Need You (ShinDeku)

Ch. 134 - Support

A/N: wow almost forgot to post this... here you are. Enjoy.

Trigger warning: struggling to sleep, partially as a result of not feeling safe and of being previously forced into irregular sleeping habits for a prolonged period of time. There is also a recount of some of the torture discussed in previous chapters, but it is described relatively objectively. The relevant area is labeled with warnings (⚠️) at the beginning and end.

Have fun reading!

Midoriya POV

     I think Shota was at least half as impressed as Momo was with my development, though it's never easy to tell for certain with him. Despite that, we did end the session early that evening, because it was clear I was becoming dead on my feet towards the end of it. I even stumbled twice on the steps on our way out of the gym, and I found myself leaning into the dark haired man as we walked home, too tired to be very aware of my surroundings and trusting him to take care of any problems that came our way.

     Neither of us said anything when his arm wound around to rest on my shoulder, keeping me stable and offering silent support as he matched his steps with mine. The afternoon heat made my long sleeved shirt stick to my skin where his arm pressed against me and where I pressed into his side, but I couldn't bring myself to pull away.

     Hizashi greeted us at home with takeout, and I ate sluggishly. He asked about the new clothes I was wearing when I got back, and then mentioned something about how we needed to finish filling in my room because it was still only half complete, but he left me alone after that because it was clear I was having trouble even processing his words.

     I knew I wasn't sleeping well, but I hadn't thought the day would take that much out of me. I'd always thought that becoming tired like this crept up on you—and to be fair I'd been tired since Hitoshi left on Tuesday, and even more so before he visited—but it really became apparent over the course of just a few hours. It was like the weight of my poor sleep finally became too much and dropped full force onto me, halfway through my second training session of the day. I hoped that meant I'd sleep well tonight, so I wouldn't look so much like a zombie for Hitoshi tomorrow.

———
(⚠️Trigger Warning Start⚠️)

     Hope, I've learned, is not always such a good thing. I was beginning to understand Hitoshi's pessimistic attitude. He loved to call it 'being logical', and I'm pretty sure he picked that up from Shota, which tracks because that man's sleep schedule is a mess as well.

     I had it down to a science now. Basically, less sleep leads to more bad feelings. And... more bad feelings lead to even less sleep. A vicious cycle. I missed the days when I could be out like a light in five minutes, any time and anywhere.

     Those days felt like a lifetime ago. The only time I've really, truly been able to sleep on the spot in months was the night I was transferred out of the hospital. Looking back, I don't think I was really all there that night. Prior to my passing out on the way to the hospital and then the induced sleep when I apparently panicked upon first waking in the hospital, I hadn't properly slept in what was probably days. Real sleep wasn't common in the basement, and certainly not in the warehouse while I was strapped to a chair.

     The little room was freezing most of the time, the cold seeping relentlessly into my bones from the unforgiving concrete. If fear of who would come through the door next and what they might do wasn't keeping me up, and my violent shivering wasn't jolting me awake every few minutes, then it was the agony that my hand was usually in, hideously disfigured and outrageously swollen, turning nasty shades that I hadn't even known human skin could be.