Chapter Text
The sound of a door, then a woman giggling. You look up from your phone to see Dabi and a beautiful stranger beside him. The laughter stops as the perfect blonde doll turns her attention to you. "Good evening, good evening ." Her voice is as unbearable as her laughter.
Dabi places a hand on the small of her back to invite her fearlessly into the darkened room. You smile weakly to greet her in return. Pure hypocrisy.
"It's (y/n), no need to scratch friendship with her, you wouldn't like her, she wouldn't like you" Dabi exclaims, face buried in the back of the girl's neck.
Your answer is a grin and a nod. You immediately turn your attention back to your phone, the only source of light in this living room flooded by the darkness of the night. Well, the darkness allowed by the incessant activity of the city. Dabi grabs his prey by the hips to guide her towards their next step. He gives you one last look before heading down the corridor to the bedroom. You don't notice him.
That night you are alone in this flat in the slums of the city, a temporary hideout of the League. Shigaraki allows you to spend the night there a few times. He doesn't really know why, and didn't try to understand when you asked him. It's strange to want to spend the night alone in a dirty place, far from being placed in a good neighbourhood. But then, you're old enough to know what you want and what you're doing. The only rule is to be discreet. And your boss doesn't have to worry too much about that. Nobody ever notices you. The only people who never noticed you were them, the League. One for All more precisely, who insisted on recruiting you to Shigaraki, before he was arrested by All Might. A detail you don't know.
Weary of this flood of information, each one as futile as the next, you lock your phone and lie down on the worn sofa. Hands on your chest, you scan the peeling paint on the ceiling.
After five minutes of unbearable moaning and laughter from the room, you decide to go out on the balcony. The fresh wind and the muffled roar of the city take you away from this reality of yours. You start to imagine yourself in the place of that bitch between Dabi's thighs. You start to imagine you are the one that people notice, that you’re the one that they come to for a good time, even for a night. It's true after all. Nobody notices you.
Leaning against the balcony railing, your face cupped in your hands, you wonder what would happen if you jumped right now. At this height you'd have a good chance of not making it. Would they notice?
"What's wrong with you tonight?" Dabi's voice cuts through the air.
You didn't see him leaning against the railing beside you. Without bothering to answer his question, you say : “Is it over already with the other one?”
“No, I left my cock there, she’s sucking me off.” His answer brings a smile to your face, one of those weak smiles you know how to do. “You didn't answer me, what's wrong with you tonight?” His tone is even sharper.
“Do I look different from other nights?” You quip.
He straightens up as if his threatening tone alone wasn't enough. Now, in addition to piercing the air with his sharp words, he is piercing your being with his turquoise pupils. You feel his needles in your back. Yet you don't do him the pleasure of facing him.
“I don't know, I've been coming here for two nights, I've been seeing you for two nights. Don't you have a home?” He resumes.
“And don't you have a place to fuck your bitches?”
Violently, Dabi grabs your handle. You almost hit your chin against the railing, unbalanced. The powerful hand wrapped around your handle forces you to turn
towards its owner.
“You decided not to answer my questions... I see. Just jump, yeah. I know you were thinking about that before I got here. “
He lets go of your grip, and turns back to the living room. Your eyes fill with tears that you hold back. You don't want to give him the satisfaction of being right. At the threshold of the bay window, with his back to you, he looks over his shoulder at you. Before he says:“I can see it in your face, that expression you have, as if you were bearing all the suffering in the world.”
His words, the way he talks to you, his disdainful look, you feel the anger rising inside you.
“What the fuck did I do to you to make you talk to me like that?” you say, shoving him violently with both hands against his chest.
In the process, he backs away and hits the open window behind him. You quickly make your way into the living room without turning around. The warm liquid begins to slide down your cheeks, chilled by the night.
Behind you, Dabi feels the fire consuming him as he watches you walk away. Deep down, he doesn't really understand why he's acting this way with you. He keeps telling himself it's because he can't stand to see you feeling sorry for yourself. Or because he can't stand seeing you with so little self-esteem. Always hiding behind clothes that are much too big for you, hiding behind excuses for not being yourself.
You search frantically under the sofa, one knee on the ground, one hand on the cushion for balance, the other feeling the weathered fabric underneath the sofa. You tilt your head, letting your eyes search under the old furniture. All they find are Dabi's feet coming dangerously close, brushing against the beige carpet.
“Is this what you're looking for, Princess?" He says with a smirk on his face.
Your eyes end up searching Dabi's charred hand, at the end of which the source of your search is waving. A bag containing pills. Instantly, you freeze, all you have to do is use your quirk and bring the bag to yourself, without any effort. To do this, you would still have to know how to control your quirk. Without taking your eyes off the precious bag, you think: "I'll try with my quirk but I might break something or hurt it... or I'll throw myself at it but it might burn the pills without hesitation.” You opt for another solution. You need those pills, they help you calm down, you just have to crush them and inhale the powder to feel better for a while. Or rather, to not feel anything for a while. You swallow your dignity.
“Yes please...give them to me.”
You reach out desperately for his hand, looking down. Knowing full well what you'll find in his eyes, you don't risk doing this to yourself.
“Well, there you go, you can answer questions whenever you want.”
With all his imposing stature, he advances towards you, slowly, without taking his eyes off you. He now stands a little less than a metre away from you, the bag still hanging from his fingertips.
Totally absorbed by his shadow, which seems to occupy all the space, you lift your chin in his direction, taking care to avoid his gaze.
“I thought you'd stopped taking that shit?”
The bag rattles and the pills clatter together with a sound of crumpled plastic. You don't look a millimetre away from the wobbly picture on the decrepit wall.
“I stopped, I just…”
“You just wanted to congratulate yourself on the months of abstinence?” he cuts you off. “Look at me when I talk to you!”
His sudden rise in tone surprises you, you comply and put your eyes right into his. Your pulse quickens, and your chest rises steadily, like a countdown to the next blow you will receive.
It is at this moment that a female figure emerges from the shadows. Dabi suddenly turns her head towards her. Awakened and intrigued by your exchange, the young woman was watching you from the corridor.
“Don't mind me." The pretty blonde announces as she gathers her things and heads for the front door of the flat. “You've got my number anyway." She added.
Her air of playfulness has left her, replaced by pity. Only the thrill of danger that the blue-flamed villain knows how to provoke in others, the thrill that makes his prey of a night let themselves be seduced, remains.
She leaves the flat and with the slam of the door, all of Dabi's attention falls on you again, like a crushing weight.
“It's no great loss. For you, though…”
The same sly smile as a few moments earlier appears on his face again. He burns the bag that has been hanging from his fingers all this time. In the blink of an eye, your last precious pills are reduced to ashes, along with your last hopes of clearing your mind for the evening.
“Why did you do that?" Your voice breaks.
Your dejected eyes meet Dabi's. His mocking, superior air has faded. His gaze is now hard, stern. Yet, in the depths of his irises, his soul seems to show a sincere tenderness. You do not perceive this deep feeling in him, almost undetectable to your mind too busy realising what has just happened. On the ground, the ashes of your escape route to a hell you're trying to escape, maybe you can do something with them. Maybe it can still work?
“Don't even think about it.”
With the back of his foot, Dabi sweeps away the ashes and your last hopes of flying away for tonight. His arms put aside their power to come gently behind your back. They hug you to his chest, warm, soothing.
All you want to do is fill the void inside you. To stop feeling only indifference or anxiety. To stop feeling the emptiness of your life, at least for a while. To feel that nothing matters anymore, that nothing exists, not even you.
But cuddled up in Dabi's arms, a feeling comes over you that you never thought you would know. This warmth that floods your being from within. Everything disappears around you two. Only this fire remains that consumes you. Like the bag of pills earlier, you feel a part of you turning to ash in the heat that is Dabi. And when that fire with a hand under your chin, raises your face to his. Then you see only a sun. A sun that struggles to hold back the flames that have already consumed him too much, judging by his scars. A sun that consumes you without him knowing it. His lips rest on your forehead. You could do anything for him. As long as his rays warm your skin and dry your tears
*****