#slapped this together for u anon bcos it was. intense. called a friend about it too JSJSJSJ

[alienaiver]

Can you share the Shinsou scenario that made you cry? 👀📠

I DONT NORMALLY WRITE ANGST SO... UH 🫡......i also cried again as i wrote it IDJIWAODJSEFSE 🤡 imagine my BETRAYAL as all i did was try and find some comfort before sleep????? 😨 i was so bamboozled

wordcount: 1.6k warnings: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH but happy ending (trust me i guess), sfw, hurt/comfort, angst, MAJOR HURT, more of my Shinsou can't name cats for shit-shenanigans, gender neutral reader, no use of y/n, midoriya's there too and aizawa's mentioned, implied erasermic family, (i actually dont know much abt sleep cycles. ignore that), unbeta'd, not proofwritten, hope i didnt break ur hearts 😭

The curtains flutter in the wind as the only indication that anything’s changed in the apartment. You don’t notice it, comfortably resting in the REM-part of your sleep cycle. You’re currently walking through a field with flowers, incredibly picturesque and almost so dreamy that your mind seems half aware that it’s not awake – but not entirely. In your nostrils the scent of burned leather and ashes flare up, making you scrunch up your nose in confusion. You blearily clench your eyes tightly, both in reality and in the dream. That’s when you feel the arm lazily wrapped over your shoulder and onto your chest. You hear Shinsou sigh out tiredly before he noses into the nape of your neck. A half-hearted, sleepy groan leaves you at his audacity to come into bed directly from his nightshift. He knows better.

You grumble out some unintelligible words that sound close enough to a reprimand that he tightens his hold on you, “jus’ shut up. Just needed to smell and feel you real quick.”

There’s no bite in his voice and you lean back against him with a scowl, “you’re changing the sheets after your shower.”

He laughs lightly. It’s warm and gruff and so, so him. You love his sleepy, exhausted laugh the most and it brings a smile to your own face as you try to ignore the stench of the battlefield on him. You want to ask if he’s hurt but your eyes are drifting again, wrapped in his warmth like this.

You suppose he’d tell you to help wrap up wounds if he needed to. You nod off again.

What feels both like several hours and only milliseconds after you drifted off, your phone starts ringing angrily and noisily on the bedside table. You’re not one to have the sound on but whenever Shinsou has night shifts, you seem to switch it on as part of your own night routine. It makes you fall asleep easier, knowing they’ll be able to get through to you.

You nose your pillow for a few moments in hopes it’s just a dream before you clumsily reach out for it in blindness, knocking over the little cat figurine Shinsou bought for you the last time he was in Kyoto. Just as you have the phone in your grasp, you hear the doorbell ring as well. What time is it?

The screen is bright, painfully so and even as you squint your eyes, the name seems distorted, like you’ve forgotten how letters look. The contact picture tells you everything you need to, though, as a picture of Midoriya in a field of sunflowers you took last year paints the screen.

You pick up and before you’re able to even greet him, you hear the knock on your door. Huh. Midoriya does have a spare key – the doorbell might’ve just been to warn you he’s on his way. He says your name in a strained tilt you hear from him often at the office when he’s confronted with problems. It makes you raise your brows in confusion. You sit up and repeat his own name to him as your hands feel the sheets for Shinsou. He’s not there and based on the temperature he hasn’t been there for a while. Maybe he’s taking a bath. Normally he only takes showers after nightshifts, but based on the burned smell, you think he might need a minute.

Did he forget to report back that he went home? There are protocols for this, you think as you get up and find a shirt on the ground, letting Midoriya know you’re on your way to the door to let him in.

You settle easily onto the couch with Midoriya standing stiff by the coffee table. You laugh, “I’m sorry, I just woke up so… would you like a coffee? My manners are a little off,” you laugh, scratching the back of your neck. Midoriya doesn’t answer but smiles at you. He’s about to say something when you accidentally interrupt, “I’m sure Shinsou’s done in a minute in the bath. He doesn’t like long baths.” You don’t notice the way Midoriya grimaces before he can control his conflicting and confusing emotions at your words.

Midoriya bends down into a squat in front of you and takes your hands. His gloves are burned. He smells the same as Shinsou did.

Your name sounds foreign coming out of his mouth as you recognize the tone of his voice. You’ve stood next to him before, delivering news like this. Your mind instantly puts up walls and your eyes lose their light. He sees the change instantly and squeezes your hands, “at 2.32AM we received a request for support. There’d been a fire in a department store that’d spread to living quarters. They needed help evacuating.”

He tells you more – a lot more, given the fact that you’re colleagues. But you’re not sure how much you actually take in before you interrupt him with a borderline hysterical laughter, “’Zuku, he’s in the bath – he came home. He stank up our entire bed with the smell of burned skin and ashes. He smelled like you! I wouldn’t be able to think that unless…. Unless…” you sniffle and look up at Midoriya again, your eyes glassy and looking for any sort of hope yet finding none.

You try to get up. You need to check the bathroom, you bet his suit’s littered all over the bedroom floor on the way but Midoriya keeps you in place with his hands, begging you to calm down.

Calm down? You’re not even in a panicked state. You’ve seen loved ones break at this kind of news, you’re fine.

You’re fine because it’s not true.

It can’t be.

You’re supposed to have sukiyaki tomorrow. It’s his favorite. The groceries are in the fridge.

His birthday present is nestled in with your winter clothes where he doesn’t look, waiting to be opened on Saturday.

Your cat only wants to nap on his lap. Where’s she gonna go now?

Where are you gonna go now?

It’s like your spine breaks. You fall over, unable to hold yourself upright and Midoriya’s there to catch you, hushing and tutting. Clenching and caressing. Repeating strews and mixes of apologies and mutterings of encouragement. He’ll be there. They’ll all be there. Aizawa’s already on his way over here.

You can say goodbye at the hospital when you’re ready. Mise, the cat named after a store because she always showed up at the same time the convenience store opened and closed, can go with them and be with you at Aizawa and Yamada’s place. They’re even bringing a leash and a carrier so you won’t have to look for them.

You keep telling Midoriya to stop. Stop talking, stop planning, stop muttering.

He doesn’t listen. He keeps listing solutions like a bad coping mechanism, unable to really handle the loss himself.

He gets up slowly, not letting go of your hands. You hear his own bones crack and whine, being bent like this for so long.

How long?

At the loss of contact you didn’t want and was convinced you didn’t need; you panic. You start trashing, crying, screaming. You’ll fall apart if nobody holds you together right now. You need Shinsou to do so. You yell his name, his nickname, his full name. You yell everything you can’t keep in, in the hopes that he’ll come back. Come back and hold you.

You stand in the living room and your back suddenly feels wet; warm. There’re arms around you, clenching you and legs wrapped around your own legs. You’re lying down, not standing and you feel dizzy with that information. Mise already left the bed, perched on the dresser as to not get hurt in your pain. She doesn’t like seeing you like this, but she also doesn’t understand it. She trusts no one but Shinsou.

The sixth time he says your name your eyes shoot up and the brightness of your bedroom burns you, making you cave in on yourself with a shrill shriek. “There you are.” Shinsou’s voice says calmly, a hint of praise laced into his words. The koala grip he has on your body loosens as you find yourself, your breathing subconsciously following Shinsou’s caricatured deep breaths, the ones he knows your body will follow even if your mind can’t wrap their heads around it.

“’ts okay,” he hushes and kisses the back of your head, your cheek, “’m here. I’m here, my love.”

With snot and tears terrorizing your face you struggle to turn around. As soon as you see Shinsou’s face, it’s like a new wave of tears hits you, and a loud sob leaves you again, your hands traveling to his face to squeeze every square inch of it. He lets you. No raised eyebrows or jabs, just waits patiently for you to realize he’s there. He kisses your hand as it passes his lips and your breath hitches before another sob leaves you.

Then,

“The bed is soaked,” you cry out, hiccupping and sobbing. Shinsou laughs. He’d heard you trash around from his bath and ran to you the minute you yelled his name the first time. He’d promised to change the sheets before they got wet anyways. You’ll just sleep cuddled close on the couch instead he decides and leans in to kiss you properly. Your muscles all relax at the contact, flatlining into a relaxed state, only residual sobs leaving your body. He strokes your head and then lets his palm rest by your jaw, “I’m here.”