Chapter Text
"You know what, I hope your Master keeps using you how he does! I hope the pain never stops for you, you piece of shit!" Dabi yelled, slamming his fist into the wall of Shigaraki's room. The whole base seemed to shake with the intensity. The force left a Dabi-fist-sized dent in the off-white wall.
Shigaraki's whole body stiffened. His throat when dry. "Are you fucking kidding me..?!" Shigaraki rasped, his voice starting small and growing into something monstrous. His fingers twitched at his sides, an itch crawling up his neck.
"No, I'm fucking not! Your pathetic ass can't tell the difference between someone leaving the room and being abandoned again because abandonment is all you know!" Dabi took a step toward Shigaraki, blue flames flickering at his burnt palms.
Shigaraki's hands moved to his neck automatically, starting to desperately claw at his raw flesh. "You were abandoned by your whole family; you can't act like you haven't been through the same thing!"
"At least they cared about me!" Dabi spat back, a laugh hidden in his voice. "Nobody has ever loved you. Nobody ever will. You're too much. A monster."
"You used to care about me," Shigaraki murmured.
"Maybe I got tired of being your emotional crutch, you disgusting sack of shit."
Shigaraki was now staring at the floor. Breathing heavily, tears in his eyes while Dabi yelled right in his face about something. He didn't know. He wasn't paying attention. Just kill him. Kill him. Destroy. Destroy everything. The sound of his nails scratching his neck echoed loudly in his ears. He felt blood welling up under his nails, trickling down his arms, but he kept scratching. Shigaraki didn't want to destroy Dabi. Not really. So he had to scratch.
Slap.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Dabi roared, his palm landing in a rough, stinging slap across Shigaraki's cheek.
Shigaraki stared at the taller man; his red eyes ignited with the hottest flame. "Get out." Dabi didn't move. Shigaraki's rage was fueled. "I said get out!" he screamed, his voice cracking on the last syllable.
Without saying anything else, Dabi shoved Shigaraki to the floor and held him down, one hand firm around his neck. Squeezing just enough to cut off his airway. "This isn't over," snarled Dabi before releasing the blue-haired man and storming out, slamming the door behind him.
Shigaraki sat up, clutching his bloody neck. "I'm done with you! You can hurt me all you want, but I'm fucking done!" he hollered after the burnt man, getting up despite his pain to lock the door. He knew those words might inspire Dabi to come right back and beat him senseless. Shigaraki knew he could easily kill the man the second those gloves came off. But now? Right now, he wasn't sure he could overpower a Quirkless child.
The arguing had started a few months after Shigaraki and Dabi started dating. The rest of the League had supported it with their whole hearts, especially Toga. She did the most to make sure they stayed together. But as weeks went on, the arguing became more frequently. More often did Shigaraki find himself in his bed alone scratching his body until it bled while Dabi stood outside and smoked until his lungs had their own shade of black. More often did Toga have to sit them both down and make them work out their differences. But more often did that sitting down not work, and more often did that frenzy of scratching and smoke last hours before one of them put an end to it.
Today's yelling fiasco had started when Shigaraki had started pulling his gloves on and off, something he did when he was feeling overwhelmed. Instead of Dabi asking what was wrong and helping Shigaraki like he had used to, he had stood up and left Shigaraki to spiral. And now here he was, ripping the gloves off his hands and grabbing at his chest.
Once he was sure Dabi had left, he walked over to his mess of a bed and flopped down face-first into the mattress. Kicking and swiping clothes off the bed, Shigaraki slowly crawled all the way up and curled in on himself. That's when the tears started to fall and the itching returned.
His breaths came in short gasps as he tried to stop crying. To bury the shock. After all, he was too much, right? He shouldn't be more of a burden by having human feelings. Dammit, Shigaraki, stop crying! You always knew this was going to happen!
Shigaraki curled tighter, nails digging into his chest as if he could claw the hurt out from the inside. His breath hitched, sharp and broken, each inhale scraping against his ribs. The itching roared back with a vengeance, crawling up his throat, down his arms, under his skin like fire ants. He pressed his face into the mattress, trying to smother the sobs, trying to stop shaking, trying to stop feeling.
But the feeling wouldn’t stop.
His fingers twitched. The sheets beneath him began to crumble, his gloves forgotten on the floor.
A soft hiss of decay spread under his palms, eating through the fabric in a jagged circle. He jerked his hands back, but the damage was already done — a gaping, dust-edged wound in the mattress staring up at him with a pouting lip.
Shigaraki stared at it, chest heaving, tears dripping onto the ruined foam. He hadn’t meant to destroy it. He hadn’t meant to destroy anything.
He curled in on himself again, arms wrapped tight around his ribs, nails biting into his skin. The itching climbed higher, burning, suffocating, relentless. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear the whole room apart. He wanted to tear himself apart.
Instead, he pressed his forehead to the shredded mattress and whispered, voice barely audible:
“Why is it so easy for you to hurt me?”
The words trembled out of him, raw and cracked, dissolving into the silence of the room. He didn’t know if he was talking to Dabi or himself. He didn’t know if he wanted an answer.
He only knew one thing:
It shouldn’t hurt this much. It shouldn’t be this easy.
And yet it was.
The words "Nobody has ever loved you" kept repeating in his head. Over and over and over and over until it didn't even sound like Dabi's voice. Until it sounded like his Master.
Shigaraki choked on his sob, clasping his hands over his head and pulling his hair until his crown ached. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" he cried into the mattress, his back arching as he came up onto his knees to push his face harder down. He couldn't breathe. His head hurt. He felt dizzy.
Why didn't he just kill me? He'd be a better leader to the League than me, he wondered as he wailed into the mattress, screaming until his throat hurt.
Everything started to get fuzzy around him. His head felt like it was floating off his body. His strength started to disappear.
Shigaraki's hips fell to the side, pulling his tear-streaked face out of the mattress. "I hate you... I hate you..." he repeated quietly, his fist clenching and unclenching around nothing. His vision blurred around the ends. He felt paralyzed in his sorrow. Before he knew it, his consciousness faded, and he fell asleep locked away in the bedroom. In the bed he used to share with Dabi, the first and last man who loved him the way he had always wanted.