Work Text:
“I want you to brainwash me!”
Hitoshi has spent what feels like a lifetime being silent, a lifetime measuring each and every word that falls out of his mouth— he is well accustomed to chewing his phrases. He bites down on everything that comes to mind, can’t afford to let a sharp tongue ruin what he’s trying to build for himself.
He’s grown good at it— accustomed to it, after long years of trauma associated with. It’s probably unhealthy to think of it that way— knows his therapist from UA would probably fix him with that particular knowing look and a hint of disappointment hanging around his lips if Hitoshi ever told him that.
(he’ll probably talk about it at their next session anyway )
He doesn’t like to think about the years before UA— doesn’t really like to think about foster care, the system that tried to chew him up and spat him out at the first opportunity when they failed to make him meek.
He doesn’t think his silence is a weakness these days— it’s not that he doesn’t want to talk, just that he tends to have little to say.
In his younger years, it was inherently part of his treatment. There were only so many times one could attempt to speak, attempt to connect before the fear and inevitable rebuff scarred the notion. By the time he had entered middle school, Hitoshi hadn’t spoken outside of what was necessary in years.
Questions had been the worst of all. They weren’t negotiable— he just couldn’t. They were out of the picture. He couldn’t ask for help, for more food, for a glass of water, for a respite from the bullying or just for a break.
He’d been barred from knowing more for so long that he often doesn’t know how.
His training in therapy has helped that— it’s all about asking questions, finding the right way to ask and helping someone else find the answers. He doesn’t need to be himself here— he’s just a conduit, a tool for others to find their own better endings.
He knows those who seek his help don’t always trust his methods, don’t always fully accept their pathways to change— but they come to him anyway, willingly and willing to change. It reminds him of, well— him . He hadn’t trusted Hound— hadn’t trusted anybody when he had enrolled in UA, least of all authority figures who had a distinct history of misusing their power.
But these people trust him and he’s experiencing a whole side of the trust dynamic he’s never even thought about. He’s their confidante, he delved as deeply into their psyches as they want him to— he knows enough about some of these people to ruin their lives.
They come back anyway. They trust him.
He enjoys this work, in a totally different way to his hero work. It’s a soft side of his quirk— a power he’s been so on the fence about for the majority of his life, a moral and ethical nightmare of a quirk. In the years of his education at UA and the following three years he had spent building a reputation underground and stifling his reputation above ground, he’s spent what is probably an excessive amount of time and effort in narrowing down the line.
There’s a list of actions he can safely call positive uses of his quirk, there’s aspects that shift around in a grey haze of dubious morality and there’s a firm line where his actions become morally reprehensible.
Like all heroes, he treads that line carefully. Unlike most heroes, his line might be a little lower down on the morally good scale. He’s resigned himself to this— he’s not above ground, he won’t have his praises sung or find his name in the news on the regular. People know he exists— and that’s about as close as he lets most people get.
Key word being most people.
Midoriya Izuku being a notable exception.
He shakes his head out of his thoughts, forcing his cheeks to stay pale and not pink in embarrassment. Izuku is peering at his face with a concerned tilt to his mouth and the sight is too sweet for Hitoshi’s brain to process on short notice.
“Hitoshi, are you okay? Y-you don’t have to, if it’s too mu-“ the dark haired man cuts off with a squeak as Hitoshi claps a hand over his mouth.
“Izuku, can you repeat what you said before?”
Izuku blinks at him as he moves his hand, eyes hazy and cheeks flushed. “I-I want you to brainwash me… like you do at the clinic?”
Hitoshi claps his hand over his own eyes and shuts his eyes against the dim light, leaning back into the couch with a groan. “Yeah, that’s definitely what I thought you said.”
He scrubs at his eyes, tired from a long patrol and nowhere near equipped to deal with feelings when he should, by all rational accounts, be asleep. The storm is still raging outside, hail sweeping in bursts from time to time and although he’s dry now, he’s got the remnants of the chilly run to the cafe hovering in his muscles.
More than anything, he remembers the first ( and only time ) Hitoshi has used his quirk on Izuku and the memory is not a pleasant one, by any stretch of the imagination.
There’s a reason Hitoshi never uses his quirk on Izuku, even in jest.
A long time ago (it feels like yesterday) , at the height of his transfer from foster care into this permanent guardians legal care, on the cusp of a court case that had become a national spectacle overnight— he had snapped.
But not at someone who deserved it or could counter it—
No, he’d snapped at a boy who had shaken him out of his depression with soft words, brought him a coffee made from memory— a boy who had lost his chances at his dreams for something as minor as an extra joint in his toes.
(
“Hey, I got this for you but watch out it’s hot and we really need to talk-“
“Izuku?”
“Yes-“
“ Shut up and fuck off. ”
)
He had been so close to losing everything.
For three weeks, the door to the cafe remained locked, the curtains drawn tight and no sound came from within. Hitoshi has waited long past sundown, hoping that the door would open.
And when it had, Izuku had refused to talk about it.
So they never had.
Until now.
“Izuku...man, I know we agreed you never wanted to talk about this again but we gotta. Do you remember what happened last time?”
From the pallor of Izuku’s face, the other man does. His mouth is moving at a frenetic pace but Hitoshi cannot hear a single word from the fast-paced stream of consciousness until Izuku glances up and regurgitates a complete sentence, rapid fire.
“I can’t sleep!”
It’s not really what Hitoshi was expecting, though it’s not too far out of the ordinary. He knows the green haired man has issues with his sleep— they’ve kept each company many nights when rest eluded them. He has a hunch that this is different.
“Ever since mum…” Hitoshi winces at the reminder of the emptiness in the kitchen and the clear sound of silence where humming should fill the air and instead the cafe echoes. Inko’s passing isn’t a strange topic between them— she’s been gone a year but Hitoshi’s been here since the day the call came through.
He helped plan the funeral, helped transfer the cafe ownerships into Izuku’s name— but they don’t talk about it like this.
They don't talk about the absences and the sudden drop into it is like a cold shock.
“I haven’t been able to sleep and I can’t stand it. I know it was my fault— “ Hitoshi can only withstand so much self hatred in Izuku’s voice at one time ( the limit is none ) before he stops him with a hand over his mouth.
“Listen, Izuku. It was not your fault. Were you driving the truck?” He stares down into Izuku’s face, not sure when the other had started to cry but hating each drop all the same. He wants to kiss them away, let them hit his tongue like it will help him understand. It’s not the time— Hitoshi has patience.
Izuku shakes his head with a hesitant motion, mouth opening against his hand and spilling warm across his skin. Hitoshi tuts and continues, keeping his head as well as he can.
“Did you hit her? Did you leave her behind at the scene? No?” Izuku is shaking— not his head but a full body tremor, and Hitoshi curses inwardly, wondering if he has pushed too far until he feels a definite head shake against his hand. He slowly lets his own anxiety simmer down and lowers his hand away, tucking the sensation of Izuku’s skin in some tightly guarded pocket of his mind.
“I-I was meant to go that day. S-she was going to stay home and I-I was supposed to pick up t-the s-stock for the next day b-but..” Izuku is heaving deep breaths, dragging oxygen into blood gone dizzy with its absence. “I wanted to n-nap and it's my fault !”
Hitoshi blinks at the sheer volume of his voice, before his brain belatedly processes the actual content of the noise and his heart twists, violently against his ribs. He’s suddenly very, very glad his friend has asked him this because Hitoshi has seen this mindset destroy pro heroes and civilians alike— the overwhelming guilt of being alive when someone else was not.
It’s a pain every pro hero is trained to handle, coached extensively on but nothing can ever prepare even the best trained hero for the inevitable situation where their efforts, their strength wasn’t enough.
Hitoshi curls an arm around his friend, drawing him close as he cries and nods against his curls, knowing it’s probably a mistake.
“I’ll do it. Come to the agency in the morning and we’ll get your first session started then.”
He means to get home that night— really shouldn’t stay out, should get off this couch and out of this cafe and out of this man’s life before he ruins it like he has everything else in his life. He should run.
Hitoshi stays the night, sprawled out on the couch and he doesn’t shift, even as Izuku drifts into a rough sleep against his chest and the same rest eludes him.
When dawn hints through the windows in soft reds, he extricates himself from the tangle of blankets and limbs they had become during the night. He sweeps back the hair of Izuku’s forehead and ponders on how calm his face is in sleep, even as the other man murmurs in his sleep and tucks himself into the curve of Hitoshi’s palm. He wants to stay.
He leaves a note detailing the agency’s address and his appointment time, and with a glance at his phone, hightails it from the cafe. A meeting with a Yakuza informant was not one he could afford to be late for.
—————
Iuku has never actually been to the counsellor agency before, Hitoshi belatedly realises as he sees his friend perched on the waiting room sofa like the plush faux leather is going to bite him. There’s only one other individual in the room— Hitoshi recognises him as one of the other patients, a pro hero on a hiatus from his work.
He’s the man’s primary therapist at the agency, in the aftermath of a gruesome string of trafficking incidents that had led to the pro descending into a mental breakdown. The taller hero was having good progress, working through the mental blocks that kept him from finally moving forward with his life and his work. And Hitoshi really does have full confidence the man will return to his duties, can see the burning desire to help simmering behind his eyes and kept at bay by the merest threads of trauma.
It’s an odd sight, to see the same phenomenon, that same inferno in Izuku’s eyes when he meets his gaze through the office door. “Midoriya, your appointment starts now. Come on through.” It feels supremely odd to refer to Izuk so politely— but this is still primarily his work place and he has rules to follow. Plus, it helps to build a professional relationship outside of their friendship, a professional rapport to help ease a transition into their session.
He nods politely to the other man in the waiting room, offering a shallow smile. “Good morning, Natsuhi. I’ve got a full schedule for today so I can't take a walk in, but Dr Yakushima is able to take your session today. I hope to see you for our session next week.”
Izuku wonders how Hitoshi manages to be so… effortlessly polite. It’s not like the purple haired man is excessively rude, but it's odd to hear him this polite. His entire hero persona is built out of mirages, shadows of personalities that aren’t his and tailored to make people react. He wonders if it grates on his friend, to be so many people and only one man.
With great guilt, and not for the first time, Izuku wonders if he has ever met the real Hitoshi.
Memories of hazy summer days spring to mind, crouched in the corners of arcades and playing each machine one by one until ‘Mirage’ and ‘Deku’ top every machine ranking in the entire store. How Hitoshi had grinned at him like there was nowhere else he would rather be, like Izuku’s company was the only thing he wanted at that moment. Izuku thinks that’s the moment, that little snapshot of golden sun dyeing Hitoshi’s face in shades of amber and it was like the sun had taken every shade of lilac in his hair and thrown into sharp relief— that’s the moment Izuku knows he’s in love with Shinsou Hitoshi.
Said friend is watching him like he’s said his name at least twice while he’s been spaced out and Izuku flushes, quickly getting to his feet and hurrying into the office behind the door. It’s furnished exactly how Izuku expects it to be: muted wall colours, two plush armchairs near a frosted glass wall, bookshelves stacked with official looking books crammed between piles of whatever manga Hitoshi is undoubtedly bingeing at the moment.
He glances hesitantly to Hitoshi, who just grins like he always does and gestures to the two chairs. Izuku sinks into one gratefully, his anxiety weakening his legs a little and maybe the sight of Hitoshi slipping on reading glasses and sinking into his own chair is vaguely attractive.
Hitoshi pours water out for them both, setting both water glasses on coasters on the low coffee table between their chairs. The soft chink of the glass against the glass coasters rings in the office and its the last noise for what feels like a very long time.
Hitoshi extends a hand over to his desk, grabbing a small notebook and the soft susurration of the paper fills the void of sound. “I’m going to start by explaining just how I operate as a hypnotherapist, I’ll explain the basics of how my quirk assists me in that regard and then we’ll make sure you’re comfortable to proceed with the session. Does that sound okay?”
Izuku is just caught up in how much he loves this side of Hitoshi to do much more but nod his head earnestly, favouring his friend with a bright, if shaky, smile. “Sure ‘Toshi! Can… Can I add my notes to my collection later?”
Hitoshi smiles at the thought of the precious coded journals Izuku was diligent about keeping up to date and nodded in response. “Sure, as long as you're still cycling your codes?” The enthusiastic smile he gets in response is enough for Hitoshi. He trusts the cafe owner, probably more than some of the heroes he works alongside.
He glances back down at his notebook, his hastily scrawled basic notes for his potential work for Izuku’s session and then back to where the green haired man sits, already looking far more comfortable than he had walking into the office.
“My work as a hypnotherapist mainly relies on assessing the goals you want to achieve with your progress. We’ll work on establishing a concrete view of your personal goals, then an out-of-therapy list of exercises and reading that might help you. The biggest thing you need to know, Izuku-“ He paused for a moment, making sure his friend was concentrating on his words. “You need to know that it’s not my job to judge you, your feelings or your trauma. I’m here to listen, to help you assess your goals and assist you every way I can in helping you achieve them. You’re my best friend and I’m not going to judge you for this or anything you say.”
He waits, for a few moments, as Izuku inevitably tears up and surreptitiously passes him the tissue box, motioning for the other man to keep a hold on it. He had a well founded suspicion that they would need it.
“So you already understand how my quirk, brainwashing, works in a normal call-response situation.” Hitoshi began, as Izuku slowly returned to a calm state, if a little red eyed. “But my approach to hypnotherapy is less brainwashing and more.. a subtle slide into a particular mindset. There’s a point in which the brain is most susceptible to suggestions, a ‘frequency’ that my quirk allows me to access and facilitate in others very easily.”
Hitoshi reached forward for a moment, taking a small sip of his water and setting it back down, turning back to his notes. “From what we discussed last night, it seems to me that you feel guilty over the death of your mother, though unrelated to your own actions. It’s a common and sometimes unavoidable part of the grieving process, but it's important to experience it and process it as healthily as possible. A scary step you’ve already taken in asking for help, which was no doubt difficult. It’s important to acknowledge that you’ve already taken a big step to processing these feelings just by being here, okay?”
Izuku is staring at him with a wide green gaze, much like a deer in the headlights— he looks for all the world like he’s just been struck with a semi trailer. It’s a look he sees a lot in this particular aspect of his career— the expression of someone who has just been hit in the face with a concept they hadn’t even considered yet in regards to their own mental health.
“Is… Is it really such a big deal to ask for help?” Izuku eventually puts forward nervously.
Hitoshi nods softly, adjusting where his reading glasses sit against his nose. “It is. It’s the necessary step to improving, to moving past the harmful parts of our experiences in our lives. I’m proud of you for making that step, and honoured that you trust me enough to help you take these steps.” Hitoshi smiles, truly smiles in that moment because he really does understand how much faith the other man is placing in his hands. “Now that we’ve talked through the hows and whys, are you comfortable with proceeding with the session? This would mean I will use my quirk to place you into a lower subconscious state and help to implant suggestions that will begin to form the basis for our therapy session. Is this amiable to you?”
There’s a long, pregnant pause that has no business being anywhere near as tense as it is, as Izuku seemingly ponders over the decision and HItoshi’s heart skips a whole beat as his head dips into a nod and a shaking voice that answers him with an equally shaky voice. “Yeah that s-sounds okay. I-I trust you, ‘Toshi.”
With a smile in response, Hitoshi flips the notebook shut and places it onto the coffee table. “Are you ready?”
Another pause, this one charged with an emotion shining in Izuku’s eyes that Hitoshi cannot parse and then a reply,
“Yeah-“
“ Let’s get started then, Let’s start by sliding, softly, into a low state of mind and we’ll start with self love.”
He finds that he has to pause for a moment, just to regain his own confidence in what he is doing, reassures himself that he has permission for this, that he is trusted.
“You love yourself. You’re worthy of being loved. You are worth the care of others.”
Shinsou Hitoshi has been trusted with the welfare of a man he loves now than anything else in the world and in that morning in his office, with the sun through the glass and the smell of freesias from his desk—
Shinsou Hitoshi makes a promise, to anyone that listens, that he‘ll make Midoriya Izuku as happy as he can for as long as he lives—
No matter what that ends up meaning for Hitoshi.