occupants.
Hitoshi is sprawled, all eight miles of him, across a length of felty padded chairs a couple of metres from where Aizawa stands. In an utterly heart-wrenching show of his age – growing up fast, but still several parts a child – he’s fast asleep with his head in his Ma’s lap.
Kiki, however, is wide awake. The supposed Mrs. Aizawa (awful sound to it) is watching long before Aizawa staggers into sight at an undeniable wounded-crawl walk, so the only movement thereafter is a slight tilt of her soft jaw to one side, the dark bags under her eyes and sculpted eyebrows merely adding emphasis to her already bone-dry tone.
“Well, look who it is.”
Hitoshi stirs but doesn't wake, and like courting a lavender lapcat Kiki brushes her fingers through her son's hair, settling him back into slumber. Shambling closer, Aizawa sees a dark streak through the front of Hitoshi’s violet locks that’s managed to harden like gel. After a moment’s consideration, Aizawa has to conclude it’s probably his own blood, carelessly brushed up there by frantic hands and left to dry earlier on in the chaos.
“Do you know where my stuff is?” Aizawa sticks to the point, because this happy reunion is all well and good, but there's no point if Hizashi murders him later. Aizawa’s got one sole objective right now, and until then, everything else – even Dr. Shinsou, for now – will have to wait.
“In the cardboard box under my chair.” Kiki’s a voice has a chill, but it’s more like fresh snow on a winter’s day, glittering under the sun. Those bags under her eyes might be hanging heavy, but her movements are dainty as she shifts her ankles to the side, so Aizawa can crouch down and slide the box of his belongs out. Of course the resourceful ‘Mrs. Aizawa’ would take her husband’s possessions when he went under the knife, for safekeeping.
Aizawa’s body feels like it's been thrown through a glass door – and oh, it has – so retrieving his things takes a while of stiff, careful movements. This pained silence is shattered by Kiki remarking, as if to no one in particular, “They asked me to help undress you, you know.”
So that’s what happened to Aizawa’s underwear.
Aizawa can't help but scoff – or at least try to, but it's empty like sails with all the wind blown out of them – and comes out more of a wheeze. “I heard you telling them we're married.” It's probably disguised behind his chaotic rats-nest hair at this point, but Aizawa lifts an eyebrow as he looks at her anyway, and how does even that hurt? He barely hit his face at all on the double-glazed door he jumped through a few hours ago, it seems unfair that Aizawa should ache from head to toe when he only fucked-up parts of his body.
“I was supposed to tell them anything else?” Kiki dismisses with a whisper, gently twirling her fingers in Hitoshi's hair with maternal instinct that must be eons old. “He didn't want to leave your side, and only family get to stay.”
… And they are, aren't they?
Aizawa feels it, and he knows Hitoshi does, but can't presume that Kiki feels it too. If not now, hopefully in time. Maybe Aizawa’s capable of a thought beyond Hizashi, even at a time like this.
Hitoshi is finally awoken by the activity happening around his head, hoisting tired eyelids while Aizawa’s still hovering close to Kiki's lap. With the deft moves of a ninety year-old man, Aizawa’s still crouched over with his fingers wrapped around one of the handles of the box on the floor, where his jumpsuit has been stuffed like a bag of garbage into a too-small chute, when Hitoshi opens his eyes.
They’re close, Aizawa’s scratchy jaw just a few inches above Hitoshi’s endless violet gaze. Confusion blooms to recognition in Hitoshi’s face, and for for a moment, it’s kinda like the sun has risen. Personal and Professional Hero: back on his feet. But all that comes from a sleepy-lipped mouth with the ease of a petal drifting softly from the tree, is an inadmissibly teenage, “Hey.”
“Hi.” Aizawa finally succeeds in sliding the box all the way out, and then with a stifled groan straightens up and lifts his heavy jumpsuit, all nice and tacky down one side with his own blood. First things first, Aizawa burrows out his phone, while Hitoshi remembers he’s napping on his Ma and quickly sets himself upright like it didn’t and hasn’t ever once happened in his very-grown-up life.
The damage is as bad as Aizawa expects. Seventeen missed call, a dozen more messages, and not just from Hizashi.
Aizawa gets the sudden impression that even though he jumped out of a window earlier, now he's really fucked.
“Should you be walking around already?” Hitoshi’s attempt at worry is a novel turn, but Aizawa can’t blame the kid for being concerned. Except Aizawa doesn’t have time for should.
“I’ve got to get home,” Aizawa announces as the matter of fact that it is, pulling up a message to Hizashi without looking at the history – things he can’t stand right now – and typing out. ‘Just woke up. Coming home now’ and hitting send before it can occur to him to apologise. Later. All of it later.
“Right now?” Hitosh’s brow creases, perhaps put out to have waited for Aizawa all this time, only to be promptly dumped. How Hitoshi and Kiki are here at all – alone, even – is a concern in itself. Unless there’s– “But Tsukauchi wants to talk to you.”
Aizawa grunts as a twinge in his arm digs at his nerves like an ice pick, but maybe it could be perceived to be over the waiting Detective, because Hitoshi scoffs, “Come on, he’s not that bad.”
“You’ve talked to him already?” Aizawa checks as he steps bare feet into the legs of his jumpsuit and starts working them up. He can lose the underwear – Aizawa is not going to ask Kiki what she did with them, much less in front of Hitoshi.
“Oh yeah, he’s been buzzing around taking all of our statements about the attack, which is all over the news, obviously,” Hitoshi delivers with a deadpan semi-awake liquidity, eyes still only hoisted to half-mast as he watches Aizawa dress himself. “They were Shiyoko’s zombies, turns out.” Perks of an intern: keeping informed with case updates even when Aizawa’s been out of action.
“Hm.” Aizawa manages not to expose himself indecently as he slips his jumpsuit up past his waist underneath the hospital gown, holding the suit with his good hand before realising he’s out of other good hands to get the rest up with. “Both of them?”
“Yeah.” Hitoshi stalls a moment, then stirs like tea leaves in the bottom of a swilled cup to stand up and move toward Aizawa. “Let me help you.” Hitoshi sets a steadying hand on Aizawa’s wrist and reaches for the flapping part of his jumpsuit, gentle as anything as he helps to feed Aizawa’s injured arm through the sleeve.
A gruff, “Thanks,” falls from Aizawa’s lips as he grimaces against the pain, shrugging into the far-from-hygienic material that settles against his spotless hospital dressing. “Is Tsukauchi still pissed about earlier?” He hazards this question while Hitoshi moves behind him, lending a lighter hand for Aizawa to find the remaining sleeve with his good arm.
Aizawa only takes the airy hospital gown off when he’s got the zip on the front safely up past his navel. Even if Kiki did presumably see him naked when they stripped him in the first place, the least he can do is not put her eye-to-eye with his cock and balls at a time like this.
“About the thing at the hotel?” Hitoshi drifts back a step as Aizawa throws his gown down into the box, leaving him alone fasten his clip-on belt with one hand (buckles: also awkward, Aizawa has learned from past experience). “I don’t think Tsukauchi was thrilled to be called out, but he doesn’t seem like the type to hold a grudge.”
“He isn’t.” Aizawa’s just an exception to those rules sometimes. No one else pushes Tsukauchi’s patience quite so uniquely might be why. “Where is he?”
“Probably still keeping a watch out front,” Hitoshi answers with a wafting feeling of Hero Worship that lingers in the air like the smell of antiseptic. “He seemed pretty worried they were gonna send someone else after you.” It almost makes Aizawa think that the Detective isn’t the only one who was sitting on guard at Aizawa’s sick-door – or as close as the Hospital allowed them to be, setting up watch like mentalist sentinels.
Then Hitoshi’s final words land like a couple of bricks launched from a catapult – after you. Because it can’t be avoided that this was a hit on Aizawa, and he was a fool to only realise once the gun was pointed at him.
Forget the assassins. Hizashi’s going to kill him.
Zipped up, and as whole again as he’s ever likely to be without going home to Hizashi, Aizawa’s itching to get out of here before anyone notices the supposedly heavily sedated and gravely injured patient unceremoniously discharging himself from the ICU.
“Are you seriously just gonna walk outta here?” Hitoshi looks torn between ‘you can’t do that’ and an amazed ‘I can’t believe you’re doing that’, but they equally can’t stay in a waiting room forever. Aizawa’s sure as hell not getting back in a hospital bed. “You’re in no state to go anywhere.”
“I can go home,” Aizawa returns stubbornly as he’s treading into his shoes, and that probably hurts Hitoshi too. Home is away from Hitoshi, and that stings as much for Aizawa, but it’s so long overdue that the split has to come sooner or later – two ruptured pieces of his heart. It’s not that it’s any less agonising to think of leaving Hitoshi and Kiki, but Aizawa’s just in no fucking state to protect them now anyway. Home first, think about everything else later. Almost everything else. “Where are you two going to go?” he asks, because Aizawa’s not dumb enough to assume Kiki’s without a plan.
“The police say they have a safehouse we can stay in,” Kiki cuts like scissors through silk. “Nothing fancy, but it’ll be enough for now.”
Safehouse. If that’s not a fucking mood, Aizawa doesn’t know what is.
“And the assassins?” Might as well call them what they are, acknowledge the reality so no one can claim Aizawa doesn’t accept it. He knows he could’ve died, but in the broad spectrum of Aizawa’s life, that’s really just another day on the job. He didn’t become a Hero to never risk his life protecting the greatest number of people at the least possible cost to human suffering. Because Aizawa’s suffering for the safety of the people he loves is, really, a very cheap price to pay.
“Yankumi took them back to the station already. You did a real number on them.” Hitoshi helps Aizawa heap the coil of his capture weapon over his uninjured arm, matching pace as Aizawa begins to shuffle along the coloured line leading for the exit. Kiki doesn’t hurry to get up after them, but by the time she’s checked the integrity of her hairdo and come after them in her best kitten-heeled strut she catches up in no time. But then even she slows to Aizawa’s injured shuffle, on the other side of Hitoshi, who’s staying determinedly close to Aizawa like they need to be an arm’s reach from each other at all times. It’s wonderful.
Aizawa supposes it might be a bit of irony, Hitoshi finally feeling the bite of that fear of separation, the same emotional impulse that drove Aizawa out that fucking window – a rash move, but one that worked. Maybe, going by a tired ear to the shell of mentalist emotion that Aizawa catches flying between the lighthouse presences of mother and son, the Shinsou Effect goes more than one way. Could be, going by the way the Doc obsesses over getting his family back – or hurting anyone else who gets close to them.
“Kinda did a number on myself too,” Aizawa admits remorsefully, frustrated with his aching muscles and sliced flesh, and that the only option he could come up with had such a high cost – that he couldn’t have been smarter or faster, found some other way.
If Hizashi doesn’t kill him later this evening, Recovery Girl will surely do so in the morning – she’s going to hate being woken up by Aizawa on her doorstep first thing, looking for a quick-fix so he can keep pushing forward without mincemeat for an arm. She’ll give him hell, but any good medic knows a wounded wolf is no good to the pack. Aizawa let Shiyoko get too close this time; it can’t happen again.
“Are you sure you needed to literally jump out the window?” Hitoshi sounds like he’s trying to joke, but he’s clearly been shaken and it doesn’t really take. He sounds more like he wants Aizawa to promise never to do it again, because it’s scary seeing someone who’s supposed to be invincible go down, and Heroes aren’t meant to seem so chronically, fatally mortal.
“At least it worked.” Aizawa can’t be invincible, he can’t even shrug right now without quite a lot of pain. “It’s done now anyway.”
“What, so it’s okay?” Hitoshi scoffs, then puts on an imitation of Aizawa’s dour mood that would annoy him if he weren’t so fucking exhausted. “I’m not dead, so I guess it all worked out fine?”
“It did work out fine,” Aizawa counters, and this is all great practice for Hizashi, really.
“You call this fine?” Kiki shoots before Hitoshi can blast Aizawa for the same shit everyone busts him over. But the only person Aizawa can agree to sacrifice to get the job done is himself, so who else is he meant to pick?
“Look, I–” Aizawa cuts himself off with a sign, dodging wary looks from nurses who might be wondering where the homeless guy they just brought in bleeding buckets a few hours ago thinks he’s going now, but, thankfully, they certainly aren’t going to try to stop him with his ‘family’ right by his side. “I know, okay?”
“Know what?” Hitoshi catches before his Ma does, but it could be an even split any day the week for their tone and ‘how dare’ delivery.
“That I fucked up,” Aizawa puts with the ugly truth it deserves, and for one can’t wait to have this conversation over and over again tonight. “Believe me: that’s why I’m going home.” If these two think that they’re the worst Aizawa’s going to get for fallout tonight, they’ve got no idea of the nuclear warhead waiting back home.
Reaching the hospital entrance, Aizawa hobbles through the motored revolving door to confront a torrential sheet of rain. The roar of the raindrops is beating against every flat surface in sight, loud enough to drown out any argument Kiki or Hitoshi might have tried to make. It comes back to Aizawa now – sounds of the weather breaking while he was being carted into the ambulance, the thunder and flashes of lightning while he was wheeled urgently through the hospital. Hitoshi’s face over him in the rain, flashlit for a second as the aggrieved teen pulls on his hair with bloody hand. Talk about cosmic timing.
Because the storm has well and truly broken: the air more liquid than gas as the downpour falls in huge sheets. But in the downpour, there’s a lone figure standing watchmen at the bend of the road that leads up to the hospital entrance, his undercover cop-car surely parked somewhere nearby, but protected for now underneath an enormous umbrella.
Drawing closer to meet their party emerging from the covered Hotel drop-off zone, Tsukauchi looks like an advertisement for all-weather mackintoshes. It could still be the drugs, but Aizawa swears that the Detective is smiling.
“Are you supposed to be leaving just yet, Eraser?” the Detective has to yell over the rain, but his polished you’re-fucking-testing-me-so-I’m-going-to-kill-it-with-kindness cheery tone of voice carries well above the constant drone.
“Can you drop me home?” Aizawa doesn’t have to have smart questions or negotiation tactics with Tsukauchi, because Tsukauchi knows who Aizawa’s got waiting back there – and what Hizashi will be like if he finds out certain friends-of-friends didn’t drive certain-someones home from the hospital when they got themselves mashed up yet again. It’s contravention of the unwritten law, and they both know Tsukauchi loves being a stickler for the rules.
“If you’ll answer some questions on the way, sure,” Tsukauchi grants without too much resistance. After a quick glance at Kiki and Hitoshi, the Detective waves in the direction of a parking lot. Within seconds a set of headlights illuminates, followed by the growl of an engine.
It’s not Tsukauchi’s car that approaches, but one of the standard cop cars, which means Tsukauchi is no lone watchman. The car window rolls down to reveal one disgruntled and definitely not getting his fur wet by getting out of his car in the pouring rain for no reason Officer-come-Detective Tamakawa.
“You’re still working?” says Aizawa when Tama pulls up close enough to just about hear each other over the metallic patter of the rain across the car.
Tama returns with a bawdy, “You’re still walking?” and Aizawa has to admit: the cool cat’s got him there.
“Tamakawa will take the two of you to the safehouse and stay with you on guard duty until the morning,” Tsukauchi addresses Hitoshi and Kiki. “We can settle everything else tomorrow morning.” After a moment, in which neither Shinsou offers any objections, if the odd eyeroll leading into a doleful look at Aizawa, the Detective swings back over to Aizawa. “You’re with me.”
Aizawa nods, and is about to start shuffling to the car park when Hitoshi calls out a quiet, “Aizawa, wait. ”
Turning back, it takes all of one second’s look at Hitoshi to know what it is. What he needs. Those fearful, puppy eyes that just want to feel safe. The danger’s passed, at least for now, but the aftershocks are something to reckon with.
Lifting his good arm, Hitoshi moves much farther and faster than Aizawa does, but it’s still a step from each of them before Hitoshi wraps himself around Aizawa’s torso like a limpet. Hitoshi hugs Aizawa like the kid’s really glad Aizawa’s still here. But this feeling soon subsides, after a breath followed by a suspicious sniff.
“You smell like shit.”
Even Aizawa can tell at this point – and again, exactly the reason he’s trying to go the fuck home. “I know.”
Hitoshi doesn’t stop, though, and after another lingering moment of thought, Aizawa winds his good arm around Hitoshi’s back. Allows himself be indulged for a minute with a squeeze, just being close and affectionate, because it’s what they both desperately need.
Aizawa’s trying very hard not to meet Kiki’s eyes during this strange rite-of-passage moment of actually hugging Hitoshi in front of all these people, but it isn't entirely successful. Hitoshi's Ma has an eyebrow hiked almost to her hairline, but she's wearing a mona lisa smile too, so that's something. A display like this backs up the story she fed to the hospital about being a ‘real’ family in any case. Whatever real means in a world of realities that don't always colour neatly inside the lines.
“I’ll be fine.” Aizawa's head is tilted down, talking more into Hitoshi’s hair than anything else.
Hitoshi’s grip just tightens, and it hurts Aizawa a little, but it’s just the right amount. That feeling of loving so strongly it actually aches, matched emotional-to-physical for a heartracing moment.
Just before Hitoshi finally lets go, and most likely drowned out by the rain for anyone else except Aizawa, the teen slips him a fiercely devoted, “You better be.”
The drive home with Tsukauchi isn’t so bad – Aizawa gets an all-natural first-round shower on the way to the car, which doesn’t really succeed at washing him so much as activating the day’s smells all at once. This means a healthy blend of blood, sweat, dirt-and-hospital chemicals over a bouquet of cigarette smoke so fragrant that Tsukauchi actually winds down his window for most of the drive, precluding too much in the way of easy conversation.
That might be fine, though, because Aizawa’s not in much of a mood for talking and Tsukauchi only has a small duty to attend to in the way of questioning. It barely takes three minutes for Aizawa to recount his version of the events, add a few additional details that Tsukauchi probably just fact-checks on the story he already got from Hitoshi, Kiki and Yamaguichi. It takes less than a minute to agree between them that Dr. Shinsou, and Shiyoko by extension, most definitely wants Aizawa dead, and they probably should have thought of that sooner than when mind zombies were trying to kill him.
This lends itself to an approximately five minute debate over whether it makes sense for Aizawa to still be around Hitoshi and Kiki in spite of this risk, and why Aizawa shouldn’t be jumping out windows and doing this to himself in the first place, but Aizawa’s certain that at least one of the assassins was also planning to target Kiki as well. Tsukauchi yields to the fact that bashed up or not, Aizawa was able to control the situation without anyone except himself being seriously injured – the same way it usually does. Aizawa’s methods might be controversial, but fuck if they don’t get the job done.
Bizarrely, Tsukauchi actually seems to be in some kind of a good mood? Or so Aizawa has to conclude after the acquiescence he’s been taking for hidden sarcasm turns out to be sincere.
“You’ve got to look after yourself, Detective Pot,” riffs the hard-worked Tsukauchi like maybe the apocalypse isn’t at their door. But that just helps with coping. “We can’t have you cracking up on us.”
“I know,” Aizawa replies. “Worry about yourself, Detective Kettle.” It’s a rare blessing to frivel away the rest of the drive in the slightly fractious, but ultimately cooperative back-and-forth between two veterans who can still find the time for a little friendly banter in-between all the hell and high water.
“I’m not the one with Dr. Shinsou’s bullseye on my back,” Tsukauchi points out.
Aizawa would shrug, if he had the full use of his shoulders. “Great, he shouldn’t be too hard to find him then.”
Tsuakuchi full-on laughs, Aizawa has to wonder what on earth could put a man into such an amiable condition at a time like this. The lipstick on his collar might have something to do with it, though. The Detective does also have a certain dopey glow, it could be said, and doesn’t even drive like a hopped-up drift-racer for once – for which Aizawa is immensely appreciative.
So whoever possibly laid Tsukauchi like a gold-engraved paving stone, Aizawa ought to thank them for making his evening that much easier. If only for a short, moist car ride.
“Tell Mic I said hi,” Tsukauchi lilts as they pull up outside the building half a block over from Aizawa’s real home address, heavy rain still pounding onto every surface under the sun. Now more than ever, Aizawa’s not going to make it easy for these killers to find out where he lives by getting dropped off and picked up in the same place all the time. He'll just get wet – a little rain can't hurt him worse than he already is.
“I will… if he lets me get a word in,” Aizawa replies morosely – a word apart from sorry, that is.
“He'll understand.” If Tsukauchi is comforting Aizawa, then Aizawa has to look pretty damn forlorn. But then, the Detective knows Hizashi too, which is why he hangs a wry “... Eventually,” onto the end that they both know means a lot of space for large reactions before reaching that happy ending.
If there's even a happy ending at the end of all this, for which Aizawa can only hope.
By the time Aizawa’s home-home he's more drowned rat than man – especially the part where he fell over some bins in the dark and torrential rain during his alleyway cut-through to get home, managing to catch himself on his good arm before doing the maimed one any more damage.
He's not followed, and makes damn sure he isn't. Not taking anymore chances on that front, climbing up the back-way of the block next to his apartment and then lunging across fire escape to fire escape from five floors up. It's darker than usual from the storm, and the few people who might have still been up at a time like this have been driven under cover. Just streetlights illuminating the heavy drops of rain, and Aizawa battling the physical environment, wounded and probably tearing the odd stitch as he works out just what he’s still capable of before seeing Recovery Girl first thing tomorrow. He might be at least twenty-five percent fucked-up, thirty at a push, but Aizawa’s not totally helpless.
He lets himself into the building through a fire door that only opens from the outside with a key from maintenance, who were kind enough to share the building master key with him in order to stop Aizawa “frightening” the other residents by reaching his penthouse apartment entirely via the external building facade, and makes sure the door is firmly shut behind himself before trailing a series of puddles all the way into one of the lifts. It's a wonder the footstep pools don't shine multi-coloured in the light like petrol, although they’re a little more ruddy than should give anyone comfort.
The lift needs another key to authorise it to go right to the top, rising smoothly to the heavens, where there’s gonna be hell to pay. Aizawa’s shabby appearance remains ever-at-odds to the rich surroundings. Padding through a small carpeted lobby that leads to another heavy door, Aizawa sets a thumb onto the final lock, equipped with fingerprint recognition that emits a beep and pulls back heavy bolts until, finally, he’s home.
Most of the lights are off, which throws Aizawa at first, but he only needs to shuffle a little down the hallway like something out of a zombie movie before he sees the glare of the TV, illuminating the main room with camera-flashbulb tones that drain all the colour of the real world.
The air smells of cigarette smoke left to go stale, and the TV is playing a muted 24-hour news cycle. It isn’t currently showing footage of the ‘incident’ in which Aizawa was responsible for a significant part of the chaos, but the channel clearly was at some point, or it wouldn’t be on. All Aizawa can see of Hizashi is the lop-sided bundle of hair on top of his head over the back of the sofa, one long leg resting on the coffee table. Everything else is silence and stillness, waiting for the first move – Aizawa’s played plenty of games of Shogi with Hizashi over the years, and is yet to win more than a handful.
Hearing the raw tones of his own voice, Aizawa croaks like a bullfrog as much as speaks like a man. “I’m back.”
The only noise Hizashi makes, usually so gregarious and chatty, is an ominous, humming, “Mhmmmmm.”
So Aizawa gets started.
“I’m sorry.”
He’s met with indifference, a shrug of shoulders still looking at Hizashi’s back – no turning with cutting eyes to assess the damage. “What did you do?”
Maybe the news gave away enough information that Hizashi knows the broad points, but it’s unlikely he’s caught up on the finer details. So it’s up to Aizawa to explain, and then explain some more.
“I… jumped through a window.” Sorta. “A door, really.” Still not all the facts, and Hizashi keeps waiting for Aizawa to finish spilling his guts like a fish committing seppuku. “A glass door.”
Moving limply around the L-shaped sofa, Aizawa finally passes into Hizashi’s eyeline. He can see the wear and worry on his best friend-lover’s face, never moreso than when Hizashi fills that impressive set of lungs and just sighs, sliding his fingers under the bridge of his normal glasses to pinch his nose.
“I ask you to do one thing, Shota.” Hizashi looks wrecked, half-gelled hair whipped into a bees’ nest hive on his head and the cranky end of his post-end-of-term festivities kicking in. “And you don’t do it over and over again.”
“I know.” Aizawa doesn’t have excuses, not for Hizashi. Well, maybe just one. “I just… I didn’t see it coming until it was already happening.”
“Bullshit, Shota.” Double- Shotas in as many minutes doesn’t bode well for the rest of this tense discussion, and it’d be great if Aizawa wasn’t tired and hurt and doesn’t need more of this endless conflict from just trying to be the best person he can be and that being such a huge problem for everyone else. But that’s just not the world he lives in.
“I didn't plan on jumping out a second-story window.” Aizawa’s heartrate picks up, a throbbing in his arm and shoulder where his body’s fast at work trying to repair the newest onslaught of harm thrown at it. “I had no other choice.” Or that’s what his head and heart had come to an unanimous conclusion over at the time.
Hizashi isn’t going to fight him on this one, but that doesn’t mean the boxing match is over. “You should have called me.”
“I…” Lots of different things Aizawa could try to argue for, falling along a scale of selfishness that puts keeping Hizashi distanced from the danger far above Aizawa’s own pitiful existence. But what good is Hizashi being safe if Aizawa’s fucking dead? “Yeah… I should’ve.”
Energy pulses through Hizashi’s voice, turning up the dial on the amp just a little – getting ready to rock. “So why the fuck didn’t you?”
Notes:
WOMP WOMP IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER
Sorry/notsorry
Also tho I fucking love that waiting room in the hospital scene like Aizawa & Kiki's relationship just gives me fucking life okay.
BUT THEN ALSO THAT HUG THO!!!!!!!!
See y'all bitches next week.
Chapter 51: Balancing Act
Summary:
Aizawa does the tally on his blessings and his curses.
Notes:
OoooooooHooooooooooooo have I ever been waiting for this chapter. The last one was the end of the 4th masterdoc, so this puts us at the start of 'act 5' in fic-masterdoc terms that don't matter to anyone except me.
Erasermic lovin' sluts, this one's for all of us :3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa doesn’t have anything to say to Hizashi, because it’s been said already between them in years upon years of the same damn argument. Aizawa can grow and change as an adult, make better judgement calls than a reckless youth who believes invincibility is just a state of mind, but there are parts of his personality he simply can’t change. He’s always going to put himself in the way of harm that would fall on others, instinct-driven to keep safe the people he loves most. Even if it means using himself as a first, foremost and final form of defence.
Hizashi sighs again, breaking the silence Aizawa just stands in grim respect of like a mourner. This time his words take the shape of a fatigued plea that’s too quiet in the empty, closed down theatre of their cavernous apartment. The only suitable arena for their inevitable showdown. “There has to be a point where you start making the right decisions, Shota.”
Because if that doesn't hit Aizawa right where he's weakest. Hizashi has sparred with him for years, knows all his soft spots, where will cut the deepest when Aizawa’s already been shredded to ribbons. So even though Aizawa supposed to be the sorry one, he's also the one who snaps first. Because the right decisions? Kiki and Hitoshi are still alive, aren’t they?
“What do you think I've been trying to do?” Aizawa doesn't go about his day trying to choose all the wrong options just to stress Hizashi out, it just happens that way sometimes.
“What you always do!” Hizashi returns pitch-matched for Aizawa’s angry frustration, because they’re a matching pair any day of the week, if you know where to look. “You get so deep in the woods that you can't see the forest for the trees, you don't call me, and then when the bulldozers come through you throw yourself under them and tell me ‘I had no choice’.” It’s a point – and an imitation of Aizawa – so familiar they could call it a family friend. Like the Uncle no one wants to see at the table, causing trouble and upsetting all the children. “You tell me you don’t have a choice, Shota, but you do.” Three-for-three Shotas: man, Aizawa’s fucked.
So Aizawa gets to scrambling, jumping for whatever stupid reason that’s in reach, and lands on the background noise of Hizashi's radio show while he took the assassins out. Some rationale that dictates Hizashi couldn’t have missed his show, or he wouldn’t have been able to say the things he said on-air or played the tracks he played while it was all happening in that mad slow-motion blur. “You were busy.”
“BULLSHIT I'm busy, try again.” Hizashi knocks Aizawa’s excuse back like swinging for baseballs in batting cages, except that Hizashi doesn’t need a baseball bat. Aizawa’s stood there pitching when Hizashi was first learning how to control his quirk, directing his sensitive support gear to smack each ball right out of the air with just a harsh word. Hizashi’s quirk is so much raw power, it’s just paring it back that requires the delicacy of a concert pianist. “You know I'd drop everything if you needed help, but you don't ask me because you're too wrapped up in your own world.”
“I'm just trying to keep everyone safe.” Aizawa’s like a kettle left to boil, silent until he shrieks, and still not admitting that excluding Hizashi is a fear-driven instinct to do exactly that: preserve everyone’s safety, regardless of whether they can help. Even when it leaves Aizawa torn between Hitoshi and Hizashi like a dog toy being pulled apart by the pack.
“And you're doing a fantastic job, baby,” Hizashi purrs cynically, his waxed moustache like a piece of punctuation at the end of every sentence. It was end-of-term drinks tonight, and given this is Hizashi they’re talking about, even if he’s pulled back a little, there’s still a bottle of sake on the table and an overly large mug for him to swig it out of. Which is never a great sign, when Hizashi’s choice of receptacle falls in favour of the most efficient way to drown his sorrows, Aizawa chief among them. “Just look at you.”
“I'm TRYING!” Aizawa always knew a blowout was coming, it just doesn't make the actual fact any more pleasant. They can pretend it’s all Hizashi and his loud mouth, but Aizawa’s got a temper to match even the deafening Present Mic sleeping just under the surface. “This is the best I can do, and I'm sorry if it's not good enough!” It’s an angry sorry, not the way Aizawa really means it, but if he isn’t so fucking frustrated that everything he does is wrong someway, somehow.
“I don't think you are trying.” Hizashi’s tone drops back down, weighted with all that disappointment and turning away from a shouting match that one of them is always going to win over the other, so they do their best not to try and prove it. “How many times did I ask if you needed help?”
“I didn't think I needed it… then.” Aizawa’s hoarse answer, honest as it may be, does no favors for Hizashi’s temper. So Aizawa can only admit defeat. “I admit I made the wrong call, I'm not perfect.”
Hizashi lets out a manic laugh. “Perfect?! You? I'm not asking for perfect, Shota, I'm just asking for the bare fucking minimum.”
That pisses Aizawa off too, because he's been putting in so much effort for what feels like days, or one incredibly long one. It just hasn't been effort towards Hizashi, because their deal has never been for the whole world to revolve around each other. It’s the reason there’s no one else for them but each other – the only ones who can keep the insane push-me-pull-you balance they've spent fifteen years building together. And the most logical conclusion is that they belong together, what a sentimental bastard might call soulmates – even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
“You can take care of yourself,” Aizawa barks more than he bites. “Just because I'm focused on someone else for a change–”
“I can protect you, Shota!” Hizashi screams like a powered saw slicing through wood, striking every wall in the airy penthouse living room and converging back on Aizawa until his ears are ringing. “But you won't fucking LET me!”
And Aizawa doesn't have an answer for that, because Hizashi’s right and Aizawa's just stubborn and wrong. As usual. And he’s so tired of fighting.
In dazed quiet of something finally getting through to the heart beating underneath all that stubborn bastard, Aizawa takes a few shaky steps, feeling himself sway as fatigue gives the edge back to the sedatives, sagging from an adrenaline crash that's more of a sixteen car pile-up.
“I'm sorry.” Aizawa gets to the end of sofa and drops down to sit, unable to rest his head in both hands due to the immobilisation of his arm, so he just hangs it like a dog instead. “I’ve been so fixated on protecting them, it never occured to me that I could be a target.”
“So it was you they were after?” Hizashi isn't yelling anymore, but there's a symphony of tension in his voice.
Aizawa just nods.
Hizashi doesn’t shout or scold, even though he’s got every right in the world to do exactly that. “Why?”
“Because I'm close to Hitoshi,” Aizawa admits out loud for the first time, the reality he couldn’t confront because Aizawa’s the last person he ever considers in an equation, and that is a weakness. “That's why I didn't want you to… if they realise you're close to me, you’ll become a target too.”
As if pulled by a force of magnetism, Hizashi draws closer to Aizawa. “I can handle it, babe.”
“No you can't– I mean, no one can.” Aizawa finds desperation in his voice, finally tapping that oil well of fear so dark and slick it makes him sick, like downing a shot of crude oil. “These two, they're on another level, Hizashi. The things they'd do to you.” Or with Hizashi: a high-profile Pro Hero with such a powerful quirk. Even if they only gained control of Present Mic for a few minutes, the Doc or Shiyoko could devastate an area before dreaming up something else awful to do with him. Hell, they'd probably make Aizawa watch.
Perhaps it’s the drugs, or the flashbacks as the flicking TV in the distance returns the re-run of footage Hizashi must have been scrutinizing all evening, but Aizawa suddenly feels like he could throw up. The TV skips through Hitoshi and Kiki’s apartment filmed from street level, the frenetic crowds as – yes, that’s Aizawa on the stretcher, Hitoshi by his side and Kiki following at the back – he’s wheeled into the ambulance and rushed away in ‘a new attempted murder by the Deathnote Killer’. Still no word of Dr. Shinsou’s escape. Yet.
Then the footage shifts from official news feed to the shaky mobile video someone took from an opposing building, after Aizawa charged through the window and hung the assassins out to dry like cocooned moths. It’s too blurry to make Aizawa out in any detail, just the way he likes it, but it’s not too hard to make out the wounded way he moves in Hitoshi and Yamaguichi’s grip before the clip cuts off.
Now Hizashi’s the one who sounds defeated. “So I'm meant to watch you die on TV instead?”
“I'm still here,” Aizawa responds, and Hizashi steps closer.
“This time.” Hizashi gets close enough to lay a hand lightly on Aizawa’s bad shoulder, and he hisses through his teeth. “Can I see?”
Another defeated nod, and Aizawa has to repress a shiver when Hizashi’s dexterous fingers grab the top of his zipper and slide it smoothly down. Even if what Aizawa really wants is the closest physical equivalent to crawling inside Hizashi and sleeping like a bear going into hibernation, it might be a bit early for make-up romance.
Hizashi’s even gentler slipping Aizawa’s jumpsuit off than Hitoshi was in getting it on, and whistles a frustrated, “Fucking hell Shota,” through his diamond white teeth at the scale of the bandages and dressing that cover Aizawa’s shoulder all the way down to his elbow. A quick glance proves Aizawa’s assumption that his over-exertions on the trip home might have torn the odd stitch or two, as patches of blood have seeped through the thick layers of padding like ink on blotting paper.
“I’ll need to visit Recovery Girl in the morning.” Way to state the obvious.
Hizashi looks heartbroken, like Aizawa’s just reached in and tore it out of his chest with all the strength in his arm the glass took out of it. Because this is what Aizawa does, and Hizashi knows he can’t stand in the way of it. Oh, he can try, but he’s not a man for losing battles.
But maybe Hizashi can win the war, not with shouts and firepower, but in negotiation after heavy losses on both sides. Sinking down to sit next to Aizawa, Hizashi’s not quite a begging man, at least outside of the bedroom, but it's closer than Aizawa’s comfortable with.
“I'll take you, Shota, but would you please stop pushing me away?” It's a question like Aizawa’s got a choice.
“It's not on purpose,” he replies brokenly. “I'm just… trying to keep everyone safe.” Scratched record, playing the same tired tunes over and over.
“So let me keep you safe, idiot.” Hizashi’s softer now, and Aizawa's missed him like a piece that fits a gaping hole in his head. Maybe, hopefully, Hizashi’s missed Aizawa enough to not relegate Aizawa to a cold-shouldered night on the couch – although he wouldn't blame Hizashi for making him do it, given the high likelihood of Aizawa getting blood in the bed in this state. But even House rules are made to be broken.
Aizawa’s not so used to giving in, but it always feels more familiar giving in to Hizashi, like accepting the bitter medicine he’ll feel better for later. He nods, mumbling a heartfelt, “Okay.”
Hizashi’s hand settles on Aizawa’s knee. “So where are they now?”
Aizawa's the stupider side of tired, and asks, “Who?”
“Hitoshi and his mother, duh.” Hizashi has the patience of a saint, and Aizawa’s got no idea what he did to deserve such devotion. That because Aizawa cares about them, Hizashi does too, no questions asked – beyond the obvious ones like where they are and if they’re safe.
“Tama’s taking them to a police safehouse,” Aizawa grouses. “I don’t really like it, but I don’t know what else to do…”
But if Aizawa’s always been the brawn, Hizashi’s the brains, shining new light where an earthworm like Aizawa never knew to look. “Can’t they come here?”
It's the kind of thing only Hizashi would say, because Aizawa’s impulse-driven never to bring anyone back here, ever, meanwhile Hizashi shows up with entire boybands he joyously invites back without a second thought. That fear of discovery running through Aizawa never touched Hizashi to begin with. Two parts of Aizawa’s life that he was trying to keep apart out of habit more than logic, and he should be ashamed of himself.
“Why do you look so surprised?” Hizashi can read Aizawa like a book he's leafed through hundreds of times before, as if there's no page he hasn't turned. “Don't tell me you hadn't thought of it?”
Aizawa just stares at Hizashi and counts his blessings; the rush-hour commuter crush of thoughts trying to make it out of his still-sedated mouth ends up so the first thing he can actually work past slightly numb lips and tongue is an exceptionally needy, “I love you so much.”
Hizashi’s disbelief shifts to a grin, the dial of his mood never one to stay in the same place for too long, and he even lets slip an amused groan of frustration. “Are you serious? You've been stressing over this kid for weeks and you only just realised you can take him home?” Hizashi shakes his head. “I love you too, Shota, but you're a fucking idiot sometimes.”
“I should call them.” Aizawa starts to fumble for his phone like a farsighted person searching for their glasses until Hizashi takes pity, snagging it out of the pool of Aizawa’s jumpsuit around his waist to slip into Aizawa’s hand. Although ostensibly calm, Hizashi still looks like he might tear some of his hair out, if it wasn’t his prized crowning glory. Maybe some of Aizawa’s hair, later.
Picking the tougher nut first, Aizawa calls Kiki, who picks up during the second ring.
“Yeah? I swear if you've gotten into anymore trouble–”
“I'm fine,” Aizawa cuts off, pretending he doesn't see Hizashi raising his eyebrows to the ceiling with spiteful concurrence that everyone else is right to worry about Aizawa all the time, and he is the wayward child to keep an eye on. “Change of plans, why don't you sack off the police safehouse and come here?”
“Here? Where's that?” Kiki's fatigue met with scathing, but if she hasn't shot him down entirely then there must be hope.
“Home– my home,” Aizawa explains awkwardly. “You… dropped me off there once.” Already he’s justifying himself. “It's as good as anything the police can come up with, and we'll–” be together, he wants desperately to finish, but doesn't quite get it past clumsy tongue and lips.
“You're alone?” Kiki's still as sharp as it takes to hit all the right nerves, probably knowing no one rushed home the way Aizawa did if there's no one waiting for them.
“No. My… other half's here.” Words Aizawa’s used before, the most accurate ones that he's ever had. Hizashi is the other half of Aizawa, the complementary and contrasting characteristics that match like a set. “Put me on with Tama, I can explain.”
“Aizawa wants you to turn around take us to his place,” Kiki can be heard doing the explaining for Aizawa, announcing this new update like a disgruntled commuter takes a delay to their usual service.
“Does he now?!” Tama can be heard breaking into derisive laughter, and whatever has him fired up with this much energy after the day they’ve all had, Aizawa wants a hit. “And he's just so happened to decide that just after Tsukauchi's clocked off for the evening again?”
Convenient. A coincidence, but convenient nonetheless. Although with the golden mood he was in, maybe Tsukauchi wouldn’t have minded anyway. Hizashi is certainly the best protection that not even money can buy.
“Tama knows where it is,” Aizawa informs Kiki, then, after a little consideration, “and to hell with what Tsukauchi wants.” He doesn’t really mean it, but it still feels good to say.
Kiki passes on through the three-way by-proxy conversation that’s somehow managing to work, “He says you know where to go.”
Aizawa can just hear Tama’s derisive laugh. “I know the area, but last time I went there I was blackout drunk, so he’ll have to give me more than that.”
Kiki gives a half-potted laugh of her own, more of a snort, but she still hasn't said no, and the spark of hope that she, and Hitoshi by extension, might actually go along with this indulgent change of plans flickers in the dark. Aizawa dares to hope that she does trust him as much as, if not a little more than, the police.
“I can recognise the building,” Kiki’s saying to Tama, and if Aizawa’s not mistaken, this might actually be happening. “Just get us to the neighbourhood and I’ll do the rest.”
“Thanks,” Aizawa spews like a rising bubble of air, trapped gratitude finally finding a way to escape. “Buzz for the penthouse from the garage and I’ll let you in.”
“Ooh, get you,” Kiki retorts with scratchy, dry humour that might only be partially humour. People react strangely to the paradox of how Aizawa comes across and the extravagance of his home life, but it’s part and parcel of the broader paradox that is Aizawa and Hizashi as a unit.
Hizashi's always going to live the high life to the utmost, because, in his own words, “I earned it, so I get to enjoy it, bitch!” So just as inevitably, Aizawa’s always going to be dragged along in tow. The trappings never mattered to him, who used to sleep on Hizashi’s sofa back when his best friend lived in a cheap one-bedroom apartment, which was still much nicer than the one-room “studio” Aizawa had pretended to live in, before not bothering with having a home of his own at all.
They’ve come a long way from those different days of their respective pasts, when Present Mic was still a new name on the Celebrity-Hero scene, and took his payment in ‘exposure’ – usually, exposure of Hizashi’s cock to whoever wanted to get on it – a lot more than he did in cold hard cash. Unsurprisingly, lots of powerful people out there wanting to fuck nubile young Heroes for the promise of an extra point or two in the popularity rankings, and Hizashi was more than happy to oblige.
It turned out alright for Hizashi, if not for all who got pushed down that troubled path into Hero Stardom, because long-lasting success, along with the cash, came later. It helped that as well as being a top notch Hero, Hizashi is a ruthless businessman among his other lucrative and incredible talents, and knows how to make every yen work hard to bring home all its friends. Never exploited unless it’s exactly what he wants. Aizawa’s certainly not complaining. It’s convenient, after all, and he can even confess to having gotten used to the high life in some regards. Though Aizawa suspects that his utter lack of materialism is as much of a counterbalance to Hizashi’s lifestyle as much as Hizashi’s is for him in return. Yin and yang, forever balancing each other out.
“Hitoshi will text you when we’re close.” Truth be told, Aizawa had forgotten he was still on the phone, but perhaps Hizashi’s balancing influence reaches even further than his personal dynamic with Aizawa, because Kiki actually sounds quite calm. “See you soon.”
“Bye.” Hanging up, Aizawa takes a breath that takes a thousand pounds off him, a weight that lifts and leaves him dizzy. Or maybe that's the adrenaline and drugs and blood loss.
“Better?” That Hizashi waited patiently for Aizawa to finish his call probably means he recognises this is all desperation and fear-driven stupidity, not spite.
And if Aizawa’s really lucky, Hizashi might not be completely ready to forgive or forget, but he could perhaps overlook this gross indiscretion, at least for a while. Aizawa’s never trying to be a trainwreck, and Hizashi knows better than anyone that punishing him for crashing is like trying to yell the blue moon out of the sky when it shows up about once a month: neither of them can help it.
“Better,” Aizawa echoes hoarsely. He turns to one side, setting his injured arm carefully out of the way to reach with the other all the way across Hizashi, binding the pair of them together. Two weights for keeping the scale level, finally side by side. “I am sorry,” Aizawa murmurs into Hizashi's collarbone, firm against his cheek under one of those incomprehensibly expensive plain white t-shirts.
Hizashi sets a hand gently on Aizawa's back, bare skin and bruising. “I know you are, baby.”
Aizawa had laughed in Hizashi's face the first time he called Aizawa ‘baby’ P.D.R. (post-dating realisation), but Hizashi’s only response had been a razor-sharp “get used to it, baby.” Hizashi calls everyone he dates baby, or darling, honey… or sugar-tits, and relationships were all about compromise. Especially theirs: two personalities at such polar ends of the same scale that they meet up again round the back. Usually to make out.
Aizawa takes another deep breath and feels himself melting further into Hizashi. Each inhale and exhale he slides slide father down, past Hizashi’s pecs with barbelled nipples that drag across Aizawa’s cheek under white cotton, settling against washboard abs that can more than support the weight of one collapsing sack of garbage. Just needing that moment of comfort and weakness, letting his guard down because this is the one person, the one place where he lets himself be completely vulnerable.
It's, of course, in the middle of this raw moment of exposure that Hizashi utters a blue-skied, “You could always try making it up to me, obviously.”
And Aizawa knows that tone of voice anywhere.
“Seriously?” Aizawa’s eye to eye with the studs of Hizashi’s buckle, and the smell of leather from his pants is as appetising as a whole medium-rare steak, and hell if Aizawa couldn't use the extra iron.
“I mean, while you’re down there.” Hizashi’s almost coy, and this is an unholy blessing of a mood to catch him in – maybe the fact that he’s been drinking is in their favour after all, it does make him horny. Aizawa’s careful not to count his chicks too soon before they’re hatched, soon reminded, “But I’m still mad at you.” Not so mad he’d reject a heartfelt make-up gesture, though.
“I know.” In true wet trashbag style, Aizawa’s pretty quick to slide off the sofa onto the floor, his one good hand gripping one of Hizashi’s knees as Aizawa sinks between his best friend’s legs. “I love you.” He’s said it before, but it bears repeating.
Aizawa’s already snaked his good hand up to Hizashi’s buckle, helped by dexterous fingers as Hizashi helps him get it undone, a grin that’s illuminatingly wicked as he looks down on Aizawa beneath him.
“Prove it.”
Aizawa heaves a deep breath as a shudder claws up his back, feeling even more light-headed as what little blood he has left all heads in one direction. Hitoshi and Kiki are on their way, but they’re not here yet, which means there’s time, if Aizawa can use it well.
Dragging open Hizashi’s button-up fly with more intention than action, Aizawa really only needs to go through the motions to get Hizashi’s immediate assistance shimmying out of his trousers, shucking the leather like a snake sheds skin, revealing brigly inked thighs and day-glo orange tight-fitting boxers.
“I missed you.” Aizawa’s desperate as all hell, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to rush the actuality, setting his good palm flat over Hizashi’s underwear and dipping his mouth to a foresty inked-green stretch of Hizash’s thigh, starting to make his way slowly through the woods, heading north.
“So you keep saying.” There’s nothing much happening under Aizawa’s hand right now, but if Hizashi invited then he’s at least receptive enough to try, and Aizawa’s never been one to back down from a challenge.
When the patterns of Hizashi’s tattoos comes to a stop on the border of crotch to inner thigh, Aizawa can’t resist any longer and gently takes a bite, testing with the pressure between his teeth for the subtle texture difference from inked skin to the provocative sections left bare.
Hizashi makes a noise, stifled, and there’s a latent throb under Aizawa’s palm that promises he’s making inroads. Leaves a glistening wet patch on Hizashi’s thigh with a garland of pink indentations around it, then switches to the other thigh, getting more comfortable in his reverent kneeling between Hizashi’s legs, breath a warm breeze over open seas.
On the shore of the ocean that laps around Hizashi’s right leg, Aizawa sucks more than he bites, drawing a longer groan like the fall of a wave and breathy, “Uuuuhgh baby.” Maybe Hizashi’s missed him after all.
Aizawa tucks his fingers around the elastic waistband of Hizashi’s boxers and lifts, releasing a pressure that lets Hizashi’s junk to adjust without necessarily taking them off just yet, because if Aizawa’s anything it’s thorough, and he’d hate to miss a spot he has to go back to later.
It takes a certain amount of care to do this with only one arm, but Aizawa’s got plenty of strength left in the one to grab Hizashi by the hip and steer him further forward, thighs lifting up higher around Aizawa’s head, careful not to rest on his injured shoulder. Hizashi’s long legs reach all the way to the coffee table behind Aizawa (set at just the right distance, you might even say), pushing up on tiptoe and arching when Aizawa seeks out to nip a softer spot where storytale leg turns into the curve of perfect ass. A pleased pant puffs from an impressive set of pipes that Aizawa knows all too well, learning the full range of noises that his partner is capable of like a whistle register.
Because it certainly helps, for Aizawa, that there are an awful lot of problems with Hizashi he can solve by fucking it out. Kind of a late discovery, even, looking back on all the occasions in their teens and early twenties when Aizawa realises he could have definitely gotten his way during an argument if it’d only occurred to him to drop everything and put Hizashi’s cock in his mouth. Aizawa would kick himself over it, if he didn’t have much better things to be doing right now.
Things like kissing his way along the beginning of what Hizashi fondly refers to as ‘the autograph pad’, because, starting from the time he first had the bright idea after enough of his infamously volatile cocktails, there’s a number of individuals who have autographed Hizashi’s ass in sharpie, which he’s then gotten inked over by the nearest person capable of competently wielding a tattoo gun. Often the one Kayama bought him years ago to make Aizawa prove his claims that he could handle the pain without flinching, a.k.a. why Aizawa’s got his own name tattooed on his foot.
Hizashi only asked for autographs from the famous ones who fucked good, of course, back in his days as part of the idol-groupie food chain that helps young Heroes rocket up the popularity rankings. Ruled over by a committee of overly-interested industry titans who mysteriously drew up those lists in the same backrooms they tried out the ‘new meat’ in every perverted way possible. An undeniable freak like Hizashi fitted right in.
And just because Aizawa hates The Game in no way means Hizashi isn’t a player. In fact, Present Mic was a hell of a player in his heyday, taking the flipside to Aizawa’s path and exploiting the bullshit system for all it’s worth. Being willing to say, do, or fuck anything that makes a Hero successful in this industry, beating the chumps at their own game. It's no surprise Hizashi established quite the name for himself in the prime of his youth, before settling back down to be a bit more respectable.
Pure Present Mic, of course, that ‘respectable’ for him meant shacking up with a childhood friend boasting zero fame, a fashion sense only out-awfuled by his personal hygiene, and a track record of homelessness that'd worried Aizawa’s parents so much they had to stage a ‘please get your shit together, son’ intervention, in which the only concluding compromise was that Aizawa listed wherever Hizashi was living as his official address, an arrangement preceding their whole dating realisation by several years.
Aizawa never felt the need to add his signature on this particular wall of fame to the other side of Hizashi’s life – and half of his ass, the other cheek mostly taken up with a glittering discoball tattoo that’s fondly referred to as “the party in his pants” amongst friends and fuck-buddys. Aizawa’s got (and made) more marks on Hizashi’s body than anyone else, and has himself name inked all over Hizashi’s body for other reasons. He wouldn’t fit among the scribbled signature of musicians, actors and heroes who’ve all been asked for their John Hancock by Hizashi with another hand, presumably, on his cock. Aizawa’s not that insecure, and even if he were, Hizashi’s needy little noise as he pulls off Hizashi’s boxers is more than enough to take his mind off it.
Hizashi’s thighs draw closer together as his underwear lifts, legs raising over Aizawa’s head to lay the tableau of Hizashi’s ass out before him like a piece of elaborate lacquerware. By accident more than design, Aizawa doesn’t have the physical dexterity to go any speed but slowly and carefully, so he just mouths his way around Hizashi’s cheeks until he’s absolutely squirming.
“Okay.” It’s not much, but there’s the slightest quiver in Hizashi’s voice, the hum of his quirk seeping through his control like waterlogged floodwalls. “I might be slightly less mad at you.”
A flapping of one of Hizashi’s hand precedes his twisting hips, as he stretches and contorts to stay where he is from the waist down while on the top half pulling open a side-table drawer that’s ingeniously home to one of Hizashi’s endless supplies of lube. Aizawa’s certain Hizashi and Kayama have contests to see who can stash it in the most obscure places, based on the number of truly weird hidey-holes in the apartment he’s come upon the little bottles and sachets.
Presented with his next accessory, Aizawa accepts the lube and bothers to get Hizashi’s boxers – pants long gone, just brightly patterned socks – the rest of the way off before slicking up his thumb and two fingers. Using his arm and elbow mostly to nudge Hizashi further forward again, Aizawa coaxes the slut into laying himself out nicely to be eaten. Technically, Aizawa never got around to dinner, what with the interruption of Shiyoko’s assassins and all, so it makes a twisted kind of sense in the sedative-laced gloryhole of his mind.
And truth be told, Hizashi’s asshole has far more to fear from Aizawa’s mouth than the other way around, so it’s no surprise at all that Aizawa works his thumb first before swapping out for his tongue with unabashed confidence.
“OhhhhssShota.” Butter wouldn’t just melt in Hizashi’s mouth, it’d drip off his tongue like honey, pour from the corners of his smile like an overflowing fountain. He’s rock hard by the time Aizawa reaches between Hizashi’s legs, and starts rocking into Aizawa’s hand with a bouncy string of, “uhns” at the first eager contact.
Because one thing about having the entire floor of a building for a penthouse suite with a metric fuckton of sound insulation? As well as dampening their shouting matches, Hizashi doesn’t have to be quiet during sex. And one thing about fucking Aizawa is that he is not and has not ever been one to worry about getting sloppy. So if-and-when Hizashi wants to be made a mess of, it’s a match made in heaven.
One advantage of not having any underwear under his jumpsuit means Aizawa’s got no awkward restrictions himself, and the little blood left in his body fast-inflates his “balloon animal cock” as Hizashi once famously termed it during another of his drunken end-of-term radio shows; a fanatical fan rang in to ask their beloved DJ “what he sees in that weird nobody he’s been hanging around with” and Hizashi made his answer as defiantly crude as such a question merited.
However, a disadvantage of only having one arm to do all this with means Aizawa’s out of hands for himself. The only functional arm is busy holding Hizashi by the autograph pad with a firm grip to keep his ass spread open for Aizawa to eat out. That’s fine, though, because this isn’t really about Aizawa getting off, so denial just sharpens desire until he aches with want, exactly like he should.
Aizawa knows he’s gaining ground when one of Hizashi’s hands stops flapping around on the sofa and grabs the remains of Aizawa’s bun, more of a hairball at this point, using it to pull Aizawa tighter against him.
“Fuck, baby, just like that,” Hizashi huffs encouragement from a waterfall mouth that will stream-of-consciousness blab every thought to come through his head at a time like this. Even before they were together, Aizawa had gotten used to hearing such outpourings through the always-too-thin walls of whatever place Hizashi had at the time and Aizawa was crashing in. Looking back, Aizawa’s utter comfort with that nightly reality might have been another missed indicator of the chemistry between them being a little more than platonic. Especially when Aizawa would interject to erase Hizashi’s quirk right before he deafened his poor partner in the throes of coital bliss.
When the resistance around Aizawa’s tongue lessens enough, he slides the tip of a finger past the tight ring of muscle and opens Hizashi up a little deeper, winning another is-he-dying moan of “Fuuuuck, Shota,” for his efforts. Hizashi might fuck like a rabbit on steroids, but no one stretches an asshole like Aizawa – he kind of has to, if he ever means to penetrate someone with such hazardously large equipment. Classic Present Mic to not always take a cock, but when he does it better be a monster. Not that they’ve got time for that before Hitoshi and Kiki get here.
Speaking of cocks, Aizawa takes the chance to brush rough fingertips inquisitively across Hizash’s again, and they come back smeared with precome as Aizawa swaps fingers for tongue again. More than anything, he's really glad they patched things up. There’s a damn good reason the guy whose ass he’s eating is the empirical love of his life.
“Ughhg, yeah baby, fucking-fuckety-fuck-me– ahhh –” Hizashi motor-mouths when Aizawa really puts his jaw into it, Hizashi’s knuckles tight against Aizawa’s scalp in case he was thinking about going anywhere in a hurry.
Hizashi’s almost folded in half at this point, flexible legs bent up past his head and spread-eagled open, so Aizawa’s got plenty of room to slip a lubed finger up past the knuckle, eliciting another wordless-yet-endlessly-communicative noise from Hizashi.
Because whatever emotions they had been feeling before, all are indiscriminately cleansed by cathartic lust. Stringing someone out is almost as good as being the one strung out, so Aizawa’s just a throbbing pulse without another thought in his head other than how best to take Hizashi to pieces. Which is another finger in Hizashi’s ass, and a little more action in the groin area, before Aizawa finally gives up his mouth to wrap wetly around his best friend’s cock, full and slightly sour on his tongue.
“Aaaaoooou– I love you so much, baby – don’t stop, unnhg, fuck–” Hizashi spouts like a busted pipe, involuntary impulse finally taking over as he thrusts all the way to the back of Aizawa’s throat, air supply temporarily shutting off. Hizashi knows exactly how rough Aizawa can take it, but is still a little gentler than that in light of the circumstances, letting him up after just a few seconds compared to the minute or two they might easily gun for on other occasions.
It's so good to be used in ways Aizawa can’t describe, so he just curls his fingers inside Hizashi and swallows him back down again, driving a tortured noise from Hizashi who bucks and and keeps thrusting. Even like this, Aizawa still wants to be pushed to and then just past the edge of comfort; something strong enough to stop being himself so much for a brief moment of time. The control he desperately clings onto to be taken away and drowned in sweet relief.
That relief for Aizawa is being mouthfucked while Hizashi jabbers, “Fuckin’ slut, ugh, Shotaaa~baby– shit, fuck–I’m gonna come… ahhHH–” is pure personal preference. Aizawa counts his lucky stars that he might have fucked up a lot of things, but what he’s got with Hizashi is still as good as it’s ever been.
Hizashi blows his load in Aizawa’s mouth with an animal noise that knocks out the TV for a moment, and it’s not great that this is the closest thing Aizawa’s had to a meal since lunch some twelve-plus hours ago, but he feels better and that’s something.
As if timed by gods of pure cosmic spite, Aizawa’s still on his knees in front of Hizashi, drool running down his jaw and an (un)savory palette of flavours on his tongue when the apartment intercom starts ringing with a call from the carpark.
“Saved by the bell, baby.” Hizashi slingshots from spite to amusement in a clean arc, certainly feeling much better and hopefully almost not mad at Aizawa at all now. “I think it’s for you.”
Aizawa’s not a precious man, barely even a man except by biological accident, but either way he’s unashamed in dragging a less-than-pristine arm across his face to mop up most of the mess, followed by a stiff turn to reach for the coffee table and take a swig of Hizashi’s leftover sake, swilling it around his mouth like a boozy mouthwash before swallowing, again.
It’s fair to say nothing kills an erection like the imminent arrival of Aizawa’s teenage side-kid and said kid’s mother, so by the time Aizawa’s made it to the wailing intercom he’s barely even hard or sex-stupid at all.
Checking the video feed first, Aizawa confirms it’s Tama and Kiki in the car – a purple shadow in the back he’ll see again soon enough – before pressing the access button to let them in and croaking a throaty, “I’ll meet you down there.”
When Aizawa turns around, Hizashi’s standing up by the sofa, naked from the waist down, and that’s definitely got to change before the others get here. Aizawa’s jumpsuit is respectively hanging round his waist, held up by his belt, which means between them there’s one naked person and a one fully-dressed, but that’s still only half of the kind of shit-together they’re going to need to be in about three minutes time.
“I’ll go get them,” Aizawa announces as he manages to slip into the top half of his jumpsuit up without too much difficulty, meaning he doesn’t put his injured arm through the sleeve at all and just leaves it inside the jumpsuit, one good arm through the sleeve and the other flapping empty. “Please put some clothes on before we get back.” And preferably not just booty shorts either, although Aizawa doesn't say it for fear of guaranteeing that's exactly what Hizashi does.
Hizashi makes an appalled face, posed as proud as a peacock dripping come on what he likes to call ‘the good rug’ (as in, good for fucking on), and Aizawa’s only got himself to blame for that, but it doesn’t help them now. “Aww, you’re no fun.”
He’s joking and Aizawa knows that, and if it were anyone else Aizawa wouldn’t be so highly-strung all of a sudden, but it’s Kiki and Hitoshi who are about to come here, so Aizawa just hisses a desperate, “Hizashi,” with hopes for one more blessing yet.
“Alright, alright, Slutface, keep your hair on,” Hizashi snorts as he kicks his pants up into one hand and walks around the huge L-shaped sofa headed for the bedroom. “See you in a few.”
Hizashi winks at him on the way out, and Aizawa knows he’s supposed to find it comforting, but would probably feel less like he’s having an anxiety attack in that case.
It’s not that Aizawa’s completely against this, you could even say he wants Hitoshi and Kiki to be as safe in Aizawa’s home as he feels in it, but that doesn’t stop him feeling nervous about this unpredicted change he hasn’t had nearly enough time to mentally prepare for. Maybe blowing Hizashi on the sofa wasn’t the best use of the time they had after all, but hindsight’s 20/20.
So Aizawa takes a steadying breath as he shuffles to the door, filled with more trepidation than he’s comfortable to admit. “Here goes nothing.”
Notes:
Does.... does this count as another cliffhanger?
Probably.
WHOOPSIE BITCHES SEE YA NEXT WEEK *throws smoke bomb*
Chapter 52: Surprise!
Summary:
In which the curtain isn’t pulled back so much as torn down and worn like a toga.
Notes:
Who's been waiting a LONG TIME for this chapter?
Oh? Everyone??????
*Pulls a party-popper*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa does his best to clear his head on the elevator ride down to meet Hitoshi and Kiki, but either the 30-floor drop or impending collision of two worlds has his stomach sinking straight through the floor by the time the doors open with a harmonic bing in the underground car park.
It’s not personal, Aizawa’s just not good at letting people into his safe space – the carefully curated haven that he usually goes to all lengths to keep people out of. Even if it’s perfectly logical to bring these specific few in, and makes more sense than anything else Aizawa’s been able to come up with in his own numbskull head prior to this point. It’s just… exposed.
But that’s just Aizawa’s neuroses; elsewhere, Hizashi’s probably on cloud nine. Shaking out the post-orgasm glow and hopefully managing to clean himself up and put on some respectable clothes by the time Aizawa returns with the family he’s picked up like pins to a magnet.
The slam of a car door out of sight signals where Tama has parked, and a canter of footsteps warns of their approach. Aizawa tells himself once and for all to get a grip and then strides around the corner to meet them.
Hitoshi’s in the middle slightly behind Tama and his Ma, looking like all the world has been resting on slack teenage shoulders. The words on Aizawa's tongue suddenly scatter like a flock of lost sheep. Because there’s no way to explain what's about to happen when they go upstairs, and Aizawa suspects it might be a lot to take in – particularly for the kid he's become the moon and stars in the sky to. Really, Aizawa’s more of a satellite dropped out of orbit that's about to come hurtling back down to earth.
“That was fast,” Aizawa comments like they don’t have a million other things to talk about, but if he isn’t too worn out to even try.
Tama merely flexes his whiskers over a feline-canine toothy grin. “You've seen me drive.”
Aizawa tries a tired chuckle, but fails in the attempt and basically just clears his throat, quickly fermenting in a prickly silence that’s devoid of anything to say that matters at a moment like this. On the surface Aizawa’s the same pond scum as ever, but underneath a weight is pulling him down, like sinking to the riverbed in a steel chainmail vest.
It’s into this tired silence that Hitoshi offers a frosty, “Well you could look a little happier to see us.” Not letting it sit, he leads right into a presumptive, “Did you change your mind again?”
Aizawa’s confused, which isn’t new for him, especially not tonight, with all those wounds and sedatives numbing him to anything but the blunt force trauma equivalents of emotions. Needless to say, he doesn’t quite get it.
With the limited maneuverability that Aizawa’s got on offer, the best he can offer to this is a quarter of a shrug – that is, half a shrug with only one shoulder. “About what?”
“Letting us staying here instead of a police safehouse.” Hitoshi’s not exactly aggressive, definitely too worn down for a direct challenge, but there’s a defeatism in his tone that’s half a fight. Like what was wrong with them before to be kept at a distance. But it’s not personal, it’s just Aizawa.
So he doesn’t blame the kid for putting the pieces together that way – to assume that if Aizawa’s only inviting them here now, he’d thought of it the whole time and just hadn’t wanted to bring Hitoshi, and Kiki in turn, to his home. The reality is that Aizawa’s never really been in a position when inviting people back to his place is something he does, and even though he’s actually got somewhere to call home now (at least, one that’s suitable for civilised company), it just doesn’t occur to Aizawa that it’s his liberty to take.
Even when he was growing up, Aizawa’s home was always far too cramped and frantic to bring back classmates from UA, who had mansions and their own penthouses to show off instead of a pokey little apartments full of extra boxes for the little-bit-of-everything store his parents ran underneath, somehow scraping together enough to pay for their son’s fees at a prestigious school for Heroes.
“It’s not like that,” Aizawa starts trying to explain as Kiki and Hitoshi get close enough to follow him. But Tama’s stalled by the car, almost looking like he’s not staying for long, and it snags Aizawa’s attention like unravelling knitwear. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Only if you want me to.” Tama’s refreshingly direct, no circles within circles and managing expectations of a mystery unknown. He’s been back here before, and drunk to boot, so there’s little left for Tama to wonder about the kind of person Aizawa is in his downtime. Tama of anyone knows that all too well. “Not like you need me around with your kind of security.”
Feeling some sense of obligation, Aizawa points out, “Tsukauchi won’t like it.” But it’s a poor offering, because if Tama’s got somewhere better to be this constitutes a waste of his time.
“Fuck what Tsukauchi likes,” Tama announces with all the enthusiasm of a dead slug. Maybe if he and Tsukauchi were actually partners, Tama might feel a little more obligation to stick to the books and do what the only official Detective on the case would be obliged to insist on. But Tama’s never been one for squabbling with Aizawa and exact interpretations of the law – he called Aizawa at the beginning of all this, after all.
“He certainly is,” Hitoshi slips what must be an in-joke that Aizawa’s not invited to, because Tama and the teen share a beady-eyed glance that’s markedly more friendly than the solemn stares Hitoshi’s been giving to Aizawa as they dither in the parking lot. Funny how quickly the tides can change between people, especially when one of them’s only sixteen and pulls emotional U-turns at the slightest provocation.
Except like any instant high, Hitoshi’s attention-seeking drug wears off, and Tama’s soon turned his golden sunflower eyes back onto Aizawa. “There’s a bed round this way that I can crash in, so call me if you need me, but try not to need me.”
Aizawa can’t help but wonder if the bed Tama’s referring to is empty, or if someone’s keeping it warm – a friendly neighbour to welcome the stray to curl up next to them for the night. He wouldn’t be surprised. Tama did almost die today as well, so Aizawa can’t blame him for maybe wanting a night off – even some physical comfort, if he can get it – despite orders to stay on guard. But even the Chief wouldn’t quibble over an officer leaving their post if the one and only Present Mic is there to cover it – the whole point of Heroes and police is they’re not supposed to overlap, two functional parts of the same machine that only sync up every rotation or so.
“I’ll bear it in mind.” Even Aizawa can tell he sounds like all the life has all been sucked out of him. And whether it’s the injured arm that somehow got out of the sleeve of his jumpsuit, or some other subtle clue that he couldn’t himself divine, Hitoshi’s giving him all kinds of weird looks right now. Maybe they both sense the anticipation heavy in the air like a mist, seeing a side of Aizawa that’s never been seen before. Aizawa’s got no idea what they’re going to make of it, but it is what it is.
“See ya then.” Tama’s already getting back in the car, and might have been a buffer in this situation on another occasion, but Aizawa’s afforded no such luxuries. Raising a limp hand in farewell, Aizawa turns and leads Hitoshi and Kiki towards the lift.
He’s barely gotten a few steps before Aizawa catches the flight of a meek, “So what is it like?” on violet wings fluttering over his shoulder.
Aizawa’s too drugged and tired for games, carrying all the way to the lift doors and pushing the button to summon them back open, stepping inside first before turning to address Hitoshi with a weary, “Is what?”
Hitoshi’s unflinching, staring Aizawa down in the few-foot-square interrogation chamber. “Whatever changed your mind about bringing us here.”
Slipping his key into the lock on the lift operation panel, Aizawa turns it and presses the button to take them all the way up to the penthouse. “I didn’t change my mind,” he sets straight before Hitoshi can get anymore strung out playing the wrong track – thinking Aizawa didn’t want them here before, and now he does, souring the taste of something that ought to be sweet. “I just… didn’t think of it.”
The problem with the truth sometimes – Aizawa’s truth, at least – is that it isn’t always so easy to swallow.
“Didn’t think of it?” Hitoshi’s not convinced, for which Aizawa doesn’t blame him. “You just forgot you had a home?”
Aizawa holds Hitoshi’s question-master’s gaze like he deserves every inch of it, no looking away as if there’s something shameful to hide. Never.
“More or less.” Aizawa can’t be bothered to explain that before Hizashi lifted him out of the gutter – which he was perfectly comfortable in, but a gutter nonetheless – Aizawa didn’t have a home in a conventional sense of the word. So it’s not personal, but inviting houseguests just isn’t something that comes naturally to him.
“We’re here now, Hitoshi.” Kiki is a cool breeze on a hot night, a weight of the storm lifted as the rains finally wear themselves out. “That’s what matters.”
There’s a relief in her tone that Aizawa doesn’t expect, wondering if his discomfort over leaving Hitoshi and Kiki in the care of the police was a lot more mutual than any of them let on. No wonder Hitoshi’s so twisted.
The lift doors slide open on the private hallway leading to the apartment proper, and Aizawa really hopes Hizashi’s managed to make himself decent by the time they get inside. Hizashi surely knows this is important to Aizawa, and if giving messy oral on the sofa didn’t secure that favour, Aizawa doesn’t know what will.
“This place is… fancy.” Hitoshi’s like a cat coming out of a carrier in a new environment, shoulders high and the shadows of fatigue falling extra long over a face of long angles – a little like his father, but more like himself than anything.
Aizawa almost replies “it isn’t mine” which is true enough in cold cash terms, but Hizashi didn’t spend years nagging Aizawa to embrace this place as his home too for nothing, so he keeps it under his tongue.
“It’s secure,” Aizawa diverts form the point, reaching for the fingerprint-scanner lock and pressing his thumbs onto the pad until he hears the beep and pulling-back of the bolts holding the heavy door shut – reinforced and blast proof, no potshot assassins blasting through these locks, if they even managed to get this far at all.
“Anyone would think you didn’t want people coming here,” Hitoshi slips like the last word is his birthright, and Aizawa indulges a frustrated thought over whether the kid’s ever going to let him live this down.
“I don’t,” Aizawa’s tempted to snipe, but there’s nowhere productive it leads, so he swallows the bile instead. His stomach feels like the depths of a particularly angry bear’s cave, but the beast for now lies dormant. Then without further ado, Aizawa opens the front door on an empty apartment – at least at first glance.
“Jeez, Aizawa.” Hitoshi pivots from sullen to simply amazed in less than a second, probably a little taken back by the wide glass walls and high penthouse ceilings of Hizashi’s hand-picked abode, an exquisite vivarium to house a particularly tropical lizard. Hitoshi slides between Aizawa and his Ma to pace further into the room first, looking around in disbelief, as if the walls around him are a mirage of some kind. Then Hitoshi’s head whips over his shoulder, pinning Aizawa with a look that lands like throwing knives. “I thought you said being a Hero didn’t pay well?”
“Not the way he does it.” Hizashi’s voice echoes from the bedroom in advance of his physical presence, and Aizawa feels an instantaneous twang emanate from Kiki just behind him. Given her quirk, she must be hitting all kinds of mentalist frequencies, the way it snaps Aizawa’s brainstem like an elastic strap.
“Well howdy.” Hizashi saunters into view firing a gleaming grin of unnaturally white teeth, dressed in tracksuit bottoms an almost luminous day-glo pink in lieu of the black leather he was divested from earlier. But even if Hizashi had come out in the booty shorts that read ‘JUICY SLUT’ on the ass, Aizawa doesn't think Kiki could look any more surprised than she does right now, staring at Hizashi with his home glasses and hair in a blonde walnut whip on top of his head like he's a ghost and not a popular pro Hero, DJ-musician and all-round entertainer.
Hitoshi is familiar with the English teacher he’s been overenthusiastically taught by all term, but Kiki is an entirely new audience, and if there's anything Hizashi loves, it's an audience. So the charm is well and truly on as he offers a suave, “And you must be…?”
“... Present Mic.” Kiki’s caught in the headlights, a completely blank expression and no awareness that Hizashi was asking who she was. Aizawa’s seen this effect before, and had noticed the signs in Kiki, but hadn't fully taken into account the habit fans have of trying to play down the full force of their devotion to an idol… until that idol walks into the room.
“In the flesh,” Hizashi confirms with another jackpot-winning smile. “Shota's told me nothing about you, though…”
Another prompt, and this time Kiki catches Hizashi’s breeze with a stuttering, “Kiki… you can call me… Kiki.”
Hitoshi has been stuck out on the wings of this, watching the whole exchange with an expression of confusion that only intensifies when Hizashi calls Aizawa ‘Shota’ like he must mean someone else and there's a mistake of some kind – that Aizawa’s girlfriend is out, and that's why his trusty best friend is filling in. Because there's no way those two figures could be one and the same, reconciling the missus always calling Aizawa on his cringeworthy personalised ringtone and a picture of the woman Hitoshi imagined behind it, with the reality standing before them looking only a little bit like UA’s resident English maestro and all-round loudmouth.
And although Aizawa looks the same in and out of school hours, or at any hour of the day or night – a dishevelled wreck as ever – Hizashi tends to be well-covered enough around school that only students who’ve looked him up in the music mags tend to discover that under all that leather lies a living tapestry of tattoos that’d better suit a Yakuza than a respectable schoolteacher and Pro Hero. It’s not banned, per se, and Hizashi could easily show a little more skin around school if he wanted, but usually claims it’s part of his ‘branding’ to keep his Hero and Teacher persona separate from the tattooed freak who can be found in nude photoshoots for a host of edgy magazines over the years.
Right now Hizashi’s off-duty, which means no support gear, no jacket or gloves, showing off arms of bright ink beyond the borders of a plain white t-shirt that clings to his frame. Hizashi still looks like himself, especially the way Aizawa knows him, but that’s a large step away from the way Hitoshi’s used to seeing him.
“Pleasure to meet you, Kiki… finally.” Hizashi doesn’t miss a barb for Aizawa, who feels more like a six-foot gash has been cut in his underbelly and is standing there mouthing off without a care in the world. “Might want to close your mouth, kid,” Hizashi delivers as a soft aside to Hitoshi, who’s just staring in jaw-dropping amazement. “You’ll catch flies.”
Hitoshi shuts his mouth with a quiet click of his teeth. It's skin-crawlingly silent, where Aizawa assumes all of this is trying to sink in. Him. Hizashi. This place. This being their place. Together.
Kiki finally succeeds in tearing her gaze away from Hizashi, fixing it instead to Aizawa with a simple quote that’s an instant bullseye. “You’re familiar?”
Aizawa’s mouth is as dry and prickly as a cactus garden, and this is exactly the reason why he prefers for people not to know about him and Hizashi – so much expectation to awkwardly manage, and none of it that is supposed to affect anyone except himself and Hizashi.
“I didn’t say how familiar,” Aizawa mumbles with a mouth full of sand, heart racing until his chest feels like it might implode.
“But…” Kiki’s glancing between Aizawa and Hizashi as if following an invisible tennis match, furrows in her brow like a bent-out-of-shape racket, before finally questioning Hizashi with an astonished, “... him? ”
On another occasion Hizashi might not take so kindly to this disbelief, but he accepts they make an interesting pair at the best of times, and thankfully just cracks a laugh. “I like you already, Kiki.” Hizashi strolls closer to Aizawa, radiating positive energy. “Can I fix you a drink? You must need one if you’ve been dealing with this one all day.”
One of Hizashi’s canary hands flutters to Aizawa’s shoulder for a squeeze that’s as reassuring as it is indicative; a brief respite from Aizawa wondering if the floor couldn’t just swallow him up and spit him back out when all this crushing awkwardness is over.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Aizawa tries to warn Kiki, which means dodging the closed-mouth, but no less world-upside-down stare emanating from Hitoshi, who seems to be struggling to process how much he wasn’t expecting any of this.
“Oh ignore him,” Hizashi guffaws, fingers taking flight from Aizawa’s shoulder with a dismissive flap that shifts into a coaxing gesture at Kiki. “Here, let me give you the tour. We’re a little short on space, so you’ll be crashing in my studio if that’s alright.”
Now Kiki’s not, by any stretch of the word, a typical ‘fangirl’, but Hizashi has this effect on people, and Aizawa could swear she’s going a little pink as she utters a starry-eyed, “I’d love to– I mean, that’s alright.”
Without further hesitation Hizashi whisks Kiki down the hallway and out of sight, leaving Hitoshi staring at Aizawa like he’s about to throw down accusations of high treason. As the sounds of Hizashi giving Kiki the literal tour, running commentary and all, grow distant, if not entirely silent, Hitoshi opens his mouth, stalls, and then shuts it again. Aizawa just stands there, assuming the kid will spit out whatever he’s chewing on sooner rather than later.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take too long.
“You didn’t tell me you were– that you and Mic…” Hitoshi blurts then dries up, struggling for words to describe what’s been right under his nose, disguised by heteronormative assumptions. It’s impossible, surely, to see what Hitoshi’s seeing now and come to any other conclusion. Though Aizawa’s been wrong before.
Instead of putting into words what Hitoshi can’t muster for himself, Aizawa just offers a crisp, “Is it something I’m supposed to announce?” like exactly the unreasonable expectation that it is. As if he’s supposed to warn people of his homosexuality, when it’s other people who assume otherwise to begin with, for no other reason than it’s ‘normal’ – and when has Aizawa ever been that?
“No,” Hitoshi trips over himself, “I just…” Now Hitoshi's the one taking on a shade of Shinsou blush, if for different reasons than his mother's starstruck awe – Kiki already twigged that Aizawa wasn't straight, so it's probably not the bombshell this must be for Hitoshi. He can't seem to even look at Aizawa anymore, eyes diverted down as a hand rises to grasp nervously at the hair on the back of his neck. “I thought you mighta mentioned it…”
“Don't see that it's anyone else's business.” Aizawa’s tone is so cool it could be mixed in drinks for ice, and Hitoshi clearly takes it like a puppy regards a rolled up newspaper. Aizawa’s trying not to be too hard on the teen, but this is a boundary Hitoshi needs to understand isn't about him, it's just something that Aizawa keeps guarded until someone comes across it by unavoidable circumstance. “It's not personal, I just like to keep my private life private.”
There's no shame involved, not trying to ‘hide’ it out of fear for the reactions people might have. Aizawa just doesn't want to tell anyone, because the only people his relationship with Hizashi is meant to affect is himself and Hizashi, and that's how he likes it.
Whether Hitoshi gets it – accepts this, Aizawa, exactly as he is, rather than what Hitoshi had imagined him to be – that’s up to Hitoshi.
A flying dagger of noise slices through the tension in the air. “SHOTAAAAAA~ WHERE DID WE PUT THE SPARE FUTONS?!”
Aizawa sighs at the dulcet tones of his best beloved, mustering some of his lingering energy supplies to call back, “How should I know?!” across the apartment.
This is followed by some banging from the distance that sounds like cupboards, a cacophony of noise to accompany the thought most present in Aizawa’s mind, which is hoping to all gods Hitoshi doesn’t take this revelation too badly. Haven’t they already fought enough today?
Hitoshi takes a step towards Aizawa that he doesn’t quite finish, hanging on his back foot like something’s holding him back, a frown gracing his face before coming out with the last thing Aizawa expects.
“Is your arm okay?”
“Huh?” Aizawa offers ineloquently, which is about how he’s feeling in any case. Inelegant. As if he’s been sawn apart with a rusty tool and left, splintered ends and sharp edges, to try and function among the rest of the living, breathing people.
“Your suit, you changed the way it’s… you moved your arm.” Hitoshi flutters between fussing and worried, and if he doesn’t have anything else to say about Aizawa and Hizashi – not now, at least – then Aizawa supposes that’s what he wanted anyway. “It wasn’t hurting you, was it?”
“No.” Aizawa’s quick to settle, in no way being able to explain that the only reason his injured arm isn’t in the sleeve Hitoshi carefully threaded it into earlier was because Hizashi threaded it back out, and they didn’t really have time or energy to re-thread the awkward limb again after getting busy on the sofa. In fact, Aizawa probably needs to say anything other than that. “It’s fine, I was just… tired.” Not horny. At least, not anymore.
Hitoshi frowns, perhaps noticing that this doesn’t really make any sense, unless you assume Aizawa had some reason to take the suit halfway off and be too tired to put it back on. It’s not so bad, really: Hizashi had wanted to see Aizawa’s injuries, which Hitoshi was witness to the creation of, so didn’t need shown or discuss them through the delicate artform of an argument. Frustrating how each little piece of Aizawa that fits with one person is missing for someone else, but he’s never been an easy person to click with – or only for some.
Hitoshi opens his mouth, but no sound comes out before there’s another far-off call of, “SHOOOTAAAaaaaaa did we have one or two!?” like a ventriloquists’ act parroting Hizashi’s voice through Hitoshi’s mouth, which shuts again as if surprised by what’s come over him.
Aizawa rolls his eyes and feels the strain pulling through his whole body, bereft of the energy to muster a shout in return. He turns, about to walk over to Hizashi than continue yelling across the apartment, but Hizashi’s beaten him to it, materialising at the end of the corridor that tapers off to his studio with Kiki by his side.
“Why would I know how many we have of anything?” Aizawa puts wearily to his best friend, who struts the corridor like a catwalk just because he can.
“I thought we had a couple, but I could only find one,” Hizashi replies merrily, rolling up with Kiki like his posse and sticking out an elbow to lean against the wall next to Aizawa, who is still yet to move more than about three feet from the door.
This pose is the perfect framing for the tattoo on Hizashi’s inner bicep, part of a larger armpiece that grows from flowing shapes into the ornate border of a Yamada family portrait, Hizashi with all three of his siblings crowded together in the front row, parents in the back with their mother’s bouffant updo and dad boasting a pompadour that means business. It’s no surprise Hizashi was born the second-youngest of four with a quirk that deafened the doctor – he’d be needing that voice growing up, making sure he could be heard across an all-excited-shouting dinner table night after night. Aizawa doesn't even try when he's over.
“I’ve got a spare sleeping bag somewhere,” Aizawa offers with a bone-dry hint of domesticity that feels very conspicuous when there’s other people to watch them. That even oddballs like himself and Hizashi have such mundane conversations when they’re at home, just being people with each other.
“Oh!” Hizashi snaps his fingers. “I remember! We trashed one after the last Billboard Awards, trying to sled down the fire escape.”
“Hmm.” Aizawa smothers the chuckle that might have bubbled up under easier circumstances, but indulges a murmur of amusement that creeps into his tone. “That does ring a bell.”
Aizawa hadn’t gone to the show because he despises awards ceremonies with every fibre of his being, but he’d been persuaded to join the afterparty at least, so was on an even footing with Hizashi when it came to staggering back here trashed with all their ‘new friends’ to keep the party going. The futon was one of the lesser casualties of that particular piss-up.
“Sorry, kid, but it might be the sofa for you,” Hizashi declares with shallow resignation at best. The sofa, after all, has comfortably accommodated many a sleeper when needs be, such as Tama (wasted) most recently.
“That’s okay.” Hitoshi’s probably spent more time around Hizashi than Aizawa ever has in sheer number of school-hours, but that Hizashi isn’t quite the same as this one. Faced with the real person behind the teacher and Hero persona – the highly extroverted adult male who lives with Aizawa in the space Hitoshi had assigned to his ‘missus’, who’s less old lady and more tats and white tees in flamingo coloured sweatpants – the teen’s almost coming over bashful. “Ma can have the futon.”
“What a kind, considerate son,” Hizashi coos full of fun, but if anything Hitoshi’s only retreating further into his shell, which Aizawa can empathise with. “Oh! Your drink!” Hizashi snaps back to attention on Kiki, who looks tired as all hell, but at least seems to be enjoying her audience with a favoured celebrity-Hero. Something that Hizashi will always exploit to the utmost. “What tickles your tastes, my dear? Something sweet? Sour? Sticky?”
“I really wouldn’t, if I were you,” Aizawa puts in limply. Kiki might be a fan of Present Mic, but he mixes a cocktail that’s more suited to cleaning engine parts than human consumption. Aizawa would know, as his longest-serving, still-living guinea pig.
“Oh pooh, if everyone was like you society would have imploded years ago,” Hizashi rallies with a winning smile that surrounds Kiki like a halo. “So what’ll it be?”
Kiki’s gaze flicks to Aizawa for a moment, like she’s briefly considering if maybe he isn’t being a complete downer for no reason and she’s got a right to be wary, but star power is too much to resist, because her lilac eyes turn back to Hizashi to offer a wry, “Surprise me.”
Aizawa thinks they might have had enough of surprises for one night, but he’d be wrong.
Hitoshi might just be tired, it’s the simplest explanation, but Aizawa’s not even close to convinced. There’s a gut instinct playing his mentalist brain like a harp, strings vibrating through every little mopey word or movement that comes from Hitoshi all evening that’s as puzzling as it is frustrating.
Because if Hitoshi is moping over the revelation that his teachers live together, with each other, in an apartment that very clearly only has one bedroom, Aizawa has no better advice than a dodo can advise an aerospace engineer on the principles of flight. Because if that is the problem, then Aizawa’s more upset by it than he’d like to confront – as he always is when someone he thought could be trusted turns out to be less tolerant and accepting of his ‘lifestyle’ than a decent human being ought to be.
But maybe it’s none of that. Maybe Hitoshi is just overwhelmed and burned out after the horrendous day they’ve had – and Aizawa’s sorry and upset with himself for that too, for having the larger part of the responsibility, for the highs and lows of the rollercoaster they got on first thing this morning and didn’t stop unless someone was dead or almost-dying.
However, there’s nothing Aizawa can really do to change this or that, and he’s instead rooted to the spot while Hizashi sits behind him on the back of the sofa, attempting to unmat the angry beehive that’d started the day as a bun and ended it like a black tumbleweed crossed with an angry cat.
“How do you manage this shit, Shota?” Hizashi’s griping as he heaps one of his mysterious hair products into a palm and then works it through matts Aizawa can feel more than he’s got the ability to see.
“It’s been a day,” Aizawa mumbles over half a bowl of instant noodles in his lap, which Hitoshi had insisted on spicing up when it came to light that Aizawa hadn’t eaten anything that counted as ‘dinner’. This in itself was a task, given the extremely meagre offerings their fridge and cupboards had to supplement the bulk-buy noodles that Aizawa’s lived on for months at a time before and likes just fine without the added sauce and pickles, but Hitoshi had wanted to do it and nobody was going to stop him.
Hitoshi’s determination to do something for Aizawa, even when it’s just instant noodles he’d eat as they are – or sometimes, in a rush, eat dry while swigging hot tea to ‘cook them in his mouth’ – had seemed very important to Hitoshi at the time. But rather than being reassuring it just feels like more of a worry, like Hitoshi’s desperate for something that hasn’t been satisfied, the way the teen sits in sullen contemplation of his phone, tangled up like a tumbleweed.
“You can say that again.” Kiki is lounging up on the other end of the bright red corner sofa, nursing a cocktail she took one sip of and pulled a face that instantly conveyed why Aizawa had tried to warn her. Hitoshi’s kind of bundled in the middle, and it could all be in Aizawa’s head, but there’s a fraught tension playing in the air like white noise getting slowly louder and louder.
Hizashi’s wielding a pair of scissors along with a sturdy comb, fishing through all the tangles in search of the hair-tie that was eaten long ago by the monster residing on the back of Aizawa’s head, which must be cut out rather than untied as the name might suggest. At least, the way Aizawa uses them.
“Eugh,” Hizashi crows all of a sudden, tugging something free from Aizawa’s hair. “There’s a cigarette butt in here you animal.”
“Ah,” is all Aizawa offers in reply, thinking of the plant pot full of butts on Kiki’s balcony that was knocked over during the chaos earlier. Hizashi tosses it into the ashtray on the coffee table with pinpoint accuracy, and goes back into the fray with greater determination.
Eventually Hizashi pulls hard enough for even Aizawa to offer a complainative, “Ow.” They usually save that shit for the bedroom, and this is so not the time and place.
Hizashi’s perfectly unbothered of course, retorting with a sharp, “Oh shut up, bitch, you love it.” It’s still there, the same instant chemistry he’s had with Hizashi for longer than Hitoshi’s been able to walk and talk, a history that goes back years and not days. It isn’t a competition, but Aizawa can’t help wondering if there’s a part of Hitoshi that feels threatened by his relationship with Hizashi – and if that is the case, what in the fuck Aizawa’s supposed to do about it. Hitoshi’s certainly giving them enough covert glances in solemn silence when he’s usually so open.
Aizawa might be increasingly sensitive to the winds of Hitoshi’s moods, but that only goes as far as knowing something is wrong, not what it is. And if whatever’s bothering Hitoshi has anything to do with Hizashi, Aizawa’s not sure he wants to know.
Notes:
I hope y'all realised that it would NEVER be that straightforward for me in this fic, and to trust in the process and remember these characters are all very stressed and tired and some of them have been stabbed full of glass and heavily sedated so they're feeling a little vulnerable right now and others are very slightly extremely sixteen years old so it might be frustrating to watch that play out but it's also what makes it SO DAMN GOOD.
This chapter is also dedicated to coaltar who has been having anxiety about Aizawa's hair for chapters. I did promise that the monster consequences would come back to haunt us, and 'there's a cigarette in here you ANIMAL' is high up there on my list of favourite lines from this fic which is also my list of favourite lines of dialogue for Hizashi because THAT'S JUST HOW I ROLL.
See y'all next week!
Chapter 53: A little off the top
Summary:
Hitoshi digs himself a hole, but Aizawa’s not sure the kid even knows what he’s looking for.
Notes:
Ohhhhhhh wasn't last week good? Let's bask in it a little more, huh?
This chapter is dedicated to the love and light of my life, the sun in my sky, my one and only... Present Mic <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It takes the better part of an hour, by which point Aizawa’s bowl of noodles has gone colder than a stiff in the morgue, but Hizashi finally achieves victory over the matted mess of Aizawa’s hair, snipping out the offending hair-tie and pinging the elastic into the ashtray with surprising accuracy and a cry of, “Take that, bitch!” as he lands the winning shot along with the rest of the rubbish he's picked out of Aizawa’s mop head. Which is quite a lot of rubbish.
Kiki’s made use of the ashtray already too, perhaps trying to scorch her taste buds enough to stomach the taste of Hizashi’s ‘sweet, sour and sticky’ creation in a cocktail glass. (Quite different to the sweet, sour and sticky creation he treated Aizawa to earlier). She had seemed a little unsure about smoking indoors at first, but Hizashi insisted they do it all the time, and under house rules she was entitled to do the same.
This de-tangling could’ve been accomplished in less than a minute the way Aizawa handles matts, but he concedes that if he’d gone for this one with a kitchen knife he might've ended up with an accidental undercut again, so it’s probably for the best that Hizashi doesn’t let Aizawa take care his own hair in exchange for doing it for him. Truly, Aizawa’s lost track of which one of them’s really getting what they want out of this deal, because Hizashi’s own golden mane simply isn’t enough for him, and the upkeep of Aizawa’s mop into some semblance of good shape – good enough to wind round his fist, in any case – is an apeish indulgence that suits them both.
Therefore, it’s play more than nagging when Hizashi leans over Aizawa’s good shoulder and drawls, “Next time, darling, try taking the hair-tie out before letting it get eaten.” But if Aizawa didn’t make a mess of his hair then Hizashi wouldn’t have an excuse to sit down and do it for him, would he?
With habit long-trained by instinct more than deliberation, Hizashi runs his fingertips soothingly across Aizawa’s scalp, which he knows turns his lover into an especially cerebral jellyfish, but Hizashi rarely spares any thought for what his hands are keeping themselves busy with, and Aizawa must resort to biting his lip to keep himself from making any noise – suppressing the instinct to vocalise that anyone dating Hizashi is inevitably going to pick up from sheer exposure alone.
Hitoshi has been giving this rather ordinary domestic ritual between Aizawa and Hizashi suspicious deer eyes from the corner of the sofa, and Aizawa wishes the teen would just spit out whatever's on his mind. Until, finally, he does.
“Do you usually do Aizawa’s hair?” It’s equal parts presumptive to question, like a prod to see if this is for show or really how they behave with each other – answer being, this counts as good behaviour between them around company. But Hitoshi’s not to know that.
“When he lets me,” Hizashi chortles while still scritching the back of Aizawa’s head like a faithful dog, a wonder Aizawa's leg doesn't start twitching, though his eyelids droop and eyes roll back when Hizashi gets him just right. “Why, you want a turn in the hotseat?”
“What?” Hitoshi goes from deer in the headlights to straight under the wheels, clearly not anticipating the jump from observing a phenomena to an invitation to participate in it. Little does Hitoshi realise that if Hizashi hadn't been a pro Hero, DJ, musician and teacher in a manic day-to-day juggle that barely keeps afloat, but looks better than Aizawa doing it, then he'd have long since added hairdresser to that roster as more than just a funtimes hobby – and after that add tattoo artist in all probability, but even Present Mic can only have so many feathers in his extravagant headdress.
“I’ll give you a trim.” Hizashi’s firing Hitoshi a smile so enthusiastic it could be a classified drug in powder form. “Spruce the ‘ol goose a bit, you know?”
Hitoshi very definitely does not know, and neither does Aizawa for that matter – Hizashi doesn’t always make sense if you interpret the literal meaning of his words, needing to divine the intention more like the message inside a fortune cookie.
“It’s alright,” Hitoshi tries to fob Hizashi off at first, which is a mistake to begin with, as it assumes Hizashi is just being considerate rather than acting entirely in his own interests – which is to play hairdresser whenever and wherever he gets the chance: guinea pigs wanted.
“It’s no trouble,” Hizashi gushes immediately, still combing his fingers through Aizawa’s greasy but tangle-free hair, but more distractedly than before. “It’s your first time with me, so I’ll be gentle.” Not like he is with Aizawa, who’ll take it because he encourages far worse in the bedroom and they both know it. If Aizawa’s got anything to show for his career as an Underground Hero to date, it’s a high threshold for pain and the dispensation to enjoy it.
But Hitoshi couldn’t seem more disarmed if he’d been unhorsed in a jousting match, laying flat on his back staring at the sky wondering how on earth he ended up in the position he’s in of having to decline a free haircut from his English teacher.
“I’m fine.” If what Hitoshi means is no he better get to saying it outright, as Aizawa knows Hizashi won’t accept anything less than direct refusal – and even then he’s going to push it a little anyway. That’s just what he does.
“Oh come on, it won’t take long,” Hizashi wheedles, and Hitoshi seems more unnerved than ever, suddenly attracting the intensity of Hizashi’s undivided attention onto him. “I won’t fuck it up, you can trust me.”
That phrasing in particular catches Hitosh even more off-guard, language of such significance applied to something so trivial. The twist is that Hizashi might be taking about something little but he always means it big.
Without a scalp massage rendering Aizawa mute except for various animal noises, it’s a little easier to string together a few words of his own, although his mouth feels increasingly full of cotton wool, which might be a sign that mixing Hizashi’s leftover sake with whatever they sedated Aizawa with at the hospital wasn’t the smartest decision in retrospect. Or it’s a really good decision, because it’s done wonders for the pain, which is now only a mild annoyance rather than a serious discomfort.
“He’s got a point.” Aizawa’s surprised at the roughness of his own voice at first, but on reflection all the smoking, shouting and being plain fucking passed-out this evening doesn't make it all that surprising.
Hitoshi’s gaze slips from Hizashi just behind Aizawa down to fix on him in shock and accusation. “Excuse me?”
“You could use a haircut,” Aizawa remarks without really considering what he’s saying all that much. It’s a thought he’s had in private before, so sharing it doesn’t seem all that unnatural at such an appropriate point in time. And Hitoshi’s head does look a little like an out of control shrubbery, which the trials of the day haven’t exactly mitigated. Hitoshi showered earlier, but if anything this had only unleashed the force of his violet whirlwind hair to its fullest potential.
However, the fact that Kiki bursts into laughter suggests this may be more uncharacteristic from Aizawa than anticipated.
“You’re one to talk, hairball,” Hizashi chuckles with another more attentive scrunch of the hair on the back of Aizawa’s neck, which makes him squirm in a way that’s half ‘cut it out’ and the rest ‘keep it up’. Aizawa wearing his hair long means less haircuts, which he hates, not to mention dodging masculine illusions that he doesn’t especially care for. But neither of those things have any bearing on Hitoshi, who even Aizawa can see needs a little pruning back now and then.
“Just an opinion.” Aizawa can’t shrug right now, but a deadpan stare is well within his range of expression under the current conditions.
“Well I didn’t ask for it.” It can’t be ignored that Hitoshi’s definitely being a bit snippy, and why he should be frostier with Aizawa than Hizashi doesn’t quite figure, but Hitoshi’s attitude at all right now is a puzzle that Aizawa can’t even begin to try and solve. “I don’t need a haircut.”
Except if Hitoshi thought that was the end of it, he doesn’t know Hizashi well enough.
Hizashi swings his spidery legs from sitting either side of Aizawa to facing Hitoshi with one crossed over the other. Hitoshi’s huddled the corner of the sofa like a bundle of blankets while Hizashi beams down from his raised perch on the back of the furniture, a hawk coming down over a turtle that's retreated into his shell.
Hizashi gives it his most charming smile, endless whirlpool eyes that could pull down even the most unresisting of sailor, and wheedles like his life depends on it, like he's never wanted anything more than the thing he just thought of five seconds ago.
“Pleeeeeeease?”
Maybe Hitoshi can’t figure Hizashi out, trying to overcomplicate someone who’s the perfect example of having no filters between the id and his actions in the real world. It’s the reason Aizawa always tolerated Hizashi when they first met – if not actually liked, not to begin with. Because while a hyperactive showboater with the attention span of a box of over-excited puppies, Hizashi’s completely transparent in the way he treats people, and Aizawa’s appreciated that long before he loved Hizashi for it.
Perhaps it’s only just dawning on Hitoshi that Hizashi’s offer isn’t about doing something for Hitoshi, forcing some obligation that Hitoshi ‘needs’ and will be impressed on him whether he likes it or not. Instead, Hizashi’s asking to do it purely because he wants to – enough so that he’s actually pleading with Hitoshi; the power lies not with Hizashi to insist, but with Hitoshi to allow. Maybe the kid’s not used to getting that from adults, especially ones that hold some form of authority over him.
This change seems to happen in real-time before Aizawa’s eyes, shifting sands from suspicion and confusion in Hitoshi’s face to something less harsh, a little sunlight through the swirling clouds. He keeps glancing back and forth between Aizawa and Hizashi, as if there’s something still to be figured out between them, why they go together like stinky cheese and good wine. And maybe being part of the equation might help Hitoshi understand, even just a little, what it's like being doted on by Hizashi.
“... Fine,” Hitoshi murmurs as his gaze shifts from Aizawa back to Hizashi. “But make it quick.”
Hizashi literally vaults off the sofa in excitement and dashes out of the room, a self-propelled tornado that spins into the bathroom, picking up hairdressing implements in his wake. Hitoshi doesn’t know it yet, but HIzashi will bend the meaning of the word ‘quick’ to its greatest point of elasticity.
This leaves Hitoshi’s gaze resting heavy on Aizawa, left behind like an oil stain on the sofa, wondering if he should try to warn Hitoshi what he’s gotten into, or if like Kiki there’s no point even trying to warn them.
“What?” Hitoshi’s just a shade below snapping at Aizawa as this lazy stare lingers, and whatever’s got him wound so tight seems at odds with their environment, deep within the safe space that Aizawa’s called home for long enough to really feel like it.
“Nothing,” Aizawa murmurs in his throaty bullfrog croak. “You just don’t know what you’ve done.”
Hitoshi’s eyes widen and then narrow, and he looks like he’s about to burst into something when Hizashi beats him to it, exploding back into the room.
“If you wouldn’t mind taking a seat over here, kiddo, I assume you’d prefer not to sleep over all your own hair clippings.” Going all out, as Hizashi is inevitably going to do, he’s got a full belt of hairdressing equipment wrapped around his hips and spins a set of scissors around one finger, trailing a large gown behind him like a cape from the other arm.
Hitoshi, however, isn’t quite having it. “If you stop calling me kid I might.”
But Hizashi doesn’t miss a beat. “Alright then, Mr. Man, up you get.”
This has Hitoshi turning a particular shade of reddish-pink that Aizawa’s not sure he’s ever seen coming on this fast, and Hitoshi doesn’t budge so much as a finger.
In blissful ignorance Hizashi carries over one of the high stools behind the breakfast bar to the middle of the room, setting it in a well-lit space bordering the wall of windows overlooking a stormy night sky finally asleep, and lowers the seat until it approximates a barbershop chair before calling out, “I’m waiting, Mop-Top, don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind already.”
Hizashi’s bitchy-meets-taunt is a particular kind of lure that’s not always as effective at achieving the reaction he wants, but it certainly always gets some kind of reaction, and as far as Hizashi’s concerned that’s a good enough place to start. His famous first words to Aizawa, for one: you look like a goth fucked a garbage bag, what's your deal?
It’s also worth noting that Hizashi is quite assuredly not in teacher mode right now, where he'd have to retain some sense of being reasonable and fair around his students. This is just what Hizashi’s like in his own time, around anyone, which is very different to how he and Hitoshi would usually interact at school.
Aizawa could tell Hizashi to lay off the kid, but that would probably just make Hitoshi more indignant, and it wouldn’t even work, because above all else Hizashi’s a contrarian (just like Hitoshi and Aizawa). No, to pull this off, Aizawa has to appeal to the rational almost-adult between them.
“He’s just going to get worse the more you resist,” Aizawa advises Hitoshi with an air he hopes comes off amiable, like he’s confiding in Hitoshi rather than attempting to patronise him. “Trust me, I’d know.”
“Don’t collude with him, ratbag!” Hizashi belts across the room. “What happened to you being on my side?!”
“I am,” Aizawa answers with a deadpan so dead it’s technically decomposing. “I’m just explaining that you’re going to be annoying until you get what you want.” The Yamada Hizashi Classic, or Present Mic™ if you’re willing to pay royalties.
“Traitor!” Hizashi squawks, whipping a spray bottle from his hip-pouch and lobbing it across the room at Aizawa. He raises his good arm to catch the projectile, which probably doesn’t have anything more harmful than saltwater in it, but the throw never makes it to destination.
Hitoshi gets up and snatches the two ounces of cheap plastic right out of the air before even getting close to Aizawa. “Alright, alright,” Hitoshi bemoans like he’s going to out-drama Hizashi in his own uniquely teenagery way, tossing the bottle back at Hizashi – who catches it with a beaming smile. “Just stop fighting.”
“Oh honey, you’d know if we were fighting.” Hizashi flips back to sweetness the moment it’s clear Hitoshi’s back to indulging him, whipping out the hairdressing gown like a matador’s cape as if to bait Hitoshi into the seat.
Hitoshi seems alarmed by being addressed as ‘honey’ by any of his teachers, but that’s just Hizashi – if Aizawa can’t get out of being called darling-baby-angel-cakes on a regular and rolling basis, Hitoshi’s got no fucking chance.
“Take a seat, Young Man,” Hizashi invites once more as Hitoshi shuffles over at the speed of a highly decayed zombie, finally getting his butt parked on the stool as he possibly reconciles ‘young man’ being at least an improvement on ‘kiddo’. It hadn’t occurred to Aizawa that Hitoshi didn’t like being called by a crude identifier of his age, years so tender compared to everyone around them. Maybe it’s a Hizashi thing, or maybe Hitoshi just tolerates it more from Aizawa.
If it is a Hizashi thing, then the amount that Hizashi actually cares is zero. Moments here and there are lost to him as quickly as petals swept down a gushing springwater stream, moving on instantly as he swishes the hairdressing gown around Hitoshi to tie it neatly at the back of his neck.
“Now, what can I do for you today, Sir? A little off the top?” A character actor to the end, Hizashi plays the part regardless of his audience’s cooperation, and Hitoshi might still be at the learning phase of recognising this, instead of just accepting what’s happening and doing what everyone close to Hizashi inevitably does, which is give in and play along. Turns out, it’s usually the way to have the most fun, if it’s what Hizashi wants.
“Not too much,” Hitoshi replies stiffly. He looks particularly amusing with the long tent of black overall-ish fabric hanging down past his knees, turning him into kind of a bobble-headed pyramid pulling petulant faces. Aizawa and Kiki's eyes meet over this amusing picture, sharing a private smile as Hitoshi continues like a toddler that needs a nap, “You can cut the sides a bit, but I don’t like it short on top.”
Probably reasons for that, Aizawa considers without needing to let the unwanted resemblance rise all the way to the surface.
“Perish the thought!” Hizashi coos as he inspects a brush from his belt and then without a moment’s hesitation starts combing it through Hitoshi’s hair with the effortless confidence of someone who has never had a second thought in his life about invading someone else’s personal space. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little jealous.”
Hitoshi doesn’t really react externally, but Aizawa’s so tuned into Hitoshi that he feels a twang in the mentalist air that makes him aware of the connection they must have slipped into – on both sides – for it to be so clear and distinct; that pulse of energy the moment Hizashi’s mouth forms around the word jealous.
“Of what?” Hitoshi asks with an unshakeable deadpan, but Aizawa’s more alert, and recognises the facade of Hitoshi’s walls raised up high. While his boundaries might have been opened here and there for Aizawa, that doesn’t mean Hizashi gets an automatic pass – even if he should.
“This volume.” Hizashi times this right after he’s slipped the brush into his waistband, diving both hands of fingers into Hitoshi’s hair at the root and combing upward to marvel in Hitoshi’s magnificent mop, getting hands-on in the most literal sense of the word.
Hitoshi wriggles in his seat, and there’s a reason Aizawa lets Hizashi toy with his hair like a child with a plaything. Aside from the practical uses, it feels fucking great – especially after a heavy day of cranial mentalist activity, if Aizawa bothers to connect all the dots. If it’s as soothing for Hitoshi as it is for Aizawa, the kid – or not kid, apparently – deserves the physical therapy.
“I know people who’d kill to roll out of bed in the morning with all this,” Hizashi continues merrily, and Aizawa knows Hizashi means himself, but decides to spare them all unnecessary bitchfight of pointing it out. “So just a teensy trim up top, and more off the sides, right?”
Hitoshi’s not just stiff-lipped, it’s like his whole being has been tightened up with screws. “Yeah.”
“What d’you think, Mama Bear?” Hizashi raises to Kiki without concern for Hitoshi’s reticence, far too smooth an operator to let anyone suffer the indignity of pointing the sore thumb out. Out of all of them, Hizashi’s worked far worse rooms than this.
“Oh, don’t ask me,” Kiki responds awfully smooth for a woman at the end of a very long and hard day, but maybe that’s just Hizashi’s cocktail talking. “Hitoshi’s always had very firm ideas about this kind of thing.”
“Just cut my damn hair already.” Hitoshi’s getting irate, a growl in his tone that seems like he’s fed up of being a prop for a clown.
“Easy, Hitoshi,” Aizawa finds himself saying instead of just thinking, that overly loose medicated tongue not shutting up now the orders to start talking have finally made it from base control. “You don’t have to if you don’t wan–”
“What I want is to hurry up with this shit,” Hitoshi actually interrupts, and in retrospect, it might have been easier to observe that the reason Hitoshi feels like he can say this the way he does to Aizawa because it’s to Aizawa. But in the moment Aizawa’s more blinded by shock at such a monumental display of brattishness; under his own roof, even, and after all the emotional agony of letting Hitoshi and his Ma into his one true home, the place Aizawa and Hizashi get to be themselves without apology – and this is what they get for it?
Before Aizawa can go volcanic – if Hitoshi or Kiki pick up the lighthouse flash of fury emanating from Aizawa for a hot second, Hizashi sure as shit sees the signs – Hizashi flips like alternating current before Aizawa gets a chance to speak.
Taking firm control of Hitoshi’s jaw, Hizashi tilts the teen’s head to one side with an appeasing, “Alright, hold still,” that’s soft yet harder than any of his yelping noise-bucket yapping from before.
It's what Hitoshi wants – getting on with it – but he doesn't even have the decency to look appreciative of that either, a vague scowl as Hizashi plies him about, Seems like they can’t do anything right in Hitoshi’s eyes.
Thankfully, Aizawa’s not the only outraged dare-he-think-it-parent taking this outrageous display in either.
“That’s not the way we speak to people whose home we’re guests in, Hitoshi.” Kiki does motherly scolding like a runway, all poise and cold looks as she levels her icy gaze at her son while Hizashi whips out a comb and thinning scissors to start merrily snipping away at the side of Hitoshi’s head.
“Don’t sweat it,” Hizashi insists, because he’s that much of a saint. “Heaven knows I love a wildcard.” Hizashi gives Kiki a carefree wink and wriggle of his moustache, working a level of charm on that reminds Aizawa of the old days, when the men Hizashi slept with were outnumbered by the long line of women he was extremely happy to give what he liked to full-circle-ironically refer to as ‘the business’. Although Hizashi’s always played both sides of the field, it’s hard to miss that the side of hetero-norms usually puts up a lot more players than the other. Unless you’re Aizawa, in which case it plays in the dirty alley out back that’s only got weird homeless dudes in it.
“Even so,” Kiki isn't giving in quite so easy, which would be unlike her, and Aizawa’s thankful at least one of the Shinsous has their head on straight. “We're very grateful to you for inviting us, aren't we?”
The question is rhetorical, or maybe even a dare to defy his mother, but Hitoshi's expressive range of sulky expressions don't rise to the occasion.
“Yeah.” His reply is a shallow echo, no more than what they want from him returned and projected out without picking up sincerity on the way. “Thanks.”
Aizawa beams frustrated you-don't-mean-that energy at Hitoshi on all frequencies, and briefly contemplates whether he and Kiki would've been better off with the police if he's giving them this much lip, concluding that tantrum or not, it's still safer having them both here. But if Hitoshi could drop the fucking attitude anytime soon that would be great.
“Turn just a little bit for me– perfect.” Hizashi blithely adjusts and snips at Hitoshi’s hair with a confidence that’s its own self-fulling prophecy: that things will turn out fine purely because Hizashi thinks they should. It's a hell of a force to resist.
And if scolding Hitoshi would have any positive impact on him whatsoever, Aizawa would already be doing it, but he's long accepted that his people skills aren't always the most refined. So if Hizashi’s trying to smooth things over without drama, then the clever thing to do is let him. Even if it feels like letting the brat get away with murder.
And speaking of Hitoshi getting away with murder, he's about halfway through being Hizashi's hair model when he spouts without an ounce of respect for privacy, “So how long have you and Aizawa been together?”
Kiki almost chokes on her drink, or maybe that's just the drink going down not-at-all smoothly. If Aizawa were drinking anything he'd have surely spit it out over this casual demand for the timestamps on his relationship, which Hitoshi hasn't shown much care for thus far and so makes everything feel more invasive and hostile than Aizawa can feel really at ease with.
As Aizawa starts smoking around the crater again, hating all attempts to pry into his relationship regardless of who's doing it, Hizashi just laughs and tilts Hitoshi's chin down, staring at his navel under the black sheet littered with violet clippings.
“Curious little thing, aren’t you?” If the game they're playing is wind-up merchants, Hitoshi better be aware he's going against a master.
Hitoshi pouts like a toddler deprived of a lolly, an expression enhanced by his downturned face and making his fat bottom lip almost hilarious if it wasn't such an irritation. Aizawa doesn't know what's gotten into Hitoshi, but if Hizashi's dealing with it then it's surely kinder than anything Aizawa would have to offer; handling these delicate matters of the heart, as Aizawa often does, with the subtlety of a sledgehammer wrapped in sandpaper.
Hitoshi takes a moment to stagger and recover, finding his proverbial feet as Hizashi works around him, combing and clipping with rhythmic familiarity. Hitoshi's eyelids are drooping a little low, tired like they all are, but there's something softer behind it now. Because if they're playing charm, Hitoshi's got currency to spend too. “I'm not that little.”
Hizashi titters with another charismatic wiggle of his moustache, knocking back every pitch Hitoshi tosses his way like this is highschool batting practice all over again. At least now Hitoshi's talking his language, but even then he's dealing with an experienced pro.
Lifting Hitoshi's head back up to centre, Hizashi backs off a step and takes him in with a keen look up and down, assessing the brat for all he's worth – or maybe just checking his haircut's even. The grin on Hizashi's mouth puts crocodiles to shame, all gleaming teeth and ‘come hop around in my mouth, I won't eat you…’
“Sure,” Hizashi says with a lilt and playful bounce of his eyebrows at Hitoshi, “but I’ve seen bigger.”
Novice, meet Grandmaster, Aizawa thinks with a smirk he holds back as best he can, but it's hard when Hizashi’s running rings around Hitoshi so fast it's a wonder the kid isn't getting dizzy. Or maybe he is, a little colour coming back to Hitoshi's cheeks as Hizashi gets back to work with a whistle – one of his merchandising jingles, all composed by himself to be the most earwormy obnoxious tunes ever.
“You didn't answer the question.” Hitoshi's a lot less sure of himself this time, and Aizawa wants to ask why it even matters, but accepts it's just one of those things people want to know, and leaves Hizashi to the PR aspect of their relationship.
Or so Aizawa thinks.
“Hmmm, how long's it been, Shota?” Hizashi prompts as he turns his gaze onto Aizawa across the room. It's a test, of course, and Aizawa could play along, but when has he ever been one for that?
He still can't shrug, but Aizawa sweeps his oiled hair back with his good hand and offers a nonchalant, “Dunno, a few years?”
“Oooooh you!” Hizashi caws like a crow, whipping a hair clip from his belt to throw at Aizawa, no Hitoshi in between them to intercept as it bounces harmlessly off Aizawa’s leg without so much as blinking. “How long, Shota?”
Double-Shotas means business, and Hitoshi is watching them again with those bemused doe eyes, like the way they interact is so far from his realm of understanding that it literally defies belief. Aizawa tries not to take it personally, but there's always a grain of salt in the difficulty other people have seeing Aizawa and Hizashi together, like they shouldn't be or don't deserve each other the way Aizawa knows they do.
Doing a quick fact-check on the last time they had this conversation, Aizawa counts how old he is and does the math to answer, “Seven years,” like Hizashi wants him to, a grin cracking across Hizashi’s lips that forgives Aizawa this time (and every other), before shifting to address Hitoshi's sullen gaze. “Why?”
“Just… curious.” The information doesn’t seem to satisfy Hitoshi, but it was never going to, and he’s just looking for something in all the wrong places.
If it were down to Aizawa, he’d sit Hitoshi down and ask him upfront what the fuck’s gotten into him to be acting out like he’s sixteen-going-on-six, but Aizawa can acknowledge this is the work of his own irritation too – an inbuilt defensiveness where it comes to the most vulnerable part of his life. Maybe Hitoshi’s smart enough to know that if he thought about it, he'd get them and things wouldn't be weird, but maybe he’s just not thinking about it right.
Really, what Aizawa needs is some fucking sleep, and a little time with Hizashi to smooth off the rough edges wouldn’t go amiss either. The rest and relaxation that’s supposed to be intrinsic to being here, which has been disrupted by the new balance of trying to find their feet in a dynamic that can’t be exactly what it was before, not anymore.
The one person unaffected by any of this, of course, is Hizashi, who’s impermeable to the leaden mentalist mood in the air and feeling his fantasy as he fiddles with Hitoshi’s hair the same way he would with Aizawa’s – or anyone who lets him get his hands on them, fixated as he is with playing hairdressers. Anyone who rocks the hairstyle he does on a daily basis would have to be.
“Alright, what do we think?” Hizashi declares buoyantly, holding out a small mirror for Hitoshi’s approval of the extremely moderate trim, at least by Hizashi’s standards.
“Yeah, fine.” Hitoshi sounds like he can’t wait to get out of the hotseat, and Aizawa kinda tried to warn him, for all the good it didn’t do. “So are we done here?”
Manners, Aizawa thinks with the velocity of a wrecking ball, wondering if the capacity to be so utterly cold and ungrateful is something Hitoshi learned or inherited. No prizes for guessing, when it’s a trick question because the answer is both.
“If you like.” Hizashi’s still fiddling without a care in the world, picking out individual tufts of hair from Hitoshi’s more upward-swept locks with a product he acquires from a tube in his belt that's hopefully not lube. Either way it's a clear improvement, not that Hitoshi really seems to appreciate it.
Though Hitoshi does at least manages a hurried, “ok thanks,” before lifting his hands up from under the sheet to take the gown off and escape Hizashi’s clutches. Aizawa wonders if this was as enlightening as the boy’s curiosity thought it would be, or a vain attempt to comprehend something beyond his realm of understanding.
It might be desperately selfish, but Aizawa finds himself hoping Hitoshi’s cause for grievance is temporary and treatable, and nothing so dreadful as the back-room of his deepest fears is ready to supply, moulded from past experience: the people Aizawa thought could be trusted, only to let them far enough into his life to become vulnerable, and then in turn, hurt. Those who couldn’t accept him and Hizashi for everything they are, only wanted Aizawa in a way they judged palatable – as if whatever fell outside that boundary was meant to be cut away. Rejected and sometimes even branded ‘wrong’ for being nothing more than the way he is, for a condition as incurable as his sexuality or vague grasp of gender.
Left to this endless cycle, Aizawa would spiral downwards as naturally as bleeding out, but thankfully he’s not alone. After Hitoshi scarpers, settling back on the sofa much closer to Kiki than he started out, Aizawa’s back in the headlights of Hizashi’s emerald eyes.
“Now then, what am I going to do with you?” Hizashi poses with a brightness that could light up the whole room, and hell, they need it. If the room would only let Hizashi lift them. Kiki seems game, but Hitoshi not so much, and like they’re chained together Aizawa can’t help sinking with him, disappointed that the boy isn’t more open to the intimacy Aizawa thought they’d both wanted, give or take a little nervousness.
“Me?” Aizawa’s energy levels would need a defibrillator before showing any kind of heartbeat.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, dear, but you smell like something lying dead in a ditch,” Hizashi delivers with his world-class smile, and Hitoshi’s not too sullen to hide a snigger, though he muffles it behind a hand that takes a brief foray from feeling his shorn hair to cover his mouth.
“Oh,” Aizawa returns with the same lifeless air. “That makes sense, 'cause I feel like I'm lying dead in a ditch.” At least then he’d get some rest, be it eternal return to the cool, decomposing earth.
“Exactly.” Hizashi’s taken a seat on the stool Hitoshi vacated, and rests his chin on a gently curled fist. “You shouldn’t get your dressings wet, but I think we’re going to need a happy compromise if you expect to sleep indoors.” Not an empty threat – Aizawa’s been made to sleep on the balcony before. Even in the rain, which is admittedly no worse than back when he was homeless.
“Which is?” Aizawa prompts with a little weariness for Hizashi’s requirement to talk it all out, tempted to snap at him just to get on with it, but doesn’t. Hitoshi’s covered them enough in that sullen department and it makes Aizawa territorial, wanting to set an example of how to interact with Hizashi that’s not so mean-spirited.
And it’s always worth it in the end, because indulging Hizashi lets him deliver with a grin more crooked than a travelling snake-oil salesman, “It's time for your sponge bath.”
Now Kiki’s the one to snigger, and even Aizawa pulls a wry smile from the depths of despair. If they were alone he’d ask if this means Hizashi’s going to wear the latex nurses’ outfit to really immerse himself in the fantasy, but thinks the better of it in present company. This results in a moderated, “Thought you’d never ask,” followed by aching attempts to pick himself up from the slump onto the sofa he’d been happily melting into for the better part of the evening.
Hitoshi’s got that flush back in his cheeks as Aizawa rises, while Hizashi slips under Aizawa's arm with lithe ease and supports him with an arm possessive round Aizawa’s waist. Aizawa would bet his life on there being something Hitoshi desperately wants to say, a feeling loud and clear on the frequencies they don’t have to speak over.
But whatever it is, Hitoshi doesn’t say it, and just watches Hizashi walk Aizawa out with those doleful eyes and the colour fading from his face.
Notes:
A conversation I've seen coming up a few times is why Aizawa lets his hair grow long, and if I'm allowed to project my own neuroses onto him for these purposes, which I do, I like to think of him as hating hairdressing/haircuts as much as I do, and keeping a short hairstyle means infinitely more trips to the hairdresser. Letting his hair grow out is the result of inaction regarding haircuts, and having people you know cut your hair for you is the quickest way to deal with the unfortunate reality of needing them sometimes. My last trim was done by my brother's girlfriend at our house during a bbq after a number of drinks, which is the best time to do anything.
Given Hizashi's fabulous hairstyle, it is entirely convincing to me that the only reason Aizawa's hair isn't one huge matt is because Hizashi loves to play hairdresser with literally anyone who will let him, and if I project my own neuroses onto Hizashi for a second here, there is something wonderfully soothing about grooming nice hair so who can blame him. Also yes I'm aware of the dramatic contradictions of my character, why else would I love this ship as much as I do?
Also be kind to these poor tired confused soft boys, they're doing their best but are having a little bit of a time of it. Gotta love when those feedback loops of being similar enough to trip each other up happen.
Til next week, in case anyone else hasn't checked my works out, I have a Shinsou/Todoroki fic with a bunch of Dadzawa in it called the No-Family Club! It's not at all like this story, which makes it a refreshing project for me to work on and I like it very much <3
Chapter 54: Being on the bottom
Summary:
Hindsight’s 20/20, but so’s Hizashi.
Chapter Text
“Alright dirtbag, let's get this off you.”
Hizashi draws the long zip from Aizawa's collar down to his belly and then unclips his belt, which thumps to the bathroom floor with a soft thud, leaving Hizashi to peel the jumpsuit back like taking the carapace off a beetle.
The first observation Hizashi makes is a mildly puzzled, “What happened to your underwear?”
“Kiki might still have them,” Aizawa answers with the energy of soft waves lapping against a distant shore.
“I hope not, poor woman,” Hizashi warbles as he hangs Aizawa’s dirtied shell on a hook in the shower-come-wetroom for hosing down, while Aizawa lowers himself onto a low stool for more or less the same treatment.
“I'm sorry about what happened back there,” Aizawa murmurs as Hizashi pulls up his pink tracksuit bottoms past hairy shins to sit over knobbly knees, then unhooks a showerhead on a long hose from the multi-spouted tower that can blast water at someone from just about any angle.
“About what?” Hizashi turns the water on and sprays the cold part at Aizawa’s hanging jumpsuit while the water heats up, rinsing out a browny-red that Aizawa might just follow down the drain if he can't hold onto solid form any longer.
“Hitoshi. I don't know what's gotten into him,” Aizawa doesn't make much of an explanation, but Hizashi rarely needs to know all of what's wrong before he can guess the rest like reading weather patterns.
“Oh baby,” Hizashi coos as he tests the temperature of the water on his hand before finally turning the spray onto Aizawa’s hunched back – the half of it that's not taped up in still-damp dressings from his trek home in the rain some hours earlier. “That just shows what you know.”
The warm water is soothing over Aizawa’s skin, eyes shutting as he gives over to sensory deprivation and lets Hizashi scrub him with a flannel in clinical, let’s-get-this-over-with motions rather than really basking in the ritual. They’re all tired.
“So what?” Aizawa grumbles. “He’s just allowed to act like that?”
“Give the kid a minute, Shota,” Hizashi urges, raising Aizawa’s good arm to wipe down the underside, paying special attention to his armpit. Aizawa’s gotten a little fragrant, he won’t deny it. “You dropped this on him all at once, and now of all times. He was never gonna react the way you wanted him to.”
Aizawa knows that, but it doesn’t make this less disappointing. This is why he keeps such tight control over who he allows close enough to know about him and Hizashi. All that risk and unpredictability, all that potential for disappointment. “I just didn’t expect him to be so…” Cold? Judgemental? Aizawa doesn’t know exactly what, just that it’s crushing and stress he doesn’t want or need.
Hizashi sighs, setting the washcloth over Aizawa’s shoulder and gently tipping his chin up, head falling back as Hizashi brings the showerhead over his crown and turns oily midnight hair into a waterfall of ink down his back.
There’s sympathy in Hizashi’s jeweled eyes on Aizawa, but it might be more parts pity than empathy. “You made this problem for yourself, you realise?”
Aizawa’s eyebrows crease, a bead of water running between them and diverting down the side of his nose. “How?”
“You kept us a secret from him, even when you had the chance to do it tactfully.” Hizashi doesn’t pull his punches, laying it out as bluntly as it deserves to be said. It would’ve been easier, in hindsight, to let that deeper intimacy between them be more obvious earlier on – when they had all breakfast together before school for one; Hitoshi got so close, but never quite made it over the line. Aizawa hadn’t thought anything of neglecting to give him the nudge back then, but hindsight’s always 20/20.
“It was just… easier.” Aizawa’s no apologist, but he can mull over his feelings like sour candy, the reasons why, if not excuses.
“For who?” Hizashi points out, because there’s only one of them who ever cared enough to feel safer keeping their relationship private – Hizashi just went along with it for the drama, and they’ve got plenty of that now. It’s only ever been Aizawa who used discretion to mould things into a short-sighted path of least resistance. Which he’s paying for now.
“So I fucked up.”
“I’m just saying you could’ve handled it better.” Hizashi shifts the showerhead to rinse and squeeze Aizawa’s hair in his hand, from which a shiver runs through Aizawa like electricity. Handing over the showerhead for Aizawa to hold, Hizashi goes to a nearby bathroom cabinet and procures some product to lather through Aizawa’s hair, that pitying smile giving up the smallest amount of leeway. “Both of you.”
Aizawa lets out a deep sigh of mourning for how things went, now he’s far enough away from his own feelings to see his clumsy, control-freak grip all over the situation.
“You’re so alike in some ways, I really do see it,” Hizashi continues like the turn of a freeflowing stream as he takes the showerhead back, while Aizawa pulls the washcloth off his shoulder and sets to scrubbing some of the lingering blood and grime from his lower body. One arm still works, so he ought to put it to use. “But just because the kid’s like you doesn’t mean you can be as hard on him as you are on yourself.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa shuts his eyes as a fresh sheet of water sweeps over his face, Hizashi’s fingertips following to work the pressure points. “I know.”
“Do you?”
Aizawa opens his eyes and Hizashi’s the whole world around him, damp droplets on his t-shirt over tattoo sleeves that wrap all the way down to an intricate design encircling his wrist: a set of manacles of stylised kanji. On the left, spelling out the lyrics of Hizashi’s first #1 single, along with the names of the production team and musicians that created it with him in beautiful stylised kanji; on the right, his first headline as a Pro Hero, ‘Present Mic bursts onto the scene with a bang of epic proportions! Villains give up in record time!’ and the people who helped him do that too – Aizawa’s name is in there among others, as well as hung in one of the lanterns on Hizashi’s chest, which are covered by his t-shirt at the moment. Aizawa’s also marked on Hizashi through the goggles on his arm, and ridiculous pocket-kept cat to name another. Their relationship’s ups and downs, inked irrevocably into his skin.
“Now that you’ve reminded me,” Aizawa admits under the soothing hiss of the water. A sideways glance at Hizashi’s crotch brings back the heady sensation of deep-throating him earlier, seeing as he’s at convenient dick-sucking level, and it’s the contradiction all over again; this is who Aizawa is. “I just… couldn’t bear if this came between us.”
“If what came between who?” Maybe Hizashi can guess the who’s and what’s, but maybe it’s good practice (or therapy) to say it out loud anyway.
“You and me,” Aizawa starts narrowing down, hanging his head as Hizashi carefully scrunches out excess water and suds. “If Hitoshi has a problem with us, you know.” Hizashi does know, but his confidence glosses over all the ugly parts of their past, pretending they don’t exist because he prefers to see the good than fixate on the bad – another natural contrast in their yin-and-yang tango. “Not like it hasn’t happened before.”
It could’ve been worse, those times, but it could also be a lot better; the bridges they had to burn, people cut out because they couldn’t accept Aizawa and Hizashi’s ‘lifestyle’ of being hopelessly in love with each other. As if it was okay as long as they didn’t fuck, but the minute that ‘close friendship’ crossed the line into romance they became a disgrace to the name of Heroes. Maybe Aizawa’s still bitter, but doesn’t he get that much?
“I know, babe, but you’ve got to give the kid time before jumping to the worst conclusion,” Hizashi soothes. “You said before he just hadn’t realised you could be gay, it’s probably a lot for him to take in.”
“It shouldn’t be.” Aizawa’s so salty it’s a wonder the water that comes off him doesn’t turn into brine, and it’s not Hitoshi’s fault society raised him with all those inbuilt hetero norms that erase queerness unless it’s literally shoved in someone’s face, and then when it is it becomes a whole ordeal just because the person couldn’t figure it out for themselves. But somehow they’re still the ones who get to be angry about it?
“But that’s not the point, is it?” Hizashi drops into a squat, levelling his gaze with Aizawa as the back-and-forth of the shower takes a rest, steamy water gushing over one of Aizawa’s thighs. “If you hold onto judging Hitoshi by the standards of what you want him to do, you’re only going to be disappointed.”
Except Aizawa can’t hold the truth, bursting like dam waters after heavy rains for weeks. “But I am disappointed.”
Hizashi rises enough to press a wet kiss to Aizawa’s forehead with a simple, “I know, baby. But you have to admit you’re fucking pessimist sometimes.”
There’s just the right edge of scathing to cut through the numbing pain, cracking the makings of a smile or smirk, just a twitch at the corner of Aizawa’s mouth. Because Hizashi’s got him there. “True.”
“Good. So stop being such a fucking downer and give the poor child a chance, maybe you’re freaking out over nothing.”
Aizawa can only hope. But Hizashi did just call him a pessimist. “Or maybe I’m not.”
“I love you, babe, but stop.” Hizashi takes the showerhead and stands back up, hosing Aizawa down like the worries can be washed out as easily as blood. “You’re way up in your head about this, just take a fucking breath. You both need it.”
“Okay.” Aizawa does just that, slowly folding his good arm around Hizashi to pull him closer, errant shower-spray hitting the wall as Hizashi lets himself be trapped in a damp hug around the middle. “Thanks.” Aizawa’s voice is muffled against Hizashi’s washboard abs and the rushing water, but the intention is all there.
Hizashi’s hand comes to rest around the back of Aizawa’s head, caressing fingertips dancing along the soft edge at the base of his skull. “What would you do without me, huh?”
Aizawa knows – it’s a fact that’s been categorically proven.
“Die.”
Hizashi’s laugh comes right from the belly, pressed to Aizawa’s wet ear like hearing ocean waves in a seashell. “Exactly. So do as you’re told.” It’s playful, but still stirs the part of Aizawa that longs to shut off when stretched to exhaustion like this – to relinquish control, put himself in the hands of someone he trusts absolutely.
And right now, Hizashi feels like the only person in the whole world who Aizawa can trust that much.
“Then what should I do?” Aizawa nuzzles his face more squarely to Hizashi’s front, only letting go when Hizashi squirms like an eel slipping loose.
“Finish getting yourself cleaned up and go the fuck to bed, Shota.” Reaching over Aizawa, Hizashi shuts off the water and hangs the showerhead back up, a saunter in his step as he goes to a bathroom cabinet screwed to the wall in the roomy shower cubicle and puts back whatever he used to wash Aizawa’s hair with. Aside from Hizashi’s overpriced variants of soap, the cabinet also holds a supply of douches and plugs in all shapes and sizes, along with every water-resistant lube known to man – or to Hizashi, at least. “And if you're up for it, I do mean for that to include your ass.”
Casual chat, but it sparks a pulse that runs racetrack around Aizawa’s body like a greyhound, a panting finish in his crotch that brings to light the fact that Hizashi might’ve gotten off earlier, but Aizawa’s release is yet to come.
“I am,” Aizawa answers ineloquently, a gulp followed by shiver as his wet skin cools in the air. He should get a towel, but instead just watches Hizashi pass by the double-width mirror in front of the sink and stops, checking his reflection like a preening bird.
“Oh good,” Hizashi comments as if referring to a fortunate bout of fine weather while he checks himself out in the mirror, but there’s undercurrents yet to be ridden. “Then I’ll go attend to our guests.”
With a weight around his neck like a lead choke-chain, Aizawa observes, “I guess I should say goodnight.” Make sure they’re okay, comfortable, safe, have all the things they need like an even half-assed host should.
“I’ll tell ‘em you passed out in the shower and had to be put to bed,” Hizashi intercedes before Aizawa drowns himself on obligations that never matter to him when it’s people he doesn’t care about, but Hitoshi and Kiki are very far away from being that. “Just relax, babe. I got it.”
Hizashi’s at the door already but hasn’t opened it, still enclosed in the shining white ceramic bathroom, like the inside of a shellfish closed to the turbulent waters outside. So it’s just between them that Aizawa offers a relief-laden, “Love you,” and means it even more than every hundred or thousand of times he’s said it already, because there’s no ceiling on how much one person can love another. It just keeps going up.
Hizashi turns over his shoulder and blows a carefree kiss in return. “Love you too, slut.”
Whatever Hizashi does with Kiki and Hitoshi after he leaves the bathroom is a mystery to Aizawa, who almost does pass out from the creeping fatigue that crawls up to claim him for the land of the sleeping dead.
Only inserting objects of increasing size into his ass keeps Aizawa awake, and distracts him from considering whatever yarn Hizashi’s spinning out there, but even then – only just. Working up to a plug of comfortable size and then losing interest, Aizawa leaves it in and then the bathroom, huddled in a pile of towels that shuffles guiltily straight to the bedroom more in animate than an identifiable human being.
There’s some sounds of echoing conversation from the main room behind Aizawa for the brief moment he’s in the hallway, but he doesn’t have the energy to listen out for words. He’s already been relieved of human duties by Hizashi, trusting his other half to make far better excuses for Aizawa than he can do so for himself. He’d probably only make things worse by trying when he’s not up to the task. He’s surely done his relationship with Hitoshi enough damage for one day.
So Aizawa just scuttles to the bedroom, faceplants right onto the mattress, barely crawling up to the pillows before he’s asleep, buttplug and all, and doesn’t wake up again until Hizashi’s coming to bed.
“You really do wanna get fucked, huh?” Maybe Hizashi had a fire-stoking nightcap out there with Kiki, before settling his guests into their beds – or the sofa, in Hitoshi’s case – for the night. Maybe he’s just horny all over again: a more likely explanation for the guy nicknamed the Duracell Fuckbunny during the hedonistic years of his Pro Hero debut. Good thing Aizawa’s got plenty of stamina and a libido to keep up, if not entirely match such a powerhouse in the bedroom; someone who knows all Aizawa’s buttons better than he even knows himself.
That means Aizawa’s just a raw bundle of nerve endings under Hizashi’s touch, clusters of electric pulses that spread from every contact with too-sensitive skin. The after-effects of a brain strung-out since some time yesterday afternoon, when all this shit hit the fan at a thousand miles an hour. Sighing from the palm that lightly strokes his back, Aizawa lets out a groan at the inquisitive wiggle of the the toy still inside him.
“You shouldn't leave this in and fall asleep, you know.” The bed on either side of Aizawa presses down under the weight of Hizashi's knees, coming to rest astride Aizawa’s thighs from the back.
“Take it out then,” Aizawa mostly mumbles into the covers, still ass-up and face-down, utterly boneless like some fuckable piece of roadkill.
Hizashi does just that, slowly, and the feeling’s so intense Aizawa lets out a moan that Hizashi has to shush with a palm. “Not sure our guests are asleep yet, babe,” he whispers, bending over Aizawa to snake a hand around his jaw and keep his mouth covered. “We oughta be quiet.” For once.
Aizawa arches until he’s crooked like the bough of an old tree as Hizashi works the toy a little more with gentle in-and-out. Soon the fingers of Hizashi’s other hand curl into Aizawa’s mouth, which opens to plead a near-involuntary, “Want– want you,” with his tongue wrapped more around Hizashi’s fingertips than elegant or even fully-formed words.
“I know, baby, shhh,” Hizashi hushes over Aizawa’s shoulder, pulling the toy all the way out and this time not putting anything back, leaving Aizawa empty and aching to be filled. “You’re gonna get me.” Hizashi’s hand covers Aizawa’s mouth once more, which is mumbling needy platitudes that morph into another muffled moan when Hizashi presses into place behind him, testing movements forward before a checkpoint: “Ready?”
“Please.” Aizawa mouths into Hizashi’s hand, his head rushing and skin lit up like he’s resonating at some frequency way out of hearing range, singing like a tuning fork. Booze, drugs, mentalism, blood loss… Aizawa could pick any from the mish-mash of circumstantial factors to single out as the reason he feels like this right now. But it could also be as simple as this: Hizashi’s a great lay.
Penetrated slowly, Aizawa bites the fingers between his lips and swallows anything but the faintest whines of encouragement and grunting through the stretch, but Hizashi’s barely halfway before letting slip a throaty sound of his own and hastily pulling out.
“Uhhnunh–not like this,” is Hizashi’s only explanation before he flips Aizawa over his good shoulder, but Aizawa’s got a guess what’s coming next. Not just the part where his knees lift for Hizashi, re-lubed, to settle between his legs. Because there’s something they can do together that no one else can, and it’s definitely convenient when the’ve got guests. “Eyes on me, babe.”
Aizawa activates his quirk as Hizashi presses back into him just in time, loudmouth lips opening wide for a string of obscenities on mute as Aizawa shuts down the transmission between Hizashi’s brain and his zero-to-six-thousand vocal chords, meaning – as he understands it – Hizashi feels like he makes a sound, but no noise comes out.
This was a weird compatibility they discovered long before ever actually fucking each other. Accident turned discovery, but Aizawa eventually picked up a habit for opening Hizashi’s bedroom door when he was in there with someone getting particularly raucous, silencing his best-friend-sponsor-roommate during the moment of orgasm to mitigate any shattering of windows or noise complaints from neighbours or partners alike. Hizashi had asked Aizawa to do it first, of course, albeit drunk and supposedly for a joke, but while Hizashi thought he was being facetious, Aizawa had taken it deadly serious; thus beginning one of their weirder pre-dating habits that makes an awful lot more sense now than it did back then.
Whoever was in bed with Hizashi tended to find this a little weird, at first, but usually appreciated not needing the noise-cancelling headphones the doctor recommended for times when Aizawa wasn’t there to erase Hizashi’s quirk if he lost control at the point of climax. Of course, in retrospect it seems ridiculous Aizawa could have literally watched Hizashi come so many times without ever finding himself curious about his best friend in a sexual sense, but in a way there was nothing to be curious about. Aizawa had literally seen it all, so it didn’t seemed remarkable to him in the least. But hey, hindsight’s 20/20
Hizashi’s palm settles back over Aizawa’s mouth when he bottoms out, shining red stare half-lidded but still fixed on his one and only. Only the distant notion of their ‘guests’ overhearing keeps Aizawa remembering to muffle himself on Hizashi’s fingers, which eventually curl to slip right into his mouth again, tonguing and then biting down softly. Hizashi pants hot and close with each thrust, fitting Aizawa so easy it’s like they were made for each other.
And while Aizawa’s thirst is powerful – the desperate gratifying relief of being fucked senseless, until he doesn’t have to think about everything, all the time – one thing he isn’t is over-energised, making him the pillow princess of this equation as Hizashi just pounds him silly. Because anyone else can think anything else of their admittedly at-times-bizarre relationship, or the very-adult things he and Hizashi do behind closed doors just about as often as mind, body and class-schedules will let them – but Aizawa would be less himself if he weren’t this, and it's validating in a way he couldn’t have possibly articulated needing tonight. That this is right, and nothing that anyone thinks or says, not even Hitoshi, could possibly change that.
Aizawa keeps his eyes on Hizashi in the dim reddish light he himself casts, but not even he can last without blinking for the entire time. Of course, when Aizawa briefly shuts his eyes Hizashi’s voice returns in full force – a second of primal “uhhhnn–” before Aizawa cuts him off again.
Letting spit-soaked fingers out of his mouth, Aizawa purses his lips into a whisper-breath to shush the hypocrite writhing over him, and Hizashi retaliates by lowering the slick hand to wrap around Aizawa’s throbbing erection. There’s a jerk from his hips, involuntary, and a stifled moan from Aizawa’s chest like a bird in a cage of bones, but he paces himself, because they’re not gonna be done just yet.
If Hizashi had his voice about now, Aizawa would be drowning in non-stop praise around now, like honey isn’t made by bees, it comes direct from the tip of Hizashi’s tongue, but he matches this unspoken fervour in every move. Truly, the biggest struggle is for Aizawa just to keep his eyes open and quirk trained on Hizashi, and not just throw his head back and give in for a short while.
Thankfully, before Aizawa’s eyes start to burn too much they cede to a compromise to suit both – digging an arm behind Aizawa’s neck, Hizashi dives into a kiss like he’s going for an acrobatic swan dive, falling with style and grace even if the reality at the bottom is a sweaty humping mess. But, oh, it feels great.
“Think you can take it deeper?” Hizashi presses in precious whispers between kissed lips, and Aizawa really does think he’d die without Hizashi – or already be long dead, more likely.
“Yeah,” It’s a challenge to remember to be quiet, because truly, the other people in this apartment couldn’t be farther from Aizawa’s mind right now. It’s selfish, he supposes, to drop all thoughts of others and focus his entire being with complete devotion to Hizashi, but if it’s what Aizawa needs to do, sometimes, then who’d begrudge him that? If it lets Aizawa forget himself long enough to return to his own existence refreshed, ready to face caring about everyone else all the time and himself not at all, then there has to be a payoff somewhere to balance it out. Letting Hizashi take care of Aizawa is taking care of himself, it’s just hard to explain that in civilised company.
Not quite pulling out, Hizashi backs away just enough to lift Aizawa’s legs a little higher, moving them to stretch past Hizashi’s shoulders, curving his still fully-functional – if a little sore – lower half of his body up for deeper penetration as Hizashi folds him up along the lines like a piece of well-used origami. Aizawa’s not going to be any less sore after this, that’s for sure. But it’s worth it, because the first thrust Hizashi brings forward pushes stars to the corner of Aizawa’s vision; a cry that he opens his mouth to make before swallowing the sound back down into a choked gasp as Hizashi hits just the right angle, basically just laying there losing his fucking mind. Like he needs to.
It isn’t long like this before Aizawa’s teetering on the edge of coming – would have already come, if Hizashi hadn’t let go of his cock to change positions and not yet resumed the touch. But even that’s not full insurance, because precedent poses a strong possibility Aizawa doesn’t need to be jerked off at all – not if Hizashi carries on pounding his prostate like this. The question is, as ever, of how long either of them can last, a race to be the runner-up while charging for the finish.
No quirk to mute him, Hizashi gets away with a babbling, “Fuck, baby, you feel so good,” and they better hope to all hell that no one else in the apartment can hear any of this, but it’s just not top of the priorities list right now. More of a distant notion in a corner of Aizawa’s mind that he doesn’t really pay attention to while he’s busy being fucked all over the brain’s control panel, though it does at least register enough to eventually activate his quirk when Hizashi’s whisper-chattering turns into a distinctly louder, “Ughh– yeah, Shotaaaa~”
In the dark, Hizashi’s tattoos come up in distorted all-black-and-red dones under the light from Aizawa’s eyes; this patterned, sexual creature that owns his ass and that’s perfect. So the lights might be out, but Aizawa still gets to watch Hizashi come, if from a slightly different perspective than all those years ago.
Hizashi wraps his hand around Aizawa’s cock just as he’s fucking out his own climax, the smiling mouth on the back of his right hand like some kind of twisted joke as it pumps Aizawa efficiently, wringing the orgasm out of Aizawa with an undulating groan that Hizashi’s other hand with a frowny-face tattoo quickly covers. After just being cleaned off, here Aizawa is making a mess of himself again.
“Shh, love,” Hizashi can whisper now Aizawa’s quirk no longer holds him mute, leaning over between Aizawa’s jelly legs that drop as they move closer together. Still connected and throbbing, Hizashi’s starting to soften inside him, timing impeccable – though Aizawa’s orgasm was really at Hizashi’s beck and call from the moment he laid hands on his lover. That’s the most important part of the surrender: putting himself in someone else’s hands with the faith they will give Aizawa what he needs exactly when he needs it. Hizashi’s always given him that.
So much fear and stress well up like springwater after snowmelt, causing Aizawa to just wrap an arm around Hizashi and hold him close for a moment – still alive and well, everything he does and doesn’t need in one contradictory package with exquisite wrapping.
“I love you so much.” It never feels like enough, even though Aizawa says it all the time. It’s just not enough to capture the sheer scale of what he feels in moments like this.
“I know, baby,” Hizashi coos like soothing a fraught child, kisses Aizawa’s damp hair and lets Aizawa cling to him even though there’s come all over his stomach and they both know that’s going to be gross in about two minutes time. Luckily, Aizawa’s all about gross. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Maybe, if they’re lucky, it will be. And Aizawa doesn’t always feel especially lucky, but he does when he’s with Hizashi. Now they’re together, and not kept apart by Aizawa’s own irrational fear and obsessive compartmentalisation, anything’s possible. Aizawa just breathes deep, finally undone, and lets Hizashi tell him it’s all going to be alright.
It’s a while of post-coital cuddling before Aizawa’s ready to get up and do something about the mess. Cleaning up semen is enough of a chore when it’s fresh, so not even Aizawa wants to go for dealing with it dry and crusty in the morning, especially not stuck to the line of hair that runs from his stomach down to his groin with painful learned experience. Hizashi went to all that trouble hosing him down in the first place, so the least Aizawa can do is take five minutes in the bathroom to keep himself clean for a single night. It’s just the part that involves pulling himself away from an immediately sleepy and irrepressibly after-glow cuddly Hizashi that’s the hard part.
Somehow, Aizawa manages it, and stares at himself in the bathroom mirror for a bit, realising how goddamn wrecked he looks and why that’s not good with Dr. Shinsou and his devoted protegeé on the loose. Aizawa needs to be at his best, not clinging to the edge of functional with bloodied nails. He’s feeling better, though, which is 99% Hizashi and he’d be a fucking liar to suggest anything else. So a good night’s sleep – or part of a night – in Hizashi’s arms will do a world of good that Aizawa needs an awful lot at this point.
Aizawa remembered to at least get sweatpants from the bedroom floor on his way to the bathroom, realising that while he's comfortable naked around a lot of guests, their current lodgers do not fall under that category. Hopefully both are sound asleep and would be none the worse for a naked sleepwalker anyway.
Except if that were true, Aizawa wouldn’t catch a waft of cigarette smoke as he steps out of the bathroom back into the hallway, diverting curiously from his course back to the bedroom – Hizashi’s probably out cold and snoring by now anyway – to see what’s keeping Kiki up at this time; they all need their strength, which means rest.
It’s before Aizawa’s even stepped far enough into the lounge to notice absentee sleepers that he hears a cough. Three steps more and Aizawa can see the rumpled covers and pillow on the longest end of the L-sofa, where Tama slept not too long ago, and Hitoshi should be asleep now.
What Hitoshi shouldn’t be doing is standing out on the balcony with a cigarette in his hand, staring out over the city like he’s doing an impression of Aizawa, yet there he is.
Aizawa’s quiet on his feet, when he wants to be, so he gets to the balcony door without detection. It’s left open just a crack, which is foolish, but maybe Hitoshi was afraid of getting shut out in unfamiliar surroundings, or maybe just careless. Or he wants to be caught. Either way, Hitoshi jumps when the door moves and he catches sight of Aizawa coming out from it.
“Care to explain this?” Aizawa suggests with a hoarse bedroom-voice that still seems too loud in the quiet, still night air, and doesn’t hold even close to the scolding that he wants to convey about finding Hitoshi with a dirty habit his guardians have failed to keep from him.
But Hitoshi just returns a gaze cool enough it’d need a hole sawn in the ice and fishing line dropped through to catch anything living on. Aizawa feels the tickle of a breeze past the damp skin of his stomach, and the subsequent chill from post-stormy summer air reminds him that while he managed to pull on a sweatpants, they’re Hizashi’s from earlier, bright pink, and a little too tight for Aizawa, even though they’re loose on Hizashi. And that nod to decency for their houseguests did not happen to include a top, so he’s shirtless to the fresh air in the early hours of the morning.
This leaves Aizawa feeling a little more exposed, overall, than he expects when Hitoshi gives him a look that rides head to toe and back again on the Unimpressed Express. The shadows fall like a blanket around Hitoshi, changing the colour of his hair – trimmed and sculpted upwards, somehow making him seem even taller – from violet to an indigo so deep it’s almost black. So Hitoshi really does seem like a dead ringer for Aizawa as he takes a pull on the half-smoked cigarette between his fingers, stifling a dry cough before offering a barbed, “Could ask you the same question.”
Although Hitoshi’s the one who's supposed to be busted, somehow Aizawa’s got even more explaining to do.
Notes:
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh boy!
Chapter 55: Afterglow
Summary:
Immovable object, meet unstoppable force. Something's gotta give.
Notes:
As traditional, chapters that I'm very excited about go up early.
Now when we're talking favourite chapters, if it's counted by the number of times that I've gone back and edit a chapter spontaneously because I just *have* to read it again, this one wins hands down. This is the kind of chapter I began this story to be able to write, because one of my favourite things is the balance of the killer storyline with an equally important underlying found family plot, and this is a landmark moment in it that I really hope y'all love just as much as I do.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa does the best he can at looking serious while wearing nothing but a pair of hot pink sweatpants that cling to his thighs like they could’ve been spray-painted on. Hizashi’s stupid chicken-legs–
“Put that out.”
Maybe it was an uphill battle all along, the force of monkey-see monkey-do too strong to resist any attempts Aizawa or Kiki have made not to set a poor example for Hitoshi. That smoking is a bad habit, one of many, and is not to be copied, but here they are.
Hitoshi doesn’t look like he does it very often, at least, holding the cigarette more like a child pretends at the image of an adult than really feeling comfortable with the filter pinched too hard between his first two fingers. But he certainly makes the effort of looking cool, narrowed eyes as he brings the filter back up to his mouth and takes a puff, visibly suppressing the urge to cough, which makes his voice come out hoarse. “Make me.”
“Hitoshi–”
“Don’t give me that,” Hitoshi cuts Aizawa off before he can be nagged as if that’s a level they’re at, when the bar is set by Hitoshi and right now Aizawa should be lucky they’re even speaking. “You smoke.” Which makes Aizawa a hypocrite, but they knew that anyway. “Besides, it’s one of Ma’s.”
Like that makes it any better. Aizawa could try to shift blame, write off this scenario as inevitable with Kiki’s stronger influence over Hitoshi. But he’s trying to get out of the habit of lying to himself, and if Hitoshi doesn’t look like a tracing someone made of Aizawa, propped against the balcony railing letting the cigarette turn to ash between his fingers.
And Hitoshi did say Aizawa would have to make him stop, so it feels cosmically right, somehow, to not argue anymore and just reach out to take the cigarette off him. Quickest route to the objective, even if it seems to astonish Hitoshi that Aizawa’s so daring, and pliantly gives up the smoke with only a quick brush of their fingers.
“Do as I say,” Aizawa grouses as he quickly sets the filter to his lips for one hypocritical drag, a single long inhale, because if he isn’t feeling loose enough to want that post-coital nicotine hit for just a second, like a scene from one of those foreign black-and-white movies Hizashi likes – a woman in a luxurious dressing gown puffing slim cigarettes from a holder after off-screen sex with the leading man. Aizawa’s not quite an exact match, but his hair is starting to curl, freshly washed bed-head-meets-sex-hair drying in the night-time breeze. It’s wonderful and right for a moment when the buzz hits, but only for a moment, before Aizawa comes crashing back down to earth and lowers the damning cigarette to conclude with a smoky, “Not as I do.”
Hitoshi is giving Aizawa this look, like they’ve never met before. Like who is this stranger stealing cigarettes off a teenager in a pair of his live-in boyfriend’s tracksuit bottoms? Which is an understandable emotion, but Aizawa’s always been this person, he’s just very good at hiding it. He feels like he has to, and that’s no one’s fault in particular, it’s just who Aizawa is in the face of this uncompromising, judgemental world.
“Yeah.” Hitoshi’s tone is short, like it’s cut off. Something held back, suppressed every way but the one where he just stares at Aizawa with all that tortured longing in his eyes. Then Hitoshi turns away to stare out morosely over the twinkling city lights beneath them, and with the kind of cadence that makes it seem like he’d rather Aizawa just left him alone, offers a sullen, “I’m starting to get that about you.”
There’s a silence, clammy like condensation that clings to a window pane, before Aizawa realises that he’s the adult here, and that means he needs to bring this up because Hitoshi doesn’t want to – or maybe just doesn’t know how.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing isn’t really Aizawa’s deal in his personal life, where he often relies on the emotional maturity of the people around him to make up for his own shortcomings. Not so much with kids at school, but the kind of conversations Aizawa usually has with his students are the polar opposite from the one he’s about to have with Hitoshi, and the thought alone is enough to make him sweat bullets.
“Look, I…” Aizawa begins with the grace of a drunk antelope that’s stepped on a banana peel. “I should’ve…” The eternal struggle of not making something sound like a cliché when they became clichés for a reason, because there’s nothing else less mortifying to say – and all the while Hitoshi just watches Aizawa from the corner of his eye, scathing edged with a doleful stare from those deep purple irises. “Told you about… us.”
Aizawa’s well aware of how cripplingly lame he sounds, and Hitoshi knows it too, shoulders only shrugging before his gaze casts down to Aizawa’s hand with a suggestive, “Are you just gonna let that go to waste?”
Hitoshi means the cigarette burned to almost nothing in Aizawa’s fingers, which he remembers with a fresh surge of guilt. Easy to misinterpret Aizawa saving Hitoshi from himself as sharing the spoils, so of course Aizawa’s only got himself to blame again.
“Yes.” Aizawa drops and stomps out the cigarette with a bare heel, the soles of his feet more than tough enough to withstand a light burn. Plus, Recovery Girl will fix up that kind of aesthetic damage in the morning anyway. “Whatever you think about…” don’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsay– “Us.” Twice now, and just as awkward. “Be pissed at me if you want, but don’t take it out on Hizashi.”
Hitoshi appears to be more put out by the lost cigarette than anything Aizawa’s saying to him so far, an expressive flick of his eyes rife with petulance and a side of not-telling-you. Such non-disclosure might as well be the hallmark of teenage angst, so Aizawa knows better than to take anything as subtle.
When awkward silence doesn’t bear the fruits of any labour, Aizawa coaxes him with a gentle, “Hitoshi.”
Upon summoning, Hitoshi’s cold attitude rises up and overflows even its normal containment area, icy floodwaters that would carry Aizawa away if he’d go. Or maybe Hitoshi wants to be sure Aizawa will remain standing after the high tide runs out. Which he will.
It comes out so lifeless Hitoshi’s words might as well be read their last rites. “You say that like I’ve done something wrong.”
Striking like a fist to the gut, Aizawa returns an almost involuntary, “No, but…” But you could’ve been nicer and we both know it, maybe, or even just a good visceral, I really want you to like him but I feel like you don’t.
“Oh, there are ‘buts’ now?” Hitoshi shows a glimmer of emotion through the cracks in his am-I-bothered mask. Unfortunately, it’s irate sarcasm, which soon shifts to something even more accusatory. “You should’ve told me, but you didn’t.”
Because Aizawa is a flawed, human creature just like any other real adult and not some fictional idea of a person.
And because Hitoshi is an expert at pushing buttons, Aizawa lets it get to him.
“I shouldn’t have to tell anyone.” People are only shocked by Aizawa’s sexuality if they made assumptions about it to begin with, and he doesn’t owe anyone an explanation simply because they don’t get it.
“But you still could’ve!” Ice to fire, Hitoshi’s yelling all at once. The rupture that lets out everything he was holding back until this moment, and he looks so stressed and tired and sixteen. “Instead of letting me be wrong over and over and just laughing at me behind my back for not realising–”
“No,” Aizawa tries to fight like someone treading water in a soaking wet evening gown that becomes as heavy as stone once submerged. He knows meltdowns, he’s handled meltdowns before, but there’s something a thousand times worse about it when it’s Hitoshi, and even moreso when it’s because of Aizawa’s own emotional baggage crashing onto the turnstile without a care for what else it throws off in the process. “It isn’t like that–”
“I wouldn’t know what it’s like, would I?!” Hitoshi keeps going for blood even as an angry scrunch of his face pushes tears to the edge of his eyes, only visible by how they shine in the dim light. “You never even gave me a chance, you just… even though you had so many chances, it wouldn’t have been hard to just, ‘oh, by the way, she’s a he’.”
“Yes.” Aizawa knows this, and Hizashi’s words come back to haunt him; that this is all his fault, and he’s done it to himself and Hitoshi. “But–” Aizawa only has to stall a little, just for a moment, before Hitoshi furiously snatches away the baton.
“But WHAT, Aizawa?!”
It’s heartbreaking, completely soul-destroying the way an angry tear breaks from the corner of Hitoshi’s eye to roll down his cheek as he screams at Aizawa because Aizawa is there and out of everything that’s too much today, this was the final straw. That after everything they’ve been through together, Aizawa does this to him: reveals an entire piece of himself that he’s kept hidden all this time, for his own reasons, then wants Hitoshi to just effortlessly accept it, and gets upset with him when he doesn’t.
Maybe Aizawa was expecting a lot. But that’s why he hates this with every fibre of his being, why he doesn’t tell people unless he has to. The phantom fear of all this stress and struggle and misunderstanding when it’s not about the other person, but that Aizawa and Hizashi’s relationship is about them, no one else. Yet somehow keeping that to himself is an insult to others, and not a choice he gets to make.
“But it’s just… nothing to do with you,” saying it wrong, Aizawa sees the crumpled hurt worsen in Hitoshi’s face right away, even after he’s scrubbed the tear-track from his cheek like buffing out graffiti on a school desk. The only thing worse than the pain Aizawa’s feeling is knowing that Hitoshi’s hurting too, and it’s still all his fault. “That came out wrong,” he fumbles, “What I mean is…” Flailing, outright drowning. But by some stroke of mercy, Hitoshi gives Aizawa the space to struggle for words and doesn’t overwrite him right away, just waits for it. Maybe he’s picked up a thing or two from Aizawa after all. “My reasons for not telling you aren’t because of anything you did, it’s just that I’m… scared.”
There it is, in fragile, ugly truth: Aizawa the coward.
“Scared?” Hitoshi almost doesn’t believe him, that anyone on such a high pedestal, held by Hitoshi to be so fearless and flawless, could be afraid. “Of what?”
Of this, Aizawa would say on looser and less-wise tongue. Of the explosion when people find out and treat Aizawa’s reserved nature as a reflection on them, and not part of his own insecurities, kept secret like any beast hides its wounds to lick.
“Of the way people react to… me and Hizashi.” Not quite specific enough, and it’s shameful to be a grown-ass man who struggles to explain himself like this when people don’t have the ability to just see that Aizawa’s queer as fuck and not need an explanation. “The way we’re…”
Like it’s not that big of a deal, or maybe he just doesn’t want it to be, Hitoshi supplies a tense, “Gay.”
Simple, and relatively accurate, which will do for now.
“Yeah.” And then the harder part. “Not everyone’s so accepting of that, especially with us being Heroes.” And teachers, working with kids whose impressionable minds they hold sway over, like that could somehow impact the quality of the education they deliver, even affect their students’ orientation.
It doesn’t work that way, and if there were ever a way to teach queer Aizawa’s been doing it for years and hasn’t converted anyone yet. He’s been the one some kids come out to, sure, but that wasn’t his doing, he just happened to be the figurehead they trusted enough to confide in. Sensed it in him, probably, the way so many people don’t.
Hitoshi doesn’t seem sold, and the circles under his eyes are so deep they’re almost blue. He looks so miserable and exhausted, like a weeping willow that whispers on the wind, “There are gay Heroes.”
“More than you’d think,” Aizawa carefully agrees. “A lot more than are public about it. Coming out hurts their popularity.” Not uniformly, but even if there’s a spike in support from progressive fans among the public, the huge swing-demographic of the older and more conservative generations rarely take so kindly to society’s so-called role models espousing such ‘non-traditional’ values. Makes Aizawa want to show them all the sexual exploitation that takes place back-of-house in their warped system and ask the cunts what’s so traditional about that.
Hitoshi hauls up one arching eyebrow, a heavy line of calligraphy in purple ink on a piece of faded parchment. “Is that really something either of you care about?”
“No, it just shows the…” Bigoted cunts. “Prevailing attitudes.” Aizawa would congratulate himself on his tact, if he wasn’t so annoyed at himself for being cowardly even now. “But you’re right, it’s not Hizashi who– I’m the one who’s…” Hizashi also gets the advantage of playing both sides, where those who see his straightness can use it to rationalise away his gayness, like there’s not a word for being both and it’s bisexual. Except people only see what they want to.
When Aizawa doesn’t finish, Hitoshi does it for him, a voice so soft it lands like socked feet on a hardwood floor. “Scared.”
Like a word that’s branded on traitors: a Hero who’s afraid. Even though the best Heroes are all afraid, all of the time, because they know the hopelessness of the struggle. That no few individuals can resist the power of villainy alone, and a neutral majority will watch them die one after the other and say that’s just what Heroes are for.
“Worried about the risks,” Aizawa rephrases without completely backing out. “Not just the way people react, but villains always target Heroes’ loved ones. That’s why I don’t–”
“You don’t want my dad or Shiyoko to realise you and Mic are like that, or they’d go after him too.” Hitoshi’s smart, he can connect the dots when Aizawa lets the kid zoom out far enough to see them. That’s why Aizawa doesn’t let people see that much to begin with. It’s too obvious when the picture’s big enough. “That’s why you didn’t want us to come here either.”
Hitoshi seems calmer now. A little. Like maybe he just needed a moment to scream, and this was the thing that turned up in his sights, an outlet for all that emotional steam that’s safe enough to vent. Thinking about Dr. Shinsou makes Aizawa want to scream too.
“It’s not about what I want,” Aizawa keeps trying to explain, because it’s all he’s got. “I just didn’t think of it, I’ve always… I keep my home life hidden for a lot of reasons.” And not one of them to do with Hitoshi, but if people can’t help but take it personally.
“Look, I get it.” Hitoshi must understand that much on some level, and Aizawa’s shoulder is testament enough to what their enemies want to do to him. But he’s only giving Aizawa an inch, not a mile. “I see why you wouldn’t tell just anyone, but…” It’s Hitoshi’s turn for buts now, and Aizawa allows the space Hitoshi gave to him, even if it’s solely for the purpose of breaking Aizawa’s heart. “I didn’t think I was just anyone.”
Now Aizawa wants to scream. A long, primal howl that doesn’t have a meaning beyond expressing emotions too painful to keep contained. He knows he has self-harming, even self-destructive tendencies, but never regrets it more than right now, seeing how his misguided intentions can be interpreted so wrong, and cause the opposite of his true feelings to seem like the most rational explanation. That Aizawa didn’t tell Hitoshi because he doesn’t trust him, or doesn’t care enough. So fucking wrong. But where are the words to say it?
“You aren’t.” Aizawa flexes his hands out of stifled instincts to reach, to just hold, and it sends a twinge through his shredded shoulder, which makes him wince. But that pain is superficial, and there’s no Recovery Girl for throwing a good relationship through a glass door off a balcony. Aizawa’s just got to try and fix it himself, no quirks allowed. “I just…”
Words of wisdom come to him: what would Hizashi say. Hizashi, who’s probably blissfully asleep and snoring like a jackhammer right about now, and without whom Aizawa couldn’t be as honest with himself as he’s being now. Hizashi can always get through to him, opens his partner up far beyond what went on in the bedroom. Though that helps too; the tension release, the affirmation and truth. That even when he’s a mess, some people still understand and care for Aizawa like he does for them. That he can be himself and still be loved for what he is, not despite it. Maybe that’s what Hitoshi needs to know right now too.
“I was an idiot.” Hizashi couldn’t have put it better, but Aizawa has another go. “And a coward.”
Hitoshi’s looking at Aizawa like the last spring roll at an all-day buffet. Like, if he’s been left out then it’s got to be for a reason, and maybe Hitoshi’s finally starting to see that. How the perfect image he had of Aizawa was just that, a fabrication, and the real thing is lukewarm disappointment. At least, compared to the flawless idol Aizawa’s spent the past day destroying piece by piece.
But perhaps the job’s not completely done yet, because Hitoshi just offers a quiet, slightly stilted, “Carry on.”
So Aizawa forces the disembowelment knife deeper and keeps spilling, knowing that after an offence of this nature – being kept from something important – the only thing he can do is lay himself out exactly as he is and pray that it’s enough.
“It’s because you’re not just anyone that I didn’t want to…” Hitoshi’s the teenager here, but Aizawa’s the one struggling to say things like, “If you had a problem with me and Hizashi, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Hitoshi’s gaze is cautious, half-lidded as if a full stare would turn them both into stone. “I do.”
It isn’t said, but there’s a pulse as sharp as a broken edge of glass, slicing through fabric and skin on that high-wave frequency, so stark it sends a tingle shooting across Aizawa’s shoulder like memory reflex. Nothing quite as articulate as shaped with words, or something he can hear, but a feeling that surges from Hitoshi and cuts through Aizawa with the fraught accusation: you’d choose him.
“It’s not…” Aizawa regrets stamping out the cigarette now, lacking something to do with his hands, a focal point to distract himself from every instinct in his head howling and kicking at the doors to stop this terrifying exposure. “It isn’t a contest, Hitoshi. I couldn’t– wouldn’t choose between you… you're both important to me.”
“Doesn’t make me feel important,” Hitoshi returns icily, not looking at Aizawa anymore. He turns away to face over the city lights laid out below them, a hint of dawn on the far horizon, clouded from the passing storm. And oh if he isn’t a picturesque sulker. “Being the last to know, as if you’re afraid I’ll tell someone and give it away, or that I’m a… a gay-basher or something.”
Wrong. All wrong. “It’s not– you are.” Not what Aizawa’s trying to say, so he stops himself, takes a breath, and tries again. “I mean, you’re important. Enough to scare me.”
The fear, again, that Hitoshi doesn’t expect. That his Hero, his idol, can be so afraid.
Without turning any farther than enough to catch Aizawa warily in the corner of his eye, Hitoshi shoots an outright defensive, “Why?” This must be pretty far out of Hitoshi’s box, emotionally speaking.
But this is more familiar territory to Aizawa, something he’s explained before, usually whenever he’s questioned privately by those few in the know over whether he’s truly happy with the way he and Hizashi don’t publicise their relationship – will even deny it, if the question comes from the wrong source. Especially when Hizashi takes someone else to one of those glittering galas for the Pros and kills the red carpet like it’s the newest-trending villain, and Aizawa’s asked ‘isn’t he jealous?’ over his life partner cavorting around with well-dressed skirt as if he doesn’t exist. But the last place Aizawa wants to be is by Hizashi’s side in front of all those cameras.
“Because I can be hurt through the people I love.” It’s so familiar that it comes out easy, and before he knows it Aizawa’s said love in plain terms and not disguised ones. That sure gets Hitoshi’s attention.
It finally starts to connect in Aizawa’s tired, post-coital and generally just fucking railroaded brain that all of this could’ve been solved up front by making it clear that his relationship with Hizashi has absolutely no bearing on his dedication to Hitoshi. That the two of them are complimentary, not in competition. Aizawa only kept them apart because he’s a basket case sometimes, and not because he didn’t think Hitoshi was worthy enough, or that Hizashi being around makes Hitoshi unimportant. Which it might have seemed like earlier, when Aizawa was so frustrated and cold with Hitoshi for being cold with Hizashi. Two wrongs definitely don’t make a right, but it’s easy to forget when you're both hurting.
“Keeping it a secret is how I protect them.” Maybe it’s not always the best way, but there’s a reason Aizawa’s the way he is, and it’s not just from unfounded paranoia. A little, maybe, but one man’s pessimist is another’s realist.
Hitoshi’s still distant, still looks like a poster boy for Sad Emotions at two a.m., but he doesn’t seem quite so angry with Aizawa anymore, and that’s a small blessing. “I get the impression Mic can take care of himself.”
“He can.” So far, or so he insists. But it doesn’t stop Aizawa wanting to be careful, even when it means holding everyone dear to him at a different arm’s length from each other, because somehow that’s simpler in Aizawa’s mind. Or maybe just easier to cope with. “It’s me who’s… I’m trying to protect myself.” Because all his loved ones together is the biggest target of all, and just the stress of knowing that could happen eats away at him like acid.
“Great job you’re doing.” Hitoshi’s sideways up-and-down of Aizawa says it all, given he’s covered in bandages all down one arm. Hizashi would be proud. But Aizawa’s not so happy.
“I don’t wanna fight.” Especially not over the most stable, supportive relationship in Aizawa’s life, the one that keeps him going. Hasn’t he fought enough today? And with Hitoshi, no less, which was already a mess once before.
Non-committal, like they’re back to not showing emotions because it’s all too much and Hitoshi’s more worn down than he knows what to do with, he remarks, “Are we fighting?”
“I hope not.” But just in case, there’s one thing left that Aizawa hasn’t done. “I'm sorry, Hitoshi. I should have told you sooner.”
The apology gets him ground, Aizawa can tell. But the earth’s tough here, it’s been through a long winter. More than ever, Aizawa realises Hitoshi is the last person to have a template for what good, healthy love with a male role model looks like – or even what healthy romantic love looks like between people of any gender. And Hitoshi is just sixteen, he won’t always be able to articulate these things for himself, so Aizawa needs to do better at hanging onto that.
It’s easy to forget, especially when Hitoshi seems all grown up and put together sometimes, because he’s trying so damn hard and he’s done so well that Aizawa hates himself a little (okay, a lot) for even letting this happen, tripping over his own insecurities and face-planting on all of Hitoshi’s triggers at once. He dreads to think what Hitoshi might have taken away and worried into a monster, shaped a convincing argument that the only reason Aizawa didn’t tell him about Hizashi was to laugh at the foolish kid who didn’t figure it out for himself. When, if anything, it was Aizawa keeping Hizashi away with his manic squirrelling instinct. On another occasion, Hitoshi might find it funny that Hizashi was upset with Aizawa for exactly the same things as Hitoshi is, but the grass is always greener on the other side.
Hitoshi’s hunched over himself on the railing, probably still turning over those things he’s been working together like a terrible patchwork on the sofa all evening, tossing and turning while Aizawa was getting fucked senseless – which is nice for him, but wasn’t exactly a cure-all for the broader issues here. From Hitoshi’s side, things surely don’t look so good for Aizawa: being as snippy with Hitoshi as Hitoshi was with him, then disappearing to the bathroom with Hizashi and never coming back. Yeah. He definitely could’ve handled it better – stupid Hizashi, being right as usual.
“If you’d just let me know you were gay, I’d have figured the rest out. It didn’t have to be a whole thing.”
“Why do you think I don't talk about it?” Aizawa replies frankly, even if he’s kind of making the point of not needing to say it by standing out here in hot pink skin-tight trackies to begin with. “It’s too obvious then.” Especially for people who are already aware of his and Hizashi’s close friendship, so easy to speculate over, touching the right wires together to start the engine. It’s a damn shame, but projected straightness protects Aizawa as much as it erases him most days of the week. There’s a plethora of reasons he’s Eraserhead, not least because it was Hizashi’s wildball name for him to begin with.
“Is that such a bad thing?” Hitoshi’s not full-meltdown mode anymore, at least not on the surface, but he’s far from happy, or over this. Those fatigued tears still cling to the line of his eyes like a levy yet to burst.
“To some people,” Aizawa replies warily. They don’t need to re-hash all the small print, and he’s trying to swallow his insecurities, but it’s all still there, stewing.
“Well, not to me,” Until he says it, Aizawa doesn’t realise how much of a relief it’ll be hearing Hitoshi assuage those doubts, lurking as they always do in the back of his mind. “There’s nothing wrong with you and Mic being… together, I was just upset that you let me look like such an idiot.” Aizawa hadn’t fully dared to hope for this simpler explanation, always crouched in the nuclear bunker of his mind, preparing for war. “All those lectures you gave me about not making assumptions, and there I am assuming you've got a girlfriend just because of that ridiculous ringtone.” It hits Aizawa so suddenly he snorts, right from the gut, and Hitoshi hisses a cagy, “What?” because it’s way too early for laughing over this just yet.
“Nothing,” Aizawa tries first, but doesn’t stick. “It is ridiculous.” Hizashi’s going to love hearing that his choice of personalised ringtone for Aizawa is heteronormative, even if it’s all nonsense, but it’s not too difficult to think a grown man would never pick such a cringe-worthy love-song for his grown-man-partner’s ringtone. Which fits, because neither Hizashi or Aizawa exactly fit the bill as ‘grown men’ to begin with.
Hitoshi turns again, facing Aizawa squarely across the balcony, and there’s no noise about the cigarette now, but that was probably just a gambit to begin with. Even if Hitoshi didn’t expect to be caught, maybe part of him was hoping to anyway. Aizawa knows the pattern of acting out as a cry for help better than the backs of his own hands, and is just glad he was here when he was.
Hizashi’s the one to thank still, because if Aizawa hadn’t needed to clean up after a much-needed powernap and revitilising fuckathon, he might never have noticed the cigarette thief wallowing in angst out here, and they’d be stuck dealing with this tomorrow, along with all the other shit that needs doing. If at all. So Aizawa’s not just grateful, but relieved they got to handle it now, like this. The threat of what might have been is too horrible a box to even think about opening.
“So we’re…” Nerves too raw, Hitoshi defaults to something lighter. “So there’s nothing else? No other massive life-things you’ve failed to mention to me?”
Best thing about young people, Aizawa thinks not for the first time, is their elasticity. Being able to bounce back so quick, tantrums that come and go like summer storms. Maybe Hitoshi just wants this reconciliation so much he doesn’t have the strength to resent Aizawa. Maybe it’s more important to reach out than push each other away, especially now.
Aizawa dares to smile, just a little, and feels a new chill caress his skin from the summer night’s air. “Nothing that springs to mind.” As in, that's it, Hizashi is the last and most important piece of Aizawa’s life. The part he only shows to a trusted few, and now Hitoshi’s among them.
“So then… we can…” Aizawa senses it where words fail, a lighthouse that beams the words touch me across dark seas in hopes of guiding a boat to shore.
“C'mere.” Without another thought, Hitoshi’s warm in his arms. One of them, anyway. Hugging tight, Aizawa mumbles into violet hair, “Don't ever think you aren't important to me.”
“Okay.” Hitoshi takes a deep breath pressed to Aizawa’s chest, face turned down and feeling very much his age as Aizawa comforts him the way they both needed.
With the pressure finally tapped, it’s not long before the first heave racks Hitoshi, like a storm-blown ship inevitably coming to wreck against rocks. But Aizawa saw it coming, so he just hangs in there, steady as that lighthouse. These things play catch-up all the time.
Hitoshi’s voice cracks a little, but holds together to say, “I’m glad we’re not fighting.”
Aizawa takes a deep breath, or as deep as he can without straining his injuries. “Me too.”
If the night is cool, Hitoshi’s a blanket of warmth against Aizawa. Even as the teen shakes with sob after silent sob, because this is all A Lot, but that’s okay. It’s a lot for Aizawa too, he’s just had an extra fifteen years of learning to deal with it.
Hitoshi’s arms lift up to grasp, making not quite a closed circle around Aizawa’s waist, and something deep and instinctive wells up in Aizawa, his free hand lifting to press to Hitoshi’s hair, cradling his head as Aizawa closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Hitoshi lets out with a pitiful sound into Aizawa’s good shoulder, and Aizawa just squeezes him back with his one good arm. “I didn’t wanna–”
Aizawa shushes him softly, like the gentle rock of a cradle. “Don’t be.” His mouth is already pressed to Hitoshi’s crown, so it’s more by thought than distinct action, minor movements of Aizawa’s mouth that constitute a kiss on the head. Perhaps it’s too much, but Hitoshi doesn’t pull away, and if it feels right maybe it is right.
Aizawa couldn’t be more grateful. Certainly not being the one to move first, he stays like that, face lost in Hitoshi’s only slightly tamed mane. Clings to the moment as Hitoshi cries it out with him, until the scared, overwhelmed tears run out and turn into ragged breaths, which slowly even out to calm seas. Until it’s just a sliver of perfection in the midst of chaos.
Hitoshi’s the one to stiffen first, like it dawns on him as slowly as the morning’s own light fights the darkness on the horizon.
“I guess it’s pretty late,” Hitoshi says to no one in particular, but mostly Aizawa’s collarbone, and Aizawa finally lets the moment of tenderness slip away.
It was only this afternoon he first offered Hitoshi a hug, but has felt so natural from the get-go that the only strange thing is how it’s taken this long at all. That Hitoshi’s sixteen and Aizawa only just got here, but already can’t bear the thought of letting go. Figuratively.
“We should rest while we can,” Aizawa murmurs as he backs away, and a sleeping Hizashi to curl up against is such an appealing prospect he almost feels bad for the kid having to take the sofa. They really need to replace that second futon.
“Mhm.” Hitoshi’s closed up for business again, but maybe it’s not a bad sign. They’re both tired, and this was a lot to take in, just like Hizashi said it’d be. It’s always during the quiet moments that emotional backlog catches up, and at least now Hitoshi seems a little more at peace, if a little less comfortable in himself after such a gruesome emotional vivisection. Pink on purple circles, those sore, puffy eyes from crying really match his colour scheme to a tee.
It’s weird, really, wanting so much to be closer to a person, to really know them, and then getting that intimacy and realising what reality looks like up close. There’s a reason Aizawa keeps a lot of people at a distance, and the transition for those who make it into his inner circle isn’t without its bumps.
Opening the balcony door to slip back inside, Aizawa spots Kiki’s purse left carelessly on the coffee table, answering the question about where Hitoshi pilfered cigarettes from. So maybe there’s time for one last nag.
“I better not catch you smoking again.” They’re indoors now, and it naturally lends to whispering, small voices in the wide open space.
Hitoshi gives a soft scoff, like that’s the game Aizawa wants to play and thinks he can get away with it. “You won’t.” Catch him, the clever little shit probably thinks.
“I mean it.” Aizawa turns enough to look at Hitoshi, no longer following behind him, the duckling in mama goose’s shadow. “It’ll stunt your growth.”
Hitoshi’s gotten it down to a refined art now, that are-you-kidding-me up and down look over Aizawa that always leaves his face a little more flush than when he started. “Didn’t stunt yours.”
“I didn’t start until I was grown.” Aizawa doesn’t fully settle, but does lean back to rest on the arm of the sofa and finish this lecture, seeing as they’re in such familial spirits. “You’ll never catch up with me if you smoke your lung capacity to shit.”
Aizawa wants to cross his arms, which he’s unable to follow through with because of his injury, but Hitoshi does it instead, like he senses the urge in Aizawa’s brain and capitalises on it for himself. Could be, all that mentalist chemistry that’s becoming second nature between them.
With Aizawa half-seated, Hitoshi’s got a little height on him. And with the city nightscape cast out behind him in the background, only the barest amount of light brings definition to his features, covering up the strung-out misery and lost teenage angst, Aizawa gets another snapshot of the man Hitoshi will be when he grows up. Assured, with just a hint of defiance in his tone.
“Is that a challenge?”
It’s unusual for Aizawa to find himself wanting to be surpassed by someone so far behind him, but if Hitoshi could, it’d mean Aizawa’s done the best he can do for the kid, and that’s a win for them both. It’s stranger still that the prospect should be so exciting, the mere thought of how much Hitoshi could achieve if he puts his incredible mind to it, if the right doors are opened for him – or kicked down, if needs be.
So there’s all of that and more in Aizawa’s half-cocked smile at the prodigy he can’t wait to be overtaken by, though hell if Aizawa’s going to make it easy for any brat along the way.
“I’d like to see you try.”
There’s not much to see in the darkness, mere outlines and suggestions of expressions, but there’s a faltering of the easy confidence in Hitoshi’s voice, a fumble that almost feels awkward, treacherous footing in this new territory they’re walking together. “Uh… g’night then.”
But if Hitoshi’s unsure, Aizawa’s sturdy underneath him as an iron girder. A little corroded in places, where time and weather have turned his edges to rust, but as strong as ever, and always ready to be there for the people he loves. So he’s warm, if a little ragged around the edges, when he stands up and reaches his good arm across the gap shrouded in darkness to clasp Hitoshi’s shoulder. “Nite, Hitoshi.”
Closer for a moment, Aizawa spies a tangle of emotions in Hitoshi’s face, too dense to unmat at any time like this, but whatever’s got him choked up is alright, because it’s all alright. Nothing changes how Aizawa feels, especially not now, when the only thing he was truly afraid of – that Hitoshi couldn’t accept his relationship with Hizashi – has been put to bed. Like they all ought to be already.
With nothing left to say, Aizawa lets his palm slip from Hitoshi’s tense shoulder, and returns to the bedroom. A snore can be heard down the hallway long before the door opens up on the street-drill from within, and it’s a lucky thing Aizawa’s such a heavy sleeper, though he might not be able to say the same for their guests.
Hizashi stirs and shuts up for a moment as Aizawa slips back into bed beside him, clingy and quick to wrap around Hizashi from behind.
“Took your time,” Hizashi snuffles as he wriggles into place next to Aizawa. His one good arm slips underneath Hizashi while the injured one stays on top, and Aizawa can’t wait to have functional use of all his limbs back in the morning – give or take the inevitable temper tantrum from the old lady.
“Hitoshi was still up,” Aizawa murmurs to the back of Hizashi’s neck sleepily, the fatigue catching up in full force now he’s back in bed with his beloved. “We… talked.”
“Mhm.” Hizashi might not even be fully awake, but he makes the noises anyway, and that’s probably enough. “Better?”
“Yeah.” Aizawa can’t see it in the dark, but there’s a tattoo on the back of Hizashi’s neck, right over the top vertebrae of his spine, a sapling that grows from the top of his back piece and connects back to its own roots in concentric circles, the tree of life, he calls it – or ‘whatever goes around comes around’.
Aizawa can get behind such a notion, figuratively as well as literally, so finds the spot with his mouth and kisses it as he hugs Hizashi tighter. Even when the world’s falling apart around them, especially then, it’s important to hang onto what’s right and good.
So Aizawa means it more powerfully than his fatigue-stricken body can ever convey, but perhaps the deeper feelings underneath will give his words the right credence.
“Better.”
Notes:
And that concludes this MONSTER day in the fic timeline. A cool 19 chapters and because I love this kind of statistic 115,577 words for A SINGLE ACTION PACKED DAY. Wowzers! What a way to wrap up, though.
Or, to put it another way, AHHHHHH HJKHSSJ SO FUCKING SOFT GODDAMIT.
*Deep breath*
So yeah. One of the joys of this fic is writing it as an non-romantic love story, and there's so many parts of this exchange that are just *distant fangirl screaming* in that respect.
See y'all next week to kick off a new day
Chapter 56: The Breakfast Club
Summary:
New day, new leads, new problems.
Notes:
Oof! Last chapter was a big one, huh?
But we're starting a new day! It was very early on in this story that people expressed a desire to see Aizawa, Hitoshi, Kiki and Hizashi all interacting together, and I share this desire, so it brings me great joy to bring scenes to you like the following.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“RISE AND SHINE, LISTENERS! I’M MAKIN’ PANCAKES!”
Aizawa wakes with a visceral shock, long-since programmed to bolt into raw consciousness at the sound of Hizashi’s barely-indoors voice. His next instinct is obviously to go right back to sleep again. However, a stabbing fresh rise-and-shine poker of red hot pain from Aizawa’s shoulder works as well as any alarm clock, forcing him out of bed and into a fresh jumpsuit like death warmed up. He doesn’t really manage to do up the top half of his suit so much as drape it around his shoulders, but at least he’s got underwear on before slumping out of the bedroom in search of some coffee.
Hizashi, thankfully, knows what Aizawa needs before Aizawa even knows he needs it, and the smell of readily-brewed coffee greets him barefoot in open-plan kitchen area of the main room in their penthouse, only to discover both seats at the breakfast bar have already been taken – and more than that, Kiki’s taken Aizawa’s first cup of coffee, and Hitoshi’s gone and had the second.
Momentarily, it occurs to Aizawa that it’s a lucky thing he cares about the two of them so much, or there’d be hell to pay for such an infraction.
“Look at that face!” Hizashi shrieks like a pet bird that needs everyone in the room’s attention all at once, though his usually golden plumage is hanging in a wet tail over one shoulder on this occasion. “Don’t worry, baby, I put on a big pot so there’s plenty of coffee left for you.”
Aizawa supposes he must have given away what he didn’t say in his expression. He makes a more concerted effort not to scowl while Hizashi – swanning around in some of his day-glo lycra shorts and matching ‘I go running so people know I run’ vest-tops – zips over to the counter to pour a precious cup of coffee, then speeds back across the kitchen to put it in Aizawa’s hand, which he delivers with a kiss on the cheek for good measure.
“I don’t think there’s enough coffee left in the world for me this morning,” Aizawa puts on a vague performance of a grumble, still getting used to being this open with Hizashi around Hitoshi and Kiki. Especially now he’s sober with all of yesterday slept on like a bed of nails.
“I called Recovery Girl already,” Hizashi perches his chin on his hands, which are stacked on Aizawa’s good shoulder, with a Cheshire Cat smile, all gleaming white ear to ear in a way just put-on enough to be unnerving, like they only need a performance of normality when there’s something really fucked up to not think about. “She’s gonna meet us on campus in ‘bout an hour.”
“Campus?” Aizawa echoes suspiciously exactly as Hitoshi looks up from contemplation of his coffee. “What about her place?”
“Well gee, darling, maybe she’s concerned about all the serial killers chasing you,” Hizashi lilts in Aizawa’s ear like the sweet-talking of a lifetime, and not the anticipated gnawing that Aizawa supposes he deserves. The game of cat and mouse has gotten a bit more cat-and-cat lately, though if they’re going to UA there’ll be mouses aplenty soon enough.
‘Only two ’ Aizawa considers responding, but thinks the better of it. “Guess that means we’ll be seeing the Big Cheese too,” He grumbles for real this time, and catches a mirthful scoff from Hitoshi, let slip as if escaping between guard shifts in the teen’s otherwise uncrackable expression.
But when Aizawa meets his gaze, the teen only a murmurs a soft-mouthed, “Well that’s cheesy.”
Hitoshi must be feeling better, if he’s got the energy for any level of japery, though he still looks tired, as if he’s Keeping Calm and Carrying On rather than feeling truly well-rested. It doesn’t quite relax Aizawa, who’s still on tenterhooks as they test out what it’s like being around each other in this way; how Hitoshi and Kiki fit into whatever can be loosely termed as Aizawa and Hizashi’s home life. It’s also occured to Aizawa, on reflection – and because Hizashi told him so during sleepy, early-morning murmurings – that Hitoshi’s struggles last night might have been a product of that too: how even if it wasn’t on a conscious level, Hitoshi could’ve been putting Aizawa alongside his Ma in a box shaped like an almost-nuclear family.
Then Aizawa just lets Hizashi dive-bomb in and changes all the rules without warning, Hitoshi not understanding where he stood anymore, how he was supposed to feel significant in the face of the literal love of Aizawa’s life. No wonder Hitoshi had such a wobbly moment, though thankfully Aizawa was there in the end to catch him – after Hizash iwas there to catch Aizawa.
“What’s this about pancakes?” Kiki interjects with a lot more energy than she ended the night on, although Aizawa wasn’t around for the very end of the evening with her. Maybe that’s why she’s in such a good mood. The company of her idol and no Aizawa bringing her down.
“Oh, I thought that was just a figure of speech,” Hizashi dismisses, and now Hitoshi’s really scoffing.
“A figure of speech? They’re pancakes,” the teen declares like a gourmet chef who cooks them literally every day.
“You seriously don’t wanna try his cooking.” Aizawa jostles Hizashi in the hopes that this time his warning will be heeded. Hizashi may be a man of many marvellous talents, but his culinary skills are shit awful. Kiki should know, based on her experience with his drinks last night, but that’s only half the battle.
“Well that just sounds like a challenge.” Hitoshi gets to his feet, and still boasts those dark circles under his eyes, but they’re slightly lessened for what little sleep he got. Aizawa hopes it was at least somewhat restful, even in such unfamiliar surroundings.
“No no, he’s right,” Hizashi chips in with a knowing shrug. “I really thought it was a saying, you know, like ‘how do you like your eggs in the morning?’.” He goes for the musical delivery, of course, and Aizawa’s sure he sees Kiki low-key hanging off every word.
“I don’t think it’s a saying, I think it’s just eggs.” Hitoshi seems to enjoy playing the scold as he lifts his mug and takes an ‘I’m so grown-up’ swig of coffee, which obviously makes him look pretty much adorably sixteen. “How do you two survive if you can’t cook?”
Quick assumption that Aizawa can’t cook either, or so he’d point out if Hitoshi weren’t so abysmally right.
“We eat out a lot,” Hizashi answers merrily, then pokes Aizawa’s cheek. “He mostly doesn’t eat.”
Aizawa shrugs, which finally brings his semi-state of dress to Hizashi’s attention, conceding to finish the job properly. Hizashi’s touch is feather-light and actually appropriate (for once) as he helps Aizawa feed his awkward arm through the jumpsuit’s sleeve, lifting the rest up to slip on – though Aizawa shoos his hand away to do the zip up himself, no mood for a strip-tease in front of everyone, even if it is in reverse.
“Eggs are like, the single easiest thing to cook in the world,” Hitoshi’s declaring as he strolls around the counter, which is when his intent becomes fully clear.
“Oh, is that an offer?” Hizashi gives a grin like a billboard for dental work. “I don’t think we have any of the stuff, but you can try.”
“Clearly,” Hitoshi delivers this like popping the lid off a bottle of lemonade, passing Aizawa and Hizashi on his way to the fridge like he owns the place and it wasn’t bought with buckets of Hizashi’s advertising money. When asked in an interview once if there was any tacky product he wouldn’t endorse, Hizashi had effortlessly replied, “If I’m not selling it, you don’t want it!”
Hitoshi’s still wearing the same things he slept in, better seen by the light of day as a faded oversize t-shirt – might have even been Kiki’s once, going by the almost-obliterated cutsey kitten design on it – and loose sweatpants in concrete grey.
Aizawa catches a mental snapshot of Hitoshi in profile, standing at the open fridge and lit from the front by that cool internal light, which burns in his brain like a film negative. A sight so natural it must be right, like this apartment was missing a piece of furniture, something it wasn’t complete without.
Looking back on his own behaviour, Aizawa can see now all too clearly why he’s driven everyone around him mad trying to stop this from happening, being afraid of what? That it wasn’t going to be like this? Or maybe even that it was, and that scares him too on some level. Because once the imprint is so complete, breaking it feels like snapping off a piece of himself. As if now Hitoshi’s here, Aizawa doesn’t ever want to let him leave.
The face Hitoshi pulls at the contents of their fridge, however, leaves much to be desired.
“Wow, you weren’t joking about not having anything,” Hitoshi says into the fridge like the scathing judgement of Aizawa and Hizashi’s style of living he clearly believes that it is. Maybe Hitoshi can take a hike after all, at least when he’s making a mockery of their lifestyle like this. Truth be told, there’s always been more bottles of alcohol and sauce in their fridge than consumable food.
But then a smile creeps into the corner of Hitoshi’s mouth, at least into the one visible from where Aizawa’s standing. He's still right next to Hizashi, like a cat still needing to soak up the sun’s rays a little longer. It strikes Aizawa suddenly that Hizashi actually did a good job with Hitoshi’s hair, not taking out volume so much as directing it all upwards, instead of exploding out in every conceivable direction. Of course Hizashi’s all about the height, so in his hands it’s as if Hitoshi’s gained an entire head in hair alone.
“I think I can make something work.” Hitoshi reaches into the fridge and comes back with a box of eggs, which he inspects far more discerningly than Aizawa or Hizashi would ever bother – if Hitoshi’s worried about giving them food poisoning, Aizawa’s been drinking Hizashi’s cocktails for years, his stomach must be cast iron by now. The eggs are actually for cocktails, frighteningly enough – as well as a cure for the resulting hangover.
But then it occurs that Hitoshi’s not thinking of them at all, more specifically at the exact moment he sniffs a carton of milk (also bought for disastrously-lived cocktails) and remarks, “How about an omelette, Ma?”
“That’d be great,” Kiki replies with a morning grace that makes Aizawa very glad to have her here, behind all these layers of security and comfort, rather than out there somewhere being watched over by anyone else. No wonder the Doc’s so obsessed – she’s an easy woman to covet, and that’s coming from Aizawa.
Of course Hitoshi is more focused on his Ma than either of his hosts, and these little rituals – breakfast and dinner, cooking because it’s something he can do in a big world of cant’s – makes all the difference. It’s an indulgence, but Aizawa can’t help feeling that Hitoshi’s the best kind of son a mother could ask for, though it’s merely speculation through his own rose-tinted vision at this point.
But this is a very idyllic nature of the moment, so sheltered and domestic, and it makes the horrors outside that much more intimidating, like there’s a tsunami headed for them and here they are quarrelling over eggs for breakfast. But maybe that’s why, Kiki might argue if Aizawa were going to ruin the moment by bringing it up. Treasure the moment, don’t lose it to fear.
Part of Aizawa still wants to bolt, reaching for the case like a relapse, because it’s worse but safer knowing what new terrors are coming next. But then Hizashi squeezes his ass when Hitoshi and Kiki aren’t looking, and Aizawa thinks maybe he can let the peace last a little bit longer.
“I shouldn’t have to ask this, Aizawa, but do you have any interest in living, or is this just an attempt to send me into early retirement?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aizawa replies from the doorway of UA’s medical wing – thought he’d be getting shot of campus for a while, but here he is again – with an overarching demeanour of shit through and through. “You’ll never retire.”
“Not with morons like you out there treating your bodies as if they’re disposable.” It could almost be thought that Recovery Girl was planning a vacation, or at least that’s the mood her lively hawaiian-print shirt gives off. Aizawa’s sorry to rain on her plans. Sorta. “You’re not getting any younger, you know. This is only going to get harder for your system to take.”
“I know,” Aizawa answers drearily, and neither Hitoshi or Hizashi are saying anything, but there’s an energy coming from them on either of Aizawa’s sides that radiate delight at the spectacle of watching Aizawa getting a stern lecture about reckless endangerment of his own body.
“You tell him, Grams!” Hizashi cheers with an elbow-dig in Aizawa’s side. “Kick his ass!”
“And don’t you start either, Yamada!” Recover Girl chucks at him like a slipper. “You’re supposed to stop him doing these idiotic things to himself.”
“I would if he’d let me,” Hizashi retorts cattily, flapping his arms as if herding the rest of their happy-family party into the medical bay. It’s like Hizashi’s never been off the UA campus to begin with, except that he's dolled up in casual clothes, coiffed hair whipped into a feathery ponytail. “What am I supposed to do if he sneaks off to do idiotic things to himself in private?”
“Oh, like saving our damn lives?” Hitoshi comes in hot – hotter than Aizawa expects, and even Hizashi seems a little taken back by the sudden rush of fire. Then again, it was them Aizawa was laying out his body and life to keep safe, even if he did possibly overdo it a little. And when one of those guns was pointed at Kiki, of course Hitoshi’s all in favour of the most radical moves possible. “Sorry to be such a burden on your precious Aizawa.”
“Easy.” Aizawa sets a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder and squeezes, relieved the teen doesn’t shake him off. “They’re just teasing.”
Hitoshi’s so prickly he could pass for a porcupine, but he certainly doesn’t break the contact of Aizawa’s hand on his shoulder. That Shinsou Effect magnetism is so strong for a moment, a wave that pulls Aizawa towards him like the moon drags the tide.
“Don’t think you’ll get off so easy either, young man,” Recovery Girl turns her scolding beam on Hitoshi without hesitation, and Aizawa’s grip twitches on the teen’s shoulder, an urge to yank Hitoshi to him and bark at anyone who dares to approach his pup that's overpowering for a moment. But it’s impulse, just momentary flashes in the pan, and Aizawa’s got more control than that, even when he’s never felt closer to Hitoshi and that makes every irrational thought a thousand times more potent.
“Me? What did I do?” Hitoshi replies with more chill than Aizawa’s got by miles.
“Letting Aizawa get you all tangled up in this,” Recovery Girl shoots dismissively as she reaches for Aizawa’s belt and uses it to lead him away from Hitoshi like separating magnets.
“Getting me tangled up?” Hitoshi scoffs as Aizawa’s outstretched hand finally leaves his shoulder. “In case you didn’t realise, Lady, but the one who’s after us is my dad. I was always gonna end up involved. Aizawa just…” he stalls for a moment, maybe realising this declaration is a little more important than the first carefree instinct it started with, “got to me first. If anything, it gave me a head start.”
Aizawa wonders if that’s true. Was this all some sick twist of fate, and that the ties that bind them were always going to bring himself and Hitoshi together? The universe certainly moves in strange ways sometimes, and Aizawa would be a liar to say weirder things haven’t happened to him before.
“And you’re just alright with all this?” Recovery Girl addresses Kiki with the subtlety of tossing bricks like baseballs. The sultry Shinsou who’s been standing there gracefully in the background, being a quiet piece of scenery that doesn’t want for noticing. Aizawa wonders if that’s something mentalists can do on purpose – force themselves under the surface, to be miss-able when they don’t want to be seen. If so, Aizawa’s probably been doing it for a lot longer than he’s aware.
Kiki takes a moment in consideration of her words. She’s not dressed for work today, which means a pair of jeans and a simple vest-top replace her usual array of power suits. No heels, today, but trainers, prepared to run if she has to. Smart woman had already packed a bag for herself and Hitoshi even before they left for the hospital, Aizawa thinks. Maybe it’s always packed, in case they needed to leave in a hurry.
“Anyone who’s prepared to fight that hard for my son’s safety is an ally to us both,” Kiki says with careful gravitas, and Aizawa would hug her if he’s not certain it’s the last thing she wants. Maybe Hizashi can hug her for him, she’d probably like that more. “Aizawa’s proven what he’s willing to do to protect us.”
It’s all Aizawa can do not to rub an abrasively smug ‘SEE?’ in the old lady’s face, because he might be in the centre of yet another absolute clusterfuck, putting life and limb on the line as a consequence, but if the people he’s doing it for are grateful then Aizawa’s still being the Hero he always wanted to be.
“Hmph, then I suppose that’s all there is to it,” Recovery Girl mulls over as Aizawa allows himself to be sat down and prepared for a whole lot of nasty, unzipping his jumpsuit to slip out his fucked-up shoulder and prepare for the agony of forced healing – when an idea occurs to him.
“Hitoshi?” He’s looking even before Aizawa calls his name, and whatever resonant mentalist connection between them Iwaya had been trying to encourage, it feels like a six-lane highway this morning. “Can you–?”
“Put you under?” Hitoshi finishes with knowing fluidity, and Aizawa can feel himself slipping already, almost. “Just say the word.”
Even before he answers, Aizawa feels that power reaching out, velvet-gloved fingers running across his scalp like Hizashi’s best hairdressing head-massage. He’s so ready for this.
“Thanks.”
Aizawa’s aware throughout the moment he slips out, as if Hitoshi just gently shuffles him out of his mind to sit on a top shelf above his body somewhere, not a part of his body anymore, but still whole and uncontaminated consciousness. Hitoshi could change that, Aizawa supposes, but he doesn’t want or need to, clearly. Maybe he senses that Aizawa wants to watch, taking in with peculiar disconnection the faces of Hizashi and Recovery Girl as they realise what just happened, jumping the steps Aizawa and Hitoshi could skip because they’ve been running up and down that staircase in leaps and bounds for days.
Hizashi even turns to look at Hitoshi for a moment, whose gaze remains unbroken on Aizawa, and there’s something in Hizashi’s consideration – like a new piece of the puzzle can finally be put into place.
“Go ahead,” Hitoshi urges Recovery Girl, while Aizawa finally gets a chance to stretch in his out-of-body condition, no longer held back and hampered by his flawed vessel of blood and bones, all those organs and skin and muscle that need to work with each other all the time not to let him collapse. “He won’t feel anything.”
That’s not quite true – Aizawa is aware of what happens when Recovery Girl stops staring and puckers up to kiss Aizawa’s exposed arm; he can sense the strain and change that his body immediately starts to go through as Recovery Girl’s quirk kicks his body’s natural healing properties into overdrive – it just doesn’t hurt. Strange to sense his nerves and tissue knitting back together without the accompanying white-hot pain. Which, Aizawa’s not exactly shy to pain, but even he has had enough of it from time to time.
He looks peaceful, Aizawa thinks, as he sees himself from somewhere above himself. That’s good, perhaps it’ll help show the others how powerful Hitoshi’s quirk can be for the right causes – to protect and shield from hurt, to save people from themselves. Aizawa’s not always ready to admit it, but he needs saving from himself more than most.
It’s hard to tell how long it takes, but Aizawa’s in no rush to return to his human meatsack, happy being a network of thoughts and feelings at Hitoshi’s fingertips, comfortably floating in some wing of that endless palace of a Shinsou mind. He could do this all day, if they didn’t have more important things to be doing.
Aizawa can tell when the healing has finished, he thinks, no more of that tingling like sensation with all the pain edited out – what does Hitoshi do with it, he wonders? Is the feeling redirected, or can Hitoshi erase the very nerve relays the way Aizawa can suppress a quirk? Things to ask Dr. Iwaya some time, he supposes.
“I’m finished,” Recovery Girl’s voice comes in disconnected echo, like Aizawa only hears it with a cup through the wall next to his body.
“Okay,” Hitoshi replies, but just before Aizawa’s brought back down in corporeal chains–
“Wait.” It’s Hizashi, who’s got this look like the one he gets when he discovers some new wild plaything that he absolutely has to have. “What else can you make him do?”
If there were any nervousness in Hitoshi, he never lets it show – far from it, half his mouth cocks into a grin he shares with Hizashi. “Anything.”
Sensing there’s another show-and-tell coming on, Aizawa’s far from surprised when Hitoshi’s control over him remains absolute past necessity – actually tightens as the precocious teen orders, “Up you get, Aizawa.”
There’s a weird synergy when Aizawa stands, because it’s not like he’s fighting Hitoshi’s control, a ghost in the shell that still wants to do the things Hitoshi asks him to. So far, at least.
The others look… surprised. Maybe it’s not so much what Hitoshi can do as the fact that Aizawa lets him. It’s rare, true, to see him surrender control so wholly in front of anyone who’s not Hizashi – or Kayama, if she’s in Boss Bitch mood. But Hitoshi makes it so easy, almost effortless surrender for Aizawa to become the puppet he feels like most of the time, tangled in his own strings trying desperately to fight fate. Maybe the trick is not thrashing around so much.
Hitoshi doesn’t speak next time, just lifts a hand and waggles one coaxing finger to order Aizawa across the room, over to where Hitoshi stands with his Ma on one side and Hizashi at the other. Hizashi’s got his usual shades covering his eyes, but maybe that’s for the better, if it conceals the wicked delight he’s probably beholding all of this with.
When about an arm’s length from them, Aizawa stops without instruction, sensing the order from Hitoshi’s mind to his like the tug on a set of reins. It’s hard to deny, looking at Hitoshi, that he clearly enjoys being in charge. And if it were anyone else, Aizawa might not be so comfortable, but with Hitoshi – especially after yesterday, the lingering phantom of hugging Hitoshi to him and saying he’s important and being understood – it couldn’t feel more natural. Trust and fear are truly opposites, so when Aizawa trusts Hitoshi with every beat of his toughened leathery heart, there’s nothing he could possibly fear.
With Hitoshi in Aizawa’s head, he must know it too – would be able to sense any hesitation in the currents of Aizawa’s mind. So Hitoshi’s smile is calm, and Aizawa can’t help but feel this is the completion of what they went through last night, sealing the emotions with the ultimate trust exercise. That it’s all real. And as fast as this may have happened, Aizawa’s not afraid to show it. Makes it more important, even, for outsiders to understand that they didn’t go from zero to sixty in less than seven seconds, they went to six-thousand.
“Touch your nose for me.” Hitoshi’s favourite bit, playful and gentle as Aizawa’s hand rises uninhibited – shoulder stripped bare of dressings and stitches picked out so as not to cause him any more mischief, though the hospital did good work setting him up last night for Recovery Girl to finish off.
Hizashi’s grin is like the cat-only convention for cream just came into town, equal parts entertained and elated to be shown this bond of trust he’d picked out between Aizawa and Hitoshi even before Aizawa was admitting the true extent of it to himself. Of course he’s taking this opportunity to test them both a little.
And because Hitoshi’s a cheeky shit if he’s anything, it’s not a moment of Aizawa’s finger resting against his own nose before Hitoshi adds, “Now touch his nose.”
Hizashi shows all those gleaming white teeth, smiling ear to ear as Aizawa reaches effortlessly across the space between them to boop Hizashi’s nose.
Then Hitoshi asks a very dangerous question indeed.
“Satisfied?”
If Hitoshi knew Hizashi well enough, he wouldn’t bother to ask that – Hizashi’s never satisfied, because he’s the more more more king and will always want extra of what he’s got because what’s the point of having stuff otherwise?
Thankfully, there’s at least one grown-up between them. “Enough fooling around, Hitoshi,” Kiki says with all that 'mother, disapproving' in her tone. “Let him go.”
Hitoshi’s control fades softly, like a wave pulling back rather than a crutch being ripped away, and Aizawa blinks couple of times before remembering to take his finger off Hizashi’s nose. Usually, after Recovery Girl’s healing he feels like he’s been through a rock-breaker, but wow, Aizawa feels fucking great.
If Hizashi can tell, which, let’s face it, he probably can, his grand sum reaction is to raise his eyebrows just past the rim of his glasses. Aizawa pretends not to notice, takes a deep breath, and then settles back into himself with new grounding.
“Thanks,” Aizawa adds again for good measure, reaching for Hitoshi’s shoulder to squeeze. Good thing Aizawa’s got nothing to hide from Hizashi, or he’d be exposed as fuck right about now. But Hizashi knew this all anyway: he just wanted to see the proof.
“No problem,” Hitoshi answers softly, fond and maybe even a little flustered – at least now his Ma brought them all crashing back down to reality.
Aizawa withdraws his hand and puts the rest of his jumpsuit back on himself for the first time in a day, zipping back up with a brisk return to business. “We should get moving, if we don’t want to–”
It is at this very moment that the clinic door opens to reveal at least ten pounds of trenchcoat in the middle of goddamn summer, and doesn’t Tsukauchi get hot stomping around in all that gear?
“Leaving without me? And after I came all this way just to see you, Eraserhead,” Tsukauchi bowls like he’s tossing the ball and they’re all pins, though it’s not a strike, going by the stony expressions across the room.
“Who called you?” Aizawa has the audacity to ask, because he’d genuinely like to know. Obviously, his plan was to get in touch with Tsukauchi soon, after getting himself back online to be of use to the Police again, but this short-cut takes him a little by surprise, and he doesn’t like being surprised.
This makes it extra poor timing when out of one of Tsukauchi’s front pockets pops up a mousy face with a bear’s ears.
“I did!” Principal Nezu cheers.
“Oh right, of course you’re here too,” Hitoshi comes in with an extra side of the attitude Aizawa was already serving, and it’s just common sense that Aizawa gives Hitoshi a quick nudge with an elbow to remember who butters both of their bread when it comes to matters at UA. After all, Aizawa would like to have a job to go back to after all this.
“Forgive me, I took the liberty of contacting Detective Tsukauchi to expedite the morning’s proceedings,” Nezu wriggles a little further out of Tsukauchi’s impressively sized coat pocket, but only as far as the torso, twiddling his thumbs together quite contently as Tsukauchi walks into the medical bay like the Principal’s weird overcoated-chariot.
“Have you decided to put me into the Hero Course yet?” Hitoshi prods, bold to the point of belligerence.
“I think you know the answer to that already,” Nezu replies, and if Aizawa were of a getting-in-trouble disposition, he’d say, “Oh great, so he starts next term?” But it’s probably not the time for rubbing the Principal’s fur the wrong way.
“What can we do for you, Nezu?” Aizawa cuts to the point instead, because being blunt is more excusable when it’s still going in the right direction. “I’m sure you appreciate time is kind of an issue for us.” One of many.
“I quite understand, Aizawa,” the Principal answers genially. “In fact, it is to those very purposes that I arranged this little tête-à-tête. I wanted to discuss how I may assist you all.”
It’s weird, super weird, for a moment, to be in an audience with Principal Nezu that isn’t about Aizawa (or Hitoshi) being in trouble.
“Oh.” Aizawa shouldn't sound so shocked, but after facing so much resistance, it's like gearing up to charge a door, only to find its been opened at the last second, barrelling through unrestrained and almost falling flat on his face.
“You wouldn't happen to know who my dad's gonna kill next?” Hitoshi is joking, but if anyone could predict the next psychopathic move of Dr. Shinsou, it'd be Nezu.
“I'm afraid not, but we may make a few educated guesses as to your father’s movements.” Nezu seems very comfortable in Tsukauchi's pocket, and if Aizawa knows his boss, the chumby critter isn't about to go anywhere in a hurry.
It goes without saying that the Detective and Principal had a head-to-head of their own prior to this convenient little party-crashing. That doesn't exactly bother Aizawa, but he's never been comfortable with things that happen beyond his control, and the not-knowing niggles more than any fear of what they might have discussed.
“On that note: Mrs. Shinsou, I'd like to renew my offer to accommodate you in the UA facilities. Particularly since term has broken up we can offer you both greater privacy, and a number of my faculty reside on campus full-time, so your protection would be a personal guarantee.”
With a deadpan that could put a hole in a playing card at long distance, Kiki says, “And are you going to let Hitoshi transfer to the course he wants to be on?”
Aizawa knows from cold hard personal experience that Kiki doesn't pull her punches, but this one definitely sends them all reeling. Aizawa can't help but admire her dedication to Hitoshi's ambitions, even when every maternal instinct must be howling for her to keep her son safe and worry about everything else later. Aizawa’s instincts certainly tend that way.
Nezu pauses thoughtfully, belly bulging slightly around the edges of Tsukauchi's pocket, glassy eyes like the surface of a tar pit.
“All things in time, Mrs. Shinsou.” Does Nezu call her that deliberately, Aizawa wonders? “Let us first address the matter at hand, and that done, we may paws for reflection on Young Shinsou's future at this school.”
“Call me Kiki,” she finally corrects, while Nezu pats beany paws together as if drumming a beat for them to match along to. “Thanks for the new offer to put us up, I believe we'll take you up on it.”
Good. Aizawa’s relieved, though it wasn't like they had all that many alternatives. It was nice having Kiki and Hitoshi at home with him, but Aizawa wishes better for Hitoshi than to sleep on his sofa without a clear end in sight. And even Dr. Shinsou should have a tough time getting onto campus, after which finding Kiki off-guard on it is a whole other question. That’s if she doesn't find him first, and then the only thing Aizawa would regret is not getting to watch.
“Excellent. I will make the arrangements, then.” Nezu’s pleased too, and it shines from his eyes right to the glossy sheen of his coat. “Please let me know if there are any important belongings you’d like to be retrieved from your home.”
“Basically just the cat,” Hitoshi chips in, and for a moment Nezu has a look that screams ‘oh HELL no’ before returning to his usual unnerving cheer.
“Ah– yes. I suppose so.” It occurs to Aizawa he's never seen Nezu and a cat in the same room. Seems too deliberate to be chance. Trashbag’s about the same size as Nezu too.
“Who's going to fetch things from your apartment?” Aizawa prompts with a notion for the answer he's going to get.
“I am,” Tsukauchi says sternly, and the thought of him wrestling Trashbag into a kitty-carrier is hilarious all by itself. “Thought I'd take a look at the crime scene, seeing as you didn't invite me to your little bust-up with the killer's accomplices last night.” He pauses for dramatic effect, and that good mood must have carried over to this morning. “I am a Detective after all.”
“Didn't you have somewhere better to be last night?” Hitoshi's so cheeky Aizawa would be well within rights to scold him for it, but seeing as it's true, why would he do that?
“Being attacked wasn’t exactly part of my plans,” Aizawa adds crustily, slowly flexing his left arm to check it's back in full working order. “I wouldn't mind taking another look around, though, so I'll go with you.”
“No,” Tsukauchi starts too bluntly, getting an acidic look for his daring to tell Aizawa what to do. “I mean, there's another lead I'd like you to follow up.”
“Oh, I'm taking orders from you now?” Aizawa snipes, then Hizashi elbows him to behave.
“If I could send someone else I would, Eraser. Trust me.” Tsukauchi pays Aizawa’s rough edges no mind, because it's never been an issue to their working relationship before and isn't about to start being one now. “The two you captured at the scene of the crime were both tattooed with Shiyoko's name, just like the other addicts we've been finding.”
“How are they now?” Hitoshi pipes up. “Did they end up like the Zombie?”
Tsukauchi pulls a face at the identifier, but if the label fits…
“Not quite. Dr. Iwaya is working with both of them now, and seems to believe the extent of their brain damage is lesser than that of Mr. Honda.” Tsukauchi seems troubled, though what by remains a mystery firmly beyond Aizawa’s domain. Worried about the Ice Princess, maybe. “If we can track down the rest of the network Shiyoko is using, it might lead us right to them.”
Aizawa gets a sensation of what's to come, like strangers brushing past one another in a hallway.
“How are you going to do that?” Hitoshi asks, and he wouldn't know. Still innocent. For now.
“We have a… contact in this area,” Tsukauchi explains while Aizawa gives into the sinking sensation that often accompanies his mentalist instincts of what's-next, like the still air of a storm just before it hits. “Or perhaps I should say Eraser does. One of our old informants.”
“Absolutely not,” Aizawa answers with full unyielding confidence. No way in hell.
“Don't be like that, Eraser,” Tsukauchi cajoles.
“He hates me.”
“He asked for you specifically.”
“Yeah, because he hates me.”
“You're being very dramatic about this.” Tsukauchi plays this like a well-natured game of tennis, resting on the confidence he's going to win the match regardless of what Aizawa knocks back. “You know very well that he won't cooperate with anyone else.”
“What makes you think he'll cooperate with me?” Aizawa challenges because this is not what he wants to be doing first thing in the morning. Or ever.
Tsukauchi, by contrast, seems to be having the smug time of his life. “Call it a hunch.”
“I'm sorry, what are we talking about?” Hitoshi injects with a sour streak over missed subtext that he resents on principle.
“Our informant. Eraser has a… history with him,” Tsukauchi explains compromisingly, and then, at least for a moment, seems to regard Aizawa with some sympathy. “You know I wouldn't ask unless it was important, but Cricket may have critical intel he wouldn't give up to anyone else.”
Realisation hits the rest of the room – well, Hizashi – like a belly flop.
“HAH! You're making him talk to Cricket?!” Hizashi is too loud, as always, so now it's time for Aizawa to elbow him in the side to quiet the hell down.
“Asking, not making,” Tsukauchi corrects stiffly.
“It's just an offer I can't refuse,” Aizawa comes off grouchy, but that's because he is. This can't go well. Even if it makes complete sense because Tsukauchi’s a good Detective and that’s why Aizawa’s gonna have to do it.
“Can I come?” Hizashi prompts gleefully.
Then Aizawa and Tsukauchi, in a rare moment of unison, both bark, “NO!” and Hizashi starts to laugh all over again.
“Spoilsports,” Hizashi chuckles, giving Aizawa a teasing jostle. “Don't have too much fun now.”
Aizawa makes a grizzly sound in the back of his throat, while Hitoshi's giving him a question-mark look that Aizawa’s already dreading having to answer.
It’s with the gurgling feeling any promise this day had washing down a drain that Aizawa mutters, “I've got a bad feeling about this.”
Notes:
WHO'S CRICKET? OH, I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO FIND OUT. Having got done with one blockbuster day culminating in legit probably my favourite chapter (but like, for real), I can still say that I'm very excited about what's coming up for our Heroes next!
Fun fact, in the way I write this story, which is a big chunk of backlog ahead of where I post, I have literally ONLY JUST TODAY (so the day before I post this chapter) written the end of the fic-day we're starting now. So the backlog is in essence 'what happens today' and like fic-yesterday, it's gonna be a HELL of a ride, although slightly shorter than the day just passed.
And just to give an idea of pacing, it's my idea that the whole story will be resolved by the end of the following day - aka 'tomorrow' from where we're standing now. Which feels pretty astonishing and fast-paced, but given we just had a 100k+ 19 chapter single day, is still quite a lot to work with in fanfic terms. Plus we're already well into the 300k territory, and I was surprised by how few fics there are of this length still for mha - there are quite a few, certainly, but not nearly as many as I expected coming up with fandoms like HP and Naruto around where a 500k+ fic is pure fandom chowder.
Anyway, I'm very happy to be producing some high grade longfic fandom chowder for all of y'all, and I will still be doing it for many weeks and months to come. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 57: Rickety Cricket
Summary:
Aizawa’s past comes up like a grave-robber’s nightmare.
Notes:
Here we go again! This is a chapter I've been excited to finally get up here since the first hints of Aizawa's not-so-glamorous past.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa had wanted Hitoshi to stop idolising him, fearing the price of Hero worship so close to home. Wanted Hitoshi to know the real him, without filters or bias, seeing Aizawa as he truly is. But not like this.
“So this informant,” Hitoshi jumps at the first chance they get to talk without anyone else to muscle in on the conversation, which is only after they've all gone their separate ways again, each with a lead to chase like a cat after its own tail, “that you’ve got a history with?” Maybe Hitoshi suspects already, lessons learned from last night. Maybe he doesn't yet.
“Don’t.” Aizawa doesn’t mean to shut Hitoshi down, except that he does. “You’ll see when you meet him.”
“I should at least know what I’m getting into.” It’s strange relief to be alone with Hitoshi again, back to focusing on the case, if a little more nerve-wracking than before.
They took plenty of time at UA to discuss things as a group, reaching a consensus on the best way to go ahead – which is the right way to do anything, but still exhausting to field so many competing priorities. It was agreed, however begrudgingly, that Hitoshi and Kiki were a bigger target for the Doc together than apart, so it was reasonable that Aizawa and Hitoshi would carry on together, while Kiki stayed at UA for now along with Hizashi and the Principal, in anticipation of Tsukauchi’s arrival back from the crime scene – with the cat – and more importantly, to review the Doc's next possible move. In all honesty, having Kiki, Hizashi and Nezu all together is more worrying group of intellects, but Aizawa tries not to think about it too much or he’ll sweat through his jumpsuit.
“Cricket is an… idealist, of sorts.” Aizawa is glad no one, especially Cricket, gets to hear this part, or Aizawa would already be toast. Maybe Aizawa threw himself through a window last night, but he’d do it again rather than have to call in the favour of all favours. He’d gotten by for years without needing to dig this corpse of the past up, so just his luck that this case is the one where Cricket could provide the leap they need to find Shiyoko and the Doc. “He’s part of a world not many people come into contact with, which makes him an important inroad into it.”
Hitoshi, for one, doesn't seem impressed. “And the reason he hates you?”
“It’s… complicated,” Aizawa says. It isn’t, though. Just awkward. “You'll see later.”
They're jogging down a network of side-streets, vaulting boxes and bins, running up walls to get a jump-start on scaling fences standing in the way of the cardboard city Cricket usually hangs out in by day, according to Tsukauchi's latest info. If Cricks asked for Aizawa specifically, that means Tsukauchi must have tried talking to him first, so Aizawa can't begrudge the Detective too much for lumping this one on Aizawa, when the formal option clearly failed. Cricket never was much for institutions.
Hitoshi's keeping up, almost too well if he's got the breath to remark, “So what, this guy’s like your ex or something?” It’s pitched as the preposterous thing it must sound to Hitoshi, now so fixed in his perception of Aizawa as irrevocably partnered with Hizashi.
But Hitoshi had obviously considered the possibility, or he wouldn't ask, and the answer is clearly not what he expects, missing his footing to trip and tumble head-over-heels when Aizawa replies with a dry, “Basically.”
“For real?!” Hitoshi rolls out of his fall and keeps going, because Aizawa's sure as hell not stopping for gossip, most of all when it’s about him.
Launching himself at another fence designed to keep certain kinds of people out, for all the good it doesn't do, Aizawa allows himself the smallest of sighs and pause while Hitoshi catches up and scrambles over the top before him.
Aizawa meets Hitoshi’s eyes just before the teen swings himself over to the other side, offering a warning-come-condolence like an apology in advance. “You'll see.”
Aizawa’s bad feeling only gets worse.
They approach from a narrow side-street that opens out into a wide expanse of disused industrial space, where the man they’re here to see is sitting on a crate in front of a lean-to made of scrap-wood, boxes, and the odd tarp or propagandist banner. Each part is clipped and tethered together with cable ties and a clever eye for detail that holds up the whole delipidated structure. Bit like Cricket himself.
Though the sun is already beating down on the streets, this early in the morning a shadow cast from a nearby billboard keeps them in the shade, which surely helps to endure the summer heat more comfortably. Cricket always had an eye for the best spots to set up camp. Just like he’s got an eye on Aizawa from the moment he steps into view, but only speaks once they’re within cheerful yelling distance.
“Eraserhead! Fancy seeing you here– You never call me anymore.”
“You don't have a phone, Crick,” Aizawa stonefaces like his life depends on it, but Cricket (not his real name, no surprises) remains as timeless as ever. Same rusty coloured hair and dirty hazel eyes, same network of scars marring one half of his face like a spiderweb that never brushes away, and same coat of filth emanating the wet dog smell Aizawa can detect from several paces away, which noticing at all makes him realise how much Hizashi’s rubbed off on him.
“Oh yeah? It’s been years, old friend, what brings you my doorstep? Having second thoughts?” Not likely. After all, Cricks is the one who broke up with him, marking the point at which Aizawa had emerged from his shell of denial and admitted they might have been in something resembling a relationship in the first place. The less said about that the better.
“Need info.” Aizawa’s poker face plays for the ages. “The new killer on the streets, the one they call–”
“And who is this?” Cricket’s good eye locks in on Hitoshi like advanced military technology, and Aizawa already had reservations about bringing Hitoshi along for this part, but sure as shit wasn't going to leave his ward anywhere else. So it’s mortal embarrassment, then.
“I'm his–” Hitoshi tries to answer, of course, but Cricket doesn’t talk over people so much as hop all the way over them and land clean on the other side.
“Your new toyboy, Eraser?” Here comes the embarrassment. Cricket rises from the packing crate he’s sat on and takes a few steps to circle Hitoshi, examining him with a look and no touching or Aizawa would have to break something, like Cricket’s fingers. “Cute, I guess, but I didn't realise you liked them so young –”
“He's my intern and sixteen, so back off.” Aizawa doesn't mean for this to come out full thunder and rolling storm clouds, but even Hitoshi gives Aizawa a quick look that says ‘are you alright?’ because he’s snapping like a junkyard dog, but that's just the way of the junkyard. It’s quiet out, no commuter rush for the weekend, and a light breeze keeps the morning fresh from the storm of the night before. Of the other huddled forms of rough sleepers scattered around this vacant lot between disused industrial units, only Cricket is awake.
“Ooooh, easy, ol-buddy-ol-‘pal. Just having a laugh,” Cricket sing-songs and if Aizawa were bitter and immature he'd bark they weren't friends and hadn't ever been. But Aizawa’s only one of those things, older, and forces himself to let it go. At least until Cricket says, “Does the toy boy have a name?”
Before Aizawa can do something irrational, Hitoshi delivers a cool, “Call me Jack,” in a way that begs to be taken seriously, and not written off as a child. What a struggle, trying to keep the right balance between growing up fast enough that Hitoshi isn't completely out of his depth in these adult situations and losing his childhood entirely. Aizawa hopes this doesn't tip it irrevocably towards the latter.
But then Hitoshi hoists an arched eyebrow up his forehead like it works on a pulley, and perhaps even avoiding Aizawa’s gaze adds a suede, “But I'll answer to Toy Boy if you like.”
“You will not,” Aizawa rushes to get out before anyone else gets another word in, but Hitoshi finally catches him in a sticky violet gaze that's all smug satisfaction. Somehow Aizawa missed that this would end up a double team of people who like pushing his buttons. Add Hizashi in and they’ll have a regular gangbang for Aizawa’s nerves.
“Ohh this one's a handful,” Cricket riffs with a grin of blackened and missing teeth, and Aizawa can't quite believe the things he used to do with that mouth, now Hizashi has shown him how other people live.
“You don't know the half of it,” Hitoshi sends right back, and Aizawa almost wants to whip out a water spray and douse the two of them because they do not need to put on this ridiculous show of competing charm. They're here for business, not pleasure or shameless showboating. This is exactly why Hizashi wasn’t allowed to come; that and Cricks would never talk to them in a million years if Hizashi was anywhere near.
“We’re here about a killer, remember?” Aizawa interrupts with the grace of a bull stomping around a china shop, crossing his arms to glare at Cricket more effectively. “She’s been using the local homeless as her foot soldiers, so if I were you, Cricks, I’d shut the hell up and hear what we have to say.”
“Ooooh, touchy,” Cricket trills like a bird, dropping back to sit on his crate with a semi-toothless grin. “Got a cigarette? For old time’s sake?”
Aizawa hadn’t wanted to. Hitoshi’s giving him eyes and all. But Aizawa does have a dwindling pack in his jumpsuit after all, if a little damp after being salvaged from getting washed with the rest of Aizawa’s stuff yesterday, but Cricks certainly won’t mind that. Neither does Aizawa.
“Fine.” Dropping to a squat, Aizawa fumbles out the pack and sets a cigarette in his mouth, using the lighter he’s tucked inside the box to light it and takes a few savory drags, then hands it over to Cricket. It is a little nostalgic, he supposes, for old time’s sake. Many a night Aizawa spent in his early twenties trading cigarettes and even less savory favours with Cricket for leads no other Hero would stoop to dredge from the bottom of the barrel. But dregs of cases were still cases, and all Aizawa had wanted to do was work. This was, and still is, his dream.
“Much obliged.” Cricket takes the lit cigarette and draws a long puff. Aizawa doesn’t get another out for himself, because some drags on a smoke he gives away is still an improvement on one entirely for himself, though Hitoshi’s watching like he’s disappointed to be left out – maybe not once he gets a look at Cricket’s mouth, the black teeth and crusty lips that Aizawa can’t believe he used to… never mind.
Hitoshi looks like this same thought is occuring to him too, furtive glances between Aizawa and Cricket like he’s stuck between shocked and disgusted that Aizawa’s ‘basically ex’ is a certifiable hobo. Maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it does make some. And while Aizawa does have a permanent home now, that doesn’t mean he spends every night in it, and still sometimes stops where he drops because it’s the easiest way to keep working without losing time. It’s something Aizawa feels they could use a little more of in this case: time. Even if it’s stolen from all the needless places it’s been frittered away with living.
“I wanna know about a group of people who’ve been squatting in a derelict mansion,” Aizawa begins to explain, before Hitoshi gets too much time to deep-dive into consideration of Aizawa’s less-than-glamorous dating history.
“Users?” Cricket suggests, and then with a waggle of his eyebrows, finishes his puff and passes the cigarette back. Aizawa takes it, because rejecting the gesture would destabilise a balance with Cricks that’s hard to keep, and pretends he doesn’t see Hitoshi’s grossed-out frown as Aizawa takes a fresh drag. He’s put his mouth on far worse, after all.
“Yeah,” Aizawa confirms, coughing and then turning his head to spit on the ground. Cricket’s current setup is pretty nice, all things considered. A wide empty lot where demolition didn’t entirely finish the job, but no one has come in since to build it back up, leaving it to the people who fall through society’s cracks to cling like moss to a damp wall. Aizawa wonders how long they’ve been here, or how long it’ll be before they’re inevitably moved on. Where Cricket goes, others tend to follow, like remora on the belly of a shark. “The building was the site of a big massacre a while back.”
“Ohhh, you mean spooky murder house,” Cricket supplies, reaching dirty fingers and ragged fingernails to filch Aizawa’s cigarette back right out of his hand, a brush of roughened skin between them that’s familiar yet aged, and stirs something deeper than pure remembrance in Aizawa. Nostalgia, maybe, for days that feel a lot simpler in hindsight. Perhaps Aizawa had exaggerated a little in saying Cricket ‘hates’ him, but there’s plenty of time for that resentment to manifest yet. “I did hear something about that, now you mention it.”
“The killer is making the people who were staying there deliberately OD,” Aizawa continues. “She uses a brainwashing quirk to control them, but it seems like she’s created a cult of personality on top of that.”
“Yeesh– you’re talking about the Deathnote Killer, right?” Cricket pokes and prods because that’s what Cricket does best. If he weren’t so committed to living totally off the grid, he’d have been an excellent something for the grey area between Heroes and the Police; much like Aizawa is, but with Cricket they just couldn’t make it work. “I don’t live entirely under a rock, you know.” Just boxes and makeshift shelters that he pitches with faded anarchist banners, which Aizawa knows actually keep the rain off very nicely – and just enough space underneath for two.
“That’s what they’re calling her,” Hitoshi butts in for something to do, fighting for relevance in yet another out-of-his-depth foray into Aizawa’s less glamorous side, if any of his sides could be called glamorous to begin with. “She’s not alone anymore. There’s two of them on the run.” That was slightly more than Aizawa had been planning to give away to Cricks upfront, but not so much he needs to step in. Hitoshi’s coming along as a Junior Detective, and letting him find his own way can be as valuable as guiding him the way Aizawa would do something himself.
“Thanks for the tip, kid, but what do you want from me?” Cricket sucks and blows clouds of acrid smoke like a troll under a bridge, demanding tokens in exchange for a curse or two. He scratches the edge of one of his scars, which cover the side of his face in strange, erratic slices that must have been cut deliberately, but Aizawa never learned the cause of – every answer Cricket gave to the question would be something different, which was half the fun. They were old, at least. It was never really clear how old Cricket is either, but Aizawa’s no wiser to that now than he was a decade ago, a certain timeless quality to his decrepitation.
“We want to know where they’re hiding,” Aizawa picks back up with a nose for business, and not Cricket’s unique ‘eau de unwashed’ as Hizashi calls it when Aizawa rolls in without having showered for a couple of weeks. “No one’s been able to find a trace, so I assume they must be moving around the city, or holed up somewhere off the grid.” Cricket knows about off-grid – could even say it was his speciality. And there’s one more lead to tap, before Aizawa forgets. “There was another victim who was homeless, too, died about a week ago. He wasn’t part of the other group.”
“Oh yeah, I knew him,” Cricket remarks flippantly, and Aizawa thanks Tsukauchi with one thought and curses him with the next for being so right – Cricket was good for a lead after all.
“Do you know how he came into contact with the killer?” Aizawa presses. “Could he have been helping to shelter her?”
“Whoah, whoah, not so fast, buddy.” Cricket takes his sweet time while he almost finishes the cigarette. “We’re not so close I’m giving you freebies anymore: what’s in it for me?”
“Oh I don’t know, other people like you stop being murdered?” Hitoshi interjects again, but Aizawa fires him a ‘shut it’ look before they’re two steps back for one step forwards.
“Eh. I said I knew him, not that I liked him.” Cricket shrugs, and then with an entirely unnecessary heat directed at Aizawa continues, “You know the deal, pal. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
Hitoshi’s looking at Aizawa funny again, but that’s why he was dreading this so much. There’s getting to know Aizawa, and there’s TMI.
“I don’t have anything to offer you.” Aizawa keeps as straight a face as he can, keeping the lid firmly shut on any thoughts about how much easier things had been when he and Cricks had an equitable exchange of services that provided a much needed boost to his early years as a Hero. Leads were still hard to find in a competitive landscape for Heroes, and an informant with ears and eyes in all the undesirable places Cricket could access was worth his weight in gold. Aizawa also hadn’t been very… discerning about the kind of guy he had relations with, mostly taking whatever he was offered if it happened to be convenient at the time. Cricket was in that sense a persistent habit. Amongst others.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re still with that overpaid piece of upper-class ass,” Cricket accuses with acerbic glee, sucking the last of the cigarette and dropping it on the ground. Reasons why Aizawa had said in no uncertain terms that Hizashi would not be coming along on this little interview. “You really jumped the shark, Eraser, remember when you used to have some integrity?”
“Living on the streets didn’t give me integrity, Cricks,” Aizawa replies bitterly. “I just didn’t have any other option.” Aside from Hizashi’s sofa, or bed, if he didn’t have someone else in it, which he usually did.
“Yeah, well now you’ve got your rich bitch daddy and a sellout desk job to keep you comfortable.” Maybe Cricks did hate him after all. At least what Aizawa stands for, compared to how he used to be.
“Don’t call him that,” Aizawa tries not to snap but doesn’t quite suceed – Hizashi would find it fucking hilarious, but that’s not the point. Fifteen years of paying Aizawa’s way for things hasn’t convinced him to call Hizashi ‘daddy’ any way but sarcastically, and neither love nor money will change that.
“He’s a teacher at the best school for Heroes in the country,” Hitoshi swings in with steel-toecaps and a scowl that takes Cricket’s attack on Aizawa a little too personally. “How’s that a sellout?”
“Supervisor at the factory farm for child soldiers, babyface,” Cricket returns viciously, a smile of crooked teeth that unnerves more than it reassures. “Sorry I don’t think it’s moral to teach kids how to die for their so-called Heroes.”
“Easy, Cricks,” Aizawa hazards a caution, which Cricket takes as abominably as expected.
“That’s not what it is!” Hitoshi bursts exactly the way Cricks wants him to, cackling with all five or so of his teeth.
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of them, little lamb?” Cricket stays focused on Hitoshi like a missile locking down targets for launch. “Let me guess, it’s been your dream your whole life, ever since you were conveniently pumped full of propaganda that told you how amazing it is to be a weapon for the state?”
“Ever since my own father killed a dozen people because he fucking could,” Hitoshi comes back red hot, giving away too much, too fast for Aizawa to stop him. “Someone has to step in and stop the people like that!”
“Oh, the toy boy is fiery,” Cricket mocks, because to believe that he cares would be a massive overestimation of his investment in matters of society. “I see why you like him, Eraser.”
“He’s not in the Hero Course, for the record,” Aizawa ends up oversharing himself, too easily baited to prove Cricket wrong, and that Hitoshi’s not like anyone else. Aizawa plays supervisor at the factory farm for Heroes to be sure that the ones who do graduate, at least under his tutelage, know exactly what they’re getting in for and are doing it for the right reasons. Fakers, posers and wannabes who think being a Hero isn’t about bitter hard work and endless sacrifice don’t make it through the first term with him, and that’s a personal guarantee. Better they’re knocked out by Aizawa early than make it to graduation and discover they don’t have the right stuff to make it Pro, or worse yet, make it for all the wrong reasons.
But Hitoshi’s got the right stuff, even if the school doesn’t accept it. Yet.
“Not in the Hero course yet,” Hitoshi amends bitterly, shooting Aizawa fleeting looks that foretold all kinds of trouble before he turns back to the eerily smiling Cricket. “I don’t have to ask, but I’m gonna give you a chance to help us of your own will.”
“Oh, is that a threat?” Cricket retaliates. “Very Heroic of you.” Then a shot of a dirty look at Aizawa. “You’re teaching him so well.”
“Stop it, Jack, you’re not helping,” Aizawa shoulders his way back in with a ‘you better not’ glare that Hitoshi should know inside out by now. Even if it would be a quick as hell way to route all this pedantic shit with Cricket, and if that’s not a temptation. Maybe as a last resort. “This isn’t just an ordinary case, Cricks. I really need your help.”
Because this is the only way Aizawa can win: sentiment.
Cricket sighs, bouncing one foot in his mis-matched boots. Whatever the season, Cricket always wears most of his worldly possessions at once, which in this case – as ever – is not that much. Possessions were signs of luxury, and distracted people from the reality of human condition, or so Cricket liked to rave. Aizawa wonders what Cricks would make of his broom cupboard’s worth of possessions now; if it still makes him a sellout, which Aizawa imagines it probably does. At least to Cricket. “And I suppose our old arrangement’s off the table.”
“Yes,” Aizawa can’t get out fast enough. What kind of an example that would set for Hitoshi is horrifying to think about.
“Shame. You’re almost looking good.” Cricket has a salacious edge that cuts like freshly broken glass. “Must be that high life treating you so well.”
“I’m just clean, Cricks,” Aizawa actually dares to reply, telling himself that no, he’s definitely not flirting to get his way, not in front of Hitoshi. Much.
“Well lah-dee-dah, he’s clean,” Cricket riffs in a falsetto cracked like old China. Of course, Aizawa could point out that according to his ‘overpaid rich bitch’ boyfriend he’s as filthy as he’s ever been, but hygiene is a relative curve. And there’s other meanings of clean that Cricks knows all too much about. “The fella I used to know started acting weird a few days before he showed up dead. I thought he was just back on the bad stuff, but I guess it was more serious.”
“What was he like?” Hitoshi questions, flared temper settled back down with the promise of juicy case details. “Did he have any history of sexual harassment?” As one of Shiyoko’s earliest victims, Hitoshi’s smart to seek that thread of bad behaviour that characterised the early stages of her spree.
“He liked to show off his you-know-what to people, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Cricket replies only a little lewdly, and he must kind of like Hitoshi if he’s responding at all. Or Hitoshi’s brainwashed him without Aizawa noticing. But that’s probably a reach, because Hitoshi’s charming enough on his own.
“Is there somewhere he could have gone with her?” Aizawa expands. “A place no one would be able to find?”
“Beats me,” Cricket declares with passing disinterest. “There’s all kinds of places to hide in this line of business.”
“Anywhere the killer stayed once might be used again, especially if she wasn’t caught before,” Aizawa presses. “You can do more to help us, Cricks. I know you can.”
“Why, because I care so much if the Deathnote Killer is making crappy people kill themselves?” Cricket’s got expressive hands, just like Hizashi, but on this occasion what he’s expressing is a firm disinterest in the bloodshed of the masses. Cricket does care, kind of, but his moral compass works in erratic ways, and usually behind a lot of posturing.
“Exactly.” Aizawa wouldn’t have… not exactly fallen, but gotten fond of Cricket, if he was totally amoral. Cricket is principled, just by his own very specific set of rules. “None of them deserved to die like that.”
“Not what the people on the streets think,” Cricket counters. “I hear stuff, you know.”
“The new killer isn’t like that,” Hitoshi takes over the new onslaught. “People, innocent people, are going to start dying a lot faster if we don’t do something soon.”
“You’re awfully informed on the subject,” Cricket observes with the cleverness that made him a stand-out informant to begin with. “Close relation, by any chance?” Had Cricks guessed already? Aizawa honestly wouldn’t put it past him.
“Tell us something useful about your acquaintance and I might let you know.” Hitoshi’s clever too, and Aizawa couldn’t be more glad to have him here after all – Cricket might be difficult, and have ‘history’ with Aizawa that’s better left buried, but Cricks can be interested in new things, and Hitoshi’s fresh out the shop.
“Ohhh, you’re offering an exchange of information?” Cricket cooed. “Guess you taught him something useful after all, Eraser.”
“I’m trying,” Aizawa grouses, and Hitoshi shoots him a fleeting look that’s sweet and tart at the same time. Like he knows Aizawa’s trying, even when it’s not always successful, and that brings them closer than ever. Aizawa wonders if Hitoshi realises that Aizawa wants a lot of the same things from Hitoshi that Hitoshi does from him – to be important, to be trusted and close without fear of rejection. Aizawa just covers for his insecurities a lot better, but then, he’s had a lot more practice.
“You first,” Hitoshi insists, which is a strong start with Cricket. Even if it doesn’t work.
“Stuff that. I ain’t saying shit unless you get me going.” Cricket’s eyeing Hitoshi like a dog watches a steak being dragged around the park on a piece of string. “Say, don’t I recognise you from somewhere, Jack?”
“If you don’t have a phone, I don’t know why you’d have a TV,” Hitoshi bites back. “But then, Eraser had me believe you’re an informed kind of person, so I don’t know how you stay relevant without technology in the first place.”
“Phones are how the government keeps tabs on you, lambkin,” Cricket shoots with that demented grin that means he’s enjoying himself. Aizawa doesn’t exactly like it, but he can’t deny it’s working. “I like to get my intel the old fashioned way.”
Hitoshi looks like he’s not sure he wants to know what the old fashioned way is. Aizawa hopes he doesn’t. Or maybe he just resents being called lambkin.
“So tell me who I am,” Hitoshi challenges, and Aizawa’s not so sure where this is going, but he’s at least going to give Hitoshi the shot. Worst case, they can still brainwash Cricket. Not like Cricket’s gonna report them to the police, anyway. Hell, if Aizawa explains things right, Cricket might agree to it just for the kicks. Cricket didn’t lose all those teeth from not knowing how to have a good time with substance abuse. It could even be called his speciality.
“You’re a right tinker is what you are, but that must be why Eraser’s so soft on you.” Typical Cricket to have spent approximately five minutes around Aizawa and Hitoshi to already figure that one out. Aizawa wishes it weren’t so painfully obvious. “You’re his son, aren’t you?”
For a moment, Aizawa doesn’t know what or who Cricket is talking about, and feels like his heart is about to jump out of his chest; but then, it’s been a few years since he and Cricks were… together, he supposes, and Aizawa having a kid back then would’ve been hard for Cricket to miss.
“Every guy is someone’s son,” Hitoshi stays aloof. “Not specific enough.”
“Well then: Doctor Murder-House?” Cricket goes one step further, putting to rest the sudden grip of panic that Cricket meant Aizawa in some shape or form.
Hitoshi’s already put enough pieces out there that the next connections are easy to make: two people on the run, Hitoshi’s closeness, how it’s all going to get worse. Aizawa can swear he spots the exact moment the flickering lightbulb above Crick’s head blasts in to full luminescent glory.
“Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh, that’s good,” Cricket hums like a forty-year-old refrigerator. “That’s very good. And he’s the one the press aren’t talking about… Police been keeping that one quiet, haven’t they?”
“Yes,” Aizawa confirms reluctantly, because they might as well now, and it’s not how he usually deals with Cricket, but the way he usually deals with Cricket is better left well alone. “They don’t want to panic the public.”
“Right, because if people knew how much danger they were in it’d upset them,” Cricket returns with a barbaric, sinful glee. “Wouldn’t want that would we? Wake the precious sleepers from their society-induced coma.”
“It’s not the way I’d do it, but you already know that,” Aizawa replies gruffly, and this is a little more like their old groove – walking the path less travelled, taking shots at the institutions that deserve it. “The press will make a fucking meal of a prison break either way.” Mass hysteria doesn’t help anyone, especially not when it’s someone like Dr. Shinsou on the loose.
“You got that right, old flame,” Cricket must say just to keep pushing Aizawa, perhaps even to see if he can shock Hitoshi, but thankfully, that’s a surprise they’ve gone through already. Aizawa realises all the more why being open about these things, even if they’re awkward, is better in the long run for Hitoshi. Even if it’s awkward as fuck for a while.
“There’s your information, Cricket. Time to pay up,” Hitoshi sets to task, and his charm can go a number of ways with different audiences, but Cricket is at least sixty percent exactly like Aizawa (half the problem with them, honestly) and that means he must find the bold nerve of Hitoshi’s juvenile confidence endearing.
“Such a determined toy boy – you’re gonna have to watch out for this one, Eraser,” Cricket says right past Hitoshi to Aizawa, and Hitoshi looks like he doesn’t know whether to be flattered or horribly embarrassed. Cricks has that effect on people. “Alright, fellas, seeing as you asked so nice and all, I suppose I can show you round one of Peep-Show Petey’s haunts, for old time’s sake.”
Cricket gets to his feet and stretches, skinny limbs that stick out well past the baggy clothes he’d probably been wearing since he and Aizawa were an item. In fact, Aizawa recognises the jacket, even remembers the dumpster it’d been pulled out of while diving for essentials that came free from the trash if you didn’t mind fishing for them. No wonder Aizawa nags Hitoshi about thinking of other ways to make money than being a Hero – look at his own life before he got a second job to pay the bills, mostly at his friends’ and family’s insistence because they were all so worried about him living like… well, Cricket. But that was almost ten years ago, and Aizawa’s grown up a little since then.
“How about for new time’s sake, seeing as I’m here now?” Classic Hitoshi, surely, to want – even need – to make a unique mark on a situation, especially when there’s history he hasn’t been privy to before. To be included and significant in his own right, earned on his own merit, and not just because of who he is or his background. He’s doing a great job.
Cricket laughs, practically a wild hoot, and shoots a look at Aizawa that’s a lot less hateful than Aizawa ever expected to see on Cricket’s scarred, marvellously grudge-holding face. Hitoshi must be doing something incredible for Aizawa’s image, if even Cricket’s long-held bitterness of Aizawa not being who he used to be has been somewhat mollified. Aizawa back then would have never turned up with anyone like Hitoshi in tow, certainly, or been able to be the kind of guardian and role model he is to Hitoshi now. Maybe Tsukauchi’s even smarter than Aizawa already gives him credit for, sending them both here together.
Because Cricket almost comes across fond, as if he thinks Hitoshi really is that cute – which Aizawa thinks so too, but he feels that way automatically, and doesn’t expect everyone else to get it right away. But Cricket is… Cricket, and that makes him in-tune to Aizawa’s weirdo wavelength without even having to try a lot of the time.
So Cricket must just get it, because he croaks an outright friendly, “You got that right, toy boy.”
Notes:
I wonder if anyone got this from the title or chapter, but Cricket is another cameo much like Yamaguichi and Iwaya are pre-existing characters I 'borrowed' to use in this story, but Cricket's not from anime/manga... do you recognise him?
That's right! He's from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia!!! He's one of my favourite characters in that show, so the notion of using him in this way for this story started out as an indulgent thought that I wasn't going to bring into the main storyline, then I realised I can do anything I goddamn want and if it works it works. We're doing this!!!
This chapter goes out to everyone who remembered Aizawa's hobo-fucker background and put that together with last chapter to guess who/what Cricket was going to be, there were a couple of you and it's a delight as a creator to see people hanging onto little details like this and doing their own detective work to get the right conclusions ahead of time. You're all fabulous and I appreciate the readership of this story very much <3
Chapter 58: The Loft
Summary:
The stakes aren’t the only thing going up.
Notes:
This chapter concludes my 5th masterdoc (meaning the approx 50k googledocs sanity limit I split this story up into) and therefore towards the end of the fifth 'act' of this story if we were to arrange it as such. As much as it feels like these interactions and character dynamics could go on forever, we are actually heading somewhere, and on a pretty tight schedule! It's just the telling that seems to take so much longer.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“What is this place?” Hitoshi asks with a disgruntlement that might be more due to his being directly downwind from Cricket than anything else, but Aizawa doesn't exactly blame him. For people who sleep rough there isn't usually much of a choice about how often they're able to wash, but in Cricket's case it happens to be a choice too. It seems amazing that it never used to bother Aizawa, but the truth of it was that they surely used to be as bad as each other back then, and most things could be covered with enough cigarettes and cheap beer, amongst others.
“Old Peep-show Petey used to work in a warehouse before they laid him off for raging substance abuse problems,” Cricket explains as he clambers up an exceptionally long and worryingly rickety ladder on the side of one of the gigantic industrial buildings he led Aizawa and Hitoshi to, which isn’t far from his current ‘home’ address. “He might have also whipped his trouser snake out in front of the owner's daughter too, now I think about it.”
“Is this relevant, Cricks?” Aizawa calls up from the back of the ladder-scaling procession, Hitoshi sandwiched between them.
“Well I'd hope so.” Cricket leads the way, his raggedy olive-green coat tails flapping just past Hitoshi's bobbing head. “This is the very same warehouse, after all.”
“So it's a tour of the guy’s life story, great,” Hitoshi says like it is not, in fact, great.
“Patience grassy lambhopper,” Cricket warbles in a voice so cracked it's a miracle it hasn't collapsed in on itself completely. A bit like this ladder, which Aizawa climbs behind the two people he needs to keep one eye each on, hand over hand, step by step. “Being that Pervy Pete had worked here twenty years before that happened, he knew this place better than the stuffy owner even did, and used to brag about how his old employer still put a roof over his head without ever realising he was doing it.”
“So you think he had a hideout here,” Aizawa finishes the story in order to skip the excessive exposition in the middle. Cricket's use as an informant is one and the same with his raconteur nature. Aizawa’s aware that he has an… attraction, he supposes, to people who talk a lot. Or perhaps to put it better, they have a seemingly unconscious attraction to him. After all, it isn't like Aizawa had been the one to pursue Cricket… or Hizashi… they just gravitated towards him.
“I don't make it my business to think things, Eraser,” Cricket responds just short of a cackle a couple of metres above Aizawa. “Petey took me here once when he was loaded, not that he’d’ve remembered, even though he woulda choked on his vomit and died if it weren't for me.” Cricket isn't silent long before he adds, “Have died sooner, that is.” Was there guilt in that? Probably not, although Cricket has greater solidarity to his own kind than types like the lawyer or salarymen Shiyoko's slaughtered.
“If this guy had a place he could crash without anyone finding out about it, why didn't he stay there all the time?” Hitoshi asks as they keep climbing, and although Aizawa thinks he can see the end up ahead, maybe this is some strange form of purgatory for him, forever climbing a ladder after his intern-come-protegee and homeless anarchist ex-boyfriend.
“What have you been teaching this one?” Cricket scoffs to Aizawa, still scaling the ladder like a spider makes it up a wall being chased by a cup. (Aizawa is and always has been the resident insect relocater between himself and Hizashi, no surprises there). “He doesn't even know the basics.”
“The basics of what?” Hitoshi takes poorly, as ever, to insinuations that he's missing out on anything.
“Of surviving on the streets, Toy boy,” Cricket lectures. “Eraser is too soft now to give it to you straight, but if you hung around with me for a spell–”
“No,” Aizawa is saying as soon as he's thinking it. “Absolutely not–”
“The guy doesn't stay in the same place over and over because he risks being found out,” Hitoshi interjects just grouchily enough to suggest he only reached this conclusion by being made to think about it. Aizawa doesn't love it, but he was a stupid rookie once too, and Cricket taught him a thing or two about living on the rougher edges of society way back when.
Cricket also taught Aizawa a thing or two that had nothing to do with any of that, and if he ever catches Cricket trying to teach such things to Hitoshi he will literally kill Cricks. Which would break a lifelong non-lethal streak Aizawa’s maintained, but everyone has to make exceptions.
“Clever little toy boy,” Cricket commends as he finally reaches the top of the infernal ladder and disappears over the edge, but only long enough to pop back over head first, a toothless gargoyle that grins at Hitoshi and Aizawa climbing the rest of the way. “But resist the urge to be too clever, sometimes he was just too jacked up to make it all the way up here.”
“No shit,” Hitoshi replies as he clamers over the edge next, followed finally by Aizawa. The ladder tips them out on a wide rooftop with a series of glass roof structures that rise up at an angle in rows across the top of the warehouse, the rest of the flat surface covered with a coarse all-weather material that bakes under the strengthening sun. There's a sheen of sweat on Hitoshi's forehead from the climb, and Cricket is just pretty much always a little bit damp come rain or shine. Aizawa’s basically just a soggy, walking shadow, even in the harshest sunlight.
“This way, fellas.” Cricket leads them with a sloping swagger to one of the peaked structures out of the many, which the regular vents along one side suggest are part of the cooling system for the warehouse below, though there's plenty of space between the units to make a nice little hideaway. Most of the glass panels that encase the cooling systems are welded shut, but with knowhow only Cricket would have he leads them to the one broken pane that's been replaced with corrugated iron. The bolts are loose and can be taken out by hand, revealing a small triangular opening just big enough for a person to squeeze through.
Aizawa has to wonder if Shiyoko really came here, and if she’d dared to bring Dr. Shinsou – what he must have thought of it. How undignified he'd have looked folding all that long willowy frame to fit through a tiny crawlspace used by a deranged drug addict. The price of his freedom must be a bitter tonic, though it's impossible to know if the Doc could even feel regret over the desperate ends his choices in life had led him to. Because it would’ve been easier to not murder anyone and not have to live like this to escape detection, but the Doc made up his mind about that a long time ago.
So although it’s… uncouth, Aizawa supposes if he tries to put himself in Dr. Shinsou’s warped minset, this would only ever be in Doc's short term plans, and that's really the least of their worries. It's the Professor's big picture they should all be working against, and Aizawa can only hope they're on the right track.
“After you, grasshopper,” Cricket offers to Hitoshi more than Aizawa, but Aizawa’s not letting Hitoshi go crawling into mysterious holes head-first and drops down without invitation. He doesn’t feel totally comfortable leaving Hitoshi and Cricket alone together for any amount of time, but there’s not so much damage that can be done in such a short interlude. Besides, Cricket must be fond of Hitoshi already if he’s calling him grasshopper… which Aizawa’s latent Shinsou effect instincts aren’t t entirely happy with, but he’s in control of himself to recognise when he needs to set that possessive instinct aside.
The disadvantage here is that Aizawa is easily the one among them least easy to fit through a small triangular gap, and has only gotten as far as shoving his shoulders through, awkward on his hands and knees trying to jam the rest of his torso through the opening when he hears, “Lookin’ good, Eraser,” from behind him and pretends that the exertion is why his face immediately colours.
With an irate grunt Aizawa gives himself one more shove, finally shunting through the gap with a conspicuous ripping sound and bite of something sharp into his back. It’s a squeeze again to get his back half through, but he drags himself into a narrow space that keeps going onwards like a tunnel, and the thought of Dr. Shinsou potentially hauling himself through here is satisfactory enough to put a grim smile on Aizawa’s face, if only to detract from his embarrassment – it’s not a familiar emotion for him, and he hates it all the more for that. It had to be Cricket who took them here, of course, one of the few people in the world audacious enough to offer comment on Aizawa’s ass while standing right next to Hitoshi. At least any remnant of Hitoshi’s budding Hero Worship must be long since dead and buried.
“What am I looking for, Cricks?” Aizawa shouts back, relieved that no one is coming in right after him so far. He wouldn’t put it past Cricket for this to be a dead end filled with broken glass, a prank to get back at Aizawa for daring to grow out of a way of life that was fun while it lasted, but not a lasting way to exist. It’d been Cricket who’d convinced Aizawa not to bother looking for a new place to live when his shitty apartment lease ran out without another in place – that he was hemorrhaging rent money that could be spent much better, when a perfectly good life could be lived on the streets. Aizawa had believed that, once – to his friends and family’s despair – but now couldn’t be gladder to know he has a comfortable bed to go back to when this is all over.
“Keep going, it’ll open up in a bit!” Cricket must be crouched at the opening, and has no sooner yelled this than the narrow vent Aizawa’s crawling through opens out behind one of the cooling units into a larger empty space, a thick pane of glass on one side and rows of hollow alcoves on the other.
Aizawa stands up and feels for the tear in his jumpsuit as he hears the sound of someone coming down the entryway after him, far quicker and not struggling the way he did like the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube. This turns out to be Hitoshi, given away by the purple bushel of hair that pops out first as Aizawa finds the rip on his back and brings his fingers back with blood on them. It takes quite a lot to tear through his jumpsuits, though it will have taken most of the depth out of what could’ve been a nasty cut otherwise, so he’s unclipping some spray-on plaster when Hitoshi snakes the rest of the way out and stands up. It looks easy when he does it, all skinny long-limbs and bendy youthful energy.
“Do you need a hand?” is Hitoshi’s first question, quickly clocking Aizawa staring at his own bloodied hand, and Aizawa just nods, giving Hitoshi the plaster spray and turning around as the sounds of Cricket thumping down the vent fall somewhere between Hitoshi’s grace and Aizawa’s ugly struggle.
Aizawa jumps when the antiseptic plaster spray hits his bare back, but Hitoshi’s quick and efficient. At least this is a lot better than the mess Aizawa made of himself last night, though this is a poor record even for him for going from healed to bleeding again.
“So do you just attract injuries?” Hitoshi suggests as Aizawa turns around and takes the spray back.
“Better me than someone else,” Aizawa replies whole-heartedly, because it’s the only argument he’s ever had. That and the more lowbrow explanation that he just just loves pain, which is only partly true.
The space they’re in is just big enough for the two of them to stand, backed by the noisy air conditioning units on one side and the slanting walls of glass leading down on the other. This means that they have to move when Cricket emerges from the tunnel, Hitoshi backing up first and stooping as he edges into the prism of space running all the way along the lengthy roof unit, a pod like this presumably between each unit that sit along the structure.
“All the way to the end, boys,” Cricket directs, not even able to stand up at the highest point of the alcove, so Hitoshi starts leading the way this time, crouched in the warm tunnel lit like a greenhouse by the sun. This probably stays cosy at night, at least in summer, though Aizawa can see why a rough sleeper would take advantage of such a remote bolt-hole only occasionally. Too much work compared to a sleeping bag under a bridge – Aizawa would know.
“So are we sure the dick-waver even took Shiyoko here?” Hitoshi says as they shuffle-walk along the structure.
“Now now, you just asked me where Petey liked to lay low, I never promised he took any Deathnote Killer here,” Cricket warns from behind Aizawa.
“The police definitely wouldn’t find this place, so it’s worth a shot,” Aizawa reasons out loud, watching the bob of Hitoshi’s head up in front. Then he has a thought, and initially doesn’t want to say it out of consideration for Hitoshi, but the very point of that is worse somehow. Kiki hasn’t made a point of shielding her son from Dr. Shinsou, and if Aizawa can’t take her lead then whose can he? So he says it anyway. “I’m not sure I can picture Dr. Shinsou here.”
“I can,” Hitoshi answers reflexively, placing a hand on one of the glass panels as he passes by, streaming sunlight bleaching the light tones in his hair until it’s almost the fair shade of Kiki’s at the tips. Aizawa would ask why, but Hitoshi answers him pre-emptively. “He isn’t half as refined as he makes himself out to be.”
Hitoshi would know, of course, and that’s enough for Aizawa. He had only glimpsed the Professor’s less composed side behind bars, and has seen enough of the aftermath he left behind after making it back out into the free world.
In one of the last alcoves between cooling units before the end of the row, there’s a pile of dirty blankets that constitute a makeshift bed, so Aizawa stops to take a closer look.
“The main event’s at the end, Eraser,” Cricket nags as he draws level with Aizawa, but being careful can’t cost them anything.
“Someone slept here,” Aizawa murmurs, dropping to a crouch and ducking into the space, carefully moving the blankets around for clues. What this turns up is a syringe that’s seen much better days, crusty with almost black sludge that must have once been blood still in the end.
“That’d be Pete’s.” Cricket hasn’t moved on, bending over with his back parallel to the slanted glass roof.
“As far as we know,” Aizawa replies, and he doesn’t expect Shiyoko or Dr. Shinsou to be partaking, but that doesn’t mean they were the only ones here, or even here at all. Sleeping with a dirty needle seems like a health hazard even for a person as desperate as Shiyoko.
“Aizawa–” Hitoshi calls from around the corner, and Aizawa looks right at Cricket, whose eyebrows shoot up at the term of address. He’s always been Eraser to Cricks, but if Hitoshi’s forgotten to stick to formalities there must be something to alarm the teen.
For a moment Aizawa and Cricket just look at each other, until Cricks breaks into a toothy grin. “C’mon, luv, I knew your name before. Don’t look so shocked.”
Aizawa just huffs and squat-walks back out to go after Hitoshi, who’s continuing, “So I’m pretty sure Dad and Shiyoko were here after all.”
“Yeah? Why–” Aizawa’s starting to say when he gets around far enough to see Hitoshi, and more to the point, what Hitoshi’s seeing.
The end of the roof structure is more of a loft, no gigantic cooling units dominating the space and plenty of room to stand. The slanted part is still glass, but the back wall is brick, where metal pipework and instruments that run from the cooling units and then dip down through the floor. Chained to one of the larger pipes by is a woman, seated and spreadeagled by the arms, bloody cuts running in parallel along each of her wrists.
Aizawa’s first thought is that it isn’t Shiyoko – the figure isn’t right, this woman slim built and has naturally dark, unbleached hair. His second thought is a rush of concern as Hitoshi paces up to her, because it’s without hesitation that he reaches for her neck. Fingerprints, Aizawa thinks instinctively, while also realising what there’s a chance of if Hitoshi’s trying to take her pulse.
The next thought is indescribable, but it hits Aizawa to the gut like a freight train when Hitoshi’s head whips around and he says, “She’s still alive.”
Preservation mode takes over the second those words are out. Aizawa strides over until he’s right next to Hitoshi, already pulling a first aid kit from his belt.
“Deal with the bleeding.” Aizawa slaps a roll of bandages into Hitoshi’s open palm, then turns his attention to the chain. It’s enough to hold the girl to the pipes behind her, but isn’t so heavy duty that Aizawa can’t give it some trouble – perhaps even similar to the stuff that drowned the hotel workers yesterday. Aizawa’s seen enough dead bodies in chains for one weekend.
He grabs a length of the chain with some slack in it and twists, buckling the links up against each other, then keeps applying pressure, making it a contest between the metal and his upper body strength. It’s sometimes used as a party trick, but there’s plenty of practical uses for knowing how to snap a chain in half, and with a grunt of redirected anger Aizawa tenses from shoulder to wrist and the chain breaks on the weakest link.
“Did you seriously just–?” Hitoshi’s looking over at Aizawa with a mix of awe and concern.
“Help to hold her, Cricket,” Aizawa steamrolls onward, determined that they won’t lose another one, not today.
“Fucking hell, Eraser.” Cricket is still admiring his work with the chain. “You were always a bit of a beast, but there’s a bunch of locked storerooms round these parts I’d like to introduce you to.”
“Hold her, Cricks,” Aizawa orders again as he pulls the loops of chains off and Hitoshi is only supporting the girl from one side, which is enough to keep her up, perhaps, but he can’t bandage her injuries properly and do that.
“Alright, alright, keep your hair on.” Cricket comes over and holds the woman from the other side, while Aizawa backs away and crosses the space to the slanted panes of glass. The lowest section is a few feet high and wide enough to fit a person through, because fuck trying to get this woman out the way they came in. Cricket realises this while Aizawa’s tapping the glass to check the thickness and how brittle it might be. Aizawa already fucked himself up going through glass that didn’t want going through yesterday, and between Hizashi and Recovery Girl would definitely get himself murdered if he did it again less than 12 hours later. “You can’t be serious, that glass is at least–”
Aizawa lands a piston of a kick right at the top of the frame, near the edge to smash the corner out cleanly, long cracks running the rest of the way across the pane. A second kick on the opposing corner and the whole panel is almost out, which Aizawa knocks through with the toe of his boot. This is now an active crime scene, but keeping a witness alive is far more important than preservation of the order of things exactly as they found them.
“We’re going to carry her out.” Aizawa moves back to take over on the side where Hitoshi has finished bandaging one of her arms.
“Look Aizawa.” Hitoshi turns over the girl’s hand, showing a neatly drawn Hakamata Shiyoko on the back in some kind of pen. It explains the unreactive, listless expression even with the chaos going around around her.
“Get her legs.” Aizawa tilts the girl forwards and scoops her under the arms, lifting as Cricket backs away and Hitoshi picks up her ankles.
“You two make quite the team, huh?” Cricket observes as Aizawa swings round with the girl to walk backwards, going butt-first out of the opening while Hitoshi carefully follows.
“Help or shut up, Cricket,” Aizawa growls as he squidges himself through the impromptu exit without cutting himself (for once) and pulls back around to sit the girl up in a patch of shade against the end of the roof structure. “Bandage the other arm,” he’s saying to Hitoshi, about to reach for another roll of bandages when Hitoshi’s hand snakes out to rip it straight off Aizawa’s belt himself.
“On it.” When Hitoshi’s moving on the same wavelength as Aizawa it feels so effortless, like that mentalist ebb and flow between them is in perfect synergy. “We need to get that name off her hand if she’s ever going to wake up.”
“I know.” Aizawa drops to examine the marking on the gir’s bandaged arm while Hitoshi starts tending to the other. The name looks like it’s been written in permanent ink, not cut thankfully, and Aizawa has some high grade medical alcohol that might take it off, but it won’t be kind to the skin and there’s no guarantee it’ll do the job properly. But it’s worth a shot.
“So this is what the Deathnote Killer does to people?” Cricket follows them out, standing tall in the sun casting a shadow like a sundial across the roof.
“This is her going easy on someone,” Hitoshi answers curtly, quickly passing the gauze he took from Aizawa back and forth as he wraps the girl’s other arm. It’s something Aizawa had already registered on a low level – that this woman is alive, which means something’s off – but Hitoshi puts it so clearly it illuminates like a lightbulb. Why this woman was brought here, tortured but not killed… it doesn’t make sense, and that’s going to be important to parse out. Why others, but not her? Who is she, and what did they do to her – this and more questions they can’t answer while she’s still paralysed by Shiyoko’s quirk.
“We have to remove the mark,” Aizawa repeats again for Cricket, cracking off the top of the alcohol capsule on his belt and pouring it over the back of the girl’s hand. He works it first with his fingertips, but the 99% proof ethanol isn’t any kinder to his skin and he swaps to try rubbing it with his sleeve. Some of the ink comes away, but it’s definitely permanent marker, and enough is left behind that the woman still appears to be under Shiyoko’s deadly spell. What Aizawa wouldn’t do just to erase the effects of her quirk, but if it didn’t work on any of Shiyoko’s previous victims without looking at Shiyoko herself, it isn’t going to work now.
“Well why didn’t you just say.” Cricket strides forward with his ragged coat tails flapping, then drops to a squat next to Aizawa as he whips out a switchblade Aizawa knows far too well – Cricket once dug a bullet out of him with it.
“Don’t cut her,” Aizawa says as Hitoshi’s eyes widen in alarm, but if they have to do what they have to do. “Not at first.”
“Gently does it, I get the picture,” Cricket replies as he releases the blade and takes over grip of the girl’s hand from Aizawa, carefully bringing the edge of the blade against her skin and beginning to scrape the marker from her rubbed-raw skin. But it works, even if there’s a layer or two of skin that comes with the ink – better that than still brainwashed.
“It’s working.” Hitoshi sounds relieved, and is almost finished bandaging her other arm.
“She’s probably going to go into shock if she wakes up,” Aizawa warns. “Hitoshi, if she–”
“I know,” he interjects. “But it’s probably not gonna be pretty.”
“Just do what you have to do.” There are rules they should have gone over another time, about consent and what they can or can’t get away with doing to people using Hitoshi’s quirk in scenarios like this, but they didn’t, and half the theory always goes to shit in the heat of the moment anyway. Aizawa’s just got to trust Hitoshi’s instincts instead – but that’s not so difficult.
By the time three-quarters of the mark has been scoured from her skin, there’s a change in the girl’s eyes. Aizawa reaches to her neck to take her pulse again, feeling her heartrate quicken as Cricket takes off the last lines of Shiyoko’s name. Steady, regular breathing turns to panic, and when Aizawa withdraws his hand the first breathless sob escapes her mouth.
Hitoshi doesn’t hesitate, shuffling into her vision, at which point an even more terrified noise comes from the girl – family resemblance, no doubt. “Hey, listen to me. What’s your name? We’re here to help, you’re safe now.”
But the girl just moves from fright to hysteria, tears filling her eyes and each breath seeming like she gets less oxygen than before.
“I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.” Hitoshi’s getting more frustrated, reaching out to grip the girl by the shoulders, trying to guide her gaze back onto him. “Please, listen, don’t make me…”
“She’s having a panic attack,” Aizawa warns, and Hitoshi did say it wasn’t going to be pretty. At least he tried the soft approach. “Hitoshi…”
“I know,” Hitoshi snaps, an angry knot of tension in the middle of his brows, and the next time he speaks isn’t so kind. “Look at me, dammit” He shakes the girl’s shoulders, her head snapping up to meet Hitoshi’s fiery gaze. “You wanna live or die?! Cause I’ll finish the job if you’ve given up, just say the word!”
Hitoshi raises a hand from the girl’s shoulder, as if to strike her, and Aizawa sees the horror in Cricket’s face at the inexplicable shift in his mood. But there’s all kinds of ways to get a reaction, and that’s all Hitoshi needs.
So her panicked sobs have no sooner formed a single, barely articulate, “NO–” than she goes quiet, breath calming suddenly as Hitoshi takes control and lets out a sigh of relief.
“Okay, I’m sorry about that, I’m not gonna hurt you, I just needed you to…” Hitoshi stops himself, sighing again. “Why am I even explaining? Never mind. We’re Heroes, that’s all you need to know.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cricket butts in, “I’m no bitch-boy for the gov–”
“Shut up, Cricket,” Hitoshi’s the one to snap before Aizawa does, which he’s oddly proud of. “I wanna try something.” There’s an intention to Hitoshi’s voice that tells Aizawa he’s the one Hitoshi’s talking to. “It might go wrong, but it’d mean she’d be helping us more… willingly.”
“Go with your gut,” is all Aizawa can offer, because it’s the only truth he’s ever known, and he can’t teach Hitoshi to be a Hero by forcing the decisions he’d make – that’s never what it’s been about. Aizawa’s job as a teacher is to refine the instincts would-be Heroes already have, weeding out the ones who don’t have that inbuilt knowledge of what to do when the moment of truth hits.
“We wanna help you, Miss, but you need to tell us what happened,” Hitoshi starts to lay out in quick but careful words, still crouched in front of the woman holding her firmly by the shoulders, her gaze trained hypnotically on his face. “You can do that yourself, or I can help you do it like I’m helping you now, but I’m going to give you the choice in a minute. All you have to do is say ‘help me’ and I’ll take over again, but if you don’t want to then just don’t say anything and we’ll take you somewhere safe. Okay?” It’s interesting how Hitoshi keeps asking questions, Aizawa notes, but it makes sense, following the form of natural conversation even when it isn’t.
Hitoshi even uses a similar tone to the way Aizawa talks to people in situations like this, he notices, and even though he hasn’t sat Hitoshi down to impart those learnings, a young mind is a sponge that sucks everything up, good along with the bad. Maybe a stress-smoking habit and disregard for authority aren’t the only things Hitoshi’s gotten from Aizawa after all.
If Aizawa tunes into his mentalist sense, fiddles those dials until he picks up the static – and like this, Hitoshi kicks out a lot of static – he can sense the moment Hitoshi stops using his quirk, even if it wasn’t clear from the way the woman’s panicked breathing resumes.
“So, can I help you?” Hitoshi offers, still with his hands clasping her shoulders, those oversized puppy paws that throw echoes to the grown man he’ll be one day, doing this all without supervision and the legal jurisdiction to do so – Aizawa stakes his reputation on it.
It takes her a moment to adjust, but the woman’s eyes haven’t left Hitoshi’s, and after another shaky breath she pants, “Please help me,” and goes straight back under.
Aizawa understands the feeling all too well, now he’s spent enough time under Hitoshi’s quirk to understand just how comforting it can be – the mental equivalent of curling up in someone’s arms and just being held.
She stills again when Hitoshi takes control, and Cricket seems extremely disturbed – perhaps he’s worked out what’s going on already, at least the broad strokes if not the specifics.
“What’s your name?”
“Hamada Hana.” The woman seems so calm now, even moreso than before. Perhaps because of the conditions under which Hitoshi put her under his control: by force in a moment of terror, compared to voluntarily as a way to help one another. Hitoshi must have known it, or he wouldn’t have risked letting go of her just to regain control under better circumstances.
“Are you hurt anywhere else except your arms?” Hitoshi is completely focused like this, and Aizawa just keeps an eye out for their surroundings, letting Hitoshi work with the faith that he won’t need to step in – if he did, Aizawa can break Hitoshi’s control in an instant, but he really doesn’t think he’s going to need to. The woman shakes her head, and Hitoshi continues. “Can you stand?”
“Yes.” But she doesn’t move to get up, clearly not willed by Hitoshi just yet, but assessing what they need – how to get this girl out of here, which is on Aizawa’s mind too.
“Describe what happened for you to end up here.” This is the big number, and Aizawa steadies himself for the onslaught of what’s surely to come.
“I was at work when a man and a woman approached me. The man began to talk to me, then after I answered him I blacked out. When I woke up I was here.”
“What else?” Hitoshi probes, “Once you were here.”
“They made me cut myself, then I watched while they had sex.” There’s a frown that dashes across Hitoshi’s face at the perfectly calm revelation that comes from the woman, and it’s certainly efficient to get information from a traumatised witness like this – completely emotionless delivery of the facts, as horrible as they are. And they are horrible.
The woman pauses as Hitoshi’s mulling over something, and Aizawa can sense out the connection between them the same way he felt before; a kind of humming, like the ring of a tuning fork at an unheard frequency. He knows already that quirks like Hitoshi’s work on brainwaves, aligning those of the brainwasher’s with the brain-washed, and it makes sense that anyone with enough mentalist capacity can pick up that transmission in-transit.
“Just watching?”
“The man wanted me to join in, but the woman stopped him.” Although blank, a steady line of tears fills the woman’s eyes and break down her cheeks. “They chained me up to go to sleep, then went away in the morning.”
“And they just left you here?” Hitoshi still stages it like a conversation, but perhaps it feels more natural for him to keep directing the flow like a normal interview.
It’s just the dead, switched-off glaze of the woman’s eyes that give it away. “The man said he would come back for me later, but the woman said not if she killed me first.”
There’s a fire in Hitoshi’s eyes that Aizawa empathises with more than he can say, and there’s too much in this to unpack right now, but hell if there isn’t a lot to unpack.
“How long ago did they leave?” Aizawa asks, wondering if she’ll answer him like she answers Hitoshi. She does.
“A couple of hours, I think,” the woman delivers mechanically, and Hitoshi sighs with frustration Aizawa also knows all too well. They’re getting closer, but there’s only so much they can do being behind Shiyoko and the Doc all the time and they both know it. When the stakes are this high, it’s just not good enough.
“Thank you, Hana. We’re going to get you out now,” Hitoshi says with a sadness that’s heartbreaking, and tentatively lets go and backs away from her a little, holding out a hand in invitation. “Can you stand up for me?”
Aizawa wonders what the balance is between mind control and the girl’s willpower when she takes Hitoshi’s hand and shakily gets to her feet, clearly weak from her ordeal even still under Hitoshi’s control.
“Can you carry her?” Hitoshi turns to ask Aizawa and he’s seeking something a little more than the simple question – reassurance, perhaps, just a check-in on how he’s doing.
Aizawa nods, but before he hikes this girl over his shoulder has another thought. “Are you going to keep her under?”
Hitoshi doesn’t look quite sure, the rollback of uncertainty following the surge of confidence in the heat of the moment. “I guess it’s safer.”
“Less stressful in any case,” Aizawa responds, and overwhelmed with pride for a second, reaches out and gives Hitoshi’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “You’re doing great.”
In the quiet moment of sincerity, a chirping cricket interrupts, “So the toy boy’s got a freaky quirk too.”
Fucking hell. Aizawa thinks but doesn’t actually say. Of course Cricket would put it like that.
“Just like dear old Dad,” Hitoshi replies coyly, back to bolshy again now his doubts have been laid to rest. “One more thing.” Hitoshi turns back to the girl, Hana, Aizawa supposes she could be called if Hitoshi’s deciding to do it that way. A little over-friendly, but maybe it’s meant to make her feel more at ease, like they’re closer than the strangers they actually are. “Where do you work?”
“At a public library nearby,” she answers with the same robotic ease, and Aizawa wonders if Hitoshi released her from his quirk, how quickly would she want to jump back in? If he were in her shoes, had gone through the things she had, and been brainwashed one after the other by Dr. Shinsou, Shiyoko and then Hitoshi, he sure knows whose control he’d like to stay under until he had a warm bed to cry in for a few days straight.
“Did they take anything of yours?” Aizawa adds for good measure, trying to piece together what the bloody fuck the Doc and Shiyoko are planning now.
“My ID card and keys for the library.” Hana is still holding Hitoshi’s hand from being helped up, which makes sense because he obviously hasn’t stopped or willed her not to, but it’s just then that Aizawa notices a detail he probably should have picked up earlier – a probable explanation for why Hitoshi leapfrogged her family name to use her given one, as well as why Dr. Shinsou brought her up here to begin with, even if Shiyoko clearly thwarted his nastier plans for the girl.
Hana is beautiful.
Notes:
Someone in the comments recently noted that they were waiting for something bad to happen as we snap back to the murder and chaos that counterbalances the family-drama part of this story. WELP. HERE IT IS.
It's great to get back to Hitoshi using his quirk in Heroic contexts, as well as thinking more about how people, especially traumatised people, might react or be handled to mind control quirks, double-especially with the way I've developed the lore on this and what Hitoshi's quirk can feel like to the person being controlled.
Oh... I suppose this counts as a cliffhanger again, doesn't it? WELP.
Chapter 59: Hana
Summary:
If this counts as Aizawa and Hitoshi getting a step ahead, they must have fallen two steps back along the way.
Notes:
One of the nice things about the flow of this story, at least for me, is the give and take between the social drama components and the action thriller ones, and I enjoy how each phase sort of sets us up for the next one - building trust and then putting it to the test. This chapter has a bit of both, but after a long series of chapters focused on the relationships between the core cast, as you may imagine, we're about to put a lot of things to the test... I'm looking forward to it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa is in the irregular position, at least for him, of having a pretty girl on his arm. For someone with absolutely zero interest in the aesthetics of women, or anyone for that matter – after all, Cricket is right there – Aizawa seems to end up in this situation more often than makes any damn sense.
“I want to do one last check of the scene before we take her down,” Aizawa decides as he's saying it out loud, the cooperative weight of Hana bolstered on one arm as he shields his eyes from the nearing midday sun with the other. The girl is still under Hitoshi's mind control, but that's good, it makes her predictably calm, heartbeat a steady rhythm that Aizawa can just detect through her back.
A strong jolt might wake Hana up and the shock would set in all over again, but for now it's a relief to know she's being stabilised, even sheltered by Hitoshi's quirk; even better, willingly so, because Hitoshi was brave enough to ask for her consent and get it, securing an invitation for the vampire at the window of her mind. One creature to offer protection from a much worse monster.
It gives Aizawa more and more confidence that Hitoshi will earn the legitimacy as a Hero that he seeks, that he alone can overturn the tide that marks him as a villain purely because of his quirk, and change the way society as a whole thinks about quirks like his. Hell, even quirks like Aizawa’s.
The most hostile reactions to his erasure quirk always come from the fear that it's taking something away, denying what's considered to be an inherent right of anyone born with a quirk, or the worry that it'll somehow become permanent, terrified of what it’s like trying to draw on a quirk only to find it not there. Knowing that it's mental(ist), and what's happening isn't Aizawa truly ‘erasing’ anyone's quirk, but using a form of mind control to suppress the user from activating their quirk for long as Aizawa can hold the effect is a little less mystified, and perhaps a little less intimidating as a result. He'll have to try explaining it sometime, see if the theory holds true.
“Cricks, can you take her?” Aizawa wouldn't ask usually, because most things he's ever asked Cricket to do have been an excuse for the dirty redhead to do the exact opposite, but usual rules are off when they get caught up in actual Hero stuff, and hopefully that still holds true. Aizawa takes a step back across the scratchy roof surface on top of the warehouse, their four shadows pooled underneath them, a little more breeze at this height but still stifling and a little humid after last night’s storm.
When Aizawa carefully lets go, he finds that Hana can mostly stand up unaided, but like anyone inebriated, she sways a little on her feet like a stalk of grass in the wind. Cricket takes her by the elbow as Aizawa takes a few more steps away, and Cricks has plenty of experience propping up wasted people, Aizawa among them. Not so long ago, at least in the timeline of emotions, it was Hizashi asking his best friend to score off his ‘drug dealer boyfriend’ for another one of his DJ gigs in not quite the early days, but certainly the earlier days. Aizawa used to point out Cricket wasn’t a drug dealer by trade, but given that Aizawa still got drugs off him, the point was pretty moot.
At first Hitoshi looks put out that Aizawa didn't pick him for the job of stabilising Hana, who is bound by his quirk in the first place and could probably stand stiff as a girder if Hitoshi wanted her to, but his mood lifts when Aizawa tasks him next.
“Can you call Tsukauchi and get him up to speed?” Slightly more important than hanging onto a pretty girl, however much Hitoshi might be okay with that task in itself. Cricket’s about as gay as Aizawa, which is very, so the likelihood of his having an opinion about propping Hana up compared to the next girl is slim to none. If anything she’s far too clean and attractive to merit anything but disdain from Cricks, but that’s neither here or there. Aizawa is too clean for Cricket these days, which is saying a lot.
“Sure.” Hitoshi’s being a particularly good puppy for once, and Aizawa almost reaches out to ruffle his hair, but spares him the indignity in front of Cricket. “How much should I tell him?”
“Just to get over here quickly and bring all the backup he’s got,” Aizawa supplies as he paces back around the roof structure they pulled Hana from, readying to duck back in through the broken window Aizawa got them out through. “If the Doc and Shiyoko left recently they might still be in the area.”
“Okay.” Hitoshi’s already whipped his phone out, caterpillar brows knitted in concentration as Aizawa ducks into the last known resting place of the deranged Dr. Shinsou and his unstable prodigy. Perhaps not quite the prodigy the Doc was hoping for, if Shiyoko defied him over Hana, or so Aizawa’s thoughts come to dwell on like a bird returning to roost. Hana’s beautiful in the way that matches the Doc’s shallow form of ‘taste’, which even someone like Aizawa can tell from comparing this ill-fated librarian to Kiki and even Iwaya. Willowy and lovely, classically beautiful features if it’s worth using such a tacky label. Not like Shiyoko, from what they can tell, and that’s probably half the trouble.
Aizawa scouts the room quickly and efficiently, side to side and front to back step after careful step, taking in anything that could help him further develop the negative left behind by their traumatised witness. Finds some more used contraceptives, of course; confirmation of what happened after Shiyoko was successfully able to lure the Doc away from another conquest – to keep satisfying her endless desire for the Professor’s straying attention. Aizawa’s got all too good of an idea, unfortunately, as much as he’d like to bleach the recollection from his mind.
In the inherent conflict of seeing killers as real people, rather than soulless monsters, Shiyoko’s tortured humanity is never clearer than the stretch Aizawa has to make to understand why she might have spared Hana from being raped – was it pure jealousy, or did she retain some of the fire that she started with? A killer who turned on train molesters and a courtroom champion for rapists, making them into the grisly meat they treated women as? The way the Doc treats them, as much as Shiyoko’s blind adoration might be trying to compensate for.
Did Shiyoko mean it when she said she’d kill Hana before the Doc could get back to her? Yet the girl was still alive, so perhaps it was just a bluff. If Shiyoko wanted Hana dead, Aizawa has no doubt that she would be already, so had something about a woman who attracted the nasty side of the male gaze saved her life, even among the company of monsters? Or maybe this was just a really fucked-up kind of foreplay between killers of equal animosity.
Aizawa can’t consider anything out of the realm of possibility at this point, but having seen Shiyoko and the Doc’s form of intimacy, wonders if their alliance is even more fragile now than ever. Especially if the Doc is trying to pick up other women right in front of Shiyoko, making her fight, even kill, to retain his twisted pass at the Professor’s ‘affection’. Hitoshi and Kiki have given Aizawa plenty of grounds to understand what the Doc thinks is love, so he shudders to think of what Shiyoko gets instead.
It makes Aizawa sick to contemplate, but that sickness is the only thing that might put them ahead of the deadly duo, not picking over their lukewarm leftovers. At least the Doc and Shiyoko didn’t expect to be tailed here, or they’d have found Hana dead and an obnoxious note to taunt them no doubt. Aizawa would scream if he lets himself think about too hard, always being behind, even now, but he doesn’t have time for screaming, so he just scours the loft and crawls back out when he’s sure there’s nothing left behind that’ll help them move forward.
Hitoshi has gotten off the phone with Tsukauchi by the time Aizawa comes back out, but perks up as soon as his broken idol is in sight. “Tsukauchi’s on his way, he’s bringing an ambulance and some backup,” Hitoshi debriefs quickly, seeming about as keen as Aizawa is on being left alone with Cricket. So not at all.
“Eugh, can’t believe you’re still working with the pigs, Eraser,” Cricket takes the opportunity to disparage, but Aizawa doesn’t much care what Cricks thinks, because they’ve recycled this argument more times than the dog-eared boots on Cricket’s feet have had owners. In fact, Aizawa’s pretty sure he used to wear those boots before they became the property of the junkyard king.
“As long as the pigs still work with me,” Aizawa responds dryly, giving Hana another look over – no blood leaking through her bandages, seeming stable, apart from her transfixed state – and then glances at Hitoshi. “Is she okay?”
“We can check,” Hitoshi offers freely, and it sparks in Aizawa’s mind that Hitoshi doesnt't have any more of a template for this than Aizawa does, because no one’s ever given him a chance before. They shouldn’t even be doing this now, but the state Hana is in now compared to how she might have been, had Hitoshi not intervened and willfully calmed her down, is somewhere between miles to oceans apart.
“Might as well,” Aizawa muses, but at the same time takes the short-cut and uses his quirk to erase Hitoshi’s control, just to remind himself what it feels like, that zinging ping-pong ball energy that bounces back and forth between the battle of their quirks. Hitoshi doesn’t like it, obviously, but that’ll teach him not to see it coming.
Hana blinks and takes a shaky breath, looking around like a baby that’s been woken from a nap and doesn’t remember what the world is anymore. But she doesn’t have to wait long, because Hitoshi is in there before any of them.
“You doing okay, Hana?” Even though Hitoshi’s only a teenager and Hana must be in her twenties at least, he’s a shade taller than her, and as with Yamaguichi, it’s not necessarily easy to tell how old Hitoshi is at first glance. Especially not when he’s making the eyes at someone, or using his quirk to do good like a real Hero should.
So although her voice is as nervous as a field mouse cornered by a cat, and she trembles as she talks, Hana’s unaltered words are sincere, reaching for Hitoshi’s arm like a rock to hang onto. “Yes, thank you, I–” Aizawa actually senses it coming, knowing exactly what he’d want from Hitoshi in her position too. “Could you keep on–? What you’re doing, I want you to…”
“I understand.” Hitoshi’s warm and soothing as a sip of hot cocoa, and this time, Cricket’s watching very carefully now he knows what he’s seeing. Aizawa can feel the frequency change as the glove slips back on, and Hana’s eyes actually shut this time, like Sleeping Beauty in reverse, being put to sleep for a hundred years until she’s ready to be woken by a prince for happily ever after. If only.
Then Hitoshi glances over at Aizawa, who’s watching him already, and with the lift of an eyebrow delivers a cheeky, “Some people can’t get enough of me, huh?” like he knows exactly who he’s saying this to.
Aizawa hurriedly turns away from Hitoshi like a dog that was just discovered in the room as a completely shredded roll of paper towels, but this aversion only takes him slap bang into Cricket’s gaze, which is if anything even worse.
“I thought you said this one wasn’t your toy boy, Eraser?” Cricket suggests in exactly the way it does not and should not be insinuated, but at least hearing it twisted so wildly puts Hitoshi out of joint too. It’s just in Cricket’s nature to go anywhere and everywhere he shouldn’t, and Hitoshi stumbled right into that by agreeing to play up to the ‘toy boy’ bit to begin with. Which Aizawa had tried to nip in the bud, but Hitoshi wanted to act grown-up, so now he gets to deal with the consequences.
“Not like–” Hitoshi’s flustered all at once, stumbling over his words, “that.” After throwing the comment out to begin with, he’s suddenly keen to justify what it’s not, a flush in his cheeks that could just be from the sun, but probably isn’t. “He just… likes when I use my quirk on him.”
Of course, Aizawa’s already speculated over whether Hitoshi’s figured that much out from how compliant Aizawa is under Hitoshi’s control, but it’s a little awkward to hear out loud. At least the way Cricket likes to phrase things. Thankfully they’re on a building Aizawa can conveniently throw himself off.
“Yeah,” Cricket’s eyes narrow in their perverse gaze, because Aizawa’s let Cricket do way too much stuff to him in their shared history to leave much to the imagination on this one. “I can picture that.” Forget himself, Aizawa’s going to throw Cricket off the building.
“I’d rather you don’t,” Aizawa mumbles with his head ducked like he’ll be able to retract into his capture weapon like a tortoise into its shell, and Cricket lets out a whooping cackle.
Hitoshi’s face twists into a puzzle-knot of questions that he pretty much just needs time to fill in the answers for, but instead turns to Aizawa for the cheat sheet. “What am I missing?”
“Nothing.” Aizawa takes the quirk-bound Hana as gently as he can by the arm and bends down, carefully folding her over one shoulder before he stands up and fireman-lifts her away like his life depends on it. “Over here, Cricket.”
Stopping at the edge of the building, Aizawa waits while Cricket semi-obediently drifts in his direction, but Aizawa doesn’t actually wait that long before just whipping out a piece of his capture weapon to snatch Cricket in one end, then throws a loop around a protruding air vent that looks pretty secure, which only taking Cricket’s weight will tell.
“Hey, wait just a–” Cricks yelps as Aizawa tugs him off his feet to come lunging towards Aizawa, pulling up the slack on the one-handed tether he’s made Cricket a counterweight at the end of. With nothing more than a mildly shit-eating grin, Aizawa catches Cricket’s weight with the sole of his boot, raised up to brace this pain-in-the-ass like a weird kind of shoe accessory.
“See you at the bottom, Cricks,” Aizawa delivers with a diabolical grin that for just a moment feels exactly like old times, then swings with Cricket around and unhesitatingly kicks him off the edge of the building.
“Not if I see you fiiiiiiirst!” Cricket wails on the way down. Aizawa throws his weight back and braces against the free-falling weight to ensure Cricks isn’t flattened on the way down, merely takes a sharp drop with a cushioned stop before he’s dumped down on the concrete at the bottom.
This leaves Aizawa on the edge with Hana bolstered over his shoulder like a rolled-up rug, though she doesn’t appear to have woken up through any of this exertion. The soft crunch of footsteps foretells Hitoshi’s approach behind him, just the two of them again, if only for a moment.
It’s somehow the most horrifically predictable-to-alarming comment that Hitoshi could ever make when he gets close enough to Aizawa and remarks, “So dating Mic is like, seriously punching up for you?”
“It’s complicated,” Aizawa lies, because he’s barely got any face left, why shouldn’t he try to save one last scrap? At least when it comes to the alien part of his personality that could be filed under romantic history.
“Yeah, that’s what they all say,” Hitoshi replies like he’s got enough of a read on Cricket to realise exactly why it isn’t that complicated. At least Aizawa had the chance to deal with Hitoshi’s mind-blowing ‘he’s gay’ realisation last night before diving straight into all this, but hell if the universe couldn’t have given him a tiny bit more leeway.
“You okay getting down?” Aizawa’s genuinely asking, but if it just so happens to change the subject, fancy that.
“Of course.” Hitoshi acts offended that Aizawa even asks, or like he realises it’s a paper-thin distraction tactic too. Eyeing Aizawa sideways, he adds, “Will you be okay with her?” Tit for tat, Aizawa supposes it’s only fair.
“As long as she doesn’t wake up on the way down and freak out.”
“Doesn’t seem likely,” Hitoshi answers with a lot more ease now they’re back to just being the two of them again, Cricket’s destabilising presence dumped at the bottom of Aizawa’s capture weapon, which finally comes loose of its weight with a communicative tug. Aizawa’s winding the slack back up as Hitoshi thoughtfully continues, “People are harder to shake out when they want to be there, it’s only if I’m controlling them against their wishes that a little knock will break the hold easily.”
“That makes sense.” It feels natural to make conversation with Hitoshi about this, but Aizawa knows it’s the first chance he’s had to talk about his quirk this way, without prejudices, to a bona fide Hero – or whatever Aizawa passes as in that arena. Especially because technically they shouldn’t be having this conversation at all, but technically went to hell a long time ago between them.
It also makes sense for the way Dr. Shinsou was able to send all his followers so soundly to their deaths, even through the process he’s just witnessed with Hitoshi – where stronger mind control is eased into in stages, each submission more voluntary than the last. That Shinsou effect is potent, so Aizawa needs to be as aware of it as well, maybe even moreso than Hitoshi is. Not that there should be anything to fear with Hitoshi, but the danger isn’t necessarily to the people he’s brainwashing. Kiki has said she’s careful about who she allows close to Hitoshi, and it’s definitely with good reason.
“You first,” Aizawa instructs as he steadies Hana on his shoulder in anticipation of taking the quick way down, but whatever Hitoshi’s doing to keep her still and perfectly braced, it’s working like a charm.
Hitoshi did say he’d be alright, but it’s quite a large drop from the top of the warehouse. So because Hitoshi only has a single filched piece of Aizawa’s capture weapon, Aizawa takes the spool wound up from yo-yo-ing Cricket and hands it over. “More strands give more support, but you have to manipulate them simultaneously to work effectively.”
“Thanks.” Hitoshi takes the offering with a manufactured cool, but Aizawa can feel the significance, like he’s handing over a little piece of himself after Hitoshi stole the first. “See you down there, teach.”
Tsukauchi and his backup arrive in about the time it takes Aizawa to carefully abseil the height of the warehouse with a slip of a librarian over his shoulder, and then share exactly two guilt/stress cigarettes with Cricket in an alleyway just off the main road. Which, by this point Aizawa could just accept he might as well have his own cigarette rather than tax a third of every one he gives to Cricks – and yes, Hitoshi is definitely judging him even harder for continuing to share smokes with a mouth like Cricket’s in every sense of the word – but Aizawa’s just doing what gets him through one moment to the next at this point.
Hitoshi wakes Hana up just as Tsukauchi is parking, while Aizawa relents the last part of their second cigarette to Cricks with a knowing nod, then slips back around the corner onto the street. If Aizawa’s not much mistaken, the Detective’s wearing the same shirt and suit trousers from yesterday, albeit with a few more creases in them. He’s even ditched the coat for once in this muggy, sweat-it-out heat, but smiles in good humour with his sleeves rolled up as he approaches, looking just like a rumpled sketch of an overworked Detective from a faded graphic novel.
“Hana, this is Detective Tsukauchi,” Hitoshi introduces just as the confused awareness lights back up in her eyes, and Aizawa admires Hitoshi’s tact to ease her in like this – where it doesn’t necessarily need to be known by the police that Hitoshi illegally used his quirk at all on this civilian, as long as she doesn’t bring it up herself. That much they’ll leave to her discretion, because there’s degrees between offering up the truth and neglecting to highlight it in the first instance. Some things can be left their illicit little secret, fortune permitting.
“Ah… hello.” Even though Hitoshi’s released the girl from his quirk, she’s still a bit glassy eyed. While she might have been aware on some level of what was happening until now, Aizawa knows it can be a little strange going back to riding without training wheels after Hitoshi’s steadying hold disappears. Not to mention what Shiyoko or the Doc’s quirks might have done to her mind before Hitoshi got anywhere near her.
“You must have been through a lot, Miss…”
“Hamada.” Hitoshi is the one who answers, and although Tsukauchi flits a cautious look between Hana and Hitoshi, it’s quick enough to slip past in a blink. Aizawa’s sure they can write it off as Hitoshi’s budding heroic instincts, being protective of the damsel in distress. Tsukauchi knows all about that, after all.
“Miss Hamada. I’d like to accompany you to the hospital, if that’s alright.” Tsukauchi certainly is staying close to these still-living escapees of the killers’ quirks. Aizawa can understand it, but feels like he and the Detective could use a little catch-up to trade notes when they get a spare minute, in case there’s anything their parallel investigations could do to help each other.
“Yes, of course.” Hana functions okay on the surface, but she keeps looking back at Hitoshi like a lamb that wants to go back to its mother, and Aizawa sticks a mental flag in the moment – to keep an eye on how much saturation Hitoshi’s quirk has on a vulnerable mind. How it could be a little too easy to get dependent on something after the structure of a brain has been altered to accept brainwashing quirks – perhaps Hitoshi’s touch is a delicate one, but after the sledgehammer of Shiyoko and the Doc, who knows what it could be contributing to. No wonder Tsukauchi’s staying close.
“Go ahead and get settled, I’ll join you in a minute.” Tsukauchi sends Hana off to the ambulance parked up just behind his car, then turns to Aizawa once she’s out of earshot. “So what’s the situation?”
If Cricket’s still lurking around, he’s not making it known – a few too many warrants against him for obstruction of justice to hang out with the police for the fun of it. That and he hates them all, and hates Aizawa for co-operating with the so-called law in any capacity.
“The Doc and Shiyoko were here not too long ago, keeping Hana as their prisoner. They might still be in the area if they’re planning something,” Aizawa rolls out efficiently, grateful if Cricket’s actually taken off – not being around is about the kindest thing he can do for them at this point. There’s way worse things he could do, and might still if Aizawa doesn’t keep an eye out. “Seems like the Doc wanted something a little more personal with the girl, but Shiyoko got in the way of it.”
“Hana works at a library in the area,” Hitoshi chips in with assurance that Aizawa’s proud of, to see him so comfortable in his own right. Cricket’s departure might help that too, removing the unstable element and returning to a work environment that’s actually professional and not an insane playoff of personal politics ping-pong. “They took her ID and keys to the place, which means they might have gone there next.”
Tsukauchi nods and makes a note in his all-knowing pad, looking around after like he’s missing something. “How’s Cricket?”
“He knew one of Shiyoko’s early victims. The place we found Hana is a hideout Cricks had been to through him,” Aizawa explains without mentioning where Cricket was or went, as Tsukauchi doesn’t necessarily know he was still with them until two minutes ago. Aizawa doesn’t need to give Cricks any more fuel for his Eraser’s-a-sellout hatefire.
“No I mean, how is he?” Tsukauchi asks more knowingly. Maybe like he means where is he, but Aizawa’s not playing that game just yet. He’d like to move away from discussing Cricket any more than he needs to be discussed, which is ideally not at all.
“The same,” Aizawa answers a little more stiffly. “Hates me less than I thought.”
“Good.” Tsukauchi sounds like he thinks that means he can use Aizawa to get to Cricket more often, which is a mistake if he’s ever made one, but they can fight that battle when they get to it.
Tsukauchi and Hitoshi both turn around to watch a police car with a couple of familiar occupants pull up, and Aizawa has the well-placed idea to check in with Hizashi. Nothing much, just a little in-joke turned habit that means he’s actually still talking to his partner compared to neurotically shutting him out: a text message that reads ‘still alive’.
“Starting the party without us?” Tama opens fire looking particularly resplendent in the sunshine, fur a glossy sheen that speaks to a refreshing night spent in someone else’s bed.
“No, you’re right on time,” Tsukauchi greets Tamakawa and Yamaguichi as they walk up. Aizawa should’ve figured neither of them would be taking the day off given the circumstances, but it’s still a welcome surprise to see them both alive and kicking.
“We’re not far from Shiyoko’s former workplace,” Aizawa picks out a thought that’s been niggling at him like a loose thread in his mind, trying to connect the factors that seem unrelated if it weren’t for one thing: the killers.
“So which do we check first, the office or the library?” Hitoshi’s asking Aizawa as much as Tsukauchi, or Tsukauchi as much as Aizawa, depending on perspective, but Aizawa doesn’t mind dual-mentoring from opposing sides of the law. Much.
“We should be able to cover both,” Tsukauchi replies thoughtfully, even though he’s taken himself out of the equation by going to the hospital with Hana, assuming that’s still his plan. “You two take one, and Tama and Yamaguichi can check out the other.”
“What library?” Tama butts in.
“We recovered a victim who’s still alive, she works at a public library around here and says the killers took her keys to get in,” Aizawa explains in a quick aside, which is about the most of a ‘hey, good morning’ they’re ever likely to get.
“Because what, they want to take out a book?” Tama mocks a little, but it’s not mean. They’re all a bit fresher in the morning, after respective nights of rest and relaxation.
“There are people at libraries,” Hitoshi hits back with a cold streak. “Her office is going to be closed on a Saturday, but a library would be open.”
“Should've been, if Hana wasn’t there to open it,” Aizawa points out, trying to take the compass reading on where they need to go to be ahead, not behind. “You think they’re looking for victims?” Aizawa adds to Hitoshi, who gives a restrained nod.
“What they want to do with them is the real question,” Hitoshi replies.
“Shiyoko probably still has access to her office building,” Tamakawa offers with his arms folded across his chest. “Nice quiet place for a bit of murder.”
And a site for revenge, bigger and better than Shiyoko dared to dream before. Aizawa’s course is set. “I'm with Tama. If they’re going for a dramatic gesture, they’d need somewhere to prepare.” Tama looks like he’d purr with satisfaction, but sticks to a grin that shows just the tip of one of his canine teeth – or maybe it ought to be feline.
“Yamaguichi can check the library alone, then meet up with us at Shiyoko’s workplace,” Tama declares like he’s got the authority of the Detective he ought to be already; Aizawa catches the look between Tsukauchi and Tama like a spark of static.
“How are you planning to get there if the two of you split up?” Tsukauchi might be testing Tama a little, but Aizawa supposes it’s the way of the hierarchy, the old brigade assessing the mettle of new blood.
“Easy,” Tama replies with a hint of a rasp in his voice. “I’ll take your car.”
Tsukauchi makes a face for a moment, which Aizawa’s not sure if it’s because Tama seems to know that Tsukauchi isn’t planning to use it, or the thought of letting another cop drive his precious death-trap.
“But isn’t the Detective going to need that?” Yamaguichi pops up cheerily.
“He’ll be riding with the pretty face in the back of the ambulance,” Tama lays out with deadly accuracy, like a sniper taking headshots from afar, then to Tsukauchi’s momentarily stunned expression remarks, “Or am I wrong to assume?”
Tables flipped, Tama’s face couldn’t say ‘suck it, Tsukauchi’ any harder if he signed it. Seems like the new blood is a good enough Detective to give the old brigade a run for their money already. Aizawa can’t help but smirk.
“That’d… make sense… I suppose,” Tsukauchi is a little hesitant, but of course he sees the logic. Digging a hand into his trouser pocket, it’s with the agony of a mother leaving their child at preschool for the first time that the Detective hands his car key over to Tamakawa. “But if I find a single scratch on her…”
“Her?” Tama scoffs as he snatches the key off Tsukauchi. “Don’t tell me you named your car.”
“We should get going,” Aizawa urges, before they can get to a catfight over who is or isn’t driving whose inexplicably gendered car.
Tsukauchi could look much happier about the lot he’s left with, even though it’s entirely his own choice. But Aizawa’s sure he’s got a reason to stay so close to the survivors, especially if Iwaya has been working closely with the others – there’s a good chance the Psych could find out things beyond what even Hitoshi can draw out of them, and Tsukauchi does seem to be rather devoted to staying within the Ice Queen’s radius. Aizawa doesn’t blame him for that either, regardless of what Tsukauchi’s intentions are
“You fellas better buckle in,” Tama rasps with relish as he practically struts over to Tsukauchi’s undercover muscle car. “I always wanted to take this baby for a spin.”
Tsukauchi looks like he could pass out, but with a steadying sigh turns himself towards the ambulance and gets back to work. Yamaguichi goes with him, probably to find out exactly which Library Hana works at before she sets off on the decidedly lower-risk errand – fair enough, given what she went through through with them last night. It strikes Aizawa that Tama’s looking out for his rookie partner, in his own at-arm’s-length way. Aizawa empathises.
However, realising that Tama’s already white-knuckle driving just got a Tokyo Drift upgrade, Aizawa’s not sure he won’t pass out when he gets into the car that Tama’s already greedily revving the engine of. At least the steady, clawing edge of fear eating away at Aizawa is enough to keep him alert as Hitoshi gets in the back and sure as shit buckles in. They’re all aware of what Tama’s like behind the wheel at this point.
Because even though Cricket took a hike already, Aizawa’s still got a bad feeling about all of this.
When they make it to Shiyoko’s office one utterly hair-raising drive later, Aizawa’s bad feeling gets straight to work – that’s after his fearful motion sickness has him clawing his way out of the car like he might barf. Tama squeals to a stop outside the legal office Shiyoko used to work for, taking full advantage of those quieter weekend roads around rush hour and partly just abusing his status as a cop, a concealed siren and lights in Tsukauchi’s car that let him get away with attempted murder of his passengers, or so Aizawa’s instincts tell him when he staggers away from the vehicle taking harrowed deep breaths.
Hitoshi’s steadier on his feet, and is first up to bat with a perplexed. “What are those people doing?” Aizawa notices the same cluster standing around the cordoned off spot where Peep-show Pete, as Cricket so helpfully identified, was murdered by Shiyoko over a week ago.
A second glance says they’re looking up, and when Aizawa does too, he realises why.
Just along the edge of the roof of the building Shiyoko used to work at before she snapped and traded her life in for a bloodbath, literally, a row of figures stand as still as statues. But they aren’t statues.
Again, Hitoshi reacts first, while Aizawa and Tama just stare in open-mouthed horror.
“Oh shit.”
Glaring against the harsh sunlight that bakes unforgiving concrete like standing in an oven, shielding his eyes with a hand, Aizawa makes out at least twenty people, maybe more, of all shapes and sizes standing along the edge of the building. It isn’t possible to make out any detail at this distance, a gap of maybe fifteen floors or more, but they don’t need a visual to confirm what power holds them there.
Hitoshi turns to Aizawa, who winces away from the harsh light and blinks heavily, fumbling for his eye drops like a baby going for a bottle. But he doesn’t give himself the relief, not now, because Hitoshi’s holding his gaze with horror that cuts to the bone. Of what’s coming next, now that they’re just close enough behind the Doc and Shiyoko to be witnessing the crime in real time, and not arriving too late. If it’s not too late already.
Aizawa feels like throwing up all over again when he hears Hitoshi say it out loud.
“They’re going to jump.”
Notes:
OOOPS did I... do another cliffhanger... I mean... this is a *literal* one I suppose.
*Diabolical laughter*
See y'all next week!
Chapter 60: Skydive
Summary:
If this is the day for blasts from Aizawa’s past, fate’s work could use a little timing.
Notes:
There's two kinds of reaction I get to cliffhangers - delight and outrage. Both are satisfying, though it's always lovely to hear from people who appreciate a good cliffhanger. On that note, off we go!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When it comes to getting out of a jam, Aizawa’s usually got a pretty good track record, but this one might have him rumbled. Two dozen people standing on a rooftop who could jump at any time, bound by brainwashing quirks that will only be broken if Aizawa claps eyes on the psychos who are doing this to innocent people, and no way of telling if or when the fatal moment will come. To put it bluntly: they're fucked.
Of a thousand concurrent thoughts, one has to come to the forefront – how to act, what’s their best chance at getting out of this? So the words that break from Aizawa's mouth like a bolting horse are no more than the first coherent thing out of the gate. What can he do, that no one else can?
“If they’re still nearby I can erase their quirks.”
“They’d only need to be close if it’s dad,” Hitoshi replies tensely, neck craned back looking up at the lives teetering in the balance, wincing against the harsh sunlight.
Aizawa considers a scenario in which Dr. Shinsou lets Shiyoko do all the heavy lifting for this one, and gets to claim all the victims in turn – should they become victims – and finds himself unconvinced. The figures standing on the edge of the roof are of all shapes and sizes, adults as well as children, which is distressing, but not too difficult to believe; anyone is a valid sacrifice to the Doc and Shiyoko’s cause at this point.
“We have to get up there to be sure,” Aizawa mutters, trying to figure out how in the hell they muddle through this.
He’s afraid to let the people out of his sight from the pure terror that they’re going to jump, but afraid too to keep watching. In case he and Hitoshi, along with all these people, have to watch them die without doing a damn thing. It's on the cusp of this dreaded realisation – that catching up with Shiyoko and the Doc by too little just means watching people rather die than finding their corpses – when from the air all around them comes a whizzing sound, as if the wind itself is being sliced in two. Then the figures on the rooftop move, but it’s not in the direction Aizawa fears; before anyone can step out and plummet to their deaths, flashes of red throw each figure back from the edge like being knocked down at a shooting gallery in a carnival game, pushed off the ledge and out of sight.
“What the–” Hitoshi says next to Aizawa, and even Tama pauses in frantic radioing through the window of Tsukauchi’s car, staring open-mouthed for a second while each of the teetering figures are snatched away from the precipice.
Because, of course, it can’t be forgotten that there are other Heroes in the city.
Right on time, a shadow passes over Aizawa and Hitoshi, blotting out the relentless sun over their heads for a moment, before a rush of air drops down behind them and a voice that’s ninety percent jackass lilts, “You fellas need a hand?”
Hitoshi whips around to stare the speaker with eyes of awe and instant recognition, but Aizawa stays looking up. He knows who it is, and to look only encourages him.
“Hawks.” To turn around would suggest Aizawa needs to see what the top-ranked darling of the Hero industry is doing right now, which is undoubtedly wearing a picture-perfect smirk over his swooping in to save the day yet again – as always, because it's what he’s made an entire damn career out of doing. Cricket wants to talk about toy boys, look no farther. “How’d you get here so fast?”
Hawks scoffs out of view. “Don’t you know who I am?”
“Unfortunately,” Aizawa bites back, still looking up as if he’s afraid of seeing the people get back up and jump – they might still, unless Hawks has restrained them as well. “Was there a callout?” That’d mean there’s more Heroes on the way, Hawks perpetually ahead of the charge to snatch glory from fifty other Hero-Hopefuls all desperate for a piece of the action. And as much as Aizawa appreciates the help, if the Doc and Shiyoko are around here the last thing they need is a bunch of unbriefed Pros who could be turned on each other with a single snide remark. Aizawa knows it’s exactly what he’d do if he were in the Doc’s position.
“No.” Hawks can be serious, when he wants to, he just doesn’t make a habit out of it or people would expect it all the time. “I was in the neighbourhood and noticed this little deathsquad out on parade.” When Aizawa doesn’t look at him, Hawks strides forward to put himself in the spotlight Aizawa denies him. Though Hawks’ wings are smaller than their fullest width due to the feathers he used to take the mandatory suicide cases off the ledge, he cuts as striking a figure as ever. “Figures you’d be here before me.”
“Always am,” Aizawa rumbles like the clatter of underground trains. It's good there’s no one else on the way, less factors to manage; Hawks is a handful and a half all by himself, though not without his uses. “I couldn’t have stopped them jumping.” As much as it chafes to admit, Aizawa forces himself to confront what he can’t do as often as he can. Keeps his own ego in check, even at the risk of flattering Hawks’ already over-inflated one.
Because whatever Aizawa might have cobbled together in this moment of crisis, some Heroes have abilities he just can’t compensate for, much as he tries to strive against nature and his own limitations. Perhaps Aizawa could have saved a few people, maybe a dozen if he’d been really smart about it, but Hawks sure does make things easy with that incredible made-for-purpose quirk of his.
“Oh stop, you’re gonna make me blush.” Hawks puts himself directly in Aizawa’s line of sight because there’s nothing else that would compel him to look at Hawks otherwise, and they’re both well aware of that fact.
Finally holding the primadonna’s gaze for a moment, Aizawa’s more certain than ever that his careful standoffishness only makes Hawks more determined to annoy and demand attention from Aizawa during the times their utterly opposite lines of work come into contact with each other. Which is more often than makes good sense. Usually, it’s when Hawks’ flashy feathers aren’t enough to save someone and Aizawa shows up sniffing round the corpse. Investigating cold cases doesn’t really do it for the popularity ratings, which is all that Hawks cares about and they both know that too. So though the baton more often passes from Hawks to Aizawa than the other way around, Aizawa’s got to admit Hawks has him on this one.
“We need to get up there.” Aizawa sticks to business, because business is about the only thing they can agree on. It goes without saying that Hizashi thinks Hawks is fucking brilliant, because so much of what Hawks does in his own stratospheric rise to acclaim follows the same path Hizashi blazed through the industry as Present Mic, but that doesn’t mean Aizawa’s obliged to like Hawks just because Hizashi thinks he’s a riot. Hizashi likes everyone, even Aizawa, which is proof enough his taste is awful.
“We?” Hawks echoes like Aizawa didn’t say anything else, and the winged menace is getting on his nerves already. As ever. Especially because Hawks is giving Hitoshi one of those up-and-down looks that everyone who meets him for the first time around Aizawa seems determined to do, making a scene out of the fact that Eraserhead’s not working alone for once. Which wasn’t always the case, but perhaps Aizawa’s made more of a habit of it than he thinks in recent years, at least when it comes to cooperating with other Heroes outside his very small inner circle.
“My intern,” Aizawa answers shortly, knowing he needs to give Hawks something in order to get something in return. “Now, Hawks.”
Hawks gives them both a lazy grin that Hizashi once labelled ‘the panty melter’ during a red carpet interview about the new Pros on the circuit that he thinks get the most ass – not the question Hizashi was asked, but certainly the one he answered. “Say no more.”
It’s like being tackled and shot from a canon at the same time, the way Hawks beats his wings to go from stationary to extraordinarily fast in under a second. It kicks hard, even without all Hawks’ feathers to put into the airborne shunt he uses to shotput Aizawa ten storeys up in the air rather than carry him.
Carrying is reserved for Hitoshi, who presumably gets a gentler ride of it as Hawks hikes both of them from street level to the rooftops again much faster than climbing a neverending rusty ladder. Aizawa doesn’t need gentle handling anyway, using his capture weapon to lash onto part of the building facade and yank himself up the rest of the way onto the roof as Hawks lands with Hitoshi scooped under the armpits looking almost exactly like one of those siamese-y cats that just gets long when it’s picked up.
The would-be victims are all pinned on their backs to the rooftop, the tips of Hawks’ feathers piercing the hard surface without trouble, and though they look unharmed, the victim’s eyes are universally open and staring straight up at the sky.
“Uh, what’s wrong with them?” Hawks says as Aizawa and Hitoshi get straight to work checking the closest people for Shiyoko’s mark. If the Doc’s victims were brainwashed against their will, then maybe the fall backwards would have shaken them out of it, but so far no one seems responsive. Aizawa dreads to think it, but the Doc would be more careful than that at this point. If he’s going to take control of someone, it better be complete, like sucking the very soul out of them. And between him and Shiyoko, they’ve refined it to an art.
“They’re victims of the Deathnote Killers,” Hitoshi answers with his face a sketch of utmost concern, frowning over a man whose sleeves he pushes up to reveal no marks, and dead-eyed stare doesn’t respond to the waving of Hitoshi’s hand right in front of his nose, or gentle slapping of his cheeks. “Or they will be if we can’t wake them up.”
“Wait, killers? Since when was it plural?” Hawks leaves his feathers where they are and loiters over to where Aizawa’s examining a woman lying next to a child he reckons is her own, and there’s no way Aizawa’s going to let these people die. Not today.
“Since yesterday,” Aizawa answers tensely, then stands to face Hawks. “We’re looking for two people, a full-figured woman in her twenties and an older man who looks like a grown-up version of the kid.” Aizawa jabs a finger at Hitoshi, and it’s blunt and perhaps even cruel to lay out the resemblance so starkly, but Hawks works fast, and there’s more he can do to help them if Aizawa puts it in terms he’ll understand. “They might still be around here, if you find them then come and get me right away.”
“Because you want all the fame and glory for yourself?” Hawks is teasing, but it’s so not the time.
“Because if I can erase their quirks these people will wake up,” Aizawa snaps back, and Hawks might be the compulsory joker in every pack of cards, but he’s a highly ranked pro Hero for a reason, aside from looking like a shoe-in for Japan’s next top twink. “Now, Ha–” Aizawa doesn’t have to finish it before with a single beat of those astonishing wings Hawks is airborne.
“Aye-aye, sir!” Hawks’ voice echoes back as he’s shooting away, and Hitoshi’s busy, but not too busy to miss it.
“Sir?” Aizawa hears echoed suspiciously from his incumbent student’s mouth from a short distance away, and if Aizawa’s past could stop catching up with him, that’d be just great. At least Hitoshi’s put out by that and not Aizawa using him as a model for the Doc’s appearance, though it’s a hard resemblance to deny.
“Used to teach him,” Aizawa mutters with true reluctance, because if Cricket’s one thing, Aizawa’s affiliation with Hawks is something he’s even less proud of in hindsight. They went together like chalk and cheese back then, and it’s sure as shit not gotten any better since. Which is why Aizawa emphasises the caveat, “Briefly.”
“Oof, bitter much?” Hitoshi reads Aizawa’s tone as easily as his ABCs, and that’s probably reassuring to any territorial instinct Hitoshi’s feeling about who else Aizawa might have had a 'special teacher' relationship with. Which is silly, of course, but Aizawa doesn’t find himself terribly opposed to letting the teen have this much – Hitoshi is special to Aizawa, and it doesn’t hurt to let him own it. Hell knows the kid could use that kind of stability in a role model.
“Let’s just say there’s a lot we don’t see eye to eye on.” Aizawa keeps it to that, because it’s not worth getting into the messy specifics of The One Time Hawks’ management had the bright idea to get Nezu to “ask” Aizawa if he’d do a little after-school teaching for their uncontrollable prodigy.
Being new to the teaching gig, Aizawa didn’t have the experience or authority to say no, and for three unbearable months had tried to impart some of his philosophy and principles as an underground Hero to a wild eighteen year-old Hawks, who was having none of it. Perhaps the bright sparks in senior management had thought they’d balance each other out somehow, but it was more like a see-saw that jerked back and forth in a power struggle that derailed entirely when Hawks took enacting his creative interpretation of justice too far and Aizawa nearly had him arrested and stripped of his license. The Higher-Ups put a stop to that before the authorities got involved, but it was agreed that maybe they were just too different to ever work harmoniously together, which Aizawa could have told them at the start if they’d asked, but that would defeat the point of senior management having stupid ideas in the first place.
That didn’t make Hawks a bad Hero, and if anything his success on the Pro circuit was proof that he didn’t need whatever Aizawa had to teach him; though the reality was also that Aizawa learned a lot of things he did wrong as a newbie teacher by doing them with Hawks. At least it probably didn’t fuck Hawks up any worse than the system already has, and now they can more or less function around one another as equals – or thereabouts.
“Is there anyone you don’t know in this business?” Hitoshi’s got a peculiar little twang to his tone, like he can’t make up his own mind what he thinks about this and lets a colourless emotion just seeps into his words, not quite jealous or possessive, but adjacent to both.
“You have to know people to get by,” Aizawa grunts as he keeps inspecting the transfixed victims of the Doc and Shiyko, relieved to find any of them still breathing and with pulses at the very least, though even those basic functions are delayed, and for some seem laboured, as if they’re under a great weight.
“Doesn’t that defeat the point of being underground?” Hitoshi replies, working back towards Aizawa and copying what he does like a shadow. Aizawa has said before he could use an extra set of hands in this job, it just hadn't necessarily occurred that they could be attached to someone else.
“I have to know them, not like them,” Aizawa clarifies as he checks a couple of teens who must be around Hitoshi's age, but the similarities end there. Nothing about Hitoshi's life has been normal so far, and it shows in every sharp edge of him, from the lavender peaks of his hair reaching skyward to the harsh lines of his eyes, squinting at Aizawa with wisdom beyond his years, while for a quiet moment they just stare at one another over what could still become the site of the Doc's next massacre.
"What?" Hitoshi eventually demands of Aizawa’s searching gaze, but there's no way to boil what Aizawa thinks and feels into something he can say now. Just all that hope and fear sloshing around inside his chest like one of Hizashi's cocktails. It's one of the irrational traits of his heart that the stronger Aizawa loves, the harder it is to verbalise his feelings. If it's Hizashi, the language of love has been tattooed into Aizawa over long years of practice, and that's why Aizawa tells Hizashi how much he loves him several times a day – because it's the only thing close to expressing how Aizawa actually feels.
But Hitoshi, and what Hitoshi is to him, is an unresolved question that Aizawa can't begin to answer; even if he could, it's not his place to define. Hitoshi's the one who needs Aizawa to be something to him that's a little bit of a lot of things and no one thing in particular. Aizawa’s job is just to be there for Hitoshi, being whatever Hitoshi needs to grow into the best version of himself.
"Did you find Shiyoko's mark on any of them?" There's also the more pressing matter at hand, of course, and Aizawa sticks to safety in that.
"Some, but it was only written in biro," Hitoshi answers with the stress Aizawa’s internalising written all over his face. "I tried rubbing it out but they didn't wake up."
"Thought as much," Aizawa sighs, looking around for Hawks in the air but seeing no sign of him. "The Doc wants these victims all for himself." Shiyoko might have almost surpassed the Ninety-Nine massacre, so there's no better time to demonstrate there's nothing like the original.
"Sounds like him." Hitoshi has his hands stuffed in the pockets of today's slate grey hoodie despite the heat. It's old, or might even be his Ma's, looking at the fit – a little short on the arms, and tight around the shoulders. "He'd have to be nearby if they're still so strongly under." Then, with the fearful pause of the huge unknown they’re still wrestling with, Hitoshi adds, “Probably.”
"I know," Aizawa's voice grates with his own stress and frustration, and although the ledge is out of the question, they’re not out of the woods just yet. "Do you think he could stop them breathing?"
"Not all at once," Hitoshi responds. "Or he'd have to be standing right here to do it." Then a thought occurs to him, expression shifting to a spark of inspiration. "Should we search the building? What if they never left–"
As this happens, a tiny feather whips so close past the end of Aizawa’s nose it almost gives him an unasked for facial piercing, but he knows what that means.
"Stay here. Keep checking their vitals." Aizawa establishes where the feather came from and identifies a red speck in the distance that’s his destination. He doesn’t love leaving Hitoshi alone, but it’s better Hitoshi stays here than attempts what Aizawa’s about to do.
Hitoshi, naturally, objects immediately to being left out. “But I–”
“That’s an order, not a question,” Aizawa grabs a handful of his capture weapon, wedged between each of his fingers and drops into a sprinter’s stance. “I’ll be back.”
“What are you– “ the rest of what Hitoshi says is lost when Aizawa breaks into a run, gaining as much speed as possible before he reaches the edge of the building. The only other sound Aizawa catches in the background is an alarmed shout from Hitoshi when he takes the wall surrounding the rooftop in one lunge and launches himself up and out, leaping from the rooftop like a bizarre fulfilment of the Doc’s sinister plan.
Because Aizawa might not be able to fly, but he’s not alone. Throwing the handful of his capture weapon upwards, Aizawa casts a web of tendrils that a fresh flurry of feathers slam into like throwing darts – Hawks’ feathers are just strong and sharp enough to pierce the material, which Aizawa doesn’t like as a rule, but in this case he kind of needs the support. Together this net of feathers and the capture weapon carry Aizawa’s existing momentum and whip him forward instead of straight down, so although he gets closer to the ground, it’s in a long arc that covers more horizontal distance than vertical.
Aizawa belatedly wishes he’d put his goggles on, as the wind bites at his eyes until they stream and whips his hair behind him wildly, but he’s almost at the end of the leap as rooftops come hurtling up to meet him, when– yoink! Hawks scoops him back up, carried princess style absolutely by design, which Aizawa would makes Hawks drop him if it wasn’t entirely counterproductive to their mutual goal at this time.
“Is it me or are you getting crazier?” Hawks has a way of making casual chat at the most important times, perhaps just to annoy Aizawa, who hates small talk at the best of times but especially moments like this – when they need to shut up and focus on the work. “I swear you never used to jump off buildings with zero frigging warning.”
“I did, you just weren’t paying attention,” Aizawa grumbles, only just not outright protesting because Hawks is still taking them somewhere. “Where are they?”
“Think I saw ’em getting into a truck somewhere around here,” Hawks answers casually, long beats of his wings carrying them both with surprising grace, and Aizawa would cuff him around the head if he could, even though he can’t – not without being dropped.
“How very sure you sound of that.” But Aizawa’s the one who looks like a fool in the end.
“There! That’s the one!” Hawks picks up speed and dives towards a lorry speeding down the road, swooping low and almost gliding, controlled flex of his wings to pull level with the drivers while still carrying Aizawa like a groom hauling his bride over an extremely wide threshold.
Aizawa’s ready so that the moment he gets a glimpse into the driver’s cab, his eyes light up red and his hair stands on end.
Because it’s them.
Sat next to the driver who stares blankly ahead, a woman Aizawa recognises as Shiyoko squeezes in next to the terrifying figure Aizawa’s only ever seen behind bars before now.
Dr. Shinsou is looking right back at him.
Perhaps Aizawa wouldn’t have felt it before, but his new training and the practice of erasing Hitoshi’s quirk means Aizawa feels when the chains break as he brings his erasing glare over the two fugitives one after the other, cementing on Dr. Shinsou. The strength of the Doc’s control must have been weakening already with how far they are from the victims, but it’s still a monumental shift as Aizawa cuts the Doc off from his failed massacre. Because Hitoshi’s quirk is strong, but the Doc’s is always desperate. Maybe sometimes the Heroes can save the day just in time.
Aizawa throws several strands of his capture weapon, in addition to the feathers Hawks sends flying towards the couple, but it’s at this moment the driver of the truck pulls a turn so sharp it almost rolls the vehicle. Hawks barrels around the street corner in pursuit, but he’s obviously not quite so fast or mobile hauling all of Aizawa’s ass around, and losing feathers by the second can’t be helping.
Throwing another handful of his capture weapon, which isn’t performing as well as it should after Hawks punched a bunch of holes in it, Aizawa lashes onto the handles on the back of the truck just as a screaming siren races up to them from behind – just in time, as always.
“Drop me!” Aizawa barks, and doesn't have to ask twice. Pulling tight on his tether to the vehicle in front, Aizawa’s thrown back just enough to land on the roof of Tsukauchi’s car, Tama behind the wheel probably cursing blue murder. “Go back to rescue the victims!” Aizawa yells at Hawks, who could probably get up ahead of the truck if he wanted, but this is about resource allocation, and Aizawa’s got these buggers now – it’s the loose ends he worries about.
“No way!” Hawks returns defiantly. “I can take them!”
So Hawks thinks, but Aizawa’s worried enough to throw a piece of his capture weapon around Hawks’ leg like a manacle. It’d only take a single word to Dr. Shinsou before one of the top ranked Heroes in the city is working for a top-ranked villain. Given Hawks just stumbled into this, Aizawa doesn’t expect him to have enough background knowledge to realise what he’s getting into. Not to mention, Hitoshi’s been left back there all alone, and now presumably surrounded by two dozen freaking out victims who just woke up and need a Pro Hero to get them out of this mess.
Which means Aizawa has to dig deep for enough leverage to force this situation the way he wants it to go. “I said back off!” he bellows as he yanks Hawks back by the capture weapon around his ankle when the hotshot tries to surge forwards. As a rule Hawks hates being told what to do, so Aizawa avoids doing it unless he really has to.
The truck is still racing down the road at top speed, cars swerving this way and that to get out of the way, while Hawks loses feather by all-important feather ensuring no one’s hurt in the ensuing carnage. Most twenty-something-year-olds think they’re invincible as a matter of course, and Aizawa would know, but he also knows Hawks can’t keep this up without becoming as much of a risk as an asset; Aizawa might have a reputation for working alone, but that’s because it means there’s as few people at possible who risk getting hurt.
“Go save the others, and don’t let my intern out of your sight!” There’s a lot more people Aizawa would prefer to leave Hitoshi in the care of before Hawks, but beggars surely can’t be choosers. “I’m calling in the favour!”
“That favour?!” Hawks, Tama in Tsukauchi’s car, and Aizawa water-skiing on the top of it all make it around another sharp corner as the truck tries to lose them and fails. Tama would be able to overtake and run them off the road perhaps, but not without risking both their lives in the process, so they’re staying where the fuck they are for now. “Is the kid that important to you?!”
“Yeah!” Aizawa retorts without a shadow of a doubt, already regretting half of his decisions thus far and sweating bullets over how goddamn long this is all taking. “Just GO, Hawks!”
“Fine!” In an outright miraculous turn of events, Hawks peels away and jets back in the direction they came from, which is one thing less to worry about. Aizawa’s not trying to be a villain-hog, but what if he’s one of the only people who realise just what these two are capable of? The last thing he needs is to have to fight through Hawks while the Doc and Shiyoko get away.
As Hawks disappears into the background Tama lowers the window of Tsukauchi's car, which Aizawa is still surfing on top of, and yells, "You wanna get in the car or what?" like he's just found Aizawa at a bus stop. Which has happened, just when Aizawa sleeping at it rather than waiting for a bus.
"Nope!" Aizawa calls back, preferring where he is as he figures out the best way to bring Shiyoko and the Doc into custody with minimum collateral. First things first: get on the truck. "Pull up next to them!" Tama doesn't need to be asked twice to put the pedal to the metal and surges forward until the distance between car and truck is enough to jump.
Aizawa grabs onto the edge of the truck as it screeches around another corner and Tama is forced back behind them. Logically, Aizawa must have freed the driver when he used his quirk on the Doc and Shiyoko, but he's still driving like a maniac and it's probably not too hard to bring him back under when they're sitting right next to each other. It's on the cusp of this thought, after climbing on top of the truck and making it all the way up to the driver's cab, that Aizawa’s extra sense goes off and he dodges by a hair as a shotgun-like blast blows through the roof and nearly takes his head out with it. So they're armed as well. Figures.
Through the hole Aizawa can just make out Shiyoko as the likely shooter, but at the same time hones in on a bus stop at the end of the street ahead of them with a cluster of weekend shoppers lined up at it, and the instinct strikes Aizawa as clearly as if it were his own thought that the truck won't turn this time. The perpetual struggle of Heroes and Villains is at a single steep disadvantage: villains will try to kill innocent people, and Heroes have to stop them, which is a hell of a distraction tactic.
Maybe Tama has realised it too, or maybe this is just his first opportunity to get out in front, but either way he goes racing past the truck, and without more than a second's hesitation swerves in front and then hits the brakes with barely a hundred metres between them and the bus stop. So much for not putting a scratch on Tsukauchi's car, Aizawa thinks as the back of his ‘baby’ goes under the front of the truck, which unsurprisingly doesn't stop accelerating and just starts to plough more erratically toward the people running around in a panic, fighting past each other to get out of the way as the car-crash charges closer.
Using a couple of passing street lights as anchors, Aizawa throws handfuls of his capture weapon out and back to lash the swerving truck in place while the engines keep roaring, the front wheels lifted from the ground by merit of the police car underneath them. The jolt when Aizawa’s capture weapon pulls tight and then snaps along the puncture lines Hawks put in it almost throws him from the roof of the cab, but Aizawa stays up, throwing more and more strands until his neck is bare and he's cast a wide net of strained ties that drag debris behind the truck, but it actually slows down, coming to a stop as it finally collides with the just-emptied bus stop.
Aizawa knows they build those police cars sturdy, but it's reckless enough of Tama to be a move of Aizawa’s, literally throwing himself under the wheels of the truck to slow it down in time for the civilians to get out of the way, so the ensuing decisions are hard but fast. Hell knows Aizawa wouldn't feel satisfied catching the Doc and Shiyoko if it was at a cost of Tama's life. Which hopefully isn't the case, but it's definitely a possibility with Tama unmoving, faceplanted into the airbag.
When Aizawa jumps from the top of the truck down onto the gnarled bonnet of Tsukauchi's wrecked car, it's only with a quick glance through the truck's shattered windscreen that confirms what Aizawa knew already: the driver's cab is empty, at least of the Doc and Shiyoko, only the driver's shattered body over the dashboard and an open window at the back of the cab. Attempted murder of a bus stop of people will do that to a Hero’s priorities.
So the choice presents: to chase the villains, or save his friend.
As distractions go, this one's way up there.
Notes:
OOPS IS IT STILL DRAMATIC CLIFFHANGER TIME??? Tamaaaaaa!
Also CAMEO time I had the idea of Hawks making an appearance in this story a long time ago and then in the meantime before actually writing this scene wrote a whole EndHawks fic on the side so I felt a lot more confident with the character by the time it rolled around. Nothing delights me more than incompetent senior management deciding that buddy-cop Aizawa & Hawks as a team-up would somehow balance each other out rather than making each other worse.
Anyway, what's Aizawa gonna do?!?!? Find out next week ;)
Chapter 61: Fear and Loathing
Summary:
It was long overdue, but the cat's definitely out of the bag now.
Notes:
I'm sorry about all the cliffhangers, I swear. Okay, I'm a LITTLE bit sorry about them, because I can always go read the next chapter right after a cliffhanger ending, and I usually do, so I feel for the readers who have to wait a week. But at least it's only a week! Enjoy!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Fucking goddamn bastard–” Aizawa curses both to and at himself as he ducks under twisted metal and kicks the rest of Tsukauchi’s shattered windscreen out, reaching for Tama’s slack body behind the wheel. There’s enough blood on the airbag that Aizawa’s stomach has dropped through his ass by the time he pushes Tama upright. “Crazy furbag, save the stupid decisions for me goddamit…”
It’s around the time Aizawa gets a hand to his neck to check Tama’s pulse that Hawks shows back up, hauling Hitoshi under one arm for good measure.
“Dude, what the fuck happened?” Hawks cries as he drops Hitoshi a couple of feet back onto solid ground, for which the teen looks pretty relieved. “I leave for two minutes and you cause a car crash?!”
“Wasn’t me,” Aizawa snaps as he crawls fully into the wreckage next to an unconscious Tama and gets the seatbelt off him, lifting up Tama's head to hold his airway open before leaning close to check he’s still breathing raggedly against Aizawa’s ear.
“Well, where are they?” Hawks is looking around at the carnage that Aizawa can admit doesn’t look great, and the creeping fear is already pursuing him: that he made the wrong call. That this is all his fault.
“Got away,” Aizawa mutters venomously, feeling his hands wanting to shake with adrenaline and anger at his own selfish instincts. “Causing this crash was their way to escape.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Hawks replies as he whips a feather from his wings, which sharpens to a sawlike edge as he sets to work worsening the damage by sawing through the mashed-up bus stop and side of Tsukauchi’s car to get Tama out. Presumably there’s already ambulances on the way. “So who’s this crazy bastard?”
“A cop working the case,” Aizawa answers, still holding Tama’s head up so he’ll keep breathing. “Drove his car into the truck before it hit the bus stop, gave everyone time to get out.” It’s hard to recap those minutes that passed like seconds, all the quickfire decisions over how to stop bad from being worse. Aizawa doesn’t think Tama made the wrong decision, with how close to the wire it all felt, but he’s not so sure of his own choices – after all, what would have happened if Hawks was still here?
“Did you see them escape?” Hitoshi’s been standing in the road looking like a bunny caught in headlights for the most part, but now looks around like he’s finally taken all the factors in and started kicking again.
“No,” Aizawa answers bitterly as Hawks creates an opening big enough to get Tama out through. If Aizawa had seen them go then they wouldn’t have gone. “What happened with the people back on the rooftop?”
“We got them down, but they’re pretty messed up,” Hitoshi answers with a look of ineffable worry, and Aizawa knows the feeling. “A few still tried to jump after Hawks let them up.”
“Seriously?” Aizawa adjusts the scales again. “But I erased the brainwashing quirk.” He knows that, it’s pretty much all he does know. The feeling of breaking those chains, the seething, angry force of Dr. Shinsou’s quirk under his stare.
“I know.” Hitoshi’s looking around like he doesn’t know what to do with himself, hands in his pockets watching Aizawa and Hawks extract Tama from the literal car crash that happened while he wasn’t here. Perhaps Hitoshi realises why Aizawa made him stay behind now. “Some of them were okay right away, the kids all shook it off pretty quick, but a few were…” Aizawa feels the distressed twanging coming from Hitoshi like the plucking of a steel-stringed instrument, vibrations that can be sensed beyond what’s heard or seen, but Aizawa knows they’re there. “I think it’s something Dad does to their brains with his quirk, something that can’t be erased.”
“Great,” Aizawa rasps meaning the very opposite, but is grateful that Hawks was there to stop the aftershocks of Earthquake Dr. Shinsou. Of course he’s finding new ways to damage people permanently, to ensure there is no escape from his control – look what lengths he’s gone to trying to ensure his wife and child never get away.
“Who the fuck are these people?” Hawks might be fast, might be one of the top Heroes in ratings and stupid statistics, but that doesn’t make him ready made for this, because no one is. Aizawa’s undecided on whether it would have helped or hindered them had he directed the situation differently – a dance he knows all too well: the what if’s jive.
“My Dad’s the one to watch out for,” Hitoshi answers sullenly. Aizawa’s more focused on working with Hawks to get Tama out of the car, while the people Tama almost killed himself to save stand on the sidelines staring like doe-eyed morons, as if they’ve been half-brainwashed themselves.
“Yeah, I heard you mention that, he’s your Dad?” Hawks comments bitingly with Tama’s legs in his hands while Aizawa follows carrying Tama’s top half, getting him out onto the ground and laying flat as Aizawa drops to sit behind him, still holding the unconscious Tama’s bloodied head to keep his airway open. Maybe he’d be alright if they just put him in the recovery position, but maybe Aizawa can make sure of that himself.
Tama’s got a hell of a bloody nose, and being moved to lay on his back means his breathing starts to get wet, so without thinking about it Aizawa makes a seal around his fuzzy mouth and ducks down, sucking blood and who-knows-what to spit on the pavement next to him until Tama’s breathing clears again. Hitoshi looks thoroughly grossed-out by it, which is also par for course with Aizawa today. Not something he’d do with a person he doesn’t know well, but Aizawa’s protect instincts are screaming like a foghorn over Tama right now and that means nothing’s too gross to ensure his safety. Maybe they could have turned Tama’s head and let the blood and spit drain that way, so Aizawa’s technique is definitely not going to show up in any first aid manuals, but it’s already been established his instincts work in slightly irrational ways at times like this.
“My father escaped Max Security Prison yesterday,” Hitoshi’s explaining before Aizawa can have any thoughts about whether it’s wise to brief Hawks on this now, or even at all, but supposes it’s past that point already. “Aside from murdering a bunch of his students years ago, he’s basically the one who taught the Deathnote Killer how to be a psycho.”
"They both have powerful mind control quirks." Aizawa figures if they're going to explain, might as well be comprehensive about it. "The woman has to write her name on a person, but with Dr. Shinsou you just have to answer any question he asks and he’ll have full control."
"Then once they have control, well… you saw what happens," Hitoshi picks up seamlessly from Aizawa, which reminds Aizawa to get a proper breakdown of what happened on the rooftop when they have a minute. Shame he doesn't have a quirk like ectoplasm and can be in twenty places at once. Especially when an ambulance finally wails up and two hurried paramedics rush out; what Aizawa wouldn’t do to send a part of himself away with Tama for safekeeping right about now.
Hawks lets out a grating whistle, which steadies Aizawa's inkling that it was safer to keep Hawks away while he didn't know everything he needed to about going up against the Doc and Shiyoko.
“Well you might have mentioned that earlier.” Like when Aizawa sent Hawks after them, for instance. But while Hawks has a point, Aizawa’s got enough coulda-shoulda-woulda to last for decades right about now, and neither of them are done just yet. “So no one else knows about this because?” If Hawks is annoyed, he’s got every right to be.
“Not my call to make,” Aizawa mutters as he nods to the paramedics and carefully backs away from Tama as they take over, which doesn't feel good – feels wrong actually, like Aizawa got him into this and is abandoning him, even if that's not quite the story.
"You could have done something, told someone, O crypt-keeper of secrets," Hawks gets extra irritating when he's ticked off, as if Aizawa owes the “Pro” Heroes intel just because they have government endorsement to meddle in things they don't understand.
Because it sounds like a good idea on paper, but the thought of every dime-a-dozen Hero knowing there’s a couple of powerful brainwashers on the loose makes Aizawa’s blood run cold. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and too many Heroes make it even worse. Blame it on the over-saturated industry of glory-seekers and desperation not to fail like so many fledgling Pros do. Or worse – like the Hero Killer who made it his mission to prove how much chaff sits among the wheat. Wrong way to prove a point, but, as much as Aizawa feels ashamed to admit it even to himself, not entirely a wrong point.
“Complain to your so-called bosses," Aizawa replies with an indifferent shrug that's mostly an act, but Hawks would know all about putting those on. "They probably knew about it. Or the police, who decided it’s better to keep under wraps for the public's safety.” And how safe the public seem right now.
“Doesn’t seem like it's gonna be under wraps for much longer,” Hitoshi warns as the first press arrive on the scene, pushing past dazed spectators to get closer to the action. The cameras stay back as far as they dare to brave Aizawa’s angriest glare as he hovers next to Tama being loaded into the ambulance, then drifts back to stand protectively next to Hitoshi, lest the vultures get too greedy.
But, being the press, they always make a go of it.
“Hawks! What happened here?! Is this the work of the Deathnote Killer!”
"What are you doing here with Shinsou Hitoshi?! Are you aware that he's the son of the famous Professor Shinsou who carried out the 99 Massacre?"
"It's rumoured that Dr. Shinsou has escaped from prison, Shinsou Hitoshi, are you happy your father is free again? Any chance of a family reunion?!"
Aizawa reaches for Hitoshi's shoulder without even thinking about it, dragging his thumb instinctively across Hitoshi's back like he can smooth the wrinkles out of his disgusted expression. Hitoshi fires a glance at Aizawa sideways, an implication hidden in the twist of an eyebrow, like he's saying, "Should I?"
Aizawa could set Hitoshi loose and send them away by force – maybe even wipe their memories, one day, with enough training. It certainly sounds like a Shinsou mentalist quirk has the ability to alter the brain on a neurological level, if Hitoshi just knew how to do it. But if that isn't a lawsuit waiting to happen, and they don't have the darling of the Hero industry here just to look cool and get on Aizawa's nerves.
"They're all yours, Hawks. Come on Hitoshi," Aizawa says with a gentle coax, peeling Hitoshi back from temptation as Hawks strides forwards with his wings spread wide enough to cover them from view of the cameras.
Of course, Aizawa realises what other monster he's set loose as he hears Hawks confidently tell the cameras, "That's right! Dr. Shinsou's on the loose, and he attempted to kill all those people until I swooped in to save the day – which, by the way, you're welcome."
“What about Shinsou Hitoshi, Hawks?!”
“Who?” Hawks is good at several things, and one of them is playing stupid.
“He was just here! He’s leaving right now!”
“Don’t know the guy, now, what was I saying? Oh yes, it was about the people I just saved from a deadly brainwashing killer…”
Although Aizawa wants to get out of here as soon as humanly possible, they're once more at the site of the killers' last known whereabouts, which means leftovers to pick at. Again.
“Did you see where they went?” Hitoshi asks quietly, like it would ever be that easy, and if Aizawa had seen them escaping he wouldn’t have let them escape, but there’s no reason to take that irritation out on a kid who doesn’t mean badly by it.
“No,” Aizawa just replies stiffly, and that’s his best attempt at not being harsh, but it ruffles Hitoshi’s feathers anyway. They’re too sensitive to and around each other now for any little vibration to go amiss.
“Alright, I was just asking,” Hitoshi turns back greater antagonism in turn, scuffing his beat-up trainers along the pavement leading up to the crash site. If Aizawa were in less control of his bad mood he’d let it escalate, have a stupid argument because that’s a way to expend frustration he can’t deal with elsewhere, but only one of them can get away with acting like a teenager all of the time, and it’s gonna have to be the sixteen year old.
“They got out through the back of the driver’s cab and must have made it to the ground while I was trying to stop the truck from crashing,” Aizawa explains sourly as he starts to climb up the bonnet wrapped over and around Tsukauchi’s car – the Detective is going to love hearing about this mess. Bit more than a scratch on his precious ‘baby’.
“Doesn’t look like you managed it,” Hitoshi’s more snotty than snippy, but he gets a cross glare from Aizawa all the same.
“No civilians were hurt and the property damage was minimal, thanks to Tama.” Aizawa’s so salty he could be used to line the rim of a cocktail glass. “We could only slow the truck down, but it was enough for everyone to get away in time.”
“Crashing into a runaway truck just to slow it down, no wonder you’re friends,” Hitoshi needles as he climbs up the gnarled truck frame after Aizawa, and it’s a savage burn but Aizawa can’t exactly argue with it. “Tsukauchi’s gonna be pissed about his car.”
“He should be pissed he wasn’t here,” Aizawa snaps back, admittedly, but it’s difficult not to be annoyed when he’s tracing over the consequences his own botched actions and being nitpicked by a troll-doll brat in the process.
“Didn’t seem like you wanted help at the time.” Hitoshi’s a great echo chamber for Aizawa’s own frustration, so he’s only sending back what he’s being given with a sprinkle of teenage angst for good measure.
“Not from people who don’t know what the Doc and Shiyoko are capable of.” Aizawa makes himself be patient, to take the time to lay out what he’s thinking so it doesn’t seem like he’s this irrational, selfish creature hogging responsibility all for himself and then being pissed when he fails. Even if it’s exactly what he is. “It’d only take one dumb question for someone like Hawks to go from being a help to a huge obstacle, so I…” Aizawa breaks off when he finally makes his way up to the driver’s cab and sees the driver impaled and bloody, slumped over the burst airbag with glassy, lifeless eyes staring right at him. So maybe they didn’t save everyone.
“You want to do it all yourself,” Hitoshi finishes where Aizawa falls, so close behind Aizawa on the truck he has to monkey around Aizawa to get his own spot to perch on the hot contorted metal. “You’re kinda predictable that way, you know.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa can’t deny it, but he can point out the other factors. “It sounds like you needed Hawks on your end, though.” It’s a good sign that Hitoshi isn’t quibbling over his exclusion, perhaps seeing this wreck and realising there’s nothing he could have done to help it, at least not compared to what he was able to do back on the rooftop. Sometimes the whole point of having backup is to divide and conquer, and it’s a good sign Hitoshi’s feeling secure enough to see that.
“You’re not wrong.” Hitoshi doesn’t sound pleased about this admission, but welcome to the club. Nothing’s ever perfect, ever goes exactly the way you want it to. That’s life. “Whatever Dad and Shiyoko are doing to people, they’re getting better at it.”
“Unfortunately.” Aizawa doesn’t think he’s going to be able to get into the cab through the shattered windscreen without cutting himself, but can see something scrawled on the dashboard that looks like pen. “I’m going over the top,” he announces as he stands, jumping onto the roof of the truck and dropping down behind it to look through the high-up window at the back of the cab that the Doc and Shiyoko must have escaped through while Aizawa and Tama were focusing on stopping the truck, inadvertently giving the killers the window of opportunity they needed to get away.
But, Aizawa supposes begrudgingly, the Doc didn’t get everything he wanted: they stopped his first attempt at a dramatic mass-suicide in public, and averted another spur-of-the-moment bid to cause some collateral death along the way. But Aizawa could have, should have been able to capture them as well. All they escaped with was their lives, plus the death of this driver, and whatever injuries Tama sustained. So why doesn’t it feel like a win?
Because Aizawa’s still frustrated and beyond angry with himself for not doing enough. Even though he knows he’s putting pressure on the Doc and Shiyoko, to the point of assuming that whatever’s scrawled on the dashboard in thick black marker pen is meant to address him – the same pen used to erratically scrawl Shiyoko’s name on the dead driver’s arm while they were driving, no doubt, exposed past a torn sleeve. Emergency measures after Aizawa erased their quirks for that one almost-got-it moment.
“What does it say?” Hitoshi asks from through the front windscreen while Aizawa peers at it the right way through the back, but the letters are foreign and undecipherable to him.
“It’s in another language, I’m not sure.” Aizawa puts up his phone to the gap to zoom in and take a picture of the word, which he sends straight to Hizashi for a translation. From Aizawa’s limited knowledge of the European Alphabet, he believes it reads:
TOUCHÉ
“Typical Dad,” Hitoshi bites like a shot of tequila, which Aizawa hates. He straightens up and climbs up over the roof of the driver’s cab, but instead of joining Aizawa, Hitoshi carries on past him to stand on the very top of the truck.
“How so?” Aizawa probes tentatively as he gives up on the cab and clambers up to stand next to Hitoshi, who’s surveying the carnage left behind. The truck was dragging a just married style trail of clattering metal and concrete by the end, different anchor points that Aizawa tried to tie down only to rip part of the street up instead. One advantage of being underground is the state don’t know who to bill for damages and have to fund it out of their own pocket – recompense for the salary Aizawa’s never wanted from them to begin with.
“Being obscure and intellectual, just to show he’s superior.” Hitoshi seems unusually calm somehow, perhaps because he’s focused, and that takes away from the panic of everything happening at once.
Hitoshi winces in the sunlight as he takes in the whole scene, streets that might’ve been lazy with Saturday shoppers now deserted, as if the whole site is haunted since the Doc and Shiyoko passed through. Aizawa follows Hitoshi’s gaze past the strands of his capture weapon he ought to get to clearing up, if he can just get over his feelings of immense and monumental failure.
“Hey.” Hitoshi’s gaze narrows, pinpointing something in the distance. “You see where that street grate been pulled up?” it’s pointed out innocently enough, but Aizawa clocks it as soon as it’s pointed out. Of course it was the cover of a storm drain that Aizawa himself pulled up in his attempts to stop the truck that provided an easy escape route underground, like rats scurrying back into a sewer. Of course it’s all Aizawa’s fault, because for the life of him he can’t get out from chasing the Doc’s tail, like a dog spinning in circles after its own.
All of that weight crashing down at once, Aizawa drops to sit on the edge of the truck, buries his head in his hands, and just heaves a despairing, “Fuck.”
“Hey… it’s…” Hitoshi’s a mix of surprised and uncomfortable at this sudden dip, and drops to a crouch next to Aizawa, but doesn’t say anything because there isn’t anything to say. It’s not alright, it’s just another missed boat, another chance for more people to die before anyone, Aizawa chief among them, gets their shit together enough to actually catch the Doc and Shiyoko
“I’m just always fucking behind.” Aizawa knows this isn’t the moment, and he’s literally sitting on the edge of a crime scene while the Doc and Shiyoko get farther and farther away, but that’s not really the way sudden breakdowns work: arriving with good and convenient timing.
“We were really close,” Hitoshi murmurs, but if that doesn’t just make it worse.
“I know,” Aizawa says through gritted teeth, scowling into his hand. The child in him would lash out in misdirected anger, but the adult in him is ashamed of himself for losing it like this, making Hitoshi be the grown-up. Somehow that’s all magnified into feeling simultaneously even better and so much worse when the warmth of Hitoshi’s hand comes to rest gently on Aizawa’s shoulder.
“A lot of people might have died today and didn’t,” Hitoshi lays out with that light touch still clasping Aizawa’s shoulder, which is easier to reach being bare of his capture weapon. The contrarian in Aizawa’s head points out that Hawks did most of that, and if Aizawa hadn’t meddled, who’s to say what else Hawks would have done? But Hitoshi’s young, so he wants to believe there’s a silver lining, even if there isn’t – it’s just degrees of failure with good PR. “That has to count for something.”
“Is it enough?” Aizawa’s being a downer, a fucking buzzkill pessimist who isn’t helping anyone by tearing himself apart, but if he knew how to stop himself just by wanting, this wouldn’t be happening at all.
“Guess it has to be.” Because, where Aizawa would usually be alone to wallow in his guilt and misery, habits hard-earned by time and insistent building up of walls to keep others at a safe-for-them distance, this time he’s got company: the hand that squeezes his shoulder, offers comfort the same way Aizawa’s soothed Hitoshi in his moments of need time and again. Aizawa’s taught Hitoshi much more than how to throw a piece of capture weapon, and oftentimes the student does become the teacher, when they need to.
Like the stroke of a clock hitting the hour, Aizawa decides he can’t sit here useless anymore, but just when he’s about to move his phone blasts out its soppy love song. Without missing a beat Aizawa answers with a deadened. “Yeah?”
“YEAH!? What the fuck’s going on?”
“It’s over now,” Aizawa relates quickly. “Happened fast, but we’re both fine. What’s the word say?”
“It’s French,” Hizashi answers, surprisingly to the point for once. “Basically it means ‘you got me’ in pretentious asshole. Sound like anyone we know?”
“Unfortunately,” Aizawa replies, gesturing to Hitoshi that they should get down from the truck. Aizawa’s done enough moping while he sits on his ass, might as well mope while he’s doing something halfway useful.
“Seriously, Shota. What’s going on?” Ah, Hizashi’s tactic all along – give Aizawa what he wants first, then follow up with his own demands, now Aizawa owes it to him.
“They tried to get a bunch of people to take a short walk off a rooftop, which didn’t happen, and tried to crash a truck into a bus stop of people, which also didn’t happen, but I could have caught them and they got away,” Aizawa unloads like dumping a trashcan down a chute as he climbs down off the wreckage of truck, car and bus stop all tangled up in one, and considers that he should probably mention that part too. “Tama also crashed Tsukauchi’s car into the truck, and just went off in an ambulance.”
“Well fuck! You might have opened with that,” Hizashi scolds. “Is he alright?”
“I hope so. One of his nine lives.” Aizawa makes it to ground level and starts to gather up his capture weapon, which Hitoshi takes stock of and starts doing much more quickly while Aizawa natters; they’re going to need to stock up before they go back out to do anything else serious today. Aizawa’s got a big stash of the stuff at home, but there’s plenty in his desk at UA as well. Decisions, decisions. “How are things on your end?”
“Kiki’s cat is stalking Nezu and they’re both pretty sure Dr. Shinsou isn’t going to flee the country without her and the kid. You saw the killers, right? Was Hitoshi–”
“Hitoshi wasn’t there,” Aizawa interjects. “I had Hawks keeping an eye on him.”
“Awesome!” Hizashi whoops so loud Aizawa pulls the phone away for a moment “I love that guy! How’s he doing?”
“Unbearable as ever,” Aizawa drones as Hitoshi trots up with a big rolled-up wad of his capture weapon. “But did good work, as usual.”
“What a champ. He’s not still there is he? Tell him I want to get him on my show sometime, he’ll spike my ratings like crazy.”
“Not now, Hizashi,” Aizawa pleads wearily, and that tone comes out in his voice.
“Babe, you sound miserable,” Hizashi pinpoints with his ever-accurate radar for the degrees of subtlety in Aizawa’s tone. “Did it really go that badly? If he’s leaving notes saying touché, you must have got the bastard back a little.”
“It’s not enough,” Aizawa reiterates.
“Do you want me to come get you?”
“Stay there, they might still try something elsewhere,” Aizawa insists, even if staying at UA is also safe for Hizashi too. “Kiki’s as much of a target as Hitoshi is.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing all about it. What a fucking creep, huh?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Aizawa groans, and Hitoshi’s been pretty patient, but he’s making teenagery get-off-the-phone-with-your-boyfriend eyes at Aizawa that are hard to ignore. “I should go.”
“Alright, but let me know if anything comes up, ‘kay? Kinda worrying about you here.”
“I know.” Aizawa tries, but trying isn’t always synonymous with succeeding. “Love you.”
Hitoshi makes an ‘ugh’ face like he can’t believe how lame and mushy Aizawa is, but of all people should now realise just how lucky Aizawa is to have Hizashi. The least he can do is put up with it.
“Love you too, Slut.” Someone who isn’t too familiar with Hizashi might assume he’d have to be alone to address Aizawa this way, but those who know better realise that if anything he’s more likely to be with people if he’s making any kind of a spectacle. What’s the fun of being outrageous if there’s no one watching?
When Aizawa hangs up, it’s only a moment after his hand leaves his face that Hitoshi jumps in with, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“Which part?” Aizawa says a lot of shit, especially when he’s using himself as a punching bag.
“About always being behind.” Hitoshi’s shifty all of a sudden, and perhaps not just because the odd reporter seems to spot them from afar and take an interest before Hawks corrals them back into the ring of satisfying his endless need for attention, which at least serves some purpose. “I… have an idea, but you won’t like it.”
“Why?” Aizawa can sense the trepidation coming off Hitoshi in magnetic waves, making the mentalist compass needle in Aizawa’s head spin in circles. They start walking, but it’s not in anywhere in particular, just away from this grand old mess that Aizawa had a hand in, yet again.
“Well, Dad keeps trying to talk to us, doesn’t he? And it’s me and Ma he wants to reach, so…” Hitoshi stalls as they’re walking, but Aizawa doesn’t push, and after a moment the teen keeps rolling. They’re turning down a side-street, tall walls casting relieving shade over the pair of them when he comes out with, “What if we gave him what he wants?”
“I don’t get it.” But already Aizawa doesn’t like it. What an achievement.
This general opposition to the principle of giving Dr. Shinsou what he wants ever takes a whole new dive when Hitoshi responds with the last, absolute last thing Aizawa thinks he’d ever hear him say.
“What if I killed someone?”
There’s a blank moment where Aizawa whites out, emerging out onto a main road to cross the sun-baked tarmac, thinking he must have hallucinated what he just heard. But the distant sounds of traffic, the occasional chirp of birds are all real, so too the sounds of their footsteps across the ground, so he can’t be hearing things.
This leaves only one reasonable option.
“What?”
“Not for real,” Hitoshi’s quicker to specify. “But… if Dad thought it was real.”
Aizawa sees the dots, connects them with a sharp, straight line. And then he says, “No.”
“You said we have to get ahead of them,” Hitoshi argues, but this isn’t a place Aizawa wants to go. Ever. “It’d work.”
Crossing the road, Aizawa takes stock of his surroundings and then, as he’s prone to do when given the choice of several routes, turns into another back-alley cutting behind and between mostly closed-for-the-weekend buildings. “It’s too risky.”
“For who? The media’s basically convinced I’m a suspect anyway, it’d be easy,” Hitoshi pleads like he’s asking for a games console for his birthday, and not pretending to be a murderer.
“No, Hitoshi.”
“Come onnnnn.” Hitoshi’s teenage wangst comes out all at once, following Aizawa just by his elbow, closer together in the channel of narrow walls stacked neatly with bins and boxes. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“I’m unreasonable?” Aizawa shoots back as whips a glare over his shoulder, which is pretty much exactly where Hitoshi’s head is hovering barely inches away, like a parrot taking a perch. “Are you even hearing yourself?”
“You’re just saying no because you don’t like it.”
“Yes, that’s exactly why I’m saying no.” Aizawa can’t believe he’s even having this conversation in all honesty.
“It’s a… a logical ruse,” Hitoshi persists as he follows Aizawa out onto another main road, steering them back towards Shiyoko’s old workplace for lack of knowing where else to go.
“It’s logical insanity.”
“And my Dad’s insane. So it’ll work.” The hows and whys of Hitoshi coming up with this worry Aizawa more than he can say, except this is what he gets for dragging the teen around so many crime scenes. Giving the boy ideas. “What else have we got?”
That’s where Aizawa’s stumped. Hitoshi’s edge in this case has always been his connection to Dr. Shinsou, and sharp edges can cut through where others have to go around. Hitoshi wants to slice ahead of his father and start beating him at his own game – or appearing to.
Aizawa asks himself if it were someone else, would he give a different answer? Or if it were himself who had to take the fall, play killer to catch one. That one’s easy to answer, he’s as good as done it before. Another advantage of being an Underground Hero is they’re easy to mistake for villains.
But he can’t let that happen to Hitoshi, not when he’s already starting at such a disadvantage. “You could jeopardise your whole future as a Hero.” These things get out of control, reputations can be made that can’t ever be unmade. And they don’t even know if it’d work.
“I’d risk it all to stop them,” Hitoshi counters fiercely, and whenever Aizawa finds himself arguing with Hitoshi, he has to ask himself what it’s in aid of – what is so important that it’s worth opposing this kid he adores? The fear of what might happen. But Hitoshi’s never been more of a chip off the old block, meaning Aizawa and not the Doc, when the teen emphatically declares, “Fuck my reputation. Let them think what they want about me.”
Hitoshi’s right, of course. Aizawa’s just being protective, arguing back because it’s a harsh, desperate measure, even if Hitoshi’s right and it might give them that way to jump ahead, to be the one provoking reactions rather than the ones reacting. That it’s mad, murderous lunacy, but how else to capture a pair of bloodthirsty psychos?
Aizawa groans, regretting this before he’s even said it, but he’s not quite giving in. Because truly, the matter’s out of his irresponsible hands, and there’s only one sensible thing to do. “Ask your mother.”
Notes:
If THIS counts as a cliffhanger too then I don't know what else I can do, lol, I unfortunately can't post the entire rest of the story or giant mega-chapters that don't leave off at any kind of dramatic moment, so I can't help it, this is just the way things have to go.
But also I'm fuckin' excited for this next section of chapters, though I do also love this one. Nothing like Aizawa having a tiny stress-trauma-induced meltdown and needing to be reminded he's a fucking human being and is allowed to feel things, right?!
One side-note about Hawks here is that I have a kind of specific take on his character, which through the Aizawa-bias lens of this story may come off a certain kinda way, but if you want to read more about Hawks and don't mind him being paired with Endeavor my story Ring of Fire is a SPICY MEATBALL that I can recommend for the trashship connoisseur.
Til next week!
Chapter 62: Making a Murderer
Summary:
The best laid plans of mice and men don’t always go exactly how Aizawa would like them to.
Notes:
I really enjoy this chapter, so I hope y'all will too! I'm updating it at work a bit earlier than usual because it's my birthday! I'm 29 today, and of course that's all the more reason to update my regular fanfic on time. I started writing fanfic around 15/16 I think so this marks at least 13 years at this! Just goes to show that if you enjoy doing something then keep on doing it :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Following Hitoshi’s stroke of mad genius, no guesses for where he gets that from (Aizawa, obviously), taking him back to UA seems like the right thing to do. After all, if Kiki puts her son’s insane idea to rest in a shallow grave, then they can get help from the real grown-ups with figuring out what to do instead. A list of ideas Aizawa’s currently running comes in at a strong zero.
Going back to UA also allows Aizawa to stock up on capture weapon that isn’t torn up or full of holes, and a quick chance to make out with Hizashi when their paths not-so-accidentally cross coming respectively in and out of one of the staff bathrooms doesn’t go amiss either.
Hizashi's sauntering into the teachers-only bathroom just as Aizawa’s coming out of a cubicle, where he spent a few extra minutes as soon as they got back sitting with his head in his hands, doing some controlled breathing to stave off the mental breakdown he feels pushing at the corner of his eyes. It’s like trying to resist blacking out, only to drop like a ton of bricks a moment later – something Aizawa’s done rather more than he likes to admit – but right now he can’t afford to drop, so he just has to figure out how to keep going.
Running into Hizashi like this, Aizawa makes a certain set of assumptions that he takes action on accordingly. While they saw each other briefly when Aizawa quickly dropped Hitoshi off with his Ma in Nezu’s office, coming straight here to try and swallow an anxiety attack like a large chalky tablet, they haven't actually said hello to each other yet, and probably won't, not if Aizawa’s got any say over it. His coping techniques might not always be the most nuanced, but they certainly work for him.
"Well fancy seeing you her–eee!" Hizashi’s denim-clad backside hits the bathroom counter when Aizawa sweeps across the room to push him up against it like this is a kiss-mugging in a dark alleyway. While Hizashi’s ass fits almost exactly against the edge of the sink, it fits pretty well in Aizawa's hands too, which is where he grabs Hizashi to lift him up and come to sit on the counter, knees parting to slot either side of Aizawa as Hizashi’s swept very willingly off his feet. Hizashi always did want to get the leading lady treatment, which Aizawa’s happy to supply. Stretching out his arms to rest over Aizawa’s naked-feeling shoulders without the coils of his capture weapon, Hizashi evades the first dive of Aizawa’s mouth in this daylight robbery that’s about much more than money, and instead shoots for a smarmy, “How was Cricket?” before Aizawa shuts him up with a kiss that lands second try around.
Hizashi being just about as loose as Aizawa is when it comes to bouts of public opportunism, a heated tangle of lip and tongues could’ve gone much farther than that if they’d given themselves the chance, and very much has in these teacher-only bathrooms before. But Aizawa wants to avoid them both being gone so long everyone knows what they must be up to. Nezu he doesn’t give a crap about, not least because that weird creeper has probably seen things on this campus even he doesn’t want to talk about over the years, but Hitoshi and Kiki are another matter entirely. Even if they realise what Aizawa and Hizashi like to do one-on-one (or two-on-one, or three, four, or however many people are still in their apartment when the party turns that way) there’s no need to go around making it obvious.
“Cricket was fine,” Aizawa answers when the soft brush of Hizashi’s moustache lifts away from his own slow-sprouting stubble. “It was everything that happened afterwards that sucked.” The image of Dr. Shinsou’s face in that truck is still burned in Aizawa’s mind, haunting him with vivid eyes that almost glow in his memory, his darker violet hair pushed back but a little ruffled, almost exactly like Hitoshi gone wrong. How Hitoshi is planning to present himself, if they can’t conceive of something better to do.
“Poor baby,” Hizashi coos as he plants feathery kisses all over Aizawa’s jaw, and it’s entirely stupid and saccharine, but it’s really fucking nice to have Hizashi being so supportive and not furious about being excluded from whatever shit Aizawa’s gotten himself into now. Perhaps because Aizawa isn’t excluding Hizashi anymore; shit still happens, but Hizashi knows that as well as any other Hero, and isn't trying to fight Aizawa over things he can't control.
Turns out, as usual, Aizawa doing what Hizashi wants and just keeping him in the loop does make all their lives easier. Stupid genius love-of-his-life knowing what to do all of the time. Hopefully Hizashi can find them a way out of the next seemingly insurmountable challenge, which Aizawa has graciously left Hitoshi to deliver to his Ma in person, making himself scarce by on-purpose coincidence.
Aizawa sighs and leans his head down on Hizashi’s shoulder, allowing himself to be fussed and soothed for a moment by someone who knows how to settle him just right. Well, as settled as either of them can be without getting their cocks out. Instead Hizashi’s fingers just tangle in Aizawa’s hair, which is about the only way to get fingers through Aizawa’s hair most of the time, and is combing out tangles with one hand while scratching his fingers lovingly over the back of Aizawa’s neck with the other, deep and tingly up and down the length of his spine. It’s been joked Aizawa’s several parts dog before, and with the urge to hump Hizashi so strong right now it’s difficult to argue against.
“Are you gonna be alright?” Hizashi’s mouth brushes up to tickle Aizawa’s ear, and delivers in a terribly unromantic, “I’m actually desperate for a piss.” That’s right, Hizashi had been on his way into the bathroom when Aizawa seized his five-second window, and only assumed he came for a conjugal visit. Hizashi’s also been with Nezu all morning, which probably means the Principal has been suppling him and Kiki with endless pots of tea, so no wonder he's going to the bathroom like clockwork.
“Right. Yeah.” Aizawa drags himself off Hizashi like taking himself off life support. He’s kept Hitoshi waiting long enough. “See you back out there." Claiming one last feathery-moustached kiss, Aizawa lets Hizashi relieve himself and heads back into the hallway as the jetstream and totally unnecessary, “Ahhhhh,” sounds chase as much as follow him out of the bathroom.
Aizawa knows exactly how far Hitoshi has gotten in explaining his demented scheme to his mother when Kiki’s voice belts from deep within Nezu’s office with a whip-crack of shock and horror, “You want to do what?!”
This reaction is understandable. After all, it’s exactly the one Aizawa had when he first heard Hitoshi’s lunatic idea.
The door of Nezu's office has been left open, and the school is unsurprisingly deserted on the first weekend of Summer break. Kiki and Hizashi must have been banging heads in here all morning with the undivided attention of the big cheese himself, while Aizawa and Hitoshi were out botching Dr. Shinsou’s latest massacre plans.
Aizawa's only set one foot inside the door when Kiki launches her next level of verbal assault, which she pairs with a mentalist kickback that smacks like a golf ball to Aizawa’s forehead.
"And you're alright with this?!" She’s sitting on one of Nezu's antique sofas, an arm crooked over the top to gun down Aizawa walking in behind her. Hitoshi's lounging on the other side of the sofa, also turned sideways, which gives him ample opportunity to eyeball Aizawa in profile.
They make such a picture together, mother and son side by side. Hitoshi might bear a striking resemblance to his father, but he and his mother are cut from the same cloth in ways Dr. Shinsou could never dream of imitating. Different shades of the same enigmatic beauty, all too clear when Kiki impetiously tosses her fair hair pulled into a ponytail over one shoulder, wearing a black denim jacket she must have reclaimed from her apartment, along with a new hidden occupant of the room – or so Aizawa suspects going by the empty catbox in the corner of Nezu's office, the resident sack of hairy garbage out of sight, which isn’t Aizawa for once.
"I told him to ask you," Aizawa defers immediately, aware that it saves his skin by the exceptionally clear ‘you live… this time’ face Kiki makes. Into this tense stare-down, Hizashi comes up from behind and attempts to urge Aizawa on from blocking the doorway with an alarmingly loud crack of his hand against Aizawa’s ass, slicing the air with a pulse that seems to shake all three of them at once.
"Move it, hotcakes," Hizashi hollers unnecessarily loud mere inches from Aizawa's ear, and he'd turn around to smack Hizashi back if they didn't have slightly more important things to be doing. Having a physical fight with Hizashi has always been one of Aizawa’s best-loved ways to blow off steam, long before it became an elaborate type of foreplay. Or maybe it was always foreplay, and Aizawa’s just into seven-year-long delayed orgasms. The first time they actually (finally) had sex was certainly an experience, after which neither of them walked right for almost a week.
“But you didn’t object,” Kiki is persisting in trying to pin any of this madness on Aizawa, which he can’t blame her for. It is the kind of insane thing he might come up with under different circumstances.
“Oh, I objected alright.” Aizawa walks closer, but rather than squeeze into the space on the sofa between Hitoshi and his Ma, invites himself onto a free seat on the other sofa, where Nezu merrily observes the whole sinking ship with a coy mona lisa smile. Before working out what that worrying grin is all about, there’s a pot of tea on the table, naturally, which Aizawa gestures to with a polite, “May I?”
“Please, Aizawa,” Nezu invites just as cordially. So Aizawa’s poured himself a cup and just taken a sip when the Principal drums his padded paws together and remarks, “I, for one, think it’s an excellent idea,” and Aizawa promptly starts to choke.
“What?” Kiki spits just as Hitoshi’s bursting, “See?!” and they cross over each other like exposed wires, leading to a tense stare-off from respective ends of the sofa. Hizashi dashes over to thump Aizawa on the back and helps him cough back up the mouthful of tea he accidentally inhaled, which is when strikes Aizawa that he’s much happier to be over here than between those two.
“You’re acting like I’m gonna do it for real,” Hitoshi accuses, as if his Ma is debating whether he’s allowed to stay out past curfew, rather than staging a murder. “I’m not actually going to kill anyone.”
“Of course, you just want to make everyone else, including your father, think that you did,” Kiki highlights as the utterly unreasonable proposition that it is, but then she takes out a new supporting party. “And you think it’s a good idea?”
Aizawa’s never been so grateful to not be the target of Kiki’s fiercest glare, which narrowly misses him in its attempt to punch Nezu straight through the matching sofa he’s sitting on all the way to the back wall. If anyone could do that, it’d definitely be Kiki.
Nezu, of course, wonderful weird fuck that he is, is utterly unphased by this. Aizawa remembers that Hitoshi couldn’t use his quirk on the Principal, and wonders if that means Kiki can’t either. Their mentalist quirks rely human brain structures, which Nezu’s quite assuredly isn’t. Humans don’t think the way he does, which is impressive but also outright terrifying from time to time.
“It seems to me that your predicament with Dr. Shinsou is being in a purely reactive capacity to what he and the Deathnote Killer are doing,” Nezu lays out with the same methodical air in which he’d discuss a new curriculum. “What Young Shinsou proposes is a dramatic move that would nonetheless cause the Doctor to be the one who must react, placing more factors under our control, perhaps even presenting the opportunity to manipulate him.”
“If you think you can manipulate that snake then you’re underestimating my husband.” Kiki sits with arms crossed over her front, looking like a beauty advert for looks that could kill.
“I think his son can manipulate him,” Nezu corrects, turning his beady eyes to Hitoshi, and he is a master strategist by no mistake of false pretence. “Going by Young Shinsou’s proposal, he seems to believe it too.”
“I think we can get Dad’s attention,” Hitoshi clarifies with careful reservation, which is only natural around anyone as intellectually towering Nezu. Not everyone knows it, but mentalists like Hitoshi and Kiki (and Aizawa) sure fucking do.
“Whaddya gonna do once you have his attention?” Hizashi’s still standing behind Aizawa on the sofa, and hasn’t even been there for more than a minute before he whips a comb out of his jeans pocket and starts teasing it through Aizawa’s hair, which Aizawa tries to swat away like the buzzing of an annoyingly persistent fly.
“Wait, you think it’s a good idea too?” Kiki’s horrified to hear her beloved Present Mic support Hitoshi’s insane proposition, but then, it’s an insane idea so of course Hizashi likes it. Plus, he’s smart enough to see how it’ll work without being so anxiously over-protective of Hitoshi he can’t stand the thought of anything so risky. Like Aizawa is.
“I think it’ll work,” Hizashi replies indifferently as he picks tangles out of Aizawa’s hair. “Whether it’s good is a matter of opinion.”
“And your opinion is?” Hitoshi prompts quick and fast, staring right over Aizawa’s head straight to Hizashi, and it thrills Aizawa in a strange, secretive way to see Hitoshi searching for any kind of approval or opinion from Hizashi. Aizawa knows Hizashi’s words are worth their weight in gold, but he does appreciate when other people recognise that too.
“I think it’s crazy enough to be one of this one’s ideas all over,” Hizashi replies with an indicative tug of Aizawa’s hair. At this point Aizawa isn’t sure if Hizashi is untangling or braiding, but it doesn’t make much difference to him anyway.
“Is not,” Aizawa contradicts petulantly.
Hizashi scoffs, now twirling Aizawa’s hair around his fingers until he can delve manicured nails far enough scritch the back of Aizawa’s neck, which Hizashi knows makes him weak. Manipulative little shit. Leaning over him, Hizashi’s tease is a familiar one, if not to everyone in the room right now. “And how many times have you posed as a junkie to catch a kingpin?”
“That’s different.” Aizawa’s splitting hairs, a bit like Hizashi is right now, but even so. He’s trying to come across as respectable human being in front of Kiki right now, though maybe that’s a doomed attempt from the start. Doubly so with Hizashi cavorting around.
“Different how?” Hitoshi asks suspiciously, and he’s always been thirsty for details on Aizawa’s past, so this is no exception. Reasons why Hizashi and Hitoshi becoming close is only more trouble for Aizawa.
“Addicts are closer to victims than criminals,” Aizawa explains pettily, leaving out the part where the line gets fuzzy between ‘posing’ as a drug addict and actually just being a functional addict to numb himself to… most things, back when he was still living on the streets as part of a ‘deep cover’ so convincing it might have also just been his actual life for a while, otherwise known as ‘The Cricket Years’. Thankfully, Cricks didn’t bring any of that up when he was mortally embarrassing Aizawa in front of Hitoshi earlier. Aizawa’s existing dependencies are more than enough to be a bad role model to the kid.
“Oh, because it makes such a big difference.” Hitoshi’s getting curt, clearly fed up with Aizawa and Kiki’s continued opposition to his supposedly brilliant plan. You know, the one where he makes himself out like a sixteen year-old serial killer.
“It makes some difference.” Kiki’s siding with Aizawa, sort of, but also fixes him with a look that distils suspicion and affirmation into a single lavender-lilac gaze. Like she didn’t exactly figure Aizawa for a druggie, but knowing it she’s really not that surprised.
“If either of you have better ideas then I’m all ears,” Hitoshi draws out like he’s dragging a permanent marker along a freshly painted wall. Worst of all, Aizawa’s stuck on that one; he doesn’t have a better idea. The silence turns prickly, implication hanging over them like a dark cloud.
“I’ve got a question, if that counts,” Hizashi pipes up as he’s still picking over Aizawa’s mop like a chatty hairdresser, and Hitoshi’s eyes fix back on him silently. In the context of this conversation it’s a perfectly normal thing to ask, but it’s classic Hizashi to phrase things the way he does, querying with cheerful patter, “Who’re you gonna kill?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Hitoshi isn’t flustered, doesn’t panic under interrogation like his plan’s falling to pieces at the first hurdle, which is both a good and bad sign: good that he’s thought about it so much, and bad because it becomes even more compelling. Aizawa senses the losing battle, but he can’t bring himself to abandon the barricade, not while Kiki’s still leading the charge.
But then Hitoshi says, “What about Mr. Shimizu?” and Aizawa can almost hear the click of pieces falling into place.
“Who’s that?” Hizashi is perfect for this, or so it strikes Aizawa. Hizashi’s close to all of them, but not so close his emotions are compromised into fighting something that does make some kind of sense.
“Just some guy who got knocked off by his wife and it was made up to look like the Deathnote killer,” Hitoshi answers. “She hasn’t been arrested, though, and the media doesn’t know about it, so we could leak the information as if it’s the work of a copycat killer.” Which it is, in a way, but a different kind of copycat to the sad, desperate reality.
“A fine first step, but you would have to go further than that,” Nezu contributes at this point. Hitoshi’s attention swings back to the cunning obstacle who’s standing between Hitoshi and transferring into the Hero Course, but who apparently doesn’t mind him masquerading as a goddamn murderer. “Dr. Shinsou would be naturally suspicious of any copycats, so you’d have to have a convincing case for why his son is really responsible. There would need to be more than one killing.” Of course there would, which is the bit that worries Aizawa the most – these things get out of control so fast, just look at his spells as a fucking junkie.
“And then everyone will think you’re a murderer just like him,” Kiki reminds them all, confronting her son with a blunt, “What happened to your dream of being a Hero?”
“This is me being a Hero,” Hitoshi retorts with such conviction that deep down Aizawa’s already given up and accepted this is what they have to do. He’s hardly made a habit out of denying Hitoshi anything he wants, even something macabre as this. “People already think badly of me, so that’s hardly gonna change, and I’m the only person who could do this and actually get Dad to take notice.”
“For the wrong reasons.” Kiki’s sticking to her guns, but Aizawa wonders if she knows it deep down too, and all she’s doing is testing her son’s mettle to follow anything so reckless through.
“For a reason,” Hitoshi claps back. “We have to get him to do something he wouldn’t dream of doing otherwise, take a risk that might lead to a mistake.”
“What mistake?” Aizawa picks out like fishing for needles in a haystack. “We have to know what we want him to do, not just provoke a random reaction.”
The afternoon sun is beaming strongly through the windows of Nezu’s office, bathing the whole room in vivid colours, brighter than seems possible in the existing plane of reality. As if they’ve all been concentrated in this ornate dollhouse office, decorated with antique furniture all built towards the slightly reduced scale of the Principal. It all feels literally larger than life, and that in the midst of this miniature world Hitoshi sits in the very centre, Thumbalina in the heart of a blood red, opening flower.
So if what Hitoshi says next makes Aizawa’s blood run cold, he can’t imagine what it does to Kiki.
“We have to get him to meet me.”
“No.” Aizawa and Kiki are in perfect unison on this point; Aizawa’s taken Hitoshi to visit his father twice, and that’s two times too many.
“If you plan to lay a trap for him, it does seem that only Professor Shinsou’s dearest ones would suffice as the bait,” Nezu remarks in that creepy, borderline-psycho way of his. Aizawa remembers that Dr. Shinsou and Nezu were respected peers of one another some ten years ago, and only the therapeutic squeeze of Hizashi’s fingers at the base of Aizawa’s neck convinces him to hold his peace a little longer. “Another acceptable substitute would be Mrs. Shinsou, of course.”
“No.” It’s Hitoshi’s turn this time, the boot not so comfortable on the other foot.
“You can’t volunteer yourself and not me,” Kiki snaps, turned sideways on the sofa with one leg bent up to rest next to her, facing Hitoshi down.
The corner of Hitoshi’s mouth twists downwards into a sour smirk. “Dad wouldn’t believe you’d kill someone.”
“And he’d believe you would?” his mother returns with all the power of her authority over the child she raised single-handed.
“No, but it’s what he wants to believe.” The fire in Hitoshi burns so bright at moments like this, almost too much to look at, like staring straight at the sun. Aizawa wishes he could be proud of Hitoshi’s determination and strength for some other reason. “Enough that I can convince him to come out of hiding and then we can actually stop him, Ma.” Now the epithets come out, and Aizawa has a feeling Kiki knows the gig is up, but who can blame her for holding on to the last breath? “You saved me from him before, now it’s my turn to save other people from him. I need to do this.” There’s a pulse in the room like the thump of a huge gong, reverberating in the air as Hitoshi’s power makes the hair on the back of Aizawa’s neck lift. “You have to at least let me try.”
Falling hard and fast, each strike of Hitoshi’s plea hits Aizawa’s heart like a battering ram against the doors of reason, confident that they will open and this insane leap of faith will become real. But that’s nothing to the power of a mother’s love, so in the silence that follows Aizawa truly doesn’t know which way Kiki is going to go, staring at her teenage son like she’s wondering just when he grew up so fast.
“I… can’t exactly stop you.” Kiki’s surrender is hard for her, Aizawa can tell, and wishes he had any way to comfort her aside from actually just not doing the thing.
“You could, if you really wanted to,” Hitoshi insists with the heart-wrenching air only a child can exert on their mother. “I know it’s scary, Ma, but it’s the only thing that might work before someone else dies.”
“You’re right,” Aizawa finally gives way as well, which Hitoshi treats to a glance that’s still a little bitter – a ‘you changed your tune fast’ type of scowl over how Aizawa’s only going to roll over after Kiki’s been swayed. But then, what’s Aizawa supposed to do? Kiki’s scary, he’s not going to fight with her unless he has to. “I can’t stomach finding any more of the Doc’s victims in the hopes they’re going to lead us to him.” All the Doc’s victims lead them to, astonishingly, is more victims.
"So that's a yes?" Hitoshi doesn’t hesitate to confirm.
Aizawa looks to Kiki just as she’s looking back at him, and there’s something plucking those mentalist strings between them in a mysterious melody. Kiki’s a telepathic communicator to varying degrees of subtlety, so Aizawa can well believe that she can whisper in his ear just as well as shout.
“Got a spare cigarette?” Aizawa asks spontaneously, instead of anything else he’d been lining up to say, like the words were shoved in his mouth by a foreign hand in a moment of absence. Whether she did it on purpose or not, Kiki just stands with a simple nod, answering the question she asked herself through Aizawa.
They’re not far from the roof, and Aizawa wouldn’t want to presume his own importance, but this does feel like something he and Kiki need to talk to about one-on-one, at least before signing off on the whole lunatic plan.
“We won’t be long,” Aizawa mumbles to the others as he starts following Kiki out of the room. Hitoshi watches them both with a frustration that screams traitor, but he’s just a kid, and Aizawa can’t forget that. Certain decisions shouldn’t be made just because the child wants them to.
Kiki waits for Aizawa in the hallway, where he leads her to a stairwell that goes up and then leads out a fire door onto the roof. For two people purportedly stepping out to talk, they remain silent all the way out into the shadeless expanse of the UA rooftop, swept with a brisk wind this high up that makes it hard to light the cigarette Kiki offers without a word, struggling to light her own until Aizawa reaches out to shield the lighter with his hands, providing enough shelter for her to bring the flame to the end of the cigarette.
It’s only once Kiki has taken the first breath of her smoke – Aizawa managing to light his own with only some light burning of his hand – and then lets out a long exhale that she finally speaks.
“Am I going to kill my son?”
“No.” That much Aizawa can answer, but he takes his own troubled first drag too, wincing against the hard light and watching how the smoke they let out is whipped instantly away. “But it could hurt his chances of becoming a Hero, or at least the kind that get recognised by the government.” Being associated with juvenille murder doesn’t really do much for a prospective Hero’s popularity, or the likelihood of the idiots in suits who pump money into this business to distort it into even more ugly a thing than it is.
“So why doesn’t he care?” Kiki lifts the cigarette to her lips, a faint pink mark around the filter left behind from the touch of her mouth as she pulls again on the coping mechanism. A few stray hairs blow around her face, silver in the strength of the sunlight, and for someone certifiably not attracted to women, even Aizawa can appreciate her striking beauty for a moment. The almond shaped eyes and high cheekbones, softened by a round jaw that makes her neck look elegantly long. There’s no one else like her, and unfortunately, the Doc knows that too.
“There are other ways to become a Hero,” Aizawa explains with sighs of smoke, letting the nicotine blanket wrap soothingly around his shoulders. “He probably thinks he’ll just end up like me.” Aizawa doesn’t want to overestimate his influence here, but he shouldn’t underestimate it either.
“Is that a good thing?” Kiki’s got every right to be wary, and it’s a lot easier to talk through with just the two of them, no Hitoshi yanking their heartstrings like a child pulls hair in the playground.
“Objectively? No,” Aizawa states as factually as the shitshow of his life deserves. “I did everything the hard way.” And he’s paid for it in blood, bullets and a bitch of an ex-boyfriend. “He should aspire to do better.” Simply following in Aizawa’s footsteps is nothing, not even close to good enough for anyone with Hitoshi’s potential. Fuck legacy, which is nothing more than a vanity project for the older generation; if Hitoshi isn’t better than Aizawa ever was, he’ll have failed as a teacher and whatever else it is that he is to Hitoshi.
Kiki makes a point so good it’s basically the only thing that matters. “Is this really going to help him achieve his dreams?”
Aizawa shrugs, because if he knew for sure they wouldn’t be out here. “It’s a way to stop Dr. Shinsou. The best chance we’ve got right now.” Aizawa takes another drag. “He’s your husband, what do you think about it?”
“About if it’ll work?” Kiki doesn’t like this line of questioning, but she’s not around anyone else, people who are trying to endorse this plan and would use her honest answers against her. This is just Aizawa: another stressed, worried guardian trying to figure out if this is the right choice.
For Hitoshi the answer is obvious, because no sane person in the world would think this is good for a child of any age, but it’s about whether the potential to catch the Doc is worth the potentially irreparable damage – emotional or physical – on his son. Who, of everyone, is the one person who shouldn’t have to deal with this shit, so sod’s law that he’s the one person who could make all the difference.
“I think… Masaru would do anything to get to Hitoshi,” Kiki confesses over a sour-faced drag on her cigarette, and it feels like they’d be better suited to a foggy alleyway in the dead of night than standing in this relentless, beaming sunshine. But then, nothing casts patches of darkness more clearly than the shadows thrown under direct light, as their own shadows smoking stand in testament to. “Every instinct I’ve had since Hitoshi was young was to do exactly the opposite, to keep them as far apart from each other as possible.” One more puff, and Kiki closes those amethyst eyes. “I suppose that’s why, isn't it?"
"Why it has to be this way?" Aizawa guesses past his own fuck-everything drag. He's sure Hizashi is concerned about Hitoshi's safety, that Nezu has no intention of letting Hitoshi come to harm. But he doesn't believe for a second that either of them feel that knife of fear deep in their heart, like the whole world will shatter if anything happens to him. And if that's how Aizawa feels, he can't even fathom what Kiki must be going through. "It does seem like some kind of sick joke."
If this is the punchline of a cosmic prank, Aizawa’s missing the point, and wants a refund to this garbage comedy show they call reality. Trust the universe to make literal children their best shot at saving a world caught precariously in the balance, barely out of their baby clothes before they’re expected to take on more than even the hardened Pros are used to facing. Of-fucking- course this is the way it has to be: to be any other would make it too damn easy.
"So then.” Kiki flicks ash off her cigarette and sets it to her lips, the cherry at the end glowing bright red as she drags on it with the wind blowing wisps of moonshine hair around her face. Aizawa has the sudden inexplicable thought that if he were Dr. Shinsou and knew what was good for him, he ought to be very afraid. “How are we going to do this?"
Notes:
Family tropes but with murder is kind of the foundation of this story so having exchanges like this take place is a real achievement for the complexity of the relationships that have been built up over the last 61 chapters. It's fun how things build up in layers, like rough-years Aizawa emerging from a vague idea in my head to a fully realised Cricket-dating ex-druggie, which was never my vision when I started this story, but has emerged like a wonderful, gross caterpillar =D
While we're definitely much closer to the end of the story now than the beginning, we're not quite close to being entirely done yet, much more morbidity to come, naughty children!
Chapter 63: Storm's a Comin'
Summary:
Batten down the hatches, because it’s about to go off.
Notes:
If last chapter was fun, this one's even MORE fun.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hitoshi is pouting when Aizawa and Kiki finally return from their prolonged smoke break to discuss her son’s future as a murderer, and the teen makes his petulance about this known by projecting the aura of a sullen little rain cloud. There’s a full cup of tea set in front of him on Nezu’s gilded table, but it remains still and unsipped, the pale green liquid catching sunlight on its surface. Hitoshi’s arms are crossed over his clingy slate grey hoodie, carrying tension that’s mirrored in narrow eyebrows hanging low over his brow.
Taking in the rest of the room, when Aizawa’s and Hizashi’s eyes meet – or Aizawa’s eyes and Hizashi’s sunglasses do – Hizashi reaches to his face to tug the shades down just far enough to peer over the top of the mirrored lenses at Aizawa, rolling those emerald eyes tellingly in Hitoshi’s direction. Knowing anyone as well as Aizawa and Hizashi know each other, they don’t always have to talk in words. Therefore, Aizawa’s answer to this non-verbal comment is to flick an uneasy glance at the door where he and Kiki just came from.
“Hey, Principal,” Hizashi announces with perfect innocence, when he’s barely ever been innocent of anything in his life. “Mind helping me out with something outside real quick?” It’s a piss-poor cover, but that’s kind of the point. And if Hizashi’s so easy to be dismissed from the room, it doesn’t say much for his ability to exert any calming influence over Hitoshi in Aizawa and Kiki’s absence, not quite the neutral territory Aizawa was hoping for. Then again, Hizashi was loosely in favour of Hitoshi’s plan to begin with, and this isn’t really a neutral territory when they’re discussing what they are.
“Of course, Yamada.” The Principal puts up no fight either, although Aizawa’s not convinced the pair of them won’t have their sneaky little rat ears pressed to the door the moment they’re on the other side of it. “Lead the way.”
Hitoshi waits until Hizashi and Nezu have left the Principal’s office and the door is shut firmly behind them, fixing Aizawa and his Ma with a look that stings like antiseptic on a fresh graze.
After a tense threeway stare-off, Hitoshi abruptly ends the stalemate with a provocative, “Finally made up your minds, then?” full of attitude that makes apparent exactly how much he does not appreciate Aizawa and Kiki breaking away to talk about him like this, but tough tits – that’s just how it has to be sometimes.
Aizawa follows Kiki around the room at first, but stops halfway while she comes to sit on the Principal’s newly vacated sofa, positioned across from her son. This music box office feels too delicate for such a battle, though Aizawa knows the Principal has taken down many an adversary from the comforts of this gilded cage. Aizawa hovers a little way between both sofas, not wanting to put himself in such stark opposition to Hitoshi, even when he knows it’s fool’s play because that’s exactly what they’re doing.
“Before I answer that, we’ve got some conditions.” Kiki has her hardest battle face on, all tightened at the corners, tuned up again after letting Aizawa see through some of the cracks upstairs on the roof.
“We?” Hitoshi’s got a face that could comfortably place last in a ‘look impressed’ contest at a national level, and trawls this accusatory glare all the way from his Ma to snag onto Aizawa standing on the sidelines. “Since when’s there been a we?”
One that consists of Kiki and Aizawa, he means. Truth be told, Aizawa’s not entirely sure what he did to deserve such a vouch of confidence, but being openly against Hitoshi doing anything to provoke his father into trying to make contact with him is probably a good start in Kiki’s eyes. Even if they’ve reluctantly had to accept that’s exactly what they’re going to do.
“Since you decided to take up faking murder to communicate with your father,” Kiki returns with all the power of a mother’s ineffable strength. “Which, if you still intend to do, then we’ll have to be careful.”
“Careful? And here I was just going to start screwing around like I just don’t give a shit.” Being who and what he is, Hitoshi’s showing his irritation at this show of guardianship by putting on a ridiculous display of his age, give or take ten years. Sixteen-going-on-six. “Did you really have to go outside for ten minutes just to decide I need to be careful?”
“Cut the shit, Hitoshi.” Aizawa drops in wearing the Big Teacher Boots that he doesn’t always put down, and almost never with Hitoshi, but he and Kiki have to be a united front on this and a toddler tantrum isn’t going to get them anywhere. “Listen to your Ma.”
Hitoshi, of course, isn’t having it, and concentrates his anger on Aizawa like a slow-cooking ultra-violet laser, the sharp lines of his expression almost forming the word imposter. “You realise my Dad is the psycho-killer we’re trying to catch, right?” This an arrow lands right between Aizawa’s eyes, and he feels it, actually senses that mentalist force as Hitoshi runs him through with on a metaphysical level.
Aizawa gets it. He gets why this hurts for Hitoshi. He’s always been the one to support the kid, validating his decisions and instincts as a Hero, not standing in his way because of the risks. This was just a harder ask than most, because Aizawa’s much more than Hitoshi’s mentor, and this is about much more than being a Hero.
“Knowing that is exactly why we have to be careful.” Aizawa remains neutral, crossing his arms and then changing his mind to put his hands in his pockets instead. Doesn’t rise to Hitoshi’s jab, because they’re a bit beyond ‘you’re not my real dad’ now. Always were.
“Go on then, spit it out.” Hitoshi rolls his eyes so hard it’s like they’re going to spin right out of his head and go bouncing along the Principal’s polished hardwood floor. “Aside from the obvious part about being careful.”
"Whatever happens, after it does, you have to be with one of us at all times," Kiki begins reciting the commandments she and Aizawa decided on as the best balance between safety and letting this madness go ahead.
Hitoshi huffs and runs a hand through the front of his hair, picking out tufts to fiddle with. "Which is different to now because?"
"At all times," Kiki reiterates with force that speaks for itself, mental resonance of huge kettle drums echoing in a coastal canyon. "No going for a run or down to the shops without us because it's not that far. You literally can't leave our sight."
This ruffles Hitoshi more as the finer implications sink in: that the freedom and confidence Kiki has worked hard to give him is being rescinded, as it always could’ve been. If he thought his leash was short before, they're just getting started on how closely he can be helicopter parented.
"What, you wanna come to the bathroom with me too?" To his own demise, Hitoshi means this as a joke.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before, so yes, if I have to," Kiki counters without blinking an eye; to the mother who bathed and changed Hitoshi’s nappies, this is really not even close to a threat.
It’s a spectacular backfire. Hitoshi’s ears start going pink at the reminder of his position in this dynamic, and he finds the ceiling of sudden incredible interest: like it or not, he’s still a child. Aizawa might not take it quite that far, wouldn’t come into the cubicle with Hitoshi if such a scenario happens under his oversight, but he'd sure as shit be outside the door. There's no excuse to abandon post, because if that's the moment something happens he would regret it for the rest of his life, and no minor embarrassment is worth the risk.
"We also need the full cooperation of the police," Aizawa says words he only rarely finds himself saying, but this time it counts extra – they can't expect this to work if Hitoshi becomes a real suspect and the police start working at cross purposes to their goals. It has to be holistic, all together as one united front. So getting Tsukauchi on board with this is a battle for another occasion.
"And the press," Kiki adds, and this part was all her idea. "We need some of them to be involved so we have control over what they put in the media, and it gives us the opportunity to admit it was all a stunt if things get out of control."
Hitoshi shrugs, which makes Aizawa want to scold him to take this seriously, but he knows that Hitoshi is, it's just the surface he crafts to seem like he can’t be bothered. Passive protest at being reminded that he's not one of the grown-ups, and sometimes those grown-ups make decisions without him that he's not going to like. The next one especially.
"And…" Kiki takes a breath, because this is the big one, the thing they agreed was the best possible way to ensure the worst couldn't come to pass, "… you aren't to speak to your father."
It’s clear that Hitoshi doesn’t get it at first. Disbelief drags across his expression like a backpack across a playground, morphing slowly to understanding. There’s a beam of sunlight cutting across Nezu’s office, which catches Hitoshi from one side, highlighting the grey of his hoodie to the lightest lilac tips of his hair, trimmed by Hizashi to reach ever-greater heights. Flecks in the air swim around in the beam, and as always, the tranquility of such moments seems at harsh odds with the chaotic reality that awaits them outside.
Hitoshi doesn’t start in a rush, but he’s full of youthful certainty that no cannot possibly mean no. “But what about–”
“Not even to use your quirk,” Aizawa pre-empts before he’s even said it. “Especially not then.”
Now it sinks in properly. Hitoshi’s bad mood going to worse, scowling, even angry. “You can’t do that.”
“It’s the only way to make sure he can’t use his quirk on you,” Kiki jumps back in with an absolutely top-notch mother knows best. “Based on what you’ve told me about his new victims, even if it happens once your father could do serious damage.” Worse than before, worse than ever, now the Doc’s learning how to warp the human mind like moulding a piece of wet clay in his demonic hands.
“He wouldn’t do that.” It’s heartbreaking, in a way, that Hitoshi still hangs onto this one thing about his abusive sycophant of a father.
“Of course he fucking would!” Kiki snaps. When they met behind bars, Dr. Shinsou didn’t have much opportunity or inclination to try anything so dramatic as mentalist brain surgery on his own son, but now he’s had a little practice, been driven to a point of desperation. Well, it’s a chance they can’t take. “This isn’t up for debate, Hitoshi. You can’t talk to him.”
“You can’t be serious!” Hitoshi bursts like a water balloon, and of everyone, it’s Aizawa he appeals to first. “I have to be able to use my quirk! Tell her I can!”
“Your Ma and I both agreed on this, Hitoshi.” Aizawa tries to be careful, knowing it’s not what the teen wants to hear – being denied his greatest weapon, his double-team offence and defence. But Aizawa and Kiki were in total consensus on this, had dreamed this up together in the thought exercise: how do we keep our boy safe from his psychotic fuck of a father? And the only way to be sure Hitoshi won’t fall prey to the Doc’s deadly quirk is cut off all communication, remove even the possibility of slipping up.
“But you didn’t ask me!” Hitoshi rails. “You can’t just… just make me not talk to him! I’m basically useless then unless I can–”
“You’re not useless,” Aizawa tries to assuage, not that Hitoshi wants to hear it. “This is the only way to make sure you’re safe.”
“But if I can use my quirk on him–”
“No.” Kiki’s a great scene partner in this, the captain of the team to Aizawa’s late-entry ringer. “It’s too dangerous.”
Oh for the follies of youth. Hitoshi lurches forward, deep violet eyes wide and pleading. “But!–”
“No buts, Hitoshi,” Kiki holds strong. “Aizawa told me what happened when you two were together before, I’m not letting you try to kill each other to find out who’s quirk is stronger.”
“You’re ganging up on me!” The transformation to temper tantruming child is truly complete, Hitoshi’s mouth drawn into an absurdly dramatic frown. Aizawa’s sure that Kiki’s presence is a catalyst. Nothing triggers that deep muscle-memory behaviour of childhood like a parent, so in the same way that Aizawa can often see the adult Hitoshi will grow into, right now he can see with perfect clarity the child he used to be. “It’s not fair!”
“It doesn’t have to be fair.” Aizawa doesn’t raise his voice, setting the example he wants to demonstrate to Kiki of being able to keep his cool in confrontations, even when the last arguments he’s had with Hitoshi were anything but. Thankfully, Kiki being here keeps Aizawa in line, knowing she’ll bust his ass for yelling at her son in a heartbeat. “It just has to keep you safe.”
“But you’ll be there.” Hitoshi’s getting desperate, appealing to Aizawa as if he’s forgotten who was also against this idea of him not doing this whole insane thing. “If something happens then you can–”
“I’m not a good enough guarantee,” Aizawa’s regretful that he has to talk over Hitoshi but knows that train of thought doesn’t go anywhere helpful. They ran the scenarios on the roof already: he could be too late, he could be unable to see the Doc, he could be dead already. “There’s too many things that could go wrong.”
“But–”
“If it’s my responsibility to erase the Doc’s quirk before he hurts you and I can’t do it, then whatever happens to you is my fault,” Aizawa doesn’t hold back the raw, unfiltered fear in his voice, and bares these vulnerable parts of his soul in the hopes that Hitoshi will understand. “I don’t… I can’t be responsible for that, Hitoshi. You have to agree not to put yourself in that position.”
Hitoshi doesn’t kick back right away, catching his temper like reining in a horse trying to bolt. His eyes are wild and cagey, frustration collecting in a fat bottom lip that he worries like a toddler about to start screaming.
But Hitoshi doesn’t scream, and his voice is a quiet, icy-hollow, “So you won’t let me do this unless I promise not to talk to him?”
“Yes.” Kiki’s composure is incredible, those lovely lilac eyes calm but firm, like she might sway the way a cherry tree heavy with blossom does in the wind, though the branches aren’t going to break. “I know it’s not what you want, but this is the only thing we could think of.”
“We,” Hitoshi echoes spitefully, back to fretting on this point again. “You realise Aizawa’s gay, right?”
“That’s not the point!” Aizawa snaps this one, fair’s fair. He doesn’t like when gay comes out as a relevant factor in anything, as if it has the slightest bit of impact over whether he and Kiki can make decisions about Hitoshi’s welfare together, like they can’t be something if it doesn’t fit a ridiculous heteronormative model. Hitoshi should fucking know better, and Aizawa’s sudden bite seems to remind him pretty sharpish.
“We both care about you,” Kiki reinforces without a flutter to her shell of composure, and anyone as incredible as her could do a hell of a lot better than Aizawa in the first place. Everyone could, as a matter of fact. (Even Cricket: why he dumped Aizawa, as it happens.)
“If you cared, you’d let me do things the way I want to.” Hitoshi’s fraught energy is at full charge, as if arc lightning is going to connect him to the nearest earth point.
“We all have to make compromises, Hitoshi,” Kiki says with a soft-but-strong touch that can only be a mother’s. “You think I want this? If I have to let you try, you have to let me have some sense of security too.”
Hitoshi turns back to glare at Aizawa with a twang of irate mental energy, dissonant and obnoxious, like he wants to drag the cheese grater across Aizawa’s brain for picking his Ma’s side and not Hitoshi’s. Without Hitoshi moving his mouth, Aizawa can almost hear the unspoken accusation in the wind.
But Aizawa remains firm, lips pressed tightly together, hands fisted in his pockets. It’s hard not to feel bad for the kid, and he does feel bad for Hitoshi, but that doesn’t change the rules. “Don’t give me that look,” Aizawa admonishes with his heart baying like a hound. “Sulking isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“I’m not sulking,” Hitoshi snaps with the air of a ten-year-old denied a ride on a rollercoaster he isn’t tall enough for.
“Then get your shit together and act like it.” Aizawa might have judged this wrong, but he’s got a notion that Hitoshi needs a kick up the arse right now more than a soft, coddling touch. Something that’ll encourage him to get over it and get going, rather than being too reminiscent of being babied. “If you want to pull this off it isn’t gonna plan itself.” Hitoshi sits up and rolls his fat bottom lip back in, accepting his new reality, and perhaps feeling a little more conspicuous in his mood now Aizawa’s not so accommodating of it.
It’s around the time that Aizawa hollers at the office door, “And you two can come back in too,” and there’s literally less than a second’s pause before the door opens to reveal Hizashi with Nezu perched on his shoulder, both so incredibly close to the doorway that there’s no need to assume they need filling in on what happened in here. Hitoshi doesn’t look like he loves that either, realising he may have been overheard throwing a fit at his… parents, if it’s not too weird to consider Kiki and Aizawa like that, even if it’s just for the purposes of this one very weird discussion.
“Love the media angle, by the way,” Hizashi remarks cheerily as he strolls back into the room like he’s been a part of the conversation the whole time, and Aizawa sighs while Kiki fidgets a little in her seat. Maybe she didn’t expect Hizashi and Nezu to be quite so obvious about listening in on them, which shows what she knows. Aizawa might have done well to warn her they were dealing with a out-and-out pair of rats, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Kiki’s idea,” Aizawa gives credit where it’s due, stiff as a post as Hizashi pulls up by his side and drapes a catlike arm across his shoulders, hanging himself from Aizawa with cloying affection. Aizawa would normally resist it, shrug off the attention and whisper for Hizashi to stop making such a spectacle of himself, except for the fact that it feels really good and Aizawa’s probably the most clingy one of all right now. After all, he and Kiki just signed off on a joint worst fear, which they’re going to turn into horrifying reality. He could use the comfort, even if it means Hitoshi glaring daggers at them.
“We need to be fully prepared, even just to talk to other people about this,” Kiki warns like the work is only just beginning, which is surely nothing but the truth. “Principal Nezu, I imagine that’s the sort of thing you’d be interested in.”
“Why Mrs. Shinsou, the pleasure would be all mine.” No such fears show in Nezu, who waddles up to the coffee table with nothing but the most satisfied delight, clapping his paws together with a soft thud and rubbing the beany pads against each other as he presides over the room like a supervillain about to trigger their doomsday device. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
“He wants to do WHAT?” is Tsukauchi’s reaction when Aizawa rings him to explain the newest iteration of Hitoshi’s plan, which is still entirely understandable, because the plan is still utterly unreasonable, and makes the Detective the third sane person to have reacted to the scheme so far.
"I know," Aizawa sighs, catching Hitoshi’s eyes across the office as he stands by the window with a sincere wish that this wasn’t the news he had to pass on, but unfortunately it is. "I'll explain the details later. Did you hear about Tama?"
That tempers Tsukauchi's energy quickly. "Yeah. He woke up about an hour ago, seems like he's gonna be alright."
"Good." Aizawa doesn't have words for his relief, and instead asks, "Where are you?"
"The hospital." That explains why Tsukauchi would know the latest on Tama. “I’ve been trying to interview the latest survivors, but it’s hard work.”
“I bet.” Aizawa doesn’t envy Tsukauchi his share of the work one bit, and is silently grateful for all the bases the Detective covers that he’d never stand a chance at getting around. "So you know about–"
"My car." Tsukauchi's despair seems all too real. “Unfortunately.”
"I was gonna say what the Doc and Shiyoko tried to pull off, but that too I guess,” Aizawa replies. “We should catch up.”
“You know, Eraser, for once I couldn’t agree with you more.” Tsukauchi is putting the good gloss on, but he knows this is a sticky situation too, especially if Aizawa’s talking about Hitoshi pretending to be a damn murderer. “The kid’s mother, is she–”
“She’s okay with it,” Aizawa confirms, eyeing Kiki this time, lingering over with Hizashi on one of the sofas sipping tea, not one to begrudge her idol for too long. Hizashi was never definitively for or against Hitoshi’s plan to begin with, just admitted that it’d probably work, which it hopefully will. It better, otherwise they’re going to all this trouble for nothing. “Do you remember the hospital we dropped Mrs. Shimizu at?”
“Sure do.” Tsukauchi’s a sharp Detective, so he knows nothing is said without good reason. “She factor into these ‘details’ somehow?”
“She might,” Aizawa murmurs, turned mostly away from the others in one corner of Nezu’s office. “I’ll meet you out front of the hospital in an hour.”
“Alright, I can manage that.” The next part is right on brand for Tsukauchi’s sincerity and everyday Heroism, but it always feels rare to be used with Aizawa, and can only mean that the Detective well and truly means it. “Take care of yourself, Eraser.”
It’s a small thing, but in context hits huge. Especially now Tama’s in the hospital, and even if he doesn’t have on-tap access to a Recovery Girl to pull him back from the brink, Tama would be tired enough to need to rest anyway. They’re all running ragged, and sooner or later each of them starts to drop.
For this, Aizawa returns the favour with a heartfelt, “You too,” before he ends the call, looking thereafter around the expectant faces of the room gazing on him, an audience to which he announces, “I’m heading out to see Tsukauchi.”
“Interesting use of the singular,” Kiki observes with huge reservations lit in giant neon letters, while Hitoshi’s got a similar look in shades of accusation too. Aizawa’s not quite his favourite person right now, but that’s something Aizawa’s very ready to live with temporarily. Better that Hitoshi is displeased with Aizawa and safe than indulged to the point of recklessness.
“I won’t be long, so it’s easier if you all stay here,” Aizawa says with all the confidence he feels of this fact. He can move much faster alone, can clear his fucking head and then talk to Tsukauchi alone, then go to Mrs. Shimizu as they need to, if she’s going to cooperate in this mad scheme. Bringing Hitoshi, Hizashi and Kiki all in turn makes a mountain out of a molehill, and right now Aizawa doesn’t need anymore mountains. “I’ll let you know if we’re clear to move on to the next location.”
“Next location?” Hitoshi scoffs from the sofa he’s put his feet up on, and Aizawa would scold him but Nezu hasn’t said anything and Aizawa’s done the very same so he supposes he can’t be that much of a hypocrite. “Where’s that, Special Agent Aizawa?” Aizawa is a fucking Hero, but Hitoshi’s just in one of those moods still.
“The Shimizu residence.” But Aizawa’s not in the mood for fooling, not even for Hitoshi, and the surprise registers on the teen’s face quickly. Now that they’ve brokered the deal, shaky as it may be, Aizawa’s set to all systems go to deliver the utterly fucking bonkers scenario as convincingly as possible. Which they’ll need, if they’re going to need to convince Dr. Shinsou that his son, his beloved legacy, has finally lived up to his biological father’s dream of becoming a crazed murderer. What a world.
“Oh.” Suddenly not facing obstacles he was expecting to take on, Hitoshi’s left freewheeling, and stares at Aizawa with a conflicted admiration and frustration that he’s gotten quite used to being the object of in his time. Aizawa’s speciality could be generating conflicting emotions in people; that he can be all the good things he is to others while also being so many of the bad. Nobody’s perfect, but Aizawa sure seems to make an example of himself of embodying a perfect storm of clashing imperfections.
“I’ll call when we get the all-clear to head over to the Shimizus,” Aizawa repeats now that his point has fully landed, and although he loves and appreciates almost everyone in this room, there’s still a lot of people here and he could use a minute or twenty alone to clear his goddamn head. “So if there’s no questions, I’ll be on my way.” He swings a limp hand and is on his way out, almost making a clean run of it when–
“Not so fast,” Hizashi calls when Aizawa’s almost out the door, but Aizawa doesn’t look back and keeps going, fully expecting Hizashi to catch up with him, which he does about halfway down the corridor.
Hizashi’s hand finds his shoulder and Aizawa slows, coming to stop when Hizashi turns him and guides Aizawa around to rest with his back to the wall in the empty school hallways. They always seem so haunted outside of term-time, like you could strain through the silence and hear the sound of a thousand chatting voices and footsteps, the way listening to a shell reflects the sound of the sea.
Hizashi’s wearing a mix of suspicion and concern, looking like several parts a pin-up in his blue jeans and white t-shirt. Aizawa did just impress the importance of certain people staying together before suddenly pulling a disappearing act, so he sees why this might come off hypocritical. “You okay?”
Aizawa nods, but when Hizashi just lifts his eyebrows in expectation of a little more than that, he pushes himself to put it into words. “Just a lot of… baggage. It’s quicker if I see Tsukauchi alone.”
“It isn’t exactly safe out there now, especially for you.” Hizashi’s not wrong, but Aizawa should be so goddamn lucky for Dr. Shinsou or Shiyoko to confront him, even alone. After all, their quirks won’t get them far around Eraserhead.
“I’ll be alright,” Aizawa insists. “It’s not far, and I just…” He hangs his head, taking a steadying breath. “I feel bad about what happened to Tama.” It’s sinking in now, that Tama’s action was rash, and achieved what they wanted it to, but now that person’s not here and maybe if Aizawa had been better, done things differently, that Tama would still be up and kicking.
“That’s not a good excuse to put yourself in harm’s way.” Hizashi slots a couple of fingers under Aizawa’s chin and lifts it up to look at him. “You’re such a fucking masochist, Shota.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Aizawa insists, and he’s sure he’d know if he was doing the thing where he gets himself in trouble so he can get the shit knocked out of him because he feels like he deserves it. “I just want to do this one thing alone. Not even alone, Tsukauchi’s gonna be there for most of it.”
“Alright, alright,” Hizashi gives in, sighing deeply as he runs his thumb across Aizawa’s chin. “Just check in when you’re there, okay?” Aizawa nods again, and leans forward when Hizashi comes in for a hug, wrapping his arms around Hizashi’s waist and holding onto him for a few prolonged moments of touch therapy. “Love ya,” Hizashi murmurs into his neck, and Aizawa would take Hizashi with him if he wouldn’t much prefer he stays back here with Kiki and Hitoshi. If there’s anyone Aizawa can trust them with, it’s Present Mic.
“Love you too.” Aizawa turns as Hizashi does for a kiss that’s surprisingly chaste for the two of them, more of a goodbye than anything as they let each other go. “Take care of Hitoshi and Kiki for me.”
“You got it, baby.” Hizashi gives Aizawa one of his best snap and finger guns, and it’s not much, but it does make Aizawa feel that little bit better as he unspools the newly restocked capture weapon around his neck and takes off on his own.
Abseiling down the outside of the UA building with the wind racing through his hair, goggles pulled down to shield his eyes from the sun, Aizawa feels a lot lighter for not having anyone with him for a while, no other factors, other human people he loves more than he can put words to that he has to worry about while he’s doing the thing that comes naturally to him. Don’t get him wrong, Aizawa loves having Hitoshi around too, but a break, even a small one, is a much needed rest on his nerves. The Shinsou effect is powerful when it wants to be, the magnetism pulling inward that makes Aizawa want to cling to Hitoshi and never let go, but there’s also so much as too much of a good thing, and he thinks a tolerance break could be good for the both of them.
Suddenly feeling that much faster, that much braver and bolder now he’s only catering to himself – and Hitoshi’s great, obviously, but he’s a sixteen year-old just getting into this, and Aizawa’s been at it sixteen hard-as-fuck years already – so he covers ground an awful lot quicker going solo than he would have with how-many-others in tow. Aizawa remembers why Eraserhead’s so renowned for working alone, because he makes it to the private hospital they left Mrs. Shimizu at in record time, only stopping to catch his breath as he lands on the pavement a street away and warm-down walks the last hundred metres with his goggles yanked down his neck, panting like a steam engine. Given that the weather hasn’t let up very much, it’s still broad, beaming sunshine baking even the subtle white-rendered walls of the hospital that looks more like a day spa than anything. This means Aizawa’s more than a little sweaty when he spots Tsukauchi reading a paper on one of the benches outside, plodding up to drop onto the other end of the bench with an anaerobic wheeze.
“Fancy seeing you here, Detective Pot,” Tsukauchi remarks without looking away from the paper he’s only missing the cut-out eye holes to make the perfect cliche.
“Kettle,” Aizawa greets sparsely, wiping a torrent of sweat off his forehead, feeling much better already. Sometimes it’s just pushing himself, grinding out some of that tension and stress by feeling like he’s moving forward, even if it’s just geographically. “Have you gone in yet?”
“No. Thought you might want to explain what in the high hell you think you’re doing with the Little Spoon first of all.” Tsukauchi’s sweaty too, with his shirt rolled up to his elbows, no coat and not even a stupid raincoat hat to weather this storm. Aizawa wonders if they were in his car. What even happened to it after they parted ways some hours ago.
Which leads Aizawa perfectly into his next question: “How’s Tama?”
“He’s okay, it was mostly abrasions and whiplash.” Tsukauchi is doing his best at the sensitive cop act, and Aizawa actually really appreciates it. “He asked about you when he woke up. Asked if you got them.”
Aizawa makes a grizzly sound. “What did you tell him?”
“Not yet,” Tsukauchi responds demurely, with his eyes trained on the hospital in the background as he finally folds the paper up to settle on his knee. The neatly manicured gardens are peaceful in the golden afternoon, still some skids on the driveway from when Tsukauchi came squealing up in his car only… yesterday? How different things are again already. “I know I was joking about not scratching up my car, but you didn’t have to take it that far, you know.”
“Tama’s idea,” Aizawa replies bluntly, feeling like maybe he’s got whiplash too, but on a much less physical level. “This was all Hitoshi’s idea, by the way.”
Tsukauchi heavily, presumably knowing what Aizawa’s referring to the reason why they’re here. Tsukauchi’s a Detective after all: surely he can put the pieces together.
“I had an awful feeling it might be,” the Detective murmurs. “What does he think the Doc’s going to do?”
“He wants to lure his father somewhere, to try and meet him in the open rather than hiding in the shadows,” Aizawa explains carefully.
“What about Shiyoko?”
“She’ll go where the Doc goes.” Aizawa’s pretty sure of that, it’s just what Shiyoko might do that he can’t fathom. The only thing they can assume safely is that she’s desperate, and capable of just about anything.
“So that’s when we close in on them.” Tsukauchi’s mulling it over, because of course he’s going to have to convince his own superiors, and if the can’t do that the wheels fall off the whole plan. “But why does it have to be so bloody…”
“Hitoshi needs to make the Doc believe his legacy will be carried on.” This makes Aizawa’s stomach churn to even think of, much less say, but it’s also what they’ve accepted already as a reality.
Tsukauchi’s about as impressed as anyone of sound mind has ever been, his expression souring like milk that’s turned chunky. “A legacy of murder?”
“Exactly.” Aizawa doesn’t know why he has to spell that part out for Tsukauchi, but it’s probably a good exercise anyway. “It’s what the Doc always wanted from his research subjects, even years ago when he was first experimenting on Shiyoko and Hitoshi as children. Obviously, with Shiyoko it worked out, but Hitoshi… well, that’s what we have to convince him of.”
Tsukauchi’s presumably read the reports, but he’s always been on a different side of this case, and the sinking realisation of just how twisted, just how rotten Dr. Shinsou’s influence is over this whole mess seems to be just taking hold. Not that he wasn’t taking it seriously before, but Aizawa long since gave up trusting anything except Hitoshi’s compass for finding their way in the dark, and now he’s asking Tsukauchi to do the same. To go in blind, and against all instinct.
“Look, I know it’s insane. I said no to it myself, and so did his mother at first, but then Hitoshi… it might work,” Aizawa regrettably has to rationalise. “Haven’t enough people died?”
Aizawa sees Tsukauchi’s crumbling resolve, the submission to darkness for even the whitest of knights. He’s seen the bodies pile up too, spent more time than Aizawa has with the victims who ‘survived’, whatever state they can call what remains after the Doctor’s deadly quirk fades away.
Slowly, Tsukauchi sinks forwards, resting his head onto his hands with the same hopeless defeat that Aizawa himself gave into, and it’s in sympathy of this that Aizawa sets a palm on the shoulder of his soft cotton, crumpled, day-old shirt. “I know it’s not much, but it might be the best chance we’ve got.”
“I do hate it when you’re right, Eraser.” Tsukauchi’s only being honest, because this is the garbage reality they’re just waking up to.
So he’d deny it ever happened, because it’s so not their thing, but in that specific moment, Aizawa gives Tsukauchi’s shoulder a friendly ‘buddy, I know’ squeeze.
“Me too.”
Notes:
If anything these recent chapters have proven to me how alike I am to the characters I'm writing because people seem very concerned with how bad or dangerous this idea is and I'm honestly quite shocked because to me it seems pretty reasonable and very on-brand for this genre of story. How else can I top the previous 300k plus that we've gotten through??? EVEN. MORE. MURDER.
Oh and also shoutout to how much I love whenever we have Hitoshi going full-blown you're-not-my-real-dad teenage temper tantrum at Aizawa. Yes. I require.
Chapter 64: Happy Now?
Summary:
No. Aizawa’s not, but that’s par for course at this point.
Notes:
It seems that my attempts to create tension are... effective, given the amount of worry being expressed in comments recently. Which is p much what I want at this point in the story, so sorry, not sorry?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
While Tsukauchi’s having a quiet word with someone at the front desk, Aizawa sits in an uncomfortable waiting room chair at the hospital where they left Mrs. Shimizu, having second thoughts about everything he’s ever done in his life. It always creeps up on him in these trapped moments, going from movement to being static, being stuck and waiting for other people to clear the way to move forward. It does give Aizawa time to check in with Hizashi, sending a quick message to let them know he got to the hospital safely and is with Tsukauchi. Hizashi just replies with ‘ok’ so Aizawa assumes he’s busy with something else already, and the not-knowing itches like a scab coming in.
“We’re in.”
Aizawa doesn’t notice Tsukauchi coming up and twitches at the intrusion on his own thoughts, looking up at the sweaty Detective who’s definitely seen better days himself, though his kiln-fired smile remains in place.
Getting up to follow Tsukuachi, who’s walking after a tight-lipped nurse through the sterile-smelling corridors, Aizawa leaves the airy waiting room through a set of smooth automatic glass doors into a long corridor wrapping around an internal garden. The wall facing inwards is curved glass, while doors and small windows alternate on the right-hand side, numbers on each doors like this place is somewhere between a hospital and a wellness retreat. Mrs. Shimizu must be able to afford it, inheriting all her deceased husband’s assets after his unfortunate ‘suicide’.
There are a few people dotted around the well-kept courtyard garden, wearing dazzling white robes that make them seem like angelic models inside a large glass display case. The figures move slowly around the garden, some completely motionless, as if they’re statues. Aizawa remembers on a tangent that this is the long-term residence of Todoroki’s mother, and keeps an eye peeled for anyone who might fit the description, though they come to a stop at one of the doors before anyone stands out in that respect. He can’t really think about it much now, though the thought lingers like a water mark left under a glass.
“Thank you,” Tsukauchi says to the nurse, but not a word leaves her pursed lips, turning and walking away with the quiet tapping of shoes on the polished floor. Tsukauchi and Aizawa turn to look at each other, and when Aizawa shrugs Tsukauchi lifts his hand to knock on the door.
“Mrs. Shimizu?” Tsukauchi addresses. “May we come in?”
There’s no response from inside, so after a shrug of his own, Tsukauchi opens the door.
The room is well-kept and bone-white from bedsheets to the smooth alabaster walls, only a speck of colour sitting in a chair by a window bathed in sunshine. Dressed in the same white pyjamas of the other patients, Mrs. Shimizu has no reason to cover up anymore, so aside from the the dark ebony of her hair in stark contrast to the white her room and clothes, the brightest colour comes from the ripe purple through to red wine and sallow yellow shades of bruising up her arms and neck. The interlacing of heavy hand and finger-prints sit like intricate jewelry beaten into her delicate skin, and a refire in Aizawa’s gut reminds him of the message Mrs. Shimizu had painted on the wall with a brush dipped in her husband’s blood. There’s no fucking question: he did deserve it.
Seeing the Detective strikes worry into Mrs. Shimizu’s face, but some of this lifts when her pale eyes meet Aizawa’s coming in behind Tsukauchi.
“Oh, it’s you two,” her voice is soft and hoarse, like she hasn’t used it very much for talking, but might have worn it ragged with crying. Aizawa consciously stops his own jaw clenching, forcing his hands to relax from the fists they’ve curled into.
“How are you doing, Mrs. Shimizu?” Tsukauchi begins as he gestures to an empty chair by the table Mrs. Shimizu sits at, and she nods at him. “Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”
“Alright.” She’s not quite timid, or scared, but still small. Someone learning the road to recovery isn’t as linear as she thought it’d be. “I… it’s all still sinking in, I think.”
“That’s to be expected, I'm sure,” Tsukauchi replies with his honey sunshine tone, and Aizawa’s not sure if that’s really what they need. Mrs. Shimizu’s experience isn’t something optimism can fix, so without really having a plan for what he’s trying to do or say, Aizawa steps in.
“It’s never easy, especially for anyone who’s been through what you have,” he starts strong, talks to her like he knows it’s not all smiles and it’ll-get-better. That sometimes, things have to get worse first. “Recovery isn’t always a straight line.”
“No… no, I suppose it isn’t.” She seems more at ease after this, and Aizawa takes the opportunity while they’ve got it.
“We’d like your cooperation in our investigation,” Aizawa gets straight into as he picks a wall facing Mrs. Shimizu and walks over to lean against it. “Because there’s no official report yet about your husband’s death, we’d like to… change a few of the details, before releasing the information to the public.”
“Details? What details?” The fear lights up in her quickly, and they can’t forget – she did kill a man in cold blood, deserving of it or not.
“The identity of your husband’s killer will remain unknown, but we’ll state it’s a copycat similar to the Deathnote Killer,” Tsukauchi picks up the baton, sticking to the way he and Aizawa had agreed on doing this before Aizawa came in to start meddling with the script. “There’s some information we might alter, such as the message left with your husband’s body.”
That doesn’t go down well, a scowl that twitches in the corner of Mrs. Shimizu’s eyes as the one thing she left for the world to know about the man who tormented her is to be changed, her message intercepted at source.
“I… I don’t know.” She worries at the hem of her shirt, and Aizawa notices all her jewelry is gone, the watch, the necklace. Perhaps they aren’t allowed to wear such things here. “Do I have to give you my permission, or something?”
“Not exactly, but we’d like to go back to your apartment to make some of those changes,” Tsukauchi explains, and he’s being gentle, all soft and accommodating with his crumpled shirt and distracting forearms with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, but there’s an iron will under there, and always has been. “If you cooperate with the police, it may assist you later on.” When they finally get around to mentioning that oh, this woman actually did kill her husband, even if he was an abusive piece of shit, so someone should probably agree on what to do with her in the eyes of the law. Aizawa knows what he’d decide, but that’s probably why he’s not a judge.
“You’re trying to catch the Deathnote Killer, aren’t you? The real one.” Mrs. Shimizu looks to Aizawa with this question. Trying being the operative word.
"That’s not our main target anymore," Aizawa explains the half-truth it is, slumped next to the window like a black hole in the pure white wall. It's stifling in here so he wishes he could open the windows, but the chances of that being possible in here are slim to none. "We're after the man she's with."
Without a flicker of her steely expression, Mrs. Shimizu supplies, "You mean Dr. Shinsou."
"Yes… how did you–?" Tsukauchi covers his surprise well, but it catches him a little off-guard.
"Everyone is talking about it." Mrs. Shimizu shifts in her seat, a little cagey. "We're not supposed to have contact with the outside world here, but no one really checks, so things get out." The media is full of it, though Aizawa’s tried his best to ignore the hysterical screaming from the masses. That’s what happens when a popular Hero like Hawks decides to go and tell everyone the truth about the horrifying state of the world: mass panic.
"Dr. Shinsou is the one we want, though we hope to capture the Deathnote Killer at the same time," Tsukauchi continues as diplomatically as he can, which is better than Aizawa can manage most days, but Aizawa smells the reservation all over Mrs. Shimizu regardless. Perhaps Tsukauchi didn't dig that deep with her, but with Aizawa she expressed more than a little sympathy for Shiyoko, and it might be a sticking point they need to budge loose.
"He's manipulating her: Dr. Shinsou is." Aizawa doesn't have time for much tact, crossing his arms over his chest. "He abused her as a child, too." Ring any bells? Aizawa almost adds, but refrains at the last minute out of sympathy for the widow.
It hits hard enough exactly as it is, a sadness stretching long down Mrs. Shimizu's face, one hand hesitantly reaching for her wrist, gently brushing bruises that must hurt like shit. At least they'll be the last, Aizawa tells himself. That whatever the cost, she'll never be hurt like that again.
"Let us use your husband's death to catch another abusive bastard like him." Aizawa picks himself up from the wall and steps forward, ignoring Tsukauchi's attempts to what-are-you-doing-Eraser stare him down, and crouches down next to Mrs. Shimizu's chair, looking up at her, this damaged flower trying to grow in a lifeless greenhouse. He's not convinced this hospital is much more comfortable than a prison cell would be, at least not emotionally. They wouldn't force therapy on her in prison, and if breaking old bones so they might heal straight doesn't feel like torture when it's happening. "By helping us his death will mean something, let us use him to do one good thing." Not exactly one good thing in the bastard's entire miserable life, given he's dead, but almost.
"I…" Mrs. Shimizu starts and stops, still worrying her bruise on the arm closest to Aizawa, so he reaches up to lay his hand gently over hers, stilling the motion. "Alright," she exhales as if tearing off a plaster. "As long as you think it's the right thing to do I'll… help any way I can."
Aizawa’s glad he got the chance to come back here again, remind himself that Mrs. Shimizu is real and not a figment of his imagination he dreamed up to give himself hope – that there are people he can still help, not just hunt the killers who ruined their lives. Not exactly the most straightforward path to redemption, but Aizawa takes what he can get.
"Thank you, Mrs. Shimizu." Aizawa doesn't squeeze her hand, not wanting to hurt her, but he's very fucking grateful. “Is there a key to your apartment we could borrow?”
“Oh, yes, in my purse.” She reaches around and then stops, confused with her surroundings for a moment, but then gets up and goes to a small chest of drawers by the bed. In the bottom drawer her belongings are packed neatly, withdrawing a slick designer handbag that she opens to get out a set of keys, handing them to Aizawa as she comes to perch on the edge of the bed.
"Thank you," Tsukauchi adds for good measure, but Aizawa’s the only one she's really looking at. "Ah, Eraser, we better be going–"
"Would you mind staying just a little longer?" Mrs. Shimizu asks, still talking to Aizawa. "Just you. Just for a minute."
Aizawa turns over his shoulder to Tsukauchi a 'beat it' look and then looks back at her. "Of course. I'll see you in the lobby, Detective."
He doesn't love it, but Tsukauchi can appreciate the request all the same, and maybe if he'd been the one to notice the abuse first he'd be the one staying behind. Let that be a lesson to him on what to look for first, to remember that he’s a man and it means missing things that women spend their whole lives being sensitive to. If he doesn’t make the effort to look past his own bias for the hidden depth then he’s just not going to see it, no matter how good a Detective he is otherwise.
Tsukauchi leaves quietly, and Aizawa stands up from his resting crouch, waiting for Mrs. Shimizu to speak first.
"My husband," she offers after uncertain pause. "I had to…" Aizawa hears the flighty panic in her voice, certain he knows the shape of the demons she's trying to keep at bay. He walks over and sits next to her, his larger weight pulling the bed down so their shoulders almost touch. Again she says, voice trembling like the feathers of a tiny, terrified bird, "I had to."
"I know you had to," Aizawa murmurs, trying to project the mental energy of a large, fluffy blanket to wrap around her shoulders, still seeming so cold in the midst of all this heat. If this place is a greenhouse, she must be the sickly plant trying to grow, learning how to be a person again, and not just a shell defined by pure survivalist instinct. "I know."
"Am I going to be arrested?" No denial here, at least not between them.
"Not yet." Aizawa doesn't know for sure if or when she will be, though Tsukauchi certainly has more shit on his plate that putting this poor woman behind bars.
"But later? Even if I help you catch him?" It's interesting that she says him, Aizawa notices. Mrs. Shimizu knows Shiyoko is a woman, identifies with her more than anyone should be comforted thinking about, but only by thinking of her as someone trapped, another woman being abused by a blamable man, can she allow herself to work towards putting the Doc and Shiyoko by extension behind bars.
"I don't know," Aizawa admits, because if it were down to him the decision is easy, but it's not his decision. "There are always consequences."
"Yes, I suppose so." Like she hasn't got enough consequences to deal with in that crude watercolor painting on her skin, in the PTSD and anxiety she'll live with for years, robbed of so many years of her life by her abuser.
"I'll do what I can to make sure they're sympathetic," Aizawa reassures, and manages not to jump when he feels Mrs. Shimizu's head come down to rest on his shoulder.
"Thank you." There's a sniff, and Aizawa thinks he wouldn't be far off too guess at tears in the poor woman's eyes, so just gently takes her hand in his again and holds it, waiting as the sighs turn into sobs, eventually giving way to a tragic, "I'm sorry."
"No," Aizawa says, giving her hand the lightest squeeze. "Don't ever be sorry. He's gone now. You can handle whatever comes after."
The sobs come heavier after that, but Aizawa just waits. She put on a wonderful brave face for Tsukauchi, but masks slip down. Aizawa and the Detective have places to be, of course, but not so soon he can't give her this moment. Being a Hero means much more than the chase and fight or basking in victory over the forces of villainy. People need more.
On the table next to the bed there's a box of tissues, unsurprisingly, and soon enough Mrs. Shimizu reaches for one and starts to dab her eyes. "You're a wonderful Hero, Eraserhead," she looks at Aizawa as she says it, and Aizawa's reluctant to accept most praise, because he doesn't think he's half as good as people make him out to be most of the time, but if there's anyone he wants to be the best Hero he can be for, it's people like this.
"Just doing my job," Aizawa tells her, gaze slipping to her handbag by her side on the bed with a thought. "Do you have a pen and paper?"
"Ah, yes." She reaches for the bag to rummage in, and Aizawa sees much more of the person in her now. Past the bruises and drying tears, a creature remembering how to be herself again, her short straight hair slipping forward as she looks down in the bag on her lap, to be tucked back behind an ear as she withdraws a slim enamelled pen and address book that she holds out to Aizawa.
Flicking to a blank page, Aizawa writes Eraserhead and his phone number. "Please don't give this out to anyone, but contact me whenever you need to and I'll do what I can to help."
"Oh… thank you," she murmurs, taking the book back to clutch gratefully in one of those dainty hands. "I'd… I'd given up hope in thinking there were Heroes like you anymore." No wonder she was inspired by Shiyoko's reign of terror.
Standing up, because now he really does have to go, Aizawa gives a careless shrug. "I do what I can."
Even if it's not enough. It's all he can do. The hopeless fight – not to wipe out evil, to win the ultimate victory in a blaze of glory, but to hold back the darkness just that little bit longer.
"Good to go?" Tsukauchi asks Aizawa as he comes out of the hospital front entrance with Mrs. Shimizu's keys balled in his hand and a hardened stone just that bit more calcified where his heart ought to be.
"As I'll ever be." Aizawa wishes things were under better circumstances, but that’s pretty much this whole case – even moreso than other cases. Aizawa knows his work as an underground Hero is pretty grim, but this one’s pushed even his utmost limits. There’s a look on Tsukauchi’s face that wants to know what happened, what he missed, but if it were important Aizawa would tell him, and he seems to understand his is not the place to pry.
“Here’s our ride,” Tsukauchi says just as a police car with a familiar bespectacled driver pulls up the long hospital drive. Aizawa’s surprised they didn’t just give Tsukauchi a new car of his own, but then maybe that’s not it – maybe the Chief doesn’t want any more of his police officers in the hospital, and Tama was alone from a police resources perspective when he crashed his car into that speeding truck. If Yamaguichi was in the car with him, Tama certainly wouldn’t have done what he did, that’s for sure. She’s a personable kind of insurance policy.
“Hi, Mr. Eraser.” Yamaguichi has definitely seen better days, but she’s putting on a brave face and even manages a smile as Eraser climbs into the back of the car, Tsukauchi getting in the passenger seat and sitting back with a deep sigh like he’s knocked the air out of himself.
“Hey, Yankumi.” Aizawa catches himself a moment later than he’d have needed to stop it, the tic in his ear of how many times Hitoshi has drawled that particular line invading his mind even in the troublemaker’s absence. Tsukauchi turns over his shoulder to make a curious face at Aizawa, but Yamaguichi of course takes it all in her stride.
“How’s Ja… uh, Shinsou?” Of course that’s the first thing she asks about. Aizawa probably triggered it, calling her by the nickname Hitoshi gave her.
“He’s been better,” Aizawa answers, which is the understatement of the week, month, year and probably century. Hitoshi is currently waiting for Aizawa’s signal to set off and start staging murders, that’s how he’s doing.
Although on which note, Aizawa remembers to text them that they’re on the way. Rather than contacting Hizashi, Kiki and Hitoshi separately, or worse yet deciding on one of them to tell, he adds all three to a group and types out ‘Green light for the shimizus. On our way.’ and hits send.
Hitoshi’s the first to reply with a straightforward ‘ok’, Kiki doesn’t respond at all, and Hizashi posts a sticker of a bowl of ramen pulling a cute yet surprised face. So that’s about par for course.
The nice thing about Yamaguichi’s driving on the rather lengthy trip out to the Shimizu residence is that it doesn’t make Aizawa feel like he’s seconds away from death. In fact, around ten minutes in he decides to lean fully into dozy nodding off against the window and just lays across the backseat, passing out in minutes.
Aizawa’s woken an indeterminate amount of time later, stationary, and looking at Hitoshi’s face upside down as he knocks on the window.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.” If that isn’t an ironic address. Hitoshi opens the door while Aizawa’s still sprawled on his back like an upturned bug, gazing up at the face of a teenager who really has no reason to smirk or grin like this is a fun class outing. But for Hitoshi to look appropriately grave in the face of a situation would be to suggest he’s letting it get to him, which he’ll never do.
Flipping onto his stomach and crawling out of the car as much as he gets out of it, Aizawa staggers groggily to his feet and spots Hizashi’s car parked a couple of spaces over from them. Looking like a couple of models from a magazine shoot, Hizashi’s sitting back on the bonnet with Kiki at his elbow, both of them smoking what Aizawa can recognise as Kiki’s cigarettes. Neither are wearing jackets in honour of the heat, and underneath Kiki’s wearing a simple vest, Hizashi a t-shirt that flaunts his tattooed arms in a way that seems outright unfair.
“Have you got the keys?” Hitoshi peppers Aizawa enthusiastically, which Aizawa digs out of his pocket and drops in Hitoshi’s eager hand. The last time they were here, the circumstances weren’t so amenable between Aizawa and Hitoshi, and out of the desire to keep things smooth if nothing else, Aizawa’s not going to begrudge the aubergine over-eager beaver this much.
Glancing at Tsukauchi, who gives Aizawa a nod in return, Hitoshi scurries off towards him and the door. Aizawa heads over to Hizashi and Kiki, the enticing aroma of smoke drawing him in like a moth to a flame.
Their conversation quietens down as Aizawa approaches, but not so hurriedly anything seems amiss. If anything, the tail end of Hizashi’s sentence runs something like, “… which you can hear on most of the tracks in HUSTLE.” Aizawa should’ve known they’d be talking about music – HUSTLE is Hizashi’s second album, recorded in a largely drug-induced haze of his early twenties. Drugs Aizawa consistently acquired for Hizashi and partook in, but that isn’t the point and is mostly Cricket’s fault anyway. HUSTLE didn’t get much mainstream success, not rock enough to be rock or dance enough to be dance, but among Mic fans and pill-popping party goers is still considered a cult classic. Hizashi keeps talking about a throwing ten-year release anniversary party, which Aizawa doesn’t deny would be a hell of a shindig.
“Hey,” Hizashi lilts as Aizawa sidles up next to him, and Aizawa just murmurs inarticulately. He takes hold of Hizashi’s wrist to bring the smoking hand over to his mouth, nipping the cigarette from between Hizashi’s fingers to drag on like a nicotine-addicted vulture.
The sun is still strong, lighting all the colours of Hizashi’s tattoo sleeves like the skin of a chameleon, the gold of his hair drawn into a long ponytail that’s drooped and been re-made since the morning, and now falls in a sunset waterfall down his back. Aizawa’s caught Kiki asking him about various tattoos, though some clearly need no explanation. Aizawa’s goggles on Hizashi’s bicep, the lyrics of his first single and headlines as a Hero around each wrist, or the smiling and frowning theatre-mask mouths on the back of each hand to name a few. He’s an open book, and always has been. Aizawa’s the closed one.
Hizashi lets Aizawa filch his cigarette with a sultry smile, the language between them not always needing to be in words, and sometimes it’s just being next to Hizashi that gives Aizawa a boost of strength to keep going. They’ve inspired and driven each other since they first entered UA as Heroes in training, and the chemistry between them wasn’t always harmoniously compatible, but it was sure as shit always there. It’s one of the few immutable laws of the universe, but Aizawa’s still grateful for every new day Hizashi’s in his life. It’s hard to say all that in a look, but Aizawa certainly tries.
Kiki’s watching them with a peculiar expression, which Aizawa understands – even he’s surprised he’s with Hizashi sometimes, that he gets to be with someone he adores so wholly and completely. Aizawa’s sure she has questions, but Kiki’s gaze just lifts past their heads, dwelling on Hitoshi in the distance. “One of us should go with him.”
“I’ll go,” Hizashi offers, robbed of his cigarette that he shouldn’t be smoking anyway, damaging his precious vocal chords. Really, Aizawa’s doing him a favour.
Kiki and Aizawa share a look of consideration. “Alright,” she says first. If the rule is that Aizawa or she have to be with him at all times, they’ve fallen flat at the first smoke-break. But if anyone’s an acceptable stand-in for Aizawa it’s Hizashi. Hell, Kiki probably prefers him. Aizawa’s the unwanted free gift-bag that comes with the one and only Present Mic.
“Everything alright on the drive over?” Aizawa asks as Hizashi’s sauntering away, and Kiki just drags unappetisingly on her cigarette, mulling over her answer like a sour sweet in her mouth.
“He’s just so… excited about it.” The reservation pours off Kiki in waves, and Aizawa kind of gets it, but he doesn’t know Hitoshi like his mother does. “I’m worried it’ll…” she hesitates, but Aizawa lets her take her time, puffing away on his stolen cigarette. “He’s so much like Masaru sometimes, they just… go too far, often without realising it’s wrong. I start wondering if he’ll ever…”
“He won’t,” Aizawa insists, but wishes don’t get people far in this business. “And if he does, we’ll be there to stop him.”
The risk isn’t that Hitoshi will snap the way his father did, would actually hurt anyone maliciously. It’s not that, and Aizawa hopes Kiki knows that he knows that too. But it’s easy to go too far when you’re lost in the spiral, do or say things that can’t be undone, suffer the consequences no one should have to face at any age, let alone at the ripe old age of sixteen years young.
“Yes.” Kiki’s convincing herself of this as she says it, and Aizawa hopes it’s helpful to have him here, even just to echo something back at her, putting it into the real world instead of rattling around inside her head the way a mother’s worries always will. Aizawa’s dealt with enough worried mothers in his time as a teacher, so he gets that much.
“We should get going.” Aizawa finishes the rest of Hizashi’s cigarette in a few greedy puffs, stubbing it out on his buckle and then pocketing the stub, before holding his hand out for Kiki’s. She gives him a perplexed look, as if she thinks he’s offering for her to put her cigarette out in his hand for a second, but hands over the smoking stub instead which Aizawa disposes of the same way as his own. Carrying around cigarette stubs in his pockets might be ‘animal’ behaviour according to Hizashi, but it’s better than littering.
Leading the way, Kiki’s silent on the way up to the Shimizu apartment, and Aizawa wonders how much she knows about this place, or this case. Whether it matters. Their group is rather large now, larger than Aizawa’s used to working with, and keeping everyone on the same page is a lot of work.
Tsukauchi must be thinking the same way, because when they get to the floor of the Shimizu’s apartment, the right door is immediately obvious from Yamaguichi standing guard outside it.
“Oh, there you are Mr. Eraser,” Yamaguichi calls out when she sees him and Kiki walking up. “Detective Tsukauchi asked me to wait outside, but if you need anything just call for me, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Aizawa feels a little bad for her really, kept on the outside even when it’s for her own good. Perhaps Hitoshi will tell his favoured Yankumi what’s really going on, but if he doesn’t then it’s not down to Aizawa. “Thanks.”
Stepping back into the Shimizu apartment is weird, both exactly the same as when they left it but also like an alien planet. Places change when the people inside them leave, and with the lone occupant of this place not likely to be leaving the hospital, or worse, for a very long time, it’s as if the rooms have gone into mourning, closing a bad chapter in its history. The things these walls have seen, Aizawa dreads to think about as he leads Kiki straight to the bedroom.
“And you’re sure that’s going to be enough?” Tsukauchi can be heard saying in the distance, as Aizawa and Kiki tread soft on the plush carpet Mr. Shimizu was dragged down to his death. The body is gone already, obviously, and there’s been some efforts to clean up the crime scene but much of the bloodstain remains, visible through the open door where the Detective stands worriedly by Hitoshi’s side, Hizashi loitering further in the background.
“He’ll know what it means,” Hitoshi answers confidently, looking up at the wall where the original Deathnote was written. They must have cleaned the old one up, Aizawa deduces, and armed with a supply of red ink that Nezu insisted would look convincingly enough like blood for a low-quality picture, Hitoshi has gone about rewriting the copycat killer’s words in his own image.
Because in this game it’s not Mrs. Shimizu who killed her husband, but Hitoshi. And the message he’s left is for the father who tried to break him, to turn his own son into a lethal weapon. So even if the murder itself is a facade, the messages – the fact they’re from Hitoshi, to Dr. Shinsou – are as genuine as it gets. Their awful ace in the hole.
Aizawa walks as slowly as if he’s carrying a coffin, finally stepping into the room with heavy anticipation. The last time he did this, Aizawa had guessed what would be written on the wall in blood almost exactly, based on what he knew about the victim in relation to their killer. Now he’s got not an idea as such, but a notion, perhaps, of the kind of thing Hitoshi wants to say to Dr. Shinsou.
There’s still a horror though, a deep, primal repulsion at seeing the fake Deathnote, the bright crimson against the pale wall scrubbed clean of the original message. Even though Aizawa knows it’s just ink, painted with brushes Nezu also gave to them, he still gets chills from the two words Hitoshi has written up on the wall while Aizawa and Kiki dawdled with feet made of lead. Aizawa doesn’t know what Kiki makes of this, but he does hear her sharp inhale as she enters the room after him.
In large, dominating strokes from as high as Hitoshi can reach to as low as his knees, because in this language writing it bigger means shouting it louder, Hitoshi has issued his opening call to his father.
HAPPY NOW?
Notes:
BUMDADUMDUMDAUDUMDAUDUM! Dramaaaaaaaaaaa~
Honestly it's a huge but rewarding challenge trying to find new ways to escalate this story, and having Hitoshi now start creating his own 'deathnotes' once I thought of it was FAR TOO tempting a prospect to resist.
I also love closing loops so being able to bring the Shimizus back like this was a bolt of inspiration, and the entire first scene of this chapter was a totally unplanned thing that I really enjoy on reflection, especially having her little moment with Aizawa. I actually never plan the full-circle things like this ahead of time, I just look back on what I've done when I'm plotting ahead and try to draw on what's already there in order to build a sense of continuity by creating these throwbacks where I can. It's a strange way to construct a story, perhaps, but seems to work for me.
Chapter 65: Perpetual Motion
Summary:
Everything keeps on moving, pieces fall into place.
Notes:
It's super gratifying to me that last chapter's title was the final message and people were STILL surprised by it while also thinking it fits perfectly, so thanks for that. We're tearing through this (sixth) masterdoc it feels like, and I'm actually starting to reach the final stretch of the story in the distance. It's been a JOURNEY, and the fact that y'all are still so engaged and invested in the story is truly wonderful and I really appreciate it. That said we've still got a way to go, it's just getting ever-slowly-closer to the end.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The inside of Hizashi’s car is silent as a grave after Aizawa, Kiki, Hitoshi and the walking-talking sunflower himself get in, setting off for the Police Station from the Shimizu apartment, but this silence only lasts for about three seconds after Hizashi pulls away.
“Well, that was fucked up,” their chauffeur declares of the mess that just went down back there. After admiring Hitoshi’s handiwork, they left the apartment after taking some convincingly creepy pictures of Hitoshi’s first ‘Deathnote’ to use with the press, who’ll be no doubt clustered outside the police station along with even worse sorts. Aizawa’s kind of glad to have sacrificed the front seat to Kiki, because sharing the back with Hitoshi gives him more opportunity to see how the would-be murderer in the making reacts.
“It had to be,” Hitoshi answers without a ripple of distress showing on his cool, calculated surface, and Aizawa remembers the conversation he had with Kiki earlier. How the Shinsous just go too far sometimes, too deep in the woods to realise they’re doing anything wrong. Aizawa knows about being in too deep himself, and has no doubt that Dr. Shinsou believes wholly in everything he’s ever done, and doesn’t see himself as a monster in the slightest. They have to hope Hitoshi understands that too, because it’s the only way this mad scheme stands a chance at working.
“This was the easy part,” Aizawa points out without trying to be a massive buzzkill, even if it’s sort of his prerogative. “The hard part will be making sure he sees it, and believes the message came from you.”
“Even if he doesn’t at first, I’ll convince him.” Aizawa wonders if Hitoshi is so calm to keep his own nerve steady, and that his projecting on the outside is the means to tame what's within. Or maybe he does just believe this through and through, knows exactly how to get to his father, and is confident that whatever he does will get the Doc’s attention hook, line and sinker. Aizawa’s not sure which one is more worrying.
The lacklustre teen certainly looks the part in an atmospheric noir drama, eyes droopy as he stares listlessly out the window at the barren suburban jungle they drive through. He seems a little pale, even, and Aizawa’s wondering how much of a toll all this is taking on him, physically as well as emotionally, when the lion cub breaks into an indicative yawn. Sleeping on Aizawa’s sofa probably isn’t all that restful, especially after last night, and though Aizawa might have caught up on some Zs during the long drive out here, he doesn’t know if the same goes for Hitoshi.
Out of anyone, Aizawa knows the value of a catnap, so it’s really with only the best of intentions that he offers his shoulder and the quiet invitation, “Lean on me, if you want.” Hitoshi looks utterly confused, and even Kiki turns around to give Aizawa a perplexed stare for a few seconds, causing Aizawa to specify, “If you want to rest, I mean.”
“Okay, where did that come from?” Hitoshi questions suspiciously, which is weird that this is the strange question when the subject they changed from discussing was so much fucking weirder. Hitoshi’s talking about how his fake Deathnotes will definitely get his father’s attention but sure, Aizawa’s the oddball for suggesting the kid can nap on his shoulder if he wants.
“You look tired,” Aizawa answers truthfully, which has Hitoshi wrinkling his nose disapprovingly. “Alright, don’t bother then,” he continues. “It was just an offer.”
“Wait,” Hitoshi’s quick to interject. “I didn’t say no.”
“Keep your seatbelt fastened,” is Kiki’s only requirement from the front. Hitoshi dutifully shifts across to the middle seat and fastens himself back in before he drapes his head on the fresh pile of capture weapon around Aizawa’s shoulders like a personal travel pillow.
Hitoshi must be as tired as he looks, because he’s barely taken a few deep breaths in the pile of Aizawa’s capture weapon on top of his shoulder before he seems to have drifted straight off. Up in front, Hizashi and Kiki have started talking about Hizashi’s music again, so it’s not long before Aizawa’s nodding off himself, coming to rest on the brushy pillow of Hitoshi’s hair as the lights slowly dim.
Aizawa doesn’t mean to fall asleep, he’s just a contagious sleeper, and anyone at rest around him is likely to lull him into slumber too. Whether Hitoshi’s mood is actually something he can pick up on those ultra-mental wavelengths is neither here nor there, but suffice to say Aizawa wakes up drooling in Hitoshi’s hair to the sound of Hizashi chuckling, “Send it to me,” as Aizawa shuffles back into the land of the living.
Aizawa realises what ‘it’ they’re referring to when he wipes his mouth and drowsily checks his phone, concluding he’s only been out twenty minutes or so, and that Hitoshi is still soundly clocked out on his shoulder. Rather than share the image with Hizashi directly, Kiki’s posted a picture in the new four-way chat between them that she clearly took while Aizawa was out. Him and Hitoshi piled up on top of each other, completely dead to the world in the backseat.
Usually Aizawa would put on a show of being annoyed about being photographed when he’s asleep, as it’s one of Hizashi’s longest-running and most favourite ways to wind Aizawa up no end, but even Aizawa can admit this one is pretty cute. Or Hitoshi is, as Aizawa’s hesitant to apply any such label to himself. He’s just the stained black body pillow that Hitoshi’s slumped over so peacefully, and Aizawa’s glad he can be of even that small comfort to the kid at this time.
“How far away are we?” Aizawa asks with a sleep-fresh croak, and Kiki turns around towards him in the backseat.
“About ten minutes.” While Kiki always looks at Aizawa the way someone regards a child with extremely sticky hands trying to grab their skirt, her gaze softens after lingering on her son resting on Aizawa’s shoulder, which he can certainly appreciate. He’s a thirty-one year old man with no relationship to Hitoshi past the last couple of weeks, and even he thinks Hitoshi is completely adorable when he’s sleeping, so his own mother’s hardly going to be exempt.
She doesn’t say anything, but Aizawa’s certain, when he tunes his mentalist dial just right, that he can shape out the thought Kiki projects whether she wants to or not: they grow up so fast.
Aizawa lets Hitoshi sleep right until they get to the police station, or as near to it as they can get before the protestors and cluster of media become too thick to navigate. Since news of Dr. Shinsou’s escape broke earlier today things certainly haven’t gotten any better, that’s for-fucking-sure, and Hizashi takes them as far as he’s willing to go in his pet-project of a supercar. When Aizawa found out how much Hizashi spent on this particular toy he threw an absolute fit, but there’s nothing his tantrums have ever done to sway Hizashi’s desire to exchange huge stacks of cash for utterly indulgent luxuries, so they really just argue for the fun of it.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” Aizawa echoes back at Hitoshi with a gentle jostle of his shoulder, and when Hitoshi picks his head up and looks at Aizawa, their faces are extremely close, which adds an alarming new intensity to the line Hitoshi had surely meant as facetious when he used it with Aizawa earlier. Probably because ‘sleeping beauty’ is far more sarcastic when applied to Aizawa, but with Hitoshi it’s pretty easy to see how striking he is, even at this tender age – the high, prominent cheekbones and soulful eyes, how each iris is rich violet encircled with a tighter ring of darker colour, flecks from the inside out fraying the exact line between darkness and light. That’s Hitoshi too, blurring boundaries between darkness and light, becoming the thing his father always wanted him to be – a villain like society always expected him to be – but only as a means to do the most good possible, at any risk.
If there’s ever a Hero who has personified the rejection of society’s expectations, literally rubbed out where the masses got their workings wrong and made them try again, it’s Eraserhead. So Hitoshi might be imitating his father to get to the Doc and Shiyoko, but truly, he’s being more like Aizawa than ever.
“Oh,” Hitoshi says with fuzzy focus, and slow blinks, his riveting gaze honed in on Aizawa’s face while the movement of the car jostles them closer and farther apart each time they round a corner. The dark circles under Hitoshi’s eyes haven’t gotten any lesser, but the fatigued glaze to them has, especially after he brings overly large hands to his face to rub up and then through his hair, dragging the peaks out where sleeping on Aizawa has flattened them. Ready for action again, like a good Hero must.
Hizashi parks up well out of sight of any trouble, because they all know what happened to Tsukauchi’s car when it was fair game in one of Aizawa’s high-stakes pursuit, and if Hizashi trashed his car under such circumstances the ensuing blowout between them would be worse than any clash of villains – Hizashi throwing a fit over the car being wrecked, followed by Aizawa with a fresh new tantrum about spending even close to as much money to replace it. Best not to go there.
Aizawa finally tears himself away from the edge of Hitoshi’s hypnotising waterfall expression to find familiarity behind mirrored gold shades in the rear-view mirror, which is when Hizashi announces, “Do you want me to do my thing?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Aizawa answers cryptically, which has the makings of a pout creeping into Hitoshi’s expression like a fox on the prowl.
“Do what thing?” Hitoshi asks about as predictably as Aizawa’s come to expect from anything not made immediately obvious to him. But Hizashi’s better observed than explained.
Aizawa unbuckles his seatbelt and reaches behind him for the handle to open the car door, not wavering from renewed eye contact with Hitoshi, but denying the teen the explanation he feels owed. “You’ll see.”
Aizawa backs out of the car first, while Hizashi follows round from the front. Kiki and Hitoshi get out a moment later, both a little puzzled by what they don’t know is coming next. Hizashi goes to the back of the car and pops the trunk, pulling out his support gear to clip around his neck and following with his official Hero variant of leather jacket – he’s got at least a dozen of them at any given point in time, always losing or destroying them. They’ve become collector’s items in their own right, and he’s usually got a silver sharpie on his person to sign any that are brought back to him for an autograph by devoted fans.
“Any requests?” Hizashi asks playfully as he shrugs into the jacket and pulls up the zip, coming to lean with a hip against the car facing Aizawa. He slips his hands into fingerless gloves that come out of the pocket, and if Kiki and Hitoshi weren’t here then Aizawa would kiss him, just for being himself. He doesn’t, not because Aizawa’s hiding anything anymore, but just because he doesn’t like to be observed in these vulnerable moments.
Aizawa shakes his head, then remembers he’s only one half of this partnership, because with Kiki and Hitoshi standing right there Hizashi darts forward fearlessly to plant a kiss square on Aizawa’s mouth and pulls back with a beaming smile. “See ya on the inside!”
Hizashi turns and starts legging it away, bolting out of the quiet side-street he’s parked and rounding the corner in front of the police station. Chancing a look over at Hitoshi and Kiki, Aizawa can see a hint of what might be a blush on both of their faces, though perhaps it’s good practice for Hizashi to get them used to seeing these small expressions of affection. That’ll make it easier for the inevitable point where they’re caught doing something much more embarrassing.
It’s a regrettable fact that the UA teaching staff all know about Aizawa and Hizashi’s relationship, whether they’ve been told or not, to the point of there being a blackboard in the staff room for counting how many times everyone has walked in on or overheard them going at it each school year – the winner gets a bottle of Hizashi’s good whiskey as a consolation prize at graduation, which has been Ectoplasm’s honour for three consecutive years. It’s not like they do it on purpose or anything, but especially when Aizawa’s not always coming home at night, school is sometimes the only time they get to see each other. Free periods were made for bathroom-stall quickies followed by catnaps as far as Aizawa’s concerned. But it’s not something he talks to any of his colleagues about, or ever displays to them on purpose, so it doesn’t count the same way as people who’ve officially been ‘told’ about his relationship with a loudmouthed, leather-clad superstar.
“What’s he gonna do?” Hitoshi asks again, but while Hizashi’s out of sight, he’s never out of earshot, so Hitoshi’s question is answered in true form moments later.
“HEY EVERYONE IT’S ME, PRESENT MIC, THANKS FOR COMING OUT TODAY TO THIS ONE-OFF BENEFIT FOR THE VICTIMS OF WRONGLY TICKETED PARKING VIOLATIONS! LET ME HEAR YOU MAKE SOME NOISE!”
In the short pause that follows, the only sound is Aizawa’s own footsteps as he starts to walk in the opposite direction to the way Hizashi went, heading for the back entrance of the Police Station while his partner pulls focus out front. They might be total opposites in a lot of ways, but let it never be said that Aizawa and Hizashi don’t work well together.
“NOBODY?! WELL THAT’S OKAY, I’M HERE TO GET YOU ALL IN THE MOOD, LET’S SUPPORT THOSE UNFAIRLY FINED VICTIMS! FUCK PARKING INSPECTORS, AM I RIGHT?!”
Walking parallel to the road in front of the police station, Hizashi’s voice retains perfect clarity in any and every direction, so Aizawa can only imagine how grating it is for the unsuspecting crowd actually next to the human megaphone who’s currently indulging his genetic requirement to be the centre of attention. Meanwhile, Hitoshi looks completely bemused by all of this, making faces at Aizawa that are only responded to with a shrug; if anything, Kiki seems almost like she’d love to be over there with the crowd cheering Hizashi on, though perhaps not this crowd.
“WELL I DIDN’T GET BOOKED WITH A BAND SO WE’RE GOING TO ROCK THIS GIG ACAPELLA, AND THIS FIRST TRACK IS DEDICATED TO THE PEOPLE WE’RE ALL HERE TO CELEBRATE. PEOPLE WHO GOT STUPID PARKING TICKETS, WE’RE DOING THIS FOR YOU!”
Hizashi’s voice shifts towards musicality, but the volume maintains at a steady foghorn, and the opening words are embedded in Aizawa’s brain like scar tissue.
“SomeBODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME!”
Aizawa doesn’t know too many songs, or have a huge appreciation for music in general, honestly, but he’s well acquainted with Hizashi’s songbook of favourites. Pretty much all of Aizawa’s English comes from the lyrics of stupid songs Hizashi likes to sing at him, so even if he doesn’t know the meaning of them, he’s well aware of the words.
“I AIN’T THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED.”
Hitoshi rocks up closer to Aizawa as they near the end of the street, straining above the ruckus coming from Hizashi in the distance with a bemused, “He’s, like… for real, isn’t he?”
Aizawa understands where the question comes from. Students of Hizashi’s usually think that he’s just a little eccentric, and don’t always realise that what they see is a fraction of a whole more insane and uncontrollable than their wildest dreams. Or they think that Hizashi’s zaniness is part of an act, something he does for a teaching persona, and are shocked to discover that he’s never lived an inauthentic day in his life, no veneer of being the ‘cool teacher’ here, he’s just actually that fucking crazy.
“All day, every day,” Aizawa replies like the long-suffering partner he is, even if he’s loved most of it. Not all, but most of it.
“Sheesh.” Hitoshi’s world view has taken a lot of adjusting recently, but Aizawa doesn’t feel threatened by this as he had before, knowing that Hitoshi doesn’t have a problem with him or Hizashi. He’s just new to the concept of them, and needs time to learn why they’re simultaneously the best and worst thing that have ever happened to each other.
Hizashi’s stunt works perfectly, of course, and no one notices Aizawa, Hitoshi and Kiki sneaking up to the back of the Police Station where a high fence separates the outside from the smoking alleyway. It's recently been topped with barbed wire, which is going to be a pain in the ass, though hopefully not literally.
Pulling a fistful of his capture weapon free, Aizawa flicks his hand to send it up in waves that roll over each other one after the other to layer over a section of the wire, until its thick enough to probably not stab anyone.
“You first,” he says to Hitoshi, which is when Kiki asks a fair question.
"Are we breaking into the police station?"
"Only a little.” Aizawa next directs Hitoshi with the instruction, "Stay on top."
"Figures." Hitoshi’s at least somewhat refreshed after his short nap, and Aizawa's relieved. They all need to be at their sharpest, and the brain needs time to rest. Especially a brain like Hitoshi's, pumping out that signal flare of mentalist power all the time.
Aizawa leans with his back to the chain link fence in the dingy alleyway of tarmac and toneless concrete, his knees slightly bent. Kiki is watching them from a distance, a look of indistinct curiosity on her face of delicate curves and a few hard lines. Satin wrapped around a brick, and hopefully not hurled at Aizawa’s head.
Hitoshi strides up confidently and lands his first step up on Aizawa thigh, then takes a boost from Aizawa's hand with the other foot to quickly reach his shoulder, and climbs up the rest of the way onto the fence like a squirrel racing up a tree. Aizawa resists an urge to say be careful, because he imagines the barbed wire says it for him, and just holds his hand back out when Hitoshi throws one leg over the top of the fence and sits there, seemingly comfortable on the padding of Aizawa’s capture weapon. Only the sharpest ends of Hawks' feathers could pierce the material earlier, so a little barbed wire is a walk in the park by comparison.
"C'mon, Ma," Hitoshi invites when Kiki stalls, just standing there not realising who they're waiting for. Even though what else would they be doing?
"Oh." She steps forward quickly, and Aizawa always imagined Kiki would find it easy to walk all over him, but there's a little hesitance in her movements as she takes the first step with her pristine trainer on Aizawa's grubby leg. She wobbles as her weight transfers and the hand Aizawa holds out is clasped in her own.
"I got you." Hitoshi beckons with another hand he holds out for Kiki to latch onto, pulling up as Aizawa pushes from below and together they ease her up and over the fence. Aizawa grabs Hitoshi's ankle as he supports his Ma on the way down too, more than enough of a counterweight to anchor Hitoshi while he lowers Kiki down gently rather than drops her. Hitoshi clambers over next, pulling a thread of the capture weapon loose to slide down on, fishing it out of the bundle with jerky shakes. His prize won, Hitoshi wraps the new piece around his neck in addition to the ones he's already filched slowly but surely from Aizawa, taking them one at a time as he's ready for each new step. It’s wonderful to watch him grow, and Aizawa only wishes sometimes it wouldn’t go so fast.
But speaking of fast, they’ve got places to be. With Kiki and Hitoshi watching from the other side of the fence, Aizawa yanks back on the tail of the remaining mass of his capture weapon tangled over the barbed wire, using it as a slingshot to launch himself up and over, turning a forward somersault guided by the give and take of his tethers and landing on the other side as he whips the flurry of tendrils into an airborne frenzy, a twist in his arm prompting them to coil and wrap around each other as they fall spooling around Aizawa’s neck.
"Showoff," Hitoshi jabs, while Kiki looks plain astonished. She's seen what Aizawa’s capable of before, but compared to the way she sees him the rest of the time it's probably quite easy to forget he’s not always a weird shitshow of a person. Just mostly, between his occasional flashes of brilliance.
The smoking alley is the same as always, slight less crowded for the police officer who isn't visiting anymore. Aizawa imagines Tama can't smoke at all in the hospital, and it's a good reason to get him to take a break if nothing else, which Aizawa only wishes he could say for himself. Tentative efforts to cut back have turned back into as many cigarettes a day as he's able to get away with, but at least for now won’t include one here. Doesn’t feel right without Tama.
"Tsukauchi is probably waiting for us," Aizawa announces as he strolls up to the fire exit back door and pries it open. It’s meant to be locked, probably, but then how would people like him be able to get in?
"Wonder if he managed to find our guy," Hitoshi speculates as he cuts in past Aizawa, still holding the door open. Kiki follows after with an air that suggests she's apprehensive about this place for some reason she's not yet saying, and Aizawa would love to dive into that a little more, but they can figure it out as they go.
Anyone could be mistaken for thinking Hitoshi's 'guy' refers to the fake murder victim they left evidence of earlier today, but Tsukauchi was with them for that little piece of theatre, and this is a different guy for Hitoshi's first forays into the bloody world of deathnotes. They'd hammered out the idea during the planning session with Nezu, one of many pieces the Principal assisted them with moving across the board just so, playing a deadly game that it could even be thought the sociopathic critter enjoyed.
Aizawa knows good and well that part of the Principal just wants to find out if he can outsmart the infamous Professor, though that is what they're trying to do, if for different reasons. Nezu has good intentions, as do they all, but is probably also a little selfish, a little curious to measure his intellect against the Doc's and see which one comes out the mightier. Suffice to say, Aizawa’s really fucking glad Nezu is on their side.
Tsukauchi is loitering in the next hallway that Aizawa and the Shinsou mother-and-son combo come across, and has been expecting them of course, making his own way back from the Shimizus'. His crumpled shirt has managed to undo another of its top buttons, normally combed hair definitively tousled, and Aizawa's not sure he's ever seen the Detective look so unkempt. He almost looks… good. It's weird.
“I must be going crazy,” Aizawa mutters to himself as he rolls up and stops nearby the rumpled Detective, not thinking that Tsukauchi might overhear the ravings of a lunatic.
“That’d imply you were ever sane, Eraser,” Tsukauchi jokes amiably, and Aizawa swallows his embarrassment or potential awkwardness in favour of pretending it never even happened. He’s probably just stressed, that’s it.
“Did you get him?” Aizawa gets straight to business, which is a delightful retreat to sink into when things might otherwise be too casual.
“I certainly did,” Tsukauchi confirms, leading them all to a door in the hallway of identical interrogation rooms, although one’s got a few more bullet holes in it than the others. “But are you sure he’s the one?”
“Oh yes.” Hitoshi steps in front to rest his handle on the door, and Aizawa's not sure if he's practising being creepy or it just comes naturally in this moment, but his tone is enough to run chills up Aizawa’s back. "He'll do nicely."
Tsukauchi fires a hesitant look at Aizawa over Hitoshi's head that silently asks if Hitoshi's okay, but before they can come to any conclusion on it Hitoshi has opened the door and breezed inside like a violet silk scarf carried on the wind. He's inside the room before Aizawa can get in after him, so Aizawa hears the greeting before he sees anything.
"Hello, Sugiyama," Hitoshi outright purrs. "Thanks for coming at such short notice."
Aizawa’s followed Hitoshi in by this point, where the tabloid journalist and thorn in their foot whose life Hitoshi saved is slumped behind the desk like an unbothered kid at the back of the classroom, but he sits up straight when Aizawa walks in.
"Oh, it's you," Sugiyama remarks with all due suspicion, watching carefully through his jam jar glasses as Tsukauchi and then Kiki all file in too. "What's going on?"
"Show him the goods, Tsukauchi," Hitoshi makes out like he's running this investigation, which would be funny if he wasn't doing such an uncanny job of being a little creep. Tsukauchi pulls out his phone and opens it on a series of pictures they took only hours ago, setting the device on the table where Sugiyama can see.
"What's this? Another murder?" Sugiyama's hair sits flat and oily to his head, and always looks just slippery enough to resist being grabbed, though Aizawa had no trouble punching him the other day. The bruise is somewhat faded now, but more aged than actually decreased in noticeability.
"A copycat," Hitoshi answers, taking a seat in the chair on the other side of the table from Sugiyama and leaning back comfortably. This isn't the exact room where Shiyoko's victim shot himself in front of them, but it's similar enough to put Aizawa on edge all the same. "Someone's re-purposed the Deathnote Killer's method for their own goals."
"Happy now?" Sugiyama reads, and it still makes Aizawa a little sick to think about. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's a message for Dr. Shinsou," Hitoshi answers simply, and if Sugiyama knows where this is going he hasn't given it away yet.
"From who? The copycat killer?" Sugiyama looks around at the adults in the room like he might be wondering why they're deathly quiet while the teenager does all the talking, but this is Hitoshi's insane plan, so he might as well be allowed to do the brunt of the work. "Do you have any suspects?"
"Oh yes," Hitoshi confirms, and Aizawa hates what he knows is coming next.
"Who?" It's some small comfort, however minimal, that Sugiyama didn't jump straight to suspecting Hitoshi, even if it'd be kind of helpful if he did.
"You're looking at him." Hitoshi's so cool you could make ice cubes in his mouth, his eyes hanging at a sultry half-mast, his voice with the properties of the darkest chocolate – the only kind Aizawa eats, the rest all too sweet for him.
“What?” Sugiyama mouths with a frown like he's trying to chew a mouthful of gravel. “You’re the copycat?”
“That’s what we want him to think,” Hitoshi explains next, and of course there’s a less dramatic way to do this, but when has Hitoshi ever been averse to a little drama?
“Who?”
“My dad,” Hitoshi bites with that Shinsou sociopathic shell over his real face, the mask of not-caring and can’t-shake-me that he wears like he was taught how to. “And I need your help to do it.” It’s fitting that Hitoshi says I and not we, because Aizawa, Kiki and Tsukauchi might all be hovering around him, the guardians on watch, but this is all Hitoshi.
Sugiyama looks as unsteady as a drunk donkey on deck of a ship during a storm, and Aizawa sure hopes they picked the right person for this. “But… why?”
“He’s out there killing people, trying to kill lots of people, and he’s not going to stop,” Hitoshi starts to unroll like a prophecy written in blood. “To catch him we need to draw him out of his comfort zone.” Awful reality, that Dr. Shinsou’s comfort zone is excessive murder. “So I’m going to convince him I’ve become a killer too, and persuade him to meet me.”
Sugiyama looks past Hitoshi’s head at the three stony-faced guardians standing watch over Hitoshi, not needing to say the part about how this is where they come in, and just sinks back down to Hitoshi with, “What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Tell the story the way I need it to be told,” Hitoshi explains with cool and charm beyond his fragile years, projecting that air he does of being timeless, something rare and magical that’s existed for a long time and only looks like a teenage boy on the surface. “I line them up and you knock them down. Gets you a scoop, doesn’t it?”
“About… how Dr. Shinsou’s son has followed in his footsteps?” Sugiyama phrases exactly the way to make Aizawa’s skin crawl the most, and he can sense the pulse of sharp, angry energy from Kiki next to him. Aizawa doesn’t want to have to erase her quirk to stop her mentally assaulting Sugiyama, but if he has to…
“Not that bluntly, of course,” Hitoshi settles with the same calculated, this-doesn’t-bother-me atmosphere he presided over the plan-hatching around Nezu’s coffee table earlier in the day. “Dad’ll see that coming. It’ll be tricky, but as long as you’re willing to portray it the way I want you to, we’re in business.”
“What if I refuse?” Sugiyama tests, and being a snakey, devious kind of fellow it makes sense he’d have to go here. Aizawa clenches a fist, and just as he’s starting to grind his teeth feels Kiki’s hand slip gently around his wrist. Holding him back, or for comfort. Aizawa can't tell the difference.
“Then you go about your merry way, telling no one about this,” Hitoshi remarks carelessly.
“And if I refuse to do that?”
“You’d rather not find out what happens then,” Hitoshi promises with foreboding as deep as dark water, all that depth of the ocean underneath just waiting to swallow someone up.
Looking at Tsukauchi, Sugiyama asks, “You’re fine with this?”
“You could be considered to be obstructing the path of justice by not cooperating,” Tsukuachi points out neutrally, and coming from him it’s about as unnerving as Hitoshi’s psychopath bit. “We’d have to hold you until the case is finished in order to ensure the sensitive information you’ve been given access to remains secure, if that’s the way you’d like to go with this.”
“No. I was just… figuring out how serious you were.” Sugiyama isn’t stupid, unfortunately, even if he is a bit of a git. He’s younger than Aizawa by a ways, and has all the spring of youth in his step and a nose for a story at any cost. It didn’t seem likely he was going to turn this offer down. “So you want me to do an exposé on the Deathnote Killer’s copycat?”
“Exactly,” Hitoshi confirms. “We won't outright say that it's me, though you can drop some hints if you’re clever about it. There’s going to be more.”
“More?” Sugiyama echoes like he fears what the answer is.
“Copycat murders.” Even sitting slumped into the uncomfortable police interrogation chair at the table, Hitoshi projects an aura like oil sitting on top of a cold ocean – as if one spark would set him alight. Then his head tilts, the jaunty angle accentuated by the sculpted lift of his deep violet hair, and he says as light as a feather, “Not for real, obviously. It’ll just look that way.”
“And you’ll give me the tip-off,” Sugiyama lays out thoughtfully, and Aizawa can already tell this wasn’t a misjudgement, that they’ve got exactly the bloodhound for the job. “I’ll know about the murders before anyone else does.”
Hitoshi smiles, but in the current context this comes off a little unhinged. “Lucrative enough?”
Sugiyama makes out like he’s thinking about it, but the cards are down already, so it’s not too long before he leans over the table to hold one of his oily hands out to shake Hitoshi’s. “You’ve got a deal.”
Notes:
BOOM! This can't possibly count as a cliffhanger because it's just a dramatic scene-ender, but oh we're cooking with gas now, naughty children.
Also in case it isn't obvious...... I love Hizashi. Yes. I do. And with a story this length it was purely a matter of time before him singing Smashmouth happened. Y'all welcome.
Also WHO IS ON THE HYPE TRAIN FOR HITOSHI'S COPYCAT MURDERER ACT??..... JUST ME???? Ok then.
Chapter 66: Cold Case
Summary:
In a world where Aizawa hates almost everything, what rises to the top?
Notes:
I'm so thrilled by how hype people are for Hitoshi's creepy murderer act. Oh ye of little faith who thought this plan was insane when he first suggested it! Of course it's insane, that's what makes it really POP.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The morgue is exactly how it always is. Cold, dingy, and everything lifeless about it replaced with the energy of one lively mortician. While the light of day rarely makes it down here, today it makes for a lovely respite from biting summer heat.
“Eraser! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Kuwabara’s filling out paperwork behind a desk piled high with an assortment of files and autopsy instruments, not all of which look clean. Aizawa supposes she doesn’t have to worry about the risk of infection for her ‘patients’ down here.
“Need a body,” Aizawa answers concisely, which naturally provokes the mortician to break into peals of raucous laughter.
“Well you came to the right place!” There’s something distinct about Kuwabara’s presence in this dire containment, her wiry red hair and broad, matronly build of a woman who has seen and done all there is to do that’s worth doing. That such a being chooses to spend her time cutting up dead people says a lot about the world. “What can I do you for?”
“Fresh,” Aizawa specifies, and Hitoshi is undeniably smirking at his elbow. Kiki remained upstairs with Tsukauchi, apparently not falling over herself to go shopping for corpses like her son is. This also gives her and the Detective a little extra time to hash out the details with Sugiyama, which, as the mastermind of the press angle, is well within Kiki’s domain. “Preferably someone easy to carry.”
“You goin’ somewhere? You know I can’t just lose bodies,” Kuwabara stops writing and sticks her pen into her bun, getting up from the desk to clomp over in thick-soled working shoes.
“Need you to lose at least one. Call it a favour.” Aizawa’s running up a lot of those, but he’s sure he must have done something for Kuwabara to be owed it, or he’ll do something eventually to qualify as paying it off.
Kuwabara narrows her hazel eyes, gaze darting between Aizawa and Hitoshi like she can figure their plan out just by looking. “What’s this for?”
“We’re planning something,” Aizawa tries to keep it light on details, but doesn’t get far.
“We’re staging a murder,” Hitoshi throws in. “So ideally someone who died without leaving marks on the body. A blank canvas, you know." Aizawa hates how much sense that makes, while Hitoshi thinks for a moment longer, then adds, “And do you have any blood?”
Kuwabara gives one of her distinctive sealion laughs. “Why, you thirsty?”
“Need to put on a proper show,” Hitoshi answers slyly, and if Aizawa’s not mistaken, he’s enjoying leaning into the whole creepy killer-in-the-pretend-making bit. Hitoshi certainly seems to like giving people the willies, exploiting those wrong assumptions about him as a petard to hoist the mechanic with, now it’s just on a whole new level. “We can make do if you don’t, though.”
“Oh no, I’ve got pints of the stuff. It’s frozen, but give it a while and it’ll thaw right out.” Kuwabara heads to a large freezer at the back of the room and swings the door open. Aizawa’s sure he sees body parts crammed in there along with bags of ice as she pulls out a bound stack of pouches and plods back over to Aizawa and Hitoshi, tossing them with a heavy thunk onto the bare autopsy table.
“What are you keeping blood in the freezer down here for?” Aizawa finds himself curious enough to ask.
“For situations just like this, of course!” Kuwabara chortles. “Never know when that stuff’s gonna come in handy.”
“Uh… right.” Hitoshi might actually be getting out-weirded on this one, but takes it in his stride. “What kind of bodies have you got?”
“Hmm, let’s see.” Kuwabara starts to patrol along the wall of morgue drawers, inspecting the tags in each window before stopping on one. “Here we go, he came in yesterday from a heart attack.” With a grunt she hauls the drawer out, and a man of at least eighty years rolls out on the cold metal tray of the body-drawer.
“We said fresh,” Hitoshi scorns.
“He is fresh! Died less than a day ago, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, we need something fresher,” Hitoshi returns. “Preferably not a hundred years old. It has to be someone whose life has been cut short.” It’s such a small thing to specify, but Aizawa hates the connecting thought – that to convince Dr. Shinsou his murderous son is for real, it has to be in cold blood, no mercy killings here.
“Yeesh.” Kuwabara whistles, reaching for one of the pens in her hair to scratch her scalp with in a moment of contemplation. “You’re kinda fucked up, kid, yanno that?” Maybe Hitoshi’s winning in the weirdness trials after all.
“Oh yeah,” Hitoshi retorts. “As a matter of fact, I hear it all the time.” For Hitoshi, the stranger thing is being treated like a Hero, which has every fiber of Aizawa’s being screaming with the injustice. How and why is this the best expression of Hitoshi’s heroic potential infuriates Aizawa, and if it weren’t Hitoshi’s own plan there’s no way he’d allow it in a million years. He’s barely allowing it now.
Kuwabara gets back to perusing, and the otherwise jovial smile from her face disappears when she reads the next tag. “How about this one?” With a clatter the drawer rolls back, revealing a young woman of perhaps twenty or thirty, beautiful and pristine on the table.
Hitoshi’s not smirking anymore either. “What happened to her?”
“Boyfriend found out she was cheating and smothered her with a pillow,” Kuwabara replies with a bite like a guard dog seeing down intruders. “Don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with some people.” Aizawa doesn’t either, and his temper’s no lessened for this new proof of everything wrong with mankind. Just in case Hitoshi needed a reminder of what could’ve become of Mrs. Shimizu if she hadn’t turned the tables on her husband. Hitoshi’s watching solemnly with saucer-eyes wide and soulful, which is when Kuwabara offers a conciliatory, “We got the bastard, though.”
But it’s not much of a prize, is it? If the bastard’s still alive, and here’s the victim on the table.
Aizawa’s hit with a new wave of determination for why he does what he does, and is glad that someone was there to see this one through: that this girl’s killer didn’t get away and need hunting down when Aizawa’s got bigger fish to fry. If the situation was different, this is exactly the kind of case he’d take on, but it’s not the scenario they’re in. Much worse, really.
Quietly, as if speaking over a grave, which isn’t far from the truth, Hitoshi murmurs, “She’s perfect.”
Aizawa hates how he’s right.
After checking this re-purposed victim's autopsy report hasn't been released yet and the next of kin who will need to be hushed up, Kuwabara and Aizawa bag up Hitoshi's next victim-to-be in a heavy duty body bag while Hitoshi gets a smaller carrier bag to fill with frozen blood. Aizawa hadn’t considered that they’d need separate blood, even though it makes perfect sense, and he supposes the real deal is better than any fake.
If the corpse weren’t a corpse this would be a great deal easier, but between the dead weight and tail end of rigor mortis that’s slowly giving way to the body's natural breakdown, Aizawa’s got a bit of a problem on his hands as he lumbers up the morgue stairs heaving the body bag over his shoulder. Hitoshi takes the head-end once or twice to guide Aizawa, but it’s hard to help in such confinement, and the quicker they’re up the stairs the better. Despite his best efforts, he knocks against the narrow walls more than a few times, letting out the odd grunt of exertion and frustration. The things wrong with this situation are: all of it.
As if that’s not bad enough, they’ve barely made it into the hallway of the police station when Hitoshi almost crashes straight into Yamaguichi. Both walking determinedly in opposing directions, Hitoshi bowls forward then reins himself back just short of colliding with the rookie cop as she races around the corner, a swaying stalk of tufty purple grass that backs up for Yamaguichi to come and face them both.
“Oh! There you are!” Yamaguichi pipes up energetically. “Your mother is looking for you, she said she’s waiting in the lobby.” Unburdened from faithfully delivering her message, Yamaguichi chances looking beyond Hitoshi and notices Aizawa standing with a giant suspicious bag over his shoulder. “Uh… what’s that?”
“Special delivery,” Aizawa answers ahead of Hitoshi. “Don’t worry about it.”
Yamaguichi looks like she does worry about it but doesn’t know what to say, when Hitoshi gently lures her attention back in his direction.
“Thanks, Yankumi,” he says, and though he doesn’t reach for her, Aizawa feels a surge of mentalist energy that goes out in her direction, even if Yamaguichi seems totally indifferent to it. Whatever she is, if she has a quirk at all, it’s quite clearly not in the least bit mental, because if Aizawa were the focus of those powerful waves rolling off Hitoshi right now there’s no way he’d be unaffected. But when that doesn't work, what does seem to affect Yamaguichi is Hitoshi's follow-up, “How are you getting on? It's been a bit… crazy lately.” That’s a word for it. Not Aizawa’s word, but a word all the same.
“Oh, I– well, it’s… alright.” Yamaguichi forces a smile and looks down at her hands, glasses glinting in the fluorescent lights over their heads. Aizawa swears – maybe it’s just because he’s listening for it, tuned to that frequency only Hitoshi hits – that the whole corridor is rocking with the swell of Hitoshi’s surging empathy converging on her. “I never really expected something like this to happen in my first couple of weeks on the job.”
“I bet you didn’t.” It’s weird, from Aizawa’s perspective, because if he were the focus of this silent emotional outcry from Hitoshi, he’d have already wrapped the teen up in a fierce bear hug by now, but Yamaguichi’s missing the signals and it makes Aizawa’s skin itch, as if the broadcast is getting more intense the more it’s being ignored.
“Not to worry, though!” Yamaguichi picks up cheerfully, and whether she’s gotten the message or not, reaches out to pat Hitoshi on the shoulder. “My boyfriend just got back from a work trip and is picking me up after my shift ends today, so that’s something to look forward to.”
“Your boyfriend,” Hitoshi echoes like the words have gone around the inside of an iceberg before emerging from his mouth, nothing showing above that tiny tip breaking the surface. The signal flare of come hither Shinsou Effect energy dies off almost instantly, which has Aizawa blinking and shaking his head as if to clear the haze like smoke. “Of course. That’s nice.”
Aizawa doesn’t think anything Hitoshi’s doing is deliberate, but so help the kid if he learns how to harness it that way. Maybe it’s just how sensitive Aizawa’s become to him; that forced attunement that Iwaya encouraged between them as a way of awakening Aizawa’s long-neglected mentalist faculties. He wonders if it’d stop if he used his quirk on Hitoshi, assuming it falls under the broad spectrum of his quirk. That might be a little hard to explain though, why Aizawa needs to erase Hitoshi's ‘natural charm’ because it's befuddling when he's concentrating on not dropping the dead body over his shoulder.
"Anyway, are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?” Yamaguichi resumes with her effervescent pluck, clearly immune to any such currents under the surface – or even on the surface, given the way she's blushed and flustered around Hitoshi before. Aizawa would wonder how her only-just-now-mentioned boyfriend factors into that equation, but it gives him a headache even trying to contemplate, so he doesn't. “It looks kinda heavy–"
"It's fine." Aizawa steps back when Yamaguichi edges forward, which is way too suspicious but can't be helped. If she recognises a body bag, which she probably does, the least they can manage is not to give her the ultimate confirmation of what's inside.
"We're alright, Yankumi," Hitoshi insists as his gaze sinks into sleepy indifference. "Have fun with your boyfriend, you deserve it." There's no outright sarcasm in there, Hitoshi's mature enough not to be that obvious, but Aizawa can anticipate his tinge of disappointment. However, the look Hitoshi gives Aizawa when he looks around whispers 'don't say a goddamn word' without his lips ever moving. "Let's get going, Ma's waiting."
Aizawa nods and manages to navigate his unwieldy cargo past Yamaguichi without getting too close, and if carrying a body through a police station on lockdown could be considered foolish, then they're fools.
The station lobby is quiet under the strict new controls placed on who gets in and out, given the fanatical mob parked outside, so Kiki and Tsukauchi are the only people in there when Aizawa and Hitoshi come through the doors to the bland hallway lined with seats beyond a front desk with a single bored clerk sitting at it. By the looks of it, Kiki and the Detective are waiting in silence, or, to put it better, listening to the show outside, as the songbird warbling of Hizashi comes to a conclusion Aizawa’s not at all surprised to hear has veered straight into 80s power ballads.
"TURN AROUND, BRIGHT EYES!... WELL THAT’S IT FROM ME! THANKS FOR COMING OUT TONIGHT EVERYONE, I'M HERE ALL WEEK! SEE YOU NEXT TUESDAY!"
The reaction from an audience that’s probably mixed parts encouraging to disparaging gets louder for a moment as the police station doors open, and Hizashi swans in with a beaming smile and pinpoints Aizawa across the room at once before casting a wider net around at the others.
"Tough crowd, huh?" Hizashi sweeps a sheen of sweat off his forehead and makes a beeline over to where Kiki's sitting, while Aizawa and Hitoshi do the same, getting the gang back together as they review next steps, plus a dead body.
"Is that what I think it is?" Kiki asks with her eyes on the bag over Aizawa’s shoulder.
“You don’t wanna know,” Aizawa warns, even though he knows she’s going to find out sooner or later. He wishes he didn’t know.
But that’s not really the way things work in the Shinsou family, so Hitoshi casually adds, “Just some girl who was murdered by her dick boyfriend.”
Kiki’s mouth tightens into a thin, tense line, but what she says in the end is nothing Aizawa expects. “Pretty?”
“For a dead chick,” Hitoshi replies morbidly, and even Tsukauchi’s finding this one a little past the limits of propriety as far as mother-son talks go. The empty lobby feels too conspicuous for this conversation, as if the walls themselves must have ears and eyes to replace all the normal people who’d otherwise be hanging around waiting to be seen. Aizawa wonders what’s been done with them – if they’ve been moved elsewhere in the station, or simply sent away to another entirely. It’s no coincidence that this branch being the focus of the Deathnote Killer investigation is the one overwhelmed by the masses in support of Shiyoko’s so-called ‘justice’ for victims, much like the one resting over Aizawa’s shoulder. The Deathnote Killer’s bloody revenge didn’t do much for her, did it? But try telling the mob outside that.
“Does that make a difference?” Tsukauchi questions with a suspicion like coffee made too bitter, even for Aizawa.
“To my husband it does,” Kiki answers while a distant tapping of heels draws closer, and if Aizawa listens for it, he can sense that mentalist signature like the beam of a lighthouse. Whatever he’s on today, his natural aptitude for reading those signals is through the roof, so he knows it before they do. “Masaru always liked them–”
This is the very point at which the door into the lobby opens and in sweeps Dr. Iwaya like the fragrance of jasmine carried on a nighttime breeze.
“ – beautiful,” Kiki finishes, but it’s quiet, fading away as her light, lilac gaze locks down on Iwaya across the room.
“Ah, there you are.” Tsukauchi stands up with a smile, not seeming to clock why Iwaya has frozen in her steps, and he’s a mentalist too, so he should be registering the noise like a freighter’s horn blaring from Kiki, which settles the question of whether she knows who Iwaya is. Aizawa would try out using his quirk on Kiki at this point too, but it’d be obvious again, and if anyone’s within their rights to glare a few daggers in Iwaya’s direction, it’s surely Kiki.
If the initial burst of mentalist energy from Kiki was a low, droning horn that felt like it shook Aizawa’s brain in his skull – he ought to ask Iwaya if there’s a way to switch this damn sense off, or he’s going to end up with a headache – it fades away quickly, becoming as deathly silent as the room is on all audible frequencies.
Aizawa, Kiki and Hitoshi are all watching Iwaya, and there’s no question that Iwaya also knows exactly who Kiki is. Why wouldn’t she?
“Are you alright?” Tsuakichi walks all the way to Iwaya, and absolutely no one misses the hand he lays on her arm. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Aizawa imagines it’s not far off.
Hizashi’s clearly missing a few pieces here, but has enough of a read of the room to keep his mouth shut for the moment, eyeing Aizawa for indicative ‘tell you later’ miming in return, so the empty stage of the lobby has nothing to fight for carrying Iwaya’s pastel voice across the room.
“I… forgot something in my office,” Iwaya says timidly, already stepping backwards so her arm slips from Tsukauchi’s hold. “I’ll just go back and get it.”
And as quickly as she was here, she’s gone again, leaving a bemused Tsukauchi in her wake.
“Strange, I didn’t think she was going to spook like that,” the Detective muses as he turns back around, but pauses when he sees the steel bolt of a look on Kiki’s face. Tsukauchi has all the same information that Aizawa does, should know that sixteen years ago Iwaya was the ‘other woman’ to Kiki’s husband, the very killer they’re hunting, but perhaps he thought sixteen years was a long time in former relationships, and underestimated exactly how fresh certain wounds might still be. A little wishful thinking on his part, if that hand on Iwaya’s arm was any indication.
Hizashi finally pierces the quiet with a wry, “Friend of yours?” that’s directed straight to Kiki, because if there’s anyone who can get away with asking her something like this, it’s him.
“Not exactly,” Kiki replies mystically, then like the game is pass-the-parcel, turns to her son to remark, “I see why you like her.”
Hitoshi, being of sixteen years of age and in the company of his mother, takes exactly no time at all to retort with a contrary, “Do not,” like he dropped the 1 off the front of his age and hopped straight back to being 6. But that kneejerk reaction aside, he follows up with a much firmer, “She got fucked over by him too, you know.”
Kiki’s voice is slightly scratchy from long years of stress-cigarettes, and Aizawa hears the remorse in every hoarse tone as her misty eyes return to the door Iwaya vanished through. “I know.”
A moment of reverent silence lasts and passes, because Aizawa’s got a dead body on his back so this drama is all well and good, but he’d love to be done with this burden sooner rather than later.
“Are you two going somewhere?” he asks Tsukauchi, knowing the answer is yes but expecting a little more than that in return.
“To the hospital,” Tsukauchi doesn't hesitate to share. "Dr. Iwaya has been rehabilitating the recovered victims, some are almost functional enough to be witnesses." Aizawa can imagine they make a good pair in interview, the powerful empath and human lie detector.
"Learn anything useful?" Aizawa doesn't need the full rundown, but he wouldn't mind the bullet points.
"No breakthroughs yet." Tsukauchi slips his hands into his pockets, hanging by the door Iwaya will come back through only once the rest of them are gone. "The most we got was that Shiyoko wants them to leave the city, maybe even the country, but Dr. Shinsou’s refusing to go."
"Not without us," Hitoshi leaves like a piece of punctuation at the end of the statement. It's terrible, but also why Aizawa’s standing around with a body over his shoulder. This Frankenstein's monster of a family.
"We should get going." Aizawa shifts his cargo uncomfortably to demonstrate the point, but it’s clearly all too straightforward for this diabolical plan.
"Don't we need another distraction?" Hitoshi points out.
"It wouldn't hurt," Aizawa’s forced to admit. Being caught smuggling a body out of the police station would fuck this part of the scheme up rather a lot. "Unfortunately."
Hitoshi turns to Hizashi who offers a shrug and evasive, "Don't look at me, they weren't exactly screaming for an encore out there." Screaming, yes, but not the good kind.
"Wasn't what I had in mind." Hitoshi wears a look of cunning, and turns next to his Ma. "Think it's time to stir up some trouble?"
Kiki lets out a sigh through her nose that Aizawa understands instantly, because it's her distaste, rather than Hitoshi's vaguer insinuation, that actually tips his understanding over the edge.
"You don't mean…"
"If I'm supposed to be the prime suspect in a copycat killing case, might as well start acting like it, right?" Hitoshi is making perfect sense, which is the absolute worst part about it.
"But then I can't go with you," Aizawa finds himself saying with his brain only informed of this once his mouth is already moving. That Shinsou Effect kicks good and strong, especially when the press and fanatical fans of goddamn serial killers are involved.
"I can," Kiki responds, and when Aizawa’s dummy mouth opens to argue she cuts him off with a razor-wire, "I hope you aren't about to suggest I can't protect my own son."
Aizawa shuts his mouth.
"I can look after myself, yanno," Hitoshi adds before the silence prickles, and Aizawa and Kiki share a tense look that agrees on one thing at least – disagreeing with Hitoshi on that front.
"Then it's settled!" Hizashi bleats like the referee in a volleyball game, "You two out the front, and I'll help this one getting the stiff through the back door." Hizashi’s grinning at Aizawa because he knows exactly what he's doing, and it absolutely shouldn't be as funny as it is stupid, and it's really stupid.
Aizawa’s not in the mood, supposedly, and is overly conscious of their best-behaviour-required company to boot, so he doesn't respond in a much crude way he might have otherwise, but bites his cheek and murmurs, "Famous last words."
"Oh, you," Hizashi guffaws, flapping a hand at Aizawa before he broadens his broadcast to the others. "We'll meet up round the back once you shake the crowd."
"Easier said than done," Aizawa warns, and because he apparently has to allow this one, he's going to find some way of satisfying his protective instinct. "We'll stay to watch you go, just in case–"
"Nothing's going to happen," Hitoshi interjects before Aizawa can materialise the thought, but he's not getting off that easy.
"Just in case anything happens," Aizawa ploughs through like the stubborn ass he is, and since they're going to be here a while, bothers to put the body down. Conveniently, as they're next to a whole line of chairs, the obvious thing to do is set the body down in a seat like a living person might, excusing the thick black body bag zipped around the poor girl who didn't agree to any of this, which reminds Aizawa they need to confirm her family's cooperation before all their coordinated shit hits the fan. Fuck, what a mess. “Hey, Tsukauchi,” he asks while he’s stabilising the body not to slump over when left unattended, “We got this body on loan from Kuwabara, can you make sure everyone who needs to be informed is on board before she turns up in the news?”
“I’ll touch base with Kuwabara, but I’m sure she wouldn’t let you do anything that’d cause her too much trouble,” the Detective answers more cheerfully than anyone should ever discuss such morbid material, but by this point they’re pretty much overwhelmed with it.
“She doesn’t know the extent of what we’re planning to do yet,” Hitoshi points out forebodingly, handing over his carrier bag of blood to Aizawa, before nodding to his Ma. “Let’s go.”
Kiki stands and brushes the front of her jeans before sweeping a few stay hairs back against her head, the functional ponytail hanging down just past her shoulders, much shorter than Hizashi’s own snakes down his back; Aizawa can’t believe he only just noticed how similarly they’re dressed today, at least until Hizashi threw half his Hero gear on. Trust Hitoshi’s Ma to automatically like Hizashi a thousand times more than she’ll ever like Aizawa.
“I don’t like this,” Aizawa grouses as he falls into place behind Hitoshi and Kiki, while without a word Hizashi’s hand slips into his own. They’re just behind Hitoshi and Kiki, so they probably can’t tell, but the squeeze is reassuring, if the rest of the group’s reaction isn’t.
“Oh really? We hadn’t noticed,” Hitoshi shoots before tossing back a wry look over his shoulder, though his eyes quickly sink down to catch on Aizawa and Hizashi’s connected hands. Instinctively Aizawa’s arm pulls away like a hermit crab shrinking back into its shell, but Hizashi’s got him held tight and just starts joyfully swinging their clasped hands like that was Aizawa’s plan all along. “I’ll be fine,” Hitoshi says stonily as he looks back to the front, and Aizawa can sense a desire in the teen to prove himself, the twisted mental gymnastics that make what’s about to happen next the sickest joke of all on all the people who think of Hitoshi as a natural villain. Aizawa might hate it, but that doesn’t mean he can’t see it.
Aizawa and Hizashi fall to the side as they reach the front doors, Hitoshi and his Ma standing shoulder to shoulder. They might be the same height if Hitoshi’s hair is subtracted from his Ma’s heels, but really what they look like is a matched set, especially by the identical looks of determination on their faces before they step into the fray. Aizawa knows for a fact they’ve fought worse monsters together for years.
Hitoshi goes first, opening the door to hold open for his mother, and the noise level rises immediately, but only really starts to blare when Hitoshi steps into view to follow her out.
“Ugh, finally! Shinsou Hitoshi!!! What do you have to say about your father’s escape from prison?!”
“How long has he been he cooperating with the Deathnote Killer? Is it true she broke him out of prison?!”
“That’s his wife, isn’t it?! Hey! Mrs. Shinsou, did you stand by your husband during the massacre?”
“No, over here! Was Dr. Shinsou a good lover? Is it true that he had a string of affairs?! ”
Watching through a one-way window as the door closes behind Hitoshi and Kiki, Aizawa only doesn’t go after them to start throwing punches because Hizashi’s still clenching his hand extremely firmly, yanking on it every time he feels Aizawa twitch and try to pull away. Hitoshi and Kiki are crowded by the mob right away, microphones and cameras up close, signs waving in the back. Aizawa hates this so much.
The sound dampened through the walls, Aizawa sees Hitoshi’s lips moves but can’t quite make out the words, probably something simple about answering questions, but Aizawa can pick out the people who fall for it right away, several journalists whose faces fall dead, dropping their equipment as they transform into henchmen who start to push the others back, brute, brainwashed strength overpowering all else.
It’s all totally illegal, of course, but that’s rather the point, so Hitoshi’s playing the part. Playing it almost too well, if anything, because Aizawa gets the shivers off the collected look of focus on Hitoshi’s face, eerily like his father as he turns unexpected, unwilling people into his drones.
Fuck, Aizawa really hates this.
“Relax,” Hizashi says while Aizawa’s still glaring out the front, resisting the urge to bark and scratch like a dog despairing that its owner will never come back. “They’re gonna be alright.”
“You don’t know that,” Aizawa returns sharply, and Hizashi squeezes his hand again.
“I don’t, but you’re gonna have to accept it anyway.” Hizashi’s right, like he always is, but that doesn’t mean Aizawa’s obliged to like it. In fact – that’s right, he hates it.
Just when Aizawa thinks he can’t be anymore sick to his stomach, watching Hitoshi and Kiki stroll out through the bubble generated by four brain-bound journalists shoving their way clear, walking together in a perfectly empty circle, looking every bit the famous killer’s wife and prodigal son, some kind of ruckuss kicks off from the layer of the crowd that’s made up more parts insane supporters than hungry media hounds.
Aizawa can’t tell what they say, though he can see the signs being jabbed angrily in the air: Justice for the TRUE victims! Or the even more disturbing: Dr. Shinsou will set us free! Aizawa’s money’s on the trouble coming from Doc fans before the Shiyoko sympathisers, but his guess is as good as any.
What Aizawa does see is the sudden dent made in the crowd of at least a dozen people staggering or dropping where they stand, which can only be because of Kiki’s quirk lashing out with unbridled force. Aizawa can’t quite feel it himself, this far away and not being the target, but he can seek out the supernova of mentalist energy coming off the two of them side by side, even through a crowd of people and soundproofed wall of the police station.
Watching Kiki bulldoze a path for her and Hitoshi to forge through the crowd, guarded on every corner by Hitoshi’s undiscerning, obedient drones, Aizawa realises more than ever exactly why Dr. Shinsou remains so ardently devoted to his family.
Notes:
This is a relatively short chapter by my standards *gasp* but hopefully it still packs a punch. We're almost at the end of my 6th masterdoc which is terrifying to me but *breathes heavily into a paper bag* I'm *wheezes* fine....
Oh also RIP HItoshi's teenage dreams. I'd already decided Yankumi had a boyfriend to myself, but when I got the chance to drop it into official fic-lore I thought it was a nice little opportunity to take advantage of.
Til next week!
Chapter 67: Three's Company
Summary:
How does Aizawa get himself into these situations?
Notes:
OOOOOwwwwwoooiiiieieeeee I'm excited for this chapter, which is gonna close us out of the 6th masterdoc and bring us into the terrifying new realms of the 7th.
This one is definitely a chapter of two halves, so buckle on your butts because we are GOING THE FUCK IN.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
In over fifteen years of Hizashi being more in Aizawa’s business than out of it, Aizawa can safely say that this is the first time they’ve ever argued about the best way to get a corpse over a barbed wire fence.
After Hizashi peeled Aizawa away from the front window of the police station as if he were stuck to it, they took the body-bag by the feet and head respectively and carried the not-quite-so-rigid-anymore stiff, as Hizashi had called it, out of the back of the station without running into anyone else who might justifiably raise the question of what two Heroes are doing carting a dead body around police property in the first place
On the subject of the cadaver vs. the fence, Hizashi suggested an elaborate system of pulleys to hoist the body up and over, which Aizawa thought was far too complicated when he could just tie the body to his back and climb over, which Hizashi disliked because it apparently had ‘no style’ and also didn’t help him get over the fence without damaging his suddenly apparently irreplaceable jeans. Aizawa’s unsure why Hizashi’s wearing expensive jeans out on a day like this if he doesn’t want them damaged, but the compromise they’ve landed on involves Aizawa squatting on top of the fence, some tendrils of his capture weapon wrapped around his boots to provide a little extra resistance to the spikes, using a couple of pieces of the material to hoist the body up like a crane and lower it down on the other side. The other body Aizawa has to hoist in this way, obviously, is Hizashi.
“You’re spoiled,” Aizawa informs Hizashi as his other half twists the end of some capture weapon around his boot and gives an indicative tug to announce to Aizawa he’s ready to be lifted up like a prince coming to call on a princess in her tower.
While Aizawa starts hauling Hizashi up hand over hand, Hizashi uses his free leg to hold himself away from the fence, swinging out and back in to hop up the fence with a gold-plated grin. “What else are you for?” he poses at the top, right before he clambers all over Aizawa rather than risking his precious clothes with the barbed wire. It’s been a while since they really worked together on anything, and even in small stints there’s a wonderful nostalgic familiarity that penetrates even Aizawa’s calcified heart.
“I can think of a few things,” he murmurs with a handful of gravel thrown in it for texture. Hizashi’s standing on his knees, hands on Aizawa's shoulders like a really weird interpretation of a piggy back, and bends all the way over to give him an upside-down kiss on the forehead that seems unnecessarily wet.
“Yeah, but if I wanted a massive dildo I could just buy one,” Hizashi taunts, which is why Aizawa whips the piece of his capture weapon still coiled around Hizashi’s foot and tosses him out like a squawking yo-yo.
“Keep it down, you’ll blow our cover,” he scolds over Hizashi’s yelping on the way down, swinging like a giant gold-and-black spider on a piece of silk.
“And whose fault would that be?” Hizashi bounces against the fence upside-down and grabs on, then Aizawa reels him down so he comes to stand on his hands before releasing those daddy-long-legs back down to solid ground, flipping upright beside the much more gently laid body-bag. They wouldn't muck around like this if anyone else was around, but when it's just them it's inevitable there'll be some kind of shenanigans involved. There's no one who embodies the principle of work is play more than Hizashi, and Aizawa needs that in his life sometimes.
Hopping down from the fence, Aizawa picks up the body bag while Hizashi helpfully just stands there watching, and so far there’s no sign of any crowds or stray onlookers past the end of the short alley leading onto the street. At least, there wasn’t, until a distinctive silhouette steps across the opening. Even the heat, several coats on top of each other is always the way to go for this disheveled streetrat, and his profile is immediately recognisable.
“A case of the bodysnatchers now, Eraser?”
Oh, it would be him at a time like this.
“What are you–” Aizawa groans as he finishes hauling the body up onto his shoulder, but hasn't taken even a single step when Hizashi cuts in front of him.
“Well if my own two eyes don’t deceive me,” Hizashi announces in his snootiest, most polished for-radio voice. “Cricket, you look… well, terrible.”
“And if it isn’t the rich bitch himself,” Cricket returns with a grin of his six-or-something teeth in stark contrast to Hizashi’s gleaming pearly whites, and Aizawa wonders if maybe he couldn’t just zip himself up in the body-bag along with the corpse and be legally dead for the purposes of this exchange. “Sold the rights to merchandised Present Mic douches yet? It’s the one thing your face deserves to be on.”
Hizashi checks his nails as if to make a point about Cricket’s own. “Nope. Sold any good crack?”
“You’d know all about that,” Cricket slings back, but Aizawa’s throwing a bucket of water over this trash fire before it goes any further.
“What are you doing here, Cricket?” By making furious shut up eyes at both of them, Aizawa somehow manages to pacify the fighting cats for a few short moments, even though it won't be long before the yowling starts back up.
“Looking for you, obviously. Where’s the Toy Boy? I practically miss him.” Cricket eyes Hizashi as if to suggest that’s by unfavourable comparison.
Aizawa repeats even more wearily, “What do you want?”
“I want to know what you’re doing pinching bodies from the police station, old flame.” The mere presence of Hizashi makes Cricket just have to point it out, undoing all of the work of Aizawa and Hitoshi earlier forging an uneasy bond of cooperation with the volatile informant.
“You gotta let that go, Cricket. He’s over you,” Hizashi just has to respond, even though it’s the least helpful or relevant thing ever, but Hizashi’s never been super about helpful relevance so much as spectacular fuckery.
“Wow, insecure much?” Cricket spits back like a venom dart, and he and Hizashi hated each other since long before Aizawa and Hizashi were together. That just happened to be the final nail in the coffin of their opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum vitriolic opposition to one another’s entire way of being. Aizawa’s final act of selling out, along with all the other ways he got his shit together and apparently lost all integrity in Cricket's antiestablishmentarianist eyes.
“HAH!” Hizashi scornfully laughs way, way too fucking loud, and if Aizawa weren’t carrying an actual body right now he’d clap a hand over Hizashi’s mouth to shut him up, but thankfully has a handsfree way of doing that too. His quirk leaps into action, some of his hair trapped under the weight across his shoulder but the rest rising up as his laser beam glare fixes on Hizashi.
“You’re going to blow our cover,” Aizawa reminds him forebodingly as Hizashi gets forcibly muted, before turning to glare at Cricket next. He doesn’t need any quirk for that, but there's an intimidation factor to consider in Aizawa's burning red gaze. “That goes for you too, Cricks.”
Offering him a lewd I'm-having-second-thoughts smile that Aizawa can tell is pissing Hizashi off no end, Cricket offers a sultry, “I’ll tell you what I’m doing here if you tell me what you’re getting up to, friend.”
“We’re not friends,” Aizawa claps back before steam can actually start pouring from Hizashi’s nose. He’s not usually a jealous man, and neither is Aizawa, but Cricket’s basically the exception to all rules. All Hizashi’s jealousy and possessiveness that's never applied elsewhere gets saved up and concentrated into Cricket, who’s popularly seen by, well, everyone, as a bad influence and prime corrupter in Aizawa’s life, just because Cricket is how he ended up on drugs and homeless. And okay, maybe Cricket did facilitate that process by being an endless supply of the former and staunch advocate of the latter, but the reason Aizawa lived like that was because of himself, so taking it out on Cricket’s a waste of time as far as he’s concerned.
Cricket is no more or less than what he's always been, so whether Aizawa went along with that is nobody’s choice but his own. Plus, Hizashi used to score drugs off him via Aizawa all the time, so he’s being a petty hypocrite – but he’s Aizawa’s petty hypocrite, so the least he can do is stand by him.
“Ouch,” Cricks says like he doesn’t mean. “Well forget it, then.”
Aizawa makes fix it eyes at Hizashi, who huffs and then steps around Cricket to block his exit. “After you came all this way?” Hizashi suggests with one lip cocked, sneering like he couldn’t be more over this but accepts he’s gotta do it anyway. “Police stations aren’t exactly your scene, streetrat, so whatever brought you out here ought to be good.” That much is true – the closest Cricket ever gets to a police station is being arrested. A couple of times with Aizawa, which usually made for such an ordeal once they got behind bars that they've been discharged just so the officers on duty don't have to hear or smell them anymore.
“For your information, I’m looking for the Deathnote Killer's followers,” Cricket’s snap would put a crocodile to shame, and runs a wildly effective chill all the way up Aizawa’s spine.
“Why?”
“Trying to get in with the cool kids, obviously.” Cricket wrinkles his crooked nose at Hizashi, staring at his own reflection in Hizashi’s mirrored glasses like he prefers admiring that than Hizashi’s far too perfect face. That was always Crick’s complaint about Aizawa’s best friend across all the long years of their acquaintance: too clean, too polished, too perfect – and perfect for Aizawa, as it turns out. Aizawa’s never asked, but wonders if Cricket saw the latent chemistry between Aizawa and Hizashi like everyone else did. Though if that was ever part of it, it probably wasn’t the main part. Hizashi earned Cricket's disrespect all by himself.
“That’s a fast way to wind up dead, Cricks,” Aizawa warns, and even though Cricket’s a roach when it comes to staying power, even he’s no match for Shiyoko and the Doc.
“Me? Not likely,” Cricket retorts gleefully, grinning so aggressively at Hizashi that his bad breath alone must cause Hizashi to back away a couple of steps, which makes room for Cricket to sidle closer to Aizawa. “Besides, we aren’t friends, apparently. You don’t care if I live or die.”
“I don’t care,” Hizashi offers caustically.
“No one asked you, Presentation Michael,” Cricks slaps hard, but Aizawa is not here for a fucking bitch-fight.
“I care if you die a horrible death,” Aizawa reports a touch too dryly to seem completely sincere, even though is. So Aizawa throws his gaze up at the burden on his shoulder indicatively, “I’m just a bit busy here, so I don’t have time for you to get cute about what you're up to.”
“And here I thought I was always cute.” Cricket’s smile is a little like a keyboard that’s had an altercation with a hammer. Hizashi snorts, making a face as if he’s trying to pass gas, but Aizawa literally can’t please one of them without pissing off the other, and if Cricket’s trying to get in with Shiyoko’s followers that stands to be as risky as it is useful. So let Hizashi pout for now.
“What’re you gonna do if you find the Deathnote Killer’s followers?” Aizawa can cling to business like nobody’s business, making it assuredly his own business.
“What I always do,” Cricket returns as Aizawa feels a bead of sweat running down his chest, reminding him of how much he really hates having to stand around doing all this blasted talking sometimes. “Keep my peepers open for interesting information.”
“Be careful.” Aizawa means it, because he really doesn’t want to see Cricket next to one of those bloody notes.
“D’aww, you’re gonna make me tear up,” Cricket simpers as coquettishly as a man of his destitution can manage, and make no mistake, he wouldn’t be doing anything close to flirting if Hizashi weren’t here, but if it infuriates Hizashi Cricks is automatically going to do it. Unfortunately, Aizawa can use that as leverage. While Hizashi will always forgive him, Cricket holds a grudge like no other, so Aizawa’s only playing it the most logical way. “What’re you doing with the cadaver anyway? Branching out into graverobbing?”
“Bait for a trap,” Aizawa answers cryptically, because although Cricks is as twisted as a corkscrew, he operates on his own principles, and equivalent exchange is an important part of that. Plus, Cricket’s smart, so he doesn’t really need it spelled out in too many words.
“Oh, going all to catch a killer, huh?” he poses as he’s picking a scab on the back of his hand, while in the background Hizashi has drifted back to the mouth of the alleyway to keep a lookout, which means he at least accepts Aizawa’s cooperating with Cricket for a good reason.
“If we’re lucky.” Aizawa shifts the body on his shoulder and tries to hurry this up. “We could stand to know if the bait is working, though. Should you come across any such information.”
“What’s it to you?” Cricket eyes Aizawa up cannily, and in some ways Aizawa misses the days when sexual favours were a currency they traded in. It was much easier, if nothing else – just like Aizawa, Hizashi would surely not-really-joking-joke, though he'd be one to talk.
“Just some innocent people’s lives.” Aizawa would shrug, but the body on his shoulders makes that somewhat of a challenge. “But hey, don’t let that stop you.”
It’s around now that Hizashi starts flapping his hand while his head’s sticking out onto the street, and Aizawa’s ready to drop to the floor when Hizashi’s hand shifts into a thumbs up. Moment later Hitoshi and Kiki come rolling in unaccompanied and thankfully unscathed from their brush with the vultures.
“Oh, you’re back,” Hitoshi remarks upon clocking Cricket, and his Ma doesn’t look thrilled with her son’s familiarity with someone like Cricks, but that’s about to get a whole lot worse.
“Toy Boy!” Cricket brays after turning around to face them, and needs approximately one second of seeing Kiki beside Hitoshi to continue, “And you must be the good Doctor’s wife, I’ve heard all sorts of things about you.”
If Kiki’s expression was already sour from Cricket’s apparent familiarity with Aizawa and her son, now it’s so bitter it causes Aizawa to full-body flinch as she fixes him in her sights.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Just an… associate,” Aizawa tries to fight his way out of with a shred or two of dignity, as if he’s got any to begin with.
“That’s cold, Eraser,” Cricket remarks, “is that any way to speak to your former–” and before this can go any wronger, Aizawa lands on an idea.
“Hold this,” he announces before swinging the body at Cricket, staggering as the deadweight hits his bony frame. “I’ve just had an idea.” Aizawa directs to Hizashi, who’s also doing well in the sourpuss competition as far as his general countenance goes. “Why don’t you and Kiki head off? Cricket can help me and Hitoshi with the next part.”
“Well if you wanted tips on where to dump a body then you just had to ask,” Cricket lilts as harmoniously as the caw of a crack-smoking crow, while Kiki and Hizashi pop on a matching pair of scowls.
“Is that a good idea?” Kiki starts while Hizashi comes to stand next to her, and Aizawa knew this moment would come sooner or later, he just hadn’t expected it quite so soon.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust this rat as far as I can throw him,” Hizashi throws in cattily. “He’s going to tell everything the second you turn away from him.”
“We want him to tell people,” Hitoshi speaks up before Aizawa can get to arguing against the formidable duo, which is an unexpected but welcome pillar of support for Aizawa at this trying time. “Cricks is going to spin the story exactly how we want him to.” And then Hitoshi focuses all that intense, Shinsou energy onto Cricket, a stare so strong Aizawa’s sure he can feel his eardrums humming. “Aren’t you?”
But Cricket just cocks a dirty grin. “What’s in it for me, Toy Boy?”
Hitoshi, of course, just fires a smirk of his own back. Because fuck anyone else, this is Hitoshi’s show.
“You get to watch.”
Cricket is right about one thing: he knows where to dump a body. And more to the point, when he and Aizawa walk anywhere together the instant assumption is that they're both homeless undesirables, and people naturally avert their gaze, paying no mind to the heavy bag bolstered between the two of them. Hitoshi walks a little in front, not so far as to put Aizawa into a state of anxiety induced cardiac arrest, but enough to keep a look-out without seeming too much like he's with them.
They don't go far, only needing to get a short distance from the police station through clever back-routes that Cricket taught to Aizawa once upon a time, ending up in a windowless courtyard trapped between buildings where Aizawa would've happily spent the night in years gone past. He does still crash where he drops on cases sometimes, but this is close enough to home he'd push through to get back to bed and Hizashi. Sleeping rough is reserved for a last resort these days, and not a first preference like it is for some people.
"This will do," Hitoshi announces first, though Aizawa’s plenty fed up of lugging the body around to overrule any declaration that it somehow wouldn't do. One spot to dump a body is much the same as another, and what comes next is the part that Aizawa’s really been dreading.
"I'll keep watch." Aizawa crosses the small concrete yard, which seems cool in comparison to the scorching heat of the streets, trapped in perpetual shadow by the height of the surrounding buildings on all sides. The only doors into the space have all been boarded up, and even the rubbish scattered around is old and faded. Cricket sure knows how to pick a spot. There's only one access point, through a narrow alleyway lined with dumpsters that barely fit in it, making it look like this space at the end doesn't exist. They couldn't ask for more in a crime scene.
"Wait," Hitoshi calls to Aizawa, standing over the body bag where Aizawa and Cricket set it down, not yet unzipped to reveal the precious cargo. "Have you got a knife? I need a blade of some sort."
"I've got one," Cricket offers, and is patting himself down in search when Aizawa slips a multi-tool off his belt and throws it to Hitoshi.
"I wouldn't, Cricks, unless you'd like to be the proud owner of a supposed murder weapon," Aizawa warns as Hitoshi's picking the fold-out blade from the tool, just a couple of inches long but plenty sharp, prompting Aizawa to add, "Be careful with that, it's not a toy."
"I'd hope not," Hitoshi retorts, while Cricket scoffs as he locate his trusty flick-knife with a flourish.
“Please,” Cricket declares, flipping the butterfly knife he’s produced from one of his many pockets and flicking it dangerously open and closed. “Where do you think I got this?”
“Out of someone’s back, I’m sure,” Aizawa replies sourly, hoping that Hitoshi doesn’t get any ideas from the flashy clitter-clatter of the blade snapping around Cricket’s fingers. The only reason he seems so confident spinning the folding blade around his hand is because he’s got absolutely no fear of cutting himself, which is not a confidence Aizawa would like Hitoshi to imitate.
“No, then it’d be your knife out of my own back, Eraser,” Cricket returns curtly, which seems about right given that Hizashi’s not here anymore. It hadn’t exactly been a painless separation of the group, Aizawa just barely convincing Hizashi and Kiki their talents could be better applied somewhere not around Aizawa and by turns Cricket. Aizawa personally dreads what Hizashi must be telling Kiki about both of them right now, but at least for these purposes out of sight is somewhat out of mind.
But Hitoshi’s mind seems trained unshakingly to the matter at hand, not distracted by any butterfly knife dancing around Cricket’s hand. He's crouched down to unzip the body bag and reveal the lifeless corpse within.
“Help me move her,” he says to Cricket, who lets go of the knife mid-spin, which goes flying off across the courtyard and stoops over to lift the body under the arms, while Hitoshi takes the legs. The victim is dressed normally, which was one less thing to worry about in the morgue, but that doesn’t mean Aizawa’s free of worries as he watches Hitoshi and his anarchic junkie ex carrying the corpse to lay down against one of the smooth concrete walls in the clearing. “Sit her up,” Hitoshi orders next, and although Aizawa knows he isn’t using his quirk – Aizawa would sense that a million miles off – the same hypnotic quality is in his voice giving the instructions. Cricket’s surprisingly cooperative, for Cricket, but perhaps does want to see what Hitoshi’s going to do as much as Aizawa doesn’t.
It’s not that Aizawa believes Hitoshi would ever do this for real, but even the fantasy is hard to stomach. That and the matter of what Hitoshi’s next message is going to be. Because the murder might not be real, but the things Hitoshi’s saying to his father through them are, and that’s what makes Aizawa’s blood freeze in his veins. He's slumped against one of the dumpsters, one eye down the alleyway, though he’s sure no one will disturb them here, and the other transfixed on the twiggy figure of Hitoshi bending down over the body, Aizawa’s knife glinting in his hand. If there wasn't anything more analogous than Aizawa literally putting the weapon in his hand.
With careful, methodical movements Hitoshi rolls back the mid-length sleeves of the simple top the woman was wearing before her life was cut tragically short, exposing her arms from above her elbow all the way down to her wrists. Then with a steady hand Hitoshi places the tip of the knife against her dead flesh and presses down, parting the skin and lifeless muscle easily with the lethally sharp blade as Hitoshi draws it in a straight cut up and down her arm. No sooner is one mark cut than he picks up and places another in parallel to it, evenly spaced, following the inside of her arm all the way down to the wrist.
“You have the blood, don’t you?” Hitoshi’s voice echoes off every hard surface in this grim concrete diorama, and it’s not Aizawa he addresses.
“Yeah.” No smart answers from Cricket means he’s genuinely into this, or perhaps just horrified enough not to have any wisecracks for the occasion. Withdrawing one of the pouches from an inside pocket, where the frozen packets were probably providing him some free air-conditioning for their short trip from the police station, he hands it to Hitoshi who squeezes the plastic to test the contents, then slices off one of the corners.
It’s only when Hitoshi places the open bloodbag to the top of one of the cuts he made on the body, allowing the contents to drip through and then out of the slice as if it’d been made when the victim was still living – at least enough to fool a camera, if not a mortician who’ll corroborate their narrative for the false report Tsukauchi will be writing – that Aizawa recognises what is happening.
Iwaya’s notes detailing the research conducted with Shiyoko flash into mind, the same experiments that were surely repeated with Hitoshi. A hand-written table leaps into the front of Aizawa’s memory, strikingly clear, as if he only looked at the page minutes ago and not days. An axis that plotted incisions by the length, depth and number, with the equipment list of scalpels.
The only difference, Aizawa realises with his gaze bolted to Hitoshi carefully dripping blood through the wounds, is that Hitoshi would have used his quirk to do this rather than his own hands, for all the difference that makes.
“You really seem to know what you’re doing,” Cricket remarks, but it’s not like his usual brash confidence. If Aizawa still knows his former… something even half as well as he did back when they were… together, Cricket’s actually shaken, maybe even scared by what Hitoshi so gleefully invited him to watch. Maybe it’s even better than they realised that Kiki’s not here either. Aizawa hates what he’s seeing so much he can’t imagine what it must be like for a mother to behold.
“It’s a science, and an art,” Hitoshi replies without wavering from his careful application of paint to his human canvas, using all-natural materials, and Aizawa has instant confidence that Hitoshi is repeating something he's been told before.
Aizawa wasn’t around before for the part that comes next, when they were at the Shimizu place, and that was probably intentional if he’s honest with himself. That it’s disturbing having to watch Hitoshi do this, even harder than he already prepared himself for it to be.
“Creepy,” is Cricket’s comment, and Aizawa hates that word, especially when used in relation to Hitoshi, but fuck if it isn’t on the mark. “You really think Daddy Dearest is going to notice?” Curse Cricket’s razor sharp mind, Aizawa thinks not for the first time. He took to this idea like a duck to water, and the only consolation is that if it’s easy for him to figure out, they can expect the wider public to buy it hook, line and sinker.
“Of course he will.” Hitoshi’s reply is squid ink at night, darker than dark, and so chilling Aizawa feels the shiver dancing up his back, a rush of cold in spite of the summer heat. Perhaps it’s mentalist, and Hitoshi’s just that powerful, or perhaps it’s all in Aizawa’s head, but hell if it’s easy to tell when Hitoshi’s in there or not anymore.
But if that was already bad enough, this is the one that touches like an ice cube to the back of the neck. “This is all he ever wanted for me.”
Hitoshi has finished dispensing blood across all the uniform cuts along the woman’s arms, squeezing the last drops out of the package before holding his hand out to Cricket for another, who hands it over with a glance to Aizawa that says help and fuck at the same time. This is all eerily like the state they discovered Hana in yesterday, with Cricket no less, and Aizawa’s sure he’s not the only one noticing the similarity.
With the next packet of blood Hitoshi manipulates up one of the body’s hands, a little stiff but ultimately giving way to positioning. Hitoshi holds one of her hands palm-up in his own after cutting a hole in the bloodbag and begins to pour it into the body's open hand. It runs over the edges, rolls down the corpse’s arm over tracks already made from the first application of blood, and spills over Hitoshi’s fingers and wrist too, soaking into the fabric of his hoodie.
If they tested this blood, of course, they’d surely find it wouldn’t match the victim’s, and probably doesn’t even match itself packet to packet, but that’s not the point, and not what they’ll be testing for. This is all for show, and what a show.
Emptying the bag of blood to discard by throwing it to the side, Hitoshi reaches for the other lifeless arm and brings dead fingers up to dip through the clumsy font of blood, clumsily dragging the stiff hands against one another until the victim’s fingers are convincingly coated in dark red.
Hitoshi brings the body’s ‘writing’ hand against her forearm, marring his own careful work by dragging the bloodsoaked palm across it as if to indicate where the natural ink was gathered. The story told, Hitoshi sets both arms carefully back down, and this is the part Aizawa’s been dreading.
“Another," he says, and Cricket holds up a fresh pack of blood like he fears what Hitoshi would do if he refused.
As if it’s going to soften the blow, Aizawa finds himself asking, “What are you going to write?” so quietly he can barely hear it inside his own head.
But Hitoshi hears, whipping around to stare at Aizawa as if he forgot he was even here. Maybe he did. Fuck, the kid’s going to need so much therapy after this. Aizawa’s going to need so much therapy after this.
“You’ll see,” Hitoshi tells Aizawa with a detached terror lurking just behind his eyes, and Aizawa would go over there, except that he’s paralysed to the spot. Taking even one step closer to Hitoshi right now isn’t going to do a goddamn thing to help him, not when he’s so deep in the feelings of what he must have lived through over ten years ago. Aizawa knows bad memories don’t get any softer over time, just further away – unless something like this brings them right back to visceral realness.
Hitoshi reaches for the bag Cricket holds out to him with a hand that's already crimson, pulling Aizawa’s penknife out to slice the whole top off this time, his certainty even greater than before. The body’s arms rest as if naturally by her sides, and from this far away, it cuts a horrifying enough picture not to question. Just like Hana would’ve ended up, had they not gotten there in time. Now Hitoshi’s trying to show his father that he can finish the job left half-done.
Hitoshi doesn’t hesitate at all now, dunking his hand in the plastic package until it almost overflows, drenching his hand like a child plays with fingerpaints before stepping close to the wall the body is leaning against. He starts as high as he can reach, marking out the first few strokes before dunking again to replenish his writing fluid. The first word is carved out soon enough while Aizawa and Cricket watch on in entranced horror.
YOU
Hitoshi’s expression is tense, hard lines in his face as he scowls aging him, making him look older, and drenched in blood a lot more like his father. Aizawa’s got no doubt that if this were real, and not a famiscile, that the Doc would be a proud parent indeed. The next word follows soon after, and Aizawa must admit, the real product is no comparison to red ink, the way beads of thawed blood break and run from the heaviest strokes down the wall as with other Deathnotes they’ve seen.
MADE
The last word Aizawa knows before it goes up, a feeling in his gut like he’s cracked open a thermometer and sucked out the mercury, sitting heavy and toxic inside him with the inevitability of it all. The reason Hitoshi’s so confident his father will know it’s him, making sense on so many levels it strikes like a brick to the back of the head.
The truth and the lie Hitoshi’s selling to the man who tortured him for pride and ego in the name of science, and what Dr. Shinsou has been desperate to remind Hitoshi of the few foolish times Aizawa let them meet; that the apple falls not so far from the tree, and in spite of all he’s trying to be, Hitoshi is still his father’s son.
That’s why there’s only one thing Hitoshi could write next, his fingers trailing down once completed to draw a limp line down to the body’s idle bloodstained hand, completing the final piece of the gory edict.
ME
Notes:
I would stop ending on these climatic notes from Hitoshi but when it POPS it really POPS, yanno?
Also y'all don't know how much I love Cricket. Y'ALL DON'T EVEN KNOW. He makes Aizawa's trashman lifestyle look like TRASH BABY hohohohoho.
Chapter 68: Vices
Summary:
The emotional toll gets heavy, and it’s time to pay the crypt-keeper.
Notes:
BIG OOOF after last chapter, amirite? I'm gonna have a busy evening so this chapter's coming out a little early as I'm not at work and it'll give me peace of mine. Plus, I really love this run of chapters coming up in the 7th chunk of this mega-chonky story, so let's kick it off!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tsukauchi picks up on the first ring.
“You done?”
“Yep,” Aizawa answers short and sharp, leaning against a dumpster and trying not to let his soul pour out through the gaping emotional wound in his chest. “I’ll send you the coordinates.” And then, just because he’s been staring at the mural on the far wall for a few minutes now and thinks he’s going to be seeing it burned into the back of his eyelids for the rest of his fucking life, Aizawa gives Tsukauchi the warning any sane individual is due before walking in on what they’re about to walk away from. “You better prepare yourself, it’s just as bad as all the others.” Or perhaps worse, because it’s Hitoshi.
“Isn’t that kind of the point?”
Tsukauchi thinks he knows. That after everything they’ve seen, there’s nothing that could be worse, but he’d be dead wrong. Because it's not just the body, or the note, but the context that makes it so awful.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Aizawa signs and hangs up just as Hitoshi’s walking over. Cricket left already, thank fuck, scattering as he does like a roach to pursue his own dark ends. Unsurprisingly, Cricks wasn’t keen to overstay his welcome in the company of their fake murder victim and Hitoshi’s ominous deathnote to his father. Which Aizawa hates. Hates. It repels every fibre of his being, and he’s the one with no real relation to Hitoshi, so he can’t begin to imagine what Hitoshi’s feeling in this moment after scrawling up those words.
YOU MADE ME
More than the genetic material and desire for progeny through which Dr. Shinsou created his son, but the formation of a heartless person who would make an innocent woman cut herself to ribbons and bleed to death just for show. Dr. Shinsou did it once already with Shiyoko, and Hitoshi was supposed to be his masterpiece. Looking at the scene over Hitoshi’s shoulder, Aizawa can see exactly what the Doc wanted to turn his son into.
And from the desperate, dark strain in Hitoshi’s face, it could be believed the psycho got closer than gives anyone comfort. Because even if Hitoshi didn’t kill this woman himself, he’s used her death as if he did, and that’s not so distant as to be written off entirely.
Aizawa doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do, except to ask, “You okay?” knowing the answer, and the lie that must be given anyway. They don’t have enough time to not be okay.
Hitoshi shrugs, and Aizawa’s glad he got rid of Cricket already, because it makes things easier now. For Aizawa to gingerly reach for a water pouch on his waist that he unclips and holds out. “To wash your hands.”
Hitoshi nods, a distant glaze over his eyes, and holds his hands out as Aizawa uncaps the bottle and trickles clean water over bloodied palms. The water brightens the dried, dark red back to vivid crimson, Hitoshi slowly rubbing his hands over each other to wash the worst of it out, at least as far as the eye can see.
“Is Tsukauchi coming?”
“He will be,” Aizawa replies, torn between needing to ensure no one else comes upon this scene before the Detective does and not wanting Hitoshi to be too close when that happens. As if it’ll be easier to bear if Hitoshi doesn’t have to be there and see anyone’s reactions, hiding from reinforcement of the thing he’s been trying so hard to disprove. That he’s a Hero, not a Villain, despite what the packaging says.
“We don’t have to wait here,” Aizawa blurts. Not at the mouth of the beast, ready to be judged and found disturbed. Aizawa can’t do that to Hitoshi, when he’s already done so much.
Something glimmers in Hitoshi’s eyes on Aizawa, and he feels a powerful ebb of relief come from the teen. “We don’t?”
“No.” Aizawa shakes his head. “Just have to keep an eye on it.”
Aizawa steps away and Hitoshi stalls, looking back behind him. It’s a grim picture, the woman’s head hanging unnaturally to one side, just balanced with her cut arms spread outwards carefully, positioned to show up nice for the police cameras. No wonder Shiyoko’s first victim committed suicide in the same way, Aizawa suddenly recognises like a magic eye picture coming into focus. No wonder that’s almost how Hana went too. This was their bread and butter in the Doc’s notorious research.
Hitoshi’s message stands tall, a pillar in blood that gnaws on Aizawa’s very bones, until he doesn’t know what he’s saying until the words have already come out. “You’re not like him.”
Hitoshi’s violet eyes narrow suspiciously. “Who?”
“Him.” It needs no further explanation, but to test is to confirm they’re on the same page, and Hitoshi likes to be on the same page as Aizawa. The mentalist energy is stronger than ever between them, the same lighthouse call that Aizawa recognised earlier directed at Yamaguichi, but this signal is more conflicted, stormy seas and go-but-don’t-go emotions from Hitoshi being tossed back and forth in unresolved turmoil.
Hitoshi pouts. “You’re just saying that.”
“I mean it,” Aizawa insists. “You’re nothing alike, not in the ways that matter.”
“But in some ways.” The truth is there, undeniable. Aizawa wouldn’t have eyes on the bloody note behind Hitoshi if there weren’t similarities in the minds of the demented Doctor and his only son.
“Perhaps, but that’s why you can do this. Only you.” Aizawa screws the cap back on his water pouch and replaces it on his belt, freeing up his hands to hold Hitoshi’s shoulders. “You’re the opposite to him, Hitoshi. Everything you got from him you’ve turned into something good.”
“Then why don’t I feel good?!” Hitoshi spits with a flinch that’s painful, strikes from one mind to another like banging on a bent nail. Whipping his head back, turning over one shoulder to stare at what he made. “You call that shit good?” His hands have already dried in the summer warmth and with rubbing on his hoodie, but the darkness of blood sinks deep and stays around and under Hitoshi's nails, which dig into his palm as they curl into fists.
“It’s… what you wanted.” Aizawa’s grasp is steady on Hitoshi, but nothing else feels remotely calm, the energy coming off him like sticking your head out of a speeding car window during a rainstorm, a tang in the air like lightning is about to strike.
“It’s what he wanted, and I did it so easily!” Hitoshi sounds panicked, his breath too shallow and sharp to really be delivering enough oxygen to his brain, and Aizawa could’ve done more when he saw this coming a mile off. “I didn’t even… I didn’t–”
“Breathe, Hitoshi,” Aizawa says with far more pleading than command, and he’ll use his quirk if he has to tame the electrical storm coming off Hitoshi, but he’d prefer not to resort to that. “With me, okay?”
Aizawa can tell, but there’s nothing like showing, so he goes first, taking a deep breath with his gaze piercing the haze of Hitoshi’s, remembering when they did this together in a tiny breakout room just outside the Doc’s cell, and yet it feels so much closer this time. To both of them. So much more intense and necessary than when Aizawa barely knew Hitoshi and was just learning to love him. Nothing like now, when Aizawa’s not much of a mentalist, but he can push back against the storm coming from Hitoshi with his own soothing energy, the mental equivalent of a bear hug, which is going to be up next, if he can just get Hitoshi to slow down and stop hyperventilating himself into a panic attack.
Filling his chest to the fullest part and holding his breath, Aizawa feels Hitoshi’s shoulders rise as he does the same. The power in their connected gaze is like being held onto tightly, and Aizawa’s not letting go. Exhaling slowly, Hitoshi deflates as Aizawa does, taking several breaths more, forcing their breathing to flow together as Hitoshi’s fists gradually unfurl.
“You,” Aizawa starts with the certainty he believes this right down in the core of his very being, “are nothing like him, and you never will be.” It doesn’t matter if it’s objectively true or not, because it’s what Aizawa believes, and Hitoshi needs to know someone to believe that about him right now.
Because it’s always been a double-edged sword, but there are advantages of Aizawa being the sun and stars to Hitoshi, as he calms under Aizawa’s hold like a restless baby rocked in a cradle. Hitoshi swallows, blinks heavily as Aizawa forces his way through the stormy emotional static coming off the teen like leaning into a gale to walk through it, maybe leaning a little too hard when his arms bend and he just encloses Hitosh in a hug without an ounce of warning beforehand.
If Aizawa had done this too soon he’d likely have felt Hitoshi stiffen, not ready to accept such a strong gesture out of the blue, but thankfully Aizawa’s timed it right, and Hitoshi buries his face in the piles of Aizawa’s capture weapon and takes several deep, ragged gasps of only holding it together until it was safe to fall apart.
“I know,” Aizawa murmurs without realising Hitoshi never actually said anything, holding one arm firm around the teen's shoulders and the other rubbing a palm gently up and down his back. “You did great.”
Hitoshi shudders and grabs the sides of Aizawa’s jumpsuit, not fully hugging back but holding onto him for dear life as the aftershocks come through. Having Cricket around probably helped negate some of this at first, putting it off until there was no one else around, just Aizawa in his self-appointed position as the wall for Hitoshi to fling every emotion at and see what sticks.
Although Aizawa hears no sobs, Hitoshi’s eyes are red and wet when he withdraws from the crook of Aizawa’s neck, and he rubs his nose with a hand still lined in all the creases with someone else’s blood. Dr. Shinsou could live in solitary confinement for a hundred years and it wouldn’t be enough suffering to count out even a fraction of what he deserves for what he’s done to his son. Aizawa goes back and forth on the subject of whether he’d ever break his oath not to take life for the Doc, but death really is too good for some people.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hitoshi sniffles, and having backed away, Aizawa can’t resist one indulgence more, tugging Hitoshi back into him for one last hug and squeeze, with a fleeting graze of his mouth along Hitoshi’s hairline, just behind his temple. Hitoshi's stiffer this time, less expecting, but before the gesture settles Aizawa speeds on, spinning Hitoshi around to guide them from behind the dumpster and weave out onto the street, Hitoshi in front with Aizawa’s hands on his shoulders steering him from behind.
Nearly opposite to the mouth of this alleyway there’s a scaffolding clinging to the front of a shopfront with no workmen on it, which will do as good as anywhere for a spot to watch that no one except the Detective they’re waiting for probes into the alleyway containing Hitoshi’s supposed second victim. Blinking painfully in direct sunlight, Aizawa’s hands don’t really leave Hitoshi as they cross the road and climb the first level of the scaffolding, a grip on his upper arm here or a hand to hand helping him up there, and logically, Aizawa knows he can not be touching Hitoshi and everything will be okay, but hell if that Shinsou magnetism isn’t a whirlpool he’ll willingly give into from time to time.
Hitoshi doesn’t seem bothered by Aizawa’s need to paw at him, and although Aizawa’s not seen enough to make a real comparison, Kiki and Hitoshi are neither especially touchy with each other nor conspicuously not so. But Aizawa’s always been a tactile person, and Hitoshi has more often than not responded positively to contact between them, so Aizawa’s more than fine with letting himself settle close enough to Hitoshi on the second layer of the scaffolding that their knees touch, side by side on the worn boards held up by dusty steel poles.
The only complication this proximity creates, of course, is when no less than two minutes into the wait the urge for a cigarette crawls out of Aizawa’s ear and starts gnawing its devilish little teeth into him.
Aizawa fidgets, he cracks his knuckles, sweats, and fails to make conversation with Hitoshi who’s fallen into an emotionally exhausted low-tide contemplative silence, and when finally it’s time to give up the gauntlet, Aizawa rummages for the pack of guilt cigarettes he’s been hoarding for a time such as this. Aizawa just isn’t good at waiting, and this is as relaxing a way to kill time as he can reasonably get.
“That bad, huh?” Hitoshi speaks up when he sees Aizawa setting the cigarette between his lips, sparking the cheap lighter kept in the box next to light it with a grizzly murmur.
“It’s a bad habit,” he reminds Hitoshi even as he sucks a long, therapeutic drag that de-stresses him better than any breathing exercises, and that’s the fucking catch-22 of it all.
“Yeah, you make it look terrible,” Hitoshi replies sharply, too close to Aizawa not to read each other with perfect clarity, as the cloud of acrid smoke blows out of Aizawa and enfolds them both. Nicotine dulls the hard edges of Aizawa’s anxiety and sets his eyelids to a three-quarters shutter, trying not to be the face of bad decisions and clearly failing at it.
Hitoshi’s watching Aizawa from no less than an arm’s length away, and now that the outburst from the alleyway is behind him, the doors once thrown open have been shut back up tight again; though perhaps with a few extra boards nailed over them for safekeeping, compensating for the vulnerability with a minx of a sly look at Aizawa next to him.
“Gimmie a drag.”
Aizawa takes his own drag. “No.”
“Hypocrite,” Hitoshi tries, but Aizawa just flicks ash out that dissolves on the two storey fall below them, a perfect view almost all the way down the alleyway across the street, though thankfully not so direct they can see the fucking body. Small blessings.
“Yes.” Aizawa inhales again, not expecting his arm to suddenly lock up or body to betray him as control of his body is wrenched away like flipping a kill switch. Knowing Hitoshi this well, it’s absurd Aizawa didn’t anticipate that Hitoshi would take their constant back-and-forth as a cheeky opening for his quirk, but he obviously didn’t.
Completely powerless, and for once not open or receptive to the control Hitoshi forces over him with terrifying strength, Aizawa watches himself extend the cigarette out to Hitoshi, who takes it amiably from his fingers – one stolen back, for one taken before – and puts it to his grinning lips.
It’s totally different being controlled by Hitoshi against his will, as Aizawa grapples with as he tries to beat against the walls of his own head and gets absolutely nowhere, frustrated and freaking out as he realises how profoundly he can’t even reach his quirk down in the hole. The moment of opportunity when he might have snatched control back is long gone, rendered a helpless puppet that enables Hitoshi to steal a puff on his cigarette in a case of being the worst role model ever.
But then Hitoshi starts coughing, inexperienced and more sold on the aesthetic of smoking that Aizawa presents as an experienced smoker than the reality to a brat who’s barely done it, and the knee pressed against Aizawa’s shakes just enough that it nudges Aizawa out of it. Activating his quirk with a rush of terror-stricken impulse, Aizawa glares angrily at Hitoshi as he goes to snatch the cigarette back. Naturally, Hitoshi holds it teasingly away from him, stretching his arm up and away, because for any moment of emotional outpouring there’s an equal and opposite acting out that must come with it.
“Don’t do that,” Aizawa growls as he puts a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder to weigh him down, pressing up out of his cross-legged position and lunging across to rip the cigarette out of his thieving little fingers.
“Yeah yeah, one drag isn’t gonna stunt my growth,” Hitoshi rallies provocatively, and Aizawa supposes they all cope with the inertia of having to wait in different ways. Being the only thing around for Hitoshi’s entertainment, Aizawa supposes annoying him must fall quite high on any precious teenager’s list of things to do.
“I meant using your quirk on me,” Aizawa snaps as he sucks crossly on the cigarette, almost finishing it with a single angry smoke cloud that he blows out of the corner of his mouth rather than break laser-red eye contact with Hitoshi, not trusting him to try his luck again, as if this is a game. Aizawa can admit he sort of made it into one, with the casual way they’ve battled quirk-to-quirk in the past.
Hitoshi knows this too, but what had been playful banter falls apart, his brow creasing as the sincerity of Aizawa’s unhappiness, and scale of Hitoshi’s misjudgement sinks in, even a shadow of mistrust in his eyes as he responds, “But I thought you liked my quirk.”
“When I want you to use it,” Aizawa rasps unblinking, and realises that his quirk does quell the inebriating Shinsou Effect, silencing the mentalist radio waves that let him get so soft and comfortable with Hitoshi he was taken advantage of. “Not when you’re making me do something you know you’re not supposed to.”
Hitoshi’s frown creeps up from his jaw to hang despondent in each corner of his mouth, and Aizawa feels bad to have to bring down the hammer right now, when Hitoshi’s having such a shit time, but that’s probably exactly why they’re in this situation, unfortunately. There’s nothing like being pushed to make pushing others feel appealing, like something normalised and deserved. Maybe Hitoshi wanted to prove his quirk isn’t only a bloodthirsty weapon, but short-circuited when he combined it with his wild streak of disobedience in the face of being told no to something he wanted.
Hitoshi’s still young too, and needs to accept that a precedent set before doesn't mean it'll always be alright, even though he should know better than to use his quirk to force Aizawa – or anyone – to do something without, or worse yet directly against their consent. Aizawa’s sure Hitoshi does know all this, but his scales are just a little unbalanced right now, the two-way workings of that pervasive Shinsou Effect taking things too far.
“Fine,” Hitoshi murmurs sullenly, looking away, down at the mouth of the alley below them. “Be like that.” After a moment of tense, resentful silence he adds, “You can stop giving me that look. I won’t do it again.”
Aizawa blinks his dry eyes and lets his quirk settle, fumbling around for eyedrops as he puffs through the last breaths on the cigarette and stubs it on one of the scaffolding poles, ditching it in his designated ashtray pocket as he swaps one nervous habit for another. Hitoshi could really do a lot better in a role model. Aizawa should try to be better, and feels as sorry for himself as Hitoshi looks.
Tipping his head back into the burning sun to drip the saline solution into his eyes, Aizawa sighs despondently, “I'm sorry. I shouldn’t smoke around you.”
“S’fine. Ma does,” Hitoshi returns morosely, kicking his feet out to hang over the edge of the scaffolding platform.
“That’s up to her. Doesn’t mean I’ve got an excuse.” Oh, the things Kiki would do to Aizawa if she knew the things Aizawa exposes her son to on a regular basis.
“You don’t have to–” Hitoshi cuts himself off, choosing words, and Aizawa chances a look at him. Their knees are no longer touching, and the distance between them accordingly widened, but not totally unnavigable. “You don’t have to pretend to be some perfect role model around me. Just be yourself.”
“I feel like that’s half the problem sometimes,” Aizawa confesses, and he’s thought through this part a lot, told it to several people, but never Hitoshi, so he might as well. “You… remind me of myself a lot, when I was your age.”
“Oh, your dad killed people too?” Hitoshi’s joking, but Aizawa doesn’t mind.
“No, I didn’t have nearly as good an excuse for acting like a little asshole.” Hitoshi doesn’t quite laugh, but he smiles fleetingly, just for a moment. “My parents owned a convenience store." Much like the one supporting the scaffolding they’re sitting on. If this were his parents’ shop, Aizawa’s tiny room would have been on the other side of the wall from where they're sitting just about, so maybe that's why Aizawa’s coming over reminiscent. "The only thing my dad ever killed was roaches in the basement.” With a thin smile Aizawa continues, "He’s still an assassin with a slipper." After all, Aizawa had to get his eagle-eyed accuracy from somewhere, though now his father uses those skills to fish, an unassuming master with a long rod. Aizawa makes a note to himself to call his parents soon, assure them he's not dead, and… maybe even mention Hitoshi should the chance arise, he supposes.
“Where’re they now?” Hitoshi’s asking, and Aizawa knows without question that his parents would adore him – they did always say they wouldn't mind something resembling grandchild, which Aizawa supposes Hitoshi somewhat resembles at this point.
“Retired. They live out in the countryside.” Aizawa supposes this is as good a distraction as any while they wait for Tsukauchi to show up, and he certainly knows enough about Hitoshi’s family to deserve a little in return.
“Huh.” Hitoshi swings his feet off the edge of the platform, and it makes Aizawa nervous that he’ll attract attention or for some reason decide to jump off, but he chalks that up to nerves.
“What’s that mean?” Aizawa probes, and maybe, if they’re lucky, they’ve found a middle ground to keep them occupied while they race the clock – or at least the Detective. Somewhere between angry crying, stealing cigarettes and arguments over Hitoshi using his quirk on Aizawa.
“I just figured you’d have a whole tragic backstory going on,” Hitoshi reveals with private amusement, looking Aizawa critically up and down like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. “So it’s just all attitude with you?”
“Remember when I said thirty seconds ago you remind me of myself?” If this conversation happens to firm up the idea that Hitoshi shares things with Aizawa that he doesn’t with his biological father, because every individual is so much more than bloodline inheritance, that’s just a happy by-product of a perfectly innocent conversation to kill time while they wait.
“You said I’ve got a good reason for my attitude.” Hitoshi’s coy grin lurks just under the surface, and ugh, Aizawa likes this brat way too much.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he admonishes unconvincingly, because it’s just been proven Hitoshi can literally get away with murder under the right circumstances. “Even good excuses wear thin.”
Hitoshi manages proper smile now, not strong, but still there. "You're just saying that."
“Try me, brat," Aizawa invites, knowing he'll ever truly get sick of Hitoshi's attitude – not the way his patience wears out with his normal students – because Hitoshi moved into Aizawa’s heart like there's been a room made up for him there since the start, and proved himself the exception to every rule. That’s just how it is.
Luckily, before things can get any more mushy a police car rolls up at street level below them, not spotting Aizawa and Hitoshi from their high-up lookout. Tsukauchi’s still catching rides around, it seems, because Aizawa sees him in the passenger seat, so it only follows logical reasoning who gets out on the other side.
Aizawa feels an urgent pang off Hitoshi as Yamaguichi’s head pops up on the far side of the car, and he probably hadn’t considered she’d see this. While Yamaguichi’s seen worse, or at least as bad, it’s not the same as seeing the darkness someone familiar is capable of, what Hitoshi keeps down but allowed himself to vent in that raw, tortured moment. Even if Hiitoshi had prepared himself for Tsukauchi to see this, the Detective had been brought in on the plan and been warned by Aizawa, while Yamaguichi is still potentially on the outside of all this, and Hitoshi’s got every right to worry about how she’s going to react.
Rather than linger to find out, Aizawa gets up while Hitoshi stares at the two figures that disappear down the alleyway, Tsukauchi’s wider shoulders leading the way for Yamaguichi to uncertainly follow after.
“Let’s go,” Aizawa coaxes as if luring a cat with an open can of tuna, but it’s just his hand, which Hitoshi turns from the alleyway opposite to stare at like he’s not sure what to do with it.
“Where?” Hitoshi seems so lost all of a sudden, those pinball emotions flying fast when his eyes lift to meet Aizawa’s, the lighter inner-iris framed in a deep indigo border, and there’s nothing Aizawa wouldn’t do for him.
“Back to UA,” answers Aizawa. Somewhere they’ll be safe, where it can all stop and rest for an evening before hell breaks loose anew tomorrow. And it’s going to be hell now, like it’s never been before. “Are you coming?”
Not that Aizawa would ever leave without Hitoshi, but it’s a nice enough way to ask.
“Yeah.”
Hitoshi’s hands are only slightly smaller than Aizawa’s, when he lifts one to lay over Aizawa’s palm and allow himself to be hoisted to his feet. They’re already halfway to the roof, so it makes more sense to keep going up than to head back down.
They make it back to UA in record time, and whether the burst of energy that comes from Hitoshi is frustration or desperation, Aizawa’s impressed with how well he keeps up pace on the roof-run back to UA over the next forty or so minutes, eventually jogging across the high-security gates and only then slowing to a stop. Exercise is definitely a better place to hurl excess emotions than stealing Aizawa’s cigarettes, so at least he can be some kind of a good influence alongside all the bad.
It’s late afternoon verging on evening, the sun only just starting to wane in its intensity while their shadows dance like spiders several metres long across the schoolyard. This place is always such a ghost town outside of term time, and Hitoshi a lavender haired phantom of a student. Aizawa feels a little bad that he wasn’t around for his class at the end of term, but only a little. There’s going to be lots more terms, but there’s only one of this with Hitoshi. Aizawa just went where he’s needed most.
Hizashi’s car isn’t parked anywhere, and might still be near the police station for all Aizawa knows, though he somehow suspects after leaving Aizawa and Hitoshi with Cricket earlier, Hizashi’s next priority was to pick up his mechanised baby and move her out of harm’s way. Aizawa doesn’t have any messages from him, apart from a few wordless check-in emojis, so either Hizashi and Kiki are in trouble or they’ve been having a grand old time. Aizawa’s not sure which one is more worrying, because obviously he wants them both safe and well, but there’s no telling what Hizashi’s revealed about Aizawa to Kiki in the hours they’ve all been apart, and if he thinks about it too much he’ll sweat even more than he already is.
“Oh, they aren’t here yet,” Hitoshi observes as the reality sinks in, which is when Nezu waddles out to greet them, his only company a poker-faced as ever Ectoplasm.
"Welcome back," Nezu pronounces jovially, and though he barely comes up past Ectoplasm's knees, there isn't a shadow of a doubt who's in charge by the powerful aura of command he projects. "I trust all has gone to plan?"
"Oh yeah," Hitoshi drawls. "By tomorrow morning I'm going to look like a full-blown serial killer."
"Excellent.” Nezu and only Nezu could make this announcement seem as joyous an occasion as he does, and Aizawa’s not sure what’s happened to his mentalist senses today, but the barrier between the physical world and that extraordinary mentalist one seems especially thin right now.
Never before has Aizawa been able to sense Nezu’s mental presence so distinctly, completely unlike anything he’s felt before. Even the powerful lighthouse glare from Hitoshi’s quirk that Aizawa’s almost desensitised to is nothing like the strange, powerful signature of the Principal. The Shinsou brainwashing quirk doesn't work on Nezu, and with just a taste of the reason why, Aizawa can see how it could become an alluring obsession for something so far out of their reach. Nezu’s energy is distinctly inhuman, vibrations along those mental piano strings that hum like the roar of a great machine many miles below the earth, and the only part that emerges above ground is the petite, smiling creature in an immaculate suit and pinstriped waistcoat before them.
“Are you quite alright, Aizawa?” Nezu inquires with a canny tilt of his head, and Aizawa wishes he’d paid more attention to Iwaya’s warnings about managing overstimulation, reaching up to massage his eyes, which feel like they’re full of grit under his eyelids.
“Fine. Just a… long day,” he answers, remembering something Hitoshi said about noise-cancelling earphones helping with this burned-out sensation, seeing as drowning himself in the bathtub isn’t a viable option right now.
“You can say that again,” Hitoshi remarks, and every nuance of his tone, the sarcasm mixed with exhausted sincerity is like a pinprick on the inside of Aizawa’s skull; as if he's become a human mood ring for Hitoshi's every emotion and doesn't know how to switch it off. "You are looking a little peaky, though." Hitoshi peers at Aizawa lop-sided, leaning over to examine Aizawa’s probably bloodshot eyes and light coat of freezing sweat on his face. "Did we go too hard on the way back?"
There's aspiration in there, Aizawa can sense like a flaring light that rolls off Hitoshi and beams from the front to back of Aizawa’s brain. He wants to believe he can keep up or even wear Aizawa down in physical stamina. Which is an admirable goal, but that's not it, and Hitoshi’s always had him beaten at this from the start; the overwhelming fatigue of being next to a living beacon that Aizawa has programmed himself to watch at all times, and only now realises he's been staring at the sun too long.
"I'm fine," Aizawa passes off not at all convincingly, but before Nezu or Hitoshi can pick at him anymore the sound of the UA gates slide open at their backs.
"Oh, there they are," Hitoshi remarks as Hizashi’s bright laughter precedes the rest of his presence.
Hizashi’s voice always carries like his tongue has wings, which it doesn't quite, but Aizawa can vouch that there are some super-human properties it possesses, like the reassuring shiver down his back that says – as Hizashi often does when he bursts in with an all-singing-all-dancing emphatic: Papa’s home!
However, Aizawa’s happiness level for seeing Hizashi takes an adjustment when he turns around. Kiki looks even more like a natural-born part of Hizashi’s entourage, now with the addition of an oversize pair of mirrored sunglasses that scream Present Mic from the very rooftops, but that's just the start. What Aizawa’s annoyed with, pinballing straight from one extreme to the other, are the large number of bags hanging from Kiki and Hizashi’s arms. They're of mixed construction, some plastic and some made from sleek branded cardboard, but Aizawa can spot the logos from here, and he couldn't name a single one, but knows they're all expensive.
Because when it comes to indulging vices, Hizashi’s the unparalleled master, and Aizawa’s hiss is therefore appropriately accusatory.
"You went shopping?"
Notes:
It's nice to have these processing/catch-up chapters after anything as deeply heavy as the end of the previous one, and although Hitoshi is very GOOD at what he's doing, that doesn't mean it's coming without a cost. Plus excuses for Aizawa and Hitoshi to be very close and physically affection is SO my wheelhouse (it would be, this being my story and all, but I LIKE IT REGARDLESS OKAY).
I don't always (or often) pre-calculate exactly how a scene is gonna go, and with this one there was a lot of following the moment that at the time didn't seem particularly coordinated, but then on reflection I think it makes a really nice and layered scene that touches on a lot of different little humanities and how we operate as people coping with stress in good or bad ways. More on THAT theme next chapter ;)
Chapter 69: Perfect Fit
Summary:
If the shoe fits, or in this case, slays in a pair of killer heels.
Notes:
I've said it before, but the marriage of the killer-thriller with the domestic drama elements of this story is a constant source of joy for me, and this chapter evidences it very well. It's on the larger side for my chapters so I hope y'all appreciate it like I do.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Hizashi grins, but his beaming smile is less friendly, and more uncannily like that of a shark. It’s a cut-throat mugging by the force of his seemingly casual suggestion, "Can I grab you for a minute, babe?"
Ignoring the snort from Hitoshi, who's idling at Aizawa’s side, over hearing anyone refer to him as 'babe', and in direct retaliation of this annoyance, Aizawa grumbles, "As long as you're not charging,” just as Hizashi happens to be dropping all his shopping at once. Several huge paper bags land with a fluttery thwack at Hizashi’s feet before he wraps one of those inked hands around Aizawa’s arm and whisks him unceremoniously back through the gates of UA, which are thankfully thick enough to contain Hizashi’s attempts at being anything except foghorn loud.
And don’t get him wrong, Aizawa’s ready to berate Hizashi to within an inch of his life for going fucking shopping while there’s a hunt for a pair of insane killers on, but he hasn’t even opened his mouth before Hizashi’s suddenly got him pressed up against the wall hard enough to feel their pulses thumping from palm to bicep respectively. Hissing like a King Cobra, Hizashi gets barely an inch away from Aizawa’s face, up close and personal to spit, “So help me Shota that poor woman has been through enough so I don’t wanna hear your goddamn bitching just let her have this.”
Aizawa was ready to bitch about how much money Hizashi presumably blew on pointless overpriced things he doesn’t even need, but this onslaught stops him in his tracks in a way that would never work if it were about anyone except Kiki. It leaves Aizawa staring blankly at Hizashi trying to figure out what to do with all this irritation he suddenly doesn’t have an outlet for anymore.
Kiki has been through enough, so much that of course a shopping trip with one of her personal Heroes is low-hanging fruit and the very least she deserves. Giving it more than a second’s thought, Aizawa’s not even accounting for the fact that most of Kiki and Hitoshi’s things are presumably still back in the apartment that’s been turned into a fucking crime scene, and instead of paying attention to what was going on Aizawa’s just being biased and cranky.
Opening his mouth to try and express any of this, then shutting it again, Aizawa finally opens it once more to mutter, “Fine,” as he just lets it go. Almost. “But don’t think I don’t know that you’re using it as an excuse to buy more shoes.” As a man with a collection of almost identical leather pants and jackets, or identical as far as Aizawa can tell them apart, Hizashi apparently also requires an even more outrageous supply of boots, shoes, sandals and something called Oxfords that take up an entire dedicated wardrobe in their bedroom, all of them with the same overarching purpose of being fucking shoes.
Aizawa has approximately three pairs of shoes, one of which are almost always soaking wet for some reason or the other. That Hizashi should have at least ten times that number in ridiculous footwear, some of which he can barely fucking walk in, is utterly illogical and it deserves to be pointed out as often as Aizawa can get away with.
“How dare you!” Hizashi bursts with the energy of a cat whose family have just come back from a long holiday, clingy excitement and bitter resentment bundled into one. “I do something nice for someone and you accuse me of such shallow materialistic frivolity? I’m insulted, I’m outraged, Shota, I–”
“How many pairs did you buy?” Aizawa interrupts.
“Six, but that’s not the point,” Hizashi brushes off like an ace prosecutor. “What else was I supposed to do to take her mind off the fact that her son is out there pretending to murder people?”
Now, Aizawa’s got a good idea what Hizashi would’ve proposed as distraction in years gone by, which is a shame for Kiki more than anything else.
“Am I supposed to answer that?” Aizawa suggests, raising a tired eyebrow.
“Don’t,” Hizashi responds with an altogether more cheeky and less shark-like grin. Though it’s not to say Hizashi wouldn’t or doesn’t have the odd fling or two in theory, in practice it’s a liberty that’s barely been used. It’s always more of a party when they’re together – and turns out they’re still each other’s favourite person to have sex with, despite drawing from such radically different prior dating pools. But while Aizawa’s been rather accommodating of female third parties for someone with zero attraction to women whatsoever, Kiki is so very off limits in that respect even Hizashi knows not to go there.
It’s while receiving a stare of intensity matching this thought that Hizashi’s grin finally collapses, pulling down his sunglasses to suddenly peer directly as Aizawa without the mirrored lenses.
“Are you okay, babe?” Maybe it’s because he’s got them hidden so much more than most people’s eyes usually are, but it’s always startling seeing Hizashi’s bright emerald irises up close. Maybe they’re just that breathtaking, so all Aizawa does is just stare back in exhausted awe and amazement. “You look really pale.” Hizashi raises a hand to brush the soft backs of his fingers down Aizawa’s clammy cheek.
“I’m always pale,” Aizawa retorts, but leans into Hizashi’s touch on instinct, his eyes quickly fluttering shut as he feels the pressure of Hizashi pushing back against him. What Aizawa wouldn’t give for a few uninterrupted hours with Hizashi in a hot spring about now, but instead they’re at school.
“No, I mean you look and feel like wet fucking cement, Shota. What did you do?”
Another wonderful thing about Hizashi is that while he’s loud, usually just a little bit louder than he ought to be, his quirk is wholly physical. So although Aizawa’s tuned into his moods the way anyone’s attuned to the emotions of someone they love, it doesn’t tax Aizawa’s brain like being around Hitoshi or Kiki does, not even going into the weird shitstorm that’s Nezu’s weird mentalist monster aura. Even now, Aizawa’ sure he can still sense all of them on the other side of that wall, like imprints on the back of his mind from overexposed film.
Aizawa’s not proud of the thought, but it does occur to him that if he and Hizashi legged it now they could be home and fucking like rabbits within the hour, but that’s entirely too appealing a proposition to give serious thought or he’ll actually seriously want to do it. So he’s also grumpy about that.
“Why’s it always something I did?” Aizawa’s crabbing, but quietens down when Hizashi suddenly tips his forehead in to rest against Aizawa’s, close enough to smell whatever sample cologne Hizashi’s rolled in like a dog while he and Kiki were surely cruising department stores. Aizawa mostly prefers Hizashi unperfumed, or better yet dirty and sweaty, when he’s more like himself more than harsh scents that disguise his underlying good-smell.
“Call it experience.” Hizashi’s so close that what Aizawa really wants is a kiss, but knowing that is probably why exactly Hizashi’s doing this, holding out on Aizawa until he cooperates. “C’mon, Shota.”
“I didn’t do anything… not on purpose,” Aizawa caves almost immediately, but then when he leans forwards to steal a reward-kiss Hizashi infuriatingly backs away.
“What’s that mean?” Hizashi knows his leverage, and has all the sensibilities to apply it ruthlessly, because no one knows how to wind Aizawa up better than he does. “You did something to yourself by accident?”
“Sorta.” It’s only on the cusp of saying it that Aizawa realises the amount he’s told Hizashi about this is not at all, so he changes tack at the last second to instead ask, “How much do you know about mentalist quirks?”
Hizashi’s confusion reads loud and clear, a bolt out of the blue that has him reeling for a second before answering, “You mean like Hitoshi's?”
And because it’s suddenly the easiest way to do this, Aizawa just adds a simple, “And mine,” on the end like the most ordinary thing in the world.
Hizashi doesn’t say anything right away, just keeps looking at Aizawa in utter perplexity. It’s quite a treat to see him at a total loss for words. So Aizawa doesn’t acknowledge it so much as step neatly around it. “There’s a thing that can happen when mentalist quirk users get overwhelmed by using their abilities too much, a bit like sensory overload. I think I just…”
“Wait,” Hizashi interrupts, tracking back to the important part. “And yours?”
“What else would my quirk be?” Aizawa repeats back to Hizashi much like was said to him what feels like a long time ago – the scorn on Hitoshi and Iwaya’s faces when they realised Aizawa didn’t even know what he was. “I hadn’t thought about it before because it’s never really been a thing for me, but then this Psych Hitoshi’s seeing pointed it out and I realised that I just… was.”
Hizashi’s forehead creases as his brows pull together, and though he despairs over the lines that his expressive face holds onto more and more, Aizawa’s never minded them. “How long have you know about this?”
“I guess a… a few days?” Aizawa’s not great at keeping track of the time anymore, but the face Hizashi makes next foretells plenty of trouble.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t think of it,” Aizawa evades, then shifts his gaze past Hizashi to the gates next to them. “We’ve been gone a while, maybe we should–”
“Oh no you don’t, Mister,” Hizashi cuts off, hand squeezing tighter around Aizawa’s arm, and Aizawa’s got something else he’d much rather Hizashi be squeezing, but that’s kind of not the point. “You’re telling me you found out about this days ago and never thought to bring it up?”
“Yeah,” Aizawa snaps back. “I haven’t exactly been thinking about myself, have I?” Point in case, the glass door he threw himself through yesterday when he wasn’t thinking about himself compared to the people he could protect. “Look, I know you hate it when I do this, but I’m telling you now, Hizashi. I’m just worn out and need to rest.” Which is, and always has been, par for course when it comes to Aizawa. “That’s what I came back here to do.”
Hizashi gives him a stern look, mouth drawn into a tight line under the waxy blonde wings of his moustache. Then finally, after an agonising pause he offers, “So you’re like, what, a mindreader now?”
“I wish,” Aizawa replies with a relieved sigh that curls into a smile. “It’s not like that, but I can kinda… sense the emotions of other mentalists, sometimes.” Mostly just Hitoshi, but that part probably goes without saying. “It’s like training a new muscle, the Psych says.”
“So you’re just pushing yourself too hard as usual?” Hizashi suggests knowingly. That is Aizawa’s normal procedure.
“Not on purpose,” he tries to explain. “It’s not something I can just switch off, and I’m only really aware of it when it gets to be too much.” This was a fabulous distraction from Aizawa being cross about Hizashi buying too many pairs of shoes, but Aizawa really does want to get back to the others. “Can we go now?” Though, added with an afterthought, “Unless you wanna make out.” In which case Aizawa might make an exception, but Hizashi just laughs and presses a kiss to Aizawa’s cold, sweaty forehead while dropping the grip on his arm to seek Aizawa’s hand to squeeze comfortingly.
“Later, baby.”
When they come back round the gates again, Kiki’s standing next to Hitoshi with all Hizashi’s various bags neatly assembled at her feet, rocking that entourage-meets-fanclub-president vibe she gives off more and more around Hizashi. Since they’ve been gone, Hitoshi’s taken off the bloodied grey hoodie he came back with Aizawa wearing to try on a new one that must have come from one of the shopping bags, the soiled article already dumped somewhere out of sight. Seeing Hitoshi’s face as he tries on whatever plush new hoodie his Ma and Hizashi picked out with all the time and attention for shopping Aizawa’s never had, Aizawa’s sorry he let himself kneejerk about Hizashi taking Kiki out for a bit of retail therapy. Even if Hizashi does use it as an excuse to spoil himself too, the benefit to Kiki and Hitoshi is incomparable.
“About time,” Hitoshi calls out a touch irately as Aizawa and Hizashi finally roll up. “Finished making out?”
“I wish,” Aizawa bats back with a turn of such surprising honesty that Hitoshi’s mouth forgets to close, even Kiki looking over at Aizawa with a mistrustful what’s-gotten-into-you look. Just because they haven’t seen Aizawa being so open before doesn’t mean he can’t be, and he’s finally worn down enough not to care what anyone else thinks of his neediness anymore. Plus, Hizashi snorts, and that’s always nice to have.
“If you don’t have other arrangements, I would gladly invite you all to dine with me this evening,” Nezu announces like one of the woodwork creatures on a very elaborate Swiss clock. He’s been waiting for them all this time with astonishing patience, but Aizawa’s thinking of excuses not to have to eat dinner with his boss when he’s saved.
“Thanks,” Kiki swings like the all-out ringer she is, “but Mic and I already bought some things while we were out, so we’ll be fine.” If anyone else had said this, Aizawa’s sure Nezu wouldn’t concede easily. But Kiki says it, and their eyes don’t need to meet for long before a conclusion is quickly reached.
“Very well, then I shall leave you to your own devices.” Nezu’s all cheer and polished ettiquete on the surface, but that’s what makes him so fucking hard to read, and keeps Aizawa on edge even if he didn’t have the mentalist aura of a party hat on the head of a great white shark. Aizawa always knew his boss was a little off, and it’s not meant in a bad way because Nezu is a sociopathic mastermind for the right side, which is a huge asset, but that doesn’t mean he wants to get too friendly. Not tonight, at least. Just being around Hitoshi and Kiki is enough for his fried brain to cope with.
Hizashi likened Aizawa’s appearance to freshly laid cement, and Aizawa’s really starting to feel like it too, as if he’s hardeneding slowly to a single unfeeling slab of rock. It must be getting obvious, or at least be reciprocal, because Hitoshi only watches Aizawa for a few moments before remarking, “You look like I feel.”
“Yeah,” Aizawa agrees inarticulately. “Me too.”
Hizashi grabs the majority of the shopping bags, which Aizawa fears is because they’re mostly his, and is winning by far in the energy stakes. He leads with a cheery, “Let’s get going then,” that he follows up to Kiki with a particularly personable, “After you, Milady.”
If Hizashi’s winning in the mood stakes, Kiki must be in second place, lifting the rest of the bags with a coy smile that worries Aizawa as much as it comforts him. Because anyone who grins like that and has spent time around Hizashi know things, and if Aizawa’s a practiced expert at holding onto information, Hizashi’s a leaky tap for it. The less Aizawa dwells on what Kiki knows about him after spending an afternoon with the one and only Present Mic, the better.
The accommodation the Principal arranged for Hitoshi and Kiki is in a small and tidy building on the far side of campus that Aizawa thinks was teacher accommodation in the past, converted for use by seniors. The two-floor units are built like a series of self-contained flats, a few bedrooms in each apartment sharing a bathroom and communal kitchen-living space. The one allotted to Kiki and Hitoshi – and Aizawa and Hizashi for now, he supposes – is on the upper floor, overlooking the main spread of the UA campus with the main gate in the distance. It’s nothing fancy, but still remarkably homely compared to some of the newer buildings.
Kiki and Hitoshi get to settling in right away, starting to unpack the bags of shopping that proved to have food in them into the essentials-only kitchen while Aizawa and Hizashi occupy one of the two sofas that have clearly stood the test of time.
Hizashi, obviously, gets to unpacking all of his shoes, piling all six boxes up on top of one another and then propping his socked feet on them as he waits for an audience, which he inevitably attracts.
It’s Hitoshi who finally takes the bait, catching his gaze on Hizashi in one of his glances across the living space for Aizawa, who's taken a seat on the other end of the sofa from Hizashi. “Are all those for you?”
“Of course!” Hizashi replies ecstatically, dodging that wry look from Aizawa that he knows is coming his way. “A guy can never have too many pairs of shoes!”
“Yes he can,” Aizawa counters, but Hizashi just lifts his heels and snatches the top box off the pile to pull gleefully into his lap, throwing the lid off deliberately in Aizawa's direction to reveal a pair of… shoes.
“Sounds like you two had fun,” Hitoshi remarks pointedly to his Ma, who Aizawa hasn’t missed with a couple shoeboxes of her own in that bag with the English name Aizawa can't read but knows means expensive.
“We had to do something, didn’t we?” Kiki doesn’t quite get defensive, but there’s no forgetting or ignoring that while she and Hizashi were off on a shopping spree Hitoshi and Aizawa were out doing far less savory things. So out of which group activity they’re going to dissect, it’s surprisingly not the one involving the mutilated corpse.
“Aren’t you going to try yours on, Kiki?” Hizashi suggests as he twirls a foot around modelling a shiny slip-on shoe that’s black at the toe and fades into bright red at the heels.
“I tried them on in the shop,” she answers coolly, but that’s not going to last for long.
“Oh come on! You have to check you still love them,” Hizashi jabbers in that infectious way of his, and although Aizawa never forgets just how wonderful it is having Hizashi around, he’s still reminded of it on a daily basis. Because this is all inane and silly, but it's a distraction and that's what they need right now, far more than any dredging through the sludge. Hizashi knows that better than any of them, but he wouldn't be such a smooth operator if he deigned to point it out.
Instead, Hizashi has changed his black and red loafers for another pair of… shoes. This set are only shiny on the toe, but make up for this by being lined with spikes, along with some kind of embellishment on the top of the foot that looks like an old fashioned tattoo; which, even objecting on principle to Hizashi having entirely too many pairs of shoes to begin with, Aizawa can still acknowledge are very him. Twirling his foot only long enough for Aizawa to make tired ‘yes, I see them’ eyes at Hizashi, he whips this pair off again to put back in the box and goes for the next while Kiki comes over with her own boxes.
"Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt," Kiki cedes with a sly a smile shared with Hizashi’s that's as wonderful as it is worrying. It's nice that they're already so friendly, but Aizawa has enough of a time handling them each separately, now he's totally outnumbered.
“You’re a terrible influence,” Aizawa tells Hizashi to this effect as he’s scooting up the sofa to make room for Kiki next to him, meanwhile Hitoshi is still over on the kitchen half of the room giving them beady-eyed looks that Aizawa pretends he doesn’t notice.
“How dare you! I’m a wonderful influence,” Hizashi yelps like one of those dogs that needs carrying around in a handbag. "It's not my fault you have no appreciation for the finer things." By this stage through the tirade Hizashi has changed shoes again, pulling on a pair of ankle boots with an inevitable and impractical ridiculously thin high heel, as well as a toecap entirely covered in shiny chrome spikes.
"Wastes of money," Aizawa interjects.
"What else is money for?!" Hizashi squawks back as he ensures sure Aizawa notices this new pair by hiking one of his legs right up over his head, the bright red soles impossible to miss as he waves a foot threateningly in Aizawa’s face. "I didn't write and record all those washing power jingles just so you could turn your nose up at my exquisite taste."
"You'll put someone's eye out with that thing," Aizawa grouses as he tries to snatch one of Hizashi’s overpriced feet and misses.
"Pearls before swine!" Hizashi declares impetuously, which is when Hitoshi cuts in suddenly from across the room.
"Is this fun for you two?" There's an inherent suspicion in Hitoshi's tone that harks of misunderstanding, a negativity that's out of place, as if there's something he's missing to draw the wrong conclusion.
"Is what?" Hizashi turns to face Hitoshi, but leaves his leg up, allowing Aizawa to grab hold of his foot in the meantime. The otherwise black leather ankle boots have colourful paint splashes on them spelling out a word on one side that Aizawa thinks might be ‘love’ in English, but he doesn’t dare to check for risk of encouraging him.
"Arguing all the time."
Aizawa supposes it does look like that, especially to someone like Hitoshi, so used to seeing conflict between couples that he can’t tell play from the real thing.
There's no mentalist connection between Aizawa and Hizashi, but that'd imply they need one, which they don't, not to chorus as a single unified voice, "Uh, yeah."
"Yeah?" Hitoshi echoes back incredulously. "Yeah what?"
"Yeah, it's fun," Hizashi specifies, flexing a leg in his apparently precious dark blue jeans against the force of Aizawa’s hand. He really could take someone's eye out with these heels, but Aizawa just uses the grip to drag Hizashi slightly closer to him along the sofa. "We've always been like this, haven't we?"
"Pretty much," Aizawa answers nonchalantly, and when Hizashi finally kicks free of Aizawa’s grip, his leg comes to rest long across Aizawa’s lap, which is exactly what Aizawa wanted him to do. Truth be told, if they're not fighting they're usually fucking, and while Aizawa certainly has the impulse to throw Hizashi down on the sofa and start combatatively making out, they can't do that right now, so it'll have to be the hand Aizawa sets possessively over Hizashi’s calf, something that Hitoshi’s eyes follow like the needle of a compas over a magnet.
“You both went to school here, right?” This suggestion comes from Kiki, taking a turn at peacemaker, and if she's asking this now then maybe she doesn't know as much about Aizawa already as he fears she does. Or maybe she's just tweaking the subject matter to better cushion everyone’s nerves.
"Yuh-huh, walked these very halls of UA together, didn't we?" Hizashi spouts gleefully with a sideways glance at Aizawa.
"How'd you even end up friends?" Hitoshi shoots next, and there’s a lurch in Aizawa’s gut, as he hadn't realised they were sitting down for another interrogation about his and Hizashi's relationship, because he might not have come then. His nerves are weathered enough without fresh footprints trampling all over his personal life, but at least with Hizashi around he does most of the talking.
On this occasion, it’s Hizashi bragging, "My incredible and magnetic personality, of course!"
"We sat next to each other," Aizawa corrects tersely, because if they have to talk about this they might as well have the facts straight. With a hard look at Hizashi down the length of his leg, Aizawa remarks, "On the first day of term he said I looked like a goth fucked a garbage bag."
Hitoshi and Kiki both laugh at this, but so does Hizashi, even louder than the other two put together. Typical of him to forget what he's said after he's said it and then find himself hilarious all over again.
"That sounds about right." Hizashi jiggles his leg in Aizawa's lap, and if it weren't an overshow of public affection, Aizawa would rather have all of Hizashi in his lap right now, but the sacrifices he makes.
"See," Hitoshi says bitterly, and there a drop of fear in Aizawa's gut before he finishes, "You got taken seriously and put in the Hero Course."
"Oh, not at first," Hizashi jumps in. "They let him in because he scored so high in the entrance exam, but everyone said it was a fluke, or that he'd cheated."
“Seriously?” Hitoshi’s openly shocked, so Aizawa supposes Hizashi can keep touring some more of his struggles in the past, because it does make him more human, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “What did you do?”
“What I was supposed to,” Aizawa mutters begrudgingly. “They just didn’t like the way I went about it.”
“The entrance exam was carried out with volunteers back then instead of robots,” Hizashi explains merrily. “It was a villain attack scenario, so all this one did was went around erasing people’s quirks and restraining them while they were trying to beat him up the old fashioned way.”
“How’s that cheating?” Hitoshi seems much more settled now, and it’s not past Aizawa’s notice that even when it’s not serious, he’s on edge around arguments in a way that makes complete sense for a kid who’s been through what he has. Aizawa dreads to think of what it was like when Dr. Shinsou and Kiki argued at home.
“People feel entitled to use their quirks,” Aizawa remarks, keeping his fingers curled around Hizashi’s leg draped possessively over his lap. “Taking them away tends to provoke a strong reaction.”
“It’s not your fault, though,” Hitoshi replies, coming to rest against the arm of the other empty sofa opposite to the one that Aizawa, Hizashi and Kiki are all sat on. “You have to use the quirk you’re born with.” Just like I do, it goes out on radio Hitoshi’s high-frequency broadcast, Aizawa’s over-stretched brain vibrating in return like the hum of harp strings.
“They were just bitter,” Hizashi carries on in his effortless ray of sunshine way of making conversation, while Hitoshi’s coming in to sit properly. He makes full use of the space on the empty sofa, spreading out like a cat getting comfortable to Hizashi’s podcast chatter. “Everyone thinks they’re hot shit until they find their asses kicked by a garbage bag’s goth-baby.”
Hitoshi bursts out an involuntary laugh, and it’s wonderful. Aizawa’s heart lifts just at the sound, especially knowing it was Hizashi who wrangled such mirth from him; compared to last night, tonight couldn’t be more different. There’s some environment in that – they aren’t in Aizawa and Hizashi’s apartment, for one. The neutral space probably makes it seem less overwhelming, to say nothing of the night and day Hitoshi’s had to let the bombshell that finally landed yesterday evening sink in. Aizawa’s sorry he ever doubted the kid, but grateful he’s still being open-minded, little adjustments that make a big difference. Maybe Aizawa doesn’t have to be so defensive all the time either, because if he’s with family he shouldn’t need to be guarded, and that’s on him to remember.
“I wouldn’t have made the cut these days, that’s for sure,” Aizawa admits just as Kiki’s getting out a shoebox from her own bag to rest in her lap at first.
“You’d have still become a Hero, though,” Hizashi chips in before Aizawa even needs to say that part himself. “You don’t have any other marketable skills.”
“True,” Aizawa agrees. His skills as a Hero are barely marketable now.
Kiki opens the shoebox in her lap, and Aizawa doesn’t know why he wasn’t expecting anything except a pair of pink high heels, but perhaps some part of him had been hoping Kiki was going to prove more resistant to the temptation of absurdly impractically shoes than Hizashi is.
“Ugh, gorgeous,” Hizashi purrs in spite of clearly having seen them before, sufficiently distracted from annoying Aizawa to be still for a short time while Kiki’s slipping on the shiny shoes dappled with stripes of lighter baby pink like an exotic animal print.
“Jeez, Ma,” Hitoshi remarks with a resting lazy smile on his mouth, and much to Aizawa’s relief he seems properly at ease again, which is something they all need right now. “Just something casual to wear around the house?”
“You don’t understand, Hitoshi,” Hizashi leaps in with a refreshed burst of playful enthusiasm, and it’s beautifully natural hearing Hizashi address him with such warm familiarity. If Aizawa and Hitoshi went fast, Hizashi’s leap into neck-deep attachment is so fast it doesn’t register to the human eye. “Those shoes were begging, pleading to come home with your Ma, we had to get them.”
“Thank you again,” Kiki says quietly with her eyes down on her feet, confirming what needs no confirmation – because what’s Hizashi’s money for if not to treat other people in the same extravagant way he indulges himself? There’s nothing that could have made the terrible parts of this day any less terrible for Kiki, but fuck, Hizashi’s definitely given it a go.
However, before he has to endure anymore shoe modelling, Aizawa decides there’s a forty-minute hot shower with his name on it, so gently extracts Hizashi’s leg from his lap before getting up.
“I’m gonna grab a shower,” he’s no sooner announced this intention than Hizashi has leapt to his stiletto-heel-wearing feet, and Aizawa likes to say Hizashi can’t walk in heels, but he certainly manages to teeter around like a stylish baby deer.
“Wait, I picked up some stuff for you too– and don’t make that face at me, grumpus,” Hizashi scolds as he scoops up one of his bags and snaps his fingers as if to coax and reprimand Aizawa at the same time. “I’ll put everything in our room for when you're done, which is where, by the way?” He turns back towards Kiki over a shoulder, looking for all intents and purposes like the cover of a magazine from head to studded toecaps, and Aizawa can't deny he appreciates it rather a lot.
“Me and Hitoshi took the doors on the left,” Kiki supplies, leaving a couple of rooms free on the right side of the short corridor with a shared bathroom at the end that's softly calling to Aizawa.
“Gotcha.” Hizashi converts one of his fingersnaps into a point, as Aizawa takes himself away and into the first empty door on the right. He enters the dorm room boasting a tiny window, a desk and a narrow single bed that they’re going to have fun fitting into together later. Or now, as Hizashi follows him all the way in and closes the door behind them.
“Now before you start complaining, all I bought you was pyjamas, moron,” Hizashi opens on ambitiously, and Aizawa can’t exactly argue with that. Kiki's already seen him naked once during a medical emergency, and that's about as much skin as he plans for anyone who’s not Hizashi to get an eyeful of around here, so it would be nice to have something other than his jumpsuit to wear for the rest of the evening.
“What makes you so sure I was going to complain?” Aizawa poses as he turns to face Hizashi, who’s leaning back against the door beaming that million yen smile, towering over Aizawa in his ridiculous stiletto ankle boots.
“You haven’t even seen them yet!” Hizashi’s hand dives into the bag and pulls out a fabric that moves so fluidly it can only be silk, dark midnight blue covered in a pattern that's unrecognisable until Hizashi’s holding the shirt all the way up, which is when the repeated illustrations of cats can be made out.
Closing his eyes for a second and then opening them again, just in case he’s seeing things, Aizawa confirms that he is what he’s looking at before remarking, “You didn’t,” in the way he always does when Hizashi slowly but surely expands Aizawa’s pool of worldly possessions one item-he-can’t-refuse at a time.
“And they match,” Hizashi gushes, flinging the pyjama shirt onto the bed before whipping out a long pair of trousers with the same cats-on-navy-blue design all over. “That’s not all, either.” Hizashi’s hand dives back into the lucky dip bag and pulls out a zipped black case that he tosses to Aizawa.
As much as Aizawa loves and wants to be around Hitoshi and his Ma, there’s nothing in the world that’s exactly like being with Hizashi all alone. After unzipping the case, this is especially relevant when Aizawa recognises the rubber bulb and long nozzle that can only be one thing, which could only be bought from one kind of establishment. Zipping it back up sharply, Aizawa’s a lot less appreciative as he declares, “You did not take Kiki to a sex shop.” Because if he says it with enough force, there’s a chance it’ll spontaneously become true, right?
“What was I supposed to do, just leave her outside?” Hizashi guffaws, because of course no sex shop on a Yamada Hizashi shopping trip wasn’t ever an option. “She’s a fully grown woman, Shota. They have needs.”
Exactly how much Hizashi knows about those needs, in Kiki-specifics or generalities, is none of Aizawa’s business, but now he’s got to contend with the fact that now Kiki probably knows exactly what kind of shit he and Hizashi are into based on the amount of cooing Hizashi almost certainly did over various whips and chains or studded spanking paddles on show. This without even considering whether Kiki bought anything for herself in there, which Aizawa soundly does not wanna know about.
So Aizawa just tells Hizashi, “You’re unbelievable,” and leaves it at that.
“Isn’t that why you love me?” Hizashi poses while he also poses, laying himself back against the door as appetisingly as a platter of finger food at a party, turning this way and that on the spindly points of his heels like he's just waiting for someone to pick up such a tasty treat. And it can’t be ignored that they are behind closed doors at last, so rather than answering any of this in words Aizawa just takes the couple of steps over to Hizashi, grabs him by either side of his face and plants a particularly wet kiss on him that’s half payoff and the other half payback, Hizashi squirming against him delightfully.
“That,” Aizawa rasps once his mouth has lifted the barest sliver off Hizashi’s to enable speaking rather than frenching, “is why you drive me crazy.” Always has, and always will.
“Crazy in love, obviously,” Hizashi affirms while Aizawa’s slipping a knee between his legs, and they better hope these rooms are at least moderately soundproof, but honestly, at this point Aizawa doesn’t even care. He just kisses Hizashi again, deep and tonguey with a hand closing into a fist around Hizashi’s t-shirt in case he tries to get away, but Hizashi drinks it all in. He wouldn’t wind Aizawa up if he didn’t want the consequences, one of which is currently being ground against Hizashi’s thigh.
“I must be crazy,” Aizawa pants, because not even the thought of Hitoshi and Kiki just outside is enough of a deterrent to stop him from dragging his lips along the sculpted edge of Hizashi’s jaw, nipping the soft spot just at the top of his neck when Hizashi obligingly rolls his head back to present it to his partner's roaming mouth. “Because fucking you against the door almost sounds like a good idea right about now.”
“Sounds like a great idea if you ask me, but why don’t you take that shower first?” Hizashi’s more slippery than an eel when he wants to be, so he manages to somehow get from being spread against the door like peanut butter to strutting across the small floor away from Aizawa in the blink of an eye. Hizashi twirls and then bounces down on the bed, which they better hope is going to be strong enough for what it’s going to have to endure later on, when he finally stops fucking teasing Aizawa and they bang each other’s brains out like they deserve.
“Fine, I'll take a shower.” Aizawa doesn’t love it, not like he loves Hizashi, but he’s practiced in the art of delayed gratification. So he can wait, if only because waiting makes the getting even better.
Notes:
HAH I FORGOT that this is the part when Hizashi finally finds out about Aizawa being a mentalist. Remember THAT from many chapters ago? Spinning plates in the air, people. So many spinning plates.
Also fun fact I have bookmarks of every pair of shoes referenced here, they're all various louboutins because Hizashi as a Rich Bitch with an expensive shoe habit breathes LIFE into my COLD, DESICCATED CORPSE and that's just how it is. Also Aizawa being stress-horny and not caring how needy he comes off around Hitoshi and Kiki anymore is also THE REFRESHING BEVERAGE THAT I THIRST FOR ALL THE TIME.
This is another chapter building on the last one where seemingly quite trivial domestic interactions are expressions of deeper themes across the whole story. There's also only been a few scenes of these four key characters occupying a domestic setting together, and even fewer that've been so positive, so getting to put more energy into this important dynamic is life-giving to this veteran author's soul. To be almost 70 chapters/over 400k in and STILL feel like there's things I'm only just getting to delve into is a personal achievement as a writer. As I've said before, I never planned for this story to end up even close to as long as it is, so to still feel like it's 'fresh' this far in is really satisfying, and based on the comments I get the feeling seems to be mutual!
More fun chapters to come! See you next week :D
Chapter 70: The Cat's Pyjamas
Summary:
If this is the calm, the storm doesn’t bear thinking about.
Notes:
If it seems like we've slowed down for a minute here, trust that it's gonna pace the fuck up soon, and that these moments are more than just cute chit-chat to keep us going. I mean, there IS cute chit-chat, but it's all part of the greater scheme, yanno?
Speaking of slowing down, I'm updating this at work since it's slowed right down and I have time to kill. I'll be starting a new job next year that'll probably give me less time to gratuitously write fanfic at work, so gotta enjoy it while it lasts.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa takes the unnecessarily long shower of his dreams, the rush of the water against the slate grey tiles of their communal bathroom almost as good as being completely submerged for his frayed mental senses and general emotional-physical exhaustion. By the end of it his mind’s a little more at ease – as is his dick. It’s no easy task to will down the erection caused by at least ten minutes of stress relief making out and wanton grinding on Hizashi against the door of their dorm room, but Aizawa somehow manages it, if only as an elaborate form of edging. He really ought to have other things on his mind than getting fucked, but it’s one of his more predictable responses to stress and oh, thinking about what’s going to happen tomorrow stresses him out.
By tomorrow morning, news of the Deathnote Killer’s copycat will have been released, and in case that’s not enough, they’ve arranged for Hitoshi to do a filmed interview with Sugiyama at the police station first thing in the morning to really hammer the message home. What Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko will have been up to in that time is a creeping horror of another kind entirely, so all in all, thinking about his cock is merely Aizawa’s way of keeping his mind off far worse fare.
Finally emerging from the shower feeling moderately more human, Aizawa wraps a towel around his head less artfully than Hizashi does it and puts on the cat pyjamas, which glide over his skin with a particularly kind of sensory relief. Slowly Aizawa pieces back together the parts of being a person rather than an expression of pure willpower.
When Aizawa wanders back into the all-in-one living-kitchen-dining room, Hitoshi’s lying on the same couch Aizawa left him on, and it takes the teen a few seconds of dead staring at Aizawa before he bursts into weasely sniggers. Initially out of view, Hizashi bounds over and then adds his own raucous laughter at the sight Aizawa apparently makes.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up,” Aizawa drones as he pads barefoot over to the empty sofa and falls onto it as much as he lies down. Hitoshi stays where he is, perhaps incapable of actually getting up now he’s crashed so hard, but Hizashi follows Aizawa, unwrapping his hair from the towel to start gently combing it out with his fingers.
“They suit you, babe, it’s just the face you make.” Hizashi’s fingertips find Aizawa’s scalp, which has Aizawa pressing eagerly into the touch like a cat looking for scratches.
“I can’t help the way my face looks,” Aizawa murmurs, lifting up just far enough for Hizashi to sit down at the head of the sofa, laying the towel across his knees as he guides Aizawa’s head back to rest on his lap. Hitoshi is watching them intently, of course, but Aizawa’s starting to trust that it’s nothing bad, the kid’s just never seen a good couple interacting this close to home, and if anything, this is one way Aizawa can actually be a positive role model for him.
“Where’s Trashbag?” Aizawa asks in an attempt to defuse the pressure of Hitoshi’s unbroken stare, which is full of a strange longing, like he doesn’t know what he wants but he does know how much he wants it.
“He seems to have taken a liking to the Principal,” Hitoshi answers after a pause. “Figured it’s better not to move him around too much or he’ll get confused.” A smile slowly works onto Hitoshi’s tired face, like the muscles are stiff and resistant. “I'm half convinced he thinks he can eat Nezu."
Aizawa scoffs and only just refrains from saying if only, because Nezu isn't really that bad, it's just a funny image. “I’d like to see him try.”
Kiki is across the room whipping something up in the kitchenette that already smells great, and hasn’t acknowledged Aizawa with any more than a raised eyebrow when their eyes meet. Hizashi keeps finger-combing out Aizawa’s wet hair, which is so relaxing his eyes start feeling heavier, almost drifting shut when he suddenly feels a pulse like a hot poker through his brain.
–HITOSHI
Aizawa bolts up, flinching so obviously that Hizashi grabs his shoulder to steady him with a concerned squeeze. But Hitoshi, or what remains of him that hasn’t melted into couch cushions, barely bats an eyelid.
“Yeah?” the teen asks lifelessly.
“Help me serve,” Kiki announces as if this is ordinary for them, and Aizawa supposes it is.
“You alright?” Hizashi asks as he eases Aizawa back down, a wave of resurging mentalist static throbbing from the front to back of his head. Hizashi turns to sit sideways along the sofa too, his legs parting to rest either side around Aizawa, Hizashi’s front to his back.
“Yeah, just…” Aizawa trails off, watching Hitoshi get up and go to his Ma. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Heard what?” Hizashi puzzles. “You mean Hitoshi?”
“No, when Kiki called him.” Aizawa’s aware of Kiki and Hitoshi’s attention suddenly snapping to focus on him from afar, actually feels the intensity of their gazes prickling his skin, lifting the hairs on the back of his arms.
“You heard it?” Kiki speaks up first, and poor Hizashi’s scrunching up his face in confusion.
“It was difficult to miss,” Aizawa replies as he raises a hand to press over his aching eyes. “You seriously didn’t hear anything?” he asks Hizashi again, safe and sure behind him.
“Was I supposed to?”
“No,” Kiki interjects. “I wasn’t expecting… usually it’s just the person I’m focusing on who feels my quirk.” Her almond eyes narrow at Aizawa pensively, trying to figure him out – if she manages it then Aizawa would love to be given the notes. “How did you hear it?”
“I told you, it was hard not to.” If Aizawa could, he’d love to turn down the volume on that aerial in his head currently picking up all frequencies, but unfortunately he’s new to the device and didn’t quite read the instructions before booting it up.
“Is that why you jumped just now?” Hitoshi fills in the blanks quickly, followed by an even quicker accusation, “You weren’t able to do that before.” Aizawa can easily imagine Kiki slipping maternal whispers to her son in private telepathic channels, so it makes sense that they’ve been doing it since before Aizawa started jumping a mile. It also makes sense that they wouldn’t take kindly to an intruder in that space, even unintentionally.
Aizawa supposes this is the part where he ought to try and explain himself, which takes the form of a fumbling, “I think I’m, ah… a bit strung out, mentally speaking.”
“So you just started eavesdropping?” Hitoshi replies suspiciously. His mood is thankfully still relatively calm, so his presence in Aizawa's mind isn't as sharp as it sometimes is, but that's not to say Aizawa's any less aware of it, especially when Hitoshi’s concentrating on Aizawa, the sensation closing around him like one of Kayama’s rope binds. "I'm thinking of a number."
"No you're not," Aizawa retorts irately, and the trick question was written all over Hitoshi's face even if it wasn't broadcast from his mind like a school announcement. Hitoshi’s mouth purses together, not quite a pout, but a little petulant all the same.
Hizashi’s fingers rubbing just behind the back of Aizawa’s ears are a blessing. His eyes are fluttering closed again when Hizashi asks him, “Does it hurt?”
Aizawa did just jump like he’d been shocked, so he can’t deny it entirely, but settles for a middle ground. “Not all the time.”
“Does what hurt?” Kiki asks as she and Hitoshi finish portioning out easy-cook meals onto disposable trays.
“He’s overstimulated,” Hitoshi explains, and the recognition from Kiki is too instant to be unfamiliar.
“Oh, why didn’t you say something?” she remarks with distinctly maternal exasperation, like one of the kids she’s minding has announced they didn’t want to cause trouble by mentioning the rusty nail they trod on or cup full of juice they dropped on the carpet.
“He never does,” Hizashi cajoles, leaning over Aizawa to look him in the barely-open eyes. “Do you?”
“I just said something, didn’t I?” Aizawa offers in a crusty tone that betrays a little too much of his reluctance going over issues of such unimportance to him personally. His own well-being has never been high on Aizawa’s to-do list, which is probably why it’s such a priority on everyone else’s.
“Well you should’ve said something sooner,” Kiki says impatiently, leaving the kitchen and striding over like she means business. “Sit up and put your head forward.”
Her tone is so commanding Aizawa doesn’t hesitate to do exactly as he’s told. When Kiki reaches out to pinch the back of his neck it sends a flood of disarming sensation shooting up and down Aizawa’s neck simultaneously, coming out with a gurgling, “Unnngnngnnn,” as the low-key aching sensation in his head disappears completely.
“Right here,” she’s saying to Hizashi instructionally. “At the top of the neck, last vertebrae.”
“How are you doing this?” Aizawa gasps in disarmed astonishment, almost paralysed the way a kitten goes limp in its mother’s mouth.
“There are no nerve endings in the brain, even though that’s where the sensation feels like it’s coming from,” Kiki starts to explain clinically, releasing the hold to trail two fingers softly up the back of Aizawa’s neck, spaced about a centimeter apart, which sends another waterfall of shivers gushing down his spine. “All the blood vessels and nerves associated with feeding the mentalist parts of the brain run through here, so applying pressure can relieve the discomfort caused by overstimulation.”
“Wow, how’d you know all this stuff?” Hizashi says innocently enough, but Aizawa’s already guessed why she’s so educated in the family business.
“Masaru taught me.” Kiki’s face holds no emotion, steel edges and unflinching eyes as she re-positions her fingers back at the top of Aizawa’s neck. When she presses down again with anatomical precision, the fireworks show across his skin reignites, silencing the twanging echoey ache of Aizawa’s short-circuited brain, and the specificity with which she does it is intimidating. No wonder she knows exactly how to cut the issue off at source, and no wonder they needed to know in that family.
“Let me try.” Hizashi takes it all in his stride of course, and when Kiki’s iron fingertips lift the overstimulation starts to creep back in, from silence rising up to background fuzz. Hizashi’s fingers replace them, but it’s not nearly as precise. “Like that?”
“Harder,” Kiki and Aizawa say in perfect unison, and Aizawa’s staring at his own cat-printed crotch or he would’ve glanced up at Kiki in awkward acknowledgement.
“Like this.” Kiki’s hand shadows Hizashi’s, guiding the pads of his fingers to the indents between Aizawa’s spine and the start of his skull, then pushing down over Hizashi’s fingertips until the pressure increases enough to shut the white noise down. “There,” she says just as Aizawa gives an affirmative moan, and this time when Kiki’s hand backs away Hizashi’s got it down.
“There’s gentler ways of dealing with it, you know,” Hitoshi offers from the table with an ambivalence that probably comes from his own discomfort. His mentor is dressed in ridiculous pyjamas making borderline sex noises on the sofa, so he can’t exactly be blamed for being a bit put off. “Come and eat something. Ma and I will lay off the quirks.”
Aizawa gasps again when Hizashi’s grip lifts from his neck, starting to scrape back his hair instead and twisting it, coiling the inky tendrils into a bun that he fastens with one of the hair ties that Hizashi seems to generate organically. Even though the effect isn’t as dramatic once the grip has been released, even that short physical therapy seems to have helped tone down the slow build of mentalist interference, so he’s feeling human again by the time he’s sat down at the table and eaten the first few bites of their spruced up ready-meal dinners.
“Thanks,” Aizawa says just before tucking in, but Kiki just shoots a glance at Hitoshi with a huff of amusement.
“You won’t take care of yourself apparently, so somebody’s got to do it.”
“And what am I, chopped liver?” Hizashi exclaims as if mortally offended by this very real fact.
“You need taking care of too,” Kiki replies effortlessly. “Clearly, Aizawa’s not equipped to do that either.” That makes Hizashi laugh if nothing else.
“We’ve managed fine until now,” Aizawa points out, only grumbling a little, but to be fair his and Hizashi’s idea of taking care of each other consists of rather more getting wasted and fooling around than eating home-cooked meals, so Kiki’s not entirely without a point.
“Alright, fend for yourselves then.” Kiki’s got an impeccable bluff, and Aizawa can only imagine what she’s like at cards.
“No, no, we appreciate it,” Hizashi buoys back, fun and games shining from his jokester’s grin as he pulls apart his disposable chopsticks. “Thank you, Mamma Bear.”
Kiki snorts, and they fall into an eating silence that could be taken for comfortable, if Aizawa weren’t aware of the simmering discontentment he can feel from Hitoshi through nerves dampened but not erased by Kiki’s therapeutic fingers.
For this reason, it’s not a surprise when Hitoshi suddenly announces, “So we’re not gonna talk about it, like, at all?”
Aizawa turns to Kiki, who’s poker faced as always, and doesn’t say anything when their eyes meet. Or rather, what her eyes say to Aizawa – no quirks, thankfully – is a resounding you handle it.
“Is there something you want to say?” Aizawa offers, and Hitoshi’s energy twists, knotting itself up like a matt forms in hair.
“I…” Hitoshi’s mouth stalls open, then closes again.
“You don’t have to,” Aizawa adds. He and Hitoshi talked about what happened earlier today as much as he feels it needs to be discussed, but far be it for him to deny the teen anything he wants to get off his chest.
“I don’t want any of you to worry about me,” Hitoshi blurts with renewed effort, looking around at the spread of non-nuclear guardians now invested in his safety and wellbeing. He wasn’t to know Aizawa was a buy-one-get-one-free deal in that department, but his mother’s certainly not complaining. “No matter what happens tomorrow, it’s… it’s going to look bad.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” Hizashi remarks easily, and he’s the only one of them who wasn’t automatically opposed to Hitoshi’s plan, but he’s also the farthest from Hitoshi emotionally, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but means this isn’t really for his benefit.
“I know, but I…” Hitoshi’s gaze settles on Aizawa, the only one who’s seen the body and the blood, the message Hitoshi’s left for his father. “Nothing I say or do is real, it’s just what he wants to hear, I don’t believe any of it.”
“I know you don’t,” Kiki replies coolly, and Aizawa wonders whose benefit this is really for – not Aizawa, surely, who was with Hitoshi when he had that shaky moment in the alleyway, has seen both sides of the equation and shown Hitoshi he knows which one is true. However, not believing in something doesn’t make it harmless, doesn’t stop it stirring up memories and emotions buried a long time ago. Maybe the person Hitoshi’s trying to convince is himself.
“I need you all to trust me, no matter how crazy it gets,” Hitoshi insists with a desperation Aizawa doesn’t fully understand, but he’s just one person in this weird nebulous arrangement, and his answer comes a moment later.
“As long as you stick to the rules we agreed on,” Kik’s tone contains a warning that’s a dead giveaway. “All of them.”
But Hitoshi remains beyond nonchalant into the realms of overconfident, declaring ambitiously, "He's not going to hurt me."
The reaction is immediate, a belt of whiplash that makes Aizawa flinch at the unconscious pulse of power that ricochets around the table as Kiki snaps, "It's not him hurting you I'm worried about!"
It can easily be agreed that physical harm is the least of their worries where Dr. Shinsou is concerned, and that Kiki knows better than any of them exactly how bad those other things could be. There’s silence for a moment, Hitoshi’s wide, accusatory eyes across the table at his Ma, until she softens and sighs, "Look, we've argued about this already, we don't need to go over it again."
"I just don't want anyone getting spooked and changing their minds,” Hitoshi says pointedly, and Aizawa has to wonder if Hitoshi brought this up now to make Hizashi and Aizawa witnesses to it, to ensure his protective mother’s nerve doesn’t waver. In which case, Aizawa might as well do his part.
"We've gotten this far, it'd be illogical to back out now,” he raises neutrally, a twitch under his eye that worsens when Kiki turns her intimidating stare onto him. Rubbing the back of his neck therapeutically, Aizawa misses Kiki’s firm grip alleviating the pressure that instead of causing it to build up on the inside of his head, and resorts to his own form of relief.
Activating his quirk, the background noise Kiki can’t seem to help but broadcast quietens at once, but only for second before a painful throb shoots through Aizawa’s head, sharp and digging in behind his eyes, which he winces shut and raises a hand to with a stifled, “Fuck.”
“What did you do?” Hitoshi shoots to his Ma, but although it could be considered similar to the pain Kiki’s quirk inflicts, Aizawa was using his quirk on her when it hit, so he knows she couldn’t be responsible, but Hitoshi’s not to know that.
“Nothing,” Kiki remarks icily, following up with an even colder, “You’re going to strain yourself even worse trying that crap.” Let it never be forgotten that she’s the woman Dr. Shinsou fell into obsessive adoration of for a reason, and all that iron will won’t bend for the likes of Aizawa any time soon.
“I’m fine,” Aizawa lies through his teeth, and gets a surround sound wall of disbelieving stares from those closest to him to recognise the walking trash heap in cat print pyjamas.
Hizashi, ever a multi-tasker, manages his level stare at Aizawa while also eating like a horse, clearing his plate as if he’s on a mission while the rest of them bicker, then offers an interjection in the form of a resounding belch.
“Tough room, huh?” he offers brightly, rocking back on his chair the way Aizawa’s watched him doing on any chair that’d allow him to for a decade and a half, and only ever fallen backwards when someone – usually Aizawa – pushes him. “That was delicious, Kiki, think you spare me a digestive cigarette?” Ah, the real thing Hizashi’s after, and Kiki stares at him like she knows it.
Hizashi’s celebrity status is an undeniable advantage from time to time, something not even Aizawa dares to deny, and in situations like this the currency is invaluable. There’s not many people Kiki would take such obvious bait from, but the fact remains that very few Present Mic fans would turn him down for most things, and not even this is an exception.
“I'll join you. I’ve lost my appetite anyway.” Kiki stands over her half-finished food while Hizashi rocks forward and hops to his feet, excitable as a golden retriever about to be taken out for walkies. Which is basically true.
Aizawa’s already reaching for the plate of her leftovers – waste not want not – when Hizashi coos, “Such a good garbage disposal,” and pats Aizawa’s head in passing, following after Kiki to head out of the apartment, presumably to find somewhere outside to smoke and talk in private.
Hitoshi doesn’t look like he loves this fact, staring morosely after them while picking at his food turns to straight-up neglect.
Aizawa punctuates this silence with a to-the-point, “You gonna finish that?” and a jab of his chopsticks at Hitoshi’s plate. He’s as good as cleared Kiki’s leftovers already, and Hizashi doesn’t call him garbage disposal for nothing. He needs to eat as much as possible to fuel the healing that Recover Girl only sped up anyway, still draining his body’s limited resources to keep pushing forwards, so the more gas in the tank the better.
Hitoshi just shoves his plate over at Aizawa disinterestedly, musing before finally speaking. “Whaddya think they’re gonna talk about?”
Aizawa shrugs, and he can make a few educated guesses, but would never dare to guess the breadth and intelligence of Hizashi’s ability to tackle the issue from an entirely unexpected angle. “He’ll know what to say,” Aizawa murmurs between mouthfuls. “He always does.”
Hitoshi’s focus shifts a little closer to home from the possibilities of conversation between his Ma and Hizashi, which in all likelihood will mostly consist of small talk and distraction from the great beast of anxiety that Aizawa assumes is hounding Kiki as much as it is him. Hizashi’s good at being reassuring that way, able to smile and say it’ll all be alright and sound more convincing than any voices inside someone’s own head ever do. That’s probably all he’s doing, Aizawa suspects – letting Kiki unload some of those worries to someone she looks up to, feeling heard and validated while reinforcing the belief that it is all gonna turn out alright, because that’s what Heroes are for, and Present Mic ain’t no basic bitch who’ll let it go any other way.
“You really love him, huh?” Hitoshi remarks like he’s reading a ticker tape that comes out of Aizawa’s ear with his innermost thoughts punched into it, and for a moment Aizawa’s instinct to close up makes him tense as he locks eyes with Hitoshi.
But after a moment of holding that soul-searching gaze, Aizawa forces himself to unwind, reminded that Hitoshi’s curiosity doesn’t come from a bad place, and if anything Aizawa’s got a duty to share insights from one of the few parts of his life that reflect good and healthy decision-making.
“Yeah.” It’s obvious, Aizawa supposes, especially when he’s so much more open around Hizashi here than he’d ever be with other company, but it’s still good that Hitoshi recognises it. Certainly an improvement on yesterday, not that yesterday was bad, but today is still much better.
“How did you two end up… you know?” Hitoshi had wanted details about Aizawa and Hizashi’s relationship last night too, but the footing was less stable, and Aizawa himself much more defensive and stressed about the teen’s intentions. The difference between now and then is huge, but Aizawa knows a lot of that is down to his own perceptions more than any marked change in Hitoshi.
“He’s my best friend,” Aizawa leaves off shoveling food scraps into his mouth for a moment to dignify this with a proper response. “It wasn’t something I’d ever thought about, but other people seemed to.”
“Seemed to what?” Hitoshi queries, and if Hizashi’s taking Kiki off to settle down with besides-the-point chitchat, this must be Aizawa’s equivalent.
“Think there was something going on between us,” explains Aizawa just adjacent to awkwardly. “Romantically, you know.”
“Oh.” Hitoshi’s the one who asked about this, but he’s blushing now, pink tinting his cheeks while violet eyes flit around like irises swaying in the wind. “But you weren’t? Romantically, you know?”
Aizawa shrugs, which isn’t much of an answer. “I’m not very good with that kinda stuff, so their guess is as good as mine.”
“What?” Hitoshi asks, brows furrowing. It’s one of Aizawa’s regular regrets as a teacher that they don’t make more time in the academic schedule to teach kids about relationships, giving them guidance on what’s good from bad, how to spot red flags that might seem exciting to a young person without the experience to realise where those dark roads lead. Something Kiki could have used back in the day, if her history with Dr. Shinsou is anything to go by. No wonder Hitoshi’s so ill-equipped to understand what good relationships are or how they come to be.
“Telling these things apart.” Aizawa finishes his last serving of leftovers, stacking all three plates together and pushing them forwards as he sinks down to rest onto his folded arms. “I don’t really know if I was always in love like that and didn’t realise it, or if it was friendship that became something else along the way. It’s all kind of arbitrary anyway, I just… loved him, one way or another.”
“And you didn’t care when other people thought it was like that?” Hitoshi’s intuitive enough to know how these things apply more broadly – the interchange of other people’s opinions and your own internal truth. Aizawa’s always been far more invested in the later than the former.
“No. Though looking back, I suppose they had a point,” Aizawa admits, his chin propped comfortably on his forearms, enjoying the peace and quiet of the evening after another arduous day against the ropes. It’s important they take this time while they can, to rest and recuperate in preparation for the shitstorm on fire that tomorrow will bring.
“It really didn’t bother you?” Hitoshi’s digging deeper, Aizawa knows, and is happy to let himself be excavated for this purpose.
Aizawa shakes his head. “What other people think about me doesn’t change what I am.”
“Exactly,” Hitoshi sighs like Aizawa’s put one of those precise pressure-relieving grasps right at the top of his neck, taking the weight off something that was slowly becoming unbearable. “Why’s that so hard for people to get?”
“Because we’re conditioned to care what others think of us,” Aizawa says. It’s just the nature of society, and few can live in complete isolation, but it’s important to draw those boundaries at a comfortable place. The earlier Hitoshi masters this – and it seems like he’s well on the way – the easier a ride he’s going to get, especially with his quirk and the way he’s going to portray himself to the world soon enough.
“Your Ma is just…” Aizawa continues spontaneously, making that jump across from the abstract to tangible, and he’s not sure he’s any authority on what’s going through Kiki’s head, but if it’s anything like what goes through his then it’s not Hitoshi himself that she’s worried about, but everyone else in relation to him. “A bad reputation is hard to undo.”
“My reputation already sucks,” Hitoshi grumbles, and that’s the naivety of youth talking.
“It can always get worse,” Aizawa warns. “Never doubt that.”
“My reputation can survive getting worse,” Hitoshi fires back more than he needs to, because Aizawa’s not the one opposing him here, but he’s representing the view that opposes him, so it’s understandable why the teen’s frustration flares. “Can’t say the same for Dad’s victims.”
“I know, Hitoshi,” Aizawa tries to soothe now they’ve transitioned into talking about the real issue, wanting to preserve the mellow balance of before. “No one is saying you can’t, just that it’s worth trying not to go overboard unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“That’s what you don’t get!” Hitoshi bursts all at once. “It has to be overboard with him. It has to be or he won’t believe it!” Hitoshi’s anger pulses sharp and bright like a neon ice pick through Aizawa’s temple, and he can’t help but wince, which tempers the storm immediately. “Sorry,” Hitoshi mumbles sheepishly, outburst subsiding, and Aizawa can’t say he loves showing so much vulnerability that he needs to be tiptoed around, but it’s got some perks.
“We’re all on edge,” Aizawa lifts a hand to massage the soft space around his eye socket, feeling the pressure behind it and how hot his own skin seems. “No one’s saying you have to stop or completely change what you’re doing, just… acknowledge the risks.”
“I know the risks,” moans Hitoshi like every bit the sixteen year-old he is.
“Then let us know that,” Aizawa cuts right to the core of the issue, giving the advice that he’s had shoved down his throat too many times to count. “If you keep on arguing then it seems like you aren’t listening, even if you are.”
Hitoshi hesitates on a quickfire response that clearly doesn’t fit anymore, because Aizawa’s got a point and they both know it. Doing his goldfish impression for a moment, Hitoshi settles into a reluctant, “Fine,” that’s probably about as much as his angst can sacrifice at this time.
“Your Ma’s always going to worry, but sometimes you just need to let people know that they’ve been heard,” Aizawa advises from rather closer to his personal experience than he needs to admit, although Hitoshi probably guesses that much anyway.
“Even if you’re gonna do the thing anyway?” Hitoshi suggests with that twang of knowing like a plucked string, resonance that makes Aizawa shift a hand to rub the back of his neck again.
“Especially then,” Aizawa admits. “Take it from me.”
Hitoshi’s doing his stare that reaches right into Aizawa’s soul, like his gangly teenage hands are wrapped around his heart, manipulating the beats. “My Ma, she's just… she’s been fighting him over me my whole life, but I’m old enough now that I can do things for myself, and I know she’s trying to protect me, but…”
“But?” Aizawa prompts when Hitoshi’s silence yields no revelation.
“I don’t want to do it the way she does,” Hitoshi unloads like a deeper, darker secret than it comes off as. “They’ve always fought. Even before things got bad, they still argued all the time, and if you fight him Dad just fights back.”
Aizawa doesn’t say anything, doesn’t break the spell by trying to impose his own thoughts or opinions, because they don’t need that right now. Hitoshi just needs to get it off his chest, and Aizawa just needs to listen.
“That’s why he’s not gonna hurt me, because I’m not gonna fight him.” Hitoshi doesn’t outright say it, and Aizawa would never dare to bring it up, but if he’s learned anything as a teacher about kids whose parents argue too much, it’s that the damage echoes deep. “I’m going to make him believe that I’ve turned into everything he ever wanted, which might frighten the shit out of everyone else, but he’s going to buy it and it’ll let me get close enough that we can catch the fucking psycho.”
“Things don’t always go as planned,” Aizawa murmurs carefully, because it’s all well and good letting Hitoshi mastermind this plan, but Aizawa and Kiki agreed on the no-talking rule for a reason, and looking at the Doc’s recent victims it’s something he’s adamant to stand by. “Even if your father doesn’t see you as going against him, he'll still want to manipulate you.” He sure as shit has with Shiyoko, though she clearly holds a much more precarious position in the good Doctor’s opinion than his beloved prodigal son.
“I know.” Hitoshi’s leaning on his hands with his elbows on the table, and Aizawa has to wonder how Kiki and Hizashi are getting on outside. “That’s why I am going to be careful, but I have to make it seem like I’m not. He can’t suspect it’s an act, which means being so convincing even Ma would fall for it.”
“As long as you understand where our concerns coming from,” Aizawa concedes warily, and though they have been through this before, it doesn’t hurt to revisit agreements made unhappily in the first instance. Hitoshi certainly wasn’t the biggest fan of Aizawa and Kiki’s rules, much like they weren’t a fan of his plan, but for the whole madcap thing to work they have to agree on stable middle ground. A little reinforcement of that precarious territory won’t go amiss.
“I do, but... I have to do this the way he'd want me to, the way I need to do it,” Hitoshi serves up his heartfelt plea on a platter, and Aizawa’s hardly been good at resisting him before. Or ever, as a matter of fact. Even when the teen’s desire are as dark and worrying as they are – let it not be forgotten the body they snatched earlier for Hitoshi’s warped devices, and more probably to come.
“Okay.” Aizawa doesn’t really know what else to say, ending up at a simple, “I believe in you.” That seems to go down easier, because the tempest has calmed by the time Hizashi and Kiki return, similarly tamed.
“All better?” Hizashi announces brightly as he swaggers in smelling of smoke, his tattooed arms swinging before he hooks his thumbs through his belt loops, the smiling and frowning faces on the back of each hand introducing the intricate typology manacles around his wrists, warping into swooping shapes up his arms. When his clothes are simple blocks of colour, white t-shirt on blue jeans, the colours of his ink pops even more, the picture completed by his gleaming smile and golden hair. No wonder Hitoshi noticed how much Aizawa loves his partner – just look at him. They don’t need electric fittings when he lights up every room he stands in, the yang to Aizawa’s yin.
“As we’ll ever be,” Aizawa mumbles into his arms, resting his head on them to watch Hizashi as adoringly as he can muster while also almost falling asleep, the food coma hitting hard on top of his already exhausted energy levels.
“That good, huh?” Hizashi walks over and reaches for the back of Aizawa’s neck, rubbing therapeutically without fully applying the hold Kiki taught him earlier. “Shall we put you to bed, love?”
“Please,” Aizawa groans, still aware that Hitoshi is watching them intensely from across the table. But this time, Hitoshi’s smiling.
Notes:
In a beautiful twist of fate I found my own cat print on blue silk pyjamas at a store some time after writing this chapter and didn't realise what I'd done until afterwards. My PJs have tigers on them so they're not EXACTLY the same but I LIKE WHAT I LIKE OKAY. Anyone who doesn't like cat print pyjamas must have no soul and that's just how I feel.
Aizawa's got some great advice in this chapter - it's both fun and weird being almost the age he is and having actual grown-up shit-together wisdom to share through fiction. Til next week! (A chapter with one of my favourite kinds of openings ;P)
Chapter 71: Best Side
Summary:
As a new day dawns, everyone looks for the right foot to put forward.
Notes:
This is one of my favourite ways to open a chapter, so without dragging it out HERE WE GO!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Going to bed, of course, never actually meant going to sleep.
“Ahhh– yeah, baby, just like that.” When he really wants to, Hizashi can actually be quiet, can pour scratchy whispers hushed enough that hopefully their temporary flatmates won’t hear what’s going on across the hall. And what’s going on is Aizawa three-going-on-four fingers deep in Hizashi’s ass, because of course tonight of all nights is the most convenient time and place to decide he wants a ride on Aizawa’s giant cock (his words), and Aizawa’s certainly not protesting. In fact, he’s positively looking forwards to it. “Oh fuck, Shota, I’m ready.”
“I’ll decide when you’re ready,” Aizawa replies under his breath, pretty content with having Hizashi folded up with his legs above his head as they cram onto the narrow single bed, a far cry from their spacious super-king at home. If anything Aizawa enjoys the challenge, used to squeezing into too-small spaces with nothing but a warm body for comfort. Hizashi smells much better than Cricket ever did.
“Please, please-please-please-ahh,” Hizashi’s voice quivers in a vibrato sweeter than any candy, and Aizawa shushes gently as he pushes all four fingertips deeper into him. Hizashi’s buck naked, never putting clothes back on after he’d returned from the shower to find Aizawa catnapping on the bed, and promptly dropped his towel to declare a cockriding state of emergency. Aizawa’s been stripped from the waist down and unbuttoned on the top, lest he soil the expensive silk pyjamas by smearing precome all over them from wanton grinding against the mattress as he fingers Hizashi to within an inch of his life.
“Okay,” Aizawa relents, too horny to think anymore as he withdraws his hand from Hizashi’s thoroughly opened hole. “You’re ready.”
The words have no sooner left his mouth than Hizashi’s unfurled and leapt on top of him, one hand already pumping Aizawa’s cock with a palmful of lube as he straddles his lover with manicl determination in his rich green eyes.
“I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon,” Hizashi purrs as he shifts into position and starts working himself around the fat head of Aizawa’s cock, opening his mouth to make such an animal noise that Aizawa pre-emptively uses his quirk, only to stop again seconds later before the lashback of mentalist overstimulation warns him off straining himself. It’s more manageable without Hitoshi and Kiki around, though he’d probably still be able to pick them out from across the hall if he put his mind to it.
But Aizawa doesn’t.
Aizawa puts his mind to the feeling of Hizashi’s ass swallowing him up, being topped from the bottom as Hizashi takes Aizawa’s cock like it’s got his name on it – and it might as well. No one’s ridden Aizawa like Hizashi does, no one else has the energy to. Aizawa’s more used to coming from being penetrated than doing the penetrating these days, so it usually takes him longer, if at all, to climax like this.
Unless, of course, it’s Hizashi bouncing on his cock, the fuckbunny in action, his tattooed skin like exquisite gift-wrapping and a waterfall of hushed, desperate praise pouring from his mouth along the lines of, “Sofuckinggoodbaby, so big, fuck– split me open, Shota, please, fuck, please.”
This is a wonderful mood to have Hizashi in, and Aizawa always treasures it, especially appreciating the use of both his arms and the absence of grievous bodily injuries compared to last night. It makes things like lifting Hizashi up and holding him still well within his capabilities, which has Hizashi making pathetic complainative sounds until Aizawa starts driving up into him from below, releasing Hizashi’s hips enough to let him bounce down in sync at the peak of each thrust. He did want to be split open, so the least Aizawa can do is try.
Given that Aizawa can’t really use his quirk for more than a second or two without hurting himself from mental burnout – far be it for him to be completely unscathed after a hard day on a case – the compromise they meet is stuffing Hizashi’s discarded t-shirt into his mouth, muffling his inherent need to vocalise his enjoyment of Aizawa’s sincere efforts to break him in two.
The lingering consideration of their temporary flatmates, who might still overhear their wobbly attempts to keep it down, leads Aizawa’s thoughts back to Hitoshi’s tentative smile from earlier, when it seemed like maybe he was truly starting to embrace Aizawa and Hizashi’s relationship – seeing it as something positive, something to be happy about instead of feeling anxious or threatened by it. Aizawa doesn’t make a habit out of hoping for much, but he dares to hope for this one, because he’s not sure there’s anyone whose approval of his relationship with Hizashi means more at this point than Hitoshi.
Creeping up on him, Aizawa’s surprised by his own orgasm leaping out of the shadows, pouncing with an an urgent, “Fuck, I’m coming,” in shock as much as warning, pushing deeply into Hizashi as he unloads with a strangled groan.
Hizashi spits his t-shirt out as Aizawa falls slack against the bed, sweating into the unbuttoned pyjama shirt he hadn’t quite taken off before they’d gotten distracted with all this fuckery.
“Well that didn’t take long,” Hizashi remarks with a coyote grin. “Need a minute?”
Aizawa nods, disarmed and a little dizzy as Hizashi lifts off him, but doesn’t let go of Hizashi’s waist, dragging him up the bed until he's straddling Aizawa’s chest. “I can do other stuff,” he murmurs gravelly as Hizashi’s eager erection bounces in front of him. It doesn’t take much for Hizashi to get the hint, leaning on the wall at the head of the bed to guide himself appealingly into Aizawa’s mouth.
“Mmm, your mouth feels great.” Hizashi switches tracks easily and always makes the most out of whatever he’s getting. Plus, now his ass is even looser and slicker – full of Aizawa’s come – and Aizawa, being the messy bitch that he is, doesn’t care in the slightest what leaks out as he pushes all four fingers back up inside Hizashi to the knuckle and resumes avidly fingerfucking him. Kayama’s managed to fist Hizashi before, and though Aizawa’s hands are too big for it, he makes do with what he’s got, crooking his thick fingers over Hizashi’s prostate in time with each thrust to the back of his throat.
Aizawa gags of course, but that’s no real discouragement. Hizashi has a better mastery of Aizawa’s limits than Aizawa himself, so if it were up to him he'd choke until he passes out. Thankfully Hizashi knows just when the light is about to slide out of Aizawa’s eyes and pulls back to let him gasp for air.
"You're so good, baby, fuck" Hizashi pants before he desperately resumes thrusting into Aizawa’s mouth. "I can't hold it, I've gotta, I'm gonna– ahhHH–"
Aizawa has enough sensibility to use his last reserves to activate his quirk on Hizashi before he screams the whole place down, but is a little distracted by the bitter flood that he soon swallows down, so he comes in a little late. His lips stay sealed around Hizashi's cock as forced silence gives over to true, finally withdrawing only when Hizashi’s sucked clean, lapping the last drops of come beading from his slit.
Once Aizawa’s removed his hand from Hizashi’s stretched asshole, Hizashi rocks back to sit on Aizawa's chest with a contented sigh. Aizawa looks up at the intricate inkwork being towering over him and thanks his lucky stars to have such a man in his life, but what he says is, "Need a minute?"
Hizashi nods, then shifts down further to lie on top of Aizawa, recuperating before they pick back up again and don’t stop until they both pass out from post-coital exhaustion, sleeping like a couple of horny logs lashed together and floated down the river.
Aizawa’s so thoroughly fucked-out he sleeps like the dead, coasting straight through Hizashi getting up way too early in the morning, left to slumber soundly alone until he’s woken loud and clear by a shout that comes not from Hizashi’s mouth, but deep inside Aizawa’s own head.
WAKE THE FUCK UP
Kiki’s quirk is worse than Hizashi’s foghorn morning voice, and scares the living shit out of Aizawa as he bolts upright and gasps fearfully. He opens his sleep-crusted eyes to see Hizashi leaning against the frame of the open door and Kiki just beyond it, arms crossed over her chest.
“Well that did the trick,” Hizashi comments cheerfully, holding out a fist that Kiki looks at for a moment before bumping her own against it.
“You coulda woken me more gently,” Aizawa grumbles, rubbing his eyes and looking back up as footsteps in the background precede Hitoshi’s head popping around the doorframe too, checking Aizawa out with bright-eyed interest at the start of a new day.
“Oh, like I didn’t try that already,” Hizashi crows, picking his fingernails in the same jeans from yesterday but a new t-shirt covered in a floral pattern dotted with birds as bright and tropical as he. “You don’t remember me trying to wake you up?”
“No,” Aizawa grunts, and would get up, but he’s naked under the bedsheet and currently has an audience whose sensitivities he’d like to consider by not subjecting them to the majestic view of his morning wood.
“I tried, like, five times already, babe,” Hizashi taunts, clearly aware that Aizawa’s stuck where he is by the audience of Kiki and Hitoshi, but finding it too funny to disrupt. “The fourth time you punched me.”
“Oh,” Aizawa mutters, resting his elbows on his bent knees and sitting back against the wall as the terrified flight-or-fight instinct from his rude awakening slowly subsides.
“Oh?” Hitoshi echoes scathingly as his opening remark of the morning, brimful of bushy-eyed and fresh-tailed wryness. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Sounds like something I’d do,” Aizawa elaborates groggily, and then with blurry eyes focusing in on the merciful angel and demon on each of his shoulders rolled into one, stares at Hizashi and murmurs a pleading, “Coffee?”
“Then go and get it,” Hizashi torments, at which Aizawa elicits a protestant groan. “Absolutely not!” Hizashi breaks into a shrill scold that cements Aizawa’s lurch into the land of consciousness. “You can’t punch me one minute and beg me to bring you coffee the next.”
“I can try,” Aizawa grovels, but Hizashi just wags a disapproving finger at him.
“Well keep on trying, bitch.” Picking himself up off the doorway, Hizashi shoos away Hitoshi and Kiki with a flapping of his hands. “Give us a minute, he’s up.”
“Fine, I’m up.” Aizawa groans in affirmation as Hizashi steps inside the room and closes the door behind them. Dragging himself out of bed, Aizawa stands up and stretches until several soft pops run up his back, his indiscriminately hard cock bobbing in the air as it stands weightily out from his body. “My eyes are up here,” he mutters when Hizashi could be drooling and wouldn’t seem any less obvious.
“Exactly,” Hizashi replies salaciously, edging his way over one step at a time in a pair of his brand new overpriced shoes. “Need a hand with that?”
Aizawa considers it with a rusty noise from the back of his throat. If Hizashi’s not bringing him coffee then he ought to do something to enhance the morning. “Wouldn’t say no,” Aizawa concedes while Hizashi whips a pillow from the bed onto the floor and drops to his knees, a dextrous hand wrapping around Aizawa’s length to pump him to full, throbbing hardness in no time.
It’s not a drawn out affair, but it doesn’t need to be. Hizashi’s got this down to pat, jerking a soft, sleep-heavy Aizawa to come in his mouth good and quick, which doesn’t really achieve the intended effect of waking Aizawa up any more, but he does enjoy it. Nothing like a nymphomaniac for a boyfriend to take his mind of the crushing doom that lays right ahead of them past that door, so Aizawa appreciates these small, sexy gestures.
“Now go get your own damn coffee,” Hizashi remarks from his knees, grinning after his mouth pops off Aizawa, and it’s perfect Hizashi logic that getting him coffee is unacceptable in a way that blowjobs totally are. “I got you clean boxers yesterday too.”
Aizawa reaches for Hizashi’s face below him, tracing his fingers around the wet edges of his mouth with a humble, “Thanks.”
Standing up, Hizashi meets Aizawa eye-to-eye with a grin of satisfaction too edible to resist, and Aizawa leans in to kiss him instinctively, which Hizashi meets with an affirmative purr and teasing, salty tongue.
Once all this is over, maybe Aizawa will take an actual day off and they can spend the whole day in bed going through the fuck-sleep-fuck cycle. Though, perhaps not before Aizawa has to ship off to a forest camp with the bus full of too-much trainees he’s shoved to the very back of his mind – gone if not quite forgotten, because it’s getting cramped back there where all his other responsibilities have been stuffed. Except this case, and Hitoshi at the heart of it, can’t get any less demanding, so Aizawa’s just going to have to keep his back pressed against that door in his mind and hope that it holds for long enough.
Hitoshi certainly wouldn’t tolerate Aizawa paying even an ounce less attention to him at this difficult time, wonderfully evidenced by the bratty, “Took your time,” the teen offers when Aizawa finally emerges from his room fully dressed, guided by the smell of coffee to hone in on a mug that must have been made for him before Hizashi presented himself as such an irresistible distraction.
“Are we in a hurry?” Aizawa grouses before taking his first glug, which is almost cold and only half as strong as he prefers his coffee, but it’s a start, so he drains half the cup.
“Not especially. The interview isn’t until ten,” Kiki answers as she waves a hand at a pot that thankfully contains more coffee, pouring himself a fresh cup on top of his half-drunk cold one to reach a passable lukewarm temperature. The next time he drains the whole cup in one, tipping his head back and pretty much just pouring coffee down his throat, slamming the empty mug back down to pour himself another while Hitoshi watches him with his eyebrows creeping higher up his forehead.
“Save some for the rest of us, jeez,” Hitoshi’s velvet tone brushes softly in the freshness of a new day. Early morning light illuminates the study fittings of the student flat they’ve holed up in like a little lop-sided family unit – a handful of ‘adults’, one actual grown up (Kiki, obviously) and the kid who’s growing up too fast.
“Make it stronger, then,” Aizawa mutters.
“Make your own,” Kiki quips while Aizawa’s slurping down a cup of black coffee that could put him to sleep it’s so weak, like the effort of drinking it is more of an energy drain than the caffeine actually provides. Clearly, Hizashi didn’t make it, or it wasn’t made with Aizawa in mind. The bottom of the pot has some grounds in it, so Aizawa pours out the black sludge to knock back with the rest like a shot.
“If we have time,” Aizawa replies, running his tongue around his teeth to fish out grains sitting between them, crunching them like grains of sand.
“You just drank half the thing in a minute, shouldn’t you slow down a bit?” Hitoshi suggests acerbically, like if he’s not allowed an excess of coffee then Aizawa shouldn’t be either; that all-important equality between them, cut from the same cloth, held to the same standards. Only Hitoshi and Aizawa aren’t exactly the same, and Aizawa’s got the tolerance of a bull elephant with a crippling caffeine addiction.
Looking at Kiki, she gives Aizawa a nod, who roots out the coffee-making supplies and sets himself to boiling a fresh kettle, washing out the weak attempt while Hitoshi watches him in churlish, how-dare-you-ignore-me silence.
“Nobody? Am I invisible or something?” Hitoshi’s a little on edge this morning, but why wouldn’t he be? It sparks from him like static leaping from a tesla coil, a force behind his day-to-day mentalist energy that feels like it’d hum if Aizawa set his ear to it, as if Hitoshi’s been charged overnight and today the energy buildup is ready to break.
He looks refreshed at least, lesser bags under his eyes than usual, tousled lavender hair and brand new clothes from Kiki and Hizashi’s shopping spree yesterday that suit and fit him better than even the things he was wearing before ever have. A growing boy who’s probably been growing out of things as fast as his Ma can acquire them, and though Kiki and Hitoshi don’t seem too hard-up for money, they’re not exactly rolling in it either. Today’s brand-new hoodie for Hitoshi zips up the middle, mostly black with blocks of camo green to accent, along with some slate grey fashion-tracksuit bottoms – if Aizawa can even admit to himself that he knows of such a thing – with black kneepads that hopefully have some kind of practical component and not just to serve vapid aesthetics.
“What?” Hitoshi prompts at Aizawa’s vacant staring, expectancy edged with a hint of insecurity that pings around like a ball-bearing inside a pinball machine.
“Seems to me like you’re plenty caffeinated already,” Hizashi zips in before Aizawa can say anything similar, and it's better anything critical comes from Hizashi anyway – from anyone except Aizawa, basically. That Hizashi pairs this remark with a classic over-familiar grab and squeeze of Hitoshi's shoulders surely can't hurt, sneaking up from behind and having his hands on Hitoshi before he knows what's happening to him. "You're tenser than a watch spring, yanno? Besides, you don't need coffee when you've got the fountain of youth to invigorate you, unlike Mr. Grumpy Bones over there."
Aizawa grunts over the fresh grounds he tips into the coffee press, a precursor to a grumbling, "Is that your way of calling me old?" as he throws a lazy glare at the pair of them, Hitoshi looking disarmed with Hizashi at his back.
Hitoshi's probably never been pawed at like this so much in his life, and now Hizashi's mouthy hands are feeling him out. Hizashi’s always been hands-on in every sense of the word, and as Aizawa can testify – it's a contagious trait. Where else would Aizawa have picked it up, but from fifteen years of prolonged exposure?
"Old in spirit," Hizashi specifies playfully, and it's interesting Hitoshi hasn't shaken him off yet, still pawing at the teen like he means to assess the quality of the hoodie by a thorough examination on a willing model. Reassuringly enough, Hitoshi seems willing. "You've been a grumpy old man on the inside since the day I met you."
"At least it's a goal I'm moving consistently towards," Aizawa points out as he turns round to lean against the counter, waiting for the kettle to boil.
Hizashi’s still looming over Hitoshi’s shoulder, slinging one arm comfortably around the teen and quirking his head to ask, “By the way, d’you want any tips for the interview?” at a surprisingly appropriate volume. Hizashi’s always struggled to contain his pure enthusiasm just from being around people, which naturally translates into an intrinsic loudness that Aizawa’s long since learned to suffer.
“Tips?” Hitoshi tilts his head in the other direction to face Hizashi, and they make a wonderful pair, perfectly balanced purple and gold sizing each other up, settling into a groove that’s gratifying to watch. “About what?”
“Your press interview!” Hizashi blares with a huge grin, and there goes the volume again, Hitoshi flinching a little at the foghorn in his ear. “You’re looking at a seasoned pro in front of a camera, there’s not a trick I don’t know.”
Hitoshi gives Hizashi a look, but such subtleties are lost on Hizashi, who keeps showing off all his shiny white dental work in that gigantic smile. It’d be a lie for Aizawa to say he hasn’t worried about Hitoshi and Hizashi getting along sometimes, fearful of friction between two relationships that are so frictionless for him. Maybe it’s irrational, but that’s never stopped Aizawa’s anxiety before, so these kinds of interactions are a much needed tonic to his nerves.
“Somehow I don’t think we’re going for the same vibe,” Hitoshi remarks, but Hizashi merely chortles, finally leaping off his perch on Hitoshi to pace more animatedly around the room.
“Nonsense, that’s just one part of it,” Hizashi declares. “Don’t you wanna know how to look good on camera?”
Hitoshi hoists a thin, arched eyebrow, head tipped very slightly back. “Are you suggesting I don’t?”
“The camera can be treacherous!” Hizashi saves enthusiastically. “Everyone’s got a best side – it’s all about angles and lighting, here, I’ll show you.” Hizashi literally grabs Hitoshi by the hood and starts leading him across the room, and Hitoshi’s lack of protest must mean he’s more okay with it than his disgruntled expression lets on. Aizawa recognises that look all too well – he’s worn it many a time as Hizashi goes through the motions of dragging Aizawa into something that actually he’d quite like to do, but would never actually deign to admitting it. Perhaps it’s why Hizashi’s so drawn to closed off people like them, sensing their inner desires just begging to be set free.
The kettle starts boiling, so Aizawa takes it off the heat and gives it a moment while Hizashi sits Hitoshi down on one of the sofas across the room and whips out his phone, his chatter fading into unintelligible TV-technicalities drivel. A moment later, the smell of coffee hits Aizawa’s nose when he pours the steaming water over the thick layer of grounds he dumped at the bottom of the press, and this morning’s shaping up alright after all.
Kiki is watching Hizashi and Hitoshi with her eyes hanging not quite at half-mast, but at least one-third lids lowered over her sultry starlight gaze. She looks better rested too, faded under-eye circles and no makeup, her natural face fresh and younger-looking than the aging warpaint that seem much more austere. She’s dressed in a jumpsuit that Aizawa has to assume is new as of yesterday too, and while he’s first in line to appreciate a good jumpsuit, this one is clearly more for fashion than function. A light shade of green with prominent square pockets on the chest and hips, Kiki wears it well nonetheless, highlighting the natural lilac of her eyes and bringing out the reminiscent hint of purple in her silvered hair. Hair that’s hanging loose, poker straight and longer than Aizawa expects, brushing just past her shoulders.
She notices Aizawa’s eyes on her, sight slipping away from her son to meet his watchman’s gaze, the vestiges of a smile held in the lines around her mouth. “Yes?” she starts, but before Aizawa can answer she interjects, “Let me guess, you want a cigarette?”
“Got my own, but sure,” Aizawa answers, scooping up the mug and coffee pot in one hand and heading for the door. Leaves Hizashi next to Hitoshi demonstrating something about camera angles or whatever nonsense he uses to justify having a ‘best side’ that the camera preferably shoots from. “Going for a smoke,” Aizawa calls over to them.
Hizashi just flaps his hand, his voice slowly fading as they walk away, “Yes yes… now if you’re ever unsure of the angle just keep moving around, cheekbones like yours don’t need much help, but a touch of highlighter and you’ll be able to cut glass…”
It’s balmy when Aizawa and Kiki step outside, warm but not yet hot from the pressing seasonal heat. During Summer break UA the campus has an inbuilt tranquility, a ghost town finally at peace.
Aizawa takes a deep breath, his face turned up into the morning sun, and slips out a crumpled box of cigarettes almost down to the last few. With the pot of coffee still in one hand, he shakes out a cigarette and pinches it between his lips. Kiki gets a cigarette out too, and follows up with a lighter, which she uses for herself first before offering to Aizawa. He leans in, pursing his mouth to steer the end of the cigarette over the flame, and then inhales the first drag of the day.
Kiki does the same, bathed like an otherworldly being in sunlight that ripples with the curling plume of smoke given off by her cigarette, looking every part the woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She exhales a cloud lit up by the sunbeams, mingling with Aizawa’s own smokey cloud, and he wishes there were anything he could do to help.
It's a pathetic offering just to ask, "You alright?" but it's about all he has.
Kiki just gives a little snort, and Aizawa tried. He sits down on the ground and sets the coffee pot and cup down, resting a hand on the plunger so it starts to slowly depress.
"You talked to him yesterday, right?" Kiki remarks out of skies as blue as the yawning summer expanse spread out over them. Aizawa's a little surprised she has to ask him and didn't get it straight from Hitoshi, or maybe there's a balance too fragile there to tip with prying.
"Yeah." Aizawa puffs on his cigarette and pours a cup of strong, dark coffee, a wisp of steam rising from the surface. "He understands the risks, he just feels like he has to put on a performance convincing enough to fool his own parents."
Kiki releases a troubled sigh, and Aizawa can almost see the internal battle going on against her own instincts.
"I suppose it was easier when he was younger,” Aizawa suggests. “Less set on doing things his own way."
"Oh no, he's always been like that," Kiki replies easily. "We just… never disagreed about how to deal with his father before."
That you know of, Aizawa thinks without speaking, because if Hitoshi didn't tell his Ma about certain things, then Aizawa’s certainly not going to spill them the very morning after being confided to.
"Hitoshi realises what Dr. Shinsou will do to him given the chance," Aizawa tries to be reassuring, because it’s what worries him worst of all, and why the no-talking rule remains un-negotiable.
Kiki heaves again, a puff of smoke like the exhaust of a colossal machine within her. "He better.”
"And one of us will always be there to make sure it doesn't come to that." This part seems to comfort her more, and Aizawa can't imagine what she's going through. He lifts his coffee to take a sip, hot and sharp and bitter enough to reach his heart, gearing him up for what's going to be another full-on day, one where they can't afford anymore mistakes, or being even a second behind the curve. It's go-time.
"Too fucking right." Kiki looks like a model out of one of Hizashi’s magazine shoots in her lime green designer jumpsuit, smoking a slim cigarette, elegant and aloof, above the mere mortals. Exactly the sort of person a crazed killer would be devotedly obsessed with.
It occurs to Aizawa for the first time as a fully realised thought that Hitoshi was warning Aizawa of something – they're always fighting – and that it's not just Hitoshi being around Dr. Shinsou he should be worried about.
“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“Hm?” Aizawa hums over his mug, taking short puffs on his smoke for that perfect blend of coffee and cigarettes in the morning.
“Not about Hitoshi. About, ah…” Kiki’s a little more awkward now, which puts a notion immediately in Aizawa’s head.
“Me and Hizashi?” he guesses, hoping that it’s not going to relate to whether or not they could be overheard last night… or this morning.
“Yes.” Bingo. Aizawa’s not that surprised, because it’s not like Hitoshi hasn’t been curious either – most people are, when they first adjust to the yin-and-yang balance that’s Aizawa and Hizashi behaving as comes naturally to them, which is far from the way they behave with just about anyone else.
“Fire away,” Aizawa settles, having accepted this fate and probably already knowing where this is going. There’s about three questions people always ask, and Hitoshi’s covered two of them already.
“I… I don’t mean to offend,” Kiki’s faltering, which is novel for her, “but it’s just–”
“What does he see in me?” Aizawa puts this in blunter words than others would, because he’s not precious; it’s come up more than enough that he’s used to it by now. What Aizawa sees in Hizashi, sure, that just takes looking. But the other way around? Well, sometimes even Aizawa struggles to understand it.
“Yes.” Kiki’s blushing a little, amazingly, though she hides it behind clouds of cigarette smoke.
“Didn’t you ask him?” Aizawa would be interested to know Hizashi’s answer, because it’s different every time, depending on who’s asking.
“I tried, when we were… out, yesterday.” Out shopping, but that’s not the point, Aizawa’s begrudgingly forced himself to let go of. “He talks about you so much, it’s clear how much you mean to each other, but he wouldn’t really say why.”
“It’s alright,” Aizawa says, the sun warm on the inky blot of his hair, sucking up heat into the dark fabric of his jumpsuit. “I’m not offended, it’s something I wonder myself at times.” Not when Hizashi’s fucking his brains out, obviously, but other times when doubt comes creeping in.
Kiki’s seen Aizawa naked, awkwardly enough, and Hizashi took her to at least one sex shop yesterday, so between that information and the possibility that they might have been overheard, the sex life part of it isn’t the explanation Kiki’s going to be looking for. Hizashi happens to be a generous over-sharer of intimate details, and won’t hesitate to inform just about anyone how much he enjoys fucking Aizawa, but that’s far from the foundation of their relationship.
Taking a deep breath, a sip of his coffee and a final drag on his cigarette, Aizawa shares the conclusion he’s drawn over years of contemplation over this mystery of the heart.
“I’m everything he’s not,” he answers simply, holding his cigarette in the corner of his mouth to top up his coffee, then finally removing the butt to stub out on the concrete underneath him.
“Oh.” Kiki might be older than Aizawa, and an expert in many fields, but not this one. Look at the most significant romantic relationship in her life, and the damage it’s left her with. No wonder Aizawa and Hizashi are an enigma to her. “Yes, I suppose you are.”
“We’re not completely different, of course, but enough to… balance each other out, I guess.”
Kiki’s gaze on him is solemn, deep and contemplative in a way Aizawa hasn’t seen directed at him before, not quite like this. Just as Hitoshi has been getting to know the real Aizawa, past the crusty exterior and single-minded focus on his work, Kiki is doing the same. It’s interesting how these conversations differ based on who they’re with. Kiki and Hitoshi’s versions were similar, but not the same, just as they are.
“I hadn’t thought about it like that.” She wouldn’t, Aizawa supposes. From what he’s learned through Hitoshi, the extremes of Dr. Shinsou and his wife were forever at war with one another, to compromise meaning defeat, and defeat impermissible in their hard, vicious world. Kiki, as many mothers, is a born warrior, and Aizawa’s finally understanding how that’s a bad thing as well as a good one.
“Hey, Kiki.” Aizawa winces to look directly up at her, basked in the young sunlight as she flicks ash off her cigarette. She tilts her head in answer, waiting for him to speak. “Hitoshi. He’s gonna be alright.”
She breathes in and sighs deeply, taking a last drag on her cigarette before crushing it under her shoe – not new ones from yesterday, but a low pair of well-worn heels that must have come from home. Nothing’s certain, especially not now, but the least Aizawa can do is try to be of some small comfort. That’s what Heroes are for.
For a moment, Aizawa thinks she believes him, before the cynicism returns to her eyes and Hitoshi’s Ma offers a wary, “I hope so, Aizawa.”
Notes:
Now is definitely the time for anyone who also watches/loves Bojack horseman like I do to point out that Mr. Peanutbutter and Hizashi have the same energy, and that I also adore them with all my being.
Also Kiki's jumpsuit is gucchi, google 'gucchi green jumpsuit' for pics if y'all curious. Trying to be better about descriptive language for clothing means finding more references, but also in this case she straight up is wearing gucchi because she's a bad bitch who is Here To Slay.
This rounds off a lovely trio of domestic chapters, and if you knew what I knew about what's coming up, I'd make sure to appreciate them while we have these soft enjoyable moments. We're getting HYPE for this INTERVIEW yooooo, which is just so coinkydinkaliy the title of the next chapter.
A/n cliffhangers now?! It's more likely than you think!
Chapter 72: The Interview
Summary:
Lights, camera, action.
Chapter Text
“Ah, I’m glad to have caught you all before you left.” Nezu’s voice is sharp and cheerful, fluttering like bamboo wind chimes across the deserted UA campus as Aizawa, Hizashi, Hitoshi and Hizashi cross the schoolyard on their way out. Fully caffeinated and as ready as they’ll ever be.
“And look who’s come with you,” Hitoshi remarks happily, because Nezu is not alone, a stocky blob on stumps that tromps after him and greets them with a scratchy yowl.
“Has he been following you since yesterday?” Kiki says with stifled amusement, while Hitoshi drops into a crouch and lets Trashbag rub against his outstretched hands, chugging like a tugboat over being reunited with his owner.
“We have come to…” Nezu’s eyes narrow, and at this point the cat turns his attention from spreading hair all over Hitoshi’s new tracksuit to stare directly back at the Principal with alarming intensity, “an understanding.”
A chill literally runs up Aizawa’s spine, and although Nezu doesn’t appear to be able to commune with other animals in the way that, say, Koda does, they do seem to have a kind of bond that transcends the human breadth of experience.
“You’re on the way to the police station, I take it?” Nezu inquires despite knowing damn-well what they’re going to do. He always does, but manners matter immensely to him.
“Got my big interview in an hour.” Hitoshi shrugs it off, but Aizawa’s nerves are fraught – then again, Aizawa’s always hated cameras, while Hitoshi seems rather comfortable in front of them. Hizashi appears to have briefed him thoroughly too, along with dabbing some kind of shimmery substance along the angles of Hitoshi’s face that makes the light hit his cheekbones like the edge of a mirror, and although Aizawa rolled his eyes when Hizashi looked his way over their impromptu makeup counter, he let it be.
“Wonderful,” Nezu replies in that jovially creepy way of his, as this whole plan is clearly right up his alley. “Have you perchance taken in the morning news before you embark?”
“You mean do I know that the media’s still freaking out about my dad’s escape and a bunch of people topped themselves overnight?” Hitoshi suggests so dryly it could suck the moisture out of the air. “Yeah, I got the gist of it.”
Aizawa, to his shame, has done no such media-trawling yet, and had sort of expected to be updated on the way to the Station, him and Hitoshi’s phone in the backseat as they've tended towards. So he just asks, “How many?”
“Five,” Hitoshi and Nezu answer in unison, but it’s Hitoshi who continues, “We don’t know how many are Dad’s, though.”
“Or any,” Nezu appends, and if it looks like a passing sympathy for a bloodthirsty killer, that’s purely coincidence. “By my projection, the mania surrounding the Doctor and Shiyoko’s killing spree is almost at its zenith, so I anticipate a high level of organic suicides in conjunction with the press fervor.”
“Oh great,” Hitoshi lilts with all the bitter sarcasm anything so desperately depressing merits.
“You mean people are starting to kill themselves on their own?” Kiki states with a touch of horror.
“It’s known as the Werther effect, or a variation on the original phenomenon,” Nezu explains as if they’ve all just volunteered for one of his unasked-for lectures. “A highly popularised suicide often triggers a number of others to do the same, though in this case the killers’ victims are not true suicide, but we can certainly expect a number of the new deaths to be inspired by the frenzy.”
“Well gee, that’s fucked up,” is Hizashi’s contribution at this point. He's thankfully changed into his full Hero Gear before they leave, not taking any chances – and also because Aizawa told him if he wore out anything he didn’t want torn or gotten dirty then Aizawa would personally see to its tearing and dirtying himself. They all have to be on duty today, and although Kiki’s still wearing her fashionable jumpsuit, three out of four’s not bad.
“I am afraid we have seen this scenario regarding Dr. Shinsou before,” Nezu announces morosely.
“After the first massacre, you mean,” Hitoshi hops in before Nezu’s class really takes off. “Those were people who knew him, though.”
“True, it was more limited to followers of Dr. Shinsou. Those who hadn’t been chosen for his experiment and wanted to prove their dedication after the fact,” Nezu relates comfortably as their party resume walking towards the car. Trashbag leaves Hitoshi’s side to pursue Nezu the moment the Principal turns his back to stroll onwards. Maybe the cat does think he can eat Nezu, Aizawa dares to wonder as they cross the courtyard, watching the bulky black cat following devotedly after the Principal with something akin to murder in his eyes.
“Masaru’s little cult were hysterical, especially after his arrest,” Kiki points out with a thick layer of ice over her tone from top to toe, even her posture stiff and unyielding as they delve this nasty pocket of the past. “But there were a few who’d never met him that killed themselves too.”
“Indeed,” Nezu concurs morbidly. “A sad affair indeed.”
“How did they do it?” Aizawa asks, and only realises it’s a weird question when everyone except Nezu turns to give him a look.
“Poison, mostly,” Kiki answers curtly. “They went to the house, or as close as they could get.”
Hitoshi’s face is downcast, the long lines of his features even more soulful and stark than usual, carved out with a touch of whatever Hizashi put on him to look almost ethereal rather than human. He hangs his head in that expressionless pout, hands heavy in his pockets. Aizawa wants to reach for him instinctively, but they don't have time for touch-therapy, and he might make some attempt not to challenge the title for Hitoshi’s clingiest guardian. The teen’s old enough to need some space, as well as support.
“That’s a fair point of consideration, Aizawa. Whether the present-day suicides bear similarity to those of the past,” Nezu sounds like he’d love nothing more than to sit down and talk this over with a nice pot of tea, and although Aizawa’s sure the conversation would be fruitful, they’ve got somewhere else to be, and he’s not too cut up about missing out.
“I’m sure Tsukauchi will have a full update when we get to the station,” Aizawa eases off Nezu’s enthusiasm as they reach the car park, stalling as they take their pick between Hizashi and Kiki’s car. “Kiki should drive,” Aizawa suggests before either can offer to do it themselves.
“Why me?” she replies.
“Because someone will throw a fit if anything happens to his car,” Aizawa answers with a throw of his eyes at Hizashi.
“Oh, and it doesn’t matter if something happens to mine?” Kiki retorts, but Hizashi’s already sold.
“No no, he’s right,” Hizashi fully agrees. “The crowds out front probably saw my baby yesterday, so best not to risk it.”
“Did you just call a car your baby?” Hitoshi scathes, and as much as Aizawa loves these little domestic moments, they’ve got some terrible stuff to do.
“Let’s hit the road,” he urges, while Nezu comes to a stop with Trashabg at his side like a semi-loyal steed.
“Bye, Trash,” Hitoshi’s cooing to the cat, of course, stooping over to give him a final ruffle of the ears, which elicits a hoarse meow in return before they pack into the car.
The ride over to the police station is strangely soporific, the caffeine rush not fully ramped up yet and motion of the car making Aizawa drowsy – as does the return of music-talk between Hizashi and Kiki in the front of the car – so when he’s leaning over Hitoshi to watch his phone screen while Hitoshi scrolls through the newest streams of hysteria over the breaking news they’ve known about for days, it seems natural enough to rest his head on Hitoshi’s shoulder.
“You’re kidding,” Hitoshi softly teases while Aizawa’s allowing his eyes to drift shut. “I watched you drink a bathtub of coffee this morning.”
“Hasn’t kicked in,” Aizawa slurs, and now he’s recharged, the Shinsou effect isn’t draining like it got to be yesterday. The opposite, in fact; Hitoshi is the flame to a mothy Aizawa, instinct-driven to bump against him over and over, powerlessly drawn in by Hitoshi’s presence. Hitoshi doesn’t shove him off, so he must not mind, and Hitoshi slept on him plenty in the car yesterday, so fair’s only fair. The next thing Aizawa knows is Hitoshi shaking him awake.
“We’re here, Aizawa.”
“What did I miss?” His nap means skipping the crowds, which, selfishlessly, Aizawa doesn’t mind either.
“They're not begging for another benefit concert by yours truly, I’ll tell you that,” Hizashi jokes from the front, and he’s probably thrilled to have Kiki for company instead of having to punch Aizawa to keep him awake long enough to maintain the level of chatter Hizashi requires to be entertained.
“Astonishing,” Aizawa quips, waiting for Hitoshi to get out on his side to follow on after, and with just a little top-up nap and the coffee hitting his system like a sledgehammer he’s at the perfect level to deal with the atrocious level of bullshit they’ve got in store. Thankfully the police station car park is well guarded and gated enough that no unauthorised personnel can get in, as the press must be hungrier than ever now the Deathnote Killer and infamous murderer behind the 99 Massacre are fully unleashed on the public.
The door into the station opens from within, and with his mentalist dials tuned just right, Aizawa knows who it is by the mark of his mind before hearing, “And here they are,” just as Detective Tsukauchi steps out beaming like a ray of morning sunshine.
He must have gone home finally, because his shirt is clean and fresh, long sleeves unrolled and a tie that’s not going to last long when the summer’s day heats up, but then hearing the click clack of Kiki’s heels up the short steps Aizawa finally clocks it. Stupid of him to miss all the signs so clearly laid out – Kiki’s glamorous jumpsuit, Hitoshi’s chiseled cheekbones, buttoned-up Detective. They’re preparing to be on TV.
“How are you all this morning?” Tsukauchi asks genially, though the signs of wear and tear from this case aren’t invisible if you know where to look on his subtly lined face.
“Well as we can be, all things considering,” Kiki answers as she draws level with him, then turns back to Hitoshi lagging by Aizawa’s side. “Come on, they must be waiting for us.”
But it’s Aizawa Hitoshi turns to. “You’re coming, right?”
“Uh…” Aizawa hesitates not because he seriously doubts whether he’s going to be there, but how to express his allergy to cameras in the best way possible.
“Just keep him away from the cameras and he’ll be fine.” Hizashi’s hand thumps on the back of Aizawa’s shoulder, his grin beyond shit-eating. “You know what they say, can’t polish a turd.”
Hitoshi gives a snort, looking to Aizawa for retaliation, but he’ll find no argument there. The camera hates Aizawa almost as much as he does it in return, and Hizashi jokes that his only good side in front of one is ass-up and tied-up, which Aizawa happens to agree with. But they don’t talk about those pictures.
“The Chief has prepared his office for the interview, and he’ll want to say a word beforehand,” Tsukauchi explains to Kiki mostly, but the rest of them still benefit from the update. It’s impressive the Detective convinced his superiors to go along with this at all, but then, Aizawa’s not sure how many options they had, and all these fresh bodies don’t look good on their books either.
“Alright then,” Hitoshi declares quite cheerfully for what he’s about to do, but Hizashi didn’t teach him all about finding his best side for nothing – a performance starts even before the cameras roll. If Hitoshi’s to be as convincing as he needs to be, he’s got to be getting into character already. “Let’s make me into a killer.”
Tsukauchi gives Hitoshi a lingering stare, just a blip on the radar before he’s back to business. “Right. Follow me.”
They know the way to the Chief's office, but they don’t want to take any chances with the station in such strict lockdown, and even the normal low levels of people around the place are long gone – not working today, or sent home from the risk of a workspace that’s become a hub for the crazed fans of a pair of murderers on the run.
Walking up in steely silence, everything is set up in Tsuragame’s office already, cameras, lights and even Sugiyama has dressed up for the occasion, changing his thick glasses for contacts and his hair less greasy than usual. He’s got a face behind those frames, it turns out, and looks rather different with his TV face on compared to the determined journalist who’s dogged them – speaking of which.
“Ah, welcome,” greets Chief Tsuragame to their party. “I trust you still mean to proceed as Tsukauchi has informed me?”
“I haven’t gotten cold feet and changed my mind, if that’s what you mean,” Hitoshi lilts, his eyelids low and discerning. Sugiyama looks up at him, and the air is more loaded than Cricket on a heavy night. The lights all face towards a couple of chairs set at the end of the Chief's office, the nicest room the police have to face the public from.
There’s an eerie silence across the room in anticipation of what’s coming without knowing exactly what they’re going to get. Hitoshi’s mentalist energy is practically nuclear, his face solemn and hard, steely-eyed and looking every bit like his father, a resemblance the public is going to eat up – and they better.
“Then we should begin,” Tsuragame announces, signalling to the cameraman as he strides into frame, guided by hand gestures to shuffle into the centre of the shot and given a countdown before the recording begins, thankfully not live – none of them would risk that.
This explains why the Chief's opening words are, “Good afternoon, everyone. This is Police Chief Tsuragame, sharing an important update regarding the newest killings linked to the work of the Deathnote Killer, who we now believe to have facilitated the escape of – and now be killing alongside – Dr. Shinsou Masaru, the perpetrator of the ninety-nine massacre.”
There’s a cold ripple across the room, or maybe just as Aizawa feels it, and instinctively, he reaches for Hitoshi’s shoulder, resting a light touch of his fingertips, nothing too demanding. Hitoshi’s eyes flick sideways and down to Aizawa’s hand, then rise back up to the front as the Chief continues his introduction.
“The Police have been cooperating with Dr. Shinsou’s son regarding this case, and have arranged the following interview in the hopes of revealing more information regarding these killings.” Bowing low, the Chief seems as stoic and demanding as his role permits for once, and didn’t even say anything doggy. “Thank you.”
“And cut,” the cameraman says stiffly.
The Chief gives a deep sigh that almost sounds like a fatigued, “woof” as he pulls out a handkerchief and dabs his jowls. “Was that alright?”
“All good, Chief,” the cameraman responds, a nondescript man with white hair who turns around to Sugiyama and Hitoshi. “You two are up.”
Aizawa withdraws his hand from Hitoshi’s shoulder, and Hitoshi strides forward into the lights. Since Hizashi has gotten his hands on Hitoshi, from his haircut to the cosmetics Hizashi no doubt purchased on his latest shopping spree, the teen is looking extra long and striking, like he’s a figure from a renaissance painting stretched on a canvas. Sugiyama by comparison seems like a greasy dwarf, Hitoshi even sitting taller than him in the chairs they sink into.
Hitoshi doesn’t talk, and his stiff, unreacting expression is so spot on for the Doc it makes Aizawa realise how much he’s gotten used to Hitoshi emoting. Even if it’s not always positive emotions – his tantrums, his sulking, and petulant stares among a few – he’s still showing them. But that’s not what the Shinsou brand is about, which is hard, unflinching perfection. And when the lights hit his face, Hitoshi shifts slowly from one side to another, only stopping when Hizashi, peering over the cameraman’s shoulder, raises a silent thumbs-up across the room. Must have found his best side.
“Three, two, one… and action,” the cameraman rings out, and the room is silent again for a moment while Hitoshi and Sugiyama glisten under the lights, if for very different reasons.
“This is Sugiyama of the Heroes Daily Reporter and I’m here with Shinsou Hitoshi, may I call you Shinsou?”
Hitoshi doesn’t move a muscle, doesn’t even fucking blink except minuscule movements of his mouth to deliver a static, “You may.”
“Shinsou, you’ve been cooperating with the Police on this investigation of the Deathnote Killer for some time, would you say you’re familiar with the killers work?”
Hitoshi emotes now, but not in a good way. His smile is faint but twisted, and doesn’t match his eyes, giving the whole thing a creepy appeal as he moves slowly, like the head of a charmed snake. “Oh, I’m familiar.”
“How familiar?”
Hitoshi leans forward a little, towards the camera, not Sugiyama. Though his eyeline sort of hits the journalist, it also faces to the front, as if to acknowledge he knows the audience is there, and is bringing them in on his secret. “Intimately familiar.”
“Then what would you say your impression is of these two: of the Deathnote Killer and your father, Dr. Shinsou?” Sugiyama doesn’t hesitate to remind the viewers of this connection, not that it’s easy to forget watching Hitoshi now. Aizawa knows that Sugiyama must have been grilled by Tsukauchi and Kiki rigorously, so nothing he says ought to be a surprise, but that doesn’t make it any more comforting.
Hitoshi settles back again, finding his best side once more – another thumbs up from Hizashi, vain creature – before fixing his gaze fully onto the camera. This part isn’t for Sugiyama, this is for one man, and one man only.
“Honestly, I’d say they’re a bit underwhelming.”
“Underwhelming?” If Sugiyama is feigning surprise, he’s a proficient actor. More likely is that he’s just not actually expecting Hitoshi’s responses, despite being fed the questions. A tight script never comes off as real as an improvisation, so they must marry the two enough to make it seem organic. “In what way?”
“Well, I mean… it’s a bit tired, isn’t it?” Hitoshi suggests with a control that’s chilling, the calmness that his mother as well as his father both marshall to terrifying effect. Because it’s not people who scream that you should be most afraid of, but the ones who speak softly and never blink, who would soon as cut your throat as smile at you while they do it. “Merely repeating what my father made people do all those years ago, I’d hardly call that original.”
“Originality is something you think matters in this context?” Sugiyama hunches into Hitoshi, like his gravity is impossible to resist, and although Aizawa still feels a little bit like punching him, it’s mostly offset by relief that he feels like they actually know this man enough to maybe be able to trust him.
“Isn’t originality something we should all strive for?” Hitoshi addresses to Sugiyama with a polite smirk, which drops when he turns back to the front. “Even in murderers.”
“I beg your pardon, but are you suggesting the Deathnote Killer and Dr. Shinsou ought to be more original in the way they’re killing people?” It’s going to be a great news chunk, Aizawa can already tell. An interview that goes off the rails, footage released in conjunction with the news that Hitoshi is being held for questioning following the discovery of ‘new evidence’ that may or may not have been put there on purpose yesterday.
“I’m just saying anyone could do what they’re doing,” Hitoshi writes off, still looking at the front, now with a private glint of amusement in his piercing violet eyes.
“Anyone with a mind control quirk,” Sugiyama points out, and then after just a resting pause of a second or two continues, “You inherited your father’s quirk, did you not?”
Hitoshi turns pleasantly back to Sugiyama, and they seem like figures posed against a flat backdrop, even though it’s just one end of Tsuragame’s office cleared out to make room for them. Shadow puppets being cast against the wall, putting on a show for all the gullible children.
Smiling openly, Hitoshi answers, “I did.”
“So in theory, you would be able to make someone kill themselves in the same way as your father and Shiyoko are?”
“Oh yes.” Hitoshi exudes smugness, an air of aloof certainty that he knows things others do not, and that the power it gives him is corrupting. The Shinsou Effect is… inebriating, no doubt, but it’s only when abused that a habit becomes a vice.
“So if you did, in theory, of course, kill someone with your quirk, you would strive for more… originality?”
“Well, if it were me,” Hitoshi purrs, “I would probably start out doing what they do, just to make the point that I could.” And as it happens, he already has, but whether they drag all of that out now is yet to be seen. They’re only recording, not live, which Aizawa knows they can edit and cut the footage however they want, so there’s no telling how far it’ll go.
“And after that?”
Hitoshi makes an appearance of thinking over, or maybe he really is contemplating what comes next. Aizawa’s not sure he wants to know, but this whole process has been unpleasant from the start for a reason. It's utterly hateful.
“After that, I would challenge them to pick on someone their own size,” Hitoshi lilts in his most intoxicating, let-me-use-my-quirk on you tone, and his mental aura is like a siren song, the rest of the room just standing in shock and awe, watching him work.
“Meaning what?” Sugiyama asks.
“Making normal people kill themselves is so… easy,” Hitoshi unfolds hypnotically, and it is true, Aizawa knows all too well how quickly most people’s lives just slip right away. “Killing Heroes, now that takes work.”
“You’d target Heroes?” Sugiyama seems to gasp, and Hitoshi was supposed to present himself as a villain, so this fits the bill to a tee. “Theoretically, of course.”
“Of course,” Hitoshi echoes like he means it less and less each time. “Why wouldn't I? We hold Heroes up to be these perfect, profound things, more powerful than the rest of us. They’re idolised in our society, so isn’t it more impressive to take on a Hero and warp their mind to the point of taking their own life?” Hitoshi smiles widely now, lit up from the eyes, and Aizawa gets why Hitoshi was so keen to impress on the rest of them that this was an act. It’s fucking convincing, if you don’t know the context.
“You were rejected from the Hero Course at UA, were you?” Sugiyama’s research comes up trumps, and credit where credit’s due, he’s an admirable scene partner for Hitoshi.
“Yes,” Hitoshi replies. “Seems I’m not the sort of thing they’re looking for.”
“But you still entered the school as a General Studies student, why would you do that?” Sugiyama doesn’t give Hitoshi a chance to answer before he comes in with a suggestion. “Did you want to get close to the future generation of Heroes?”
Hitoshi’s little titter is breathy and dismissive, a cruel in-joke with himself. “If you can call them that.”
Aizawa huffs a mix of amusement and disapproval, then a nudge in his side turns out to be Kiki, who’s still staring dead at Hitoshi with a transfixed scowl of pure dread. Perhaps it’s not the fear that any of this could be true, but merely being confronted with a mother’s worst nightmare, even just a facsimile. How her son could have turned out wrong.
“You aren’t bitter? About being rejected, I mean.”
Hitoshi tilts his head to one side, as if he doesn’t understand the question. “Rejected by who?” Or perhaps just the specifics, then. Hitoshi has been rejected by a lot of people, it’s true. Boxed up and turned into… well, this. A villain-in-waiting.
"The school." Sugiyama follows right up with, "But it sounds like you're saying you’re used to rejection, due to your quirk and connection to Dr. Shinsou?"
"It appears to be a trend," Hitoshi answers as smooth as perfectly flat silk on a table, a tone that's almost soothing. "No matter. I don’t get bitter,” Hitoshi shares secretively with Sugiyama, tipping his chin down just enough that a hint of shadow catches across his face, before shifting back to catch that best side straight down the camera. “I get even.”
Even Sugiyama seems staggered for a second, or pretending very convincingly. “And are you aware, Shinsou, that some of the latest victims aren’t thought to be the work of the Deathnote Killer or your father at all?”
“Oh?” Hitoshi inquires obliquely, every sheer angle in his face the edge of a cliff the camera seems to be hanging onto, just staring into the abyss.
“Yes, they believe that a copycat has been mimicking their pattern, forced suicides, bloody deathnotes, but that it’s the work of someone else with a mind control quirk.” Just a pause again, for dramatic effect. “That doesn’t seem to surprise you.”
Hitoshi is an unflickering radar, not a blip on that perfect, marbled face. “Should it?”
Somehow, Aizawa doesn’t think they’re going to have trouble making it seem like Hitoshi is connected to the murders.
Sugiyama just stares at Hitoshi at first, then his expression toughens up. “I would think so, seeing as this is brand new information the Police have agreed to share exclusively for this interview. In fact, Detective Tsukauchi is here to present on the findings.”
Right on cue, Tsukauchi steps in front of the camera holding a cardboard file. Hitoshi’s head doesn’t move to follow the Detective’s approach, but his eyes do, flitting up to watch Tsukauchi walk up and stop between Hitoshi and Sugiyama, centre stage.
“The Detective has agreed to release these images of the crimescene for the first time here on camera,” Sugiyama introduces with just a hint of sensationalism that’ll really make this bit zing, and Aizawa’s got the urge to leap through a window again – not because it’ll help, just because it’s the feeling all this shit gives him.
“Hello, Shinsou,” Tsukauchi remarks coolly, and if his opinion of Hitoshi was altered at all by what he found in the alleyway yesterday, now’s the time to show it.
“Detective,” Hitoshi replies dead behind the eyes, his hands resting perfectly still on the armrests of his chair.
“What can you tell me about these photos?” Tsukauchi slips the first image out of the file and holds it up to Hitoshi – the Shimizu’s apartment, no body but the words "HAPPY NOW?" just visible on the wall despite the blurry picture. Tsukauchi then turns it to the camera for just long enough to get the gist across. Handing it to Hitoshi, he takes longer with the second image, showing the camera first the eerie “YOU MADE ME" scrawled in real blood above the mutilated body they put there yesterday, before handing this one over too.
There’s a moment where it seems as if doubt flickers across Hitoshi’s face when he’s confronted with the second picture, hesitant to take it, the more visceral reminder of what he did. This is the one that took a toll on him, and maybe his wavering is intentional, but it could as easily be authentic.
“What would you like to know?” Hitoshi says, but there’s less certainty in his tone now, a quality of skittishness that hides under the surface.
“Do you recognise either of these people?” asks Tsukauchi.
“Not really,” Hitoshi defers. “Are they important in some way?”
“Then the messages,” Tsukauchi takes to task next. “Do you believe they’re from the Deathnote Killer and Dr. Shinsou?"
“From?” Hitoshi shakes his head. “No. To.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“You said it was a copycat, didn’t you?” Hitoshi looks away from the pictures forced upon him, holding them lax in one hand as his eyes find the camera lens instead. “They must want to communicate with him.”
“Meaning the copycat,” Sugiyama suggests. “They want to talk to your father.”
“Yes,” Hitoshi confirms, while the hairs on the back of Aizawa’s arms prickle, the phantom of something evil passing. Tsukauchi drifts towards the back of the room, still between Hitoshi and Sugiyama, but setting himself behind them, no longer pulling focus as the weight of the interview shifts back to the practiced spectacle.
“And if you were going to speak to your father, right now,” Sugiyama invites ominously, and Aizawa sees the way one of Hitoshi’s hands tightens around the armrest, knuckles whiter than the rest of his hands. “What would you like to say to him?”
“I’d tell him I hope he’s watching,” Hitoshi becomes more animated all of a sudden, sitting forward like a snake moves to strike, letting the pictures he’s holding tip onto the floor and hissing a venomous, “because he hasn’t seen anything yet.”
There’s a moment of unsettling quiet, and Aizawa feels something on his arm again, glancing down to realise it’s Kiki’s hand, clutching his sleeve as tight as Hitoshi grips the chair beneath him.
“Were you and your father close, before the Massacre?” Sugiyama continues as if nothing could be the matter, though he’s sweating like a pig in a sausage factory, giving his skin a distinct shine under the lights that makes Hitoshi look positively radiant by comparison.
“Not exactly,” Hitoshi replies trickily, sitting back, and if he lied too obviously the Doc would never fall for it – no, this has to be a plausible lie, cut just close enough to the truth that the scalpel veering off doesn’t seem so farfetched. “We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things like those pictures,” Hitoshi answers forebodingly, a tilt of his head at the floor where the images lie upturned at his feet. “But, to tell you the truth, I’m starting to come around.”
“Come again?”
“Have you even read his book?” Hitoshi remarks so scornfully that it’s like electricity through the room. Aizawa feels more than a little on-edge knowing he’s probably one of the handful of people in the room who has, which means he’s got an idea of where this is going.
“What does that have to do with it?” Sugiyama is a great fit for this role, with his cheap suit and his narrow eyes set just a little too far apart. He makes everything sound skeevy, and like Hitoshi’s hiding something, which is absolutely true.
“The purest expression of living life is taking it from someone else, wouldn’t you say?” Hitoshi begins to unwind like a ball of yarn rolling off a table onto the floor.
Sugiyama looks so moist he could slide down a window on his own fluids, but maybe it’s just the lights. Then again, maybe it’s not. “Not for the people dying.”
“No, for them too,” Hitoshi counters, and from where Aizawa’s standing he’s almost bowled back by the powerful wave of mentalist energy that rolls off Hitoshi like stormy waves blown in from the sea – this is the part of his quirk that he inherited from his mother. Even if it can’t be translated through the camera, it sure as fuck freaks the rest of them out in the room. It’s an un-hearable noise almost exactly like howling winds, met with silence that you could hear a pin drop in until Hitoshi starts to speak as if reading an incantation.
“We live our whole pathetic little lives in fear of this or that, looking for ways to make ourselves feel better about being worse than we’d like to make out.” Hitoshi’s staring down the lens as if he’s looking straight into the Doc’s eyes, talking to his father through the prison bars. “All people like my father are doing is giving us the push to do things we’ve always wanted to, deep down.”
“What makes you think dying is what the victims want?” Tsukauchi’s question intrudes, a sharp streak of honesty that cuts true as it’ll ever be. But this is something Hitoshi understands better than people like the Detective ever will, and that’s just what they’re here to expose.
Hitoshi looks up and over at Tsukauchi, putting him in profile to the camera for a moment, the precise lines of his face thrown into striking contrast with the background, unlike anyone or anything else in the room.
“Why, Detective,” Hitoshi remarks as an eerie smile stretches his cheeks, as if he barely remembers how and this is his best attempt. “Because killing them is so easy.”
Aizawa knows Hitoshi’s smiles, his real ones, and they’re nothing like this abomination. This is the monster version of Hitoshi, the bad timeline, the one they’re going to make everyone believe – and yeah, they’re gonna believe it.
Notes:
Remember when Hitoshi first suggested this idea and everyone was like nooooooo so dangerous what's he thinking waaaah it's crazy?! Maybe it is, but it's hard to deny the je ne sais quoi of DRAMA it's delivering now. This far into the story the options are to go big or go home, and I'm sure as shit not going home!
Seeing as it's Christmas next week I'm going to skip updating, which I doubt will be much of a let-down for most since there's probably better things to be doing than reading all about murder children, but to negate any feeling of cliffhanger-ism I can confirm this is the end of the interview in itself. The next chapter continues after the interview is finished, which we can easily imagine wraps up pretty quickly after this shitshow bombshell from our best little pseudo-murder child.
What a chapter to leave off on! Happy holidays and new year everyone, I will try to update again around the start of January, might be a touch late but we'll see how we go, then back to scheduled services thereafter!
Thanks for coming on this journey with me! Death to 2019!
Chapter 73: Monster under the bed
Summary:
The pickings aren't just slim, but grim.
Notes:
Happy new year everyone! It was pure chance that I ended last year's chapters on such a climatic note, but having extra time over xmas has definitely helped me to do this next one justice in carrying on from that. Sorry the update is a bit late, I've been on various family vacations/obligations and travelled today, I actually edited this chapter sitting on the plane waiting to unload, but here we are! Hope everyone enjoys it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa whisks Hitoshi straight to Tsukauchi’s office seconds after the camera stops rolling, once Hitoshi shocks everyone in the room beyond words with his final pseudo-killer soundbite.
"Why Detective, because killing them is so easy."
It's quiet enough to hear a pin drop, just horrified silence until the cameraman murmurs a shaky "cut" on the wise assumption that Hitoshi couldn't possibly top that, nor does anyone want him to. Aizawa reckons that getting Hitoshi out as soon as humanly possible is a good idea, and Kiki seems to agree with him going by the face she makes at Aizawa as he sweeps Hitoshi out of the room with the Detective close behind. A mother's worst nightmare in full technicolour.
Tsukauchi’s little office has astonishingly become even more chaotic since they last visited. Coffee cups have run out of deskspace to occupy and now sit in a line along the floor by Tsukauchi’s desk, while the bin overflows with shredded paper and empty food wrappers. Boxes of files obscure half of the sole window in the room, sheltering much of the space from harsh sunlight, giving it a strange forgotten air. The second desk assigned to the void space Tsukauchi has instead of a partner is consumed entirely with the overrun work from the lone Detective’s trials and tribulations on the tail of the Deathnote Killer and her infamous Professor of murder and mayhem.
“How’s Tama?” Aizawa finds himself asking the second he sets foot in here, because it can’t not remind him of the safe pair of hands and good friend they’ve lost from the running, and the more they’re surely suffering for it. Tama was an asset to this case, the originator of the whole deadly tale, and now he’s stuck in a hospital bed recovering from a car crash he might not have caused if Aizawa weren’t there egging him on. Or, alternately, he might have caused it anyway and Aizawa not been there to pull him out of the wreckage. Either way: Aizawa feels bad.
“He’s out of bed already, though they won’t discharge him just yet,” Tsukauchi answers as he clears off just enough space on his desk to lean back in his chair and set his feet up on the edge, rocking back and tucking his hands behind his head as if he's sunbathing under the sole ray of daylight that pierces the dusty air. “He’s been doing backgrounds on all the newest victims and phone interviews, despite the doctor’s orders to take it easy.”
Aizawa gives a murmur equal parts approving and disapproving, and reminds himself to give Tama a call next time he’s on a solo smoke break.
“So these are the latest victims?” Hitoshi climbs up onto the second Detective’s desk and sits cross-legged on top of a spread of newspapers, many of the headlines running to the effect of Dr. Shinsou’s daring escape and subsequent reign of chaos. Aizawa wonders what they’ll say by this evening.
“Yeah,” Tsukauchi answers pensively, and Hitoshi leans over the scattering of crime scene reports and pictures in the middle of the two desks. “The ones we know of.”
There’s an empty chair behind the unused desk, which Aizawa heads over to, dropping into the empty Detective’s seat with a forlorn sigh. Hizashi and Kiki hung back in the Chief’s office to review the footage with the cameraman, picking over a final cut like vultures, but Aizawa just wanted to get the fuck out of there. He’s happy to leave it to people who know what they’re doing when it comes to how much of that travesty makes it on air. Keeping Hitoshi around wasn't the best idea, given the way everyone was staring at him when they hastily brought the interview to a close.
“Do you want me to start you off?” Tsukauchi offers, but Hitoshi’s already rolling.
“This guy's from the rooftop yesterday,” the teen declares morosely, pointing to the picture of a middle-aged man in a hospital gown lying on his back with a pool of blood underneath him. “What happened to him?” Hitoshi was with those people longer, so it's natural he'd recognise one of the ones they thought they saved.
“Ah… we tried with him. Dr. Iwaya and I,” Tsukauchi relates with pain scored into his crows feet like they've been scratched with talons, a wince as the failure stings. “He managed to get out of his restraints overnight and went straight up to the hospital roof… you can figure the rest out.”
“Dammit,” Hitoshi heaves with disappointment, the shadows hanging heavy over his face as he sets his chin between his hands, elbows propped on knees as he looks over the images. “No note?”
“Not exactly,” Tsukauchi murmurs, giving Aizawa the instant impression that something horrible is coming next – a premonition that is exactly right. “When we were interviewing him, all he said to either of us was ‘I will finish what he started’.”
“Fucking hell,” Hitoshi takes the words right out of Aizawa’s mouth, while Aizawa pulls the nearest report with a picture clipped to it towards him. This one shows a young woman pictured indoors, collapsed on the floor in front of a whitewashed wall painted with what can only be her own blood, handprints and crude strokes spelling out a blunter still message.
DEATH = FREEDOM
“Original,” Hitoshi quips, glancing over at the file in front of Aizawa. “No prizes for guessing where she got that from.”
“It says here her blood was full of poison,” Aizawa reads out loud, and if it’s Tama’s work he’s done a great job, because her background goes back for miles. “Long history of mental illness, obsession, self-harm, multiple suicide attempts.”
“Sounds like one of Dad’s fans,” Hitoshi remarks glibly, and Aizawa wouldn’t be surprised.
“We don’t have any reason to believe all these deaths were all the work of Dr. Shinsou or Shiyoko, not directly,” Tsukauchi points out, still with his feet resting up on the desk and a pose that's almost languorous, except for the steel cable tension pulled into every angle of his body. These are the mere motions of a man at rest; a man exhausted, more like. “Tama said that one's social media is full of raving about the Doc’s work, and she's a member of several online fanclubs.”
“The location's off too,” Aizawa points out, checking the address – a prefecture even further out than the Shimizus lived. “It’s hard to see how she could have made contact with either of them.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not Dad’s fault,” Hitoshi’s quick to point out, a bitterness in his voice like the coffee Aizawa made for himself this morning, and wouldn’t mind a little more of, if he could bear to tear himself away from this to go to the break-room and get it.
Hitoshi reaches for another of the pictures without relish. A woman's pink hair lies skewed at an angle as her head leans unnaturally from the noose around her neck, a flimsy folding chair kicked out from under her feet in front of the stairwell railing she’s hanging from. It looks like an outdoor fire-escape on an apartment block, and her clothes suggest nightwear, a soft cherry-blossom print gown that blows in the breeze for all the wrong reasons.
“No note with that one?” Aizawa asks. Hitoshi just looks up at him and shakes his head. The woman is facing the camera for the picture, barefoot in pyjamas, her blue lips and pale face a wordless tragedy.
“I guess people still kill themselves for all kinds of reasons,” Hitoshi muses sadly, before looking further to the other pictures, reaching for one Aizawa’s been eyeing worrisomely. “And then there’s this shit.”
There’s lots of blood in this picture, nor is the needle sticking out of the man’s arm especially easy to miss. If that left any doubt then the fact that he’s carved “SHIYOKO WILL SET ME FREE” into his own arm does nail the point home, so there’s little room for doubt over who claims this particular corpse for the pile.
“That one’s downstairs with Kuwabara,” Tsukauchi comments, his head tipped back and his eyes so far lowered it’s almost as if they’re shut, but he knows what Hitoshi's taking about so he must be able to see enough. Aizawa doesn’t really know how long Tsukauchi's been working, day or night, and this information isn’t really new to him, so his restfulness can be forgiven for now. It’s a lot of work for one man to carry alone; Aizawa would know.
“You should’ve called,” Aizawa finds himself saying spontaneously. “You didn’t have to wait until now to tell us.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Tsukauchi replies serenely, and Aizawa has to wonder if he’s relaxing now because he can, or if it’s to in some way reassure them that he’s not pushing himself too much. Probably both, thinking about it. “One of us has to get some rest every now and again, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Bit late for that,” Aizawa mumbles. This all is plenty disturbing.
“So the junkie was found around here?” Hitoshi questions, lifting the picture along with the file behind it.
“Close enough that we were the nearest morgue,” Tsukauchi replies. “Nothing much to tell there, seems to be one of the same group she’s been using to help her.”
“So why did he stop being helpful?” Aizawa wonders out loud, before turning himself to the last victim. Well, victims.
It’s probably the nastiest of the images, a fucking bloodbath, to put it lightly, which is just the Doc and Shiyoko’s style. A man on a pale carpet lies in a huge pool of blood, holes in his clothing telling of stab-wounds all over his body. The floor around the rug is tiled, or some kind of vinyl, and just above the edge of the rug a haphazard smearing spells out:
MEN ARE PIGS
Not far from this brutal scene, but far enough to be captured in a separate photo, a woman is slumped against a coffee table with a large knife sticking through her throat, her hands and yellow dress crimson with blood.
“Haven’t made up my mind about that one,” Tsukauchi remarks when he catches Aizawa and Hitoshi’s shared poring over the last in the grim procession – so far this morning, at least. “It fits the pattern, but doesn’t feel right.”
“It's not them,” Hitoshi declares immediately, a certainty so strong Tsukauchi swings his feet down and sits upright.
“Why so sure?”
“The note,” Hitoshi replies coolly. “It's far too crude.”
“Shiyoko’s written similar things before,” Aizawa adds thoughtfully, though he agrees that it doesn’t seem quite right, the scene too personal in nature… and the background check turning up charges for domestic abuse that’d been dropped before they could be taken forwards – not on the Police’s side, amazingly.
"Exactly, before,” Hitoshi echoes purposefully. “Dad would never approve.”
“Who says she acted with his approval?” Aizawa challenges, because they’ve been seeing the cracks in the Doc and Shiyoko’s shaky alliance since several murders ago.
“Who says he’d let her?” Hitoshi fires back, and Aizawa catches the boundary going up too late, the ring of fire he only notices once his shoes are burning. “You don’t know what it’s like being around him," Hitoshi rails venomously, "what he does to people.”
Aizawa would argue that Shiyoko already disobeyed the Doc regarding Hana, but it's not the same and he knows it, so it won’t help them now to point it out. Shiyoko acted in self-interest there, sparing Hana from one fate by degrees only as an act of jealousy over Dr. Shinsou… maybe. Aizawa doesn’t know. If he knew such things they wouldn’t be here figuring out the exact murder attribution for six new bodies overnight.
“Either way, we need to figure out which of them could’ve had direct contact with the killers,” Aizawa shifts back towards purpose as the office door opens to reveal the two missing parties finally returned – and even better than that, Hizashi’s got two cups of coffee in his hands, which better both be for Aizawa. Kiki is just behind him, and they both smell like they had a cigarette before coming here, which hardly seems fair.
“Okay what did we miss, who’s dead?” Hizashi calls buoyantly, and if he isn’t spot on.
“Uh, where’d you wanna start?” Hitoshi replies sarcastically.
Aizawa’s got his eyes on the cups in Hizashi’s hands. “For me?” he says quietly when Hizashi’s gaze moves over him, standing but not still in his Hero leathers, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“If the Detective doesn’t want some,” Hizashi responds merrily, but Tsukauchi’s set his feet back up on the desk and actually has his eyes fully closed now.
“No thanks, think I might have a heart attack if I caffeinate any more,” he declines, which means shitty break-room coffee for Aizawa galore.
“C’mere,” Aizawa insists, just short of actually getting up to try and take the cups off Hizashi, which would only result in a struggle that'd embarrass them both.
“How’s the final cut looking?” Hitoshi asks his Ma, who steps around Hizashi to start surveying the chaotic office with a motherly disapproving of the mess. Kiki doesn’t look entirely at ease in here, and if Aizawa had to guess, the memory of almost crossing paths with Iwaya because of Tsukauchi yesterday isn’t quite faded from either of their minds.
“Fucking awful,” Kiki replies sourly, meanwhile Aizawa’s giving Hizashi a very intent get your ass over here stare that Hizashi is rudely pretending not to notice.
“Oh, she doesn’t mean that,” Hizashi guffaws. “You’ll get award nominations for sure, kid, ‘cause that shit’s convincing.”
“Good, it’s meant to be,” Hitoshi answers coldly, settling back to prop his head in his hands, this room seeming a lot more crowded all of a sudden. He doesn’t correct Hizashi for calling him kid, which either means he doesn’t mind, or decided to let it go this time – a more familiar scenario regarding Hizashi.
“Hizashi,” Aizawa finally hisses, and Hizashi just turns to him with a wink.
“What, babe?”
Tsukauchi’s smirking. Hitoshi sniggers in his hands, and even Kiki’s suppressing a wry smile of amusement. Hizashi’s lucky Aizawa wants that coffee enough not to tip it all over his damn head.
“Coffee,” Aizawa reiterates irately, and Hizashi’s careful and clever enough only to pull these stupid kinds of moves when they’re among people who are fully aware of their relationship, but as that includes all the present company, Aizawa’s fucked.
“OH, why didn’t you say?” Hizashi teases, walking over and lifting both hands just as Aizawa tries to reach for them. Turning on the tips of his toes like half a ballet dancer, Hizashi manages to keep both cups raised without spilling a drop while planting himself square in Aizawa’s lap, which Aizawa allows primarily because it puts the coffee within his grasp, and shoving Hizashi onto the floor would be a waste of bad coffee. That and maybe he enjoys Hizashi’s fooling a little, even if he won’t always admit it.
“You went out to smoke,” Aizawa accuses low in Hizashi’s ear as his weight settles across Aizawa’s knees, and perhaps he’d object to being used as furniture, but truly, Aizawa’s always been indifferent to being used as an object – quite a fan of it, under other certain circumstances – so it’d be hypocritical to start now.
“So? I brought you coffee, didn’t I?” Hizashi retorts gleefully, allowing Aizawa to ply a cup from his grasp at long last.
“Just about,” Aizawa grumbles as he takes a glug, and Hizashi finally turns his attention over the gory desktop spread in front of him.
“Eugh, talk about gross,” Hizashi brays as he glances at the last image Hitoshi and Aizawa were mulling over – the double murder. “What’re you morbid lot looking at?”
"The night shift," Hitoshi answers grimly, cheeks bulging around his hands where he rests against his knuckles. Aizawa takes another slug of break-room coffee, and it’s not much, but it’s something. Much like Hizashi’s presence on his lap, one of Aizawa’s arms snaking around his waist just under the level of the desk while Hitoshi continues the debrief. "We're figuring out which ones Dad and Shiyoko killed from the ones who're just nut-jobs."
Kiki has hardly said a word, standing just at the edge of the double desk presiding over the pictures laid out in a bloody platter, but what she gestures to with a slim, lilac-painted fingernail is the one image without a drop of blood in sight.
"That's one."
"One what? Nut job?" Hitoshi suggests curiously, eyes casting upwards at his mother standing opposite to him across the desk. Aizawa takes another sip of acrid coffee, and Hizashi is watching Kiki too – he’s always preferred observation of the living to the dead.
"Of Masaru's," she says emotionlessly.
Tsukauchi sits up again. "What makes you say that?"
"She's got the look," Kiki tells him with an expression almost like she might throw up, and who’d blame her, though she's tougher than that, no doubt. Reaching for the image and picking it up to hold up closer, the creases of dread deepen in Kiki’s expression as she examines it, her tone cruel when she asks, "Didn't you look into their backgrounds?"
"Yes. I mean, we started," Tsukauchi fumbles, reaching for the sheet of paper provided alongside the pictures of the hanging woman. "Hayashi Nana, her neighbours had little to say about her and there's nothing on file before–"
"That's not her name," Kiki interrupts with a bolt of that intimidating Shinsou determination, stare fixed so firmly on the photo in her hand she might burn a hole through it, accusation in her tone leagues deep. "Why wouldn't your search show if someone's changed their name?” she turns that burning gaze Tsukauchi. “You're the police."
"Changed her name?" Aizawa echoes back as he reaches for another of the pictures of the same scene, looks harder at the sad sight. It's true, the woman is tall and willow, beautiful the way Iwaya and Kiki are, the way Dr. Shinsou likes them, but is that really enough for Kiki to go on? There has to be more.
"It wouldn't…" Tsukauchi murmurs in muted shock, his eyes widening – he's fully awake now. "If she was in high level witness protection, it wouldn't show up in an ordinary search, not without the right security clearance."
"Witness protection?" Hitoshi forms the echo this time, his brow creasing as he grapples for the picture Aizawa’s studying, leaning past Hizashi to get a look. "You mean–"
Kiki cuts them all off in one fell swoop. "She testified against him."
Hitoshi’s face drops like a brick. The whole atmosphere in the room tanks, not even Hizashi’s uplifting presence powerful enough to raise it an inch. Aizawa wonders if Hizashi can sense those mentalist shifts, not the way Aizawa or the others – him, Hitoshi, Kiki and Tsukauchi, the lot of them, mentalists – do, but in his own, people-reading way. He’s still parked firmly across Aizawa’s knee, which says something for where he thinks his gifts are best applied.
There’s a computer terminal in a corner of Tsukauchi’s room, piled up with papers on top, which the Detective shunts over to with a rough squeak from his chair. “Tamakawa’s just a… he doesn’t have the clearance to see that kind of information,” he murmurs as he punches the name in from the paper.
Aizawa’s mouth is open, so it’s almost like he says it, but that someone beats him to the punch, a ventriloquist’s act in shades of teenage disgust.
“Well gee, sounds like he oughta be a Detective then,” Hitoshi slips in as if he’s snatched the very words from between Aizawa’s lips. “Might make doing the job of one a bit easier, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah, yeah, tell it to the Chief,” Tsukauchi bats back unphased, hitting enter on the search until lo and behold, a whole history flashes up on the screen. “Hatake–”
“Sakura,” Aizawa suddenly finishes in chorus with the Detective, the name lurching out of his memory somewhere like a mugger from a dark alley.
Tsukauchi whips around to stare at Aizawa so sharply it’s a wonder his head doesn’t keep spinning, and if Kiki just pulled the rug from under his feet, Aizawa’s snuck the floor out somehow.
“How the hell do you know that?” the Detective practically hisses, and Aizawa supposes it does look extremely weird. If only he could figure out where the fuck he remembers it from.
“I…” Aizawa puts a hand to his brow, closes his eyes and tries to connect the imprint of the name in his mind to something, to a mental note he made somewhere and lost the piece of string it connects to.
“What, are you communicating with the spirits or something?” Hitoshi halfway jokes, but it’s not helping.
“Shh,” Aizawa hushes frustratedly, and the tickling of Hizashi’s moustache along his temple isn’t helping either, so the arm that’d been holding him around the waist changes to shove Hizashi away instead. “Get off me.”
“Alright, Mystic Meg,” Hizashi huffs cattily as he hops up, though he was testing Aizawa with such prolonged PDA and fully knows it.
“She was one of his assistants,” Kiki supplies, and that is helpful, pulling the drifting string in Aizawa’s mind back to tautness: the name in a handwritten letter to Dr. Shinsou, mentioning one of his students, suggesting he should hire her as his next Research Assistant.
“Yes,” Aizawa affirms finally. “I saw her name in a piece of fanmail, not by her, but about her.”
“You actually read that stuff?” Kiki says with almost as much horror as she surveyed the plateau of murder before them.
“Some of it,” Aizawa admits gruffly, taking one of the photos back off Hitoshi to study more closely. “The letter said she was writing a blog about taking his class, but when I looked for it I couldn’t find anything.” Aizawa had written the name down at the time, on some scrap of paper he probably had stuffed into one of his pockets in a now-discarded jumpsuit, but the memory of it had stuck just enough to frighten the rest of the room.
“She was one of the two former assistants who testified against him after the massacre,” Kiki explains with that steely war-goddess air that Aizawa goes to great lengths not to cross.
“Only two?” Tsukauchi repeats. “Who was the other?”
Aizawa knows even before Kiki’s said it, perhaps that’s mentalist, his premonition of things just before they happen, or maybe it’s just obvious.
“Me, of course.”
Tsuakuchi stalls, goldfish mouthing for a moment, and Aizawa’s got sympathy for him – to get to the end of a long, bloody night and then discover a pothole like this he somehow missed on the way. Should’ve called Aizawa sooner, though he supposes it wouldn’t have saved any of these people. It just feels frustrating, being so far behind the fact, doing the best they can and still missing things. Even if that’s not the perfect world they live in, where any one person can get everything first try, and it’s unfair and insane to even expect it, but hell if it’s not an easy pattern of thinking to fall into.
Hitoshi is looking over the background report that came through from Tama with a look of grim concentration. "She doesn't live anywhere near the city centre and her neighbours said she was at home all day with no visitors, so how did Dad get to her?" Then something hits him, glancing up from the page to his Ma with horror in his violet eyes. "Unless he called her."
"How did they even find her, though?" Tsukauchi puts forward. "Even we didn't see she was in witness protection at first."
"Shiyoko," Aizawa finds himself answering again, as if he is some kind of mystic channelling this poor woman's testimony from beyond the grave. Only it's not that straightforward. "The fanletter says Hatake Sakura ran a blog, it wasn't written by Shiyoko, but falls around the same she got back in touch with the Doc. We know she was also a… fan, so it's plausible she was aware of Sakura back then."
"Sakura was a public witness, too," Kiki adds, and there's surely no one who knows more about her husband's trial than she does. Well, apart from Shiyoko, apparently. "Shiyoko would've definitely known about it, all his fans went ballistic, branded her a traitor and said she was only testifying against him because he fired her as an assistant."
"Did he?" Aizawa dates to ask, because his morbid curiosity is really that dark.
"After he fucked them, yes," Kiki gives the chilling answer Aizawa was anticipating, though it's no less horrifying for seeing it coming.
The room feels full yet dead, perfectly still for a moment as they drown in such dire circumstances. But what else can they do but push on?
“So if we assume Shiyoko knew about Hatake Sakura, and was somehow able to track her down even after getting a new identity, she must have given her information to Dr. Shinsou for some reason.”
“Appeasement,” Hitoshi gets in just before whatever less savory way of putting it Kiki was about to, her mouth half-open but the words snatched away. She’s still dressed to kill in her green jumpsuit courtesy of Hizashi, meanwhile Hizashi has gone over to the one window in the office in an attempt to peer down at the crowds gathered outside, just visible past the security fences that have been erected around the main entrance to allow people safer entry and exit to the police station.
“So Dr. Shinsou gets his hands on her new name, then presumably how to contact her,” Aizawa keeps laying out because someone’s gotta do it, and he’s always first in line for an unpleasant task. “Then the Doc rings her and uses his quirk to make her hang herself.”
“He used his quirk one way or another, but we don’t know if she was fully under control when she did it,” Hitoshi responds. “She probably wasn’t, to be honest.”
“Why not?” Aizawa asks.
“Because then she’d have done much worse than hang herself,” Hitoshi answers unflinchingly, and Aizawa almost regrets asking. “He probably just put the idea in her head, or talked to her, or… fuck, maybe just swore he was going to find her and do much worse, and she wanted to beat him to it.” Hitoshi unspools like a tightly wound coil of wire, and if this isn’t horror within horror Aizawa doesn’t know what is.
“That means anyone connected to his conviction could be at risk,” Tsukauchi comes back in with a sensible offering, pulling out his phone to presumably send a communication to Tsuragame to this effect. Like they’ve got officers spare to stay on top of that too, but at least now it’s publicly known the plethora of Heroes on the streets can do their part to help. If they can help.
“So we’re pretty sure Hatake Sakura was killed by Dr. Shinsou, one way or another,” Aizawa continues as he slides the picture back across the top of the desk into the centre, then reaches for the man from the rooftop who finished what the Doc started, “and this one.”
Hitoshi reaches for the junkie with the carving in his arm, dragging it into place just aside the two images Aizawa lays out. “And this one is Shiyoko.”
Even with such subject matter, perhaps even especially with this subject matter, their chemistry is still there, a synergy of working style that’s latent until the moment it needs to be there. Hizashi has no stomach for this stuff, as proven by his intent gaze out of the window, though Aizawa’s sure he’s listening to it all, making his own observations. It’s nice to be on such a similar wavelength with someone almost as dear to Aizawa as Hizashi is, even though Hitoshi is only sixteen and they’ve barely been familiar for two weeks – they’ve already gone through years of experience together, or so it fucking feels.
“That leaves the two who actually left bloody deathnotes,” Hitoshi concludes with a pout, before his piercing gaze lifts to meet Aizawa’s. “Seems a bit ironic, doesn’t it?”
“You said it yourself,” Aizawa’s answer flows freer than he thinks it should, but they always do with Hitoshi, so he’s frank and honest because it’s his only way of being now, nothing left in him to be anything but the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “Originality matters… maybe they’re getting bored of leaving the notes, especially now people are beginning to copy them.”
Hitoshi seems alarmed to find Aizawa citing anything said during the interview as a piece of rationale to call upon now, but just because Hitoshi was saying it for false pretences doesn’t make the validity of it any less. If anything it’s a testament to how convincing his statement – even prophecy – really was, because the things Hitoshi suggested would happen are unfolding in front of their eyes. The greatest thing to fear is what the Doc and Shiyoko decide to do next, now messages scrawled in blood and guts and mutilation just doesn’t cut it.
It’s into this deadly spiral that Tsukauchi’s phone begins ringing, which he answers with a solemn, “Hello? Yes… oh, yes.” There’s nothing much to see in the Detective’s face as he listens to the tinny chatter from the other side, but when Aizawa tunes his mentalist dials to a new frequency, reaching for the vibrant, high-energy hum of the Human Lie Detector instead of the usual fare, Aizawa can tell this much: it’s bad news.
“Ah… I see.” A flicker of something crosses Tsukauchi’s face, a twitch in his brow that settles like a brick in Aizawa’s stomach. It’s not true that no news is bad news, because sometimes any news is exactly that. “Okay, we’ll be there soon.”
Hanging up, Tsukauchi takes a deep breath and looks at Aizawa sat opposite to him across the crowded, overworked desks between them. If there’s a space to be filled for a partner on this case, it’s basically been Aizawa, but it’s the moments like this that really nail it home. As much as they try, they have to reach for and lean on each other.
Tsukauchi doesn’t smile, no gloss of cheer to try and patch things up. “They’ve found another overdose victim,” the Detective explains, and maybe it’s because Aizawa fiddled his mentalist senses to focus on Tsukauchi before, but he swears on his fucking life that he feels the words before he hears them, like there’s an imprint from Tsukauchi’s brain where the thought originates that Aizawa can sense like making out shapes hidden behind a sheet.
So it’s more of a surprise that it’s not a surprise when Tsukauchi finishes with a solemn, “I think it’s Cricket.”
If the room could flatline on a heartrate monitor, it would.
But Aizawa just tips his head and says, “Oh, is that all?”
“All?” Tsukauchi seems staggered, and Aizawa has to rack the archives in his brain of who knows what about who to assess exactly what Tsukauchi potentially knows about Cricket, realising that the answer’s probably not a fucking lot. “We need to go over there to identify the body, but the description fits.” This clearly troubles Tsukauchi more than it does Aizawa, though Hitoshi also has a blank look of incoherent shock on his face that Aizawa commits to memory, as it’s not the last time they’ll be seeing it before the day is out.
“Make sure they don’t do anything with the body,” Aizawa instructs, getting up with a sense of relief that they’re about to go somewhere and hopefully get somewhere. “Unless he’s bleeding, or anything. Tell them to stop that.”
“Bleeding? He’s fucking dead, Eraser!” Tsukauchi bursts like a overblown balloon, and if he’s looking for a particular reaction from Aizawa, it’s not coming.
“Yeah, so we better get there quickly.” Aizawa’s not in the mood for explanations, not when they could finally be fucking going somewhere… all five of them, absurdly. Gone are the days when Aizawa got away with this by himself, or just with Hitoshi.
Hizashi hasn’t said anything yet, but he’s looking when Aizawa glances over at him, and though Aizawa doesn’t smile anywhere but his eyes, it’s reflected in Hizashi’s gleaming toothy grin.
“Yes, let’s go see the bastard where he rests.” If there’s one thing Hizashi can’t resist, it’s gloating over Cricket’s dead body.
“Uh, that’s a bit harsh,” Hitoshi shoots with fresh shock at Hizashi. “He wasn’t that bad.” Hizashi would argue that he absolutely is, but it’s beside the point.
“We’re wasting time,” Aizawa cajoles, reaching for the handle of the door but hovering while he waits for everyone to get their fucking asses in gear. “He’s gonna be pissed if we keep him waiting.”
“Who will, Cricket?” Hitoshi’s looking at Aizawa like he’s ninety-nine percent convinced that the shock of losing Cricket has turned Aizawa certifiably insane, but if they’d all stop yapping and got moving then they’d realise what they’re missing. “He’s dead Aizawa, did you not catch that part?”
Aizawa doesn’t do winking, at least not by any reason other than nervous twitch or facial spasm, but he does fire Hitoshi a look that could be interchanged for such a gesture, and the teen’s turbulence stills like sails emptying of wind. “Wait… you’re hiding something,” Hitoshi accuses softly, and Aizawa opens the door.
“Come on,” he encourages the rest of them, tending to a fragile hope that things are looking up. “You’ll see when you get there.”
Notes:
First of all I'm going to address the elephant in the room by stating that yes Hatake Sakura is a KakaSaku reference and I am *that* shipping trash and always have been. Also I actually didn't plan that throwback AT ALL, it's another one of those things where I realised I could close a loop using a detail I threw in for shits and gigs waaaaaay back in chapter 19, and working in a throwback to like 50+ chapter ago is way too cool for me NOT to do that once I thought of it.
Oh yeah also... cliffhanger again, oops. I know a lot of people don't seem to like Cricket but also CRICKEEEEEET!
Also, and I KNOW, I KNOW I SAY THIS A LOT, but I swear to god that the next chapter is easily one of my favourites, and contains easily one of my top 5 favourite lines in the entire story. Not to crank up the anticipation or anything.
See you next week!
Chapter 74: The Life and Death of Rickety Cricket
Summary:
Ashes to ashes, trash to trash.
Notes:
*football (soccer for US audiences* chanting: ERE WE GO ERE WE GO ERE WE GOOOO
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Being that there’s five of them, and only just enough room in the police car to accommodate exactly that many people, it’s logical that if Tsukauchi drives and Kiki occupies the passenger seat, it’s Hizashi who shoves himself into the back along with Aizawa and Hitoshi, shove being the operative word.
“Move your thick ass up,” Hizashi bemoans as he squeezes in next to Aizawa, who’s stuck with the middle seat trying not to push Hitoshi up against the car door on the other side purely because Hizashi is incapable of sitting normally or still. Tsuakuchi doesn’t even wait for Hizashi to settle before he flicks on the siren and pulls away, shooting past the frenetic sign-waving crowds and swerving around one particular group of protesters with ridiculous WE STAN AN IDOL signs alongside that infamous photo of Dr. Shinsou.
“You’ve got enough room, settle down,” Aizawa grunts, hissing at Hizashi when his lover’s first grab for the seatbelt socket seems to be rather more a grope of his ass, and this is not the fucking time for Hizashi’s games, even if that’s always the best time for them in his mind. Hizashi is without fail the one making a clown of himself in the most dire of circumstances, telling jokes at a funeral, laughing through the tears because he’s never trying to deny the darkness what it is, but that doesn’t stop the sun from trying to obnoxiously shine through.
“Unless you propose I stick this somewhere unconventional, Dear, you’re gonna have to shift over,” Hizashi, let’s be fair, straight-up flirts at Aizawa to the point where Hitoshi’s stifling an amused snort, and oh, Aizawa’s gonna get Hizashi back for all this fuckery later. With more fuckery, probably, but that’s not the point.
“Fine.” Shunting to Hitoshi’s side, the timing of the car violently changing lanes means that Aizawa smushes much harder against Hitoshi than he intends to, eliciting a whiny teenage noise of protest.
“Watch it,” Hitoshi growls, and he might just be sour about the fact that Aizawa’s clearly withholding information from him, but it’s just not Aizawa’s secret to sell on like that. “Jeez, Mic’s right, you do have a thick ass.”
Aizawa’s entire brain is wiped blank for a second, not a single coherent thought in his head until Kiki turns around to spit a shocked, “What did you just say?” at her son.
“It’s true!” Hitoshi protests, and Aizawa can’t deny that his thighs are pressed pretty firmly against both Hitoshi and Hizashi on each side without leeway, but that’s the fault of how big they make these middle seats, surely. “Mic said it first.”
“It is true,” Hizashi contributes unhelpfully, while Kiki pulls a face that suggests she can’t believe what she’s hearing, and, much like Aizawa, might like to bleach memory of it from her brain as a result. Can’t process, don’t deal with. (And besides, it sorta is true.)
“Would the lot of you stop moving around back there and do up your fucking seatbelts?” Tsukauchi’s actually pretty cross for once, but then he is driving recklessly enough that if they aren’t buckled in he’s going to kill anyone who’s not restrained if they crash. Hell, he might kill them anyway. Aizawa’s acutely and highly anxiously aware of that fact as they hurtle through the streets towards their destination.
Thankfully it’s only a quick jaunt through the jaws of death to an infamously grotty underpass where a police line has already been set up. The sun is beginning to warm up but the bridge is wide and cool underneath, making it an alluring retreat to the rough sleepers who more usually frequent this place – Aizawa once not so irregularly among them.
The usual crowd must have been cleared on since this morning's discovery was made, as there's not a soul under the entire gloomy arch of cool concrete and creeping damp, but a lot of cardboard and heaps of rubbish. There’s just one lone body splayed like a dead spider in the very middle of the road. A couple of unhappy officers stand guard at either end of the bridge to ensure no one passes under it, and traffic is quiet enough that the road can be shut down entirely. Their footsteps echo like a stampede, all five of them getting out of the car and following after one of the officers to approach the gangly body in the olive green coat in the distance.
“Fuck,” Aizawa hears Hitoshi murmur quietly, and maybe Aizawa’s nochalance made the teen think it wasn’t true, but it’s true alright. Cricket’s dead.
Hizashi, of course, is whistling a high-pitched, cheery tune as he saunters alongside Aizawa towards the body, the piercing melody echoing under the bridge until it sounds like they’re in a demented aviary.
“He was discovered this morning and reported by some of the other homeless in the area,” the officer is explaining to Tsukauchi with a haggard look, but Hizashi just keeps whistling until Aizawa elbows him to pipe down. Maybe this is Hizashi’s idea of a fun morning out, but he’s not the only one here.
“Thanks, we’ll take it from here,” Tsukauchi tells the officer, who turns back and paces for the sun as quickly as his feet can take him.
Cricket is flat on his back with his eyes shut, a syringe sleeping flat along a filthy forearm covered in trackmarks and scar tissue, and how he even finds a fucking vein in his arm these days is a miracle. More damning are the series of cuts on his wrist, though unlike the other junkies who’ve been croaked, they don’t spell out anything in particular, and thankfully aren’t so deep that Cricks lost a dangerous amount of blood through them. A little trickle, sure, dried dirty brown across his filthier arm, but not enough to be a cause for concern just yet.
“I can’t believe he’s really dead,” Hitoshi murmurs next to Aizawa, who sighs and drops into a crouch next to Cricket’s still, lifeless corpse.
“Give it time.”
Gently reaching for the syringe, Aizawa extracts it from Cricket’s cold flesh, taking this moment of peace to re-acquaint himself with a face he used to sit watching by firelight around an oil drum on cold winter nights, felt on the back of his neck pressed against him for warmth, among other things. Used to wake him up in the middle of the goddamn night to whisper with saucer-pupils, “Eraser, I’m high as balls, can I fuck you?” and Aizawa would say yes, as long as he didn’t have to fully wake up.
Yeah, their 'relationship' was pretty dysfunctional, and that’s aside from the fact that Aizawa got to being a pretty functional drug addict under Cricket’s persuasive influence and constant purveyance of illicit substances to take the edge off living rough and reckless, all of which Aizawa did in excess when he first got let out on his own as a Hero with a lot of pain to numb. In a parallel universe, Aizawa could’ve ended up like this – or not quite like this, actually. Even in death, Cricket’s always got an ace up his sleeve, a little something he knows that you don’t.
“C’mon, Cricks,” Aizawa announces bluntly as he tosses down the needle and reaches up to slap Cricket’s scarred cheek lightly, taking a couple seconds longer than he needs to trace his fingertips along the dipped scars that start from one corner of Crick’s jaw and stretch across his whole face in spidery legs. His skin is a little more off-grey than when he's alive and his mouth is almost blue, but apart from that he could be 'sleeping' under the influence of whatever they made him jack up with. It occurs tangentially to Aizawa that Tsukauchi or Hitoshi could use their quirks to make Cricket finally tell the truth about how he got his scars, among other things, not that he’s doing much telling of anything right now.
“Yeah, asshole,” Hizashi picks up much less fondly, and maybe he’s acting out over Aizawa’s sudden bout of sentimentality, but tough for him. Shouldn’t have been such a dick in the car then. “Wake the fuck up.”
“Have you two lost your minds?” Tsukauchi hisses. “He’s been dead for hours, just look at him.”
“Hours?” Aizawa questions dourly, furrowing his eyebrows so deeply they almost join in the middle. He’s squatting right down on the ground, his feet flat to the ground and knees up by his armpits right next to Cricks, musing into his curled fist. “He’s not going to like that.”
“He can’t like anything, he’s fucking dead,” Hitoshi protests, getting as close to Aizawa and Hizashi standing over Cricket’s corpse as he dares, which is a few inches from Cricket’s feet, spread equally between Aizawa and Hizashi on either side.
“Yeah, hear that, streetrat?” Hizashi leans over Cricket’s body to bray, kicking the corpse’s side provocatively until Aizawa shoves him back, reaching for one of Cricket’s eyes instead to drag the lid open. They’re bloodshot to shit, the hazel browny-green irises like an island in a pool of red, but his pupil slowly dilates.
“I’m sorry, Eraser, but if you don’t stop this I’m going to have to–” Tsukauchi is in the business of trying to say authoritatively when Cricket’s body reanimates with a jerky burst of energy. He bolts upright as Aizawa whips his hand away just in time not to take Crick’s eye out.
With his mouth of jagged, blackened teeth and bloody gums falling open, Cricket screams.
Hitoshi screams.
Even Tsukauchi screams.
Hizashi screams too, but with laughter.
Feeling out his dwindling packet of cigarettes, Aizawa takes the penultimate one from the box and sets it in his mouth at a leisurely pace while everyone yells their idiot heads off, successfully rooting out a lighter from one of his other pockets and sparking it while the chorus of screams bounces from the road to the underside of the bridge and back again. The only people to remain quiet are Aizawa and Kiki, whose nerve doesn’t fray, though she understandably almost leapt out of her jumpsuit when Cricket sat up, being that he’s supposed to be dead and all.
“Easy, Cricks.” Aizawa lights the cigarette with one hand, patting Cricket’s back with the other. Cricket’s coughing and heaving wetly, which turns into a hack and then he spits a messy brown-red glob of mucus onto… ah, Hizashi’s brand new shoe. The shiny black-and-red affair, and Aizawa did warn him that anything nice he wore out was going to get ruined. Serves him right.
“You dirty ratbag!” Hizashi yelps indignantly as he leaps back, while Aizawa takes an overly long drag on the cigarette and then finally reaches over to stick the filter in Cricket’s mouth like a mother shoving a dummy at a baby. Hizashi’s about to keep hollering abuse, but for the fact that Aizawa turns his gaze up to his partner with his quirk leaping like a panther from the dark, tackling Hizashi’s lion-roar voice in one swift pounce. Mouth moving frantically but his noise-box on mute, Hizashi quickly settles into a hilariously disgruntled pout. Maybe Hizashi knows a catalogue of ways to test and annoy Aizawa, but Aizawa knows how to do it right back at him.
“Welcome back,” Aizawa says roughly to Cricket, watching the end of the cigarette glow as Cricks pulls on it with his blue lips like he’s sucking his soul back into his body down the slim cylinder.
“What,” Hitoshi starts with a magnitude of tone that fills the whole cavernous under-bridge area, “the ever-loving fuck is going on?”
Cricket looks up to focus on Hitoshi, sucking another puff on the cigarette until a thick finger of ash falls from it onto his lap, speaking around the filter, words half-mangled and barely audible, but shaped just enough to make out a crusty, gurgling, “Toy boy!” followed by a bunch more coughing.
Aizawa thumps Cricket’s back, remembering the first time he’d been witness to this little resurrection act many years ago. By comparison Hitoshi’s taking this pretty well; Aizawa had punched Cricks in the face.
Tsukauchi’s coming down somewhere around the middle, his jaw dropped and eyebrows so high they almost connect to his hairline. He shuts his mouth, then opens it again to say, “Care to explain this, fellas?”
This is about when Cricket seems to realise Tsukauchi is here at all, and consequently where he aims his next missile of sputum, lifting a hand to take the cigarette out of his mouth first so he can get max trajectory.
“You brought the fucking pigs, Eraser?” he says as Tsukauchi’s trouser leg catches Cricket's offering with an appropriate amount of disgust on the Detective's face.
“They brought me,” Aizawa replies flatly, still popping a squat next to Cricks and musing that not even Cricket’s cesspool mouth is quite enough discouragement for him wanting another drag on the cigarette. Hizashi probably won’t kiss him for a week if he sees Aizawa sharing cigarettes with Cricket, though, so that’s just about enough incentive to settle for the second-hand smoke.
“I’m sorry, are we just ignoring the fact that he was fucking dead and now he’s not?” Hitoshi’s flabbergasted, and there’s that look of utter shock Aizawa had been counting on, which, upon connection with Aizawa’s knowing gaze up from the floor, soon shifts to petulant accusation. “You knew about this.” Aizawa shrugs, and Hitoshi looks so torn it’s practically adorable. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“And miss the look on all your faces?” Aizawa replies with only the lightest underline of a smirk. That and Cricket would kill him, so if Aizawa expects any details from Cricket about how the fuck he got here, giving out his most precious secrets for free wouldn’t be a good start.
“Here I was hoping this would be the one you wouldn’t wake up from,” Hizashi says sanctimoniously. Cricket whips around to shoot a glare over to Hizashi on his other side, a narrow gaze that decides not to dignify him with a response, because attention is the one thing Hizashi always wants, and as such the one thing Cricket lives to deny him.
“How long was I out?” Cricket turns back to Aizawa, puffing greedily on his free welcome-back-to-life cigarette.
“Few hours, they think,” Aizawa answers, and his hand has lingered on the centre of Cricket’s back, just enough to feel his heartbeat when he breathes in and holds it for a moment before exhaling.
“Well fuck me, I think I saw my ancestors,” Cricket mutters, and Hizashi was… maybe joking about Cricks not waking up, but it is a long time for him to be gone.
“Bet they were so proud with how you turned out,” Hizashi jabs snottily, but Cricket just sniffs and aims his next equally snotty spit at Hizashi’s feet again. Hizashi moves in time, but the intention is still there.
“Oh yeah, they’re so disappointed I’m not selling laxatives with my face on them like you are, Michael,” Cricket finally bites, at which Hizashi breaks into a deranged grin.
“You couldn’t sell laxatives if you tried, Cricks,” Hizashi retorts gleefully. Aizawa’s never really been sure whether Hizashi genuinely hates Cricket or just loves arguing with him, but since they’re as bad as each other, he tries not to take sides. “You’re so full of shit I don’t think you’ve taken a dump in years.”
“That’s enough,” Aizawa snaps with a warning glare at Hizashi that if he doesn’t stop bickering voluntarily, Aizawa will remove the choice.
Hitoshi’s been quiet for a moment, but not idle. With his lips pressed tightly together, that wizard brain has been working hard, cogs turning. So it’s not with bratty annoyance at being left out that he speaks with anymore, but defiant confidence.
“It’s your quirk, isn’t it?”
Hitoshi’s voice carries under the bridge in the lull of quiet he carves out. Cricket takes an equally defiant drag looking up at the teen, waiting until he’s blown out a huge cloud of smoke that adds undue atmosphere to the moment.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I’d like to know,” Tsukauchi keeps trying to assert his relevance in this situation, but Cricket’s position on the police has been an unbroken line of non-cooperation as long as he’s lived, which is technically only about three minutes, but that’s not the point.
“Tough titties, McGruff the Police dog,” Cricket caws up at Tsukauchi. “Go chase another bone.”
Tsukauchi appeals to Aizawa with a frustrated look, but what can Aizawa do?
“Did you manage to find Shiyoko?” he asks instead, finally dropping his hand from Crick’s back before Hizashi goes fully purple with put-upon rage. Oh, they’re gonna have fun fucking this one out later.
Cricket takes a provocative puff on his smoke and blows it out in Aizawa's face, which is kind of appreciated. “I’m sorry, did I die and get reborn as your bitch, Eraser?”
Aizawa’s close enough to Cricket for lifting an eyebrow to be noticable, which he does with a much quieter insinuation, “You actually want an answer?” As someone with a sphincter looser that a deflated inner tube, Cricket is one of the few individuals with the rare skill to take Aizawa's cock almost completely unprepped. Well. Unless you count doing drugs as prepping, in which case Cricket doesn't have to get ready, he stays ready.
“Ow!” Cricket yelps when Hizashi kicks him vindictively in the leg, and Aizawa’s had enough of all these people getting in his fucking way.
"You," Aizawa growls with a glare at Hizashi, then flips it around to Tsukauchi, "and you, take a hike."
Hizashi might be a royal pain in Aizawa’s ass – and that’s on a good night – but he does understand what’s at stake, so he huffs a catty, “Fine,” and steps over Cricket towards the Detective. “C’mon, Kiki,” he adds when he’s reached Tsukauchi already, taking the Detective’s shoulder to steer because there’s probably little else that is going to drag him away from Cricket.
Like it or not, Cricket isn’t going to talk to Tsukauchi, not voluntarily, and if he was so keen on Aizawa bringing this informant back from the dead, literally or otherwise, then the least he can do is back off and let Aizawa work.
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” Kiki asserts with a quick glance at Hizashi that shifts back to Cricket on the floor. Aizawa recalls that she’s had an entire afternoon with Hizashi to be informed on the less glamorous aspects of his past, so if he wasn’t sweating before, he is now.
Kiki steps forward while Hizashi leads Tsukauchi away. Cricket drags his cigarette down to the very end, stubbing it out on the ground and flicking it at Aizawa, then he looks up at Kiki. She’s imposing above them, radiant in her lime jumpsuit and a look like she’ll kill Cricks a second time if he steps so much as an inch out of line.
Cricket, of course, isn’t even the least bit bothered by this, rolling his bloodshot eyes over to Hitoshi with a scathing, “You brought your mother?”
Hitoshi, credit to him, doesn’t even twitch, levelling a cool stare at Cricket laid out on the ground underneath him. Aizawa slowly stands up, leaving a hand hanging down for Cricks to take when the inclination strikes him.
“Yeah, I did,” Hitoshi remarks. “And if you had any idea what’s good for you, you wouldn’t mess with her.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Kiki says icily, and Cricket gives a gurgling chortle like sludge trickling through a drain, then puts one of his ice-cold hands into Aizawa’s to be helped to his feet. He moves stiffly, not surprising seeing as he’s been dead a long time, so Aizawa bolsters him with a firm grip around the arm as they start to walk away from where Hizashi has led Tsukauchi with a comparably firm grip.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Hitoshi persists with Cricket as they hobble away. “About your quirk. There’s nothing else that’d explain how you could come back like that.”
“Forget about that,” Aizawa interjects, because if he’s giving away free secrets it ought to be something worth their knowing about. “Did you find Shiyoko’s followers or not?”
“All these questions! One at a time, boys.” Cricket grins feverishly, and whatever they took him out with, it must have been strong. “Spare me another cigarette and I might think about telling you.”
Aizawa’s almost out, and that last one in the box is for emergency use only, which this doesn’t quite qualify as – not when there’s another smoker nearby.
It takes a moment or two of Aizawa staring dead at Kiki for her to offer a begrudging, “I do,” and reach for her purse. She takes a cigarette out of the box to hand over to Cricket, while Aizawa gets a lighter ready, stopping again to light Cricket up and dawdling under a different nondescript section of the bridge.
Cricket takes a long drag with his gaze fixed dead on Kiki, shifting only far enough to compare him against her son before switching back again.
“So, you’re the famous Akiko,” he remarks with plumes of smoke curling around the blistered, chapped corners of his mouth, and it answers Aizawa’s question in an instant.
“You met them. Both of them,” Aizawa asserts without letting an inch of doubt slip into his tone. There is no other way Cricket could know that name apart from hearing it on Dr. Shinsou’s own lips.
“Ow!” Cricket yelps, putting his free hand to his forehead and shifting to a glare at Kiki, which turns to an aside to Hitoshi. “Y’nno, Toy Boy, your parents are pretty fucked up.”
“So we’re telling each other things we already know now?” Hitoshi replies aloofly, and there’s no complaints from him about sharing cigarettes when it’s Cricket’s filthy mouth they come from, not to mention his Ma nearby – lessons for Aizawa to learn from, clearly. Be grosser. “Alright then: your quirk brings you back to life.”
“Sorta,” Aizawa amends, which earns him a dirty look from Cricket, but the cat’s out of the bag – they all just watched him scream his way back into the world, and it’s better they know the truth than think he’s actually immortal.
“Sorta?” Hitoshi echoes sceptically. “How much of a grey area is there in not being able to die?”
“As far as we know it’s just with drugs,” Aizawa explains despite Cricket’s disgruntled expression, because Hitoshi guessed most of it anyway so what difference does it make now?
“Gotta admit, I haven’t tried dying any other way to find out,” Cricket adds maniacally, because it’s not his will to live that’s the issue here, just his understanding of limits and how much drugs are too much. And when there’s barely any consequences for getting it wrong? Well, Cricket happens.
"Where did you find them?" Aizawa moves onto the more important question with the desperate hope of getting a string-free answer. The usual arrangement with Cricket is off the table forever, but if Aizawa thought blowing him would actually work it's a price he'd almost be willing to pay. Almost.
Cricket watches Aizawa carefully as he puffs on Kiki's cigarette, contemplating something much deeper than the tip of this iceberg. If Cricket knows Aizawa, which he does, and if he ever cared for Aizawa, which he might've, then he'd realise this isn't a normal case. It’s not something Aizawa's doing for the hunt and sense of justice, but because he needs to follow it through. If Cricket stands in the way that makes him collateral, and Aizawa’s a hell of a bulldozer when he needs to be.
Whether intentions of such subtlety can be conveyed in a dead stare is debatable, but Aizawa certainly doesn't blink as he holds Cricket’s gaze unwaveringly – he's fought worse monsters for years.
But it's Kiki who comments, "We have ways of making you talk," so stone cold it's a wonder Cricket's blood doesn't freeze.
Cricket inhales slowly and doesn't make any sudden moves. He told Hitoshi that his parents are fucked up, not just Dr. Shinsou, and nothing Cricket says is accidental.
Exhaling an impossibly large cloud of smoke like he's clearing the dust out of his shut-down lungs, Cricket taps off ash and then says, "They took over a crack-den."
"Where?" Aizawa punctuates, filled with relief that Cricket seems to be cooperating.
"One of my favourites," Cricket replies. "The one in the old Yakuza office, you must remember it, Eraser. With the cute little roof terrace."
Of course, the hidden cost, the new price of Cricket's intel: Aizawa’s mortal embarrassment. Like his image hasn't taken enough of a beating lately. "Yeah, I remember," Aizawa grunts, keen not to reminisce on nights flat on his back watching dawn stain the sky, fucked off his face sharing a congratulatory pipe with Cricks at the end of another thirty-six-hour day. Aizawa never got as far as shooting up back in the hazier patches of his time living rough, but that's still not much consolation in the bigger picture.
"How many were with them?" Hitoshi picks up where Aizawa falters, and Cricket makes a face, lifting up greyish fingers that won't feel fully alive again for hours – Aizawa has the displeasure of knowing. Few things weirder than the feeling of being fucked by a corpse.
"A dozen, slightly more?" Cricket puffs again on the cigarette. "Less than half were from the old vanguard, though, the rest were just whoever had been in the place when they showed up."
"By the vanguard, you mean the really loopy ones?" Hitoshi clarifies.
"The ones with that crazy bitch's name written all over them." Cricket lips are starting to colour again, chapped and crusty but no longer the lifeless blue from before.
The reason Cricket's resurrection quirk is only thought to work for narcotics is due a series of medically impossible processes that happen while he should be otherwise dead, processes that don't happen the times he's been gravely injured in ways that don't involve shooting up lethal doses of whatever he can get his hands on.
It's comparable to a hypothermic condition, Aizawa’s been told the few times he ended up in hospital with Cricks only to have to break him out of the mogue, because although Cricket's heart does stop, his brain doesn't die – or not any more than is already has thanks to years of substance abuse. His body shuts down in a calculated way, vital functions slowly closing down then booting back up when whatever he took clears his system. He's never been dead for this long, though, not when Aizawa knew him, so whatever Shiyoko and Dr. Shinsou made him take was nothing to sniff at.
"How were they acting?" Aizawa questions without dipping any more than his toes in the well of reminiscence.
"Fucking crazy, obviously," Cricket scorns, flicking off ash in Aizawa’s direction. "They all call them Mistress and Master, gives me the creeps."
"The killers," Aizawa specifies, "How were they acting? Were they arguing?"
There's a distinct ping from Hitoshi from this line of questioning, a ripple in the landscape of Aizawa’s mind like a finger being dipped in the surface of a still pool, which doesn’t surprise Aizawa in the least.
“Oh yeah,” Cricket answers nonchalantly, pinching the cigarette away from his lips as he nears the end of it, and it’ll be awhile before he’s fully back to whatever consists of his normal after so long in a catatonic state, but he’s well on the way, which reassures Aizawa more than he’d ever admit to another soul – least of all Cricket.
“What about?” Aizawa carries on while Hitoshi and Kiki remain deathly quiet. It’s a little too close to home, probably, but that’s the reason Aizawa has to know. Cricket’s the only person to have been that close to the Doc and Shiyoko and… well, not quite lived to tell the tale.
Cricket’s foresty eyes, hazel browns and muddy green, roll indicatively towards the Doc’s estranged family, and Aizawa can guess, but he needs to know in visceral, traumatic detail.
“What about them?” Aizawa goes harder, because Cricket’s historically responded to being pushed by him, and this cooperative spell might not last long so he better take it for all it’s worth.
“She wants him to leave with her." Cricket finishes smoking and drops the butt on the ground, which Aizawa picks up and pockets – littering might be a small offence, but he has to have principles about some things.
“Leave? And go where?” Hitoshi says scathingly.
Cricket shrugs. “Dunno. Out of the city, maybe even the country. She kept saying they could start over, but Daddy Dearest wasn’t having it.”
“He’s refusing to leave?” Aizawa puts so they can all hear it out loud, and while it’s been nearly impossible catching Dr. Shinsou, if he fled for good they might never find him.
Solemn in the shadows, Kiki delivers a chilling, “Not without us.” It’s a convenient kind of fucked up, the family ties binding the killers here, where they might still be caught.
This would be exactly the moment for Cricket to offer one of his three-teeth special grins through a chestful of smoke, but he's smoked all the cigarettes he can wrangle, so they must settle for the open sewer grate as is. "Sounds like a bad breakup." If Cricket's breath smells bad usually, it's even worse after he's been dead for several hours. Aizawa’s never been so grateful to be with someone who has good oral hygiene.
"Of the people there, could you tell how many were controlled by each of them?" Aizawa continues, and if there's ever been a keener way to read the balance between Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko, he hasn't thought of it yet.
"Kept changing," Cricket answers easily, slipping his corpse hands into his pockets, a shiver through his lean frame as systems get back up and running. "But I can tell you who the preference was for."
"Preference?" Hitoshi says. "Like, which one of them people wanted to be controlled by?"
Cricket gives an affirming murmur. "The ones with her name on them are like they're on heroin, just… numb." Cricks would know. "When he takes people it's more like… worse than the worst trip you’ve ever had. Everyone’s just… terrified."
"He takes them? How?" Hitoshi picks up suspiciously.
"From her, dunno how exactly, but when she's distracted or emotional, he seems to be able to switch the control." Perhaps it's part of the Doc's new research, and Aizawa can imagine one form of mind control being substitutable for another, especially in brains that have become acclimatised to taking orders from a powerful brainwasher.
"Shit," Hitoshi murmurs, and Aizawa appreciates it's a scary thought, but anything Dr. Shinsou can do his son might be able to do too, with enough practice.
"How could you get so close to them?" Aizawa has to ask. "Without getting the bad trip."
"Oh, I got it alright," Cricks answers ominously, a level stare at Hitoshi that informs what Cricket knows all about what Hitoshi and his father can do to people.
"Then why didn't he just kill you?" Hitoshi points out.
"He tried." Cricket lifts an arm from his pocket to hold out the nasty collection of slices on his wrist, starting to scab over but oozing again now his blood is flowing back around his body. Aizawa reaches unconsciously for one of the tightly rolled dressings on his belt, gesturing for Cricket to keep his arm there a little longer, which he actually does.
"So why did he fail?" Hitoshi asks while Aizawa gives Cricks a quick spray with antiseptic and then opens the dressing, laying it gently over the cuts and starting to wrap the bandages around. It might not do a lot, and Kiki is giving Aizawa a look that says 'Hizashi told me you two used to date' if a look has ever said anything in the history of looks, but old habits die hard. Cricket used to patch Aizawa up when he was too busted to do it himself, so they owe each other this much.
"I told them I'd seen you," Cricket says straight to Hitoshi, letting Aizawa bandage his arm like a lion with a thorny paw, and Aizawa freezes in his first aid as a signal flare of shock comes from mother and son both.
"What?” Hitoshi starts with a glaze of utter horror.
“How?” Kiki finishes with an air like rolling thunder. “If Masaru was controlling you then you wouldn't be able to speak.”
"Well gee, trying to make me slit my wrists sorta shook me outta it," Cricket lilts, and of course his stubborn nature would be strong enough to shake the Doc off when it came to hurting himself. Cricket’s will to live is superhumanly persistent, it’s just his chosen quality of life that confuses people. "Relax, I only told what you wanted them to know."
"Like what?" Hitoshi's quiet, even a little fearful.
"Like that I saw you cutting up some poor girl in an alleyway– ow!" Cricket yelps when Aizawa squeezes down over the wrist he's meant to be bandaging.
"You should have lead with telling us that, Cricks," he says sourly, annoyed with himself for not realising Cricket had to be pulling something or the other on them. Trust Cricket to never play his full hand until he’s sure he’ll win the pot.
“And miss the look on your faces?” Cricket brings back with a vile chuckle, and squeaks when Aizawa prods him in the injuries again, though he finishes bandaging and steps back.
“You seriously told him that?” Hitoshi double-checks, and Aizawa senses it in the air like mist, the intention in his mind to use his quirk to get proof of what he can’t take on faith. While Aizawa understands that instinct, Cricket’s probably been through enough to suffer another Shinsou’s quirk.
But if Cricket isn’t too clever for that, falling silent and shrugging as if he’s really got nothing to say, when really, he can smell a Shinsou with their eyes on his mind almost as well as Aizawa can.
“Don’t use your quirk on him, Hitoshi.” Aizawa has to be the voice of reason, unfortunately. “That’s not how we do things with Cricks.”
“And how do you do things with him!?” Hitoshi turns on Aizawa with a tense frustration bubbling up into anger. “Because don’t get me wrong, but I think Mic would be upset if you got on your kne– ow!” Hitoshi recoils backwards, a stagger like a child with a smacked wrist backing away from the stove. Trust Kiki to be counted on when Hitoshi’s about to step way over the line.
“Right, I’ve had about as much of this bullshit as I can take.” Kiki’s sharper than the fall of a guillotine, merciless and without emotion, because steel doesn’t feel anything. She looks right at Cricket, and doesn’t use her quirk, not as far as Aizawa can tell, but she doesn’t need to with a deadass stare like that. “You’re going to tell us everything you said to my husband about Hitoshi and exactly how he reacted, or you’re going to find out what it’s like getting on my bad side.”
All fucking hail, Aizawa thinks as Cricket stares down at Kiki, who glares right back up at him. A battle of epic scale takes place in a microcosm of the air between them, but slowly, Cricket’s mouth lifts at the corners.
“Alright, but you’re going to tell me something I want to know in return,” Cricket promises. “Meeting your dear hubbie left me with some questions, yanno?”
Kiki takes a moment, and Aizawa almost doesn’t breathe, as still as if he were set in resin. Hitoshi doesn’t move either, static with his hand to his temple where his Ma’s mental cuff must have hit him.
The fearless war-hero that is Dr. Shinsou’s wife throws down the gauntlet with no more than two words, and Cricket best believe it’s non-fucking-negotiable.
“You first.”
Notes:
Some people did correctly guess Cricket had some kind of quirk-related inability to die, though the drugs-specific twist wasn't a level of detail that anyone mentioned, but I do hope that the surprise moment of his re-awakening was as entertaining for readers as it was for me to write. I kept this secret from everyone, even my inner-circle soundboard friends because I just HAD to preserve the entertainment factor of Cricket slamming upright and screaming as he reanimates. Truly, a majestic moment.
And my favourite line/moment? Aizawa's "Hours? He's not going to like that." Peak comedy to me. PEAK. COMEDY.
Also I started this part of the story & developed Aizawa's substance abuse past before certain events from Aizawa's past in the manga/sidestories emerged, and now feel pretty aligned with my characterisation of Aizawa as a Professionally Functional Shitshow who used drugs to Not Have Feelings about the bad things he's gone through and almost work himself to death as an elaborate form of masochism. Yeah. That's him, that's my guy.
Much love to everyone and see you all next week!
Chapter 75: Mind Games
Summary:
Cricket goes first.
Notes:
This one crept up on me a bit, been stupidly busy, but not too busy for my beloved fanfic!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Holding conference like a man of inimitable wit entertains at a cocktail party, Cricket swaps a sophisticated bar for the underside of a bridge, and a tuxedo for an all-over layer of filth. Aizawa’s always drawn a line between mess and filth, trying to err towards the former and failing in the latter, but Cricket has always been pure filth – mind, body and soul.
His head jiggles animatedly as he talks, russet hair sticking up in stiff peaks of it’s-better-not-to-know-what, bloodshot eyes wide and deranged as whatever literally killed him overnight trickles out of his system rather than gushes. “So I'm pretty sure they wanted me dead from the moment I showed up, but since I got in from the back and helped myself to a lookie-loo, by the time they even realised I was there I’d already seen too much.”
Seeing more than he should is par for course with Cricks. Echelons of underworld information exist in his mind, an archivists dream of living history contained in a single man who just won't die. The number of times Cricket has extra-convincingly faked his own death to get away from the people whose secrets he stole is many. He takes them to the grave the way any self-respecting junkie is bound to go, then gets right back up once they've left the room and laughs at the suckers who fell for it. Aizawa liked – or likes(?) – him for a reason.
“Let me guess, that’s when they tried to kill you,” Hitoshi supplies with confidence that borders on arrogance, doing his best to hold his own against one of the most comprehensive examples of a human cockroach that’s existed without antenna.
“Right.” Cricket twists his hands hypnotically, eliciting soft clicks as his body reverses the process of rigor mortis. “You mighta mentioned Dr. Deadly’s quirk is a question-and-answer thing, by the way. Would’ve saved me a lotta trouble.”
“Figured you knew ‘bout that already,” Aizawa grunts. Cricket had known who Dr. Shinsou was before meeting Hitoshi, so they can’t be blamed for such potholes in his knowledge. His cooperation hasn’t exactly been forthcoming either, though perhaps that’ll change after his brush with the Mad Professor in person. These aren’t the normal stakes, and if Cricks didn’t get that before, he must do now.
“Well anyway, I got suckered into his quirk, which is when he tried to make my slash my wrists, but yours truly wasn’t really feeling the cut along the dotted line mood if you get my drift,” Cricket chatters like a bored housewife exchanging gossip over morning mimosas. “So I snapped out of it and told him it’d be an awful shame for me to die without mentioning what I’d seen his son getting up to that day.” It’s surely no coincidence that what Dr. Shinsou tried to do to Cricket wasn’t much different to what Hitoshi did to the corpse – the Doc’s old favourite, Aizawa could even guess. Cut and keep cutting until the person dies or the quirk gives out. Simple experiment, simple results.
Aizawa can picture it in all-too vivid detail. The decrepit crack den, the maniacal followers watching as Cricket was forced to slice away at his own flesh with an implement that doesn’t bear consideration, but of course Cricket would have the strength of mind to shake off Dr. Shinsou’s quirk before taking his own life – a worthy match, willpower for willpower. Not to mention Cricket’s probably fucked his mind up enough with drugs that whatever the Doc can do to normal people isn’t as effective on the ever-resetting mass of half-cooked cabbage residing in Cricket’s skull.
“How did he react?” Kiki is giving the overall impression of a woman who is moments away from doing the mental equivalent of battering Cricks around the head with a cast iron frying pan. If Aizawa’s the carrot for getting information out of him, here comes the stick. “To hearing about Hitoshi.”
“He just got real quiet for a bit, then tried to use his quirk again, but fool me twice shame on me,” Cricket replies easily. “I wasn’t gonna fall for that one again in a hurry.”
“Then why didn’t Shiyoko use her quirk on you?” Aizawa hasn’t examined Cricket thoroughly enough to be absolutely certain her name isn’t on him anywhere, but then he’d rather die than have to strip Cricket, dead or alive, so is prepared to settle for Cricks’ own assurance of the fact.
“Oh, she wasn’t having any of it,” Cricket remarks with one of his iconic demented grins. “Seemed to me like she was a little jealous, you know?”
There’s a ping from Hitoshi, like elastic stretching under the accusation, and whether Aizawa really feels it or it’s a figment of his imagination, something’s definitely there.
“She actually refused to help?” Hitoshi’s mask stays composed, but the tremors under the surface are real enough. It’s been made clear what happens to people who defy Dr. Shinsou, but then, he needs Shiyoko too much now, relying on her ability to keep them hidden from the long arm of the law. And knowing how much he needs her, the great man indebted to a woman he sees as unworthy… Aizawa’s not sure which one he’s more afraid of, or for.
“As long as it was about you, Toy Boy,” Cricket confirms with a wink. Kiki hasn’t said anything about this chronically mortifying nickname yet, but perhaps she’s got bigger fish to fry. “She said killing me with drugs was the only thing she could be bothered with, so joke’s on her, cuz I do that all time.”
“How much did you tell him about me?” If Hitoshi sounds tense, it’s because this connection could ruin their whole plan or cement it, and the catch involves taking Cricket’s word for it.
“Like I said before – told him I saw you cutting up some girl, which happens to be true,” Cricket points out devilishly, like they need reminding. “How I’d followed you from the police station long enough to watch you slicing and dicing, then buggered off before you could notice me.”
“And he believed it?” Hitoshi puts forward the russian roulette question they’ve been waiting for, the one that could as easily end them as Dr. Shinsou. They just have to hope their luck is in.
Cricket shrugs. “He ain’t exactly easy to read.”
“You’d know if he didn’t buy it.” Kiki’s assured where the rest of them doubt, but of all of them, she’s the one who’d know. “He never hesitates to tell anyone why they’re wrong.”
“If you say so, lady. He just went ‘oh’ real quiet-like,” Cricket replies. “I’m not fluent in serial killer, you know.” Could’ve fooled Aizawa, though maybe that’s always been more Aizawa’s job. Cricket’s job has always been finding the murderers, Aizawa’s the one who gets far enough into their heads to actually catch them.
“But he didn’t outright deny it? Didn’t seem even a bit suspicious?” Hitoshi shouldn’t be quite so surprised, Aizawa thinks, because he was so insistent on this plan working to begin with – but then, he’d have to be.
“Do I have to say everything twice for you lot?” Cricket remarks impatiently. “He barely fucking blinked. Although, tell you who did react, ‘cause that Deathnote Killer chick was not happy about it one bit.”
“She wouldn’t be.” Aizawa muses on the five-or-so years between Shiyoko and Hitoshi, caught somewhere between wanting to take Kiki’s place as well as Hitoshi’s. To be born, everything, a whole dysfunctional family to the man she’s devoted herself to for better or much worse. “Then what happened?”
“Oh, then she killed me,” Cricket declares the carefree way no one else could.
“That’s a bit stronger than not being happy,” Aizawa comments irately, Cricket teasing his nerves as ever.
“Did she do it her quirk?” Hitoshi guesses.
“Naaaah,” Cricket relishes the unwinding of the yarn as dramatically as possible, and it does occur to Aizawa that he could’ve tied Cricks up and used Tsukauchi's quirk to get this whole thing out much more easily. But then Tsukauchi would've probably had to touch Cricks, which he’d hate, and Cricks would hate Aizawa even more than he already does. “She waited til the Doc was pacing around mumbling something to himself, then had some of her followers hold me down and jabbed the needle in my arm herself. Funny, really, ‘cause if they’d asked I woulda shot it up nicely and all, but hey, apparently there’s no manners anymore.”
“Masaru wouldn’t have liked that,” Kiki comments, her face drawn into ominous foreboding.
“You bet he didn’t.” Cricket is enjoying this, which although kind of unsavory, does give them the currency they need to keep the ball rolling. Cricket does things because he’s entertained or getting something out of it, and Aizawa’s shit out of things to give him. “He called her some rather undignified names and tried to keep me talking, seemed to think if he could use his quirk on me again then he could get more info out of me and slow the drugs down or whatnot, but I’d rather die of an OD than feel that creepy fucker in my noggin again.”
“He thought he could slow down the overdose?” Hitoshi repeats back incredulously. “Does he actually think he’s fucking god now or something?”
“It could be possible, at least temporarily,” Aizawa forces himself to admit. “If he can control vital systems then it might be feasible to slow the effects of the drug moving around the body.”
“Oh, it’s definitely possible,” Kiki adds like she’s not speculating in the least, and puts her next address to Cricket. “What did they give you?”
“Does it matter?” Hitoshi, as ever, is turning a shade of put-out petulance over finding out things he thinks he should know about without having to be told. Aizawa supposes it’s his quirk too, so he feels he’s entitled to know. But how much of what Dr. Shinsou can actually do to a body through mind control, research only known to those closest to him, could still be hidden in the darkness? How much do they want to know? Just because Hitoshi can do something doesn’t mean he’d ever want to, though Aizawa realises he’s seen Hitoshi doing similar things already – the woman whose pulse he slowed down when she was bleeding out on the roadside, even Hana’s panic attack bypassed with a trick of his quirk.
When the mind defines what the body experiences, where does control of one to influence the other stop? And how far away are the extremities of what’s possible from the blurry line of ethics? No wonder Dr. Shinsou when stark-raving mad trying to study his cursed gift. No wonder Kiki fears for her son enough to keep these things from him.
“It might tell us something,” Aizawa breaks the difference, and he can only imagine how much harder this would be if Hizashi and Tsukauchi were here too. It’s bad enough with just Hitoshi and Kiki.
"No, I'm with Toy Boy: who says it will?" Cricket gets tricky, as he likes to do when he feels he’s giving too much away without getting in return. "And what about the reciprocity I was promised?” he flips to Kiki. “You were going to tell me something in return, Mrs. Shinsou."
That he addresses Kiki like this tells Aizawa something before the question even hits, and a tension fogs the air even more than it already saturates the very air they breathe, the dank, dreary atmosphere underneath this concrete sky.
"What do you want to know?" she asks with reservation so deep it could swallow up a cruise ship, and Aizawa flinches in anticipation of the punch. There’s two kinds of secret Cricket covets like a dragon over treasure: information that has some value to others on the market, and things that people just don’t want to talk about. They don’t always overlap.
It’s clear which one this falls under when Cricket eyes Kiki and simply says, "What did you ever see in him?"
Hitoshi's face could split apart and fork lightning. Kiki isn't much better, but she doesn't hesitate. "He was brilliant, once," she answers unpleasantly.
Cricket raises his eyebrows, flicks his gaze towards Hitoshi. "Just the once?"
"Just long enough to fool me," Kiki retorts. "And he adored me, or so he said. I was stupid enough to think that compensated for the rest." For all her hard exterior now, Kiki was a naive girl once, taken advantage of and trapped before she could realise the extent of what she’d gotten herself into.
Toxic relationships are easy to fall into and hard to get out of – Aizawa would know, he’s looking right at one. And Cricket broke up with him, which says everything about what it takes to get out of a bad situation. Aizawa had been getting his shit together before Cricket gave him the boot, to be fair – and there was a clear causality between the two. Aizawa’s infamous ‘sellout' in Cricks' eyes. Because it had never occurred to Aizawa that being with Cricket was cementing bad habits that he stopped struggling with as soon as Cricket wasn’t around. Basically just the drugs, but also a lot of the emotions that made using them seem like an easy fix to a hard problem. Turns out eating and sleeping enough is a good substitute for uppers, downers and all the in-betweeners required to keep someone functioning where others would fall to pieces.
"Well well, there it is." Cricket didn't need to know this, but what he wants to know and needs to know are two very different beasts. In his currency getting this much vulnerability from Kiki is a fair payment. “It felt like one of those knock-off morphine substitutes if you must know, cut with some bad shit.” Cricket runs his tongue behind the teeth he has left, as if savoring the taste. Like he can taste anything anymore. “I wanna say… pesticides? My skin did feel like it was boiling right before the lights went out.”
Aizawa has the displeasure of having watched Cricket die before, more times than he’s comfortable with. Even knowing he’s going to come back, it only softens the blow of seeing it happen, not to mention the ever-present fear that maybe one time he won’t wake back up, and how devastating that’ll be for all the times they took it for granted. Shit, has Aizawa missed him? If that’s not fucked up, Aizawa doesn’t know what is.
“So how did you end up under here?” Aizawa sticks to things he can file away neatly, which, try as he might, feelings for people have never been archivable in his brain as neatly as case information.
Cricket shrugs. “I don’t remember leaving the den. Guess they didn’t want me stinking up the place.”
“Is it far from here?” Kiki asks Aizawa, naturally, because it’s already been implied that he’s familiar with the establishment.
“Far enough,” Aizawa replies without divulging too much, because if the Doc and Shiyoko were there last night, they probably won’t be anymore. He’s had enough of picking over their leavings.
“Why would anyone take the trouble of hauling you all this way just to randomly dump your body?” Hitoshi’s right to be suspicious, but there’s something he doesn’t know. Something Aizawa and Cricket do, because it’s not the first time Aizawa’s been under this particular bridge with this particular companion.
“A lot of people die under here,” Aizawa answers before Cricket can get the uncouth version out. “It’s a common spot for drug users.” They’ve already walked past a couple of old needles as they made their way over, though Hitoshi might not have been looking for them, or even recognised the filthy syringes for what they are. Whatever crowd was here when Cricket was discovered cold by the morning, they probably scattered long before the police came along to clear out any that couldn’t move themselves.
“Okay… so they were trying to get rid of you,” Hitoshi ponders, crossing his arms and frowning in thought. “Why wouldn’t they do something showy with your body? Why just jack you up and dump you like any old overdose victim?”
“Well don’t call me to trial over it, but I kinda think they couldn’t make up their minds,” Cricket answers. “They were arguing over whether to kill me, how to kill me, where to kill me. Think they just got sick of debating it and decided to wash their hands of me.” Most people do, given the grimy layer Cricket imparts to anyone with the misfortune of laying hands on him.
“Interesting,” Aizawa mumbles to himself mostly.
“Interesting?” Hitoshi echoes back scathingly. “If what you say about his quirk is true, Cricket could’ve actually died if they’d gotten more creative with his body.”
“Why though?” Aizawa has to reply, which has Hitoshi turning a shade of flushed shock.
“Why? Because they’re fucking nuts,” Hitoshi spits, but he knows what Shiyoko and his father have been doing isn’t random, so he’s missing the point to act as if they’re killing completely indiscriminately.
“Cricket doesn’t matter to them, or anyone for that matter,” Aizawa points out as he fumbles through the rationale like trying to fish through garbage without grabbing a needle. Aizawa’s lucky he doesn’t have more diseases, honestly. “No matter what they do with the body, killing Cricks wouldn’t have made a scene, or proven anything.”
“Gee, Eraser,” Cricket simpers, “keep sweet-talking me like that and I’ll remember why we used to–”
With an urgency that only narrowly comes second to his actual life on the line, Aizawa shoves a hand into his coil of capture weapon and throws a strand of it out, looping around Cricket’s head to pull tight around his mouth before he can get another word out.
Hitoshi, unhelpfully, sniggers. Kiki looks unimpressed. Aizawa tries to will back the heat from flooding his cheeks.
“Are we done here?” Aizawa addresses Hitoshi and Kiki in tandem while Cricket tries to dig his filthy fingernails under the fabric binding his foul mouth and muffles what are presumably crude expletives about just what Aizawa can do to himself now Cricket won’t.
“You don’t have to act so secretive, yanno.” Hitoshi goes for one of his big-boy moments. “You literally told me he’s your–”
With the same hand Aizawa shoots out another tendril of his capture weapon to gag Hitoshi next, and although he recognises Kiki probably knows all of this from Hizashi in all its inglorious detail, letting Cricket know that Aizawa’s admitted they used to date is a weird three-dimensional chess move he doesn’t want to make just yet. Hitoshi starts scrambling for the binding across his face too, his eyebrows making out a furious note to Aizawa as he muffles irately.
“Are we done?” Aizawa puts to Kiki alone this time, and she, as the one, sane grown-up left in what feels like the whole world, actually takes this question seriously, like Aizawa means for it to be taken. Maybe this is entertaining for them, making a laughing stock out of Aizawa and all, but they do have some more important things to be doing.
After giving it enough thought, her gaze distant as she casts around under the echoey bridge forever in the shade, and presumably asks herself what else they can learn from Cricket that’s actually helpful, Kiki finally responds with a restrained, “I suppose so.”
“Cool. Let’s go then.” Aizawa releases the silenced pair of troublemakers with a precise twitch of his fingers, both of them wearing complementary sullen expressions over being denied embarrass-Aizawa privileges. “You probably wanna stay away from those people, Cricks,” he offers up before anyone else can get a word in edgeways, especially when the word might be related to Aizawa’s unglamorous dating history. “They won’t kill you so nicely a second time.”
“You know, I might just take your advice on that.” Cricket sinks his hands back into his deep pockets and in this short space of time has gone from a cold dead corpse on the ground to being so very himself again. Still weird, still crusty and obnoxious and everything that’s bad for and about Aizawa in one cracked-out individual. Aizawa doesn’t think anything short of these extraordinary circumstances could’ve hoped to even slightly reconcile him and Cricket, but it feels like a damn good thing it happened now, when Aizawa’s different enough to make the best of what had once been a famously bad situation.
“Take care of yourself,” Aizawa says almost under his breath, torn on whether he’s just a sentimental bastard or if he got some kind of a contact high off Cricket, but it probably doesn’t matter.
It’s just for a moment, but Cricket has a smile that’s practically sincere, not manic or smug self-serving smirks, but one corner of his mouth cocked, a cheeky lop-sided grin Aizawa used to see far more often by firelight and through clouds of pungent smoke than he does now. Whether that’s better or worse is just interpretation of the point, which is that things change all the time, but not so completely they can’t be recognised from what they used to be.
Maybe it’s sentimentality or just the lingering high, but Cricket almost sounds nice as he lilts, “You too, Eraser.”
Not to let the sickly moment linger, Aizawa turns away just as Cricks does in the opposite direction, leaving Hitoshi and Kiki to follow on behind Aizawa as he starts to pace back towards the light and police car off in the distance.
“You’re just letting him go?” Hitoshi walks alongside Aizawa, keeping up with his deliberately brisk pace. “Won’t Tsukauchi be mad?”
“Cricks wouldn’t talk to him anyway,” Aizawa reminds them, stepping over bundles of trash with sharp edges. “We got what we needed to know.”
“Which is what?” Hitoshi scoffs. “That you’ve still got a thing for–”
Cutting Hitoshi off before he can pick a fight with Aizawa he’s guaranteed to lose, Aizawa steamrolls over him, “That Dr. Shinsou knows what you did, and he seems to believe you’re capable of it.”
“Oh, he knows what I’m capable of,” Hitoshi returns darkly. “It’s just whether he thinks I’ve changed my mind about doing it or not.”
“Which is what the interview is meant to prove,” Aizawa comments as he picks out Hizashi sitting on the hood of Tsukauchi’s car in the distance with a cigarette, looking like a delicious centrefold spread. Suddenly, Aizawa’s sentimentality towards Cricket evaporates into dust. Hitoshi’s right about one thing: Hizashi is punching way up for him.
Hizashi spots them before Tsukauchi does, the Detective standing with his back to them in conversation with Hizashi, but turns when Hizashi’s expression lifts.
“Oh, look who’s back,” Hizashi announces in his best DJ voice cut with a line of salty sarcasm. “What happened to your gross little boyf–”
Aizawa doesn’t need to use his capture weapon to silence Hizashi, because his quirk is an always-available mute button to render whatever Hizashi’s trying to say soundless, and if people would like to stop embarrassing him while he’s trying to work that would be great.
“Uh, where’s Cricket?” Tsukauchi asks like he as expecting anything else.
“He’s gone,” Aizawa replies obviously. “Were you expecting him to stick around?”
“I kinda was.” Tsuakuchi is a little put out, but he’s putting it on more than he really means it.
So Aizawa rolls his eyes. “You know he doesn’t talk to the pigs.”
“Don’t call us that, Eraser,” Tsukauchi nags. “I swear, that guy rubs off on you faster than a–”
Aizawa can’t really get away with gagging Tsukauchi with his quirk or capture weapon, but he does cough extremely loudly before the Detective gets any further into discussing when or how Cricket rubs off on Aizawa. When Aizawa blinks Hizashi’s laugh comes in like a hysterical crow – for as long as it takes Aizawa to glare back at him with his quirk activated.
“Gimmie that,” Aizawa grumbles, reaching over to snatch the cigarette smoking coyly between Hizashi’s fingers and turning away in only a moderate huff, which he wouldn’t have to do if everyone just shut up about him and Cricket to focus on the fucking case. This is why Aizawa hides his private life.
“Oh look, now you’ve upset him,” Hizashi coos, and Aizawa makes a point that he’s going to get Hizashi back good for this later. Sexually.
“Cricket told Dr. Shinsou he saw Hitoshi cutting someone up yesterday,” Aizawa mutters still with his back turned, smoking spitefully. “As far as we know the Doc bought it, which means the interview is likely to convince him even more.”
“You mean Cricket actually met them?” Tsukauchi seems aghast, and it occurs to Aizawa that the Detective didn’t know what Cricket was planning, or maybe just didn’t believe he could pull it off.
“Yeah. Didn’t last for long, though. Shiyoko killed Cricket out of jealousy.”
“Over who?” Tsukauchi sounds aptly disgusted.
“These two,” Aizawa delivers with a roll of his eyes at Hitoshi and Kiki. “She’s been fighting with the Doc about running away without taking his family.”
“Jeesh,” Hitoshi comments almost as bitterly as Aizawa, “You didn’t have to say it like that.”
“Did.” Aizawa puffs his stress into acrid smokey clouds, and so much for cutting back on his smoking habit. But it’s only tobacco, which is still an improvement in the big picture. It’s probably just nostalgia from being around Cricket again, but Aizawa sure did feel like he moved faster when he had a bump of something in him, wired enough to skip sleep and meals and work long and hard enough to get things done at great personal cost. Too bad it’s not fucking sustainable – not that what he’s been doing lately feels any more sustainable.
Aizawa senses Hizashi behind him before he feels the arm that slips around his side, snaking up to ply the cigarette back as Hizashi’s head pops over Aizawa’s shoulder.
“Now now, Dear, there’s no need to sulk.” Hizashi pops the cigarette between his lips around Aizawa, and is lucky Aizawa decides not to stomp on his toes.
“Not sulking. Thinking,” Aizawa grunts, and would probably shake Hizashi off him if he wasn’t waiting to be given another drag on the cigarette, which Hizashi does a few moments later.
“Ugh, you two’re so clingy,” Hitoshi bemoans, but not so abhorrently as to actually bother Aizawa. He’s mortified by references to his association with Cricket, so his relationship with Hizashi is nothing to be ashamed of. But they’re still in public, and never know who’s watching, so after stealing a final drag Aizawa nudges Hizashi back. They’ll resolve this tension later, should they get the chance.
“If you think that’s bad you’re in for a shock, kid,” Tsukauchi quips, just because he and Toshi have had the misfortune of interrupting Aizawa and Hizashi at a time they’re best not interrupted, which really was their fault for knocking around on campus so late in the first place.
“This is why I usually work alone,” Aizawa grumbles to himself, but he’s not alone, so Hitoshi picks up on this without missing a beat.
“Oh, that’s charming,” Hitoshi rises to the needless antagonism that Aizawa didn’t need to start, but if he wasn’t being taken potshots at every other minute over Cricket he wouldn’t be in such a mood to begin with.
“Kiki.” Aizawa turns to the only person in the group he feels can be trusted not to dwell on the pointless fucking details like who Aizawa used to fool around with and whether casual contact with Hizashi does or doesn’t constitute gross public displays of affection. “Got a minute?”
She watches him carefully for a moment, looking around at the others, then makes up her mind. “Alright.”
“Good. Let’s take a walk.” Aizawa isn’t going to go far, just far enough to get some space around his head and focus for a second. Hizashi and Hitoshi aren’t always helpful in that department, being the giant walking distractions they are, and if Tsukauchi is put out that Aizawa didn’t pick him for this he doesn’t show it. Maybe it’s easier for him to talk to Hitoshi about what Cricket told them – probably is, thinking about it.
Kiki keeps up with Aizawa’s express walking pace as he strides off away from the bridge, hitting the pavement with each thumping step like he’s going somewhere despite the fact that he’s just wandering.
“Is there something specific you wanted to say?” Kiki starts after half a minute or so of their footsteps falling quietly together, and Aizawa sighs.
“Not really, just needed to clear my head from all the… noise.” It’s not really that Aizawa’s trying to hide what Cricket is or was to him from Kiki, he just doesn’t love having to confront it all the time.
“Ah.” Aizawa didn’t go for Kiki with some conscious thought in his head, it was more impulsive than that – just that she’s the only one who hasn’t been winding him up about Cricket, and if Aizawa delves into it, he knows the reason why. Kiki does as well. “It’s draining, isn’t it?”
“What is?” Aizawa feels better just for walking, getting that distance his brain was begging him for.
“Dealing with a past you thought you’d left behind,” she gets it so wholly in one that Aizawa stops dead in his tracks for a moment.
“Yes. Exactly.” This is why Aizawa singled her out, recognised someone who wasn’t picking at the scab because she’s got too many scars of her own to play that game.
“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of when we were young and stupid,” she remarks lightly, as if they weren’t just talking to Aizawa’s toothless junkie ex about her murdering insane one. “It’s easy to look back and act like something should’ve been obvious, or it shouldn’t have happened or taken as long as it did.”
“Yeah.” Aizawa shouldn’t need this moment of venting, but didn’t even realise how much it was grating on him until everyone else taking shots suddenly shoved him from fine to Done within a split second. “We’re not the people we used to be.”
He’s only known Kiki a couple of weeks, but that’s not what he means by it, and she hopefully understands what he does mean, a soft huff of tired remorse. “Try telling everyone else that. All they want to know is what you were thinking to be so blind.” But the last thing a blinded person would ever think to talk about is what they can’t see.
“Right.” Of things he thought would happen today, Aizawa did not expect a bitch-out with Kiki about their bad exes would be on the list, but the timing honestly couldn’t be better. “It’s not exactly fun having to dig through that crap.”
“Certainly isn’t,” she agrees, turning a corner with Aizawa and crossing the road. They’re walking in a long flat circle, up the street and then back down the other side, but it was necessary and Aizawa’s grateful to have her here, the composure and calm, level-headed presence she brings to their otherwise unstable assortment. She’s bright in the lunchtime sun, so green it almost hurts.
“He’s not that bad, you know,” Kiki offers somewhere out of the open blue skies above them.
“Who?” Aizawa thinks it can’t be Dr. Shinsou, but it couldn’t be the other…
“Cricket. He’s a bit… kooky, but I can tell he’s not a completely awful person,” Kiki says the words Aizawa didn’t think he’d ever hear, much less from her mouth, and stops in his footsteps again for a second.
“Really?” After all, Aizawa thinks Cricks is an awful person. Well. Sort-of awful.
“Of course. He can’t be that bad, or Masaru would’ve liked him.”
Aizawa snorts, and she’s got a point. “So what next?”
“Wait for the interview to go live, look for an opportunity to draw them out, and try to stop them doing whatever they’re planning to do in the meantime,” Kiki rehearses the movements they drille like earthquake protocol, saving the most important for last. “And keep Hitoshi safe.”
“Yeah,” Aizawa murmurs. “It’s doing them all at once I worry about.”
Hitoshi is with Hizashi and Tsukauchi ahead of them as Aizawa and Kiki work their way back, just a couple of minutes to cool off and breathe. Aizawa might like all of them, but that doesn’t mean he likes having them all of them going at him together.
“Me too.” It’s just a fleeting moment, but Kiki reaches for Aizawa’s arm when they’re still some distance from the others, slowing their power-walk to an able as she holds him in a light grasp. “We’re doing the best we can.”
Aizawa sighs like his soul is trying to escape through his nose. “Yeah,” he heaves heavily. “Wish it felt like enough.”
Though Kiki’s hand slips away soon after, it's a brush of intimacy lasting long enough to connect on that fried, worried-parent level that Aizawa’s slowly accepted like a rat in the bottom of his gut. She gives him the advice that only a single mother with a son as brilliant and broken as Hitoshi could.
“It never does.”
Notes:
There's something very 30-years-oldish about having perspective on younger years of not having your shit together nearly as much, and as a 29 year old myself it's a real delight to be able to resonate with a character like Aizawa (and Kiki tbh) on this level. Plus most of us have had those 'oh god' exes, it's a part of living.
RIP to Aizawa's last nerve. May him rest in pease.
Chapter 76: Hotline Bingo
Summary:
If this is things going well, Aizawa can’t possibly let them go any worse.
Notes:
This chapter marks the end of my 7th masterdoc! That's terrifying to me as I am hoping to finish the story in the 8th one that I'm working on now, and I do still have like 10 chapters of backlog, but only just, so I'm trying not to freak out about that.
Anyway, uh, on with the actual story compared to my neurotic raving about the backlog.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They’re grabbing something quick to eat when the interview goes live, a fact that becomes known the moment a startlingly striking close-up of Hitoshi's face takes over the TV screens dotted around the quiet restaurant. He's looking dead into the camera with a stare not dissimilar from the infamous portrait photo of Dr. Shinsou himself.
The restaurant gets even more quiet once the staff and patrons realise the boy giving the skin-crawling interview on TV happens to be sitting at one of the tables eating a set lunch surrounded by adults of varying degrees of authority – mother, policeman, pro Hero and an underground one, not that they know it. If Hitoshi needed a security detail, this is sure as shit it. The final cut that makes it on air is a godawful masterpiece, a few minutes sliced together of all the right punches, making it look exactly like Hitoshi is entirely too informed on the copycat murders that are flying across the news right now. They even kept in his psychotic little line about how Heroes are held up as false paragons, though they edited around the part where Hitoshi suggests killing them would be a step up for the Deathnote Killers. Didn’t want to give anyone ideas, probably.
The servers are looking especially worried by the time the short segment finishes airing, most of the restaurant’s patrons with their eyes trained mindlessly on the screens if not trained on Hitoshi himself. Even the kitchen goes quiet, and for at least one moment Aizawa feels the actual heat of the many-eyed gaze that rests on Hitoshi. Although Tsukauchi was featured in the interview too, it was so briefly no one seems to recognise him sitting right there next to Hitoshi. When the silence gets a little too eerie, Tsukauchi gets up to flash his badge and have a few quiet words with the staff, settling them down with a few soft words and a smile over having a potential killer in their establishment. Aizawa wonders what he tells them. In any case, the other customers soon trickle out of the restaurant – some take pictures what they think is slyly, though Aizawa’s not fooled. They’d do well to leave here before word spreads.
“Always figured I’d end up famous for the wrong reasons,” Hitoshi murmurs over his meal with a polished lack of emotion. Aizawa’s boiling with protective instinct, but he knows this is what they wanted, so he has to fight those urges. If anything, this means their plan is working.
“You’ll be famous for the right ones eventually,” Aizawa replies as surely as he can muster, which isn’t very. He's comforted by the hand Hizashi slips under the table to squeeze his knee, so knows he must be kicking out stress like a radiator. He’s still half-annoyed at Hizashi for all the fucking around over Cricket, though that’s kind of foreplay in their book. What Aizawa would do for a vindictive make-up fuck in the bathroom right about now is better not thought about, because if Hitoshi thinks Aizawa and Hizashi are already inappropriately public with one another, having to wait for them to knock out a quickie in the restaurant bathroom might blow the poor teen’s mind past repair. Aizawa knows he can’t fix all his problems with sex, but that never stopped him and Hizashi trying.
They’re just in the process of paying up – well, Hizashi is – when Aizawa’s phone rings from an unusual number, which he answers with a suspicious, “Hello?”
“Tch, you could sound a bit happier to hear from me,” comes a familiar scratchy drawl, and Aizawa’s heart leaps forward to bang against his ribs, chest flooding with a storm's worth of relief.
“Tama,” he outright purrs, standing up with a grin a mile wide before Hizashi’s suggestive elbowing of his side becomes an actual annoyance. “How the hell are you?”
“I could be a lot fuckin’ better, but I’m okay.” Tama sounds like he’s almost telling the truth, though Aizawa can hear the strain and toll the crash must have taken on him. “Never got a chance to thank you.”
“For what?” Aizawa asks as he slips out the front of the restaurant and almost thinks about using his last cigarette, just to smoke one out with Tama for old time’s sake, but it’s just not the same when he's not here in person.
“Getting me out of there in one piece.”
“I couldn’t exactly leave you,” Aizawa replies, leaning back against the storefront and gazing up at the cloudless summer sky. “That was some crazy shit you pulled.”
“Yeah, well, I must’ve been hanging round you too much,” Tama needles, and Aizawa pictures him – not in a hospital bed, looking bashed up and not himself, but in his uniform. Smoking cigarettes in the alley behind the police station, casting sly looks at Aizawa with those golden cat eyes. Fuck, he misses that.
“I’m sorry,” Aizawa says suddenly, rising out of him like a trapped pocket of air.
“What fuck for?” Tama says gruffly. “You didn’t make me do it.”
“I know, I just… wish you hadn’t had to,” Aizawa mutters, knowing it’s irrational and he’s not making sense, but since when has that ever stopped him? “You should be here with us.”
Tama scoffs but Aizawa hears the affection in his voice, the soft hospital hoarse voice Aizawa knows too well himself. "Damn right I should."
"So we agree,” Aizawa prompts. “Leave the life or death risks to me."
"Hah! And let you have all the fun?"
Fuck, Aizawa’s missed him so much, it hits like a wave battering the coastline. But this probably isn't a social call, and Aizawa pre-empts it as such. "So I'm guessing you didn't ring just for the sound of my voice."
"Not exactly. Caught your kid on TV being interviewed about copycat murders. Please tell me you were there."
"I was," Aizawa confirms, and it's a testament to Tama's Detective skills that his questions are never obvious, but confirmation of the right steps to reach the correct conclusion.
"Good. So then it's some kind of play." Tama’s good, but it still surprises Aizawa how good sometimes.
"Is it that obvious?" Aizawa worries.
"Only because I know you," Tama replies reassuringly. "I haven't seen you give that brat enough space to breathe on his own, much less go around killing anyone."
"Don't spread it about, okay?" Aizawa has to ask, not that he reckons Tama’s much of a security risk laid up in a hospital bed for the foreseeable future, but for his own peace of mind. "It won't work if everyone knows it's a set-up."
"Who'm'I gonna tell? Dr. Shinsou’s little one-woman murdering spree fanclub?"
"I know, just… you never know who's listening," Aizawa warns, already feeling exposed enough that Tama is calling him from a hospital phone, because even if the line to Aizawa’s mobile is secure, nothing is really secure in this day and age.
"Yeah yeah, can't believe you managed to get that stick even further up your ass since I've been gone."
"Who says those things aren’t connected?" Aizawa replies wryly, as the rest of the lunch party emerge from the restaurant. When Hizashi’s eyes meet Aizawa’s, it’s as if he can figure out what they’re talking about just by the look on his face. So Aizawa gives his lover a hint. "I've missed you, furball."
Hizashi’s face lights up manically, and Tama laughs hoarsely on the other end of the line. "That bad, huh?"
"Worse," Aizawa quips, trying to dodge impatient 'get off the phone' glares from Hitoshi first and foremost, but Kiki and Tsukauchi aren't radiating patience either. "I should go."
"Alright, don't do anything I would do. Don't need you in the bed next to me over here."
"I'll try. Bye Tama." Aizawa hangs up and catches up to the party lagging on his behalf, dawdling outside the restaurant in what’s become pretty unbearable midday heat to bask in.
"How's he doing?" Hitoshi gets in first, which is good because Hizashi is smirking and would probably say something much less appropriate.
"Okay,” Aizawa answers, followed with a dour, “You didn't fool him with the interview."
"I wasn't trying to fool him," Hitoshi retorts like the teenage brat he is half the time. Okay. Maybe a third of the time.
“Still,” Aizawa grouses, but Hitoshi won’t let him get that far into it.
“And I managed to fool everyone in that restaurant pretty good, so just because your friend doesn’t buy it doesn’t mean no one else will.” Hitoshi snatches the argument so wholly from Aizawa’s lips he’s left speechless, just staring at Hitoshi for a moment, standing long and slim in his fancy new tracksuit with that look of don’t-fuck-with-me defiance on his face. All of a sudden, Aizawa’s never been prouder.
“Good point,” Aizawa defers so suddenly it catches Hitoshi by surprise too, his mouth half-open to say something in return when Aizawa’s phone rings again.
“Get a load of Mr. Popular over here!” Hizashi crows hysterically, propping up the wall next to Kiki looking like a magazine shoot on the streets of Tokyo, and Aizawa loves him dearly, more than life itself, but he remembers why he and Hizashi don’t work together that often anymore. It’s fun and all, but fun isn’t really the traditional nature of Aizawa’s work.
It’s not Tama calling back, or Aizawa doesn’t think so, since the number is blocked from the caller’s side. After a brief suspicious glance at Tsukauchi, who loiters a little bit closer, Aizawa picks up the phone with a suspicious, “Hello?”
“Oh, is that the warm greeting I get?” riffs the voice of the Industry’s most fuckable Hero since Present Mic hung his big slut boots up, and Aizawa doesn’t know whether he’s walking over a ley line or something, but all these connections converging on him at once is a bit alarming.
“Hawks,” he replies stiffly. “Not like you to call.”
“Trust me, I take no pleasure in doing this,” Hawks needles the way he likes to, reluctant to the point of resentment as ever having to ask Aizawa for anything ever. Hawks’ attitude from day one is and always has been that he doesn’t need other people as much as they need him. As Aizawa needs next to nothing from him, this makes for a rather tense basis for their interactions. The last thing Hawks needed from Aizawa was a favour he held onto for years, and Aizawa only just used it yesterday, during that mess on the rooftop. Trust Hawks to want something from Aizawa again the very next day.
“Then spit it out,” Aizawa grinds. “This better be good, because I don’t exactly–”
“Think I found one of your psycho-killer’s victims,” Hawks snaps like he’s got a raptor beak instead of just the wings. “Good enough for you?”
Aizawa’s relentless drive kicks in, narrowing down on a single word that he pushes out like bones through a meat grinder. “Where?”
“I’m sending you the location. It’s… a lot.”
“Does anyone else know?” Aizawa asks, and whether it’s a mentalist shift in his mood or some other indication about his person, everyone’s just standing around him with that familiar look of concern on their faces.
“Just me. Flew over and saw the… just get your ass over here.” Hawks isn’t the most squeamish of people, actually it could be said he’s got a violent streak that’d better suit a butcher than a Hero, but that just means it has to be bad.
“On my way.” Aizawa hangs up and announces, “Hawks found another victim,” as he’s checking the GPS pin that comes moments later – it’s a not insurmountable distance away from them, not so far they’d need to drive if Aizawa was moving uninhibited. After all, he can move in much straighter lines than a car can.
“Where?” Tsukauchi chimes like a clock, and Aizawa’s already sending him the pin.
“Near enough.” Aizawa feels the familiar clench in his jaw, the frustration of having failed yet again – and more failures to come, surely. All they’re managing to do is slow the killers down, which only means less bodies. “I’m gonna go there on foot, the rest of you can follow in the car.”
“Not alone you’re not,” Hitoshi pipes up indignantly, but Aizawa doesn’t have time to be pulling back to his level. However, it’s not as if Hitoshi wants that either.
“Then you have to keep up,” Aizawa declares buntly, but all the challenge does is light a fire in Hitoshi’s eyes.
“I will.” He won’t, but he’ll try, and Aizawa can work with him more cooperatively than the rest of them when it comes to pulling insane aerial maneuvers as he free-runs across the city. Hitoshi’s not dead weight, and never has been. Not really.
“It’s gonna be gross, isn’t it?” Hizashi asks squeamishly – another reason he and Aizawa don’t work together that much.
“Very,” Aizawa answers even blunter, because there’s no sense trying to soften that blow. “You can always wait in the car.”
“I’ll just do guard duty, thanks very much,” Hizashi zings right back, and there’s no reason everyone needs to go picking around a new body, not to mention a set of eyes turned outwards rather than in is more than useful, but anyway – they’re wasting time.
“See you there.” Aizawa’s already spotting his route up to the rooftops, nudging Hitoshi and pointing it out as he unwinds another strip of his capture weapon and holds one end out. “Arms up.”
Hitoshi understands without it needing to explained, lifting his arms as Aizawa specifically knots the strip around the teen’s torso – there’s no turning back to pull the kid up if he falls, and if it comes to him being dragged behind Aizawa then so be it. Though truth be told Aizawa expects much more than that from Hitoshi. This is just the insurance policy.
Kiki’s watching with a cautious fascination, lagging behind the others while Tsukauchi goes to get the car, watching as Aizawa jerks his head and signals Hitoshi to break into a joint sprint, running up the wall in an alleyway opposite to the restaurant high enough to grab the bottom of a balcony. A single calculated tug on the tether between them boosts Hitoshi double the height Aizawa got – kid weighs less than him, for starters – and he grabs onto a fire escape railing a floor above Aizawa. Hitoshi’s already scrambling upwards when Aizawa leaps across the gap again and then launches himself straight off at the other wall, leading into a zig-zag series of jumps that ascends fast, catapulting Hitoshi behind him wherever his experience leaves a gap to be closed. But it’s not a huge gap, and anything Aizawa does Hitoshi is already anticipating, working in that perfect synergy with each other.
When they get to the rooftop in a matter of minutes Aizawa takes a breath and feels it deeply, the eight-lane highway open between him and Hitoshi, stronger even than the binding cloth that ties them together physically. So Aizawa doesn’t say anything when he starts to run, or where he starts to run, because he doesn’t need to say it, Hitoshi reads the impulses straight from his mind like he’s tapped directly into Aizawa’s brainstem.
Aizawa wraps the other end of the capture weapon tied to Hitoshi around his own arm, allowing him to swing Hitoshi like a hammer throw across a far wider gap than he could ever hope to jump – than even Aizawa could jump alone – and he feels the momentum exchange when Hitoshi yanks hard on the tether in mid-air, giving Aizawa the boost he needs to just about fly.
The lime green dot on the ground that would have been Kiki watching them is gone already, but there’s a fragment of time in which Aizawa dwells on what she must feel seeing her son this way. Looking like the very opposite of the thing he was just on TV making himself out to be. The Hero-in-waiting he actually is, and not the villain he’s just pretending to be.
Hitoshi only nearly falls into traffic a few times on the way to Hawks’ marker, and Aizawa catches him on all of those occasions. And although Hitoshi slows him down a little in those places, he speeds Aizawa up in others. That Hitoshi’s gone from holding him back to actually, seriously keeping up with Aizawa so quickly is nothing short of amazing, and once they catch their breath, Aizawa intends to mention it.
“You did… good…” this ends up coming out between pants, drenched with sweat and feeling a little less crushed by anxiety on this baking asphalt roof.
“Ha… thanks…” Hitoshi wheezes in return, darker patches on his tracksuit where sweat has soaked through the fabric too. Maybe he’s thinking he could’ve taken an easy ride in the car, which Aizawa spots turning the corner just ahead of them, but where’s the fun in that?
They’re standing opposite to a building site when a blur of red and shadow passes over them followed by a rush of air.
“We must stop meeting like this, Eraser,” Hawks lilts as he hovers above them with breezy beats of his huge wings, and Aizawa can’t spot anything past the scaffolding and thick sheet metal that walls the building site off from the street, but Hawks wouldn’t call him out over nothing. His wings stir up a welcome breeze around them, whipping Aizawa’s hair around and swaying the tips of Hitoshi's as eddies of air spool away from Hawks' moneymakers – aside from his smart mouth and textbook good looks.
“Couldn’t agree more.” Aizawa holds up a hand like he’s hailing a cab, which Hitoshi does as well, perhaps even on instinct, not knowing what for, because the teen yelps in surprise when Hawks’ grabs him by the wrist and launches the pair of them up and across the gap so fast Aizawa’s vision blurs.
When the world stops again they’ve both been set down on a large concrete slab in the middle of the building site, among the shell of the half-built walls around them hidden from outside view. From a bird’s-eye view, Aizawa’s sure it makes a pretty nasty picture.
“Saw him while I was flying over on patrol,” Hawks explains briefly, though it doesn’t really need much explanation. “Seemed to fit the pattern.”
Hitoshi’s silent next to them so far, and Aizawa imagines he recognises the corpse in front of them, but there’s enough to be distracted by. A thick rod of iron rebar sticks a foot or two out of the ground, onto which the victim has jumped – or been pushed – backwards onto, piercing him all the way through the stomach, flat on his back with the ruddy pole jutting up through his guts like a metal beast growing from inside him.
A pair of cracked glasses across his bloodied nose, and wide, terrified eyes over a mouth that’s more of a bloody welt, almost past recognition. Aizawa really hoped not to meet this man again, especially not under such grim circumstances.
Hitoshi says it first, a twinge of anger and shock in his voice that only comes from being face to face with someone known when they were living now they’re dead. “It’s the Warden.”
It is. Aizawa wonders how they managed to find him, got past what must have been no small amount of precaution that the Warden surely took for his own security, but that didn’t help him now, the Warden’s lifeless eyes staring up at the sky.
“The Warden?” Hawks echoes curiously.
“Of the prison Dr. Shinsou was held at,” Aizawa completes for him. “He’s been getting back at everyone who had a hand in locking him up.”
Hawks whistles through his teeth as he soaks in the grisly sight before them, and knowing who this man is probably puts a few things into context. Like why his sleeves have been torn off, exposing arms for the exquisite hand-carved notes that run down each of the Warden’s arms. Writing up deathnotes in blood is a bit tired, according to Hitoshi’s best guess, so of course the next step is to cut them directly into the victims.
On the Warden’s left arm it reads in careful handwriting that borders on calligraphy, except that this was cut artfully into the flesh with the touch of a master surgeon: What goes around comes around. The right arm reads: To the victor go the spoils.
Hitoshi sighs with something that might be impatience, or some kind of exasperation, but even a small reaction is nothing for Aizawa to ignore.
“What?” Aizawa probes.
“So stuck-up,” Hitoshi replies quietly. “He’s taking the piss.” The Warden was a stuffy sort of man, Aizawa reflects, and can only imagine what kind of relationship he had with Dr. Shinsou during the six long years of his incarceration. What little Aizawa saw was certainly not indicative of a healthy dynamic between the two men who both supposed themselves better than other people in not all-that different ways.
“He meaning your dad, right?” Hawks cuts in, behaving remarkably sensibly for him. Hawks never did like this kind of work, Aizawa recalls – not because he’s not good at it, but that it takes a very specific kind of person to want to do it; the kind that Aizawa is, and Hawks isn’t. “Caught your interview, by the way,” he slips aside to Hitoshi like they’re standing next to each other at a party, not stood out in a circle around a body. The large flat grey of concrete below them and the stumps of pillars where this building has only just started to rise out of the ground, casting bars of shadow across the scene like a morbid Stonehenge. “Bit surprised to see you walking the streets so freely.”
“Who says he’s free?” a voice echoes from further off in the building site, which makes Aizawa jump, but only because he’s so on edge, rather than it being an unfamiliar or uninvited voice. Tsukauchi made pretty good time, only a few minutes behind Aizawa and Hitoshi in the end.
The Detective strides into view and then stops as soon as he sees who’s speared and bled out on the concrete, saying nothing in words, but plenty in his expression as he draws closer.
“Were the police watching him?” Aizawa dares to ask, and Tsukauchi shakes his head.
“Made private arrangements, apparently.” Tsukauchi always looks unusual frowning, the easy smile of reassurance that fits much better on his countenance than a dour face like Aizawa usually wears. “We did offer.”
It’s a shame, Aizawa thinks – or maybe if the police were protecting him there’d just be more dead officers alongside this body. Too many questions, no time for answers.
Getting closer to the body, Aizawa crouches down, his shadow creeping over the prone form of the deceased Warden. He wasn’t the most pleasant of men, but he certainly didn’t deserve this death. The price he paid for daring to hold the key to Dr. Shinsou’s cage. They should have been watching him more closely, should have expected the Doc to go after him. Stupid, Aizawa thinks at himself. Be better.
Only Dr. Shinsou could have carved these inscriptions, Aizawa knows without question as he hunches over the pale, exposed arms of the Warden. No one else would have been permitted, it had to be The Professor himself leaving his mark on the man who paraded him around like a tiger in a cage. A lesson learned on the keeping of dangerous animals.
“These cuts were made before he ended up here,” Aizawa remarks from his deep squat, lifting his eyes to the bloody stump of metal sprouting from his stomach.
Tsukauchi and Hitoshi both come closer to take a look, but it’s Hitoshi who verbalises it.
“The blood runs down, not sideways.”
Aizawa nods. “It had time to dry too, which suggests these inscriptions were made before they came here.”
“They got in somehow,” Tsukauchi remarks with a huff. “It wasn’t easy getting over the perimeter of this site, I can tell you that much.” There's no one here on a Sunday either, another deserted stage for the killers to work their deadly art.
Hitoshi looks at Aizawa with wide, thoughtful eyes, a cosmos of light and dark purples contained therein, glinting in the afternoon light. “What about the drains?”
“Drains?” Tsukauchi echoes.
“They escaped yesterday into a storm drain," Aizawa elaborates. "They could be using the underground system to move around the city.”
“Dangerous game to play,” Hawks remarks, his arms crossed over his chest, no heavy coat in this heat, just the tight, form-fitting undershirts he favours. It’s tough material, lightweight but as good as armour – Aizawa’s punched him hard enough to find out.
“That’s the kind they like,” Hitoshi replies morosely, turning over to Tsukauchi. “He wasn’t reported missing?”
“Not that I know of,” Tsukauchi murmurs, though he doesn’t sound sure.
“We don’t know when they first made contact,” Hitoshi adds warily. “It might have been something Dad led him up to.”
“How?” Aizawa has to ask, because he can’t see what Hitoshi does inside his head, though not for lack of trying.
“The same way he got Hatake Sakura,” Hitoshi answers fearfully. “He just talks to them.” There’s something else in there, dark and serious and buried deep. Aizawa remembers Kiki told him even she doesn’t know exactly what the Doc did with Hitoshi during his infamous research, though they know some of the details, the true horror is known only to him. That’s why they are where they are now, so the least Aizawa can do is listen.
"Is that enough?" Tsukauchi questions, but all it gets him is a stinging look from Hitoshi, whose eyes flit back down to the corpse.
"You tell me."
There's an eerie silence into which Hawks intercedes, "Are those teeth around his head?"
Ah yes, Aizawa had almost neglected to notice, so desensitised he is to the gratuitous violence of what Dr. Shinsou does. But he remembers those experiments from Iwaya's notes too. The ones with pliers on the equipment list. What must be all of the Warden's teeth, bloodied but dried, arranged in a neat halo around his head.
"That didn't happen here either," Hitoshi adds, and true enough the concrete underneath each of the gruesome teeth is clean. Meanwhile the front of the Warden's shirt is dyed a deep brown red, tacky to the touch when Aizawa touches a fingertip to it.
"It must have happened this morning," Aizawa deduces, as any longer and the blood would have fully dried, any less and it wouldn't be coagulating.
"Why do I get the impression this doesn't shock any of you?" Hawks puts out there the way any new pair of eyes might see all of sixteen year-old Hitoshi picking over a horrible murder scene and wonder why he's not freaking out.
"This is just what they do," Hitoshi answers in a murmur so soft his mouth barely moves, towering over Aizawa and the body, face drawn carefully in thought, as if Aizawa could strain himself enough to hear the soft click of abacus beads sliding back and forth in his mind. "This is just where they left him to die. The main event was somewhere else."
“Where?” Aizawa pushes, but only gently.
“It’s in the inscriptions,” Hitoshi mumbles thoughtfully, sinking into a crouch next to Aizawa, elbows propped on his knees. “What goes around comes around, and to the victor go the spoils… it’s all about revenge.”
The idea hits Aizawa suddenly, like a light bulb flicking on as soon as he meets Hitoshi’s eyes with only a few inches between them, and whatever conduit of thought runs between them; what goes around does come around, because they say the next part in unison, that creepy double-act that’s back in style.
“The prison.”
Hawks looks appropriately perturbed, but Tsukauchi is unphased by this point, making a note and then getting out his phone to presumably have someone head over there quickish to check it out.
“That’s a long way to come with a body,” Hawks remarks, and Aizawa just shakes his head.
“They wouldn’t have killed him there,” Hitoshi says, and it’s probably better coming from him than Aizawa. “Just made him suffer.” Although he was tortured at the scene of his supposed crimes against Dr. Shinsou, this is surely where the Warden died. Slowly, from massive internal and external bleeding due to the ugly bit of metal that’s gutted him, strings of viscera clinging to the rebar that’ll become a part of this building, a dark secret known only to a few, of no consequence to the office workers who’ll blithely pass it by someday.
Hawks’ eyes narrow, and his eyesight is second to none. He sees far more than he ever says. Shifting to focus on Aizawa, all he offers is a muted, “I see why this one’s your intern, Eraser.”
People do keep on saying that, but before Aizawa can remark on it Hitoshi cuts in with an acerbic, “Jealous?” that conjures an instant scowl on Hawks’ face. Ah, Aizawa should have realised this is how things would go if he let them.
“Hah!” Hawks barks so derisively it echoes around the empty building site. “Not bloody likely, but keep on dreaming, kid.”
Hitoshi stands up again, and at his full height has a good couple of inches on Hawks, a fact he seems to make extra use of to look down at the Winged Hero. “I’ve got better things to be doing than dreaming.”
“Yeah, like getting into the family business?” Hawks shoots back provocatively, and his next keen look lands on Tsukauchi. “Who says this isn’t the work of that copycat you’ve been banging on about?”
“Easy.” Hitoshi’s going to say it, Aizawa realises well before he does, and Hitoshi does it with a look of most sinister delight on his face. “I only just got here.”
“So you are responsible for the others,” Hawks pins like they’re just outright wrestling on a matt with one another. If Aizawa thought it’d get them anywhere. he’d try his hand at trying to restrain Hawks with his capture weapon, lest he freak out and fly off to start rallying Heroes to take Hitoshi down, but that’s not really Hawks’s style, and Aizawa would be a bloody lunatic to even try it. They already know what happens when he and Hawks get into it with each other, and it’s guaranteed to be a mess that no one needs.
“Obviously.” Hitoshi’s unscratchable, a fierce game face that simultaneously maintains his mystery while seeming to confirm the unthinkable. “How else am I supposed to talk to my Dad? He needs to be communicated with in his own language.”
“So murder.” It’s lucky Hawks is the only so-called ‘Pro’ to have butted in on this shitshow of a case yet, because if anyone understands the grey areas of being a Hero in this day and age it’s this shitshow of a number #3. It’s almost astonishing he and Aizawa don’t get on more. Well, not really, but they can agree on some things.
“This information is classified, Hawks,” Tsukauchi announces stiffly, but that says quite a lot in itself. “Hitoshi is still assisting the police on this case, that’s all you need to know.”
“Yeah, I think I’m getting the picture.” Hawks doesn’t give much away, but that’s just how he is. He’s not likely to go around finding ways to go ratting to Dr. Shinsou about what they’re up to, but that doesn’t mean Aizawa can’t be sure.
“He’s serious. Don’t go running that mouth of yours about this, Hawks,” he phrases as delicately as Aizawa’s able to put anything in words he has to say to this feathery wind-up merchant. “As much as it may tempt you.”
“As I recall, Eraser, you’re all out of favours from me,” Hawks says with a waggle of his eyebrows.
“Then I owe you one,” Aizawa declares nochantly, not daring to argue with Hawks calling him out here as a favour, since it’s clearly helping Aizawa far too much to qualify as something he’s done to help Hawks.
“You sure about that?” Hawks puts full of mischief, but Aizawa’s spent all morning with Cricket, not to mention Hizashi buzzing around being his loud-as-usual self, so if Hawks is expecting to get under Aizawa’s skin he’s going to have to try a lot harder.
“Make it two,” Aizawa declares with utter indifference before he continues, “Present Mic wants you to be a guest on his radio show.” Hawks double takes. Hitoshi actually snorts, though Tsukauchi smirks. Aizawa does it just to defy expectation, even if it has the unintended consequence of making Hawks burst out laughing a moment later.
“Oh he does now? Tell him I’ll think about it, ‘long as he can throw in something to sweeten the deal.” Hawks is probably referring to one of Hizashi’s very hard to acquire prized bottles of liquor that Hawks has had his eye on since he wasn’t old enough to drink. Lucky for him, coming up with ways to sweeten any deal might as well be Hizashi’s middle name. And it does succeed in diffusing the tension, which was Aizawa’s true purpose for throwing Hizashi’s name in the ring, and his partner won’t begrudge him that.
“He’s waiting outside if you want to hash out the details,” Aizawa offers, hoping it’s going to get rid of Hawks, at least for a moment.
“Fine fine, I’ll take your ridiculous bait, seeing as it’s you,” Hawks sighs, bending at the knees slightly before he jumps up with a controlled beat of his wings, careful not to disturb the crime scene with wanton flapping.
It’s only a matter of seconds before Hizashi’s eternally outdoors voice yelps up in the background with an ecstatic, “HEY! Fancy meeting you here?!” and then trails off into less intelligible chatter as Aizawa uses Hizashi for one of the things Hizashi does best, which is talking to people Aizawa doesn’t want to waste breath on. This leaves Aizawa alone with Hitoshi, the Detective and the body.
“So,” Hitoshi starts up with an audacity that can only mean Hitoshi is feeling himself for a second here. “What’re we doing about this one?”
“I’ve got an officer who can check the prison on their next patrol,” Tsukauchi answers with his eyes trained on his phone in front of him, reaching into the rest of the police force like a secret super-power. “We don’t need to waste our time going there.”
“Then where are we headed?” Aizwaa asks, turning to the Detective who’s been running this case from above the police line.
Tsukauchi is focused over his phone, checking updates with the focused stare of a man with a lot to lose, then his thumb stops scrolling and his nearly black eyes lift to Aizawa’s. Bingo.
“The Lawyer who convicted Dr. Shinsou was just found dead.” Aizawa’s grateful, as he always is, for the support of a representative on the other side of the law, with resources beyond Aizawa’s reach. That’s the truth of it; they all have to help each other. “He was at home, cause of death seems to be a gunshot wound to the head.” Aizawa has a gut reaction to that information, but saves his preliminary judgement until he can take a look for himself.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Aizawa declares as he stands up and tips his head backwards, wincing up into the sunlight, hoping that this time, they’re ahead and not behind, even though the outcome’s still just death. “Lead the way, Detective.”
Notes:
WARDEN! Also didn't plan for him to end up like this, just realised it made a fuck ton of sense and liked the continuity of it.
Please also file "riffs the voice of the Industry’s most fuckable Hero since Present Mic hung his big slut boots up" as one of my favourite lines in this entire story kthnxbye.
See you next week for the beginning of the last 'act' (masterdoc) of this story! It's still gonna be another 50k+ so don't worry just yet, but we're definitely getting there!
Chapter 77: Dark Place
Summary:
What goes in must come out, one way or another.
Notes:
This brings us into the 8th masterdoc of this majestic beast of a fic - I have reluctantly created a 9th since google docs starts to freak out with files of over 50k, but this brings us into a new 'act' of sorts within the story that I'm hyped to start rolling out. Best not say anymore.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The Lawyer who put Dr. Shinsou behind bars lives – and died – so far away from their present location that it’s impractical not to drive there. However, Aizawa ingeniously snags shotgun for the journey, leaving Hizashi to Hitoshi and his Ma in the back, the lot of them thick as thieves in no time at all as they race across the city with the police sirens blaring.
“So tell me about this lawyer,” Aizawa puts to Tsukuachi in the moments they’re not hurtling dangerously fast through the streets of Tokyo.
“Just the prosecutor assigned to Dr. Shinsou’s case,” the Detective replies, eyes trained unwaveringly on the road. “Even before the Warden we’ve been following up with anyone involved in his trial. This guy wasn’t responding to phone calls, so an officer went to his address to check on him.”
“Turns out they were too late,” Aizawa finishes morosely, deliberating on how grim a reality it is that the best-case scenario for what they’re heading towards is someone who killed themselves out of fear alone, and not because of a direct intervention on Dr. Shinsou's part. If it’s something the Doc and Shiyoko don’t know about yet, it means they – Hitoshi, mostly – can use it.
And if that’s not fucked up, Aizawa doesn’t know what is.
“Hey, Tsukauchi,” Hitoshi calls up from the backseat, Kiki holding the middle spot this time. They all seem a lot comfier back there, as she’s not nearly as thick across the middle as Aizawa is. None of them are. “Where’s Yankumi?”
“Officer Yamaguichi? She’s off-duty,” the Detective answers with only a light sprinkling of suspicion. “Any reason?”
“No, nothing,” Hitoshi denies quickly, convincing absolutely no-one. Maybe he’s wondering if she’s seen the interview, and they know she was at the scene of Hitoshi’s second ‘murder’ yesterday with Tsukauchi. Aizawa doubts the rookie officer has been told the whole truth of what they’re really doing, and unlike Tama, might not know any of them well enough to figure it out on her own. It’s a peril that Hitoshi might as well get used to, the struggles of keeping people in the dark.
The Lawyer's apartment is in a luxury block that tells little of the strife within, quietly baking in the scorching afternoon heat as they pull into the car park with no siren wailing. No sense alarming the residents by announcing the police’s arrival.
A caretaker shows them to one of the upper floors, where an officer meets them at the door. It’s all happened so fast, Aizawa finds himself hoping that his instincts are right – that the Doc and Shiyoko can’t be in so many places at once, and the people dropping like flies are part of Nezu’s predicted psychological impact of the news about the killers on the loose. No wonder the police kept it quiet for as long as they could – that’s just several days they didn’t have to deal with all this carnage.
“He lived alone, someone’s still trying to reach his girlfriend,” the Officer on duty informs them as Aizawa and Tsukauchi lead the way into the expensively decked out apartment. Lots of antique wood furniture and statement art, not a lot of heart.
No heart at all when they’re guided through to the study, where the man who ensured Dr. Shinsou received the maximum possible sentence sits behind an imposing desk at the far end of the room with his brains blown out on the back wall. His blood is splattered across an abstract painting canvas that’s no better off for the ugly splash of crimson over the oils. There’s an almost empty bottle of whiskey next to a single glass on the desk and a notepad, which Aizawa can see writing on from across the room, and hates how his heart actually lifts a little. Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko certainly don't do paper when it comes to suicide notes.
Hizashi waits outside, naturally, making light chit-chat with the on-duty Officer, but Kiki comes through with them this time, her expression frozen into icy despair when she lays eyes on the body.
“You must have met with him during the trial.” Tsukauchi takes the lead with Kiki, leaving Aizawa and Hitoshi with the task of getting closer to the body. The desk the lawyer’s sat behind is huge and heavy, a strong smell of varnish and blood in the air. He shot himself in the mouth, up and out the back of his head, skull shattered from the inside and plenty of nasty stuff to spread around. At least he died fast, Aizawa has to admit, even only to himself.
“Often,” Kiki answers coldly. “He was a good man.”
“Anything else?” Tsukauchi probes gently. “Something that might help us here.”
Aizawa and Hitoshi draw alongside the deceased lawyer, and on the right-hand side a revolver lies on the floor by the body’s curled fingertips. It looks like an antique army gun, so Aizawa snaps a picture and sends it to Snipe, who’ll no doubt be able to identify the exact make and model. Not sure why that’d be useful to them, but Aizawa’s made too many mistakes not to be careful.
“I don’t know.” Kiki sounds lost, and though she’s clearly seen a lot in her time, she stayed outside the building site with Hizashi earlier, and Cricket wasn’t really dead. This counts as her inaugural crime scene debut, and it’s someone she used to know. Double whammy. “He was just a… normal man, doing his job.”
Aizawa’s attention has lapsed enough on the body, turning around to watch Kiki, that it’s only once Hitoshi drops down and scoops up the gun that Aizawa realises what he’s done.
“Fancy,” Hitoshi remarks as he picks the revolver up and turns it from side to side, fingers wrapped comfortably around the handle like a child with a toy.
“What are you doing?” Aizawa shoots as Tsukauchi echoes him in stereo, but Hitoshi just stands back up with the weapon still in his hand.
“Look at the note,” Hitoshi declares casually, and as much as Aizawa’s instincts are screaming for him to slap the gun out of Hitoshi’s hand right fucking now – spreading his fingerprints all over it, not to mention they don’t know if it’s still loaded – he forces his gaze onto the note. It does kind of confirm everything that was hanging in the air up until now, a simple scribble of pen on paper: not a death note, but a suicide note.
NOT GETTING ME
Compared to what the Warden went through, Aizawa almost can’t blame the guy.
With utter disregard for the sanctity of the crime scene, Hitoshi proceeds to reach for the sheet of paper and tears it off the top of the pad, screwing it up and shoving it into his pocket before starting to crudely rifle through the desk draws.
“Stop Hitoshi, you’re–” Aizawa starts trying to contest, but doesn’t get far.
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to do,” Hitoshi snaps with a truly ferocious intensity, and Aizawa’s heart goes out to Kiki standing by the doorway, watching her son with a hopeless look in her pretty lilac eyes. “They don’t know about this one, so it’s mine now.”
“Yours?” Hitoshi’s mother echoes, but she does know what it means, it’s just the practical application of what it means that she’s grappling with. It must be awful, watching the son she’s raised from a newborn in such a desperately dark environment. Everything she tried to shelter him from, and clearly failed, because in the middle of this Hitoshi seems right at home.
“Can I see that gun?” Tsukauchi walks over, holding a hand out to Hitoshi, who hesitates at first, then gives it up before turning his attention back to the desk.
Aizawa watches Kiki, stood like another piece of art in this place, the brightness of her unsullied green outfit against the dark woody tones of the rest of the room. When she turns her gaze onto his for a moment he feels the heat of unspoken blame. That Aizawa rolled out the red carpet to bring Hitoshi into this world, and even if it’s not his fault Hitoshi’s so comfortable here, Aizawa’s still the reason he is here.
Hitoshi’s still rummaging through the desk, not appearing to find anything of interest to him, snapping the drawers shut and shoving half-curled hands back into his pockets as he attracts Aizawa’s attention with a calm and collected, “Hey, can I borrow your knife again?”
Aizawa feels out the same multi-tool he let Hitoshi cut that girl up with yesterday, and just because these people are already dead doesn’t deter what’s happening to their bodies from being disturbing.
As soon as Aizawa hands the open blade to Hitoshi he sets to work, stepping closer to the corpse and running the edge up the front of the Lawyer’s shirt, slicing through the buttons and pulling the fabric open. The body is positioned so close to the desk that while Hitoshi can lean over to reach him, it’s a bit awkward, so things get a whole level weirder when Hitoshi hikes up a long leg and hops up to sit on the edge of the desk, straddling the body wide with his feet dangling on either side as he brings the blade up past the man’s throat, sawing through his tie and fiddly top button. He’s got a plain white undershirt on, which Hitoshi picks up and slices down the middle with a single quick motion, exposing his pale, hairless chest and belly.
Aizawa’s already figured out what Hitoshi’s doing this for, but perhaps he’s the only one, because he hears a rush of shocked breath in the room when Hitoshi pushes the point of the blade into the corpse’s chest and begins to cut.
They don’t talk about it because that’s not how this works, but then Aizawa’s the only one here who’s been with Hitoshi for every one of these ‘copycat’ murders, and the Shimizu one was a warm-up so it doesn’t fully count. It was yesterday’s that really did it. Whatever place Hitoshi went to in that dark back-alley, mutilating a corpse with Aizawa and Cricket watching, he’s gone right back to it now, his face a series of hard lines chiselled out by sheer focus.
Aizawa hears a quiet murmur from Kiki that goes, “You’re really just going to let him…” and must be directed more towards Tsukauchi than Aizawa, because Aizawa’s the one who handed Hitoshi the fucking knife.
“We have to, unfortunately,” Tsukauchi replies reluctantly, but that’s just the background noise to the main event. Which is the next message Hitoshi is leaving, meeting his father’s raised stakes by cutting the words straight into their victims instead of painting it up on the wall in their blood.
The first words Hitoshi scores good and deep into the body, which doesn’t bleed as if the victim were alive, but is fresh enough that what blood remains in the tissues oozes out from the cuts that take up the right side of the victim’s exposed torso.
GO BACK
Then Hitoshi starts a new column, shifting along to the left and slicing a little smaller to fit the rest of the message in equal distribution to the ominous first part.
TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
It connects in Aizawa's mind like lightning, a sharp white bolt that passes through every inch of his body. The hair on the back of his arms stands on end, full-body electric impulse snapping between his nerves and squeezing the breath out of his chest. This fucking kid.
“They all go together.”
Hitoshi actually looks over, seemingly calm as he sits with his legs spread either side of the middle-aged man he’s just used like a bloody blackboard to write out his homework on. Then the corner of Hitoshi’s mouth twists, not exactly a smile, not in these circumstances, but a deadly hint of knowing and amusement.
“You noticed.”
“What goes together?” Tsukauchi asks, still holding the murder weapon in one hand while he rests the other lightly on Kiki’s shoulder. Kiki looks like she’s figured it out as well, but the horror is too great to speak.
“The messages,” Aizawa utters, still shocked almost past coherence. “Everything Hitoshi’s written, it’s all one sentence.” Hitoshi is smiling now, sick as it is, but this expression is stunned off the teen’s face when Aizawa offers an involuntary, “That’s amazing.”
Because Hitoshi is. He thought this far ahead, pieced it out in standalone chunks that made up more than the whole, greater than the sum of its parts. He’s actually starting to blush, evidently unprepared to be complimented on the quality of his staged murders, but Aizawa has to say it: he is impressed. Did Hitoshi think it all up in advance? He must have.
“Happy now… you made me… go back to where it all began?” Tsuakuchi recites the statement fully assembled, and then it hits him too, staring at Hitoshi as his mouth forms around an understated, “Wow.”
Hitoshi slides back off the desk, wiping the blade off on his sleeve and handing it back to Aizawa, then gets his phone out with the other. “Out of the way,” he tells them stonily as he opens up the camera, and though it’s by no application of his quirk, Aizawa quickly backs off in humbled, overwhelmed awe. They all do, shuffling to the edge of the room as Hitoshi squares up on the body, the deathnote tight to the frame of the shot, and then hits record.
Backing up slowly, Hitoshi pans out from the eerie message that trickles blood to the open jaw and hole through to the back of the Lawyer’s head where the revolver blasted his brains across the back wall.
Then Hitoshi speaks, not in his normal voice, but the one that’s loaded with hooks for his quirk, that screams submit to me and sends chills up Aizawa’s spine.
“Are you getting this? I hope you are, Dad.” Then he flips the camera around to face himself, quickly panning across the side of the room the rest of them have vacated, so that it seems like he’s alone, as if he broke in and did this all by himself. Hitoshi stares down the camera, close up and intimidating as he grinds out the words, “See you soon,” and stops filming.
Kiki looks devastated, which Aizawa understands. Seeing what they agreed to, fearing the psychological impact on Hitoshi of having to drag this up. Though Hitoshi shows no outward signs of distress as he paces over to Tsukauchi and his Ma.
"Can I get that back?" Hitoshi asks with his palm turned out for the gun Tsukauchi is holding.
"What for?" the Detective says worriedly.
"Proof," Hitoshi answers confidently. "Isn't having the murder weapon considered a pretty strong indication of doing the crime?"
“You are not carrying around a gun,” Kiki comes in like flames being spat straight from the mouth of hell, but she comes up against a force of equal measure: the wrath of an angry teenage boy.
“You won’t let me talk to him!” Hitoshi snarls suddenly, seething all the anger of tapping into that dark place within himself to do what he just did, and Aizawa’s seen the pattern once already, so he knows it’s coming, but perhaps Kiki missed the memo. “You won’t let me have anything else to protect myself, why don’t you just dump me back in the lab with him and walk away like you used to–”
Aizawa feels it from behind his eyes right to the back of his skull, a pressure-blast of energy that rips across the room like a sledgehammer shaped out of a single, all-important word.
“I said no, Hitoshi.”
But Kiki’s raised her son on conflict and willpower, so he’s not going down easy. “I have to prove it to him! If I don’t have the gun he’ll never believe I used it to kill someone!”
“It’s not going to get to that stage,” Kiki insists, but all the determination in the world doesn’t assure them of an outcome.
“It might,” Aizawa’s forced to offer, and as much as he hates to admit it, he understands Hitoshi’s point – and more than that, thinks Hitoshi can't stand to be opposed right now, when he’s a walking ball of nerves that just had to tear out a piece of himself and carve it into a dead body. That he can't handle more fighting, which is at odds with his warrior of a mother. “Hitoshi has a point.” Aizawa holds his hand out to Tsukauchi, gripping the antique revolver with a look of terrible worry on his face. “I’ll take it for now.”
“Oh no you won’t.” Kiki might be fast, but Aizawa’s faster, so when her tempestuous mood turns onto Aizawa he’s ready, hugging the hurricane in his quirk to smother her forceful mental shove into nothing as his loose hair lifts, his eyes shining red.
“This is our case,” Aizawa warns, unblinking as he stares Kiki down, because if there’s one thing he can expect with this family, it’s that conflict breeds more conflict, and he’s not giving Kiki the chance to turn her fierce temper onto any viable punching bag. If Aizawa has to be that buffer, so be it.
Although Kiki can’t push with her quirk, it doesn’t strip any of the ferocity from her mother’s tone as she spits, “He’s just a child–”
“Me and the Detective’s case,” Aizawa snaps, and if Hitoshi happens to be giving him a stunned, reverent look for taking this sudden stand against Kiki, Aizawa isn’t doing it for thanks or admiration, but that doesn’t mean he can’t feel a little bit good about it. “Hitoshi works for me, and I agree that hanging onto the weapon is a good insurance policy.” They might not need it, but it’ll certainly give them some much needed credibility should Hitoshi’s involvement in this be called into question. It’s not much, but Aizawa’s fucked up too much to leave any precaution un-taken.
After a moment’s hesitation, while a stare-down of insurmountable tension takes place, Tskauchi does something with the revolver and it hinges open. Tipping out an empty cartridge and checking there were no other bullets loaded, the Detective closes the weapon back up and hands it to Aizawa, who promptly disappears it into one of his pockets. His quirk deactivates as soon as he breaks eye contact with Kiki, but there’s no lashback, this little clash of wills put to rest as quickly as it happened.
Aizawa doesn’t like arguing with Kiki ever, and especially not in front of Hitoshi, but this time Hitoshi clearly doesn’t mind someone going up against his Ma, taking a stand where she wouldn’t listen to her son. Perhaps she should have stayed outside with Hizashi, but there’s little help such reflections do for them now.
When his phone buzzes, Aizawa jumps on the distraction, opening a reply from Snipe that simply reads ‘Type 26 revolver’, which gives Aizawa enough to search for should he want further information about the weapon resting against the back of his hip in one of his zippable pockets.
“What are you going to do with the video?” Tsukauchi asks Hitoshi, who doesn’t quite smile, but his frown lessens somewhat. The perils of working a crime scene with your mother. Aizawa certainly couldn’t do it, so Hitoshi’s made of stronger stuff than him in that respect.
“Leak it to a media outlet,” Hitoshi replies steadily, though he looks a little off-colour as he shuffles closer to Aizawa, like a moon coming into closer orbit of its planet. “Not Sugiyama,” he adds. “Looks too suspicious if everything comes from the same person.”
Aizawa’s got a hunch, but keeps it to himself.
“Then who?” Tsukauchi asks, and Kiki’s not saying anything, but her face is stormy enough to tell tall tales of the discontent she's failing to hide. She probably told herself she knew what she was getting into, but feeling prepared for something and being prepared for it aren’t always the same thing. This is the sort of wavering nerve that Hitoshi had warned them about the night before the interview, and though Kiki held out admirably through that shitshow, there were no actual corpses involved then.
“Ever heard of Teen Heroes and Villains magazine?” Hitoshi says with the barest hint of lightness in his tone, and Aizawa conjures an image of a heavily made-up girl with a giant phone case, posing with Hitoshi for an overly suggestive selfie.
“Uhhhh,” Tsukauchi makes the kind of noises any adult would when it comes to such a ‘publication’.
“Anyway, I’ve got a… contact there,” Hitoshi settles, looking around behind himself, skimming over the newly mutilated body before turning quickly back to the front. Aizawa can appreciate that: keep moving forward, always. There’s nothing that can change the past, so throwing energy backwards is only going to be wasted.
“We should move on,” Aizawa offers into the heavy atmosphere of the room, thinking that if they can just get back to Hizashi he’ll drain some of the venom from the air. But then he starts to reflect on Hitoshi’s last note, and realises something a little later than he should’ve. “When you said go back to where it all began,” he says as they start to walk away from the study, leaving Tsukauchi behind to do the Detective’s own sweep of evidence, both planted and real. “Did you mean–”
“The house,” Hitoshi confirms over him. “It’s the only place that makes sense.”
“Are you sure he’ll go back there?” Aizawa tests.
“He will if I’m there,” Hitoshi replies morosely. They avoided visiting the Shinsou family estate once before, so Aizawa supposes it’s inevitable they’d end up there sooner or later. Shiyoko has been there too, but whether she's returned since with Dr. Shinsou they can’t hope to know. Yet.
“Here they are,” Hizashi greets as the three of them emerge from the apartment, and he’s always been good at reading a room, so the flashing white grin is no doubt a calculated ploy. “I’d ask who died, but I guess we know that already.”
If Hizashi wanted to face the grotesque scene inside then he could, of that Aizawa’s got no doubt, but he’s secure enough in himself to recognise where he’s not needed, and what he’d rather not see. Hizashi’s always been a Hero for the side of the living, so that’s where he’s best placed – at the door standing guard, working towards the preservation of life rather than the twisting of death into more acceptable shapes.
“I need a fucking cigarette,” Kiki sighs, and Aizawa can’t blame her. Meeting Hizashi’s eyes, Aizawa offers a quick flick of his gaze that says ‘you go’ in a split-second, and their unspoken language is so strong that Hizashi gets it without needing another prompt.
“You read my mind, Kiki.” Looking back over his shoulder at Aizawa and Hitoshi as he leads Kiki away, he offers a collected, “We’ll meet you outside?”
Aizawa nods, leaning back against the wall as Tsukauchi sticks his head through from the study to call the remaining police officer through – no doubt to get him on the same page as the rest of them regarding why the corpse has suddenly acquired some dramatic body-mod graffiti since they let the weird hobo-looking underground Hero and actual teenager near the crime scene.
Alone with Hitoshi again, Aizawa tips his head as if it’ll give him new insight of the teen and offers a chesty, “You okay?” like he knows it’s not true, but Hitoshi still gets the chance to decide how much he wants to share.
“Didn’t expect her to go off like that,” Hitoshi murmurs, standing close to Aizawa but not breaching the space between them just yet. Only a step away from each other, maybe less.
“Me either,” Aizawa replies, and somehow he’d expected less trouble from Kiki spectating one of their weirder crime scene shakedowns, but maybe that just shows how desensitised to it they are.
“Did you mean it?” Hitoshi asks suddenly, hands slipped back into his pockets as he watches Aizawa without suspicion or fear clouding his gaze, just that mental highway between them wide open. “When you said I was amazing, because of the way the notes link together?”
Aizawa nods, mouth drawn tightly shut, and then in a heartbeat Hitoshi’s taken that step closer and drops his head, resting his brow on Aizawa’s shoulder as a ragged breath escapes him, the pressure Aizawa was expecting, but that Hitoshi wouldn’t let go until there was no one else to see.
“It makes me feel so… broken,” Hitoshi whispers, not especially emotive or upset, not the way he was yesterday, but for Aizawa to actually compliment him on something that seems so wrong must be confusing at the best of times.
“You’re doing great.” Aizawa lifts a hand to the top of Hitoshi’s back, lays it across the space where his neck becomes his spine and moves his palm slowly back and forth.
“Really?” It makes perfect sense why Hitoshi wouldn’t let anyone else see the cracks, even his own mother. They try to be strong for each other, even Aizawa can tell that much, not realising that each of them let Aizawa see the fears they hide from one another.
“Yes, Hitoshi,” Aizawa says softly, turning his face so his mouth brushes Hitoshi’s soft lavender hair, keeps the space between their bodies. Hitoshi is bowed against him like a tree trained into a strange shape, and Aizawa purses his lips against Hitoshi’s scalp, mouthing the soft promise, “If this doesn’t work, nothing will.”
Aizawa means it – there’s no way the Doc could ignore something like this, and if he does then they’ll never reach him. So it has to work, and Aizawa might have argued against this idea in the beginning, but now it’s all they have, so they gotta make it work.
“I hope so.” Hitoshi’s talking to Aizawa’s chest more than anything, but he doesn’t mind one bit. Far from it, there’s something wonderful about being so close, like Hitoshi’s mentalist energy stimulates Aizawa’s own. Even if neither of their quirks work through physical contact, a number of mentalist quirks do – Tsukauchi’s and Iwaya’s, to name just two – and the workings of the mentalist user’s mind are murky enough that it’s not impossible to believe that touching could have an effect. Maybe just when there’s a connection between individuals as strong as Hitoshi and Aizawa’s, where Aizawa can feel Hitoshi’s mood radiating into him like catching a sea breeze on his face.
They just stand there, savoring the moment, Aizawa’s hand moving rhythmically across Hitoshi’s back, in time with the deep, slow breaths he draws and releases across Aizawa’s front. Then footsteps come from within and Hitoshi jumps back with a gasp, his face flushed and restless gaze as Tsukauchi and the other police officer emerge.
“I think we’re good to go,” the Detective announces, looking around for the rest of their group with no flicker of reaction over the way Hitoshi bolts back from Aizawa – not that they were doing anything wrong, it's just a little more exposure than Hitoshi’s clearly comfortable with. “Where’re the others?”
“Outside. Smoke break,” Aizawa answers concisely, and Tsukauchi gives a nod before leading on. The officer remains behind to presumably wait for a team to collect the body. What fun they’re going to have.
On the outside, Kiki and Hizashi have found a patch of shade, and either Hizashi finished quickly or he didn’t smoke at all, because his arms are crossed over his front, no doubt sweating in his heavy Hero leathers, while Kiki finishes her de-stressing cigarette. Aizawa can only hope it worked, as the scene definitely hit a raw nerve in both Shinsous. If anyone can pull off soothing as fraught a mother as Kiki is right now then it’s Hizashi, just like Hitoshi could only be comforted by Aizawa when they were alone.
Maybe that’s weird or egotistical of Aizawa to think, but no one else has been through all of this alongside Hitoshi, has been the one responsible for getting Hitoshi into it. That’s a guilt Aizawa tries to wrestle with, but reminds himself of what Hitoshi’s said before – that Dr. Shinsou would have come for his wife and son sooner or later, and all Aizawa did was got himself involved at the start. Between that and having no idea any of this is happening, Aizawa’s glad he’s here.
“Where are we headed?” Kiki asks as she stubs out her cigarette and drops it in a bin while Tsukauchi unlocks the police car, and she might still be a little prickly, or Aizawa’s just paranoid, but when she heads to the passenger seat in the car no one challenges her to ride shotgun.
“Back to the station,” Tsukauchi announces. “I need to speak with the Chief again before our next move.”
The next move meaning the trap itself, the place Hitoshi is luring his father to go back to where it all began: the 99 Massacre, the abuse of his wife and son, of Shiyoko, all of it.
This time in the car Aizawa avoids the middle seat in the back, taking one of the sides and letting Hitoshi slot in-between him and Hizashi, pressed together shoulder-to-knee on each side. Hizashi immediately asks Tsukauchi to wind the window down and hangs his arm out of it in the scorching sunshine, humming obnoxiously the whole way back, which gets on Aizawa’s nerves – sing properly or don’t bother, as far as he’s concerned – but no one else complains so he lets it go, letting himself be soothed by the motion of the car as much as he can ever be relaxed with a policeman of any kind behind the wheel.
There’s a whole new mess when they get back to the police station, but it’s no longer an active mess. No, the whole area surrounding the station has been cleared, rubbish and signs scattered around as the streets all around the building have been cordoned off by police roadblocks dressed up in riot gear, though the crowds still exist on the fringes, seeming angrier than ever. Moving people away never really helps them being any less enraged, though it lessens the danger they pose to people just trying to do their jobs in the danger zone.
“Holy shit,” Hitoshi murmurs as they’re waved through one of the checkpoints, and it can’t be missed that pictures of Hitoshi have appeared in among those of his father, and as with all things, some are ardently in favour, others violently against. If Aizawa had to take a wild guess as to what happened, he’d say opposing factions of the crowds gathered around this nexus of the Deathnote Killer frenzy finally devolved into fighting one another, at which point the police finally had enough and cleared them all out. “Think I managed to convince them, Aizawa?” Hitoshi needles as Tsukauchi is parking up, but Aizawa just rolls his eyes, not rising to the dig, lest Hitoshi need reminding whose shoulder he likes to lean on when he’s not feeling so confident.
The station remains as quiet as it was this morning, a verifiable ghost town that Tsukauchi leads them through as he heads up to Chief Tsuragame’s office in a silent procession, even Hizashi. Present Mic will pick up some points for being the Pro Hero closest to this case, assuming they actually manage to solve it. It’s a nice arrangement when Aizawa and Hizashi do work together – Aizawa does the work, Hizashi takes the credit. Hizashi has done so much for Aizawa over the course of their friend and partnership that if anyone was deserving of the credit, it’s him. Who else picked Aizawa up out of the gutter when he almost worked himself into an early grave, kept him fed and washed and off the streets while Aizawa got clean and his fucking life together? Aizawa wouldn’t be half the person he is today without Hizashi, so if anyone’s getting stupid points to contribute towards a ridculous ranking exercise, at least it’s someone who deserves them.
“Come in, I’ve been expecting you.” Tsuragame is back behind his desk when Tsukauchi knocks and lets himself into the room they were in only earlier today for the interview, though the disruption of the camera and lights have long since been sent away, so it’s just the jowly Police Chief behind a large stack of papers, working overtime, as they’ve all been.
“We just came from the home of the lawyer responsible for Dr. Shinsou’s conviction,” Tsukauchi starts out all business and remains so. “The cause of death appears to be suicide, actual suicide, without interference from Dr. Shinsou or another mentalist quirk user.”
Tsuragame takes control the way anyone of his long-standing authority knows how to do, flexing his fingers together as he sits back in his chair and takes stock of the handful of misfits before him that constitute their best attempt at a hit squad to catch a pair of dangerous killers. His canine eyes narrow on Hitoshi stood beside Aizawa, and he offers a wary, “But.”
“But Hitoshi made some… changes to the crime scene, so as to make it appear like the work of the fake copycat killer,” Tsukauchi continues. “He’s taken some footage he intends to leak to the press.”
“Oh, were you expecting me to wait to do that?” Hitoshi pipes up suddenly, and there’s an icy wave across the room.
“You mean, you already…?” Tsukauchi starts awkwardly.
“Uh, yeah,” Hitoshi replies obviously, looking around at them in disdain. “It’s gotta be fresh, otherwise what’s the point?”
That catches every one of them off-guard, stunned silent as the reality of the bomb Hitoshi has casually released sinks in. Because they don’t know how long it might take the footage to reach Dr. Shinsou, assuming it does at all, but one thing’s for sure: they have to get to the house before he does.
Notes:
Ohhhhh now we're GETTING SOMEWHERE!
*Dramatic music increases*
I know I say this a lot (almost as much as 'this is my fav chapter'), but I promise that I did NOT think of the link-up with the deathnote phrases until this last part, but the second I DID think of it I was like oh hellmotherfuckinHELLYEAH! Sometimes things just WORK OUT, and this was one of them.
Y'all better put your high tension cliffhanger-enduring pants on for these coming chapters, that's all I have to say.
Chapter 78: The Shinsou House
Summary:
Going back to where it all began.
Notes:
Are we ready to shit our pants yet, readers?
No?
Give it a chapter. This chapter.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After Hitoshi throws a can of gasoline on the fire by oh-so-casually announcing he’s already leaked a video that comes off as definitive proof he’s out in the world killing people, it puts a new spin on their order of priorities going forwards. Instead of taking more time to calmly plan through how they approach and secure the derelict Shinsou family estate, it’s more of a mad scramble to get things together and hit the road again. Maybe it's not that complicated anyway, but then mental prep time might have been nice. Hitoshi's approach is closer to tearing a plaster off with a significant amount of body hair still attached, and certainly doesn't do anything for the tension, which strains tighter and tighter like iron cables on a suspension bridge during a storm.
In case the Shinsou place is being watched already, it’s decided that the full force of the police obviously surrounding the building is an all-round bad idea – as is Hitoshi heading in blind without someone else to check the place out first. Though, neither are Hitoshi and Kiki to be left alone under any circumstances, so what they narrow down on is the need to establish a nearby base, somewhere secure they can observe the Shinsou estate from without being in the jaws of the lion.
What they end up with is that Tsukauchi takes an unmarked car from the police station car park, travelling incognito, and they set out to roam the neighbourhood around the Shinsou place until they find an appropriately tall apartment block with a flat roof and discrete outside access. The Shinsou estate is unassuming in itself, at least from the outside, which is surrounded by a tall wall that has been vandalised pretty heavily. If Aizawa’s any judge of it, the majority of graffiti is recent, going by the slogans professing the Deathnote Killer the scourge of the city’s scum and Dr. Shinsou a deranged killer or unparalleled visionary, that sort of thing. For now it's quiet, thankfully, and past the external wall at ground level only the rooftops are visible within, some of which are run down and in other places practically fallen. Time hasn't been kind to the structures, nor should it be.
Hitoshi and Kiki are deadly quiet in the undercover police car, which is a little more spacious than the traditional police car they had earlier, so although Aizawa doesn’t have to be pressed right up against Hitoshi in the backseat, he finds himself doing so anyway. Without even thinking about it, his hand comes to rest on Hitoshi’s forearm too, holding him in a grip just firm enough to keep reminding Hitoshi he’s not going to be left alone in there, not that Aizawa imagines it really helps. Hitoshi doesn't shake him off, though, so whoever's comfort it's for, hopefully it does something.
Once they've found an appropriate building to use as a lookout, after a few false starts, they take a service lift to the top floor of an apartment block overlooking the Shinsou family home and climb stairs the rest of the way onto the roof. This includes hauling a not insignificant amount of audio equipment, including earpieces that get handed out to all five of them as Tsukauchi sets the equipment up off a hefty battery that Aizawa gets the privilege of lugging around.
The rooftop lookout is bare and unassuming, with an asphalt floor and low wall that runs around the outside, dotted with air conditioning units and the odd satellite dish. No one from the ground looking up would be able to see them unless they were at the very edge of the roof, and they can't see the main entrance of the Shinsou House unfortunately, but it's all they've got, so it’ll have to do.
Their makeshift observation tower is baking hot from the afternoon heat, which is only just starting to abide, the golden syrupy sun slowly stretching their shadows into spectres. Walking a little closer to the edge, Aizawa can finally see over the perimeter of the wall into the Shinsou house. There’s two big buildings within the walls, both paneled with distressed, in-places-rotten wood, separated across a courtyard garden that’s desperately overgrown. The larger of the two structures has some broken windows, but across the rectangular plot in the diagonal corner sits a smaller building, which is boarded up and so dense with creeping vines it barely seems like a house at all, given back to nature.
Aizawa hears the click of a lighter and smells the smoke before he turns to confirm Kiki with a cigarette in her mouth, walking up beside Aizawa as he stands by the edge of the rooftop studying the site.
“The smaller one is where we used to live,” she tells Aizawa without him needing to ask, and it chills Aizawa’s blood to freezing to think that the run-down, traditionally styled two-storey house is where Hitoshi grew up – was even born, maybe. “The larger one contains the study and clinic, with his lecture hall underneath.”
“That’s where he killed everyone.” Hitoshi apparates by Aizawa’s elbow like a cloud of lavender smoke, formed from Kiki’s fragrant sighs. Though he doesn’t speak a word of it, Aizawa couldn’t be any more aware of the stress carried in the teen than if Hitoshi grabbed him by the ear and screamed into it.
“It doesn’t look like anyone got into the smaller building,” Aizawa observes, aware that there were a cohort of squatters in this place before Shiyoko showed up to turn them into her disciples.
“They wouldn’t,” Kiki answers icily. “It’s a fortress, no outside access. Once it’s locked no one gets in or out.” Also horrifying for too many reasons to go into, so Aizawa tries not to. Some things are best left buried.
Aizawa supposes that no squatters could be bothered to fight their way across the overgrown gardens to try and break their way into the smaller building when a larger one was there, but part of him wonders if it’s deeper than that. If the bad energy of the place is enough to ward away even the most twisted people, not that it stopped them occupying the site of the infamous 99 Massacre. It's different, though. Aizawa thinks Hitoshi and Kiki were kept secret enough that their little prison holds no allure for even the strangest of Dr. Shinsou’s fans. Perhaps to burn it to the ground, maybe, but then they’d have to get in line right behind Hitoshi.
“The only entrance is through the lecture hall, around at the front,” Hitoshi tells Aizawa, leaning forward to rest on an elbow. He points with the other arm past a corner of the long rectangular building that borders two walls of the outside wall. “Gotta assume that’s how others have been getting in.”
Tsukachi has a set of thermal imaging goggles that he’s using to check the place, quiet and focused as he scans the windows, though they won’t see through walls so it’s only a half measure. No, to really be sure they have to put feet on the ground.
Aizawa hops up onto the edge of the wall in a squat, perched and contemplating the best way to get in when from behind him a voice says, “You don’t think you’re going in there alone, do you?”
“Spose not,” Aizawa answers briefly. Tsukauchi has put away the goggles and looks across as the dark fortress with his arms crossed. “Front door?” Aizawa suggests, seeing as he doesn’t quite trust the Detective's ability to tightrope walk any distance at all.
“I suppose so,” Tsukauchi echoes unenthusiastically, and supposing this place is being watched, a known policeman strolling through the door hardly bodes well, but they’ll have to deal with it. There’s no obvious signs of anyone on lookout, and Aizawa has a hunch that even if this place were being watched, and Dr. Shinsou knew Hitoshi wasn’t going in alone, he would come anyway. They’ll just have to hope.
“What about us?” Hitoshi asks, for once not sounding overburdened with the desire not to be left out.
“Stay here with your Ma and Hizashi,” Aizawa says, and isn’t argued with. Hitoshi’s going to end up over there sooner or later, so Aizawa doesn’t blame him for preferring it to be later.
Aizawa pulls his goggles on as a precaution, remaining where he is like a gargoyle as Tsukauchi heads back towards the fire escape that leads up onto this rooftop. “I’ll meet you at the bottom,” Aizawa says by way of explanation, lashing one piece of his capture weapon to a window railing on the building facade a couple of floors down and then drops off the edge.
Freefalling for a few seconds before picking up the support of his capture weapon to swing through the air, Aizawa lets the rush of adrenaline flood his system, because it’s not like he isn’t going to need it soon enough. Whatever’s waiting for them in there is nothing good.
Landing lightly at street level, Aizawa takes the extra few minutes while Tsukauchi makes his own way down to look around, assuaging a few doubts about obvious spaces to keep a watch on this place from. He allows himself to believe that perhaps Shiyoko’s forces are thin enough they couldn’t spare a scout on this place for no reason, seeing as Hitoshi’s summons only went out less than an hour ago. Until then, no one had any reason to think this place would be important, or that Hitoshi would ever dream of coming back, much less to meet with his criminally insane father.
Aizawa hasn’t checked, but has no doubt that Hitoshi’s clip has already dispersed like nerve gas through the media, so they just have to hope Dr. Shinsou’s gotten the message. It seems hard to miss, though, with the way Shinsou mania has swept across the city. What his classmates back in UA must be thinking doesn’t even seem relevant, so distant from this world they’ve been plunged into, but Aizawa’s sure the impact will make itself known in the end.
Tsukauchi finally emerges from a fire door at street level, so Aizawa waits for him to catch up, then carries on walking round the wall in the direction Hitoshi pointed. They reach the front of the larger Shinsou building, which has been vandalised almost past recognition, the signs torn down and boards over the windows and front door. The planks covering the door have been pulled off just enough that the door is half open and stuck, barely big enough to squeeze through, leading to the eerie darkness within.
"We stay together," Aizawa murmurs as Tsukauchi pauses next to him, taking a second before they step into the belly of the beast. But only a second.
"Yes," the Detective as good as whispers, ducking his head as he stoops down and slots himself through the door ahead of Aizawa, who follows a moment after.
It takes a moment to adjust to the change in light, only sparse beams and spots of sun cutting through the dark where holes in the boarding up has failed. The floorboards are damp and cracked under Aizawa’s feet, some of the ceiling rafters have fallen down but others hold strong as they stand in the entrance hall of what had once been Dr. Shinsou’s grandiose work-from-home facility.
Ahead of them an internal wall has completely broken down, screen panel doors stripped back to the frame, offering a window view across the full length of the lower floor of the building, which is dedicated to Dr. Shinsou’s personal lecture hall, rows of seats and desks laid out like pews in a church before a set of blackboards, whatever was once written on them washed away by years of neglect.
If Aizawa stops for a second and lets imagination run loose, he can see the ghosts of all the ones who passed here, the orderly toast to their own death that their beloved Professor Shinsou invited his most devoted students to share in. The bad energy of this place has soaked it to the core, too potent for even the harshest summer light to bring a touch of warmth to. The only life comes from the moss and plants that have started growing through cracks in the floor and through the walls, as if Mother Earth herself is dismantling the building after humans have abused her sacred ground so much.
To the right of the entrance hall there’s a staircase, which presumably leads to the clinic and infamous study upstairs, and is where they turn to next. There are no sounds or signs of movement within the place, which calms Aizawa as much as he can be calmed walking through such a horrific mausoleum. He leads the way, Tsukauchi following after him, and they ascend the tightly curling staircase to the upper floor.
Neither of them speak a word, the weight of their surroundings too monumental to break with frivolous speech. They arrive at the clinic, or that's what it seems to be, going by the trashed medical apparatus scattered wildly around the room. This takes up around half the upper floor, or slightly less, as a much studier wall blocks out the rest of the floor behind a heavy wooden door: Dr. Shinsou's study, the dark heart of this many-headed monster.
The clinic shows plenty of signs of squatters, both long-term and recent. Things have been scratched into the walls, names and dates along with more eerie additions – Hakamata Shiyoko in one corner, carved out over and over again, as if they had to use the walls when there was no skin left to tarnish. It's deadly quiet, and Tsukauchi has the thought to touch his earpiece and murmur, "All clear so far, we're about to enter the study."
Aizawa is almost at the door, its heavy brass handle just beyond his fingertips when Hitoshi's voice swims into his ear, a violet phantom that purrs a sultry, "I hope you're ready."
Of course not, there's no way anyone can be ready for this, but that's not the point, so Aizawa says nothing and just opens the door.
The first thing to hit Aizawa is the smell. Pure death, mixed with undertones of hardwood and chemicals. The most comfortable of all the rooms yet, this was clearly the most favoured by the squatters to sleep in, who piled filthy blankets onto a large leather sofa that's been pushed towards the back of the room, near a large medicine cabinet in the far corner that's been thoroughly rifled, empty bottles and storage flasks scattered, some broken into crystal shards that glisten in the refracted afternoon light that pushes its way in through windows covered with sheets. The rest of the far end of the room is walled with bookcases that run floor to ceiling, some of the books thrown around the room, pages torn out like confetti, but others remain decaying on the shelf.
At the front of the room where they stand there's a desk tucked into the corner on Aizawa’s right, and a once-luxurious armchair is more prominent in the middle of the space, within an arm's reach – one of Dr. Shinsou's arms – of the desk drawers. It's from a view of this chair that the opposing wall takes centerpiece place in the Doc’s infamous study. The largest space of bare wall, where, still visible after all these years, is a dark brown message in dried blood, drained from the policeman Tsukauchi must have known by name if nothing else.
DEATH IS FREEDOM
Dr. Shinsou's original manifesto, but defaced alongside it there's an angry scribble that looks like pen and blood mixed together, Shiyoko's modest addition – as reported by Tamakawa, when he came here many days ago and found the leftovers of the squatters who would not join her deadly mission.
80% MIND
If Shiyoko considered herself to be so powerful back then, what could they assume of her now? Ninety-nine percent mind, as per the Doc’s massacre? Or had they reached the fabled hundred, mastered total control of their minds over other people's matter? If what has been happening to the Doc's latest victims is any indication, they'd sure as shit assume so.
"All clear," Tsukauchi says into his earpiece.
"For now," Hitoshi replies straight into Aizawa’s. Then, as if he can see through Aizawa’s own eyes, even though it's impossible, Hitoshi adds just as the thought is crossing Aizawa's mind that this room seems shorter than the lecture hall below, "There's a hidden room at the back, behind the bookcase."
"Which bookcase?" Aizawa asks as he crosses the room, passing Dr. Shinsou's armchair with an involuntary shiver, like a ghost of him remained behind to observe them.
"Farthest to the right," Kiki answers before Hitoshi does, so Aizawa walks up to the last of the identical bookcases that make up three quarters of the back wall, then looking down sees the faintest guideline on the floor, a long curve that rounds out the corner between the edge of where the bookcase meets the next and the wall. "There's a button on the top shelf, it won't budge otherwise," Kiki advises, and it'd be a damn sight harder doing this without her in his ear, so he’s appreciative of that much.
Aizawa is a little too short to see past the highest shelf, but the structure is solid and holds out under his weight when he grabs the top shelf and pulls himself up, raising his chin high enough to spy the unassuming button that must release a catch on the other side, which he pushes in with a soft click and drops back down.
One side of the bookcase rolls out on a hinge as the secret door opens up, and Aizawa would think it too corny or stereotypical to be real, but with someone like Dr. Shinsou, the only thing more textbook villain would be a magic mirror on the wall.
Stepping through to the small back-room behind the study, Aizawa catches sight of more shelves piled up with dusty, untouched medical apparatus, glass flasks and beakers and long steel implements, along with what looks suspiciously like a cell at the other end of the corridor-like room, walled off with thick iron bars. A waiting room for the 'volunteers' of his sick research, probably. In the middle of this secret room carved out from the back of the building, the top of a narrow staircase emerges without a bannister, the steps coated in a thick layer of dust. The squatters never got in here, clearly, and if Shiyoko knew of this place she wasn't able to unlock it. A secret kept only to the Doc's nearest and dearest.
"This staircase comes out behind the lecture theatre?" Aizawa asks his earpiece, which receives an affirmative murmur from Kiki in return.
"Yes. He used it sneak girls upstairs without having to go through the clinic," Kiki explains complete with unsavory details Aizawa isn't sure he wanted to know, even though he'd guessed as much already. The esteemed Professor Shinsou keeping one of his star pupils behind after one of his famous lectures – such as the ones with the filmed series online, still getting thousands of views a day, perhaps even in the millions since news of his escape broke yesterday, when Dr. Shinsou's infamy rekindled like a bushfire that was never quite out.
"We can keep watch from here," Aizawa comments as he inspects the inside wall that backs onto the bookcases, running a palm along the smooth water stained plaster.
"How?" Tsukauchi has followed Aizawa into the small hidden room and sets his hands on his hips.
"By making a hole in it," Aizawa answers obviously, unzipping his jumpsuit to probe his inside pockets for a particular tool, a hand operated drill with a bit large enough to let Aizawa peer through. Not the first time he's needed to make his own peepholes, so he knows just where to place them as he puts the tip of the drill to the wall and turns the handle, twisting the drill bit to smoothly carve out a hole through the wall and then the back of the bookcase on the other side, plaster dust and wood shavings being cast out as Aizawa bores his way through.
“What’s he doing?” Hitoshi asks through their earpieces.
It’s Tsukauchi who answers, “Drilling holes.”
A soft sound of Hitoshi’s snort greets them down the intercom, but after all, a secret hideout behind the most important room in this building is a hell of a convenient spot to keep an eye on them from. Aizawa can’t exactly be standing right next to Hitoshi if his father is expected to stroll in. Dr. Shinsou may assume Hitoshi’s not alone anyway, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try to dress it down.
“We’ll be ready for you soon,” Aizawa says softly as he makes it all the way through with the first hole and puts his eye up to check, confident he can see the majority of the room and will be able to use his quirk effectively, checking the spacing before beginning to drill the second.
“I’ll take a look downstairs,” Tsukauchi says before he carefully descends the thin staircase down to the below floor. Aizawa wonders what this building used to be before Dr. Shinsou was here, if he dreamed up these secrets from the beginning or if they were fitted later, as his work took a darker, more diabolical turn.
“Should we come over?” Hitoshi asks, and even he seems to be behind the ‘never alone’ rule now, though they all agreed Kiki should stay at the look-out with Hizashi before she sets a damn foot near this place. Hizashi has the power to flatten this whole building in a single shout from there if he wanted to, which isn’t much of a contingency plan, but Aizawa’s been in a collapsing building before and knows how to keep himself and others safe while the whole structure becomes a trap to their targets. Backups on top of backups.
“No,” Aizawa responds quickly as he finishes the second hole, checking once more to ensure he’s got the best view of the room he can have. “I’ll come get you.”
"What about Tsukauchi?" Hizashi finally speaks up.
Aizawa can hear his footsteps below, but the voice comes over the intercom. "I'll be fine. It's just for a few minutes."
Aizawa doesn't quite agree or like it, but they're pretty confident no one else is here, so it'll have to do for the short time it takes to go collect Hitoshi.
Aizawa checks the spy holes once more and then exits through the bookcase door, leaving it open a crack to get back into upon his return with fragile cargo. If Hitoshi is usually delicate goods around the topic of his father and his childhood, this is going to be on a whole other level. The heart of where he was abused, where he surely hasn't set foot since Kiki fled with her son after six long months of planning. But it was Hitoshi's idea to come back here, so they're going to have to hope he's as ready as anyone can be.
Tsukauchi is inspecting the lower floor when Aizawa comes down the staircase, roaming between the rows of seats in Dr. Shinsou's shrine to himself. There's a set of long windows and double doors that open up to the overgrown courtyard on one side of the room, and at the back, to the side of the blackboards, a slim panel door that has been popped open from the inside to reveal the other end of the secret passage to the study. Where Dr. Shinsou smuggled his dirty little secrets.
Aizawa doesn't go all the way back up to the rooftop to collect Hitoshi, just heads out the front door and around the corner to the foot of the lookout-building that looks no different at ground level, which is exactly the point.
"I’m outside," Aizawa says to spur Hitoshi into action, but rather than jumping down the way Aizawa did, Hitoshi pops out of the fire door, surprising Aizawa so much he jumps.
"Easy, they're not even here yet." Hitoshi isn't alone still, Hizashi at the back and Kiki between them giving Aizawa a look through the door that promises and threatens in the same troubled stare.
"It's not too late," Aizawa finds himself blurting, as if Kiki is the hammer tapping him on the knee. "You don't actually have to be in the house, they'll probably still come."
"Then you don't know my dad well enough," Hitoshi says so caustically his tone could be substituted for quicklime. "He won't set foot inside the place unless he knows I'm there." And being a mentalist of such phenomenal power, of course Dr. Shinsou would sense his own son's presence. There must be a flame to draw the moth.
"Worth a shot," Aizawa gives in a grizzled murmur. Kiki says nothing, not in words, as she hands her son over to Aizawa’s care, but especially with Kiki, things don't always have to be said out loud to be understood.
Aizawa can't outright hear Kiki's quirk as she uses it to communicate with Hitoshi, not like yesterday where he had his ear glued to the ground whether he liked it or not, but he can catch the essence of her intention when Hitoshi steps through the fire door – a whispered reminder of the rules they set down for Hitoshi's safety: not to speak to his father under any condition, even with the safety net of Aizawa watching.
Hopefully, Hitoshi is going to stick to it.
"C'mon then," Hitoshi says with his brave face on, strolling past Aizawa back towards the house. Aizawa watches him from behind for a moment, how much older he is now compared to when he left this place, and if there's any chance that coming back is about more than luring out his father, but returning to where he was at his most helpless, to prove to them all, himself especially, he's not so powerless anymore. Some people run from their demons and keep running for the rest of their lives, but others turn to face them, so they can feel at peace in the dark and live without fear.
Aizawa catches up with Hitoshi in a few long strides and stays close as they head inside, ducking back through the jammed halfway-open door.
"Wow, they really tore this place up," Hitoshi's voice is a sleek jungle cat stalking through the aisles between abandoned seats. The side doors to the internal courtyard have been opened, but Tsukauchi is still inside, offering a relaxed wave from the far side of the room.
"You should get out of sight," Aizawa tells the Detective quietly, knowing the earpieces will carry his warning where volume fails him in this haunted, hallowed place.
"I'd like to borrow that drill of yours," Tsukauchi replies, gesturing at the small secret door on ground level. "Keep a lookout from down here."
"Okay." Aizawa’s already pacing over, getting the compact fold-down tool back out of his pocket and not stopping to let Tsukauchi choose so much as taking an approximate read of his height and getting straight to boring a hole through the lightweight wooden door that should let the Detective watch the front entrance from.
It doesn’t take long, so Aizawa’s already turned back and is walking over to Hitoshi by the time Tsukauchi works out a, "thanks," but Aizawa’s not really focused on anything except the leggy teenager picking curiously over the wreckage of his father's tiny kingdom fallen to ruin. Maybe it's satisfying in a way, or comforting to see that this place is no exception to the ravages of time, not protected by supernatural forces that would preserve it exactly as it was the day Hitoshi left, or the day of the massacre.
"Up we go," Hitoshi breathes when Aizawa comes back within reach of him, and there's definitely no question that he was waiting for Aizawa to move on. Brave or not, there's no way Hitoshi is doing this alone, nor would Aizawa want him to.
Hitoshi leads the way, turning to the side as he approaches the staircase leading around on itself to the upper floor, the clinic he may well have been born in, and lived the first weeks or maybe months of his life. Hitoshi’s last note to the Doc was as profound as all the others, for all his claims that they’re not sincere: this is where it all began. Hitoshi’s life, from conception to the moment his imprisonment was broken, now returning here, by choice, to finish what was started those sixteen years ago.
The stairs creak under Hitoshi’s weight, a squeaky greeting underfoot as he ascends ahead of Aizawa, barely a step behind. Hitoshi doesn’t say anything when he reaches the clinic, but he does give a low whistle. It’s the most vandalised of all the rooms, clear signs of the junkie squatters who took up residence here before Shiyoko converted them to her cause – the ones that would be converted. Aizawa wonders if the bodies Tama found when he came here, four, if Aizawa remembers right, were here or in the study.
The study door is still half-open from Aizawa coming back through it to pick Hitoshi up, and the teen stands still for a moment, takes a breath and looks around. There’s more light up here than downstairs, soft shadows that creep more than they slice the space.
Hitoshi says softer than a whisper, so quiet Aizawa’s not sure if it’s audible, the earpiece, or he’s hearing on an unheard frequency of the mind, “Smaller than I remember,” and then steps through to the study.
Aizawa’s close behind, a memory collecting in the shell of his ear of the accusation Hitoshi threw at his mother earlier today – how he was ‘left here’ by her, all those years ago. Aizawa knows Kiki hand was forced, that she didn’t realise what was going on at first, and the moment she did she began to fight her tyrannical husband every way she could, but it doesn’t help the swell of anger in Aizawa that Hitoshi had to endure any of it; that she could’ve found out sooner, could’ve realised Dr. Shinsou was bad news before Hitoshi was even born. But if Hitoshi hadn’t been born, or hadn’t been raised the way he was, he wouldn’t be who he is now, and Aizawa loves him too much already to wish the prodigal child who came from two such challenging, conflicted people had never existed.
Hitoshi’s breath is quick and shallow as he steps into the room where he was experimented with and on, where Dr. Shinsou first drew out his son’s powerful quirk and pushed it to the farthest limits the child could take.
His mouth forms a small sound, a curious, “Huh,” as if remarking on something to himself.
“What?” Aizawa probes gently, still just a step behind Hitoshi as he stands just before the midway point across the room, feeling like his body and mind are lit up all at once, protective instinct tearing every nerve to shreds.
“Thought I’d feel… different,” Hitoshi murmurs, his lips barely moving, and Aizawa’s tempted to reach for him, but understands he might not be ready to be embraced, not here.
Posing a dangerous question, because he just can’t resist it, Aizawa dares to ask, “What do you feel?”
Hitoshi’s face, with the lenses of his mother and father laid over each other and focused into something not entirely either of them, but his own self, turns around the room with a deceptively sleepy, half-lidded stare, and gives a sigh that might actually be disappointment.
“Nothing important.”
Notes:
Are you tense yet?
YOU WILL BE.
I also initially didn't take us to the Shinsou house because I didn't feel like it/didn't have a specific picture in my head, but then it made perfect sense as the setting for this big showdown. I actually drew several floorplans to work out how the building worked because I just couldn't get it straight in my head otherwise. Hope this sets the stage for what we're about to bear witness to, and as always, see y'all next week...
Chapter 79: Wait and Switch
Summary:
Now comes the hard part.
Notes:
*Sound of a heartbeat slowly increasing*
*Overly loud breathing*
*Cracks knuckles*
Let's do this.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They had panicked to get to the Shinsou house in a hurry, desperate to get there before their targets did, and to be prepared for every possibility of what could happen once they arrive. But the one scenario Aizawa hadn’t given much thought in this frantic blur was if Dr. Shinsou doesn’t come.
“He’s going to,” Hitoshi insists the moment any doubts are raised, and Aizawa’s got no option but to trust him. Except it’s been almost an hour since they got here, and the stress is starting to get unbearable.
Upon arrival, Hitoshi’s first order of business was to tear down the cloth covering the windows, kicking up clouds of dust and letting the light pour in where before it only seeped, filling the dreary room of Dr. Shinsou's study with amber afternoon sun. Aizawa thought about asking if or why it was necessary, but if Hitoshi wanted to do it there’s no reason Aizawa had to stop him, so he just watched in silence.
The next thing Hitoshi did was to toss all the scrap material and grimy blankets piled up on the sofa into the corner of the room, out of sight and mind, then ask Aizawa to help him move the furniture back towards the middle of the floor, away from the wall where it’d been shoved by the squatters, which Aizawa also had no reason to object to and so mutely assisted Hitoshi with. It was almost as if Hitoshi was cleaning up in preparation of his father coming home, only not like that at all.
Once Hitoshi was content with the state of the study Aizawa went back to the hidden room next-door, where he checked and re-checked his spy-holes, making sure Hitoshi knew exactly where is in Aizawa's field of vision and where isn’t; although in theory they won’t need Aizawa’s quirk – because Hitoshi’s not going to talk to the Doc should he curse them with his presence – that doesn’t mean Aizawa’s taking any chances, and Aizawa's gut agrees with this precaution wholeheartedly. They’ll have to hope Dr. Shinsou does show up, or all of this has been for nothing.
What happens if or when the killers do get here is a whole other ball game. Tsukauchi assures them from his own hiding spot on the floor below that an entire team of police officers have been specially briefed for this mission and are waiting only a short distance away, poised and ready for him to give the word to descend upon this place, but as of yet there’s nothing to descend on, just an abandoned house with an underground Hero, a Detective and a teenager getting slowly but surely more wound up.
There’s no telling when or if they’ll show, so Tsukauchi and Aizawa keep to their respective posts in the hidden rooms, split across both floors by the thin staircase at their backs, while Hitoshi remains in the study. It wasn’t easy, not by a long shot, for Aizawa to go even that far away and leave Hitoshi behind, but Hitoshi had been the one to push him away; his soft palms on Aizawa’s arm as he urged his worried guardian towards the hiding place with an impatient, “Just go, I’ll be right here.” As if he’s the one protecting Aizawa, and not the other way around.
They can still talk to each other through the earpieces, which is some comfort, and does mean Hitoshi’s not totally alone – not that he’s really alone with Aizawa just a couple of metres away, face carefully pressed to the wall as he watches Hitoshi moving restlessly about the study through the two holes bored carefully through the wall and Dr. Shinsou's bookcases. Turns out Aizawa drilled out the middle of a book or two as well, but they’ve since been moved so he can see out properly from the shelves, providing a modest amount of cover unless he happens to use his quirk. His view is already restricted enough without his goggles, so Aizawa has had to forego them and will likely alert anyone in the room with the sudden red light that will shine through the spy-holes if it comes to that. If they show up. It's a lot of ifs.
Time doesn’t crawl so much as drag itself across barbed wire in a ditch, and eventually even Hitoshi stops pacing the room waiting for anyone's imminent arrival. After a long contemplative pause, the teen chooses no other than his father’s imposing armchair to sit in, aged leather that wheezes dust and creaks when a Shinsou settles in it for the first time in six long years.
From his narrow view across the room, Aizawa can almost imagine what it was like when Dr. Shinsou sat in the space his son now deliberately occupies, and wonders where Hitoshi would’ve been positioned in this room back then. With its faded dark wood floorboards and white walls, stained and scrawled on to sully its once sterile purity, this is the stage where Hitoshi’s father tried to mould his son into something he’s not. It didn’t take, as it never does, and now the prodigal son has returned to turn the tables on his villain of a father. Aizawa wishes it was the first time he's seen this scenario play out, though never before at such an extreme scale. There's bad fathers, Bad Fathers, and Hitoshi's father.
“What if he doesn’t see the video?” Aizawa dares to worry out loud once more, though it's less of a loud and more a hoarse, trashbag-meow type croak against the wall in front of his mouth.
“It’s been trending like crazy,” Hitoshi replies confidently, seeming idle and overly composed as he crosses one long leg over the other and scrolls on his phone from the comforts of his father’s chair. The leather is a dark burgundy, and was probably a much brighter bloody red in its prime, now aged and split apart like skin that’s been shriveled and peeled back over raw flesh. “If he’s missed it then he’s gotta be dead already.”
“We should be so lucky.” Kiki’s voice slices through clear and sharp over the intercom, still up high on her perch with Hizashi, keeping an eagle eye view on their gunpowder plan in action.
Aizawa hates waiting, he knows and has accepted this fact about himself, understanding that it isn’t the torture to others that it is to him, like his own skin is trying to crawl off him and slither away. But that doesn’t help feeling like his body and brain are simultaneously trying to tear themselves apart from inside, so it’s all he can do not to have a full on anxiety attack just from the suspense alone.
What hasn't helped in the least is that before closing the bookcase door between them, Hitoshi asked Aizawa for one more thing, though he didn't actually say a word. Holding out his open palm, deliberately silent so the others listening on the intercom, particularly his mother, couldn't hear the dangerous request, Hitoshi had asked with no more than his evocative violet and indigo-ringed eyes for the gun Aizawa’s been carrying since they left the lawyer's apartment hours ago.
There was no need to say anything when it’d all been said already, Hitoshi’s voice as clear in Aizawa's head as if an echo had been trapped in there from earlier in the day; of Hitoshi begging his mother for something to have against his father, not to feel like he's being put out there totally unarmed. He didn’t have to say anything, it just prickled Aizawa’s skin like the needle of a tattoo gun.
So Aizawa did it. Pulled the revolver out of his pocket and handed it to Hitoshi in secret defiance of Kiki's wishes. Aizawa could say it was as if Hitoshi had used mind control, but no, this wasn’t one he could blame away on the Shinsou effect, or Hitoshi’s inimitable magnetism. Aizawa just felt in his gut that it was necessary at that moment, and if he’s learned anything since this twisted journey began, it’s to trust his fucking gut. Besides, if Hitoshi can't use the gun then what harm does it do?
Or so Aizawa thought, because it's only once he's safely stowed away watching Hitoshi from afar that the teen's curious fiddling with the weapon takes a sudden turn.
Aizawa had been sure the gun was unloaded, Tsukauchi himself had checked, or he wouldn't have been carrying it around so casually in his pocket all afternoon. But once Hitoshi has the hinge pin figured out that opens the front half of the gun, he's definitely started slotting something into the chambers.
“What are you doing?” Aizawa asks quietly, though he knows what it looks like Hitoshi is doing.
“Can’t you tell?” Hitoshi’s voice lilts, soft and so quiet it’s almost like his lips don’t move, his gaze turned intently into his lap as the lightest clinks sound distantly in Aizawa – and presumably everyone else's – ear.
“What’s he doing?” Kiki looms in right on cue, overly concerned – as she should be – and Aizawa’s very slightly glad she’s all the way over there and presumably can’t clock him around the head mentally from such distance. Presumably.
“A gun’s not much good without bullets,” Hitoshi remarks like the slip of a silk scarf over bare skin, sending a shiver through Aizawa from the top of his head to his toes.
“Without what? ” Kiki cuts like an ice pick to the ear, and whether Aizawa flinches from psychological habit, or whether the estranged Mrs. Shinsou’s quirk is another one of those ones that can be effective via digital communication devices is neither here nor there, but Aizawa feels something.
“Where did you get them?” Aizawa outright hisses, feeling his breath rush against the wall. Hitoshi turns to look over at him dead on, though he’d assured Aizawa it wasn’t super obvious anyone was staring through the room between the books they’d carefully arranged to further disguise his watchpoint. Hitoshi just knows exactly where to look.
“The lawyer’s desk, obviously,” Hitoshi replies with a thin crescent of a smirk, and it flashes back to Aizawa so suddenly and clearly he’s practically hallucinating, blinking away the memory of Hitoshi’s hands leaving the desk-drawers where he’d been rummaging to sit curled in his pockets. Aizawa had been busy worrying about Kiki. He hadn’t even considered it.
That’s why the next thing to come out of Aizawa’s mouth is a reflexive, “Oh shit.”
Fire and brimstone in the female form fills Aizawa's ear. "Oh shit? That's all you have to say after you gave my son a fucking gun?"
Aizawa’s only refuge is to offer a morose, "I didn't know he was going to use it."
Hitoshi comes in brighter, lifting the dark tone with a wry challenge, "Who says I'm going to use it?"
"Then why do you need bullets?" Aizawa retorts.
"Because Dad's a stickler for details, if I know it’s not loaded so does he." This makes an unfortunate amount of sense, and as the only one with eye on Hitoshi right now, Aizawa sees what the rest of them don't. The white of his knuckles around the handle, the way he holds the weapon up at the door testingly, how the barrel shakes with his nervous hands as he practices raising and pointing it at a phantom. Aizawa and Kiki stripped Hitoshi of the only thing that ever gave him power against his father, and expected him to just take it lying down? They were fools.
So Kiki might be furious, but Aizawa doesn't quite regret it, just the circumstances that made it seem necessary.
"You give that gun back right now Hitoshi," comes the full force of motherly scolding, but this wayward teen's not having it.
"Are you hearing yourself? It's just an insurance policy, since you're so blindly convinced that not talking to him is going to keep me safe," Hitoshi declares like he doesn't believe it for a second, and if Dr Shinsou would risk everything to see his son again, aren't they ridiculous to think he'll accept Hitoshi not speaking to him? "If you want this gun back you're going to have to come out here and take it from me."
"I wouldn't if I were you," Tsukauchi cuts in sharper than the edge of a razor blade, much quieter than the rest of them but commanding full attention. "I think I see something outside."
That silences them all instantly, Hitoshi dropping the pistol after checking once more that it's loaded. There’s enough time between Tsukauchi's warning and what happens after that Hitoshi could have loaded it still, and just jumped the gun a little after all this waiting. Aizawa sees the sense in that too, leaving it until the last minute to reveal his last ditch attempt to make sure he doesn't go up against his father completely unarmed. The truth is that Aizawa’s here as a weapon in Hitoshi's arsenal too, as they all are, but some things are just too intimidating to take any chances on.
Past the hammering of his own heart, Aizawa can just make out the faint sounds from below: footsteps, and movement of more than one person, possibly even more than two or three.
"See anything up there?" Aizawa checks, waiting for the voice of his own personal insurance policy.
"Just their shadows. Four, maybe five," Hizashi returns faithfully.
"Five," Tsukauchi confirms much more breathily, needing to be quiet unlike their watchdogs on the roof. "He's here. They both are."
Aizawa’s heart stops for a moment, trapped energy snapping between his nerves as he itches to act but must remain still, lest they give away their position and their prey flee the trap before it can be properly sprung.
“They’re going outside,” Tsukauchi reports a breath between a whisper and silence. “Except for him, he’s heading upstairs.”
Hitoshi’s voice is the sound of the wind itself, “It’s showtime,” he murmurs while lifting a hand to his ear, and the momentary stoppage of Aizawa’s heart was just a warm up, because it comes back kicking into overdrive as he finally grasps the true scale of his underestimation.
"Hitoshi, you better not–" Kiki is saying sternly while Aizawa watches her son calmly reach up and take his earpiece out, rendering the rest of her warning moot, which goes to the effect of, “– break your promise.”
Feeling the reverberation like the chiming of a belltower, it strikes Aizawa that Hitoshi has led them up to the edge of the cliff and then stepped over it the moment he’s beyond their reach. That Hitoshi allowed his mother and Aizawa believe they had control, had the ability to determine what he does or doesn’t do once he confronts his father, but that it’s exactly what Hitoshi wanted them to think to get himself to this point.
Because if Hitoshi had the intention of doing what his mother and Aizawa have told him, he wouldn’t be carrying a loaded gun right now.
Aizawa’s insides seize up like they’re turning to stone, remembering Kiki’s warning about the Shinsou wild streak, the part that goes too far without realising where the line was. So it takes every fibre in Aizawa’s body not to tear himself away from his lookout and go charging in there at the sound of footsteps from elsewhere in the building, but the last thing he wants to lose is the element of surprise.
“I’m going to–” Tsukauchi begins before the line suddenly goes dead.
“Tsukauchi?” Aizawa says with hushed urgency, following with more, “Kiki? Hizashi.”
Nothing. Dead air. The sounds of movements below make Aizawa think Tsukauchi must be leaving his post to investigate the communications outage, which means the last thing Aizawa can do is abandon his.
Especially not with the sound of footsteps climbing the clinic stairs thumping softly through the building, the creaks sounding out their lone passenger.
Aizawa wishes he could speak to Hitoshi, but whether the earpiece was taken out or not, it seems like that option has been denied to them. Hitoshi did say his father misses no details, and his son sitting with an earpiece in is kind of a giveaway; it’s just the idea of Hitoshi being unreachable that makes Aizawa want to throw up.
Hitoshi looks like a photograph, completely static as he sits in his father’s chair waiting for the study door to open. He appears to have the gun tucked away somewhere out of sight, hopefully pointing away from himself, and hopefully not too be used, but that's a lot of hope. Aizawa was so stupid, idiotically handing over the gun with the presumption that the teen had no means or intention of actually using it.
What Aizawa’s coming to terms with like a bout of food poisoning is that really, he has no idea what Hitoshi intends to do. That cunning Shinsou effect sent Aizawa’s internal compass spinning in circles, losing all direction and sense of certainty over what’s right or wrong or true or false; even now, Aizawa can’t be sure of anything, except that his directionless fear is valid. Over what, he doesn’t know, but either way, he should be afraid.
There's no knock at the door they closed between the study and clinic, but the footsteps approaching serve much the same purpose. Each rhythmic step from the master of the house returning to the site of his greatest highs and lows.
Motionless in wait, Aizawa has a sudden bolt of clarity that he's not sorry Hitoshi's carrying a loaded gun, just that he doesn't know how to use it.
Through his narrow peep-hole view of the room, the edges curved in black where his vision is cut off, Aizawa still has a centre-stage view of the door to the study opening, and the man who stands in the doorway behind it.
It’s as if the air in the room has stopped, the entire space in suspended animation as the form of Dr. Shinsou appears. Aizawa only remembers to breathe when his head starts getting woozy, and even then it’s very quietly.
Hitoshi doesn’t move a muscle, slumped in the leather armchair looking much his age, but Aizawa knows better than to mistake it for true teenage apathy. No, the last thing Hitoshi is at this moment is apathetic.
It was the single most important rule they agreed on, the exact thing Hitoshi’s mother forbid him from doing for his own safety, and although Aizawa believes Hitoshi fully understands that, in this moment it all goes out the window. Kiki can’t hear them over the intercom anymore, but from next door Aizawa’s close enough to make out the words.
His tone is everything a sixteen year-old with an estranged father would be, a rum-sour mix of disdain and disinterest as he remarks blankly, “Didn’t bring your new girlfriend?”
Aizawa’s ready if he needs to use his quirk, but Dr. Shinsou doesn’t reply, refuses to rise to the provocation as he steps into the study and closes the door behind him, turning a catch on the inside to lock it, the stiff click audible all the way across the room. The esteemed Professor of Mentalism looks dishevelled in places, a dark suit that hasn’t had the chance to be changed or ironed in a day or two, and a darker grazing of stubble across his jaw that looks black from this far away, but up close may be a deep purple similar to his hair. Yet he remains graceful, holding himself like the most important being in the room on blind faith alone.
There’s a temporal window for what constitutes a reply to anything Hitoshi says, and whether the hooks he throws down with his quirk catch don’t, or the time it takes for his father to walk further into the room isn’t enough, or what he says not enough to constitute a response, Aizawa senses no disturbance in the mentalist energy that’d suggest either Shinsou’s quirk being used.
“I had doubted if you would actually be here.” Dr. Shinsou’s voice is the same deadly opium, poise and cruelty decanted into a salt-lined martini glass.
Hitoshi turns his head very slightly towards his father, away from where Aizawa can see his face, and it wasn’t a question, so Hitoshi can freely answer, “I said I would, didn’t I?”
There’s a stretch of perfect, smothering silence in which neither Shinsou moves or speaks, and though Hitoshi was the last to speak, asking a question no less, Aizawa still doesn’t sense Hitoshi drawing upon his quirk. When he thinks more clearly about it, Aizawa realises that all Hitoshi’s insistences that this wasn’t real were only adjacent to the truth, because there is something real here, something that made Hitoshi want to see Dr. Shinsou again. Not to battle it out with their dragon-like quirks for mental dominance over one another, but a son confronting his father on all the ways he's failed as a parent.
It’s not a far step beyond this, therefore, that the next thing Dr. Shinsou says is a tight-lipped, “How’s your mother?” Almost as if they were a normal estranged father and son going through the motions of a normal family coming back together after many years of strife. Only not like that at all. Because they aren’t normal, they're extraordinary.
This time Aizawa feels the rising power behind Dr. Shinsou’s words as he calls upon his lethal quirk, the question he presents to Hitoshi as a means to take his son back under his control, this time for good.
Hitoshi shouldn’t answer, isn’t supposed to answer, but there’s all sorts of things he’s not supposed to do by his own admission, and the teen's just getting started.
Aizawa barely has time to activate his quirk upon Dr. Shinsou before Hitoshi bites down on the hook with a cool, “Oh, she’s just great without you around."
It's a gamble, relying on his guardian being there to catch him, but Aizawa does. The pressure of Dr. Shinsou’s quirk is immense, stronger now than every time Aizawa has erased it before. A thrashing, vicious beast that he pins to the ground and chokes into submission, feeling sweat collecting on his brow, slipping down his neck and along his collarbone. Restrained, for now.
“Ah,” Dr. Shinsou remarks softly, looking past Hitoshi around the room, and given that Aizawa’s not wearing his goggles and his eyes literally glow when he’s using his quirk, it’s not so obvious Dr. Shinsou can’t find and lock eyes with him from behind the far wall. “I did find it hard to believe you’d come without him.”
Aizawa feels the twist of the knife on the last word, a dagger-like accusation Dr. Shinsou sticks into him through the mental connection they share while Aizawa’s erasing his quirk. Now Aizawa knows exactly what he’s doing, using his own mentalist ability to shut down the part of the Doc’s brain that controls his own quirk, it feels more sensory than ever, as if Aizawa’s peeling a hole in the back of Dr. Shinsou’s head to force himself into and setting up shop inside his brain. And Dr. Shinsou's mind is a bad place to be.
“He does what I want him to,” Hitoshi declares with outright arrogance, but a brag that’s still pretty much true. Aizawa’s all but proven he’ll let Hitoshi get away with murder, perhaps literally before they’re through.
Dr. Shinsou doesn’t move like a person should, or maybe it’s just Aizawa’s perception of the uncanny way even his head tilts, how those sallow cheeks and deep dark eyes look more haunted now than they ever did when he was behind bars. The monster has been set free, but if Aizawa’s got any eye for it, he doesn’t appear to be thriving. Just getting more cruel and desperate.
Blinking while the window of Dr. Shinsou’s quirk is no longer able to latch onto Hitoshi, Aizawa’s ready for the next round, which hits even harder than before. A solid concrete sledgehammer that bounces off thick glass that Aizawa puts between Dr. Shinsou and his prey so forcefully Aizawa twitches, though his gaze doesn’t falter from the Doc’s imposing form as he presents the next loaded question.
“So that’s all there is to your relationship?”
Hitoshi is still lounging in his father’s chair, a fact that may be annoying him, how his place has been taken, how Hitoshi refuses to budge and allow the correct order of things to come through. And the younger Shinsou’s attitude remains wry and caustic, throwing his head back to look up at his father with something that smacks of petulance, a child pushing buttons the way only children know how.
“If you’re insinuating I have some kinda daddy issues, you’ve only got yourself to blame,” Hitoshi lilts. And how. Though Aizawa expects him to try and use his quirk on his father any time now, Hitoshi still doesn’t. But then Aizawa learns why everything here is exactly as Hitoshi wants it to be. “He’s here because we can’t have a normal conversation otherwise, can we?”
Hitoshi’s quirk remains dormant, while the passing of Dr. Shinsou’s question unanswered – or not directly enough to ignite the power of his own quirk – recedes in Aizawa’s mind, leaving a high-water mark against the wall. Waiting for the next crash of waves trying to cave very his skull in.
“That’s what you want, is it?” Dr. Shinsou poses patronisingly, like he’s sneering over Hitoshi’s trite predictability. Except although this is a question, and Aizawa’s ready for that punch of his quirk, oh how he’s ready, it never comes. The Doc just follows on with a harmless, though still accusatory, “To talk to me.”
“You got my messages, didn’t you?” Hitoshi returns, and Dr. Shinsou wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t directly responding to Hitoshi’s invitation, but his pride surely forbids him from admitting that. Or so Aizawa thinks, because as Hitoshi’s pointed out, he doesn’t know Dr. Shinsou the way Hitoshi does.
“Yes,” the Doc answers aloofly, taking one small step closer to Hitoshi in his chair, the sun on his back from the windows behind him, throwing his shadow even longer than the Professor’s lanky form as it passes over his son. “I have some questions about that.”
“Well gee, dad,” Hitoshi mocks in such a way it seems to imply that sarcastically is the only way he’s ever going to call his father by that particular epithet, because what's a wound without some salt to grind into it? “Now’s your chance.”
Dr. Shinsou’s chin turns until his gaze hits Aizawa’s, banging up against that thick glass wall again as Aizawa instinctively activates his quirk.
“What does your friend in the wall think about it?”
This isn’t just a trap for Hitoshi anymore: Dr. Shinsou’s gunning for Aizawa’s mind too, he feels it in the snapping jaws, the hunger and darkness that emanates from the lithe form of Dr. Shinsou standing a few metres away with that uncanny mad dog smile.
“He thinks what I want him to think,” Hitoshi answers confidently, as if he can tell Aizawa’s quirk is thrown over Dr. Shinsou’s and the beast remains caged, but if it isn’t a dangerous fucking game to play. Even if it’s meant to be an act, Hitoshi isn't terribly wrong in what he says: Aizawa’s been a sucker for the precocious teen right from the start, and there’s nothing Hitoshi can’t get his way on if he persists with Aizawa just a little. Look at him now. “I didn't totally ignore your teachings, you know.”
The air prickles, like the bristling of Dr. Shinsou in his slightly grubby suit shifts the energy of the room. “I can see that now.”
Aizawa’s nervous about where the others could be, but he can’t exactly look away, and the intercom in his ear is still dead, perhaps due to some kind of quirk shutting the area down. The fact that police haven’t swarmed this place is a sure indication something isn’t right, but then, that much is kind of obvious. Aizawa can only be in one place at once, and it's gotta be here, keeping Hitoshi safe exactly the way he didn't want to have to do, but was always prepared to do.
With a new shove of energy behind his quirk, Dr. Shinsou bangs against the barricade of Aizawa’s quirk once more. “So, you killed them?”
“Yes,” Hitoshi answers under the protective aura of Aizawa’s gaze, sounding perfectly at ease as he taunts, “What, don’t you believe me?”
“I’m not convinced, no,” Dr. Shinsou replies austerely. As the wave of his quirk rolls back, it gives Aizawa enough of a respite to blink for a split-second and then keep staring, even when Dr. Shinsou isn't smashing himself up against the barrier Aizawa puts between the mad Doctor and his almost-mad son.
“Then why’d you come?” Hitoshi asks.
“For the same reason you did, Hitoshi,” his father replies. Like this the similarity is more powerful and unnerving than ever, of just how alike the two can be. “To draw conclusions.”
“Then how’s this?” Hitoshi suggests, reaching to his side and lifting up the gun he stashed earlier, which Aizawa catches from the edge of his vision as he remains focused solely on the Doc. If Tsukauchi could show the fuck up and lend a hand any time soon, that’d be great. “It's the gun I used to blow the last one’s brains out.”
“Why him?” Dr. Shinsou suggests, swinging that hammer so hard again at the wall of Aizawa’s quirk he feels the vibration right between his eyes, and fears the moment when it starts to crack.
“Why not?” Hitoshi shoots back, keeping the end of the gun trained loosely on his father, and at this rate Aizawa would consider Hitoshi shooting him an acceptable way out of this fix. Their plan had been fine, presuming that everything that has happened wouldn’t happen, which is entirely the trouble. Aizawa has to work on the assumption that some kind of quirk shut the intercom down, and perhaps even closed off entry to and from the property, given that Aizawa’s been here with Dr. Shinsou for a good few minutes and it’s still just them talking.
“That’s all?” Dr. Shinsou suggests incredulously.
“The police have been checking up on everyone related to your conviction since you topped the Warden, so I had access to the information,” Hitoshi explains as if it really could be possible, which it probably is, if Hitoshi had the inclination or time away from Aizawa’s gaze to do such a thing. But his father’s not to know that, nor is Dr. Shinsou’s perspective of his son a neutral one, a point evidenced by the venomous way Hitoshi continues, “Here I thought you were gonna be proud of me or something.”
“Not yet,” Dr. Shinsou maintains. “You have to earn it.”
“More than killing three people?” Hitoshi shoots impatiently, and now Aizawa feels that rising sun coming up, the powerhouse of Hitoshi’s own quirk to go up against his father’s. “What else could you want from me?”
Driven by something imprecise and instinctual, Aizawa shifts his gaze onto the teen as he feels Hitoshi’s quirk trying to snap shut around Dr. Shinsou, which has the semi-intended effect of erasing Hitoshi’s attempt in turn. Aizawa could’ve let Hitoshi try, but he’s got this feeling that no matter who’s controlling who, the last thing he should do is allow these two’s minds to be connected to one another. As if Hitoshi’s already gone so far, it’s not that Aizawa doesn’t trust what the younger Shinsou would do if he gained power over his father, but what his father’s unknown influence could make Hitoshi do without even realising it. No, better not to risk it.
Aizawa can’t see Hitoshi’s face, but there’s surely some reaction to the fact that his quirk is erased too. A sinister smile splits Dr. Shinsou’s face, just enough for Aizawa to make out the white of his teeth, and the Doc’s fatal gaze knows exactly its target.
The answer lands like an arrow sharpened to a needlepoint, the way one of Hawks’ feathers pierces flesh so fast it’s only after the hole’s been made anyone even notices they were cut.
Dr. Shinsou says with a vicious, maniacal pleasure, “Kill him.”
There’s nothing for a heartbeat, then Hitoshi breaks into a scornful chuckle. “Nice try. That’d be pretty convenient for you, huh?” The force of his quirk recedes, as if realising that Aizawa’s not going to allow Hitoshi to try and brainwash Dr. Shinsou makes him stop trying, wasting that energy he might still need for something else. And where the fuck is Tsukauchi?
“He doesn’t appear to be doing what you want him to now, does he?” Dr. Shinsou chances, rising up as Aizawa slams back into him with the full force of his erasure quirk, and if they thought he was going to wear out, they’ve misjudged Aizawa’s stamina. If anything his power is stronger, more solidified as he defines exactly how his own quirk forces the Shinsou mind control into submission.
“He does what’s best for me,” Hitoshi answers surely, and it’d be touching if they weren’t in such a dire fucking predicament. The gravity of the situation weighs on them all, heavy in Hitoshi’s tone as he utters a foreboding, “I’m not what you wanted me to be, Dad, and I never will be. The sooner you accept that the better.”
These are the things Hitoshi wanted to say to his father, Aizawa can sense in every hair on the back of his neck. This is why they came back here, returned to the scene of the crime for something so important Aizawa’s furious with himself for not seeing it coming: closure.
It’s Dr. Shinsou’s own turn for a titter of amusement now, slipping his slim hands into his jacket pockets and standing as if he’s the least bothered by this as he could possibly be. That he truly couldn’t care less. “Yet you’re here, begging for my approval.”
He’s an awful, toxic man and Aizawa wants to punch straight through the wall and restrain him here and now, but they have no fucking idea where the rest of them are and wall-puncturing requires blinking, which Aizawa can’t afford to do right now.
“Why did you come back here, Hitoshi?” Dr. Shinsou invites ominously, wrestling against Aizawa’s quirk like a foul-tempered horse trying to kick off the saddle it doesn’t understand is belted onto it.
But then there’s a new push, something unfamiliar to Aizawa from everything else before – the new powers the Doc has been refining, things he plants in the mind rather than uses as an invitation to come in through the door. This makes it hit harder, the tip of the spear driving against the wall of Aizawa’s quirk, and he could almost be mistaken for thinking there’s a slight cracking underneath this new force.
“Don’t you want to finish our research?”
“I wanted…” Hitoshi echoes uncertainly, and Aizawa fears for a moment what he can’t be sure of – whether there’s a way Dr. Shinsou can reach him that Aizawa’s quirk doesn’t negate, something under the radar of their known mentalist capabilities, that fated final 1% of the Doc’s 99% mind.
“I want what I’ve always wanted,” Hitoshi reasserts more firmly, though his hand is shaking with the gun gripped tightly in his fingers, not pointed straight at his father, but close enough that a wild shot could land most anywhere. “To have nothing to do with you.” Through his teeth, Hitoshi adjusts the aim of the revolver more squarely onto his father, the threat more than evident by his tone. “I want you to leave us alone.”
Aizawa finally hears something from below, a single set of footsteps on the staircase behind him that he believes to be Tsukauchi’s, sparing the quickest sliver of a second to glance away from his position at the wall to confirm the Detective’s head bobbing up the stairs. Aizawa’s relieved as he looks back through at Hitoshi and the Doc, who are saying nothing, respectively standing and sitting across from each other basking in their stalemate, the things they want from each other utterly irreconcilable.
Dr. Shinsou’s mouth opens as the Detective reaches the top of the stairs, but before a sound comes out something flat and hard hits the junction between Aizawa’s skull and neck. The force makes Aizawa’s head bump against the wall, not calling out but giving enough of a thump that Dr. Shinsou and Hitoshi both turn to face that end of the room, distracted by the scuffle.
It certainly distracts Aizawa, realising too late that it was a metal police baton Tsukauchi has whacked him around the head with – and what that must mean – when the Detective reaches out with his other hand holding a rag, clamping it over Aizawa’s nose and mouth as the burn of solvents hits his skin.
Aizawa holds his breath, not inhaling whatever the cloth over his face has been soaked in, and thrashes back against Tsukauchi, who’s alarmingly strong for his build. Tsukauchi still has the baton in his other hand, so Aizawa grabs his arm to hold away as the brainwashed Detective struggles against him to use it.
It doesn’t really need saying, but this wasn’t part of the plan.
Getting his feet up against the wall, Aizawa gives a big shove and finally overpowers Tsukauchi, but they’re still at the top of that narrow staircase, which is where the Detective tumbles when Aizawa forces them back. But like hell is Tsukauchi letting go of Aizawa, who snatches desperate breaths through the rag and draws swirling fumes into his lungs, his head starting to spin as Tsukauchi falls and drags Aizawa with him, spinning many times more as they crash down the stairs together and Aizawa’s knocked almost out of consciousness.
The dominating thought in Aizawa’s head as more hands grab him, is that if he lives through this, Hizashi’s gonna kill him.
Notes:
WhhhHHHOOOOOPPPS!
It's been fun seeing people panic about what's going to happen, and the goal I've set for myself is to still manage to surprise y'all.
So are you surprised?
Doo doo doodly doo see ya next week!
Chapter 80: Lights Out
Summary:
The pride before the fall.
Notes:
Sorry to have to make y'all wait for this a whole week, but you made it!
Hold onto your asses for this one, naughty children. We fuckin' going for it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aizawa doesn’t have a clear sense of up and down after taking a nasty spill down a flight of stairs, especially not with this rag soaked in paint thinner-or-similar clamped immovably over his mouth. This also isn’t helped by the persistent brainwashed Detective still hanging onto him, who's soon backed up by at least two more pairs of hands, grabby shapes that Aizawa’s blurred vision can barely make out, but he still struggles against like a mad dog’s death throes.
There’s no noise, not even grunts from the people who restrain him almost one to a limb, dragging Aizawa through the hidden ground-floor door and then spreading him out on his back, strewn sacrificially across what must have been Dr. Shinsou’s desk in the lecture theatre.
That’s when he sees her.
It’s only for a moment, not long enough to act upon, before that corrosive rag is dragged up over his eyes and Aizawa’s forced to close them unless he wants to fuck his vision up too badly to be useful to anyone. He still kicks and thrashes to the best of his ability between a possible-to-probable concussion and fume inhalation, and he definitely gets some blows in on the unyielding, unreactive people holding him down in their own mental shackles.
“Strong one, isn’t he?” Aizawa hears the voice of none other than Shiyoko. Her voice is light, and has an almost put-on timbre of girlish glee; self-satisfied, but in a way that’s not quite convincing. “Well, you won’t be so badly behaved for long.”
Aizawa feels his sleeve being dragged up on one arm, which Tsukauchi and one of the others hold down firmly, the final figure putting all his body weight onto Aizawa to keep him in place on the desk, and it’s quite a lot of bodyweight. He might be imagining it, but for the short window where Aizawa actually laid eyes on Shiyoko without having the wherewithal to use his quirk – only realising afterwards what, who he’d even seen – it was almost as if she appeared every bit as haggard and desperate as Dr. Shinsou does, maybe even more. And desperate people are capable of a lot of things.
Aizawa tries to keep struggling, determined to find or make a weakness to break through with pure brute force, until he feels the tip of the pen touch his forearm.
Cricket said it was like heroin, and even if he didn’t experience Shiyoko’s quirk for himself, he does know heroin. Aizawa’s never shot it up personally, but he can imagine it’s something like this, as a powerful numbing sensation floods up his arm and then grabs hold of his spine with a handful of morphine-loaded needles. His ability to struggle wanes, then disappears completely once the final strokes of the name Hakamataare etched onto his forearm.
It’s not an unpleasant feeling, not specifically, but Aizawa’s full of fear that makes it terrifying enough, unable to fight as he’s rendered immobile by the time she begins writing Shiyoko, and by the end… nothing.
If Aizawa’s quirk makes a glass wall between someone like Dr. Shinsou using his quirk and his intended victim, Shiyoko puts Aizawa behind that same wall, separating his mind and body. He can bang against it, can scream or kick or try to get through to the numb shell, but his body doesn’t react. Dead to himself.
The rag lifts off his eyes, vision swimming at first, but then there’s a soft click of a pen being snapped back into the lid followed by a sonorous, “That’s better.”
This quirk is different, feels different, like less of a bond between Aizawa and the brainwasher the way it does with Hitoshi.
“Sit up,” Shiyoko orders, and Aizawa’s forced to comply, folding mechanically upright like his joints are operated by some external machinery. There’s no back and forth with Shiyoko, whose intention Aizawa can’t sense the way Hitoshi’s every whim feels within reach when he’s controlling Aizawa, like figuring out a pattern traced onto his back with a fingertip. Shiyoko’s quirk isn’t even half as sensory or natural as Hitoshi’s is – that much Aizawa can easily tell from within his thick perspex container inside his own head, and little else.
Tsukauchi is standing in front of Aizawa with the same dead eyes, his tousled brown hair and face eerily free of any emotion. The thought that he’s also in his own bubble somewhere is probably the worst part, and Aizawa wishes he could reach him some way, but has no power over… anything.
The Detective’s shirt sleeve has been torn in this scuffle, or perhaps the one before, when he let this foolish thing happen to himself, which Aizawa was too desperate and equally foolish not to consider before it was too late. That’s where Tsukauchi’s own mark is, lop-sided and rushed but very much there, on his forearm just above the wrist, similar to where Shiyoko has written her name on Aizawa too. Her default, probably, an easy place to grab onto and etch her mark of death.
Aizawa sees Shiyoko clearly now. She’s smaller in person than he’d expected, and her bleached blonde hair of the past, which hangs down past her shoulders, has been coloured to a faded purple – not the right shade, not even close, and different tones to bleached and unbleached hair, but she doesn’t seem to care much. She’s dressed in what must have been a nice outfit several murders ago, dried blood on the hem of a baby pink dress, curvy and ‘cute’ as some might say. She’s smiling a bright red lipstick grin of wide-eyed, manic satisfaction, and why wouldn’t she? She’s just added Aizawa to her toybox of mindless, obedient drones.
In addition to the Detective, the other two of Shiyoko’s personal army are the hardened battle-axes, the true fanatics, the fucking junkies from here or the crack den Cricket went to, but either one, Aizawa recognises the faces of hard users. They’re patterned all over with the elaborate calligraphy of Shiyoko’s name over every exposed part of their body, probably under their clothes too, judging by the way Hakamata Shiyoko runs under their sleeves. Both are men of large build, dressed in plain, ragged clothing that would be easy to pass off as homeless – the sort of person others would naturally turn their gaze away from, uncomfortable with their very existence in this warped, broken world.
“You’re going to do what I tell you to,” Shiyoko’s order somehow embeds itself deeper into Aizawa’s system, programming the nature of her quirk past blind incapacitation – to respond to her orders, as if she can’t control him any other way. “No one else, understand?”
Aizawa doesn’t react, but then, he wouldn’t.
“Get up. We’re going to go prove to him once and for all who’s worthy.” Shiyoko’s dress is low cut on the chest and high cut on the leg, and Aizawa sees both how she’s tried to maintain the Doc’s attention and why it’s doomed to fail. If Aizawa’s come to understand anything about Dr. Shinsou from his ex-wife and other victims, it’s that he has a definitive type. Shiyoko, with her over-emphasised girlish features and overt sex appeal, is, unfortunately for her, not it.
If he could speak, Aizawa would tell her exactly that, try to reach whatever’s left of the woman who spared Hana from being raped, who put to death men who treated women the same way Dr. Shinsou’s treating her; unblind her eyes to the reality she’s allowed to become distorted past recognition. But he can’t, so Aizawa stands mute and disciplined along with the others.
“Upstairs, all of you,” Shiyoko orders, confirming to Aizawa that she needs to actually give an order for it to take effect over them, not like with Dr. Shinsou or Hitoshi, who can speak to reinforce their desire, but don’t have to say anything to exert their deadly will over others.
Shiyoko’s most devoted drones go first, leading the way back up the staircase into the narrow hidden room and getting stuck at the door behind the bookcase, puzzled by how they’re supposed to open it.
Through the wall Aizawa can hear Dr. Shinsou’s voice, but only his voice.
“Not so brave without him around, are you?” the Doc appears to be hissing with a tone of piss and vinegar. “It’s pathetic, as if you could replace me with someone like that, did you really think it was going to work out? That you would ever be a Hero?”
Much to Aizawa’s relief there’s no response that could be Hitoshi talking back, and if the Doc is lobbying such intense questions he must be trying to get a reaction that Hitoshi isn’t giving, falling back on the safeguard of Aizawa and Kiki’s insistence. To just not speak, and not give his father the chance to get his claws in.
“You,” Shiyoko snaps impatiently in Aizawa’s direction. “Open the door. I know it’s here somewhere.”
Aizawa steps forwards past the others and reaches up for the high-up catch to operate the hidden door from behind, letting it swing open with a brick of fear and disappointment in himself as he lays eyes on Hitoshi and Dr. Shinsou.
Hitoshi’s looking right at them, piercing gaze running Aizawa through with hurt and terror and betrayal, and Aizawa’s sleeve hasn’t been pushed back down so the mark Shiyoko has left on him is in full display.
“Look what I did, Professor.” Shiyoko moves to the front, barging past her personal bodyguard and dragging Aizawa’s arm up to make sure they all get a good look at Aizawa’s greatest failing – to fall prey to the killer’s quirk himself, forgetting that he too is fallible and able to fuck up, not just a little bit, but on a monumental, life-threatening scale.
Dr. Shinsou barely looks at Shiyoko, his gaze glossing past Aizawa too, before it returns right back to Hitoshi with a fresh demonic smile.
“See, Hitoshi? You’ve got nothing left.” the Doc purrs, and Aizawa can’t do anything from his mental confinement, the deadening morphine-high of Shiyoko’s quirk making his stupid, uncooperative body do nothing in response to the way he struggles and fights the feeling, but he still tries. Cricket said that Dr. Shinsou had been able to break people from Shiyoko’s control, and while Aizawa’s certainly got no intention of letting himself into the Doc’s predatory jaws, it surely means that Shiyoko’s control can be broken, doesn’t it?
Hitoshi looks as terrified as anyone would be in this position, and it doesn’t just break Aizawa’s heart, it incinerates itself to have failed him so hard. Aizawa doesn’t know where everyone else is, why the others haven’t been able to reach them, but Tsukuachi counted five of the Deathnote Killer’s party upon entry, and there’s only four of them here – Dr. Shinsou, Shiyoko, and her two henchmen. Perhaps the fifth is responsible for the lockdown of the area, why nothing seems to be able to get in or out, not even wireless signals on the useless comms system that fell out of Aizawa’s ear somewhere on his body roll down the stairs.
Dr. Shinsou steps closer to his son, and Hitoshi lifts the gun up at him so shakily Aizawa regrets not teaching him how to handle a firearm even more now. Like this the recoil will throw Hitoshi back and ruin his chances of hitting anything, or staying on his feet if he does dare to pull the trigger.
“Take one more fucking step, Dad,” Hitoshi threatens with every drop of that intimidating Shinosu blood boiling in his veins. “I dare you.”
Dr. Shinsou doesn’t go any further, standing with his feet together and crossing his arms. Now that he’s closer, Aizawa can see all the signs of wear on the Doctor, even the ones he tries to hide. Back in prison every edge on Dr. Shinsou had been a perfect finished line, but now he’s… blurry, even ragged in places. A tear in his suit-jacket sleeve, the once-black fabric lightened to a dirty grey from dust and wear, or the drops of blood on shirt cuffs. His face seems even thinner, or perhaps that’s just the ghost of desperation hanging over his features. His deep, dark eyes are no different, but that’s the only thing that seems to be the same as when Aizawa saw him behind bars.
“Are you really going to kill me?” Dr. Shinsou questions calmly, and it’s just trap, after trap, after trap, and Aizawa’s powerless to stop it. “Go on, then. I might even be proud, if I thought you had the guts to do it.”
Because Hitoshi’s facade has clearly fallen down, serving only to bring Dr. Shinsou here, and not to sustain the deception for this long. The Doc wouldn’t be pushing Hitoshi like this if he believed his son had actually killed anyone, so now he’s doing exactly that – challenging his lost prodigy to become what Dr. Shinsou’s always wanted Hitoshi to be – a murderer, even if it’s patricide. It’s a hell of a gamble.
The struggle in Hitoshi’s face is clear, but Aizawa already knows he won’t pull that trigger, no matter how much he hates his father. Because Hitoshi can’t be a Hero if he kills in cold blood, or not the kind of Hero Aizawa is, and that dream is too important to him to throw away in an instant. Maybe. Aizawa doesn’t know for sure, but it’s what he believes, based on what he thinks he knows about Hitoshi. And maybe he’s right.
Slowly, Hitoshi lowers the gun, and Dr. Shinsou’s satisfaction is effervescent.
“That’s what I thought.” Now, and only now, does the Doc’s attention return to Shiyoko, and his tone is amazingly even more dismissive and cruel than when he speaks to Hitoshi, if that can be believed. “I want my son to watch his little helpers die painfully, so he learns the futility of resisting me. You can manage that, can’t you?”
It’s so patronising, and Aizawa can’t sense Shiyoko’s feelings the way he does when he’s controlled by Hitoshi, but Shiyoko’s face doesn’t hide her emotions as she scowls with painted lipstick mouth and heavily shadowed eyes. She doesn’t respond to Dr. Shinsou either, which suggests that she doesn’t trust him not to use his quirk on her – perhaps that’s how he can take control of people brainwashed by Shiyoko, so for that much Aizawa is thankful.
“Do as I told you, boys,” Shiyoko announces only after long enough that no risk of the Doc laying into her seems possible, and all of them, bar Aizawa, move in synergy, so it must have been an order she gave to all three earlier. There might not be a back and forth, but perhaps she’s able to stack commands on top of each other, and activate them as she pleases.
Aizawa remains still as a statue while the others move towards both Shinsous, and though Hitoshi backs away, Dr. Shinsou remains still. One of the larger henchmen pursues Hitoshi quickly across the room, grabbing the teen before he reaches the study door in the same iron hands that had managed to restrain Aizawa for long enough to be marked downstairs. In the struggle the revolver clatters to the floor unfired, and Aizawa howls on the inside, but all this fury and terror is suspended when Tsukauchi and the other henchman don’t follow after Hitoshi – no, it’s another Shinsou they target.
Hitoshi kicks and thrashes as the other henchman brings him back to the centre of the room, holding the teen around the torso, his arms pinned down. But only once the other two have laid hands on Dr. Shinsou does he seem to realise what’s happening.
“Wait, what is this?” Dr. Shinsou mutters as Tsukauchi and the other henchman grab each of his arms to hold him in place. “What are you doing?”
Except Shiyoko might be crazy, but she isn’t stupid, so remains mute as her disciple brings Hitoshi back before them, which is when she finally turns to Aizawa. Whether it’s a latent connection from being brainwashed, or just his own sixth sense for what’s next, Aizawa somehow knows what’s coming as the words tumble off her crimson lips. Because there’s only one thing that could make this very bad situation even worse, so of course that’s what it’s going to be.
If Aizawa was trying to fight her quirk before, that’s nothing compared to now.
“You’re going to kill that brat,” Shiyoko orders solemnly, “and the Professor’s going to watch.”
“NO!” Dr. Shinsou screams and struggles against Tsukauchi and the henchmen, but they hold him securely – Aizawa couldn’t fight off three of them, and he’s a great deal stronger than the Doc. There’s a blast of mental energy across the room too, no doubt a response from both generations of Shinsou – the specifics of which Aizawa isn’t in control of himself enough to divide, but it kicks like a horse in any case.
“You just wouldn’t listen!” Shiyoko shrieks at Dr. Shinsou as those tensions Cricket reported back on bubble over, the very trouble Aizawa’s been trying to follow from afar. Trust this place to be the pressure cooker that sets it all off at once. “I’ve given you everything, but you just keep wasting attention on your stupid family! Well, you won’t have a choice once they’re all dead!”
The transformation in Dr. Shinsou is overwhelming, from the calm and austere man in control of his world and himself to a completely wild animal, kicking and screaming as he fights Tsukauchi and the other henchman, tearing fabric and sounds akin to snarls falling from his mouth, before he finally verbalises a venomous, “You bitch! You can’t–”
“Cover his mouth,” Shiyoko tells his captors icily, and Tsukauchi reaches over to clamp his hand across Dr. Shinsou’s mouth, while the other henchman gets behind him and locks the Doc into a kind of wrestling hold, pulling Dr. Shinsou’s arms back and dropping down so they both fall onto their knees, Dr. Shinsou stretched around the bulky man so he’s spread out like a sacrifice wrapped around an altar.
Shiyoko takes a step closer to Dr. Shinsou, and although she gave Aizawa an order to kill, something he feels lurking in his system like a cyanide capsule waiting to dissolve, it hasn’t been activated yet. You’re going to kill that brat, future tense.
“I’m doing this for your own good, Professor,” Shiyoko says as she stands before him, forced to kneel in front of her. Perhaps the black widow who started out killing abusers and sexual harassers has been there all along, simply biding her time against a man she wants to do radically different things to.
Dr. Shinsou can’t respond, but there’s blood leaking out from behind Tsukauchi’s palm that suggests it’s not for lack of trying to un-gag himself, and his eyes tell plenty. Seething, boiling anger at the betrayal he was too proud to see coming, to think that the woman he diminished and mistreated wouldn’t turn on him when he pushed her too far. For all the time he spent beside her since escaping prison a few short days ago, Dr. Shinsou has truly learned nothing about the true nature of the Deathnote Killer.
“You,” Shiyoko directs back to Aizawa, while Hitoshi continues to helplessly try break his own restraint a short distance away. “Do it now. And make sure to kill him with your bare hands.” She looks back at Dr. Shinsou for a moment, her blood red lipstick curled in a perverse smile. “I want this one to be personal.”
Dr. Shinsou screams behind Tsukauchi’s hand, bloody bubbles popping against the seal of the Detective’s palm and his mouth: still fighting, just like his son, and this was not a situation Aizawa ever thought he’d have to face. That Aizawa himself would be the one to approach Hitoshi threateningly, puppet-mastered legs marching forward while Dr. Shinsou wants to stop him and save his son’s life.
Whatever they’d thought going into this was wrong, and probably always had been. Maybe Hitoshi was right all along when he insisted his father would never hurt him – but how could they be so sure? Aizawa thought that he’d never hurt Hitoshi, not on purpose, and not with the intention to kill.
Hitoshi’s mouth is uncovered for need of both the henchman’s arms to restrain him, wrapped all the way around the teen’s torso to keep him bound. The look in his eyes is panic wed with anger, peering through a veil of desperation. Even within his numbed cage, Aizawa can sense the amount of static that must be produced by Hitoshi, a gruelling drone in those un-hearable registers.
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Hitoshi says shakily as Aizawa draws closer, powerless inside his own body. Worse than the worst disassociation, worse than a bad comedown and hallucinogenic flashbacks rolled into one, worse than anything Aizawa’s ever felt in his life, and not a fucking thing he can do to stop himself.
“I said, you wouldn’t hurt me,” Hitoshi repeats more harshly when Aizawa’s only an arm’s length from him, reaching out with Shiyoko’s forced motions for Hitoshi’s slim, crushable throat. The background static gets louder, and the second Aizawa’s fingertips touch Hitoshi’s skin it becomes almost deafening, until Aizawa can hardly hear Dr. Shinsou’s animal roaring next to him.
“Listen to me!” Hitoshi bellows when Aizawa grips his neck, shutting off the ability to speak, piercing Aizawa with his pleading, dark-ringed eyes. But Aizawa’s grip starts to tighten, doing the last thing he ever wanted to do.
Between Aizawa’s own desperate screaming inside his own head, Dr. Shinsou’s feral protest, and Hitoshi’s blaring mentalist interference, it all turns into an overwhelming, enhiliating call that blares from Hitoshi’s very body, until explodes like a percussion bomb in the middle of the room.
YOU
WOULDN’T
HURT
ME
The bubble around Aizawa doesn’t crack so much as pop, from there to not there in an instant, and though not a muscle in Aizawa’s body moves, something is very, very different.
He feels. Everything numb before comes back in a rush, sweeping Aizawa’s consciousness back within his own head, slammed against the back wall until he’s still powerless, but a different god rules over the seas.
Hitoshi makes a sound, a choking, coughing splutter as if his airway is being crushed, though Aizawa’s hand doesn’t tighten, but loosen.
“Number One, let the brat go,” Shiyoko declares delightedly, “I want to watch him squirm.”
The marked henchman releases Hitoshi’s arms and steps back, and the second he’s free Hitoshi’s hands shoot up to Aizawa’s wrist, grabbing hold of him as if to try and pull Aizawa’s hand away, but that’s not the sensation of what’s really happening. No, it feels more like Hitoshi is holding himself up, half a pull-up on Aizawa’s arm to keep the pressure of his body weight from hanging entirely on his neck as Aizawa lifts him up higher on a single arm while Hitoshi kicks and gasps dramatically.
Hitoshi does a good job of squirming too, his legs thrashing and expressive sights and sounds of being throttled. When Shiyoko laughs it finally hits Aizawa: she hasn’t realised.
Dr. Shinsou could ‘take’ people Shiyoko was controlling, especially when she’s emotional. That’s what Cricket said, and with the one-way nature of Shiyoko’s brainwashing control, based on verbal orders, no back-and-forth between the master and slave, she apparently can’t tell if something has happened to break that bond. Because she’s not the one controlling Aizawa anymore, yet seems none the wiser to this shift.
Neither does Dr. Shinsou, it appears, as he still howls and fights the men holding him back – perhaps he’s too emotional to notice the change.
But Aizawa does.
It’s clever, so very very clever, to continue this performance of Hitoshi’s untimely death at the hands of his mentor, waiting until they could be sure the switch has gone unnoticed. Aizawa certainly wouldn’t have done it, were he in control of his own body, which he still isn’t – still a puppet, albeit with his strings being pulled by a much more familiar mastermind.
The difference is night and day from Shiyoko’s quirk back to Hitoshi’s. From a syringe full of morphine to pure adrenaline, renewed sensation shooting through Aizawa’s nerves until he swears he can actually feel Hitoshi’s quirk inside him, crouched at the top of his brainstem pushing out orders to his limbs in covert whispers. Aizawa doesn’t know how he did it, whether that white-noise ability from Kiki in combination with his brainwashing allowed Hitoshi to force an opening in Shiyoko’s control that he quickly slipped into, but the least Aizawa can say is that he’s fucking grateful.
And while Aizawa doesn’t quite know what’s happening next, not the way he would be aware of something he’s discussed and agreed beforehand with Hitoshi, somehow he still understands what’s about to happen, like a premonition of what his muscles will do once the signal has been given.
Hitoshi is going a little red in the face from the strain of keeping this position up, so whatever has to happen is going to need to happen soon, but Aizawa’s readier than he’s ever been to not just turn the tables, but flip and throw them straight through the goddamn roof.
Then, at the end of everything, Hitoshi fucking winks at him.
There’s no time to see if anyone reacts, because the moment it happens they both move in complete harmony, which would be because Hitoshi is using Aizawa as an extension of himself, removing even the smallest margin for error in their synchronisation.
Aizawa reaches his other hand to grab Hitoshi by the front of his hoodie, supporting him more comfortably as his grip on Hitoshi’s neck releases. It’s Hitoshi who reaches first for the spool of capture weapon around Aizawa’s neck, grabbing a fistful that he tosses across the room towards the henchman who restrained him. Aizawa pivots on his heels, already feeling Hitoshi’s reach pervading even the parts of his brain that his own quirk comes from, igniting the erasing laser stare so that the minute Aizawa’s gaze touches Shiyoko, the remaining bonds are broken.
Stunned past sensible reaction, Shiyoko looks back in bug-eyed wonder and offers a bemused, “What the fuck–” while Aizawa digs a hand into his capture weapon and tosses out a strand that’s got her name on it – or would have, if the release of her bodyguards hadn’t given them much greater problems.
The larger man restraining Dr. Shinsou is easily shaken off once her quirk’s hold over him disappears, and Tsukauchi also whips a bitten and bloody hand back from the maniacal man’s mouth, disarmed and easily evaded as Dr. Shinsou staggers to his feet and goes straight for Shiyoko.
“You fucking bitch! How dare you!” the Doc roars as he tackles the much smaller woman straight out from under the strand of Aizawa’s capture weapon, slamming to the floor with Shiyoko’s back first, Dr. Shinsou landing on top of her.
Perhaps it’s poetic justice, or there’s just a common theme here, because his hands go straight to her neck, only this time, Dr. Shinsou’s not playing, pouring out a rabid, “You thought you’d replace them?! You’re nothing to me! Nothing! You hear me!?” Shiyoko doesn’t answer, but screams and gasps and claws Dr. Shinsou’s face as he squeezes her throat, his mouth smeared and bloody, loose strands of hair shaken out of their composed slicked-back style.
Hitoshi’s feet hit the floor once Aizawa lets him down, by which point the remaining five of them – the two of them, plus Tsukauchi and Shiyoko’s two henchmen – all charge for Dr. Shinsou at the same time, some of them tangled up in strands of Aizawa’s capture weapon thrown by Hitoshi, which makes things a bit more complicated. The henchmen’s devotion to their mistress goes beyond pure brainwashing, because they seem compelled to protect her with or without the effects of Shiyoko’s quirk, and start throwing fists at anyone trying to get in their way.
If Dr. Shinsou is a beast given over to pure rage, these two are creatures without reason, not realising that they all want to stop Dr. Shinsou. One of them slaps Tsukauchi out of the way with a heavy swing and almost does the same to Hitoshi, if Aizawa didn’t block the blow, while the other – Number One, Shiyoko had called him – shoulder-charges Aizawa, sending them all off-balance so they tumble over each other into a useless heap next to the Doc and his next victim if they can’t do something about it.
Shiyoko’s gasps are dry, her hands pawing at Dr. Shinsou’s face as he chokes the life out of her, but while Aizawa wrestles with Number One on the ground Tsuakuchi has already recovered his footing, and lurches back towards the Doc menacingly. Whatever the balance is between his innate cop training and the by-product of Shiyoko’s brainwashing, the Detective is certainly forceful as he grabs Dr. Shinsou by the back of his head and drags him away.
“Let go, Dr. Shinsou,” Tsukauchi growls when the Doc doesn’t release Shiyoko right away, her face red and drool running from the corners of her mouth. “You're under arrest.”
Aizawa’s managed to get Hitoshi disentangled from the wayward streams of capture weapon leftover from the clash with Shiyoko’s henchmen, but the so-named Number One is still trying to smash Aizawa’s head against the floor for some reason, preventing him from helping in any meaningful way while Tsukauchi tries to break Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko apart.
And Dr. Shinsou is certainly resisting Tsukauchi’s attempts to restrain him, still strangling Shiyoko even as he snarls, “Fuck off, what would you know?!”
“I kno–”
Stupid, Aizawa thinks, after Tsukauchi responds to the Doc as if he’s just anyone, and not a killswitch waiting to be flipped. Not just Tsukauchi, but Aizawa himself – for letting this happen. Maybe Shiyoko’s quirk disorientated Tsukauchi, maybe he just hadn’t realised that Dr. Shinsou is always, always waiting for an opportunity to sink his teeth into someone. This is the first time Tsukauchi has really been around the Doc, interacted with him at all, and that was Aizawa’s doing too – keeping people away from things for their ‘safety’, only to realise all he’s done is coddle them against a reality that’s going to catch up sooner or later.
Aizawa’s distracted by the implications of this enough that Number One gets a handful of his hair and crushes his face to the floor, directing Aizawa’s gaze so that he can’t use his quirk to erase Dr. Shinsou’s brainwashing as it takes hold of Tsukauchi.
“Very well, Detective,” Dr. Shinsou says calmly over the dying noises Shiyoko makes in his deadly grasp. “Now if you’d kindly stop that wretched heart from beating and get out of my way once and for all.”
“No!” Hitoshi scrambles up and leaps not just over but off Aizawa and his wrestling partner, using them as a springboard as he launches himself across the study at Tsukauchi.
Aizawa heaves himself up and allows a not insignificant amount of his hair to tear away as he fights off the huge man trying to beat him into the floor, and he’s only moments behind Hitoshi as he activates his quirk, remaining hair raising up as he fixes his burning gaze on Dr. Shinsou, but Hitoshi has already crashed into the Detective and presumably taken him out of the Doc’s control.
Tsukauchi goes down like a domino under Hitoshi, but even though the brainwashing must surely be broken, he doesn’t appear to be coming back around. Shiyoko’s still struggling underneath Dr. Shinsou, but not nearly as much as before. The Deathnote Killer's death throes.
Hitoshi ends up straddled halfway over Tsukauchi, dropping down to put his ear to the Detective’s chest.
Aizawa finally starts to get the upper hand on Number One as he’s called, using a combination of capture weapon and animal desperation to get the raging bodyguard restrained just as the other – Number Two, Aizawa would dare to guess, though Shiyoko hasn’t called him such yet – takes a running leap head-first and batters into Dr. Shinsou with a howl that almost sounds like the word, “Mistress!” screamed by someone without all of their tongue. What better way to stop people replying from Dr. Shinsou than removing their ability to speak?
“Unhand me!” Dr. Shinsou snarls as Number Two grabs the Doc and finally tears him off Shiyoko, a ragged gasp sucked in as the Doc’s hands are torn away from her neck by sheer deranged force. “You stupid ape, do you even know what you’re doing?!”
“There’s something wrong with his heart,” Hitoshi declares in a panic as Aizawa stands up in time to watch Dr. Shinsou being smashed into the floor by Shiyoko’s last man standing. “Aizawa,” Hitoshi calls with more urgency, hooking Aizawa’s focus away from anything and everything else by sheer force of will. “I can’t hear his heartbeat!”
Notes:
Ooooooh. Yeah. Another cliffhanger. Whoops. Uhhh... yeah. Yeah. For all of y'all who thought Tsuakuchi wasn't done being a damsel in distress yet.
THAT SAID I won't hear any slander of him for what's happened because this is straight up the actual legitimate *first* time he has been around Dr. Shinsou EVER because Aizawa took it upon himself not to involve him on the first 2 visits and then by the time Tsukauchi was going to visit the Doc himself he'd broken out. It's hard not to make him seem like he's massively fucking up because bad things keep happening but the reality is that they're all just in way over their goddam fucking heads I mean Aizawa almost killed Hitoshi for fuck's sake he's not one to talk.
Oh for fun facts though that moment with Hitoshi and Aizawa doing the fakeout and control switch existed in my mind in some form or another from very early on in the planning though the specifics changed shape a bit over time. I always knew there would be a 'big moment' for the story climax so it's really cool and fun to actually fucking deliver it. Hope it went off like I hoped.
This is also a nice time to mention that I've updated the finished chapter count as I am 99.9999999% sure we are gonna be done by chapter 90, which will be the epilogue, so regular chapters done by 89. That means there's only 9 more chapters of this story to go! SCREAM! That's the real shocker here. That this story could actually be finished?! Ahhhh!
Chapter 81: Cardiac Arrest
Summary:
What a fucking mess.
Notes:
Hmmmmmm now whereeeeeee wereeeeee weeeeeee?
Oh yeah. Drama. Chaos. Near-death. Off we go!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
In a toss-up between bad, terrible, and worse, Aizawa has a choice to make. He doesn’t pick so much as get dragged by his gut towards the thing that screams louder than any others, and in this case it’s the cause of loyalty, and of life over death. He sprints to Hitoshi, who’s crouched over Tsukauchi with a look of growing panic, and leaves Dr. Shinsou to tussle with Shiyoko’s henchman on the floor. Shiyoko herself lies wheezing on her back, clutching the deep indentations left around her neck by the man she supposedly adores.
The Detective is already starting to look pale, and though Aizawa has no reason to doubt Hitoshi’s ability to judge an irregular heartbeat, or lack thereof, Aizawa still puts his fingers to the Detective’s neck to check for a pulse, and when he doesn't find one starts chest compressions. Looks like Dr. Shinsou’s quirk is powerful enough to override the body’s most primal behaviours, which would be terrifying if Aizawa gave himself the time to think about it, and not about how to keep Tsukauchi alive long enough for help to arrive.
Dr. Shinsou is getting what he deserves in the form of a pummelling from Shiyoko’s last devoted follower, the one – or Two, perhaps – without the ability to respond to the Doc, which apparently makes him invulnerable to being brainwashed by the usual means, though perhaps not the additional way in which Shinsous seem able to snatch people from Shiyoko’s power into their own. But even that won’t work here, because it’s not direct control that makes Number Two scream and slam Dr. Shinsou against the study floor in his brawny hands – in fact, he and Number One were both deathly silent under Shiyoko’s spell, whereas now the most devout of Shiyoko’s followers sounds like a mad animal. This is a desperate addict protecting their dealer.
Because this isn’t just mind control, it's something much deeper. Addiction and devotion make a potent combo – Aizawa would know. Although he was only under Shiyoko’s quirk for a short time, he can easily see how it’d seem like a wonderful escape from the burden of being a man to anyone twisted enough. How it could reduce them into being less than human, if humanity can be defined by the possession and expression of free will, even just the desire for autonomy. Something Shiyoko and Dr. Shinsou have ripped away from their victims, by choice or by force.
Aizawa rhythmically pushes down on Tsukauchi’s chest with enough strength to pump his heart manually, forcing enough blood flowing through his system to prevent his brain – whatever of it has escaped Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko’s clutches – from dying, and searches for a viable next move.
This leaves him far too occupied to stop Shiyoko’s mind zombie, if that term isn’t too cruel, from battering Dr. Shinsou silly, and Hitoshi doesn’t make any attempt to separate them either. But there’s something else they’ve forgotten – what of Shiyoko’s devotion, that strange, warped beast? Her voice is hoarse, hands clutching her neck protectively as she lies on the floor, almost spilling out of her now torn dress, but the words are clear enough.
“Number Two,” Shiyoko barely more than whispers, but it’s enough to draw the henchman’s attention like a magnet. Aizawa had guessed right about his numbering after all, not that it really matters when Tsukauchi is straight up brain-dead unless whatever has shut them off from the outside world is reversed, and soon. Aizawa can’t keep CPR up forever.
Shiyoko’s order to the mad dog bodyguard who turned on his master for raising a hand to his mistress is no more than a strained, “Don’t hurt him.”
Number Two stops at once, making hopeless confused eyes at his mistress as he backs up, practically cowering away from Dr. Shinsou. While it’s shocking, it’s somehow not impossible for Aizawa to believe that even after almost being killed by him, Shiyoko would still do this for Dr. Shinsou.
Though the person this does surprise is Hitoshi.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” the teen seethes, turning from what must have been a fairly enjoyable view of his father getting the living shit beaten out of him to face Shiyoko in utter disgust. Picking up where his father’s left of and exchanging physical battery for emotional, Hitoshi takes a step closer to Shiyoko with a pitying, “Can’t you see what he’s done to you?”
Earlier, Aizawa had been separated from the unfolding of this twisted family conflict by a wall and hidden set of spy-holes, and although now he’s here and present in the throes of the unholy mess, he’s still set aside, compelled to keep pushing down on Tsukauchi’s chest in a steady, lifesaving rhythm, cursing himself out for allowing the Detective to fall prey to the Doc’s quirk for even a second – because a second was all it took. Trust Dr. Shinsou to have fine-tuned his quirk to be able to kill in an instant, mind to mind. The purest expression of his mental power, he no doubt believes in his sick, twisted view of the world.
Shiyoko sits up, black streaks that have spooled down her cheeks from her running eye makeup, tears of being choked, but not just that, Aizawa dreads to recognise. This is more than just the shock of Dr. Shinsou turning on her, which Shiyoko must have known was a possibility after attempting to kill someone he holds so dear. It’s the overwhelming weight of everything she wants that Hitoshi rejects, the despair of what she can’t have, no matter what she does – because Dr. Shinsou is never going to care for her the way he does for his ‘real family’.
Shiyoko tells Hitoshi with a sound that’s almost a sob, something Aizawa feels like a shard of glass buried deep in his chest, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You poor sad idiot!” Hitoshi snaps at her unforgivingly, then turns the force of his glare onto his father, who’s picking himself up from the ground as he nurses a split and bleeding lip, his own blood mingling with Tsukauchi’s on his chin. “If you want him so much, have him!”
There’s so much mentalist energy in the room Aizawa can barely think, and although he could use his own quirk to silence them one at a time, something in him is held back from cutting off the electrical storm being drawn in and focused on Hitoshi like a lightning rod. It’s dangerous, of course, but a lightning rod protects things around it by drawing the energy at just the right point, and somewhere deep down Aizawa recognises that this is that point for Hitoshi, emotionally speaking. Because if he can’t get it out now the chance won’t ever come again, so as long as he’s not putting himself in danger by speaking directly to Dr. Shinsou – just about him, to another of his victims – then Aizawa simply watches.
“I never asked to be his son!” Hitoshi is no more than a mesh of interlocking emotional scars in human form, his voice cracking as he unloads on Shiyoko in uneven, jagged gasps, “I never wanted to be his successor, to do the things he made me do! I didn’t have a choice!” Yet this outburst can’t last for long without turning on the true perpetrator, so Hitoshi has barely blinked out a couple of angry tears than he hurls directly at his father. “But you wouldn’t fucking listen! Why can’t you just leave us alone?!”
Dr. Shinsou can’t keep the appearance of being composed up when he’s already so dishevelled, but he’s calm as he wipes his hand across his mouth, smearing away his blood as he sits with his back resting against the wall catching his breath. Aizawa activates his quirk before the Doc’s mouth even opens, determined not to give him any chance to do worse damage than his words alone can do.
“You already admitted it,” Dr. Shinsou tells his son with ice so thick no summer sun could melt it all the way through. “I made you, Hitoshi. You wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for me.”
“I only said that because I knew it’s what you wanted to hear!” Hitoshi snarls, no quirk but all fury, everything he’s never had the chance to say to his father until this moment pouring out of him like a volcanic eruption. “All you’ve ever done is try to control me, but I’m your child! Not an object that you can force to be exactly what you want me to!”
“I could,” Dr. Shinsou replies eerily, his dark violet eyes darting to meet Aizawa’s burning red gaze, “if someone would stop interfering.”
Aizawa can’t stop doing CPR on Tsukauchi, but he certainly wishes he could go over there and smack the vile consciousness out of Dr. Shinsou in one swoop. Although if he did, Hitoshi wouldn’t get the chance to say what he says – or screams, in this case – at his father next, so it is what it is.
“He cares about me more than you do!” Hitoshi roars, a gleam of light coming off the tear-tracks left on his cheeks, “and I’ve only known him for two weeks, do you realise how fucked up that is?!”
“Look at the state you’re in, son,” Dr. Shinsou derides. Hitoshi angrily drags his palms across his face, as if to hide the evidence of this unsightly emotional breakdown, the unflappable composure his father puts on such a high pedestal. “I raised you better than this.”
“You didn’t do shit for me!” Hitoshi returns hoarsely. “But of course you can’t see that, you’re too twisted to see anything except the sick story you tell yourself.” Stopping for a breath, which heaves from Hitoshi’s chest as if it hurts to get each not-yet-a-sob out, he screws his eyes shut to eke out another wave of angry tears and bursts once more, “I didn’t have a father, I was just another one of your fucking projects!”
A new force re-enters the fray, shrill and no less emotional than Hitoshi’s. Shiyoko has finally recovered from the shock of Hitoshi’s outburst.
“Stop it!” she shrieks at Hitoshi as she gets to her feet, bare except for tights after her shoes have been kicked off from the struggle with Dr. Shinsou. “You’re so fucking ungrateful! Do you know what I'd do for him to love me like he loves you!?”
“Love?!” Hitoshi echoes equally hysterically, turning back to Shiyoko a blaze of trauma and fury, the powder keg finally lit, the whole house ready to burn to the ground, just like Hitoshi wanted it to. “He isn’t capable of love, you’ve been fooled just like all the others!”
“You’re still a child, Hitoshi,” Dr. Shinsou interjects, “You don’t understand the nature of my love for you and your mother.”
“No, Dad, I do understand,” Hitoshi snarls. “The only person you’ve ever loved is yourself, everyone else is just an accessory for your fucking ego.” In full force now, Hitoshi thunders like dark stormclouds, spitting pure lightning. “And do you know how I know? Because you don’t care what we want, only what you want. That’s not love!”
Aizawa’s eyes are beginning to itch as he keeps his quirk focused on Dr. Shinsou, his arms to ache, but if he stops what he’s doing Tsukauchi has minutes before his brain starts to die. They can’t keep on like this, they can’t–
When Aizawa’s almost at the point of total despair there’s a distant bang from outside the house that has to be gunfire, though what it could be is beyond Aizawa’s best guesswork at this point.
Dr. Shinsou seems taken back by Hitoshi’s passionate eruption, blood collecting again on his lower lip as he looks up at his son and might, for the first time, be seeing Hitoshi how he actually is, and not the Doc’s own distorted view of what he always wanted his son to be.
His mouth opens as if to speak, but before words can come out the Doc’s face flinches and an agonised scream leaves his mouth. Dr. Shinsou reaches for his forehead, even shaking a little as his hand lowers, his breathing shallow and a new level of inhumanity in his ominous expression.
It’s only when the Doc murmurs, “She’s here,” that Aizawa realises what must have happened, and what it could mean about the noise they just heard from outside.
“Hitoshi,” Aizawa calls without breaking rhythm on Tsukauchi’s chest, and thankfully Hitoshi’s gaze whips around and finds Aizawa’s immediately, not lost, but searching for something like reassurance in the desperate look they share for a moment. “Have you still got an earpiece?” Aizawa’s is unfortunately somewhere on the staircase behind the half-open bookcase door, but Hitoshi pocketed his earlier so they might still be in with a chance.
Hitoshi’s hand dives into his pocket and he fishes it out, turning his back on his father to rush over to Aizawa with no more than a summoning jerk of Aizawa’s head.
“Don’t walk away from me!” Dr. Shinsou snaps, seemingly more insulted that Hitoshi should come at Aizawa’s beck and call than anything else.
Aizawa turns his cheek as Hitoshi approaches, inviting the earpiece to be slotted straight into his ear, not having the spare hands to do it himself, and hoping against hope that the gunshot was indicative of that invisible lockdown around the house being broken.
“Hello? Anyone there?” Aizawa calls out as Hitoshi shoves the earpiece in along with a decent amount of his hair, but if it works it works, a fuzzy static on the other side shaping out into a voice that lifts Aizawa’s heart.
“Zzzss–Shota? Shit, Shota is that you?”
“It’s me,” Aizawa replies with a rush of relief. “We need a medic, and a defibrillator. They got Tsukauchi.”
“Fuck, I’ll get on it,” Hizashi replies quickly. “What happened? You just up and vanished.”
“Don’t know. Some kinda lockdown.” Aizawa doesn’t really have time for this, but he can’t hold himself back when it’s Hizashi, and when he’s just so fucking happy to have that voice on the other end of the line once more. “Where’s Kiki?” Aizawa thinks he knows, but needs the confirmation all the same.
“She just took off to go get you,” he reports worriedly. “Should I go after her?”
“No, focus on getting backup,” Aizawa decides as he’s saying it. If Kiki’s on her way and Dr. Shinsou has started screaming, she can’t be far.
“You stay away from her!” Hitoshi’s shouting across the room the Doc, who gets to his feet like a deer shaking off a clip from a passing car. Preening like a bird, Dr. Shinsou combs his hair back with his fingers and re-wipes the blood on his face.
“What your mother and I have is beyond your comprehension, Hitoshi,” he remarks almost coyly, and there’s no open questions in what he says right now. Perhaps they’ve devolved, finally, into just talking to each other like even the most dysfunctional families are capable of when push comes to shoved-off-a-cliff-holding-an-anvil.
“I understand more than you think,” Hitoshi replies sharply. “You think I don’t remember what it was like before? That I didn’t notice the way you fought? I’m not letting you two–”
Aizawa hears the footsteps and senses the shift in the mental air of the room before it happens, and if that wasn’t enough, the Doc drops to the floor with a new howl of pain.
The handle of the study door turns but doesn’t open, locked from the inside. Hitoshi sprints across the room to flip the catch and let his mother in.
Aizawa knows Kiki will be on the other side when Hitoshi rips the door open, and he expects the look of pure concentrated hellfire on Kiki’s face, but what he doesn’t anticipate is for Hitoshi to yell, “Stop it, Ma! Stop fighting him!” at her with all the might of a child’s desperate plea.
Dr. Shinsou is still on the floor, but looks up at Kiki from across the room and actually smiles, perhaps even through the mental assault of his infamous wife.
“Akiko,” the Doc says with possession and obsession twisted tightly in his expression. “I’ve missed you.”
“The feeling isn’t mutual, Masaru,” Kiki replies bitingly, which is when a new shriek cuts through the air.
“You fucking bitch!” Shiyoko banshee screams as she breaks into a run towards Kiki and Hitoshi together at the doorway. “It’s all your fault! I’ll kill you–!”
Like a ghost train charging through the room, the full and untampered force of Kiki’s quirk shifts to smack into Shiyoko before she’s even five steps away from them. But she doesn’t scream the way Dr. Shinsou does. No, Shiyoko doesn’t even blink, just drops like a sack of bricks under the crushing scrutiny of Kiki’s harshest glare, out cold before she even hits the floor.
This naturally infuriates Shiyoko’s last bodyguard, the impersonally named Number Two, who makes one of his animalistic hollers and tries to avenge his mistress, targeting Dr. Shinsou’s much-beloved-of-him family, but he too only gets a couple of steps in before Kiki’s gaze whips over to him and he stiffens like a board and slams to the floor a second later.
“Magnificent,” Dr. Shinsou remarks, and Aizawa’s never been more aware of how terrifying Kiki’s true power is for the Doc to ‘love’ her like he does, and how much power the two of them together must have to damage their one and only child.
“If you give up now, I’ll think about going easy on you,” Kiki tells him stonily, unyielding as Hitoshi tugs on her arm desperately. “Though I’d prefer if you don’t.”
“Listen to me, dammit!” Hitoshi begs, trying to drag his Ma back only to be shaken off as she steps towards the Doc. “The police are coming there’s no need for you to–”
“Now now, son,” Dr. Shinsou talks over Hitoshi effortlessly, and now Aizawa feels the rising demon of the Doc’s quirk returning to the fray, though when he gets back on his feet. “Your mother and I are talking.” Except it’s a step backwards he takes, not forwards toward his wife and child. A contradiction there that Hitoshi himself highlighted – that there’s no one Dr. Shinsou loves more than himself, though Kiki might come a close second. “You made short work of little Shiyoko, my Dear. She was barely an appetizer to you, wasn’t she?”
Aizawa’s erasing the Doc’s quirk already, but feels the need disappear when Dr. Shinsou staggers back another step, putting a hand to the wall for balance, and lets out another undulating groan as Kiki presumably drags his mind over the coals with her quirk. Every supposedly flippant comment Kiki made about what would happen if Dr. Shinsou tried to get to her seems much more serious in this light, and Aizawa can only imagine the horrors of Hitoshi’s childhood growing up around this intensity of fuck-kill conflict. A performance they’re repeating right in front of him, and why it’s no surprise that Hitoshi should sound like he’s crying once more as he shakes his Ma unresponsively.
“Stop it! Both of you just stop it!” Hitoshi’s screaming when Aizawa can’t take it anymore and does something he’d never have expected needing to do – that he should turn the beam of his quirk from Dr. Shinsou to Mrs. Shinsou, feeling the vicious mental battery that Kiki was directing towards her husband vanish under Aizawa’s erasing stare, a gasp of desperate relief tearing from Dr. Shinsou as he’s freed from torture.
“That’s enough,” Aizawa growls, still on his knees over Tsukauchi, still pumping down on his chest over and over to keep a good man from dying here today, and so help them they’re all lucky that Aizawa’s stuck here for now and can only use his quirk to pull the fighting dogs apart, even if he can’t do much about Dr. Shinsou edging towards the back of the room. As much as he supposes to love his family, Aizawa doesn’t believe for a second that overpowers his love for himself, or the desire to escape the clutches of no doubt impending law enforcement.
“What are you doing?!” Kiki fires at Aizawa furiously, standing tall in her bright jumpsuit like a Hero’s costume, except that Heroes don’t inflict unnecessary domestic violence on their spouse, even if the bastard on the other side deserves it. “Back off! This isn’t any of your business.”
“You made my business!” Aizawa barks more angrily than he should let himself be, but to watch even Kiki ignore Hitoshi’s pleading because she’s tunnel-visioned her hatred of her husband is more than Aizawa can take. There’s a moment where Aizawa’s sure he feels Kiki’s quirk, still erased by Aizawa’s, shift target to frustratedly focus on himself, not that it does a fucking thing. Because Aizawa isn’t here to play, and the Shinsou family bullshit doesn’t work on him. “I won’t let you tear each other apart because you’re too blind to see what it’s doing to your child!” Unbroken in his glare, Aizawa hits Kiki not with fists but words, though still right where it hurts. “I expect it from him, but not you, Kiki!”
This stuns Kiki, who stops and turns to look at Hitoshi at her elbow as if she’d forgotten he was there, and maybe only now sees the desperation and tears in her son’s eyes – that he doesn’t need, doesn’t want another violent parent who won’t listen to him. That whatever the Doc brings out in her, she has to move beyond her own feelings and realise what it’s doing to her son. The first time Aizawa brought Hitoshi and Dr. Shinsou together they almost tried to kill one another to see which was the mightier, and Hitoshi had to learn that from somewhere.
Dr. Shinsou has reached the bookcase at the back of the room, though he lingers, like he’s getting a last look at his family before he makes a run for it and lives to torment them another day. Aizawa could leave Tsukauchi to stop him, but he’d need someone else to take over doing CPR – or for Hizashi and the fucking backup to get here already.
“Where are you?” Aizawa hisses to his earpiece on the last point.
“Almost there, babe, just hold on,” Hizashi comes right back, breath uneven like he’s running. He has to have been hearing all of this in the background, and oh what a fucking shitshow it’s been.
“I knew you cared, Akiko, but I underestimated how passionately you still feel for me,” Dr. Shinsou purrs psychotically, because there’s no doubt he considers vitriolic hatred just another expression of his monstrous understanding of love.
“Shove it up your ass, Masaru,” Kiki hisses, sparks that Aizawa can almost see flying across the room. No wonder this is the match-up that produced Hitoshi; ingenious, conflicted, and not always the most stable, but true magic in the making. Aizawa feels so sorry for him, to have known this dynamic as the norm for any length of time at all.
The Doc clearly shares this sentiment. “I made no mistake in choosing you to bear my child,” he declares with a smirk that screams of egoism. He clearly can’t bear to tear himself away just yet, which is the only thing in their favour right now. “Of all the women I loved, you’ve always been the best and brightest–”
It’s right then that a figure dressed in black steps out from behind the doorway-bookcase and swings something that catches a glimmer light as two words fly across the room on silk wings.
“Remember me?”
There’s a crashing sound of glass, and a fresh scream from Dr. Shinsou as the beaker breaks against his face. He stumbles back from the bookcase door in horror, revealing behind it a stone-faced Dr. Iwaya, recognisable only from her voice and eyes, the rest of her covered right down to her gloved hands.
“Oh shit,” Hitoshi rushes from across the room, dashing back towards the other end as his father clutches his face with blood quickly soaking his hands. “Leave him alone!” Hitoshi yells at Iwaya, who seems horrified by this appeal to mercy from the Doc’s own son.
“Don’t protect him, this is what he deserves!” Iwaya shoots back, only to falter when she catches sight of Kiki stomping across the room as if she could set this place alight with the heat of the rage left in each footstep.
“If there’s anyone who decides what that piece of shit deserves it’s me,” she fumes. “So if I’m not allowed to kill him, you sure as shit aren’t either.”
“Mrs… Mrs. Shinsou,” Iwaya stutters fearfully. “I… I didn’t…”
“You can call me Kiki,” Kiki bites as she’s drawing back the elastic on her mentalist slingshot, but Aizawa’s had enough of this, and that includes Kiki’s shit too.
“DON’T!” Aizawa bellows while he uses his quirk on Kiki again to snuff out any urge she has to knock out Iwaya the same way she stone-cold KO’d Shiyoko and her henchman. This is enough to draw Iwaya’s attention enough to look down at Aizawa and who is laid out under him on the floor.
“Wh-what happened to Detective Tsukauchi?” Iwaya’s dressed to be here, in full black coverage and with a scarf pulled up past her mouth. She must have planned this, using her connections to the latest man to fall prey to her alluring siren charm, who’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for Aizawa. Some price to pay for a piece of payback.
“Dr. Shinsou stopped his heart and it hasn’t started back up correctly,” Aizawa tells her with every ounce of being fucking done with this shit emmanating from his body all at once. “So why don’t you fucking help me and stop trying to kill each other for a goddamn second!”
When things couldn’t possibly seem to get any worse, so perhaps they’re about to get better, at the other end of the room a familiar face in uniform jumps into the open doorframe to the clinic.
“Freeze! Nobody move!” shouts rookie officer Yamaguichi Kumiko, holding up her service pistol up at all of them clustered towards the back of the room as she leaps into the fray. “Put your hands up!”
Aizawa, naturally, does nothing of the sort, nor does Dr. Shinsou, who’s more focused on trying to stem the excessive flow of blood from his new head-wound as he weaves around the back end of the room. Iwaya caught him right across the temple down to the cheek, perhaps even getting his eye with the glass beaker she must have grabbed off one of the shelves in the back-room to smash across her abuser’s face.
“You too, Eraserhead!” Yamaguichi yells first, then notices what Aizawa’s doing second. “Wait, what’s wrong with the Detective?”
“He dies if I stop,” Aizawa snaps unrepentantly, then turns to Hitoshi with a coarse, “Med packs on my belt.”
Hitoshi starts to move, then stops when Yamaguichi fires a warning shot into the air, straight through the roof, and it’s similar to the earlier shot Aizawa heard, just much louder and closer.
“Not so fast! Why are you trying to help him, Shinsou?” Yamaguichi yells. “Isn’t it true the latest killings were all done by you? Why would you do something like that?!”
“It wasn’t real,” Hitoshi replies frantically, and after a second of consideration, moves again, reaching for one of the rolled up dressings on Aizawa’s utility belt before turning back around to face his father. “Please, Yankumi, you have to believe me.”
“Why? Why should I believe you?!” Yamaguichi fires, like she must have fired earlier in the garden – was perhaps the one who brought the lockdown to an end, but this is what happens when someone’s left in the cold. They draw the wrong conclusions. “You’re helping your father right now!”
“Because he can’t go back to prison if he dies here!” Hitoshi calls back furiously as he drags Dr. Shinsou by the bloodied shirt to slump against the sofa, throwing him down on the cushions and leaning in to press the dressing down over his face, causing the Doc to let out a new pained groan. “Shut up!” Hitoshi snaps at him. “You asked for all this, you should be grateful we’re not letting them kill you.”
“Let who kill him?” Yamaguchi echoes, the direction of her bespectacled gaze finally shifting to Iwaya, and the shattered glass all around her feet. “Dr. Iwaya… you… you said you were going to get help, what are you doing here?”
Slowly, Iwaya raises her hands, which is probably the most damning thing of all. “I’m sorry, Yamaguichi, I just had to…” then she looks down at Tsukauchi on the floor, and back up at the rest of the room. “I didn’t think it was going to end like this.”
“Put the gun down, Officer,” Kiki speaks up again, and even if the others miss it, Aizawa hears the threat in her voice. No one points a gun at her son and gets away with it, not even Yankumi.
“No! Not until someone explains to me!” Yamaguichi demands fiercely, shifting to aim at Kiki, but at that moment Aizawa’s earpiece lets out a high pitched forewarning of what’s next.
“HERE COMES THE CALVARY!” The building shakes from floorboard to rafter with the power of Hizashi’s declaration, and Aizawa could sob with relief as he hears the pairs of feet that thump hurriedly upstairs.
Yamaguichi turns around in just enough time not to get bowled out of the way by Hizashi, who bounds in with two paramedics and at least three heavily armed policemen and doesn’t stop until they’re right in front of Aizawa.
“I think his heart's out of sync,” Aizawa says as the paramedics drop down on the other side of Tsukauchi, one already unpacking a defibrillator as Aizawa stops doing CPR and rips open Tsukauchi’s shirt. “It was stopped for a second by a mind control quirk, and hasn’t been beating correctly since.”
“Stand back,” announces one of the paramedics while the other heads over to Dr. Shinsou, who’s being surprisingly cooperative with Hitoshi’s first aid, which might be down to the shock of the son who hates him actually saving his rotten life, or maybe just blood loss. Aizawa moves back with his aching arms, and meets Hizashi’s eyes across the space as the medic shouts, “Clear!” and the lifesaving shock discharges into Tsukauchi’s heart.
A second later the Detective takes a deep gasp and Tsukauchi’s eyes flutter open, while the attending paramedic uses a stethoscope to check whatever the Doc did to him has been undone.
“I’m getting a heartbeat,” the medic confirms as Aizawa lets his head fall into his hands with a grateful moan for a moment.
“Iwaya?” Tsukauchi’s voice is sluggish and confused as he focuses on the people standing over him, which is only fair seeing as his heart only just started fucking beating again. “What’re you doing here?”
Iwaya drops down into a heap next to Aizawa and Tsukauchi, tears running from her eyes as she touches a gloved hand to his cheek. “I’m so sorry,” she tells him, before turning around to glance at Dr. Shinsou behind them. “I just thought if I…”
“It would be you, Iwaya,” Dr. Shinsou sounds no better than the rest of them, but he’s actually managing to speak, and Aizawa’s surprised someone hasn’t gagged him already. “Such wasted potential…”
“That’s enough of you,” Aizawa mutters, finally able to get up and drag out a handful of his capture weapon to silence Dr. Shinsou at long last, giving the other medic merely seconds to back away before reaching out to wrap several loops of the fabric around the Doc’s jaw and shut him up for good.
Hitoshi is just to the side, clearly shell-shocked by all of it, so that’s where Aizawa goes next. “You okay?” he asks despite ‘okay’ being the farthest thing any of them could be right now, but Hitoshi meets his eyes and slowly nods.
“We’re going to have to take you all into custody, I’m afraid,” one of the policemen tells Aizawa, before turning to Hizashi. “Except for you, Mic, since you only just got here.”
“Not at all. In fact, I’ll give you a hand bringing them all in,” Hizashi replies cheerily, and if it weren’t so inappropriate Aizawa would collapse sobbing into his arms right about now, something Hizashi must know whenever their eyes meet across the carnage of the room. “Eraserhead, why don’t you lead the way?”
“Sure,” Aizawa replies stiffly, watching one of the other officers restrain an unconscious Shiyoko across the room, and letting himself accept with an inward cry of relief that maybe, just maybe, it’s actually over.
Notes:
Woooooooooooooooo okay, deep breath, everyone.
So I know at least one reader of this story is a medical professional and I don't wanna hear no clapbacks about if/how the Tsukauchi situation works because I'd done a first aid course around the time I wrote this and researched as best I could so LET'S JUST SAY that Dr. Shinsou was powerful enough to get Tsukauchi's body to throw the coordination of his heart muscles off for a split second and cause a ventricular fibrillation, which for the non-medical professionals is when the heart muscles are out of sync and as a result the heart doesn't pump properly. I was told this was one of the few situations in which a defib (electric shock) can bring someone back with a dramatic sort of gasp so I'M USING WHAT I KNOW don't come for me.
OH YEAH. Everything else. I've said before that this story to me is a wonderful blend of a family drama and a killer thriller detective story, so this chapter in particular really epitomises those two things crashing together in the best way possible.
And to continue our theme of me talking about how much of this high-stakes climax we've been ploughing through for the past few weeks, that moment with Dr. Iwaya and 'remember me?' has also been in my head for a LONG GODDAMN TIME. Not the very start, but definitely a good long while, whereas Dr. Shinsou trying to kill Shiyoko was planned in at a much later date, and Hitoshi losing his shit the way he does here was totally organic off the bat. I felt like he'd been too calm the past 2 chapters of the climax, so it was high time to see him much more rattled as we get through this monster 3-part climatic sequence. It also gives me that good worlds colliding feel as mentioned above.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who's come with me on this mega journey, and I hope it's been everything you wanted it to be! There are still a good number of chapters to go, but these three were the BIG OOF, yanno?
Chapter 82: Aftermath
Summary:
Turns out ‘over’ isn’t quite over.
Notes:
In a truly amazing piece of timing, at the point where I'm writing this a/n (the day before I actually update), and now, when we have just 'finished' the main climatic action sequence of this story, I have finished the actual whole story itself. As in, I've reached the end where I'm writing ahead and am ACTUALLY LEGITIMATELY DONE with writing this story?!?!?! Ahhhh?!?!?!!?
Of course we still have another 8 chapters ahead of this one until we reach the end, but given I started writing this story in April 2018 to actually have finished it is massive for me. As well as being literally massive in terms of the story itself. What a journey!!!
Speaking of which, thanks to everyone who's been commenting on the last chapters, I know I haven't replied to everything but I do read it all and really appreciate how much people have been gripped by this finale of sorts. Now let's get on with all the REST of the stuff that's yet to be tied up.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The sway of the back of the police truck is almost soothing, if Aizawa would let himself truly relax for a moment, which he doesn’t, not with so many balls still in the air. They all just sit in silence, lined up along the benches in the back of the truck, stewing in the unbearable quiet.
Shiyoko is unconscious, and has remained so since Kiki did whatever she did to Dr. Shinsou’s most fanatical supporter. Her own devout followers, henchmen Number One and Two, are both awake and in handcuffs, bunched together at the same end of the truck making the big-guy-covered-in-marker equivalent of distraught puppy eyes at their beloved mistress from across the truck. Hizashi has taken the seat on Aizawa’s left to be next to Shiyoko, both to hold her up and act as a buffer-come-security measure rolled into one, in case she does wake up and her or her bodyguards try to raise hell.
Kiki is at the opposite end out of deliberate respect for the woman who put Shiyoko into an as of yet unknown state of unconsciousness, by the back end of the truck. Opposite to her sits a silent, solemn Iwaya, who makes no eye contact with any of them and hasn't moved so much as a muscle since Tsukauchi was packed off in an ambulance and she was shut in here with her worst nightmare.
Speaking of which, Dr. Shinsou takes centre spot, handcuffed and still gagged with Aizawa’s capture weapon, bordered on each side by policemen. This is, fully deliberately, dead across from Aizawa, because the Doc isn’t going to so much as breathe without Aizawa knowing about it. He keeps his gaze fixed on the single uncovered eye of the Doc's, visible past the thick dressings the paramedic added to Hitoshi's first wave of first aid to his father’s newly glassed face, courtesy of Iwaya's long-awaited revenge.
Aizawa hasn't had a chance to try and talk to the Psych, who hardly seems to be in the mood for talking. Leave that to the police, he supposes, but if he makes a guess then Aizawa would imagine Iwaya's recent closeness to Tsukauchi gave her ‘access’ to enough information to shadow their pursuit of the Doc, keeping her true intentions hidden beneath that frigid exterior. The real mystery is how she got into the Shinsou House without any of them knowing, perhaps even despite the lockdown – something to do with Yankumi's appearance surely, given the words they exchanged; either way, Aizawa’s got bigger things to worry about right now. Officer Yamaguichi didn’t join them in the truck, and is perhaps even a different car, going somewhere else entirely. It sticks in Aizawa’s mind that Hitoshi never got a chance to really sort things out with her, to properly convince her of his innocence. Then again, they’ve all got some innocence to prove in this molten hot mess.
Hitoshi's unsurprisingly taken the seat between Aizawa and Kiki, but seems to bunch a little closer to Aizawa with every bump and shake of the truck over the drive back to a police facility. Not the station they've been based in so far, judging by their direction of travel, but something much higher security, given their cargo. Kiki’s here physically, but not here in all other senses, sitting stoic and pouring intimidating silence that Aizawa would be tempted to erase with his quirk if he wasn’t more focused on Dr. Shinsou. If she’s smart, and Aizawa knows she is, then Kiki realises she’s more exposed by her actions back there than is wise, and anything she says around any number of policemen risks worsening that standing. Or perhaps she just won’t give her husband the satisfaction of speaking in his presence.
While Aizawa watches Dr. Shinsou, the Doc mostly watches Hitoshi, particularly the way Hitoshi wriggles closer and closer to Aizawa over the course of the eerily quiet drive, even drooping his violet quaffed head to rest on Aizawa's shoulder a few times like he’s drawing energy from Aizawa’s dwindling, desperate reserves. The look in Dr. Shinsou's one good eye embodies one thing and one thing only: pure murder. The kind of murder Kiki presumably fires at her husband whenever the Doc’s one-eyed gaze flits over to her.
Aizawa’s always trusted his gut, but he doesn’t even need it to tell this is one twisted-up shitshow they’re in the middle of, and that it’s going to hurt untangling.
There's basically an entire armed division waiting to receive them when they finally arrive at their destination. The chugging engine beneath them shuts off and back of the truck opens. Kiki and Iwaya are quickly led out and taken to the side, followed by Hitoshi, though only after a longing glance back at Aizawa.
"I'll see you soon," Aizawa has to insist before the teen agrees to go. Aizawa doesn't move until the Doc does, shunted up by a policeman on each arm and escorted roughly out of the truck once the others are out of the way.
They climb out into a large concrete yard surrounded by high barbed wire fences, blasted by floodlights creating a strange day-night feeling as the dusk gives way to darkness. The relentless heat of the day has abated, bringing some kind of relief, but in its place comes pure exhaustion. Except there's much still to do.
Hizashi comes out after Aizawa, carrying a still-unconscious and bloodied, bruised Shiyoko princess style in his arms: the picture of a broken fairytale. Aizawa finds himself hoping she wakes up soon, or Kiki could be in even more hot water than she already is. Villains are villains, but Kiki’s just a civilian, so whatever she’s done to Shiyoko could be held against her according to the laws against vigilantism – Aizawa would take the fall for her if he could, but what Kiki did to Shiyoko is something only she can do, so she’s the sole bearer of the blame.
Hizashi lays Shiyoko down on a waiting stretcher attended by a lonely medic, and is rolled off in the company of some of the uniformed policemen-type people who were waiting for them.
The last ones out are the stencilled henchmen, fetched by some of the attending guards circling them, and then led like cattle to the slaughterhouse. Whatever Kiki did to Shiyoko wore off Number Two just as they were trying to load up the truck, and though he seems as alright as anyone with Shiyoko's name written across every square inch of their body could be, it’s still objectively pretty fucking bad. They're both docile, seeming to understand what's happening to them on some level, but look longingly after Shiyoko after she's wheeled away in the opposite direction.
One of the men working at this place who looks to hold the most rank steps forward. He’s dressed in full riot gear, unarmed to the eye, and looks right at Dr. Shinsou before flicking a glance over at Aizawa.
Hitoshi, Kiki and Iwaya are already gone by now, halfway across the compound being led into a building that Aizawa has to guess contains cells and interrogation rooms. If Tsukauchi were with them maybe things would go a little different, but he's not here, and even Aizawa can understand why anyone would take precautions.
"Take Dr. Shinsou to block C," the commanding officer declares. But when they start to escort the Doc and Aizawa unquestionably follows, he tries to order, "Not you,"
"I go where he goes," Aizawa replies resolutely, because after what happened to Tsukauchi there's no way in hell he's taking his eyes off Dr. Shinsou for a second.
The ranking officer has a goatee peppered with silver, which perfectly frames his disapproving frown as he says, "That's not our protocol."
"I've been assisting with the investigation," Aizawa steamrolls. "Detective Tsukauchi would confirm it if he were here."
"But he's not here," the offices counters with the yield and understanding of a breezeblock. "So until we have a clear picture of what happened–"
"I go where he goes," Aizawa interrupts, "Because if I don't, and someone makes a mistake, there's nothing to stop him killing again." Their shadows are thrown in several directions as a result of the floodlights encircling them and slow-setting sun. Nowhere to hide here, and definitely nowhere to run.
The officer seems affronted by this claim from Aizawa, his nostrils flaring with a presumptive, "Because you alone can do more than an entire squad of our best men?"
"I can erase quirks." Aizawa gives a demonstrative flare of his ability like a cat raising the hair on its back, turning it onto the Doc just to remind him what Aizawa can do when he needs to. "No one should speak to Dr. Shinsou without me present or you're all at risk."
With a mix of suspicion and awe the officer gasps, "Who are you?"
"Eraserhead," Aizawa answers stiffly, ready to do the dance. "A Hero working this case."
Past his visor, the officer's face scrunches. "You aren't on any of the paperwork."
Here we go again, Aizawa resigns himself to, regretting more than ever that he let Tsukauchi fall, the grease to his rusty wheels. "I'm underground," he sighs with barely disguised exasperation, not taking his eyes off Dr. Shinsou, as if he might vanish into smoke when they're not looking. "You have to let me–"
"Am I on the paperwork, by any chance?" Hizashi jumps in with the utterly heroic save-the-day air that lands him so many advertising campaigns despite performing a solid middle of the pack in heroic feats, outperforming Heroes with far better crime fighting stats than him on pure popularity and the pervasiveness of his so-called branding.
"Oh… yes, of course," the officer fumbles, though he clearly recognises Hizashi after a moment. "Present Mic, it says so quite clearly."
"Then it's settled!" Hizashi cheers, clapping a hand on Aizawa's shoulder in a way that sends tingles through him. "I can vouch for Eraserhead here. Trust me, he's someone you want to keep around." It’s true: why else would Hizashi have stayed so close to Aizawa these past fifteen years?
"Well then,” the officer muses, “I guess…"
"Police Chief Tsuragame is aware of my involvement too." Aizawa hates pulling rank, but if the situation calls for it. "Given one of his best detectives almost died because of Dr. Shinsou, do you think he'd be pleased if anyone else ends up hurt, or worse, because you insisted on trying to question a known cop-killer without me?"
Tsukauchi had insisted the squad sent out to support them were fully briefed, but perhaps this man wasn't part of that group, or wasn't listening properly during the brief, because the way this ruffles his feathers couldn't be clearer. Except the last thing Aizawa’s going to do is leave Dr. Shinsou in the company of anyone except himself. Every moment he's lost sight of the Doc something terrible has happened, and it's ending now.
"I suppose we can question you together." The officer acts as if this is a concession, rather than accession to Aizawa’s very clear demand, but whatever helps him sleep at night. "Present Mic, would you like to observe?"
"I'd rather sit in with the others, if that's alright," Hizashi replies, a quick shared glance with Aizawa that understands what he wants without ever needing to say it. Hitoshi, Kiki and Iwaya have gone inside already, and Aizawa won't stop worrying about them, but he'll worry a little less if he knows Hizashi is there.
"Sure, they're over there in Block A." The officer gestures, and without further ado Hizashi gives a friendly wave and saunters off.
Dr. Shinsou has remained silent so far, not by choice, and his hands are cuffed, but now he raises them and points to the dressings over his face, where spots of blood have seeped through.
"I… think he's saying he needs medical attention," murmurs one of the attending policemen holding him, and Aizawa has to wonder how long that Shinsou effect needs to sink in. What it takes for the Doc to start making inroads on an unsuspecting mind. There’s a shaky, almost concerned way the policeman confesses, "He was bleeding pretty heavily when we arrived."
"Fine. Then take him to the infirmary first," the commanding officer sighs, before firing a thoughtful look at Aizawa – perhaps considering the extra security promised by his presence, or maybe just considering if the Doc's not the only one who needs looking over. "Both of them."
This time, when they start to lead Dr. Shinsou away there’s no contest over Aizawa following them, crossing the nondescript yard of this not-quite-a-prison. They’re led into a building similar to the one Hitoshi and his Ma disappeared into at another corner of the lot, and are met by two more security guys on the inside.
From here they’re marched through sterile-smelling corridors towards a dreary overlit medical ward staffed by a single depressed looking doctor. Dr. Shinsou’s hands are restrained, but that’s not the real threat. The real threat is his mouth, currently still wrapped in spools of Aizawa’s capture weapon, which overlap the layers of dressing underneath covering his wounds.
“I'll need to see the injuries.” The Doctor is a man in his fifties or older with a few white wispy hairs in a low halo around his head.
“Before that,” Aizawa announces, as two of the now four-man security detail accompanying them are carrying a firearm on their hips, and everyone shifts to watch him with reservations a mile high. “Dr. Shinsou is a highly dangerous criminal with a brainwashing quirk triggered by answering any question he asks. It’s better if you don’t speak to him at all, no matter what he says.”
The clinic Doctor appears to have noticed Aizawa’s here, or rather, that he’s here for a specific reason beyond decoration.
“And you are?”
“A Hero ensuring he doesn’t kill again.” Aizawa’s not playing around and it shows, practically beams from every inch of him in a deadly serious ‘do as I say if you want to live’ aura. As an aside, he adds to the attending guards, particularly the newest armed additions, “That goes double for all of you too. You shouldn’t really be carrying weapons around him.” Because their weapons are one word away from being the Doc’s weapons, but try convincing anyone else of that.
One of the armed men scoffs audibly, but an elbow from his partner quiets him back down. Dr. Shinsou has been waiting patiently, probably just conserving his energy, until a window of opportunity arises. Aizawa’s not stupid enough to think the Doc has given up so easily, and dreads to think what could happen if he wasn’t here making sure everyone who has contact with the Doc knows exactly what he’s capable of.
“So, you don’t require any medical attention yourself?” the Doctor – the Doctor that’s not a bloodthirsty killer – sounds sceptical, so perhaps Aizawa’s earlier roughhousing is showing. But he’s powered through with far worse injuries for much less.
“I’m fine,” he brushes off sternly, and steps around to face the Doc. “I’ll remove the gag now.” He starts to unravel the capture weapon from the Doc’s mouth, revealing his bloodstained chin and cut lip, swollen and clotting in a deep cherry red, stains coming off on the strips of Aizawa’s capture weapon that he’ll have the pleasure of bleaching out later.
The Doc doesn’t say anything at first, merely wiggles his jaw until a soft click comes from it, and then obediently turns the bandaged side of his face towards the Doctor, who starts to peel back the dressings. A whole third of his face eventually meets the fresh air, his once pale skin covered in bright, bloody red. The glass beaker Iwaya smashed across Dr. Shinsou cut him in multiple places, the longest slice stretching from his temple all the way down to his cheek, and though there was some attempt to stop the bleeding, even the smallest disturbance from uncovering the wounds provokes them to start again, drops rolling down his cheek, like he can’t cry tears of anything but blood.
“Some of these will need stitches,” the clinic Doctor says lowly, blotting the fresh bleeding before turning to the side to start wetting cotton wool with disinfectant.
For the first time since his capture Dr. Shinsou speaks, his voice a soft velvet, the pile so deep it feels like it could swallow a whole hand. “Will I be able to play the piano, Doctor?”
It’s ridiculous, but Aizawa sees the Doctor’s mouth open, the rush of air from his bemused lips.
“Wha–?”
“Nice try,” Aizawa growls as he activates his quirk, squashing the Doc’s quirk like a mosquito just as the unsuspecting Doctor fumbles through a response. Without breaking his stare from Dr. Shinsou, Aizawa continues, “Consider that a test run, and I’d suggest you take my warnings more seriously from now on.”
Only just realising what’s happened, and that ‘don’t answer questions’ and ‘don’t say anything’ means not ever, the Doctor shuts his mouth again with a fishy gulp.
“You must be enjoying this,” Dr. Shinsou remarks, both his eyes finally fixing on Aizawa, their gaze meeting – deep, dark purple to Aizawa’s glowing red.
“Babysitting you? Not really,” Aizawa replies curtly, still using his quirk for a moment before blinking and letting it settle. Just to prove to the Doc he knows exactly where the boundaries are, and that he’s not getting caught out again. Shiyoko’s mark is still on his inside wrist, a reminder of what happens when he makes mistakes. No more mistakes.
Dr. Shinsou makes a hmph -like noise as if he doesn’t believe that for a second, then hisses through his teeth as the Doctor cleans his injuries, blood and alcohol running down his cheek and dripping from his jaw. “Watch it," he mutters to the Doctor. "You leave so much as a single crooked stitch I’ll see to it you never work again.”
The other Doctor clearly thinks about responding and then wisely decides against it, concentrating instead on his work. Dr. Shinsou is being surprisingly cooperative, but then again his vanity knows no bounds, so maybe it’s not that surprising at all that he should want the Doctor to take care of his face before setting himself to any other task.
It’s unsettlingly quiet again, the policemen not really knowing what to do with themselves while the Doctor threads a needle with suture material, using a gripping tool to start passing it carefully through the edges of the Doc’s skin, sewing his flesh back together. In a showdown of battling mentalists, it seems ironic that Dr. Shinsou should be taken down a notch by such rudimentary physical injuries, both from Iwaya and Shiyoko’s henchman, whose fists have left bruises that are starting to come up on his greyish skin, as if the sun refuses to shine on him anymore out of pure principle.
Dr. Shinsou is perfectly still, almost as if he isn’t even breathing, and since Aizawa’s staring at him as a precaution, it gives him a good while to examine the mad Doctor up close. He’s smoothed his hair back down, but it doesn’t quite lie flat, darker patches sitting irregularly that are probably dried blood in those slick violet locks. The stubble across his jaw is of a similar deep purple, scratchy-looking and crusted in places with flakes of dried blood – both the Doc’s own and Tsukauchi’s, Aizawa knows.
His face is all extremes, the precipice of sharp cheekbones stretching down hollow cheeks to a long, square jaw, the bridge of his nose thin and straight but bruised across one side, with a black eye starting to bloom in the eye socket across from where he’s been cut. He looks, all in all, like a man who’s been through a hell of his own creation. This inaction now could almost be considered tranquil, Dr. Shinsou’s eyes resting at a sultry half mast, as if he’s resting – or saving his strength. Perhaps he feels that over-ness too, at least as far as his run for it and volatile partnership with Shiyoko goes. They're off the map now, though perhaps they always were.
A question drips off Aizawa’s tongue like falling dew, “Did you really think you’d kill her?” That they'd let him kill her, right there on the floor in front of them. Or was it just to pull focus, a distraction of fatal proportions. Or both.
Dr. Shinsou is watching Aizawa as carefully as Aizawa does him. This is the closest they’ve ever been, separated by nothing but a few inches of air and the stark differences between them. Aizawa’s spent so much time around his son that it’s not Hitoshi who looks like the Dr. Shinsou anymore, but the Doc who looks like Hitoshi. Aizawa sees their resemblance the most in shared bone structure, especially around the eyes, but also in certain mannerisms; the soft-spoken, watch-me-or-else atmosphere of the inebriating Shinsou effect.
“Who?” the Doc says simply, and oh, if it wouldn’t be easy to step into that trap.
But this is why Aizawa is one of the very few people who can actually talk to the Doc without fear, immune to his deadly charm.
“Shiyoko,” Aizawa answers with his quirk already fired, giving Dr. Shinsou no chance to close his jaws around Aizawa’s mind, though he still feels the teeth scraping off the bomb shelter doors.
“I didn’t think anything,” the Doc remarks with a sultry, immoving gaze bolted to Aizawa, perfectly statuesque, not even flinching as the other Doctor places each stitch with painstaking care along the deepest and longest of his cuts. “I merely did. ” He can’t move his head, but within these restrictions, a slow blink of the Doc’s dark eyes is a gesture – one Aizawa can’t return with his own dry, glowing gaze. “Do you always feel the need to question obvious things?”
“Yes,” Aizawa retorts, unblinking and unimpressed. “Believe it or not, it actually comes in handy in my line of work.”
The others look like they’d intervene in this situation if they knew how, but therein lies the problem, so they just shuffle awkwardly and frown at one another in the corner of Aizawa’s vision.
“Ah yes.” Dr. Shinsou actually rolls his eyes this time, and for a second it’s disarming because he’s like a forty-something psychotic Hitoshi and it’s fucking weird. “Your work.”
“Hold still,” the Doctor mutters, then when Dr. Shinsou’s predatory gaze hits him for a second pushes out a meeker, “Please.”
The Doc’s face falls to a stoic neutral again. Aizawa blinks but keeps his quirk active on either side of it. There’s a wisp of bitterness lingering in Dr. Shinsou’s voice as he suggests, “This so-called heroism you’ve been dragging my son into?”
“It’s what Hitoshi wants to do.” Aizawa doesn’t shy away from naming names anymore, or facing Dr. Shinsou down the way he means to be faced. Biological father to the shoddy surrogate replacement – and if Aizawa’s the closest thing Hitoshi’s got, that is fucking twisted, as Hitoshi himself screamed at his father not an hour ago. “I think you know that.”
“He’s just a child, he doesn’t know what he wants,” the Doc dismisses with a flutter of his night sky eyelashes.
“Yes he does,” Aizawa retorts with a spoonful and a half more anger than he ought to be showing here, and this is not the interview he thinks any of them were expecting, but the Doctor is almost done sewing Dr. Shinsou’s face back up, so their time might be running out anyway. “The fact that you won’t accept it might be why he hates you so much.” That, and all the abuse and murder.
It’s indulgent, but Aizawa believes what he’s saying, and can’t resist sticking that knife in the Doc, even knowing how pointless it is to try and hurt someone so rooted in their own reality and detached from the rest of the world’s.
“Oh?” The Doc hums thoughtfully, peering deeply into Aizawa’s burning red eyes. “Yet he was so quick to come to my aid.”
“Because that’s what Heroes do,” Aizawa bites, and can sense their company wanting to put a stop to this little parlé, but doesn’t give them the chance by continuing, “They save people, no matter how awful they are or what they’ve done. Only you would mistake Hitoshi’s actions for anything else.”
“Are you quite finished?” The Doc asks boredly.
Erasure quirk blazing, Aizawa breathes pure fire, “I’m just getting started–” he’s got a gut and a half of pure poison for this symbol of everything wrong with parenting, but he never gets that far.
“Not you,” Dr. Shinsou interrupts condescendingly. “The Doctor. I’d like to check your work before we leave this place, make sure it’s up to scratch, you know. One medical professional to another.”
Aizawa understands why Kiki could be so blinded by her hate for her husband she needed to be stopped when she couldn't stop herself. Dr. Shinsou might be the most infuriating prick Aizawa’s ever had the displeasure of knowing, and Kiki married him.
"Oh, ah, yes… Doctor," the other Doctor stutters, while Aizawa despairs at just how quickly Dr. Shinsou's charm seems to worm its way into people. His natural authoritative air, like nerve gas, convincing the people around him they must obey.
"It's fine," Aizawa chomps his way back into the conversation, but the Doctor has already gotten out a small mirror that he holds up for Dr. Shinsou to inspect himself in. The smaller cuts have been taped shut, only the largest needing stitches, which adds a further inhuman horror to his haunting appearance, the dark suture thread against his chalky complexion, contrasting with the narrow red fissures in his skin.
"Adequate," Dr. Shinsou pronounces a moment later, and if it didn't risk tearing his stitches and sending them back to the start, Aizawa would consider giving the Doc a cuff around the head and a warning to pack up his shitty attitude, although that might be some of his behaviour with Hitoshi bleeding over the lines. Not that Aizawa would genuinely reprimand Hitoshi that way, not seriously, but his instincts are more twisted up right now than a hair-tie at the end of a long day. Aizawa doesn't know what he'd do in parallel occurrences of these bizarre events, only what he's doing now in an attempt to salvage the best outcomes from the most dire of situations.
"Where next?" Aizawa addresses their escort, who seem a little relieved to be brought back into the fold.
"This way," one of them leads, while another two resume grip on both Dr. Shinsou's arms, the last heading up the back alongside Aizawa.
It's walking down another dreary corridor that the officer to Aizawa’s side murmurs quietly, "So you're really an underground Hero?" in that way Aizawa’s learned to recognise. The tone Midoriya first used when it turned out the squirt somehow knew as much about Eraserhead as there is to know, and quietly knocked Aizawa off his feet at just how well All Might's prodigy knew his field on Day 1. Trust Toshi to handpick the superfans.
"Yeah," Aizawa answers briefly. "You won't have heard of me." It’s kind of the point.
"Wow." The guard walking with Aizawa is one of the armed ones, the handle of his pistol threatening in a holder on his hip, and though they're all wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, that's on the assumption that other people will try to shoot them, so it makes Aizawa nervous anyway. He's been in a situation not unlike this recently, and look how that turned out.
"Focus on the task at hand," Aizawa tries not to lecture but can't help it, the teaching instinct just pours out of him. "I'm no one. Dr. Shinsou is the one to watch."
"He's that dangerous, even now?" the policeman asks Aizawa reverently, and Aizawa can almost hear echoes of the conversation this guy will have with his partner or family when he goes home tonight. If he goes home, the excited ‘you'll never guess who I met today…’ As trivial as the moment is, Aizawa wants to make sure this man has that moment, and they don't have to live through any more bloodshed. But they all have to be on guard to make sure that happens.
So it's with every ounce of gravity the situation deserves, watching the sway of Dr. Shinsou's back as he walks between the guards strong and tall, that Aizawa mutters, "Especially now."
They're led to another much smaller room, with a large one-way mirror on one wall and a desk in the middle that has a large bar bolted across the top. Dr. Shinsou is transferred from a small set of handcuffs to a pair with a longer chain in the middle that threads around the centre bar, and takes a seat what feels like over-obligingly.
Aizawa glares at anyone who looks at him like they expect him to sit down too, as if he's also going to be questioned in the same way as the Doc, despite knowing that is what they're going to do, but appearances still matter in a situation like this. Dr. Shinsou can't be allowed to think they're equals in this, because Aizawa’s the Hero and he's the Villain, and Heroes who don't fit the usual model are still Heroes. So he leans back against the wall and fixes his gaze on the Doc.
They all seem to be waiting for something, which becomes apparent when the higher ranking officer from before walks in. Makes sense they were waiting for him, though Aizawa can’t help a little apprehension with the way the man eyes him up after stepping into the room.
“I’m Sergeant Shimada,” he introduces at last, removing his helmet to reveal matching white stripes in his hair flowing back from the temples, and a short neatly-tied ponytail. “I’ll be asking both of you some questions,” he says stiffly, staring dead at Aizawa. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Nope,” Aizawa returns firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. “Let’s just get on with it.” The less time anyone spends in risky conversation with Dr. Shinsou, the better.
Sergeant Shimada bristles but keeps it together, setting his helmet on the table and sitting down in the empty chair opposite Dr. Shinsou – a trap from the start, as the only other empty chair is next to the Doc, and Aizawa’s sure as shit not positioning himself there. Anywhere he needs to turn in order to have eyes on Dr. Shinsou is one movement more than they can afford to wait, not to mention the implications of letting the two of them be interviewed side by side.
“Before we get started, I’d like to remind you that I’m fully aware of the conditions of your quirk, Dr. Shinsou,” Sgt. Shimada opens with, and that’s actually kind of a relief for Aizawa to hear coming out of his mouth. “I’ll be asking the questions, and if you attempt to question me then I’m not going to respond.”
Dr. Shinsou sits up and smiles, just a little, as he’s not able to make any extreme facial expressions thanks to his newly sewn-up mug, then lilts, “Are you sure?”
Aizawa activates his quirk practically on impulse, just from the sensation of feeling the many-headed hydra of the Doc’s quirk reaching out for the Sergeant, though Sgt. Shimada sits stoic and remains thoroughly unimpressed looking, double-safe from the Doc’s clutches.
Turning to check Aizawa for a moment, the Sergeant waits until the smirk disappears from Dr. Shinsou’s face. The Doc sits back into his chair with a huff. “Have it your way. Proceed, Sergeant.”
“I’d like you to recount the events that transpired at your former residence until the arrival of the police,” Sgt. Shimada lays out meticulously.
“Of course,” Dr. Shinsou replies far too appeasingly, a sly twist in the corners of his mouth that promise he’s a long way from giving up. “Or I could start with the part where this supposed Hero tried to kill my son?”
Aizawa’s got his quirk wrapped around the Doc like a bell jar, containing his power, but it’s no less sinister than before, and no less powerful either.
Without so much as a blink stg. Shimada repeats, "I'd like you to relate the events starting from when you got to the house, Dr. Shinsou."
Although the Doc's attempt to derail the conversation isn't successful, he's still planted the fact of Aizawa attempting to kill Hitoshi in their minds, and there's a few wobbly looks from the other officers in Aizawa’s direction before the Doc deigns to continue.
"I went to the house to retrieve my son from the care of this stranger who you appear to be trusting on the basis that he calls himself a Hero," the Doc recites resentfully, giving Aizawa a filthy look. "I didn't realise the bar had been set so low these days."
"He wasn't alone," Aizawa starts filling in the gaps impatiently. "Shiyoko and two or three accomplices were with him."
"Two or three?" Dr. Shinsou scorns, and Aizawa doesn't budge the focus of his quirk on the infuriating man. "How very sure you sound."
"I didn't see the third, but assume they were responsible for the lockdown of the area," Aizawa explains to Sgt. Shimada. "It sounded like Yan… Officer Yamaguichi intervened and broke some kind of quirk-based lockdown, but there was no one else with us in the van."
“That’d be because they’re dead," Sgt. Shimada supplies tonelessly.
"Dead? How?" Aizawa chances his arm by asking, aware that this isn't supposed to be his interrogation but still hunting for scraps to build the full picture.
"You’re correct that officer Yamaguichi came into conflict with someone responsible for restricting access to the house,” the Sergeant actually answers. “She shot and injured them on the scene. While they were initially stable, I’ve been told the suspect died in the ambulance on the way to hospital."
"Died how?" Aizawa presses, blinking a few times while he has the chance. "From their wounds or–"
"This is not your interrogation," the Sgt. finally reigns Aizawa back in with a cross look, then turns to face Dr. Shinsou again. "In your own words, Dr. Shinsou, what happened once you arrived?"
"What happened is that several people, this joke of a Hero included, tried to kill my son," Dr. Shinsou snaps. "Has it become a crime for a father to protect his child?"
"No, just the usual crimes for murder and abuse," Aizawa retorts with the liberty of his quirk to rest on, and the fact that it allows him to talk back to Dr. Shinsou clearly drives him crazy. Crazier than he already is.
"Did you insist on being questioned with me so you could be such a nuisance?" the Doc spits at Aizawa.
"That and to stop you killing everyone in here," Aizawa points out bluntly.
"I'd like to see you try and stop me, Hero," Dr. Shinsou scorns, barely retaining control, perhaps only so as not to tear his stitches. The monster isn’t far under the surface, and hopefully all the policemen here can see it as plainly as Aizawa does. "You've failed to stop me before, what makes you think you can do anything now?"
One of the guards mutters, "Wow, these two really hate each other," before getting shh-ed, and it's an understatement and a half. Aizawa hates Dr. Shinsou for what he did to his son alone, much less the dozens of other people he's killed or lives he's ruined.
“This is going to take a long time if you refuse to cooperate,” Sgt. Shimada cuts back in, tilting his salt-and-pepper bearded chin up at the Doc before his eyes flit sideways at Aizawa in a way that makes sure to specify he means both of them.
“I’m happy to give you my account of events,” Aizawa replies matter of factly, slipping his hands into his pockets in an appearance of keeping it casual, and – since the Doc can’t get a word in edgeways at the moment – deactivates his quirk and treats himself to a few blinks as he feels out a bottle of eyedrops. The stretch of time he was staring for earlier in the house, to say nothing of his general fatigue and light injuries, is making even shorter periods using his quirk more uncomfortable than they ought to be. “You’re the one who insisted on questioning Dr. Shinsou first.”
“Alright then,” Sgt. Shimada invites curtly. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Aizawa only just resists quipping that it’s about damn time and just gets into it.
“Myself, Detective Tsukauchi and Shinsou Hitoshi entered the property first, while Present Mic and Hitoshi’s mother observed from afar and kept in touch with us via telecommunications,” Aizawa begins in the same rigid, mechanical way he debriefs a class of Hero trainees after a training exercise. “Myself and Tsukauchi were hidden, but Hitoshi remained out in the open as a lure for Dr. Shinsou, who arrived around an hour or more later in the company of the killer Hakamata Shiyoko and three accomplices.”
Sgt. Shimada has started to quickly scribble all of this down in a notepad he produced from a pocket, and Aizawa pauses for a moment to let him catch up, while the Doc ices Aizawa with a look of vicious betrayal. Surely he knows it was a trap by now, but perhaps hearing it laid out so coldly hurts his precious ego. Good.
“Dr. Shinsou came upstairs while Shiyoko and the others remained downstairs, then the communications to and from the house were blocked soon after. I assume access was also restricted, since the police never arrived, probably due to the quirk of the now-deceased accomplice.”
“That’s… correct,” Sgt. Shimada says like he’s hiding being just a little impressed, or perhaps he’s just sheepish after realising that asking Aizawa about this earlier would’ve saved him some trouble. “Then what?”
“Then he tried to kill my son,” Dr. Shinsou pipes up again, inspecting his fingernails and scraping out what has to be dried blood from underneath them. “Why don’t you tell him, Eraser?”
Aizawa activates his quirk again, which only enhances his unimpressed glare at the Doc. “At some point Tsukauchi fell prey to Shiyoko’s quirk, and was made to attack and restrain me along with other accomplices. Then I too was put under her control.” Aizawa holds out his arm indicatively, her name still scrawled on there in shaky marker pen while Aizawa fought like a wild animal. “It was after that Shiyoko ordered me to kill Hitoshi.” Not exactly the way Dr. Shinsou had been phrasing it, but that’s clearly the point. “Before it could happen, Hitoshi was able to break the control of Shiyoko’s quirk over me, allowing me to erase Shiyoko’s quirk and free the others, including Tsukauchi. There was a… struggle after that.”
“Be as specific as possible,” Sgt. Shimada requests, still writing frantically into his notepad as Aizawa rests his quirk again, tipping his head back to drip some eyedrops into each eye – never know how long the next stint is going to last.
“Dr. Shinsou tried to strangle Shiyoko. When Detective Tsukauchi attempted to break them up he inadvertently responded to one of Dr. Shinsou’s questions, and the Doc used his quirk to stop Tsukauchi’s heart. I started performing CPR on him, and around that time, Kiki– I mean, Shinsou Akiko, Dr. Shinsou’s wife – arrived at the house too. Shiyoko attacked her in a jealous rage, so Kiki used her quirk to subdue Shiyoko and one of the accomplices.” That’s credible, Aizawa thinks to himself as he wonders how Kiki will sell the story to another interviewer across the compound. Self defence. That’s what it was, right?
“Hang on,” Sgt. Shimada grumbles as he scrawls, giving Aizawa a nod when he’s ready to continue.
“Around that time Dr. Iwaya appeared and attacked Dr. Shinsou, causing his most serious injuries with a glass beaker. None of us knew she was there. I was still occupied with Tsukauchi, so Hitoshi had to perform first aid on his father. Officer Yamaguichi arrived shortly after, followed by Present Mic and the rest of the officers.” Aizawa takes a breath, tracking through the microfilm in his mind for missed details, and although it was all such a blur, he thinks that about covers it. “Any questions?”
There’s a long pause, then a scoff from Dr. Shinsou, who turns to look at Aizawa straight on with his lacerated, patchwork face.
“Do you seriously expect them to believe that?”
And up goes Aizawa’s quirk again, blocking the Doc’s quirk as he replies, “It’s the truth, so yes.”
“Your account of the events differs, Dr. Shinsou?” Sgt. Shimada has the poor sense to prompt.
“Of course,” the Doc tuts like a disapproving teacher over messy homework. “This man you all suppose a Hero has been manipulating everyone around him, including the unfortunate Detective,” Dr. Shinsou actually says unironically, and Aizawa resists the urge to scowl, telling himself there’s no way anyone is going to buy the half-baked story of a known murderer. “He’s tricked my wife and child into believing I mean them harm, then tried to kill my son under the pretence of being controlled by someone else’s quirk. One can’t just break brainwashing hold so easily,” he tries to lecture, exuding arrogance, “as an expert in this field I would know.”
“I have it on good authority you do know it’s possible,” Aizawa interjects acidly. “I hear you’ve taken control of people brainwashed by Shiyoko before.”
Dr. Shinsou gives him a rather peculiar look. “And how would you know that?”
Unblinking Aizawa says, “A little bird told me.” A little – or not really so little at all – Cricket told him actually, but that’s neither here nor there.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Dr. Shinsou derides like the bare-faced liar he is.
Sgt. Shimada is still writing, and Aizawa tries to have faith in the system, really, he does, but without Tsukauchi backing him up it’s easy to fear for the worst. “Pipe down. It’ll all be in the report,” the Sgt. says routinely, and Aizawa’s eyelids already feel like they’re full of iron filings, so he chances another quick break to irrigate them.
Of course, he’s shown Dr. Shinsou the pattern now, so it’s exactly at this point that the Doc remarks with a sycophantic smile, “Isn’t it astonishing how law enforcement these days can be so gullible?”
“Ugh, what an assh–” one of the guards murmurs bitterly to the other, and it’s not meant to be a reply, or not directly to Dr. Shinsou, but it’s still an answer to his question in a way, and that’s all the Doc needs.
Aizawa moves at once, throwing the eyedrops away to grab his capture weapon and identifying which of the guards spoke – the one who was walking alongside him earlier, the one with the goddamn weapon. Face wiped blank, the man has no sooner whipped the gun from its holster than Aizawa throws a strip of his capture weapon right around the man’s hand, pulling him across the room and whipping upwards to ensure his whole arm is dragged well away from himself or anyone else.
Swinging around to fling the unsuspecting guard against the wall, knocking him out of Dr. Shinsou’s hold by force, Aizawa’s hanging right over the guy, much to the amazement of almost everyone else in the room, when awareness returns to his eyes, followed by a rush of fear over what just happened. What would have happened if Aizawa hadn't stopped it.
“When I say be careful,” Aizawa growls, knowing exactly what the Doc would’ve tried, and exactly what he’ll continue to try every chance he gets – and consequently, why Aizawa needs to live and breathe in Dr. Shinsou’s footsteps until he’s safely behind bars again, and oh, that’s not an appealing prospect. “I mean it.”
Notes:
AHAHAH Y'ALL DIDN'T THINK WE WERE TOTALLY DONE WITH THE ACTION, DID YOU? When I was writing this part I initially was almost overwhelmed by the 'what comes next' after the last scene was done, but the more I started digging into it the more I realised not only is there still a lot to resolve, but that after spending so many chapters chasing Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko, I owe it to myself but especially all of you readers to actually serve him up.
And oooooooh, isn't he so despicable? Gotta love a charismatic villain.
See you next week! Eight more chapters to go!!! And don't worry, I have another super-secret surprise YWID-verse project lined up that will continue to update on Wednesdays after YWID itself is done. So it's only the *beginning* of the end ;)
Chapter 83: The Longest Day
Summary:
Aizawa can’t rest yet. It’s starting to show.
Notes:
So the astute, or those who are in my discord when I was talking about it, may notice that this chapter's name is a reference to the first chapter title 'a long day', which since we're in the final stretch of this story is a really great way to start bringing things thematically back around.
And WHAT A CHAPTER to do it on, okay. This one. UGH. This is one of my favourites, which I'm sure you'll see why.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It feels like it’s been weeks, months, years since Aizawa watched Dr. Shinsou being dragged from his dilapidated house covered in blood by a squad of policemen. Since then Aizawa has had the honour of spending every second with the Doc. Even when Dr. Shinsou showered, which is an image Aizawa will need pure turpentine to erase from his mind. How the flow of water was dyed slightly red as it ran down his back, channeling between his shoulderblades as he tipped his head to keep the water off his face, carefully washing away the evidence of his crimes, and wounds, from his hair and the crevices of his severe, angular body.
They’re still accompanied by guards everywhere, even in the bathroom, but since that moment in the interrogation room none of them are armed anymore. Thankfully the surprisingly-not-all-that-bad Sgt. Shimada quickly grasped that weapons on his men were weapons that could be turned against them, and followed Aizawa’s advice to ditch all firearms around Dr. Shinsou as a matter of course.
It’s not immediately obvious, but to the critical eye Aizawa can see the toil of Dr. Shinsou’s six years in prison on his body, a certain quality of leanness that comes from being confined to a small space without enough room to move around. Kept like an animal in too small a cage, which is exactly how he behaves, so no wonder.
There are marks from the Doc’s four-day run on the outside too, perhaps the most noticeable being the hickies – Aizawa would hesitate to call them love bites – littering the base of Dr. Shinsou’s neck and scratches across his back and shoulders. Aside from being viscerally repulsive, it makes Aizawa think of the marks the Doc has left Shiyoko with in return, how the bruising of his hands around her neck might look similar without being even remotely the same.
The Doc takes way too long in the shower, irritating Aizawa, who waits impatiently against the wall opposite the stall with his arms crossed and a dead-eyed stare in Dr. Shinsou’s general direction without focusing on anything in particular.
It’s almost as if Dr. Shinsou enjoys the attention, or makes out as if he does, a sly implication in his voice when he finally shuts off the water. Turning around and meeting Aizawa’s eyes across the bathroom, stark naked, he asks, “Enjoying it yet, Eraser?”
Aizawa doesn’t answer in words, but he activates his quirk anyway, because perhaps the single eyebrow he lifts qualifies as a response, and he’s not taking any chances.
Unsure whether the Doc is latching onto Aizawa’s latent sexuality, testing him maybe, or trying to make him uncomfortable – or is purely that egotistical he assumes anyone would enjoy watching him shower – but the answer to all of them is a solidly unimpressed fuck no. Aizawa’s seen far better and worse, and all he’ll take away from this is the unwanted knowledge that the Shinsou carpet does match the drapes.
They took Dr. Shinsou’s filthy suit away in an evidence bag as soon as he took it off, so all he has is a flimsy set of inmate-meets-hospital pyjamas to change into, which he clearly resents because he takes an excruciatingly long time putting them on, so it’s not all bad.
Sgt. Shimada also dug out something else for the Doc to wear, which he handed silently to Aizawa before he left – probably switching over to interview Hitoshi, Kiki and Iwaya by Aizawa’s educated guess. Unsurprisingly, Aizawa hasn’t heard from or seen any of them, which makes him a little nervous, but he understands why they’re not being kept anywhere near Dr. Shinsou.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Aizawa remarks when the Doc has finished dressing himself. He’s not handcuffed, but as observed before, his hands aren’t the most dangerous part of him.
Dr. Shinsou sighs as he looks down at the belted mask in Aizawa’s hands, not looking any less threatening in faded grey pyjamas compared to a well-tailored, bloodstained suit, but simply like another kind of threat.
“Do I have to?”
Aizawa has to wonder if the Doc is doing this just for the hell of it now, knowing Aizawa will use his quirk to shut down Dr. Shinsou’s, and this is just a form of mental aerobics, testing his strength against Aizawa’s quirk as if he stands a chance, when he doesn’t.
“Do I need to answer that?” Aizawa returns bluntly, less than an arm’s length from Dr. Shinsou and feeling something beyond his quirk in such proximity to the man, something that isn’t erased by Aizawa’s gaze. All Aizawa’s senses are on high alert, like a primal instinct that floods his systems with adrenaline and tells him that whatever’s here is not to be fucked with. It could be said their quirks wrestle with one another for dominance, but it’d be hyperbole, because there’s no struggle, it’s a lightning round: Aizawa gets there first, so it’s over before it’s even begun.
With another soft sigh Dr. Shinsou turns his back, tipping his head forward to allow Aizawa to slip the gag mask over the lower half of his face, carefully tightening it around the back, minding his injuries, and fastening it at the top of his head with heavy-duty straps. They could fight it out physically of course, Dr. Shinsou could struggle and make Aizawa force the gag over him like a wild dog, but that would be a waste of both their energy, and the Doc has fresh stitches holding his face together – a hell of a scar they’re going to leave too. Four deep grooves carving across an entire third of his face, held together with tape and ominous black stitches along the longest and deepest, arcing from temple almost to the corner of his mouth, as if in insinuation of what the infamous Professor does.
Aizawa can’t say he knows what Dr. Shinsou is planning, if he’s given up, or if he’s always been so cooperative when it doesn’t benefit him to be otherwise – it’s not like they can ask the prison Warden anymore, and that’s not to be forgotten. Just how many people the Doc killed, and how he killed them, the moment he got the chance. Aizawa’s seen what this cold blooded maniac can do, and knows it’s no time to relax.
The gag keeps Dr. Shinsou from speaking by holding his jaw fully shut, so it’ll have to come off whenever he needs to eat, but some holes in the front would probably allow him to get a straw into his mouth to drink if they’re feeling generous. If.
“Comfortable?” Aizawa asks wryly, and getting no response assumes the gag is effective at stopping the Doc from talking – which means Aizawa can theoretically afford to take his eyes off the Doc, at least for long enough to take a short bathroom break. “Take him outside, I’ll be out in a minute.”
The policemen don’t look ecstatic about this, but do comply with Aizawa’s request dressed up like an order. If Sgt. Shimada were around Aizawa wouldn’t try his luck like this, but he’s not here, and possession is nine tenths of the law, especially when it comes to authority.
Finally alone for a moment, Aizawa goes straight to a stainless steel sink and splashes lukewarm, slightly stale water on his face, then drags up his sleeve and starts scrubbing the mark left by Shiyoko. It doesn’t come off easily, leaving his skin red from rubbing without taking the pen off entirely. While having the name on his skin doesn’t affect Aizawa anymore – that one-time hit of her brainwashing quirk limited by application – Aizawa doesn’t like knowing it’s there anyway, and leaves his arm raw and stinging before he forces himself to stop. He checks his phone but doesn’t have messages from anyone important, so he sends Hizashi a single question-mark check-in text, hoping for an answer before he has to return to Dr. Shinsou and the pair of guards. Their duty is to watch over both of them, ostensibly, though Aizawa feels he and the Doc have each more than proven the point of whose side they’re on.
Hizashi rings right back immediately, just like Aizawa’s banking on. He picks up with an exhausted, “Hey.”
“Still alive, then,” Hizashi says delicately, by his standards. “Keeping that mad bastard under control?”
“Just about.” Aizawa turns his back to the scratched mirror and leans back against the sink, needing this moment alone more than he could ever eloquently express – and alone, obviously, doesn’t include Hizashi. “How are the others?”
“It… could be better, but they’re… uh, okay.” Hizashi doesn’t sound convinced, which makes Aizawa believe it even less. “Is… if Hitoshi came to see you, would that be alright?”
Aizawa doesn’t know what to say at first, fumbling out an awkward, “Well I’m still with Dr. Shinsou most of the time… is something wrong?”
There’s a pause, which is never good with Hizashi, because it can only mean two things: that he’s lost for words, or there’s something he doesn’t want to say.
“... I don’t know, Shota. That’s why I think you should talk to him.”
After being so focused on Dr. Shinsou, it’s like the entirety of Aizawa’s soul is ripped away from his body heart-first, leaving behind a hollow that’s more of a black hole in his chest. Just at the thought that Hitoshi’s going through something and Aizawa isn’t there. It’s as unbearable as it is sudden, like Aizawa just looked down and noticed a fucking arm gone.
“And Kiki?” Aizawa asks in a thin, strangled voice, covering up by checking other parties before losing his mind over what’s happening to Hitoshi.
“She’s in and out of questioning still, it… seems like there’s going to be charges against her.” Hizashi pauses again, then with his voice even more hushed continues, “It’s nothing in particular with Hitoshi, he’s just… quiet.”
“Fuck,” Aizawa mutters, feeling more like a shell than ever, because Hizashi’s got a great gut for people, and Aizawa knows how well Hitoshi keeps that brave face strapped on. “I can’t leave the Doc for too long, but if Hitoshi comes over here I can make some time.”
“I’ll bring him now,” Hizashi responds so quickly that Aizawa has to force himself not to panic, telling himself that Hitoshi is strong and no matter what’s happening on the inside he can keep it together on the outside for as long as he needs to. But that doesn’t stop Aizawa worrying about what is on the inside.
“Ask for Sergeant Shimada,” Aizawa says with a feeling like his chest is going to cave in, “He’ll know where to send you.”
“Okay, bye.” Hizashi hangs up too urgently to be reassuring.
First of all, Aizawa takes a few breaths to calm himself, going through the conscious process of reminding himself that Hitoshi is still safe, physically unharmed, and they can deal with anything else. Then he takes one last look at the tired, battered face in the mirror – a little roughed up from an unsuccessful bout with the stairs, but still kicking – and remembers who the fuck he is, then leaves the bathroom.
Aizawa, or the Underground Hero Frequently Referred to as Eraserhead, steps back out of the bathroom with such certainty of purpose that the waiting guards look visibly relieved to see him. The same can’t be said for Dr. Shinsou, who just glares coolly at Aizawa over his Hannibal mask and waits to be led onwards.
They haven’t left the block, which serves as a kind of medical wing to this mysterious facility, and haven’t encountered another soul since they arrived either, which totally doesn’t make it more suspicious. Where is everyone else, Aizawa has to wonder – and is this where Dr. Shinsou is going remain? Do they have the resources to hold him here? Does anyone?
Aizawa has no answer to any of these questions, massing up like a great pile of unopened post on the doormat of his mind. Eventually they arrive at a lonely room along a barren strip of hallway. Not big enough to call generous, it contains a hospital bed, sink, and toilet, all bolted securely to the blank concrete walls. Not quite a prison cell in the truest sense of the word, but there are thick metal rails alongside the bed that someone could easily be cuffed to, and bars on the small window offering a view of a neighbouring building of much the same construction.
“You’re to remain here until further notice, Doctor’s orders,” announces one of the sorta policemen nervously – or are they prison guards at this point?
Dr. Shinsou, unsurprisingly, says nothing, but walks over to the bed and sits down with a great heave of breath from his nose, his shoulders rounding a little, no longer holding himself so ramrod straight. If Aizawa’s not mistaken, he’s as exhausted as the rest of them are. He is, after all, human… barely.
There’s nowhere else to sit in the room, so Aizawa sets up against the back wall opposite to the bed, eyes on Dr. Shinsou and ears listening for footsteps. Hizashi probably can’t get here that quick, he tells himself, though he listens anyway.
“We can take it in shifts to watch him,” Aizawa tells the pair of guards, who are also standing around awkwardly.
“Ah… one at a time, we can,” one answers like he’s already been given orders, and Aizawa senses the implication not yet said outright – though here it comes, “Sergeant Shimada said one of us has to supervise you and him at all times.”
“Of course he did,” Aizawa agrees just a hint sarcastly, and gives a shrug that’s mostly indifferent. “Who’s first?”
The pair confer quietly, and then the chattier of the two leaves, which suits Aizawa just fine too. He’s not in the mood for talking at the best of times, much less this one. It’s not terribly eventful: Dr. Shinsou lies down on the bed, over the covers, and his eyes quickly close.
Aizawa doesn’t imagine the Doc was getting much rest since springing out of prison, so no wonder if he’s tired. It’s not a bad thing for them either, let him sleep until a decision is made about what to do with him. As much fun as spending every waking moment around this psychopath is, Aizawa’s got a life he needs to get back to. It simmers at the back of his mind that his first-year class are going away on a training camp soon, and he only dreads to think what they’d get up to if he isn’t there to keep an eye on things. But then he’ll have to leave Hitoshi behind, and that’s a dread of an entirely different breed.
Dr. Shinsou’s slumber could be a convincing performance to lure them off guard, but the simpler explanation is that he really is fast asleep, gag and all, and remains so when the gentle tap of several pairs of footsteps comes down the hallway outside. There’s another small, heavily reinforced letterbox window at eye level in the door, which Aizawa crosses over to and peers out to confirm the leather-clad blonde and his wispy violet cargo approaching in the company of no other than Sgt. Shimada.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” Aizawa murmurs quickly to his mute police companion as the door opens, Sgt. Shimada stepping in almost exactly as Aizawa steps out without exchanging a word. Hopefully the Sergeant doesn’t think of this as an excuse to try and question Dr. Shinsou in Aizawa’s absence, but he’s come to trust the guy just about enough to believe he wouldn’t be that stupid. Mostly out of necessity, but don’t think about that.
Hitoshi looks completely and wholly checked-out. The lights are on, but everyone’s abandoned home to cower in a bunker a long, long way away. He’s got his hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes down on the floor, until they get close enough to the open doorway that his gaze flits up to catch Dr. Shinsou asleep on the bed inside.
Aizawa looks urgently at Hizashi, searching for the signs of worry in his partner's face, the subtle apprehension of not saying something he’s thinking, because he knows it would only make things worse. They don’t say anything to each other because they don’t need to, and the last thing Hitoshi will appreciate hearing right now is adults talking about him like the perfectly legitimate damaged sixteen year-old he is.
Aizawa’s never truly been in Hitoshi’s shoes, especially not in a moment like this, so he can only try and imagine how hard it must be for the teen right now. Pointing it out isn’t going to help.
Not knowing this place very well, but knowing where the bathrooms are, Aizawa still doesn’t say anything, but tentatively rests his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder, just to see if it sticks. It does. Hitoshi doesn’t react to the touch, but he doesn’t shake it off, which he would if it wasn’t what he wanted. Then as gently as stirring a leaf on the top of a still pond, Aizawa heads back in the direction of the bathrooms, guiding Hitoshi by that fragile touch.
Hitoshi’s voice is the last ebb of a wave at the lowest tide of the year, soft as a child’s hand on the back of their parent’s coat. He waits until they’re finally far enough away from anyone else to speak in privacy, “Where’re we goin’?”
“Somewhere private,” Aizawa answers honestly, slowing to glance Hitoshi sideways in consideration. “That okay?”
Hitoshi shrugs, his head ducked down and face turned away from too much scrutiny. Aizawa gets exactly why Hizashi was worried about the teen, and also why he didn’t know what to do, so just brought Hitoshi to Aizawa to figure things out.
While Aizawa’s freakout location of choice is usually the nearest bathroom, that doesn’t mean Hitoshi necessarily has to continue the tradition. They walk a little further when the teen stalls in front one of the rooms they pass, staring through the thin window in the door of some kind of unused examination room, by the looks of it.
“Somewhere like this?” Hitoshi’s murmuring as he’s already trying the handle, shouldering his way in the moment the room proves to be unlocked. It doesn’t contain anything of interest or value – a barren box-room with an examination table bolted to one wall – but it’s closer than the bathroom, so it’ll do.
Aizawa follows Hitoshi inside, and fresh from spending so much time around Dr. Shinsou, every difference and similarity between the two pops more than ever. Dr. Shinsou’s flat, dark hair compared to Hitoshi’s wild, tousled crop; how they have the same length in their frame, working off a similar structure, though Hitoshi will end up very different if he continues to build strength in training with Aizawa. Which he will, if Aizawa has anything to do with it.
Hitoshi doesn’t turn around, just stops in the middle of the room with his head drooping and a curve growing steeper in his back, hunching over like the weight of everything pulls him inevitably down.
Aizawa asks the thing he has to, despite knowing the answer.
“You okay?”
Hitoshi doesn’t answer, but Aizawa watches him sink down into a crouch, low to the ground. One of the teenager-oversize hands stretches out to the floor, resting on it with just a couple of his fingertips, steadying himself. When Aizawa takes a few steps around to the side, he spies the wet track running down Hitoshi’s cheek, getting there just in time to watch the first tear collect on his jaw and drop onto the floor.
Aizawa keeps quiet and gets down onto his knees, then sits cross-legged on the ground next to Hitoshi. He reinstates that light touch of his hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder, letting it say what he doesn’t put into words. That he’s here for Hitoshi, whatever he needs.
All this succeeds in doing is making Hitoshi cry harder, snatching the first gasp that’s not quite a sob and squeezing his eyes tightly shut, pushing out more tears as he tips his head right down, curls up in the smallest shape possible.
Aizawa runs his hand from the rounded shape of Hitoshi’s shoulder to the flat across the top of his back. He takes a long, audible breath, and still doesn’t say anything.
Hitoshi lets out the first proper sob, his back shaking under Aizawa’s palm as he starts letting it out, and from there it’s like the teen just melts.
It’s not a steer as such, but a mutual push-and-pull slump that happens so fast Hitoshi’s weight hits Aizawa’s torso heavy and all at once. Luckily Aizawa’s got mass to absorb the shock, remaining seated as Hitoshi ends up wildly sprawled across his lap, steadying them both with an arm he wraps fully around Hitoshi’s back, holding the lanky teen against him.
There’s nothing Aizawa could say that wouldn’t seem out of place in an ongoing conversation that’s non-verbal, an exchange of energies that comes from deep within. Even when he’s just as close to falling apart, the presence of anyone who needs Aizawa always cracks open a seam of new strength within him.
Hitoshi just cries. He did his fair share of screaming and crying back in the house too, but they’re out of there now, so Aizawa can actually fucking be here for Hitoshi instead of stuck keeping people alive or in the toxic presence of Hitoshi’s father. It’d be oversimplification to think of Aizawa simply as a substitute for a father, because the spectacular atrocity of Dr. Shinsou isn’t something you just switch out for anything better. What Aizawa is to Hitoshi is actually none of Aizawa’s business to some extent, because who’s he to assume he understands what particular mix of feelings Hitoshi has for him in any given fifteen minute interval, much less on a far grander scale? He's whatever Hitoshi needs him to be, whenever Hitoshi needs him to be it.
Aizawa controls his own breathing in the hopes of influencing Hitoshi’s, exhaling for twice as long as he inhales, and then gradually lets his face lower. Over a cushion of his capture weapon, Aizawa rests his chin over Hitoshi’s closest shoulder, finding a comfortable position to let himself be at rest too. Helping others feels good, but it’s also helping yourself – something Aizawa’s not as good at as he ought to be.
Hitoshi also specifically told Aizawa to just be himself. Not to hold back out of the desire to be a perfect influence for Hitoshi that he can never actually attain. So Aizawa lets himself have a moment too, connects with Hitoshi’s state as a perfectly valid expression of something he’s feeling too.
That’s why the first thing Aizawa says, when he finally does shape his mouth around a few mumbling words, is no more than, “We got him.”
One of Hitoshi’s hands is balled tightly in the front of Aizawa’s jumpsuit, but now moves with new urgency to wrap all the way around to Aizawa’s back. His other arm stays curled up between his side and Aizawa’s front, twisted but also fitting together in this strange seated huddle.
Hitoshi starts taking deeper breaths, like he’s preparing to talk but isn’t quite there yet. Aizawa can feel the teen’s racing heart faintly through his back, and after what happened with Tsukauchi, that’s an important thing to feel.
“I… I didn’t think I’d be so…” Hitoshi strings out tragically, and Aizawa makes generic soothing sounds like he might coo at a terrified stray cat at the back of an alley. That they're safe, and no one wants to hurt him here.
“It’s over now,” Aizawa assures them both, because there’s no need to go tearing it all apart when they still need to be moving forwards. That’s what therapy is for long after the fact – or never, if you’re Aizawa. So Aizawa sticks to the only thing that matters, and tells Hitoshi straight, “I’m here for you.”
A particularly strong shudder racks Hitoshi as he’s clinging to Aizawa. It’s after this that the teen offers a frightened, “What if they don’t let Ma go?”
It’s high up there on the list of worst case scenarios, Aizawa’s not gonna lie. So at least he’s thought about it, and doesn’t have to pause before giving his answer.
“Then you stay with me and Hizashi.” It’s not even a question, it’s just the fact of the matter, but Hitoshi breathes out like he needed to hear it. If Kiki's… not around, the one futon they have will be free too. Hizashi would give up his studio and Hitoshi wouldn’t have to sleep on the sofa again. But hopefully it won’t come to that.
“Thank you, for–” Hitoshi starts and interrupts himself with a jagged breath, never making it to completion. Whatever he was going to say, Aizawa's response is the same.
“I don’t need thanks, it's because I care about you,” Aizawa delivers in his typically blunt affection, hearing Hizashi in the back of his mind scolding him to ease up. “But… you’re welcome.”
It doesn’t matter what he’s saying so much as the way he’s saying it, or so Aizawa will have to hope if he means to convey even a fraction of the emotion he’s feeling for Hitoshi. Maybe, hopefully it’s enough.
The room is small, and feels even smaller with the amount of emotion contained within. Walls that smell of sterility and a light that drains everything it shines on. Hitoshi keeps crying in Aizawa’s arms, the steam slowly starting to run out amid waves of deeper sobbing. He’s been through so much and been bottling it up for so long, kept it together like a true Hero. But even Heroes have their breaking points; Aizawa has too many fractures to deny it.
That’s what makes it even more heartbreaking that the next thing Hitoshi says in his exhausted, cried-out voice is, “Tell me I’m good.”
Aizawa’s stomach drops approximately a hundred miles underground, and he squeezes Hitoshi even tighter. “You’re good,” he echoes without hesitating, knowing why Hitoshi’s asking for that reassurance – the feelings of every bit of damage from his childhood triggered all at once.
It’s certainly not common, but not unheard of that Aizawa feels his tired, scratchy eyes welling up too. Not for any one thing, but all of them together. He mumbles a heartfelt, “You’ve been so brave.”
Hitoshi seems more liquid than solid at this point, a gooey mess that sobs and sniffs and even whimpers against Aizawa’s chest, alternating between burned-out calms and sporadic lapses back into harder crying.
Dr. Shinsou is still hovering not too far away in Aizawa’s mind, but he’s probably still asleep, and this is all his fault, so Aizawa’s where he needs to be. Everything else can wait.
Just like his father, and Aizawa for that matter, Hitoshi seems like he could fall asleep given a moment's rest. Eventually his breathing becomes more regular, docile in Aizawa’s hold like a floppy cat.
Hitoshi wriggles, snaking a hand up to wipe his eyes and letting out a deep sigh of something other than despair. He doesn’t move so neither does Aizawa, staying with his head resting on Hitoshi’s shoulder, just being at peace with the moment.
“I guess you’ve gotta go back to watching him,” Hitoshi remarks in a hollowed-out tone, but he’s speaking full sentences, so that’s an improvement.
“Not yet,” Aizawa replies softly, not just because he imagines the Doc is still fast asleep, but also because he straight up doesn’t want to go back, not when this is the alternative. “Take as long as you need, Hitoshi.”
This seems to remind Hitoshi of the position they’re in, because Aizawa feels him stiffen, a cat that suddenly doesn’t want to be held anymore right before he backs up off Aizawa to sit cross-legged opposite him.
“I don’t need to be babied,” he insists with the red, sore bags of someone only recently bawling their eyes out.
“It’s not babying to give your feelings an outlet,” Aizawa responds calmly. “I should know.”
Hitoshi dares to lift his head up enough to meet Aizawa’s eyes, and the poor thing looks completely ruined. As if the entire weight of the world has been boiled down to a thick, syrupy medicine he’s been forced to swallow in too large a dose. If Aizawa could do anything to make him feel just a little bit better, all Hitoshi has to do is ask.
“Guess you know everything, huh?” Hitoshi comments in that fishy, over-exposed-teenager-trying-to-cover-for-himself kind of way, and Aizawa’s instincts are so deeply programmed to respond to questions with his quirk that he has to stop himself erasing Hitoshi for a split-second, looking down and pressing his fingers over his closed eyes instead.
“I know a thing or two,” Aizawa murmurs into his lap, already missing physical contact with Hitoshi, as if he’s been opened up like an oyster and now his soft insides are left twitching raw and exposed. But it’s not about what Aizawa wants or needs, because if it were he’d be in a cubicle with Hizashi somewhere being made to forget about all of this in the best way possible, but he’s an adult and has to put his shit to the side when there’s something more important to focus on, like the fate of the entire Shinsou family.
“I want to see him,” Hitoshi announces with a sudden rush of certainty, staring dead at Aizawa when he looks back up to the teen. There's only one him it could be at this point. “Not to talk to him,” Hitoshi pre-empts when Aizawa’s mouth has only just opened to protest any such madness. “Just to… convince myself he’s not going anywhere.”
Aizawa can relate to that – he’s done his fair share of it in the past few hours.
“Alright,” he gives in with a tired exhale, and though Hitoshi’s face is still flushed, the deeper colour is starting to go down, and he seems a little more balanced, so Aizawa dares asking, “Are you ready to go?”
Hitoshi nods, getting sluggishly to his feet, followed by Aizawa even more slowly, dragging his limbs like they’re made of brick. They traipse all the way back to Dr. Shinsou’s room, easily identified by the guards and Hizashi standing watch outside the door. Hizashi is silent, which is almost unheard of for him, but Aizawa can see the policemen have swapped around and Hizashi’s been stuck with the quieter of the pair, so maybe that's why.
It’s quiet inside the room too, just Sgt. Shimada and the other guard watching over a sleeping Dr. Shinsou, which is a relief when Aizawa peers in through the narrow viewing window through the door. The Sergeant sees Aizawa and comes over, standing across the threshold when Aizawa nudges the door open, Hitoshi at his elbow.
“The kid wants to see him for a minute,” Aizawa says under his breath to Sgt. Shimada, whose brows draw together in concern, but after a moment of holding Aizawa’s gaze – if anyone were going to object, it’d be Aizawa – the Sergeant ultimately steps back to allow them both in.
Hitoshi stays close to Aizawa as he shuffles into the room, staring intently at Dr. Shinsou passed out on the bed, still gagged; not that it’s bothering him, fast asleep like he hasn’t a care in the world. Maybe he doesn’t, not anymore.
Aizawa hears Hitoshi’s breathing, shallow but steady, and he doesn’t move a muscle, just stands there looking at his father, soaking in the sight of him. It’s been such a whirlwind, no wonder Hitoshi wants a minute to let himself believe it’s all real, that 'it’s over' and 'we got him' aren’t just words Aizawa whispers in his ear when everything’s falling apart. That they’re real and mean Hitoshi’s psychotic father is locked away once again, and this time he's not getting back out.
It makes perfect sense, therefore, that Hitoshi’s final words before he turns tail and walks right back out the door are just, “Goodbye, Dad.”
Notes:
Making Hitoshi cry is MY THING NOW APPARENTLY. Also Aizawa was totally up there for a moment too, MMM, DELICIOUS TEARS.
Much like the post-gay-discovery argument where Hitoshi bawled, this one is one of my all time favourites, though of course this time there's no conflict between Aizawa and Hitoshi so it's just OOOH THE GOOD STUFF. THE CLOSURE. THE EMOTIONAL RELEASE. THE FEEEEEEELS.
Everyone being like 'wow Aizawa needs to R E S T' y'all ain't wrong but I'm afraid we ain't done yet.
Next week continues our looking-back circle close with 'the longest night'. Thanks for reading! Free tears for everyone!
Chapter 84: The Longest Night
Summary:
Dr. Shinsou: meet Eraserhead.
Notes:
WOW so last chapter was a lot, huh?
I wonder how we could beat that.... *looks conspicuously at the summary*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Dr. Shinsou sleeps undisturbed for many hours. Long after Hitoshi leaves in the company of Hizashi, even after Sgt. Shimada wearily steps down from his post for the night. The guards swap out every so often as the night falls deeper over this strange facility, but Aizawa remains on watch throughout; unmoving with his back pressed against the wall, watching the Doc through the darkness. It’s near enough to pitch black that Aizawa can only make out the shape of the bed at best, but it’s quiet enough he can hear every rustle and movement in the room, every breath the Doc takes.
The latest guard on Doc-duty with him slides slowly along the wall, slumping into a corner in a way that can’t really be comfortable, but apparently works for him as they reach the tail end of a long graveyard shift, drifting off somewhere into the early hours of the morning. It’s two, maybe three a.m. and since there’s nothing happening Aizawa doesn’t bother to wake him. Only one of them needs to suffer this sleepless night, so it might as well be Aizawa.
Blinking what feels like every other minute, Aizawa digs out one of his older and more obscurely-hidden bottles of eyedrops after exhausting his current one, soothing the dryness and itchy sensation that comes in the depths of a long night after an even longer day. Some people would struggle to stay focused like this, left in the dark with no more than their own thoughts, but Aizawa’s never minded. This is where he can dissect the events of the day with a scalpel, pick out each thing he did wrong and decide what he could have, should have done differently to reach a better outcome; a mental vivisection at his own hands. They got where they needed to be in the end with the Doc and Shiyoko, that much is true, but there’s a price they didn’t have to pay to get there. A lot of prices, when he goes back over it. Tsukauchi could still be here for one, and so could Tama. What a difference that’d make.
It’s during this haunted dead space between night and morning that Aizawa hears a noise from the bed more deliberate than casual shifting in someone’s sleep, more like someone sitting up, followed by the sound of the coarsely woven straps of Dr. Shinsou’s mask being loosened – the gag was taken off once already this evening, under Aizawa’s supervision, while the Doc was given something to eat – but there’s no reason for Aizawa to be hearing such sounds now. Unless…
“I’d leave it on, if I were you,” Aizawa remarks less than a breath above a whisper, and the suddenness of the silence after he speaks tells him everything he needs to know.
“And I’d say the differences between us couldn’t be more stark,” Dr. Shinsou’s reply comes sliding out of the darkness like a serpent on its scaled, smooth belly. Aizawa knows exactly where he is, not just from the sound of his voice, but the nexus of his mentalist energy, like sensing the hottest spot on a floor from the pipes running underneath. “Wouldn’t you?”
Aizawa activates his quirk just in time to feel the sharp metal teeth of Dr. Shinsou’s bear-trap quirk trying to snap shut around him, and the room is lit up in red. It makes the Doc’s hair and eyes look jet black, his expression morphed by the shadows and aggressive appearance of his injuries. He’s sitting up on the bed, legs hanging over the edge, and that exhausted spectre in his face is lessened, but not entirely gone. Still a desperate man, willing to do just about anything to get away from the consequences of his actions.
“Go back to sleep, Doctor,” Aizawa warns without moving a muscle, though neither does the Doc, immortalised in the crimson light of Aizawa’s eyes. Dr. Shinsou’s mind control evaporates under Aizawa’s erasure quirk, burned away until it has no power – as much as he won’t admit it, the Doc’s met his match.
Dr. Shinsou has only loosened his mask enough to speak, so it’s still sitting over the lower half of his face, a few slots over his mouth and nose to breathe through. “I need to use the bathroom,” he says, lips moving hypnotically behind the gaps. “Is that still a basic human right?”
Again the teeth of the Doc’s quirk scrape over Aizawa’s defences, the same way an animal gnaws the bars of its cage when deprived of other entertainment. Aizawa’s reminded of the dysfunctional nature of his and Kiki’s marriage, their relationship built on battling one another just to see who comes out the least damaged: neither of them, but try telling them that. Except Aizawa doesn’t play that game – not like they do.
The guard bunched into the corner next to Aizawa is still fast asleep despite their talking, even snoring softly. Aizawa could wake him, or report him for sleeping on duty, or both, but it’s only the Sergeant who insisted someone has to accompany Aizawa and the Doc at all times. Last Aizawa checked, a sleeping man is one safe from the Doc’s quirk, and he never agreed to uphold Sgt. Shimada’s orders to his men, so Aizawa’s not telling if they aren’t.
“Surprised you consider yourself one of us humans,” Aizawa remarks curtly, not shaking his gaze from the Doc, not blinking, even when the threat of the Doc’s quirk subsides. Better safe than sorry.
“Not compared to someone like you,” the Doc returns with near enough to playful wryness. This could easily be a trick, but Aizawa could use a walk to wake himself up, and there’s nothing Dr. Shinsou can throw at him now that he can’t handle. Or so he’ll have to hope.
“Fine,” Aizawa concedes gruffly, lifting himself from the wall. He closes his eyes for a moment, opening them again without using his quirk, bathed in darkness again as he heads for the door, pushing it open as the lights outside come on and cast a thick bar of illumination across the room. “Come on.”
The lights are motion controlled in the hallways, coming on in sections as Aizawa and Dr. Shinsou pass under them side by side. The Doc removes his gag completely once they’re in the hallway, and Aizawa doesn’t stop him, since it’s only for other people’s safety that he wears it. Besides, this is the first chance they’ve had to properly speak, alone, and Aizawa expects they both know it.
“I suppose you think you’ve won, don’t you?” Dr. Shinsou suggests as they’re walking like two friends strolling in a park. Aizawa just glances sideways at the Doc and engages his quirk.
“We’re still doing this?” he responds tiredly as the familiar weight of the Doc’s quirk rams up against his, but it wasn’t budging then, and it’s not going to now. “You know your tricks don’t work on me.”
“Oh, am I boring you?” Dr. Shinsou comments bitingly as the next block of hallway lighting flickers into life, black and white but red under Aizawa’s gaze. But rather than waiting to further test his quirk against Aizawa’s, the temptation to keep talking seems to win out as the Doc adds a scathing, “Welcome to my life.”
“Hm, then you must not attract very interesting people,” Aizawa observes, recognising the door to the bathroom approaching in the distance when he turns away from the Doc. They’ve already passed the room Hitoshi chose for a sobbing breakdown not hours ago – because of this man, and what he’s done to the family he supposedly loves.
“On that point, Eraser, I have to agree,” Dr. Shinsou replies with the consistency of one of Hizashi’s very best whiskies on the rocks. Still bitter, and barely palatable to Aizawa’s uncultured taste, but undoubtedly smooth. “After all,” the Doc elaborates as they reach the bathroom door, waiting for Aizawa to push it open before he steps inside, which is when he adds the devious, “you’re here.”
Aizawa might say he couldn’t be happier to be utterly boring to the Doc, but such words aren’t worth the breath it’d take to say them, so he doesn’t bother, merely leads the way and then stands watch as the Doc heads to a urinal and makes use of the facilities.
It goes without saying that this is against the book in all conventional interpretations of the rules this place probably has, but in the unwritten logic of the world, Aizawa knows that there's nothing Dr. Shinsou can do against the power of his quirk, and that an Underground Hero by the name of Eraserhead is more than enough to keep the Dr. Shinsou where he belongs for the time being. The real worry is not for now, but what happens when Aizawa inevitably leaves, unable and unwilling to play prison guard for the rest of the Doc's wretched life. Aizawa doesn't have it in him to go through this a second time.
Dr. Shinsou finishes pissing and then goes to wash his hands. Amid the sound of running water hitting the metal of the sink, he looks up in the sallow fluorescent light and meets Aizawa’s eyes through the mirror.
"This isn't the end,” the Doc says without even a hint of a question.
"So you say," Aizawa replies dryly. "But somehow I don't think Shiyoko will be handing you a prison escape a second time after what you did to her.” Not to mention she’ll be incarcerated herself soon enough, if and when she wakes up. Pointing out Shiyoko’s contribution seems to grate on the Doc, so Aizawa keeps going, "Without her you'd still be the Warden's plaything. She was your only ticket out, and you just tossed her aside."
"Because she meant nothing to me," the Doc hisses, cobra-like for a moment before regaining control of himself in the blink of an eye. "Like you, Eraser, Shiyoko was a poor substitute for someone truly worthy." He turns around from the bathroom mirror to face Aizawa directly, and it has to be acknowledged that this is the first time they've been able to speak so freely, able to drop all the pretences and niceties. "You really think you can stand between me and my family?" he poses with a noose he tries to fit for Aizawa’s neck, only to face down the burning glare of Aizawa’s quirk.
One of Dr. Shinsou's hands moves, not especially fast but with great purpose, as if to try and block Aizawa’s gaze, or perhaps reach for the mass of capture weapon resting around his neck. But Aizawa just plucks Doc's hand from its trajectory and turns his bones against himself, applying the smallest amount of pressure to quickly paralyse the Doctor where he stands, forced over against the edge of the sink by the arm twisted up his back, his face canting towards the mirror, offering Aizawa a perfect view of his features contorted in pain.
"It would be my pleasure, Dr. Shinsou," Aizawa says so softly it could be considered a threatening whisper as he leans in, watching the Doc squirm as his joints must scream in protest of the bind, hurting Dr. Shinsou not especially because Aizawa needs to, but because he wants to, "to make sure that you never see your family again." Keeping his quirk in full force, Aizawa finds and stares deep into Dr. Shinsou's eyes to find the vain, selfish man with the almighty mind control quirk and erases every last scrap of his power, reducing him to nothing more than what he is: a villain.
"You're going to rot behind bars,” Aizawa tells him vindictively, squeezing Dr. Shinsou’s wrist tighter and relishing the way it makes him flinch. Perhaps it’s not the most moral high ground to take, but Aizawa’s seen too much of what the Doc put his son through to feel even a little bit bad about returning just a fraction of that pain in a way the psycho can understand. That this is the least of what he deserves, and the Doc would need several lifetimes back to back to ever pay it back in full. “Maybe in here, maybe somewhere else, but I swear on my life that you will never see your wife or son again."
“Get your filthy hands off me.” It’s the Doc’s last vitriolic defence, so Aizawa lets go and steps back, knowing that he’s won, even if it doesn’t really feel like that.
“You can accept or deny it all you want, but you’re not getting them back,” Aizawa reiterates firmly. He was the one who brought Hitoshi and Dr. Shinsou back together after years of Kiki’s imposed separation, but even he can admit he made a mistake. A mistake that brought them here, and there’s not enough hours in the day to decide whether that was worth it in the end. Whether it’s worth it or not, it still happened.
“How I despise you.” Dr. Shinsou really must have nothing left to say if this is what he’s resorting to, but Aizawa couldn’t care less.
“Good. Try taking it out on me, if you want,” he says almost offhandedly, but as the Doc finishes inspecting his wounds in the mirror his expression shifts to something like confusion, his brows drawing in concentration across those sharp, haunting features.
“Take out what?” The Doc times this with another swing with his quirk against Aizawa’s, but Aizawa doesn’t let the wall down, so Dr. Shinsou’s attempts just bounce off fruitlessly.
Aizawa reaches to take Dr. Shinsou by the shoulder, and with a soft grip steers him back towards the door. The same way he led Hitoshi earlier, only not really the same, because the Doc needs pushing and cajoling in a way that Hitoshi never would, nor would Aizawa try to force him.
“All that resentment,” Aizawa replies uninterestedly, his quirk still in full force as he shoulders the door open to guide them back into the hallway. “Whatever it is that makes you want to hurt your son the way you have.” Aizawa will gladly take every hit so Hitoshi doesn’t have to – not that Hitoshi is ever going see his father again, if Aizawa’s got anything to do with it.
“I didn’t hurt him,” Dr. Shinsou dismisses like the unhinged maniac he is.
“Not the story I got,” Aizawa contradicts with a shrug, keeping that firm grip on the Doc’s shoulder, only tightening it a little bit as he recalls the feeling of Hitoshi sobbing against him and must hold the incandescent rage at bay.
“Yes. You do seem to have an interest in my son, don’t you?” Dr. Shinsou tries anew, but Aizawa’s still go him under the erasing spotlight of his quirk. The Doc’s pointless attempts to use his own quirk get him nowhere, and he goes for the gutter route. “Some might say unusually so, for a man of your age to be so attached to a boy you barely know.”
“Apparently I know him better than you do,” Aizawa retorts in a tone he’d be more careful with if there were another person around. But there isn’t anyone else here, so he indulges in a little venom, even knowing it’s exactly what Dr. Shinsou wants, what he thrives on: conflict, in any shape or form.
The Doc scoffs aloofly, shaking his shoulder from Aizawa’s grip, which Aizawa allows only because it means not having to touch the detestable man anymore.
“If I attempted to vent even a fraction of my disappointment onto you, Eraser, there wouldn’t be enough blood in your body to paint the walls,” Dr. Shinsou threatens, calm in the way he moves and speaks, but holding plenty of hatred behind the words.
“Is that supposed to scare me?” Aizawa questions dully. All the hallway lights are still lit from their journey here, blank hallways bereft of life or feeling.
“It should,” Dr. Shinsou replies forebodingly, stopping walking suddenly to stare dead at Aizawa under the bleaching lights overhead. He takes a small step toward Aizawa, who stops with him, and with a voice of arsenic and silk says, “Do you know what I’d do to you?”
There’s an extra forceful push of the Doc’s quirk against Aizawa’s, but Aizawa doesn’t yield, just returns the assassination glare with a fiery erasing deadpan and says, “I can guess.”
“I’d make you write out all the ways my son has let me down in your own guts, just to teach him a lesson,” the Doc continues like he’s thought about this, imagined it in grisly detail, flashes of his teeth like a wolf baring its teeth at a rival. “Then, once you were done chronicling Hitoshi’s failures, I’d make you move onto your own, so you could finally admit it all to yourself before you embrace death.”
Way ahead of you, Aizawa almost retorts, since he’s been scrawling out personal failures in his own blood for years before Dr. Shinsou put his own vile mark on the world. But instead he mutters a more satisfying, “Guess we’ll never find out.”
Dr. Shinsou just huffs, because the real reason Aizawa’s won is plain and simple: Dr. Shinsou is under lock and key, like he should be, and nothing he can do or say changes that fact. They got him, and not even Dr. Shinsou’s warped mind is enough to deny it.
They’re almost back at the room when Aizawa realises that neither himself nor the Doc are carrying the gag, frowning with a suspicious, “Where’s your mask?”
“Hm. Must have misplaced it,” Dr. Shinsou responds coyly, and Aizawa just sighs.
“Then we’ll do this the old fashioned way.” Raising a hand to his neck, Aizawa flicks a couple of fingers through the coil of capture weapon, sending several long fronds towards the Doc and then tugging them back to tighten in neat loops. Under his expert touch, the fabric closes into a mummified mask that goes from under the Doc’s nose all the way down to his chin. Two long ends hang loose, which Aizawa knots together behind Dr. Shinsou’s head, holding them like a muzzled leash as they complete the journey back into the temporary cell.
The other man on ‘guard’ in the corner wakes up when Aizawa opens the door to let the two of them back in, blinking in fear and disorientation as he looks around the otherwise empty room. “Whu… what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Aizawa responds coolly. “Prisoner needed a bathroom break, so I took him for one.”
Blinking several more times, the guard rights himself from his awkward slump into the corner, staring at the Doc intently for a second before asking, “What happened to his mask?”
“Think he left it in the bathroom,” Aizawa answers for Dr. Shinsou, who thankfully says nothing. Not that he’s able to, but his silence is still golden. "This will do for now."
“Did I… why did you let me fall asleep?” he asks more than he accuses Aizawa, but it’s fuck ‘o clock in the morning, so Aizawa really doesn’t have the energy for this.
“You fell asleep on your own,” Aizawa points out, “I just failed to wake you up.” The guy looks like he wants to argue with this largely accurate phrasing of the facts, but Aizawa’s got better things to do with the rest of the night than quibble over stupid technicalities. “Look,” he says wearily, making an annoyed gesture at Dr. Shinsou to get into bed and not just stand next to them looking smug, “the prisoner is still secure, and I won’t tell your superiors about sleeping on the job, so just take the extra rest and put it to good use.”
The guard opens his mouth as if to object in some unfathomable way, but closes it after a moment more thought.
“And you can stop stalling too,” Aizawa grouses at Dr. Shinsou, who still hasn’t moved so Aizawa takes matters into his own hands. He whips the trailing ends of his capture weapon, which sends a surge of motion through the lengths that equate to a rough shove of the Doc back towards his bed.
Without any choice in the matter the Doc lurches across the room, putting out his hands to brace himself as he barrels roughly over the mattress, glaring back at Aizawa with his mouth still wrapped tightly in capture weapon. Aizawa keeps the other ends in his hand, spanning the room between himself and the Doc, who finally climbs into and then lies back down on the bed, still shooting daggers with his eyes at Aizawa of course, but what’s new about that?
The rest of the night, or the morning, as it stands, passes uneventfully. Aizawa stands with his eyes at half mast and his capture weapon twisted through his fingers, feeling every move the Doc makes like a spider hanging on its silk. After a half hour or so of beaming hatred at Aizawa through the darkness, Dr. Shinsou goes back to sleep, and though the guardsman's head starts nodding again at one point, Aizawa concedes to giving him a nudge to stay awake this time.
The sun stains the black of the night sky a pastel paintbox of colours, rising up slowly on the building outside the Doc’s barred window. They won’t keep him here permanently, Aizawa has to conclude. Not in this room, though perhaps the facility, which Aizawa still knows next to nothing about.
There’s a meditative aspect to waiting out the final hours of dawn, unmoving and unspeaking as Dr. Shinsou sleeps, smothered in the silence. Fatigue hangs heavy across Aizawa’s body and mind, aches and pains that seem to make themselves more pronounced the more time he gives himself to notice them. But he’s still here, in one piece, while someone else got carted off in the ambulance, for once. A part of Aizawa usually wishes it’d been him instead, who got hit instead of whoever did, but not this time. There isn’t anything in the world that would make Aizawa want to be the one controlled by Dr. Shinsou’s quirk for even a second, and he plans to keep it that way.
The Doc is still sleeping when Aizawa hears footsteps from the corridor, someone paced at an average speed, but another far lighter pair running at double-time. Someone with short legs, Aizawa has to conclude, waiting until a face finally passes in front of the letterbox window in the door.
It’s Sgt. Shimada, no surprise, though when the door opens Aizawa can’t say he’s expecting the Sergeant to be carrying a tall stool in one hand and accompanied by a walking breakfast tray at his side. Especially not one that talks.
“Good morning, Eraserhead!” the breakfast tray greets jovially, which is when Aizawa realises who is carrying the large tray up above his furry little head, completely obscuring his diminutive stature underneath.
“Nezu,” Aizawa returns as the Principal brings the tray out in front of him, and then they both glance down the lengths of capture weapon to Dr. Shinsou still tied up at the end, who has since woken up from the disturbance. "Of course."
“What happened to his mask?” Sgt. Shimada questions immediately.
“Lost it. Had to improvise,” Aizawa answers, lightly swinging his end of the capture weapon binding him and Dr. Shinsou, just enough to jostle him.
"Well can you un- improvise?" Sgt. Shimada says scathingly. "There's a few more things we need to talk to him about."
A fairly significant part of Aizawa had been hoping they were done with the Doc, so maybe he could be off duty for a bit or even go home already – though not without his family, whose whereabouts are as of yet unconfirmed. And since Aizawa promised Dr. Shinsou he'd never see Hitoshi and Kiki again, and intends to uphold it, his being anywhere near this psycho means being away from them.
With a soft sigh Aizawa walks over to Dr. Shinsou, winding up his capture weapon as he crosses the room. He tugs the Doc to sit forward, so the knot behind his head can be untied, releasing Dr. Shinsou thereafter with a few precise manipulations of the fabric.
It's not Aizawa that Dr. Shinsou addresses once he's freed from Aizawa's makeshift gag, but a harsh jab straight at Nezu, who's handed the breakfast tray to Sgt. Shimada and is climbing deftly up one leg of the tall stool the Sergeant sets down by Dr. Shinsou's bed.
"It would be you, wouldn't it?" Dr. Shinsou puts so venomously Aizawa feels it curdling in his stomach, and activates his quirk without a second's thought.
"Alas, I wish we were meeting under better circumstances, Professor Shinsou," Nezu replies cheerfully, seating himself on the top of the stool by the Doc’s bedside like he intends to remain there awhile. "How the mighty have fallen; you once showed such promise."
"Oh, but I could say the same to you, couldn't I?" Dr. Shinsou responds in turn, and somehow Aizawa knows exactly what he means.
"It's alright, Eraser," Nezu says to Aizawa with that targeted strike of a smile. "The Professor's quirk doesn't work on me, does it?"
Aizawa knows this fact, but it doesn't stop his desire to be careful based on instinct, although it's true that he can’t feel the usual force of Dr. Shinsou's quirk rising up after Nezu replies to a question. Not the way Aizawa can sense an attempt at mind control that would have been successful if not for his erasing it, so he forces himself to stop using his quirk with a heavy blink, taking a steadying breath before he opens his eyes again.
Dr. Shinsou breaks into a sonorous chuckle that chills Aizawa to the bone, something that might have once been a smile on his lips as he tells Nezu, "You can't blame a man for trying.”
"Quite so," Nezu agrees brightly, to all intents and purposes seeming as if he’s happy to see the Doc – and maybe he is. "Yet you know as well as I that your quirk has no power over me, so we might as well talk like civilised men, mightn't we?"
"Oh, I suppose so," the Doc sighs with a roll of his eyes, holding out a hand for the breakfast tray held by Sgt. Shimada. “But I hope it means we can dispense with having him around.” Punctuated with a disapproving glance at Aizawa, who would make a rude gesture at the Doc if he wasn’t in front of his employer with some semblance of professionalism to maintain.
“Indeed, I’m sure Eraser would appreciate a break,” Nezu remarks, and Aizawa would say that it’s fine and he’ll stay, except that he knows Nezu’s fake-offer tone inside out and realises good and well that the Principal’s comment merely sounds like a suggestion, and actually means Aizawa’s done here so he can go now. What he doesn’t expect, though, is for Nezu to add, “That goes for you too, Sgt. Shimada.”
The Sergeant doesn’t expect this either, his mouth hanging open as he rushes out, “But–”
“You see, I was rather hoping the Professor and I might speak alone awhile,” Nezu cuts off with that cheerful fuck-you-up tone he knows best. “If that’s alright with you, of course.”
“I… don’t know if that is…”
“If you’d like to discuss this with your Captain then by all means,” Nezu says so confidently it’s almost a challenge. “She did assure me that it would be alright when we spoke this morning, but then I wouldn’t want to undermine your authority by assuming.”
The downside of all this is that Dr. Shinsou’s clearly loving it, a smirk as sly as an oiled fox as he watches Nezu run circles all around poor Sgt. Shimada, who must not have been expecting this by the way he visibly struggles to catch up.
“Well… if the Captain has already agreed then it’s okay… I suppose,” the Sergeant staggers up to speed, looking at Aizawa as if to check he’s also on board with this. Aizawa isn’t, but he knows where he can and can’t push it with Nezu, and saves what little energy he has left for a more worthwhile endeavor. “But what about your safety? Are you sure you want to be left alone with Dr. Shinsou?”
“Quite sure,” Nezu replies with a content wriggle on his seat. “My mind is perfectly immune to Professor Shinsou’s quirk, and he wouldn’t stoop to hurting me physically,” turning to the Doc with what classifies as a smile on his furry little face, he adds, “would you?”
Dr. Shinsou has sat himself further up in bed, crossing his long legs to rest the breakfast tray in his lap as he starts eating, and like this looks startlingly human once more. The man behind the monster.
“Why would I do that?” the Doc remarks as if it’s completely undignified, and just to prove it to himself, Aizawa doesn’t activate his quirk on the Doc, waiting to see if Nezu will answer and is indeed as unreachable as he swears he is.
“Why indeed,” Nezu returns on cue, and it’s true – Aizawa tunes the mentalist dial in his head to that buzzsaw edge of the Doc’s quirk, jaws wide and snapping, but Nezu just titters and folds his paws across his stomach. “One must hold onto some sense of decorum even under these dire circumstances.”
Aizawa remembers something Kiki told her about the Doc, that manners mattered more than morals in his family, and in that sense Nezu and Dr. Shinsou are both right at home with each other.
“I’ll keep someone posted outside the door,” Sgt. Shimada appears to compromise with himself more than anyone else. If Nezu wants to risk being left alone with Dr. Shinsou over breakfast with the permission of whoever the Sergeant reports to, far be it from him to get in the way.
“Then it’s settled,” Nezu declares like this is a joyous occasion, turning back to the Doc to request, “Might I trouble you for a sip of your tea, Professor? We have much to discuss.”
Dr. Shinsou rolls his eyes, but there are two cups on his tray – planned and arranged by Nezu, no doubt, who delivered this meal in the first place – and pours the Principal his tea accordingly. It’s perhaps the strangest way Aizawa has seen Dr. Shinsou yet, to be so… unassuming, in a way, or perhaps just comfortable in the company of someone he seems to consider a peer. They were peers, Aizawa’s forced to remember, even friends, many years ago.
“Come on then,” Sgt. Shimada says to Aizawa a touch grouchily, which he can fully understand. This isn’t really his preference for the Doc’s security, but then again, if there’s anyone in the world Aizawa’s sure can outsmart the Doc, it’s Nezu. Part of him just wonders what on earth they’ll talk about.
Aizawa responds with a wordless noise from his throat and reluctantly follows Sgt. Shimada out into the hallway, even with every cell in his body screaming not to let the Doc out of his sight for any amount of time at all. But maybe that’s just the Shinsou effect, Dr. Shinsou-style.
“Is he really going to be okay?” Sgt. Shimada asks Aizawa like he doesn’t have another option, which he might not.
Aizawa shrugs, because he wouldn’t feel like he’d eaten a brick if he had all the answers here. “If he’s not, it’s on him.”
Nezu is more than able to make such judgements for himself, so although Aizawa doesn’t like it even a little bit, he can accept it nonetheless. Which leaves the next item down on his list of neverending priorities before Aizawa’s sense of impending doom gets too severe: a question he puts to Sgt. Shimada with the exhaustion of a man who hasn’t slept in at least twenty hours, and might not sleep for twenty more if things continue to not go his way like they haven’t for what feels like a very long time.
“Where can I get a cup of coffee?”
Notes:
I will confess that there was a point after the main climatic action sequence where I was like 'uh are we done now?' before moving into this conclusion-ary portion of the story, but I also came to realise exactly how much we deserved a juicy confrontation between Aizawa and Dr. Shinsou without anyone or anything else getting between them. I love this chapter for that.
ALSO NEZU IS BACK! Now that we have Dr. Shinsou right in our midst, it's a wonderful chance to get to see him in a different way, and reigniting the past I threw in between him and Nezu all those chapters alone is another of those 'backwards compatible continuity' things that I seem to fluke so often.
Six more chapters to go! At least in these troubled times of global pandemics we'll all have a lot more time for the reading of and writing of fanfiction, eh?
Chapter 85: The Return
Summary:
Getting the gang back together takes some work, but nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.
Notes:
With this chapter we are officially over 500k!!! That's bananas!!!!! This was NOT my intention at all so thanks for coming with me on this journey, everyone. It's legit super fun and the best and everything I love about fanfic.
Oh also because I keep forgetting to mention. Sgt. Shimada is Hanzo from Overwatch. Obviously.
NOW LET'S CONTINUE, SHALL WE?
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Follow me,” Sgt. Shimada says curtly, and storms away from Dr. Shinsou’s temporary holding cell simmering with misdirected frustration. As the only person here Aizawa knows well enough to get answers to certain pertinent questions in his mind – like where to get a goddamn cup of coffee around here, or where here even is – Aizawa has little choice but to follow him. So he trails after the stern Sergeant down a different yet identical branch of the lifeless hallways in this mysterious facility that he still knows next to nothing about, though if there were anyone or anytime to ask such questions, now’s surely it.
“What is this place?” Aizawa tests as he draws shoulder to shoulder with his escort, the silver streaks from Sgt. Shimada’s temples just about level with Aizawa’s eyes. “Are you police?” He’d assumed they were because the police had brought them here, but then, that was just an assumption.
“Private security,” Sgt. Shimada replies stiffly, though Aizawa’s got enough of a read on the man to suspect that’s naturally how he is. “This facility specialises in the management of individuals with unstable and dangerous quirks.” An adjustment of the Sergeant’s head puts his steely grey eyes to Aizawa’s as they come round a corner, “I’m a little surprised we haven’t heard of you before, considering your quirk.”
“You wouldn’t,” Aizawa replies nonchalantly, balling his hands in his pockets and wondering if he should message Hizashi now, or leave it a little longer given the still borderline unsociable hour of the morning. Hizashi’s an early bird through and through, but if he’s with Hitoshi – and he better be – then Aizawa would rather they had more rest than satisfy his own worries when he’s still not anywhere in particular.
“I tried to check you out, actually,” Sgt. Shimada says what could, for a person of his demeanour, be thought of as conversationally. “There’s a registration number against the name Eraserhead on our system, but all the other data must be beyond my security clearance.”
“Not likely,” Aizawa counters as they reach a set of security doors that the Sergeant unlocks with a fingerprint scanner to let them outside into the courtyard, the air fresh and clean in the pastel morning light. Sgt. Shimada doesn’t ask anything in words, but catches Aizawa’s eye again and raises his eyebrows slightly. “I’m underground, which means there shouldn’t be information on me at any clearance level.” And if there is Aizawa wants it erased, as per his namesake.
“Nothing?” Shimada says sceptically. “Then how do you work?”
“Just fine,” Aizawa bats back midway between confrontation and comfortable, but he knows the follow-up questions to this curiosity of his existence already, and preempts the next round with a simple, “I have a second job to make ends meet, but there’s no point in reporting on my activities as a Hero because I’ve no interest in the stupid Pro Rankings.”
The Sergeant lets out a little sound, somewhere between a snort and tsk, his crows feet deepening as he winces in the low beams of morning sun as they cross the compound. “Me neither,” he remarks, giving Aizawa a longer look of consideration. “I just didn’t think there were Heroes like you anymore.”
“I get that a lot,” Aizawa says, rather than the more depressing observation that his kind are a dying breed as the Hero industry drives itself deeper into a celebrity-obsessed ditch. It’s not that there aren’t people out there who would be underground Heroes, just that the system is stacked against them to succeed compared to flashy bastards with overpowered quirks and egos to match, so they get handfuls of hit-or-miss unlicensed vigilantes these days and little else. What a mess. “It’s kinda the point, though. Knowing about us defeats the purpose.” There could be plenty more underground Heroes out there as far as Aizawa’s aware, but they wouldn’t be much good if he knew about them. It’s a lot to leave up to faith.
“I suppose so.” Sgt. Shimada stops at the door of another building operated by another fingerprint scanner, which lets them into a building that seems almost identical to the one they just left. Before long they reach a set of doors not locked by scanners, which swing open smoothly to reveal a neatly organised cafeteria.
There’s no more than ten tables in the room, most with only a few inmates sitting at them, and each presided over by a guard wearing the same nondescript uniform that Aizawa’s seen around. There’s little in the way of conversation across the room, the muted air of a strictly run classroom, but there’s a windowed counter at the end of the hall serving food and drinks that Sgt. Shimada leads Aizawa to, where he finally gets his much-needed cup of coffee.
The Sergeant nods at one of the guards standing watch at the end of a nearby table, and the inmates are quickly ferried away to free the space up for the two of them to sit down. Taking a thirsty swig of his coffee as he slumps down onto the bench, Aizawa finally digs out his phone and drops a quick message in the four-way chat with Hizashi, Hitoshi and Kiki: just the words ‘in canteen’, which should be enough for them to find him, should they get the chance.
Sgt. Shimada gets himself a tea, sitting opposite to Aizawa looking like he’s doing a mental index of the questions he wants to ask, finally settling on, “How long were you tracking Dr. Shinsou?”
“Since the beginning,” Aizawa reveals in a gravelly, reluctant tone. “Started out tracking Hakamata Shiyoko before she sprung him from his last prison.” Then he fixes Sgt. Shimada with a cool challenge of stare across the table. “Hoping you’re not going to make the same mistakes they did.”
The Sergeant bristles, but before he can respond Aizawa’s phone vibrates and he looks away to check it – Hizashi, naturally, replying with ‘on our way.’ The relief is palpable, distinct as the taste of hot black coffee on Aizawa’s tongue as he takes another drink.
“If we had been responsible for Dr. Shinsou’s incarceration then he wouldn’t have escaped in the first place,” Sgt. Shimada asserts when Aizawa looks back up at him, his mouth in a sour frown framed by his neatly trimmed facial hair.
“Well, this is your chance to prove it.” Aizawa takes a slurp of coffee, feeling it quicken his blood, fighting back the wall of not having slept since some time yesterday. He runs on empty a lot, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier, especially as he grows older.
Sgt. Shimada pouts again but doesn’t exactly argue, flicking back through the mental index for his next question to Aizawa. “How do you know that… Nezu?”
“From my other job,” Aizawa answers shortly, knowing that it gives the Sergeant enough to look him up should he want to, but then again, perhaps this facility could use a contact like him, and vice-versa, if they’re really capable of keeping someone like Dr. Shinsou captive better than the last prison that failed to hold him. “He’ll be fine with Dr. Shinsou.”
“So you all seem to think,” the Sergeant mutters. “I still find it hard to believe the Captain okayed it.”
“Nezu’s… well connected,” Aizawa paraphrases for ‘conniving super-genius’, since he can say and think it, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is allowed to.
Sgt. Shimada doesn’t offer anything more than a tense frown as he sips his tea, and then Aizawa’s attention is sprung by the sudden sense that Hitoshi is nearby, as if the aerial in his head is picking up those distinct mentalist brainwaves long before Hitoshi sets foot in a room. That’s why Aizawa is already watching the door when Hizashi and Hitoshi respectively stride and shuffle in accompanied by another guard.
Hizashi’s hair has drooped overnight without access to his usual array of ridiculous products and high-powered hairdryers, bundled into a crunchy beehive on top of his head but still drawing plenty of attention as he enters the room, as he enters any room, like a true VIP. Aizawa doesn’t raise a hand to pull their focus but waits for Hizashi’s scan of the room to find him, identified by the exact moment his mouth breaks into a smile. Hizashi reaches effortlessly for Hitoshi’s shoulder to guide them over, while the find me signal flare that Hitoshi was sending out seems to lessen when his eyes meet Aizawa’s across the canteen.
Hitoshi presumably got more sleep than Aizawa did, since it’d be impossible to get any less, but the teen still looks tired. However, there’s a faint lift to the corners of his mouth as he comes straight over to sit next to Aizawa while Hizashi goes up to the serving window.
“Hi,” Hitoshi murmurs as he plops down onto the bench, and although Aizawa’s massively relieved to see him, the fact that his Ma’s not here isn’t the best of signs.
“Hey,” Aizawa returns quietly, side-stepping any urge to just cling to Hitoshi with a hug and not let go by giving him a quick pat on the back. Though his heartstrings get a good stretching when Hitoshi rests his arms on the table and buries his face against them with a deep sigh, prompting Aizawa to ask, “Sleep much?”
“A bit,” Hitoshi’s answer is muffled through his arms, and Aizawa lets his palm return and rest a moment longer against the curve of Hitoshi’s back. “They still won’t let me talk to Ma.”
Aizawa makes a disapproving noise in his throat and looks over at Sgt. Shimada. “Can’t you do something about that?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid.” The Sergeant doesn’t budge, but Aizawa’s not giving up so easily.
Hizashi returns from the window with two more cups of coffee, one that he slides across to Hitoshi – not that Hitoshi moves to acknowledge this gesture at all – and another that’s clearly for himself, since Aizawa can see from here that it’s pale and milky and probably overloaded with sugar. He sits down next to the Sergeant just as Aizawa launches the next attack.
“Then what is she being held for?” he demands much more bluntly than the tentative cooperation established between the two of them until now. “You can’t keep someone in for questioning without a reason.”
“Our reason is still unconscious in the medical unit,” Sgt. Shimda backs up roughly. If Aizawa steps back just enough to think about the situation, he can tell the Sergeant and himself are similar enough to make it incredibly easy for them to butt heads.
Luckily, Aizawa’s not alone in this.
“But you have a heart, don’t you?” Hizashi chips in with his chin resting against his knuckles, the back of his fingers butted up against his neck brace as he drums the fingers of his other hand around his cup, and though he says it in a much more friendly way than Aizawa’s speaking, the point is no less sharp.
“What?” Sgt. Shimada replies uncertainly, furrowing his brow at Hizashi as he tries to see where this is going. He’s heard of Present Mic, that much has already been proven, but whether it helps or not remains to be seen. As do a handful of prisoners and other guards seem to recognise Hizashi around the canteen, though none make it further than covert stares that Aizawa notices even if no one else does.
“A kid needs his mother,” Hizashi states plain as day, and even if it’s a reminder of Hitoshi’s age he might not usually appreciate, Hitoshi is too busy lying with his face in his arms on the table and might just be feeling more like a kid who does need his mother than usual. “Do you really need to keep them apart, or are you just doing it to make them suffer?”
“Of course not!” Sgt. Shimada bursts loud enough to surprise even himself, a flush to his face that could be anger or embarrassment in equal measures.
“Really?” Hizashi retorts after he takes a seemingly casual sip of his pathetic excuse for a coffee, just being his brilliant, sharp self that Aizawa loves as usual. “Because if you were trying to put pressure on his mother to admit to something, this would be a great way to do it.”
Aizawa can figure out some of the background factors already, assuming Hizashi has been sticking close by Hitoshi this whole time. That although he was able to bring Hitoshi to see Aizawa, they still haven’t been able to get to Kiki despite Hizashi’s best efforts. Aizawa can easily assume this is Hizashi’s newest attempt to break through the wall that’s been put up between Kiki and Hitoshi. He ought to lend a hand.
“It’s true,” Aizawa makes out as if he’s running it through as a thought exercise. “If she thought her son was in distress, then she’d probably confess to just about anything.” And Hitoshi sure looks distressed, going by the back of his head.
“Stop it! That’s not what we’re doing,” Sgt. Shimada snaps irately, his buttons thoroughly smashed now his professionalism is being called into question, but then if he just agreed to help them in the first place there’d be no need for such blatant manipulation.
“Then what are you afraid of? Let the kid see his mother,” Aizawa calmly returns the piece de resistance, taking a smug sip of coffee and staring the Sergeant down over the brim of his cup.
Hitoshi is still beside Aizawa, not moving in any way to dislodge the spare hand Aizawa rests gently on his back. The fact that he’s not arguing with any of this means he probably understands what they’re trying to do, or really does just want to see his Ma that much. Probably both, thinking about it.
When Hitoshi finally moves, it's to lift his face out of his hands and pin Sgt. Shimada with his most heartbreaking puppy eyes, fat bottom lip and everything. Adds a simple, yet effective, “Please.”
If this emotional assault were targeting Aizawa he’d have already buckled so hard what was left of his willpower wouldn’t even be salvageable as scrap, but the Sergeant holds out impressively. He must not have any mentalist aptitude, Aizawa considers over the last dregs of his coffee. Dr. Shinsou’s so-called ‘charm’ didn’t seem to have any affect on Sgt. Shimada either, so it makes sense that Hitoshi’s version isn’t as effective as it is on a mentalist doormat like Aizawa.
“I… I’ll see what I can do,” Sgt. Shimada concedes, but that’s not good enough for them.
“Oh, aren’t you important enough to sort something like that out?” Hizashi remarks in the most innocently grating way as possible. “Is there someone else we can talk to then?”
“Alright, alright,” the Sergeant growls through his teeth. “I can take you there after we’re done here, but she still can’t be discharged until Hakamata Shiyoko has woken up and we can do an assessment for possible brain damage.”
“If she’s brain damaged it wouldn’t be Ma’s fault,” Hitoshi retorts lightning fast, reaching for his coffee at last and taking a petulant sip. “My dad’s the one who tried to kill her.”
“So you say,” Sgt. Shimada returns just as adamantly, and although it riles Aizawa up no end, if he tries to think back to that moment in the house – the force with which Kiki took Shiyoko down – he honestly couldn’t say he knows what Kiki was trying to do to her.
Aizawa’s hand shifts over to Hitoshi’s shoulder to squeeze, part reassuring and partly to ease him off – if the Sergeant says he’ll take them to see Kiki, best not to piss him off too much or he might change his mind.
“Whatever she did, it was in self-defence,” Aizawa says, as that much he has no doubt of. The sound of Shiyoko’s banshee scream is just as piercing in his memory as it was when she charged towards Kiki full of envious bloodlust.
“Which we can confirm once Hakamata Shiyoko has regained consciousness and answered some questions,” Sgt. Shimada relates neutrally. So although it’s no end of aggravating, Aizawa knows well enough that it won’t pay to push this point any harder or the Sergeant will just get more dug in. It’s exactly what Aizawa would do.
Hitoshi is barely nursing his coffee, which is hardly the finest brew Aizawa’s ever partaken in, and Hizashi has almost finished his, so in a mostly self-serving move Aizawa reaches for Hitoshi’s cup and drains it in one long glug, setting it back down roughly as Hitoshi ekes out a vaguely unimpressed, “Hey.”
“Looks like we’re ready to go,” Aizawa states with an unbreakable stare at the Sergeant, who narrows his eyes in return as he makes his mind up. They’ll have to figure something out, one stubborn bastard to another.
Hizashi knocks back the last of his own gross milky-sweet beverage, which even Aizawa isn’t desperate enough to steal. That might even be why Hizashi started taking his coffee that way, since Aizawa has always been a minesweeper when it comes to untended drinks.
“Fine,” the Sergeant declares with an exasperated huff, standing up with his tea only half-drunk as an almost exact measure of how much he’s prepared to give in to their collective efforts to irritate him into doing what they want. “Follow me.”
Hitoshi’s a little brighter when he rises from the table, seemingly more hopeful, though he stays close by Aizawa as they leave the canteen and head back through the maze of hallways to yet another block. This might even be a women’s block, Aizawa reasons out as they pass by a pair of female guards in the same uniform as all the others, who give Sgt. Shimada a respectful nod as they cross paths.
“Is it only criminals you keep here?” Aizawa asks, trying to factor in the typical gender imbalance when it comes to most forms of crime. It wouldn’t make sense to have an entire prison block dedicated to female offenders when their numbers must be so much smaller – unless they’re not all criminals.
“No,” the Sergeant answers bitterly, though Aizawa’s a little surprised he answers at all. “I told you before, we specialise in dangerous quirk security.”
“Wait, so not everyone here has done something wrong?” Hitoshi pounces on the implication.
“Correct,” Sgt. Shimada confirms. “Some are here voluntarily because of their quirks, others are sectioned as patients of the mental hospital.”
“Isn’t it risky having so many people with dangerous quirks in one place?” Hizashi comments, swaggering along with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops.
“It would be, for most,” Sgt. Shimada doesn’t quite gloat, but his pride certainly shines through. “But that’s why this place was created.” It sounds like a great idea on paper, though Aizawa’s also aware that what the Sergeant has listed is a whole range of ways they can try to keep someone here, trying one after the other until something sticks. A double edged sword, like so many things.
“We’re here,” the Sergeant announces as they stop in front of an unmarked door, and it can’t be denied that the knowledge he has of this place is meticulous, seeming to know every turn and corridor like the back of his hand.
“Great,” Hitoshi rushes as he tries to barge forwards, but the Sergeant is standing square across the closed door and doesn’t budge.
“A couple of things first,” Sgt. Shimada recites diligently. “You aren’t to speak about anything that happened in the house before you were all brought here, and–”
“Okay, I get it!” Hitoshi snaps with a mental punch that comes from him in all directions, hitting Aizawa like a baseball bat glancing off the back of his head, and even the Sergeant twitches as if he felt it too.
“And don’t interact with Dr. Iwaya,” Sgt. Shimada continues unphased, staring Hitoshi out like the middle-aged man he is facing off against a teenager. That means they must be keeping Kiki and Iwaya together still, Aizawa concludes as he watches Hitoshi’s frustration bubble and boil.
“Whatever,” he grinds out through a tightly clenched jaw, for a moment throwing shadows that remind Aizawa his father’s obsessive desire to see Kiki, with some all-important differences. “Please, just let me see her."
That works better, and Sgt. Shimada finally steps away from the door, unlocking it from the outside and pulling it open.
Kiki’s voice emerges first from within, tired and jaded. “What now?” but Hitoshi is already bolting through the opening, scrambling wildly so the next sound is a gasping, “Hitoshi–” as her voice cracks like glass.
Aizawa is next through the door, stepping into a moderately sized room with two single beds on opposing sides, one of which has a huddled form under a blanket that’s presumably Iwaya, not that she shows any reaction to the sudden increase of people in the room.
Kiki's on her feet, still wearing yesterday’s green jumpsuit, though it’s a little creased and worse for wear, and her hair is twisted into a tight bun at the back of her head, just visible as she puts her face down into Hitoshi’s shoulder as he hugs her fiercely.
“Hitoshi,” she repeats breathlessly, and Aizawa doesn’t see so much as hear the tears in her voice, arms wrapped tightly around Hitoshi’s back as she’s reunited with her son. “I’m sorry,” she sobs softly, as if the sky itself is crashing down, “I’m so sorry.”
As much as Aizawa’s tempted to stay, it feels wrong to watch such a raw moment between them and he edges back out of the door. Despite everything Aizawa is and has been to Hitoshi, he’s nothing compared to the boy’s mother and knows his place enough to back out where he’s not needed.
Sgt. Shimada doesn’t look thrilled with this turn of events and is about to go in when Aizawa sticks his arm across the door to block the Sergeant’s entry.
“Give them a minute,” he demands, keeping his arm firm and daring Sgt. Shimada to try and push past him. He doesn’t.
“But,” the Sergeant starts to protest feebly.
“I really don’t think they’re going to chat much about witness statements, do you?” Hizashi poses with a dashing straightforward logic that works much better than Aizawa’s base instincts to just barricade himself across the door and growl at the Sergeant. But that’s why they’re such a good team.
Sgt. Shimada looks like he’s about to make another protest, but gives up before he even tries, stepping away to lean back against the wall and crossing his arms sulkily over his chest.
“Now, was that so hard?” Hizash’s being a grating git in the best way possible, and they were anywhere that Aizawa could openly profess his love, he’d have done it already. Unfortunately the best he can give Hizashi is covert longing looks, which is how the smile that sells more tubes of whitening toothpaste than Aizawa can stand to know ends up beaming directly at him, still bolstered across the doorway. With the same overly friendly attitude that runs at odds to his words, Hizashi throws out, “You look like shit, by the way.”
Of course, their backup language of love: shit-talking.
“Didn’t sleep,” Aizawa grunts, finally allowing himself to move away from the doorway without daring to peek inside. He hears enough sniffles and soft murmurs to expect that a long-overdue moment of mother and son bonding is playing out the best way it can, and Aizawa’s got no right to press his face up against the glass just because he’s come to care about the two of them so deeply in the past few days. That’s still nothing in comparison to all of Hitoshi’s lifetime in Kiki’s care, for better and for worse.
“Did you ever think that you might, I dunno, need sleep?” Hizashi’s winding him up, obviously, but only to distract Aizawa from worrying about anything else, so he allows the familiar teasing for that reason alone.
Giving an unperturbed shrug, Aizawa offers a famous, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” and is only about 70% joking, which is an improvement on years where he was easily over 60% sincere.
Mostly Hizashi to thank for that, amongst others, for convincing Aizawa that living without a deathwish is a better idea than treating his body’s limits like a trampoline, assuming that if he dies in the process of pushing himself he must have been too weak. Can’t protect people that way, dead. Sounds obvious, but Aizawa needs reminding of it more times than he ought to.
“Oh, well that’s alright then,” Hizashi retorts, and is still grinning at Aizawa across the corridor when a guard comes racing down the hallway, huffing and puffing like he’s sprinted the entire compound.
“Sergeant Shimada, Sir,” the guard wheezes, leaning down to rest his hands on his knees for a moment before straightening up again. “There’s someone from the Police to see you, he’s at the gates.”
“Then ask him to wait,” the Sergeant replies crossly, the picture of an irritable man doing his best not to lose his temper with events beyond his control, and even if Aizawa can empathise with that, it doesn’t make it any less amusing to watch happening to somebody else for once.
“I, uh… I don’t think he’d…” the guard continues to puff before looking over to Aizawa. “Oh, are you Eraserhead? He said to bring you too.”
“Me?” Aizawa questions as the pieces slot into place, and hope suddenly fills him to the point of bursting. Could it be? “Can you take me over to him?”
“Wait a second, I’m not leaving–” Sgt. Shimada quibbles.
“Then stay here,” Aizawa interrupts. “I’ll go ahead. Me and the cop can both go somewhere to wait for you, can’t we?”
“I…” The poor Sergeant's limits are sure being tested today, Aizawa considers as he watches Sgt. Shimada pursing his lips into another of those thoughtful frowns. Then again, it’s surely part of the job. “Oh alright then, have it your way, as usual.” The Sergeant turns his attention back to the guard. “Take him over and show them both to one of the waiting rooms, I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“Yes Sir,” the guard responds, turning back around to lead Aizawa, who catches Hizashi’s eye just before he goes. There’s no need to ask him to keep watching over Hitoshi, since Hizashi’s being doing that since yesterday and will continue to do so regardless, but that doesn’t stop Aizawa wanting to say something as they part ways once again.
“I’ll see you soon,” is generic, but the best Aizawa can go for in the end. Hizashi just tilts his face down to peer over his glasses and winks one of those brilliant emerald eyes at him.
“Catch you around, Eraser.”
Then Aizawa’s off again, letting hope stoke a bigger and bigger fire in his chest as they emerge out into the courtyard again and he spots the figure standing near the front gates, attended by more of the facility’s private security. Aizawa breaks into a run.
The man isn’t wearing the iconic coat or bucket hat, just a simple shirt and slacks, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up past his elbows and a hospital band still around his wrist, but it’s him.
“Tsukauchi,” Aizawa pants when he stops in front of the Detective, who has most definitely seen better days, but he’s standing on his own two feet, and he’s fucking alive. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you, Eraser,” Tsukauchi replies warmly, and Aizawa’s never really had the urge to hug Tsukauchi before, but he does now, even though he doesn’t act on it. “Everything under control here?”
“For now,” Aizawa replies. “Are you cleared to be working so soon?” Not that it’s ever stopped Aizawa, but since when has he not been a hypocrite?
“As long as I don’t let anyone stop my heart again,” the Detective returns with the same lighthearted optimism that usually annoys Aizawa, but now it's a welcome return to the norm. Tsuakuchi looks around past Aizawa as if searching for someone. “Isn’t there anyone else with you?”
“Sergeant Shimada is still busy, he asked for you to wait for him,” the guard who chased after Aizawa recites breathlessly, but then, the Sergeant isn’t here now.
“Yeah, forget about that. I know where they’re holding Dr. Shinsou,” Aizawa announces coolly. “You want to see him, right?”
“I’m afraid so,” Tsukauchi answers resolutely. “I need to inform him of his new charges and hear his plea. I trust you can cover me through that?”
“Of course. This way.” Aizawa sets off, deciding he’ll figure out what to do about the thumbprint scanners once he gets to them.
“Hey, you can’t just take off, my orders were to show you to a waiting room!” the guard who arrived with Aizawa bleats, but then again, he could be helpful.
“Alright, then do that once you’ve taken us to Dr. Shinsou,” Aizawa suggests with plenty of false authority. “It won’t take long.”
Because Aizawa hasn’t stopped walking, and Tsukauchi is walking with him, the guard has no choice but to follow them towards the medical block Aizawa was first taken to, and although he has no knowledge of these labryinth-like buildings the way Sgt. Shimada does, he can retrace his footsteps from last night well enough to find the cell he last left the Doc in having breakfast with bloody Nezu.
“I-I-I’m not authorised to do that!” the guard protests, which is when Tsukuachi reaches for his shoulder with a radiant sunny-day smile.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m the Detective leading this case,” Tsukauchi tells him with overbearing confidence. “I have a right to see the suspect, since he hasn’t been formally charged with anything yet and we wouldn't want the people he's killed to go without justice, would we?” Whatever kind of justice that is, but Aizawa tries not to think about it.
“If you’d like to get the Sergeant to meet us there, I’m sure he can find the way,” Aizawa suggests, and it feels wonderful to have Tsukauchi backing him up again, sharing the burden as they get ever-closer to the finish line of this ghastly tale. They’re so close.
“Oh, that’s a great idea.” Tsukauchi would never compliment Aizawa so openly under different circumstances, but they’ve gone far enough through the looking-glass by now that Aizawa can’t tell what’s normal for them anymore. “I’m still recovering, so it’s better I don’t stress my heart by running around to a bunch of unnecessary places, so just let him know to meet us there, okay?”
“O… okay,” the guard returns warily, starting to lag behind them and muttering frantically into his radio.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” Aizawa says quietly as they reach the main doors of the building where Dr. Shinsou is being held, lunging forwards to grab it before closing as a member of staff comes out.
“Me too,” Tsukauchi replies, then just as they pass through the door Aizawa stops, feeling a light touch on his arm from Tsukauchi’s hand. “Thank you, Eraser. For saving my life.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Aizawa insists as he keeps moving, and Tsukauchi’s touch slips softly away. “I shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place.”
“It was a mistake. My mistake,” Tsuakuchi says firmly as the door swings shut behind them, and it’s true that he messed up, but how many times has Aizawa dropped the ball too? They’re only human. Tsukauchi’s done everything he could, what more can anyone ask of him? “Officer Yamaguichi told me you risked getting shot to keep giving me CPR.”
“She wouldn’t have shot me,” Aizawa dismisses, stopping at each junction in the hallway to recall his passage from before, trying to keep a sense of where the Doc’s cell is and hoping he hasn’t been moved – especially not without Aizawa’s supervision. “Besides, I wasn’t going to let you die.” Not for anything, and not like that.
“I know,” Tsukauchi says far too sentimentally for this setting, but that’s him all over. “You’re a good Hero, Detective Pot.”
But fuck it, the guy almost died. Aizawa can let him have a little sentiment, and flashes Tsuakuchi the barest of smiles as they turn down the next corridor. They wouldn’t be here, with the Doc and Shiyoko behind bars, without everything Tsukauchi’s done as well as what Aizawa’s done, and good things don’t always come in flashy wrappers. The unsung Hero matters just as much as any other, and Aizawa knows that better than anyone.
“You too, Detective Kettle.”
Notes:
Tsukauchiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii the golden boy returns, amirite?
I know there's still lots of questions to go but hopefully we're starting to knock some of those off one by one as we march towards the ending. Five more chapters to go! But worry not! There will be more YWID-verse to come, although I'll state here now very clearly that when it comes to my writing what I DON'T do is produce anything that you could consider similar to what I've just finished writing, both thematically and character-wise. It's stale for me otherwise, and when I'm finishing something I always get hungry for something different to what I've been immersed in for almost 2 years in YWID's case.
What this means, in blunt terms, is that if YWID is a story from 1. Aizawa's perspective, 2. focused on Aizawa & Hitoshi, and 3. structured around hero/detective work, anything that I produce after it will be 1. NOT from Aizawa's perspective, 2. NOT focused on Aizawa & Hitoshi, and 3. NOT structured around hero/detective work.
And that's all I'm going to say with regards to what it might be about instead :3
Chapter 86: Checkmate
Summary:
Compared to these seasoned players Aizawa’s just a pawn.
Notes:
Back back back again! This also brings us to the end of my 8th masterdoc, not the the 9th has a lot of chapters in it, google docs just starts to freak out with documents beyond a certain size. Home stretch now folks!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sgt. Shimada beats them to Dr. Shinsou’s cell, which is more or less exactly how Aizawa expects it to go. Right down to the utterly infuriated look on the Sergeant’s face when he and Tsukauchi finally stroll up after only getting lost a couple of times on the way. Once Aizawa stumbled across the bathroom he was able to figure out the rest, but there was a little aimless wandering until then, which gave them time to catch up if nothing else.
“You were asked to wait,” the Sergeant begins like he's been swigging pure lemon juice, but Tsuakuchi just sticks out his hand with an effervescent smile. To look at him you'd have no idea he came directly from the hospital, kept in for exhaustive testing to determine exactly how Dr. Shinsou managed to stop a man's heart with just a brainwashing quirk, only to come up with the conclusion that they honestly don't know. And unfortunately, Dr. Shinsou isn't likely to tell.
“Hi, I’m Detective Tsukauchi, you must be Sergeant Shimada.” It’s a universal truth that in every way Aizawa is completely and utterly charmless Tsukauchi is the total opposite, even moreso than Hizashi, who is far too obnoxious on a day-to-day basis to be considered truly charming. Not the way Detective Tsukauchi is: the textbook definition of an all-round decent human being. “Thanks for taking care of everything, I’ve heard this facility is the best in the country for quirk security, so we really appreciate you taking these two at such short notice.”
"Oh… of course," Sgt. Shimada replies like the legs have just been knocked out from under him, because if Aizawa’s the bad cop here comes the very best cop, and that’s a sudden change of pace to adjust to.
"Since Dr. Shinsou is an escaped convict we can obviously re-imprison him without further charges, but the facility he broke out of is still without a warden, and it only seems right that his additional crimes are factored in to his sentence," Tsukauchi starts to reel off like he wasn't in cardiac arrest under Aizawa’s cold, sweaty hands just yesterday, but then that's rather the point. Tsukauchi doesn’t ask so much as cheerfully tell the Sergeant how this is going to go. "I won't need long with him, and Eraser here can ensure my safety while we talk so that's all pretty straightforward as I understand it." There's a pause as the Sergeant tries to parse all this, into which Tsukauchi interjects a sunny, "So if that's all clear, you can open the door now."
"Ah… okay," Sgt. Shimada slowly reaches out to open the door of Dr. Shinsou's temporary cell, which Tsukauchi could have easily done for himself, but that's not the point of why the Detective asked him to do it, which was getting the Sergeant's cooperation. If Aizawa is a handful of grit in the face, Tsukauchi is extra-spreadable butter when it comes to cooperating with authorities, having plenty of rank of his own to trade in on top of his existing graces. And if there’s anything the Detective likes it’s a smooth running machine. Just look at his taste in cars.
Not to Aizawa’s surprise, exactly, but closer to disappointment, when he steps ahead of Tsukauchi and the Sergeant into the Doc's room, Nezu is not only still there, but has produced a miniature shogi set from somewhere. He and Dr. Shinsou sit in statuesque silence, face to face at either end of the bed, contemplating the board set carefully between them. Dr. Shinsou's legs are crossed, his back curling over to rest his head on a hand, looking even more like Hitoshi than usual in such a relaxed pose, with the exception of his hair and the vicious slashes across one side of his face, held together with tape and unsubtle black stitching. Nezu sits at the other end of the bed with his paws pressed together, engaging Dr. Shinsou without fear. Neither move so much as a muscle when Aizawa enters, wrapped up in the board between them. They're not too far into the game, but how long that's taken is anyone's guess.
"Playtime's over," Aizawa announces bluntly as the others follow in behind him. Because he's already locked onto Dr. Shinsou's face, staring straight at him from paranoid habit, Aizawa sees in microscopic detail the flare of irritation in the Doc’s expression when Tsukauchi steps through the doorway, though he still doesn't look over properly.
"Back so soon, Detective?" the Doc remarks icily, then when Tsukauchi doesn't answer – and Aizawa's erasing any chance he has to use his quirk – adds a cruel, "I must not have killed you thoroughly enough." Yes, Aizawa would say if he were going to allow himself to bicker with Dr. Shinsou, not even you can keep such a good man down. But this is the Detective’s rodeo, so Aizawa bites his lip. He's argued with Dr. Shinsou enough to know how it ends, which is with Aizawa twisting his arm and hissing threats he means every iota of, so they don't need a repeat performance in front of company.
"Dr. Shinsou, in addition to your prior offences, you’re to be charged with a further thirteen counts of homicide and the attempted murder of a police Detective,” Tsukauchi delivers like a restaurant worker reading out an order ticket, not a trace of concern clouding his blue-skies expression; his true strength and secret weapon. “Until further notice you are to remain in this facility to continue serving your current sentences, while a judge deliberates over these incidents and will extend your sentence accordingly."
"Thirteen?" the Doc echoes cynically. "As I recall, those people all killed themselves. How you expect to blame me for their deaths takes a stretch of the imagination." Without looking away from Tsukauchi he reaches for the shogi board and slides a piece forward, at which point Nezu offers a delighted little titter.
“They committed suicide under the control of your quirk, so their deaths are on your head,” Tsukauchi replies calmly under the safety of Aizawa's quirk, and perhaps only Aizawa knows him well enough to see it, but he senses the Detective’s trepidation around the man who almost killed him with a sentence, even with Aizawa acting as an insurance policy.
“Can you prove they were influenced by my quirk?” Dr. Shinsou shoots back, while Aizawa keeps his quirk active and inescapable from letting the Doc’s barbed questions do any further harm. “I think you’ll find that your case isn’t as strong as you think it is, Detective.”
“That’s for the judge to decide,” Tsukauchi replies frostily. “So I take it you mean to plead not guilty.”
“Of course,” the Doc confirms with a sly smile. Aizawa knows what he’s really doing this for – not because he believes he can win, or he’s that deluded, but because it’s one more way to fight, a source of the conflict that he lives and breathes.
“You killed at least one with your own hands,” Aizawa adds bitterly. “His stab wounds weren’t self-inflicted. One of the guards from your old prison, the one who came back after dark on the night of your escape.”
“Ah yes,” Dr. Shinsou purrs sinisterly, like a cat curling up on a warm spot the memory brings back. “Never liked him.” And then finally he looks around at them with a maniacal twinkle in his deep violet eyes. "Can you prove it, though?"
“We didn’t need proof of your quirk to charge you for the Ninety-Nine Massacre,” Tsukauchi argues, which is exactly what the Doc wants – something, anything to dig his teeth into. But Aizawa got his shots in anyway, so he can't begrudge the Detective some of his own. "You’re still going to be in prison for the rest of your life.”
Dr. Shinsou shrugs. “So you all seem to think.” He turns back to the Shogi board as Nezu reaches out a pink-toed paw to slide one of his tiles across the board, lifting his gaze to meet the Principal’s eyes. “That’s how you’re going to play this?”
Nezu smiles as cheerfully as he’s ever been, paws drumming comfortably over his belly as Dr. Shinsou moves right away to capture the piece the Principal just moved. Nezu waits for the Doc to finish, then leans forward without hurry to make his next move. Having spent a lot of time lately staring at Dr. Shinsou without as much as blinking, and drawing on a now-extensive catalogue of Shinsou expressions, Aizawa can spot the moment of surprise when Nezu doesn’t do what the Doc expects him to.
"You make judgements too quick, Professor," Nezu remarks amiably, though his words are far from soft as his paw leaves the tile he just moved to turn the tables on the Doc. "You always have."
Dr. Shinsou moves his next piece with a degree of aggression, sliding sharply across the board with his gaze fixed dead on Nezu. "And you are far too trusting," he retorts, meeting the undefinable critter's eyes in all his stitched-up glory. "Always have been."
It's a strange and uncomfortable scene, watching Dr. Shinsou interacting with the closest thing he seems to consider to a peer. Aizawa’s not sure he didn't prefer the Doc howling and screaming like an animal.
"If you wouldn't mind putting the game on hold…" Tsukauchi raises awkwardly, which is a great deal nicer than Aizawa was inclined to handle it, which would be by overturning the board, a hand already slipping through his capture weapon for such purpose.
"Ah yes, I must be going," Nezu announces as if the thought just organically occurred to him without any prompting. "To be continued another time, Professor Shinsou," he declares while reaching both arms out to clear the tiles from the board, flipping it over to reveal spaces underneath for them to be stored, the board itself folding in half for easy portability. It occurs to Aizawa that Nezu must have brought it specifically, and the thought makes him a little queasy.
Aizawa spends all of a second wondering how Nezu and Dr. Shinsou can continue a game after moving all the pieces, before he realises that it's probably nothing for either of them to remember the exact layout to be set up again later, and once more is indescribably grateful that Nezu is on their side.
"Are we done here?" Aizawa asks Tsukauchi, who nods, but before they can go anywhere Nezu tucks the portable Shogi set under one arm and holds out the other to Aizawa in a way he recognises all too well.
"Would you mind?" Nezu's lucky he writes Aizawa’s paychecks, Aizawa has to consider as he sighs and steps over to the Principal and lifts him to set on a shoulder. Dr. Shinsou looks like he might scornfully burst out laughing any second, but Aizawa couldn't care less what the Doc thinks of him playing hobby-horse to Nezu, so it's not a terrible bother.
They all leave Dr. Shinsou's cell together, Sgt. Shimada locking it from the outside as the Doc is left alone within. Something he'll need to get used to again as he resumes his consecutive life sentences. Isolation.
Sgt. Shimada has only just opened his mouth when Tsukauchi suddenly beats him to it by requesting, "I'd like to see Mrs. Shinsou and Dr. Iwaya now, if that's alright."
Aizawa’s not a mind reader, but if he were he'd probably be receiving the Sergeant's irritation loud and clear on all frequencies right now, clearly unused to being pushed around so much on his home turf. But Detective Tsukauchi holds all the official control over this investigation that Aizawa only make grabs for when the Sergeant isn't around, and if having a bit of rank to pull now and again helps, Aizawa’s not complaining.
The route between each corner of the facility is becoming slowly more familiar to Aizawa, in and out of each building under the rising sun, knowing now where the next one is. While it’s a lot of going back and forth between the same spots, Aizawa prefers it to staying still, so walks with Nezu comfortably on his shoulder while Tsukuachi lures Sgt. Shimada into friendly small-talk like beckoning a deer with a handful of feed.
“You and the Doc certainly seem to be getting along,” Aizawa remarks under his breath to Nezu as they walk, and the Principal swings his feet back and forth, bouncing harmlessly off Aizawa’s chest.
“Despite all his evident flaws and failings, I feel there is much that may yet be learned from Professor Shinsou’s mind,” Nezu answers brightly, without too much concern or care for whether his being friends with a mass-killer is a good look or not. “And while I must confess to a certain amount of personal curiosity, I believe a little companionship will pacify the Professor and smooth the way for other proceedings relating to his imprisonment.”
“Ah, how selfless of you,” Aizawa can’t resist the comment, but Nezu takes it all in his – well, Aizawa’s really – stride.
“Not at all. But then, I assume you know that.” Nezu’s weight is almost reassuring on Aizawa’s shoulder, and although he can’t possibly imagine doing what Nezu is doing, he does understand why Nezu would be inclined to do it. If the company of a peer who is not only immune to the Doc's quirk, but intellectually superior (read: not insane) lowers the chances of Dr. Shinsou making another escape attempt, even Aizawa’s not going to argue with it. He'd just prefer if they didn't play board games like friends in a retirement home, but that's merely preference.
When they reach Kiki and Iwaya’s cell there's no sign of Hitoshi or Hizashi anymore, so Aizawa naturally itches to know where they are, how they are, what they’re doing. But if there’s anyone in the world he’s prepared to trust with Hitoshi, it’s Hizashi, so he has to leave it at that. For now.
Kiki is sitting on her bunk and her eyes are still a little red, but she’s otherwise composed, turning up at the sound of the door letting them in.
“Oh, you're back on your feet fast,” she says to Tsukauchi, seeming pleased to see him by her own standards of barely visible emotive expression. Another Shinsou family hallmark.
“Thanks to Eraser,” Tsukauchi replies warmly, but his eyes soon turn away from Kiki, fixed instead on the unmoving mass in the other bunk, and there’s no warmth there. “Dr. Iwaya, are you awake?” Tsukauchi doesn’t move, nor does the form under the blanket stir, and even a blockhead like Aizawa can sense the tension thick in the air. Turning to the Sergeant, Tsukauchi asks, “Has she been like this the whole time?”
“Yes,” Kiki answers before Sgt. Shimada even opens his mouth. “She’s still breathing, but that’s about all she does apparently.” There isn't much kindness in Kiki’s tone, but it’s not completely harsh either, which Aizawa supposes might be the best that could be hoped for between two women hurt and pitted against one another by the same man. “Feeling sorry for herself, I assume.”
“Did she speak to you in questioning?” Tsukauchi asks Sgt. Shimada again, who actually gets to answer this time.
“Not much. We have a facility counsellor who was going to try talking to her before you arrived.”
"That won't be necessary," Tsukauchi says ordinarily by and other standards, but by his usual disposition even Aizawa can tell that something is very wrong. No more Mr. Nice Guy. "Sit up please, Dr. Iwaya. I won't ask again."
With that command she moves, and Aizawa has seen plenty of people shut down before, but Iwaya sets a particularly good example of a human system overload. Despite apparently doing nothing but lie on her bunk 'sleeping' since her arrival, she looks even less rested than Aizawa does. Her long hair is tangled and far from the forced composure Kiki retains even now, but that'd be why they're clearly very different people. By Aizawa’s best guess, all of Dr. Iwaya's crying has been on the inside, probably for most of her life.
Aizawa had already suspected something was going on between Tsukauchi and the enticing emotional car crash sitting on the cell bunk, but the look they share now cements it once and for all. And Aizawa can tell this much too: Tsukauchi’s hurt, badly. Not even a glimmer of a smile exists on his face. Aizawa pities the poor bastard for not knowing better than to get involved with someone on a case. But then, maybe that was Iwaya's plan all along, and Tsukauchi never saw her coming.
"You're being charged with assault and grievous bodily harm of Dr. Shinsou," Tsukauchi tells Iwaya without emotion, but even Aizawa feels the sting of the next part, "and interference with and obstruction of a criminal investigation."
This catches Iwaya off-guard, and she actually moves her mouth to use a whisper quiet voice. "What? But I didn't…"
"You used your quirk to access confidential information for personal reasons," Tsukauchi replies as hard as Aizawa’s ever seen him, and it's all there between the lines. He cared. And she used him. That's how she knew where they were going, where to find Dr. Shinsou and enact her half-baked attempt at revenge. The Doc's going to carry those scars for life now, just as she carries the invisible ones he gave her, so it better have been worth it.
"You're terminated from your position with the police, effective immediately, and a judge will consider further penalties regarding your case. You're to remain at this facility until then."
Dr. Iwaya hangs her head, not meeting Tsukauchi’s eyes, and offers a pathetic, "I understand." It sounds like what she means is 'I'm sorry', but it doesn't seem like Tsukauchi is in a forgiving sort of mood.
Especially not when he tells her, "I expected better from you," like his heart has turned into ice and shattered at the hands of the winter queen herself.
It's then that Kiki remarks in her lowest cigarette-scratchy tone, "Well, at least you fucked the bastard up a bit."
Iwaya looks up at Kiki in disbelief across the cell, and utters perhaps the first thing she's ever said to the Doc's fearsome wife. "What?"
"My husband. He's so vain it'll really bother him, so there's that to enjoy." Kiki is actually being comforting in her own way, not that it seems expected by any of them, but Aizawa's glad that someone has offered Iwaya something at this difficult time. But the irony does seem rather poignant: a mental health professional who allowed her trauma to take over, and acted so irrationally she threw away everything she worked so hard to achieve despite what she went through under Dr. Shinsou – more literally than anyone should have to.
Iwaya makes a soft noise, neither a sigh nor a laugh, and brushes a finger along the underside of her eyes, then turns to meet Tsukauchi in a long, heartbroken stare. As if her heart was anything but from the start.
"What about me?" Kiki veers into this fraught pause, and Aizawa had been wondering about that too.
"Shiyoko is still unconscious as far as I'm aware," Tsukauchi reports. "Since the other criminal you subdued regained consciousness quickly, and doesn't appear to be in much worse a condition than he started out, we don't have any reason to suspect Shiyoko will be different, but until she does wake up we can't officially determine that."
"So I'm meant to stay here until sleeping not-so-beauty deigns to open her fucking eyes?" Kiki puts harshly.
"It hasn't been twenty-four hours yet," Tsukauchi remains calm, but then, stressing out probably isn't good for his heart. "If she's still out cold by this afternoon we'll review the best course of action, but until then please stay put."
"They won't let me see Hitoshi, you know," Kiki says resentfully, and that causes a pained twitch in the Detective's otherwise calm face.
"No, I didn't know." Tsukauchi glances at Sgt. Shimada.
"It's not in our policy to keep men and women in the same building,” the Sergeant doesn’t hesitate to explain, sounding a lot more sure of himself than he ought to given his company. “I wanted to prevent the witnesses from colluding on what happened before you got here."
"He's sixteen, that's still a child," Aizawa mutters.
"Colluding?" Tsukauchi echoes with disdain, his brow wrinkling like he can't fathom why anyone would suspect such a thing. "Haven't you asked them what happened already?"
"Yes, but–"
"Then you have further suspicions?" Tsukauchi interjects like the amount of patience he has for this is in negative numbers.
"Of Mrs. Shinsou, yes," Sgt. Shimada snaps curtly. "The woman she attacked has been unconscious since last night and I'm supposed to take her word for it that the killer's own wife doesn't have anything to do with it?"
"Considering that bitch has killed a couple dozen people and I haven't," Kiki remarks wryly, "Yeah, I kinda did expect you to take my side."
"Your husband has been wreaking havoc in my facility, not to mention you and the boy both have powerful mental quirks like his. I'm just exercising the caution I see fit," Sgt. Shimada spills a little too hot and fast, like a cup of scalding coffee knocked over, and probably realises he's said the wrong thing in a room full of mentalists when every one of them fixes him with a completely withering look.
"Having a mentalist quirk isn't a cause for suspicion," Aizawa says full of razorblades. Then they'd all be held here – although, he thinks with a worrying lurch, Aizawa hasn't actually tried leaving, so maybe he's just being kept on a longer leash than the others.
"I think I can resolve the issue now, if if helps," Tsukauchi announces, turning round to face Kiki, "If you'd be prepared to answer questions under the effect of my quirk."
Aizawa can tell Sgt. Shimada doesn't know this about Tsukauchi, though he covers for his surprise relatively well.
"Ask away," Kiki declares freely, shooting a glare at the Sergeant. "I have nothing to hide."
Tsukauchi doesn't have a physical tell when he uses his quirk the way Aizawa does, but his senses are switched on enough to feel the human polygraph at work when he focuses on Dr. Shinsou's fearsome wife. A soft humming that sits just under the skin on the back of Aizawa’s neck, though not as soft as the Detective’s voice.
"Tell us what you did to Shiyoko."
"She ran at me screaming blue murder, so I used my quirk to knock her out," Kiki answers dutifully, returning Tsukauchi’s stare without fear or hesitation. Nothing but the truth.
"Did you intentionally cause her any lasting harm?" Tsukauchi continues.
"No."
"Could you have caused it? Unintentionally," Tsukauchi probes further.
"No," Kiki confirms under oath, or as good as makes no difference. "My quirk doesn't work like that."
"But if it did," Sgt. Shimada adds desperately, but Tsukauchi reaches out to pat his arm.
"I'm afraid that question isn't relevant, Sergeant." Tsukauchi is a step away from patronising, but only a step. "Please leave this to me."
Aizawa can't help but smirk, grateful beyond words that Tsukauchi is back again, because a fair, empathetic law enforcement representative who gets mentalist quirks and isn't full of kneejerk prejudice is worth his weight in gold.
"If I could then the only person I'd have hurt like that is Masaru," Kiki carries on unabashed, and this doesn't really surprise Aizawa, who had to stop Kiki putting the Doc's brain in a blender when she was in that terrifying moment, though Tsukauchi and the Sergeant don't look thrilled by this addition. "The women he's abused don't deserve it, but he does."
Aizawa hates but has to admit it: she's not wrong.
"What someone would do isn't an offence," Aizawa butts in before this goes any further off the rails, and feels the settling force of Tsukauchi’s quirk roll back.
"Quite right, Eraser.” He looks away, quirk folded back neatly into its box. “Thank you, Kiki," the Detective says graciously. "Now then, Sergeant. Are your suspicions satisfied?"
"I… suppose so." Sgt. Shimada isn't a foolish man, and can tell when he's being backed into a corner.
"Good. Then until we're able to discharge Mrs. Shinsou I'm sure she would appreciate being with her son. Separating families can be quite a distressing experience, so obviously we want to avoid any unnecessary suffering."
"Thank you, Detective." Kiki even smiles, the warmest she's been towards any of them, but no wonder.
"Just doing my job," Tsukauchi replies like a true everyday Hero, a faint curl to the corners of his mouth as he slips his hands into his trouser pockets, ignoring the arctic winter sitting perfectly still on the other side of the room.
"Fine. You better come with us then," Sgt. Shimada tells Kiki with begrudging acceptance. "Dr Iwaya will stay here, unless you have a problem with that too, Detective."
"None at all," Tsukauchi answers blankly, and Aizawa imagines that were his and the Psych's history a little less turbulent he might have spared her this confinement too, but it's clearly not the case. He’s not quite so selfless as that. "Oh, one last thing, Dr. Iwaya," Tsukauchi adds as they're about to leave the room, Kiki wasting no time in getting the hell out of the four walls she's presumably been staring at since she was brought here.
Dr. Iwaya’s face tips up to look at Tsukauchi with what might be a glimmer of hope, her usually silky hair hanging more like cobwebs around her face, bewitching for different reasons than usual.
Aizawa doesn't need extra senses to tell Tsukauchi is using his quirk again, but he can feel it loaded in the air anyway, the concentrated beam of honesty that Tsukauchi lives by and inspires others to follow suit – to tell the truth, whether they like it or not.
"Do you regret it?" the Detective asks her painfully: the betrayal, the theft of his thoughts in order to get close enough to Dr. Shinsou to smash a glass beaker across his face, everything.
Without blinking those lovely long-lashed eyes, Iwaya tells him, "No."
"That's what I feared." Aizawa can almost hear the sound of the last fragment of Tsukauchi’s heart breaking, and he looks away from her. "You broke the law, Doctor, there are consequences for that."
"I know," Iwaya says sadly, but then it gets sadder yet, "I'm sorry, Detective Tsukauchi."
Tsukauchi shakes his head, not looking back as he heads out the door. "Not yet you aren't."
Aizawa leaves last of all, Sgt. Shimada waiting impatiently to lock the door again with a silent ‘now what’ written into his frown lines framed by his well-trimmed goatee. But it’s Kiki who snags Aizawa’s attention next, hovering in wait for him to fire a shocked did-you-just-see-that look at him when Tsukauchi is looking the other way. Aizawa’s almost certain she knew about the Detective and the Psych, based on her first awkward run-in with Iwaya, but that only dampens the force of this blow, rather than negating it. Hell, Aizawa returns a I-know-right look of his own, if he’s ever been known to exchange such looks.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Tsukauchi sounds like he’s been crushed under a ten tonne emotional weight, and Aizawa doesn’t know what he expected going into this, but suspects he’s still disappointed. Maybe he’d thought Iwaya would regret it, even a little, or that he’d feel different upon hearing that she didn’t. Aizawa adds another beer to the list of drinks he owes the poor Detective at the end of this, which might not be so far away.
It might seem like even the surly Sgt. Shimada has picked up the history between Tsukauchi and Iwaya, or at least the sudden influx of melancholy over the otherwise cheerful Detective, and is appropriately sympathetic in his response. “No problem.”
“Where’s my son?” Kiki pounces on the window of opportunity when the Sergeant seems moderately less cranky than usual, though he reverts straight back to form at being asked things by someone he seems to suppose is closer to an inmate here than on the side of law enforcement. Except that anyone who works with Aizawa doesn’t do being neatly one or the other side of that line, so the Sergeant might as well get used to it.
“How should I know?” Sgt. Shimada replies crossly. “Apparently the lot of you run around here like you own the place.”
Aizawa snorts, and when the Sergeant gives him a warning glare admits, “You’re not wrong,” as he pulls his phone out, glancing at Kiki. “I’ll call him.”
“Oh, and is there a spare room around here somewhere I could use? I have a few calls to make myself,” Tsukauchi bandwagons, and if Sgt. Shimada hadn’t woken up today knowing he was going to be the errand boy of some very exhausted Detectives, he sure does now.
“Follow me,” Sgt. Shimada heaves an overly dramatic sigh, setting off again in a new direction as Aizawa’s call to Hitoshi connects.
“Hey,” Hitoshi answers after barely a ring. “What’s up?”
“Tsukauchi’s here, he got your Ma out of her cell,” Aizawa relays efficiently. “Where are you?”
“Back at the canteen. Mic insisted we have a proper breakfast.” Hitoshi sounds so put-upon by this, but it brings an instant smile to Aizawa’s face.
“He’s good at that.” When they first started living together full-time in a relationship compared to undefined crashing on his best friend’s bed/sofa, Hizashi only semi-ironically made Aizawa a sticker chart for how many meals he managed to eat a day, granting sexual favours for every time he ate something consisting of real food. “I’ll come get you as soon as I know where we’re at.”
“Okay, I’ll let him know,” Hitoshi sounds calm, which brings Aizawa no end of comfort, and even greater love and appreciation for Hizashi managing to get some food into him – funny how many feelings of impending despair and doom can be solved by just fucking eating, but try telling a distraught hungry person that. “Tell Tsukauchi thanks from me.”
“Tell him yourself,” Aizawa returns, since it’s surely better coming from Hitoshi anyway. “See you soon.”
“Seeya.”
Aizawa’s sure he can hear the sound of Hizashi warbling in the background when he hangs up, meeting Kiki’s expectant gaze at his side. “They’re at the canteen, I’ll go get them in a sec.”
“Have I got time for a cigarette?” Kiki poses opportunistically, and that last smoke in Aizawa’s pack has never been more called for.
“As long as I do too.” Aizawa intrinsically peels away when he recognises one of the doors to the outside, and poor Sgt. Shimada…
“Hey, hold up, you can’t just go outside for that, we haven’t even gotten where we’re going,” the Sergeant protests. “We have an official smoking area, which I can take you to if you’ll just be patient for a goddamn second.”
"If you had any idea what we've been through in the past few days you wouldn't ask for patience," Kiki says austerely, already pulling out her cigarettes – thankfully they didn't take her purse off her when she was holed up in here – and not paying the Sergeant much mind.
“I’m losing my patience!” Sgt. Shimada barks, turning over his shoulder to slap Aizawa with a glare that blames him for, well… most things. “I’ve had about as much of this nonsense as I can take, so just shut it and follow me until I say you can go.”
Aizawa might be a self-professed blockhead from time to time, but he can tell when he's about to wear his welcome out, and falls mutely into step behind the Sergeant until he's told otherwise. He manages to share a look of scolded solidarity with Kiki on the way to an empty room with a few remarkably comfy looking chairs in it, as well as a window looking out onto the fence and outside world rather than another depressing corner of the compound. It makes quite the difference.
"This is one of our therapy rooms, Detective," Sgt. Shimada delivers with ruthless discipline. "It should cater to your needs, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't leave without myself or a member of staff to escort you."
"It’ll do nicely, thank you," Tsukauchi says appeasingly as he flops into one of the chairs with a sound like he’s happy to take the weight off his feet. He is only just out of hospital, however well he’s covering for it.
"And you two troublemakers," the Sergeant as good as growls as he turns on the spot to command Aizawa and Kiki with a tip of his head. "This way."
Aizawa tries to memorise the route while keeping up with the Sergeant's irate pace, which thankfully isn't too complicated, turning left and right before reaching a grotty internal courtyard with a couple of sweaty staff smoking cigarettes of their own.
"Go ahead," Sgt. Shimada suggests dryly as he gestures to a glass door leading through to the designated smoking area. "I'll wait."
Aizawa knows he shouldn't, but opens his big mouth instead to murmur, "Maybe I'll just go get Hitoshi…"
"The boy will be brought to you," the Sergeant states uncompromisingly, then waves his arm in invitation at the depressing outdoor cell reserved for the likes of Aizawa and Kiki. "Please, smoke." Except the way the Sergeant comes off this sounds like much more of an order than a request, but before Aizawa can dare to contest it Kiki has grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him through the door.
"Come on," she hisses, gripping Aizawa’s arm tightly enough to say you better not leave me while in a voice so cuttingly domestic it takes Aizawa completely and utterly by surprise. "You heard the Sergeant, Dear."
Notes:
AND Y'ALL THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH CLIFFHANGERS! I mean, it's a kind of cliffhanger. Just not the kind we've been having recently.
Someone also wondered what the Doc and Nezu would get up to while Aizawa was gone, so now we know.
Four more chapters to go, so one month left! I started this story in April 2018 so it's neat to be finishing it almost exactly 2 years after I started it. And I've said before, but I have something else lined up so there will be a new story posted the Wednesday after this one wraps up. No break in schedule at all!
See you next week! Hope everyone is staying safe in this shut-in environment. As an introvert I've kinda been thriving, but I'm very fortunate in my situation so I'm thankful for that.
Chapter 87: Breaktime
Summary:
Everyone deserves a moment to unwind.
Notes:
Ooooh we're getting close to the final stretch now huh?! This is the first chapter of the final 3 in my 9th masterdoc, with the epilogue in its own document that I wrote all the chapters in separately before moving them into various masterdocs because I felt bad if it ended up empty, since I'm weirdly sentimental about stuff like that. I'VE BEEN WRITING THIS STORY A LONG TIME OKAY. I've gotten very attached. Probably too attached. More on that later.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
"What was that all abou–" Aizawa's in the business of saying to Kiki over why on earth she would ever refer to him as 'Dear' when a much more pressing issue presents itself: an unexpected hug.
"Shut up," Kiki shoots as she wraps her arms around Aizawa's midsection and turns to lay her head against his chest, despite the fact that he's tensed from head to toe like one of those goats that goes stiff when it's startled. "I want him to think we're together."
The only him this can mean is Sgt. Shimada, who's staring through the glass door at the pair of them with the same amount of shock and disdain on his face as Aizawa would be showing if he let himself react outwardly, barely managing not to frown with intense confusion as he returns an incredulous, "Why?"
"So he'll stop thinking I'm still involved with Masaru,” she snaps. “Just play along, for fuck’s sake. You’re going to ruin it.”
“You think he’s going to believe you’re with me?” Aizawa doesn’t believe it. Hell, he can’t believe it. And the thought that anyone else might makes him sorta want to break out in hives.
“Mic isn’t here and it explains why you are, so I’m improvising,” she spits impatiently, still laying her cheek against the border of Aizawa’s chest and the edges of his capture weapon. This pose remains even as she puts her cigarette between her lips and lights it with a tense pout, the flame threateningly close to a wayward lick of Aizawa’s hair. It can't be denied that Hizashi would've been much better at this: he loves a fake dating bit, almost as much as he’s entertained by Aizawa’s endless attempts to hide their relationship from people only to accidentally out themselves by being caught doing something inappropriate some where inappropriate, so it’s a shame he isn’t here to take one for the team.
Aizawa briefly considers continuing to argue with Kiki about how no one in the history of ever is going to be convinced by such a paper thin act in which they're a couple, but Sgt. Shimada has turned away from them as if he’s pretending not to look while still-in-fact looking, and Aizawa might need to accept that some people can actually believe he and Kiki are an item after having spoken to both of them. Sure, the people at the hospital believed that he and Kiki were married when she pulled that card in the emergency room, but Aizawa was unconscious and covered in blood, surely making it much easier to believe he might be a married heterosexual man. Then again, as poor Tsukauchi and Iwaya proved not so long ago, people often see what they want to see in supposed romantic entanglements.
The smell of Kiki’s cigarette makes Aizawa hungry for his own, fumbling his sole remaining smoke out of the destroyed packet in his jumpsuit pocket without prying Kiki off him. Although it’s really weird, he doesn’t mind her leaning against him like this – aside from getting furtive looks from the other two people in this area, a man and woman dressed in nondescript facility uniforms. It’s not like Kiki weighs much, and she certainly heaves a deep enough sigh after she drags long and hard on her cigarette, cheek pressed lightly against Aizawa’s front.
“Lighter,” he says with his last smoke pinched between his lips, and Kiki lifts hers to spark a flame, catching Aizawa’s eye over the not-much distance between them as he tilts the end of his cigarette into the fire.
Pulling in a kindling breath, Aizawa sucks down the first drag of what will hopefully be his last stressed smoke break for a while, holding it in his chest with Kiki's face still resting against him. She seems unusually at peace with this sudden increase in intimacy, and Aizawa has to wonder when the last time she touched anyone like this was, except Hitoshi. Especially anyone vaguely resembling a man. Hizashi perhaps? But probably not like this, Aizawa reckons while watching Kiki put her cigarette to her lips and smoke with a burned out exhaustion, her weight slowly increasing against Aizawa, maybe even unconsciously so, even blinking slower as she allows herself a moment of not being at full alert. He supposes it's a good thing really, it's just not what he expected from her. But she rarely is.
"So," Kiki's voice hums against Aizawa’s front, slightly hoarse even for her usual scratchy timbre, "Tsukauchi and Iwaya, huh?"
Aizawa snorts, and takes a drag. "Yeah." He feels his phone buzzing in his pocket, perhaps Hitoshi or Hizashi giving him an update. It sounds like Sgt. Shimada will have them escorted over here, which saves Aizawa the trip over the Sergeant's last frayed nerve.
"I sure didn't see it coming," Kiki remarks with a soft exhale, the smoke rolling across Aizawa’s chest as he imagines how Hitoshi or Hizashi would react to such a weird scene between them. Burst out laughing, probably. Though if Hizashi were here she wouldn't have had to resort to hugging Aizawa in the first place. Hitoshi might not see the funny side of Aizawa pretending to date his Ma, but hopefully this bizarre pseudo-tryst won't last that long, or ever be spoken of again.
"Yeah,” Aizawa muses gruffly, “I thought he'd be smarter than getting involved with someone so close to a case.” His eyes trace over the neat coiled bun of Kiki's fair hair up close, silver with just that hint of lilac in the light. She’s still a mystery to him in many ways, but not quite as many as before.
"No, not that," Kiki corrects after another puff. "I'm surprised she was brave enough to do it."
"Brave?" Aizawa echoes dubiously.
"To take on Masaru?" Kiki says with a flick of her misty lavender eyes up to Aizawa’s. "Not many of us with the guts for that."
"You did." As did Aizawa, and Hitoshi. Shiyoko too, technically – not that it worked out so well for her.
"Yes, so I know what it takes," Kiki tells Aizawa firmly. "It's not like you going up against him, not for someone like her.” There’s something glacial in Kiki as she talks about this, a hard shell that sits over her glassy eyes, staring into space as she methodically drags and exhales little clouds of smoke that light up in the sunshine that pierces this tiny terrace. “The fear, he forces it so deep under your skin that it feels like…" Kiki pauses, talking as much about herself as Iwaya, and keeps her eyes facing outwards, not looking at Aizawa directly as she puffs again on her cigarette. "It’s like cutting yourself open, just to get him out."
Aizawa’s other arm has been hanging loose until now, but after this he raises it to rest lightly against the middle of Kiki's back, feeling like it might be ostensibly for show, but that doesn’t mean the comfort can’t be real. That maybe this is just the way Kiki can allow herself to seek something she doesn’t get very often.
Aizawa says in a low rumble, "After what she did to Tsukauchi to get to him, it better have been worth it."
"It won't be," Kiki confirms with a solemn breath in and out, warmth like a cat at rest in a lap, only upright and leaning against Aizawa’s chest. "He never goes away, not really."
"Clearly," Aizawa doesn’t say much, not wanting to step wrong with his clearly limited understanding of what it's like being one of Dr. Shinsou's ex-lovers and victims rolled up into one. Just shut up and listen, that's what he's learned about situations like this.
"Thank you," Kiki comes out with from nowhere, hitting Aizawa’s gut like an unexpected punch as she takes another puff. “For stopping me back there.”
Aizawa tells her the truth. “I didn't do it for you.”
“I know,” Kiki replies quietly, seeming so much smaller than she usually does, perhaps just because Aizawa’s never been this close to her before, enough to notice how slight she is by comparison when she’s literally in his arms. Or arm. “That's what I'm thanking you for.”
Without moving a muscle, but by the shift in intention, Aizawa curls his fingers against Kiki’s back, and just like that – it’s a real hug. “No problem,” he says with the filter of his cigarette hovering just above his mouth, and feels the movement of Kiki’s chest against his when she lets out a sigh. She must be feeling low, if she needs this enough to let it happen with him of all people.
Then again, maybe it’s not such a change after all, as Kiki’s nose wrinkles a moment later and she says, “Do you always smell like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like a damp farmyard.”
“Oh. Probably.” Aizawa wouldn’t know, since he has no basis for comparison. “Ask Hizashi.”
She gives a silent laugh, and with the last drags of her smoke between her lips finally backs away from Aizawa’s loose grasp. The Sergeant must be convinced by now, even if Aizawa’s not entirely convinced that was the real reason for this show – or not all of it.
“We should go soon, he said they’re bringing Hitoshi over here, didn’t he?” Kiki reverts to the norm as if the funny little moment had never happened, but Aizawa’s happy with that. These things don’t have to be a big deal, they can just be.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, taking his own final puffs and checking his phone, finding a string of updates in the four-way chat confirming that Hitoshi and Hizashi are on their way.
“One last thing,” Kiki latches on as she heads over to one of the ashtrays to ditch her cigarette. “You were with him, weren’t you? Masaru.” Aizawa nods, frowning over his final drag before going to the ashtray himself. “What was he like?”
Aizawa’s not sure if answering is the best thing in the world, considering what Kiki just told him about the difficulty even she has at separating herself from the emotional damage of her husband, but she’s asking, so he doesn’t want to refuse her.
“Obnoxious,” he says concisely, and she gives off an amused huff.
“But he seemed calm?”
“Yeah, why?” Aizawa can’t help but worry what she’s thinking of to ask such a thing.
“He goes back and forth,” she explains as they head back to the door where Sgt. Shimada is still waiting for them, continuing the conversation as Aizawa holds the door open and they walk back inside. “Highs and lows, rational and irrational. If he’s calm it might mean he’s actually starting to accept that it’s over.”
Aizawa gives a hum, not quite agreement or disagreement, because what would he know? He’s not the mindreader. “Sounds overly hopeful to me.”
“What else do we have?” Kiki replies sagely, and Aizawa’s gotta give her that.
Sgt. Shimada is conspicuously quiet as he leads them back where they came from, and Aizawa spares a thought towards what he thinks is 'over' with the Doc and Kiki, and how it compares against a probably less sensational reality. Aizawa isn't sure how he feels about being used as a patsy like this, but he can't do anything about it now, so the concerns are largely wasted.
They get back to the room where Tsukauchi was left around the same time as another guard leads Hitoshi and Hizashi up to but not yet through the door, so it's only natural that Hitoshi launches into a run the moment he claps eyes on them.
"Ma!" the teen bursts as he pelts into his mother's arms, and the meal Hizashi managed to get into him has obviously done a world of good – though Tsukauchi’s modest contribution of getting Kiki out of confinement can't go amiss either. Aizawa may usually work alone, but times like this he’s grateful to have so many allies helping Hitoshi any and every way they can.
Aizawa would also launch into a similar running hug at Hizashi if he could get away with it, but since he can't they just catch each other’s eye past Kiki and Hitoshi's heads and share a fleeting smile.
"Thanks for feeding him," Aizawa says with much more emotion than such a simple comment should merit.
"Tch, it wasn't easy," Hizashi replies mirthfully. "He seems to take after you in that respect."
"In what?" Aizawa questions.
"Forgets to eat when he's stressed out," Hizashi delivers with a knowing grin.
"I don't do that… much," Aizawa murmurs.
"Anymore," Hizashi bolts on, but he gets to take the credit for this one, since without him Aizawa would have probably starved a long time ago. Hizashi has always taken satisfaction in making sure Aizawa eats properly, a courtesy extended to Hitoshi now.
Much to Sgt. Shimada’s relief, no doubt, Tsukauchi is still inside the waiting room they left him in before the smoke break. Hitoshi and Kiki head in quickly to join him, perhaps to make their thanks to the Detective and just take a fucking second to relax, if they're lucky. A few minutes sobbing in a cell together doesn't do much in the way of lasting comfort, but Aizawa’s daring to hope they're almost out the other side of this thing.
But when it comes to Aizawa’s comfort? Well, he's standing right there with that stupid smug grin on his face.
"Hey, where's the bathroom?" Hizashi asks Sgt. Shimada perfectly innocently, and Aizawa remembers passing a door on the way to and from the smoking room that as good as has their name on it.
"Over here," Aizawa interjects before the Sergeant can, only just resisting the urge to reach for Hizashi’s hand to tug him away, shoving his own hands into his pockets instead. "I'll show you."
"Wait–" Sgt. Shimada starts to object, practically a compulsion at this point.
"What, do you want to come and stare at our dicks while we piss?" Aizawa suggests coarsely, the main objective being to dissuade the Sergeant from wanting to follow him and Hizashi into the bathroom, since pissing is the last thing on his mind and he’s got a ridiculous facade of straightness to vaguely protect.
Sgt. Shimada makes another of his iconic displeased faces, which is when Hizashi ducks in to meet the Sergeant’s gaze with one of his gleaming, sharky grins. With an undercurrent so slimy it could out-slime a snail, Hizashi murmurs, “I’m game if you are,” and promptly destroys any inclination Sgt. Shimada has to accompany Hizashi to any bathrooms in the building, ever. Aizawa struggles to keep a straight face, looking away just in case his eyes actually bulge out of his head with suppressed snorts of laughter.
“Uh n-no, it’s just… it’s over there,” the Sergeant says as he points down the hallway, firing Aizawa a look that almost seems worried, since the poor Sergeant may be suffering under the misfortune of thinking Aizawa is straight. “I’ll just be… here watching the others, so don’t wander off.”
Aizawa turns far enough to give Sgt. Shimada a stern nod and assures him, “Farthest thing from my mind,” as he walks away with Hizashi, shoulder to shoulder, not quite touching as they head down the hallway and turn a corner.
This is as long as Hizashi lasts before bursting out laughing, which is why Aizawa’s ready and waiting to erase his quirk the second he does, keeping his loudmouth of a partner quiet from ruining their fucking cover over his relentless entertainment from flirting with unsuspecting straight men. Hizashi will stop doing it when it stops being so funny, so the familiar claim runs.
Hizashi’s body shakes with laughter even harder as if to compensate for the sound Aizawa’s gaze denies him, but since Aizawa’s never been entirely responsible when it comes to the time he spends with Hizashi, he can’t resist adding, “Wanna know something really funny?” Hizashi’s ability to speak is still erased by Aizawa’s quirk, but stops silently laughing long enough to turn and watch Aizawa in question. “Kiki tried to convince him that me and her are a couple.”
The only sound is a startled rush of air, Hizashi’s eyes widening behind his shades as he breathes in so deeply he almost chokes on it, and Aizawa’s rarely needed his quirk more than moments like this. When the deafening scream of laughter that would otherwise emanate from Hizashi is turned to little more than a strange, wheezy noise like a broken accordion being kicked down the stairs.
Hizashi staggers, clutching his belly, and doubles over like an actor in a silent film. Aizawa keeps Hizashi under the red hot light erasing his quirk, hair quivering on its ends and under-eye twitching in exasperation.
“Yeah yeah,” Aizawa provokes as the door to the bathroom draws up on their side, putting a hand to Hizashi’s shoulder to push him through first, “laugh it up.”
Aizawa loses sight of Hizashi for a moment behind the door as he staggers into the bathroom, met by an uncontrollable “AHAHAHA–” that’s quickly muted again as Hizashi falls about the place, hanging over one of the sinks and wiping the tears from his eyes.
Leaning back against the bathroom door and waiting for Hizashi to compose himself, unblinking, Aizawa raises no more than an eyebrow to underline his dryer-than-dry question, “Finished?”
Hizashi isn’t convulsing with laughter anymore, and does actually need to piss as it turns out, helping himself to a urinal once he's calmed down and Aizawa finally stops using his quirk.
“You can’t just tell me things like that, Shota,” Hizashi declares over the jetstream sound of him relieving himself. “I’ll give myself a hernia.”
“I’ll give you a hernia,” Aizawa retorts as Hizashi finishes, zipping himself back into his trousers and returning to the sinks to wash his hands. “And I didn’t agree to it, she just sprung it on me.”
“Why?”
“To make the Sergeant think she’s not with Dr. Shinsou anymore.”
“By going out with you?” Hizashi makes sound exactly as incredulous and impossible to believe.
“That’s what I said,” Aizawa agrees. “You weren’t around so she was improvising, apparently.”
Hizashi is posing at himself in the mirror, wiggling his mouth this way and that as he smooths the wayward hairs of his moustache back into place. “Poor woman, she must've been desperate,” he says to his reflection with an absurd pout, before his gaze tilts to fix on Aizawa through the reflection.
Aizawa didn’t have a specific goal or need when he came here with Hizashi, just seizing a chance for them to talk alone. To re-centre, because there’s no one who gives him more clarity of thought than his best friend.
There’s also no one Aizawa would rather see turning around to lean back against the sink and raise his arms up in invitation. It’s a few hasty steps across the bathroom before Aizawa can collapse into Hizashi’s arms in an exhausted hug. Aizawa has an express talent for staying strong, for being there for anyone who needs him, but that doesn’t come for free, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t end up empty and desperate for his own source of comfort.
Hizashi makes the same sorts of sounds into Aizawa hair as a person coaxing a cat, raising a hand to cradle the back of his head. Aizawa’s face is buried against Hizashi’s shoulder, awkward against his support gear, but still close enough to be him and everything Aizawa needs.
“So you slept, like, a little bit last night?” Hizashi says hopefully, tsking when Aizawa shakes his head. “Then you’re gonna take a nap.” Aizawa shrugs, and Hizashi lets out a sigh. “It wasn’t a question, babe.”
“Don’t think I could sleep anyway,” Aizawa murmurs against him, feeling Hizashi’s fingertips delve through his hair to scritch against the back of his head and wanting to as good as melt into his partner. He’s got his arms wrapped all the way around Hizashi’s waist, hugging their bodies tight together, but it could always be closer and more tight.
“Yes you could,” Hizashi counters as Aizawa lets out a steamy breath that picks up the smell of his leather jacket.
“Maybe if you do something to relax me,” Aizawa murmurs, and feels the puff of air from Hizashi’s mouth as he snorts.
“You can’t be serious.”
Aizawa shrugs again. “You know it works.”
Hizashi urges him backwards a bit, far enough to meet each other eye-to-eye, or eye-to-mirrored sunglasses. Aizawa can see in their reflection just how wrecked he looks, but he’s got way too much in his head still to just take a fucking nap, even if they don’t know what’s coming next and there’s very little he can do in the meantime but try to get some rest.
Well, there’s some things they could do.
The rest of the bathroom is reflected in the mirror behind Hizashi, so Aizawa eyes one of the open toilet stalls, shifting his gaze back to Hizashi’s.
“And you promise you’ll rest after?” Hizashi’s voice is loaded with implication, and that alone is enough to charge the air between them.
Aizawa nods.
The next second Hizashi huffs and breaks their embrace, if only for the purpose of dragging Aizawa across the bathroom by his capture weapon and into one of the stalls. It might be true that Hizashi can be fucked out of an argument any day of the week, but Aizawa takes sexual bribes like nobody's business.
Hizashi’s barely shut the door and turned the lock before he’s got Aizawa pressed against the wall, stopping his mouth with a kiss that hits like a bullet train. Aizawa wraps his arms back around Hizashi and breathes out deeply through his nose, tilting his head and opening up to kiss back wantonly, drinking up everything Hizashi gives to him.
Backing up for a moment, Hizashi comments, “You need a mint.” He’s not wrong. Unfortunately morning breath doesn't care if you slept or not.
Letting out a growling noise of impatience from his throat, Aizawa replies, “I need a lot more than that.”
"True." Hizashi's grin is worth a full night's sleep at least. Or so Aizawa decides to himself as Hizashi reaches confidently to drag down Aizawa’s zip, pausing only to unclip his belt and then carry on the rest of the way.
This all happens fast enough that Aizawa’s still soft when Hizashi’s hand reaches inside his jumpsuit, prying past the waistband of his tightly fitting boxers, to wrap around Aizawa’s cock. But it feels good so he muffles a moan into Hizashi’s mouth, and doesn’t stay that way for very long.
Hizashi’s mouth breaks away from his with a delicious wet sound, lips ghosting over Aizawa’s as he whispers, “That desperate, huh?” at how quickly Aizawa’s throbbing in his hand.
“You have no idea,” Aizawa huffs, leaning his head back against the cubicle wall as Hizashi yanks his boxers halfway down his hips and starts jerking him off nice and firm, not too fast. Wrings the tension out of Aizawa the way only he knows how, and maybe it’s primal and basic and Aizawa ought to have more sophisticated outlets for all the stress he collects like a leaf fills up with rainwater, but if it works it fucking works.
Aizawa grunts and Hizashi swallows the sound up with another kiss, forgiving what must not be the freshest breath after a long night and lots of shitty coffee, because he’s so much better than Aizawa deserves.
“I love you,” Aizawa breaks away and pants softly, trying not to thrust into Hizashi’s hand and just let him work his magic. Hizashi’s good at lots and lots of things, handjobs being one of them – claims it crosses over with his practice gripping a sweaty microphone while he leaps around onstage, and Aizawa’s got no reason not to believe him.
Hizashi’s mouth works under Aizawa’s jaw, and he thumps his head softly back against the cubicle wall to bear his neck in full, feeling Hizashi's smile against the skin where his throat runs up under his chin. “I can tell.”
Aizawa is already getting close enough to think this could be over pretty soon. If he gets back to the breakroom quickly and preserves his post-orgasm glow he could be blissfully asleep within five minutes of now. A pressure in the front of his head tells him it might be something he needs – different yet complementary forms of sweet, sweet release.
But right before Aizawa can actually get where he’s trying to go, there’s a sound of the bathroom door opening outside the cubicle. This normally wouldn’t be of too much concern to them, much less a reason to stop, except that it’s followed by the question, “Eraser? Are you in here?” from a voice that can only be Tsukauchi's.
“Fuck,” Aizawa mutters under his breath, and Hizashi’s hand slows to a near-stop, if not entirely paused – still bringing his curled fingers slowly up and down Aizawa’s length, stroking him like a cat that wants for being firmly pet. Aizawa tries to hide the horny annoyance in his voice as he asks, “Yeah?” Unfortunately, the Detective is only going to be lurking around bathrooms asking such questions because it’s urgent, since he knows what’s probably happening when Aizawa and Hizashi have been gone in one awhile.
Tsukauchi says the one thing that could simultaneously make Aizawa want to stop what he’s doing and kill his erection in one go.
“Shiyoko woke up.”
Aizawa’s eyes widen while Hizashi's hand actually stops, backing away as Aizawa’s cock softens by the second.
"You said you'd rest," Hizashi reminds him in a hissy whisper that’s half a warning and the other half an outright threat.
"I said after," Aizawa caveats, raising his voice louder to reply, "Give me a minute," to Tsukauchi as he fully extracts himself from Hizashi’s grasp, drags his underwear back into place and zips his jumpsuit halfway up.
Hizashi makes a fussy noise, of course, but he doesn't object either, knowing this is more important than impromptu bathroom handjobs to kill time or naps right before crossing the finish line.
"Why am I not surprised?" Tsukauchi sighs when he sees Aizawa coming out followed immediately by Hizashi.
"Yeah yeah," Aizawa mutters as he finishes zipping up his jumpsuit, sparing the Detective the injustice of saying he's hardly one to judge since he jumped into bed with a key player in a case and let it fuck things up far more than it should. Even if it was mostly just Dr. Shinsou's face, and it might’ve also un- fucked as much as if fucked. If Iwaya and Yamaguchi hadn't managed to get into the house and break the lockdown when they did, who knows what might’ve happened. But Aizawa can't preoccupy himself with thinking about that now it's already done and dusted. That’s shit for Hizashi to fuck out of him later.
"Where's the Sergeant?" Aizawa asks more practically as he fastens his belt, certainly hiding nothing from Tsukauchi as they're long past the point of that.
"He didn't want to come in here for some reason," Tsukauchi answers suspiciously, holding open the bathroom door for the three of them to head back out, waiting til they're walking the hallway again before he says to Aizawa "I think it should just be you and me to go see her, you know."
"Yeah," Aizawa confirms, and given the screaming and violence that took place when Hitoshi and Kiki were exposed to Shiyoko, he gets exactly where Tsukauchi is coming from. "Agreed." Glancing at Hizashi as they turn a corner, unsatisfied and yet still more relieved than when he entered the bathroom, Aizawa adds, "Think you could keep an eye on them?"
"Hitoshi and Kiki?" Hizashi infers. "I can handle that."
"Thanks." Aizawa’s right back to business so fast they could have bathroom handjob whiplash, but two minutes ago Shiyoko was still unconscious and he needed to kill time. Things change, sometimes so fast it's impossible to see them move. Take Aizawa and Hitoshi’s relationship, for instance. Because even if Aizawa’s got somewhere to go, the last thing he can do is set off without giving Hitoshi a chance to say goodbye.
The Sergeant is waiting for them outside the room Aizawa’s still never set foot in and isn't planning to, but Sgt. Shimada seems to realise that from the moment he walks up, because it's Hizashi he's talking to with his opening address. "You have to stay here for now, but if we clear the Deathnote Killer for questioning then I've been told we can release Mrs. Shinsou. If that happens someone will come to escort you off the premises."
For the most part, the Sergeant looks like he's concerned to touch Hizashi with anything less than a ten foot pole, and would love nothing more than to get him – or any number of them – out of his facility, but it's his own silly fault for that and Aizawa has no pity for him accordingly.
Whether Tsukauchi has adequately dealt with the Sergeant’s suspicions of Kiki, or her ridiculous show with Aizawa achieved something that the Detective couldn't, Sgt. Shimada seems to have lightened up on her a little, for which Aizawa’s thankful. Aizawa would love if mother and son could go… not exactly home, since that must still be a state after the attack, but back to the apartment at UA wouldn’t be a bad start. Aizawa would sleep better at night knowing they were there, but Hizashi surely knows all that too, and will make sure they're safe and as happy as possible under the circumstances without needing to be asked.
“Aye aye, Sergeant,” Hizashi says so cheekily to be flirting adjacent, and the Sergeant is looking like his head might explode from blushing when Hitoshi opens the door to pop his head out and breaks the tension.
“Are you going?” It’s somehow implicit in the way he asks that Hitoshi isn’t including himself in that, nor does he desire to go with Aizawa to see Shiyoko in whatever state the Doc and Kiki left her. Aizawa doesn’t blame him, and is grateful the teen sees it that way without the need for debating it. They've fought enough battles for now.
“Yeah,” Aizawa confirms, though he doesn’t fully expect Hitoshi to go from holding the door open to having both his arms wrapped fiercely around Aizawa in the blink of an eye. Both generations of Shinsou mother and son have managed to spring surprise hugs on him this morning. Not that Hitoshi hugging Aizawa is a surprise anymore, but that he does it even in front of Sgt. Shimada kinda is. Perhaps it somehow strengthens the bizarre narrative of Hizashi being Kiki’s partner in a more romantic as well as familial sense.
Too bad reality doesn’t always colour so neatly between the lines, because Aizawa doesn’t feel anything like he thinks a father would feel being hugged by his son at this moment. It's not nearly that simple. Setting his arms around Hitoshi’s shoulders to hug him back, Aizawa turns to set his cheek against the springy violet turf of Hitoshi’s hair and gives them both a decent goodbye. Hitoshi sobbing his eyes out in Aizawa’s arms isn’t the memory he thinks either of them want to hold onto, so this one is much better by comparison.
“I’ll see you really soon,” Aizawa murmurs as he settles one of his hands to rest with his palm to Hitoshi’s back, drifting gently from shoulder to shoulder as Hitoshi keeps his face buried in the mass of Aizawa’s capture weapon and heaves a deep breath, despite Aizawa apparently smelling like a barnyard.
“Yeah.” Hitoshi’s voice is muffled, but Aizawa feels the faint warmth against his collar through the layers of his capture weapon. “You will.”
If it were just the two of them Aizawa might chance a peck on the head if he was feeling especially soppy, but as it is he’s already being watched by enough people to barely override his own natural introversion, it's enough to grant Hitoshi this much.
“Thankyou.” Hitoshi’s next mumble is even softer into Aizawa’s chest, perhaps too soft for anyone except Aizawa himself to recognise, though the next part’s a little clearer. “For everything.”
Aizawa’s mouth twists by instinct into a thin smile, and he’s certain at that very moment that the emotion he feels, even without a proper means to chart it across the stars of all the things he could be to Hitoshi, constellations that change and go by different names depending on who looks at them, is nothing more or less than love.
Notes:
ThAT'S RIGHT WE HAVE A CUTE CHAPTER END IT'S WHAT WE ALL DESERVE!
This chapter has it all, fake relationships... Aizawa and Kiki HUGGING?!... interrupted bathroom stall handjobs... Aizawa and Hitoshi feels... gosh, it's almost as if we're... nearly at the end...
Three more chapters to go! What COULD be left for us to tie up? Hmm. Hmmmmm.
Chapter 88: Hakamata Shiyoko
Summary:
The beginning, and the end.
Notes:
OH YES WE HAD TO GO HERE. I couldn't write a 500,000 word fanfic about chasing down this character and not give us a proper chapter with her. So with that, here she is.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They stay within the women’s block of this high-security facility straddling the overlapping spheres of prison and mental hospital to visit Shiyoko. This seems to move solidly towards the latter purpose when Sgt. Shimada leads Aizawa and Tsukauchi through a double set of fingerprint locked doors into a wave of fresh sterility. They see a few people here and there, women dressed in something neither a prison uniform or hospital pyjamas, never unattended and with quiet, defeated eyes. The ones with more dangerous quirks than a place like Mrs. Shimizu went to can handle, Aizawa could hazard a guess.
It’s strange being back to just the pair of them again, Detectives Pot and Kettle unhampered by a ragtag bunch of hangers-on, but it's freeing as well. This is what Aizawa and Tsukauchi are meant to do, and the fewer wildcards the better. Just the two of them are plenty.
“How long has she been awake?” Aizawa asks Sgt. Shimada, who also seems to be more comfortable now he’s just got the pair of troublemakers on his hands rather than a mad juggle that includes Hizashi, Kiki and Hitoshi in the mix too.
“Less than half an hour,” Sgt. Shimada answers with his usual deficit of emotion. “I don’t know if she’s speaking yet.”
“One way to find out,” Tsukauchi remarks lightly, and he’s sure as hell not wrong. Then he turns to Aizawa a little more seriously and warns, “I’m going to use my quirk on her if I have to.” Better to say it now than have Aizawa erase the Detective’s quirk for some reason and show themselves as anything less than a single united front. “Speed things up a bit, you know.”
“Yeah,” Aizawa murmurs in agreement. “Can’t trust her otherwise.”
“Exactly. So if you wouldn’t mind letting us handle the questions, Sergeant,” Tsukauchi performs in a way that’s more of a notice than an actual request for anything. Like they know it’s not Sgt. Shimada’s place to question witnesses now, but it eases egos to make it sound otherwise.
“Fine.” The Sergeant doesn’t seem hugely bothered, not anymore, as if they’ve already worn his patience out. Perhaps they have.
Eventually they arrive at a secure room much like the one Dr. Shinsou was held in over in the other block, only with more medical equipment bolted to the walls visible through the little letterbox window. Sgt. Shimada unlocks the door from the outside and lets them in.
Shiyoko is lying on the hospital-like bed under a thin sheet, and has been changed out of her bloodied dress from before to a simple off-white robe. Though Aizawa recognises her immediately, she could almost be a different woman to the one back in the Shinsou house, so stark are the differences. Only the telltale ring of deep bruising rising up around her neck reminds him of yesterday: the last touch of her beloved Professor Shinsou.
Her eyes are open and staring listlessly straight up at the ceiling. They only roll over to fix on the three of them after Tsukauchi gives a pointed cough. It’s not much, but Aizawa reckons she must recognise them. After all, she wrote her name on two out of three of them.
Tsukauchi takes the lead by stepping forwards, offering in his very best instinctively calming tone, “Hello, we never met properly. I’m Detective Tsukauchi.” Only he would introduce himself so kindly to someone who turned him into her mental slave, but that’s just the way he is.
Shiyoko doesn’t respond, her eyes turning back up to the ceiling, and there’s a question of whether she can’t speak or simply doesn’t want to.
“You’ve been unconscious for a little less than a day, Miss Hakamata.” Tsukauchi takes another step closer to Shiyoko, wary, as he ought to be. Her dyed hair lies limp and faded in tangles across her shoulders, and even her chest seems smaller in these clothes – Aizawa knows there’s tricks for making busts look bustier, not that such things have concerned him in the history of ever. Her makeup has been cleaned up a little too, by some kindly nurse most likely, but the pigment stains remain behind, giving a dark, shadowed look to her eyes, and an unnatural red tint to her mouth. “Do you remember what happened to you?”
She doesn't answer, so Aizawa gives a prod by muttering an offhand, "She should count herself lucky, after what happened to Dr. Shinsou."
Instantly Shiyoko's eyes rivet onto Aizawa, bloodshot but fierce, as well as frightened. Her voice is hoarse, which isn't surprising when her throat was almost crushed yesterday, and her mouth sounds dry as she croaks, "What happened to him?"
With an indifferent huff Sgt. Shimada says, "So you can understand us." Reaching for the button of his radio, he rattles off a quick, "Prisoner seems to be coherent, clear Mrs. Shinsou for release." All that fuss, and for what? Nothing at all. Four words and Kiki’s free to go.
Shiyoko reacts to the news too; specifically, to the words Mrs. Shinsou. The woman who has what she wants so desperately, enough to kill, and kill, and kill, but who has the gall not to want it.
“That bitch did this to me,” Shiyoko hisses with a slick eel of envy writhing in her face. Aizawa’s sure of this much: the proverbs about the wrath of a woman scorned hold as true as they’ve ever been. “Why is she being let go?”
“It seems the effects were only temporary,” Tsukauchi tells Shiyoko like it might stand a chance at soothing her fierce temper, but they’ve seen what her rage does. To everyone around her, even to herself. It won’t be quelled so easy.
“Unlike what happened to the Doc.” Aizawa’s jabbing again, but it’s for a reason – to loosen the screws. There's no plan here as such, just the aim of getting what they can out of her to help wrap this deadly tale up with a grace it doesn't deserve. Aizawa doesn’t know much about Tsukauchi’s quirk, but he’s aware that it works better when someone’s already talking, rather than having to force them to break their silence. Gassing Shiyoko up like this might be risky, but it gets them places they might not go to otherwise.
“Dr. Shinsou is recovering from his injuries,” Tsukauchi tells her like verbal aloe vera, but then adds with a little bit more of an edge, “How are yours?”
Shiyoko looks at him like she doesn’t understand. "Injuries?”
Aizawa spells it out in the blunt glory that it deserves, circling a finger around his own neck in indication. “He tried to kill you. Don’t you care?” Shiyoko can’t see her neck, of course, but it’d make sense she at least feels it. Or maybe she doesn’t feel so much, not anymore.
“You said he was hurt, what happened to him?” Shiyoko persists blindly, but Aizawa sees the conflict in her face. That deep down she knows the hopelessness of what she wants, and to accept it means annihilation, means accepting that everything she’s done – that the life she threw away, ostensibly for him, is wasted.
“If you’re willing to testify against Dr. Shinsou, a judge may be more favourable in considering your case, you know,” Tsukauchi tries to tempt, but Shiyoko doesn’t seem to like that either, expressive shifts of her dark-ringed eyes to glare at each of the architects of her demise.
“I’m no traitor,” she says softly, murder on her mouth.
“What about when you tried to kill his son?” Aizawa says coolly. That was certainly a betrayal of epic proportions, outshone only by the Doc's retaliation in trying to kill her.
“That was for his own good,” she answers, her gaze hard as baked volcanic rock. “You can’t make me testify against him.”
“No,” says Tsukauchi as Aizawa feels the stirring power of the Detective’s quirk, like a breeze blows autumnal leaves, “but we can make you tell the truth.”
Shiyoko doesn’t move, still lying like a dead body on the bed. She looks as if she doesn’t believe him, only to get hit with the beaming integrity of the human lie detector.
“Tell us about the people you killed.”
Shiyoko’s eyes clouded in charcoal smudges shift, becoming even more far away and listless, though not quite brainwashed. “The first was a man I worked with. I made him slit his wrists in the bath.”
“Why?” Aizawa swoops in impulsively, though he thinks he knows the answer.
“He was a pig,” she answers dutifully, still bound by the focused power of Tsukauchi’s quirk. “He got promoted instead of me because I wouldn’t have sex with the boss. I thought they would promote me if he was gone.”
Close, Aizawa thinks, revisiting his assumption that her first victim had done something to Shiyoko himself, perhaps sexually harassed her, rather than having the misfortune of being desirable to their superior. There's an unpleasant irony in there somewhere, but he doesn't care to find it.
“Did they?” Aizawa prompts, though it’s hardly likely. Shiyoko didn’t throw everything away because she got what she wanted.
“No.” Her face is like a china doll, smooth and pretty, yet slightly unnerving. “Then a man molested me on the train home, so I made him jump in front of one.”
"How many did you kill?" Tsukauchi continues, since they’d be here a long time if they go through it all blow by blow.
"I don't know. More than twenty." This is more chilling than if she was counting, in many ways. To not care enough to even keep track of how many lives she ended.
"Why?" Aizawa repeats.
"Because I could," she answers coldest of all. "They deserved it."
"What about Dr. Shinsou's victims? The people you killed with him didn't deserve it," Aizawa tells more than he questions. "What about Hana? The girl from the library? You didn’t kill her, even though you could. Why did you let her get away?"
Shiyoko's eyes still maintain that far off quality, which makes it really freaky when she looks right at Aizawa to answer, "I didn't want the Professor to have her."
"That's all? You could’ve killed her to do that, but you didn’t.” Aizawa isn't sure what he's trying to do or prove here, but after spending so long hunting down Shiyoko, now she's here he can't resist finding answers to just some of his many, many questions. Like is there any part of her left that still cares? “You didn't see yourself in her, even a little bit?"
There's a tense moment, which holds tight like a piano string pulled too taut, letting out only unpleasant shrieking sounds until Shiyoko mutters, "Rape is disgusting." And there it is, the fissure in an otherwise unbreakable defence of an idol.
"Dr. Shinsou raped women, other women like Hana," Aizawa delivers with growling intensity. "The woman who attacked him was one." Has Dr. Iwaya ever said it? No. But does she need to, for them to realise what could have driven her to such desperate lengths? Also no. As Aizawa’s said before: he'd love to be wrong, it just doesn't happen very often.
By the way Tsukauchi suddenly stops using his quirk and glances over at Aizawa in shock when he says this, he hadn't realised that either. Perhaps he thought she would have told him, that naive belief unwounded people have to think traumatised people are the first in line to speak up about what they’ve been through.
"What woman? Why won’t you tell me what happened to him?" Shiyoko demands with frothing distress, drawing near to panic. She was unconscious by the time Iwaya showed up, so doesn't know what's become of the vain Doc's face. Would it change anything? Aizawa’s doubtful. But this conversation might.
"One of the women Dr. Shinsou abused snuck into the house and hit him with a glass beaker, cut him up pretty badly. You were already out by that point," Aizawa tells her because if there's any chance at getting through to Shiyoko, at parting her from this do or die devotion to Dr. Shinsou, it's worth a shot. "You stopped him from raping Hana, so you know he’s capable of it. Why wouldn't he have done it to other women before?"
"I…" Shiyoko isn't under the influence of Tsukauchi’s quirk anymore, and there's no redemption for a killer as bloodthirsty as she's proven to be, but when it comes to risk management, to making sure her loyalty to Dr. Shinsou is in tatters, this is the least they can attempt. Shiyoko might be deluded in a lot of ways, but she broke Dr. Shinsou out of a high security prison once before, and it was only after they turned on each other that Aizawa and Hitoshi stood a chance at stopping them. "I don't believe you."
"Why would we lie to you?" Aizawa stays adamant, standing with his hands relaxed by his sides, but sure in himself. "You're already locked up, we know from your signature on the bodies that you used your quirk to make people kill themselves.” He’s managed to get the marker off his own arm now, but only by all but rubbing the top layer of skin away. Never mind. He can grow new skin. “All you do by testifying against Dr. Shinsou is make sure he doesn't blame you for everything."
This really riles her, sitting up suddenly in bed with limp hair swaying to blurt, "He wouldn't!"
"He would." Aizawa’s already being tough, but now he gets tougher. "You know what he told me you mean to him? Nothing.” Worse yet, Dr. Shinsou only spoke of Shiyoko when Aizawa brought her up, but no need to go explaining all that now. There’s simpler ways to make a point. “You gave him everything, and he tried to kill you. There's nothing for you to gain from standing by him and everything to lose."
"He told you… no, you're lying." Shiyoko's eyes fill with tears, her breath shallow and fast while Aizawa brings the hammer of reality crashing down onto her.
"I was with him all night," Aizawa bites with bitter remembrance and a case of the haven’t-slept-in-24-hours-es. "The only time he talked about was to say how little you meant to him. He used you, Shiyoko. Just like other men have."
She blinks and tears fall now, dirty down her cheeks, and although Aizawa sees the unhinged, fanatical killer who gleefully spilled an ocean of blood, he also sees the misunderstood, traumatised woman who's been pissed on from every corner of society long before she snapped and started a murder spree that got so quickly out of hand. Pitting one against the other is just an unpleasant, yet rational, means to an end.
"Testify against him, make sure he pays for everything he's done, just as you're going to have to pay for everything you've done," Aizawa preaches under the harsh hospital light. "It's over, Shiyoko. You lost."
"Shut up! You're the one who ruined everything!” she snarls. Here comes the rage, the woman who would’ve made Aizawa strangle Hitoshi and laughed while he choked to death. “You took that little brat to see the Professor, got him worked up about getting his stupid family back! It would’ve been perfect if you hadn’t gotten involved!” What would that have been like? Aizawa dreads to think.
"What'll it take for you to accept this?" Aizawa returns much calmer than Shiyoko's growing rage, playing a delicate balancing act, and the fact that Tsukauchi and Sgt. Shimada haven't intervened yet suggests they don't have any more of an idea what to do with her than Aizawa does. Or maybe Tsukauchi is just letting Aizawa be the bad cop so he can come in as the good one any minute now. "He's a psychopath, he doesn't care about anyone except himself."
"No! He… he told me…"
"He told you whatever you wanted to hear to make you help him.” If Aizawa’s good at anything, it’s being the bearer of bad news. But he can do the odd ray of sunshine through stormclouds too, and that one always works a treat. “He needed you, Shiyoko, he couldn't have done any of it without you."
"That's… he did need me," she echoes back fearfully, finding something to cling to that her broken mind finds palatable. Crafted desperation, under Aizawa’s careful tending.
"Yes," Tsukauchi hops in right on time, snapping the opportunity shut like a snare round a rabbit’s foot, "Why don't you tell us just how much he needed you? All the ways you helped him, the things he couldn't do for himself."
Shiyoko gives a funny derisive snort, universal in nature. The underappreciated woman. "That'd take a long time."
"We've got time," Tsukauchi replies with his golden boy glow, and as Aizawa understands it, he can use his quirk to force the truth from people, but he can also apply it to simply know when someone is being truthful or not. Aizawa’s internal dial for these things quivers enough to think it could be the case. Tsukauchi turns to the Sergeant and asks, "Would you mind getting me a chair? Doctor’s orders to stay off my feet for prolonged periods while the old ticker settles down." On account of how he was technically not alive for much longer than anyone ought to be yesterday. Then again, so was Cricket. It’s been a weird few days.
“Oh… okay,” Sgt. Shimada isn’t thrilled about leaving them here, but does step out for a bit.
“So it was your idea to help him escape?” Aizawa questions, and Shiyoko stares at him for a bit before she tentatively nods. There’s something most killers have that can be taken advantage of, and it’s ego. They’re proud of what they’ve done. They want to talk about it – and knowing Dr. Shinsou, he didn’t do much in the way of active listening. “How did you do it?”
“I waited around the prison and introduced myself to one of the guards as he was leaving," she begins to reveal. "He asked me out on a date, and once he was drunk told me everything. When I knew who had access to his cell and how things worked it was easy to send someone in there as a gift to the Professor.”
“A gift?” Tsukauchi repeats like he doesn’t fully understand what she means, though he most likely does. Easier playing dumb than obviously prying, makes them feel superior.
“Someone to use his quirk on,” Shiyoko explains dismissively. “I knew he would be able to get out by himself as long as he had control of a guard, and he did.” The start of the baton-passing between their quirks, Aizawa reckons. Right from the first instance where Shiyoko used her brainwashing on someone and then just handed them into Dr. Shinsou’s open, hungry jaws.
Perhaps even he didn’t know that it could be done – transfer of control from one brainwashing quirk to another. Or maybe it’s something particular to Shiyoko, that she lets them be taken. Did that mean she let Hitoshi take control of Aizawa, on some level? To be saved from herself. Aizawa’s not convinced.
“You met him on the outside,” Aizawa surmises without needing a recap of the unnecessary bloodbath Dr. Shinsou caused in making his escape. “Was he surprised to see you?”
She nods, and then huffs with a deeply human displeasure, “He didn’t even remember me at first.”
"Of course he didn't," Aizawa rasps. "But he still went with you."
"He didn't have a choice," Shiyoko reveals with a hint of glee. "He would've been caught otherwise, everyone was looking for him."
"Except in the Embassy, where you went next," Aizawa caveats, and Shiyoko's face falls. Not so pleasant memories for any of them, it seems.
"That was his idea, he insisted he wouldn't sleep in a squat like a beggar, even though it’s safer. I thought it would be…" she trails off, lacking words. That it'd be nice, or fun, maybe. That it would make Dr. Shinsou fall for her if he was appeased with luxury and extravagance. They had sex that night for the first time – Aizawa had to watch the fucking security footage of it, and it wasn’t at all nice.
How could she have known that the Doc doesn't respect women he can control so easily? The double-edged sword of why he couldn’t care less about Shiyoko and remains so devoted to Kiki, who defied him and continues to defy him every day she keeps their family split apart. Kiki is living proof of the 1% mind that Dr. Shinsou can’t control, no matter how hard he tries.
"He made you start killing women after that, didn't he?" Aizawa feeds like pushing kindling into a fire, almost hearing the snap and crackle of flames as Shiyoko takes each suggestion with a widening of her eyes. "You hadn't done that before, why did you change your mind?"
"I didn't want him to…” It’s there for a moment in Shiyoko’s face, the fear of loss, of rejection and Dr. Shinsou’s disappointment. The thing that rots people from the inside out. “It doesn't matter,” she cuts herself off. “You wanted me to tell you how I helped him, didn't you?” she reminds them, or really herself, since it’s Aizawa’s goal to get her off track as much as possible. “I had some stolen credit cards to use for the hotel, and my bodyguards helped us to get around without being spotted."
“By bodyguards, you mean the squatters you encountered at Dr. Shinsou’s house?” Tsukauchi prompts.
“Some of them,” Shiyoko answers with a shrug. “Anyone really. After someone lets me write my name on them once, they usually want me to do it again.” Not Aizawa and Tsukauchi, of course, they have things to live for. But hopeless people, people who want to be absolved of the pain of being human? Yeah, Aizawa imagines they would come back for more.
“These people kept a lookout for you,” Tsukauchi keeps going. “They were part of how you helped Dr. Shinsou hide from us, how you both did.”
“Not really, you were just slow,” Shiyoko replies cruelly, which might be true. Aizawa certainly feels slow standing here, negotiating with Shiyoko to spell it all out. “Everything was going great until that brat started– started pretending to kill people,” Shiyoko corrects herself mid-flow. “I told the Professor it was probably a trick, that you obviously wanted to trap us, but he was convinced there was a chance it was real, or if it was a trap he had to prove it was. Stupid…” her voice falls away before she can say anything more unpleasant about the Doc, though Aizawa imagines it’s nothing worse than he’s thought or called the Doc himself. “You just had to get involved, didn’t you?” she repeats, glaring directly at Aizawa when she says this like it’s all his fault, and maybe it is, in a way. Without him, Hitoshi wouldn’t have been so close to this case, certainly not to the degree of staging goddam murders as a lure to draw the Doc and Shiyoko out.
“Yes,” Aizawa replies bluntly, because even if it’s meant going to hell and back, there’s still nowhere he’d rather be than here, tying up the last frayed ends of this horrible tale. “I did.”
“So you admit to everything?” Tsukauchi goes for gold all of a sudden, and Aizawa feels the power of his quirk amping up. While a quirk like Hitoshi’s would be inadmissible as evidence in a conviction, the Detective’s is quite the opposite. “You started killing people, broke Dr. Shinsou out of prison, continued to murder more innocent people alongside him, including an attempt on the life of his own son?”
“Yes,” Shiyoko’s confession, as confessions often do, rings hollow, and not just because she’s being made to say it by power of truth-telling quirk. It’s the strongest form of Tsukauchi’s otherwise quite unassuming mentalist ability, though Aizawa wonders if Dr. Iwaya had shown him a thing or two about how to hone it into the precision instrument that it’s being used as now.
“Then it’s settled.” Tsukauchi converts all at once back into being a smiley, amiable fellow without a wisp of his quirk remaining on the breeze. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Hakamata.”
“Screw you,” Shiyoko mutters vindictively, but Tsukauchi’s already turning away, seeming rather like he’s ready to wrap this one up. “I shoulda killed you when I had the chance.”
Tsukauchi stops at the door, which Sgt. Shimada has opened up from the outside and stands there awkwardly holding a chair that he apparently doesn’t need anymore. Aizawa wonders if Tsukauchi thought this would take longer than it did, or wanted to get rid of the Sergeant for some reason. Aizawa adds the Sergeant to the list of people who deserve a thanks for playing beer after all this is over – and that might be a hell of a piss-up not too far on the horizon.
The Detective turns to look back over his shoulder with his good-boy smile beaming like a floodlight four inches away from the face, and says with a warm, scruffy realness, “That’s what they all say.”
When Tsukauchi leaves Aizawa follows, leaving the Sergeant to lock up again, and Aizawa has the decency to wait until they’re a few steps down the hallway to murmur, “That was cheesy.”
“Give me a break, I almost died yesterday,” Tsuakuchi bats back as the Sergeant’s hurried footsteps catch them up.
“Would you two stop wandering off?!” Sgt. Shimada berates, so Tsukauchi slows down and claps an over-friendly hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry about that. Is there anyone here I should talk to before I go? My Chief told me I oughta say hi to Captain Holt before I left.”
“Oh… yeah.” Sgt. Shimada seems shocked to suddenly be being asked about what he needs from them, as if he got so used not to having a say that he’s forgotten what to do with it. “I’ve actually been trying to take you to see the Captain this whole time.”
“Well then, lead the way,” Tsukauchi says with a chuckle held just slightly below the surface. The Sergeant radios a few people and leads them out of the building, still carrying a folding chair in one hand like he’s forgotten it’s even there.
It’s another sunny, deceptively peaceful day outside when they step back out into the hot yard between buildings of this facility. After some more radio communications back and forth, Sgt. Shimada takes them to what must be this facility’s most secure unit, since it’s surrounded by its own internal double-layer of barbed wire fences, between which a few lonely guards patrol.
“Is this where the Captain usually stays?” Aizawa questions, thinking of the Warden high up in his tower, and how little it did for him in the end.
“No, this is our maximum security division,” the Sergeant replies. “She just happens to be over here on account of Dr. Shinsou.”
“What?” Aizawa bolts with every kick in his gut all combining to feel like if he opened his mouth any wider he’d spew his guts all over the place. “You didn’t move him, did you?” Not without Aizawa there, surely.
“As much as it may surprise you, we are actually capable of managing such things without your assistance,” Sgt. Shimada says just snootily enough for Aizawa to have reacted if he wasn’t more worried about the second untimely jailbreak of Dr. Shinsou. “I can assure you that he is completely secure.”
“You better be able to prove that,” Aizawa grouses, only to get caught in an undeniably smug look cast from Sgt. Shimada’s foxy silver features.
“What do you think we’re doing?”
It’s at this point that Aizawa realises that the location of this facility’s highest authority, their so-titled Captain, and the new, final resting location of Dr. Shinsou must be one and the same.
If anything, the security measures are pretty comprehensive, since they go through at least four different locked doors and transfer spaces as well as two checkpoints before getting properly inside the small building. It smells different to the other blocks, the air seems old, perhaps like the building itself, whose floor is panelled with well-worn and over-varnished wood, giving the hallway a subtle oaky smell as they walk past further individual breakout spaces that must be individual cells. The walls are plated in metal sheets, and there’s a low level hum that Aizawa could guess at relating to quirk suppression technology, or perhaps just extensive security measures to ensure this place’s most volatile residents are contained as securely as their requirements demand.
This makes it odd, therefore, that when they turn a corner Aizawa suddenly catches the lighthearted chuckle of his one and only employer tickling down the hallways. Yeah, there’s no one else who titters the way Nezu does, and the fact that Aizawa can hear this is because both doors of the entrance to one of the cells are wide open. Aizawa almost barfs his guts again.
The nameplate next to the door already reads Dr. Shinsou Masaru, so Aizawa’s heart is racing as he swings around the open doorway to lay eyes on a more spacious room than the last one he saw Dr. Shinsou in, and where he will presumably remain for… life, maybe.
The room has two windows, and is larger than the other room, though the windows are still covered with bars on the outside. There’s a bed that almost looks comfortable, a desk in front of one of the windows, and an alcove at the end of the room that’s clearly a wetroom with a toilet and shower.
Nezu is sitting on the same stool that was brought into the last room for him to sit on, and next to him in what must be the chair for Dr. Shinsou’s desk is a woman dressed in a dark suit, one leg crossed over the other. And there’s Dr. Shinsou himself, sat in a wheelchair a short distance from them, ungagged and unrestrained, with the door wide open.
“What’s going on?” Aizawa blurts, his desperation clearly smelling a mile off.
“Ah, Eraserhead,” Nezu says brightly. “There you are. May I introduce you to a dear friend of mine, Captain Holt.”
Captain Holt herself is a woman of moderate build, with deep mahogany skin and eyes so pale she almost appears to have no iris at all. Her hair is wound into many braids of about a finger’s thickness, pulled into a ponytail that disappears behind her back.
“Why is the door open? Why’s the Doc just sitting there?” Aizawa keeps going, not bothered with pleasantries at the best of times.
“Please calm down, everything is under control,” Captain Holt says with an unquestionable air of command, her hands folded neatly in her lap. It’s around this point, as the panic subsides in the face of someone who is clearly not the least bit bothered by what seems like a massive flight risk, that Aizawa notices just how still Dr. Shinsou is. He’s like a waxwork, completely motionless in the wheelchair, not even appearing to blink, his chest barely moving.
“What did you do to him?” tumbles off Aizawa’s tongue even as he spots something in the light that shines through the window. The bars block out the sun in long strips and cast stripes across the room, but Aizawa sees it: something so fine it could be a single hair around the level of Dr. Shinsou’s neck.
“I told you we were able to manage Dr. Shinsou without your assistance,” Sgt. Shimada announces with pride. “There’s a reason this is the Captain’s facility.”
“Shut the door please, Sergeant,” Captain Holt requests, and it’s on closer examination that Aizawa follows the strand from Dr. Shinsou’s neck over to the Captain’s back. Only once both doors are securely shut does Captain Holt give a toss of her hair and Dr. Shinsou reanimates with a sudden gasp. As a couple of the braids flick over her shoulder, Aizawa sees how each plait tapers down to a fine point, the ends almost like needles that move with a dexterity similar to how he commands his own capture weapon.
Dr. Shinsou looks around with disgust and settles his gaze upon Aizawa, uttering an appalled, “Not you again,” before another toss of the Captain’s ponytail flicks a strand of her hair back over at him. Each finishes with a tip that glistens like a needle in the light as it pricks the Doc’s ear this time, freezing him with the dirty look still on his face.
“Is he still aware?” Aizawa asks more curiously, less frantic, stepping a little closer to Dr. Shinsou and the Captain to look carefully at the Captain’s long braids, reaching down to her knees at least, if she were standing.
“Perfectly,” she answers. “My quirk physically paralyses anyone that a piece of my hair pierces, but he can see and hear everything.”
Aizawa waves a hand in front of the Doc, still getting a filthy look of scathing, like the wind changed while he was making such a face – which it kind of did – and permits himself a chuckle over the irony. That Dr. Shinsou, able to trap people within their own minds through brainwashing, should become a prisoner of his body at the mercy of another’s quirk. They’ve heard of mind over matter, but this is matter over mind.
“Nezu recommended that I invite you over here to reassure you that we are more than able to cover Dr. Shinsou’s security requirements for the foreseeable future,” Captain Holt remarks in a way that Aizawa can’t doubt for even a second. Every inch of this woman screams that she doesn’t need to try and assert authority, since it’s already hers. “And I have to admit, I wanted to meet the men who captured the Deathnote Killer.”
“Not sure that’s us,” Aizawa replies grimly, but Tsukauchi steps forwards with his hand held out.
“Detective Tsukauchi, a pleasure to meet you, Captain.” There’s a lot of people to take credit in wrapping this one up, but a decent guy like Tsukauchi will make sure all the right thanks get passed along in the end.
“And you, Detective.” She shakes his hand. “Chief Tsuragame tells me you ought to still be in hospital.”
“Just a little cardiac arrest,” Tsukauchi brushes off. “I wanted to thank you for taking Dr. Shinsou and Miss Hakamata at such short notice.”
“Our pleasure,” the Captain replies smoothly, uncrossing her legs and re-crossing them in the other direction. “It’s been a while since we housed a criminal of such infamy.”
“Why?” Aizawa finds himself asking. “If you’re so good at confining dangerous quirks, why are you only doing it now?”
“Ah, well, we’re a private institution,” Captain Holt says unflappably. “In Dr. Shinsou’s case it was felt a state-funded maximum security institution could accommodate him, and since we’re only partly a penal facility it can be perceived as a little… soft.”
“Because you’re not a proper prison,” Aizawa surmises. It’s the sort of thing people would think, and this room is certainly comfortable for any cell, but it’s not really the amenities that make the prison. It’s the fact that they can’t leave. By that rule, anywhere Dr. Shinsou can’t get out of is a prison – like his own paralysed body.
“Our costs are considered prohibitive for all but the most special cases,” Captain Holt explains with a telling nod at Nezu.
“Quite. However, after a word with certain officials and a discretionary supplement from a personal fund I keep for such occasions, it seems that we were able to make an exception for the Professor, weren’t we?” Nezu chimes in right on time, and if that doesn’t make sense too – will they finish their chess game, Aizawa wonders? This is a comfortable aviary for the Principal to pay visit to a truly rare species. Everyone has hobbies, even if Nezu’s are weirder than most.
“What about Shiyoko?” Aizawa asks next, trailing his fingertips through the loose ends flapping in his mind, searching for those final threads to tie up.
“She’ll be managed within our women’s facility,” the Captain says simply, “Her quirk is lower risk, but her mental stability is a bit of a concern, so I have her under observation. They’ll both be mostly isolated, due to the threat they pose to other residents.”
“Good,” Aizawa settles, and he actually feels… confident is too strong a word, but not quite so worried. The Warden of Dr. Shinsou’s old prison was very different to Captain Holt, so even if they do make mistakes regarding the Doc or Shiyoko’s incarceration, they’re probably going to be different ones, ones they can surely handle. Captain Holt doesn’t seem like the type to jerk her prisoners around just to feel powerful – with a quirk like that she’s got all the power she needs. “If you ever need anything–”
“I’ll call on you,” Captain Holt confirms before Aizawa can really finish. “Nezu has assured me of your commitment to these two’s security.”
“Right… thanks.” Aizawa’s not sure what he’s even saying thank you for, just that it’s over, perhaps. That he feels like he can walk away from this and stand a chance at sleeping tonight.
“Just doing our job,” Captain Holt replies without a smile on her stern face, but Aizawa hears it in her tone.
“Can you bring him back for a second?” Aizawa asks spontaneously, his eyes lingering on the static form of Dr. Shinsou the way a coffee ring inexplicably appears underneath a cup. “I’d like to see if he’s got any… last words.”
He doesn’t know why he bothers. For closure? Just to confirm everything Aizawa believes about Dr. Shinsou, and feel like there was no moment he could have taken and missed something.
“Of course.” Captain Holt tosses her hair once more and the Doc unfreezes, gasping less this time, only a soft breath. His face flexes and falls from distorted features as if it ached from being held transfixed in a scowl for too long. Maybe that’s why his expression is perfectly blank when his piercing midnight eyes go straight to Aizawa’s, and a chill runs up his neck.
No questions asked, Dr. Shinsou tells Aizawa, “This isn’t over.”
Aizawa can’t explain what it proves exactly, but it’s still something, something intangible, but enough to justify taking this moment. Even just for Aizawa to say one last thing before he leaves, and actually be able to mean it.
“Yes it is.”
Notes:
Slightly longer chapter again as we round things off, both with the Doc as well as Shiyoko, and WHAT A TRIP IT'S BEEN, HUH?!?! Really starting to wrap up those endings now.....
There's just two more chapters to go, but one of those is the epilogue so the next one is the 'last' chapter that's not the epilogue... arbitrary, yes, I know. You think YOU'RE all dealing with the fast approaching reality of this story being almost finished, but I'm also totally freaking out!
We're getting close now! I started this story from the date in my original googledocs masterdocument on 18th April 2018, so we're just a few days away from my two year writing-this-story anniversary. What a goddamn trip, huh?! Also to consider that I wasn't only writing this story in that period, so there's easily been another 100-150k written in other works on the side.
I can also confirm that the next story from YWID-verse will be 9 chapters long, as it's nearly almost done as I write this a/n, but the chapters themselves are all pretty beefy so those 9 chaps will run to the tune of around 70k. You won't go hungry, children! See you next week!
P.S. Yes Captain Holt is a B99 reference/inspired/gender-flipped cameo.
Chapter 89: R&R
Summary:
It's been a long way home.
Notes:
Y'all. Y'ALL. WE ARE SO VERY ALMOST THERE.
THAT SAID, ENJOY THIS CHAPTER. WE DESERVE IT. ESPECIALLY AIZAWA.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Within ten minutes of bidding farewell to the new caretakers of Dr. Shinsou and his not-so-loyal disciple Hakamata Shiyoko, more infamously known as the Deathnote Killer, Aizawa and Tsukauchi have been hastily escorted outside the compound by one Sergeant Shimada, who frankly seems thrilled to see the back of them. This leaves them in a baking hot car park without a supposed care in the world. Supposed.
“Surprised you’re not smoking,” Tsukauchi comments as they head over to an unassuming car that the Detective must have arrived in, which sits cooking in the scorching near-midday sun.
“I’m all out,” Aizawa answers gruffly, hands seeking out his pockets like moles returning to their burrows. “Been meaning to cut back anyway.”
The Detective came out here alone, it seems, which Aizawa finds surprising considering his recent discharge. “Didn’t they send anyone here with you?” he asks suspiciously.
“Oh, I’m actually not meant to be out of bed at all,” Tsukauchi reveals with a grin as he unlocks the car and leaves the door open for a moment first, releasing some of the heat contained within. “I told them I was stepping outside for some fresh air, this car belongs to a friend who works at the hospital.”
Aizawa stares at Tsukauchi for a second as if expecting a joke, only the punchline never comes and he just ends up staring at the Detective, who after a moment starts getting into the car with a deep sigh. Now Aizawa looks more closely this clearly is someone else’s car, the back filled with empty packaging and pairs of hospital-friendly plimsolls.
“Don’t look at me like that, you know you’d do the same,” Tsukauchi remarks as he rolls down the window after lowering himself into the drivers seat.
“I know, that’s why I’m surprised,” Aizawa admits, finally getting into action and walking round to the other door. He doesn’t know exactly where he’s going just yet, but anywhere away from this place, and the people left behind in it, is a good start.
“We’re not so different, you and I,” Tsukauchi reminds Aizawa as he settles into the red-hot passenger seat. The heat is instantly soporific, like Aizawa’s a bun in a convenience store oven.
“True, Detective Kettle,” Aizawa murmurs, feeling a hard wave of fatigue and relief rising through him. “So are you heading back to hospital?” Like he should, but what has should ever gotten them throughout this?
“I was going to a hospital,” Tsukauchi replies cleverly, starting the engine as he hangs one elbow out of the open window and turns up the car fans. “Thought I’d break the good news to Tama, if you want to ride along.”
Aizawa seriously thinks about it. But as great as it’d be, Tama’s not going anywhere, and there’s somewhere, someone else Aizawa wants to be with more right now. He checks his phone, where updates have buzzed in one after the other informing him of everyone’s whereabouts. Hitoshi and Kiki are back at UA already, he sees, which is an instant relief. Aizawa’s burning to see them too, but not quite as much as this.
He says to Tsukauchi with all the exhaustion that he’s been holding back finally flooding forth like a tsunami. “Just drop me home.”
Tsukauchi gives him a little sideways grin that promises what it knows more than says it out loud. “Can do.”
Aizawa wishes he could have said he stayed awake for the drive and talked to Tsukauchi about the wrap-up of the motherfucker of all cases, but the reality is that he’s asleep within minutes of the engine purring into life. He only wakes up with the Detective shaking his shoulder and the words, “We’re here.”
“You know where I live?” Aizawa groans, blurry-eyed and rubbing his face as he realises that they’re directly outside his apartment block and not safely parked a street away, though he supposes the reason for doing such a thing is lesser now.
“Yes, Aizawa,” Tsukauchi says softly, and a little patronisingly, but Aizawa lets him off on such a special occasion. They all know things they only pretend not to be aware of sometimes, and Aizawa’s home address just happens to be one.
“Thanks,” Aizawa murmurs, checking his phone to assess how long he’s been out – only about half an hour, accounting for why he feels less rested and more like he’s been hit by a truck – and ignores any new messages from Hizashi. Whatever they are, he can tell them to Aizawa when he gets home in about three minutes time.
Without adrenaline to keep him going any longer Aizawa’s starting to feel every bruise and ache from what he’s put his body through these past days and weeks, which, as his body is pointing out, is actually quite a lot. A car nap hasn’t helped so much as break the seal on the reality of his exhaustion, right down to the bones. It’s almost the limit of what he can manage just to wave goodbye to Tsukauchi once he gets out of the car.
“Try to get some rest,” Tsukauchi tells him with a puppyish look in his rich brown eyes, “You look like death warmed up.”
“Don’t I always?” Aizawa returns wryly, but he appreciates the gesture. “Take care of yourself too.”
“Aye aye, Detective Pot.” Tsukauchi offers up one last sunshine grin before the car pulls away.
Aizawa stands on the pavement watching the vehicle get smaller as it veers out of sigh. He takes a deep sigh, then turns and heads inside. He’s a sleepwalker in the lift, shuffles like the undead down the hallway, but his blood begins to stir as he reaches the door of his apartment and lets himself in.
“I’m home,” Aizawa calls out hoarsely, not seeing Hizashi at first, but having assumed he’s here because where else would he be on a Monday lunchtime right after the school semester has finished and Aizawa’s just wrapped up a case? He's almost certainly in the studio, knowing him, and the distant echo of music only confirms it.
Hizashi’s voice rings through the apartment from afar like a gong, and Aizawa never really feels like he’s home until he hears that sonorous call of, “Shota?” followed by the speedy pad of footsteps.
Dressed only in some tracksuit bottoms and slippers, because not wearing a top in his own home is a privilege and a right, with his hair a freshly-washed sunlit waterfall coasting over one shoulder, Hizashi skids to a stop and all-out beams at Aizawa. The magnificent mural of his upper body clad in ink is fully on show, his hands propped on his hips, and clear house-glasses that don’t hide the emerald sparkle of his eyes. No wonder Aizawa comes straight home when this is what he has waiting; his best friend, his other half, the no-questions-asked love of his life who he’d be nothing without.
Hizashi cocks his head to the side, spun gold hair rippling, and says, “So is it over?”
Aizawa nods, reaching to his neck to start pulling off spools of dirty and bloodied capture weapon that he throws on the floor next to him. “It’s over.”
The very widest grin Hizashi has to offer shows more teeth than it seems possible for him to even have. Then his fair eyebrows lift a fraction when Aizawa’s hands still after he’s dumped all his capture weapon and stalls for a second.
“And you're just gonna stop there?” They have a case-completing ritual to close out, after all.
Aizawa shakes his head, going next for the zip of his jumpsuit and peeling it down. Hizashi bites his bottom and whistles so loud Aizawa flinches, shooting Hizashi an irate stare that only lasts the time it takes for him to completely unzip his jumpsuit and then reach to his waist to unfasten the utility belt he unceremoniously dumps on the floor next.
“Wish I had some change to throw at you,” Hizashi teases as Aizawa shoves his jumpsuit down to the ground and drags his feet out of his shoes.
“Cause I’m a stripper, or I look homeless?” Aizawa musters the necessary ounce of energy to reply, and Hizashi’s grin is so bright, so luminous it almost hurts. But after all this darkness, a part of him needs to bask in the light, even when it feels like it could burn.
“Can I say both?” Hizashi retorts, barely holding back his laughter. He's standing just a few paces away, waiting for Aizawa to come to him, since he’s a git like that and knows Aizawa would drag himself naked and covered in mud across broken glass to reach him right now, so a metre-and-a-half of their apartment is nothing by comparison.
“Fair.” Aizawa shrugs, and then plods the few steps he needs to close the distance between them. Hizashi’s vibrant, inked arms slide to sit around Aizawa’s waist as Aizawa rests his face in the curve of Hizashi’s shoulder and releases another deep breath. Now he’s home.
“So where were we?” Hizashi’s voice hums in his throat before leaving his mouth, a tickle Aizawa can feel nestled in his hair. Aizawa starts nuzzling a neck wrapped in the delicate tattoo stave that rests prettier around Hizashi’s throat than any jewelery.
“Pretty sure you were jerking me off in a bathroom stall,” Aizawa murmurs, pushing his crotch rather unsubtly against Hizashi’s in indication. It may be true that what Aizawa really needs is a good night’s sleep, but what’s more true is that he wants to be fucked senseless by the one person who knows him better than anyone else.
“Was I? That does sound like something I’d do.” Hizashi’s arms stay in a chaste loop around Aizawa’s waist, which is paramount to torment. “You must be tired, though. Maybe you wanna take a nap?”
“I napped in the car,” Aizawa grunts in clear frustration, leading one of his hands from Hizash’s back down to his ass, slipping beneath his waistband to confirm that he’s of course not wearing any underwear underneath his tracksuit bottoms. “You know what I want.”
Hizashi titters, turning his head enough that Aizawa feels his lips moving against his temple. “You want me to make gentle, tender love to you on a bed of roses?”
Aizawa snorts, a puff of air that washes over the warm, twitching skin of Hizashi’s throat right where it's softest and most vulnerable. “Please don’t.” The very last thing Aizawa yearns for now is to be handled like he’s made of glass, even if that’s exactly how he feels. Because sometimes the point is to prove he won't break.
Hizashi scoffs in return. Then one of his lithe hands skims up Aizawa’s back to find the tangled mess of his hair, securing a firm grip that sparks electricity through Aizawa’s blood. “That’s my baby.” Quickly noticing how a familiar handful feels different from usual, Hizashi observes, “Are you missing some hair?”
“Yeah,” Aizawa replies with tight, barely retained composure. “Ripped out in the fight.”
Hizashi makes a tutting sound, as if he’s the only one allowed to do anything to Aizawa’s hair, and to prove this point Aizawa groans like a thumbed piano string when Hizashi tugs gently on his scalp, igniting relief that runs unashamedly to his cock. Dragging his hair out of the way also gives Hizashi access to Aizawa’s ear, lips ghosting over the shell as his lover asks, "How's the pressure?"
"Harder," Aizawa requests breathily, releasing another tortured noise when Hizashi adjusts his grip accordingly.
"You're so fucking sexy like this," Hizashi practically drools, his tone drenched in arousal at the willing sacrifice in his hands. They go together well at the best of times, but they're never better than right after Aizawa’s finished a case and aches for something strong enough to forget everything he's been through. It used to be drugs, lots of drugs, and it's a cliché to end all clichés that now Hizashi is his substitute. But looking back, Aizawa much prefers what he has now, because there's no drug in the world that can satisfy him the way Hizashi does.
"So touch my cock already," Aizawa suggests, because he's not at the point of begging, not yet, anyway.
"Hah! And let you get off that easy?" Hizashi's absolutely scathing, though the fact of the matter is he loves a greedy bottom – specifically, Aizawa.
Using the grip on his hair like the strings on a marionette, Hizashi expertly peels Aizawa away and turns him around, facing out over the apartment with his heart pumping like a bass drum.
"How bad do you want it?"
"I want it," Aizawa echoes faithfully. "I need it, Hizashi."
"You think I can't tell?" Hizashi taunts over his shoulder, as if the awkward strain of Aizawa’s fast-growing erection in his boxers wasn't a giant indication.
With only the smallest movements Hizashi’s able to guide Aizawa across the floor, lighter than air as he pushes back just enough of his weight into Hizashi to shut out any other thoughts, to make what he's feeling now the only thing that matters. Even if it's crude, and a blunt tool at best, Aizawa stops thinking about the thousand little loose ends that aren't as neatly tied up as they could be, resists the urge to start worrying and waiting for something to go wrong. Even when those thoughts start to creep in at the edges of his mind, a firm tug on his hair when they reach the sofa and Aizawa's back in the room.
"Let's see here," Hizashi lilts as they arrive in front of one end of the large corner sofa. He lets go of Aizawa’s hair to gently press his upper body down, bending him over until Aizawa must rest his hands on the backrest for balance. "What happened to you again?" Hizashi questions while Aizawa presents his bare back, arms spread wide to hold himself up, releasing all lingering control like a flock of birds into the sky.
"Fell downstairs," Aizawa answers, and there's no 'again' since he didn't tell Hizashi what happened in the first place, but he's telling now. His back must tell a tale of the violence his lips struggle to form. Lots of things happened back there, but the stairs probably left the most marks. The Doc and Shiyoko would be so disappointed.
"That'd do it." Hizashi's knees press into the back of Aizawa’s to buckle his legs, shifting him forwards to kneel on the edge of the sofa. He hisses through his teeth when Hizashi presses down on a fresh bruise, twitching from the pain mixed with heightened sensitivity, but stills again when Hizashi’s grip moves further down to his hip, holding him in place.
Aizawa doesn't form words, but makes a sound of impatience at the time Hizashi’s taking when he knows damn well just how much Aizawa needs him. What he gets for it is a smack on the ass that stings like grain alcohol.
"You want this done quickly or right?" Hizashi says coyly, smoothing his palm back over the spot. Aizawa’s still wearing the boxers Hizashi picked up for him yesterday, soft, tight fitting cotton that clings to him before it covers.
"Can I say both?" Aizawa retorts, only to get another spank for his trouble. Aizawa groans outright this time, already soaking a shameless damp spot in the nice and probably expensive underwear Hizashi bought for him that he barely appreciates.
“That’s right, nice and loud for me,” Hizashi encourages, and Aizawa can’t see him, but certainly feels his ‘presence’ when Hizashi grabs him by the hips to grind against still clothed. Aizawa might need this the most, but that doesn’t mean Hizashi can’t want it with the power of a thousand blazing suns. They go together like gunpowder and matches.
When Hizashi walks his hands up the battered stretch of Aizawa’s back, taking care to poke and prod all the tender spots along the way, it’s all Aizawa can do to hold on, shaking from the pain short-circuiting with pleasure. It’s supposed to be a joke, but isn’t actually a joke, that when he’s desperate enough Aizawa really can’t tell the difference between them. It’s enough to feel something. Especially anything married with overwhelming arousal.
“Please, Hizashi,” Aizawa’s ready to beg now, and just his luck: Hizashi’s ready to be begged.
"Oh? Please what, baby?" Hizashi isn't actually going to give in, though. But that's what makes it so good.
"Fuck me," Aizawa fills in desperately, his breath snagging when Hizashi drags his hips back again to dry-thrust against him.
“Are you sure?” Hizashi says lightly, shifting one of his hands to press down over a particularly ripe new bruise, the heat of his palm and pressure making Aizawa groan like a girder taking too much weight. “Aren’t you too sore?”
He’s actually just sore enough, but Aizawa can’t properly enunciate that when his arms are starting to shake from holding himself at the perfect angle over the sofa, twitching under every fresh touch of Hizashi’s roaming hands across his bare skin. But since Aizawa’s still wearing boxers this means the only places Hizashi doesn't touch are all the places Aizawa wants him to.
What Aizawa can say is, "I can take it."
Glancing behind himself, Aizawa sees Hizashi shove his tracksuit down just far enough to pull his cock out, giving it a few greedy tugs before letting go to bob eagerly in the air. Then he uses a shin to shift Aizawa’s legs a little closer together and pushes his bare cock between Aizawa’s thighs, rubbing pointedly across the stretched, tight cotton covering Aizawa’s junk.
"You fucking better, babe," Hizashi warns as much as he threatens, reaching for Aizawa’s hair again to pull him back up when his torso starts to sag under his own exhausted weight. "Stay right there, can't have you falling apart on me yet."
"Fuck you," Aizawa growls, only for Hizashi to time another dry thrust of his cock between Aizawa’s legs with a tug on his hair, causing Aizawa to just all-out moan like he could come untouched in his underwear just from this. Oh fuck, he might if Hizashi keeps it up.
"What was that?" Hizashi queries devilishly, fully aware of what he's doing and why.
"Fuck me," Aizawa gasps the correction. "Please, please Hizashi."
Hizashi keeps one hand on Aizawa's hip and the other in his hair, not pulling but keeping him in position for Hizashi to dry-fuck slowly back and forth, the friction of his cock rubbing against Aizawa enough to die for.
"You're not ready."
"I am," Aizawa pleads, not resting on his arms as he's not sure they can hold him right now. No, he's supported by Hizashi's fist in his hair, right at the base of his skull like taking a cat by the scruff of the neck. "I am, I'm ready, I want it now."
Aizawa’s never been a talkative person at the best of times, certainly not during sex either. Except in certain very specific circumstances, when he turns into… this. Reduced to a visceral, quivering wreck.
Hizashi lets him go and Aizawa only just catches himself before faceplanting the back of the sofa, making a gruff noise of protest when Hizashi pulls away.
“Oh shut up, I’m just looking for the lube,” Hizashi shoots playfully, so Aizawa quietens down while Hizashi hunts around for it. He finally discovers a bottle underneath the other end of the sofa, probably left earlier in the week when Aizawa was fingering Hizashi out here after their last argument.
A breath rushes out of Aizawa’s nose like steam when Hizashi returns and unhesitatingly tugs the waistband of Aizawa’s underwear down. Drags the elastic only far enough to sit snug where his thighs meet his ass, and not far enough for his cock to spring free. No, the tent Aizawa’s pitching is only differently shaped now, but just that little adjustment still has him groaning in appreciation.
There’s no hands on Aizawa as the sound of the lid of the bottle pops open, and even that absence of contact feels like an act in its own right. Then Hizashi’s fingers slip greased between his cheeks and Aizawa presses back instinctively, trying to get penetration, any amount at all – though what he wants is all of it.
“Just do it,” he says, his back arching as he sags in the chest and grinds back on Hizashi's fingers anyway.
Hizashi clicks his tongue and pulls his hand away. When Aizawa glances back he sees Hizashi’s slicking himself up from base to tip, since Aizawa’s begging to get fucked so bad.
“Now,” Aizawa insists as he feels a final trickle of lube sliding down his crack. “Now, Hizashi, now, noww–” and then finally Hizashi starts pushing into him, bit by bit.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” Hizashi hisses, his fingers curling into the meat of Aizawa's ass. “Relax, baby. Let go.”
Aizawa breathes deeply and hangs his head, spreading his legs further and working the tension from his body, letting Hizashi fuck him a little deeper each time.
It burns the way it should, bringing Hizashi into him until he’s finally complete. Hizashi spreads his ass to thrust deeper, while Aizawa moans a little louder each time. As if the storm has broken, but the thunder had to rumble until the clouds were ready to split apart. Because the truth is that the point isn’t proving Aizawa won’t break when he’s like this. It’s being broken the way only Hizashi knows how.
Hizashi’s grip changes once he’s accommodated enough in Aizawa to move freely back and forth, and does so excruciatingly slowly at first. Aizawa deepens his breath, and he doesn’t whine, but if he did it’d be the rough noises of impatience that rumble from his chest as Hizashi rocks into him.
“Harder,” Aizawa gasps, feeling Hizashi’s fingers digging into him, knowing Hizashi won’t give him what he wants until he’s asked for it. And just like he asks, the next time Hizashi snaps his hips forwards it’s hard enough to make Aizawa bounce, knocking a desperate, gratified noise out of him.
“Like that?” Hizashi says, and Aizawa nods his head, but Hizashi slows again and tuts, “Use your words.”
“Yes,” he blurts on command. “Please, Hizashi, like that.”
Hizashi changes his grip, less on Aizawa’s ass and more around his hips, dragging him up a little higher where his posture has started to slip, and with a more menacing air purrs, “Whatever you say, babe.”
Because he’s standing on the floor while Aizawa’s kneeling on the sofa, Hizashi can really put his whole weight into each thrust. So when he starts to pound like a jackhammer Aizawa just about loses his damn mind.
“Aaugh, fuck, fuck–” Aizawa doesn’t care what he’s saying or sounds like, doesn’t care about anything except the feeling of getting fucked like he wanted, like he needs to forget who he is and what he’s been for long enough to be free.
“Ugh, yeah, baby,” Hizashi returns, pulling Aizawa back each time he drives forwards, and it’s undeniable that they fuck a lot, like, all the time, but they don’t fuck like this all the time. Then again, Aizawa doesn’t almost kill himself putting two lethal murderers behind bars and adopt a surrogate family all the time. Or ever. This is the first time for that last part.
So it makes sense that this time between him and Hizashi is slightly different too, because Aizawa’s slightly different now. Not so different that he doesn’t want to be rawed until he can’t remember who he is, though. And no one fucks him like that better than Hizashi, making sounds between the pair of them like a wildcat brawl in the jungle.
“You feel so fucking good,” Hizashi forms from actual words again at some point, shifting his hands back to Aizawa’s ass, squeezing greedily as he keeps ploughing for all he’s worth.
Aizawa’s on cloud nine, but then breath hitches with a bolt panic when one of Hizashi’s hands reaches forward to curl around his neck.
“Don’t choke me,” he blurts urgently, but Hizashi’s soft and soothing, only holding Aizawa’s throat gently, brushing his fingertips over hypersensitive skin. Maybe at some other point Aizawa would be ready to work through some shit that way, but not right now, not when the bruising of Dr. Shinsou’s hands around Shiyoko’s neck is still burned in his mind.
“Not gonna,” Hizashi pants, shifting from a manic rhythm to something nice and steady. “S’okay.” He guides Aizawa upright, balancing the light pressure on Aizawa’s neck without restricting his airway, which is a much lighter touch than dragging him by the hair. Hizashi’s hard when he needs to be hard and soft when he needs to be soft, sometimes in rapid succession. Especially when Aizawa’s pinballing through everything he’s bottled up and left on the shelf to build pressure, finally finding release.
Maybe the part about Aizawa not whining before wasn’t entirely true. When Hizashi draws him carefully to be fully upright – still kneeling on the sofa, all the way from hip to shoulder with his back to Hizashi’s front, Hizashi continuing to move precisely inside him – and the hand drops from Aizawa’s neck to wrap his arm around his chest, right over his heart, Aizawa whines.
But Aizawa only fully shatters when he hears Hizashi say as quietly as he gets to a whisper next to Aizawa’s ear, "It's over, baby.”
It tears out of Aizawa, right from the chest. A gasp that ends like a sob. Everything he pushed back in his mind that comes crashing down. All the feelings he didn’t let himself have because he was being there for other people. All the time he held himself together when he wanted to fall apart.
Now, Aizawa falls apart.
Hizashi keeps fucking him through it, but not hard now. Slow and rhythmic, like the roll of a ship on the waves, his mouth dragging up and down Aizawa’s neck, layering wet kisses over him as Aizawa shivers in his arms.
“It’s over,” Hizashi says again, and Aizawa doesn’t mean to, but the tears he hasn’t shed before now well up and start to spill from his eyes. He’s said it’s over several times already, but it’s only when Hizashi tells him, like this, that Aizawa feels like he can really believe it.
“There we go,” Hizashi keeps dripping sweet words into Aizawa, raising his lips to blot the tear-tracks from Aizawa’s cheek. He stops moving inside Aizawa for a moment and just holds the embrace, letting Aizawa heave against his chest as he allows himself to sob.
Hizashi had been a little freaked out the first time Aizawa started crying during sex. Okay, he completely freaked. Aizawa could’ve done a lot better at explaining himself than simply begging Hizashi to keep going through the tears while Hizashi only proceeded to freak out even more, but all that knowledge is taken as read between them now, so Hizashi knows exactly what Aizawa needs.
He reaches for Aizawa’s neglected cock, still trapped under the front of his boxers and now sporting an admirable wet patch of precome, which Hizashi thumbs before he finally pulls Aizawa’s underwear the rest of the way down. Aizawa raises a hand to his face to brush away some more of his tears, then whines again when Hizashi backs out of him.
“Lie down,” Hizashi says calmly, which Aizawa doesn’t need to be told twice to fall onto his back on the sofa like a helpless, horny jellyfish. “Wanna see your face.”
Aizawa kicks his underwear off and lifts his legs to fold around Hizashi, moaning as Hizashi slips back into him even easier this time.
“Love you so much," Aizawa groans like it's a song the wind plays through his bones. As if it comes from somewhere deeper beyond him than his head or heart together, a place profound and ineffable enough to call his soul.
“Love you too,” Hizashi returns the call of an old, old echo. He’s positioned right over Aizawa on his hands, able to look into each other’s eyes, holding a stare almost as deep as his cock in Aizawa’s ass before dipping down into a kiss. Light at first, but opening up to go deeper – also like his cock in Aizawa’s ass.
While their bodies ripple in perfect push-and-pull sync with one another, their mouths lift apart to take a breath. Then Hizashi rests his forehead against Aizawa’s, noses almost touching as they share pleasure that means much more than the sum of its parts.
Aizawa blinks away a few more tears here and there, but the mood has changed with this forced catharsis. That the battle has been won, maybe even the war, and now it’s just a matter of bringing it all home.
Hizashi has barely touched Aizawa’s cock so far, not that he needs to, but as his pace slows he curls his hand around Aizawa’s strained erection, and starts stroking him firmly in time with each thrust.
“Hizashi,” Aizawa gasps as he’s handled just right, too right. It isn’t quite fast or hard enough to come, but oh, it’s enough to get him damn fucking close. “Hizashi, please.”
“Please what?” Hizashi ekes out of him, steady as a rock with Aizawa’s legs wrapped around his waist, sliding in and out of him with ease.
“Faster,” Aizawa pants. “Please, I wanna come.”
“You do, huh?” Hizashi is utterly fucking radiant like this, nothing in the world that suits him better than a sordid grin and Aizawa wrapped around his cock. He increases the pace again, but only a little. “I think you can come like this, if you try.”
“Ahh–” Aizawa can, of course, but he reaches for Hizashi anyway, drags his nails dully across a tattooed bicep the way he knows Hizashi responds to, scraping over the inked picture of his own goggles wrapped around his lover’s arm. “Harder, please, babe.”
Ninety percent of the time, calling Hizashi babe works every time. This is no exception.
Hizashi gives a pleased groan and then leans back down to bury Aizawa in a kiss, drinking him in like this – that totally vulnerable, needy person who doesn’t get as much care and attention as he should. Hizashi picks up speed again, pumping Aizawa’s cock quicker as his hips slam harder, pushing Aizawa over the finish line as much as he drags himself to that point and just lets go.
It hits him like a solar flare. Aizawa tenses what feels like every muscle for a moment, then arches his back and releases. Hizashi keeps going and doesn’t stop until he’s fucked every last drop of come out of Aizawa, then pulls out and jerks himself the rest of the way, his own climax joining Aizawa’s in hot streaks and dribbles across his bare chest.
The next wave is almost instant, faster-acting than any sleeping pill and straight to Aizawa’s brainstem. Exactly how tired he is, and how much he needs to rest. Like he can’t even move anymore, just lays on his back on the sofa with his head rolled back, feeling semen solidifying that he should really do something about, but cannot be fucking bothered when all he wants in the world now is to close his eyes and sleep.
“Shh, baby,” Hizashi coos over Aizawa, reading the way Aizawa struggles pathetically to move even an inch from where he’s lying. "Don't fight it." Hizashi gets up and moves along the sofa to brush his hand through Aizawa’s hair, which is really gonna put him under if he doesn’t stop. “It’s gonna be okay, just rest.”
So Aizawa closes his eyes and allows himself to fall into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Notes:
Everyone who was like 'wow Aizawa needs to SLEEP' and I'm like 'uhhhhhhhh sure, *that's* his priority....'
Also yes I have a re-hashed Anchorman joke in here. WHAT OF IT??!?! I also might as well mention (again??) how much I like writing smut, and how versatile it can be at showing very meaningful moments and insights when you really nail it. Heh.
I know we've had a lot of smut across the long, long arc of this story, but I absolutely had to bring it home for one more round, and you know, Aizawa's had a lot of Hitoshi crying on him, but what if HE WANTS TO CRY TOO???? Yes, crying Aizawa during sex. That's my good shit right there.
JUST THE EPILOGUE TO GO Y'ALL!!!! WE'RE ALMOST THERE!!!!!
I know a lot of y'all have feelings about this story ending, and trust me, I do too, but I'm also so very incredibly excited for what I've got coming afterwards, so try not to feel too down about it because this is such an accomplishment. I mean yeah, it's ending, but it's ENDING!!!! Isn't that kind of amazing, to have reached the end after this incredibly long and insane journey? I don't know, I always feel like the best endings are so good because they feel earned, like they're deserved enough that you can't begrudge them because they're just so perfect it couldn't happen any other way. That's what I'm hoping to do for y'all next week, so fingers crossed.
Chapter 90: Epilogue
Summary:
Weird is the new normal.
Chapter Text
Aizawa wakes up on the sofa with a cushion tucked under his head and a blanket thrown over him. He's being warmed by the sun flooding the apartment, and is perfectly content in every way. A cursory peek down also confirms that his torso is not covered in a crust of dried semen. Bless Hizashi for taking care of that.
Not moving at first, he gazes around at the golden afternoon beams bathing the room in gold. The air conditioning has kept the temperature indoors to a balmy level, so he lets himself wake slowly, a rare luxury he's learned to appreciate.
There are sounds of Hizashi pattering about the place around him, astonishingly quiet for once, though Aizawa can sleep through almost anything when he’s tired like he was. He rolls onto his side and sighs, blinking sleep-dozy eyes and doesn’t rush himself into anything, not even consciousness.
It’s over.
Hizashi walks past at some point, and stops when he sees Aizawa’s eyes open.
“Welcome back,” he purrs, wearing the same tracksuit bottoms from before and little else, but his hair now pulled into a long ponytail. “Feeling better?”
Aizawa nods, watching Hizashi what could easily be described as adoringly, and then smiles when Hizashi pads over and bends down to kiss his dry sleepy lips.
“How long have I been out?” Aizawa knows it’s a fair way into the afternoon just from the position of the sun, but has lost a proper grasp on time from having too deep a sleep in the middle of the day. His brain tells him it should be tomorrow already, despite knowing that it’s still today, because the first part of today feels like yesterday already. It can’t become yesterday soon enough, to be honest: a past that they’re all eager to put behind them.
“Few hours. You were snoring.” Hizashi ruffles his hair and stands back upright, continuing his journey – he was headed to the bar, of course.
Aizawa gives a nondescript murmur and rubs his eyes, shuffling until he hits the corner of the sofa and can slump vaguely upright under the blanket, which is, unsurprisingly, printed with a giant pop-art image of Hizashi’s face. “Thanks for cleaning me up.”
Hizashi snorts with his back to Aizawa as he peruses which of his overpriced whiskies he wants for a mid-afternoon tipple. This puts Aizawa eye-to-eye with his lion backpiece, looking like it could put out a paw to bat at the bouncing end of Hizashi’s ponytail hanging in front of its nose at any second.
“I did think about leaving you like that,” Hizashi explains as he selects a bottle to uncork and waft under his nose, pausing in consideration before re-corking and putting it back. “But Hitoshi and Kiki are coming round later and I didn’t know if you’d wake up before then.” Discovering Aizawa passed out on the sofa buttass naked and covered in dried come might not be the best impression to make, it’s true.
“Oh.” Aizawa’s pleased to hear Hitoshi and Kiki will be over in any case, and even moreso that Hizashi went ahead and arranged it already. It feels important and right for them all to be together again, and not reliant on Aizawa to do so. Especially now they’re on the other side of this terrible experience that brought them together in this new and slightly strange way.
But what Aizawa actually tells Hizashi is, “So you’re saying I should put some clothes on?”
“Oh gee, you might think about it, Dear,” Hizashi returns cheerfully, finally selecting and pouring himself a small measure of his poison of choice before he turns around to shoot Aizawa a wicked look. “I dunno how they’ll feel about you wandering around with your balls out.”
Aizawa kicks the blanket off and stretches, shrugging off Hizashi lascivious gaze as he takes a taster sip of whiskey. Aizawa might have a libido can keep up with Hizashi’s, thereabouts, but even he isn’t feeling the returning urge this soon after getting fucked so good he burst into tears and then passed out for several hours. Maybe that’s not sleeping for two days and massive amounts of physical and emotional stress he’s put himself through, but Aizawa’s gonna put it down to the sex anyway.
“I might take a shower,” he muses, feeling like he’s still covered in a film of prison-hospital grime that he resents, as if the residue of Dr. Shinsou’s memory is something he can literally wash away.
Hizashi’s mouth drops open, which unfortunately isn’t due to the sight of Aizawa naked. “Are you feeling alright? You want to take a shower?”
“A quick one,” Aizawa returns nonchalantly, not allowing Hizashi’s sarcasm to get under his skin, since that’s the only reason Hizashi does it. He gets to his feet and rolls the stiffness out of his neck from overly deep sleep on less-than-ideal couch cushions. “When are Hitoshi and Kiki getting here?”
“I said they should come round for dinner,” Hizashi answers. “Since we have fuck all to eat most of the time, I’m assuming they were gonna go to the shops first and pick something up.”
“Lucky us,” Aizawa murmurs, already looking forward to a hopefully home-cooked meal by some combination of Hitoshi and Kiki, since himself and Hizashi can’t take care of themselves according to Kiki’s motherly and also correct opinion.
It’s reassuring to be seeing them both again so soon, confirming that there’s nothing about the case that drew them together in a way that won’t carry on now Dr. Shinsou and Shiyoko have been locked up. Aizawa couldn’t stand that, even though he’s the one about to go away in a day or two – his class won’t trek up to the forest to push their quirk training to the next level by themselves. Or they will, but they’ll fuck it up a lot worse if Aizawa’s not there.
Aizawa shuffles away to the bathroom and cleans himself up, feeling like something that sheds its skin and grows a little bigger each time, emerging a slightly more realised self than he was before. He raids Hizashi’s closet for some tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt to continue stretching out, by which point Hizashi’s returned to the studio.
Aizawa goes to find him like a cat that follows its owner from room to room. Sits there with wet hair dripping all over one of Hizashi’s old band’s t-shirts and his feet in Hizashi’s lap, listening to his partner fiddle with whatever over-ambient experimental track he’s working on. Not actually sleeping, but still resting in the way that he needs right now.
It’s an hour or so before there’s a ring on the apartment’s entry-phone system from the car park. Aizawa picks it up, checking the camera display to confirm Hitoshi and Kiki waiting to be buzzed in.
Aizawa’s a little nervous, almost, but more in an excited way than the last time he waited for Hitoshi and Kiki to visit him and Hizashi at home. Everything is better now than it was back then, and not just because the ruthless pair of mass-murderers are behind bars.
Hitoshi’s at the front door ahead of Kiki when Aizawa lets them in, a bag of shopping hanging from one hand and sparkle in his eyes Aiawa’s not sure he’s seen… ever, maybe. The teen looks so much better, not just on the surface from the fresh clothes and fact that he’s also taken a shower, hair a wilder thicket than usual, but it’s like he’s glowing from within.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
Hitoshi steps forward and as naturally as breathing in and out, as fluidly as being brainwashed, Aizawa lifts his arms and accepts him with a hug. Not too long, just a quick squeeze of greeting before Hitoshi lets go and carries on walking in.
Kiki seems much improved too, her hair hanging loose and straight like a starlight waterfall, wearing a billowy blouse and a long summer skirt that graces the tops of her feet with a split up to the knee on one side. The summertime look is all but completed with her pair of Hizashi-inspired sunglasses that appeared after their first – and certainly not going to be last, knowing them – shopping trip.
“You’re looking well,” she says to Aizawa straight away, striding in with a bag slung over her shoulder and an air that’s lighter in the way a helium balloon compares to a hunk of concrete.
“I was gonna say the same to you,” Aizawa replies, closing the door after them and watching the confident way Hitoshi takes himself over to the kitchen and starts unpacking all manner of fresh ingredients for what looks like a veritable feast.
Hizashi appears shortly after with a magnetic, “Hey hey hey,” and it’s all just perfect. They’re not entirely through the trauma and struggle of what each one of them, and Hitoshi and Kiki in particular, had to go through. But just for one night, they deserve to act like they are.
“D’you wanna drink, Kiki?” Hizashi poses with a shake of his empty glass, and now Kiki’s experienced enough not to need Aizawa’s dissuasion.
With just a short pause, she answers, “I’ll fix myself something, thanks.”
“Wise choice,” Aizawa comments, and Hizashi sticks his tongue out at Aizawa.
“Alright, then I’ll make you a drink,” Hizashi insists, and Aizawa’s in enough of a good mood to accept. Kiki makes herself a gin and tonic, while Aizawa gets presented a ‘Short Peninsular Iced Coffee’ that Aizawa is pretty sure is just cold coffee with five shots of different liquor in it. It’s actually not bad.
Hitoshi’s in the kitchen, where he’s soon joined by his mother. Hizashi is so insistent on ‘helping’ them, meaning getting in the way, that Aizawa soon drags him over to the sofa as a favour to them both. He distracts Hizashi by allowing him to brush and braid Aizawa’s hair as a ‘special treat’. Hizashi puts it into pigtails. When Hitoshi looks up and sees Aizawa for the first time with two matching braids hanging down past each ear he laughs so much he almost cries. Aizawa would be annoyed, but the sound of Hitoshi’s laughter is worth the minor indignity.
Once the food prep is done and there’s still a little time before dinner, Kiki doesn’t need asking twice whether she wants to hear what sort of music Hizashi is working on. They vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving Aizawa and Hitoshi in the living room in a brief, contemplative silence.
“Please change your hair,” Hitoshi announces all of a sudden, and Aizawa scoffs quietly as Hitoshi joins him at the other end of the corner sofa.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t take you seriously looking like that.”
“Oh,” Aizawa murmurs in feigned thought, “You take me seriously?”
Hitoshi scoffs now, thumbing his phone in his lap before looking up at Aizawa, pigtails or no. “Sometimes, yeah.”
Hizashi’s scraped all Aizawa’s hair back from his face for once as well, so the quizzical lift of an eyebrow is a gesture that actually carries. “Then why don’t you act like it?”
Hitoshi laughs again, short and sharp, but it’s a good sound. “Because then you’d get used to it.”
Aizawa gives a snigger like a broken-down car engine, marvelling in the sight of Hitoshi for a moment, just as he is. Grey tracksuit bottoms and a new black t-shirt, slouching on Aizawa’s sofa looking exactly like he belongs.
“So when are you going away?” Hitoshi pierces the comfy silence again, and Aizawa probably only mentioned it once or twice, but it’s hardly something Hitoshi would forget.
“The day after tomorrow,” Aizawa answers, and it’s half-decent timing. Nezu has been sure to remind him of that by text message already, probably over tea and fucking crumpets with the Doc, knowing him. But that’s fine. It’s enough time for Aizawa to get his shit together, and be ready for whatever’s coming next.
“So what, you’re gonna go get yourself into a bunch more trouble with all those lucky bastards in the Hero Course?” There’s a barb in Hitoshi’s words, but it’s not aimed at Aizawa, so he’d never begrudge it.
“No,” he replies evenly. “They’ll get themselves into trouble, and I’ll have to get them out of it.” Aizawa dreads to think how much can go wrong during one training camp. He’s sure they’ll manage to impress him.
“Wish I was going.” That Hitoshi admits it so openly, and that he doesn’t seem incandescently guilty and jealous and angry about it, is much more of an achievement than it comes off as.
So it only seems fair that Aizawa responds, “Me too.”
Hitoshi smiles at him, just a small one, but it touches Aizawa’s heart.
“We’re gonna keep working at it,” Aizawa says solidly.
“At what?”
“Getting you into the Hero Course.” Hitoshi probably knew that already, but Aizawa doesn’t blame him for wanting to hear it from Aizawa’s lips one more time. “For now you should focus on your physical training, since the provisional license exam is at the start of next semester. Once you’ve passed that I can register you as working for me, and you’ll legally be allowed to use your quirk.” Which will make a lot of things an absolute shit ton easier, and honestly? Aizawa can’t wait.
Hitoshi’s face lights up, but he keeps it cool, replying, “So we’re still doing that?”
“Unless you decide you don’t want to.” Aizawa likes working with Hitoshi– okay, he loves it, but it’s not only about what he wants. “After you’re licensed you could always apply to other agencies.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure they’ll love me,” Hitoshi retorts. “The guy whose face has been pasted all over the news as the primary suspect in a bunch of nasty murders. They'll just be lining up to take me on.”
Aizawa furrows his brow, torn between saying they would be lining up if they knew just how amazing Hitoshi is, or that it's their loss and he’s happy to keep Hitoshi’s innumerable talents to himself. But he doesn’t go for either. Instead he asks, “Aren’t they going to fix that?”
“Fix it?” Hitoshi quotes wryly. “You’re the one who warned me how hard a bad reputation can be to undo.” He’s right, because even if they do issue a statement saying that Hitoshi was assisting the police the whole time and was never actually considered a suspect, some people will still believe what they want to believe, flames that have been fanned by the Doc and Shiyoko’s bloodthirsty rampage across the city.
“If you need references I can give them to you,” Aizawa keeps going, because it’s selfish to let the challenges Hitoshi faces make it easy to keep him near. “I know some heroes who’d ignore all that shit and consider you for–”
“It’s fine,” Hitoshi cuts him off. “I don’t wanna work for someone else, Aizawa.”
Aizawa settles, and can’t help a smile. “Good. I’ve gotten used to having you around.”
Hitoshi returns the smile comfortably, then his eyes drop as his phone buzzes again in his lap, pausing to type out a message while Aizawa takes another nursing sip of his highly alcoholic coffee. Hizashi’s done a surprisingly good job with this one – Aizawa will have to try and get him to remember how he did it. Though the information has probably gone already from his head, as like snowflakes he never manages to make the same cocktail twice.
There’s a little puff of breath from Hitoshi’s nose that might be amusement or frustration, and Aizawa’s curious, but he doesn’t want to pry. Maybe Hitoshi figures it out though, senses it in the air the way their feelings seem to translate to one another without being put into words.
“Yankumi’s freaking out,” the teen announces with his eyes still down at his phone, and Aizawa makes a vague noise of interest. “I think she finally believes I didn’t actually kill anyone, but she’s mad as hell I didn’t tell her.”
“It happens,” Aizawa acknowledges, and Hitoshi’s clearly been chatting to her for a while, so might have picked up some other interesting pieces of info. “Do you know how she ended up at the house?”
“Iwaya took her there,” Hitoshi answers without hesitation. “Apparently there’s a way in from the outside that no one else knows about, not even Ma.” Knowing Dr. Shinsou as a serial cheater, that one makes a remarkable amount of sense – and something that Iwaya alone would be able to use to her advantage. “Once Iwaya knew we were all meeting there she used Yankumi for protection, convinced her they needed to sneak in and stop something bad from happening.” Hitoshi pauses speaking, but his thumbs fidget on the screen. Aizawa’s hungry to know all of this, though he doesn’t exactly need to, but maybe it’s nice for Hitoshi to talk about it anyway. “It’s Iwaya she should be mad at really, but I guess Yankumi feels bad for her.”
“Iwaya misled all of us in one way or another,” Aizawa comments. Tsukauchi most of all, perhaps, but Yankumi certainly seemed confused to see Iwaya standing there with Dr. Shinsou’s blood on her hands. ‘Something bad’ in Iwaya’s mind may have been allowing Dr. Shinsou to escape with his life, which Aizawa’s in two minds about. Dr. Shinsou’s death does mean one thing above all others: peace of mind. But that doesn’t make it right, just the price some would be more willing to pay than others.
“Yeah,” Hitoshi says pensively, then continues, “I get it, though. Hurting him feels like it’ll make things better, but it doesn’t.”
“You’re right,” Aizawa agrees. “It’s hollow satisfaction. If he doesn’t acknowledge the pain as a consequence of the things he’s done, it’s not really revenge.”
Hitoshi’s eyes lift and fix Aizawa with a funny, piercing gaze. “How would you know?”
Aizawa’s caught, though he supposes he wasn’t actually hiding it to begin with. “When I was watching him back at the prison. Might have made him… squirm a little.” One of the more tolerable memories of Dr. Shinsou: seething and pinned against the bathroom sink, being told how he’s never going to see his family again while Aizawa lives and breathes. A promise he intends to keep.
Hitoshi gives another scoff, because perhaps the act of hurting the Doc isn’t satisfying, but maybe the thought of Aizawa doing it, and what that says in terms of one role model retaliating against another, does something more profound for him.
“It’s a good thing Iwaya did manage to get in, really,” Aizawa reflects out loud, thinking on the outside rather than to himself, so comfortable he is in this place, and with this company. “Yankumi’s the one who broke the lockdown.” How things might’ve turned out without her doesn’t bear consideration, because Aizawa was desperate by the time backup arrived.
“Yeah. She killed someone,” Hitoshi murmurs, setting his phone down. Aizawa already knew that from Sgt. Shimada, but Hitoshi’s got his own ways of finding things out. “And I didn’t hurt anyone, so why’s it me she’s mad at?”
“She’s new to this,” Aizawa observes with all the distance that being thirty and used to this shit gives him. “The first time I met her was when Tama called me out to look at Shiyoko’s first couple of victims, and she burst into tears on me during the drive back.”
Hitoshi looks completely astonished to hear such a revelation. “Really? You saw her cry?” Of course, to Hitoshi, Yankumi is an infallible grown up in exactly the way she’s still a complete baby in Aizawa’s eyes.
“Yeah.” Perhaps it’s an invasion of privacy for Aizawa to share this with Hitoshi, but if it helps the teen to recognise and relate to Yankumi’s own inexperience, and understand a little of what she must be going through, isn’t that a good thing? “She was upset about not feeling sorry over what happened to one of Shiyoko’s victims, so I can’t imagine what she’s going through after killing someone in the line of duty.”
It seems so long ago now, but Aizawa can still picture poor rookie Officer Yamaguichi sobbing over the steering wheel as she revealed the unsavory criminal history of the man Shiyoko made throw himself in front of a speeding train.
“Yeah,” Hitoshi copies back at Aizawa, but more thoughtfully now, like he’s looking beyond his own indignation to why Yankumi might be channeling her conflicted emotions towards Hitoshi’s lesser wrongdoings. It’s not perfect, but they all do it. “I guess you’re right.”
“I get that a lot,” Aizawa murmurs, and Hitoshi snorts so exactly like Hizashi for a second Aizawa thinks he must have picked it up off him.
“S’pose I shouldn’t care so much,” Hitoshi remarks like he’s supposed to know better, waiting for Aizawa to validate not caring – but he’ll be waiting a long time for that.
“There’s nothing wrong with caring,” Aizawa tells him. “People just need time to process their feelings.” Like maybe they killed someone for the first time and were betrayed by several people they trusted all in the same day, and they can’t control that but they can tell the one person who isn’t dead or behind bars why what they did was hurtful, since they’re the only one left to put any of it onto.
“Yeah,” Hitoshi agrees again, but this time with resignation. “Being someone’s emotional punching bag isn’t fun, though.”
“No it’s not,” Aizawa acknowledges, because it takes a special kind of masochist to take on so much of other people’s pain the way he does. Of all Aizawa’s bad habits, that’s one of the ones he wants to pass on the least. “If you give her some space I’m sure she’ll come around.” And if she doesn’t then she’s not worth it, but he leaves that part on implication.
There are footsteps from the hallway behind Aizawa, the precursor to a voice announcing, “Now I just know he’s not giving you girl advice, Hitoshi.”
Hitoshi’s gaze lifts to Hizashi, who must be standing almost directly behind Aizawa by the line of his sight. His mouth cocks into a smirk as he answers, “Not good advice.”
“Hey,” Aizawa protests weakly, but he’s hardly got a leg to stand on.
Hizashi gives that iconic snort, swaggering around to plop onto the sofa next to Aizawa and slinging his arm along the back. “Why don't you turn to the expert and tell Uncle Hizashi all about it?”
Aizawa and Hitoshi burst into scornful laughter at exactly the same moment, but Aizawa’s turns into a grunt when Hizashi elbows him in the ribs.
Kiki breaks the ruckuss up by calling, “Come help me with dinner, Hitoshi,” from the kitchen, which he does like the good son he is, leaving Aizawa and Hizashi comfortably on the couch while the sizzle of home-cooked food starts filling the air.
Hizashi adjusts how he’s sitting, coaxing Aizawa to rest more heavily against him, an arm draped loosely over one of Aizawa’s shoulders. They shift enough to be able to glance over to the kitchen and watch Kiki and Hitoshi at work, and Hizashi says, “So this is like, our life now?”
“Seems so,” Aizawa confirms, easing into the halfway cuddle without worrying too much about what Hitoshi or Kiki will think, since they’ve seen them doing as bad or worse already.
Hizashi’s face is set slightly behind and to the side of Aizawa’s, putting him in a great position to talk quietly next to Aizawa’s ear. “It’s kinda nice, huh?”
They’ve never really planned on or talked about family, but that doesn’t mean they’re against it, just that it was never in the plans. But how much of their lives have been in the plans? If Aizawa had known this is where he’d be ten years ago, he would've dismissed such a ridiculous idea, but that’s the point of getting older and growing up.
“Yeah,” Aizawa murmurs contently, leaning deeper into Hizashi’s hold and thinking that if this case was the price for what they’ve ended up with, it wasn’t a half bad deal. “Really nice.”
Several Weeks Later
Aizawa’s been keeping an eye on his class as much as he can during the Provisional License exam, which is hard to do when the urge to facepalm keeps coming around. Of all the kids who should pass, of course it’s two of the top performers who go so far off the brief that they’re at risk of failing. Then again, maybe it’ll be good for Bakugo and Todoroki’s egos to take that knock, and even up the runnings a little for the others.
But it’s not just his class that Aizawa’s been watching out for. 1-A are easy to watch, since they stick out like sore thumbs almost anywhere they go, but there’s a mystery figure dressed head to toe in black, face covered by a helmet that looks like it’s for motorcycles but isn’t for anything of the sort, and takes a cunning eye to watch moving through the crowd down in the examination arena.
The challenge was twofold – not just to pass the exam, but to do so without anyone cottoning onto what was happening. Not to repeat the mistakes of the sports festival. Aizawa watches the scoreboard with more anxiety than he feels over the rest of his class put together, but that makes sense, since it’s not just one of his students he’s looking out for here. There’s a pseudonym on the board, of course, but Nezu fixed all that already. Aizawa knows who he’s looking for.
1-A do what they always do, which is make a fucking spectacle out of the dodgeball target exam, so for someone who’s being intensively trained in stealth, operating around all the chaos to secure six hits is compartively easy. Balls move a lot easier than Aizawa’s capture weapon does, so purely on the merit of his physical abilities and dexterity with projectiles, the mystery entrant moves onto the next challenge without appearing to make use of his quirk – whether that’s the truth or not is impossible to tell just by looking. Which is pretty much the point.
The next exam goes much the same, with volunteers acting out as civilians needing to be rescued. This is no match for someone who can talk people into doing just about anything, with or without a quirk. The fake villain attack just puts more hands on deck, so while Aizawa watches his class get caught up in flashy fights, the entrant in undoubtedly Hizashi-loaned biker leathers covertly uses a couple of Gang Orca’s henchmen to triple the amount of help he can deliver, racking up enough points to pass early and right at the top of the pack. Unsurprising for someone with plenty of hands-on experience of what it means to save people instead of winning pointless fights, and how little those two things match up the way people think they should.
“You seem very focused,” Ms. Joke interrupts Aizawa’s train of thought to unnecessarily comment. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so invested in the fate of your students.”
Aizawa scoffs, mostly to himself. “There’s some special cases this year.” One in particular, who’s not even officially Aizawa’s student, but admitting to that undermines the principle of the thing.
“Ohhhhh?” Ms. Joke replies boisterously, “Are my eyes deceiving me? Could the infamous Eraserhead actually be playing favourites?!”
“Of course not,” Aizawa replies, crossing his arms and looking back out to find that inkblot on the battlefield. “Favouritism is illogical.”
Except, of course, when the favourite is disadvantaged to begin with. Then playing favourites is simply levelling the field, and not even technically favouritism in the first place.
The final exam ends, and once the results are up Aizawa makes a quick disappearance under the auspices of slipping out for a smoke break, sneaking out one of the side doors of the complex and resting with his back against the outside wall for a few minutes.
While he's checking his messages on a quickly evolving opportunity, it’s not at all surprising when the fire door that Aizawa came out through opens again and the person in head-to-toe black steps out.
It’s not quite a Hero Costume he’s wearing, since those services are unfortunately reserved for those officially on the Hero Course, but Aizawa know Hizashi’s closet was raided for the purposes of kitting this secretive participant out in some heavy-duty protective clothing, so technically it’s someone’s Hero Costume. The helmet is a custom piece Aizawa called in a favour with some equipment devs to produce. It looks like a motorbike helmet with a fixed mirrored visor, but the section around the mouth is actually a nifty piece of voice alteration technology, and is why the voice Aizawa hears when the disguised individual speaks is a perfect mimic of Aizawa’s own.
“Aren’t you gonna congratulate me?”
Aizawa gives a half-amused snort, looking sideways as the helmet is pulled off to unleash a chaotic mass of purple hair that bursts forth from its confinement.
“You did alright,” he says coolly, checking his phone where a series of messages back and forth are quickly moving towards a rendez-vous that might be happening sooner rather than later.
“Alright?” Hitoshi echoes, still mimicking Aizawa’s voice, but the old fashioned way this time, his helmet hanging from one hand. “I thought you’d be proud of me.”
“I’m always proud of you,” Aizawa responds instantly, and that’s not what Hitoshi was expecting to hear, clearly, because his cheeks flush and he stumbles over his next words.
“I… uh, thanks,” he says bashfully, looking away at the quiet backstreet the venue sits alongside. “So, I’m provisionally licenced to be a Hero now.” And UA’s Hero Course didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. If they ever needed proof the system isn’t perfect, this is it.
Hitoshi just about sailed through the exam, though to be fair Aizawa’s been intensively training him over the Summer Break. As much as he can working around that shitstorm with Bakugo being kidnapped, and One For All and All Might going down in Kamino when the forest training camp went tits over arse just like Aizawa knew it would. Dr. Shinsou isn’t looking so bad by comparison now, and the media forgot all about Shinsou Hitoshi once the Symbol of Peace was forced into retirement. The world forgets, though people don’t, and Hitoshi’s still been seeing a counsellor, if not a Psych. Aizawa hasn’t heard of or from Dr. Iwaya since the case ended either. Something about physician, heal thyself most likely.
“Everyone will be looking for work placements next,” Aizawa points out, wondering if all his students are ready to be immersed in the real world of heroism at a time like this. But then, they’ll have to be.
“Gee, I hope I get taken on by a cool hero,” Hitoshi remarks scathingly, leaning back against the wall next to Aizawa like a little carbon copy: seventy percent Aizawa and thirty percent Hizashi. It’s a dangerous combo.
“Sorry, I’ve already got someone working for me,” Aizawa retorts just as dryly.
“Tch, I said a cool hero,” Hitoshi fires right back. “You’re lame as shit.”
“I was wondering if I should fire the brat who’s been helping me out anyway,” Aizawa remarks as he gets his cigarettes out and opens the box, immediately clocking a discrepancy. “He talks back too much, and steals my cigarettes and has the gall to think I won’t notice.”
Hitoshi just smirks. “I thought you quit?”
“I’m holding onto them for a friend,” Aizawa states, watching as a police car turns onto the road and slows to a cruise, right on time.
Hitoshi looks over at the car and then back to Aizawa, “Is that who I think it is?”
“Might be,” Aizawa answers cryptically, then holds his open palm out to Hitoshi. “Give them back.”
“Give what back?” Hitoshi plays dumb, which is not only a bad look on him, but utterly unconvincing too.
Aizawa twitches his fingers. “You know what.”
Hitoshi sniggers and reaches for one of his pockets, unzipping it to pull out a couple of cigarettes that he returns to Aizawa’s hand.
“I don’t know how you keep managing to take them,” Aizawa mutters as he takes the pilfered smokes back and returns them to their box. Sure, Hitoshi’s training has been focusing on stealth lately, but he shouldn’t be using those skills to pinch cigarettes from Aizawa – or be so damn good at it already.
“If I told you then you’d be able to stop me,” Hitoshi replies mirth fully just as the police car finally pulls up, a familiar face behind the rolled-down driver’s window with a few aesthetic differences. The old police officer uniform is gone, though he’s keeping to true cop colours with a dark blue shirt under a tan sports jacket.
“Well look who it is,” the driver announces with a glance of golden eyes over the top of his sunglasses.
“Detective Tamakawa,” Aizawa greets knowingly. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Wow, what a total and complete coincidence,” Hitoshi chips in with enough sarcasm to drown in, adding on to Tama, “I passed my provisional license exam, by the way.”
Tama knocks his sunglasses back up his long nose with a warm, “Never had a doubt.”
“So what’re you here for?” Hitoshi keeps going, since he knows better than any of them there’s no coincidences where they’re concerned, and definitely not social visits.
“Got a new one for you,” Tama starts to reel off. “Someone just called in a double homicide from a locked room with no signs of forced entry. I checked the register and one of them’s got a mentalist quirk, thought it’d be right up your alley.”
“Sure is,” Hitoshi replies, glancing over at Aizawa in an unspoken question.
“You go,” Aizawa confirms without waiting. “Got some stuff to wrap up here, I’ll be along later.”
“You got it, ‘boss’,” Hitoshi declares wryly, adding the air quotes with his fingers as he picks himself up off the wall and strolls around the back of the car.
“You’re forgetting something, Hitoshi,” Aizawa calls out in warning, hearing the snap of a lighter moments later.
“What?” Hitoshi’s ducked behind the car, temporarily out of sight as he begins trailing a plume of smoke, so it’s not as surprising as it should be that when his head pops back up it’s with Aizawa’s last stolen cigarette in his smug, grinning mouth.
“Give it to me,” Aizawa demands, looping around the front of the car and holding the passenger door shut when Hitoshi tries to open it.
“Oh come on, don’t I get to celebrate passing my exam?” Hitoshi taunts, having already taken one drag and running straight into another while he still can.
“Not like that,” Aizawa insists, holding out his hand once more. “Now.”
Hitoshi rolls his eyes and passes Aizawa the cigarette, which of course Aizawa shamefully takes for himself as he lets Hitoshi get into the car with Tama, even knowing that Tama’s probably going to end up letting him smoke anyway since he’s way more lenient than Aizawa is.
But Hitoshi grins at Aizawa through the window and makes it next to impossible to hold onto any irritation, especially after Hitoshi just nailed the exam and took such a huge step towards being a Hero.
“See you later,” Hitoshi says full of certainty.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Aizawa returns, taking a guilty drag on his reclaimed cigarette.
“Oh, I try,” Hitoshi lilts craftily, as they both know what a wide umbrella that casts over things.
One thing’s for sure, Hitoshi’s not becoming any less of a handful, but it’s somehow the best thing ever.
Aizawa's said it already, but it bears repeating: he's proud of Hitoshi, and always will be.
Notes:
AND THAT, NAUGHTY CHILDREN, IS A WRAP! AHHH! AHHHH?!?
I don't want to talk too much here because I will literally just go on forever, but I am in my discord as usual and want to reassure everyone that although this is an end to this story, I'm coming at you with something new next week as usual, and honestly, I think y'all are going to love it. I said before it was 9 chapters but that has turned into 10, which will bring us up to a round 100.... plus the 3 parts of my Shinkami fic that takes place after YWID so if you haven't read it and want a little insight into Hitoshi's life after all this that's where you should go in the meantime.
Last but not least I'm just going to say a big thank you to everyone for reading, this is a truly massive story, bigger than anything I've ever written, and has been two years of my life that I really value and wouldn't change for the world. Writing is a joy in its own right, but sharing it with others for their enjoyment is really special. So thanks everyone, it's been EPIC. Literally!
See you all next week hopefully, when ALL SHALL BE REVEALED with the next fic I've been keeping a secret so it can be a surprise when it goes up. See you soon!
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