I'll Have a Blue Christmas (As Long As You're Here With Me)

Ensuring Silence

Five.

Shouto winced as his head made contact with the snow again, the frozen water scraping at his skin and leaving his flesh bright red and damp.

Six.

His nose bent at the bottom of the bridge, the ice too compact for it to go through. His nose too broken to work past the snow.

Seven.

It cooled the burn on his cheek, and he was almost grateful. Almost.

"Who spoke with you?! Who changed those?!"

The bandages. Shouto hadn't thought about the bandages. They were whiter and less bloodstained after Aizawa had changed them. So the morning Enji woke up with a headache and sensitive ears, he'd gone to take the frustration he had out on his son. Shouto was okay with that.

"Tell me! Was it that stupid bird? Or was it that damned underground pro? Answer!"

Eight.

Enji, upon seeing the new bandages and the empty bowl of rice next to his son, decided there was no earthly possibility that Shouto had retrieved everything himself. The leftover rice from the fridge, the fresh bandages.

"It was me, I swear!" Shouto managed while spitting snow from his mouth. "I changed them-"

Nine.

Enji growled as he pushed the back of Shouto's head into the snow. There was about a foot of the stuff now, fresh and powdery on top but soiled and compact near the bottom. Almost like ice, bruising Shouto's face.

"I broke that knee myself, there's no way you could have walked with it!"

"I crawled! I did it before too!"

Ten.

"Don't talk back! Answer the question now, truthfully! Heroes don't lie-"

Shouto gasped out for air, inhaling snow as he did so. "You lie all the time!"

The eleventh didn't come yet. Shouto clenched his eyes, holding his breath and waiting for the snow to hit his face again but it didn't come.

"About what exactly? To who? What are some examples Shouto? Do you have any evidence of me lying?"

Right.  Shouto didn't have evidence. For all he knew this was a dream.

"No." He grit out reluctantly. "But I know the truth."

Endeavor pulled Shouto's head up by his hair, red and white strand mixing between his fingers. His mouth came close to Shouto's left ear and his breath was hot as he whispered.

"And nobody will ever believe you. You're a useless brat who failed the one thing they were bred for. Don't think so highly of yourself and learn your place, Shouto. You belong in the dirt, that's why I do this. It's all in the name of societal order."

Shouto huffed out an icy breath, a smirk on his face as if he weren't being harassed. "You smell like cheap alcohol and shit, old man."

Eleven.

Twelve.

Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

And now Shouto's head was throbbing, blood pouring from his hairline after it had reached the cement underneath the snow at the twelfth hit. Each strike was getting more power behind it, and Shouto lost count. His brain felt like jelly and his hair fell to his forehead each time he was lifted, more and more of the strands sticking to his forehead.