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Shinsou doesn’t like to remember the first time he used his quirk. Hates it, in fact. Would rather rip the memory from his very being than experience it again and again, in vivid detail, every time his mother has a meltdown and he has to do the exact same thing one more time.
Alas… he endures. Because his mama, no matter how many times she yells or how many plates she throws, deserves better than this.
It’s an empath thing. He figured that out when he was six. With two parents with empath abilities, he really should have figured it out sooner. Anyway. The deal with empaths is that there are two kinds—visual empaths and mental empaths. Aka empaths who can see someone else’s emotions, and empaths who can feel someone else’s emotions. It’s the difference between seeing Auras and having a literal mind-to-mind, emotion-to-emotion connection with someone.
Shinsou’s dad fell into the former category. He could see and calm violent Auras. Sometimes he got headaches from his job, where he worked with imprisoned villains to help rehabilitate them. The stress of seeing violent Aura’s day in and day out could cause some major tension. Shinsou’s mom wasn’t like that—she worked in the civilian sector, first of all, and second of all…
“Can’t you all get out of my head?! I need you out! I need them out, they’re too—too many, too—out, out, out!”
Yeah. Overexposure for a mental empath can cause an inability to regulate mental noise, which can result in classic over-stimulation and meltdowns.
A crash rings from the other room. Something heavy that obviously wasn’t meant to be thrown just hit the wall. Hopefully, it didn’t strike hard enough to break the dry-wall. Shinsou sighs, a barely-there exhalation of air. He looks down at his half-finished essay for a long, exhausted moment before he tucks it away, standing up.
His mama is in the guest bedroom, the only room in the house where she can sometimes find a sliver of peace and quiet. It’s not too close to the little ones’ bedroom, a fair distance from his step-father’s study—it’s as isolated as she can get in a house full of people. The only one nearby is Shinsou who, because he’s technically an empath himself, has less of a mental trace than most people. Shinsou doesn’t really remember how long they’ve set it up like this. Somewhere between his first step-father and this one she started to migrate away from everyone on bad days, he’s sure of that much. It was a slow process. Welcome just because the incidence of bruises started going down when the little ones started to realize that they shouldn’t bother her when she’s like this. To this day he’s still not sure if she did it purposefully for their sake, or if she was just seeking refuge from the awful mental static of over-stimulation. He can’t fault her either way.
He doesn’t say a word as he enters the room. Not until he can assess the situation. Sometimes taking care of his mama is as easy as helping her out of her shoes and turning off the lights for her, leaving her alone to rest. Other times…
“No! No, no, no, it huuurts, just—stop! Stop! Get them out!”
Shinsou catches the fake-designer boot that’s aimed at his chest. She’s half on the bed half off it, hair wild and coming out of the neat ponytail that she put it in this morning, smiling at Shinsou from the bathroom as he left for the train. Her eyes were bright and knowing then, her hands calm and sweet as she waved. Now she’s dull, caught in the writhing, thrashing grip of pain. Her hands are claws, her nails digging into Shinsou’s forearms as he tries to lower her all the way down. She fights him the entire way, never quite looking right at him.
This is a bad one, he surmises by the time he finally wrestles her down, holding her arms to her chest so she can’t lash out. She throws her head back, mouth stretched wide in a pained, open-lipped cry. The tears have been streaming from her eyes for a while, it seems—her rumpled shirt collar is soaked. Still, she fights him—her knees dig into his stomach as she tries to push him off, mindless in the throes of agony.
“Mama…” he whispers, speaking for the first time since he came in. His voice is thick and rusty, his throat dry. He clears it and tries again. “Mama, it’s okay. Focus on breathing.”
“I can’t, I can’t…” she says, gasping air. Her eyes slip closed and she twists in his arms, trying to reach for her ears. He holds her back, knowing from experience that it will only result in her clawing at herself. She can’t block out the noise—it doesn’t work like that. It isn’t something physical that she can shield herself from. It’s all in her head, and it’s not going away, not until she can sleep for a while.
She’s too out of it to realize this. Or maybe the pain is too bad to consider sleep. Shinsou swallows painfully, clearing his throat again. He doesn’t want to do this. Not again. But she’s crying so hard and if he doesn’t quiet her down soon his step-father will come investigating and the little ones are probably already huddled up upstairs, scared, and he just… there’s nothing else he can do.
At least it will make her feel better.
“Mama. Would you like me to help?” he asks, over the continued cries.
“Yes!” she sobs. “Yes, yes, make them go awa-a-ay!”
A call. A response. That’s all Shinsou needs. He breathes out, latching onto the mental link that the answer extended, closing their minds together. Instantly his mind is overtaken by the scratching record of her chaotic mental state. He grits his teeth against it. He’s done this so many times before that it’s second nature. He’ll get through it, as long as he just breathes, in and out, slow and steady—
He remembers the first time he took his mother’s pain. He always remembers. Feeling like the torment would never end, that he would be trapped in the echo-chamber of her quirk for the rest of eternity. The stinging in his face from the elbow that had caught his cheekbone. The sudden silence as his brainwashing finally took effect, the way she collapsed bonelessly into him. Her blank expression. Her pain.
Her pain.
Her pain.
It really is a bad one this time. Shinsou grits his teeth harder, squeezing his eyes shut as he focuses on diverting all the mental static away from her. It’s never-ending. A tear slips out past his crushed lashes, skipping down his bloodless face. He forces his breath in slowly, focusing intently. Just a little longer… just a teeny bit longer… he just has to hold out until…
Ah. There it is. Shinsou breathes out, crumpling a little as he rides the continued waves of pain. They’re lessening now, calming as her overworked mind goes fully blank. He slides off his mother’s chest and to the floor, his knees weak. She lays where he left her, staring up blankly at the ceiling. Her tear-streaked face smooths out, all emotion wiped from it. She’s under his control.
Just in time. A few more seconds and he’d have lost the connection, and then all the mental junk he was trying to hold off would have crashed right back into her, worse than ever. There are reasons why it’s easier to brainwash someone who is fully in control of their emotions, and all of them have to do with the give and take of taking over someone else’s mind. When you ask for control of someone, you also have to accept everything that they have control over. You have to literally take over—mind, body, and soul. Emotions, thoughts, and actions. Everything.
“Okay,” Shinsou whispers, pushing himself up on straining arms. “Go to sleep, mama. Rest.”
She doesn’t even nod before she rolls over, closing her eyes obediently. Her head is still throbbing but Shinsou takes it, takes it all as he reaches over to unzip her boots and work them off her feet. She’s wearing a belt but his hands are shaking too much to get the clasp—it’s better that he leaves the rest for her to deal with when she wakes.
Okay. Shinsou leaves the boots neatly arranged at the side of the bed. Maybe she’ll think her husband took them off for her. Shinsou doesn’t care. He turns where he stands, studying the walls until he finds… there.
He sighs again, running his calloused fingers over the broken dry-wall. The pain in his head makes him wobble on his feet for just a moment. He thinks about the essay in the other room, the one that’s due tomorrow. Then he goes out to the garage to get tools.
He wants more than anything to be a hero. This… this is where he begins.