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It wasn't the first time Denki had fallen asleep only to be met by a nightmare instead of a pleasant dream. While there were a few that his subconscious tended to rotate through, that night's was one of the worst that he regularly got. He was standing by the front gates of UA while there was a full scale villain attack happening. There was no one else around him, he was the only one just standing there. When he turned around, he could see that the city had already been decimated, smoke filling the air and a cacophony of sirens and people trying to escape the carnage nearly deafening. He was wearing his hero costume, but he could tell there was something off about it, even though all the usual pieces of his outfit were there. He looked around, trying to figure out where he could be the most helpful, but it seemed like the entire campus was a full fledged battle ground. He started running around, trying to find any of his friends, but he didn't see any of them. He was there in his hero costume, where were the others? They had to be around somewhere.
Villains kept passing him by as though he wasn't there, and eventually he realized that even when he tried to make use of his quirk, nothing was happening. No sparks, no lightning, nothing at all. Was that why he couldn't find any of his classmates? He turned toward where he knew the student dorms were but they weren't for some reason, he didn't see the dorms anywhere. At the very least the teachers should be somewhere, right? He remembered that Aizawa's quirk was nullification, so if someone was going to understand how to deal with the fact that Denki couldn't use his quirk right now, it'd be him.
That was when he heard the first clear thing - Aizawa's laughter. "Well well well, took you long enough to figure that one out. No wonder you're so far behind the rest of your classmates."
Denki tried to run, tried to say something, but there was nothing he could do. Realistically he knew that he was in a nightmare, that none of this was real, but that logic didn't process through to nightmare Denki.
Aizawa used his scarf to reel him in closer to him, sadistic laughter while his eyes glowed bright red, his hair waving around wildly, explaining at least why his quirk wasn't working.
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"Denki, wake up!" He was suddenly back in his bed, wearing his pajamas, and Shinsou was shaking his shoulder to try and get him to wake up. He had turned on the light on the side table and Denki could see that Shinsou's usually exhausted eyes were panicked. "Are you okay?"
He blinked a few times to try and clear his head, to try and believe that what he was seeing was actually real this time. He looked over at his clock on his bedside table and saw that it read 3:43 AM, and then looked back at his boyfriend. "I.... What?" His voice was graveled since he had just been so roughly woken up.
"You were yelling something in your sleep about Mr Aizawa, what the hell was that? Were you having a nightmare or something?" Shinsou had one hand on Denki's shoulder still, his thumb rubbing circles into the tensed muscles, while the other hand hovered around his opposite hip, not wanting to make Denki uncomfortable or overwhelmed but wanting to make sure to let him know that Shinsou was there for him if necessary. "Was it.... Was it something that had to do with UA?"
Denki nodded his head yes while turning himself into Shinsou's arms. "Yeah it was Aizawa, he was being a villain and he just.... He was using his quirk on me...." Shinsou pulled Denki's head into his shoulder, turning him around so that they were facing each other. Denki felt tears on his face and soaking into Shinsou's shirt, and tried to bring his hand up to wipe them away, but Shinsou had one hand on the back of his head and the other on his back.
"I'm sorry, honey. I promise, it's okay, nothing happened, we're all okay." Shinsou had to remember to make sure he didn't accidentally use his quirk on Denki - he wasn't freaking out quite that badly, although it'd happened in the past. It took him a second but he realized that Denki hadn't even hesitated to answer his question, something that usually happened no matter what just because of the sheer number of times Denki had been involved in pranks, causing some deep rooted trust issues.
They sat that way for a few minutes, Shinsou rubbing circles into Denki's neck and back while Denki quietly tried to run himself through the variety of exercises he'd been told to keep in mind after a nightmare.
Eventually Denki pulled his head up from Shinsou's shoulder. Denki's face was flushed red and his eyes were puffy, shiny tear tracks running down his cheeks. His normally sunshiney yellow eyes weren't as bright as normal, more light fallen leaves in mid october. When he looked Shinsou in the face he could see that the bright lavender in his eyes was still there, undercut by a sense of worry that hadn't yet faded. "I'm fine, I promise, it's okay." Denki smiled half heartedly, a small chuckle as he did it.
Shinsou ruffled Denki's hair one more time, making his bedhead even worse. "Okay... You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
Shinsou gave Denki a soft kiss on the cheek and leaned over to turn the bedside lamp off. He and Denki laid back down and closed their eyes to go back to sleep. Shinsou pondered for a moment and then came to the conclusion that if he didn't do something, Denki was going to lie awake and worrying for the entire rest of the night. "Alright, get some sleep, Denki." He could feel the other boy's body relax a bit as his quirk made its way into his brain. "Sweet dreams."