Idly daydreaming about a canon divergent AU where Shouta takes Hitoshi in and gives him a place to stay after a villain attack kills his foster family and the USJ incident happens shortly after that.
Aizawa is his mentor and a sort of parental figure, and after living with him, Hitoshi considers him a friend.
Seeing him throw himself into an army of villains to protect 1-A, nearly being killed in the process, Shinsou suffers from nightmares. Which, paired with his insomnia, is not great.
He starts slipping, not doing as well in training, scoring lower on papers, worrying about Aizawa when he has to do patrols at night, and Shouta knows that he needs to do something.
Shinsou is already in therapy, and Shouta has it on good authority that Hitoshi is talking about the experience and his feelings, so trying to talk it through isn't going to help.
Unfortunately (or rather, quite fortunately) one of the only known ways to deal with poor sleep and reoccurring nightmares is just safety and understanding and human contact.
So Shouta starts inviting Shinsou to sleep in his bed after the more intense nightmares that would normally keep him up until the next morning. Either with Shouta, or just surrounded by his scent when Aizawa has to do nightly hero patrols.
It works at first. Shinsou is dead tired and, while a little intimidating, the offer is a nice reprieve. And, next to his childhood hero, he sleeps like the dead.
Hitoshi knows, even unconsciously, Eraserhead is the best of the best and that he'd never let anything happen to him, so he sleeps hard and his dreams stay quiet.
The issues start when Hitoshi starts being unable to sleep without being next to Aizawa/in his bed. He's worried and embarrassed but hey, Aizawa gets it. He likes sleep and has a hell of a hard time with it sometimes. And it's not like Shinsou is bothering him.
It's unorthodox and maybe a bit inappropriate but Shinsou is his responsibility and if he needs to sleep in Shouta's bed in order to be rested and at his best, well then that's what he needs.
So Shinsou starts abandoning his room to sleep in Aizawa's bed every night.
The next issue, though, comes on much faster.
For all the trauma and sleeplessness, Hitoshi is still a teenager. A horny teenager that's in bed with his very attractive idol that he's stupidly attracted to.
It wasn't an issue before because he'd touch himself and pass out and stumble in after the fact, but now he's dropping into Aizawa's sheets in order to fall asleep and it's impossible not to be *hyperaware* of the fact that he's lying right next to Eraserhead.
His teenage fantasies explode with potential, and sometimes he's straight up grateful when Aizawa goes out on patrol so he can take care of himself in his mentor's bed.
Things get even worse for poor Hitoshi when he starts having wet dreams that *look* like nightmares because he can't touch himself before bed and he wakes up to Aizawa looking at him, sleepy and full of concern, and he can barely handle it.
So, one night, when he's sure Eraser is asleep, Shinsou rolls onto his side, curled up and facing away from his mentor, and he slips a hand between his thighs and tries to touch himself as silently as he can.
It's intense though, because Aizawa is *right there,* and he could easily get caught and he's been aching and needy for quite a while and he's just *so* wet and every little brush against his clit makes him want to tremble and shiver and moan.
It's not much but it's definitely enough to wake up Aizawa, who has recently become hyper vigilant in his sleep because of Shinsou's nightmares.
Aizawa starts to reach for his protégé, ready to wake him up so they can both go back to sleep, but in an instant his observation skills kick in.
He notices how Shinsou is laying (not how he usually sleeps) and how uneven his breathing is (fast but not the same as when he's dreaming) and the very subtle movements under the blanket, and he can practically feel Shinsou tensing up even as he tries to stay calm.
And Shouta's mouth goes *dry.* His eyes are wide and he can't stop staring at Shinsou's curled up back, startled as fuck by what's happening and entirely unsure about what to do about it.
He doesn't want to embarrass the kid. He knows he'd be *mortified* if it was the other way around. But like, *fuck.* Shinsou is literally in his bed, touching himself as quietly as he can, and Shouta's at a loss for what to do. So he just let's it happen.
He swallows hard and remains silent, watching Shinsou tense, straining, and then shudder apart before loosening up and rolling to his belly to fall asleep. Completely unaware that Shouta just watched him get off.
Shouta does not sleep for a long time that night. (tbc)
The situation comes to a head, though not in the way that Shinsou anticipated.
He thought one of them would forget themselves and go too far, maybe out in public, that they'd get caught by someone or that things would just naturally fall apart or Aizawa would get bored of him *something.*
What Shinsou didn't think, though, was that it would all explode over someone asking him out.
It's a surprise to absolutely no one except Shinsou when Denki approaches him after sparring, nervous and ready to make sparks, to ask him if he'd like to go to a cat cafe sometime.
Something changes after that night. Neither is entirely sure what, and they still don't have The Conversation, but suddenly the bulk of their touching isn't happening only in the bedroom.
Their relationship becomes a *lot* more tactile behind closed doors. Lots of little touches. A hand on the back to let the other know they're behind them, a pat on the head for Hitoshi, Shouta letting his boy take off his scarf for him after patrols.
They don't kiss. Don't hold hands. Don't do anything outside of their nightly extracurriculars that would suggest that anything is going on.
They don't talk about it. All too happy to act like they've already talked it through. They're ignoring it, but both of them are eager to go back to bed the next night.
They really should. Having sex your Sensei/student that you live with and also have a crush on is definitely something you should talk about but they don't.
They have all the best intentions in the world, but the day is busy and it's complicated and, somehow, in the blink of an eye, it's right back to being bed time.
Neither of them even flinch. They both crawl into bed and it goes *exactly* the way it went the night before.
Aizawa holding Shinsou while he pretends to sleep while getting off starts a whole new pattern, and it only takes a few nights of this pattern before Shouta breaks that too.
Hitoshi will tremble, and Shouta will roll over to "comfort" him. Always holding him, soothing him, stroking his chest, and he always lets go and rolls over within a half hour of Hitoshi finishing.
Hitoshi never knows that Shouta gets off after because he's almost always asleep
Shouta can barely stand it, not when he can feel Shinsou quivering apart in his arms almost every night. Not when he's coming hard and still aching for more after every time. And *definitely* not after, one night, he hears Hitoshi whimper for his teacher.
Thinking he got away with it with nobody the wiser, Shinsou keeps touching himself. Almost every night.
Aizawa starts having to assign himself extra night patrols just so he can come back and actually sleep after Hitoshi has already gone to sleep, but the damage has been done. He *knows* Shinsou is doing it.
He can practically smell it on the sheets despite hours having passed. And now that Shouta has seen him like that, he's become *very* aware of his little ward. He never noticed before, practically blind to the kid, but now he finds himself focused on the way Shinsou moves.