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There was a broken egg yolk on the countertop, wet sugar in his hair, and lead in Tomura’s lungs. Curled up against Aizawa’s kitchen cabinets, he tried his best not to be pathetic and tear up at the sight of three different batches of cookies spread around the kitchen, even as his stomach churned with the sweet taste of sugared butter trying to crawl back up his throat. None of them were good enough, not even close.
Tomura had been living with Eraserhead for almost a year now, and he couldn’t bear it anymore. He was going insane. His mandated therapist hinted otherwise, that maybe Tomura was “healing.” But if that was the case, how could he feel so awful all the time? Pathetic and small and weak and guilty. Worse than the days with the League where he wouldn’t eat or sleep and then became so overwhelmed that he’d curl up in his closet and scratch until he passed out. Actually, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea right now.
Except he’d already eaten, and he didn’t feel light enough to pass out. His gut felt awful and heavy and sweet and disgusting with a lumpy mess of attempted homemade cookies because he needed to prove he was capable of being normal and productive and grateful and useful to Eraserhead like he was grateful and useful to Sensei. Tomura knew Eraserhead was going to have an long day today, obligated to appear to make a statement about Tomura’s “progress” on the news, so Tomura thought he could do something, anything, to ease the annoyance his existence caused. But unlike Sensei, Eraserhead wouldn’t let Tomura do anything useful, wouldn’t let him kill for him or fuck him, so all Tomura could do was scrub the house until bleach clung to his skin and cook and bake until even just the idea of tasting one more dish—all awful and disgusting just like the house was still dirty and Tomura was still useless—made Tomura sick…
Oh, his head was spinning and he was going to be sick.
His therapist called this—what Sensei had called his “fits” caused by “limiting himself”—panic attacks, and had helped him come up with tips and strategies to manage an incoming one that didn’t include “self-harm.” Tomura couldn’t think of a single one of those strategies at the moment and so his hands went up to his neck for the first time in a while. “Getting better” she had said. Ha.
His nausea only increased, and then his head was floating and his gut was heavy and his throat burned until Tomura heaved forward and—
—“Tomura?”—
—vomit burst out of his mouth onto his knees and the tile floor, sugary and sour and relieving his churning stomach into something more manageable.
“Shit. Tomura, are you with me?” Aizawa’s suit-clad knees appeared, crouching at Tomura’s side. Tomura hadn’t even heard him come in. He really was losing his touch. A large warm hand landed on Tomura’s back, making steady circles. He knew why Aizawa did it: because that was the only form of touch Tomura generally allowed during a panic attack, and the only thing that calmed him down. What Tomura had never mentioned was that the reason it worked was because if he closed his eyes, Aizawa felt just like Sensei, soothing, protective, and powerful. Someone who was in control when Tomura couldn’t be (never was).
But when Tomura looked up he was met with a furrowed brow and jet black hair slicked back neatly. And Tomura curled his hands in against his chest, because he was living in three different moments now, back being pressed on, soothed, held, threatened by three different patriarchal figures: he was safe safe not safe with Sensei, he was alone and vulnerable with Aizawa, and he was dangerous and in danger—anticipating the pain of a heavy hand—with Father-Kotaro-Father-Kotaro looming above him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tomura’s voice cracked, thick with spit and breathlessness and childhood.
“You don’t need to apologize.”
Didn’t he? Dozens of decayed corpses flashed through his mind. Very few stood out. Could he name more than five? He heaved again, chest jerking forward against his clenched fists as he tried to keep himself inside his body.
Words were murmured somewhere around his swimming head. A hand landed on his elbow. There was sugar and egg yolks, or maybe dirt and grass and blood, beneath his fingernails.
“I didn’t mean to! Please,” he choked out. He looked up to meet a hard dark eye. “Daddy, I’m sorry!”
“I…” the eye blinked and softened in a way Tenko had never seen. It was kind of nice. “Tomura, can you breathe for me? Where are you right now?”
That wasn’t right.
“No,” Tenko managed between gasps. “Daddy, please. I’ll be good, don’t leave me!”
“I’m right here, I’m not going to leave you, but I need you to breathe for me. Can you be good and do that for me, Tomura?”
“No! Stop being mean and saying my name wrong!”
“I… Should… I call you Tenko?”
Tenko nodded.
“Im—I’m—I don’t wanna be…”
“I know. It’s okay. Just breathe.” Slow seconds stretched forward, filled only with Tenko catching his breath. Finally… “Are you going to be sick again?” Tenko shrugged. “Okay, come on, let me help you to the bathroom.”
The hand on his elbow helped him onto his trembling legs, and with unsteady steps they made it to the small bathroom, where Tenko was helpfully deposited in front of the toilet, hand brushing through and pulling back his hair.
For a moment, all he did was wait and breathe more, feeling a lump rise and settle in his throat. It gave him time to reorient himself, to recognize Aizawa’s bathroom and Aizawa’s hand and Aizawa’s distinct sense of comfort and safety. He’s okay. He’s fine. He’s…
And then his stomach lurched and his mouth was forced open outside his control and everything burned.
As he was heaving, his hair was carefully gathered and tied up, and it was so gentle that it hurt even more than his throat.
For a few minutes, Tenko just gasped, trying to catch his breath and figure out if he was done.
He was cold. The porcelain was cold and the tiles were cold… his family’s hands were cold and dead and he needed them so bad. He opened his mouth and got out a few false starts before he managed some semblance of language.
“H-hands, please, I…”
Another short silence, and the hand on his head disappeared followed by quiet footsteps. Tomura’s vision was hazy as he tried to concentrate on his own hands, big and adult and more well kept than they ever had been under Sensei.
He jumped when something nudged his shoulder, and his vision pinholed when he saw the metal urn being held out to him. He snatched it into his own arms, hugging the cool metal against the thin t-shirt covering his stomach.
The metal was just as cold as they had been before they were cremated, the only parts of them turned to ash instead of dust.
It’s not enough. He wanted, he needed... just beneath the surface, Tenko was still panicking and afraid and desperate for warmth Tomura had never fully known. And Tomura was unsteady and disoriented enough to seek it out.
He looked up, feeling vulnerable when no hair shifted to cover his scarred forehead and fucked up face.
Aizawa was still there, but he seemed to have run his hand through his own hair, mercifully taking it out of its slicked back style. Tomura wondered if he somehow knew.
“How are you doing?” Aizawa asked, quiet and understanding, but direct, not so soft that it made Tomura feel helpless.
“I… I don’t know,” he managed.
“Are you still Tenko?”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“I won’t. Not if that’s not who you are.”
“Right…” He looked back down at his hands, even in his senseless panic, pinkies lifted off the sides of the urn. Carefully, he set it aside on the floor and clenched and unclenched his fists on his knees. He looked back up at Aizawa. Strands of his now loose but still gelled hair were stiff over his eye. “I want…”
Tomura had never done this before. Aizawa had offered, but it always felt like a stupid thing to want or ask for. Tomura interacted perfectly fine with the world the way he was. After more than a decade and a half of habit, it genuinely wasn’t as big of a hindrance as people made it out to be. And yet…
Not quite thinking, he reached out a hand. Immediately he regretted it and felt stupid. To Aizawa’s immense credit though, he didn’t flinch. More than that, he didn’t even turn on his quirk. Wordlessly, he allowed Tomura to tuck some of his hair back behind his ear.
After he realized what he had done, Tomura didn’t feel so cold anymore. He was sure his dead pale skin made his blush visible from his rosy neck to the burgundy tips of his ears. Still, he persisted.
“Can I… could you activate your quirk?”
Without breaking the silence, Aizawa’s hair gently floated around his head as Tomura was caught in his glowing red gaze.
Four of Tomura’s fingers landed on Aizawa’s cheek roughly and without fanfare. Every atom of his body, though, resisted the lowering of the fifth. Despite what everyone said, Tomura had always been hypercompetent with his quirk. He never let his guard down, never touched anything, that he didn’t fully intend to destroy. There had just been precious little in his life not worth destroying.
When his last finger did make contact, it was more gently than Tomura could remember ever doing anything. He’d never even held Sensei with such a feather-light touch. Aizawa’s cheek was far from soft. There was the small trace of stubble that scratched against Tomura’s fingers, and his skin was rough and worn from stress, old fights, and chronic exhaustion. It was comforting.
“Is this… okay?” Tomura asked, not really sure what he meant by it.
“I wouldn’t let you do it if it wasn’t.”
Tomura snorted and relaxed. This was why he liked Eraser, why he was able to live with him at all. He was straightforward and Tomura knew Aizawa would never let him cross any lines just because he pitied him.
“Right.”
Tomura calibrated his breathing to Aizawa’s, watching the rise and fall of his chest and letting his fingers drift down from his face until his entire palm rested on his sternum.
The lights were buzzing and reality set back in as Tomura wrinkled his nose at the taste in his mouth and the shakiness of his empty post-panic attack limbs.
“I have to blink,” Aizawa informed him.
With a hum, Tomura removed his hand and instead grabbed the countertop—four fingers of course—and used it to leverage himself over to the sink.
“Do you want me to stay?” Aizawa asked as he opened the cabinet and dropped a bottle of mouthwash next to Tomura, who shook his head as he sipped some water from his hands. “Alright. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
Tomura still wasn’t completely present, so he didn’t know how long it took him to collect himself enough to leave the restroom. When he did, though, he only briefly thought of just isolating in his room for a bit before immediately brushing the thought off and following Aizawa, his family cradled tightly in his arms.
In the kitchen, as promised, Aizawa was just finishing running a rag over the countertop, and Tomura did his best to push away the rush of self-loathing over the mess he had made. His awful cookies were neatly placed on cooling racks at the edge of the counter, and he glared at them even as he felt dumb and childish for getting this worked up over desserts.
“How are you feeling?” Aizawa asked.
“Fine.”
“Hmmm. What was the occasion?” he gestured towards the cookies.
“I don’t want to talk about them.”
“Okay. They’re very good, though.”
“What?”
“They taste good. I didn’t know you could bake.”
For a moment, Tomura felt like the last year hadn’t happened. Red-hot anger broiled in his gut from being patronized like he was a pathetic child who— And then he remembered why he was with Aizawa and not anyone else. Would Aizawa lie about this? He narrowed his eyes. Possibly. He was straightforward, but not opposed to the occasional deception.
He looked back at the cookies. He remembered how they tasted like lead on his tongue, so bad he couldn’t keep them down, even though he had followed the instructions to the letter. What accidental ingredient, exactly, could cause cookies to taste like hatred?
On the rack, even excluding the ones Tomura tried, at least three were missing.
Tomura went warm.
“Oh... Thanks.”