#in direct and aggressive refute of my earlier haunting post about Aizawa herding Eri away from Toshi due to his health

[demyrie]

“I’m nervous.”

It was half confession and half realization, breathless. Toshinori glanced over at him with a stunned, cautious smile that blanked Aizawa’s mind for a moment, and all he could think about was how honest and open the man was. There was a world of emotion to be read in Toshinori’s face, or what was visible over the crest of his red woolen scarf as they strode down the sidewalk to the hospital. Then Aizawa actually heard what he’d said.

“You should be. She’s very intimidating,” he deadpanned, recovering somewhat with his version of a joke. 

He should have known better: Toshinori looked genuinely concerned, even panicked, and Aizawa realized for the thousandth time that it was fruitless to tease the retired hero. Not when he cared so deeply about things, and about this thing in particular -- but that just made the homeroom teacher shrink on the inside.

Damnit. Now he was nervous, too.

“Why?” he asked, maybe just to screw himself. Toshinori gave an airless laugh, adjusting the cap over his flyaway hair as they ducked inside the main doors of the facility.

“Well ... because anyone that means so much to you, I want to make a good first impression. Good impressions are particularly difficult with children, I think,” he said while waving pleasantly to the building attendant, because he was Toshinori.

“She isn’t --” Aizawa began, then just pursed his lips and looked away, watching the windows become lesser in number as they walked deeper into the huge building.

Who knew how it had happened, but Eri commanded a part of him, and Toshinori unfortunately knew him too well to let the blatant lie rest for even a moment.

“Shouta, the sheer fact that you braved a children’s department store is highly suspicious. The fact that you specifically banned anyone from coming with you to said department store would hold up as evidence in a court of law.”

Aizawa winced, caught.

He normally took the path of least resistance with those who shared his life -- uncaring if they stayed or went, so long as it made them happy, and moving at a glacial enough pace that everyone had plenty of time to decide whether to accompany him -- but he practically hissed everyone away and absconded that afternoon. 

He never absconded. He definitely didn’t have a clue what children wore these days, if ever. What the hell was he thinking, doing this?

“Shit. I think it’s ugly,” he realized, maybe to convince himself to take it back, as if he hadn’t already ditched the receipt in a rush as if to hide the growing evidence of Eri’s place in his life from himself. He glanced down at the shiny, stiff, enormous department store bag that he was holding far too close to his side. This was a mistake.

“I’m positive it’s ugly,” Toshinori said brightly, beaming when Aizawa instantly glared up at him. “I saw the ruffles and I saw the cats. I saw the green and the pink and the orange.”

“Yeah?” Aizawa grumbled dourly, as if daring him to continue.

“And I’m positive she’s going to look ...” Toshinori trailed off dramatically, as if thinking, and Aizawa practically bared his teeth. Then the retired hero looked down, under his cornsilk lashes, his smile too warm a thing to exist in winter.

“Loved.”

Aizawa snorted, neck instantly flashing hot.

Loved? How did someone look loved? Then, the answer.

Toshinori squeezed his hand and leaned over -- over over -- until their noses almost touched. Had they been alone, it would have been a peck on the nose or the lips. The sheer proximity made Aizawa stiffen automatically, but Toshinori just smiled blindingly, blue-black eyes glinting. Like he knew.

Yet another reminder that Toshinori could see into him, but most importantly that he liked what he saw there. Loved it, even, no matter how that thought twisted the mind.

“I’m excited for the chance,” Toshinori said quietly, carefully, like he was talking about her and Aizawa and literally everything that could happen from that moment forward. He drew back, apparently satisfied with his outrageous mawkishness, and they kept walking.

Aizawa snorted again, far too late, but when Toshinori offered to hold the shiny department store bag for him while Aizawa dialed the room number and signed them into Eri’s hospital wing, he released the thing into his care. Then he let his lover take it the rest of the way, one finger hooked into Toshinori’s belt loop as his only claim on the proceedings as he tried his best to ignore the growing meter of his tired heart.

Aizawa Shouta watched with a mysterious tightness in his chest as the ruffled offering was well received, even if Eri looked to him with cautious eyes and waited for a nod before approaching the bag or the towering man holding it. Toshinori, to his credit, put it down on the floor, in neutral space, and stepped away with a minuscule bow. She went up on her tiptoes to peer inside the bag and patted, palm open, at the explosion of tissue paper and rigorously bouncy fabric as if it was all a foreign concept to her. Then, a gasp, high and sweet.

“Kitties!”

But he wasn’t the only one gifted, that day.

To see Toshinori take to one knee, smiling and speaking softly after the initial unwrapping, was something else. The older hero didn’t reach for her like he had any claim to her because of her size or her age, but complimented her braids and her bravery and the evidence of her budding artistic skills that lined the stark hospital unit, asking her what her favorite games were, and suddenly Aizawa was willing to brave a dozen pink-frosted department stores to get more. More of this, more of them. Something more than two people, more than three, and yet one single thing.

And when the nurses tried to convince him to take back the perfectly hideous jumper on grounds of hospital uniform and not the disgusted looks on their faces, he shoved it into their arms with a ghastly grin and walked out, reminding them that he would be back on Friday for their weekly ice cream. 

The door shut behind them and, this time, he didn’t regret the pat on the back or the surreptitious kiss on the cheek.