I got you stuck in my teeth

I'll show you what to believe

Tracing my face with your nails

I'll let you know when to breathe

~

Trigger warnings:

~

Shouta woke up with a start. He had fallen asleep on Hizashi's couch again, covered in papers. It had been 2 days since Y/N had gone missing... well, since she had been bought. He had been staying with Hizashi ever since, as they were trying to figure out who could have her and why they'd have a problem with Y/N. Shouta was starting to lose all hope in this.

Hizashi was still going strong, going through all those papers of people they had killed, anyone that could maybe somehow be out to get Y/N for some reason. Shouta didn't know how he managed to still do it. He was just exhausted, but the more depressed he became the more energized Hizashi seemed to be. He was hellbent on finding Y/N, while Shouta could barely even focus on making coffee for himself.

The problem was also that he had been killing so many people lately. It was difficult to keep an overview of that and keep on top of it. That was usually Hizashi's job and he did it well, but even he was struggling with the sheer amount of people that he had been killing the last few weeks. To Shouta all this paperwork meant nothing - not that he could even focus on it for more than five minutes.

Hizashi somehow could figure out what all the little notes and symbols meant, but to Shouta it all just looked like bullshit. And every time he left the house he felt like he could see Y/N. It was like she was all over the place, but at the same time, Shouta knew exactly that he was only imagining all that. He couldn't really trust any of his senses anymore, because all he saw and heard and felt and even smelled was Y/N. He dreamt about her at night - terrible nightmares of how much she was suffering - and he saw her in any small shadow that was moving during the day. She was his own personal demon and she kept haunting him and there was no way out for him.

After the first day had passed he sometimes wondered whether he had always just imagined her. After all, it was like she had just completely disappeared. There were no records of her, no pictures, nothing. It felt like her entire existence had been erased and Shouta was slowly going mad.

He groaned, as he moved up, a few papers falling down from the couch. He couldn't be bothered to pick them up again. He needed a cup of coffee. And he needed a shower. He couldn't remember the last time he had showered or eaten properly. He knew he had had a lot of coffee.

When he walked into the kitchen, he saw that Hizashi was already awake and making himself some breakfast. Shouta had never understood how his friend could be both a night owl and a morning person at the same time. It made absolutely no sense to him. The two things were mutually exclusive and Shouta was neither of them, so he had no idea how Hizashi could be both.

"Good morning, sleepyhead." Hizashi greeted him with a big smile. Shouta just grunted and grabbed a cup from the kitchen counter. There was some coffee already made. Shouta held his hand against the container - it wasn't hot anymore, but still warm enough. With another grunt he poured the coffee into his cup. His stomach growled when he saw the breakfast that Hizashi was making for himself.

"When was the last time you ate anything at all, Shou?" Hizashi wanted to know. Shouta shrugged. He didn't want to eat, he wasn't even sure if he could keep it down, especially with how worried he constantly was about Y/N. If only he could get her out of his head. The thought of forgetting her started to sound a lot more easier than the thought of her being out there, getting hurt.

"Shouta..." Hizashi said in a warning tone. Shouta turned around to him, frowning at him. How could he be this collected? How could he keep it together like that? Shouta was sure he had been up later than him last night.

"What?" he growled.

"You need to eat."

"I need to find Y/N."

"Yes, I know. But you need to take care of yourself, too. If you're a mess you can't find her. You need to eat. You need to shower. You need to take care of yourself. Here, I'll make you something. What do you want?" Hizashi wanted to know. Shouta just shook his head adamantly.

"I'm not hungry." he replied. Which wasn't true. He was hungry, but he was sure he wouldn't be able to keep any food down. And he wasn't in the mood to make himself anything to eat. Hizashi shook his head.

"I'll make you something light to eat. And you will eat it, Shouta. You can't have those amounts of coffee without having eaten anything in days. If Y/N is really in danger you'll need your strength to help her." Hizashi replied and started preparing his breakfast. Shouta sat down at the table, burying his head in his hands. He felt so damn useless. He couldn't even think clearly.

"Zashi, I... why are you doing this for me? How are you doing this?" Shouta muttered, looking back up at him. Hizashi just smiled at him empathetically and brought him a glass of water.

"Here, drink this. You're probably dehydrated." he said, before continuing to make breakfast. Shouta was watching him, not quite sure why he was so worried about Shouta's health. After all, their whole business model was killing people and not being good friends or being fucking therapists.

"T-thank you..." he replied and started sipping some of the water. He hadn't even realized just how thirsty he had been this entire time. He could feel himself choking up, but he wasn't quite sure why - probably a mix of being worried about Y/N, feeling so incredibly helpless and being surprised at how good Hizashi was at taking care of him. For some reason it always came as a surprise to him that he was actually the more responsible one, even though they had known each other for ages.

"Shou, it's fine. Of course, you're upset. Anyone would be upset. But you need to take care of yourself. There is no way you can help Y/N or even find her, if you're not taking care of yourself." Hizashi told him. Shouta nodded slowly. Of course, that made sense. It was rational. But then why was it such a difficult thing to do for him? He didn't understand it one bit.

"I'll... I'll try... I just..."

Shouta didn't even know what he was trying to say, but it seemed like Hizashi just understood. He smiled at him with his kind eyes and nodded, putting a plate with some light breakfast on the table in front of him, before sitting down with him and starting to eat. Shouta looked down at his plate.

"It's okay, Shou. You don't need to explain. I know. I've known you for how many years now? I get it. You're the kind of person that gets so bogged down worrying that you can't focus on anything else. And it's probably helpful in a lot of situations, but not right now. So drink your water, eat your breakfast, check your texts and your emails and then take a shower. And then we'll get back to work. Alright?" Hizashi told him. Shouta took a deep breath and nodded.

He fished his phone out of his pocket. He probably should charge it soon, it was only at 14% and it was dying quickly. He hadn't even paid any attention to it during the last two days. Usually he only used it to communicate with Hizashi and to order stuff online. That's probably how it had survived for two days without him charging it. He looked around the place to see if he could find a charger.

"There's one in the drawer." Hizashi said, gesturing towards one of the drawers. Shouta nodded and got up to get the charger from the drawer, so he could plug his phone in. He had one or two unimportant messages and a few emails - probably spam. He plugged the phone in, taking a sip from his coffee mug.

"Anything important?" Hizashi wanted to know. Shouta shrugged and went into his email account.

"I don't know, still checking..." he muttered as he looked through the emails. Most of them were adverts or newsletters, but one caught his eye. He almost wanted to delete it, because it looked like some sort of spam, especially since there was an attachment with it, but then something caught his attention. It was Y/N's name. For a second he thought his mind was playing tricks on him.

But could he really take the risk of not checking and making sure? Could someone have guessed the name or connected her to him by accident? No, there was no way that that would happen. The email address was obviously fake, but it seemed like this might be a lead to Y/N.

His heart started beating faster, as his finger was hovering over the email while he was debating whether he should open it or not. He was scared of what he'd find or of being disappointed, of finding nothing at all. He could see how much his hand was shaking, the shakes getting stronger, the longer he was staring at Y/N's name in the subject line of that email.

"Shou? Are you okay? You're looking pale..." Hizashi wanted to know. Shouta clicked into the email, before looking up at Hizashi. He looked genuinely worried about him. Should he tell him?

"I just... I just got an email..." he muttered.

"An email? What... what kind of an email?" Hizashi wanted to know. Shouta shrugged and looked back down at his phone. There was a short text in the email that didn't give him much information at all. It took Shouta a few tries to read it and actually understand what was going on.

"Shou? Are you sure you're okay? Do you want me to have a look?" Hizashi asked. Shouta felt how he was starting to shake. What the hell did any of that mean? He didn't understand. Did they really mean Y/N? Should he... should he open the file? It seemed to be a video that was attached...

He heard the chair moving and footsteps coming towards him and even though he registered all of that happening, he was still surprised to see Hizashi looking over his shoulder. Hizashi glanced down at the email and read over the message before sharply sucking in his breath. He glanced at Shouta and their eyes met.

"Zashi, what... what does this mean?" Shouta asked, barely recognizing his voice. He was just confused. Was this real? Was this some weird, messed up nightmare? Why was this happening to him?

"I don't know... open the attachment. Looks like a video? Maybe it'll be some hint we can use." Hizashi suggested. Shouta nodded. He had figured out as much, but he wasn't really sure whether he could actually stand to see whatever they had said. The message was concerning at the very least.

He took a deep breath and clicked to open the attachment. It seemed to take an eternity to load, but then the file finally opened and just showed a black screen with the play button. Shouta gulped audibly and pressed play, scared to see what this actually was. His mind was going wild with ideas.

His breath hitched when he saw some sort of abandoned warehouse or something and in the center of the camera was a chair. And on that chair was Y/N. She looked exhausted and drowsy, from what he could see. Her head was hanging low. There was a big bruise on her upper arm and some sort of wound on her neck. Several of them actually, they were winding down her arm.

It looked like her arms were tied behind her back. Someone was walking up to her, their face masked. They roughly grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. Shouta could hear her groan. Her eyes looked swollen and her face looked tear-stained. She had duct tape over her mouth, probably to keep her quiet. Shouta didn't want to know what they needed her to be quiet for.

Hizashi paused the video and looked at Shouta with a raised eyebrow and a worried look on his face. Shouta felt sick to his stomach seeing her like this, but he didn't really get why Hizashi had paused it.

"Shouta, that's her, isn't it? Are you sure you want to see this? As in, watch this until the end?" Hizashi wanted to know. Shouta wasn't really sure if he could stand seeing all of it or not, but he knew that he had to try at least. He owed that to Y/N, after he had let her down like this.

"Yes. Yes, I need to see it. What if there is something important in it that can help us?" Shouta replied.

"Well, I can always watch it for you and see if there is anything. I just... you look bad. Really bad." Hizashi said. Shouta nodded. He knew that he looked like shit, he didn't need Hizashi to tell him that. But he needed to know, even if it would probably kill him. He needed to know what was happening to Y/N.

"No, it's fine. I'll watch all of it. I need to know." he answered and clicked play again. Whoever was holding her head up was slapping her face a few times - they weren't especially hard slaps, but hard enough to hurt and sting. Shouta clenched his fist, as he saw her eyes filling with tears.

"Aizawa. We're not sure how much you actually care for this girl, but we are guessing that you like her a lot. This is not a kidnapping or something. We don't want a ransom or whatever, it's way too late for that. You killed one of us and now we're taking someone from you that means a lot to you.

But before that we'll have lots of fun with her. Y/N here seems to be a tough nut to crack. A real fighter. But we're sure we can manage to break her. Right now she's in her little dream world. We gave her a powerful hallucinogen and she's quiet. Well, she would be quiet, if she wasn't having the most terrifying hallucinations anyone could imagine. Let's see if that already breaks her or if violence works better. We'll send you a few reminders of what she's going through from time to time, just so you can keep up with what's happening. Wouldn't want you to miss her." a voice from behind the camera said. It was a distorted voice, so they couldn't really find out who was speaking. Well, unless they managed to get it back to normal.

"Oh, and we figured you might miss her voice, so we have a little treat for you." the voice then added. Whoever was standing behind her, quickly tore off the duct tape from her mouth, making her wince in pain. She grimaced and then looked around herself panickedly, her breathing getting heavy and irregular. She seemed to see someone approaching from her left, because she was shaking her head quickly.

"No... no, no, no... please don't, please!" she begged in a scared and panicked voice. But no one responded. Someone held a lit cigarette to her upper arm. She screamed in pain as her skin was burning and her tormenter twisted the cigarette stump on her arm, before throwing the gone out cigarette into her lap and slapping her face again. There were tears streaming down her face.

"Her screams sound so hot. And she's so cute when she cries like that. Don't you think so, Aizawa? Well, we'll let her go back to her little dream world. We'll be back in contact. Kind of sad she has to go through all that just because she fell for the wrong guy." the voice said, before the screen went black again and the video ended. Shouta felt sicker than ever before. He thought he was going to throw up any second now.

"Fuck, Shou..." Hizashi breathed, clearly taken aback himself by what he had just seen. Shouta was frozen in shock. His heart felt like it had been stabbed over and over again. What the hell had he done that she had to suffer so much? And from their tone of voice it sounded like they had only just gotten started... He didn't even want to think about how much worse it would get.

"I need to get her out of there. Hizashi, we need to find her, we have absolutely no other choice." Shouta said, his voice shaking. Hizashi nodded in agreement and ran a hand through his long hair. He seemed to be at a bit of a loss as to where to even start with that. But something inside Shouta had stirred and there were a bunch of things just flooding his brain. He took a few deep breaths to try and steady his voice, before looking at Hizashi with determination.

"The... that warehouse. Hizashi, can we find out which warehouse that could be from the video? Can we figure out what kind of building it might be? Limit the places she could be? And... and the voice. Can we do something about that? Reverse the distortion or something? You're good with that kind of stuff, aren't you, Zashi? And... and the contracts. You were right. They said it. I fucked up somewhere and that's why they took her. Maybe we can figure it out with the contracts after all..." Shouta said quickly. Hizashi nodded along, before looking at him.

"Yeah, yeah, we can do that. Those are some good ideas. Send me on that email and I'll get started right away." Hizashi replied.

"Good. Let's do it. The sooner we get to her, the better. We might have a chance." Shouta muttered.

"Shou... I've known you for too long now. Please don't blame yourself. I know that's exactly the kind of thing you'd do, so please... try not to." Hizashi told him, giving him a kind look. Shouta looked surprised for a second and then nodded.

"Of course, Zashi, I'll do my best." he said. That was a lie, but as far as Hizashi was concerned it was none of his business. Of course he'd blame himself. It was his fault that she was suffering like this after all.