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Shouta woke at 2 a.m., needing to use the bathroom and get water, when he saw a blue glow coming from the living room, accompanied by a sound barely above a murmur.
He peeked into the room to find Izuku curled into the corner of the couch, knees drawn to his chest, his chin resting above them, watching the TV with a glassy, somewhat distant gaze that indicated he wasn't really watching at all.
"Hey," Shouta said, low, so it wouldn't startle him.
Izuku's head turned. "Sorry. Did I wake you?"
"No." He leaned against the doorframe. "Couldn't sleep?"
"I tried. I just—" Izuku shrugged, small, like the sentence wasn't worth finishing. "I'll go back in a bit."
Shouta looked at him a moment longer, at the faint shadows under his eyes that had nothing to do with tonight specifically. Instead, he was positive they were at least a result of a week of little sleep.
"Try to actually sleep before school," he said instead, gentle, not a command so much as a tether thrown out. "You've got that practical exam tomorrow."
Izuku nodded, guilty in the way he always was when he thought he'd inconvenienced someone just by existing in a room. "Okay. Sorry."
"Don't apologize for being awake in your own home." Shouta said it plainly, no heat behind it, and turned back toward the hall before Izuku could do anything with the words except let them land. "Night, kid."
"Night."
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It wasn't until Izuku heard the door click behind his teacher that he let out a deep sigh. This had been... the ninth day without a full six hours of sleep?
Tiredness had long started catching up to him by now. He almost fell asleep in the car on the ride to school, head tipping against the window although the ride was only ten minutes there.
Homework was worse. He read the same paragraph in his textbook three or four times, the words sliding past without sticking, eyes burning by the second page. He braced his chin on his hand to keep his head from dropping and told himself it was fine, he just needed to focus better, like this was a discipline problem and not a body that had simply run out of road.
And although he was sleepy nearly the whole day, sleep never came to him at night. He just lay there tired, exhausted even, but the second the lights went off, something in him switched on instead of down. He heard the refrigerator click in the kitchen, the ticking of the living room clock, a car passing two streets over. Every sound arrived sharp, denying him the rest he desperately needed.
When he did slip under, it was never for long. The dreams weren't even nightmares, not really, just brief, fragmented things — a door he couldn't reach, a voice he couldn't place calling his name, the floor tilting out from under him for half a second before he woke with his heart going too fast for no reason he could name. He never even got far enough into them to be properly scared. Just far enough to be tugged back out, over and over, like sleep kept almost holding him and then changing its mind.
At first, he reasoned that he wasn't fully comfortable living in Aizawa's apartment yet, but he'd put up his old things and decorations, and Aizawa and Hizashi had even taken him shopping for new bed sheets and room items of his own choice, and yet he still couldn't fall asleep.
He didn't mention any of it. It felt like a small thing, embarrassing almost, the kind of problem that didn't justify taking up anyone's time. He just got quieter through the days and hoped it would even out on its own.
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Shouta didn't fall back asleep easily either after that. He lay on his back and thought instead. He already knew that Izuku was touch-starved in the most devastating way. He knew how much he needed proximity and that it would probably help more than anything else he could offer.
He'd seen it mid-panic when the kid first came to his apartment a few weeks ago and slept like a toddler in his arms for nearly the whole day.
Outside of that, Shouta had never been the one to close the distance. Not because he didn't understand what Izuku needed. Because Izuku got to be the one who decided when, and how much, and Shouta wasn't going to take that choice away from him just because it would be easier on a Tuesday night.
So instead, he picked up his phone and texted Hizashi.
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The knock came just after midnight the next day — soft and familiar. Shouta opened the door to Hizashi standing there in his civilian clothes, his nerd glasses hanging low on his nose and his hair tied in a low messy bun, radio voice mostly worn off by now, a large flat box tucked under one arm.
"You look terrible," Hizashi said, by way of greeting.
"You called me at midnight."
"You answer at midnight, that's a you problem." He held the box out. "Here. Weighted blanket, fifteen pounds, the cover's removable and machine washable because I know you won't remember that's important until it's too late."
Shouta took it. It was heavier than he'd expected; he could almost imagine its effect.
"You drove this here after your show." He said it in a not-a-question, not-a-statement tone.
"I drove this here after my show because you texted me 'kid's not sleeping, what do I do' at two in the morning like I'm a search engine and not a person who needs sleep too." Hizashi said it without any real bite, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, grinning. "You're lucky I love you both. The place I found does same-day pickup if you order before two, which you did not, so I had to beg."
"I'll pay you back."
"You'll pay me back by letting me come over for dinner sometime this decade." Hizashi's eyes flicked past him, toward the dark hallway, voice dropping a register. "How's he doing? Really?"
"Tired. Better than he was." Shouta shifted the box against his hip. "He'll come around to needing more than this eventually. Just isn't there yet."
"He'll come around to a lot of things eventually." Hizashi reached out and knocked his knuckles lightly against Shouta's arm. "Go put it on the kid before you fall asleep standing in your own doorway. You look like you're one bad blink from faceplanting."
"Thanks, Zashi."
"Anytime, Sho. I mean that." A beat. "Tell him I said hi tomorrow. Don't wake him up to do it now."
Aizawa nodded in response, already turning toward Izuku's bedroom as Hizashi headed outside with a "See you tomorrow, Sho" and the soft click of the door.
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Izuku's door was cracked open, the way it had been since he first started living here. Shouta pushed it the rest of the way with his shoulder, blanket held against his chest.
Izuku was asleep, or close to it, curled on his side facing the door, one hand loosely fisted in the sheet beneath him. He stirred when the light from the hallway intruded on his room, alerting him to the newcomer, eyes blinking open halfway, unfocused.
"Mm—Aizawa?"
"Shh. Just me." Shouta crossed the room quiet, sat on the edge of the bed. "Got you something."
He shook the blanket out and laid it over the one already on the bed, settling the weight slow and even across Izuku's shoulders and down his back, tucking the edge in along his side.
Izuku made a small, low sound at the back of his throat — not words, just something soft and surprised, his shoulders dropping under the weight like they'd been waiting for a reason to. He pressed back into it, pulling the edge of the blanket in tighter with the hand that wasn't trapped under his own cheek, burrowing.
"'ts heavy," he mumbled, eyes already sliding shut again.
"That's the point." Shouta's voice went quieter than he meant it to. "It's supposed to help you sleep."
Izuku hummed again, that same sleepy, comforted noise, already half-gone. Shouta stayed a moment longer than he needed to, watching the tension actually leave Izuku's face for once instead of just hiding under exhaustion.
He reached out, brushed the hair back from Izuku's forehead — once, twice, slow — felt him lean faintly into the touch even half-asleep, unthinking, the way he never quite let himself do when he was awake enough to be self-conscious about it.
"Sleep," Shouta murmured. "I'm right down the hall."
"Mm. 'Night, 'Zawa."
He smoothed Izuku's hair back one last time, then eased up off the bed, careful not to shift the mattress too much. Izuku was already breathing slower, deeper, one hand still curled into the edge of the blanket like he didn't trust it to stay if he let go.
Shouta pulled the door most of the way shut behind him and stood there a second in the lit hallway, something in his chest finally easing the way it hadn't all week.
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Izuku didn't wake again that night.
No clicking refrigerator, no ticking clocks, no half-formed dream tugging him back to the surface before he was properly under. The weight stayed where Aizawa had left it, pressing down steady across his back. The last things he'd felt were fingers in his hair and warmth blooming in his chest. And for the first time in longer than he could pin down, Izuku's body simply stopped listening for anything at all.
When his alarm went off, the light was already seeping through the curtains, having that quality to it that meant he'd slept past sunrise without meaning to. He blinked at the ceiling for a second, disoriented by the still-lingering sleep in his eyes, this time from how deep the sleep had been, not from its absence.
He almost didn't recognize what rested felt like.
The blanket was still tucked around him exactly the way Aizawa had left it, like he hadn't moved once in eight hours. Izuku pressed his face into the pillow, a small, helpless smile tugging at his mouth before he could stop it, and for a moment he just lay there in the warm, heavy quiet, in no hurry at all to get up.