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nightiingaled · 6 days ago

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June of Doom Day 5: "You’re not looking so hot." (Hizashi Yamada & Aizawa Shouta)

Secondary prompt used was "Bully". @juneofdoom

Fandom: My Hero Academia Word Count: 2,857 CW child abuse, bullying, quirk discrimination, muzzles, panic attacks, depression, depersonalization and derealization. Read on Ao3.

Hizashi gets kidnapped and they subject him to his most feared abuse. The ripple effects are disastrous.

Hizashi wakes to darkness with a god awful headache and an uncomfortably tight feeling around his face. He doesn’t remember ever having a headache so bad, and the floor seems to dip and sway as he tries to sit upright. The hero finds his arms bound behind his back so the entire thing is an ordeal, but he manages. His stomach is tight with nausea, his equilibrium horribly off. Had he blown his own eardrums again?

“Well that’s no good…’ he goes to say aloud except he can’t. Hizashi finds he can’t move his jaw open at all. He doesn’t know how he didn’t notice before. It should have been the first thing to grab his attention. Because now that he has noticed, ever alarm bell in his head is ringing.

No…no please. Anything but this.

Hizashi can’t breathe through his mouth like this but he starts to hyperventilate anyway. His chest rises and falls with rapid, sharp bursts of air through his nostrils. His head swims, the floor shifting and bucking under him.

The muzzle is cinched way too tight and he knows it’s going to irritate the old scars on his cheeks. Scars he has spent a ridiculous amount of money on cosmetics trying to fix and hide.

It’s been YEARS he thinks to himself, Pull yourself together damnit!

He’s not that helpless kid anymore, he tries to remind himself. He’s in his twenties now. He’s a Pro Hero for fuck’s sake. He should be over this. But the muzzle rests so perfectly in place that it’s like it never really left. Like he never really escaped. And just like that Hizashi isn’t the Pro Hero Present Mic, he’s a twelve year old little boy cowering on the floor from his foster family.

“You used your quirk again, Hizashi!”

He’s pretty sure he didn’t actually. He’d just been talking slightly louder than usual, excitement about one of his favorite things getting the better of him. But that was it, wasn’t it? He was talking

He wasn’t supposed to be talking.

“I’m s-sorry…please…” he begs and flinches back when he realizes his mistake. He claps his hands over his mouth and shakes his head - as if remembering the rules now will keep the punishment at bay.

It takes both adults to wrangle the boy. Even though he’s learned not to fight back too much anymore, it’s still second nature to pull his head away from the leather and straps. “You will just have to wear this until you learn to keep your mouth shut, won’t you Mic?”

The name pulls him free from the memory because it’s not right, it's wrong. Mic doesn’t exist here. Mic is everything Hizashi is not, everything Hizashi has never been allowed to be.

His equilibrium is still horribly messed up and the man sways, stomach doing flips. But he’s aware of the light having been turned on, of it blinding him as he returns to the present. Even slightly aware of the two villains in the room. One only inches away and another perched on a nearby table, leg folded over the other. He tries to turn his head to get a closer look, but the world rolls and he cinches his eyes shut while everything rights itself again.

“Wait is he really fucking crying right now?” The villain at the table asks.

In his panic, Hizashi hadn’t realized the tears welling up in his eyes and closing them released them to trail down his cheeks and under the muzzle. It created an uncomfortable itch and burn on his skin.

“You’re not looking so hot, hero.” The closer villain kicks him in the midsection and Hizashi doubles over with a sharper sound from his nose, a grunt in his chest. “And you were sooo full of yourself earlier too!”

He wants to say something about kicking a man while he’s down, wants to let out a string of curses and insults and banter. But the muzzle keeps his jaw tightly locked. The only sound he makes is desperate nose breathing as his nostrils flare. But the pain in his stomach is wonderful and grounding in the worst of ways, taking his mind away from the past if only for a second.

Someone grabs him and pulls him upright again. It takes all Hizashi’s focus to keep his lunch down as the movement. “Do you know how much of a nuisance you’ve been for us?” the villain growls, face so close to his he can smell what the other had to eat last.

It doesn’t really narrow down the culprits. Mic is a nuisance to a LOT of people. Some purposefully, others not as much. But he would go out on a limb and say it was a recent gang upstart he’d been focused on taking down in his old neighborhood. They’d been nothing important until recently, getting their hands on Trigger and passing it out to local kids. Kids that barely knew better. He feels his jaw tighten.

The villain can’t seem to help himself and laughs. “Damn you want to be the ‘big bad hero’ so badly, don’t you? But without that quirk of yours, you’re nothing!”

It’s not true, Hizashi thinks. He’s more than well-versed in close combat. It was just a bad setup. There had been way too many of them to take on alone initially and now that he was disoriented and bound, well…it wasn’t looking good. He’d tell Shouta to work more with him on escaping bindings later.

Because there would be a later. He isn’t about to give up on that.

The villain has him by the neck with one hand and tugs at the muzzle strape with another. It somehow tightens even more, leather digging into skin like a dagger.

Don’t….Hizashi swallows, Don’t bring attention to it.

“Bet your friends would looooveee one of these to shut you up, huh?”

No…shut up! Shut up!

And just like that he’s struggling again, falling into the past like it’s a story book sitting out for them all to read. He’s still in his young teens but this time he’s surrounded by people he called friends. Except…he’s currently being pinned to the ground by four of them and a fifth has their hands as tight around his mouth as they can after he’d tried to shout them away.

“Don’t you ever just shut up Yamada?” A sixth is muttering over him. He wrestles a muzzle over the boy’s face before he gets a chance to make another yell in that brief window that the hands leave his mouth. They all let him go and back quickly away. The muzzle has a lock like the one at home and Hizashi rips and tears and pulls at the leather to no avail.

He knows he should fight them. Should run at the leader and get the key he knows he has. But he can’t. He can’t breathe, he can’t think…Hizashi collapses to his knees, scrabbling for purchase on the muzzle to try and pull it free.

The man is full-on sobbing now, a horrible noise that’s stuck in his chest and he chokes on it behind the muzzle. He’s lost somewhere between past and present, internally begging as he thrashes away when someone tries to touch him. They will beat him now, 6 to 1. Completely unbeatable odds for the young, panicked boy.

But suddenly he realizes it’s just Shouta hovering over him. And something tells him this is good but something else sends his heart plummeting into his stomach. His panic only explodes from there because of course Shouta - the one he annoys the most - is here to take part in the cruel fun.

Shouta reaches out for him and again Hizashi flinches back, but he can’t get away. Even though he’s partially aware his hands are free now, the other has always been so much faster than him. And then there’s tugging and pulling and the sudden release of pressure on his face and jaw. And it is such a euphoric feeling Hizashi is dizzy for a moment.

He can’t hear Shouta, can’t hear anything over the noise in his head, but he realizes Shouta is talking. His lips mouth something slowly that Hizashi eventually recognizes as a request to breathe. Without really agreeing, the two fall into an unspoken breathing exercise together - Hizashi taking deep exaggerated breaths through his mouth, counting in time with his friend until the buzzing in his ears finally fades. Until his breathing is normal again and his heart has slowed down to an appropriate pace. He can now hear police and heroes bustling around them.

His shoulders sag with exhaustion, his body collapsing forward against his friend’s shoulder.

“Better?” It’s all the other hero can manage because even Shouta doesn’t know what else to say. He had walked in on his best friend having been kidnapped and placed into an extremely traumatizing position. Having seen Hizashi having a complete panic attack after all these years had frozen him to the spot when they had burst in the door.

“I’m going to need to call my therapist,” Hizashi murmurs in his ear.

“Yeah. That’d probably be best.”

Shouta reaches up slowly to wrap an arm around Hizashi’s shoulder. The muzzle is long gone from his hands, thrown halfway across the room as far as he could get it away from Hizashi. “You ready to get out of here? The detective wants to chat with you downstairs, then I’ll take you to the hospital to get checked out, okay?”

Hizashi doesn’t answer for a second, reaching up to feel where the muzzle had dug into his cheeks. He pulled back his hand, the faintest hint of blood on his fingertips. He sighs.

“No hospital. I’m fine.”

“Hizashi…”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. But fine, no hospital, but you’re letting me patch you up instead. That’s your only other option. Take it or leave it.”

Hizashi sighs again and nods. “Okay.”

And so Shouta leads him out of the room, catching Hizashi’s gaze track the muzzle across the floor. The man shudders under his touch and Shouta’s frown deepens, but he’s silent. His fingers tighten reassuringly on Hizashi’s shoulder and the blonde nods, more to himself than Shouta.

Neither really knows what to say.

x.x.x

The flashbacks come back full force after that. Images and memories that hadn’t haunted Hizashi in years float around his head. He can’t focus and it almost gets him into trouble more than once on patrol. It gets someone hurt. Shouta, of all people. And Hizashi can’t bear it.

So he does the only smart thing he can think of and calls out sick. First for one day and then another and then another….until Hizashi loses count of the days it has been since he locked himself in his apartment. He should be fired at this point, but he can’t bring himself to care.

His thoughts become more than just past memories about abuse he’d suffered, growing darker and darker with his current state of mind. The world around him doesn’t feel quite right anymore and neither does his own body.

Maybe it’s why he thinks this is okay, that this is the right course of action. That this will fix it. Fix him. Because his body isn’t his own. His voice doesn’t belong to him and he doesn’t belong in the world.

Red eyes are fixed on the muzzle he’d ordered online, heart thumping fearfully in his chest. He has to do it in front of a mirror to see how, but he gets it on without too much trouble actually. And a strange burst of joy hits Hizashi through the haze of his depression. Maybe he is over it. Maybe he can move on.

But just as soon as those thoughts cross his mind, so do the others. So do the voices. There are so many…And Hizashi collapses to his knees, curling into himself while trying to cover his ears.

Can’t control it…

What a monster…

Hold him down…

Bet this will shut you up!

Keep fucking quiet, Hizashi..

Hizashi.

HIZASHI!

His eyes snap open as he realizes someone has two hands on his shoulders and is shaking him. Shouta is staring at him with dark eyes full of exhaustion and fear.

But why is he afraid? Hizashi thinks to himself, before something uncomfortable settles in his brain. Of me?

“What the hell are you doing! Where’s the damn key, Hizashi?”

The blonde doesn’t move to show him or respond in any way. In fact, he shakes his head at him and tries to look away. Shouta simply glares at him.

“Do not make me cut it off your face.”

He will too, Hizashi realizes. But he says nothing.

“Damn you!” Shouta curses and he leaves. Hizashi realizes, as the voices creep in again that he didn’t want him to go.

He returns after a few minutes though, a key successfully in his hand. He pulls Hizashi close and gets the muzzle off, throwing it away from them both like it burns him before turning his eyes back on the blonde.

“What are you doing here?” Hizashi finally snaps but even in his anger he keeps his voice uncharacteristically low.

“You haven’t been at work.” Shouta states, matter-of-factly.

“And? People take sick days, you know.” Hizashi refuses to hold Shouta’s gaze, afraid to look in those eyes full of fear. To know he made his friend scared of him.

“Yeah - not week long sick days where they don’t answer their friends’ messages.”

Nemuri and Shouta had been checking in all week and he’d been consistently leaving them on read. He thought…surely neither would care enough.

“I’m fine,” he says, picking at his fingers absently.

“I just found you wearing a muzzle in your own fucking house, Hizashi. We’re way past that lie. ”

“It’s…you shouldn’t have taken it off. I need to be muzzled. For…for everyone’s safety.”

Shouta purses his lips, reaching out to touch Hizashi’s face. And Hizashi knows he should pull away because Shouta shouldn’t want to touch him. Shouldn’t want to be close to him. But he doesn’t move as his friend cups his cheek with one hand, letting a calloused thumb brush over the new scabs on his face.

“I hate anyone who has ever made you believe that,” Shouta whispers before letting his hand fall away.

“But they’re right!” Hizashi chokes out. “They’re always been right.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I-I hurt you, Sho. I saw….the other day. I got distracted and directed my attack the wrong way. You got hurt because of me. And now…now you’re scared of me.”

Shouta blinks, taking it all in. He hadn’t said anything about the injury to anyone and especially not Hizashi. He’d just been in the way is all. He should’ve known better than to be in Hizashi’s path or at the very least to cover his ears. But the last part had him confused and floundering. Scared? Of Hizashi?

He actually snorted at the thought. Which made Hizashi himself shoot his head up in confusion. “Since when?” he asked.

“Since it happened, I’m sure. But I haven’t seen you until you walked in and you were so…so scared…you thought I was going to hurt you!”

Shouta’s face becomes tight and serious. “‘Zashi, I was scared shitless because you were hurting yourself! I wasn’t scared for myself, I was scared for you! I just walked in on you just last week having the biggest panic attack I’ve ever seen after being kidnapped and then I see it again in your own bedroom? I thought someone had broken in and gotten to you. And then I realized you’d done it to yourself and…and I don’t know Hizashi….I–”

The man takes a deep breath to center himself. “I’m not scared of you. I’m scared for you. So you hurt me in combat. It was an accident, we both made mistakes during that fight. But we’re young heroes, we get better okay? That’s the whole point.”

Hizashi feels tears welling up behind his eyes and looks away again. Shouta shifts until he is sitting right beside him and leans against his shoulder. He moves one arm, interlocking their hands together.

“Look, I’m not saying you’re supposed to be fine or to ‘get over this already’. But it can’t be like this. This is self-destructive at its core. Let your friends be here for you…Let us help, yeah?”

Hizashi can’t stop crying enough to answer verbally, so he simply squeezes Shouta’s hand back in return. They sit like that for a little bit longer before the blonde takes a deep, grounding breath.

“Can you stay the night? The voices and the nightmares…they get bad in the dark.”

“Yeah…” Shouta agrees softly, “I can do that.”

It’s not the end of the flashbacks and the trauma. But it’s a start in the right direction. And that’s all the two can ask for.

#my fic #self reblog

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nightiingaled · 6 days ago

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✱˚｡⋆ ↪ 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 . ( a collection of dialogue prompts based on varying types of demands &. requests . adjust phrasing as necessary . this prompt WILL likely be updated in the future . )

don't say a word .

don't leave me here .

meet me at our spot tonight .

follow me and stay close .

don't beg , it's pathetic .

can you ( tie / zip ) this for me ?

stop lying to me . tell me what you did .

put that down , you don't know what it ( is / does ) .

get out of my sight .

stop pretending you know what's going on .

find a first-aid kit . quickly !

don't get yourself killed .

leave them to me , just go .

just admit that you love me .

just admit that you hate me .

come here , let me look at you .

( name ) , don't make me do this .

drop your ( weapon ) .

stay here and wait for my signal .

don't just sit there , move .

take this and run , don't let anyone have it .

pretend you're my ( partner / girlfriend / boyfriend ) .

don't look , you'll give us away .

don't say another word .

stop pretending like you care .

go make sure the coast is clear .

take this with you . it's a good luck charm .

don't tell anyone about this .

if anybody asks about today , lie .

stop looking at me like that .

tell me you love me .

just kiss me , already .

keep your eyes on the road .

stop crying and calm down .

come with me . there's so much we could do .

wear the ( dress / tie / item ) i gave you tonight .

show me how you like to be touched .

hold my hand .

kiss me , make it look real .

look at me . how many fingers am i holding up ?

will you marry me ?

just slow down for a minute . what's going on ?

take a deep breath , you need to calm down .

get out of here , ( name ) !

draw your weapon .

go rest . i'm not asking .

take a step back .

give me a straight answer .

be polite to our guests .

look me in the eye and say that again .

put your feelings aside for a moment .

keep close to me .

here , let me see that .

look up at the sky .

get out of here , i don't want to see you right now .

stand up , this isn't over yet .

close your eyes and count to ten .

smile for the camera !

keep your head down .

( name ) , let me past .

listen carefully to what i'm about to say .

don't just stare , come in .

stop laughing , this isn't funny .

take this and hide it .

don't make a sound .

put your hands up .

quit causing problems everywhere you go .

just admit that you don't know what you're doing .

stop right there , i mean it .

don't say that name aloud .

just trust me , okay ?

stop acting so childish .

call the police . now .

tell me you love me , even if it's not real .

take a good hard look .

stop the car , ( name ) .

don't make eye contact .

stay out of trouble .

just do it already , we've waited long enough .

hold me tight , and never let me go .

finish what you started .

tell me what you know .

just stay away from me .

turn around . slowly .

don't be scared .

put it down before somebody gets hurt .

stop pretending , i'm tired of the pretending .

grab me my ( item ) , will you ?

don't make assumptions .

put this over it to stop the bleeding .

get to safety !

wipe that look off your face .

secure the area .

keep an eye on them .

look at yourself in the mirror .

run . run and don't stop .

eat . you haven't touched your food in days .

#meme source.

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