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Shouta imagines he looks exactly as a freshly dead body should. His muscles do not move, his heart barely beats, and his lungs are still. The stinging cold of the morgue is a constant reminder of his situation, stuck between life and death.
The cherry on top of this whole shitshow is the autopsy. Apparently, the villain who "killed" him isn't on the quirk registry, so they're not sure what exactly happened and why the best doctors in the city couldn't save his life.
Appearing dead is one thing, but he might actually be in trouble when they start cutting him open. He wants desperately, more than he's wanted anything in his life, to sit up and open his eyes. He wants to exclaim "I'm okay, I'm alive," and get a hug from his husband, and a week's paid vacation.
But his muscles refuse to move.
Hizashi visits him again as they prepare him for examination. He knows from his own experience with death on the job that this isn't technically allowed, but their marital status likely has something to do with the exception. He doesn't say much, just holds Shouta's hand as tight as he can manage.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers before one of the surgeons ushers him out of the room. His voice is hollow, a warped reflection of his usual levels of enthusiasm. He just sounds broken.
Time moves infinitely slowly as the autopsy begins. There are two surgical technicians performing the procedure, speaking to each other in hushed tones. From what he can make out, it's not every day they have to examine a hero's corpse. Even if they don't recognize him, it must be heavy for the soul.
"Taking blood samples," one says, her voice hardening, becoming monotone. She and her partner work quickly and efficiently, taking tissue and blood samples, and scanning his body for any abnormalities. The large, thin hole in his abdomen, which still hurts like a bitch, by the way, is also thoroughly examined.
"Looks like the puncture missed any internal organs," she says. "The coloring of the skin suggests minimal loss of blood. Wait, possible contact with pancreas."
"Weigh it?"
"Sure. Take a blood sample from the wound, too, and cross reference it with the other sample. Poisoning is definitely a possibility."
"What about cardiac arrest? It's a common response to poison quirks these days, even minor ones. My son… well. We should investigate it, anyway."
"Noted. Prioritize visual examination and weighing of the heart, then."
Shouta's stomach flips in circles. Removing his pancreas might be survivable, at least until the effects of this unknown quirk wear off, but the same cannot be said about losing his heart. No matter how slowly it beats now, he's fairly certain he won't survive without it.
A thick cloth rests over his face and lower abdomen. A scalpel rests on his skin, right above his ribcage.
"Light?"
"One moment. Alright, you're all good."
And just like that, the scalpel drags across his flesh. Hot pain shoots outwards from the touch, and he can do nothing for it. He wants to scream, but he cannot even twitch.
The doctors do not speak as they peel his chest open, carefully ripping through flesh and muscle to work their way to his heart. There is nothing for him to focus on but the sound of his own body being torn open.
"Bone saw?"
He wants Hizashi. He wants Hizashi to burst into the room and stop them, to pull them away from him and scoop him up into a tight embrace. He wants Hizashi to carry him all the way home and tuck him into bed, keeping him warm until morning.
The bone saw whirs above his exposed ribcage.
"Can you adjust the light? The angle's off."
He needs Hizashi. He doesn't want to be here anymore. He wants to move again, to open his eyes and see again. He wants to cry. He just wants to let himself cry.
"Shit, did you see that?"
"What?"
The bone saw clicks off.
"What are you doing? Do you need new gloves or something?"
There's a deep, pregnant pause before the doctor speaks again. "No, I just… Sorry, it's been a long day. I thought I saw… nevermind."
The saw clicks on. Shouta begins to pray to any and every god he can remember, hoping one will take pity on him. He can't imagine dying without seeing Hizashi again. He can't imagine leaving Hizashi behind.
The saw makes contact with one of his ribs, and it is worse than any death he has ever imagined.
"Wait!"
Something clatters to the ground, and the saw retreats. It's the worst pain he's ever felt. In his line of work, he's been burned, whipped, tortured, but nothing could compare to this. Perhaps it's that he's never before been so certain that he was going to die.
"Holy shit," says one of the doctors. "His, his heart is still beating. Oh my god - page Doctor Suou right now, tell him to prep an O.R!"
For the first time tonight, he feels himself slipping. It's strange, the way things begin to blur. The pain becomes less and more all at once, and the voices become silent and deafening.
Is this death? He imagined it differently. He had hoped it would be faster. It drags on, painful and terrifying. His body wants to scream and sob and erupt from the pain and the fear and the horror, but his mind… He's not sure what it wants anymore.
All of a sudden, things have become so distant. The doctors working frantically at his side are barely there, shadows of a distant world.
No.
The thought comes out of nowhere with such striking clarity. It blossoms in his mind, and the outside world sharpens briefly.
No. He thinks of his beautiful husband, his foolish students, his cats. He has work to do, doesn't he? He has a class to teach tomorrow, cases to resolve, a world to heal. He cannot leave his husband a cold bed. No. I will not die tonight.
He tethers himself to his body, holding tight to the vestiges of consciousness. The world around him is a blur of panicked voices and equipment beeping and whirring and trilling. He hears his husband's voice for just a moment, louder than all the rest:
"Shou?"
And then he's gone, swallowed up in a sea of sounds, lost in the churn of doctors trying desperately to save his life. His time of death is recalled, his heart rate is artificially increased. Air is pushed in and out of his lungs on a steady rhythm. It works. For whatever reason it did not before, it does now.
Over the next few hours, he's stuck with too many needles to begin to count. Blood samples, medication, more blood samples, plasma injections, painkillers. The hole in his abdomen is patched, the hole above his heart stitched close.
Someone brushes his hair out of his face.
"You idiot," says a watery voice. "I can't believe it. I thought you… you were…"
"Z'shi," he mutters. His fingers twitch at his sides. He is too tired to fully appreciate the return of control. "Z… Z'shi…"
"Fuck," he says, "I'm here. I'm here, Shou, I'm here. It's okay. You're gonna be okay."
"Awake," he mutters, "wh' time."
He doesn't know what compels him to say it. Maybe the painkillers, maybe the guilt. Hizashi thought he was dead. If he'd been more careful, none of this would have happened.
"S'rry…"
Hizashi's hand stills, his fingers tangled in Shouta's hair. "You were awake?" His voice is small. Shouta can picture the horrified expression on his face, and it sends a pang through his chest. "You… Did you feel any of it?"
He tries to nod, but he isn't sure it comes across until he hears Hizashi's choked sob, his hand flinching where it rests on Shouta's scalp.
"Shouta," Hizashi says breathlessly, voice wavering. "God, Shouta, I'm so sorry… I'm, I'm sorry, Shouta…"
The sedatives must finally be kicking in. He feels tired down to his bones. He's slipping again, and as horrifying as it feels, he has no power left in him to resist.
"S'okay…"
And it's not, it may never be, but it's better now. It's okay now.
Hizashi carefully wraps himself around Shouta's frame, squeezing his hand and massaging his scalp. "I love you, babe. I'm so sorry. You're okay. I promise, you're okay."
He's still there when Shouta wakes the next morning, snoring ever so softly. Shouta's entire body aches, as though he has been running for hours. He can move now, but doing so expends far more energy than he can stand to spare.
"Hizashi," he croaks, wincing at how dry his voice sounds. His throat stings, but he swallows and tries again. "'Zashi, wake up."
"Hmmm…?"
"Wake up, you big slug," he groans, half heartedly pushing his husband to the side. "Pretty sure we're not supposed to snuggle until I get these stitches out."
Almost immediately, Hizashi is off the bed, leaning over Shouta as though scanning him for any obvious aggravations. When his inspection is complete, he sighs, flopping onto the padded bedside chair. Shouta finds himself staring, only now noticing the blood on his costume.
It's probably his, he realizes. Hizashi didn't actually encounter the villain from last night, but he did give Shouta CPR for what felt like an eternity.
It must have broken him, when he didn't wake up.
"I thought I had lost you," Hizashi says quietly, right on cue. "It was only a few hours, but those were the worst hours of my life, Shou."
"I know," he says, and Hizashi shakes his head.
"I don't think you do. You're… you're so perfect. You take care of me, complete me in ways nobody else ever could. You're my best friend, and my husband, and I just don't know what I would do without you."
The confession is raw, painful to listen to. Hizashi's eyes stare wistfully into the distance.
Shouta stares at his hands.
"I'm not saying you wouldn't be devastated if something happened to me. But I don't think you understand just how much I care about you. I was… please, just be careful. I can't lose you."
"You won't," he promises. He doesn't know how true it is. Before yesterday, he would have promised the same thing with the same level of earnestness.
"Good," Hizashi says. He must know that it doesn't mean much. A hero cannot choose their battles.
Shouta finds himself drifting back to sleep sooner than he would like, but he reminds himself that he needs time to heal. Hizashi will be watching over him like a mother hen for the next month at least, so there's no point in trying to over exert himself.
It's not his first dance with death, but it's his closest to date, and that's honestly a terrifying thought. He was so busy being frustrated and afraid that he didn't think much about why. He always assumed it would be easy to let go. Hoped, anyway.
In a way, he's glad that it's not. A very stubborn part of him wants to hold on, and he's content to let that happen. There's a lot left to do here, in this world. Most of all, he's not leaving Hizashi to do it all on his own.
He wonders for a moment, as he's drifting off to sleep, what he would do if their roles had been reversed. He is lucky to succumb before he has to think about it.