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Hitoshi wakes up with a scream, shooting upright in his sweat-soaked bed and his eyes frantically scanning the room.
He screams again when his eyes fall on Aizawa, standing in the middle of the room, his hand outstretched but absolutely motionless otherwise and it only takes a moment for Hitoshi to understand what's going on and then he yanks his quirk back so hard he almost feels sick with it.
Aizawa stumbles slightly before he makes his way over to the bed where Hitoshi is curling up small and pressing his face to his knees in hopes to calm himself down.
"Sorry, sorry," he pants out, unease still prickling at his nape, his nightmare slow to leave him and everything feels like too much for a moment.
Until Aizawa sits down at the edge of his bed and puts a steady hand to his neck.
"It's alright," Aizawa softly says, "you're okay."
A sob breaks free at that because Hitoshi doesn't feel alright, but Aizawa simply continues to sit at this side, a steady, reassuring presence and eventually, Hitoshi's breathing evens out.
"Nightmare?" Aizawa asks, almost redundantly because that should be more than obvious but still, Hitoshi nods. "You wanna talk about it?"
It's always an offer with him and Yamada—they ask, yeah, but they never demand, always just giving Hitoshi space to decide what he wants to do and it brings new tears to Hitoshi's eyes.
"No, it's just—" He takes in a shuddering breath. "It wasn't anything concrete, I don't think. Just feelings."
He feels stupid saying it, because why would simple feelings make him scream like that, make him sweat through his bedding, and Aizawa should ridicule him for it, but he only hums.
"Those are often the worst," he says after a moment. "Sometimes I dream about being chased, and that's fine; enough villains have done it over the years for me to almost get used to that feeling and I can handle that well. But other times I only get the sense that I'm being chased; there's no one behind me, just that urgent feeling that something isn't right and that's always worse. Leaves me twitchy for the next day," Aizawa explains and Hitoshi leans slightly into him because, yeah.
It's like that, but it's also worse.
"Yamada?" Hitoshi asks after a moment, because he doesn't know how to pick up the thread of what Aizawa just said and Aizawa lets out an amused huff.
"Down for the count. I don't think he even noticed me leaving the bed."
"Sorry," Hitoshi says on instinct, again, because he woke his teacher, who already doesn't get enough sleep as it is. Fuck, he probably interrupted the one night Aizawa gets to be home the entire week and why is he being so fucking broken?
"Nothing to apologise for, it happens to all of us. At least you just scream. Hizashi wakes up swinging; I've gotten my fair share of black eyes from him."
It's enough to bring a smile to Hitoshi's face and Aizawa must know it because he squeezes his neck once.
"You good?" he asks and Hitoshi nods. "You want me to change the bedding?" Aizawa then offers and Hitoshi reaches out a hand to feel the damp blanket.
"No, it's—I don't think I can sleep again, anyway."
"Okay. Take your pillow if you relocate to the living-room, you know our throw pillows are shit for the neck," Aizawa says without judgement and for a moment Hitoshi just basks in the knowledge that it's okay.
It's all okay, here; he's allowed to stay out in the living-room if he wants to, he's allowed to not sleep, to move freely in this apartment and he's safe.
"I will," he softly gives back and Aizawa squeezes his neck one more time before he gets up.
"Good. And wake us if anything comes up," Aizawa tells him and he really does mean anything.
It doesn't have to be life-threatening, it doesn't even have to be hero stuff. Hitoshi is allowed to wake them up should he feel like it, should he feel alone or lost or panicked and it's still so confusing sometimes, that all of these things are okay here.
That Aizawa and Yamada won't hurt him for anything.
Aizawa is already halfway out of the room when he stops and looks back at Hitoshi and he realises with a start that he didn't say anything back so he quickly nods.
"I will," he repeats and Aizawa's lips quickly quirk up in a smile before he finally leaves again.
Hitoshi hopes he will get some more sleep because it's enough that he isn't going to get anymore but despite the vaguely guilty feeling for dragging Aizawa out of his bed, Hitoshi is so, so thankful, because one of them always shows up when Hitoshi has a nightmare.
And it's so much better to wake up to soft words and careful touches than to be all on his own.
~*~*~
Hitoshi isn't too sure about what happens, but one moment Yamada is reaching out for something on the table and the next thing Hitoshi knows he's jerking back so hard his chair topples over and he finds himself on the ground, desperately hyperventilating.
"Hitoshi?" Yamada carefully asks as he sinks to his knees in front of him and Hitoshi scrambles away from him until his back hits the wall.
"Alright, no touching," Yamada mutters and sits himself down on the floor right where he kneeled, giving Hitoshi space without leaving him alone.
Hitoshi would probably be grateful for it, if he could breathe or think and Yamada must know it because he starts to take super exaggerated breaths.
It's a tried and tested method—not only is Yamada loud enough for Hitoshi to hear over the rushing in his ears and his own panicked breaths, but his chest also expands in that almost comical way it does because of his quirk and it gives Hitoshi just enough points to focus on to match his own breathing to his.
Still, it takes an embarrassingly long time before Yamada can drop the act and Hitoshi slums against the wall.
"You back with me, kiddo?" Yamada asks and Hitoshi nods his head without opening his eyes. "What set you off?" Yamada carefully wants to know next and Hitoshi knows he doesn't have to answer, can just shake his head and Yamada will drop it even though knowing his triggers would certainly help, but it's not as if Hitoshi knows what to say.
"I don't know," he admits, because he doesn't.
Yamada wasn't even reaching for him, wasn't even looking at him, and it also wasn't the first time he reached across the table that afternoon and all the other times Hitoshi had been good.
"Did I move too fast?" Yamada asks and Hitoshi shakes his head. "Did I lean in too close or—"
"I don't know, okay?" Hitoshi bursts out, his loud voice echoing in the room and the words have barely left his mouth before he slaps a hand over it, suddenly violently trembling all over.
He yelled. He yelled and he asked a question and surely, surely Yamada would hit him now, would come for him as viciously as Hitoshi knows he can be with villains and he ruined the one good placement he ever had and—
Humming fills the room and effectively cuts off Hitoshi's scrambled thoughts.
Yamada is sitting in the middle of the room on the floor, humming, because Hitoshi is a hot fucking mess and Hitoshi drops his head into his hands.
"Better?" Yamada asks after a minute and Hitoshi nods without looking at him.
"Sorry," he breathes out, completely embarrassed by what happened, but Yamada doesn't give any indication that he's bothered by what just transpired.
"Don't be, nothing to be sorry for," Yamada almost flippantly says and Hitoshi thinks that that must be a lie, but when he looks up, Yamada is smiling softly at him. "Anything I can do?"
"The—the humming was nice," Hitoshi admits after a moment and Yamada doesn't question it, he just goes back to humming and that's how Aizawa finds them ten minutes later.
Sitting on the floor almost as far apart as they can be, with Yamada humming and Hitoshi coated in cold sweat.
Hitoshi ducks his head in shame but Aizawa simply drops down next to Yamada and then they stay there for another twenty minutes. Yamada stops humming after a while but when Aizawa and he pick up a soft, inane conversation it's just as good and by the time Aizawa complaints about not being young enough to be down here for so long, Hitoshi's panic is a distant memory.
~*~*~
Hitoshi can't sleep. He can't sleep and he can't relax and when he moves he keeps his back towards a wall as if he's going to be jumped any second now and he startles at even the smallest noises and when Aizawa and Yamada speak to him he ducks almost on instinct as if they are going to lash out at him at any moment.
It's ridiculous and fucking stupid and Hitoshi hates himself with a passion for every scared reaction he has.
He has never been like this in any of his previous foster homes. He was quiet and tried to stay out of the way, yes, but he never flinched like this, he never had nightmares like this, didn't have panic attacks at all and he doesn't understand why it's all happening now, in the one good home he has ever been to, surrounded by people who like him and who would never do him any harm.
Fuck, Aizawa and Yamada must think him to be so fucking ungrateful, but Hitoshi can't stop his reactions, any of them and frustrated tears prick at his eyes when Yamada comes home and Hitoshi is halfway across the room before he remembers that he's allowed to be out here.
"Fuck," he mutters under his breath, maybe louder than he meant to because Aizawa sticks his head around the corner.
"Everything alright here?" he asks and just like that Hitoshi's frustrations boil over.
"No, it's fucking not," he hisses out and Aizawa raises a surprised eyebrow at him.
"Hello, family!" Yamada happily says as he steps into the room and then he seems to notice the tension because he frowns. "Everything good?"
"Apparently it's fucking not," Aizawa repeats Hitoshi's words in a deadpan and normally, it would make Hitoshi at least crack a smile but right now, he flinches and jerks back from them, because foster parents cursing in his presence only ever led to more beatings and he catches himself a second later, but it's a second too late.
Aizawa and Yamada have already noticed.
Hitoshi sees them exchanging a look, clearly having an entire silent conversation between them, and Hitoshi grinds his teeth together, forces himself to stay where he is because it's okay.
He's not in danger, he has to believe that, even if his instincts are telling him something else.
"I think it's time we have a talk," Aizawa finally says and immediately walks over to the couch, where he sits down, Yamada at his side a moment later. "Pick any place that feels safe to you," Aizawa says and Hitoshi almost hysterically laughs when his mind immediately flashes to under his bed.
Yamada seems to be able to read his mind because he gives Hitoshi a tight smile.
"In this room, kiddo, please."
Hitoshi hovers in the room for a moment, unsure of where he's supposed to go, Aizawa and Yamada patiently waiting him out until he finally moves to the opposite site of the room, the table and arm chair between him and them and then he leans against the wall as casually as he can.
"Sure," Aizawa says with an amused twitch of his lips and Hitoshi has to remind himself that it is amusement and not derision.
"Hitoshi," Yamada starts but Hitoshi cuts in, just blurting out what has been on his mind for a while now.
"I don't know why I'm acting like this. I don't. I know you guys are safe, I know I am, but still—I can't help but to flinch and to be afraid and the nightmares—I don't know why any of this is happening now!"
"Because you're safe here."
"What?" Hitoshi breathes out and stares at Aizawa, literally begging him with his eyes to fucking elaborate on that.
"Kiddo, you've been to your counselling sessions, right? Did they not mention that this could happen?" Yamada wants to know and Hitoshi blinks.
He had to attend infrequent counselling sessions for the first two months he came here but the woman who did them was shit and was more concerned with the fact that Hitoshi could be hurting two pro heroes.
Not that he'd ever told Aizawa or Yamada that.
She certainly hadn't mentioned anything like this.
"No. She—didn't say many helpful things at all," Hitoshi admits and Yamada narrows his eyes at him.
"Was she a quirkist bitch?" he asks and Aizawa lets out a long sigh.
"Hizashi, please."
"What? You were thinking it, too, and don't think I don't know you're going to go out tonight to check her records."
"She—was, actually," Hitoshi interrupts them before this can become a full blown argument and immediately, Aizawa's and Yamada's attention snaps back to him. "She was a bit of—that," he weakly finishes and watches how Yamada seems to steam with rage.
"Your therapist is someone else?" Aizawa asks, short and to the point like he always is and Hitoshi nods.
"Yeah, he's—ehm. The first talk was. Okay. Good." He curses himself for how he stumbles over his words but the therapist he's supposed to see soon had definitely left a better impression than the woman in counselling.
"Well, at least that's something," Yamada mutters and Hitoshi mentally apologises to his therapist, because he's sure Aizawa and Yamada will corner him sooner or later. Just to make sure.
Because they are good like that.
Which makes this entire situation so incredibly frustrating and it brings him back to the original point of this.
"Can we—what is happening? Here. With me," he says and immediately they soften up, which prompts Hitoshi to speak more. "You said—that this was something that could happen? Me being all—messed up?"
"Healing," Aizawa corrects him and Hitoshi can't help it, he snorts.
He definitely is something, but healing is not it.
"I'm not—healing! I'm worse than I ever was! How is this healing?"
"You're processing," Yamada tells him. "You know PTSD?"
"You think I have—that? Why now?"
"Kiddo, it's called post-traumatic for a reason. Usually, it develops in the first six months after the traumatic events happened. It's a bit different for prolonged traumatic events—what you went through, basically—but you typically don't get it while you're still in the situation. And you have been in the situation for so long."
"The human brain is fickle like that," Aizawa chimes in. "You were constantly under stress in your previous homes and now you get to process. Your brain has now the time and the space to work through all the shit that happened to you. And it's reacting accordingly now."
"Well, I would appreciate it if it fucking stopped," Hitoshi grumbles, slinging his arms around his middle. "So it's not because I don't trust you?" he finally asks, voicing that one fear that has been at the back of his head all this time and Yamada smiles at him.
"Quite the opposite, really. You are like this right now because you trust us. Otherwise you'd still be in panic mode and not have any of these issues."
"And you knew that?"
"Hound Dog pulled us aside when we took you in and gave us a brief run-down of what to expect. He assured us that this would be covered with you during your counselling but—"
"Yeah, she was too busy being worried about me making you hurt each other," Hitoshi bitterly mutters and then bites his lip, hard, because he spoke out of turn.
It takes him a moment to remember that there are no real turns here.
"We're definitely going to have to look into that," Aizawa grumbles and Yamada doesn't even pretend to stop him anymore.
"But—what now? What do we do now about me being all—" Hitoshi doesn't want to say healing because it doesn't feel like it but he also doesn't want to say messed up again so he simply, awkwardly trails off.
"When's your therapy session?"
"Next week."
"Then we do nothing. We deal with it like we have done so far and then you can talk to your therapist about it. Maybe he'll recommend seeing a doctor, too, but that will always be your decision," Aizawa says with a shrug and Hitoshi's eyes burn.
"You're not—mad? Annoyed? Dealing with me like this—"
He remembers all the nights he woke up screaming where Aizawa came into his room because he woke him up, remembers the way he continues to bolt when they enter a room, the numerous panic attacks he's had over the past two weeks just because they breathed in their own home and he can't quite believe that it doesn't matter to them.
"Hitoshi, you're processing," Aizawa reiterates again, "and your mind is reacting on instinct. We're not going to be mad about that and we're not annoyed. I know it sounds backwards, but we're happy to see it. It means we're providing a stable, safe home for you and that is all we really wanted. And what we've done so far has helped, right?"
All the gentle words, the soft touches, the steady presences they have given him over the past few months flood into Hitoshi's mind and it almost makes him cry.
"Yeah," he chokes out and Yamada smiles softly at him.
"Then that's all we need to know. We're going to continue just like that and it will all work out. You’ll get used to it, you'll see."
"Hopeless optimist," Hitoshi and Aizawa say at the same time and it's enough to make them all laugh.
It still doesn't feel okay, but it does take a bit of the stress out of it, knowing that he's not like this for nothing or because deep down he doesn't trust them and Hitoshi can breathe a little bit easier with that knowledge.
And if they are right then his therapy will help, too, and time, probably. A lot of time.
Hitoshi is not looking forward to it, but he thinks as long as Aizawa and Yamada are there for him, he might just make it.
(It doesn't get better for a while. His therapist supports their theory and the only real cure is time and stability. Hitoshi hates that there's no quick fix to it, because he's so, so tired of waking up screaming and not only waking Aizawa up but also catching him in his quirk. He's tired of flinching when Yamada moves in any way and he's tired of always being on guard, but his therapist is adamant that it's something he has to work through.
And Hitoshi does. And slowly but surely, with the steady reassurance of his guardians it gets better and better and better.)