Chapter Text
Reigen came out of the bathroom, having not yet used it, and said, “Serizawa. Hey. Uh. There’s a spider… in the bathroom.”
Serizawa looked up from his desk. “Oh. Do you want me to…?”
“Yeah.” Reigen felt his cheeks burn a little, but the momentary embarrassment was well worth being able to piss in peace.
Serizawa stood up and shot Reigen a small smile as he shuffled around him, into the bathroom. Reigen waited outside the door, figuring it was kind of weird for them both to stand around in the cramped room.
Serizawa called out, “Where did you see it?”
“Uh, on the floor, the corner by the toilet.” Reigen ducked his head in again to give his guidance if needed.
“Ah.” Serizawa spotted the thing, small but with long creepy legs and a brown body, and pointed his finger at it. The spider floated up into the air, its awful legs grappling for purchase. Reigen stepped back, giving him a wide berth, as Serizawa made his way out of the bathroom and through the office.
As always, he brought it all the way outside of the building and halfway down the block. Reigen watched from the window, smiling, as Serizawa floated the spider near the ground to avoid suspicion. When Serizawa placed it down in a patch and grass and turned around to come back, Reigen went back into the bathroom. He checked the corners again, his skin still crawling, but all was clear.
It didn’t take Reigen long to discover this potential use for esper powers. Mob used to give him some grief, saying things like, “Why don’t you just do it?” and “Do you really have to call me in for this?” And then later, things like, “It’s not hurting anyone, Shishou,” and “They’re not scary; they help catch other bugs.” Reigen told him time and time again that it’s not because they’re scary, don’t be ridiculous, Mob, grown men aren’t scared of spiders. It’s because they’re running a business here, and their clients aren’t expecting to walk into a spider-infested hellhole. Mob said quietly, “Oh,” and he started escorting spiders and other creepy-crawlies off the premises without first being asked to.
Serizawa was a natural heir to this tradition, but he didn’t question it as much. The first time Reigen flinched at the sight of a spider scurrying across the floor, Serizawa scooped it up with his powers and offered to take it outdoors. Reigen composed himself and said, “Yes, if you would. We have to keep our office looking nice, for clients.” Serizawa gave him a knowing smile (he gives a lot of those, which Reigen prefers to the endless questions, but still make him feel a bit picked-apart) and carried the thing outside.
To be quite honest, Reigen would have preferred the pests be killed, but it seems that great power comes with great sensitivity and pacifism, at least in his choice of companion. It’s probably better that way. Once in the dead of winter, Serizawa frowned and asked if he could leave the spider downstairs. “It'll freeze,” he protested. Reigen said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were running a spider hotel. They’re bugs. They should live in the outdoors.” (He was a little on edge, maybe.) Wide-eyed, Serizawa hurried off. Reigen watched from the window as Serizawa deposited the offending spider right next to the door of the building adjacent. The door might have opened a crack, but Reigen couldn’t be sure from this angle and distance.
At home was another story. Reigen had lived alone for years, and in a slightly rundown building, so he had encountered his fair share of pests. Spiders he either kept a wary eye on, to make sure they stayed where they should, or crushed with a shoe. The few centipedes and millipedes he had seen caused more of a panic, and took a lot more bravery—and the help of a long-handled broom—to kill, or swat out the front door. He wished he could react to bugs calmly; in his rational brain, he knew that they wouldn’t hurt him. Even the bugs that could hurt him, like a wasp or bee, would only hurt for a moment and not bad enough to justify a panic. But his rational brain was not in effect when he saw something with too many legs suddenly dart across his floor, or once—horrifyingly—his laptop screen.
So, this was just the way he had to live. And it worked fine. He had his strategies. Until…
One night he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. This already had him on edge as he looked over from where he was sitting on his couch to see the oval hard-shelled body and telltale long antennae of a—
“Cockroach!”
In a flash, Reigen was standing up on top of his couch and glancing down at the floor around him, rubbing one foot against his leg to alleviate his suddenly-itchy skin. The one he’d spotted was now out of sight, which was the opposite of reassuring. And where there was one cockroach…
He should call his building manager, but when he wrangled his phone out of his pocket, the first call he made—at half past eleven on a weeknight—was to Serizawa.
He barely realized what he was doing until he heard Serizawa’s answer: “Reigen?”
“Serizawa! Hi!” He tried for friendly but overshot, landing on unhinged. He began to realize how unacceptable this was, to call his employee at this hour for a personal problem, but he was already speaking. “I’m so sorry to call, but I- I saw a- well- there’s a cockroach… in my apartment… And, oh my god, I kinda panicked and called you, but this is ridiculous, I’m so sorry. I’ll just trap it under a cup or something. If I can… If I can see where the bugger went…”
Reigen looked wildly around and stepped from his couch to his coffee table. The fear made the embarrassment less painful, for now at least. So that was a plus.
On the other end of the line, Serizawa was laughing. “You want me to come help you out?”
“Well.” Reigen’s crippling fear wrestled with his stubborn refusal to ever appear weak. As he formulated a hesitant response, he ended up looking very afraid: both of bugs and of asking for help. “If you’re not… doing anything, at the moment. I’ll pay you back for bus fare, and… you can put the time on your timesheet. Do, in fact.”
“Don’t be silly, Reigen,” Serizawa said. (Reigen would take offense at being called silly, if he wasn’t currently cowering on top of a table in his own home.) “It’s a favor. You’ve done plenty of favors for me.”
Reigen gulped. Was he now being forced to confront yet another fear? Accepting a compliment?
Serizawa told Reigen to text him his address and he hung up—but not before joking, “Unless you want me to stay on the line with you?” Reigen laughed bitterly and lied, “No,” before doing what he was told. A text came back quickly: Be there in 20. Sit tight.
Twenty minutes would be pure torture like this. Reigen considered going outside to wait, but that would necessitate sprinting across his apartment and past whatever horrors waited for him there. So, he stayed atop his coffee table, rotating in a slow circle to keep scanning his perimeter. He left a voicemail for his building manager, reporting the cockroach, and respectfully but firmly stated that he expects an exterminator to deal with the issue before he the end of the following workday.
He checked his phone while he waited, watching the minutes tick by. What time did Serizawa send that text? Eighteen minutes ago? Where is he? At twenty-three minutes past the time Serizawa texted, Reigen about to call, there was a knock at his door.
“Come in!” Reigen called out.
He heard Serizawa try the handle, only to discover the door was locked.
“You can unlock it!”
The lock clicked and Serizawa stepped in. He looked up at Reigen and instantly pressed his lips together to suppress a laugh. Reigen was already far past the point where he could save his dignity, so he stayed put as Serizawa slipped out of his shoes and crossed the small apartment toward him.
“So…” Serizawa said, glancing around at the floor. “Know where it is?”
“No idea,” Reigen admitted.
“Well.” Serizawa gestured at his couch. “Mind if I—?”
“Go ahead, please.”
“I figure I can wait a bit.” Serizawa sat down and pulled up one leg to rest his ankle against the other knee, looking infuriatingly at ease given the circumstance. “Where did you last see it?”
Reigen pointed to the corner near the TV. “There.”
“Do you think it went behind the TV stand?”
“Maybe. Can you like… sense it with your powers, or something?”
Serizawa chuckled. “No. Unless it’s an esper cockroach, and that would be a first. And I can only really move things I can see, unless you don’t care about damage. Which I’m assuming you do.”
Reigen gave a grim nod. “Well, let’s check behind the TV stand, then.”
He said ‘let’s’, as if he was more than a passive and flinching observer to any of this.
Serizawa didn’t even change his relaxed posture as the TV stand lifted a bit, moving away from the wall until Reigen could see behind it from him position. “Anything?”
Reigen’s stomach dropped. “No.”
The TV stand settled back to the floor, but Serizawa left it a few inches away from the wall. They repeated the process with the bed and desk, and Reigen was a bit embarrassed by the monstrous dust bunnies revealed there—but no roaches. Reigen’s skin was crawling again and he rubbed his arms. In some ways, the only thing worse than seeing a bug was seeing one only for it to disappear a moment later, leaving him paranoid and jumpy.
He looked down at Serizawa, and at the two pieces of furniture that they currently occupied. “Well.”
Serizawa swung his head down to peek below the coffee table, fearless. He even swiped a hand underneath it. “Nothing,” he reported. Then he stood up and levitated the couch. He made a soft surprised noise and Reigen tensed. “Found our guy.”
The roach floated up as the couch slid back into place, and hovered, squirming, above Serizawa’s outstretched palm. Reigen still couldn’t relax, shying away from it; Serizawa noticed and held it farther from him. Reigen laughed weakly. “Okay, well. Can’t put this one outside.”
Serizawa frowned. “Guess not.” He winced as his hand formed a fist. In the air above, the cockroach crumpled with a sickening crunch. “Trash can in your kitchen?”
Reigen nodded. “Yeah.”
Serizawa returned a moment later and gave a tired smile to Reigen, resting his hands on his hips. “Well. I doubt that was the only one in your building, but…”
Reigen realized for the first time that Serizawa was dressed casually, well-fitted jeans and a pullover hoodie. He also realized that he was in pajamas himself, sweats and a t-shirt, barefoot. Since they started working together, they had never seen each other in anything but suits. And, Reigen realized, this was definitely the first time Serizawa had been to his apartment. His nerves beginning to subside, his embarrassment caught up with him.
He took a hesitant step down from his coffee table finally, arms crossed against his chest. “I already called management about it.” He glanced down at the carpet around him. “Listen, thanks for… coming out here. I feel pretty stupid.”
Serizawa waved a hand. “No, no. Happy to do it. If I didn’t have these tricks, I might be afraid of bugs myself.”
“I’m not—” Reigen began, then snapped his mouth shut when Serizawa quirked an eyebrow. His face stretched with a sheepish smile and he admitted, “I’m deathly afraid of bugs.”
Serizawa just laughed. “Yeah, I know.” Then his smile faded as he continued to look at Reigen, glancing down to his hunched posture and fidgety feet, and back up to his face. “Are you gonna be able to sleep okay?”
Reigen shrugged. Probably not. But maybe he could drag his bed out away from the walls or knock himself out with some sleeping pills. Or both.
“Do you—?” Serizawa started, and bit his lip. “Do you wanna crash on my couch tonight? Until an exterminator can come? You might be able to sleep better.”
Reigen shook his head, instinctively turning down the offer, even as his panic-addled brain screamed at him to accept. “No, no, I couldn’t.”
“It’s no trouble,” Serizawa said. “But only if you want to.”
For a moment, Reigen thought that waking up with a cockroach in bed with him might be preferable to admitting what he wants—but he pushed through it. “Yeah, okay. Thank you.” He threw his suit and a few things in an overnight bag. By the door, he shook out his shoes, ensuring that they were roach-free before stepping into them. Then he followed Serizawa out.