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Stay calm, Hizashi’s first thought upon regaining consciousness. That’s what he’d been taught for these exact situations, there were steps to follow to avoid shock and panic, he knew them like the back of his hand—every hero did. His head throbbed and his closed eyes burned. Don’t panic. Take stock of your wounds.
He kept his eyes shut, feigning unconsciousness and forcing clumsy awareness into his sore body. He was sitting on something hard, slumped forward, feet on the ground. A chair, maybe? His shoulders ached from his arms being wrenched behind him, his wrists clasped together with metal. His head was killing him, particularly at the back of his skull. He couldn’t remember being hit, so that might be what had knocked him out. His body ached with an overall soreness he’d become accustomed to after a fight. Right, he’d been on patrol. Tailing what he’d thought was a small-time villain, he’d been led into a trap and ambushed.
Listening to the sounds around him, and determining he was alone, Hizashi blinked his eyes open, looking down at his blurry lap. Fuck, his glasses. No real surprise he’d lost them; he’d fought without them before, it’d just make it more annoying to break out of here. He glanced at his surroundings, a large room lit by a buzzing bulb on the ceiling. There wasn’t much in it aside from a few large crates stacked in one corner, their edges fuzzy with his blurred eyesight.
He huffed a sigh, freezing when his breath barely left him, and he became aware of the weight on his lower face, pressure across his cheeks and meeting at the back of his head. A muzzle. Hizashi jerked his head up, eyes wide.
Do not panic.
Easier said than done.
Not with this, not a muzzle, he couldn’t do this. His chest heaved, and he pushed back into the chair like he could pull away from the thing clinging to his face. The weight of it covered from his nose to below his chin, obscuring the whole bottom of his face and keeping his jaw locked. He breathed heavily through his nose, feeling claustrophobic like his breaths suddenly weren’t reaching his lungs. He considered trying to scream it off his face, but the fear that the pressure would explode his jaw was the only thing that stopped him.
I can’t breathe, he thought. Tears pricked his eyes and he shook his head violently like a dog trying to escape their muzzle, making his vision spin and head throb more. His thoughts spiraled into I can’t do this, I want my boyfriend, and please, anything to get this thing off my face. He felt like he was asphyxiating, only able to breathe through his nose, barely able to fill his lungs.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He was going to pass out again if he didn’t calm down. He focused on slowing his frantic breathing, trying for slower, shallower breaths in and out through his nose. It helped a little, but his heart was still racing and it felt like his skull was going to cave in from imaginary pressure.
Heroes were kidnapped sometimes. Held hostage, even. It wasn’t uncommon. There were protocols for this, for heroes missing check-ins, for tracking them, for rescue. He just needed to stay calm until someone could come rescue him or there was an opening for him to break out. It’d be really helpful if he knew why he’d been targeted, or more about his captors.
Stay calm. I’ll be out of here soon.
He faded in and out of consciousness frequently enough that he lost track of time around day four. The chair he’d been tied to had broken during that time, so he could move about his small room freely with cuffed hands. He would pace back and forth, back and forth until his legs gave out and he’d crumple to the floor. He tried to pass the time by listing albums and songs in his head, counting until he lost track of the numbers in every language he could, or trying to recall lesson plans for his students.
Sometimes the captors would come into the room, beat him around a bit, and leave. They never made demands. Never asked questions. Like he was just a plaything, something to pass the time. Rarer, someone would bring him food. They’d take off the muzzle for a few blissful moments, hushed threats of the collar around his neck electrocuting him if he so much as whispered. The food was always meager, stale, and never enough, but he knew he needed to eat, he was going for too long on an empty stomach.
Of course, the first time they removed the muzzle he’d tried to yell anyway, and Hizashi was positive the electric burns he’d received around his throat were going to be infected soon if they weren’t cleaned. He didn’t think the muzzle was even necessary with the collar, and he wished they would just leave it off. He didn’t have the energy to fight back anyway.
Everything hurt. He was exhausted despite sleeping most of the time.
He didn’t fight back when they came in to rough him up and throw him around, and they started looking for more creative ways to get him to cry or cower. They took his clothes and stripped him down to just boxer briefs so he was perpetually shivering. The first time one of them pissed on him was when he figured out how to dissociate at will. He just took it and waited for the pain or humiliation to end so he could curl in on himself behind the crates in the corner and try to forget. He’d become great at that.
One of the villains liked to mess with him in more psychological ways, trapping him in hallucinations of rescue, or worse, other people he loved being captured with him. He’d come out of them sobbing every time, bearing through shocks of pain if his cries were too loud, and be taunted for believing them.
They didn’t even keep him cuffed anymore, the collar and his weak body were deterrent enough to stop him from rushing the door every time someone came in. One of the captors told him he’d been with them for two months. He didn’t believe them, that didn’t make any sense. He should’ve been rescued by now. There were—there were protocols for this, for finding kidnapped heroes. Why hadn’t he been found? They must be lying. It didn’t feel like that long.
Another villain he’d see often would come in and stroke his face, his hair, and his chest, tauntingly gentle touches making him flinch from each contact with his skin or body. The warmth made his icy skin feel like lava. Those touches he hated the most. He’d rather be hit. The anticipation of something so mockingly tender—the fear that someday it may become more—had him hating this particular villain the most.
He just wished he knew what they wanted with him.
When the heroes finally came, he thought it was another hallucination. The noises of fighting outside his door had him scrambling to hide behind the crates in the corner of the room, anticipation causing waves of anxiety through his gut. The door slammed open, a familiar noise now, and he shut his eyes and put his hands over his ears, waiting for it to end. He hated falling for this.
He flinched back when a hand landed on his bare knee. The hallucinations had never been able to touch him before, and it burned. He kept his eyes shut. The hand removed itself, and his wrists were gently taken and pulled away from his ears. He didn’t fight, fighting back made it worse, so he just ducked his head.
“Hizashi,” a familiar voice whispered, sounding wet with emotion. “Open your eyes.”
Hizashi shook his head because he hated the visions with Shouta in them, they hurt so much more. He felt his body tremble, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold.
“It’s okay,” The voice mumbled, rambling, “It’s okay, I’m here now, we’re gonna get you out of here. You’re okay.”
He kept his eyes shut as gentle hands tested the edges of the muzzle on his face, tugging gently before falling to the collar, searching for a release on that too. Hizashi had done this himself many times—there was no seam or latch or anything to get it off. The hands grew frustrated, persistent, turning Hizashi’s head, guiding him to look down so the person could inspect the back of the muzzle, the sides of the collar. Hizashi was pliant, waiting for the punchline, the betrayal, the thing the hallucinations always did to hurt him.
Hizashi wanted to say something, just go away, please stop. But he didn’t. His neck still burned from the last time he’d made a sound. He was so used to being manhandled at this point that these hesitant, guiding touches were nothing.
“I have to leave these on you for now, but they’ll get them off at the hospital, okay?” Shouta’s voice said. Not Shouta, not Shouta. It can’t be real.
Calloused hands took his own, pulling him up to stand. He resisted for a moment but decided there was no point and let himself be pulled up. He stumbled forward slightly, his legs aching, and was caught by the shoulders. A rough hand moved to cup his face, over the muzzle, and he flinched back from it, yanking his chin away.
“Please open your eyes, it’s me,” he whispered. “‘Zashi, please.”
He was so tired.
“Our cat's names are Trashcan and Muse,” Shouta's voice said suddenly, and Hizashi wondered how the villains could possibly know that. “Because I found Trashcan in a dumpster and you wouldn’t let me name him Bastard.”
Hizashi tried to pull away from the hands on his shoulders because this wasn’t right. This wasn’t how these hallucinations usually went. The villain had never been able to produce information she didn’t know, she could only guide the visions to take the forms of people he cared about, even if she didn’t know who they were. That’s why Shouta had been in so many of them, but he’d always been wrong. The hands at his shoulders tightened as he tried to step back, not letting him go.
“You picked my hero name in our first year of high school,” he continued. “After I told you I didn’t care what it was.”
Hizashi felt wetness on his face and realized he was crying. He tried to fight off the grip on his shoulders and was dragged forward in a warm, familiar hug. He tensed harshly, feeling trapped, but he felt the familiar rough material of Shouta’s hero jumpsuit, the capture weapon around his shoulders, and thick hair against his skin.
“We’ve been dating for almost eight years,” —was Shouta crying too?— “and the only reason we haven’t gotten married yet is because our relationship isn’t public and the marriage documents would make it easier for people to find out. But I want to, so bad, and I’ve had a ring for three years, hidden in the bedroom closet. I’ll show it to you when we get home, okay? You’ll love it.”
Hizashi was gripping Shouta tightly, fingers digging into his sides, and trying to bite back the sobs bubbling up in his chest out of fear of being electrocuted again. His eyes crept open and he buried his face in the harsh material of Shouta’s capture weapon, inhaling his musky scent, and pressing their bodies closer together. He felt like he might collapse at any moment, his body too weak and his head spinning with emotion.
Shouta’s hands shifted to push him back so they could look at each other.
He met Shouta’s watery gaze with his own. Shouta looked terrible. His hair was a mess, his dark eye bags more like black bruises, and the scruff usually around his jaw had grown out significantly. Hizashi’s sure he looked just as bad. Shouta had always looked too clean and put together in the hallucinations Hizashi had endured, like he’d been plucked from a picture.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” Shouta said, voice cracking. “We can go home now.”
Hizashi nodded, then the edges of his vision turned dark and he collapsed into Shouta’s waiting arms.