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cecil-is-an-eldrich-deity · 2 months ago

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Price of a Future

Pairing: Shigadabi

Rating: Explicit, 18+ only

Summary: Commissioned by an anonymous user. After being exiled from his city, Dabi fully intends to cross the monster-infested wastes of No Man's Land to the city-state of the Demon King. He may have been ignored, but he was watching and listening and he will use whatever means he can find to bring ruin to his father. He just doesn't expect to first trade his body for his life when a dragon corners him with an usual proposition.

Contents: Fantasy AU, Dub-Con, Fuck or Die, Dragon!Tomura, Somnophilia, Feminization, Breeding Kink, Oviposition, Belly Bulge, Multiple Orgasms, Prostate Milking, Double Penetration, Non-Human Genitalia, Tail Sex, Intoxication Kink, Praise Kink, Teratophilia, Dacryphilia.

Word Count: 10,686

Being a traveler on an unfamiliar road in an unfamiliar region is already a dangerous gamble. Being a single traveler is even worse. If inclement weather and bad direction keeping don't get one in trouble, then it's very easy to be seen as an easy target for bandits, wolves, and other monsters who might want more than supplies or life if they can wrest it away from their victims. Dabi has been traveling alone for two months now. Ever since his father had him run out of the village when he'd threatened to expose the secret abuse that he had put them all through in retaliation for blocking Dabi's path to become a warrior, even though his broken magic didn't technically disqualify him from holding that post. And without anywhere to go, without knowing how or if he would be able to make a name for himself, without a legal course of action he could take to do real harm to the man, Dabi had taken the supplies that he could, and he started walking. The territory of the Demon King is south and that area has been at war with his homeland for centuries. He has information about the wall that his father guards that Enji doesn't think that he's smart enough to do anything with and he can and will make that a problem for the other man. Maybe he can buy passage into the city with that information, maybe he can humiliate his father, destroy the city, ensure that no one who stood by inside of those walls and turned a blind eye to his suffering are left standing. He has so much hatred black in his heart that he doesn't care when he knows he's crossed into no man's land and he sees that the land has grown twisted and warped from how much violence has been done on this soil. He only cares for that violence now.

The trees and vegetation are sparse here, the land turned dry and brittle from magical and mundane flames alike, but he knows which areas were scorched by dragon breath because they have carved scars so deeply into the earth that the natural way of the soil through wind and rain do not have a hope of healing them. The sky is overcast and gray overhead, the early autumn chill starting to saturate the air and mirroring the barrenness of the ground below. He is glad that he anticipated the travel through this area would be unpleasant and he made sure to stock up on his supplies. His magic is weak, but even he can conjure water from the air to drink if there are no waterways, trees, or rain to bring him refreshment, and he can keep his stomach sated on the rations he brought with him if no hunting presents itself to him. It is a week's travel from where he is now to the city of Zakroth where he hopes his information will reach fruitful ears and if he can use his words to destroy the false city of idols that his father has always longed to stand at the peak of, then Dabi will finally consider the scales of his life set even again. Whatever happens after that will no longer be something that he has fear of.

So Dabi walks and the gentleness of his footfalls is the only companion that he has.

///

He sleeps on the ground fitfully, unable to find solid rest because he knows that there are horrors that wander these wastes. Ghost stories of soldiers who had been sundered by dragon fire and now roam the night, looking like an inviting campfire in the distance until one gets close enough to make out the shape of their bones blackened in the flames who run screaming after any who try to flee to bring something solid into their own agony, to lessen it for even just a moment. He has heard tales of the scattered trees shifting in the night, digging their sharp, petrified roots up through the soil in the hope of reaching sleeping travelers and spearing them during their rest, sucking away their life blood to reinvigorate themselves after remaining thirsty for so long. There are hundreds of stories about how the Demon King's influence moves through the world and how violently it rends wounds into the flesh of it as it goes. So his sleep is fitful and his traveling is with a light, quick foot so that he can move through this space unaccosted by anything that might roam hungrily across the land.

But his steps aren't light enough, aren't fast enough, because three days into his travel through no man's land, he feels... something. It's an instinctive, bone-deep awareness that something is going very wrong. that there is something horrible that is about to happen and he turns to look at his surroundings, casting witchfire so hot that it burns blue in his palms as he looks around the area he finds himself in. He cannot see any animals or specters, the ground also still where it rests overtop the roots.

It has been dark for days now with the overcast sky growing pregnant with the promise of a storm that never comes and the belching of smoke thick from the machines of war in battlefields that have left this region, but still march on and clash against one another kilometers away. So there is no shadow to be cast overhead before he is aware of the heavy beating of massive wings that send dust clouding his vision and nearly knocking him from his feet, leaving his eyes half-blind as he understands that of all the horrors that he expected to face in this land, he had hoped that he might have just enough luck to be spared from the very worst of them. He should have known that after waking from a two year nightmare with his skin stapled into place, that the gods themselves have renounced any fortune or favor that he might have been privileged enough to find in this life.

"You do not belong here, mortal." The voice that speaks is raspy and baritone, spoken loudly enough that Dabi can hear him over the thud of a massive body hitting the ground far too close to him.

Terror lances his heart, and even knowing that the smallest of this species of monstrosity are immune to it, he attempts to hurl a whirlwind of flame around the area, hoping to distract the creature's sight. There is so far to run and so few places to hide, but if he can break line of sight and find one of the breath-scars carved black into the earth, he might be able to pull his cloak high over his light hair and lay in the ashes and fragments of bones from long-dead soldiers until this creature tires of looking for him.

Among the dust and flames, he cannot see the large black tail before it is slamming into his stomach-- or more accurately, until he is running directly into it as he turns to try to get out of this place, only to find that the dragon has curled its body around him, caging him in so he would have to scramble over a limb to get away, alerting it to what direction he would try to flee, if the creature cannot see him already as he's knocked off of his balance.

"So strange," the tone drips with the creature's amusement. Panic tries to stall out his mind, but Dabi forces himself to think. Dragons are prideful creatures. Certainly they will simply kill if that is what they find amusing or if that is what they have need of if they are looking for a meal rather than anything else. But they can also be so arrogant and desire lackies to do their bidding. They can be bought off with tribute if whatever is offered is great enough. Dabi only needs to find a way of providing something when he has nothing, is nothing after his exile, and he may be able to get out of this place alive. "Usually the mortals who wander these wastes are brave or foolish. But you know not to strike me with flames yet choose to run instead of trying some other trick of the arcane to fight. A rare thing for a coward to make it so far."

The smoke and dust start to settle and Dabi sees the black scales of the tail in front of him, feels the weight of the dragon's eyes on him from behind, and he takes a slow breath before he turns, not looking at the beast, and bows as deeply as he had been taught to for royalty. "A coward maybe, but bravery is the foolishness of heroes, and I am a smart enough man to know that a being such as yourself would not ever be felled by a lone warrior mage, and certainly not I."

"Is that so?" There is a clear amusement in the creature's voice and Dabi does his best to hold still and not tremble when the beast shifts, its neck stretching towards him because its head is nearer, he knows it is as he can smell a fetid decay of flesh on its teeth mixed with the sulfuric smell of burning, it's warm breath puffing over his skin deliberately as the dragon inspects him. "And what would bring a clever coward through my lands?"

"Necessity only, my lord." He says staying bowed, "And only ignorance that would bring me to do so without proper tribute. You have my sincerest apologies for this indiscretion, my lord."

"Such a silvered tongue on you, isn't there, traveler? And yet after offering such politeness, you give me no name."

Dabi doesn't want to give this creature that. Names are power, and even though his original one was taken and sundered by his father through his exile, he doesn't want the one he's taken for himself to become known by this dragon who has trapped him within the circle of his body. But he doesn't have a choice if he doesn't want to get himself in more trouble. "My apologies again, it is so difficult to keep my wits about myself when faced with resplendence and power such as your own, and for a moment I forgot my new title-- as I have been in exile for not even a season yet and have been stripped of my original moniker. But if it so pleases you, my lord, the name you may know me by is Dabi."

"Dabi," The creature savors the word with a cruelty on its tongue that makes his skin burn, his magic wanting to surge up and lash out to protect himself, no matter how he knows that is not something that will actually help him in this moment. "You come into my lands unprepared, uninvited, and without tribute." The dragon tells him that dark satisfaction in each word. "I have tortured and killed many more for far fewer slights in my life, but you," amusement that has him blowing smoke over Dabi's trembling body, "proclaim to be a clever coward, and I know that a coward will do anything at all to survive. So tell me, Dabi, what would you do to live past this moment?"

And it's something reckless and furious inside of him that has him looking up at the dragon, a glare in his eye as he meets the massive, slitted red ones that are watching him with that amusement. "Anything if it means that I will live long enough to see the ones who wronged me brought to ruin." And if he has to put a dragon among them, then so be it.

As if the creature can read his mind it lets out a satisfied rumble from somewhere deep in its chest and a massive clawed hand reaches towards him. Dabi holds very still as a talon sharp enough to peel the flesh from his bones, moves beneath his chin and lifts his head so that he is straining to look into the dragon's eyes as it straightens up so it can look down on him. "I have need of a companion for a day or so, someone who will receive my clutch so I can rid myself of this annoyance. Be that recipient for me, and when the eggs have been laid and put to rest, I will allow you to walk free and unaccosted from my lair."

A sourness opens in Dabi's gut as the dragon offers him a violation for his life. He wants to spit on his scales, wants to tell him that he would sooner take his meager dagger to the monster's manhood than ever allow himself to be turned into nothing but a broodmare like his-- But if he fights now, he dies now. He is not a warrior like his father, not a soldier with an army behind him who might be lucky enough to fight and fell one of these beasts against overwhelming odds. He is only a man with a fractured gift of the arcane and only knows that he will not make it to Zakroth if he doesn't make hard choices now.

"Allow me to walk free from your lair and unaccosted through the rest of your territory as well, my life never cut short by your machinations." He throws those words back at the dragon with as much venom as he would throw a fireball if he thought it would do him any good.

And for his trouble, the dragon laughs, "Oh, little one, a fey wove silver into that tongue of yours, didn't it? Very well, you will leave my lands unaccosted and I will not see your life come to an end on my word."

"Your name." Dabi demands. It's not only fey who require it to make a deal, though they are the arbitrators of those made between the mortal and magical races. "And the deal is struck."

"Tomura Shigaraki," And he says it with such a self satisfied purr that Dabi does not doubt any legend or story he has ever heard about the arrogance of these beasts. "My nest is in the mountains far from here, and I have no desire to shadow you as you trundle your way through my lands." He uncurls his body from around Dabi's and then lowers his massive form to the ground, his wings tucked down to the sides of his form so that he can... climb onto his back. There are sharp spikes that run along his frame, ones that Dabi has no doubt could easily pierce his flesh, but the body of the creature is so large that he thinks that he will be able to position himself between them in order to ride the monster as he flies.

Still, the fear that enters his heart as he approaches the creature's body, able to see his own wane expression reflected back at him from the jet scales-- no, he realizes as he gets closer. Not jet, but the deepest garnet that he's ever seen, as he brings a hand to one and has to hook his fingers in the fine gaps between the overlapping pattern of them to hoist himself up, having to situate himself carefully to manage the position, his arms wrapping tight around the spike in front of as he locks his arms as tightly as he can, terrified that the first gust of wind will knock him off.

It doesn't do that, but it does take the breath from his throat as with one powerful movement, Tomura Shigaraki launches himself back into the sky, his wings moving fast and hard. The frigid wind wicks a few helpless tears from Dabi's eyes before he closes them tight and tries not to feel how far behind him he's left his stomach as well.

///

When they stop, Dabi can't pay attention to anything. He certainly doesn't see where exactly they've landed or what the lair of this monster is like. He just has to get off of him as fast as possible as bile surges up his throat and he finds himself with an arm braced against cold stone, as the few rations he's had today are immediately expelled after putting his body through such vigorous motion. He thought riding horseback was a nightmare, he had no idea how much worse flying could be. Dabi is so sick, so dizzy, that he forgets where he is and what for as he tries to get his body back within his control.

He's not expecting to have a cool hand press against the small of his back as another offers him a scrap of fabric and a waterskin. Dabi blinks and looks up, startled to find a man looking back at him, his expression pitying. It's the eyes that tell him immediately that this is the visage of the dragon who brought him here, still red and slitted where they sit in a mostly mortal face. A handsome face, as so many of the most powerful monsters in this world are handsome, though his skin is marred in many places with scars, though none are as extreme as Dabi's own. From the mane of wavy white hair that falls wild around his face and down to his waist, two black horns of bone jut out and curve back along his skull, his large wings settled against his back and scales creeping over his shoulders and along the sides of his neck that Dabi can see. His pale skin is all exposed to him, the dragon standing naked and undaunted in this form that is corded with enough muscle that no one would doubt his strength even without the obvious markers of his draconic heritage. Dabi's eyes drift lower for a split second before he snatches the rag and water, wiping his mouth and swishing the first mouthful before spitting again to take the taste of his sickness away as he tries to grapple with the two thick, long pricks that hang between his thighs and the knowledge that he will likely have both inside of him if he truly wants to live through this experience.

"Normally people are honored to take a place in my nest on these occasions. I've never had one so revolted that they were ill." He sounds amused and Dabi wishes he'd taken the opportunity to throw up on him. It would have served him right for forcing him into this situation.

"Forgive my rudeness," he manages to hiss, "I haven't ever flown before and I'm afraid that the motion did not sit well with me."

If anything, Shigaraki only seems more amused at his comment and he turns to walk deeper into the... cave that they have landed at the mouth of. It's probably a good thing that Dabi was already sick because as he looks out at the world beyond, standing at the mouth of this cave so high in the air, he wonders at the sight of the barren land far below and the dark spires of Zakroth in the far distance. But no so far he can't actually see the city now. Maybe two days of travel instead of another two weeks if their deal stands and he can get out of this arrangement alive.

Light erupts at his back and Dabi startles as he turns to see what is happening, the dragon bringing a hand to his mouth and spilling breath of flame out into his palm that flickers and doubles, triples, quadruples, and splits off into many more scattered parts as it goes through the carved cavern and lights the torches that have been mounted all along the walls, bringing the interior to as warm and bright as a homestead in his village might be. The cave itself seems to be a single room with a large carved ceiling, a hole put through the top to help to take smoke out of the area as the dragon lights a large fire pit at the center of the room. There isn't finery, no hoard of treasure around, but there does seem to be a wide array of food that has been gathered, meats and herbs hanging, bushels of potatoes and other vegetables, a few casks of some form of alcohol in the corner of the room. Enough around that Dabi knows that the creature could feed himself in either form, with the only other lavish dressings the pile of pillows, silks, and furs off to the side of the room. The creature goes over to the fire pit, bricked around with the only cut stones in the entire domicile, and reaches without fear of being burned to place a massive iron grate over top of it, creating a flat surface for him to set an equally large pot on top of. Then he waves a hand and Dabi startles as a barrel tucked off to the side of the entrance that he is standing in closes its lid and then rolls through the cavern to his side. Shigaraki opens it and lifts it without straining his muscles, and rainwater pours into the pan.

"A bath, a meal, and rest. These are the luxuries I can offer to ensure that your time as my mate comes without threatening your life and well-being, as I have given you my word. The more you allow yourself to relax, the easier it will be for your body to accept my clutch."

Dabi snorts softly as he crosses his arms and makes his way deeper into the cave after the creature, his words coming out before he can think better of them. "Do you often manage to put those you intend to violate at ease?"

"It's not something I do often," He says, no shame in his tone. But why would there be? He is a creature so far from mortal, he shouldn't have expected him to have any care about what mortals would consider heinous. "But if you cannot allow yourself to relax, then accepting my clutch will be uncomfortable at best, and will require you to take days off of your travel to recover from at worst."

Dabi is even less happy about that, uncertain if he will be able to relax enough to not be torn open on the monster's cocks and eggs, but not wanting to intentionally make his life harder. He says nothing as he finds one of the stone benches around the fire pit that the dragon has made, sitting with his arms crossed as he tries to wait for what will happen next. With the water, presumably to fill the large wooden tub off to the other side of the room, being warmed over the fire, the dragon brings down a fine side of beef and places it, unseasoned, untrimmed, untouched, onto the great as well to let the fire blacken it.

"Do dragons have no sense of taste? Or does cooked meat simply not interest you as much as something that dies screaming between your teeth."

Shigaraki still seems amused as he responds, "Dishonor on me for ever thinking that you were a creature of cowardice, that silvered tongue is certainly bolder than I first thought. Only marrow is at its best when it is broken from bones still covered in blood, but though I have many skills, cooking is not one that I have had the time or inclination to put my mind to mastering." He takes the beef from the grate and sets it atop a bench closer to him. "It is your meal, prepare it how you wish if you have more knowledge than I. Use whatever you would like, eat as much as you want. I brought these rations to sustain me for a miserable week alone as I laid my clutch, with you here, it will take me hours instead of days."

Dabi expects the creature to be insulted, but he steps back from the food and after a second, after two months on foot with his stomach aching from how he has been stretching his rations, he would like to have a good meal in him. He doesn't know if that will truly blunt what is about to happen to him, but he could eat something and at least not be raped and hungry by the end of it. He hesitantly stands up and moves to the stores of food. The cuts of meat that are here are finer than those his family would be given for the winter's solstice in honor of Enji's work as a guardian of the city. There are jars of spices that he has never seen in such quantities and that only containers a tenth as large would still be sold for a gold at market. There are crates of vegetables and the casks are of wine, brandy, and ale, all of it seeming rich and fortified, not the cheap watery stock that is usually served in bars. This dragon may have turned this spot into a place only for him to rest for a week, not a great hoard of gold around as he sits and watches him inspect his supplies, but he has ensured that Dabi knows his extravagant wealth simply from the 'basic' supplies that he has curated in this space.

He finds other pans, knives, and utensils, and Dabi ignores his audience, setting about making a meal that will not be nearly as foul if he ends up tasting it for a second time if he is forced to from the horrors his mind isn't sure it will be able to endure.

///

Dabi makes so many dishes, all ones that are left to cook over the fire that burns with a solid, consistent heat, more logs never needed as the dragon's arcane breath keeps it lit for him as the cave starts to fill with the scent of deliciously spiced food. His mouth is already watering, but the water for his bath has been warm enough now for an hour and he can only let the food cook as Shigaraki fills the tub for him, also offering him a variety of soaps and balms for his skin as he moves over to the rustic wooden tub. There is no privacy in this cave, and Dabi refuses to acknowledge the eyes he can feel watching him as he reluctantly strips his clothes.

"Can you put more water on the stove?" He asks, not knowing if that is too much a demand to make even with the bargain that has been made to keep the monster from lashing out against him for as long as he's here. "I would like to wash my clothes as well if I have the chance." He lets each piece fall into a small pile on the floor, his body not cold even in his stark nakedness when his nerves and the dragon's fires are warming the cave. He wonders if seeing how completely his body is ruined will make the creature think better of this arrangement and call it off. Afterall, for a monstrosity used to having the finer things in life, why would he want someone who looks like him?

Dabi jumps a mile when a cold, clawed hand moves along his spine, starting at the base of it just above the curve of his ass, knuckles gliding over each bump of bone before he finds a section of his scars. Then his palm fans out over his skin and he strokes his thumb... gently over the staples that hold those parts of him together.

"What must have happened to you for the gods to believe in keeping you here so adamantly that they would piece you back together and allow your skin to sparkle like starlight?"

Dabi flinches away from the touch, his face heating sharply and his humor souring even more sharply. "The gods cursed this body and my spirit refused to die. These are not stars in my skin, they're every tear that they shed when they realized that I would not be so easily cowed and discarded-- by them or by anyone else who ever doubted me." He looks Shigaraki in the eye as he snarls those words and seeing the dragon's expression not turn disgusted, but brighten with his delight, makes Dabi think that he might be losing his mind.

"Beautiful all the same." The dragon tells him as he takes a step back and gathers Dabi's clothes from the floor. "This at least I can provide as a host." He doesn't sound insulted by the task and he goes and washes Dabi's clothes as he takes a proper bath for the first time in weeks.

Despite all efforts, the warm water does soothe some of Dabi's nerves even though he doesn't want anything that happens to feel good after having to trade his body and dignity for his life. But by the time the smell of food is so thick in the air that he can't stay in the tub any longer for how hungry he's become, he doesn't feel as though he is about to die on the spot. Shigaraki washed and hung his clothes on a line near the entrance of the cave and when he stirs from the tub, he brings him a towel and one of the long silks from the nest that must serve as his bed to wrap around himself. It's not exactly helping to conceal his modesty when it is thin, but just having the fabric as a barrier helps him to keep his head on straight.

He takes what he needs too off of the fire, laying out the, admittedly, too much food that he cooked on platters that line one of the stone benches before he serves himself a portion and then steps aside. He isn't about to actively feed the dragon, even if it might be rude. But Shigaraki doesn't seem upset at all as he also gathers his meal and they both sit on one of the remaining benches. If nothing else, then the bath and the food reassure him that he's going to survive a bit longer than he thought he might traveling the wastes than he did at the beginning.

They eat in silence for a long while before Shigaraki speaks, "You're a good cook. What other talents do you have?"

"It's not a talent, it's a skill that I had to hone because when mortals are not lucky enough to be steeped in the arcane, they have to find other ways to be useful or be tossed aside." He can't keep the bitterness from his tone as he speaks to this creature he is certain has never known a moment of doubt or weakness in his life. "My magic failed me, so I became a servant for my household." And still he couldn't be useful enough to keep his father from exiling him to wipe away the shame of his existence.

He's not expecting for Shigaraki to set down his plate and fork, to reach for him and lay hands on his face as he forces him to meet his eyes with a pitying expression. "Is there nothing that I can say to you that you will not take as a violent slight against your dignity? You have already agreed to be here, I wish to have you a content bride for as long as I have you in my nest."

Dabi feels his skin heat. "I'm not a woman!"

"Nor am I, but I will still have a clutch to give you, and your stomach will still swell with my eggs when I am pressing them deep inside of your cunt. Will the words I use for your body really matter so much then?"

Dabi is tempted by the fire in his veins again as a blush scorches his face, but he simply pulls away from the gentle grip and turns his attention back to his food silently.

Shigaraki sighs softly as he stands and instead goes to one of the casks of wine and opens it, pouring them both a tankard of it rather than a glass. He brings that back and prompts gently again, "Do you have anything that you would do for fun? Or was your life always torment, even long before you came to know me?"

And Dabi huffs softly, but takes the wine. "...Sometimes I would go to festivals and bonfires started outside of town. I liked to dance."

Shigaraki smiles at him, soft, encouraging. Dabi ignores it and downs the entire cup. His body is needed, his mind can be elsewhere.

///

Dabi was swaying. He remembers swaying. He remembers being full from the good food, soft from the warm bath, and dizzy from the copious wine. He remembers how soft the cushions were as he was set down on top of them and how cool and light Shigaraki's lips were against his as he settled into the massive bed with him. And he had gotten a touch of fear then, expecting the worst, but he had just curled around his body, stroking Dabi's hair, and that had made his heavy head relax. He doesn't remember much now in the heavy, soft dark as his body starts to tingle.

He is just floating in a sea of ink, and the waves are soft as they float across his skin. There is a gentle coaxing that makes his body unfurl like a flower in bloom, trying to open itself for the good sensations that start to echo across his nerves. Light touches along his chest and down to his waist that has never felt slender before, but that does now as large hands take it between them. and those hands move further down. They stroke along the skin of his inner thighs, touching him in a place no one else's hands have ever wandered, and in his dream he imagines that there are no scars that cut just below where those soft touches roam.

And then those hands are against his prick. Dabi feels a moan bubble up from his throat but it slips out into the open air and disappears, floating away and being carried somewhere else so far that his ears cannot fully hear it. It doesn't matter though, all that matters is how hot his body starts to feel, and how, instead of that blooming into the memory of burning, it becomes something gentler and more satisfying as his skin is made wet and slick as his cock is stroked and careful fingers reach lower to massage his balls in time with those movements. It feels good, and it has been so, so long since he's felt good. He can't help twisting, whining, his limbs too heavy to reach out, his muscles too soft to help him grind into the touches. But he doesn't have to fight for his pleasure or force his body to chase it. He is given it so readily, being toyed with until his orgasm washes through him. It's not sharp, not violent or frantic the way that it usually feels, only ever given to himself when he's so desperate for something to feel good that he'll stroke himself raw to find that in himself if nothing else. This orgasm is floaty and soft like his head. It's a suggestion of pleasure that his body accepts and when he spills, it makes his nerves pulse and tingle with relief and he sighs as he lets himself sink into it. Everything around him seems to get even softer and fuzzier once he has, and he thinks he might just drift back out in this sea of darkness.

And then he feels something wet and hot against his hole. It's thick and big and even though his muscles are all soft, it is very solid and puts a pressure against him. Dabi squirms weakly, not liking that harder sensation. A voice is carried to him along the waves,

"Shh, it's okay, princess." It coos at him. "You were being such a good girl before, stay relaxed for me, sweetheart." And that pressure crests as it opens his body, pushing inside and stretching his walls. Dabi gasps, squirming on it as it makes him full in a way he hasn't been in a very, very long time, and that has his spent prick twitching with a sharper sensation as a confused heat starts in his body because he thought he was already done with all of his pleasure.

But the thick intrusion pushes in deeper and deeper and Dabi gasps, his fingers clawing and finding the waves are not made of viscous ink, but soft fabric that gets bunched up in his grip. He hears the rumble of a purr as his legs twitch, realizing that the hands on his thighs are holding them open wide, that there is pressure and restraint in this soft place and that turns the gentle dark into something that is hungry and biting, even if the teeth don't sink in sharply enough to bring pain.

Dabi whimpers, tries to move, and when that thing inside of him pushes in deep and touches something that makes lightning zing up his spine, he finds himself jolting--

And his eyes open as a ragged breath leaves his lips. Dark shadows dance along the walls from the few torches that are still lit, his whole body tingling sharply with a fresh pleasure that is taking over his nerves. He doesn't want this to feel so good, especially not when his fingers go from tangled in the sheets to clutching onto the body overtop of his own, his fingers scraping against fine scales along the dragon's back as he pushes his tail into his body. It flicks and moves, stroking against his walls and spreading that wetness against him as cool lips press along his throat.

"Shh, it's alright, darling. You're already doing such a good job for me."

Dabi whimpers as he realizes that his head is still foggy from how much he had to drink with his meal, that his stomach and thighs are already sticky with cum, and his body was being used without him even being awake for it at the beginning. How many times would the beast have had his way with him if he hadn't woken? Why, through the heaviness in his head, is his soft prick aching as it rushes to harden again rapidly? As if his deceitful body is so excited by the fact that it was used while he couldn't say no, as if feeling the evidence of how readily he had given into the dragon's desires while he was asleep is a good thing instead of something fresh that Dabi should be disgusted by.

He whimpers and holds on tighter to the creature, knowing that this is the price he's paid for his life, and only hoping that the slight burn around his rim that comes as he pushes the thickening length of his tail in deeper will be the only pain that the monster's coupling will bring him. He should be grateful that he started him on his tail, because he knows that the twin cocks between his legs will not be as forgiving.

"Shh," Shigaraki murmurs again, shifting to press a kiss far too softly to his lips as his hands rub soothing circles against his thighs. "You're already doing such a good job, baby girl. Going to make sure your tight pussy is nice and stretched before I give you my clutch. Just stay relaxed for me, beautiful."

Dabi hasn't had the luxury of many bed partners before, he's had even fewer that he was laying beneath, and... none that bothered to try to ply him with... sweet words as they took what they wanted from his body. He's not expecting the ones that he's getting now to fill his body with a tangled mixture of heat and humiliation as he's made to be softer and smaller beneath the dragon's body as he fucks into him so slowly with his tail.

He wonders if it's the way his insides twitch around that intrusion or the way he finds himself biting his lip to keep the moan inside when it wants so desperately to come out that tells the other man how much he likes it. But no matter what gives him away, Shigaraki takes the opportunity to use it even further to his advantage as he continues to talk as he lavishes his skin with affection like he's a lover instead of the nearest convenient hole for his cocks.

"You're doing so well, precious, and you feel so good already. All of that fire beneath your skin making you so warm and tight for me. You're going to feel so good around my cocks when I have you dripping like you really do have an eager cunt ready to be filled with my eggs."

Dabi shudders under him, unable to fight the little whine that slips out as that motion makes his inside tighten around his tail and sends more pleasure across his nerves.

"Mm, that's it, baby girl. I can feel how excited you are to be full." Shigaraki sounds a little breathless with his arousal too as he moves his hand down Dabi's body to make his fingers sticky with the puddle of cum on his stomach, pressing softly there so that Dabi can feel the pressure of being full in his... cunt even more deeply. "I wonder if your adorable prick is going to be able to leak anymore when you're stuffed up. Maybe it will just be a soft, dripping clit as you keep my eggs warm inside of you."

His head is ruined. He's not sure if it's the drink, the circumstances, or the words, but Dabi's body doesn't feel like it can do anything with what it's being given, he just has to endure it as it all takes its course through his being. He has to hold on tight to the other's back, his nails finding the edges of smooth, cool scales, but unable to bite in as the creature fucks his tail into his cunt two more times before he finally starts to withdraw it. His humiliation is hot in his veins and makes the edges of his eyes burn and tint pink with unshed tears, as he feels how hard he's gotten again.

Shigaraki lets out a deep, pleased rumble as he shifts over him, letting Dabi see down the length of his body as he reaches for a bottle of oil and starts to spread that along his cocks. The two members are stacked on top of one another, the top one looking not dissimilar to Dabi's own, though as he lifts his erection further to separate them and make sure that his entire length is wet with the oil, he sees that there are scale-like ridges that run along the underside of him. The lower member is more different, its length and thickness matching the first, but the head of it does not merely have the slit at the tip the way that his does. This one has a small cross along it, and Dabi thinks that one must open to push out his eggs. One cock of that size would have been intimidating, but knowing he is about to be opened for both makes his head even more foggy than the wine that is still swimming through his veins and keeping his muscles loose.

"I'm so glad that you're finally letting yourself relax for me, little one. I'm going to show you how good you can feel if you keep listening to what your body wants instead of what your mind tells you to hate."

Dabi can't get his tongue under enough of his command to slur a denial, a curse, a protest out before Shigaraki is lifting his hips higher, pushing one of the pillows beneath his hips to keep them there, and hooking his legs over his shoulders. He just lets out a squeak of embarrassment as he is made so completely exposed for the dragon's pleasure before he moves even further between his legs. Dabi whines and moans, unable to articulate anything at all as he starts to push both blunt heads against his hole. A tremble goes through his body as he is spread open around those intrusions that are so much more solid than the gently tapered length of his tail had been. They feel so big, bigger than his eyes even told him they were and he is gasping like a fish thrown from the water, desperate to find something to hold his sanity in place as he feels like his mind might shatter apart if he is forced to take so much inside.

Shigaraki leans down and presses his lips to his, kisses him as his mouth is slack and panting so that his tongue can lick inside of his without any resistance. Dabi moans into it, his body betraying him further as it feels so good to be caged against this creature's body, to be pinned under him and forced so full of his cocks, to be helpless and know that there is no escaping anything that comes next. It's a betrayal to his mind and body as the pleasure inside tells him that he wants so, so much more, even though he so firmly didn't want anything like this to begin with. It's something toxic and grasping that holds onto him and tells him that if he likes it, then he is even more broken than he thought he was before this encounter because the entwining of bodies was a bargaining chip for his life. But it feels so good, so overwhelming, so much, that as Shigaraki fully seats both cocks inside of his body, he is left letting out a loud, long moan that sends his shame echoing back at him along the cavern walls as he cums hard for a second time, the pleasure making his muscles tighten around the lengths inside of him before he's left whimpering and trembling. His cum puddles on his stomach as Shigaraki lets out another inhuman rumble that sounds so pleased as hot red eyes watch him. His slitted pupils go wider, reminding him of an excited cat as his body loosens back up in the wake of his orgasm and he is left gasping as that softening of his insides makes it easier for Shigaraki to move, and he takes the opportunity to do so.

He draws his hips back and pushes into him again, spearing him through and sending even brighter starbursts across his nerves as he clutches so tightly to his shoulders that he knows his nails would have carved away skin if the man over him were mortal. He can't help it. He's never been so full before, never had so many orgasms so closely together, never been so full of wine, good food, and soft praise before as the dragon gives him honeyed words alongside the solidness of his cock moving inside of him.

"Such a good girl, so sweet and pretty as you let me make you feel good." He nuzzles into his neck as he bends Dabi in half so that his cocks are deeper inside of him than anything he's ever felt before.

"Shigaraki," he gasps his name, barely enough breath in his chest to actually make the sound form.

"Such a pretty voice, baby, will you sing for me as I fill you up?" The words are sweet and teasing as he starts to roll his hips into his body on slow, measured thrusts, every one making Dabi's whole body radiate that pleasure through him in ways he's never felt before. He didn't want to give the dragon anything but what he had to, but it's impossible for him not to let his moans echo off of the walls as he is fucked deeper than he ever has been before.

He loses himself in the sensations, his hands moving along the other's back, finding the joints of his wings and holding onto those when his fingers slip from his scales, and the reaction that he gets to that is immediate. Shigaraki lets out a low growl as the appendages flare wide, a soft buffeting of wind rustling the sheets and the hair across his forehead as they start to flap slowly in time with the deep, rolling thrusts that the dragon presses into his body. It's so alien, so strange, but it feels good when the motions are paired with another consuming kiss that only stokes his pleasure even higher.

He loses track of time entirely, unable to focus on anything but what's happening to him, and he forgets that there is more about to happen until Shigaraki goes rigid above him, his wings flaring wide as his hips still when his cocks are buried as deeply inside of him as they can go. He stays inside of him as Dabi whines and tries to tug at his wings, wanting him to keep moving the way that he was before, fairly certain that he might be able to get another orgasm out of what is being done to him if he does.

And then he feels a pressure spreading his rim again. Dabi keens, unsure if his body can even be stretched any more without coming apart at the seams, but being held so tightly, in such a vulnerable position that he can't stop it from happening. he lets out a weak sob, but that only has the other man shushing him again and he presses a kiss to his temple. "It's alright, precious, this is what your pretty cunt was made for."

And he forces the words to be true as the first egg slips along his lower length and pushes inside his body. It goes past the tip of his cock, pushing in and settling inside of Dabi like a stone, the strangeness of the sensation unable to be ignored or adjusted to before he is letting out another higher-pitched whine as he feels another of the eggs pressing hard into his body. It slips inside of him and makes him even fuller, and he doesn't know if his insides can even be stretched any more. But Shigaraki doesn't stop. He makes his insides stretch around him. Dabi is sobbing, bloody tears falling across his cheeks as his insides just become the container for the dragon's spawn.

"That's it, baby girl, you're doing such a good job." He purrs, that sound an inhuman rumble that is coming out of his chest now with every breath. "Taking my eggs so well. Such a perfect cunt for me that I'm going to have you stuffed full in one session." He reaches for Dabi's stomach again and he looks down at himself, horrified and too hot for words as he sees the way that the eggs inside of him have started to swell his stomach. It's not a huge bump, but it is undeniable that his stomach is stretching, that he doesn't just look like he's eaten well today, but like he... really is a woman just starting to show her pregnancy. And it's the feeling, the realization that his body is being to made to hold the other man's offspring, that has his nerves erupting with a tangle of fear and arousal so sharply that he is cumming again as hard as his overspent prick can manage, his insides tightening again and making the eggs rub up against him so tantalizingly throughout it.

"Fuck, that's it, baby girl," the words are another half-feral growl as Shigaraki moves his hips, even as another egg pushes inside of his body. It's too much, too good, and when he fucks back inside of him so hard that his distended stomach trembles, Dabi is pretty sure whatever thread of sanity he was holding onto has snapped entirely. He sobs harder as that final egg, that final thrust, is all the dragon needs before his other cock is twitching inside of him and the space between the eggs is filled sharply as cum spills all through his insides, cooler than the heat suffusing his body, and leaving him with a sensation so intense that he can't help it when blackness rushes back over his eyes.

///

Dabi doesn't remember the eggs being taken back out of him, not in his conscious mind at least. He just knows it's happened because in his dreams he felt someone pushing on his stomach, something dexterous and gentle coaxing open his soaked cunt, and the way that his prick hadn't been able to get hard so his body had thrummed with pleasure from deep inside instead as each one was eased out of him until he was just wet all over his lower body from a stream of cum that had soaked his legs as it spilled out of his cunt and the thinner fluid that had leaked out of his sore prick from how good the sensation against his insides had been.

He just knows that he wakes all soaked and with a seemingly satisfied dragon curled around his body, his wings wrapped around him like a blanket, and his face pressed into his hair. "Finally awake, little one?" He asks gently as he presses a kiss to the crown of his head.

Dabi squints. The light from outside of the cave is still dim and he realizes distantly that there is the solid patter of rain against stone that is falling too, but the torches that are still lit are too bright against the pounding that is starting in his head from too many drinks the night before. "Is that all?" He asks. He doesn't even know if he can make the weak muscles of his legs work to take him from this place, but they had a deal and he wants to know if his side of it has been thoroughly upheld.

"I think so, you were such a perfect recipient," he nuzzles at him again, holding onto him like he's nothing but a prized pet. "You are free to go as soon as the rain lets up-- unless you would like to travel through the wastes as the downpour continues."

Dabi doesn't really want to do that. There are more dangers in that barren wasteland than just the dragon that caught him. He doesn't want to be half blind and deafened by the storm as he travels. After everything he's already put his body through to survive, he doesn't want to fall victim to another monster just out of sheer stubbornness. Besides, another bath would be nice, another meal,... a few more hours laying in the soft pile of cushions around him with the cool press of the dragon's scales over his body, that couldn't hurt either.

///

It rains for three days and Shigaraki hosts him for that long. He laid his clutch and smashed the resulting eggs while Dabi had been asleep, and had assured Dabi that he could take whatever he needed from his lair to be comfortable during the time they were together. And the dragon tried to talk to him. He asked more about his life, his interests, the things that he wanted to do when he got to the city. And Dabi maintained his quietness, his standoffishness, because each word must have been something the dragon would use against him. He doesn't let the other creature touch him again, but that doesn't stop his body, as it recovers from how his insides were stretched, from dreaming about being fucked so thoroughly again. But even when he wakes with his prick hard and the dragon's hungry eyes on him, he doesn't do anything about the arousal without permission now that their deal is done. He lets Dabi hold onto his attitude, he ignores the way that he flinches from the... desire that keeps trying to infect his mind, and when the rain stops, the dragon transforms again and carries him down into the wastes.

"If ever you wish for my company again, you can seek me out in the city."

And that gives Dabi pause as he slips shakily from his back, trying to keep his breakfast inside of him. "You... reside in the city?"

"Yes, my lair here is just a... private retreat. It was lovely to share it with you for the time I could and being allowed to do so again in this or another abode would be a privilege."

Dabi doesn't know if this is the regular form of courtship for a dragon, but the way he has treated him since he ravaged his body has only made those unwanted twinges of arousal linger in his veins for longer and longer. He doesn't want to be attracted to the other creature, those dim thoughts feeling like a betrayal of what it took to get him into the dragon's bed, but to be given any kind of attention from a beast of myth and legend after being cast aside so easily by every mortal he's ever met is something that continues to fill his mind and body with a hazy confusion and shame. Something he won't have to deal with anymore once he's left the dragon behind.

"Don't hold your breath," is all he manages to say as his parting words as he starts to walk again. The ground is covered in a thick gray mud from the downpour, and he doesn't dare turn to look as the dragon takes to the sky again. A strange detour, but just a detour all the same. He has more important things to focus on.

///

Dabi travels alone and unimpeded for the last stretch of land to the city, and when he arrives he does so with revenge on his tongue.

When the guards ask him who he is and what his business is, he readily tells them he brings information about Threlkeld including where their armies are stationed now, and he is taken to a watchtower to be held while his claims are verified. He stays there for another three days as their mystics and spies confirm the information that he has given them, and when there is an army of devils and monsters starting to mount their attack, he is brought to the palace for a commendation.

He is standing in a dark throne room when the guard at his side announces, "Archmage of Decay, the Unmerciful, Winged Death, He of the Darkest Shadow, King Tomura Shigaraki," and his whole body floods with heat again. Humiliation, terror, he's not sure, he just knows that he forgets to bow when the man comes into the room in elegant clothes of the deepest black, a sharp crown entwined with the horns on his head and his wild white hair.

Dabi grunts as one of the guards levels a kick to the backs of his legs, pushing on his shoulder at the same time so that he drops hard to the stone floor. And in the same movement, Shigaraki steps down from his dais and flicks out a hand, the magic that leaves his hand not the flames he saw so easily come to him in the cave, but a crackling black lightning that latches onto the man's body and tears his final breath from his lungs before his body and arm turn gray and cracked, and he scatters apart into dust at Dabi's side.

"Let all who inhabit my city know that this mortal is never to come to harm within its walls, and leave us." Shigaraki moves steadily towards him and the other guard dutifully responds,

"It will be done, Your Majesty." And then the door opens and closes again behind him.

"You're the king?" Is the only intelligible thing that he manages to say.

Shigaraki's eyes smile along with his lips as he looks at him, offering a hand to help him up from the floor. "It seemed like it would be bad form to give you yet another reason to fear me when you were traveling on your own. Now come with me. Your information has given us a boon in this war and I will see you rewarded, at the very least, with the hospitality my palace has to offer. Tonight there will be feasting and dancing, and everyone will know that any victory we claim in the coming weeks will be as a result of your determination, little one."

Dabi doesn't bother resisting, knowing now that doing so might only tarnish the new life he had already been planning on making for himself here. "And will they know that I took their king's cock as well?"

Shigaraki's eyes go hot on him as he pulls him a bit closer, "Only if you let me have the honor of letting your sounds of pleasure echo along the castle walls, lovely."

Dabi refuses as they go from the throne room to a lavish bedchamber that he is told will be his for as long as he wishes to have it, and that night there is a feast. There is dancing, wine flowing, and many people for him to meet. But when his palm meets Shigaraki's as they are brought together for one of the intricate dances that he's learning as they spin through the grand hall, it's Dabi who ignores the custom when it is time to switch. He's the one who asks, wine slurring his words a bit again,

"Would you have still used me if I had gotten here before you went out looking for a retreat?"

"If you had gotten here a week sooner, I would have had a chance to court you, at least a bit, before I decided that I couldn't find anyone better for me to share my clutch with, Dabi."

"You're very bad at courtship." Dabi tells him, not thinking that insulting the creature might get him in trouble when he has red eyes so warm on him.

"I think so, but I would learn to be better at it if you would suffer through those growing pains with me." For a dragon, a king, a creature he was always told is so full of ego, Dabi cannot find any trace of it as he offers his inadequacies to him like a boon.

He wonders if it's that or the fact that his sanity must have been shattered around his clutch that has Dabi asking, "And would it be a long and boring courtship for me to suffer? One where I'm expected to act as an untouched virginal maiden to be worthy of a king?"

Shigaraki's eyes flash, not with anger, but with heat as he draws Dabi in so that their bodies are flush in such a state of impropriety that he would have probably been stoned to death for it in his home. "You will only go untouched, little one, if the thought of being beneath me still fills you with such distress."

Dabi doesn't use words, but he doesn't pull away either, goes with his own light and sure feet when Shigaraki pulls him from the dance floor and into a dark passageway behind his throne. And when the dragon's hands wrap around his hips and he pulls him closer, it's him who tilts his mouth so that their lips can press together hungrily. Their joining may have been a bargain the first time, perhaps a drunken mistake the second, depending on how he is feeling in the morning. But perhaps if there is still that pleasure inside of him that there was after the first, maybe there will be a third time, a fourth, more, as his new life in this city sprawls out with endless possibilities in front of him.

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cecil-is-an-eldrich-deity · 2 months ago

Text

(You) Left a Mark

Pairing: Shigadabi (Getting together,), Dabihawks (Breaking up)

Rating: Explicit, 18+ only

Summary: Commissioned by an anonymous user. Enji was late to the mountain, and Toya still burned, but he was pulled from that fire by his father and spent years ignored in the hospital as his body was made to look right again, even if his quirk was never the same. And when he got tired of being ignored at home, he went out into the world with a new name and found a new way of supporting himself as he became a tattoo artist and piercer. He wasn't expecting to meet the new up-and-coming hero, Hawks, at that gig, and really didn't know he would end up in a long-term relationship with the bird. But after two years, there is a selfish fatigue that he feels starting to creep in as Hawks is so busy with his work that he's left wishing to have more of his time and attention even though he knows he should be happy with what he already has. Or at least that's what he thinks before his chance meeting with Tomura Shigaraki.

Contents: Past/Brief Child Abuse, Emotional Neglect, Hawks Bashing, Anti-Dabihawks (please do not tag as Dabihawks), Non-Villain!Dabi, Scarless!Dabi, Tattoo Artist!Dabi, Canon Divergent AU, Cheating, BDSM, Dom/Sub, Under-negotiated Kink, Dirty Talk, Blow Jobs, Premature Ejaculation, Cumming Untouched, Cum Eating, Bondage, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Sex Toys, Hand Jobs, Creampie, Bathing/washing, Aftercare, Breaking Up, Getting Together.

Word Count: 24,829

He doesn't remember being pulled out of the fire, or the hours that he was in the I.C.U. in the hospital. He doesn't know the years he loses to a coma, just that when he wakes up in the hospital, his skin ruined, patches of it numb and others screaming with agony at the slightest prod, and his body so different from how it had been before he'd burned, that he isn't ever going to be the same again. He knows that it's one of his father's assistants who comes to tell him that his father is too busy with his hero work to come and see him upon his waking and that his siblings won't be visiting for a while either. Not until Toya has been treated and the scars and damage to his nerves has been dealt with. The next visitors he gets are juvenile prosecutors who tell him that the 'accident' with his quirk, while unintentional, did cause a massive fire that destroyed kilometers of wildlife and protected land. Because Endeavor spoke on his behalf, because his grades were so good before he burned, because they think that he's suffered enough-- especially given they now know things were also very bad at home, with Rei having tried to burn out Shoto's eye as she suffered a mental breakdown shortly after Toya's accident-- they don't want to have to arrest him. So instead he is going to live in quirk restraining cuffs until he's eighteen years old. It's not that long, they tell him, just another three years because he slept so much of his life away. And Toya is left in that hospital for a long time, the only people he sees are the nurses and doctors who try to put him back together and the tutor who appears twice a week on his laptop screen as he tries to recapture the education that he'd missed out on.

He finishes with his treatments at seventeen, intensive plastic surgery taking away the scars that covered most of his body at the start, and his skin not hurting or going numb anymore. But there are small ripples in it, from the burns, from the incisions that had to be made to stitch him back together, but nothing that catches the eye from even just a few feet away. He still looks too much like his mother, and he still feels like a ghost when no one comes to pick him up the day he gets released from the hospital. He thinks that he might just be lucky that someone thought to send a cab to the hospital for him, because otherwise he would have had to trudge back into the building and beg one of his nurses for the fare to get home.

No one thought about the fact that he wouldn't have a key to the house anymore, and even though he rings the bell, no one appears to be home, and Toya is forced to sit on the sidewalk outside of the gate until well after dark before his father arrives home. He looks up at him, seeing that nothing has changed in his face except that he is more openly disgusted with him now than he had been before he'd set the mountain on fire, and all Enji says to him after all of that time was,

"Don't you ever embarrass me like that again." Before he opened the gate and walked inside, not waiting to see if Toya had actually managed to follow him inside or not. He hadn't felt fire rush through his veins like that since the mountain, having been so numb to everything that happened afterwards for years now. But he was furious when that was all his father said to him. He had shot up from the ground and he had raged. The cuffs at his wrists were the only thing that kept him from turning the house into an inferno as well, as he screamed his fury for anyone and everyone nearby to hear. But there wasn't anyone else to listen to him, just as there hadn't been all of those years ago, and all his father had done was calmly walk back to him and bring his hand across Toya's face hard enough that he had been knocked to the ground, black spots blurring his vision. Then he had turned and gone right back into the house.

He stayed on the ground for a long time after that, and when he was finally able to make himself stand, it was as Dabi, Toya thrown away and left to burn up in the memory of a childhood promise that the world, his genes, and his father had not managed to keep to him.

///

Enji hadn't cared what he did when he left the hospital so long as he didn't draw attention to himself or destroy his siblings who had better futures laid out in front of them. Shoto was still completely isolated from the rest of them, but Toya’s relationship with Fuyumi was damaged beyond repair when she kept asking him to apologize and make nice with their piece of shit father so that they could be a 'happy family’ again. Natsuo was still ride-or-die with him, blaming Enji for what happened and being so ready to be away from the house as soon as he was old enough to be, looking into colleges and scholarships for years, intending to get a full ride as soon as he could and get out of the house and away from Enji, but five years apart still left their marks and Dabi couldn't click with his brother the way he thought he had when they were younger. He didn't have prospects for going to college, even though he had graduated by using online programs, his doctors had said that he might need an adjustment period as he left the hospital, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to get any kind of scholarships, nevermind him sinking so low as to ask for his father to give him the money to go to school. So instead, within a week of being back in his father's house, he was on the street every goddamn day looking for work.

His first job was in a convenience store. He took every shift he legally could, and a few more that he got paid for under the table as he often exceeded fifty hours a week. He just wanted to save up his funds as much as he could. His father didn't care about paying for things within the house to be maintained, so while he was living there still, he was able to save every yen he made, going and setting up a bank account at a firm entirely separate from the one he knows the Todoroki accounts are in, so that he would be certain that his father wouldn't touch that money or even know that he was making any at all.

He dyed his hair black, he started dressing how he wanted to instead of the way he had been forced to by his family growing up, and somewhere between all of the work, between the nightmares that still ravaged his mind every night when he was sleeping, he decided that he just didn't want to leave anything of Toya left in him when he looked in the mirror. It was a slow process, one that took over a year to complete, the quirk cuffs coming off and Dabi being warned that any other incident would land him directly in Tartarus for the destructive nature of his quirk, before he had metal littering his skin. Piercings along his ears, in his nose, snake bites, studs through his nipples, cock, and tongue, and dimple piercings in his cheeks. When he had so many that his manager at the convenience store had been put off by them, he'd made up some bullshit excuse and fired him. Dabi went back to the piercing studio and asked if they needed anyone to do anything there, and after being pointed in the right direction of what education he would need before he could start working at a place like that, he’d had a new goal to follow. It took him another year, Fuyumi moving out to go to college then, before he had been ready to actually become a piercer and be able to just work the counter at a place.

It was another three years of his apprenticeship, and a lot of luck that saw the requirement of needing to have a medical license being overturned, allowing Dabi to become a tattoo artist as well. He didn't think that he would want to do that, not ever thinking that he had a creative bone in his body. But he'd given it a try and found that while, even after years of artist studies of form, anatomy, and color, he was not the kind of person who could do a still life, a portrait, or anything even vaguely resembling a human form. He could imitate those things when people came in wanting a specific thing, and that's what he did most of the first year that he was working on people. And then he had been bored during one of his shifts and he'd rolled up one of his pants legs and gone at his skin with a sharpie for a while. They didn't have any walk-ins, only one person there and with Simon as planned, so he finished freehanding the design and stared down at his skin. The contrast between the sharp lines, the areas he knew he would fill in with thicker black, the thinner swoops of lines that would be shaded in a wider stippling, the way that the volumes and forms of the shape conformed to his leg looked... right. They looked like absolutely nothing, but it was the kind of nothing that he thought abstract art was supposed to be, and he had been quick to get Simon's feedback on the design,

"It looks good. You finally gonna try something over your scars?" They're not very noticable from a distance, but they are still there and Dabi had hesitated getting any ink beyond a single smiley face on the inside of his wrist because he hadn't been certain at the start that he wanted to cover them up. He didn't want to have the evidence of everything that he'd gone through taken away from him. But looking down at the design creeping across his leg, he knows that he would regret not capturing it in his skin as he sees it.

It's a whole production to get his station set up and make sure he doesn't damage the ink too badly as he actually properly preps his skin for the tattoo he hadn't actually planned on giving himself. But he spends the rest of his shift with his needle buzzing in his hand, the pain of it sinking into him over and over again more than worth the elation that he feels as those lines start to come into sharper focus as they turn real on his flesh. By the time he's done and Simon is taking pictures for him while it's still raw and vibrant, Dabi doesn't know if he's ever felt... prouder of anything else he's ever done.

He takes care of the tattoo as it heals, and before it has, the shop has already gotten an email and a few DMs on their social media account from people who want to have his freeform art adorning their skin. And suddenly Dabi is actually making a name for himself in small circles.

He still doesn't make enough money to afford anything elaborate, but the day that Natsuo moves out to go to college, Dabi leaves too, living in a tiny apartment above a Yakitori restaurant that always smells like burning, but that's his, with no ties to his father and no parting words exchanged between them. And that's good enough for him.

///

Dabi is twenty-two when a blond guy with dark marks around his bright gold eyes comes into the shop. He is short, pretty, and clearly nervous as he enters the building. He's probably a year younger than him and when he comes up to the counter he gives him a bright smile that doesn't hide that he's nervous the way that people often are when they come into the shop for the first time.

"Hi."

"Hello, do you have an appointment?" Dabi knows he doesn't, but he asks as a matter of protocol, knowing that their only appointment today is already back on one of the tables with Simon, in for an eight-hour appointment as he works on the shading of his back piece.

"Oh, uh, no, do I have to have one? I didn't know. I thought that something simple might just be a walk-in if it's simple?" He shifts his weight on his feet and Dabi gets that vaguest touch of... familiarity that he doesn't know how to place as he looks at this guy who he was pretty sure was a stranger.

"What simple thing do you want as a walk-in?" He asks, leaning his hand on his chin and looking as uninterested as possible as he tries to place how he knows this guy.

His face goes red. "Oh! Uh, I don't mean to be rude. I just-- I wanted my ears pierced? I thought that might be simpler than like, all of that," he gestures to Dabi's body and his numerous visible piercings, and then, when he realizes that might also be rude, he goes even redder. "I mean--!"

"Lobe piercings or something else?" Dabi asks as he straightens back up nonchalantly.

"Just my lobes," he tries to clarify as Dabi moves around the counter to lead him back towards the piercing area. "I have a set of earrings I'd like to use-- they're 24 karat gold. What I read online said that would be fine for a first-time piercing?"

"Yeah, that works, come take a seat and I'll take a look." Dabi focuses on the task at hand, trying not to choke on his tongue when he sees the jewelry box that the guy pulls out from his jacket pocket and the name of the store that he got them from. No doubt that the rubies in them are real and worth more than Dabi makes in a year, and that the quality of the gold is equally as exceptional. Piercing his ears doesn't take long, not when it's something that he's so practiced at and he's gotten so good about getting the marks for the holes symmetrical on the first try. Soon enough he's got the ruby studs in the guy's ear and he's bringing him back into the main area and over to their aftercare section, getting him a saline solution and the little pamphlet that they give all of their customers that has information on how to care for their new modifications, and what to look out for in case of rejection or other complications. By the time he's checking him out, Dabi is a little disappointed that he uses cash to pay instead of a card, but he plays it off lightly as he gets his change, saying,

"Guess I'm not gonna get your name then."

And the guy, his nerves seeming to have abated from his earlier fumbling, sounds much more sure of himself when he says in return, "I'd be happy to give it in exchange for your number."

Dabi doesn't know if it's to satisfy his curiosity or to reward that absurd boldness, but he gives it. He's not expecting to be told,

"Hawks," in exchange.

But when he gets a text three days later asking if the number three hero in the country wants to meet up for coffee, he is curious enough to go.

///

Dabi hadn't been sure that he'd wanted to date a hero at first. Especially not when he avoided telling Hawks that he was Endeavor's son, but the hero never told him his real name either, so he figured that put them on even ground in some ways. And Hawks was... fun. He was loud and vibrant, eager for every good experience that he could have outside of his hero work, though that wasn't really a surprise. He was always working so hard at it, he had to be to end up as number three in just two years after his debut, and Dabi wasn't about to knock that. He'd gotten further than Endeavor had when he'd started his climb and Dabi was more impressed with that than he liked to be.

Hawks has two apartments, and after a year of dating, Dabi moves into the second one. At first it felt like they were living together. Sure, most days, most nights, Hawks was out grinding through hero work, but when his shift was over he flew back to the apartment hard and fast, shedding his hero clothes and becoming nothing but a cuddly, clingy, useless bird. He couldn't cook for shit and would have probably died from eating nothing but fried chicken, so Dabi always made him food when he was home and packed extensive bentos for him when he went to work, sometimes several days of meals if he knew that the other man would be working multiple back-to-back shifts. He continued to work as a tattoo artist primarily, and Hawks was a hero, and in their little apartment that was nothing like the lavish penthouse that Hawks always said just 'didn't feel like him' they had a little life together.

And that was alright, for a while. But the thing about hero work is, and he should have known this from the start, is that it never slows down. Hawks will always have the same amount of work to do because there will always be crimes in Japan. He will always have to go out on the press circuit and flash his pretty smiles at cameras and wink at his fans, never telling them that he's gotten into a relationship, let alone with another man, because he is, for all intents and purposes, an idol while he's still in his prime. He wouldn't be able to announce a relationship until he's in his thirties and even then, the backlash that would come and tank his public opinion scores if that wasn't just an announcement of marriage would be so stark that even when they hit their two year anniversary, there is no chance of that becoming public knowledge.

Dabi knows about the game that gets played so heroes can stay on top, and the ways they can go after each other so viciously behind the scenes if they think that's something they need to do to get to their own satisfaction. He knows that this all is just the way things are, and he tries to make himself okay with that. Hawks doesn't really care about those numbers, he just stays in the top ten because he wants to do as much good as he can for the world and being the fastest hero in the country means that he can do more than others.

And the days that Dabi spends alone in the apartment, the hours he spends cooking and then cleaning out spoiled food from tupperware when Hawks gets called in for a team-up out of the blue that stops him from coming home, how he hasn't told anyone who Dabi is, so he can't even drop off the food at his agency, all of it starts to weigh on him.

But Hawks is fun. It's nice when he's home, and Dabi doesn't want to lose those good moments. So he endures the long stretches of silence in the apartment. He makes due with being a dirty little secret, a private house husband when he's around, and--

"Fuck!" Hawks has always been loud in bed. From people noises to bird noises and coos that Dabi has gotten used to. His back has marks on it from being slashed up with the sharp black talons that curve out of his nail beds and Dabi has taken a wing to the face more than once because of how they can spasm and flap when Hawks is feeling good. Dabi likes to do that, likes that when the hero cums, he finally relaxes, he coos at him and allows himself to be pulled into the bed to stay for a few hours, even if the cuddles are typically preceded by Dabi preening him.

Dabi spent nine hours today working on a client, his neck, shoulders, and hand are already sore as hell, but it's the first time in two weeks that Hawks has actually come back to this apartment, usually crashing in the other one because he didn't have the energy to try and lose any tails he might attract to come home to their real apartment, or sleeping in his office instead. He wanted to come home and make them dinner, to be sure he cleaned up the food that he'd made that had gone uneaten and made a new week of meals for the other man to have as he goes back to work tomorrow afternoon. And the orgasm is nice, getting to lay together closely in bed is nice, but by the time they are settled, Dabi doesn't feel like he's said more than a few dozen words since Hawks got home, the other man slipping out of work, but never slowing down in talking about what he's been up to.

"I can't believe I'm finally going to have my first team-up with another top ten member." His wings flutter lightly and Dabi wants to be excited for him, but there is a headache starting in his forehead and even though he wants to stay up and talk to the other man about whatever he wants, he has another early start tomorrow.

"When are you going back in?" He asks, because of the things Hawks has told him so far tonight, that wasn't something important enough to bring up.

"Tomorrow afternoon," he wraps his arms around Dabi's waist and flutters his wings, beaming up at him, "So you've got me all to yourself until then, hot stuff."

Dabi blinks, then frowns, "I told you, I have an appointment coming in at nine-thirty tomorrow." He tells him, watching his face fall and his feathers un-fluff. "They've been waiting three months, I can't reschedule it." He says it more gently, but it still makes his chest ache awfully as he does.

"Oh, well, it's work. I get it." But for the first time tonight, Hawks stops talking about his own work and Dabi stews in that quiet for a few minutes before he reaches over to his phone and shoots off a text to that client, asking if they can come in at one instead because an emergency has popped up on his end. He apologizes profusely as he lies, but not long after the text goes out, his client responds with a very sweet message wishing him the very best, and saying that she would be happy to reschedule entirely if he needs the time to take care of his 'emergency'. The kindness and understanding only makes him feel worse, and Dabi knows he'll be giving her a discount and taking the cut from his pay to pay back that kindness.

"She was okay with rescheduling," Dabi tells Hawks, reaching back to his wings and starting to pet them again, the feathers a little stiff under his hand at first, but softening as he hears those words. "I can stick around until you go back to work."

Hawks lifts his head off of his chest and beams. "Great! Because you know how I love to go into another long shift very relaxed, hot stuff." His voice takes on a salacious purr and Dabi regrets not asking his client to come in at two instead, because working over his lover in the morning after also giving it to him tonight is going to leave him exhausted and not energized the way that sex seems to work for Hawks.

Still, he smiles. He's just glad that he can be someone that the hero relies on so much.

///

"You look like you're about to drop dead." Simon tells him the next night as they're closing up. "Boyfriend finally deign to show up?"

It's so automatic at this point for Dabi to respond, "His work--" that when he turns around, he sees the other man is mimicking him, continuing where he drops off,

"'keeps him so busy. He makes time to come home whenever he can.' Right." Simon rolls his eyes. "And did you actually manage to talk to him about going to the convention in Kamino?"

Dabi winces slightly. He'd gotten accepted eight months ago, and in the four times that Hawks has been home, there was so much happening that he wasn't able to actually talk to him about it. "No-- but he's going out of town again for another trip. I shouldn't have any problem going to the guest spot." And he will tell Hawks. He'll leave him a message and send him a text, and he'll know he has his own work things to see to when he leaves. He had debated submitting an application for years and finally worked up the courage to do so eight months ago. It was an honor and a miracle that he had been selected to be one of the twenty featured artists who are going to be present at the event. He can't give up an opportunity like this.

Simon huffs softly, shaking his head as he continues to make sure his station is fully sanitized and ready for the next morning, and Dabi tries not to let that sour something in his gut.

///

When he does call Hawks, he doesn't answer the phone, and when he texts him explaining the situation, it takes six hours to get a response. Dabi has already finished packing his suitcase and is now focused on making sure that there isn't anything in the apartment that will get gross if he's gone. He's taking the meals he made out of the fridge and putting them in the freezer as he realizes that Hawks was in such an excited rush to go off to his debriefing that he didn't bother to pack them so he could take them to work with him.

Birdy: 'Aw, what?? ☹️ I always get so lonely when you're not around. Who's going to make the best karaage in the world if you're not home?'

The sentiment, while it might have felt more sweet if he weren't currently packing away the meals he spent hours making before the other man had come home yesterday, feels like it rings against something discordant inside of him. He tries to put that out of his head and focus on what he's doing and the response he pens as he sends it.

Dabi: 'Sorry, pretty bird. All of the meals I made are in the freezer and I made sure to clean the apartment.' He hasn't yet, but when he sees he doesn't need to head to the train for another hour and a half, he figures that he can manage that as well. 'So everything will be good for you if you manage to come home ahead of me. Love you, stay as safe as you can.'

He has already gone and put their sheets in the wash and has started to vacuum by the time that Hawks manages to reply again.

Hawks: 'It still won't be the same without knowing you're there .💔💔💔'

And that only makes Dabi's chest hurt a bit more acutely as well. But... this is a big opportunity, and he can't cancel it at the last minute or he'll risk not ever getting invited back to one of these events. Not to mention that he already has clients lined up for some of his time slots, including one who has agreed to be his canvas for the competition aspect of the convention. He should have told Hawks about all of this when he'd come home instead of putting it off to find a better time. But as he shoots back one last apology, he determines that the next time they're both home, he'll just put in the extra effort to make that time special.

///

Registration and check-in start at two on Thursday, and he goes to get his badge and papers that will allow him to check into the hotel accommodations that were provided for special guests, featured artists, and other talent that has been booked for the convention. It's not an elaborate room in some fancy hotel, just a suite in a moderate chain, but the fact that his travel and his room were comped because they wanted him to come to this even the fact that he has a lanyard, badge, and wristband that say 'featured artist' on them, all fills him with a giddy excitement. He goes and gets lunch, really dinner by the time he's fully settled in, and eats as he goes over the information he was given at the door, the map of the convention hall, and the schedule that the organizers sent to them. He can go in and start setting up an hour and a half before the doors open and his first booked appointment isn't until tomorrow at noon, so he should have time to take a few simple walk-ups if he gets any. Every day there will be a judging for the best tattoo started and completed that day, if the artist wants to submit to it, but that is separate from the other competitions that are going to be happening on Saturday and Sunday which include over twenty different categories that can be submitted to, covering everything from size, to style, lettering, or color, what gender their client is, and more. Dabi goes over his laminated booklet of designs that he has ready as space fillers and flash tattoos, but he is glad that he has a few clients who have already specifically reached out to get some of his more elaborate freehand work for the rest of the weekend. There will be plenty of press at the event, or so he has been told, and lots of other people involved in the industry, including companies that he would love to be noticed by and get his work featured on their sites as well. There are only three or four conventions like this in Japan a year at most, and he wants to make the most of it. If he can, then he might get invited to go to other ones overseas. He could travel, make a name for himself entirely independent of his past. A legacy all his own with nothing to do with his father. It's something that hadn't been as important to him when he first left as just getting away was. But the thought now makes him sit up a little straighter and his mostly dormant quirk heats his skin a little warmer.

Dabi can hardly get to sleep that night from how excited he is to go in the next morning.

///

Check-in in the morning is a little rocky, something to do with having to make a last-minute change to how some of the tables were set up in the artist alley. It's only a ten minute delay, but he's not the only person who has arrived early to start getting set up, and the line grows and grows in that time. But once they do get inside, the map seems accurate and he's easily able to find his station. This is his first convention, and while he tried to talk to other people who had been to them before, he hadn't had the funds in his account to do something very elaborate for his area. Other people have banners, multiple binders or other creative displays for their work, and the like so that people will be able to see their area from a good distance, but Dabi could only afford, and be able to travel with a large poster he got made at a copy store that he unrolls from its tube and then has to duct tape it down along the edges so that it doesn't curl back up and pop off of the frame he sticks it on. It has his name and a couple of pictures of his work, and the single binder of designs he has is all he needs to put out for that part of his set-up. Then it's all about preparing his station for when the doors finally open.

///

Dabi should not have been worried about not being able to book people. He had been, in the back of his mind, terrified that he would only have his pre-booked clients come to his chair and otherwise be left alone, watching as other people worked, and go home with nothing to show for it. But as soon as the doors open almost every available chair is full as people mill about. There are other events and entertainment throughout the day and Dabi hopes he gets to take a walk around when he takes his lunch break, and the convention center fills up with people who are visiting the other vendors around as some come straight over to their area and start to line up to get tattoos from the artists available. His flash tattoo designs are popular, but that seems to be the case with everyone else present as well, and he's glad to see Simon's advice on pricing has kept him from asking for too little or too much for the convention. He knocks out a few of the little flash designs before his scheduled client comes in, showing him, in person, the series of scars along his thigh that he wants worked into and covered up by Dabi's abstract work, and while they'd talked size, color, and concept, when Dabi starts to work on his skin, he goes at it with marker first just like he did his own limbs, all four now having full sleeves of his winding artwork, though Simon did have to put him in touch with some weird guy who could make clones of people. It had to be all off the books since only heroes are allowed to use their quirks to make money, but Dabi was happy to pay the money to have himself do the work along the parts of his skin that he couldn't reach, knowing that turning over the work to another artist wouldn't create the same ink-splash effects that he would with his own hands.

And as the lines start to flow so easily, he is able to ignore the clutter of so many other people milling about and the buzz of over a dozen other needles working around him. He just focuses on what he's doing, focuses on talking to his client, and when it's time for him to put his own needle to skin, all he's thinking of is the next curve of his wrist that will bring the design he sees spiralling through his head to life. He gets into the zone, through the walk-ins and his appointment, and by the time he comes up for air it's only when he has a pounding headache and realizes that his stomach is aching and hollow. He puts up his sign that says he's going to step away for lunch, and upon realizing how much he's actually made today and missed a check-in text from Simon, he's glad to shoot him back a message that tells him things are going well.

There are a few places to eat around the vendor's hall and he goes to get in line with some of the other patrons, a little scandalized at how expensive the meal is, but at least it puts something in his stomach. He walks around as he eats, looking in on some of the other vendors, just to stretch his legs and stand up straight for a little while, and with the food in his stomach, chased by some pain medicine, he takes down his sign and prepares himself for the next wave of people.

///

Dabi slept like a rock when he got back to his hotel room, and when his alarm goes off the next morning he is so exhausted that he suddenly understands why Simon said there was not a chance in hell of him ever applying to do another convention gig again. But the money is great and the amount of people he had going through his station and absolutely thrilled over the results was also great. He saw so much wonderful work at the hall, and talking shop with other artists who studied different techniques or who use different equipment to achieve their style has only made him more excited about how his craft could expand in another three or four years.

So when he opens up his booth today he's prepared for what he needs to do, and he's pleased when he has the first person in the hall make a b-line for him. The guy who approaches him is wearing a white button-up shirt, black slacks, and a dark red blazer, his long wavy white hair cut into a shaggy style that has pieces falling across his forehead and against his cheeks. His skin is pale, but his eyes are bright and shine like rubies as he comes right up to Dabi's table.

"Hello," He greets, a light rasp in his voice.

"Hi, Dabi," He introduces himself, reaching out to shake his hand.

"Tomura. I was wondering if I could get an estimate for some detail work? I have a presentation at three, so if you're not booked, I'd love to also get that done today, if not now, then later this evening I should be finished by five." Judging for today doesn't even start until seven and the convention is open until midnight, so Dabi figures this all should be good to go.

"Sure, can I see the area? And do you have anything in particular in mind?" He lets him around into his booth so he can take a seat and the man shrugs off his blazer and opens the buttons on his shirt. Dabi has seen a lot of people's bodies over the years, and he's not going to say he's immune to seeing someone particularly attractive or particularly fit stripping out of their clothes, but he does know how to separate that from the professionalism that he always tries to handle his clients with. Still, seeing the other man open his shirt so that he can expose his well-muscled chest and abs, the only ink a large blacked out circle over his chest, a simple but strange image, is not entirely unmoving.

"I got this a few years ago, but I don't think it's complete yet. I saw your work around and I like the flow of it. I was thinking maybe some splashes of ink going around it and up towards my collar bone? Maybe make it look like it has some kind of gravity to it?"

It's a larger space filler, but honestly, if that's what the guy wants, Dabi will be more than happy to do it. He would love to work on something with that kind of style to it. "Yeah, I can definitely do that." The doors opened at nine and if he were doing the blacked out area as well as the design arching around it, then he doesn't think that there would be a way in hell that he would actually be able to get it done before he needs to leave, but he should have plenty of time to get this done if the guy likes his initial sketch. Tomura takes off his jacket and shirt to keep the fabric out of the way and he sees that he has a forearm sleeve on one side that is an elaborate field of forget-me-nots with a white cat laying at the center, and the other shows an impressionistic wolf chasing a rabbit. They go over what they need to, from pain tolerance to relevant medical history, asTomura folds his clothes over the back of the bench, and then they get started. "What's your presentation about?" He asks as he sets things up and gets his gloves on.

"I'm here on behalf of La Vénus," and when Dabi doesn't have a reaction to that, he continues, "It's a sex club downtown." He explains.

"Oh," Dabi blinks, his face heating slightly. "I didn't know there was one of those here."

"It's only been open for a year and a half, but in addition to our nighttime activities, we also offer classes for people who are looking to learn how to engage in kink safely. I'm giving a brief presentation about ways people can not only approach kink at the start of their journey, but also how to introduce that to a partner if they aren't on the same page as them."

"Is it always a hard sell?" He asks, genuine in his question. Most people here are living some kind of alternative lifestyle, he's not about to alienate someone or potentially get put on the wrong person's shit list by being dismissive about the wrong subculture.

"It depends on the partner. Not every kink will be for every person, but a good partner, and a strong relationship, will meet a request from a place of understanding instead of disgust and shame, and hopefully there can be a way of working together to find something that all parties involved can enjoy. And if there isn't any of that communication, understanding, or attempts at empathy, and the asker really does want to have and doesn't think they can be happy in the relationship without it, then maybe it's time to thank the partner for what they were able to give them and move on to what other opportunities are out there for them."

"Yeah, guess that makes sense."

"I'm also going to be talking about basic introductions like what BDSM means, kinks vs. fetishes, different types of domming and subbing styles, I think the panel is called 'Kink 101'-- I was a last minute swap-in for my riggers who were supposed to be here putting on a performance art piece.One of them got clipped by a cyclist and took a tumble at just the wrong angle off of the curb and broke his foot."

"Ouch, I hope that he has a quick recovery, and it's great that you were able to step in on short notice."

"He's in high spirits about it."

Making conversation with people is about half of the job, and over the course of the next two and a half hours that Dabi works over Tomura, they keep up a steady, comfortable stream of chatter. The design takes shape easily, turning into curved lines of ink that meet in sharper points along their apexes, gaps between the thicker black sections like the ink is being pulled apart as it is drawn from the skin and into the circle at the center of his chest. Light dot shading gives some areas additional depth that gives it a three-dimensional effect that makes the illusion even more apparent. And by the time he's done, he's very pleased with his work.

Dabi gives it its final wipe down and Tomura is perfectly happy to linger for pictures before he starts to get out his stuff to wrap up the fresh tattoo.

"Oh, no need." And before Dabi can say anything about how absolutely necessary it is, he watches as Tomura's skin heals. It goes from shiny and red with irritation, to thin scabs forming, hardening, flaking away, and then to clean, unblemished skin, the tattoo looking like it's months old instead of minutes in a handful of seconds. Tomura meets his eyes as he takes a wipe to get rid of the plasma and ink that leaked out and the flakes of scabs from himself, "Regeneration quirk." He explains with a shrug. "I'm just glad that it doesn't work so well it completely destroys them."

"Yeah, that would be wild," Dabi says, as if meeting someone with a regeneration quirk alone isn't already insane. Natsuo has ranted at length about how people with regeneration quirks are nearly forced to go into hero studies so that they can be used as field medics instead of sending them to hospitals where they could consistently help people instead of being on standby all the time for heroes or for disasters.

Tomura pays for the piece in cash after he does up his shirt, passing Dabi a stack of bills that is definitely too much, and then giving him a wave. "Thanks for your time, Dabi. I'd love to have more of your work, hopefully I'll have time to get in touch again." He takes a business card that has the shop's number and his work email and then turns to leave as Dabi realizes that he'd given him a fifty-percent tip. Holy fucking shit. He only has a few minutes to wrap his head around the strange man that he'd just met before the next person comes up and starts to look through his book of flash tattoo designs, and he has to focus on getting his station all cleaned up and sanitized instead of turning over the strangeness of that man in his head.

///

It's not quite intentional for Dabi to take his lunch right around when the Kink 101 course is supposed to be starting. He just didn't get a break until then, and after how long he spent waiting in line the day before for food, he took the fact that vendors were allowed to bring their own snacks in, both for themselves and in case anyone on their table needed them if their blood sugar dips, and he shoves two convenience store onigiri into his mouth and chugs his water bottle, goes to a fountain and refills it, and then chugs that too, before he decides to try to go to the panel. He still ends up being late by fifteen minutes and Tomura Shigaraki, as he catches his full name on the sign taped to the door, is already deeper into his discussion. This convention is already eighteen plus, so he's able to slip inside and find a vacant seat at the back of the room, sitting to listen to what is going on.

"Finding a kink, discovering a style of domination, submission, or both, can take a long time to work through, and it might not be consistent with every relationship that you're in. That's why being able to check in with yourself and be honest about what you have in your relationship, what you need out of it, and what you're looking for in terms of kink-- or really whatever else you need-- is so important. Maybe in a past relationship you were okay with play just being in the bedroom. Maybe you had a period of time where being a brat was the only thing that got you through the day, but now things are more stressful, and you have so many responsibilities on you, that you can't handle having more expectations put on you, and you need a dominant who doesn't get a thrill out of punishments, so much as you need one who will be pleased to take care of you when you come home. Someone who has a good meal waiting for you, will run you a bath, and then take you to bed and make sure that you're feeling so good that all your stress melts away and all you need to do is let yourself be guided by them to bring you both fulfillment." Shigaraki goes on, talking about ways of negotiating through different styles of dom/sub relationships and giving examples of things that can happen in them as well as some reasons why people who have been into those dynamics have found them fulfilling. He talks about a wide variety of other common kinks including a few that make Dabi uncomfortable to hear about, but he talks about all of it with the same level of care and detail. There isn't a drop of insincerity or derision when he talks about things that seem strange to Dabi, but must be relatively commonplace and that must be... popular. All of the things he discusses have to be popular to have made it into his limited presentation, and when Shigaraki gets to the question asking and answering portion, Dabi feels like he fades even further into his own head.

He's been doing all of that 'service dom' stuff for Hawks all the time when he's home and at first it was nice to feel helpful, it's just been... less nice lately. But he didn't know that people could get off to that kind of stuff. Maybe if he could make that some kind of foreplay then he wouldn't be so exhausted each time Hawks comes back to the apartment after also having to spend so much time in bed with his partner.

Dabi dips before the full presentation is done and goes back to his booth, thinking about that for the rest of the weekend. Out of the thirty plus competitions, he feels very lucky to have managed to win two of them, best flash tattoo on Sunday, and best small black design on a male model on Saturday, each day seeing the same categories presented, but new winners chosen for each one. Each winner gets ¥40,000, and that feels like a nice bonus, given that the amount he makes just from doing the pieces he has over the course of the weekend is more money than he normally makes at work in a month. Dabi is never hurting for money now, everything at the apartment is set to autopay and Hawks gives him an allowance for groceries since he wouldn't bother with cooking otherwise, but Dabi never really has been able to shake the feeling of being poor. He never was, not really. He was close a few times after he left the Todoroki house, but all that time that he spent scraping together the funds to support himself always made him feel like he was on the knife edge of oblivion, or at the very least having to crawl his way back to his father and destroying any scrap of his pride that he had left. And Simon did insist that he take a week off to let his hand recover, which, yeah, ow. So he has the money to take a vacation, the time off work, the knowledge his partner isn't going to be home for another two weeks if hero stuff stays the way it has been, and... no reason to go home if there isn't going to be anyone there waiting for him. He'll just be alone in the apartment, and lately... he really hasn't liked doing that very much.

So when Dabi gets back to the hotel on Sunday night, he asks if they have a room available for the rest of the week and then he goes and looks up La Vénus and their educational programs.

///

The following afternoon he finds himself going to a skyscraper in down-town Kamino and checking in with a woman at the front desk. She brings him off to a waiting room with sixteen other people of all shapes and sizes who are also here for the one week intensive workshop that promises to teach them the basics of negotiations, safe BDSM practices, and practical knowledge like basic rope tying. And the class starts at exactly two on the dot as Tomura Shigaraki walks into the room with a tablet. He's wearing a deep red button down today, several of the top buttons undone, a black leather chest harness looped around his torso, sleeves rolled up to show his forearms, and black dress pants again. Today, he's tired back most of his hair, though the messy fringe still frames his face.

"Hello, I'm Tomura Shigaraki and I'll be your instructor for the week. Before we get started, I have a few rules to go over and some guidelines to help keep all of us safe as we proceed." He explains that they will be using the traffic light system as they go through the classes and what that means, so if anyone ever needs to have something stop during a practical application or if they want to step out of the room while the class is learning a triggering kink, they will be able to do so safely. He makes sure that they all checked their phones at the door and tells them that the night of free admittance to the actual sex club upstairs on Saturday night, then they will all have to turn in a clean STI test by the end of the week, but that they will get a welcome packet for information about the walk-in clinic that the venue works closely with to make sure that their various talent also use. Then the tour starts. They get to go through the filming studio that has a variety of different sets and is currently being set up for the next porno that will be shot there today, then up to the lobby of the love hotel section of the building, for people who might not be ready to engage in a public entanglement, and for their guests who are too inebriated to get safely home. There are offices and administrative rooms, as well, though Shigaraki says those areas are where the more boring work of running this company happens, but they need to cross their t's and dot their i's because a lot of people would love to see this place disappear rather than succeed. They get a tour of the empty club near the top of the building, and that is expansive. Dabi hasn't ever been much of a club going person, but seeing one in broad daylight with all the lights on is extremely weird. They are shown the main dance area where people who aren't sure if they want more explicit play tend to stay for some heavy petting, and then go down a wide hallway with roped off seating areas in front of six sets of red velvet curtains. Shigaraki steps down the stairs and parts the curtains showing a bedroom inside, also all decorated in red with a variety of common toys hung neatly on the wall, ready to be used by either customers who book the experience or by their professional doms, subs, or actors who choose to use it instead. Beyond that is the lounge which has large benches at the center of a speak-easy style bar with a balcony running around the top of the room giving people a bird's eye view of the tangled orgies that often take place there. Next door is the traditional dungeon area that Dabi would have expected when people talked about BDSM, with black leather and red accents with floggers, crops, neatly tied bundles of rope, and other accoutrements on one of the walls. And from there the 'wet' room which is tiled and with drains in the floor for people who are interested in fluid-based activities. Then the playroom which is a frilly, pastel landscape that might look like a cartoon world or a child's playhouse if not for all of the very obvious, very pastel, fetish gear around, like breeding benches, stockades, and modular furniture that can be used by the people inside. Before Shigaraki ends the tour with a much more traditional strip club-like room that consists of a bar, two seating areas, and a t-shaped stage. When they've had their look at V, Shigaraki brings them back down to the ground floor and they go to a conference room and are able to take a seat at the little tables in a semi circle around their room, the welcome folders waiting for each of them. Then he starts to teach. He goes over basic terminology, starts to talk about what they will be exploring in this workshop, and then he goes around and gets those of them who are comfortable with saying what they're most interested in learning and has them say it out loud. Dabi doesn't offer, but when everyone is filing out of the room, he's not surprised when Shigaraki comes over to him.

"I didn't expect to see you again so soon, Dabi." He says with a pleased warmth in his tone. "But I can't say that I'm complaining. Do you have any experience with BDSM?"

"I hadn't planned on it until after I caught part of your presentation," he says honestly. "And no, not really? I think... that I've kind of been being a service top for my boyfriend for a while after hearing what you said about it on Saturday, and I got curious about how uh, kink and stuff, might be able to heighten that experience."

"Oh, well I'd be happy to help you work on that and find tools to help ensure that you're happy with where your current relationship is, or find a new way of framing it to make it better. I can't promise perfect results, but if things feel stagnant, then just opening the door to a conversation can be a great way to start to get things moving again."

"Yeah, that's really what I think I'm hoping for." He admits. "We started off really hot and heavy, and then his work got so busy-- and that's fine, he has an important job, and I like what I'm doing, but sometimes I don't know," Dabi shrugs weakly, not knowing how to put into words how he feels after Hawks and come and gone like a whirlwind and he's left dusting himself off in the aftermath.

"You feel drained, alone, helpless? Like maybe the time you spent together wasn't good enough, or you made a mistake?" But Shigaraki just reaches into his brain and extracts the words like it costs him absolutely no effort to do so.

"I-- yeah, how did you know that?"

Shigaraki doesn't look all that pleased that he was so on the money, his lips twisting into a small frown as he goes on. "Well, it sounds like you're doing a lot of acts of service, but not getting any reassurance or aftercare from your dom."

"Oh, he's not my dom. He doesn't uh, give me orders or anything. I just do all of that stuff because I know that it makes things easier for him. I just.. think maybe I overdo it sometimes?"

Shigaraki still doesn't look very happy at that explanation, but he says, "Well that's very kind of you as a caretaker. And when you're finished performing those acts of service for your partner, does he do anything for you in turn? Either in bed or outside of it? Running you a bath, bringing you your favorite food, cuddling with you, words of affirmation?" He lists off things his tone a little more leading with each option and Dabi feels the back of his neck go hot as he has to say instead,

"No, usually I... take care of things in bed too, and afterward we go to sleep. He usually has to be back at work first thing in the morning, so he heads out almost immediately after we get up, and then he stays at work usually for a few days, sometimes a whole week if things are really busy." Dabi... doesn't have that many friends, he realizes at this moment. He has Simon, who is technically his boss, and Natsuo, but he doesn't have anyone else besides them, and they both know that Hawks is a hero and that how busy Hawks is is really just par for the course. It's not his fault, it's just that he has so many lives to save and so much good to do being a hero because he actually believes in a world where heroes make it better instead of it just being a contest of ego the way that Enji has made it, and they usually just nod when he says Hawks is too busy for birthdays, anniversaries, dinner, holidays. It's to be expected. But with that knowledge tying his tongue in this conversation, he sees it on Shigaraki's face as he hears how little it sounds like Hawks does in their relationship and Dabi feels worse about misrepresenting his partner.

"Okay, well, maybe you can start with something small. Maybe try to find the time to talk to him about how you've been feeling low after your time together. You said things were very hot and heavy at the start, and I imagine if you two don't get to see each other all the time, that means there's a lot of anticipation for the times you can. And I bet that things get hot and heavy again quickly after that because of the limited time as well. When something gets built up and there is a lot of excitement around it, there can be a crash afterwards as your brain uses all of your good hormones and endorphins up and that can leave you feeling depleted. That's what we call a 'drop' and they can be very severe for people, or just a consistent feeling of discomfort after a scene. But doing something that helps to reassure yourself, or something that is low effort but feels good or comforting, can be a great way of preventing that, some aftercare so that you will hopefully be able to stop getting to those lows."

And those words, at the very least, make Dabi feel a bit better. "Okay, yeah, that sounds doable." He didn't know that feeling so much anticipation, so much frantic energy to make the most of the time he has not being alone in the apartment, and the hollowness that comes for him in the quiet again when it's over, was something that could be so commonplace to other people that they would have words for it, but he's glad he has them now.

"Great, and I look forward to showing you some other ways that will help you make sure you're getting everything you need to make kink work for you." He smiles again and some of the tightness in Dabi's chest leaves him.

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to finding out more about all of this, and hopefully I'll get the chance to work with you again on your next piece." He says, giving a weak smile of his own.

"I hope so, I was thinking of a back piece. A moth maybe, with slashes of starlight coming out of it, mirroring what you did around my chest piece."

They talk for a bit longer about that, and Dabi relaxes again. Shigaraki is a good conversationalist, and Dabi does talk to a lot of people, he talked until his throat ached over the weekend just trying to be personable with everyone who came to his booth at the convention. But that just means it's much easier for him to know when he actually clicks with someone enough to want to keep talking to them, and when forty-five minutes eclipse from the end of the class and someone actually comes to see what is going on, Dabi knows he probably could have stayed there talking to the other man for another hour at least. Oh well, if nothing else, it just reassures him that taking this vacation was absolutely the right move for him as he looks forward to the class tomorrow.

///

The classes are wildly different from anything that Dabi ever thought that he would get up to in his life, but they are good, fun even. Shigaraki is good at treating the subject with enough seriousness when he's talking about play that could be harmful if executed poorly, but he never shies away from the fact that,

"Yeah, sometimes we have to take a step back and acknowledge it is pretty funny that being treated like a dog, piece of furniture, or a misbehaving student when we've been out of school for decades gets us off. It's fine to laugh at yourself and never forget that when it comes down to it, kink is supposed to be fun, there should be a joy and satisfaction in the things that you're doing, and if you aren't finding that, then it might be time to take a step back and re-evaluate why you're doing it in the first place."

And there are little exercises that Shigaraki does with them as well. He walks them through the beginnings of wax play and how to buy candles that are safe to use on human skin. He brings out a series of different impact toys and teaches them where they can go, how to create a pain scale, the difference between 'thuddy' and 'stingy' pain and how to take care of whoever is on the receiving end of that pain when they're done. He teaches them the basic knots for shibari and signs to look out for in case something is too tight, urging them to always leave the knots loose enough so that they can slip two fingers under the rope of whoever they're tying, including themselves as he talks about self-shibari and the way that can be soothing and enjoyable as well.

Dabi learns so much, and whenever they have to partner up for the activities, he often ends up with Shigaraki as his given the odd number of students in the class at the moment. He thinks that maybe that should be embarrassing, with the other students already forming little micro-cliques during their breaks, but he doesn't mind. Shigaraki is great to talk to one-on-one as well, and he feels like he's absorbing even more information than he thinks that he is during the lectures at large as they work together.

Their task right now is a mock scene negotiation in a safe space where they can practice voicing the things they want in bed, how to handle rejection, or how to map out details enough to ensure that they are set up for a safe scene in the end.

Dabi knows he's not the only one bright red as he tries to stumble his way through his words, but he doesn't know if he's felt his quirk closer to his skin in a decade, but he might burn up completely as he tries to imagine asking Hawks to do anything that they've tried so far in class.

"I, uh, I think I want to try to be a service dom. Not much has to change-- I'll still clean the house and cook and stuff, but when we're together, I think it would feel good if you could tell me that I've done well? A-and after we're together I start to feel low because I was so excited to see you, but then it's over so quickly and it makes me exhausted, and I tend to feel really bad after you go, so maybe instead of me just making you feel good before you leave, we could spend a little more time together? I think it would be nice to do something softer. Maybe I could do that thing that you like," bird quirks aren't common enough for him to risk saying 'preen your wings' out loud, but he doesn't have to. Shigaraki already told him that he could redact anything that he wants to protect the privacy that he wants to hold onto here. It still feels so strange to say all of this out loud though. "I just, I want to make sure that it still feels special, and that it still feels good when we can be together, and I think that making some of these changes could help."

Shigaraki waits a beat for him to finish speaking and then he answers in a low voice. "No, I don't think I want to do that. I would rather you put a leash on me and make me bark."

And even though it's not supposed to be funny really, the wild rejection does let a bubble of half-hysterical laughter slip from his lips and help him to try and regain his balance. "That's not what he would say if he were going to shoot me down."

"What would he say then?" Shigaraki leans his knuckles against his cheek, smiling at him gently, encouragingly as he helps to coach him through this part. It's going to be so hard to say any of this at all, but just being forced to think through it, to practice what he would want to say, it does help. He always felt better when he thought he was doing something proactive to change his circumstances.

"He would probably say something like, 'oh? really, sorry! Sure, we can try it!'" Dabi tells him, but even as he says the sentence, he feels that low starting to come into his mood again and he trails off. He's not expecting Shigaraki to reach across the table and catch his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze to encourage him to go on. "...And then, maybe after a week or two, he would slow down. And if I asked him for a check-in, he would probably say, 'oh, yeah, all of that-- I'm sorry, I've just been so busy lately! Maybe we can try again some other time?'. And he is busy, this is just something for me."

Shigaraki squeezes his hand a little tighter. "Just because it's something for you, doesn't make it less important than things that are just for him. You should be able to ask for the things you want, Dabi." He considers him for a second and Dabi can't keep holding his eye contact, feeling... small in a way that he hasn't ever felt before. "You keep talking about service domination, but have you considered that you might lean more towards submission instead?" Shigaraki prompts him, and that, at least, is different enough that he is able to focus on the other man's words more clearly.

"I always top, he usually doesn't have the energy for that after all the time he spends at work." He says automatically. He used to switch with other people he's slept with in the past, but Hawks just wasn't ever interested in that.

"You can still be a submissive who tops, Dabi. The real difference comes from where you're getting your pleasure. Do you like the idea of doing all of the things you've told me you do because you feel satisfied knowing that the apartment is in your control, that you are the one who makes sure that your busy partner is looked after and taken care of when he comes back home? He can go out and save the world, or whatever his job is that is so important, but when he's inside of your home, he's able to relax because he looks to you for that kind of tenderness and care that you put into making everything perfect? Or," he leads him with his tone, "Do you make the house perfect, cook, and do whatever he likes in bed because you like it when he gives you attention for doing them? Is it about taking pleasure from being told that you're doing a good job? Would you enjoy being tied to the bed and used as nothing but a toy as much as you enjoy making him food if you knew that it made him happy to do that to you?"

And Dabi's blush comes back hot across his skin again as he rolls those words around in his head. He... always tries to earn a scrap of praise, always works hard so that he can prove that he's worthy of standing beside Hawks even though only two other people in the whole world know that they've even met. And when those efforts go unnoticed or unacknowledged, those lows come in so much harder for him in the aftermath. He only ever sails high when he does something particularly impressive and Hawks spends time telling him how wonderfully he did. He looks to him for that reassurance. "I... like it when he tells me I'm doing a good job." He admits softly.

Shigaraki smiles at him again, so warm and sweet and it makes Dabi's chest go warmer too even though he knows it shouldn't. "That's fine, Dabi. But if that's the case, then maybe start to reframe what you're asking for in your negotiation. If you need a dom who will give you the praise, attention, and acknowledgement that you deserve for how well you've been acting as a sub, then that's important. You have every right to that kind of attention, especially if you're suffering without it."

"Okay." He barely manages to say the word, taking his hand out of Shigaraki's. "Uh, I think I'm going to go to the bathroom." He says, leaving the table without another word. He has safe ones to use, but he doesn't know why he needs them. Why his chest feels so tight, why he thinks he might burst into tears as soon as he's alone. But he does know that he shouldn't have felt a little warmer when Shigaraki was holding his hand like that.

///

Dabi tries to text Hawks that night. He hadn't bothered to tell him that he was going to stay in Kamino after the conference because he knew that he wouldn't be home to notice his absence. But that sends a sourness through his gut now and he shoots off a message to the other man.

Dabi: 'Decided to stay in Kamino for the week with the vacation time. How are things with you?"

It takes twenty minutes before he gets a response.

Birdy: 'Kamino?? What r u doing there???'

Dabi frowns and types back quickly, trying to make sure he gets as long of a conversation out of his partner as he can.

Dabi: 'I had the tattoo convention over the weekend.'

Birdy: 'Ooooh right! Cool, have fun!'

Dabi stares at the text bubble for a minute. He thinks about telling him that he won a few prizes for his work, or telling him how many people he saw, how badly his hand hurt on Monday, something. But he realizes distantly that he... wants Hawks to ask him about that. He had been so excited when his application had been accepted for this, and Hawks had forgotten about it in the eight months leading up to it, forgotten that he went to it even when he'd gone home and not seen him there, and he didn't even remember it now.

He doesn't like the part of him that screenshots the La Vénus educational programs page on the site, but the parts he does like are silent as he sends that to Hawks with the added bubble,

Dabi: 'I signed up for a few, thought that it could be an interesting way to spend the week.'

Birdy: '😳!'

Birdy: 'Maybe a nefarious villain will tie me up when I come back home and have his wicked way with me 😘'

And Dabi's not prepared for the sharp heat that goes through him. Not desire, but something... volatile that has his quirk trying to act up again.

Dabi: 'Or maybe a dirty hero ties me up and has his way with me. I could teach you the knots we've learned.'

Birdy: 'Eh, we could get to the good stuff faster if you do it. GTG, ttyl, hot stuff!'

And it's only when Dabi sees a spark leave his lips on his next exhale that he realizes that he's so... angry. Angry in a way he hasn't felt himself get in a long time, but angry in a way that makes him think that if he let his flames escape his skin, he wouldn't stop burning until his fire chased Hawks through the sky--

Dabi tries to take a deep breath, and when he can only taste smoke in the back of his throat, he goes into the shower and cranks the water as cold as it can go, staying there until the smoke stops spilling from his skin and his body is just left frigid and shivering when he goes to lay back down.

///

The next day, Shigaraki reminds them that they need to go to the clinic to get their STI tests done if they want to be admitted to the club on Saturday. They only have until Friday afternoon at three if they want their results by the next day, and he doesn't want any of them to miss out on the opportunity if they want to see kink in practice or try it out themselves if they're in the market for that. He doesn't push, but Dabi is pretty sure he's the only person who hasn't actually gone to the clinic. He hadn't been planning on going to the club on Saturday. Going to these classes had felt alright, like he wasn't really doing anything wrong because it was all an educational setting and there wasn't any chance of this becoming an orgy or crossing the line into anything actually sexual. Whereas going to the club felt more... overtly bad. He knows he's clean because Hawks is the only person he's slept with in years, and he knows the hero isn't cheating on him because if he wanted to drive himself absolutely insane, he could very easily map out every single second of the hero's day from news reports and fansites. He doesn't want to do that, and another part of his mind sparks with something mean and bitter as it reminds him that Hawks wouldn’t have the energy to try and cheat on him. He can't even put any energy into being--

Dabi tries to shake those angry thoughts, knowing that they don't do him any good and just make him more upset. Hawks is the number three hero in Japan. He grew up knowing how little time for a home life the number two had, and holding that against Hawks when he knew what he was getting into is just petty and in bad faith. He knows better than that. But he is quiet during the class today. Shigaraki brought in a huge array of sex toys and fetish gear and talked them through finding reputable sellers, good materials, how to sanitize different ones, and how to take care of others, including things like latex which requires special storage and upkeep to make sure that it stays looking its best and doesn't get damaged between uses. It's all interesting, and Dabi tries to pay attention, but he doesn't really manage it.

And at the end of class, Shigaraki comes over to his table and takes the seat across from him as the other students file out of the room. Dabi never got in trouble at school, he was always too desperate to prove that he was the best at school and his training, but he imagines that the dread inside of him that comes now is a similar feeling to what he would have gotten when he was young.

"Hey, I just wanted to check in. You seemed a little out of it today, did you remember your colors, Dabi?" His voice is gentle and worried and that makes Dabi feel even worse.

"I remember them," he says quickly. "I wasn't uncomfortable."

"Then is there something else on your mind that I can help you with?" Shigaraki sounds so sure, so understanding, and he is looking at him. Taking the time to check-in on him when it would have probably been easier for him to just shoo him along so he can go about whatever other business he has to do today.

"I... tried to bring things up with my partner." He says after a second. "He was into some of it-- he even told me a fantasy of his. But... when I suggested that he take a little more control, he turned me down. W-we were just texting, so it's not like he could see how much that disappointed me, but I don't know. It just made me think that maybe there isn't a reason for me to keep coming to these classes. He's never going to--" he stops himself again, holding his tongue because he doesn't want to say that. He doesn't want to put it in the air. If he does that then he can never take it back.

"I think," Shigaraki says after a moment, still watching him with that same measured look, "That these classes are for you first and foremost. They're something you decided to do because you were interested in them and the things you learn here are ones you'll be able to use for the rest of your life, whether or not you stay partners with this person for all of that time. If you enjoy what you're learning, then learn it for you-- not him. To me," Shigaraki says, his tone shifting a bit, but in a way that Dabi can't put a name to, "It seems like you're already doing a lot for him. I think you should spend the rest of the week thinking about the things that you want to do."

Dabi has always thought he was doing the things he wanted. He left his father's home because he wanted to be something other than the failed son, he threw himself into this craft because he wanted to make a name for himself unconnected to his family name, he's been a good partner because he... wanted to prove that he wasn't made of the same things as his father. He sees who he is and how every echo that shaped him is just in response to where he started and that is a new layer of horribleness that he is suddenly made aware of that he absolutely loathes. "I... don't know."

"That's okay too, but thinking about it won't hurt. Has there been anything that we've talked about in class that has piqued your interest? Not something to do with the partner that you have now, but an ideal fantasy?" When Dabi feels like he's just desperately clawing through his mind for one real thing that he wants, that isn't just... attention from the people he always gives all of his attention to in turn, and he doesn't move to speak, Shigaraki takes pity on him again. "I don't have a full-time sub right now." He says honestly, watching him from across the table with unwavering red eyes. "I want one, very badly. I want a full-time power exchange. I want him to live in my apartment and abide by the schedule I leave him, wear the clothes I pick out for him, and only feel good when it's my hands on his body or when I've given him permission to touch. I imagine how much of a relief I would feel checking in with him throughout the day and seeing if he was following along with the schedule and then getting to spoil him with rewards or punishments depending on his answer. I would adore getting to dress him up, maybe in latex, maybe leather, maybe tight bodices, or frilly skirts, or maybe walking him naked through the club with only my collar around his neck and a leash taut to keep him at my side. I would love to show him off and make sure that everyone knew that out of anyone else I could pick, he was the person I chose to spend my time with. I would love to teach him how many ways he could be broken and put back together without ever feeling shattered-- or ever doubting that I would make sure he was together again before we were finished."

Dabi listens, his attention clinging onto every word that Shigaraki says, his skin growing warm with something other than his quirk when he hears the things that he says, when he imagines what it would be like to be the one at the center of someone else's world. When he thinks about how... good it would feel to be adored in his subservience. Not made to feel lesser, not used up completely with the only thing that matters being what he can give the people around him. He wonders how good it could be, and he stands up from the table abruptly, meaning to leave as quickly as he can.

Shigaraki stands too, "Dabi--" There's heat in his voice that makes a tremble go through his whole body and his step falter even before the other man has wrapped four fingers around his wrist and pulled him to a stop.

"I can't--" The words slip out immediately, and like a shark scenting blood, Shigaraki locks onto them even as Dabi's hand flies up to his mouth like he could catch them from the air and put them back in his throat. It's not 'I can't', it's 'stop, let go of me, don't touch me' hell it's 'this is inappropriate, I want my money back' territory.

But Dabi didn't say any of those other things and Shigaraki is quick, and he's strong, and... Dabi isn't fighting him when he pulls him to a stop, catches his hips, and pushes him up against the wall, his body not quite pressing into his, but blocking him in so completely that the world beyond them feels like it's falling away. He holds him in place as those red eyes burn into his body and he doesn't let him escape his gaze.

"You are so talented, charming, and beautiful. You are so ready to be a good submissive for someone and the person you're with doesn't deserve you. You don't deserve their treatment. You should be cherished, pampered, adored. I would love to be the one responsible for showing you that, Dabi. I would make certain that you knew every day how happy it made me if you were mine. I would reward you every night as we figured out what kind of treatment would excite you most. Maybe I would talk myself hoarse every night telling you what a good job you did following instructions that day. Maybe you would want a reminder of how to be good and you would lay across my lap to get maintenance spankings. Maybe you wouldn't be able to sleep without warming my cock in your needy hole after how completely you've been neglected for so long. And I would help you figure all of that out. I would do my best to make sure that you never dropped again, and if you did-- there would never be anything more important to me than taking care of the person who trusted me so completely. I will take care of you, Dabi."

And that horrible broken ache in his chest is so much worse than it has been, but even just that makes Dabi acknowledge that his chest has been hurting for a long time. It hurt so bad and so much that he made himself numb to it instead of feeling it. He's been running away from things, burying his head in the sand, making excuses the way-- the way--

"Red," Dabi's voice cracks as he croaks out the word, his eyes burning as they fill with unshed tears.

Shigaraki lets go of him immediately, his expression going from intense to remorseful in a second as he takes two steps back so that he's not even within arm's reach of Dabi, but before he can say anything else, Dabi is racing out of the room. He manages to flag down a cab and tell them where he's going before he's pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes and doing his best to muffle his sobs as the car pulls away from the building.

///

It's hours later, Dabi's mouth feeling dry, his head pounding, and a horrible sourness in his gut that he isn't sure is ever going to go away, before he realizes that he doesn't have his phone, he left it at La Vénus, and he needs to talk to Hawks tonight. Dabi feels awful, but he trudges to the bathroom, leaving the light off so he doesn't have to see himself, and he washes his face before he gets his coat and goes back to the door.

It's a horrible walk of shame that brings him back to the club that already has a modest line out the front door as people have to show their IDs and tests to get into the building. Dabi's skin prickles with discomfort the closer to the front of the line he gets, knowing that he won't be allowed inside, but when it's his turn he shows his ID and starts to speak before the bouncer can force him to leave,

"I don't have a test-- I don't want to go to the club. I'm a student in some of the educational programs in the afternoon, and I accidentally left my phone at the front desk. I really need it tonight, could I please just run to the front desk and grab it? My name is Dabi, I'm on the class registry."

The woman who was looking at IDs has got at least ten centimeters on him, but as she listens to his rambling she reaches for a walkie talkie at her belt and buzzes the desk, asking if there are any personal belongings under his name there. His phone is found and returned to him in a matter of minutes. But when it's returned, it does so in a red gift bag and Dabi doesn't bother to question it right now. Not when all he wants to do is get as far away from here as possible. He makes his way down the street, wanting to find somewhere that is more private than his hotel with paper thin walls and that isn't going to be as stiflingly confined as actually being inside.

It's been a long time since he did something so delinquent, but he wanders until he finds a building that is off in the middle of nowhere that doesn't have a particularly high fence, with darkness in every window, and then he hops the fence and climbs the fire escape up to the roof. He sits down on the edge, letting his legs dangle off, the glow of street lamps and the light pollution of the city ambient enough for him to see through as he extracts his phone from the bag first, and then goes after whatever is tangled up in the crisp white tissue paper.

The first thing he finds is an envelope and even though he doesn't know if he wants to see what Shigaraki had to say, he still opens it up.

'Dabi,

You have my sincerest apologies for my inappropriate behavior today. While you are welcome to continue to attend my class, or the later afternoon session that has a different teacher, or the club on Saturday or at any other point in the future, your payment has been refunded in full. I'm certain that monetary repayment isn't enough for the distress that I have caused you, and I can only hope that an apology is enough for now, or until you feel comfortable with presenting me another way I can make amends.

I'm certain that you do not want to hear this from me, but the 'partner' that you talk about with such reverence, doesn't seem to be worthy of the care and attention that you put into caring for him when he cannot be bothered to return those affections in kind. I hope that no matter what path your life takes, that you can come to terms with that in your own time and find a way that allows you to be happy with the acts of service that you do with someone who cherishes them for what they are worth.

It was a pleasure to meet you if I don't have the honor of seeing you again, and I hope you know that you leave a lasting impression on anyone whose path you do cross-- even if you don't end up putting your ink in their skin.

-Tomura Shigaraki'

Dabi doesn't want to let the words shake anything else loose in his chest and he puts the envelope back into the bag and takes out the other item. It's three books. Two of them he recognizes as ones that Shigaraki talked about being good ways to learn if they wanted to keep doing so outside of the class. The third is probably something that he picked up from the convention, because it's an art book that has different styles of tattoos from all around the world. Dabi has a copy of it already, something he got himself for his birthday last year when Hawks said that he would be too busy to come home to celebrate with him and he'd run out of time to do any shopping, so he'd told him to just pick something out for himself. Dabi wants to burn it as he stares at the glossy cover, but he manages to refrain if only because he's not sure that he would stop if he let himself start to burn.

Dabi pushes himself up from the ledge and starts to pace as he texts Hawks.

Dabi: Can you call me?

There's no response right away and Dabi can't stand that. He normally waits. He always has to wait because Hawks is a hero. He's busy. He's saving people and Dabi isn't selfish enough to pretend that he is more important than that. Not usually. But right now he needs to be selfish. He calls the other man.

It goes to voicemail. Dabi knows his frequency for his coms channel for his agency and he logs into it from his phone, listening to see if there is any chatter about a fight going on, but all he hears are some of the sidekicks talking about picking up a late dinner.

So he calls Hawks again. And again, and after three calls going to voicemail, the hero finally answers.

"Jeez, what's going on, hot stuff? Never had you blow me up like this. Is it an emergency? I'm not going to be home tonight, I'm still at work." He says that and something in Dabi snaps and goes white-hot with his rage, sparks flying out of his mouth as he snarls back,

"I know you're at work! I know you're not home! Do you even remember where I am tonight?" It's been a long time since Dabi raised his voice and he doesn't know if he's ever done it to Hawks, but if it's between keeping his words or his flames contained, then he has a very important choice to make and he's... not going to ruin his life over Hawks.

"Whoa, calm down, hot stuff. What's going on? Why are you so steamed? Smoked?" He makes a joke and Dabi's mouth goes.

"I'm still in Kamino, for my vacation after the convention I was so excited about being accepted for."

"Oh! Right, sorry about that." Hawks doesn't seem upset. He laughs. "You were going to some classes," he can hear the way that the bird waggles his eyebrows suggestively whenever he's making his allusions as he says that word. "Oh! Is that what this is about? Something happen that got you all hot and bothered. Sure I could swing by Kamino real quick if you can make it worth my while, Dabs."

Dabi has never had anger burn so brightly inside of him that it turns to... nothing. To a wave of calm that is so deep and so thorough for a moment that as he starts speaking again, he doesn't have room in him for doubt or hesitation anymore. "Yeah, I heard something very hot, and it made me think: I'm not happy with what we're doing in bed anymore."

There's a pregnant pause on the other end of the line and when Hawks doesn't find his words immediately for once, Dabi keeps talking.

"I don't like always topping when we're together. I don't like the fact that when I'm exhausted after spending eight hours crouched over someone, knowing that any fuck-up I could make will stick with them for the rest of their life, I then have to rush home to make you dinner and clean the apartment, and then know that I have to be the world's most attentive dildo because otherwise you'll squawk and pout about how your needs aren't being met while I'm doing so much that it feels like I'm dying."

"Woah, hey, where is all of this coming from?" And Hawks finally sounds like he's actually taking him seriously, for once, and he sounds annoyed when he adds, "This isn't an emergency and I am at work, Dabi. I don't have time for this."

And the fire comes back. It explodes, through his veins, out of him in a blast of fire that vents out through the uncovered parts of his skin and leaves them tingling with the pain of a light burn from how hot they come and how quickly they dissipate like a flash bang. “You're ALWAYS at work! You never have time for me! But you expect me to make time for you! You expect me to call off work, and clean the apartment, and cook for you, and fuck you however you want without ever asking me what I want! I know your schedule back to front and you don't even remember when I tell you I'm going somewhere for eight months before it happens! You didn't even ask me how the convention went! I won two awards! I'm not changing the world, I might not be a hero, but that doesn't mean that I'm not important! Is this all I have to look forward to? Being your house husband who doesn't exist in the eyes of the public because your image is more important than I ever will be to you?"

"Okay, sorry. Fuck, I didn't realize that not asking about your day was such a big deal. But you cannot honestly be telling me that you think me calling to check in how your day is going is more important than my hero work. Come on, Dabi. I don't know what's gotten into you, but be reasonable."

Dabi doesn't cry. He doesn't scream anymore. This time he knows it's hopeless before he goes and destroys himself in pursuit of someone who absolutely does not deserve him. "I shouldn't have ever had to be measured against that. You should have made time and room for both if you wanted to have both when you asked me to move in with you. I'll leave my key under the mat. We're done."

And he hangs up. He pauses, waiting for a moment to see if Hawks calls him back, if he sends him a text, but he doesn't get one. He hates that he can just imagine Hawks shaking out his feathers, rolling his eyes, stretching, and then going right back to his sidekicks to keep being the golden hero. He'll probably either tell him to buy himself something or just have his personal assistant send flowers to the apartment. That's what he did the first time that he forgot their anniversary and Dabi had been mad at him. He had someone else buy him a present, and then he doted on him a bit when he'd come home, until Dabi 'got over it' and had gone right back to doing the same thing again. Dabi had convinced himself that was alright, like Rei had convinced herself that she could survive in his father's house and like how Fuyumi had deluded herself that they could all be a happy family again. Not anymore. Dabi picks up the gift bag and climbs back down, blocking Hawks's number before he looks up where the nearest open department store is and if there's any way that he can get from Kamino to Fukuoka tonight.

///

He arrives back at the apartment just after sunrise with three suitcases that he bought on his way back. He goes inside and finds that the air is stale, Hawks only having come home maybe once based on the fucking take-out container that is stinking up the apartment and that has already bred fruit flies from being left there. Because Hawks is used to him going around and cleaning up after him. Dabi has been living here for two years, but he... doesn't want anything. Not a damn thing that is in this house. He just goes in and gets the things that are important. Legal documents that he has to have, his clothes, his sketchbooks, but there is nothing that he looks at in this house that has some sort of sentimental value that he feels the need to hold onto. And he's not about to find out if Hawks can be as vindictive as his father was, so he makes sure to get a picture of every room with timestamps on, just in case, and then he locks up and puts his key under the welcome mat he bought for the place.

He takes his shit and goes to the tattoo parlor, and as soon as Simon sees the bags he gives him a look that tells Dabi that he's been waiting for this to happen. It only doesn't make him angry or hurt because at least Simon doesn't protest at all when Dabi says, "I think I'm finally ready to try guesting at other studios around the country. Do you still have any offers for me?"

"Yeah, I've got a few, come sit down and we can take a look." Thankfully, his friend doesn't offer him any condolences or ask him how he's doing. He just brings him to the office and opens up a folder he's saved in his email with the inquiries that have been sent their way. "You got three more since last weekend," he says, his tone trying to be encouraging.

"Are any of them near Kamino? I... didn't actually check out of my hotel yet." He realizes dimly. He is going to have to go back, though at least he shouldn't be in too bad of a spot on that front given it's Friday and he won't have to check out until Sunday.

Simon hesitates, but he does click over to one of the inquiries. "There is one, it's a relatively new shop, only three years old with only a few reviews and a pretty barren online presence, but somehow it's on one of the most populated streets and seems to be doing very well for itself even though none of the artists there have a very large online presence either." And Dabi wanted to be a hero since he was a child, so he feels very sure when he says,

"Yakuza?"

"Not in Kamino," And he knows Simon uses his quirk, the ability to get people to follow his command if he uses his command phrase, for off-the-books illicit activities. He knows his main side hustle is with some black market mob doctor because when they can't get anesthetics, all Simon has to do is command someone to slow their breathing, go numb, or go to sleep, and their brains rush to follow his orders. It's shady business, but Dabi never wanted to see him go to Tartarus for it, especially not when he knew that Hawks would have absolutely brought him in for it. "Someone new owns Kamino, took over about three years ago, same time this place popped up, so I'm guessing this is one of their laundering businesses."

"Is it the kind of person I should be worried about if I go there and do some tattoos for a week?"

"No, from what I hear he's pretty level-headed. I don’t think he'd bother you as long as you keep your mouth shut, and I can vouch for you there. Just, uh, maybe don't tell anyone who your ex is?"

"Okay, can you set it up for me?" Normally Dabi takes care of his business stuff on his own, but all he wants to do after a sleepless night is go back to his hotel room and sleep back all the time he lost to Hawks. How the fuck can that feel as bad as losing the years that he did to a fucking coma?

"Yeah, no problem Dabi. Sorry."

He doesn't thank him for his condolences, just the work that he's willing to do for him as he gets back on his feet before he goes back to Kamino.

///

Dabi didn't eat anything on Friday, he realizes as he wakes up absolutely ravenous on Saturday morning. His eyes still hurt from the late night bout of crying that got to him after he'd gone to the front desk and extended his stay again. Coming back to the room with his life in four bags around him had been too much and he'd shattered apart again. But he's starving, he has to think about his savings and next steps and generally get his life together now. He can't just stick his head in the sand and wait for things to not suck as much as they do right now. He's been doing that for two years and he'll be dead in a ditch before he wastes another day on that kind of bullshit.

He goes down to the hotel shop and picks up whatever instant stuff they have so he can eat, and then he comes back to the room, shoving it into his mouth as he opens his email. Simon forwarded him other offers, and told him that the studio is happy to host him for the next two weeks starting on Monday, and that he's free to start posting on socials about it and they will be doing the same. He immediately goes and uploads the pictures he has of his winning designs from last weekend and says that he'll be there and if anyone wants to book something with him, he'd be happy to do so.

Then he replies to the other two spots that want him to take up work with them, booking out the next two weeks after this spot, and then the next two weeks after that. He texts Natsuo and asks if he can store his non-essentials at his place for a few weeks while he's traveling for a bit, and his brother offers to commiserate with him, but Dabi shoots it down. He's not going to be sad over this. He's been sad for years now, he's realizing, and he's ready to go back to working hard for himself, not for someone else who doesn't care about him.

And as he's going through his emails, he gets one from La Vénus. It tells him that today at three is the final chance for him to be tested if he wants to attend the 'graduation' event tonight and get into the club. He was pretty certain that Shigaraki said that the last day was Friday, and he fully intends on closing that email and moving on with what else he needs to get in a row now that he doesn't have an apartment anymore. But he glances at the clock and it's only ten in the morning.

When was the last time he went out? Two years? Three? He stopped partying and drinking out in public because Hawks always got so pouty and mournful that he couldn't do that too because of his public image. Dabi stopped in solidarity with him, not because he stopped liking those things as a fun treat every once in a while. And he won't even have to pay the door fee at La Vénus. He can just go in and use the refunded class fee to get absolutely plastered and have a good time. And maybe if someone wants to push him up against a wall and have their way with him, maybe that could be good too. Dabi goes to the clinic.

By the time he's finished, his results promised within the next eight hours which will put them as ready well before the club opens for the night, he decides that he wants to dress up. Dress less like a house husband and more like the way he used to when he wanted people to see his tattoos. Before Hawks told him he should try to look nondescript because when they would risk going out on dates at the beginning, there was still always a chance that someone might recognize him and try to look into Dabi and find out about their relationship like it was a dirty secret.

He scrolls on his phone to find the shops that La Vénus recommended in the area for different fetish gear and finds a place that focuses on fashion. He heads over, and by the time he gets his results back from the clinic that declares him clean and ready to go, he's at a salon not too much further down the street, getting his hair bleached and his nails painted properly for the first time in ages. It's all money he spent and got back from the classes in the first place, and he is tired of making himself smaller for other people.

///

When Dabi goes back to V that night, he gets in line with everyone else and as he gets to the front, once they see his test and ID, they tell him that he's welcome to go up and there's a graduation present waiting for him at the phone check. There he hands over his phone and is given back two golden coins with an impression of a Greek statue with a ball gag in her mouth, his two free drink tokens, a wristband that can be scanned to put drinks on his tab that he'll settle before getting his phone back, and a ticket that he can use to get a slot bumped up in the red rooms if he wants to use one and there's a waiting list.

He goes up the elevator into the final waiting area before actually being able to enter the play room and he puts his coat into one of the lockers, already so warm that he knows he'll be sweltering if he keeps it on. And he... looks like he belongs. He was surprised to find baggy shiny vinyl tripp pants when he went to the shop, but the fishnet tank top and chest harness were much more along the lines of what he wanted, and he knows he looks striking with the winding and jagged black ink along his arms, chest, and back against his pale skin and his freshly bleached hair. Black was what he wore for years to keep people from paying too much attention to him. Now he wants all eyes on him.

Dabi goes to the first room, the one mostly like a normal club area, gets his first drink and downs it as quickly as possible, and then throws himself into the crowd, the sharp tang of sweat filling the air alongside layers of cologne and perfumes that paired with the changing lights and thrumming music make the dancefloor a dizzying cacophony of sound as they go.

Dabi dances for a long time, letting strangers hold onto him and pull him close, before he slips out of their grips if he thinks they might ask him to pull away into one of the other corners in the room so that they can have their way with him. He doesn't want that, he just wants to have a good time and when he's sweating and needs to separate himself from the overwhelming heat and crush of bodies, he slips out of that room and into the red hallway.

The rooms are all filled, the curtains open, and people are sitting off to the side of the main hall, watching as the various shows of sexuality unfold on the other side of the glass. He wants to catch his breath, but not here. He passes through and glances around the lounge. There are two tangled piles of bodies on the large benches at the center of the room, but a glance around also shows him that there are people in laps or under tables at some of the booths as they find their pleasure easily and readily as they do so.

He doesn't find what he wants in this room either, so he moves on. The dungeon is bumping as much as the other rooms, people strapped to breeding benches or tied up, some with spreader bars holding open their legs so that their partners can press bits of ginger into their genitals or bring floggers and crops against them so that they're squealing and crying with the pain. Dabi feels like his legs get a little more unsteady as he turns and leaves that room, wondering what it would be like to be helpless like that as he lets his dom do whatever they want to him. He skips the wet room, not wanting to even chance seeing what is going on in there, and his skin goes unbelievably warmer when he looks at the pink room and sees all kinds of people dressed as puppies or kittens or in frilly skirts and dresses regardless of whatever gender they present as. But he doesn't find him there either. It's only as he goes into the strip club and sees that three of his classmates are still sitting at one of the tables, the others either gone for the night or having already found their fun elsewhere in the club.

And Shigaraki is there. His long white hair is wild around his shoulders again and he's wearing a see-through black button down shirt, mostly open to show his tattoo on his chest, with intricate red flowers embroidered over it and black dress pants again. He's talking with the other students and doesn't see him as he comes into the room, and Dabi makes a b-line straight for him.

He's at the edge of the table before Shigaraki glances over at him and his eyes widen slightly, and then he's climbing into his lap, straddling him with the edge of the table biting into his back as he hooks his hands over his strong shoulders before Shigaraki can say his name.

He's kissing him hard before he can think better of any of his boldness.

There's a split second where Shigaraki's lips are slack and surprised against his, but that goes away so quickly and then his hands, covered in leather half gloves, are wrapping tightly around his hips and his mouth is moving against his. Shigaraki kisses him like he wants to eat him alive. Like if he can't catch every breath and little gasp from his lips, then he won't be satisfied. And Dabi wants that. He wants to be so frantically and completely wanted, and the way that his whole body hums with pleasure when Shigaraki takes control, holding Dabi tighter, keeping their lips together even when Dabi tries to part for breath until he's decided that he can pull away, is so different from the way that sex has felt like... going through the motions for so long now.

"Dabi," His voice is low and hot and he doesn't think he would be able to hear it over the pounding music if he weren't so close to him.

"I want someone who will take care of me." He admits breathlessly. "I want to be good for someone who appreciates it. I want to be a sub." He says those things, wants those things, but he knows that Shigaraki hears what he doesn't say. That he wants to be his sub. That he wants him to be the one to take care of him, that he wouldn't have gotten this far without what he'd said to him, that he wants to feel as wanted as Shigaraki has made him feel in just this past week.

"And I'm never going to give you reason to doubt wanting those things ever again, precious." Words given back to him with the same amount of heat that he's offered to him before, with a sureness that tells Dabi he isn't worried about being a homewrecker or a rebound. He knows what his domination, his affection, his words are worth, and there isn't an ego behind that the way that it always felt like Dabi was fighting ego and entitlement from the people around him, from himself, since he was so young. "I'm going to show you off over and over again here, baby boy, but not tonight. Tonight I want to take you upstairs, and I'm going to show you how good it will feel to let yourself give into anything I ask."

Dabi knew that V wasn't technically on the actual top floor of the building, but he also doesn't know what's actually above them. Maybe some other love hotel rooms? He doesn't care. "I'll do anything, Sir." He breathes, his whole body suffused with heat already. He doesn't know if Shigaraki really will want to keep him, if this is something he says to anyone who shows up in his classes that he thinks is attractive and if he throws them aside when they've given him what he wants. But if he shows him a good time tonight and then throws him away in the morning, then that's just something that Dabi will deal with. All that matters to him right now is how good this can be and if, as he tries to figure out what new shape he wants his life to take, if he would rather have it be one that has BDSM in it or not.

Shigaraki gives him another few kisses, hot, heavy ones that make Dabi's lips tingle from the bites an that he peppers there, his hands moving along Dabi's body as well, as he works his arousal up so quickly that he's starting to tent his pants well before they actually stand. When they do finally get up to take their leave, they do so with Shigaraki holding him by intertwining their pinky fingers and pulling him gently through the club, leading him when he doesn't yet have a leash around his throat. Dabi follows after him, his head far more foggy with arousal than the one drink he'd had however long ago that was.

He is expecting to go back to the lobby so they can get to the elevator, but Shigaraki blows past the bartenders working and to the door behind the bar, taking them through a kitchen behind that area and into the guts of the club behind the public-facing part. He takes him to a service elevator and keys in a code on a small number pad before the elevator start to ascend, Shigaraki turning his attention quickly away from that as he pushes Dabi up against the wall as he murmurs against his skin, nipping at his neck as he waits for him to answer,

"What are you going to let me do to you, baby boy? You kept blushing so much in class that I couldn't tell if you were so excited about everything that you couldn't think straight, or if you just couldn't tell what you would like."

Dabi hasn't gotten to be the one to ask for something in bed from his partner for so long, but he doesn't just want to switch roles from what he's used to. No, he likes some of the things that he does, he wouldn't have started doing them if he didn't, but he does want it to be different. "Want to be good for you, Sir." He tells him. "Let me prove it?" Make demands, reward him when he does well, make him feel how good it can be to submit to someone who knows that's what he's been trying to do. He can be in control of his own life outside of this. He can take the years he wasted and put them away on a shelf somewhere else so that he doesn't have to think about them constantly anymore and still choose to give up control in the areas he wants to without ever having to doubt himself by thinking that means there wasn't a point in making the choice to leave the situation he was in before.

"I can do that, precious. Do you want to hurt, baby? Or is your head already too heavy for that."

Dabi doesn't care. He knows that they're supposed to do more negotiating, that they should practice with a pain scale, that there are a hundred other questions and conversations that they probably should have to make certain that this goes well, but he doesn't want to worry about any of that right now. He just wants to be fucked by this gorgeous man who tells him how much he wants better for him. "Green, Sir."

He says and that has Tomura's mouth back against his as he reaches down to get a tight grip on his thighs. Dabi wraps his arms around his neck just as tightly, hopping up a little when prompted and a little surprised that Tomura is able to lift him so easily from the ground as he walks him back through the elevator doors as soon as they open. Dabi doesn't get a good look at where he's been brought, only hearing a faint tinkling bell from somewhere beyond them before Tomura is easily carrying him through the space they find themselves in.

It takes a minute, but then he feels a door against his back and Dabi fumbles a hand to find the curved knob and opens the door. Tomura kicks it open the rest of the way so that he doesn't have to put Dabi down until his back is landing against a large, soft bed that Tomura sets him on.

"You're so pretty flushed like that, baby." His hands, no longer needing to support him, move around from the back of his thighs to inside him, leather sliding against the vinyl less smoothly than he would want, but the firmness of his hands more than makes up for that. He presses down on the loose fabric, stretching it so that it is taut and so shiny even in the dim light of the room, the very faint sounds of the music from the club humming up from the floor. "And look at how excited you already are." His voice is a purr and it doesn't do anything to keep Dabi's cock from twitching, filling even faster. "How long has it been since you were allowed to feel good, precious?"

"Tomura," his name is a whimper, not wanting to have to count how many weeks, months maybe, that it’s been since he got aroused because he really wanted it versus doing it out of obligation.

Sir chuckles softly, "Alright, baby. Why don't you take off your clothes for me. I want to watch."

Dabi's skin heats at being given his first order and he moves readily when Tomura shifts over him, allowing him up. He undoes his own shirt lazily, toeing off his shoes as Dabi slips to the edge of the bed and rushes to take off his boots, the strappy belt around his waist, the chest harness, mesh shirt, and finally get to his pants. Sir has less layers and before Dabi has even gotten to his tops, he's already stripped down to his dark red boxer briefs, distracting Dabi from his task as he watches him, his cock half hard as well and creating a large bulge in the front of the fabric. It has Dabi's twitching weakly beneath his pants, and he feels a humiliating gush of pre soak his boxer briefs as well as he sees the tattoos over his thighs too. An octopus and a shark entangled in a fight on one thigh, and a massive spider in its web crawling over one hip and down to his knee on the other side.

"All of your clothes, Dabi," he orders him, heat in his eyes as he watches him hesitate.

Dabi's hands feel shaky from his arousal as he manages to undo his buttons and fly and then he lets the pants fall to the ground, kicking them away with his underwear so that the other man only sees how hard he is and not how hopelessly desperate he feels.

"Gorgeous, precious. Come here, sit pretty for me."

The slave positions that they went over in class take a second to filter back into his mind, but when they do, Dabi has to swallow hard to keep from drooling as his mouth waters, his knees hitting the floor quickly as he scrambles to kneel on the ground in front of Sir with his hands against his thighs as he looks up at him.

As soon as he's in position, Tomura reaches for him, his leather gloves still on and the texture of them against his skin wonderful as he curls his fingers around the back of his neck and tilts his head up, a few straying up to play with his hair there. "You're already doing such a good job for me, baby. I'm so proud of you."

The words fill him with more heat, but they also feel like they shake loose one of those shattered pieces of himself he's trying to put back into place. His eyes get wet and shame is hot and queasy in his gut as he realizes that just the soft praise, just actually feeling wanted instead of convenient, is pushing him towards tears alongside the orgasm he knows he'll get if Tomura keeps talking to him like that.

"What's wrong, precious? Do we need to slow down?"

Dabi barely manages to weakly shake his head, adding, "Green," so that the other man knows that no matter what is going on in his head, he still wants this. He's just a fucking mess about it.

Thankfully, Shigaraki doesn't seem to mind that as he strokes his hair again before his other hand reaches into his undergarments and pulls out a long, thick cock that makes his mouth water again. "Alright, precious. You've been so well-behaved so far. Why don't you show me how good you are with that pretty tongue, and if you do a good job, when I'm nice and wet, I'll fuck your tight little hole until you can't think about anything but how full you are. Does that sound good, baby boy?"

"Yes, Sir." Too good. There's no hiding how just the suggestion has his cock dripping again as it throbs with need between his legs.

"Good boy, open wide." And he coaxes his head forward. Dabi smells his skin, clean and musky with whatever soap he used leaving its scent on his body, and the slight tang of salty sweat on him as he opens his mouth and leaves along his length. His hand doesn't push him so that he can get inside of his mouth as quickly as possible, his fingers don't tighten or leave scratches across his skin. He just... plays with Dabi's hair and pets him gently like an obedient animal, his eyes never looking away from him as he starts to lick along his length. His tongue finds winding veins beneath smooth skin as he traces them up to his head, making sure to get him so wet as he savors the weight of him. He knows that he'll like it even more with the girth of him stretching his jaw, and soon he has his lips fully around his head, Dabi coaxing his mouth wider so that he can sink further and further down on his length. He wants to lift a hand to wrap around his base, another to stroke the heavy balls sitting behind his length, but he is supposed to be a good sub right now. And his dom told him to sit pretty. He's going to show him that he can be just as good at sucking his cock as he can following orders, especially if it means that Sir might want to have him doing both more often.

Dabi barely gets Sir all the way into the back of his throat, his nose pressed into the thatch of white curls at his pelvis, before he's moaning. He can't help it, his fingers biting into his tattooed thighs as he tries to not let himself go over the edge as he feels his breathing completely stoppered by the thick length that is settled so deeply in his throat.

Sir feels his moan reverberate across his skin and his hand strokes through his hair again so gently. "Does that feel good, sweetheart?" He asks, his eyes on his and a small smile full of heat curving his lips. "It's such a shame you didn't realize that you were made to be on your knees, absolutely adored by the dom you chose to take care of you. You could have let yourself be so happy so much sooner-- but I'm glad I get to be your first, baby. I'm going to make sure that you always know just how precious your submission is."

Dabi doesn't understand what those words do to his head, he just knows that they make him feel too good. And before he can try to pull off of his cock, before he can think to try and grab himself and tighten his hold to stop it, his cock is twitching hard and stars are going off behind his eyes as he feels his pleasure pulsing along his length. The orgasm he finds on his knees, with a cock deep in his throat, and with the knowledge that he's nothing but what he can be for the man above him, is stronger and more intense than any other he's had in years even though his cock has been completely untouched up to this point.

Dabi moans weakly when Tomura eases his cock back, letting his head rest against Dabi's tongue, rubbing against his piercing there, as he leaks his own pre against it. That bitter, salty fluid only has another weak moan coming out of Dabi as he does it.

"Oh, sweetheart," and the tone of condescension in his voice makes Dabi's softening prick twitch again with a delayed burst of pleasure as he feels how wet and sticky he's made his stomach from his cum. "So soon? And without waiting to get permission? We're going to have to have a longer talk about that later on, but I suppose that you won't have to be punished tonight. Not when I'm so intent on spoiling you rotten. Come here, precious."

Tomura gets him to his feet, though Dabi stumbles like a baby deer as he does so. He gets him back onto the bed and makes him spread his legs wide before he reaches for ties that he sees are placed along the four posters of the bed, a stockade built into the foot. He ties the knots in barely a minute, tight enough that Dabi can't twist out of the ropes or close his legs if he wants to, and being so vulnerable, so exposed on the bed, with Sir looking at his soft cock and the mess that he made all over himself, his hole also visible to him at this angle as well.

"You're so pretty like this, sweetheart," he purrs, his hands moving along his thighs and rubbing soft circles there, his head dipping so he can press kisses along the column of his throat and over his chest. He pauses to linger on his nipples, his tongue finding the skin-warmed metal of the barbells through each one, and teasing them until Dabi is letting out weak, breathy moans as his prick stings from being forced to start to build his arousal again after such an explosive orgasm before. Then Sir keeps moving lower, his tongue flicking out to taste the puddle of his spend that he left on his skin as he reaches across to the nightstand and grabs a bottle of lube out of it with practiced ease.

When he pulls his mouth away from his skin it's to ask him, "How many times can you cum in one night, precious?"

And just the question has him whimpering as his prick twitches hard, his nerves stinging with that sharp arousal as it goes through him.

Sir's eyes flash with a dark satisfaction when Dabi doesn't have an answer for him. Once, maybe twice? It's been a long time since he got to focus on his own pleasure. It might not have ever been a thing he's done in any of his past relationships, and the time he's only spent masturbating for quick, easy relief. "Then tonight, your punishment for cumming without asking me, or even warning me that you were getting close, is going to be cumming over and over until your pretty cock can't make another mess. Does that sound fair, baby boy?"

Dabi is dizzy, the smell of smoke on his breath as he barely manages to say, "Yes, Sir."

"Good boy."

And then Tomura's mouth is back on his skin. His fingers find Dabi's hole and he opens him up, reminding him just how good it can feel to have something inside of him as he works him up until his prostate is tingling at every touch and his prick is hard again. He gets him so close to the edge and then slips his digits out of him, replacing them with his cock at such an achingly slow pace, not to savor it, but because he wants to watch Dabi try so hard to hold on, and fail again as he cums so hard before Tomura is fully sheathed inside of his body. He fucks him long and slow, holding off his own orgasm with a control Dabi can't even concieve of as he fucks him deep, showing him how good it is to be stretched after so long of going without.

He fills him up eventually, but only after Dabi has sobbed through his third orgasm, and even then, he's still not done, curling around Dabi's restrained form and reaching down to keep playing with his cock after he's pressed a thick, vibrating plug deep inside of him to keep his prostate stimulated and his insides warm and wet with Sir's cum. It feels so good, bad, sharp, as pleasure is made to dance along his nerves until the intensity of it turns to pain. And still on it goes. Tomura tells him how pretty he is crying, what a good boy he is, remembering his safe words when he checks in, and he doesn't stop. Not until Dabi has his face turned to cry against his skin as he manages a forth meager orgasm, his cock barely hard for it, and only a little drip of cum managing to slip from his tip. Sir gathers that on his finger and brings it to Dabi's mouth, and he latches onto that, tears still dripping down his cheeks, as Sir says that's enough for now, and gives him a kiss on the forehead before he unties him from the bed.

Dabi isn't expecting him to then massage away the red lines on his ankles from how hard he'd been pulling at them. He doesn't expect the other man to pick him up and carry him to the bathroom, to a big spa tub that he fills with warm water as he makes Dabi bend over the sink so he can watch himself in the mirror as he starts to ease the plug out of his ruined hole. Dabi cries fresh when it still hurts so much, feels so good, that he has another orgasm. Not from his cock, but from deep inside of him and that rolls through his whole body and makes his legs weak as he watches Sir's cum drip down his thighs.

Tomura kisses his skin as he cleans up the mess across his body before he gets him into the tub, washing him more thoroughly until his skin is clean and his head is heavy and floaty with exhaustion. He feels like he's on the verge of passing out when Tomura carries him back to the bedroom and sits him at the trunk at the foot of the bed, making him drink a glass of cool, refreshing water as he changes the sheets. And when that's all done, instead of zipping away with an excuse or asking him to get his clothes and go, he brings Dabi back into the bed and pulls him close again. He wraps his arms around him and lets Dabi's fingers trace the lines of the tattoo that he'd given him, until his eyes grow too heavy and he slips away from the world.

///

When Dabi wakes up the next morning, he is exhausted. His ass hurts, his cock hurts, and he is very confused because there is a different sharper pain against his lower back that is more needle-like and heavy as he comes out of sleep. He tries to shift, feeling that he's still pulled close in Tomura's embrace, and as soon as he shifts, that sharp weight moves. It scurries up his back and Dabi gets a blur of white against his face before he's stepped on as a pure white cat walks right over him so that it can stand right next to Shigaraki's head on the pillow and yowl loudly.

Tomura's eyes open, just a bit, just with a little glare, and he grumbles. "I have a guest, Onigiri."

The cat flicks its tail in clear response to what it thinks of that as Dabi starts to straighten a little. Tomura lets him, sitting up as well, the cat moving to sit on its owner's lap, as they all three regard each other for a minute, before Shigaraki starts to pet the animal with his still-gloved hand before the other reaches to curl gently around the back of Dabi's neck again. He pulls him closer and Dabi knows his morning breath tastes like ash, but Tomura doesn't seem to care about that as he kisses him as slowly and sweetly as he did the night before.

"Stay for breakfast?" He asks when they part, and Dabi only manages to nod a bit before the other is starting to pull him back in for another kiss. This one is a little hotter than the first, but it doesn't go anywhere as the cat informs them once again that it too would like breakfast first and foremost.

///

It's probably bad form to get together with someone else immediately after leaving another relationship, but Dabi can't bring himself to care. The morning after their first time, Tomura had called off anything he had to do for the day and spent hours with Dabi. He listened to him talk the way that he had before, and he made it clear that he was more than willing to wait for however long Dabi needed if he wasn't actually ready to commit to something long-term or casual right now. He would have just been happy to have him for however long he was able to have him. He also told Dabi, upfront, that the tattoo parlor he had accepted the guest spot at, was one of his other businesses, and when Dabi had been confused about that, he'd very gently let him know that he was the owner of V, not just an instructor, that his penthouse is the upper floor of the club, something he'd thought Dabi had known because that information is on the 'about us' section of the website. Thankfully, he hadn't made Dabi linger on that too long, and Dabi asked for a week to think about this and see how he was feeling before they had a more serious conversation about where to go from here, if there is actually anywhere or if the chemistry on Dabi's side had just been his desperation to reach out and find someone who was giving him the attention that he wasn't getting before.

Tomura had been kind and understanding about that, had let him work the full period unperturbed at the tattoo shop that is absolutely a money laundering scheme, and moved the fuck on. When they met back up for coffee and a conversation at the end of the week, they had both gotten banned from the restaurant and only escaped possible arrest from the bribe Tomura had given them because Dabi got way too loud when they'd ended up in the bathroom, Tomura's hand down his pants as he told him how many ways he was looking forward to having him if he still wanted to be his.

He still went to the other places that he'd lined up before, went back to Fukuoka to stick around with Simon until he hired a replacement, and within three months, he was back in Kamino, his stuff moved into the apartment alongside Tomura's. In seven months, a day collar became a permanent addition to his attire.

And after a year, he knows that he's being good waiting for Sir to come back from his last meeting of the night, dinner already made and just waiting for them to eat before they decide what to do with the rest of the night. He knows that when he sees what he made for him, he'll be happy, that he'll reward Dabi for the effort and especially be pleased that Dabi was able to get through every other task on his schedule today. Those thoughts keep him from getting too angry when he thinks about the news that aired earlier.

Tomura comes upstairs through the elevator instead of the door, so he must have been doing final checks before opening the club, and as soon as he steps inside, both he and Onigiri who was playing with his ribbon chaser perk up.

"Welcome home," he says as he immediately sits up as the cat races off to purr and rub around Tomura's legs.

"Thank you, firefly. Did you have a good day?" He asks as he moves over to the conversation pit and steps down so that he can give Dabi a kiss as Oni demands pats as well.

"Work was good." He manages, but when he can't say much more than that, Tomura frowns slightly and shoos Onigiri out of the way enough so that he can sit down with him on the couch.

"But?" He prompts gently.

He lets Dabi press against his side as he mumbles. "All Might retired."

And he knows that Tomura has no love for heroes, All Might especially, though he hasn't ever elaborated why, though Dabi suspects it has something to do with the mysterious dearly departed adoptive father who somehow bequeathed Tomura a wide variety of quirks he hides from the public. And while he tries to conduct his business mostly in the shadows, his hatred of heroes is well known, even getting into a public fight with Midnight over not allowing her entry to the club because she turned up thinking that she would be able to get in without having a clean test because she's the 'symbol of BDSM' in Japan. But he feels how his lover tenses as he says that. "Why is that bothering you, baby?" He asks, and no matter his feelings on the subject, he's gentle about it, ready to listen to him and understand where he's coming from, which gives Dabi the resolve to say the words that he has been avoiding for years now, even before he ever met Tomura.

"Endeavor's number one now. He's... my father, and he only ever had kids because he thought that we would get him to that goal instead. Treated us like shit when we couldn't do what he wanted, and when my quirk got too powerful for my body, he threw me aside like trash. He hasn't ever looked for me in all of the years since I left the house. Pisses me off that he got to his goal by default."

Tomura doesn't say anything at all for a minute, but when he does speak again, it's after he's wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I'm sorry, firefly. But I hope you know your worth more than he ever made you feel." He says sweetly, and Dabi doesn't know if he'll ever fully believe that, but he does know that he's more primed to since Tomura came into his life than he was before it. "And if you want the number one and two heroes destroyed, all you have to do is say the word, precious. I can make sure that they hurt. Whether you want their heads on a spike or you just want them to watch as their polished images crumble apart around them."

He hasn't ever told him just how much of a villain, or a criminal, he is, but Dabi doesn't doubt for a second that he would do exactly that to both of them. He thought Tomura might go out into the street and rip Hawks's wings off with his bare hands the very first time Dabi had told him who he was after Hawks did an interview with some magazine and told them the sad story of how he'd been cruelly left by his partner, making it sound like Dabi had been unreasonable and selfish, thinking he was more important that the rest of the country, and who just up and left him heartbroken out of the blue. But for now, just knowing that kind of ruthlessness is an option, that Tomura will ignore any long-term plans he's clearly been working on to change this world so that he can be certain that something isn't hurting Dabi, is enough for him.

He shakes his head to have him hold off and Tomura presses another kiss to his temple before he reaches for the sketchbook that Dabi abandoned shortly before he'd come in. "This looks so good, firefly." He says, looking at the celestial moth with a shattered crown that he has been working on for a few weeks now.

Dabi manages to push away some of his frustration, anger, helplessness, and focus on what actually matters to him right now. "Yeah? Is there anything that you want me to change? It's going to be on your body forever."

"No, it's perfect, Dabi, and I can't wait to show it off. Did you find out if it has to all be done during the contest?" They are able to shift to talking about their days, about what they're going to do over the next few days, and Tomura never lets an effort he makes to be good for him go to waste. It's taken a while, but that's helped Dabi to be happy with what he can do, what he is for himself, instead of only finding value in what he can be for the people around him. If he and Tomura broke up tomorrow, he would still have a thriving career, he would know that he could find someone else, that he could be worthy of falling in love again and not accept being given the bare minimum in a relationship.

He just also knows that he's not ever going to let Tomura go. No matter if the heroes, his business rivals, or anyone else comes after him. Dabi would go villain too, burn down the whole world before he let someone pull them apart, and it's the right thought for him to linger on, because by the time dinner is over, he's starting to get warmer and Sir immediately notices, eager to fan the flames hotter beneath his skin without worrying about getting burned as he does.

#shigadabi #satancopoilotsmytardis

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