Work Text:
Reigen hadn’t planned to make any new additions to the household. He had just been on his way home from another draining shift at his 9 to 5, caught in the hammering rain without an umbrella. And there, sitting slumped against a lamppost, was a toy.
A little plush man in a navy suit, with messy dark hair, and embroidered eyes wide like a startled deers.
Reigen paused, looking down, rain turned to hail, hitting his skin painfully. “This is the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen,” he muttered to himself.
He wasn’t usually the type to get sentimental over toys. Still, he picked it up. Its fabric was soaked all the way through, with mud and gravel stuck to its body, making the material appear dull and ill.
Something in his chest twisted, it may have been pity, or pneumonia, but he was too exhausted to examine that.
“Well,” he sighed. “You can come home with me, I guess. Can’t leave a sad little salaryman out in the rain.”
At home, he washed it in the sink using some soapy warm water until the suds disappeared and the water ran clear, then he dried it on the windowsill.
Who knows, maybe the company would benefit him.
When it was dry, he placed it on his pillow and slept beside it. Sometimes he’d wake up holding it, sometimes he’d hold it before falling asleep.
The plush never moved. Of course it didn’t. Reigen wasn’t eight.
Yet sometimes, coming home from work, his apartment looked like someone else had been living in it.
There’d be crumbs left on the countertops, food missing from the fridge, his water bill crept up like he had a roommate, and his shampoo emptied faster than usual.
One morning before work, he looked up from tying his shoes and saw a human shadow stretch across the hallway wall.
He chalked it up to fatigue. His brain was turning into oatmeal. It happens. He was simply too tired to investigate.
And every night, the little salaryman sat exactly where he left him, neatly tucked under the covers.
✄┈┈┈┈
Serizawa had never meant for any of this to ever happen.
He couldn’t remember how long he had been stuffed into fabric, or how long he had been isolated from the world.
He only remembered the feeling as his powers coiled around his ribs, how they had curled in too tightly one day, and then the world had shrunk, or his place in it.
The first time he woke up was in the blonde man’s apartment. The sun was warming his stitched head, and it was nice not to feel cold down to his seams. His body unthreaded, and then he was there, all flesh, bones, and breath.
He practised being human for an hour at a time. He would take long showers, heat whatever frozen food the man had in his fridge (in this particular case, some gyozas), then washed the dishes when he was done.
He’d then watch TV until he heard the man’s keys clatter in the door, fabric would crawl up his arms like ivy, and he’d knit together like yarn until he was small again.
At night, it felt nice to be hugged. Sometimes he’d hug the man back.
✄┈┈┈┈
After another long day at work, he slumped onto the couch with a deep sigh. He let a groan and thought about fusing into the couch. That would be a good life.
He rubbed two hands over his face, then pressed his fingers against his temples. He felt like his brain was being squeezed by a vice.
“God, I need a cigarette…” he mumbled. However, quickly abandoned the idea when he discovered his pack was still in his bag at the door. That would be way too much effort.
He then went to grab the remote, which was, for some reason, across the room. The world was torturing him like usual.
As his gelatinous legs, that was a good word for it, carried him off the sweet haven called the couch, he heard something.
He waited a moment, making sure he wasn’t just hearing things again, then he heard it another time, and then he heard a cough which suspiciously sounded like it came from inside his home.
He pressed his lips together. Crap. Was it a squatter? Maybe it was a stalker? Okay. Okay, Arataka. Think. You can handle a stalker. You can totally handle a stalker.
He grabbed the nearest potential weapon and marched down the hall, shoulders squared. “I should warn you,” he announced. “I have a green belt in Shaolin Kung-Fu!”
There was a noise behind him, his head cocked, suddenly paranoid. Then he heard the bathroom door open, and he quickly spun around, pointing the pillow menacingly at the offender. “Don’t move!”
It was a man.
He wore a navy suit with dark, messy hair, and his eyes looked like a startled deers. He held his hands up, stepping back.
“Back off! What do you want? Who do you work for? For the last time, I am not paying my taxes!”
“I- I can explain-“ the man blurted. His voice wavered dangerously on the edge of sobbing.
“You have 5 seconds before I call the cops!”
“I’m not- I shouldn’t- I’ll leave, please don’t be angry!”
Reigen stopped himself right as he opened his mouth. His eyes must have been deceiving him. He had to blink twice to really be sure.
“…Salaryman?” He lowered his weapon
The man’s face crumpled. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for it to go this far. And I can leave, right now!”
“I am going insane,” he whispered. “Absolutely losing it.“
If Reigen wasn’t losing his mind, and this really was real, he couldn’t find himself to complain. Salaryman was a real looker, wasn’t he?
And if he was losing it, awesome, he was looking for a hobby anyway.
“I’ll go now.”
“N-no!” He sputtered before he could think, then cleared his voice. “I mean, don’t. You don’t have to go.”
The man was trembling. Reigen almost wanted to hug him right there. “I can make some tea, if you like. It’s no problem.”
His breath hitched. He seemed hesitant at first. “Tea? I thought you’d be…”
Scared? Terrified? He part was. But he was also just too tired and slightly enamoured by the broad chested man in front of him.
The man then nodded. “If that’s okay.”
Reigen made tea. The man sat at the table like a scared puppy. He held his mug with both hands and blew small puffs of air to cool the liquid down.
“So,” Reigen started casually, as if it was normal to have conversations with random men who have been living in your home for weeks without you knowing. “You’re alive sometimes.”
He took a long sip of tea. Sighing happily as tension from his muscles eased. “Mhm. Yes.”
“And you live here now?”
“I can leave.”
“No. It’s okay,” he quickly assured. “I’m not saying I believe in this magic stuff or anything, but this is hands down the least weird thing that’s happened to me this year, so I’ll roll with it.”
He looked up like someone had opened a window in his chest. “You don’t mind?”
Reigen shrugged, swirling some sugar into his tea. “I wouldn’t mind, uh.. someone to talk to.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he quietly admitted. “I didn’t mean to hide myself. I just get stuck sometimes. This place felt safe, though.”
“Welcome home, I guess.”
Outside, the city sank deeper from evening to the dark hues of night, settling to sleep. Inside, two mugs of tea cooled on the table, and Serizawa felt more awake than he ever had in his life.
Even when he finally drifted off in Reigen’s arms, under a shared blanket and in borrowed pyjamas, he was awake, and he wouldn’t sleep for so long again.