Cross-Posted to Ao3 under the penname MsThunderFrost.

"Shouta~" Hizashi sing-songed, "I'm home!"

His announcement was met with silence. The voice hero's smile faltered slightly, used to the gruff, sleep-deprived omega at least pretending to acknowledge his presence with a grunt or a long-suffering sigh. Silence was… off-putting, to say the least.

"Shouta… where ya at, sunshine? Y'know that I don't like it when you hide from me…"

There was a soft mewl, and suddenly Hizashi's feet were moving of their own accord. He carved a path to the master bedroom, only to find the door shut and locked. Shouta never locked the door, especially not since their little one had come into the picture. The man didn't even fully shut the door when he took a piss in case their daughter somehow up and died in the minute or so that he was gone. So this… Hizashi knocked on the door with a heavy hand.

Silence. His mind was inundated with dozens of worst-case scenarios ~ Shouta had been due to have his bandages taken off that afternoon after classes, and Hizashi worried that there had been unforeseen complications, that something had failed to heal correctly, that there would be permanent damage to his eyes… his omega didn't just shut himself away from the world on a whim. He could feel distress pulsating through their bond, and his hand was shaking when he knocked again.

"Sunshine…" Hizashi cooed, doing his best to keep his voice level. He was met with another pitiful mewl, "Shouta, are you hurt?" His stomach churned uneasily at the thought, "Can you come over and unlock the door for me, sunshine?"

There was a soft rustling, before he heard a tentative, "Z…Zashi?" His voice was soft and hoarse from crying.

"The one and only." He tried to smile, but his lips were trembling so badly he couldn't sustain it. "Are you alright, sunshine? Did something happen today at the doctor's off~" he wasn't even able to fully finish his sentence before Shouta wailed.

Shouta's distress hit him like a train, brutally knocking the air from his lungs. Hizashi needed to be inside that room yesterday. He knew, if he reallywanted that door open, he could command the younger to unlock it… but he also recognized that, once Shouta was in his right-mind, he'd resent him for it. From the moment that Shouta had agreed to mate him ~ the happiest day of his life, second only to the birth of their daughter ~ he'd stressed that the raven could always say 'no'.

The only way Hizashi was forcing himself into that room was if Shouta physically could not get to his feet and unlock the door for him. And he knew that Shouta would rather die than admit to that kind of weakness. So he'd just have to wait him out.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to go to the doctor with you, sunshine. I wanted to be there with you when they took off the bandages, holding your hand. I've missed your beautiful face so much." He crooned gently, his voice low and soothing.

Shouta sniffled, before croaking out, "B~Broken. Bad omega." A pause, "Defective. Imperfect. Broken."

"Hey, hey, hey now… what's with the self-deprecation? You're perfect. There's nothing broken or defective about you."

"I can't have any more pups!" He snapped, before dissolving into a fit of sobs.

Hizashi felt as if someone had reached into his stomach with a rusty knife and had begun to slowly carve out his insides. The last time he'd heard Shouta's voice so broken, the doctor had just told him that he might never be able to see again. He'd sat at the omega's bedside, running his fingers through his shaggy black hair and pretending that he didn't see the wetness that saturated his bandages. He'd wanted nothing more than to pull him into his arms and smother him in kisses until his tear tracts dried, to hold him so tightly that it was impossible to tell where his body ended and Shouta's began…

Shouta had never felt strongly about having children one way or the other. He'd always known that he wanted to be a hero, and bringing a pup into the world didn't exactly mesh with that. So when, two weeks before his twentieth birthday, his birth control had failed, and he'd wound up pregnant, needless to say he'd been far from thrilled.

The pregnancy had been riddled with complications. A little over three months in, he'd been placed on bed rest due to high blood pressure, and he'd gone into labor after having just barely crested the eight-month mark. The baby had been breach, born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and her beautiful, ivory-pale skin tinged blue from oxygen deprivation.

Hizashi had never been more terrified in his life… except, perhaps, seeing Shouta's ruined body in the USJ, dark, crimson blood pouring from all of his facial orifices and both of his arms bent at unnatural angles… a shiver chased down his spine.

And then their precious little angel had screamed. Shouta had had just enough presence of mind to erase her voice, but not before the doctor's ear drums burst and both of the nurses up and collapsed. It had been Hizashi's idea to name her Himei ~ named for the scream that would be heard around the world. Hizashi had known, from the moment that he held his baby girl in his arms, that he was destined for fatherhood. That, if he had his way, his days would be filled with the infectious laughter of his children. He would read them bedtime stories, and help them with their homework, and take them to the park…

And then, all of a sudden, Hizashi was balancing three jobs and was barely home in time to kiss his daughter goodnight and catch an hour or two of rest before hitting the road again. Shouta's career had also taken off in a big way ~ the constant separation from Himei and the stress that the job put on his body made him stop producing milk early, so they'd been forced to wean her onto the bottle after only four or five weeks; and Shouta's heats had become so sporadic that he began taking suppressants to block them entirely. It was never supposed to be a permanent thing, it was unhealthy to deny his needs…

Then, in the blink of an eye, Himei was ten and nothing had changed. And now, nothing would ever change because that freak of nature had taken it upon himself to break Shouta in a way in which he wasn't sure that the raven could recover from.

"Sunshine~" Hizashi pressed his forehead against the door, drawing in a deep, steadying breath. "I know that we never officially had 'the talk', but having more kids hasn't been on the table for a very long time. We both know that."

Shouta gave another pathetic mewl, "T~There's a difference between not wanting to have more kids and not being able to." He sniffled, "I'm only thirty fucking years old. I should… T~This shouldn't b~be…"

Hizashi shook his head, even though he knew the other couldn't see it. "I love you, Shouta. This… it doesn't define you."

"I'm… I'm broken." There was a rustling of fabric as the smaller man shifted ~ was he in his nest? "I always k~knew you'd be a great fat~father. You deserve someone bet~better. Someone w~who can give you a~all of the pups you've ever… ever wanted."

"Don't be ridiculous, Shouta! How could there be anyone out there more wonderful or perfect for me than you?"

"Open your eyes, 'Zashi! Can't you see how horribly mismatched we are?" He screamed… and there was another, softer mewl.

Hizashi felt his heart break that much more at the sound, "Shouta, my sunshine… is our little princess in there with you? Did you build a nest for the two of you?" He asked, his voice dropping an octave in an effort to sound more soothing.

There was a beat of hesitation, before Shouta offered a weak, "Yes… p~please don't take her from me! She's all that I have left, I~I can't…" he could imagine his poor omega, curled up in the middle of his nest, holding onto his daughter for dear life.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my love. I won't let anyone take our precious princess away from you, alright?"

It was likely that Himei was in a similar state of disarray. While their daughter was undeniably closer to Hizashi, she loved Shouta with a fierceness that was frightening at times. Her mood cycles closely mirrored Shouta's ~ children, before they present, often lean on their omega parent for emotional guidance. So while she was definitely too young to understand the reasoning behind it, she knew that Shouta was upset and was therefore upset as well.

"Himei, my little princess…" Hizashi chimed, hoping to capture the attention of the flighty little girl. "Can you come and unlock the door for Daddy? I think that you and Daddy are both in need of really big hugs right now…"

He continued to coo at her through the door, murmuring soft reassurances that everything would be alright… He knew the moment that she left the nest, because Shouta let out the most heart-wrenching sob Hizashi had ever heard. There was the soft pitter-patter of hurried footsteps as she made her way over to the door, unlocked it, and yanked it open before grabbing Hizashi's arm and tugging him inside rather forcefully. The room was pitch black, and in the time it took his eyes to adjust, she'd already re-locked the door and was leading him through the darkness to the nest.

Each and every one of his hero costumes had been meticulously taken from the closet and strewn across the floor, along with all of the pillows and blankets off of the bed (and what seemed to be a few additions from the laundry hamper). It looked like more of a pillow fort than a nest, with the walls built high to shelter Shouta from sight, the floor cushioned with his patented leather jackets. Himei clambered back into the warmth of the nest, nestling herself securely in Shouta's shaking arms.

"Oh, my poor babies…" Hizashi cooed. He kept his distance from the nest, not wanting to intrude where he had not yet been invited. "Shouta, sunshine, there's something that I need to tell you. Something important. Can you face me?"

After a tense moment, Shouta turned to him, his eyes red and swollen from crying. God, after all the stress that those beautiful eyes had endured, that must really fucking hurt. "W~What?"

Hizashi smiled, "Did I ever tell you, the day that you transferred into our class, I told Tensei that I knew that I would marry you one day? He asked me why, so I told him that you were beautiful. He, in true Tensei~fashion, pointed out that looks won't last forever. So I thanked him for bursting my bubble, before amending my answer. Do you know what I told him?"

Shouta rubbed at his eyes in aggravation, wincing a bit when the pressure made his still~healing orbital sockets ache. "You didn't even know me then, so any answer you would have given would have been superficial at best ~,"

"I told him that I was sure that you had the most beautiful smile, and I wanted to be selfish and save it all for me."

"That h~has to be the dumbest thing th~that I've ever heard."

"But you're smiling now, aren't you?" Hizashi reached out a tentative hand, smoothing the tears away from Shouta's cheek with the pad of his thumb. "And it's still the most beautiful fucking smile that I've ever seen."

The smile promptly fell when he remembered what had brought them here in the first place, "Y~You still have so many good years ahead of you, 'Zashi. If you disown me, you could take another mate. One that could give you all the pups you desire ~"

Hizashi's smile fell, "I don't think that I've ever truly been mad at you before, sunshine. But hearing you talk about yourself like this… like you're somehow expendable to me… literally makes my stomach turn. I. Love. You. Nothing is gonna change that. I intend to stay by your side for as long as you'll have me."

"I~I'm not ~" Hizashi didn't even let him finish the sentence.

"You are. You and this little star over here are my everything. And if you have any reason to doubt that whatsoever, then I'm the defective one. I'm the one that's failed you." He said softly, firmly.

Shouta swallowed hard, before offering a soft, "C~Can you… Can you come here?"

Hizashi didn't have to be asked twice. Carefully, he climbed over the wall of pillows and situated himself behind Shouta's back, gingerly pulling the smaller omega against his chest. Himei was curled in front of them, her little arms wrapped around Shouta's leg and her mop of blonde hair resting in his lap. Shouta's shaking fingers were tangled in her luscious hair, using it as an anchor to remind himself that his body had not always been perpetually fucked… that, once upon a time, he'd been a 'good' omega.

Shouta had never truly cared about his secondary sexuality. It had been a source of ridicule in his household ~ his father ostracizing him for not presenting as an alpha, his mother… well, his mother had never really been around enough to care one way or the other. Hizashi had spent most of their early relationship convinced he was a beta, up until… well, up until he'd gotten knocked up, actually. Then, he'd been so convinced that Hizashi would break-up with him over the lie that…

That he didn't see the way that Hizashi's eyes lit up at the idea of finally, finally being able to be proper mates with the man that he loved. He'd thought it was a far-off, unachievable pipe dream…

Shouta was broken from his silent reverie by Hizashi tenderly nosing at his mating mark, his cheek brushing against his neck and scenting him softly. His arms were wound around Shouta's trembling frame tightly, providing a reassuring weight… he trailed his tongue along the slightly raised scar that was Shouta's mating mark, the only warning Shouta received before Hizashi's teeth pierced the tender skin being a low, rumbling purr that began low in Hizashi's belly and reverberated through his body until he was practically boneless, floating in Hizashi's arms.

Hizashi allowed one hand to dip low, soothingly running his fingers over Shouta's flat belly. Shouta choked back another cry, "Hush now, sunshine. We'll make it through this. I love you, and I won't ever stop loving you. This ~" he pressed down slightly on the firm skin of his six-pack, "This changes absolutely nothing."

The distress was still rolling off of the omega in waves, but it was slightly less potent now. "I~I love you t~too, 'Zashi."

"And hey, y'know what? There's always adoption. There're plenty of kids out there that deserve a loving home. Just because they're not our blood doesn't mean they wouldn't be ours." Hizashi cooed gently, trying to gauge how Shouta would react to the suggestion. "What d'you say, sunshine?"

There was a brief moment of silence, before Shouta flushed, "I may already have a… um, I may have a kid in mind."