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this has been needing to happen for– a long time. shoutas played this game over and over, and he’s faltered each time. now wasn’t like that, shouta knew this, and the responsibility of that acknowledgement felt like a noose around his throat as he reached for the doorknob to hizashi and his apartment.
shouta had made sure he entered the apartment silently, (which didn’t prove to be very difficult for an underground hero) weary of the creaking door and the sound of his own footsteps as he made his way down the hall, and towards the living room. he didn’t bother removing his gear- he assumed he wouldn’t be here for long, anyways. he knew hizashi would be sitting there, listening to music, probably exhausted after patrol– he’d pre-planned this, but going through the motions hed prepared made him physically nauseous and imbued a slight tremor into his hands. his racing, anxious thoughts had begun to tangle themselves into and aching knot in the back of shoutas skull by the time he arrived at the doorway to their shared living room. their living room. shouta savored all of the sweet domesticity laced into those words. ours.
hizashi lit up the room with a smile the moment he saw shouta, and everything in shouta ached all at once to hold him and never, never let him go. he couldn’t.
“hi, love!! how was patrol?” as always, there is an endless amount of love and light fusing into hizashis voice, and it’s sickening shouta to hear it– he doesn’t know where hizashi finds the energy or emotion to feign this side of himself to shouta, considering everything. shouta can hear and see and notice the vulnerabilities betraying his partners facade that nobody else could, not even hizashi.
shouta stills himself as he fumbles with the words forming on his tongue, his emotions are betraying him in violent succession even though nothings happened yet, he feels his heart going a thousand miles per hour as he reminds himself just how many times he has been made to utter the phrase he’d prepared. shouta can hear his blood pumping in his ears, so much so that he can hardly hear himself think, and he barely registers the precarious, anxious silence floating aimlessly between him and hizashi. shouta wants to reach out and beg and offer hizashi everything, but it wouldn’t do any good. he knows that.
“hey zashi, we need to talk.” hizashi adjusts his position on their worn-out, grey couch in a motion which seems so prereheresed and pitifully anxious . shoutas knows this means something, but he prays that it doesn’t anyways. he ignores it, pushes it down because he loves hizashi too much not to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if it’s for just a moment. he blinks away fonder memories from what had felt like a previous lifetime of them enjoying small, impossibly significant insignificant occurrences– he swallows down the memory of hizashis warmth bleeding through his clothes and into shoutas skin, of them in eachothers arms, natural and comforting.
“oh, sure- whats up, darling?” this is the only answer shouta needs.
he feels insane for it, for a moment, because he knows that nobody else would understand the situation he found himself in its entirety; hizashi is acting perfectly fine, they both are, everything seems to be perfectly domestic and unafflicted but shouta knows he can hear the secrecy and the pain and the fear woven into those words. it feels like the beginning of a spiral of lies, a betrayal, it feels obscene and shouta wants to scream . i’ve known you for so long, i know every part of you and you would still lie to me. he’s barely processing this, hes swallowing so much fear and hurt and forced optimism he can’t tell if it’s imagined anymore, and all he can do to avoid breaking down on the spot is force the words out.
he’s seen this, felt this, so, so many times before. he knows what’s going to happen, he’s seen this end a thousand times.
“so, i found a baggie under our bedside table- i know you don’t like talking about shit like this but- yeah. i thought you told me you stopped.”
the silence that hangs in the air is stale, rotting far too rapidly as shouta observes the way hizashis pupils dilate considerably, and suddenly shouta can barely make out the emerald color that had met his gaze just a moment ago. he can practically taste the anxiety withering inside of hizashi, he sees the wheels turning, shouta can practically point out every step hizashi takes to craft his next lie. he’s twisting the knife . shouta feels sick, and a silent, neglected part of himself aches to be held.
in between the silences, a part of shouta believes, for a moment, that he could simply sit back and rot alongside hizashi forever– that he could watch and take part in it, that he could continue to sleep next to hizashi and watch everything around and within them decay- like he could hide from it all in the crook of hizashis neck, under a mess of blankets and surrounded by darkness. hizashis next words shatter this delusion.
“oh– sorry, shou, that's old. i meant to throw that all out before i took a break, it’s nothing to worry about, baby.” hizashis expression hasn’t changed at all aside from the dilation of his pupils, he plays his role perfectly, he always does- but shouta isn’t here to watch an act, he doesn’t want to play this game. he wants to reach out and rip the illusion hizashi has presented shouta with away and force him to show shouta something genuine, something- anything he could use to make this better.
shouta leans in the doorway, arms crossed, hands clasped to ensure that the shaking doesn’t become evident. his heart is beating a horribly familiar rhythm, and a dissociative haze falls over shouta slightly as the familiar sensation of ‘this is a nightmare.’ makes a nest for itself in his throat. the wood pressed against his back is peeling, and it smells like home. it doesn’t make anything easier.
“yeah- id say that makes sense, but you’ve been acting kinda weird recently. and i know for a fact that i got rid of all your old shit.” shouta makes sure his tone doesn’t falter, he tries to steel his nerves to no avail. he hates himself, he’s silently hoping hizashi can craft an excuse convincing enough for shouta to return to blissful ignorance and normalcy . but it hadn’t been normal, apparently.
“shouta, what d’you mean ‘acting weird’? i promise you it’s just some old trash, i’ll take a drug test if you need me to.” hizashi repositions himself again, another defensive, rehearsed motion. aizawa hates how incredibly evident it is to him, he feels like he’s already damned them by seeing through the act, he might as well have destroyed both of them by starting this conversation- but he presses on.
shouta clears his throat slightly, he makes sure he sounds gentle and safe , he wants to do anything he can to back hizashi into a corner, force him to confide in aizawa, make him get better with whatever force he deemed necessary. he can’t. “well, you haven’t really been sleeping, but you’ve been acting super hopped up all the time despite that. if you’re manic or something we should probably go see your psyche, but that would mean you stopped taking your antipsychotics, which you havent, so– yeah, could you take a drug test for me?” the words falling off shoutas tongue leave an impossibly bitter taste in his mouth, on his lips, everywhere he has ever tasted hizashi. he wants to wipe his memory reminding himself of the small incidents, the minor transgressions and nearly unnoticeable signs shouta had taken note of- the things he knows to be more than nothing by fault of just how much they’ve done this.
“uh– yeah, sure, i promise it’s nothing though, shou. i’ve just been having some extra symptoms recently, i might just need my dosage upped- but i’m not using again, my love.” hizashis pupils are dilated even further now, somehow. shouta hates it, it’s a horrible sight- he hates himself for scaring hizashi so fucking badly, because shouta knows what it feels like to be on the other side of this conversation- but it had been different then, and they both knew that. shoutas addiction had been born from grief and self wallowing, hizashis had manifested as his pain incarnate, and there was always more pain. shouta finds himself miserable at hizashis words- my love. shouta wouldn’t hear that again, not for- he didn’t know. maybe never again, maybe for the rest of time, he just needed hizashi to work with him, but he wasn’t. he was lying through his teeth, and shoutas hands were far too shaky to keep a firm grip on the hysteria gnawing away at his senses.
shouta presses on, releasing a quick breath before he speaks, “are you doing okay, though? i've been pretty worried. what ‘extra symptoms’ have you been getting?” shouta is sure that they both recognize that this is an act, now. shouta feels disconnected from his words, like he isn’t the one saying them, like he isn’t here at all. they don’t mean much, anyways. a sense of mutual knowing shifted between him and hizashi, the kind that can’t be so easily covered up by pretty lies, and its weighing on shoutas chest so intensely he thinks he might break in two.
“oh, uh, just moodswings and shit. that’s basically what being bipolar is, but i’ve just been feeling a bit too– energized. and.. destructive.” shouta takes note of the distinct sound of honesty in hizashis final word. hizashis fidgeting now, nervously, attempting to appear absentminded. it kills shouta, every word, every lie, every act- but the fleeting honesty imbued into hizashis final confession makes shouta feel like hizashi isn’t putting on as much of an act, he sees the persona receding out of the corner of his eyes. it hurts anyways.
“alright. we need to go get you a drug test and then visit your psychiatrist then, okay?” shouta barely has time to process the words ‘ drug test’ before they leave his mouth, and the very utterance of them raises the tension between them tenfold. shouta wants to fix this, save him. everything in him screams at him to do something . anything. but this is all he can do.
“mhm– do you really need me to take a drug test? i thought we were finally good- i’m sorry whatever you found scared you, but i promise it’s just my meds fucking with me.” hizashi is fidgeting with his hair now, barely meeting shoutas gaze, recoiling into a large black hoodie he had stolen from aizawa during the early hours of a morning spent wound together, legs intertwined. now he’s sure they’re both feeling sick. shouta reconnects with the situation, realligns with his words, listens to whatever is tearing him apart, telling him to do something.
“yeah, its okay but– zashi, please? its really worrying to not know for sure whether you’re sober or not, and i can’t really tell the difference between the way you act on coke versus the way you act when you’re manic.”
he knows how it must sting for aizawa to mention his substance of choice by name- but hizashi needs to know that he knows. shouta takes a few steps forward, moving away from the doorway and pulling a chair from the kitchen table, placing himself on it backwards and facing hizashi. he’s got hizashis full attention now, and shouta can see him tremble. he hates it. he’s worried he’s watching the beginning of a flashback.
“I haven’t been on coke, shouta. i haven’t been using at all. i know i offered to take a drug test, but i didn’t really expect you to be suspicious of me like this.” the slight aggression working its way into hizashis voice is his final undoing, and suddenly shouta feels like a tormented, scared kid again, but he knows that all of the power imbued into this conversation lays in his hand. but it doesn’t stop his eyes from glossing over, and it doesn’t silence the quick, pained flinch and exhale he releases before speaking.
“i’m not suspicious, zashi. it’s not like i think you aren’t telling the truth, i just need something to tell me for sure that you are when it’s something like this.”
“i don’t see why that’s necessary, you know i wouldn’t lie to you about something like this.”
“i don’t, though. you’ve done it before, love- i just want to make sure you’re okay , and if you’re not then we need to do something about it.”
shouta again savors the words on his tongue, ‘ love’. as the conversation progresses, shouta finds himself less and less able to see a reality in which this evening ends in their favor, and it hurts all over the more he heeds to this reality. he feels like he’s watching the sunrise after his aunts death, or like he’s ghosting through oboros empty room again, and suddenly shouta rediscovers the term for this agony.
grief.
“i am okay, i promise you. i know i’ve really scared you before doing shit like that, but that’s not whats happening.” hizashi sounds trapped, and shouta can see the fear working it’s way onto his face. shouta has a feeling that they both feel helpless, like they’re both just hurt kids again. shouta doesn’t like this, he hates it and he was struggling to keep himself from dissolving into a full-blown panic attack. why are you doing this?
“then why don’t you want to take a drug test?”
“i don’t know– i will if you need me to, but it just feels kind of fucked up- i don’t know. i might just be overreacting, i just don’t want you to feel like you can’t trust me.”
“i do need you to, and i do trust you, but i’m seriously not willing to take any chances about this- if you are on drugs then that’s really fucking serious, but if you’re not then i’m really sorry for making you do this.”
“i’m not on drugs. it feels like you’re accusing me.”
there is so much, sickening vulnerability coating hizashis words. shouta can hear the pain in his throat, he can feel the way his partners eyes sting and shouta is sure he deserves eternal damnation for leading such a perfect, wonderful person into this state– he’s breaking into pieces and watching hizashi fall apart with him with no regard for the repercussions, but- this isn’t shoutas fault . this isn’t– okay, but shouta finds it difficult to remember that when faced with such the sight of the man he loves falling apart. he presses on.
“i’m not accusing you of anything, but i love you and i know you and you’ve been acting off- why is now the first time you’re telling me your meds haven’t been working?”
“i don’t know- it didn’t seem too important. i’ve got an appointment set up for next month anyway, i didn’t want to freak you out.” hizashis talking with his hands now, making exaggerated gestures, his posture is coming undone and the mask is slipping too fast for anyone but shouta to notice- not that anyone else could make hizashi come undone like this . shoutas anxious for a moment, worried this might propel them into another screaming match, worried it’ll become a catalyst for another repetition of the, ‘try to talk it out’, ‘try to scream it out’, and ‘try to fuck it out’ cycle they’d burried themselves in recently. that isn’t what this is, and they both know it.
“it wouldn’t have freaked me out, zashi, i promise– what does freak me out is the fact that you won’t prove to me that you’re not using.”
“it’s not necessary, i don’t know why you won’t just take my word for it.” there’s desperation mixing into his teary sentences now, and it sounds more like begging than it does defending himself. shoutas losing his mind, everything aches and the situation is so horrifyingly real- everything in him hurts, hurts because he was right, because the person he loves more than anything is actively killing himself, because this was over – shouta wasn’t the victim in this, he couldn’t be, he couldn’t be when he was destroying them so- willingly .
this wasn’t willingly.
“because you were fully willing to take a test at the beginning of this conversation, and now you’re trying to talk me out of making sure you’re okay .”
“i am okay, shou- please, everything’s fine, i hate talking about this shit.”
“hizashi, you need to prove that to me or– i don’t know. if you’re still mad at me afterwards then we can figure something out, but this isn’t something we can negotiate. you need to take a drug test.”
more rotten, stagnant silence. shouta is impossibly, endlessly terrified of what hizashi is going to say, he can’t process everything that he is seeing and hearing and understanding–
hizashis gaze slips down to shoutas legs, his boots are still on. he sees the heartbreak rotting away at both their minds.
“and if i don’t?”
“then- then i guess that tells me everything i need to know, anyways.”
neither of them breathe for a moment, and every possibility of better hangs in the air and it’s all too much for shouta to be responsible for- he can’t do it hecantdoithecantdoit–
but he does.
“so you are using again, then.”
…
“yeah.”
hizashi doesn’t bother looking at shouta, now. he’s sure they’re both nearly crying if they weren’t before. shouta can’t feel anything aside from the rapid beat of his heart and the mind numbing, impossibly destructive agony that was ripping through him at that moment. he wants to scream, or cry, or set something on fire. this isn’t fair, none of this was fair. shouta had done so much– he didn’t want this, he’d thought they both got better, he thought that they were finally safe- they’d both fucking ruined eachother, ruined everything and there was no denying that anymore.
shouta kicks himself for this, but there is only one babbling, incoherent mess of thoughts he is able to lean on for some form of depressive, masochistic solace.
everything ends this way. you shouldn’t have ever forgotten that. you deserve this.
shoutas barely choking back tears.
“oh. i guess i should’ve known that.”
“you did know, though.” hizashis voice is distant, meek and emotionless. everything is so, impossibly empty, including the both of them– shoutas sure they’re the ones who spread this hollowness, like they were some kind of otherworldly force of misery . jesus fucking christ, he’d never been so in love. this wasn’t fair.
…
“yeah.”
…
shoutas barely able to process it when his fear morphs into desperation . again. he can’t help it, every bone in his body wants to help. he gets to his feet, he’s emoting now. he’s doing anything he can to change the situation for the better.
“hizashi, you need to quit. this isn’t okay. this is beyond fucked up– i didn’t want to question you or assume shit but- fuck, dude.”
hizashis voice is barely audible, it’s vulnerable in a way shouta hadn’t been sure he’d be able to pull from hizashi, “‘m sorry, shouta.” aizawa can’t see him . he’s sure he’s crying.
“...how long have you been on this shit?”
“mm–” hizashi suppresses his voice, for a moment, he bites back an answer, before ultimately deciding it to be a fruitless endeavor. shouta would find out, and if he didn’t, then there would be nothing left of them to fight for. hizashi knew this, in all his guilt and pain and god knows what else.
“four weeks, i think.”
“right, okay.”
…
“we- we need to go back to the hospital, zashi.”
shoutas afraid. the panic is ripping at his throat fervently, it always does. he wants to fix it, he wants to fix this. he wants to save hizashi, do something, he’d done this time and time again, this conversation had been repeated in a thousand lifetimes, it mulled over in the echo chamber of shoutas mind endlessly- and despite this shouta still cannot find a way to bite back how desperately he wants to help even though he knows he can't. he’s failed too many times to forget, and this conversation was a final testament to that fact.
“what the fuck, why?” hizashi pulls his head up, staring at shouta bewildered and teary eyed, like shoutas just told him he was going to kill him. shoutas sure hes the devil for trying to fix this, for fighting like this, for doing this to them– but it doesn’t feel fair, it doesn’t feel right to disregard all the times shouta has been utterly terrified, or completely fucking heartbroken, or screaming or crying all for hizashi to do this again. it’d destroyed so much, it’d taken so, so much from them- couldn’t he see that? shouta remembers when they would fall apart, cripple each other with drug use and be anything but okay but at least they were together-
“you fucking know why. you need to get back into treatment, dude. clearly you aren’t fucking okay, you need to get off this shit. i can’t believe you’re doing this again-” shoutas sure hizashi can hear the terror rising in his voice, and he thinks he notices the quickening rise and fall of his chest, too, so hizashis next words are gentle. reproachful. they work their way into the most vulnerable corners of aizawas mind, and all the more bitterness festers in their wake. he’s shaking so hard he thinks he might fall.
“it’s really not that big a deal, shouta, i promise-”
“not that big a deal? seriously? hizashi, you almost fucking died last time, do you even remember how fucking horrible it was when-” shoutas shouting, now. it’s his turn to be selfish, it’s his turn to be cruel. he loves hizashi, and that is their undoing. it’s what's dooming them both, but shouta can’t imagine living any other way. he loves hizashi, and it’s all that he is- it’s all that he wants, it's woven into his existence. there is no world where they do not exist together, in one way or the next, and shouta is about to create one. he can’t identify how that makes him feel, anymore.
“of course i do, shouta, but it’s different now- i promise. it’s not like i’ve been using every day or anything- i’m okay, i’m able to have a somewhat normal relationship with drugs. we’re in our twenties, i know how to be responsible and safe with this shit.”
this hits shouta like a bullet train, it rocks him to his core- what the fuck did he think safe was? safe wasn’t overdosing in shoutas bed, safe wasn’t two weeks spent in the fucking hospital, safe wasn’t all of the fights and the pain and the– could he even see all the ways this was fucking gutting them?
“do you even fucking hear yourself? are you seriously trying to tell me that it’s okay for you to be on cocaine? you need help . i know that you know this isn’t okay. you’re an addict, zashi.” shoutas pacing now and the conversation is escalating, everything around shouta feels warm and aggravated, a prelude to the explosive end shouta could envision the evening concluding with. he didn’t want to think about that. he didn’t want to live it, it wasn’t real. this was going to be okay, they’d be okay– hizashi was going to be fine, right? they both were, right?
“but it is okay, i’m fine, everything is fine. nothing bad has happened-”
they’re both standing, now. they’re closer in proximity, and their volume is building and shoutas unraveling quicker than he means to.
“yet.”
“nothing bad is going to happen. ”
“you can’t fucking convince me that this is okay! i know you don’t remember, but i cannot fucking do this again- i don’t want to see you almost kill yourself again, it’ll fucking destroy me – i know you think you have this under control but that’s impossible. ”
“what do you want from me then, shouta? is my only option to go back to treatment? what happens if i don’t?”
shouta wants more than anything to be able say that would do anything for hizashi, that he is selfless enough to let the love of his life die in his arms without a bitter thought- but he can’t. he can’t do it. he’s so, so utterly engulfed in rage at the idea that a substance would be the thing to take everything he’s ever loved or needed away from him. he wants to throw up. he wants to throw himself off a building. they’ve done so much, they’ve faced everything together– they stood together in the face of oboros death, in the face of abuse and death and unfathomable pain and this was going to be the thing to destroy everything the either of them had ever loved and wanted. this is the one thing shouta cannot protect his partner from- himself.
“if you refuse to quit then– i don’t know, all i know is that- i wouldn’t be able to stay here. with you. i won’t let myself.”
“shouta, please don’t say that- i need you more than anything, but i can’t go back to treatment. everything was fine before this conversation.” they’re both shaking, now, and he can see that hizashis trying to hide the fact that he’s crying, and shouta can hear the beginnings of his hyperventilating. he’s staying in a fixed position, completely frozen and trailing shouta with broken eyes. shouta doesn’t want to look at themselves.
“everything was not fine, dude, whether i know you’re on drugs or not doesn’t change the fact that you are, and i know you can’t see all the shit coke does to you but i can - please just listen to me when i tell you this shit is not okay. i don’t know if you even really care if it’s okay or not, but i can’t do this again.”
they’re both crying, nearly yelling. they’re each shaking, and shouta watches all of the hurt and fear and brokenness in hizashis expression pull into betrayal. shouta knows that hizashi can’t handle abandonment, that he perceives any kind of distance as something deadly and horrifying, but even so shouta knows that it’s not fucking fair that he’s the one who seems to feel so obviously betrayed when shouta had been lied to time and time again– what gives him the right to feel hurt, when he fucking did this to us?
…
“to be totally fucking honest shouta, im not going to ‘quit’. and if that’s a condition of us being— then— then you need to get out. now.”
…
shoutas on fire, now. he stops in his tracks, and he can barely get the words out. he’s sure hes on the verge of a panic attack and his mouth feels dry. he’s barely aware of the bewildered, enraged expression on his face as the thoughts begin to pour out, everything is whirling and sickening and backwards, and shouta isn’t sure he recognizes anything around him anymore. the smell of home seems to have evaporated, and shouta wants to snap in half. he feels his pupils constrict and more tears threaten to fall, he manically wipes them away to regain his focus on what the fuck hizashi had just said.
“what the actual fuck , hizashi? what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“you don’t understand— i need it, shou, i need it to live- to do anything at all.”
“since when was that not how you felt about me?”
“you’re being selfish.”
was he being fucking serious? shouta seriously wanted to fucking hit him, now. he wouldn’t have felt guilty, and all of his love and lust and hate for hizashi that had flourished and festered within him for years is intertwined in his chest, an amalgamation of the only, and most tragic example of passion either of them had ever experienced. the allconsuming sensation of unloved and orphaned was spiking through him and the deteriorated, miserable psychological state that aizawa had worked so fucking hard to repress and change and fix is becoming more evident by the second. this conversation– this loss was ripping away at the layers of his mind. now he’s the one feeling abandoned, betrayed.
“im being selfish? fucking look at yourself. you’ve ruined your life again and youre trying to ruin mine too— ours. seriously, what the fuck happened to you? i thought you were getting better, i thought we both were.”
despite the rage mounting within shouta, he bites his tongue the moment he finishes his all too quick sentence. fuck. shouta had meant to make it a point to prevent either of them from regressing into their individual disordered states of mind, but it very clearly wasn’t fucking working considering that shoutas regret and guilt was morphing into a very childish, very vulnerable kind of rage within the seconds after he finishes speaking. a sickeningly desperate self-defense tactic, something his mind had developed to survive the horrors of childhood.
“i’m not trying to ruin your life– can you fucking stop? i’ve always been this. i’ve never been anything but this, are you trying to act like you dont know that? are you still in denial? im fucked up, shouta.”
they’re yelling, yeah. shouta can tell that hizashis trying to keep his tone measured despite all the hyperventilating and crying and shouting they are both doing, and he can hear the desperate benevolence regarding the safety of the people surrounding their apartment bolting his voice down. shouta activates his quirk, a small mercy, a small apology. a little death. i know you would never hurt anybody but me. you’re too kind for that. shouta doesn’t mind it.
“you know that’s not what i meant.”
“what did you mean then? am i not salvageable to you anymore? is this one time too many for you?”
“i dont want to salvage you, hizashi, i just want you to stop fucking hurting yourself. its killing me. I love you and you love using and i can’t handle that.”
“it’s not hurting me, shouta! i know that i fucked up— i know living together has been hard and im sorry for that, but i cant let this go. i dont want to hurt you. id never want that— i’d do anything for you, but i cant do what you’re asking me to do.”
there’s something overwhelmingly raw about the way they are both screaming at eachother. there is so, so much love between them and it’s become something unimaginably sharp compared to the form it took in their adolescence. it’s a double edged sword molded to fit nothing, nobody but them. they know exactly where to put it, they’re artful in which ribs they break, but when one of them is cut the other bleeds too. shouta is sick with grief, and a dissociative haze is overcoming him and he’s unable to filter his words, nor his movements, nor his expressions. he lets a memory of sixteen year old him and hizashi spending day and night reading comic books, drinking stolen sake and lying in bed together. he remembers what is was like when they were not so sick, and he almost wishes he didn’t- it made the scene before him all the more heart wrenching.
they were both so, so broken now.
shouta wants to put the pieces back together, he wants to be gentle.
he can’t.
…
“i cant fucking go through this again, hizashi. i cant sit here and watch you fucking kill yourself— you’re going to fucking die doing this, you’re going to die with a needle up your arm while im in the other room or on patrol or somewhere where i can’t get to you and—“
shoutas barely breathing, now. every word is divided with quick, panicked breaths and he’s barely able to look up towards hizashi. he’s powerless, he’s the only audience member to the anthology film reeling through his mind– memories of him and hizashi, tangled together in bed, practically merging into one another through the sheer closeness of it all, memories of nights spent throwing plates and screaming and broken phones, reminders of how kissing the others bruised lips always seemed to make things better, seemed to revive the domesticity and safety between them. this wasn’t anything like that– shouta didn’t know what this was.
it was a decision.
hizashi stepped forward slightly, cupping either side of shoutas face with delicate hands with painted nails. shouta wants to fall apart, he’s barely able to see through the hot tears blurring his vision but he’s so sure hizashi is the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen. his heart is shattering, and the man before him is the only thing keeping it somewhat intact. he wants to lean into the touch, he wants to hoard the warmth of hizashis hands on his skin. “im going to be fine, shouta, i know it’s unconventional but i can do shit like this safely, i promise- i need it, shouta. i dont think you understand- im fucking begging you to try and see this from my perspective.“
this makes shouta pull away, suddenly the warmth is scorching, and suddenly gentle becomes rough and raw. “i do fucking understand! i understand this better than you do, apparently, because you’re not the one who has to stay awake next to you every fucking night just to make sure you’re still breathing. its fucking terrifying. i cant do this again.”
“i dont know what to say to you, then. i dont know what to do .”
“zashi, i fucking love you, more than anything— and i cant let you go, but i refuse to fucking do this with you. i cant handle seeing you fucked up, this shit is destroying me and i know it’s destroying you too. i love you too much to sit and watch that.
“please don’t leave me.”
shouta stilled. everything broke.
even though this was his doing, his decision– if aizawa had it his way, he would die in that exact moment and every trace of him would be eradicated from the earth. he was scum, he was awful, he was nothing, he felt so, cripplingly, unloved in a way he hadn’t felt since he was a child. he was so filled with grief it rocked him to his core, it verberated each thought passing through his mind and shattered aizawas coherency. hizashi was the love of his life, he knew this. there were not, and never would be, appropriate words to describe how aizawa felt about him . felt for him, and only him. the heartbreak shouta felt was almost biblical, it felt like such an extravagant yet silent display of human tragedy that he wanted to laugh, but it occured to shouta that a laugh would never again feel or sound like it was coming from him, because it wouldn’t be. shouta didn’t feel like himself. he wasn’t himself. he keeps talking, although he’s sure a handful of glass shards have somehow found their way into his throat.
“if you care about me, or yourself, or anything we’ve built together then you need to get help— you need to stop.”
“please don’t fucking do this to me, shou, i know that you hate this and i hate it too— but please, i’ll fucking die if—“
pleasedon’tsaythat. i’lldieifihearit. please.
“i need to leave then, hizashi.”
“are you fucking serious?! i thought you loved me- you knew i was like this, you saw all this shit and still stayed so why are you doing this now? why are you leaving me? i love you, shouta– i cant live without you, i need you more than anything- please just- please stay, i cant do this—“
shouta felt detached from his body, hizashis words were muffled and all shouta was now was haunting memories and rough edges and so, so, so much grief . forget recovering, forget finding anything or anybody else to love, shouta should die then and there, but god is rarely so kind. shouta can’t keep his mind from reeling, picturing the infinitely lonely and miserable years that he had just laid out for himself. they had always been there, waiting for him– shouta just hadn’t seen them so clearly before. aizawa isn’t sure if he’s ever felt hurt like this, and he isn’t sure how deep it goes. everything is so, incredibly vast and desolate. he’s destroyed, despite all he did to avoid it. the realization is hitting him. he can see everything burning, his world falling apart. it’s infuriating, and shouta takes in the fact that he will never stop being helpless in the face of tragedy. shouta grapples with the infinite, finite worthlessness which he embodies. he couldn’t protect the only thing that gave him worth, that gave him anything. it’s not fair. a childish rage runs rampant within him, you hurt me so badly echoes off the walls of his mind in a way only a childs sobs would.
“that’s not fucking true. you did just fine without me, i doubt you even give a shit about whether i stay or go— we’ve broken up before- you just need somebody , because youll fucking self destruct otherwise. you don’t– love me, you’d love anyone if they did what i did for you, but i don’t even care i–”
shoutas crying, outwardly. he can’t use his quirk, now, but hizashi voice is quiet and trembling and timid. shoutas holding his wrists to his eyes, his throat and mouth and words feel slick with sobs.
“thats not fucking true and you know it. i don’t know how to show it to you anymore, shouta. i love you more than anything else, i’ve always loved you and ill fucking die without you. illl die if i stop using. please, please dont leave me, youre my everything and i needyoutostay . i don’t know anything without you. ”
‘ ineedyoutostay ’ wracks at shoutas chest, and the sobs are more violent now. everything in shouta feels empty, hollowed out, purposeless and suddenly everything he is as a person turns molecular, quantifiable, atomic, he’s more flesh and cells than he is man. he’s barely processing what hizashis saying, because he knows they’re ending whether he listens or not. in the past year, he hasn’t felt so far away from hizashi since oboros death. everything has slipped through his grasp, everything . aizawa contemplates buying a harty handful of his drug of choice, xanax, and drinking himself to death in his apartment once this is all over, or hanging himself with his capture scarf, like an obscene arrangement of masochistic tendencies and self-hate trying to pass for a joke; but that seemed inappropriate. if anything, he was sure he’d shoot himself. he focuses on the argument, instead, but silently reviews his knowledge on firearms in the back of his thoughts. he’s not okay.
shouta isn’t quite sure where he finds the strength to speak, or if his speech is propelled by his sheer lack of strength, but he does it anyhow. his voice is wrecked. he’s dying, he can barely speak but he needs to.
“hizashi, you’re killing everything i love. i cant imagine waking up without you next to me, but i know you can only do this shit for so long before you do something awful. theres so many parts of you ive already had to fucking sit back and watch slip out of my grasp. im not going to let you do this to me- to us. you’re everything to me, and you’re destroying yourself and i’ll go crazy if you keep hurting yourself– i’ll lose my mind if i lose you like that.”
“you talk about me like im already dead.”
…
shoutas tears cease to fall, for a moment. he pulls his hands from his face, and stares and hizashi with something truer than genuinity– a sense, a force of sheer knowing. i know you’re still there.
“it’s up to you to prove to me that you’re not.”
shoutas entire world hangs onto the silence between them. hizashi is stunned and silent, he’s bawling now, outwardly, the same way shouta was. he’s not speaking, just sobbing and tearing at his hair.
shouta feels numb.
“i can’t. maybe i am already dead, it doesn’t matter. If you need to go, then go.”
its over.
“you know what?.. fuck you, shouta. you need to leave . get out. please get out.”
and suddenly aizawa regrets everything.
his mind is numb, and his ears are ringing. he’s not crying anymore, but his eyes sting with unimaginable force. now he knows he’ll be sick, because his life has just been swept out from under him and he’s the only thing he has left to blame. he wants to steal back all the words he's spilled out after holding back for so long– he doesn’t care. nothing matters except hizashi, except them. the delusion spills itself over shoutas mind, once again. the thought that he could die with hizashi, that they could kill themselves contently because they were together and shouta had just destroyed that deadly peacefulness and malevolent domesticity between them– that all of the desperation and ache shouta feels are all worth something, products of a better future, something he needed to be better, but there was nothing else. there was nothing better. shouta so, so badly wanted to believe that he would die, fall apart completely without hizashi but he knew he wouldn’t.
the word ‘together’ seems foreign. they hadn’t been them in so long.
they were still so young.
shouta leaves, and he leaves everything of himself behind in hizashis apartment, and he does not come back.