Work Text:
It had been a hard day. Shouta knew this the second he opened his housing’s front door. Standing two steps away from him was the man he had known for over half of his life, arms wrapped around himself, staring at the ground.
His signature smile was missing. Pieces of his hair had long since fallen from its shapely hold due to him running his anxious hands through it in stress, soaked and sticking to his forehead from the rainfall. His hands were shaking, so slight that no one other than Aizawa would be able to notice.
“Hizashi?” Aizawa asked. His hand reached out, pulling onto Yamada’s jacket pocket, pulling him inside. Once the door was closed, he reached out, placing his hands on either side of Yamada’s face, forcing him to make eye contact. “What’s going on?”
A tear fell from Yamada’s eyes, pulling his eyes away from the dark brown. His head fell down on Aizawa’s shoulder in defeat.
“Hold on,” Aizawa said, holding his arms, putting some space between them. “Sit down, I’ll make you something warm to drink and we can talk, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Yamada toed off his shoes, barely able to pull off his jacket before his chest ached with the need to sob. He sat down, putting his head in his hands and breathing heavily through his nose. Today has sucked. Sucked so much he can’t even think straight anymore. Beyond the villains figuratively standing on the horizon at all times, the students being unfocused on their lessons due to fear or an urge to help, and the fact that he is up to his elbows in ungraded assignments, those were just everyday stressors at this point.
Today, it truly hit him how badly the world has changed. With All Might retired, Japan’s crime rate has risen by 4% in the last month. People are losing faith in pro heroes. His colleagues, his coworkers, his friends, were constantly being called out to another villain attack, each time worse than the last. So many of his friends injured, bloodied, permanently altered, most recently being his own Shouta.
He knows he has no right to be here, whining about an awful day, feeling a need to sob so hard he makes himself sick, when he knows Shouta has much more on his plate than he does. Shouta is the one who has been called out on missions. Shouta is the one who has to deal with reigning in Class 1-A, helping them with their internships. Shouta is the one who despite that, has taken full responsibility for a little girl with a dangerously uncontrollable quirk, without even realizing it. But yet, Yamada is the one shaking, digging his fingernails into his arms, choking on his own breath, while Shouta is in the kitchen making him fucking tea. He’s so weak, so fucking weak. He should just put his jacket back on, trudge up the stairs to his housing, and deal with his problems like the grown adult he was supposed to be.
“You’re not weak,” a voice said, jolting him out of his thoughts. His head shot up, his brain spinning as he looked around. Sitting beside him was Aizawa, his Shouta. How long had he been sitting there? On the table in front of them was two cups of tea. With lemon, like Yamada liked it. When did he…?
“You’re not weak,” Aizawa repeated, wiping a thumb across Yamada’s cheekbone. Yamada reached up to the other side of his face, soaked with tears. When did he start crying? How long was he sitting here, too lost in his own thoughts to even feel the world around him?
“Here.” Aizawa placed the cup in his shaking hands, and Yamada pulled it up to his lips. He took a few sips, feeling the liquid melt away at his freezing limbs. It wasn’t helping the anxiety he felt in the slightest, but the gesture meant a great deal to him.
“Hizashi,” came Aizawa’s voice again, soft as silk. Yamada looked up, eyes meeting Shouta’s, green meeting the darkest brown. “What’s going on?”
At this, Yamada’s hands began to shake harder, sobs wracking his body in a way he would never allow himself to show anyone other than Aizawa. Aizawa quickly grabbed his teacup, placing it back on the table and wrapping Yamada in his arms.
The minutes ticked by slowly, the ache in Aizawa’s chest almost matching the ache in Yamada’s. The tea long since forgotten on the table, the distance between them getting smaller and smaller until Shouta could no longer tell where his body ended and Hizashi’s began.
~
After about an hour of Yamada’s mostly indecipherable sentences spoken between wet, chest heaving sobs, his breathing slowly began to stabilize. Exhaustion crept into his bones, his body becoming pliant and weak in Aizawa’s arms. Aizawa held him closer, still running a hand through his still damp hair.
“Do you think a bath would help,” Aizawa asked, his voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking any louder would destroy the atmosphere they had created over the last hour.
Yamada didn’t respond, pushing his head even deeper into Aizawa’s chest. As Aizawa hugged him just a little bit tighter, he felt the slight movement of a nod, followed by another wet sniffle.
“Okay, stay right here,” Shouta said, unhinging his arms from around Yamada and standing. “I’ll start a bath and grab the extra toiletries you keep here. I’ll be right back.”
Yamada nodded again, wrapping his arms around himself and curling into the softness of the couch. When Aizawa didn’t hear the sobs resume, he turned down the hall to the bathroom. He turned the handle, steaming water pouring into the bathtub below as he grabbed Yamada’s favorite body wash and shampoo. He poured a few capfuls of the bubble bath Yamada loves so much under the tap, a light smile tugging at his lips as the bubbles began to form in the water.
When he returned, Yamada hadn’t moved from where he left him. His breathing was shallow, watery, but much more regulated than it has been for the last hour. Before Yamada could say a word, Aizawa scooped him up into his arms, carrying him down the hall and into the small bathroom. Aizawa placed Yamada down on the toilet, checking him over before slowly undressing him, placing light kisses on his skin as he went along.
When Yamada was fully undressed, Aizawa helped lower him into the water, running a hand through his hair once more before turning away. However, before he could step away from the tub, he felt a hand close around his wrist.
“Stay,” Yamada croaked, looking up at Aizawa as if he was the only thing tethering him to this world. “Stay with me. Join me. Please.”
A soft smile rose to Aizawa’s face as he nodded. He swiftly removed his baggy clothes, letting them drop to the floor as he pulled the tie from his hair, letting his soft wavy locks pour down his shoulders. He stepped into the bubbles, climbing behind Yamada, legs on either side of his waist. Aizawa pulled the weak man between his legs, pressing Yamada’s back to his chest. They laid like that for several minutes, just losing themselves in the comfort of each other and the warm water.
Aizawa reached over the tub’s edge, drying his hand off and grabbing his phone from the pile of clothes on the floor. He typed in his passcode, pulling up the playlist he always listens to when he needs to feel safe, at peace, at home. The playlist titled “Hizashi.” He pressed the “shuffle” option, turning the volume up only slightly, just loud enough to drown out the sizzle of the bubbles and their movements in the water.
Aizawa lifted himself into a sitting position, reaching over to grab Yamada’s lemon-scented shampoo as the first song filled the small room. He lightly pushed at Yamada’s shoulder, changing his position so Aizawa could work the shampoo through his hair. He massaged Yamada’s scalp, working the shampoo through the long blonde waterfall, washing away the hair product, oils, and rain water that coated the strands. Yamada relaxed into his hands, sighing.
“Thank you Shouta,” he said, still speaking softly, but much clearer than before.
“You don’t need to thank me,” Aizawa said with a smile, dropping his hands into the water.
“I know I don’t,” Yamada said, a soft smile tugging at his lips for the first time since he walked through the door. “But still. It means a lot to me.”
“Hizashi,” Aizawa said, his hands reaching up to lightly trace over the scars on Yamada’s chest. “You’re my partner. You’ve been my partner for over a third of my life, and my best friend for even longer. Your pain is my pain, and if I have the chance to help you, I’m going to take it. So please, you don’t need to thank me.”
Yamada smiled, his signature grin lighting up his features in a way Aizawa never wanted to forget. The second song faded into the third, the voices of a British boyband filling the steamy room.
I got a heart, and I got a soul
Believe me, I will use them both
Aizawa smiled, using a small water jug to begin washing the suds from Yamada’s hair. As the shampoo bubbles rushed down to the water below, Aizawa began to sing along softly to the song. Yamada’s heart melted, the way it always does when he gets to hear Aizawa’s singing voice. But this time was different, because not only did he get to hear the perfect, untrained tones that spilled from Aizawa’s mouth, but Aizawa was also changing the lyrics, ever so slightly to apply to their relationship.
I have loved you since we were eighteen fifteen
Long before we both thought the same thing
He felt Aizawa wrap his arms around him again, placing light kisses along his shoulder as he sang. If he hadn’t cried for the last hour, Yamada was sure there’d be tears streaming down his face, as he fell in love with Shouta all over again.
All I can do is say that these arms were made for holding you
I wanna love like you made me feel
When we were eighteen fifteen
Yamada moved out of Aizawa’s arms, turning around in the water to face him. Green met dark brown once again, before Yamada leant in and pressed his lips to Aizawa’s. After being together for thirteen years, you would think that the spark he felt when their lips met would have dulled, but this kiss felt exactly the same as the kiss they shared at seventeen, both scared out of their minds, at eighteen, when they both passed the provisional licensing exam, at twenty, when Yamada pulled Aizawa to his feet from their mutual proposal poses, at twenty one, when he finally got to call Aizawa his partner forever.
Yamada pulled away, flashing a smile at his lover.
“My turn,” he said, reaching for Aizawa’s raspberry shampoo.
~
Long after the bathtub had been drained, the toiletries put away, the tea cups washed, and the two men had slid into their pajamas, they held each other softly under the comforter of Aizawa’s bed, a fluffy white cat at their feet. Her tail swished as she stretched, showing off the gray markings on her tail and the black sock-like markings on her feet.
Hizashi sighed, cuddling closer to Aizawa’s chest.
“I understand that since we’re teachers, we were given separate housing, but,” Hizashi paused, turning his head up to kiss at Aizawa’s jaw, “I wish every night could end in your arms.”
Aizawa chuckled, placing a kiss to Hizashi’s forehead.
“That’s a fight for another night. Goodnight Hizashi, I love you.”
“Goodnight, I love you more.”