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Hitoshi stares up at the ceiling of the room. It's the middle of the night and he should be asleep but it's not as if Hitoshi expected anything else.
He barely sleeps and by now he's no longer sure if he's simply wired like that or if his childhood spent in hyper-vigilance has made him like that, but it's not as if there's a chance for him to change it.
Sleep, to him, comes in twenty to forty minutes bursts; after that he jerks up, as if it's unsafe, as if he needs to check his surroundings in those set intervals and Hitoshi has long since stopped being angry about it.
Being angry takes energy and he barely has any these days and the little he does have, he needs for something else. Training with Aizawa is exhausting most of the time, a mix of not enough food, not enough sleep and the general struggle of physically training and for a few desperate nights Hitoshi had hoped that maybe that exhaustion would be enough to actually make him sleep.
What a fool he'd been.
Sure, his sleep cycles were closer to the forty minute mark during the beginning, but he still woke up, and he still jerked awake at every tiny noise he heard and it left him just as exhausted.
And these days, he's back to normal, too; the novelty of physically exerting himself clearly worn off and his sleep as shitty as it always was.
Hitoshi lets out a rough breath. Contemplating this is not going to lead anywhere, just like being angry isn't, but it's not as if he has anything else to do, seeing how it's the middle of the night and he's wide awake, startled up by the sound of his foster father shuffling along the hallway.
It's always unpleasant being torn from sleep like that and it makes falling back asleep so much more difficult and with the lingering way his fingers tingle from adrenaline, Hitoshi doesn't even have to try to fall asleep again.
He knows better by now.
So he lays on his back and he stares at the ceiling and he lets his thoughts drift in something that's as close to actual sleep as he can get and waits for the sun to rise.
It feels as if it takes longer every night.
~*~*~
"Kid, are you okay?" Aizawa asks him when a yawn interrupts his explanation for the fourth time and Hitoshi ducks his head, his face blazing red in embarrassment.
"I promise, I'm listening," he rushes out, because he is, he is following along with all the movements Aizawa makes with the capture weapon, but—he can't deny that he's tired.
It's getting worse every night.
"I never doubted that, but I was asking if you're okay. Didn't sleep good last night?"
Or any night in the last five years, Hitoshi bites back, because he's certain Aizawa doesn't want to hear about that, and so he simply nods.
Aizawa doesn't seem quite happy with his answers, stares at him as if he's expecting more, but how does Hitoshi explain to him that he recently changed foster homes again and that this family is a lot more heavy handed than the last?
How does he explain that his foster sister had crawled into his bed the second night he stayed there and cried, because apparently there were some leering looks, some unsavoury jokes made in her direction and now she's too scared to stay alone at night?
How does Hitoshi explain that every time the house so much as creaks, he jerks up, afraid to find their foster father standing there, ready to beat him to a pulp and rape her right there?
No, Hitoshi knows better than to bring something like this up again.
It's not the first time it happens, not the first family were both occurrences are almost the norm, not the first time he talks to his caseworker, the police, someone else at CPS—so he knows the answers he gets as soon as his quirk comes out.
Hitoshi knows that Aizawa would probably not call him a villain and accuse him of making his foster father do all of these things, but he also doesn't want to put it to the test, that deep seated fear too strong to even try in case Aizawa turns out like everyone else.
And so Hitoshi just shrugs and mutters a "Yeah," and hopes Aizawa leaves it at that.
Which—of course he doesn't.
"Nightmares?" he asks, clearly already set on trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with Hitoshi and he's tempted to nod, if only to make Aizawa stop guessing, but he's afraid that he's going to prod and poke him about those nightmares and it's not as if Hitoshi can make something up, not really.
He can't ever remember sleeping long enough to actually have any dreams, least of all nightmares.
"No, I just—don't sleep well," Hitoshi admits, refuses to tack on a lately, because it's been an ongoing problem for close to a decade and he figures he's not yet old enough to make a decade a 'lately'.
Aizawa scrutinises him for a moment and then nods towards their stuff, strewn across the ground.
"You wanna nap for a while? I'll lend you my sleeping bag."
It's—a tempting offer; Hitoshi has thought before that the sleeping bag Aizawa carries around with him looks mighty comfortable and with Hitoshi's predisposition for sleep, napping is actually all he ever really does, so after a brief hesitation he nods.
"If you're sure," he tacks on, remembers that they are here for training and not to cater to Hitoshi's fucked up sleep cycle, but Aizawa shrugs, apparently completely unbothered.
"Knock yourself out," he says, already wrapping the capture weapon up to stow it away and Hitoshi gets up and drags his feet over to the sleeping bag.
He is tired, especially so, these days and so it's more than easy to wrap himself up in the surprisingly soft fabric. He tucks himself in, pulls part of the sleeping bag right over his face and closes his eyes, intent to at least turn the world out for a while and before he even fully relaxed his last muscle, he's already asleep.
~*~*~
Hitoshi feels groggy when he wakes up. He doesn’t jerk awake for once, which is nice, but his brain takes too long to kick-start and by the time he realises that he's still in the gym, he's already in a panic, completely unfamiliar with the heavy feeling blanketing him.
It's dark out by now and there's no light illuminating the gym, except for a warm shine coming from Hitoshi's left and he jerks his head around, only to find Aizawa bowed over a piece of paper, wrapped up in—a second sleeping bag? And a candle at his side?
What the fuck is going on?
"Good morning, sleepyhead," Aizawa says and it should be funny, it's probably meant like that, but panic slams into Hitoshi, cold and hard and he scrambles out of the bag.
"What time is it?" he rushes out, almost trips in his haste to gather all of his stuff and Aizawa simply watches him, his face unreadable.
"After ten."
"At night?" Hitoshi incredulously asks and calculates that he slept for something close to six or seven hours.
Uninterrupted.
"Certainly not in the morning, kid," comes Aizawa's dry reply with a look towards the window which very clearly show that it's dark outside.
"I have to go home," Hitoshi mutters and rushes to get all of his things loaded up in his arms and he thinks Aizawa should me more worried about this, should have woken him up way, way earlier, but he just sits there, unflappable as always.
"I informed your guardian," he calmly states and for a moment he clearly expects Hitoshi to relax, to calm down and thank him, but the terror gripping his heart makes it hard to breathe. "You're fine, Hitoshi. He was very understanding, so you're all good."
Hitoshi wants to laugh, wants to rage and cry, because of course he was all nice to Aizawa but he won't be so nice once Hitoshi comes home, but that is all irrelevant anyway because "This isn't about me."
His foster sister is home, because of course she is and she's alone and taking a beating is so much easier than getting raped and for all that Hitoshi knows it's already too late.
He feels like throwing up.
"I have to go," he rushes out and then turns around, fully intending to flee the scene and run home to do as much damage control as he can, but before he so much as takes a step, Aizawa's capture weapon wraps around his middle.
"Hitoshi," he warningly says and pulls him back, even though Hitoshi fights the binding with all his might. "Hitoshi, stop! What is going on?"
"Nothing, nothing, you have to let me go, I have to go home," Hitoshi cries out, and it's almost as if he feels the passage of time acutely, every second cutting across his skin because what if this is the one that makes him late, or this one, or this one?
He needs to be home already.
"I'm worried about you," Aizawa's voice cuts through his panic and Hitoshi lets out a desperate laugh because worrying about himself is really the last thought on his mind right now. "What is going on at your home that has you in this much of a panic?"
And Hitoshi's brain is slow, his thoughts all muddled from the unusual amount of sleep he's gotten, from the panic and the worry and the desperate need to get going, so he just blurts out the truth.
"My foster sister is alone with him, she can't be alone with him, not ever, he's going to hurt her," he chokes out and there's a beat of silence before Aizawa scrambles to his feet, the capture weapon falling away from him.
"Let's go," he curtly says and strides out of the gym, Hitoshi running after him and everything after that is a blur.
There's a car drive, a very tense conversation at the front door, a choked down sob from somewhere deeper in the house and suddenly Hitoshi's foster father is on the ground, his nose broken and his false smile cleanly knocked off his face and then there's crying, the police, an ambulance.
Hitoshi can't keep up at all and it isn't until he's sitting on a couch, a cat purring in his lap and Aizawa crouched down in front of him that he comes back to himself.
"What happened?" His voice is nothing more but a scared whisper, but Aizawa gives him a reassuring smile.
"A lot. The most important being that you are safe now and your foster sister is in the hospital right now. It didn't come to the worst, we were just in time, but she's staying for observation, you can see her tomorrow."
The relief makes him sway on the spot and Aizawa's hand is a steadying, grounding weight on his shoulder.
"You want to go sleep for now?"
"I don't sleep," Hitoshi mumbles, which drags an amused huff out of Aizawa.
"Sounds like a lie, but okay. You wanna lay down for a while?" he offers next and Hitoshi shrugs, before he slumps to the side right there, and closes his eyes.
"I meant in a bed, but suit yourself, I guess," he hears Aizawa mutter and then sleep drags him under.
~*~*~
Hitoshi comes to slowly. He hears humming, smells the tantalising smell of breakfast, barely makes out a whispered conversation and when he manages to drag his eyes open, the room is brightly light, sunlight filtering in through the windows.
There's a cat on his chest, loudly purring along and Hitoshi has to suspect that it didn't just start then.
To say that he's confused is an understatement.
He carefully sits up, manages to relocate the cat to his lap instead of making it run and when he peers over the back of the couch, he sees Aizawa and Yamada in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and quietly talking about something.
"Hello," Hitoshi awkwardly croaks out, too out of it to even think to figuring out the appropriate greeting and both men immediately look at him.
"Good afternoon, little listener!" Yamada cheerfully says and skips closer. "Welcome back to the land of the living."
"Uhm," Hitoshi intelligently gets out because surely the afternoon is a bit of a stretch.
It was still dark out when Hitoshi lay down, he remembers that. There's no way he slept like—twelve hours?
"You did sleep through most of the day," Aizawa helpfully chimes in. "How are you feeling?"
"Confused," Hitoshi honestly admits because what the fuck is happening. "Did you drug me?"
It's a reasonable conclusion to come to because it's not as if Hitoshi has ever slept, let alone this long so surely there must be an explanation for it.
"No," Aizawa gives back, almost affronted and Yamada snorts out a laugh.
"I'm going to go out here on a very wild guess, one foster kid to another," Yamada says as he leans against the back of the couch and winks at Hitoshi. "You don't sleep for longer than an hour at night."
"Make it forty minutes," Hitoshi mutters and carefully cradles the cat closer.
"You wake up at the slightest noise, let alone movement," Yamada goes on and Hitoshi looks around, remembers the way they talked in the kitchen, that there's breakfast ready—or lunch?—and the cat on his lap.
"Normally," he admits and Yamada nods.
"Last guess. You trust Aizawa."
Hitoshi's gaze flits over to the man in question and he would never have managed to put it into words like that but—he does.
He wasn't quite ready to tell Aizawa what was going on at his home, but he does trust him and it seems—if what he's remembering about last night is accurate—that trust is not misplaced.
"I do," he admits and drops his gaze, which clearly invites Yamada to ruffle his hair.
"And there you have it. You trust him, and so you slept because no matter what you hear or how unsafe you've felt so far, you do feel safe when he's around."
It's—beyond embarrassing, actually, and Hitoshi hides his face away in the cat still purring away in his lap though his head flies up when Aizawa says "Thank you."
"Thank me for what?" Hitoshi breathes out because this is ridiculous, he needs to say thank you, not the other way around!
"For trusting me. For speaking up last night. For actually sleeping," Aizawa adds with a small smile and Hitoshi would give it back, but everything that happened comes crashing down around him and he feels himself go pale.
"What's going to happen now? How is—"
"She's fine," Aiazwa almost immediately interrupts him. "She's in the hospital, but only for observation, cause she wouldn't calm down last night. We were just in time and if you want to see her, we'll happily drive you there."
"As for what's going to happen now—you're staying with us," Yamada chimes in. "Definitely for now, but even for longer if you want to. It'll take a while to get the paperwork sorted out and charges pressed and until the trial happened no one will shuffle you around and that gives us time to figure everything out, alright? So no need to panic."
It's a good thing he said it like that because Hitoshi was this close to a panic attack himself, but what Yamada says sounds—too good to be true, kinda.
"Are you sure?" he dares to ask, his gaze going back to Aizawa because what if he's not but Aizawa only nods.
"Very," he reassures him and for now, Hitoshi decides to trust it.
After all, that seems to be a theme with Aizawa.