Work Text:
Contrary to popular belief Sho could read.
He just didn't like to read books, real books, the kind that Dad and Minegishi were always reading. Shimazaki too, sometimes, which was so weird for him. Seeing him in one place with a book just doing a whole lot of nothing…it just didn't seem natural. Maybe that was what people thought when they saw Sho reading, well, if they'd seen Sho reading.
Sho never read in front of people.
Mostly because he didn't read books. Manga didn't count, Dad had said, even if you opened it like a book and held it like a book and turned the pages like it was a book…which sucked because manga counted! And manga was better than real books, Serizawa agreed, though Serizawa only read mech stuff which, like, reading about robots beating the stuffing out of each other was interesting and all but not for the millionth time or however many Gundams they'd come out with at this point. No, Sho had his own taste in manga, mostly guys with super powers fighting for all that was good and right with the power of friendship or whatever. Just a bunch of guys going around and getting into fights and stuff like that. Also sometimes there were girls but he wasn't Hatori, he wasn't going to spend all day staring at girls' boobs and stuff, he didn't care about that kind of thing.
Girls were alright but they just weren't for him.
He didn't have anything against them he just…didn't care, really, about girls in short skirts with big boobs and weird angles so you could see up their dresses and stuff. He just didn't like girls like that, he didn't dislike them as people, but he didn't care if the pretty girl and the main guy almost kissed for the billionth time before something interrupted them and stuff. Romance manga, too, was boring. At least the regular kinds.
He didn't really mind the other kind.
Which was why he was currently laying under his blanket using his phone as a flashlight and reading about two super powered exorcist guys saving the world and falling in love…well, one of them was in love with the other. The bigger guy was acting like he didn't even like the other guy but if they didn't like each other then why had they kissed already? And why were they saving the world together? And why was he acting all jealous? It would have been much simpler if they just admitted that they loved each other and then got married and got some pets and then saved the world. It wasn't like anything was stopping them, no, in manga anything could happen.
Guys could even be in love with other guys.
"Oh come on!" whispered Sho as he turned the page. An almost kiss…why?! They had kissed in the first issue! If two people wanted to kiss then they should have just kissed, in fact this whole book should have been nothing but kissing, kissing and fighting…but not with each other. Maybe they were trying to be realistic, Sho thoughts as he turned the page, because it wasn't like that was how relationships worked. It wasn't like people just met and fell in love and lived happily ever after and kissed each other every single day a million times a day. People fell in love, had kids, and then one of them decided that they didn't want to be married or have kids so they ran away and left you all alone.
Real life sucked.
He didn't know if it was just girls that were like that or all relationships with all people. The only relationship he'd seen in real life, besides his parents but they sucked, was Shimazaki and Minegishi…and he wasn't entirely sure if Minegishi was a boy or a girl. They dressed like both and hadn't come with to the annual Claw hot spring retreat. He'd even gone so far as to ask Shimazaki what Minegishi was and all he'd said was that unless Sho was trying to get with them, no way, then it was none of his business…even though he needed to know! For…reasons! Nosy reasons!
If he admitted to being nosy then maybe it wouldn't be that bad…as bad as admitting that he was being nosy.
Besides, it was better to admit to being nosy than admitting that he didn't know anything at all about real life relationships. Or why he wanted to know about them. Sometimes he didn't even know, it wasn't like he was ever going to see that guy again or anything, and honestly it was safer if he didn't. That guy didn't belong in Claw. Claw was for people without friends or family, people who had nothing to lose to they followed Dad, people who didn't fit in with society. That guy had friends and a brother and stuff…and also he was Sho's age. Sho hated it when Dad kidnapped kids…it was better to imagine that every kid was like Hatori, from an orphanage, or like Mukai, someone who Dad swore up and down was from an orphanage even though he looked just like her…there were a lot of things that Sho didn't want to think about.
Things and people and stuff like that.
So he got back to reading. He knew that he was supposed to be asleep right now, Dad had said that as soon as his business was concluded they were leaving, in fact they were spending such little time here that Dad had gotten them a bunch of hotel rooms instead of setting them up in a safe house. He would have preferred a long stay in the safehouse, though, at least then he would have had his own room or at worst would have had to share with Serizawa…hell! He would have shared with Hatori and listened to him yell at people in videogames than share with…with…with…
Dad.
Sho buried his head in his manga. He didn't want to think about Dad. He just had to get through the night, that was all, Dad would be back in the morning and he'd crash for a few hours before they got back in their plane and flew away to…well, he didn't know where the next stop was but he knew that this was just supposed to be for one night. He just had to put up with Dad for one night…well, Dad sleeping right next to him. He still had to travel with Dad and stuff…which sucked! He was thirteen and he could go places on his own! And it wasn't his fault that the Seventh Division needed to be rebuilt and all the Scars ran away! And he wasn't going to tell Dad who's fault it was, either, because-because-because of reasons!
Goldfish reasons.
The kind of reasons that made it feel like there was a goldfish swimming around in your stomach. The kind of reasons that made you feel like you forgot your own name when you looked at him. The kind of reasons that made you feel like, for the first time ever, that there was something more to life than following Dad around and trying to make his stupid dreams come true. The kind of reasons that made you steal weird manga from Minegishi and read them in secret under the covers in the dark so you could begin to understand what all of these reasons were and…and other reasonable stuff like that!
Those kinds of reasons. Doki doki kinds of reasons.
Things that he had no experience with…those kinds of reasons.
"Come on, just tell him you like him already!" whispered Sho, nearly slamming his book shut. There was no way that this could have been the way things were supposed to go. When you loved someone you were supposed to act like it, right? Sho had seen plenty of movies and people always acted like they were in love when they were in movies…but maybe it was different in life, and with two guys, not that he had any idea how it worked with either. Shimazaki and Minegishi sometimes acted like they were in love, when they thought nobody was looking, but Minegishi was…Minegishi….so maybe it was a person by person thing?
He had no idea.
He turned the page and got back to reading. He didn't know how long he'd been reading for but at some point his eyes started to get heavy and he nearly dropped his phone. He focused more on staying awake, on keeping his phone in place, so he could finish this and give it back before Minegishi noticed it was gone. If they figured out that he was the one stealing their books, that it wasn't Shimazaki being a jerk, he'd have a lot of explaining to do…explaining that he didn't think that he could. Not to his friends and certainly not to his Dad.
There was no way Dad would be able to understand.
Nope. Dad would kill…well, no, Dad had said a million times before how much he hated wasting perfectly good talent. Dad would probably reassign him to some far off division and pretend that he'd never had a son to begin with. He'd probably just leave everything to Mukai, she was still too little to do anything to piss him off, and if she did then he'd just end up having another kid. Everyone was replaceable, even Sho.
Especially Sho.
"Fuck you, Dad….fuck you." said Sho as he felt his eyes get even heavier. He yawned and blinked…well, he half blinked. He closed his eyes just fine but at some point forgot how to open them again. One minute he was reading and then the next a door was opening and the room was filled with the blinding light of a thousand suns.
"What the hell?!" shouted Sho as he sat up. The blanket was suddenly pulled off of his head, making the light even worse. Something hit the ground. He didn't look down, he couldn't, not when he was face to face with Dad.
Fucking Dad.
"What are you doing awake at this hour?" asked Dad as he tossed the blanket to the side, a streak of red burning bright against the white. Dad was covered in blood but Sho knew better than to think it was his. He never got that lucky.
"Gee Dad, I don't know, maybe because you woke me up." said Sho, grateful that Dad had never been good with sarcasm or anything else that had to do with talking to another human being.
"I…may have forgotten that you were here." Said Dad
"Wow, and you forgot about your own son, too?" said Sho. Dad shook his head.
"That you were here, not that you existed, now go to sleep. We're leaving at dawn tomorrow." Said Dad as he took his coat off with his powers. More blood. Burns, too, it looked like it had been a fun battle by the looks of it. Dad never brought him with when things were fun…not that he wanted to hang out with Dad or anything, fighting was just…fun.
Part of him, that part of him that released the goldfish into his stomach, wondered what it would have been like to get into a real fight with that guy…that guy he wished he'd asked the name of.
"And stop looking forlorn, we won. Look joyful." Said Dad as he untied his tie and tossed it away…he was happy, weirdly happy, otherwise he would have been all weirdly neat. It must have been one hell of a fight…he kind of, sort of, wanted to know how it went. When he'd been younger he would have been jumping up and down on the bed begging Dad to give him all the details. Kind of liked a fucked up bedtime story…
Sho was way thirteen now, not seven, way too old for bedtime stories.
"I don't care about the fight." Said Sho. Huh. If he hadn't known better he would have thought that Dad looked kind of, sort of, maybe even a little bit sad there…but of course he knew better.
"Oh. Normally you show interest." Said Dad as he sat down on the other bed and started to unbutton his shirt with his powers. There was even more blood on his undershirt. He wondered how much blood people had in their bodies…that guy, his name had started with a 'Ri' sound, would have known. He looked like he was really smart, plus he went to normal school and stuff, people learned all kinds of stuff at normal school.
"Yeah, when I was a little kid." Scoffed Sho
"You did so six months ago when you were twelve." Said Dad as he tossed his shirt in the corner, too. Someone had tried to stab him, Sho could see a cut in his undershirt.
"Twelve is still a little kid. I'm thirteen now." said Sho
"I'm aware…and I suppose that you're at that age. That's fine then, I'll be going to sleep now. We depart in less than six hours and I intend to make the most of them." said Dad as he kicked his socks off.
"We have to get up in six hours?" asked Sho, making sure that nobody could have accused him of whining , because he wasn't whining, little kids whined. He was thirteen. He didn't whine, he complained.
"No, we have to be out of here in less than six hours. We have to wake up in less than five, now go to sleep…and stop reading before bed, it's bad for you." said Dad as he picked up…oh no! Sho felt his heart stop in a way that he wished had killed him. But he wasn't dead, no, he was alive. He was painfully alive as he watched Dad pick up the book he dropped and read the cover.
By the time Sho remembered that he had psychic powers it was too late.
"That's not mine!" shouted Sho. He didn't think that Dad was listening, no, if he had bene then he would have told Sho not to shout at him and probably insulted him to. He didn't do either of those things. He looked down at the book, stared for a second, and then his eyebrows decided to migrate up to his forehead. If Sho had been in his right state of mind he would have thought to say something like 'I didn't know that caterpillars could migrate' or something else that would have gotten Dad mad at him. But he wasn't in his right state of mind so all he could do was lie like he had never heard of lying before.
And obviously it didn't work.
"This is…" said Dad. Sho closed his eyes and braced himself for whatever Dad had in store for him. Maybe if he was lucky he'd just get smacked upside the head…or maybe if he got really, really lucky Dad would just do that 'I have no son' thing and get mad but then forget about it the next time he needed Sho for something. He kept his eyes closed and prayed that it was just going to be mean words.
Hey, maybe it was time he got lucky for once.
"-not how anything works." Said Dad. Sho opened one eye and stared. Dad was staring back at him. He decided to open the other eye. That was…he hadn't gotten hit, which was what he had wanted in the first place, so….yay?
"It really isn't." said Dad
"Um….ok?" asked Sho, scratching his head. This was…Dad was calm, that was something, right?
"I can't believe that they're still publishing this drivel. Honestly. When I come to power I'm doing something about this." Said Dad
"Hey! Sometimes guys can like other guys and-" said Sho, jumping to his feet. There was no way Dad was going to-to-to be like that! Sho wasn't going to let him! Sho was…going to be pushed back down onto his bed.
He forgot how strong Dad was, sometimes….
"I have no problem with homosexuality whatsoever. So sit down and stop being incensed. It's annoying." Said Dad. Sho stopped trying to fight and just sat there. He didn't have any space left in his brain to fight. It was like all the little guys in his head were running around trying to figure out what Dad had just said.
It sounded like he was…ok…with it…the way Sho was…but that was impossible!
"Say what now?" asked Sho, cleaning out his ear with his pinky. Dad gave him a look and shook his head.
"Stop that, it's disgusting, and to answer your question I have no problem with homosexuality, what I have a problem with is bad writing, and these…I can't even call them books, have the worst writing I've ever seen. Blatant lies. I hope that you're smart enough not to use any of this as a blueprint for any future relationships you find yourself in." said Dad. Sho went to clean out the other ear but found his arm would move. Dad…he had a problem with Sho digging wax out of his ears but not a problem with him making out with other guys! In the future, of course, it wasn't like he'd ever…but that wasn't even the point!
"Wait…so…so if I was gay then you wouldn't mind?" asked Sho. He braced himself for whatever Dad could throw at him. Rage, fury, being really mad…yelling, screaming, shouting, that whisper thing he did when he was super mad at someone. He was prepared for the full brunt of Dad's fury. He put up a barrier and held it there, prepared to fight for his life if he needed to!
"Has it been some kind of secret? I've always known you were a homosexual. Remember when you were dismissed from preschool for kissing all the other boys?" asked Dad. Sho felt his barrier go down. He hadn't taken it down on his own, no, he'd just been too shocked to keep it up. Dad was…ok…with this? And…and what the hell was that about?!
"Uh, no, I think that I'd remember something like that!" said Sho. Dad nodded like-like it was nothing! Like he was just going to sit there making stories up all night like it was nothing!
"It's the truth. Well, all the information I have is second hand of course, but your mother…well she called me and told me that she had to find a new preschool for you because you wouldn't stop kissing all the other boys. Honestly it was a bit amusing, if anything." Said Dad. Sho…he kind of remembered really liking this other guy in his class when he'd been little, and another, and another, and then he remembered one day mom telling him that he was going to a new school…and maybe he had tried to kiss a couple of those guys…but it had been so long ago that of course he couldn't remember! And anyway if it had happened then Dad would have killed him…right?
Right?
But Dad wasn't killing him now, no, Dad was just sitting there thumbing through that stupid book that he'd stolen from Minegishi. He wasn't even mad and…and not in that way where he hid how mad he was but really he was about to explode. He seemed bored, if anything, like he didn't even give a damn that Sho had just told him the deepest, darkest, secret that he'd ever carried inside of himself! That he'd been carrying around since ever!
It was like he didn't even care at all.
"But…you don't care? At all? You don't give a fuck about this?" asked Sho
"Don't curse. Also, no, of course not, your future romantic and sexual relationships-" said Dad
"Dad, gross!" said Sho before pretending to throw up. Dad was NOT allowed to use that word!
"-are none of my business, just like that facet of my life is none of your business." Said Dad
"Well yeah. It wouldn't be my business if you didn't make new brothers and sisters for me and lie to me about them." said Sho, crossing his arms. Dad didn't get a even a little mad even though he was supposed to! This whole thing was going…not wrong…but weird! Super weird!
"You have no other brothers." Said Dad
"So not the point." Muttered Sho
"And that's none of your concern. As I have said before, that facet of my life is not your concern and vise versa…though if you continue to read this drivel I don't imagine you'll have much romantic success with anyone." Said Dad
"Yeah, I'm not dumb, I know it's not exactly like in the books but…I mean they wouldn't just lie like that in a book. On TV, maybe, but not in books." Said Sho. If he hadn't known any better he could have sworn that Dad had been laughing a little there, silently, and mostly with his eyes…but that was impossible. Dad didn't know how to laugh. He hated joy and laughter and any expression of good feelings, actually he took them as personal insults…but here he was, sitting there, looking…amused? Was that the word for it?
Or maybe really fucking weird would have been better.
"Yes, yes they would, and…well, there will be much humiliation in your life if you go off of materials like this. When I come to power everything is going to be realistic. It'll save a lot of people a lot of humiliation." Said Dad
"Wait…are you saying that you….?" asked Sho. He…had no idea how he was supposed to feel about that. He didn't even like thinking about his parents being together and they'd been married! And knowing about Tsuchiya made every single visit to the Seventh Division super weird…nope. No way. Ok, now he knew how to feel and it was grossed out! Nobody needed to know these things about their Dad!
"None of your business." Said Dad
"I wasn't asking-I mean-I-" said Sho
"Yes you were. Don't." said Dad
"Well, sorry, it's just kind of a massive fucking shock to learn that your own Dad-" said Sho
"And I told you before don't curse. It makes you sound unintelligent and I don't imagine any future partners of yours will enjoy listening to that. I know for a fact that women don't, anyway." Said Dad
"Guys don't care about cursing…do they?" asked Sho. Now he wondered. Not about HOW Dad knew, because gross, but just…how did it work? What did guys like from other guys? He knew what guys wanted from girls and what girls wanted from guys, every single movie had something about love in it after all, but this was the only thing that he had ever seen with two guys in it and…and to find out that it was all lies…
"Everyone wants an intelligent partner, so don't make yourself sound like a moron." Said Dad
"I'm not a moron." Said Sho, sticking out his tongue. If he didn't know better he could have sworn that Dad had just rolled his eyes.
"No, I know that, you're my son. You sound like one when you speak like that. Think of the sort of person you want to be with and ask yourself if they'd want to be with you the way you are." Said Dad
"I…don't know, I don't know him that well." Said Sho
"Him? There's someone specific you have in mind?" asked Dad, his eyebrows migrating upwards again. Sho gasped and shook his head. Nope!
"N-No! Got to bed! It's late and we have to be up in six hours-" said Sho as he pointed at the clock. Dad couldn't know about anything! Not about him or what had happened to the Seventh Division or-or anything like that! Dad just…Dad would probably kidnap him and brainwash him and then that would suck and also, of course, at some point Dad would do something embarrassing and that would just be the cherry on top of the shit sundae that had been Sho's life up to this point! Nope, no way was he going to let Dad ruin this for him like he'd ruined everything else in Sho's life!
"It's more like four, but yes, I'm going to bed…and remember, don't do anything you read about in this book. I'd like some grandchildren at some point." Said Dad as he slid the clock over with his powers. He slid it back and took off his watch. Good, good, that meant that he was officially going to bed. Now they could go to sleep and wake up in the morning and pretend that none of this had ever happened…and also that Dad hadn't said that he wanted grandkids…because now he was thinking about stuff and-
-and he shook his head until the thoughts came out. No WAY was he thinking about that kind of stuff with his Dad there….not that it was even possible. Sho didn't know a lot but he knew, at least, where babies came from.
"Not sure how that's going to happen but ok." Said Sho
"And please, please, in the future read these sorts of things in private. Nobody wants to be privy to this portion of their son's life." said Dad
"Yeah, well, don't be nosy…I guess. Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs lay eggs in your ears." Said Sho as he laid down and turned to face the wall. The lights went out. Sho didn't dare move, not even after he'd heard Dad start to snore. If he moved then Dad might have woken up and then they would have had to talk about…stuff…again.
And then Sho would have died.
He would have died of embarrassment and confusion and-and weirdness! This was way too much to take in. He pulled the blanket up over his head and closed his eyes. He didn't know if he wanted this to have all been a dream or not. On the one hand he knew way more about his Dad then he'd ever wanted to know, on the other hand Dad hadn't been mad at him…he decided to just take the win and go to sleep. Yeah, that would be good. He heard Dad turning over. Something hit the ground…probably that book again.
Sho decided to leave the damn thing alone, reading in bed was a really bad idea anyway.