he is stable / you are deep
bnha various (bakugou, shouto, shinso) x reader
living with depression is hard but you never have to do it alone. angst/comfort, established relationship, mentions of mental health, anxiety, general dark thoughts. helplines are at the end
song: pushing it down and praying
a common misconception about him is that he’s a jerk who doesn’t care. he’s acts like a jerk, and its because he doesn’t know how else to show he cares. he’s hardly ever dealt with depression in himself.
he’s also observant, annoyingly so, and has a quick tongue. he isn’t afraid to call it out when he sees you spiralling. he never lets it go on for too long.
“you need to get up.” he flicks on the lights, and you can hear him walk over as you shove your face in the pillow. most of today, you’ve been in bed. and you almost got away with it, had you not spent yesterday in the same position.
if it were anyone else he knew, he’d rip the blanket off of you and tell you to get it together. but he knows the signs of when you’re in pain, maybe better than anyone. so instead, you feel the mattress dip as he sits down next to you.
“i just wanna be alone.” you turn over so your back is facing him. you’re ashamed to show him your face right now.
his lands on your shoulder, trying to get you to look at him. “yeah? well i don’t wanna leave you alone.”
you scoff, knowing that there isn’t any way out of this.
its one of those days where you know you are suffering. not because theres one huge reason why, but because every little thing carves out a bigger hole in your heart. a day where your eyes watery but unable to shed. a day where food seems impossible to digest. a day where sitting up for 5 seconds and letting your feet touch the floor feels like climbing out of the trenches.
beds are easier to hate yourself in because they cushion everything else, other than the crater in your chest that aches every time you move.
“i’m fine.” your voice shakes, and it hurts katsuki more than he’d admit to you. he isn’t good with this. but he needs to try.
“you’ve been wearing the same sweatpants for the past week. those are you depression sweatpants.” he says, blunt.
“i don’t have… what?” you turn your head on that last part, finally looking at him. if this was any other conversation, he’d give you that cocky look that lets you know that he’s right. but right now, he isn’t. he’s just silently relieved at the fact that you’re at least looking at him now.
he’s never gone through what you’re going through. his entire life, he’s thought that strength meant standing alone. but theres something fundamentally wrong with that idea, given that he can see the loneliness sneak out the eyes and roll down the cheeks of the person he loves most in the world.
he’s patient. trying to be. for you.
“talk to me.” and normally, there’d be a fuck somewhere in that sentence. he has the tongue of a sailor.
the words get caught in your throat, forming a lump instead. the light hits your eyes when you sit up, and he takes the chance to say pull you into his arms. he holds you there, not daring to move. his fingertips are incandescent, able to make hot, fiery spectacles from sweat and tears. he’s ran with heroes and demons villains alike. yet, the strongest person he knows is you.
he hears your words start to fall out in some sort of an explanation. and he’ll listen to all of it. but for now, he strokes your hair, and holds you through the lowest point of your week. “yeah, yeah, i got you, idiot.”
✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.*
shouto knows depression. he’s seen it, come face to face with. it seemed everyone he loves most dealt with it, his partner being no exception.
so he’s quick to pick up on signs. the tremors his mother used to have. the way fuyumi would overcorrect and try to fix the entire world. how natsuo would isolate himself and attempt to disappear. he’s even caught flashes of the cesspool of guilt that lives behinds his fathers eyes, never fully confronting him but never fully leaving.
he’s seen so many times what it means to fight a battle your own eyes can’t see. but he hasn’t made his peace with it, not when he sees that it’s hurting you, too.
he finds you in the living room, sitting with criss crossed by the window. the rain pours, and for a moment between the lightning and the thunder, you wonder if its possible to drown in something other than just your thoughts.
when he approaches, you wish you were outside. the rain would mask the tears, the two nearly impossible to differentiate when side by side.
but you’re too late to hide anything. and even if you could, you wouldn’t. its shoto.
“hey, love.” he takes your hand, kissing your knuckles. his lips linger for a moment, a gesture that makes your heart ache. “tell me what you’re feeling.”
not ‘how are you feeling?’ because he knows the answer to that. you feel awful, like you’ll never smile again.
the breath you intake shakes in your windpipe, but you stomach it in exchange for words. “tired.”
he thinks, for a brief moment, back to the times in his youth in which he felt tired. not the tired from training, or studying, or working towards impossibility. the tired that comes from the heavy weight that lives on his chest, threatening to squeeze down and press tears out of his eyes.
and he thinks in that same moment, what someone in his life might have said to him once he admitted to being tired. it was probably something along the lines of: “you’ve had 12 hours of sleep.” or, “you’ve have too much fortune to be tired.”
all he’s ever known about tired is that he’s felt it for a third of his life. and somehow, at the same time, he’s never been allowed to feel it.
but right now, he knows one thing: that he won’t repeat that cycle.
so he listens instead, to how you had to pull over and stare at the cloudy sky because you were having a panic attack, and how your boss gave you hell for being late. how you’ve been feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders despite sleeping all night, and how you desperately wish disappearing were an option. and how you’re so scared that your exhaustion will seep out, and the people in your life will grow just as tired, too.
when you finish, the rain clears up, and the smell of freshly showered grass wafts into the home. but your focus is on shouto, and how he held your hand through a thunderstorm.
“i don’t know what you’re going through.” he has some idea, but only you can narrate that battle. “but i love you. even when you’re tired.”
he means more than he says, but he kisses your forehead and wraps an arm around your shoulder. he’s been many things in his life, but the one thing he could never be is tired of you.
✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.*
shinso knows depression well. growing up an outcast and unattractive to many, he’s made his peace with it.
he’s been through the many ins and outs of growing up, coping with mental health. he’s been on medication since his parents insisted it’d help stabilize his moods. he’s fucked around with every coping method in the book. he’s no stranger to it, and no stranger to helping someone go through it.
seeing those signs in you held up a sign. the apathy, the irritation, the stress. the biggest flag for him is how quiet you grow. the more quiet someone is, the more loud their minds run.
you’ve been standing in front of the washroom mirror for what feels like an eternity. for the third time, you splash cold water on your face, hoping that it’ll snap you out of it. it doesn’t, but it does do a good job of flushing the red out of your face from crying.
he stands in the doorway, brushing his teeth. he knows that the conversation he’s about to have with you will hurt you both. might as well have minty fresh breath.
once he’s done, he spits into the sink and makes eye contact with you in the mirror. he’d be worried if he didn’t see your chest rising and falling, since he can’t even really hear you breathe. he knows that depression stays silent until its the loudest voice in your head.
he’s never been good with words. so instead, he takes your face in his hands and kisses your forehead. he’d feels you shake, starting to resolve, so he holds it together for you.
“do you ever just feel like theres a giant fuckin’ hole in your chest?” you whisper, hands grasping at his wrists while he cups your face. he lets out a huff of laughter at the question, his callused thumb catching a stray tear.
be pretends to think about it: “oh you know. only every day.”
he feels like the number 1 hero un the country when it gets a smile out of you.
theres a moment of silent as he empathizes with your pain.
“…and no matter what you do, you can’t ever fix it?” he prompts you, drawing from his own experience. all those times getting shoved over and pushed into lockers has taught him a little something about craters.
you look up at him. “yeah and its like… no matter what you do, you can’t not notice it.”
he nods, swaying with you in the dim, bathroom light. he knows the feeling of the cavity only growing when you try to contain it.
another moment of silent passes, before he speaks again.
“things will get better, baby. you just have to believe that.”
and you actually laugh. not because he isn’t right, but because it all feels so far away from you.
but he insists, hands moving from your face to your waist. “don’t laugh. you were the one who used to tell me that.”
of course you were. who else stayed with him through the toughest part of his life? and what boyfriend would he be if he didn’t stick around for yours?
you laugh again, this time mixed with tears as you look him in the eye again. “i did, didn’t i?”
he nods. “yeah. and i believed it. and you better start, to.”
wiping the snot from your face, you nod. “i’ll try.”
and for the rest of the night, its just you and him, knowing that things get better.
✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.* ⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚ ✧.* ✧.*
988 - suicide crisis helpline 24/7
text HOME or HOLA to 741741
1-800-668-6868 - kids help phone 24/7
2087
dailybridgerton
titsay
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
