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phen0l · 2 days ago

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higher than the mountain, deeper than the sea | pt. 3

dabi x f!reader, shouto x f!reader

Even if you’re ruined for everyone else, you’re now perfect for him.

chapter notes: 13.7k+ words of childhood friends to stockholm syndrome! warnings for repeated non-con (graphic and eroticized through Dabi’s POV), themes of abuse and trauma, and one conversation that touches upon suicidal thoughts. Please be careful if you choose to read this chapter!

please find the masterlist for this fic on my blog!

DABI

xxii. conviction

Dabi loses count of the number of times he fucks you.

He’ll never forget his first time with you, of course. It was a revelation, a turning point, his first act of justice. He used to think that he wanted to enact vengeance upon you, but your guilt-ridden expression makes him feel otherwise nowadays. What he’s doing isn’t revenge—it’s retribution. It’s your comeuppance, what you get for trying to erase the past, what you deserve for leaving him behind.

You must think so too, because you never get angry with him for doing this to you.

“I’m sorry, Touya,” you’ll say. Sometimes you’re looking at him; sometimes you’re staring at the ceiling instead. No matter where your eyes are trained, they are lined with tears. “You have every right to be angry.” You choke on your own shame whenever you utter these words, but eventually you learn to stop yourself from crying. You learn that’s the easiest way to get burned.

You also learn not to talk about his younger brother.

You're stupid enough to bring up Shouto a few times. Forgetting the burns on your back and hips, so raw and fresh that they still need to be bandaged, you sit up and crawl toward Dabi, eyes wide.

“Please don’t hurt him,” you keep begging, like a broken record. “It doesn't matter what you do to me… but please don’t hurt him.”

Because Shouto is innocent, you explain. Because Shouto is nothing but a proper little hero, who just wants to serve the public. Because you keep lying to yourself, saying that Shouto has nothing to do with Endeavor's crimes. Because you keep lying to him, saying that there’s nothing going on between the two of you.

(Dabi remembers the first time he saw you and Shouto together on the news, bright and dazzling even on the screen of his old laptop. It was for some international conference, where his brother was attending in his father’s stead, and you were attending on your own. You’d dragged Shouto onto the floor, put his hands on your waist and urged him to dance. His brother was fucking terrible at it, but with your coaxing, your feet eventually clicked across marble, your movements in time with the live piano, your bodies picture-perfect together.)

Dabi rapes you after that. He rapes you a second, third, fourth time—all after arguments about his brother, all after your lies. And even though he tries not to burn you—because fucking hell, he hates the stench of your singed flesh—he slips up anyway, pressing more wounds into your body. One on your upper thigh. One just below your breasts. Brings the total count up to four.

During these nights, he often forces you to look at him while he’s inside you, squeezes your cheeks with one hand and turns your head until you’re staring at his ugly, patchwork face. “Why the tears?” he asks, taunting. “Sad that it’s me fucking this pussy, and not my brother?” He likes to lean in, threatening you with his disfigured lip. “Don’t wanna kiss me anymore?”

“No,” you tell him. “That’s not it.” Sometimes you’ll say it between whimpers, while he’s cleaving your legs open; sometimes you’ll say it through strained moans, while he’s seated deep inside you; sometimes you’ll say it quietly, lying on fresh sheets while he’s applying ointment to the imprints of his grip on you.

Sometimes he’ll ask what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, and of course you never answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” you inevitably reply, squeezing your eyes shut. You refuse to look at him in these moments, probably revolted by the sight of him.

(On that night when your fingers brushed against Dabi’s scars and you told him that you were sorry that you could not heal him, he fled your room, even left the building. He spent a long time just wandering outside, peering into storefront windows. The seam of his scar tingled where you’d touched it, and the bottom ridge of his eye wouldn’t stop prickling. He spent the whole night feeling sick to his stomach, waiting for new skin to grow over his burnt flesh, like a mold.

Even after the sun rose, even after the irritation subsided, he felt uneasy thinking about your hands. Nobody had ever touched his scars like that before, after all. Nobody had ever touched him like that.

Nobody had ever looked at him like that, not since he was burned alive.)

You try to reason with him, probably thinking that he’ll fall for your sweet words and pretty eyes, just like old times. But it's too bad for you, because he’s not a little kid anymore. Not your Touya.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” you always try, giving him a pleading look as he presses your spine into the mattress. “It’s not too late to go back.”

How fucking dense are you, Dabi wonders. He tells you, time and time again, that there’s nothing for him to go back to, that he can't return to the hellhole life his father created. He’d rather burn to death. He did burn to death. He’s already been cremated—don’t you know? You’ve burned so much incense for him, offered so many sweets, scattered your memories of him like ash.

Sometimes you'll argue back. Sometimes you’ll call him crazy. Sometimes you’ll beg for forgiveness. But it never lasts for long, because he’ll force you down and press himself into you, praying you’ll shut up and stop crying. Usually you go quiet because you’re freezing up in pain, face twisting unpleasantly, but sometimes he thinks he's just worn you down. Your demands gradually grow more pathetic throughout the night, each of his thrusts forcing weak little pleas from your lips: “wait, wait” or “slower, it hurts” or “not inside, please not inside.”

Of course he never goes slow, and of course he always hurts you, and he usually finishes inside you too. Yeah, maybe it’s a little risky even with the pill, but there’s nothing he loves more than pulling out and watching his spend leak out of you. Nothing he likes more than knowing that he's spoiled you from your very insides.

You learn to stop reasoning with him. You learn to stop bringing up Shouto. You learn to stop crying. You only say, “I’m sorry, Touya,” and you spread your legs, trying to relax as he puts his hands on you. You look away, and even when he forces your line of vision in his direction, you’re not really seeing him. No, your eyes are glassy, and he can tell that your mind is someplace else while he’s fucking your body.

He likes your passivity. He likes that you've succumbed to getting used by him. It's like you're a doll, but strictly for his consumption.

You're no longer available for public use.

xxv. his

One day, Dabi gets your glassy, pretty facade to crack.

It happens by pure chance, when on a whim he's being less rough than usual and taking his sweet time with you. He isn’t motivated by rage tonight; he just wants to forget about work and the Liberation Front and whatever the fuck Hawks is up to. So he treats you as entertainment, as distraction. His hands are all over you, fingers dragging lightly across your hot skin. His teeth nip your neck and mark a trail all the way down to your breasts, and he can’t help but linger here, because holy fuck, they look good. You look good. It occurs to him that he doesn’t look at you too often when he fucks you, and he's not sure why.

(Dabi was rarely ever bothered by burn wounds. Not his own; and for a very long time now, not his victims’. But after his first time with you, when he looked at the shadows of his hands on your shoulder blade and hip, when he looked at the blood between your legs, when he listened to your kicked-puppy cries—he felt strangely ill.)

You’re good for him tonight. You don’t squirm; you stay quiet, and he quickly feels himself getting hard as he touches you. His fingers and mouth play with the peaks of your breasts, and you do something new—

You moan.

You moan, and it’s quiet, but it's still one of those pornographic noises he used to imagine when he jacked off to pictures of you. He sucks in a breath, feels his cock throb . Maybe he only imagined it, confused reality with one of his fantasies. But no—he flicks a nipple once and you whimper. Your torso jerks up at him, body wanting him even if your mind doesn't.

His lip curls.

"You starting to enjoy this?" he says, his hands still working. They're rougher now, cruel, and they make your expression twist with conflict.

"No," you say quickly. "No, no—I don't…" You haven't done this in a long time, but you try to deny him: "I don't want—"

Your voice is cut off by a strangled moan when he pinches your nipple, and he feels himself smiling, staples straining to keep his expression together. He reaches down and runs a finger along your opening, finds wetness there for the first time.

(Dabi stood in that shower for long, just watching his black dye and your red blood run off his body and down the drain.)

"I don't know about that," he replies as your thighs quiver. Then he leans down and drops his voice into your ear. "Sure seems like you're liking this."

His finger starts to circle your clit, and you don't talk anymore, just whimpering as his hands continue to play with you. You're getting so wet, so filthy, he can hear it, and he can see it too: glistening in between your legs, and in the shame in your expression. It's more pronounced than usual, the distress you're wearing at your own body's reactions. This is a different kind of humiliation than before, after all. Before was him forcing you, violating some perfect girl out of a magazine. This is you giving in, yielding to him like a whore.

When he pushes himself inside you, you cry. It's strangled and halfway to a sob, but he can tell you're enjoying it from the way you clench around him. He feels your wetness dripping down him with each one of his thrusts, coating his thighs.

(You had tried to walk afterwards, Dabi could tell, from the way that your inner thighs were now wet with blood. You had tried to walk, maybe even run, and probably you failed because you were still listless on his bed. You didn't struggle when he approached you, but you flinched at the brush of the wet cloth in his hands.)

"Holy shit," he groans. “You feel way fucking better than usual." His hips shift just slightly; you whine as his cock starts rubbing against a particular spot inside you—then you gasp when he keeps doing it. You're panting like a bitch in heat, desperate for his touch—desperate for him, despite the fact that he's hideous. That he's fucked up. That he's scarred up and rotting from the inside-out.

And he won't let you live it down. His thumb grazes your cheekbone after he lifts your head up, remarking, "Can't believe you're getting off to being fucked like this." He feels a grin cross his face. "Not much of a hero anymore, huh?"

You whimper. "I don't," you try again, your whine punctuating the obscene sound of slapping skin, "I don't want, I don't want this—"

"Really? That's not what your body's telling me," he cuts you off. He grabs your hips for better purchase, starts pounding into you until you’re squealing and grabbing at the sheets. Dabi feels himself smiling at the obscene, wet noises coming from your body. "Nah, you're not a hero anymore,” he decides. “You're just my whore."

Just his whore. Just his toy.

Just his.

You shake your head, protesting, but he's relentless. He keeps going, keeps talking until there are tears rolling down your eyes.

If only all those interviewers and fanboys could see you now. If only those countdown clock fuckers could. If only they could see how he's fucked your cunt loose and useless, and remember—he tells you this aloud, because this is important for you to know—if your cunt is worthless, then the rest of you is too.

And oh yeah, now he's just remembered something. Since he's recording that video of himself, he might as well film you too. Then the world can see what you've become, what he's made you.

"No, no no no," you protest, eyes widening when he says this. "Please no. You can do anything to me, but please don't…"

He grins, liking the sound of it the more you beg. "Your career would be ruined, huh? And just imagine—" Shit, you're tight. He reaches down to where you're joined, thumb on your clit, and now your hips are bucking up. "—just imagine what my father would think, seeing you getting fucked like this. He wouldn't want his masterpiece getting my sloppy seconds, now would he? Nah, you're too dirty for his precious little Shouto now."

No, you'll never be good enough for Shouto now. But it's a different story with him.

Dabi starts thrusting harder, pounding into you until your eyes are rolling into your head, until your mouth is open and your lips are shiny with drool. You're wailing and your fist is curling into his sheets and now your pussy is clenching down hard around him, pulsing around his cock—and oh fuck, his nails are digging into your thighs and now he's spilling himself inside you, right into your womb. There's so much that he feels it seeping out around him, when he shifts.

"Holy shit," he mumbles, letting himself collapse on top of you, because you've never felt so good before. You don't reply, just panting heavily into his neck, your lips grazing against his mutilated flesh. His body must feel hot like this, pressed up right against yours, but you don't squirm. You just let him lie on top of you, catching his breath.

You feel soft underneath him. Soft, yielding, not pushing him away. Almost peaceful.

When he finally glances at you, he notices that your brows are knotted. Your breathing is slow, uneven. You look dazed and confused, like you’re not sure what happened. It’s not like any time before this, when you’re glassy-eyed and your mind’s gone. No, you’re clearly struggling to process something right now. He stares at your dumb expression, the seconds ticking by, and then he realizes—

“Was that your first orgasm?”

You stiffen, going so still that you stop breathing. His eyes widen and he finally sits up.

“No fucking way—”

But then you’re tearing up, and you’re looking so ashamed, and now he's laughing.

Dabi stops being so rough after that, because he wants more of those out of you—wants your body to want him, even if you don't. He starts taking his time with you, until his hands and mouth are familiar with every curve and crevice of your body. He makes you come every night, forces out orgasms even when you're just staring vacantly at the ceiling. He doesn’t care where your mind is, as long as you’re wet for his enjoyment, as long as your body eagerly accepts him.

Sometimes, while he's lying next to you afterwards and just listening to your breathing, you'll come back to him. And you panic when you do, your empty eyes filling up with shame, so wet and pretty, and you'll say, "I'm not. I’m not—not any of those things y-you call me..."

But eventually, you stop protesting. Eventually, after being used so many times, you learn your place.

(Touya died a long time ago, but his ghost clings to this dream of you. It's a dream where he runs away with you, where he goes to school with you, where he is good enough for you.)

Eventually, you accept that even if you're ruined for everyone else, you're now perfect for him.

xxiv. tenderness

After you stop crying, it gets easier.

For a long time, you couldn't completely suppress your tears in the aftermath. So of course, Dabi ended up getting unbearable headaches each time. No amount of painkillers could undo the throbbing in his skull, each pulse set off by one of your sobs. He didn't stick around for long when you did that—he always zipped up his pants, gave you a once-over to make sure you were in decent shape, and left.

("Some hero you are," his mother often said. "Always running away from your problems." )

But it's easier now that you stay quiet. The long silence after the sex doesn't give him a headache, doesn't ignite any nausea. Dabi lies beside you in bed, listening to your breathing, grateful that it's no longer punctuated by your sobbing. It declines from panting and moaning into a slow, peaceful rhythm, and his body melts into the mattress. Relaxed. Sometimes he even lights up a cigarette, and you'll make a small noise of complaint at the smell, but he tells you that you'll get used to it.

"But it isn't good for you," you say softly, once, and Dabi's eyes narrow.

"And I'm sure this isn't good for you either, princess," he says. "Worry about yourself a little more, why don't you?"

He's not talking about second-hand smoking. He thinks you might not be talking about the cigarettes either, because you get this sad, pathetic look in your eyes. On a whim, his thumb will sometimes run along your cheekbone in these moments, sometimes might drift down and brush against your mouth. He doesn't really know why he does this, but he can't stop the impulse. Probably it's a habit from the rare occasions he fucks your face and leans down after he finishes, smearing his spend across your lips.

("Who keeps hurting you, huh? Was it that asshole Takahashi?" Touya frowned as he held your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing at the fat tears rolling down your cheeks. Then he wiped away the blood on your lip too, careful and featherlight because he didn't want to hurt you. "Just tell me who, and I'll send my Hell Flames at him.")

He is not being gentle when he touches you. Your eyes still flutter shut.

Also on a whim, he sometimes asks questions. All stupid, inane shit that keeps surfacing in his mind. Things like, How many people have you dated? Did you ever fool around with them? How come you were a virgin?

You're evasive for a long time, but as the nights pass, you let slip your answers. I've only dated a couple. I never got far with them. I never liked it when people touched me.

(But you liked it when he touched you. Or your body liked it, always pressing into his hands, always so wet for him, always opening up for him. And after a while, it started making him feel good, knowing that he was the only person who could pleasure you like this, could dirty you like this.)

Sometimes you're bold enough to ask questions too. How many people have you slept with? Did you love any of them? How many did you rape?

Dabi's usually a lot less evasive about his answers than you are. I've lost count. I never loved any of them. Only you.

That last answer makes you go very quiet. Your expression becomes strange, and he can't detangle the emotions.

One night, you turn onto your side and give him that tired look you once did at Sekoto Peak. Instead of the smoke of your smouldering flesh, you look at each other through the drifting poison of his cigarette.

"You've never raped anyone else," you whisper. "So why me?"

He doesn't look at you when he replies, "Felt like it."

"That's all?" You sound disappointed. What you could have been hoping for, Dabi doesn't know.

"That's all," he repeats, still turned away.

There's a long, drawn out silence, where your question keeps echoing in Dabi's mind and it's driving him crazy. Impulsively, he tries to drown it out with his own:

"Why didn't you like it?"

Your gaze jerks to him. "Huh?"

"Why didn't you like it," he repeats, "when other people touched you?"

Your breathing is so slow now, inhaling his poison at a leisurely pace.

"I just never felt like having sex."

"That's all?"

A long pause now. He's looking at you, but you've turned away.

"That's all," you confirm, and he accepts the answer readily, not bothering to question it. He doesn't think about what-ifs, after all. He doesn't do daydreams.

Dabi never presses further than that in these moments. He just turns toward the ceiling and listens to your breathing as his lips touch his cigarette. Smoking always relaxes him, so sometimes he'll even fall asleep like this, on his back, laying next to you.

None of his questions really matter at all, he always thinks as he drifts off. You don't matter to him. You don't. It's just the post-fuck endorphins that make him so relaxed, so talkative around you. It doesn't matter who you've dated or how far you got with them or why you were a virgin. It doesn't matter that it never felt right for anyone to touch you but he can make you cum with his fingers alone. It doesn't matter that out of everyone he’s slept with, everyone that he’s ever felt anything for, you were the only one he raped.

(I never loved any of them. Only you.)

You don't matter to him. You don't. But he still stays, sleeps, and sometimes even dreams.

xxv. denial

Dabi doesn't think too much of what you do when you're alone. In the beginning, after he first captures you, you do a bunch of idle things during the day: you watch TV, flip through magazines, try on all his shirts and sprawl yourself across the bed like you own the place. You eat whatever meals he brings you, usually finishing all of it. You take care of yourself, changing out your bandages and showering often enough that he runs out of shampoo.

That's what you do before he starts fucking you.

He doesn't keep track of what you do after.

He's too busy with other things to keep an eye on you. The Liberation Front is on the move, and he's in charge of the final preparations before they act at large. He has to recruit. He has to train people. He has to take care of security. He does this over the course of his long days and long nights, and he doesn't bother to seeing you beyond using your body and the occasional post-sex conversation. There’d be no point.

(Before he started raping you, he sometimes spent slow afternoons in his room with you, listening to you talk. You never mentioned heroes or villains or anything in between. You'd say things like, What's your favourite movie now? I really enjoyed Helter Skelter, have you seen it? Or, Do you watch any shows? I watched a bunch of Terrace House last night, while you were out. Or, I had such a bad dessert craving earlier today. Say, do you still have a sweet tooth? And once Toga had ordered a crepe cake and dumped the leftovers on him, which was annoying since it was way too sugary for him. And the way your face lit up when you saw that leftover slice of cake was just stupid. Why the fuck were you so happy when you were trapped with a villain?

And why the fuck did he keep going back to hear you talk?)

Even though he doesn't bother talking to you anymore, he notices some changes. You don't smile anymore. You don't cycle through his clothes, just sticking to the things he bought you. You're always curled up on his bed, as if trying to take up as little space as possible. Your takeout boxes are never finished; sometimes, they look entirely untouched. He has to drag you into the shower at times, and he's always the one dressing your wounds now. You sleep for an absurd amount of time, and always deeply.

One day he comes home, and you don't wake up.

He's halfway through pulling off your shorts when he realizes this. He's touched you so much, but your body is perfectly still, and that's unusual—he can usually make you squirm in such a way that you'll wake up. But you stay asleep, unresponsive, and it leaves a coldness in his stomach despite his body always running hot.

"Hey," he snaps, "wake up."

Silence.

"Hey." He climbs on top of you, leans over you and taps on your cheek with a hand. "Wake up, princess. Don't you hear me?"

Still no reply.

Dabi keeps talking at you, starts to shake you, but it's useless. He even snarls at you: "Hey, when did I say you could fucking die?" But you just lie there, eyes closed and not moving.

His fingers dig into his palms.

No, no, no. It's not supposed to be like this. You aren't supposed to pass away. You can't be put in your place if you're immortalized as a martyr.

You can't be his if you're dead.

Dabi only trusts Ujiko as far as he can throw him, but the thought of you staying like this—doll-like, a corpse, trapped in the death process—clouds his mind. He can't let it happen. He can't let you leave him, now that he finally has you in his grip.

His scars start to itch beneath his eyes. He wonders if he overdid it with the flames last night, if they'll start to bleed, but he doesn't have time to check. He has to take you to that doctor.

When Dabi picks you up, he loops one arm beneath your knees and puts the other against your back. He presses you against his chest, and he maybe feels you shift, leaning into him in your sleep. (You have to be asleep. Not comatose. Not dying. You're not allowed to be anything but asleep.) You're so soft, practically melting into his body. It feels strange to him, but oddly familiar.

("I figured out it was you from the way you held me," you told him after he revealed his identity to you. Your gaze was so soft that he felt himself squirming underneath it, disgusted.)

He's not holding you. He wouldn't ever. You're crazy. You're delusional. He's not holding you, because he's not your Touya anymore. You're just dead weight when you're passed out like this. That's why you're in Dabi's arms right now.

xxvxi. split

Dabi's eyes are hawk-like on Ujiko. He hovers over your sleeping body, watching the lines running into your arms. He makes sure that it's only saline dripping into you, and not some experimental drug.

"Hey, doc," he says, voice low. "Don't think I won't light this place up if you do anything funny to her."

Ujiko doesn’t seem perturbed at all by Dabi’s presence. "Empty threats," he dismisses. "You can't destroy this place, and you can’t destroy me. You need the Nomu. You need the PLF. Shigaraki and Re-Destro would kill you."

Dabi’s lips twitch down in a quiet snarl, and a million thoughts run through his head: that he doesn't give a fuck about the Liberation Front; that Re-Destro could burn for all he cares; that his only real priorities boil down to his father and to you. He wants justice for your betrayal. He wants vengeance for his father’s abuse. And he wants to invert society and make it hostile to you both.

But the Nomu and the Liberation Front are all means to his ends. So is Ujiko. Dabi reins in the heat of his flesh, hot with coals of rage, and settles for giving Ujiko a cold stare. “Don’t worry, doctor. As long as I don’t let you die, Shigaraki will be fine.” For the briefest of moments, his fingers flicker with red. “If I survived 2000°C, I’m sure you could manage a cool 150.”

Ujiko glances at him through his thick glasses, but doesn’t say much after that. With how Dabi glowers as he sits in front of your bed, he can probably tell that Dabi is crazy enough to attack if he's provoked, even if it's short of total destruction. Ujiko keeps his actions clean and transparent: draws your blood, runs some tests on it, checks your saline drip. No injections. No quirk usage.

He sits there for a few hours. He doesn’t take his eyes off you, because who knows what kind of psycho might breeze through Ujiko’s lab? There’s a lot of them in the Liberation Front, after all.

He starts to feel like a guard dog. Or maybe just a mad, vicious one.

(“Touya,” his mother told him, crouching down in front of him, “You must always protect her. Remember that.”)

Twice comes around once. Even Toga. They both seem surprised at his behaviour.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Toga asks, peering curiously at you, her voice giddy. "Say, she's really cute. How come she fell for a guy like you?” She looks up at Dabi, tiny quirk in her lips. “If it’s working out between you two, do you think Izuku and I could get together?”

Dabi refrains from rolling his eyes. “Sure, the first step is to kidnap him. Then lock him up in your room. It’s real romantic, I promise.”

He’s humouring Toga right now, but finds none of what she’s saying even remotely funny. For one, you look ugly as fuck like this, covered in bruises and burns and—Dabi's now realizing—looking a little bit like your muscles have wasted. There are bags under your eyes, so severe that it looks like you haven't slept right in weeks. Nobody could possibly find you cute like this.

And calling you his girlfriend. What a fucking joke. Between her crush on Stain and now her obsession with Izuku, Dabi’s always known that Toga is delusional about personal relationships, but calling you his girlfriend has to be a joke. Everyone in the League knows why Dabi asked to keep you in his room. Everyone knows what kind of person he is.

But Twice keeps saying the same kind of shit as Toga.

"You have to take better care of your girl, Dabi!"

“She's not my girl.”

“Aw, you don’t have to be shy! She seems like a sweetheart, and you’re a great guy. How come you don’t treat her right?” Then Twice splits, and Dabi feels like he's splitting too. "This is your prisoner, right? Shigaraki said you were just using her to blow off some steam. If she dies, you can just get another one. How come you’re so sad?”

“I'm not sad,” Dabi snaps, but then he goes quiet. Both sides of Twice wait for an explanation, but Dabi has nothing to offer. He just stares at your sleeping form, not knowing how to answer.

xxvii. fear

“Touya?”

His head jerks up, his fragile dream disturbed by your whisper. He sits upright in his chair, looking down at you. You’re dazed and confused, in a way that’s different from how you are during sex, when your mind is still collecting itself. Right now, you seem alert even if your body is still—you’re simply disoriented and frightened.

“Touya, where are we?”

He puts a finger over your lips, and you stiffen.

“It’s Dabi,” he whispers. “Dabi when we’re in front of other people.”

You find the energy to nod, and he lifts away his hand.

“You passed out on me,” he says. “Weren’t waking up, so I had to take you to the doctor.” His eyes narrow. “What's wrong with you, huh?”

You stare, giving him a stupid, wide-eyed look. “What? Did I do something wrong?”

He snorts. “Yeah, you did a lot wrong. Why the fuck haven’t you been eating or drinking? And—why the fuck did you overdose on so many pills?” Drewell and Tylenol, mainly. He frowns—not out of concern, but simply because that’s the most pathetic possible way to die. Suicide? Touya didn’t kill himself while he was living with his nightmare of a father, and Touya didn’t kill himself while he was starving on the streets, and Dabi’s only wanted ever wanted to die to drag Endeavor down with him. His life has been absolute hell on Earth and he's fine. So why the fuck would you try to off yourself?

It takes everything for him not to scream at you.

When he starts voicing his thoughts, though, your face just sours. It makes him stop, because—well, he's just never seen you so annoyed.

“I wasn’t trying to die,” you say quietly, strange tension in your voice. “I was just in a lot of pain, and I wanted it to stop. That's why I took all the Tylenol.”

It's true. It's true that you've been in a lot of pain, because you haven't been taking care of your injuries.

“And,” you add, “The Drewell was to make me sleep better."

Right. Because of the nightmares. They were an unpleasant discovery for him when he started falling asleep after fucking you. Once or twice, he's been woken up by pained breathing and familiar crying, the sound of you babbling in your sleep and begging for him to stop. I'm sorry, Touya. I'm so sorry. You have every right to be angry. But please, it hurts.

You seem unaware that he knows about these nightmares, because you don't explain anything to him. You simply finish, "So I took more Drewell than usual." You glance up at him with uncertainty, as if assessing whether he'll snap again. After a moment, you shrink under his stare and say, “I’m sorry, Tou—Dabi. I'm sorry, Dabi."

Even though you're staring at him with such discomfort, a suffocating tension has just been released from his chest. He slumps against the back of his chair.

"Fucking hell," he gripes. "And—what about eating and drinking?"

You shrug, glancing away. "I don't have much of an appetite these days."

"Why."

You look at him, confused. Or maybe you're looking at him like he's confused. You sound exhausted when you say, "I just... haven't been feeling well."

Ujiko had floated the notion of PTSD or catatonia or some other kind of severe neurosis to him. We can't be sure unless I arrange a full psychiatric assessment and treatment, he had said, but to be honest, I'd rather spend the money on converting her into a High End. Getting a psychiatrist will be difficult with her circumstances, and we'll be killing her soon anyway.

Dabi tries to imagine some doctor probing you about your trauma—which is, well, probably him—and then locking you up into a psych ward. Or he imagines Geten icing you, locking you into suspended animation forever. Or he thinks about your body floating in a glass tank, distorting more and more every day.

He looks at you, and replies, "Fine. We'll figure it out."

Your brow furrows. "What?"

"We'll figure something out," he says, "so that you don't kick the bucket." Before you can do anything else, he's already pulling you up by the arm and ripping the IV drip out of your veins. You wince and, too surprised to be scared, send him an incredulous look.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting you out of here. You need to be back in my room." He glances around. "The League wants you to be their latest Nomu, remember?" You just frown, staring at the blood welling up where he'd just torn out the needle. Why you're acting so overdramatic, he doesn't know—he's inflicted much worse pain on you. "C'mon," he urges. "Let's move."

And you do try to move, face scrunched up in concentration as you push yourself off the bed. But it's like you've forgotten how to walk or something—every step is unsteady, like you're a newborn deer. Completely defenseless. You nearly trip, and Dabi feels his jaw clenching.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

You make a small noise when Dabi picks you up, clearly not expecting it. This is the first time you've been fully conscious while he's carried you, and he tries to ignore the way your eyes have widened or how intently you're looking up at him. He doesn't have time to correct whatever ideas you're getting, because he just wants to get you the fuck away from this laboratory.

"Hey."

He freezes midstep. Looks up, sees Ice Bastard, and tries not to curse.

"What're you looking at?" Dabi says, voice cool.

"Your chew toy. What else?" Geten's hood is down today, so Dabi can clearly see the careful study that he's giving you. "Not done playing with her yet? I know Ujiko wants new material."

"Shigaraki gave me free reign with her," Dabi drawls. "So I can do whatever the hell I want." His voice sounds calm, but for every step that Geten takes toward the two of you, his eyes narrow, and his insides burn. He doesn't want this bastard to even look at you.

Geten seems to detect the malevolence, backing down. "If that's what the leader says, then so be it," he says, frowning at you. "Be as depraved as you want. But don't make it a problem for the rest of us. She's a waste of valuable resources." He waves at your treatment bed.

Ice Bastard leaves before Dabi can retort, leaving him snarling. A waste of valuable resources, he keeps hearing in his head. Without even realizing it, Dabi's grip tightens and he presses you tightly against his body.

After a minute of fuming, he reminds himself that now’s not the time to pick a fight, and he proceeds with carrying your dead weight toward his room. After the two of you are far from Geten and the halls are empty except for yourselves, your body shifts in his arms, melding itself into him. Why it’s doing that, Dabi has no fucking clue.

"You sure are clingy," he remarks, voice dripping with annoyance even if it's quiet.

A pause.

"Sorry," you whisper into his chest, voice frail. "Force of habit."

(The next time Touya saw you barefoot and running from your bullies, he didn't feel so awkward about holding you. He knew to wrap his arms around you, and he knew to let you press yourself against him and put your face into his shoulder. He knew to stay like that, to let you take your time crying, and that if he said things like, I’ll protect you, and, I’ll kick Takahashi’s ass for you! then your sobs would eventually soften and maybe even give way to laughter.)

What a stupid thing to do, to cling so strongly to someone who routinely rapes you. What a deranged act, to lean into someone who doesn't even view you as human. Don’t you remember all those names he’s called you? Don’t you remember how much he’s made you bleed?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Dabi drops you onto his bed, revolted.

xxviii. omission

When Dabi pressed Ujiko for a way to make you better, the list of treatments he'd prescribed had been nothing less than ridiculous. His first recommendation was basically spitting in Dabi's face: For something like a suicide attempt? Therapy.

What a joke. He's not going to get you therapy for the trauma he gave you. He'd given the doctor a dry look, and Ujiko had continued, knowing that it was a lost cause: Well, she is severely dehydrated and has several vitamin deficiencies. So eating and hydrating.

Okay. Okay, food he can do. He can force feed you if he has to.

And she has a vitamin D deficiency, so sunlight.

No fucking way, he'd said. Being locked up in his room means no sunbathing. So Ujiko shrugged and told him that you could get vitamins for that, but they wouldn't be metabolized quite the same way as actual sun. Dabi goes to the store anyway and picks them up. When he tosses them at you, along with several other bottles, you fumble to catch them. Mostly you miss, letting them drop and roll across the mattress. You stare blankly at each container, face still set in slow disorientation.

"These are for me?"

"Who else?" He gives you a dry look, even as he empties his grocery bag onto the nightstand: a disgusting number of protein bars, and several bottles of Pocari Sweat. "I'm not the one with fucking scurvy."

Slow blinking. "I have scurvy?"

"Well, you haven't been eating." He drops onto the chair by his bed. "What do you expect?"

"Oh."

You don't reply after that, just turning over the bottle in your hands. Dabi grimaces when he notices how thin your fingers have gotten, at least in comparison to what he remembers from your arrival. "Why haven't you been eating?" he asks again, even though he already knows the answer.

You're still staring at the label.

"I haven't been feeling well," you reiterate quietly.

("I haven't been feeling well lately, Touya," you told him one day, rubbing at your eyes. There were dark circles under your eyes, and even though you had healing powers, you seemed so frail in that moment.

He held your hand, asked you—)

"How come?"

You don't look at him, still just studying the bottle.

"You remembered," you comment.

"Remember what?" Dabi's eyes narrow.

"Remembered what supplements I used to take," you whisper. "When I was a kid, I mean." You glance at a package on the mattress, with a picture of green candies and a handful of grapes. D3, it says. "You even remember the flavour of the vitamin gummies I liked."

(Touya always peered curiously at you after joint training sessions, watching you grab bottles of Pocari Sweat out of your knapsack. Power bars too, often, and various bottles labelled with all letters of the alphabet: D, E, Fe, C... "My quirk burns through a lot of energy and vitamins," you once explained. "So I have to eat all the time."

"You can't heal without them?"

"That's right. I'd get sick or pass out.")

"They were just the first things I saw," Dabi dismisses, and you choose not to comment. "Answer my question. Why won't you eat?"

A long silence. You put down the bottle, shrugging.

"Takeout just doesn't sit well in my stomach."

Fine. If you don't want to say it, that's fine.

"I'll sort that out," he says brusquely. "Don't die in the meantime."

He stands up, turns toward the door. There's no point in staying any longer.

"Dabi."

He stops.

"What?"

"Why don't you just let me die?"

Even though your voice is weak, your eyes look a little hopeful. Dabi feels a wave of disgust.

Because isn't it obvious? It's the same reason why his father can't die. Dead heroes are immortalised. Living ones can be disgraced. Death would be too good for you, after what you've done to him.

It's not because he cares about you. Don't be delusional.

"Okay," you say. You look down again, not exactly looking sad, but definitely resigned. "I understand."

He leaves the room without further comment, but this last interaction keeps replaying in his head. People have been calling him 'Dabi' for years now, but to hear it from your lips is something else altogether. It doesn't sound right in your voice. It doesn't sit correctly in his ribs. His teeth grind together the longer he thinks of it, and his flesh aches where his jawbone used to be, before he was cremated.

Whatever. Who cares what you call him?

He stays away from his room for a long while after that, somehow unable to circle back.

xxix. want

Dabi doesn't touch you for a long time after that.

Mostly, it's because he's now increasingly busy. The lieutenant title doesn't come without its obligations, especially since the PLF is currently posturing for an uprising. But he also feels absolutely no desire for your body. He's entered your room a few times fully with the intention of fucking you, but he never even got as far as undoing his belt. The sight of you, wrapped up in his sheets and feebly trying to get okayu into your mouth just kills his sex drive without fail.

But he still visits routinely, mostly to drop off food. Nobody else is allowed in and out of the room, after all.

Sometimes he'll check over your body too, to make sure that you aren't dying. He'll take your temperature with a thermometer, because his body runs at 39°C so his hand would be useless—but sometimes he finds himself pressing his palm against your forehead anyway. Sometimes his fingers press against your wrist, just over your pulse. Sometimes his thumb skims your lips, while he thinks about how much he misses fucking you. And also while he thinks about how bizarre it is to touch you without having sex with you.

Sometimes he talks, too.

"You feeling better?" he asks one day, lingering by your bed on some strange impulse.

You pause, staring down at the porridge in your spoon.

"Sort of."

Sort of, so not actually. Still unfuckable, then. You don't look remotely like that shallow, vapid hero in the magazines anymore. Now you just look like the ghost of a girl he once knew.

He plays with the cigarette in his fingers, even though it's unlit. The silence in the slow, syrupy moments after sex had felt so comfortable, had been so easy to fall asleep blanketed in. But this silence is suffocating, feels like smoke is in his lungs.

"I'm making a video," he says.

You look up, waiting for him to finish.

Dabi thinks for about two seconds before he decides, "I want you to see it."

Careful regard. "Okay."

"Not now," he adds, "but later. I have to leave for a while. Got PLF business to handle." At your uncertain expression, he adds, "I'll get someone to bring you food."

It doesn't dispel the tension on your face. "How long will you be gone?"

"A few days." When you exhale, he can't stop himself from sardonically adding, "Don't miss me too much."

He expects you to look tired or maybe even annoyed again, but you just wilt a little. Something complicated is in your expression. It's halfway to pain but also tinged with something soft.

"Okay," you say quietly. "I'll be waiting for you. Stay safe."

"Stay safe?"

You cannot be fucking serious.

He ends up laughing in your face, but the words make him feel strange. It's not like your crying or begging, which sets off immediate headaches. No, his body is echoing with something else. He's thinking of how your frail body felt when he carried you to Ujiko's bed. He's thinking of those calm moments in bed with you. And he's thinking—

("You're gonna be away for so long!" you exclaimed to him, sitting on the floor of his room. Touya was going to leave for a family trip to Hokkaido in the morning, so this would be your last time seeing each other in a while. "I'm gonna be so bored without you."

"Nah, you got a lot going on right now. You won't even notice that I'm gone!"

He stopped. Touya had meant to comfort you, but for some reason, the words came out sounding sort of sad instead.

You frowned. "That's not true." You lowered your voice, like you were embarrassed someone might overhear the two of you. "I'll be counting down the days 'til you're back, so text me as soon as you're home, okay?"

You get a little quiet then, running a thumb over his burn.

"And take care of yourself, please. I won’t be around to heal you while you're gone.")

—and now he's thinking that he should fuck you one last time, before he goes.

Not violently. Not to humiliate. He wants to fuck you with the slow kind of pace he uses when it's for leisure. He wants to feel you shaking underneath him, sighing and moaning into his ear, so warm and wet for him. You accept him so easily in those moments, body soft against his.

But he looks at you again, still wasted and ghostlike and defeated, and the desire fades.

xxx. doubt

Soon enough, Spinner's driving a couple of the Liberation Front members north and Dabi's trying not to throw up on Hawks' wings. They're chasing some lead on a medium-time villain that they'd like to either recruit or assassinate, depending on how negotiations go. All the while, Dabi tries to keep his mind off you, but he finds you at the periphery of his mind at all moments, ever-present. Lingering.

And it's different from how you lingered in his mind before. As a teenager, every image of you sent him into a spiral of resentment, so violent that it made every part of his body burn. After he caught you, if he thought of you while on the clock, it was usually about how he'd like to be in his room fucking you, rather than doing Shigaraki's bitch work.

But it's different now. Nowadays, there's no resentment and no lust. He's wondering instead if you're doing better or if you're wasting away and what a pain in the ass it would be if it were the latter. He doesn't want to take you to Ujiko and watch over you like a dog. He doesn't want to carry your dead weight ever again.

He tries to stop having these distracting thoughts, but it's impossible with Twice's constant texts.

Dabi, Toga and I met your girlfriend today. Like you said, she's under the weather, but she ate everything we gave her! We’re taking good care of her.

Dabi, your girlfriend asked about you today. I think she's worried about you. I gave her an update but do you just want to talk to her on the phone instead?

Dabi, this girl is crazy! Nuts! Why the hell would she like a guy like you, huh? How'd you land this sweet piece of ass!

Dabi, man, I gotta give you some advice as a friend. You have to treasure your girlfriend, okay? She's hurt pretty bad but I think she'll give you a second chance. I know you like her a lot, so it'll work out if you just try!

Dabi, your broad is so annoying. She cries all the time when she talks about you! Why do you even like her?

Mostly Dabi ignores the texts about you and only replies about other things—more important things. Twice is a bad judge of character anyway, so he's probably falling for your act the way that he's falling for Hawks' lies. There's no way you care about him. You’d probably be relieved if he died out here.

So he doesn’t reply about you. Doesn’t talk on the phone to you. Doesn’t send any messages for you.

Then one day, Hawks holds up his phone and says, "Yo, Dabi! Let's take a selfie together."

A flat stare. "Why?"

"Your girlfriend wants to know if you’re doing okay. Twice is telling her that you are, but I think a picture would be better so she could see that you’re fine."

"No."

Hawks frowns. "Why not? You're so cold to her! You should stop ignoring Twice's texts about her too, y'know—her feelings are being hurt."

Dabi snorts. "I've hurt a lot more than her feelings."

"Why?" Hawks flies over and puts an arm across Dabi's shoulder. He leans in conspiratorially, like they're buddies, and Dabi tries not to make a face. "Between you and me," Hawks says quietly, "if I were dating the Number Twelve hero, I'd be a lot nicer to her."

Dabi's eyes narrow and he pulls away from Hawks, but he's careful not to look as pissed as he feels. "I guess Twice told you who she is?"

"Mhm. I mentioned I'd worked with her a few times, and that I was worried since she's gone missing. Who'd have guessed that she'd be with you this whole time?"

"Yup." Dabi feels his mouth curl at the opportunity. "You can tell your hero friends to stop looking for her. She turned to our side, same as you.”

“Oh, yeah?” Hawks sounds surprised, but his gold eyes look too sharp for Dabi to fall for that act. “I’d love to meet her, then. I’m sure we’d have a lot to talk about.”

“When she’s feeling better, sure.”

“She’s unwell?” Dabi starts walking, wants to catch up with Spinner and hopefully turn the conversation back to work. But Hawks trails after him, not shutting up. “What happened? Did she get hurt? That shouldn’t be possible with her quirk.”

“It’s not.”

“Ohh. Wait, I get it—trouble in paradise, huh? You guys are arguing?” The two of them are matching footsteps now. “What happened? Y’know—I took her out on a couple of dates. I’m sure I could give you some advice.”

A flash of heat.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“She’s always said that the two of you never dated.”

“Oh, yeah. We would have only gone public if it got serious, but it never did. I don’t think she liked me much—not in that way, I mean. As friends, we get along well. But I think she only gave me a chance because her manager thought it would be good PR if it worked out.”

His fingertips cool.

“I was talking with her stylist once,” Hawks continues, “and he told me that she’d never been in a real relationship before. Apparently she could never get over some ex from her teenage years."

Dabi is careful to keep his face neutral.

"I figured she was just emotionally unavailable," Hawks finishes, "but here you are."

“Guess I lucked out.”

“Sure did.” He tilts his head, eyes predator-sharp. “Say, how’d the two of you get together, anyway?”

Dabi smiles, and he's sure it looks hideous.

“She was charmed by my good looks, obviously.”

His phone buzzes in his back pocket. It vibrates for only a moment before going dead, so it’s only a text, not a phone call. All text messages are considered non-urgent communications by the Front, so there’s no reason for him to check it. But he does, and it makes him feel strange, what he sees.

Dabi, I think you should hurry home soon. I can tell she's real lonely without you.

He feels like he’s losing his mind all over again.

xxxi. chances

After Dabi returns to Jaku, it takes some time for him to go back to you. Spinner drives him there directly, but his feet refuse to carry him to his room. Despite being exhausted and injured—he just aggravated one of his old wounds, so it hardly counts anyway—Dabi ends up spending the better part of the evening fucking around in some nightclub. He only contemplates going back when his tongue is deep in some guy's mouth and he feels himself getting hard, and he remembers—oh, he hasn't fucked you in ages. Might as well do it tonight.

There is no greeting when he returns. There is no I’m back, no Welcome home. Dabi just opens the door, closes it, then drops onto his empty bed. He tries to steady himself, sitting there. He can hear the shower running, the sound of faint humming. Dabi tries hard to listen to you, because he's never heard you singing as an adult before and he wants to know if you're as off-key as you were when you were a kid.

But he can't really focus on your voice. His heart is pounding in his skull and it’s hard to hear over that. The sharp pain running below his collarbone is distracting him too. The staples beneath his shirt are red-hot and loose, threatening to melt and let his skin slough off.

“Dabi?”

He looks up. You’re in a towel, wrapped around your body and held up by your tight hands. And you’re shaking.

You're afraid of him.

He ignores it. Nods at you and says a simple, "Hey."

Eyes studying him carefully, your gaze eventually drops down.

"You're hurt."

“I noticed.” He sounds dry and nonchalant, even though he can feel the collar of his shirt getting soaked with blood. He doesn't care much, and he guesses he never has. You spoiled him when you were both kids, with how often you healed his burns. You were as nearly as bad as his mother, who always iced any blows dealt by his father—first for himself, and then for Shouto, after Touya stopped mattering to his parents.

Dabi doesn't think he'd have ended up so reckless if it weren't for the two of you.

(Every time he saw you visiting his grave, he felt the blackened tissue under his bandages itch. Whenever you left, he contemplated following you home, to ask you to treat him. But your father was always there with you, and his expression was so severe, and he always took the long way home, as if knowing that a ghost was on your heels.)

“You should go see that doctor.”

“Nah. I hate that guy.”

He looks up at you. You’ve been sleeping well, he can tell. And eating decently. You don’t look like how you do in the magazines—you look better. His absence has been good for you. If he weren’t in so much fucking pain, he might feel something about that, but he doesn’t know what.

“Wanna heal me?” he asks.

Your jaw tightens.

“I can’t. I'm on that suppressant.”

“Right, right.” He parts his lips and breathes in deeply. His head is killing him. “Force of habit.”

He hadn’t apologized, but after a moment, you sigh and reply, “It’s okay.”

Dabi doesn't reply to that, too distracted by the heat from his body. His throat still burns from that whisky he downed several hours ago, and his skin is still singed from those anonymous hands from the club—

Right. The club, those hands, that kiss. He remembers why he came back here.

"You feeling better?"

Something in your eye flickers.

"...yeah."

He hums, looking at you up and down. Your cheeks have started filling out again. Your eyes are no longer weighted by shadows. He can see, from this angle, the thumb of the handprint he burned into your shoulder blade—it's scarred terribly, but healed. Aside from that ugly brand, your skin is flawless and dewy, and your hair is wet, and he can see the shape of your body underneath that towel of yours.

You aren't wasting away anymore.

"Good. Take that thing off and get on the bed."

You freeze—with the exception of your curling fist. You look like you're in pain, even though his hands aren't anywhere near you.

"What's the matter?" he drawls.

Your jaw trembles, like you have something to say. You have that expression that you get before you try to deny him, but he isn't bothered. He knows you'll give into him. You always do.

You aren't looking at him when you reply.

"Before you rape me," you say, voice quiet, "can I at least clean your wound? You're bleeding through your shirt."

He glances down. The staples beneath his collarbones, the ones running across his chest, are dripping with blood. There's a red streak blooming across his shirt.

"Sure," he decides.

"Okay."

You know where the first aid supplies are from all the times that Dabi's had to treat you, so you're pretty quick about gathering everything—even while wrapped in a towel. He lets you lead him into the washroom and in front of the sink.

It's a tight fit, having two people in there. There's hardly any space between the two of you.

"I need to wash your wound," you say.

"Obviously." You're close enough that his breath sweeps across your lips. You blink, glancing at his eyes.

"You've been drinking."

"Whiskey."

You make a face. "Of course."

He scowls. "What? What do you drink?"

"Whatever's put in front of me," you say. Dabi notices that you sound calm, which is strange—you were just shaking with fear when he first arrived. But you seem at ease in front of him now, standing before him and wanting to help him. Hazily, he wonders if you would scare if he put his arms around you.

Instead of trying that, he asks, "What, you don't have a preference?"

"Not really. It never matters what I want."

"That's a lie," he identifies. "You said in an interview, a few years back—you like Asahi." His voice is slurred, but he's confident.

"I said that because Asahi offered to pay more than any other brand." You sound tired. "I told you—it doesn't matter what I want."

You take a half-step toward him and give him a long look, which he returns. He realizes, with a start, that his face has never been so close to yours. After all, he's lost count of the number of times he's fucked you, but the two of you have never kissed.

He stares at your lips. Chapped and bare, but he bets they're soft.

"Dabi," you say after some time, "you'll need to take off your shirt."

He stiffens.

"No."

"I need to do it to treat your wound."

"No."

"You're bleeding through it anyway—"

You reach up, and he jerks back until he's pressed against the wall.

"Leave it alone."

"But you're hurt."

His head's in more pain than his wound, actually. It's pounding now, probably because he's sobering up and he hasn't had any water. He'd been wanting to get some, but then he started humouring your strange request to help him. He doesn't know why he played along. It's probably part of your big act that you care about him, which you've now roped Twice and Hawks into.

But you're a great actress. You look at him with those pretty, concerned eyes, the way that you did when you were both kids. So much compassion, kindness, and—and something else.

He wants to throw up.

"Why the fuck would it matter to you if I'm hurt?" he says after a beat.

"Don't be like that. Of course it matters to me."

" Why? "

"...force of habit."

You look sad now, like you want to curl into yourself, or into Touya. Your lip is trembling, and Dabi's dreading the inevitable flood of tears. His head is already killing him.

"Just—" He breathes in sharply. "Just get out."

"...fine."

"And don't fucking cry. It's annoying as hell."

You squeeze your eyes shut, wincing. Standing together in such a tight space, he can clearly see tears welling up at the corners of your eyes, shining like pearls—but you don't let them fall. You're good at following orders and acting pretty and lying, after all. After a moment, your breathing evens out and your expression flattens, and it's like this never happened. You never tried to clean his wound. He never asked you about your favourite drink. Twice never texted him about how lonely you are. Hawks didn't tell him that you've never dated anyone. You never got sick. He never held you.

And he never thought about kissing you.

"Wait for me on the bed," he says, as you're leaving. "Face-down. I don't want to look at you tonight, when I fuck you."

Your shoulders drop. You look disappointed, but not surprised.

"Alright."

xxxii. cycles

Dabi starts raping you again.

He's not forceful about it, but he's not gentle or slow either. He doesn't have to be anymore. Your body is always eager to take him now, wet before he even touches you. He easily makes you come once, twice, sometimes even three times before he undoes his belt. Whenever he lines himself up with your entrance and starts sliding into you, there's barely any resistance. He wonders, while his hips are slotted against yours, if you missed him being inside you as much as he did. If you missed the marks that he always leaves on you. If you missed the feeling of being possessed by him.

From the way that you soak his thighs, your body certainly did.

(Dabi, I think you should hurry home soon. I can tell she's real lonely without you.)

The two of you fall into an easy routine this way. He visits you when he's high-strung, and he fucks you until the stress is gone. After he's finished inside you, he'll maybe lie down and talk to you, if your mind clears up. Nine out of ten times, you don't comment on the filthy things he's said to you, and you seem to be surprised about how much time has passed. He often catches you counting new bruises in the mirror, studying each one like it shouldn't be there.

He isn't sure, but thinks you remember very little of the sex nowadays.

It's convenient when you can't recall any of it. You finish all your meals. You drink your water. You dose your pills appropriately. You talk to him and you're coherent when you do.

Often, you tell him about what it was like while he was gone.

"Your friend Twice," you say, "is really nice. Toga, too. She's very sweet."

Dabi opens his eyes specifically to give you an incredulous look.

"Sweet? " he says, appalled. "Toga is a brat. Rude as hell."

"She's just a kid," you write off, voice soft. "She bought me some clothes while you were gone. A dress and a sweater. It was thoughtful."

Dabi remembers this. You have ugly taste in clothes, Dabi, she texted him while he was gone, so I bought your girlfriend some new outfits. They're way cuter. ♡

"They probably both felt sorry for you," he says. You stare at him, looking a little surprised. He raises a brow at the confusion. "Twice is nuts and Toga is annoying, but they're not bad people. They have a conscience."

They both definitely think he's a piece of shit for keeping you here. Twice, when the unhinged shard of his personality was in control, told him as much once. Told Dabi that doing this to you was a new low for him.

Dabi doesn't disagree.

You don't comment on any of it—their pity, your misfortune, his crimes on your body. All you say is, "Then, I'm glad you have good people around you."

He goes quiet.

"I worried a lot, you know," you say quietly, "when I figured out you were alive. I kept wondering if anyone had been looking out for you, after you ran away."

"No one." After a pause, Dabi clarifies: "No one before, and no one after."

("Touya, you have to stop letting your flames run so hot," you sometimes scolded him, making him lift up his shirt so you could check his burns. "You'll worry your mom."

He scoffed at that, a strange anger curdling at the thought of her. His mother loved to fuss over him, even though he wasn't a kid anymore. She loved to berate his father, even though he never did anything that bad—he was just teaching Touya how to become a hero. She loved to interrupt his training sessions with her wailing and her crying, too.

Don't cry, his father always snapped, after shoving her to the floor. This is your fault. You got in the way.

"Who cares what she thinks," Touya grumbled. "She's so annoying.")

"That's not true," you murmur. "Your mother always took care of you."

For a moment, he says nothing.

"It doesn't matter," he reminds himself, eventually. "She was weak."

"She tried her best."

A long pause.

"You know why she ended up in the hospital, right?"

"Yeah. She burned little Shouto, and Endeavor couldn't have that." Dabi's smile is wry. "He should have admitted himself too, with all the shit that he did to us."

You sigh a little.

"As long as it's called training or discipline, parents get away with a lot," you say quietly.

Dabi glances at you, brow furrowed. Your own parents were strict—it's why you'd always wanted to run away—but you always said that it was nothing like his household. It couldn't have been, not with how much you rave about your parents in every interview, about them and their hero careers. They had to have been good to you in some way, for you to end up so successful.

"You always had people taking care of you," he says, almost accusatory.

"Sure," you say, voice faint. "Your mother did, a lot."

You sound a little sorry for yourself, which deeply annoys him. Before you can say anything, he cuts in, "And my father too, after I left?"

You stop. Any peace that he'd been enjoying is quickly broken, his drowsiness replaced by searing heat.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. Your body is still, bracing itself for either pain or violation, because you know what happens when you fuck up like this. He'll take his anger out on you; he'll leave a fresh set of marks for you to count; and then he'll depart for the night, not feeling like seeing you any longer. And hopefully this will be one of the nine out of ten times that you'll get amnesia about the whole thing.

But you end up remembering, and it's a pain in the ass.

"Why are you even so fucking sad about it?" he snaps, glaring at your untouched food. You're not crying, at least, but the hollowness of your eyes is starting to get on his nerves now. "I wasn't that rough with you last night."

("Don't listen to your mother, Touya. She doesn't think that you can be a hero, but we'll prove her wrong."

Touya shifted uncomfortably, his mother's body still crumpling before his eyes. He could hear her crying from the other room. "But you didn't have to hit her."

"I barely used any force when I did," his father dismissed. "She's being dramatic.")

"It's not about that," you mumble.

Dabi rolls his eyes. "No. I guess it's not. You just love feeling sorry for yourself."

That's what he hates the most about his conversations with you, regardless of your mood or your memory. The self-pity. The kicked-puppy eyes. The broken-woman tears. It's a complete and utter joke that someone like you can look at someone like him and have the gall to ask, Why did you leave me?

Why are you so hung up over that? You never needed him.

"That isn't true, Dabi."

"Yes, it is," he snaps, his false name ringing in his ears. "None of you needed me. That's why all of you forgot about me."

"I never forgot about you. You know that." Your voice is so weak. "I still needed you."

(“Do I know anything about her ex?" Hawks hummed. "I heard the guy died when they were both teenagers, and she never got over him. Sad, isn't it?")

Dabi wants you to tell you to stop lying, but he can't find the words.

xxxiv. apologies

You're the first person to see Dabi's video.

He's known, from the first time he decided to film this, that he wants you to see this. After all he's done to you, he figures that none of it will surprise you. But he needs you to see it, because without it, you'll never really understand what you did to him without it. You'll never really get the full extent of your betrayal.

("I owe so much to Endeavor," Dabi watched you say, at—of all fucking places—your annual little charity event for children's aid. "Everything I've accomplished is only because of him. So now that he's the Number One Hero, please support him!")

He chooses a day where your mind is clear. He makes you sit up, on the edge of the bed, tells you to pay close attention. He's sitting on the edge of his seat too, knee bouncing as he studies your face.

You watch Dabi's video in dead silence.

He documents each microexpression that flits over your face. Your brow knots immediately, seeing his shirtless form, all his scars laid bare. Your eyes flicker as he recounts the abuses of his childhood, and maybe you're remembering all the burns you had to heal and all that screaming that you heard between his parents. The lines of your face soften when he mentions how Endeavor also laid hands on Shouto, and that sends a wave of heat into his palms, even though he doesn't have the urge to burn you.

And then comes his plea for critical thought.

"I cannot forgive them! They're packaged and sold to you in the name of justice when they don't even have an ounce of empathy! And on top of that, they dare call themselves 'heroes'!"

(“People like you are exactly why I follow Stain’s ideals, did you know that? You’re just a fucking sellout.”)

Your eyes fall to your lap at those words, your hands trembling, and your face overflows with the kind of shame that brings him indescribable joy. Not even fucking you can bring him this kind of bliss—the knowledge that you know you hurt him, and that you'll never forget it.

The video cuts out at the end. Static, with white noise, all reflected in your pupils. It dominates the silence for a long time.

"I'm sorry," is all you can say.

"Sorry's not good enough."

(Won't be. Not ever. How could an apology repair what he'd done to you? Touya knew that you hated him now, hated him the way that his family did. Hated him how his mother hated Endeavor.

That day on Sekoto Peak, when he set fire to your flesh, was the last time he saw you before he died.)

"I know."

A long pause. You turn to him, watching carefully.

"What will you do?"

"Change how things work. Change how hero society works." He stops, then decides to make himself extra clear: "And I'll start by destroying Endeavor."

You hesitate.

"Then, what will you do to Shouto?"

His eyes narrow.

"He's Endeavor’s successor. I have to kill him."

You can't, he knows you want to say. But you swallow the words, bitter in your throat, knowing what punishment will await you if you try to defend his father's greatest work.

Hesitation.

"What will you do to me?"

"What I've already been doing."

His hand rests upon the brand he inlaid upon your thigh. He wants to burn into it again, like an affirmation. You stare at it, blank-faced.

"What is it that you've been doing?"

Your face is so close to his. Dabi has lost count over the number of times he's fucked you, but he's still never kissed you. Never bruised and dirtied those lips, which bloomed with gloss and eroticism on all those magazine covers. Lips that were never meant for him, a genetic failure that shouldn't exist. Lips that were too good for him, until he forced them around his cock.

"Been dragging you to my level." He doesn't press his mouth to yours. Instead, he leans in, and his voice is hot in your ear, "Been making it so no one will want you except for me."

He expects a look of disgust. He expects fear and betrayal. But instead you pull away to look at him, with those sad, pretty eyes, and you ask:

"You still want me, Touya? After everything I've done?"

Don't be stupid. Of course he wants you. He's wanted you ever since you asked him to run away with you. He's wanted you ever since he realized that you were too good for him, with your perfect genes and glamour and glitz. He's wanted you since the day you turned his back on him and started eating out of his father's bloodstained hand, spoiling yourself with the greatest vices of society. He's wanted you since that first time you gave into the pleasure of being violated by him. He's wanted you since you told him, I'll be waiting for you, despite it.

He wants you. He's always wanted you. He'll want you forever. That's why he ruined you.

Your eyes go soft.

"I understand," you say.

Tears gather in your eyes when he pushes you down into the bed, but you do not struggle.

xxxvi. collapse

The sex takes a strange turn after that.

In some ways, it stays the same. Your body wants him. Your mind does not. You're broken when you remember what he's done to you. You're put together when you don't.

But regardless of whether or not you're in tatters or if you're intact, it's different in the aftermath now. Dabi cleans you up, tallies up the bruises in his head and makes mental notes to be gentler next time, if there are too many. A few times it gets too much for you, and you cry uncontrollably, but he never tells you to stop—even if it annoys the shit out of him, and even if it makes him feel sick. He just waits for you to finish and then brings a tissue to your face, cleans off your tears the way he cleaned off your blood.

He never runs out afterwards, also. He always lies down next to you, and he talks if you're in your mind and he listens to your breathing if you're out. He stays close to you either way. Close enough to count the lashes on your face. Close enough to trace the lines on your face. Close enough for him to feel your breath sweep his nose.

You're close to him when you ask your questions.

Do you really want me?

Isn't that what he said? Don't make him repeat himself.

Do you believe me now, when I say that I never forgot about you?

Sometimes he buys it; sometimes he doesn't. Depends on his mood, really.

Why did you rape me, but no one else?

Isn't it obvious? He's never wanted anyone else. Not like how he wanted you.

If you wanted me, then why did you leave me?

You should know why already. This answer always comes as a snap, so you look at him, with your soft, pretty eyes, and you say, I'm sorry, Dabi. He reaches over and swipes a thumb over your cheek, coming away with a stray, wet lash.

It occurs to him that besides his mother, poor Todoroki Rei, no one else has ever apologized for all the garbage in his childhood. When he tells you as much, your frown deepens and you say, "You deserved better than that."

Dabi doesn't know what to say to this, so he always derails with his own questions, asking things like—

How come you never forgot about me?

"Because I needed you."

Why didn't you date anyone, after I died?

"I just didn't know how."

Why did you sell out?

"I had no choice."

"Bullshit," he snarls, and you look guilty.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is." You sigh. "It's because I was weak."

Did you try to erase me, like everyone else?

"Never."

You would never do that to him, you tell him. Even when you thought he was dead, you didn't want to let go of him. Even when you knew he was alive, you wanted him back.

It makes him want to fuck you again. Why something like that would ignite the desire to rape you, he has no clue. But he forces himself on you, and he plies your body with his filthy touch until it's keening for him, and he'll never get over the feeling of having you finish around his cock. Or the pressure of your mouth against the scars on his neck. Or the sweep of your breath across an open wound. Or even just the closeness of it all.

You still entertain his questions after that.

"Do you hate me for what I've done," he asks—no question mark.

You don't reply. You shudder, a little bit, when he traces the handprint that fucked up your perfect legs.

"Do you hate me for leaving these on you?" he murmurs.

"I wish you hadn't done it," you admit.

His mouth slants—not angrily, but not kindly, either. "What, you mad about your modeling contracts? No more bikini photoshoots, huh?”

You don't smile at his joke.

"That's not it." You look down at where his hand is. "I wish you hadn't done it, but I'm not sad about the scars. I'd rather have them than not."

His hand squeezes your thigh, right over the ugly tissue.

"How come?"

You hum.

"There's nothing worse than someone hurting you and pretending that it never happened. Don't you think so?"

("Say it! Say what you did to me! Say what you did to me, just because you wanted a replacement for Touya so badly! Say what you did to me! ")

Nausea creeps into Dabi's belly.

"What makes you say that?" he asks, voice stiff.

You stare at the ceiling.

"My parents did that to me," you whisper. "All the time."

His body runs at 39°C, and suddenly his clenched fist is flaring with heat, but his blood feels fucking frigid.

"What do you mean, they did that to you?"

You seem confused now, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"Dabi," you say, "don't you know that my parents used to hit me? Your mom never told you?"

("Let's run away together, Touya.")

"What?"

(One summer evening, on their way back from the convenience store, Touya and his mother caught you running away from your bullies, barefoot and red-eyed.)

"What do you mean, they hit you?"

("You must always protect her, Touya. Remember that.")

You look tired now. So, so tired, and he's thinking about watching you on the big screen in your UA tracksuit, standing without him at your side. Dark circles under your eyes, so deep that Touya wondered if you were okay.

"Quirks are physical abilities," you say quietly. "They get stronger with use, just like muscles. And my quirk is so strong that I'm nearly immortal."

("My parents used to think I was quirkless," you mentioned once, after you learned about how proud Endeavor was of Touya's flames, "until I fell down some stairs and they watched my bones heal on the spot! They were so excited.")

"How do you think I got so good at healing myself?"

end part 3

I apologize for the existence of this entire chapter :’))) thank you for reading it all!!!!

HUGE thank you to @mengdus for beta-reading this travesty, also. This chapter would not be up right now were it not for her help!

a quick note on posthumous names, which were alluded to in the first chapter, and now play a role in this one: in Japanese Buddhist funerary rites, the deceased will be assigned a 'kaimyo' (a precept name; sometimes translated as ‘dharma name’). Based on what I've read, this posthumous name indicates the deceased person's entry into the Buddhist path and rebirth into the Pure Land. There are also some who believe that the posthumous name must be given to prevent the soul of the deceased from being summoned when someone says their name in life.

Some people, when returning from funerals, will intentionally avoid going directly home afterwards as a means to prevent the deceased from following them.

#dabi x reader #todoroki touya x reader #touya todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #dabi #todoroki touya #i am blindly posting this right now please tumblr do not break the formatting. i am raying #PRAYING* #i am crawling under a rock now goodbye i cant believe i wrote any of this

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