┋ 蒼炎⋙—. Was it a sickly heat that rose through his center, or was it a deadening cold? Either way, the weight settled across his chest like a cinderblock placed upon on a sinking body. [“ ᴰᵒⁿ'ᵗ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ ʸᵒᵘ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᶦᵗˀ ”]
He could have anticipated that Shigaraki would go right for the throat, and he’d been the one that provoked the ash-maned monster, in the first place. But he sure as hell didn’t expect that irreverent, petulant bastard to fire off questions that actually had a home. A ragged, ugly place within him that he made a point of not looking at. The impetus to throw down aggression or a defense was palpable, but for some reason, his tongue was a spire of led in his mouth. Too sharp to wield against his teeth – to heavy to move with just a reflex. How annoying.
❝Shut up, already. Forget I brought it up.❞
Dabi’s frame slinked sideways, out of the direct line of sight of the League’s precocious leader. He was already tired of being sized up and damn if the shut-in didn’t have some fiendishly accurate insight. He prided himself on being fairly adept at aggravating and handling the mental states of his opponents, but that didn’t avail him immunity. Those threads that held his mind together were as brittle and desperately cobbled as the warped, scarred skin at his mouth.
❝Stain’s ideology isn’t something anybody has to convince anyone of. You either get it or you don’t. Sheep or wolf. It doesn’t do me any good to recruit a bigger idiot than me, right? I’m choosy, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had successes.❞
The defense felt flimsy, self-serving without being substantial enough to burn away the writhing emotions that prodded along the edges of his insides. An electric sense of indignation, of disgust, rose all the way up his spine, making his body feel heavy and sluggish. Some kind of a night-terror delirium as the mind tried to venture through tightly boarded doors to find the answer to a question that oughtn’t, needn’t be asked
[“ ᴶᵘˢᵗ ʷʰᵒ ᵗʰᵉ ʰᵉˡˡ ᵃʳᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ˡᵒᵒᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᶠᵒʳ, ᴰᵃᵇᶦ ? ”]
Recollections surfaced from the mire of his thoughts; undesired and unmanageable. Bright, storm-gray eyes and easy smiles. Silver and a cool, cool hand. Bigger than his own, stronger than his own. A soothing voice sweeter than honey, birdsong, or candied fruit. A red, red wound that spread from head to toe - from inside, first. Then all-consuming. Visions of little useless things, strung together to keep out the dark, subsided, and Dabi shrugged. His scars felt tight. His body was so tense that the simple motion seemed as though conducted through broken glass.
❝I’d rather not over-complicate it.
Just give whoever I bring in fair consideration, since I do rub at least two thoughts together, on occasion.❞
Thoughts unbalanced and inflamed, he averted the beryl luminosity of his gaze far to some unremarkable corner of the room. Especially not in front of Shigaraki; he preferred not to be human in front of anyone – he was a grudge. A grievance. A pyre, upon which the old misdeeds of a rotten saga would be set aflame. He was comeuppance that would fulfill the edict set forth by Stain. But fuck, he didn’t want to set out any bleeding edges - not in the assessing eyes of the beast of decay.
The disparate individuals he worked with – they were means to an end. A thin veil between animosity and cooperation, that’s all they needed from one another. He had his own way of doing things; and he was fine doing his own thing. If he found himself suturing their faces on an old, dead sense of attachment, well… that made him stupid, didn’t it? Asinine of Shigaraki to suggest that he was looking for something besides Stain’s bloody revolution in this hopeless world.
朽 ofALL| | - -DestroywhatI 憎 | |
What the fuck was this?
Ugly, it was so damn ugly!
So, he was right, and even with all the relentless machinations of a guy who thought he was such tough, mysterious shit, that just meant that trusting him to do whatever it was that Dabis tended to do on the playing field was the best course of action.
Their party was the best there was, as their leader, he’d make it so - as such, wasn’t it a shame to leave vulnerabilities that were so FUCKING APPARENT?
“This is so stupid, Dabi.
Do I really have to listen to that?”
GOD, HE FELT SO SICK, not as sick to his stomach as being together with everyone made him, but similar - was it because SENSEI was right? Did he really NEED these guys, just like how (FATHER) and (MOTHER) and (- --HA N-) AND - - ? made him feel so at ease?
AN EXPRESSION THAT CRACKED THE SURFACE OF SANITY, crumbling disparity that revealed rows and rows of unmarked gravestones, and he rose to his feet in swift pursuit of the flickering azure lantern masquerading as fires of judgement.
As swift as though he knew not the boundaries of the living, he had stepped around and far, far too close, a splay of bone-bleached ivory locks falling gracelessly to the side as he craned his neck so far it nearly popped MOTHER from his neck.
Crimson against spiritfire, the burnt kindling would look him in the eyes as he spoke, lest he get pretty offended and start dishing out the AOEs.
“Listen, I don’t give a shit about Stain.
I just want it ALL to go down, I HATE EVERYTHING, right?
But, I want you guys to have what you want, you deserve it, after all.
That means I’m being patient with
‘STAIN’S WILL’ this and ‘EVERYTHING FOR STAIN’S IDEALS’ that.
But don’t you get it? STAIN LOST! STAIN ISN’T HERE!
I AM! So when it comes down to it, when you want something,
you’re coming to us. And I’ll help you, because I trust you.”
Soft, distant tenors raised and roared in excitement, as though the face of Dabi’s potential doubts incited something of an amused mania. A palm that could spell nothingness for anything within its reach was held first heavenward in emphasis, while its brother clasped hard and eager against a broad shoulder, to dissuade the walking grudge from ever leaving his sight again.
“So give me a little godamn scrap, why don’t you.
I gave you assist in the raid,
the least you could do is give me a hint on the next encounter.
Or let me know when you’re about to fucking die.”
This was an attempt at care, an attempt at leveling eye to eye - he didn’t expect much, but it was worth getting to see such a tsundere side to this bastard.
