Work Text:
Shouta thinks he will remember those words forever, etched into his body as much as the scars will forever be written upon Shinsou’s skin.
“Be still. Be quiet. Be brave.”
A hymn, a prayer—said in rote throughout the boy’s discovery, ambulance ride, and all the way down the glaring white halls of the absolute nearest hospital.
Shouta can’t hear the words now, kneeling before his student from where he sits in an uncomfortable chair, lights dimmed around them at Shouta’s request, but Shinsou’s lips still move in relentless refrain. Be still. Be quiet. Be brave.
“Shinsou? Do you see me?”
The boy’s eyes are glassy, turned down to rest somewhere around Shouta’s knees. Shinsou has not raised his head since Shouta first found him in that cold, unforgiving place, sitting in a chair without a single strap holding him down. He knows the sight will eat at him every chance it gets from now into the far future; his student, broken and bloodied, eerily still in his shock, and the horror Shouta felt in his marrow at the lack of restraints. Yet still, Shinsou stayed—hadn’t dared defy his captors, even as they had fled police custody and are now at large as high-priority villains.
They had left behind a scared, injured child, to either be found or left to rot, and the knowledge has Shouta gritting his teeth to pain.
And well, they left behind one other thing.
Shouta can hardly look at the mangled flesh of the boy’s hands. His conversation with the nurse plays without permission over and over in his mind.
“Barbed wire. They used fucking barbed wire,” Shouta says, rubbing at his eyes with fingers that he doesn’t even care to gentle.
“Yes. It’s going to be tedious to remove all of it, especially given how it was applied. Between the fingers is especially unpleasant given the thin skin. We’ll have to sedate him, he can’t move while we make the extraction.”
“God no, just- Don’t make him be awake for that. He doesn’t need to feel any more pain.”
The wire wraps tightly from above the wrist, around the fine bones multiple times, before criss crossing into an ‘x’ pattern over his palms and between his pointer, middle, and ring and pinky fingers. Then there’s a final strand, keeping both hands tied together, like a bow presenting a wonderful gift, but instead of shiny red satin, there is only copper, mottled blood coating the metal.
Barbs that splice in opposite directions dig themselves into Shinsou’s hands as the boy clasps his fingers together tightly. Shouta hasn’t seen them move for hours now, and he thinks he knows what the ‘be still’ part of the boy’s mantra refers to.
Any movement would be agony.
Things need to be done, like moving Shinsou into the bed that lies empty just to Shouta’s left, and making the boy aware of his surroundings if at all possible. Shouta doesn’t want to see the panic in Shinsou’s eyes when they come at him with needles and saline bags out of nowhere; any sort of thrashing would end in a bloodied, painful mess for the boy and Shouta isn’t sure he can stomach it.
Still the sound of muted whispers fill the room, and Shinsou has not registered his presence, yet.
Shouta swallows thickly, ducking his head to try and catch the faraway gaze that looks right through him. “Shinsou...it’s Aizawa. You’re in the hospital, and we’re going to get your hands taken care of. Can you answer me? A blink would be fine, if speaking is too much, right now.” Shouta already knows that the boy has a tendency towards mutism even on good days—a side-effect of his quirk—so he thinks he may be asking too much for a verbal response at this time.
He is unpleasantly surprised at what he gets instead.
Shinsou’s eyes don’t move from their preferred position, and Shouta is close to giving up and picking the boy up as gently as possible to place him on the bed himself, before the room goes quiet. It takes Shouta a moment to register the silence for what it is; Shinsou has stopped his incessant murmuring. There is nothing but the sound of both of their breathing for a moment.
Shouta cocks his head and peers into lilac eyes. “Shinsou?”
The boy goes entirely still.
And then he wails.
It’s a heart-wrenching sound, eerie and over-loud, bouncing off of bare walls and back at Shouta to assault him with all of its fear- anguish- pain-
It’s a cry for help if Shouta has ever heard one.
Shouta has had training for this, both in a classroom setting and in the field. Victims of trauma can react in any number of ways, from complete silence to panic at the point of hurting themselves. It never gets any easier to see, not really, but Shouta finds he can successfully remove himself from the emotional attachment of a human being in pain and do his job efficiently.
All of that seems to have gone out the window, at this point.
He feels a small amount of panic course through him as Shinsou’s form crumples, shoulders caving in and spine collapsing forward as the noise continues, a desperate edge coloring his cries as Shinsou’s face finds the crook of Shouta’s neck. His skin is wet in seconds as Shinsou gasps in short bursts.
Shouta would be lying if he called this comfortable; he and the kid hardly touch, no more than is facilitated from heavy sparring and a hair-ruffle here and there. But he finds it suspiciously easy to put that aside and lift his hands, slowly, painfully aware of the still-bound hands between them, and place them gingerly on Shinsou’s back. When the kid doesn’t draw away, he even dares to apply more pressure, fingers drawing small, hesitant circles over a torn, dirty shirt. Shouta thinks he feels the kid relax by the smallest of increments, and something inside of him glows against his will; now is not the time for celebration.
“Shinsou...it’s alright. We’ll take care of you, okay? It’s over now...it’s over.” He doesn’t like how his voice shakes, adrenaline draining out of him as the boy settles, his cries turning into small whimpers of pain.
“Let’s get you in bed. The doctor is going to put you to sleep so that you won’t feel any of it when they work on your hands…” Shouta trails off, one hand coming to rest on the back of the boy's head, his hair plastered with days of dirt and oil—it was too long. They took too long to find him, dammit.
Shinsou sniffles loudly into Shouta’s neck. It’s a little gross, and he’s sure his shirt is ruined, but as he pets Shinsou's hair, he decides it’s worth the inconvenience.
He realizes that if he can make Shinsou feel even the slightest bit of comfort, he’ll do almost anything, really, and the thought surprises him far less than he would have thought something like this would. The kid has found a soft spot in his hard-to-crack heart, it seems, and Shouta won’t begrudge him for it. Honestly, he’s really just impressed.
Shinsou has gone quiet except for a few small, shaky breaths, so Shouta slowly guides him away from his shoulder. The boy’s eyes are red-rimmed and glistening with tears when Shouta leans back enough to see them. It tears at him uncomfortably.
“Do you want me to carry you?”
Shouta thinks children like to be carried when things are so far from alright.
His experience rings true when after a few seconds—during which Shinsou no doubt is deciding whether he could handle something so embarrassing—he nods. Shouta is glad for it; holding the kid close sounds all too appealing right now.
With ginger movements and Shinsou holding his hands in the air in front of him with a pained grimace, Shouta tucks his arm beneath the crook of Shinsou’s knees and the other behind his shoulders, and with a soft count of one, two, three, lifts him against his chest. It’s only a few steps to the bed, and Shouta tries to put him down as softly as he can, but Shinsou still hisses sharply when his body hits the mattress, the small vibrations running the length of him regardless.
“Sorry, kid.” Shinsou doesn’t answer, in fact, he still hasn’t so much as looked in Shouta's direction. He sighs. “I’ll call the doctor in and we can get started. I don’t want that,” he pointedly looks at the boy’s hands, a sorry sight to behold with increasingly purple bruising and half-dried, half-fresh blood and tries not to wince, “to be in you longer than necessary.”
Beneath the horror, Shouta is fighting his anger, biting it down under his tongue where it tastes bitter as blood as he turns away and towards the door, deciding to take a moment to breathe in the hall before returning. Shinsou doesn’t need his anger, he needs the cool-headed constancy of his ‘sensei’. So caught up in these thoughts, Shouta almost doesn’t hear the small, questioning noise behind him. He turns, a brow raised in query.
Shinsou is looking at him. The corners of the boy’s eyes are pinched in pain and exhaustion, but his pale irises are unmistakably flitting back and forth between Shouta’s own. Shinsou licks the dry, cracked skin of his lips. He has a false start before his voice finally obeys him.
“W-will you...come back?”
Shouta can’t help as his gaze drifts down the kid’s body, taking in all of his injuries and just how small he looks, sitting on scratchy sheets with hands clasped in his lap. Shouta swallows and nods. Shinsou continues.
“Will you...stay?”
Shouta wouldn’t even dream of saying no.