nyoom @oddlyspecifickit - Tumblr Blog

Make Me

Pairing: Shigadabi

Rating: Explicit, 18+ only

Summary: Commissioned by @oddlyspecifickit on Tumblr. Dabi has known for years that he wouldn't be able to get his revenge without having resources to help clear his path. The League of Villains, when they arrive on the scene, seem like they are the best shot he's going to get. Joining, however, turns out to be an odd experience as the rules and methods of their leader just keep getting weirder and weirder. When they spill over into behaviors he can't abide by, Dabi wants out, and Shigaraki is not going to make it easy.

Contents: RAPE/NON-CON, Canon Divergent AU, Cult Leader!Tomura, Physical, Sexual, and Emotional Abuse, Control, Manipulation, Ostrization, Imprisonment, Sleep Deprivation, Starvation, Dissociation, Mentioned (Past) Child Abuse and Spousal Abuse, Self Harm (Biting and Staples), Semi-Public Sex, Degradation, Humiliation, Pet Play, Dehumanization, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Collars & Leashes, Choking, Biting, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs (Implied), Molestation, Sadism, Coercion, Implied One-Sided Incestuous Feelings, Forced Feminization, Praise Kink, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms, Creampie, Daddy Kink, Cock Cage, Cock Shrinking, Cock Plug, Restraints, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Ruined Orgasm, Sounding, Dacryphilia, Mindbreak, Intercrural Sex, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Words: 43,329

The Hosu incident is interesting. Dabi wasn't sure how the world would take him coming out of the woodwork and tearing down the image of Endeavor for all of them to see. He worried that, even though what he would show the world was true, they wouldn't be ready to accept it. And then Stain had stepped into the light first. He went after heroes, killing or maiming them, as he put out videos that showcased his ideals. He primed the world to see that the heroes were imperfect, and the League of Villains only furthered that momentum. For the first time since he became Dabi, he believes that the truths he shows the world about his father will actually be something that will take hold and resonate the ways he always hoped they would. And even then, he spends a good three weeks after the Hosu incident watching and waiting. Stain is gone now, and the League of Villains has made it a habit of leaving people behind if keeping them together doesn't serve their purposes. He keeps his ear to the ground as he hears that they're recruiting in the wake of Stain again, and makes sure that the people he knows they've taken on don't end up in police custody for a couple of weeks before he decides to get in contact with their broker.

"They're pretty busy preparing for their next job." The man sitting across from him reeks of smoke, wears the clashing flash of someone who has been in villain circles a long time, and has a gap between his teeth. "But if you give me your name and quirk, I'll let the leader know you're interested in an interview."

Dabi doesn't like that, but the fact that the League is actually interviewing people after, last he heard, they just took on anyone they could get for the UA job, is probably a good sign. If they want that kind of specific information, then they are probably more actively trying to build a team to go against the heroes. That will be better for him in the long run. "Dabi, no last name. My quirk is Blue Flame. Make sure they know I burn hotter than Endeavor."

Giran raises his brow as he takes another drag off his cig. "Big talk."

"Accuracy, not posturing," Dabi says, lighting his hand on fire so the other man can feel the way heat spills through the room. "Endeavor's fire isn't blue."

The other man winces at the way the little burst of fire manages to steal any relief the air conditioning was lending to the room and takes out his phone, lifting it as Dabi puts out his hand. He's not expecting the other man to take a picture of him, the shutter sound emitting from the device. But before he can say anything about that, the other man shrugs and starts to type on his phone. "Don't know what their schedule is today, but if they're available it shouldn't take long to get something back."

Dabi shuts his mouth and leans back in his chair, waiting. It takes about ten minutes before the broker's phone buzzes again, and he gives him a grin that does not help put Dabi at ease. He lifts a hand and gestures at the wall a moment before a black hole opens up in the space, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his whole body flood with heat as his quirk readies itself for whatever is happening now.

"Looks like they have a use for you. I wouldn't keep them waiting. Shigaraki has quite the temper."

Dabi doesn't love that, but he also knows that this is the best shot he has right now, so he keeps his temp high as he stands up and moves towards the portal. It's pure, pitch black all the way through, and he can't help wondering if this is a trap. But no, he heard the reports for Hosu and UA. They have a teleporter. This is just that, just a mode of transportation. Just a way they could drop him from the sky if they decide they don't like what he has to offer. There is more than a fair bit of trepidation as he steps through the portal and feels the energy of it wash over him.

The darkness constricts around his body, crushing in on him, the air stolen from his lungs, as he simultaneously feels so heavy and so weightless as he moves– and then his foot is hitting a worn wooden floor, and he is in soft yellow lights of a different bar in a different place. There is a man made of that same dark smoke standing behind the bar, the leader of the League of Villains sitting at it with a hand pressed over his face. The smoke man seems far more imposing than him, given that the leader is a scrawny man in plain dark clothes and without anything to visibly suggest that he is powerful enough to control the monsters that Dabi saw him unleash on the world.

"You the leader?"

"Are you always so rude?" The guy's voice is a bit raspy and sits at a tenor that he isn't particularly impressed with, either. "Introduce yourself before you ask someone else for their name."

Dabi wants to bristle and sneer at him, but he does want to be here, so he tries, even just a little, to play nice with this guy. "Dabi, figured you already knew that since Giran said he sent over my info."

"Your real name." The other man insists.

"That's for me to know." He replies, putting his hands in his pockets even though he would rather be ready to burst into flames if this goes poorly. He doesn't want to give off the vibe that he's going to start a fight. "I'll tell you if it ever becomes important. I'm 'Dabi’, and that's all I've ever gone by as a villain. That's all that should matter to your League, isn't it?"

There is another pause, one where Dabi can feel the other man's eyes on him as he waits for his response, but with the strange mask over his face, Dabi can't actually see his expression at all as he watches him. It's half a surprise when there isn't a fight that breaks out between them as the other waves his hand, "Fine. You'll go collect your essential belongings only, and then text Kurogiri with your coordinates. All of the members will be living here until the end of their debut job. My name is Tomura Shigaraki, and you answer to me."

Dabi keeps his spine straight and his head held high as he approaches the bar and takes the napkin that the barkeep writes his number on. He isn't going to let anyone else's attitude sway his own. He knows what he's doing and why he's here. If the League isn't good for that, then he'll leave.

Kurogiri gives him a portal back to Giran's haunt, and Dabi heads out with barely a wave. He doesn't actually have much more than the clothes on his back, but he doesn't want them to know that he's already given up everything he has to get involved here.

///

Dabi comes back to the bar and finds that the other members of the League have been called back from wherever they were before and that the bar feels a bit too small with eleven people crammed inside.

"Hi! You must be Dabi, it's nice to meet you! I'm Himiko Toga!" The middle schooler with sharp teeth and bright eyes beams at him from the couch as he sees that the bar and the two vestigial booths are filled with other adults in various states of costume, three in full villain uniforms and the others in more casual clothes, including an even younger kid who is literally still in his school uniform.

"...Hi." He looks around again and finds Shigaraki is still sitting at the bar, a laptop in front of him now as things unfold around him. The others all look to him for what to do now, and before that can really leave a twinge along the back of his neck, Shigaraki addresses one of the group,

"Compress," one of the men in full villain gear, straightens his impeccable posture even more, his face covered in a ceramic mask and wearing a full suit with a tophat. "Show Dabi the building, make introductions."

"Of course, and which room–"

"Top floor."

"What?" He hears the middle school boy say with clear venom as he pushes to his feet from the couch.

"It will be done." The man lifts his hat and gives a theatrical bow as he turns his attention back to Dabi, as one of the other masked men tries to whisper, rather unsuccessfully, that the kid shouldn't say anything in one breath and encourages him in the next. "Welcome to the League of Villains, Dabi. I'm Mr. Compress, and I would be happy to bring you to your room so you can set down your... bag."

Dabi tightens his hold on the strap of his ratty backpack that holds everything he's been able to get for himself since he started on this path. He wants to ask about the meltdown that seems to be imminent from the kid as he asks,

"Why does he get to stay upstairs? The rest of us–"

But Compress gestures him towards the stairs, and Dabi is not a babysitter, so he goes. "The building is not particularly large, but it is functional for our uses," Compress tells him as they go upstairs. By the time they've hit the landing, Dabi can only hear the muffled suggestion of conversation happening below. "On this floor, we have two suites with bathrooms at either end of the hall," he gestures to the nearest door and the furthest as well. "The far room is Tomura's, but this one will be yours."

Dabi bristles slightly. "Really?" He's the new guy; he probably shouldn’t have what sounds like the second-best room in the building before he's even managed to do anything else.

"Yes, it seems as though Tomura has high hopes for you." The words are said very pleasantly, but Dabi can't help but feel a nagging in the back of his mind that tells him there is a wrongness in this. "I'm currently staying in this room, and Toga is in this one." He indicates two of the other four doors and then goes to the third. It's a linen closet, Dabi discovers, as the other man opens it up and takes out a set of sheets before moving back to the door he indicated to Dabi. "In addition to our villain work, we are responsible for maintaining this building, and we have a rotation for chores. Is there anything that you excel at or have a particular distaste for? We try to divide the work evenly, but there are some concessions we've made to keep... everyone comfortable."

"I can clean or whatever as long as I have gloves," he says as he follows Compress to his door and is startled when he realizes that in a building full of villains, there isn't a lock. Well. Good thing he doesn't have anything valuable in his bag. "I can cook."

"Oh, that's a relief," the other man sounds like it is. "As of right now, I've been the only one who has any experience with that. We end up with takeout more times than I care to admit whenever anyone else is left with that responsibility."

The room itself is not very large and not at all great. It's honestly on par with the tiny apartment that Dabi has been living in for the past few months. But having a bathroom all to himself is something that will be helpful, if only because he'll be better able to keep an eye on his staples without anyone else noticing how much time the maintenance takes up. But the room is tiny and barren otherwise, with only a crate serving as his desk, the twin bed pushed up against one wall, and a two-drawer dresser for his clothes. That's fine. He doesn't actually have enough personal belongings to fill the space anyway.

Compress sets the sheets down on his bed, and Dabi hesitantly puts his pack on the dresser before the other man says, "Shall we take a look at the rest of the building?"

Dabi doesn't have a choice but to follow him back downstairs, where the chatter he first arrived to has picked back up, the kid in the uniform no longer present. Compress takes him behind the bar to the kitchen beyond and then to the stairs past that to show him the basement, where it has been fashioned to be a dormitory of sorts. One bathroom, and a large room with six beds in two neat rows of three, each with two drawer dressers beside them.

"Aren't there eleven people here?" He asks as he takes in the area.

"Ah, well, Kurogiri is a special form of nomu– those creatures that the League has used as their signature weapons. He doesn't sleep, so he mostly stays on guard in the bar in case any unwanted visitors try to come knocking."

Which is so fucking weird in it of itself that Dabi can only make himself nod like it's not before he moves on and follows Compress back upstairs to meet the others. Shigaraki and Kurogiri have both left the room, and before Dabi can comment on the absence, a green-skinned reptilian heteromorph informs them. "All For One called."

Dabi tries not to bristle as his stomach goes leaden. All For One? He's supposed to be a fucking boogeyman. The monstrous master of quirks who can give and take them at his whim, twisting people's bodies and minds if he thinks that will serve him better. Old enough that he saw the rise of quirks, but never seemed to age. He's a myth and legend among criminals, too many of whom claim to know him without ever actually having anything to back that up. Dabi never knew if he was real or not, but he didn't want to get involved with him either way. He has his own goals to see to; he doesn't want to get caught up in AFO's that could take years to deal with in the meantime.

"Is this place run by AFO?"

"No," Compress is not the only one who speaks, which makes Dabi even more paranoid, but it's the heteromorph that continues first.

"Tomura's in charge." Dabi doesn't appreciate the way that the other man is glaring at him as he says that.

"Tomura is All For One's successor," Compress explains more levelly. "All For One is retiring from villainy and turning over his resources to Tomura. He occasionally needs to do so in person, but his hope is that by the time of our latest job, the League of Villains and, of course, Tomura himself will be able to take over his empire."

That sounds like a load of horseshit, but Dabi is extremely outnumbered and has no idea what quirks everyone in this room is packing, so he doesn't say anything else about it and allows Compress to change the subject as they go around the room, and he is introduced to all of the other members of the LOV.

It's Magne's turn to cook on the chore chart, but that just means she disappears out the door for half an hour before returning with beers and an assortment of convenience store food. Shigaraki has returned by then, and Dabi watches as he's able to select what he wants to eat first before he says, "Dabi," and he realizes that he's being allowed second pick. It feels strange, but he takes a beef bowl before he passes the bag off to Compress, mostly just happy he didn't end up with one of the fish dishes that he saw in the bag. Compress passes the bag to Toga, who hands it off to Twice, to Magne, to Spinner, to Muscular, and finally to Moonfish, who just rasps about meat and blood as he looks at his udon. There's a lone onigiri in the bag for Mustard if the kid shows back up, but once everyone has taken their food, they aren't required to stay together and eat, with Moonfish, Muscular, and Compress leaving to take their meals, though Dabi is pretty sure the latter does it because he doesn't want them to see his face.

"Have the others started to debrief you on our next job?" Shigaraki asks him as he takes the severed hand off his face. He looks young, at least a few years younger than himself, and Dabi is not impressed by that.

"No. They did tell me you are AFO's lapdog, though."

He's not expecting the words to make Twice choke on his food or Spinner to bristle so completely. "What? That is not–"

Shigaraki just raises a hand and then the others quickly get their things together and go to sit at the other booths in the bar or around the coffee table at the couch, leaving him and Shigaraki alone at the bar. "My teacher is a benefactor, nothing more, nothing less. If that's going to be a problem for you, then I would suggest you take your leave now. Once you've been briefed, we won't be able to let you walk away."

"And how much ‘benefacting’ does he do? Should I be worried that the handful of you who still have a few marbles are gonna drop them?"

"No. My teacher has not enhanced anyone's quirk, and he won't be. My teacher provides the funds to keep this place running, the nomu we will use to fight our coming war against the heroes, and the training facility we use to ensure that everyone will be field-ready, unlike the last useless mob. Everything else is at my discretion, do I make myself clear?"

Dabi resists the urge to roll his eyes only because he wants to tug on one of those threads further. "'War'?"

Shigaraki takes the lid off his katsu curry. "Obviously. We're going to destroy All Might, and then we're going to tear down every other stupid, self-righteous hero that tries to stop us as we break this world into pieces."

It's a lot of talk that Dabi isn't sure he believes they can deliver on, but he's willing to take that risk. After all, he doesn't have to make it that far into their plans before he'll be presented with the perfect opportunity to kill his father. "You didn't kill All Might the first time." He points out as he opens his food as well, showing the other man he's here to stay.

"We didn't, but we put a crack in his facade. Next time, we'll finish the job." Shigaraki directs the conversation then, telling Dabi about their upcoming job as the others carry on their own soft conversations in the background, and Dabi allows himself to think, tentatively, that this might have been the big move that he needed to make after all.

///

Dabi is on board for the summer camp job. He doesn't think that they'll actually get a student to flip on the thing they've been working for their entire lives, but he does think that attacking these kids for the second time will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Not only that, but he saw the sports festival. He saw what his father's miracle managed to do on that stage. He just has to see how it actually feels to fight the brat. He doesn't know if he'll absolutely get that chance on this job, but he's willing to take the gamble as is.

But things around the base are still strange in a way that Dabi doesn't really have a name for. Maybe it's because he hasn't ever had strict roommates before. Most of the time, if he could even afford proper housing, he was crammed in small apartments with far too many other people around, and the awareness that things were going to suck for everyone. They all just had to suck it up and do whatever they needed to in the space and deal with the frustration of that. Before, well, before he was with his family. He's not going to say his mother was strict. She didn't have a backbone to speak of and wasn't making many rules that he ever actually abided by. But his father was a different story. He wasn't around much, but when Enji was home, he did instill in Dabi and the rest of the house that regiment and routine were crucial to upholding one's personal standards, and that those need be higher than even how the world will judge them. Dabi thinks now that is what led to his father's obsession with All Might, and is a driving force behind the effort he has put into becoming the perfect villain to destroy the illusion of Enji's status. And although living at the League of Villains' base is weird, he thinks that upbringing has served him well.

They have a daily schedule, and their chores are interspersed throughout. They start their day at seven, the lot of them being teleported by Kurogiri to a large white gymnasium that prickles Dabi's skin with wrongness. He thinks that's just because he's heard this is what Tartarus looks like, and from the way that Muscular gets even more twitchy and aggressive when they're there, he thinks he's right in that assessment. But they need to train. Spinner, Toga, and Mustard are all fresh villains who will be cutting their teeth on this job, and they need to build up their physical stamina and endurance as well as actually learn how to fight. The more experienced criminals help with that. Twice and Muscular are good at hand-to-hand, while he shows Toga how to use her needles at a distance, and Magne helps coach Spinner with his new, wildly impractical sword. Morning training is for the basics, so they can all just be sure that none of them are going to collapse the moment they have to physically exert themselves. And after morning training, they go back to the bar. Breakfast is the only meal that is provided for them, taking the form of nutrient-dense smoothies that are made and distributed to each of them before they're free to start on their chores, shower, and prep for the mid-morning meeting.

Compress, perhaps out of fear of the others incorrectly laundering his good suits, has taken over most laundry duties, he's found. He comes through the base twice a week and collects everyone's clothes in neatly separated marbles and returns them perfectly folded and fresh. Spinner, Magne, and Twice have made it a habit of taking over mopping, dusting, and window cleaning, Magne using her quirk to send the two of them flying in opposite directions so that the floors shine in minutes. Dabi doesn't say anything about the blood that sometimes ends up smeared on the walls if she doesn't deactivate before one of them gets to the end of their side of the room. They're having fun with it, so it's not his problem. No one wants Moonfish anywhere near the kitchen, so he seems to be stuck on bathroom duty, but the man is barely here outside of his hunger, and hasn't complained about it, so no one has bothered to switch with him. Magne, Twice, Toga, Muscular, and Moonfish all have active warrants out for their arrest, so he, Compress, Spinner, and Mustard are in charge of proper grocery shopping; Spinner and Compress usually take care of that, though. Toga is happy to keep the kitchen clean and do dishes so long as no one makes her turn off her music while she's working. Muscular, even though he huffs and acts like it's so beneath him, dutifully checks and takes out the trash in every room whenever it needs to go out, and sorts their recyclables as well, so they don't end up getting noticed for something so stupid if they break refuse laws. And not long after his first turn making dinner for everyone, Dabi ends up on permanent kitchen duty. That's fine by him. He doesn't have a lot of recipes, but at least he knows that he has to put water in a pan to cook pasta instead of whatever the fuck Spinner attempted. He can learn to cook other things, too, and the fact that they are being bankrolled by the boogeyman means that he doesn't have to worry about not being able to get the things they need. The chores are all very structured, and after their bit of morning freetime, they're expected to all gather up in the main bar for Shigaraki to make his first appearance of the day.

Their leader is, apparently, still recovering from being shot at UA. That doesn't surprise Dabi, and he often goes to physical therapy with the crazy doctor who has been constructing the nomu for All For One during their morning training sessions, so he can be present throughout the rest of the day. During the mid-morning meeting, they go through the thick dossiers that contain all of the information they might need to know about the summer camp. They have forty students to be able to recognize in the dark, along with the teacher and pro heroes that will all be in attendance, and they need to be able to navigate every building and the surrounding area. They shouldn't be going into the buildings, but if one of their targets is inside instead of out in the forest, then they have to be prepared for that. It's a lot of information to be asked to keep in mind, and how much they have to learn to improvise and pivot is no slouch either. Dabi throws himself into studying, spending all of his time reading and re-reading every single paper in that textbook of papers they've been given so that if he is ever quizzed during those meetings, he can always find the answer. In the week he's been at the base, he's not just the only person who hasn't fumbled one of his answers, but he's the first one who gets a small nod and a,

"Good work," from Shigaraki, which makes Dabi have to consciously stay slumped in his seat as he feels how his spine wants to straighten at the acknowledgement.

It's hard work, but it is a good thing as well. That is especially true because after their morning meeting they're given two hours to eat and entertain themselves or complete their chores, before they are all taken back to that terrible gymnasium for the second round of training. This one, Shigaraki sits in on as they turn out the lights and use projectors that remind Dabi of the type of training gear that was only in its infancy when Toya remembers hearing his father's sidekicks eagerly talking about it, to simulate the forest and the different threats and targets that they might encounter on the job. They put in their ear pieces and are spread out in their own areas and run drills over and over again, Shigaraki watching them, critiquing them, and trying to get them to adjust their behavior so that they can actually get through the job without it failing before they even get their eyes on their targets.

When they're done with the drills, they're returned to the bar to do what they want until dinner, save for Dabi who heads to the kitchen and makes them dinner. He isn't surprised after a couple of days that he's given another file folder that has information from their mad doctor that informs him what he should be aiming for to help their brawlers develop or keep their muscle, how to help treat malnutrition which he's guessing is a dig at himself, and what they, overall should be shooting for in terms of calories when they're doing so much physical activity. Dabi remembers cooking for three children and his mother who barely ate when she was at her worst. What he's making now for ten is far more food than he ever thought he would be dealing with and it usually takes a good chunk of time to get everything ready, but that's a fine trade-off for him. He doesn't usually have to do more than some prep throughout the day if he's making a more complicated recipe since they usually have leftovers or rice bowls for lunch with store-bought sides and then his main chore contribution is completely finished in one go. The main thing that still feels strange is the fact that once the food is ready, the plates are distributed in a certain order. Shigaraki is always first, then Shigaraki always tells Dabi to serve himself. Dabi then has to tell one of the others to serve themselves their food. It's weird because he doesn't always pick the same person, he just tells whichever one is closest to him to get what they want. But the others always seem nervous when he does that. When he picks Moonfish after him one night, the others recoil like he just took a dump on the floor. But Moonfish selects his food, and since the guy barely says anything else, Shigaraki pointedly says, "Spinner."

Spinner quickly takes his food and then calls for Compress. Dabi takes notice then that while there is fluctuation in the people who come after him, the bottom three are always Muscular, Mustard, and Moonfish. They are also always in the basement. Magne, Spinner, Twice, and Toga all seem to take turns upstairs in one of the other bedrooms. Dabi doesn't quite know what to make of that, and he goes to Compress one night after dinner.

"Hey, marbles."

"What can I do for you, Dabi?" Compress has been in this field for a while. Dabi knows that, but he can tell from how he conducts himself that the circles he's worked for are far more affluent than the ones Dabi's spent time in.

"What's up with the room swapping? Is that on a schedule, too?"

Compress stills slightly but then, perhaps because he knows that his mask disguises his expression entirely, uses some kind of theatricality that he's cultivated to make his whole body smile instead. "Ah, not a formal one. Tomura rotates us as he sees appropriate. You'll know if you need to leave your room. For now, I suggest you keep on as you are. He's clearly been impressed with you so far, and I imagine you'll be there a good while longer if you continue to do so." The entire thing still sounds beyond weird to him, but Dabi shrugs it off. Fine. Things are a specific way in the League of Villains, all dictated by Shigaraki at whichever whim he decides to entertain in that moment. He can take advantage of this while he can, and that's that.

Dabi heads back to his room and spends another hour going through the folder until he's certain he's memorized every word, and then he starts to use the time he's been given to conduct research of his own. It still itches along the back of his mind, but he can't begin to say why Shigaraki has them living like this. He thinks, maybe, it's just to make sure that they've got an established dynamic and will fall in line more like soldiers than a disparate group of villains. But he doesn't understand why they change rooms or the order of who eats if that's the case. He would expect them to be given proper ranks so that they all know their place exactly and would be able to abide by the rules of their stations. As things are now, he almost thinks this is just based on Shigaraki's whims and favorites. He can't say he's as impressed with that if it is true. He doesn't want to be led by a brat who thinks that starting a war begins with a popularity contest. But the schedule is working for the moment, so he says nothing at all as he continues to abide by it in preparation for what might come next.

///

"Dabi," Shigaraki's voice is even and direct as he addresses him, but it still startles him slightly. They've already finished passing out food. Normally, they're free to leave after doing so. He's not expecting the others to all hesitate as well, but he can say that he's not fond of the way that his own spine straightens, and a twinge of worry goes through him at the break in their routine. "Come up to my room with me. We're going to continue working as we eat."

Oh. Dabi is able to breathe a bit more easily. "Yeah, sure." He takes his plate and follows the other man up the stairs and down the hall to his room. He hasn't seen Shigaraki's space before, and he can't pretend that he isn't curious about it as the knob is turned and the other man steps inside. He thinks, maybe, he was expecting the other man to have a distinctly more lavish space than the rest of them. But while Shigaraki does have more than the rest of them, it doesn't seem to be of any higher quality than the furniture they have.

The room is only a meter larger than Dabi's own, the other man possessing a full bed instead of a twin, the same dresser as the rest of them, though he also appears to have a closet. The desk pushed off to the side of the room looks like it was rescued from a street corner and has been patched and stabilized with a bit of wood under one leg that keeps the desktop computer on its surface steady. There is a door open to his private bathroom, but that looks just as cramped as any of the others in the house. Shigaraki has more personal belongings, too, but that's not a surprise. From what Dabi's gotten out of Kurogiri, Shigaraki has been living here since he was sixteen. Three years is more than enough time to start to accumulate things that the rest of them can't really compare to, given most of them haven't had an opportunity to properly settle down somewhere.

Shigaraki sits on the edge of his bed, putting the plate on his dresser that's acting as a nightstand, while Dabi takes the chair at the desk. Dabi waits to hear what the other has to say about the job.

"You're going to be squad leader." The words are direct and to the point, like so many of the ones Shigaraki exchanges with them are, but they still reach into the core of him and make the embers in his chest burn brighter. Leader. He's been a grunt for so many other people, doing whatever they wanted him to. He joined last, but he's proved himself enough that Shigaraki thinks he should be in charge in the field when the other man can't physically be there. He's going to be in charge of what the others do in the field, which targets take priority, and how hard they should fight before they make their retreat. It's a level of control that tells him that he is going to be able to go as far here as he had hoped before he had properly joined.

"Okay." He doesn't have to say much or show how pleased he is with this station he's been awarded; he just has to continue to prove Shigaraki didn't make a mistake in giving it to him.

And for the next week after that, he takes all of his dinners in Shigaraki's room with him.

///

"Compress," his tone is far shorter than he's let it be before, as Dabi sees that flash of teal go off while in line-of-sight of their Eraser Head projection. "You botched it again." Too many times. They've been running this drill, the one that accounts for the possibility that they end up out in the forest with all of the teachers as well, and Eraser is a consistent problem. "If you don't have any peripheral vision in that mask, then it's got to go." He can't help the way his frustration leaks into his voice, making the words sound more like he's chastising a child than offering critiques to a co-worker. "Reset and go again."

And they do. They work for another two hours, and only three times are they able to grab one target, to say nothing of the other two they're supposed to be after as well. And while the others aren't perfect, Compress proves again and again that if Eraser were able to get out into the forest and disable his abilities, he would immediately become deadweight. He's not strong enough to hold his own against the students who they're seeking out, who would have their quirks and physical prowess, even if Compress would be the most likely to be able to dodge the grasping binds of Eraser Head's capture bands. And by the end of the training session, Dabi is more frustrated with the idea that they're going to have to rework a lot of their plans to cover such a blatant weakness in their strategies.

Dabi is still turning that over in his mind when they get back to base, and he heads directly into the kitchen to start working on dinner. Everyone, wisely, keeps out of his way as he does so, and after about forty-five minutes, he's got the whole spread ready and is calling people to the meal. Shigaraki serves himself and then hands a plate to Dabi, and he is in the process of finishing his set before he hesitates. Perhaps out of habit or because Compress was the one who was told to show him the ropes, he's fallen into the habit of calling on him next, since he stopped trying to test the bonds of this weird ritual that is taking place in the group. But tonight he decides to address,

"Twice," who looks a little startled one moment and then stands up straighter. Because Twos has been doing a lot of work to keep on top of things and troubleshoot their inadequacies by quickly adapting and bringing in more doubles when things start to go tits up on the field. He deserves the acknowledgement.

Dabi normally departs with Shig when he's finished making his declaration, but Shigaraki stays in the kitchen, watching all of the others with flat red eyes. And Twice calls for Toga, who calls for Spinner, then Magne, Mustard, Muscular, Moonfish, and finally, his posture looking forced, as Compress takes his meal last. Shigaraki only then turns and heads upstairs, and Dabi follows after him. When they get to his room, Shigaraki tells him,

"Good work," before they eat together in silence.

At the end of the meal, Dabi normally takes their plates down to Toga so she can do the dishes, but Shig pauses him. Dabi settles back in at the desk, expecting that he'll be addressed, but Shigaraki doesn't say anything else. He just takes out his phone and begins tapping away at something that sounds like a game as Dabi sits and waits. He wants to ask why he's sitting here, but there is an... awareness prickling along the back of his neck. It's some part of him from deep inside the recesses of his mind that tells him he needs to be quiet and wait. There is a current in the air that is waiting for a spark so that it can be set off, and he knows that he shouldn't give it one. So he sits, and he waits as Shigaraki plays his game, and after an hour, he's waved off without another word. Dabi gets the plates and leaves the room, shutting the door softly behind him. He's only halfway down the hall before Toga comes out of her room, already in her pajamas, and takes the plates for him so she can finish up her chores. And when Dabi passes the other bedroom as he reaches his own door, he sees that Twice is making his bed in the room he's always known to be Compress's.

Dabi goes into his room and rolls the strangeness of this all through his mind. He'd already noticed the hierarchy and the unspoken but strictly abided-by rules. This is just the first time he's had... such a direct influence on them. He can't deny that there is a satisfaction that comes from that as he gets ready for bed.

Compress is in the basement for five days. He doesn't improve in his training and readiness, so Dabi keeps calling on people who are doing better, and Shigaraki makes sure that they all abide by his judgment. But on the sixth day, when they switch into one of their scenarios, and Eraser gets on the field, Compress tears off his mask, revealing a black balaclava beneath it. It doesn't completely fix the problem, but he does much better with this run than he has in the past, and as they all start to file into the portal at the end of the session, Shigaraki catches Dabi with four fingers around his forearm.

"Compress has shown marked improvement."

And Dabi gets the message loud and clear. He lets Compress take his plate third that night, and the hierarchy switches again.

///

Things settle into normal again, but now he does have to sit for about an hour each night, just silently listening to Shigaraki play his game after he eats. Duster never tells him why he keeps him in his room for that extra stretch of time, but Dabi doesn't really mind it all that much. The quiet lets him start to relax before he goes back to his room to look into what his father has been up to for the past several years.

Shigaraki breaks the routine tonight when he doesn't pull out his phone as he watches Dabi from the bed. He sits up straighter, wondering if they have work to discuss instead. He thought they took care of everything this afternoon, but he wouldn't protest the distraction now. "You've adapted to your responsibilities commendably," Shig says, his eyes all but boring holes into Dabi's skull.

"Thanks." He often chooses to say little beyond what's absolutely necessary. He sees how Toga and Twice's incessant chattering can get on Shigaraki's nerves and leads them to switching rooms with the others more often than not.

"It's surprising," Shig says, his tone a little firmer, "Given you were so rude and outspoken at the beginning."

"I didn't know what I was getting into at the start." Is all he responds with as he continues to wait. That current that he sometimes feels in the air is heavy now, and he can feel his skin prickling along the back of his neck again.

"You were very rude when we first met, Dabi." And there isn't a leading lilt to his voice, just that same flat tone that makes Dabi so sure that there is violence lying just beneath the surface.

He takes the hint, "I'm sorry."

Shigaraki's head tilts slightly, taking the words and rolling them around in his mind for a handful of seconds before he says, "A real apology is delivered on your knees."

Dabi stares at him. The entire room is silent. Shigaraki stares back. He waits for the other man to prove he has a sense of humor and tell him to lighten up, to say something, but Shigaraki is just sitting there, expectantly. Waiting for Dabi to do it. "Maybe at church, but I'm not religious, and you're not a god." He picks up their plates and stands. "I think I'm going back to my room. Thanks for the company."

Shigaraki doesn't do anything or pause him as he goes to the door and steps out into the hall. He takes a moment in the barren walkway to try to shake off the weirdness of that encounter, the same as he has with everything else he's been subjected to since he got here. Duster clearly wasn't socialized correctly. But that's fine. As long as he lets Dabi get the job done.

He heads downstairs and then back to his room without another word to anyone for the rest of the night.

The next day, Shigaraki calls for Compress to get his meal before him, and he leaves Dabi alone in the kitchen before his name has even been chosen.

///

Three days. Dabi spends three days being lower on the totem pole than he has been since he joined. His room and chores remain the same, but the fact that he eats after so many of the others and is no longer allowed in Shigaraki's room to have his meal with the other man starts to feel awful. The others talk to him less. Muscular gives him more of an attitude while they're training, and very abruptly, the doctor sends him a new document about their diets that encourages them to start incorporating a lot more fish that Dabi hates. It's all small stuff, petty stuff, but Dabi can't shake how it fills every day with a sense of wrongness that brings his quirk sitting just beneath his skin over and over again. This is stupid. Dabi knows it. Shigaraki is being petty because he doesn't like the comment that Dabi made before, and unlike the others, who are usually punished for not pulling their weight on jobs, this is just because Shigaraki wants to see him debase himself. Dabi shouldn't be surprised by that. His teacher was the boogeyman. There are plenty of things AFO has been rumored to do that he must have passed on to his successor.

But when Shigaraki, as they're wrapping up their evening training, addresses Spinner by saying, "We haven't played LOL in a while. Why don't we get in a round or two after dinner?" And Dabi sees the heteromorph perk up like he's a dog instead of a lizard; Dabi's body nearly goes incandescent with his rage. He waits until all of the others have already stepped through the portal before he catches Shigaraki's arm. The other man gives him that same flat, unimpressed look, before Dabi, his face and skin both hot with shame, takes a step back so he can kneel down. He bows with his forehead against the fucking floor and swallows all of the venom behind his teeth so he can sound sincere.

"I'm sorry."

There is another minute of silence, Shigaraki seeming to savor being able to hold Dabi in this position, before he finally says, "Good dog," and turns to walk back through the portal. Dabi has to take another steadying breath before he gets back up and heads out, hearing Shigaraki change his mind and say, "Actually, Dabi and I have some additional work to see to tonight. We'll order in."

He lets Dabi pick from the assortment of menus, and after the food arrives, it's his name called second before he is brought up to their leader's room to eat in silence again. Dabi isn't sure if he's ever been given anything so bittersweet as that meal.

///

There are only three weeks left until the summer camp job and the new League of Villains debut, and Dabi has mostly put the kneeling incident out of his mind. He is allowed to cook what he likes again and go to Shigaraki's room for meals, and the job seems like it's going to be able to go off without a hitch if only because they've spent so much time training since the League was all gathered. Everything is fine, and Dabi wants it to stay that way. But Shigaraki has been quiet for a few days. Shigaraki is usually quiet unless he's directly talking to them about their work, but he's not what Dabi would call unsociable. Dabi doesn't like being around a lot of people and prefers to be off on his own whenever he can. Spinner usually defaults to being alone, even though he clearly craves connection. But Shigaraki likes to be around people. He likes to sit in the living room during downtime, sometimes playing his games, sometimes just having a drink as the others talk, and he lets the conversation flow around him. His presence folds itself into everything that happens around him, but Dabi still avoids being in a room where conversation about something other than work is happening. He has too many secrets he wants to keep to risk having someone decide to ask him about himself.

And all of that is to say, he is used to Shigaraki expecting him to occupy his space after meals. He knows that is what he's supposed to do now, and he knows he's not going to have to make small talk when he does so. Which is why it comes as quite the shock to him when Shigaraki does say something about half an hour after they've finished eating.

"You know," he is so steady. Always so steady and sure. Dabi isn't sure what must have happened between the invasion at UA and reforming the League, but if it weren't for the nomu, he'd have thought this was just a completely different organization being run by a completely different Tomura Shigaraki. He thought this guy was described as a man-child. He thought he saw a good amount of that attitude when he first joined. But maybe he realized he wouldn't be able to keep so many experienced criminals under his thumb if he wasn't being very deliberate in what he was doing with them. But when Shigaraki speaks, they all listen now, and Dabi does the same, even as another twinge of wrongness permeates the air before he does so. "That comment about a dog has really been stuck in my head."

His stomach sinks. He already lowered himself to apologizing for that like it was some grievous slight. He isn't going to do that again–

"I've been thinking that I would like to have a dog."

Dabi blinks. "Oh? Really?" He never had a pet, not even a goldfish. His father believed that animals were a distraction and an inconvenience, and Dabi never wanted one in anything more than a childish and passing way. He isn't going to say a dog, in particular, is a bad idea. A well-trained dog can be an asset for villains, police, and heroes. And he's sure that either he, Magne, Muscular, or Compress would be able to point Shigaraki in the right direction to get a good guard and attack dog. It might even be beneficial for Shigaraki in particular, since an angry dog attacking a target could split their attention from him and give him an opportunity to get closer–

"Yes, I think I'd like to see how it would be to have one. Get on the floor and bark for me."

Dabi's brain comes to an abrupt stop as he looks Shigaraki in the eye and does not see any hint of amusement in that look. He just stays where he is on the bed, waiting. His stomach twists into a knot, their meal suddenly not settled anymore, as his palms start to sweat. He doesn't doubt that they'll be smoking soon, as he tries to come up with some explanation for the words that make them unreal. But Shigaraki just keeps watching and waiting for him, and Dabi doesn't think he's ever heard the man say something he didn't mean. He is expecting this order to be followed just like all of his other ones.

Three days. He said 'no' to Shigaraki once, and he spent three days on the outs. They only have three weeks until the summer camp job, and Dabi needs to make sure that everyone is going to listen to him and abide by his words in the field with as much dedication as they do to Shigaraki's words here at base. He won't have that if he ends up disrupting things again so close to the job. He has to take another couple of breaths. What's his pride if it means he'll have a nomu at his side? If he'll get the chance to face off against his brother? Against his father when he inevitably tries to get him back? He is closer now to his revenge than he ever has been since he woke from his coma. He needs the League to keep building that momentum so that the moment he steps out of the shadows, he'll plunge the rest of the world into darkness.

He thinks he might vomit as he sinks out of his chair and gets onto his hands and knees on the floor. He has to swallow hard before he manages to open his mouth and let out a weak, "Woof."

"Hmm. I'm not sure. Come here, puppy."

His whole body trembles, heat so intense across the back of his neck and ears that he's a little scared he might burn off the rest of the appendages. But he dutifully crawls across the worn wooden floor and over to the bed, every inch of him sharp with how wrong this feels. But he is already here. He can't just stop now. Not when that just means that he'll still get punished. So he moves towards the bed and waits.

"Sit, puppy."

Dabi keeps his head down, a tremor going through his whole body as he tries to pretend that he isn't going to lose his mind if he's made to maintain this position for a second longer.

Shigaraki's hand is cool, four fingers against his scalp as he runs his hand through his hair– no, as he pets Dabi like he really is a dog. "Hmm, I think we'll have to wait and see."

He keeps him there for so long that Dabi's knees ache as badly as his pride before he dismisses him for the night. Dabi's legs shake as he gets them under him, and he turns to go to the door as quickly as possible.

"Dabi,"

He bristles again, unable to turn to face the other man.

"Fetch the plates."

He manages to do so, deliver them to Toga, and make it all the way back upstairs to his own bedroom before he ends up dry heaving into the toilet as his body tries to turn his humiliation into a physical sickness.

///

Unlike the first time Shigaraki made such a wild request from him, there isn't any hesitation between the first time he makes Dabi pretend he's a dog and the second. The very next night, Shigaraki makes him kneel on the ground and be pet again. The day after that, he has a headband with black ears on it for him that he makes him wear as it's happening. And on it goes like that for the rest of the week. Every time it happens, he thinks that it will stop being so terrible, but each one just brings his nerves higher.

When he enters the room on the sixth day, his stomach goes hollow as he sees there is a stainless steel dog dish and a large pet bed that rivals the size of his bed in his room. But before he can say anything, Shigaraki takes his plate out of his hand, moving over to the dog bowl and depositing his meal into the container as he instructs.

"Puppies don't wear clothes. Take them off, and I have another present for you."

And Dabi can't stop himself. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" The words crack through the air like a gunshot, and Shigaraki goes very still. But Dabi can't stop there. "This is fucking ridiculous, Shigaraki. I'm not a dog, and I'm not going to eat out of a bowl, or strip naked, or sleep in a fucking dog bed so you can get off on your powertrip. I'm here to destroy the heroes, not entertain you!"

Shigaraki straightens up, his expression twisting black with his rage. Dabi hasn't seen Shigaraki so visibly angry since he joined, but he does his best to keep his spine straight as he waits for the other to respond. "You are mine, Dabi," Shigaraki says as he moves closer to him. Dabi's body floods with heat as his quirk rushes to just under his skin to protect himself as he immediately takes a step back towards the door. "You all are. You do what I say to achieve that goal. You follow your master's orders."

There is a twisting in his gut, but he can't stop himself. This isn't what he signed up for. This is too weird for him to just let it pass as one of Shigaraki's eccentricities. "No."

Duster doesn't lunge forward and try to get his deadly hands around his throat. He just watches as Dabi reaches back for the doorknob and steps back out into the hall, closing it behind himself. He takes a breath when the wood is closed between them before he turns and starts towards the stairs. He's going to get food regardless of Shigaraki's acknowledgement, and he's going to eat it in his room without the looming knowledge that the other man is going to treat him like a toy afterward.

He gets down into the main bar and tries to bypass the counter to get into the kitchen when Kurogiri raises a hand to stop him. "You have already been served tonight."

Dabi bristles. They've never had rules about going into the kitchen for snacks or second helpings before. "And I wasn't satisfied with that, mist man. Move."

"Tomura Shigaraki already determined your meal for the night." And the nomu doesn't budge. Dabi's skin prickles with his quirk, wanting to be allowed to unleash it and make a point that he is not going to put up with this kind of shit. But he has already blown up so much of what he has here. If he does anything else, then there is a real risk that he won't even get to go on the mission to the summer camp. So he just huffs and turns to head towards the door instead.

A black portal opens up before he can reach it. "I'm going out–"

"Tomura Shigaraki has forbidden it." That's it. That's all Kurogiri says. Toga, Twice, and Magne all hear it, and when he turns around, casting his eyes over to them to see what they think about this, he finds that not a single one of them is able to look at him. They keep their heads down and don't say a word as Dabi huffs his frustration and then heads upstairs, his boots heavy against the steps, no matter how childish it seems.

But his door is open, and Compress is making the bed. "Oh, Dabi, Tomura wanted me to inform you that you'll be in the basement with the others until you're ready to see him."

Dabi feels smoke start to trickle out of the seams of his cheeks, but he manages to hold his tongue. Fuck him. Dabi will be at the bottom of the totem pole if it means he can hold onto some ounce of dignity. He goes back down, past the main floor, and into the basement, where Muscular, Moonfish, and Mustard are. Dabi hasn't been down in the basement often. But he knows there are usually six beds in this area, so that all of them who have to sleep have somewhere to do it. There are five beds now. It is blatant that he is supposed to have the area that lacks one because Compress brought his clothes and backpack down at some point. He had to have done that before Dabi came out of Shigaraki's room. They all had to have known that there was a chance something strange was going to happen tonight because Shigaraki made sure that everything was in place before he brought Dabi upstairs. He is furious, but the emotion has nowhere to go. Screaming and raging isn't going to get him any help. They're all used to Shigaraki's capriciousness. They all give in to it whenever he wants them to. Not Dabi. Not anymore. He is going to weather this. He is the linchpin of the summer camp job. Without him, they'll only have Mustard to separate and incapacitate people. That isn't going to be enough, and bringing someone new in to replace him now is infeasible. He has the upper hand here. He can wait out Shigaraki's temper, and if he can't see past it, then maybe the others will realize that their so-called leader is nothing but a deranged and spoiled brat. Maybe then he'll finally have to start behaving like a proper leader instead of doing whatever the fuck this all has been in the meantime.

Dabi sits down on the floor with a huff, taking out his phone, and leaning against his dresser, and he waits. Shigaraki or one of the others will relent. He can wait for that.

///

It's not just his room or his bed that were taken away, Dabi discovers when he first starts to nod off that night. No. When he closes his eyes, he finds himself being dropped through one of Kurogiri's portals, back onto the floor from a handful of centimeters up, so that he hits the ground just hard enough to force sleep from his mind and put fresh bruises on his skin. His anger over that had his hands sparking, but when he went to confront the nomu, he was simply told,

"You are only to sleep at your master's side." And the nomu hadn't relented. Any time Dabi felt like he might drift off, he would find himself falling again, each instance leaving his heart racing and the exhaustion held at bay for a little while longer. Dabi was exhausted after the first night, his stomach a pit of hunger after getting used to not having to skip meals for so long now, but when they were finished with their training and brought back to the bar for their smoothies and he was subjected to the shower rotation that came with not having a private bathroom, he was given a box from a convenience store instead. A box with grilled mackerel and rice. Dabi doesn't like fish, but he's eaten worse, and he absolutely is not about to let this petty bullshit be the thing that breaks him, so he ate every bite.

He stayed on top of things through their afternoon meetings and their drills, with Shigaraki's flat red eyes watching all of them. He didn't waver. And that night, he was still last to be picked to eat. He didn't flinch. But it was hard to keep his spine straight when his eyes were burning, and he realized that he wouldn't be allowed to sleep for the second night in a row.

Agony. It wasn't just the physical discomfort of sitting on the floor and occasionally being dropped back on top of it whenever he started to nod off. His mind feels like he is having to wade through molasses just to focus on anything, and by the second day, he's uncoordinated during training, unable to answer Shigaraki's questions during the meetings without needing to pause to think, which prompts the other man to decide to do a 'speed round'.

"Students who are impervious to fire? Magne."

"Tetsu Tetsu."

"Spinner."

"Eijiro Kirishima."

"Dabi?"

It takes him a second before he manages, "Shoto," and he nearly forgets to add, "Todoroki."

"Incorrect. He's been treated for burns before."

Dabi grits his teeth but holds his tongue as he tries to make his mind focus when everything feels distant and out of focus.

"Pro-heroes and their quirks? Dabi."

"Eraser Head, Erasure." He expects the relief of someone else being called on, but Shigaraki says,

"Dabi," again, his eyes never leaving his face.

"Tiger, Pilabody."

"Dabi."

"Pixie-Bob," Dabi knows this. He knows all of them. He knows– "Earth Flow."

"Dabi."

He knows this, he knows this. "Mandalady, Search–"

"Incorrect. Which students have been marked for remedial lessons?"

Dabi knows, he knows, but it doesn't matter. His mind is tangled and exhausted, and there is a burning building up behind his eyes that doesn't just feel like the low ache from the lack of sleep. "You're a bastard." The words might as well be a lead balloon with how the entire room flinches as they land. "You know why he's doing this?" He half expects Shigaraki to stop him, but he doesn't. He just watches him through that horrible mask, and Dabi takes a breath and goes on. "Because he's a sick fuck who wants me to crawl around his bedroom pretending to be a dog. He's a creep and a pervert, and because I said no, he's doing all of this."

He waits. He expects one of the others to say something. For someone to say that's messed up. For one of them, maybe all of them, to stand up and say that is twisted and isn't what they're here for either. He expects someone to do something. But the silence that hangs in the room is only heavy with his expectations, not the weight of his words.

"You would be a cute puppy," Toga says, her feet kicking on the edge of her stool as she keeps her head down.

That's the only form of acknowledgement he gets for laying Shigaraki's twisted game bare for them all to see. No one says anything else. Compress just corrects, "Mandalady's quirk is telepath. We're to render her unconscious or terminate as soon as we can to prevent her from helping to organize the others as we attack."

"Correct. Magne."

"Ragdoll. Search. Collect her if we're able to, so she can't use her quirk to track us down when we leave."

"Spinner."

"Vlad–"

Dabi doesn't really hear anything else. Everything seems like it's very far away and wrong as the rest of them continue on with their discussion, as if he hadn't spoken at all. He wonders, for several minutes, if he didn't actually say that out loud. If he managed to have a waking dream, and all of them are still in the dark about what's going on. But he knows he spoke. He knows it was real, because all of the sudden, Dabi isn't anymore. For the rest of the session, Shigaraki doesn't call on Dabi anymore. He doesn't even look in his direction, and immediately, the others angle their bodies away from him as well. They keep their eyes from him. When they all stand to go run drills, Dabi is the last to approach the portal, and Kurogiri closes it before he can step through. When he turns to look at the nomu, he doesn't acknowledge him either.

Dabi goes downstairs and tries to sleep on one of the beds. The nomu takes the entire piece of furniture through his portal rather than acknowledging Dabi's existence.

Hours later, once the others have returned, he finds that Spinner is going out to get them dinner, his access to the kitchen barred, so he cannot cook. And when the gecko returns, Dabi's name isn't called at all. Not only that, but when he reaches for the bags anyway, he discovers that there isn't anything left inside of any of them. Nothing. He doesn't get to eat because he doesn't exist anymore. No one will look at him, and they won't acknowledge him when he speaks.

Dabi reaches out to grab Twice by the arm as he stands up from the table, intending to try to say something that will force him to look at him. He and Twice get along. They're friendly. But before his hand can close around the other's bicep, they are both encased in blue light, and Magne flings them two meters apart before she falls in step with Twice and starts to speak over whatever protests Dabi might have made.

///

He isn't spoken to, isn't looked at, isn't allowed to sleep or eat, for the entirety of the next day as well. He doesn't get to go to morning training. He isn't called on during the meeting. He can't go run drills. He doesn't get access to the kitchen, and he isn't even assigned any other chores to do. He just doesn't exist as far as everyone in the League is concerned. And by midnight, his eyes burning, his vision seeming to pulse in time with his heartbeat, a thin sweat breaking out across his skin, his limbs clumsy beneath him, and a pit of hunger in his stomach, Dabi can't take it anymore. Don't cry. Don't cry. It's a nonsensical mantra as he stumbles his way upstairs and pushes open Shigaraki's door without knocking.

He doesn't think he's all that surprised when he finds that the other man is still up, sitting on his bed in his pajama bottoms, eyes falling on him for the first time in a day as Dabi stands, his body shaking in the doorway. He waits, and Dabi's entire chest feels tight. He thinks about demanding an out. But there isn't one, and he knows that. All For One has never been caught. There are so many people who aren't even sure that he's real, and Dabi knows that a criminal as powerful as him can only have earned that reputation if he never lets a loose end exist in his organization. He can't imagine his successor won't do the same thing. So even as his stomach sinks, even as he hates how this is the level he's being forced to stoop to, he makes sure that the door slams behind him so that everyone in base will know what they're letting happen to him.

His hands are clammy and uncoordinated as he pulls at his clothes, tearing away layer after layer until he's stripped down to nothing, with that continued mantra that he will not cry as he drops to his knees and crawls on the floor over to the dog bed and pulls on the stupid fucking headband.

"There's my good dog."

Dabi feels like an animal when he snarls at Shigaraki, twisting his head to bare his teeth at him–

The other man doesn't need to stand to bring the heel of his foot directly against Dabi's temple as he shifts, the blow so hard that it leaves black spots blooming through Dabi's vision and the pain so sudden and intense that his stomach lurches from it. Don't cry, he screams through the ache as the room spins around him and the last of his strength seems to be sapped from him from the suddenness of that overt violence.

"Good dogs," Shigaraki's voice is flat and sure, "don't growl at their masters. Show me you're sorry."

Dabi wants to kill him. He wants to fill this entire room, this entire building with fire. He wants to tear everything inside down and be certain that no one will walk out but him. He wants to leave this building a black smudge on the street so he can be damn sure that no one ever thinks they can treat him like this again. But he would be a loose end, and Shigaraki is so close to him. He doesn't have any of the bandages against his skin anymore, and Dabi doesn't know if he can turn the other man's limbs to ash before he gets his hand against his body and sends him to oblivion as well. And he's so tired, so hungry, so desperate. All he can do is put his forehead against the floor again. He doesn't say a word. He knows that dogs aren't supposed to speak.

Shigaraki shifts on the bed, retrieving something before he leans over Dabi and makes him lift his head again. His whole body flares with heat, his quirk leaving him even dizzier in the wake of that as he fails to have the fuel in his body to sustain it. Shit. He would pass out before he got his flames to spread past this room at this rate. Dabi stays still, his entire body trembling as he sees Shigaraki's hands come closer to his face– and then dip down toward his neck as he takes a metal choke collar and wraps it around his throat, latching it in place with a soft series of clicks, before the other man hooks a leather leash around it.

"There. Now sit, puppy."

Dabi didn't think it was possible for him to find someone else he could hate as much as his father, but he is left with his entire body going acrid with the smell of smoke that only seems to be his flames eating away his insides because it can't find anything else to devour. He sits, his hands in his lap to cover his modesty as much as he can, that heat still in his eyes and across his cheeks as he keeps his head down, the links of the chain around his throat starting to warm against his skin.

"Are you hungry, puppy? Can you show me how a good dog asks for food?"

Dabi knows he's not supposed to speak, but the way that his throat closes up around the sound only makes the weak whimper that manages to escape sound more genuine.

"Good boy." Shigaraki pats his head and then gets up from the bed. He retrieves the bowl Dabi refused to eat out of before as well as a second. He sets both of them down, cracking open a water bottle into one before he takes an individual serving of cereal and pours it into the other. Dabi's stomach, against his better judgment, growls loudly, and he doesn't dare look up from the floor. He doesn't know if it's because he doesn't want to be hit again or if it's just because he thinks he would lose his mind completely if he had to see how smug Shigaraki is as he instructs, "Eat up, puppy."

Shame bites at every inch of his skin as Dabi shifts on the floor to crouch over the bowls, knowing that he won't be able to use his hands. Shigaraki wants a dog right now. Dogs don't use their hands. It's a humiliating and messy process as he tries to get his mouth down to the bowl so that he can slurp up some of the water. That's the one thing he's been allowed for the past few days, and Dabi thinks he was only being allowed enough that he wouldn't die, because he is still so thirsty as he tries his best to gulp down as much as he can without making too much of a mess. He does still manage to get water all over his chin and a bit on the floor as he shifts over to the bowl of dry cereal. It isn't anything particularly flavorful, just plain puffed rice that sticks to the moisture on his face and that seems to disappear all too quickly as he swallows each mouthful with the realization that this is far too little and far too light to actually let his body feel any relief for the hunger that is still gnawing at his insides. Don't cry. He makes himself lick up every grain, uncertain of if or when he'll be allowed to eat again, and when he's finished, he sits back, his whole body shaking, as he waits.

Shigaraki leaves him in that anticipation longer than he expects as he picks up the bowls and sets them outside of the door before he comes back and picks up Dabi's clothes from the floor, folding them neatly and putting them in the bottom drawer of his dresser. He opens another as Dabi waits, before he moves back over to the edge of his bed and sits down.

"Get in your bed, puppy. It's late."

He doesn't know how something so cruel can feel like a relief, but exhaustion clings to every part of him as he moves to get into the bed. He fully intends to turn himself into a tight ball and sleep as soon as he's allowed, but before he can fully lie down, Shigaraki's foot presses hard between his shoulder blades. Dabi is lucky that the dog bed beneath him has a thick pad of stuffing and foam in it, because his face goes straight into it, his elbows buckling beneath him as his weakened body is pushed down.

"A good dog should always take care of his master's needs. Lift your ass and spread your legs, puppy."

He wants to wail. He wants to ignite. He wants to protest. But it's this or oblivion. Dabi is tired, he's broken, but he isn't ready to die yet. He still has work to do. Don't cry. If that's the only bit of pride he can hold onto, then that's what he'll do. There is so much pressure inside of him, like a parasite has crawled behind his teeth the moment he took his first meal with the League of Villains, and Shigaraki has been nurturing it inside of him. It's gotten too big now. It's pressing along his throat, urging him to scream, against his hollow stomach to try and get him to expel bile and what little he's been allowed to eat, against the backs of his eyes so he'll break even more visibly for Shigaraki's amusement. But he holds it hostage inside of his flesh as he opens his legs and waits.

The foot comes off of his spine, and Dabi hears the other man shift on the edge of the bed before the loud pop of a plastic lid being flicked open splits the air. He expects Shigaraki to hurt him, and he's sure that this is pain, but it's in a different way than he was expecting as the other man pours a slick, icy lube over his hole. It rolls across his skin and pollutes his body further as the monster behind him takes three of his deadly fingers and catches it as it tries to slide down his skin, and he pushes it back up to his hole. Dabi hasn't been touched there in a long time and never like this. The world becomes a dizzying too much as he realizes that every part of him is trembling as Shigaraki circles his rim before he pushes the first one inside. It burns slightly, the muscles tighter now than he thinks they were even his very first time, but he manages to stay silent and keep his eyes dry as he closes them and hides his face in the fold of his arms. At least like this, he doesn't have to watch the other man as he tortures him. At least he's not on the cold, hard concrete floor like he has been for the past four days. At least– The finger pushes deeper and crooks, spreading that slickness against him and forcing his walls wet so that they won't tear so easily in what's to come. Dabi tries so hard to make what is happening to him smaller, but the awareness that he is letting himself be touched like this when every inch of him wants to flee from it can't be diminished. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

Shigaraki, thankfully, doesn't comment on the way he trembles or the tightness of his muscles. He just works in the first finger, then the second, spreading them wide, but never so far that Dabi tears. If he gets ripped open, he might not be able to do everything that the other man wants from him if he's given his position in the League back. There's a horrible fear through him that he won't be allowed to be a person ever again once he lets Shigaraki make him his bitch like this. Would it have been one of the others? If he hadn't made that comment about AFO? Would it have been one of them that Shigaraki decided to turn into his plaything? Or did Shigaraki have his eyes on him since the moment he stepped into the bar? He'd left the best room open, almost like he was waiting for someone else. Dabi isn't sure, but he doesn't have any more time to think about it when Shigaraki dips his third finger inside of his body, stretching him a bit more, before he abruptly withdraws all three.

The lube is opened again, and another squirt of it goes directly into Dabi's hole before his nerves can tighten him completely. And then there's the rustling of fabric. Dabi shakes his head. He knows he's not allowed his voice, but just that movement is enough to bring the other's wrath on him again as the leash is pulled with more strength than Dabi thought was coiled in Shigaraki's body. The chain snaps closed around his neck, the links not just pinching, but biting wounds into his skin that go hot and sticky with blood as his breath is choked in his throat.

"A good dog," Shigaraki growls, his breath hot against the shell of his ear as his body folds along Dabi's back. "Never says 'no' to his master. Show me you're going to be a good dog, or you'll have to be punished."

Through the pain and black spots starting to dance across his vision, his fingers clawing uselessly against the links, he realizes that this isn't a punishment. Everything else was a punishment. Getting to eat first, having his own room, those were rewards. At the beginning, it was good performance with his work and chores that earned them. Then those became expected. Now he has to do this. This is what is expected now if he wants to continue to get to eat, sleep, and go on the mission he was told he would get to lead. He has to do this if he wants to breathe–

It's a good thing there isn't enough air in his lungs for him to muster a sob, or he thinks he would have immediately broken as he forces himself to push his hips back and grind himself against the other's cock. He's already out and hard. Dabi can feel his skin, colder than his own, even with his arousal, and his length far bigger than Dabi wants it to be.

"Much better, puppy." But he doesn't loosen his hold on the chain, instead catching his hip in his other hand, four-fingered grip bruising around his skin, as he lines his cock up with his hole. Lube goes squelching out of him, over his taint and down his thighs, as Shigaraki pushes inside. He doesn't hesitate, pushing in every centimeter unrelentingly until Dabi is full and the world is starting to go dark.

It's only as Dabi's whole body begins to go limp, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, his mind panicked through the heaviness that begins to overcome his senses, when Shigaraki loosens his hold on the leash and allows Dabi to take in a great, gasping breath. It does little to help him as the violence of it and the release of blood no longer being choked away make him very aware of every inch of his body as he tries to breathe, only to cough away half of the air as Shigaraki starts to move. His cock is inside of him, spreading him apart far further than his fingers did, and he's still holding him in place as he rapes him. Dabi still struggles to breathe, even with only the bruises around his throat trying to keep him docile, as adrenaline and illness course through his entire body, as Shigaraki doesn't concern himself with what his puppy might be feeling. He just keeps moving. Dabi can't suck in the right kinds of breath. The world is still pulsing and going hazy and gray because not enough air is hitting his lungs as each wisp of a breath manages to come through his mouth before it's pushed out again in time with Shigaraki's rough, hard thrusts, and Dabi thinks he might pass out, throw up, or sob, and he refuses to let the monster touching him see how much more he's been broken by him. Dabi twists his face back into his arms, and he opens his mouth wide before he sinks his teeth into his forearm as hard as he can. The tough, twisted skin of his burns splits under his teeth and fills his mouth with blood as he forces himself to breathe through his nose instead. The taste of blood coating his tongue, the dark circle of his arms, and the smell of smoke coming off of his skin takes him away from how his insides are being bruised and the back of his thighs are getting sticky, because he's been trapped so many other times in his life with only those sensations to let him know he was still alive. He can be that; he survived that. He doesn't know if he can survive this if he lets his mind travel to it. So he stays there, his teeth sunk into his arm, until he's full, and wet, and wrong– but there isn't weight pressed along his back anymore.

He hears the bed shift, and then Shigaraki reaches down to stroke his hair. "Good boy."

And the hand retreats.

Dabi is pretty sure that he passes out just like that, flesh caught between his teeth, and his hips still raised for his master's pleasure.

///

He doesn't get his room back. The next morning, Shigaraki sends him to go wash up, and when he gets back out into the bedroom, he sees that his backpack is sitting next to the dresser and Toga is waiting for him with the first-aid kit, and someone has already taken the cover off of his dog bed to wash the blood, cum, and lube off of the surface. Toga is pale, and as she stitches up the teethmarks he's left in his skin, she doesn't make any comment about him being a dog this time. Compress doesn't say anything either when Dabi does manage to go downstairs, still aching a bit from how he was stretched. He saw the cover. He knows. Everyone knows he went to Shigaraki's room last night, and today, when they won't look at him, he knows it's because they know what happened to him in that room, not because Shigaraki is icing him out the way he has been for the past half a week.

Shigaraki doesn't ice him out; he makes sure that Dabi goes and sits on the couch to continue to rest while the others go to exercise. "I'm sure you're still tired. Go lie down." He stays downstairs as well, working on something on his laptop, forcing Dabi to lie with his head in his lap as he pets his hair and Dabi tries his best to stay awake. But three days without being allowed to sleep, along with what he endured the night before, have more than taken their toll on his body. He can't help it when he falls asleep, only to wake after everyone is already back and Shigaraki is being handed Dabi's smoothie by Twice.

He didn't think that Shigaraki could find any other way to damage his pride until the other man makes him sit up and refuses to hand off the drink to him, even as Dabi's stomach growls at even the suggestion of food. Instead, the other man makes Dabi, in front of all of the others, lean in so that he can feed the straw into his mouth, and he makes him drink the whole thing like that. Like he's a child who can't be trusted to even hold his own cup. Humiliation isn't a strong enough word for the way his entire being feels like the heat of his blush is on the cusp of turning his flesh into charcoal. Shigaraki pats his head when he's finished, and the others move on with their meetings.

"We'll be receiving one nomu to help assist us with our mission at the summer camp," Shigaraki tells them. "It will be assigned to Dabi so that he has backup while he's moving through the forest."

Muscular scoffs. "He's already got Twice as a bodyguard. What? He suck dick that well?"

Dabi bristles, his stomach twisting sharply and making him terrified he's going to throw up on Shigaraki and learn just what other awful punishments he can be made to endure. But Shigaraki turns his attention to Muscular, his eyes hidden behind his mask, before he reaches out through a portal that opens so that his hand can wrap around the brute's face. His middle finger is a hair's breadth from his skin, turning him into nothing as the rest of his fingers already dig into his skin.

"You're forgetting your place." That's all he says as the tension in the room reaches a level that Dabi isn't sure they can come back from. He thinks that this might be the tipping point. Maybe they all thought they could get by watching him be hurt; maybe they thought that would save them from Shigaraki's wrath. But now that they see that any of them could just as easily–

Muscular doesn't say a word; his fingers are white-knuckled against the chair, but he doesn't move or speak for the agonizing minute it takes for Shigaraki to let go of him and the portals to close up again.

Shigaraki goes on with the meeting. Dabi is allowed to observe the afternoon drills, but he is made to sit at Shigaraki's side as he does. Muscular is ignored by the others as he guards the outskirts of the camp. Dabi is given his food after Shigaraki, the other man, makes him serve himself in the dog bowls from the night before in front of all of the others. Muscular's name is not called to eat.

Shigaraki takes him back upstairs, and he finds out if Dabi's mouth is any good. Dabi is just glad that he's not punished for throwing up his meal and Shigaraki's cum in the toilet when he's finished.

///

By the time he's standing on the outskirts of the forest, waiting for the signal that they should begin moving in, Dabi feels like a different person. He doesn't get to be a person for most of each day. He just has to be Shigaraki's good dog. There is a part of him, something that he tries to keep caged deep in his mind, that howls at him that he only complied with Shigaraki's demands at the beginning because he was being treated well. He might be able to sleep and eat now, but he is still being hurt. That's not better. He shouldn't give Shigaraki his compliance– and then Dabi strangles that part of his mind back into silence. He has to. Shigaraki is All For One's successor. He will ensure that Dabi doesn't make it out of the League if he catches wind that Dabi might try to get away. He has to behave. He has to comply. If he does that, then at least things won't get worse. At least Shigaraki isn't getting off on hurting him while he rapes him. At least he doesn't make him bark or crawl in front of any of the others. Take what he can get. He's still in the field, he's still working towards his goals.

That helps Dabi shake away the wool he's been pulling over his mind for the past week and a half. He is here. He has the opportunity to steal his father's prized prodigy. If he does that, Endeavor might come straight to him. His phone buzzes once. Word from Shigaraki's unknown spy that the test of courage has started.

"Positions." He says through the earpiece. Beside him, Twice begins to form another Dabi. One that is supposed to help him set this forest on fire and distract Eraser Head and Vlad at the camp. He can't look at him. He doesn't want to see what he's become in the past week. The sentiment must be shared because the double moves into the forest without a word to him.

///

His head pounds, bile rising in his throat, and the entire room spinning even though he is fairly certain he's crumpled on the ground. He sees a pulse of colors around the edges of the dim light that is coming through the dirty windows, and his nose is full of dust. Oh. Everything is hazy and hard to make out, but he is pretty sure he doesn't know what this room is. Dabi tries to sit up and look around, but that only makes the dizziness worse as he collapses back to the concrete. They're not in the bar. They're supposed to be in the bar. That's where they were supposed to bring their hostages when they had them–

Hostage. One. They only managed to grab Katsuki Bakugo. They got close with the others but– the students rallied. They lost control of the situation, or they would have if Dabi hadn't made the hard calls. He made them. He didn't feel bad about Muscular, the bastard, or Moonfish, the freak, but maybe he didn't like leaving behind a kid, even if he was a brat. He had to make the call as he stood across from Shoto and knew that if they didn't leave now, they might not make it out. And he did it. He left. They got back to the base. Shigaraki was pleased with him. He talked to Bakugo. Dabi's head pounds, but he loses whatever happened next after that knock at the door. Shit. Dabi tries to push himself up again, and he realizes that he's in a room in some kind of abandoned building. There are broken windows and evidence of weather and age that has gathered across the concrete floor and left clear tracks across the ground where others have walked. Dabi doesn't think he was dragged in here, but he supposes that is a strong argument for the likelihood that Compress or Magne made it out.

He has to lean against the wall the entire way down the hall, but he does eventually make it far enough to hear voices in the distance. Shigaraki's voice. It's rapid and waspish, but there is a staccato beat to it like he is going through a list that Dabi's aching, spinning head can't make sense of. He doesn't know if he should be glad that Shigaraki is still around if things went wrong. He honestly would probably be better off if he weren't. At least then he could have recovered on his own and snuck away as quickly as possible. But he hears Shig and knows he's talking to someone. He's not sure who that is, though, and when he tries to make his tongue move to form words, Dabi's jumbled mind knows that he's even worse off than he thought because he sort of just chokes on the sounds.

The mess that comes out of his mouth is loud enough for the others to hear him from the other room, but that's really all he can say for the so-called words that he tried to form. But the silence that comes in the wake of that is terrible. No one moves to come help him. There is a tension that builds instead, and for one long, horrible moment, Dabi thinks that Shigaraki is mad at him for making those hard calls and getting injured in whatever happened after. Oh god. If he's angry, then Dabi is going to be punished, and if no one will talk to him, if no one will help him, then he'll be dead weight. If they're in an abandoned building instead of at base, then he will be worse off than he has been since the last time he was homeless. It's a desperate, delirious thing when Dabi takes a breath and doesn't bother to try to make words this time as he tries to get their attention again. He just lets out the most pitiful whimper he's ever heard out of himself.

And then there are footsteps moving swiftly towards him. Dabi is still struggling to keep his eyes open against the dim light that is spilling through the skylights, but he can make out Shigaraki's form taking up the hallway.

"Puppy, you shouldn't be moving around."

Dabi, through the pulse of pain in his head, barely manages to remind himself not to cry as relief sweeps through his body. Shigaraki did this to him. He is not his savior just because he kept him from getting arrested. But he does still sag against him when the other man carefully wraps an arm around him and helps him to move into the room with the others. It's too bright and only made worse when Toga comes to check him out and determines he has a terrible concussion, in part by shining a light in his eyes. But when she's done, Shigaraki takes off his coat and drapes it over Dabi's head so he can be in the dark as the rest of them continue to discuss what to do now in the wake of Kamino Ward being destroyed and All For One's arrest.

///

The League of Villains is in the news again. Alongside people being furious that they were able to kidnap a student, All Might's retirement, the disaster efforts as Kamino is sifted through, and news of All For One's arrest, the League of Villains is the number one threat in Japan. Dabi is an A-ranked villain now, and he is going to need that infamy if he's going to destroy his father as he reaches his goals by default. Dabi is sure that his father is as angry about that as he himself is, which is really the only reason that he's able to stop himself from rushing in to kill him the moment he can see straight again, and no one thinks he's got a brain hemorrhage anymore. He isn't ready to get into that kind of fight yet, and if his father is going to finally be on the pedestal he's been reaching for all his life, it will be much more satisfying if he lights up the base and makes him stand there as the flames bite at his ankles until he falls. So Dabi is already committed to modifying his plan on how to take care of his father, but he is not prepared for how the League of Villains changes in the wake of All For One getting arrested.

"My teacher had a variety of safe houses around the country. It's unclear how many of these have been compromised due to his arrest," Shigaraki told them before they left that first warehouse. "Kurogiri will be going around and checking each and reporting back. He will also be determining which of our other resources are still available for our use. For now, Compress and Toga, if you have any of the remaining stores of blood in your kit apart from what you took at the summer camp, you will be going out to gather supplies for us."

Shigaraki's tone had been different then, but Dabi hadn't been able to make sense of it at the time, given he had been heavily concussed. It took a few days for him to realize that they were rationing food and resources, sure, but that Shigaraki was no longer deciding who got to eat after himself. He would take stock of what they had and then dole out their meals, saving himself for last. The others seemed thrown off by this, but no one protested, and Dabi only made sense of what was being done after Kurogiri finally returned and told them that they would have to keep moving locations to be safe.

They don't have anything that All For One promised to give Shigaraki. They have what Kurogiri was able to get out of the wreckage of the bar in Kamino and a few small stashes of money and clothes that will not be enough to keep the seven of them safe and comfortable for really any amount of time. Shigaraki went from a future of villainy where he was promised every single resource that AFO had accumulated over decades to only having the six of them and the one nomu they have left. He realized, far faster than any of the others, that the hierarchy he had put into place at the base was no longer viable and he made sure that the others wouldn't catch on and start to question why he is still the leader when they came for the League's name, reputation, and resources, none of which are actually so tightly tied to Tomura Shigaraki that they couldn't put in the effort of a mutiny. Shigaraki has made it even easier for them to follow him now, though, and none of them even seems to consider the possibility that they could try to get out from under his thumb. Why would they? He still makes it look like he's taking care of them by assigning them all small busywork tasks and praising them for whatever they manage to bring back. And they are still more than used to turning a blind eye to what happens to him.

"Come here, puppy."

Dabi bristles, but he knows that the request needs to be abided by. For as much as he would like to take Shigaraki out of the picture and get some revenge for the ways he's hurt him since he joined the League, the hideout they're in today is only two rooms; he, Twice, Shig, and Spinner in this one, while Magne, Toga, and Compress sleep in the other. He already knows that Twice and Spinner are not going to help him if he decides to kill Shigaraki, and he's pretty sure all of the others would rush to their precious leader's defense if he tried to pull something. And Shigaraki is careful to not force Dabi to do anything right now that might actually push one of them to decide that they might have morals that are too strong to let this keep happening to him.

Shigaraki doesn't make him strip out of his clothes, but he does make him sleep in the same bed as him. He makes Dabi move over to him when they settle in to sleep, Kurogiri keeping watch while they rest, and he has Dabi put his head in his lap. He strokes his hair with his gloves on, like he is a prized pet, and always makes sure he's comfortable. Dabi can see the strings of the manipulation happening even as they make the others move to their chords. He remembers seeing them move his mother like a marionette in his childhood, too. How every week, Enji sent her flowers when he didn't appear. How after every argument, or failed pregnancy test, or beating, there wouldn't just be flowers. There would be bottles of her favorite perfume, a personal chef who would come to the house and make the meals for the week, a new dress. Things that Dabi could see were ways of appeasing her, but that was not what she begged him for when he did come home. Just enough to show her that he was thinking of her, but never the way she actually asked him to. But enough to make her doubt again and stay silent for a while longer, until the next thing came and boiled over, and his father would do it all again. Shigaraki still calls him puppy and pets him at night, but what he does now is soft and gentle. The others must look at it and see an affection in the actions that is so different from what they must have imagined was happening to Dabi when he was locked away in Shigaraki's room with those paper-thin walls. He shows him the light things he used to do, and it lets them diminish everything that must have happened before in their minds. He puts them at ease and makes Dabi seem unstable and dramatic with what the others might mistake as affection, ensuring that, were Dabi to try something drastic, he would only be in a worse position of convincing the others of his cause than he was at the base. Dabi doesn't know if he should be flattered or disgusted that Shigaraki apparently thinks so highly of him that he's building in defences against subterfuge into how he has changed running the League since the fall of Kamino. He just knows that means he'll just have to look harder for his opportunity.

///

"I can leave?" Dabi does his best not to sound too eager for that. He has been all but glued to Shigaraki's side throughout the past few weeks as they've bounced around to whatever hovel has passed as a safehouse, according to Kurogiri. But Kurogiri is going away for an extended mission, and the rest of the League is going to be holed up in a small abandoned waystation that is in the middle of nowhere. He was certain he was going to be trapped in this one room until the mist man came back with his report.

Red eyes are far too sharp on him when Shigaraki continues, "To recruit," Shigaraki clarifies. "We need more people and more resources to work with. What we have now is not enough for us to bring about the war I promised you all. You have been vetting jobs for a long time and have a good sense about people. You'll find ones that suit what we're trying to do here."

Dabi snorts slightly, crossing his arms. When he doesn't have to be close to him, he tries his best to put space between himself and Shigaraki, and he's glad he's leaning against the far wall because it means Shigaraki can't hit him for the momentary disrespect as he forgets himself. Compress and Magne have that kind of experience too, but Compress and Magne fell into this shit with Shigaraki just like the others did. He can't say for certain what made them all decide to go into the League with this cult-like worship, but unlike the others, Dabi has seen through it, and Shigaraki knows it. Shigaraki wants him to bring more people like the rest of the League. He wants people who will not only bring resources but will fall in line perfectly for Shigaraki when it comes down to it. He wants Dabi to know what this all is and still damn other people to this life with his own hands.

And he knows he'll do it too, because even if Shigaraki doesn't know his name or goals, he understands that those will keep him here no matter how horrific things get. So long as the League is still his best option. Shigaraki reaches for him, catching his chin in four fingers and digging them into the staples along the sides of his face so he can punctuate his point. "You're going to bring people who suit this organization, or there will be consequences, puppy."

Dabi doesn't bother to argue. He wants out of this base, and he's used to hiding from the heroes in cities. He's been able to sustain himself for years on the streets; he'll be happy to do it again outside of Shigaraki's reach. "Yes, sir."

Shigaraki watches him for another moment before he releases him. "I'll expect you to call with an update every day, no later than midnight. If you fail to, I'll have to assume that you've betrayed us."

The whole room grows tense, and Dabi wonders, yet again, if there is any world where the rest of the League would defend him from Shigaraki if it came down to it, but he already knows the answer. "Yes, sir."

"Good boy," the words Dabi expects. But he goes very still when Shigaraki takes Father from his face to press a soft kiss against his forehead. Even when he had the privacy of his room so he could rape him, he never bothered to give him any form of a kiss. "Be safe."

"...Yes, sir." Dabi doesn't know what to do with the fact that makes him feel so much smaller, but thankfully, Shigaraki lets go of him after another second, and he's able to push himself off the floor. He shoves his hands into his pockets and starts towards the door. It's a long walk to the nearest city, and he would rather start now than later.

///

Dabi didn't think recruiting for the League would be so difficult, but he finds himself burning people to death more than he finds himself marking a potential recruit. After seeing the destruction of Kamino, too many of the villains who come to speak to him believe that they're going to be tearing apart Japan now, and that isn't something that Dabi wants to encourage. They are down resources, without a clear next step towards their goals, and they are not in a position to introduce volatile elements into the carefully curated ecosystem that Shigaraki is maintaining. So Dabi burns a lot of people, and he calls in every day to keep Shigaraki from coming after him, all the while he tries his best to find ways to line his own pockets and get enough resources that he can disappear for long enough to get his revenge on his own.

He's not expecting a call from Twice one afternoon as he moves between buildings, the distant smell of smoke and squeal of sirens the only evidence that he was ever anywhere near this area. He's already five blocks away, and the police cars are just starting to head in that direction. If he can just make the next train, which he should arrive at before the cops even figure out what they're looking at, then he'll be in another city before they even think to put up a blockade. The hoodie, sunglasses, and sick mask don't look out of place as summer turns to fall, and he gets into the tunnel for the station as he picks up,

"What?" He can't be polite to any of them anymore. Shigaraki, he has to be, but the rest of them? No. He told them what was happening, they saw it, and they let it go on. Be it because they were happy to throw him under the bus to save themselves, or if they really do just believe in Shigaraki that much. He has no kindness or affection in his heart for any of them.

"Oh, hey, Dabi. Fuck you too, bud!"

He rolls his eyes. He doesn't have the patience to deal with Twice right now. He makes sure he scans his card as he gets past the turnstiles. He would hate to get caught for his mass murder by breaking another minor law. "I'm about to get on the train, make this fast." He is absolutely not going to garner all the wrong kind of attention because of this phone call.

"So this guy approached me to join up. Total weirdo. Name's Kai Chisaki. He wants a meet tonight."

"Not going to be back tonight." There is a slight nagging sensation that tickles the back of his brain. He'll look into it unless, "Duster isn't doing shit, tell him." They have to run new recruits by himself or Shig. Dabi's already reached his capacity for bullshit today. He'll let the other deal with this.

"Yeah, okay. Thanks, Dabi. Woof woof!"

Dabi's teeth grind together as he hangs up, shoving his phone back into his pocket as he gets on the first train that shows up in the station, glad it's not a particularly busy day because that means that no one is standing closely enough to him to feel the furious heat that keeps spilling off his body.

///

Dabi is less than happy, but he knows that he has to call in before midnight. Still. He rides the line, not making the call until it's quarter til. The phone only rings once, and then Shigaraki answers, his voice full of venom as he snarls,

"Coordinates!"

Dabi's stomach tightens, his hands starting to sweat. "I'm not late–"

"Your. Coordinates." He doesn't know if Shigaraki has ever sounded this angry before, and Dabi doesn't know if he'll survive that being directed at him; he just knows that he needs to do his best to lessen it before he has to find out.

He rattles off his location, and no more than a minute later, one of Kurogiri's black portals opens up. It takes everything in him not to try to turn and run away. He won't get anywhere, he reminds himself dutifully. Shigaraki will put everything on hold to find his dog and put him back in his place. So he steps through the portal and immediately has to squint against the bright fluorescent lights that are on the other side of the dark.

He barely gets to see Shigaraki walking up to him before his hand impacts his cheek. Dabi's head snaps to the side, the crack of his palm meeting his skin is loud, but the pain that comes with it is far worse than anything that he thought a slap could be. His quirk. Dabi stumbles half a step back, no portal behind him to take him away, just the threshold of a door that catches the back of his shoe. Dabi feels gravity shift at the same time as his own desperate fingertips reach for his aching cheek, and he feels the spiderweb of cracks beneath them as blood begins to wet his skin, and he feels as though some icy hook tore away lines of his flesh. Dabi hits the ground, but manages to get his limbs under him enough to keep retreating as Shigaraki stalks into the doorway, the light casting a long shadow across the dimmer room he's found himself in, before the other man steps inside and slams the door behind them. Dabi's stomach sickens, but he doesn't hesitate. He immediately manages,

"I-I'm sorry–"

"You did it on purpose." The words are snarled as Shigaraki moves so much faster than Dabi expected, so that he can lash out again. Dabi barely manages to bring his arm up to block the kick from connecting with his face, and even then, the impact still makes his bones ache and sends him sprawling onto his back. Dabi instinctively sends out a burst of fire, just something flashy enough that it normally makes people back off– but Shigaraki only flinches for a split second before his eyes are on Dabi again, his teeth bared and his eyes wild with his fury. "You ungrateful, deceitful, mutt!" He slams his foot into Dabi's gut, hard enough that it not only takes the breath from his lungs, but immediately tears free the staples that curve across his stomach. The tear of flesh isn't audible, but blood does immediately start to seep through his white shirt. His foot comes down again, against his stomach, and that makes Dabi move his arms, desperate to try and keep the tear from getting any worse– which just gives Shigaraki the opportunity to bring his foot down against Dabi's temple instead. Black spots dance across his vision, the pain overtaking any confusion he has as the other man snaps after so long of keeping all of the sadistic, violent impulses Dabi's known he's been holding onto free.

Dabi tries to light up his hands again, knowing that he is not going to be able to get out of this any other way, only for Shigaraki to all but throw himself on top of him, his cold hands wrapping tightly around Dabi's wrists. "No!" He hasn't heard his voice so desperate in all of his life, but he can't help screaming now as he realizes just how close he is to losing the appendages as Shigaraki's fifth fingers hover barely a centimeter above his skin.

"You'll be lucky if I only take your hands, you disgusting mutt! I should wrap mine around your waist and pull you apart at the middle. At least then you might feel an ounce of what you put Magne through before she died!"

It's through the panic and pain of everything that is happening to him that leaves Dabi gasping, "Died?" As he only just starts to make sense of why Shigaraki is so furious.

The grip around his wrists tightens, and Dabi whimpers, going limp to try and stay the fury on the other's face as he scrutinizes his expression. "...We had a meeting tonight. Twice said you put it through."

Dabi's stomach turns into a pit. "He said he had someone who wanted to meet tonight. I told him I wouldn't be back– I told him to tell you to vet them." He doesn't know– he isn't sure. He doesn't have any love for the others, but Twice's brain is actually scrambled. He doesn't want to think that the other man really did blame Magne's death on him so blatantly.

Shigaraki watches him for another long moment, that anger slowly ebbing, but he doesn't let go of Dabi. "They were Yakuza. They want to absorb the League. Magne didn't stand for their disrespect, and Chisaki killed her and took Compress's arm. He's in surgery now, and we have an ultimatum. We either allow ourselves to be absorbed or they're going to wipe us out."

And perhaps it says something horrible about him, or about what kind of suffering he's willing to put up with, but the idea of having to become a pawn for someone else after he's already let Shigaraki do so much to him makes Dabi feel even sicker than the blow to his head did. "When?"

"Three days."

"We can't–"

Duster reaches up to his face, and Dabi flinches back violently enough to put stars across his vision as the back of his head connects with the floor. But that only highlights that there's nowhere for him to go. Shig's gentle when he cups his injured cheek in his palm, keeping the rest of his fingers from his skin as he strokes his thumb over the aching crack that has been left in his face. "Compress is in surgery. The others are mourning. We need to plan." His hand moves away from his face, and Shigaraki shifts down his body. "Show me."

Dabi's body still burns with humiliation and a low-simmering anger because Shigaraki did this to him, but he's also hurting. He knows that he's not going to get help for that unless it's Duster who decides he's earned it. So he reaches down to the hem of his shirt and lifts up the bloody fabric so he can see where his kick tore his staples.

Duster moves his hand along the ruined seam softly, the edges of it raw and aching, the blood just starting to thicken, but breaking and spreading beneath the touch when it comes. "Okay, puppy. Let's get you cleaned up. Have you eaten today?"

Dabi shakes his head weakly, and Shig shifts off his body before he leans down and helps him get back onto his feet. He's glad that Duster doesn't make him talk while he's patching him up because each fresh staple pulling his skin closed around his insides is another moment he gets to spend pushing all of his anger beneath the surface as well. The League, for all that it isn't what he thought it would be when he first joined, is still the organization that has made such an impact on the country. The Yakuza is old news. If they're absorbed, then Dabi is worse off than square one. He needs to make sure that doesn't happen.

And when he's patched up, and Shigaraki has stolen pain meds from this place that Dabi hasn't ever seen before, the other man starts to tell him in detail everything that happened during the meet-up. Dabi lets the meds dull the ache going through him and takes out his phone to dig up whatever he can about Kai Chisaki, and so they can be sure of how they're going to tackle their next steps.

From the way that Toga and Twice glare at him when they are sent off as collateral for that plan, Dabi is certain that they believe this is some elaborate form of revenge on them. He's pretty sure from how little Spinner or Compress speak to him that they believe he did this on purpose, too. Shigaraki doesn't redirect that anger on Twice, where it should be. Twice is beloved by the rest of them and is not all there. If he were to be as violent with Jin as Shigaraki has been with Dabi, then the others would do something. And even then, there is a good chance that the aggression alone might break Two's head in half completely. Whatever. Shigaraki can use him as his scapegoat all he wants. As long as all of the others know that he's still Duster's second-in-command.

///

Dabi stays away from most of what's going on with the others while Shigaraki is dealing with the Shie Hassaikai. Kai Chisaki didn't see Dabi with the League when they met up with him at the warehouse, and Shigaraki wants him to continue thinking that Dabi might have split from them or died from his head injury when the heroes busted into the bar. That's fine by him. Chisaki is working on quirk-erasing bullets, and Dabi can't put into words how horrifying the possibility of that is to him. He was already thrown away for not having a quirk powerful enough for his father. He doesn't want to end up not having a path to his revenge at all if he gets shot with one of those bullets. So he coordinates with Shigaraki over the phone, and every now and then, he finds himself staring at the device long after their conversations have ended, his seams spilling smoke and his body soaked with sweat. He all but vibrates as he tries to make his mind reconcile everything that the League of Villains has turned him into. How he could know the Shigaraki who is an effective leader, a master manipulator, and a violent abuser, and still follow him? He doesn't know if he should be able to keep following him. If it means there is something very broken in him to allow him to put away all of those truths and focus on the immediate tasks in front of him. Putting them away, it seems, leaves fresh burns against his already blackened insides, but he is closer now than he ever has been before to getting revenge on his father.

He puts it away, and when Dabi notices the hero patrols shifting around the area of the Shie Hassaikai's base, he reports back to Shigaraki like a good dog.

"We've procured a van." Shig tells him, "Come back to base." And Dabi comes when he's called.

Dabi has to lock up the human parts of him and be a good dog abruptly after they've lost the police convoy and taken their revenge on Chisaki. He was feeling good after seeing how many of the police cars they were able to take out and the explosion they left in their wake that will serve as a strong reminder to the rest of the country about just how dangerous they are– and then they get back to the garage that is serving as the current base. Toga and Twice are already here, as they should be if things went according to plan on their end, and Twice has the bullets. Dabi knows what a weapon those can be for them. If they can get to Eraser Head, then they'll take the heroes’ most powerful weapon off of their hands before this war even starts. He just has to make sure that Shigaraki never gets the wise idea to use those on the new number one–

Toga throws her arms around his waist and hugs him tight. Dabi stiffens under the touch. None of the others have gotten close to him like this, well, ever. Dabi was always the one that Shigaraki singled out, and that kept them at arm's length almost more effectively than Dabi's attitude could. She doesn't say anything, but he sees that the rest of them, save Duster, also loosen their posture slightly as they see her. It takes a moment for him to understand what this is, and when he does, Dabi wants to grab her by the shoulders and look them all in the eyes as he lights her on fire.

Forgiveness. This is Toga telling him, telling all of the League that he should be forgiven for what 'he' did to Magne. She thinks that she has some right to absolve him after every way this group has betrayed him and keeps betraying him since the moment they brought him into the fold without a single warning of what he was actually getting himself into. Dabi usually tells himself not to cry as he retreats into his mind. But this time he's telling himself not to lose it. Not to commit a murder that he won't be able to handle because he'll be outnumbered by the others if he does it. He just lets her hold onto him as he stares past her, past the rest of them, until Shigaraki, who knows this expression on his face all too well, calls for them all to get inside. He thinks it might be the single greatest act of mercy that Shigaraki has ever given him when the other man instructs him to take the van through one of Kurogiri's portals and turn it to slag.

He does still imagine the rest of the League burning inside of it when he goes, but that outlet and the fresh blisters on his palms let him pretend that he isn't ready to kill them all when he returns to the garage for their debriefing.

On the bright side, he doesn't have to say a word throughout all of that conversation. Toga and Twice are the ones who have to talk, and Dabi sits there as she tells them how weird it was that Chisaki's people worshipped him like he was a god. They did anything he wanted. They didn't even seem to think for themselves; they would hurt themselves to help him further his goal. It was so messed up, she says as she looks towards Shigaraki to see what he thinks about that. Dabi manages not to howl with laughter because a good dog doesn't make a sound unless his master gives him the order. He just listens, and when the debriefing is done, he wants to leave, but Toga puts her sneakiness to use for more than just stealing the bullets. She also managed to swipe a few stacks of bills from one of the safes that hadn't been under scrutiny, as the base was falling apart, with the help of a Compress double. Which means they have enough money, a place that should be safe for them to sleep for the night, and the elation of having just completed a job. Shigaraki is smart enough to know that a reward is in order. It's Compress who goes out, in civilian clothes and maskless, to get them booze and food with a portion of the money.

And the others are full of life when he returns, they eat and talk, and Toga tries to get them to play some sort of party game that she's found on her phone. But Dabi doesn't stay with them. The garage has the main floor, a downstairs office, the catwalk above, and an office loft on the second floor. He takes his stuff and sleeping bag upstairs, far away from where the others have gotten comfortable, and he winds up the portable charger for his phone as he tries to ignore the sounds of their revelry. The only thing he can say for being here is that he hasn't gotten to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time while he's been out on his own, as he tries to avoid being spotted by anyone who might try to turn him in. He can rest now, for a little while, with the assurance that Shigaraki isn't just going to leave him alone or let him take the fall for anything. He's too much of a valuable resource to be turned into nothing.

///

Dabi wakes to the soft sound of rustling, and even just that has his body heating sharply as he sits up, flames jumping into his palms as he tries to see who is attacking him– only to find Shigaraki illuminated by the flicker of blue, the other man looking unimpressed as he continues to lay out his sleeping bag as well. He douses the flames and wants to take the cold sweat away from his skin, but no sooner than he's started to put his mind to returning to sleep, Shigaraki makes that impossible.

"Good, you're up. Take off your clothes, puppy." His voice stays low, the open loft out of sight of any of the others below, but it is more than open enough for sound to carry if they raise their voices. As is, he can hear Twice snoring loudly from somewhere below. Dabi's hands shake. It's been weeks, maybe even over a month, since Kamino, since the bar, since the last time Shigaraki forced him onto his knees and shoved his cock inside of him. Dabi had hoped, so desperately, that the other man would lose interest in it. He wanted to be able to put that aside. Maybe Shigaraki had only been doing it as a way to keep them in check at the bar, but he changed so many of his methods to keep the others in line. Dabi had been holding white-knuckled to the hope that he would decide that this wasn't something he should keep doing to maintain that control. But when the other just pauses what he's doing when Dabi doesn't immediately move to comply, he knows that he was deluding himself.

Don't cry.

He can't help how his hands shake as he shrugs out of his coat. He already took off his boots, but stripping off his socks, pants, shirt, and underwear each feels like he's taking a layer of his flesh with them as he becomes a dog for his master's pleasure again. Don't cry. He isn't going to do that. He can't. If he cries, then everyone will hear it. They're already going to listen to him be used by their beloved leader, and that's still nearly more shame than Dabi even thinks he can survive. He's not going to break now in some futile effort to actually get the sympathy that he thought he might find at the beginning.

Shigaraki takes off his clothes as well and then gestures for him to come over as he pulls on his gloves. That, at least, means that he's not going to use his quirk on him again. Dabi has been beaten, burned, in fights that left him bruised for weeks, but nothing has hurt the same way as his cheek has as it healed from Decay. Dabi wasn't even sure if the mark would heal or if he would have to carve that gray, cracked flesh from his face before necropathy could set in, and he would rot away. But it is healed, and if he can avoid being subjected to it again, then that's a small mercy that he needs to accept. Shigaraki gestures for him to come closer, and Dabi hopes that he manages to stop shaking so badly before the other man touches him. He doesn't think he does, but Shigaraki hasn't ever cared about that before. He still pulls Dabi closer, making him sit between his legs, his back to the other's chest, and Shig's chin resting against his shoulder. His breath is soft and even against his skin, highlighting how weak and thready Dabi's is in turn.

"Shh, puppy." Dabi hasn't said anything, but he knows the other man can hear every panicked breath, and he wouldn't be surprised if, this close, the other man could hear the pounding of his pulse in his ears too. "You've been such a good boy lately. I've been so proud of you."

Nausea swells through Dabi's stomach. Of course. Shigaraki uses physical violence and isolation as punishments. This he seems to think of as a reward. It's a delusion that Dabi can't begin to cope with, but he doesn't have to. This doesn't have to be anything but horror for him. He can just stay as he is and let it happen the way he has every other time before. A good dog is quiet, afterall. He doesn't have to say a word. But the urge to shatter apart only grows as Shigaraki begins to press kisses along the side of his neck. His hands wrap around Dabi's body, fingers tracing along the line of scars that he made worse just a few weeks ago, before they move up to his chest. Shigaraki's always cold to the touch, but that is even more pronounced when Dabi's anxiety has his quirk sitting just below his skin, and his nipples immediately pebble when Shig brushes his thumbs over each. Fuck. One of these nights, then.

Shigaraki usually doesn't care about anything but Dabi behaving when he has him like this. That usually means keeping quiet, not protesting, and doing whatever the other man says. But some nights, Dabi's least favorite nights, the other man wants to see how far he can push Dabi's body. He doesn't just open him up and push inside or make Dabi suck him off; instead, he runs his hands along Dabi's body, petting him to try and provoke a reaction. Dabi never thought he would remember burning with such fondness, but on nights like this, it's easy to keep his body unresponsive because his mind shifts back to that moment of ignition on the mountain top. He would rather remember that agony and how the flames danced as they ate at his eyelids than let himself react to Shigaraki stroking a hand down between his legs. He cups him against his palm, rubs his balls lightly, and then wraps his gloved fingers around his length and gives him a stroke. And then another, and another, and as long as Dabi can be in flames, those do nothing for him. He stays soft the same way he always does. He just has to wait for Shigaraki to get bored and stop–

"What's wrong with you, puppy?" He murmurs, squeezing him a little tighter. "Did all of your burns make it so you can't feel good?"

Dabi clenches his jaw around his words. He is still in that fire now. He is burning. He is anywhere but here. He isn't–

"Speak, mutt." Shigaraki loses his patience with him far faster than he usually does. It's only because that word reminds him of the last time he'd pissed Shigaraki off that Dabi forces himself to take a breath and answer.

"Why would I ever feel good with you touching me?" He snarls low in his throat, hoping the words will only live in their ears.

Shigaraki pauses with his hand on his cock. "What do you mean, puppy?"

Dabi is silent for a few seconds, taken aback himself at the confusion that he hears in the other man's voice. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Dabi feels his hands spark, and he forces them to ball into fists before he actually sets the other man on fire. "I don't want you to touch me. You're the disgusting fucking pervert who decided that controlling my life wasn't enough of a power trip for you."

"You could feel good," Shigaraki says, his hand tightening around Dabi's cock, enough that the real pain takes away some of the imagined agony that was protecting Dabi's mind and leaves him hissing out a breath. "You just have to let yourself–"

"No!" Dabi doesn't raise his voice, but the vehemence with which he speaks makes the word crack through the air like he howled it. He hasn't told Shigaraki 'no' since this started, but he can't stop himself now. And once that word is out, he can't stop talking. "I don't want to 'feel good' while you rape me, you fucking sicko. I don't want to be your goddamn dog! You can fuck with their heads and convince them you're not a monster all you want, but I'm never going to buy what you're selling. If that's what you're after, you might as well dust me right now, because otherwise, you're not getting anything but my work out of me, Shigaraki."

He expects the other man to take him up on that. He expects to be punished, to be hit, and when Shigaraki lets go of his dick so he can grab him around the waist and half throw him onto the sleeping bags, Dabi brings his arms up to protect himself from the next blow. But his limbs get trapped between their bodies as Shig pushes into his space, pinning him down against the floor as his lips are pressed against the shell of his ear so he can snarl at him, low enough that the words certainly won't carry down to the others as Twice's snores hiccup in their cadence at the impact of Dabi's back before they continue.

"I made you the most important thing I have, Dabi." And just hearing his own name out of the other's mouth while their skin is pressed together fills Dabi with dread. It tears away the rush of satisfaction and adrenaline that came with finally being able to speak his mind to the other man, and leaves him feeling like his stomach is going hollow. He presses his forehead against his knuckles as he closes his eyes and waits for the rest. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. "You are mine, and you have been such a good, obedient little puppy for so long. But you don't like it? You're not grateful that I've given you so much of my attention? You think–" The other man bites off a snarl and then abruptly pushes himself off of Dabi's body. But no blow comes. After another minute, Dabi lowers his arms and opens his eyes only to find Shigaraki is already doing his jeans back up.

He thinks, just for a second, that maybe he finally got through to whatever human might exist in the shell of this monster that has been toying with him for months.

"Get out."

Dabi doesn't move, the words raking over his brain like they're attached to fishhooks. And when he doesn't move, he gets a baleful red eye locking on him as Shigaraki finishes with his pants.

"Get. Out."

Dabi tries to focus, tries to breathe. He pushes his hands under himself and finds his own scattered clothes. He pulls them on layer by layer and rolls up his sleeping bag. So much for getting any rest. His throat feels so tight when he mumbles, "I'll call–"

He's not expecting Shigaraki to whirl on him then, his hands curved like talons at his sides because he's trained himself not to clench his fists when he's furious, even though his gloves are still on right now. "No, you won't. You don't want to be here? You don't like how I'm running this organization? You don't want what I've given you? Then you don't get to stay, Dabi. You need me, not the other way around. You were no one before you became a part of my League. You can go be no one again."

Out of all of the things that he expected to happen tonight and what might make him sick, Dabi doesn't think that he was ever anticipating this. It chokes the words in his throat with panic, and instinctively he lets out a thin whimper, the same weak, pathetic sound that brought Shigaraki to him when he was hurt–

Duster tears off his gloves and takes two steps toward him, only stopping when he realizes that he really might grab him if he lets himself get within arm's reach of Dabi. "Get out." He manages to keep his voice down while leaving the words dripping with black bile. "You don't want to be my dog anymore? Then you can be a stray for all I care."

It's the instinctive fear of oblivion, and the memory of agony that Decay brought that leaves Dabi scurrying down the metal steps, certainly waking the others below in his rush to leave, but he can't think about that. He can't think of anything past the constant rhythmic mantra echoing through his mind as his heart pounds and his feet eat up pavement throughout the rest of the night.

///

Shigaraki really doesn't contact him again after that. He doesn't tell him where they've moved. When Dabi chances texting one of the others for an update, he receives radio silence from all of the others. When he tries to get Kurogiri to help him out with a portal, he is left entirely on his own. That one, however, may not be because of Shigaraki's orders. He sees just a few days later that one member of the League of Villains has been arrested, Kurogiri's name plastered throughout the article as the heroes try to brag that they caught one of the members who facilitated the attacks on UA. But even after losing such a valuable resource, Shigaraki doesn't contact him again.

Dabi keeps trying to tell himself that's a good thing. The League has gone back to creeping through shadows instead of using their momentum from the Shie Hassaikai job to keep moving forward. And Dabi is an A-ranked criminal all on his own. He is a threat. He can leverage that to ensure that his father ends up disgraced and destroyed as they creep closer and closer to the billboard announcement that will officially mark him as the number one hero by default. Dabi isn't with the League anymore, and Shigaraki can't control him now. This is better. He's looked after himself for most of his life as a criminal. He can keep doing that now and continue to make progress forward.

He doesn't think about what it might mean when Giran contacts him. He told Giran to get in touch with him if he had any potential recruits for Dabi to come check out before everything with Shigaraki blew up, but clearly, the guy hadn't gotten the memo. Dabi would have probably shot him down if he hadn't admitted,

"It's kinda freaking me out. Kid's hiding the wings, but he's way too recognizable. Looks like Hawks. Do you want me to scramble him and send him on his way?"

And that had given Dabi pause. Hawks is set to become the number two hero now. He'll be in the same building with Endeavor not too long from now, and he might even be able to get Dabi an idea of where else his father might be. He could– "Give him the address of that warehouse we used in Fukuoka and write down the meet will be at three A.M. in four days, then turn him to eggs. Don't tell Shigaraki. This is a long shot, and he's busy."

"You got it, Dabi. Good luck." Giran doesn't sound suspicious, doesn't hesitate, and for one bitter moment, Dabi is glad that Shigaraki made it so clear to everyone else that Dabi was his second-in-command. That's bought him time.

He doesn't have the benefit of a teleporter anymore, but neither do any of the others, so that means he's free to travel the usual way. And he's only a combined six-hour train and ferry ride from the prefecture. He can get there tonight and make sure that the bird doesn't send anyone to ambush him.

When the meeting comes four days later, Hawks is so desperate to convince Dabi that he isn't a spy and that he really does believe in the League's cause that he doesn't scrutinize why Dabi would keep him at arm's length and not introduce him to the other members of the League right away. He also doesn't blink when Dabi requests he deliver him patrol schedules for the top ten heroes; he's just eager to do so and prove that he can be a good little soldier for Shigaraki. Dabi's stomach churns when he considers tracking down the others when he's sure Hawks is going to be good and turning him over to Duster. Maybe he would like having a bird and not be so bitter about the dog thing. He pulls at one of the staples across his palm to try and make himself stop thinking about the League and Shigaraki. He can use their names, but everything else isn't what he needs. He just has to keep moving forward on his own. That's fine. He's been on his own since he chose this path for himself.

///

Compress texts him. It happens out of the blue one afternoon, several weeks after Shigaraki exiled him. According to his phone, it's Twice who texts him, but Twice doesn't text because his typing is as bad as his talking and even more confusing to make sense of, so he always calls. Dabi knows it's Compress because, thanks to Hawks, Dabi has gotten access to the emergency channels that the heroes use when something big is happening. He knows that it's not some hero trying to lure him out by stealing Two's phone and shooting off a message to him, and he knows that none of the others would be ballsy enough or think they're clever enough to do something under Shigaraki's nose. So it has to be Compress who writes,

"Scoping out the weapon K was arrested for." The words are followed by a set of coordinates that are in the middle of nowhere, mountains kilometers from where he is in Fukuoka. Dabi considers that for a long moment. He should stay as far away from that as possible. Shigaraki doesn't want him around, and if they get caught, too, then his deal with Hawks is immediately torpedoed. He is much better off staying where he is and using this information to keep his ruse going a while longer. But... this is the first time that any of the others have ever disobeyed Shigaraki. He knows immediately that he shouldn't let that linger in his mind as something that piques his curiosity, but he isn't able to fully dismiss it as he continues to move through the side streets.

Dabi goes around, again and again, knowing that he shouldn't seek out the League, knowing that Shigaraki thought he might kill him the last time he showed up. But his feet still take him to the docks so he can get on the ferry. He still takes a train to the nearest prefecture to where the coordinates go, and then he hikes fifteen kilometers until he sees another one of those strange waystations nestled in a field in the middle of nowhere.

Dabi gets that close to the building, and he still doesn't know if he's going to go in. He's pretty certain he's going to turn back around and head back to the city. He has the League's name for a while longer. The good thing about Shigaraki not letting any of the others out of his sight is that even Hawks and the HPSC don't know that Magne isn't with them anymore. He would have thought that some of the Shie Hassaikai would have spilled about that, but apparently, they're still so devoted to Chisaki they're not saying shit about anything at all. No one knows he's not a part of the League anymore. He's not trapped in that fucking cult anymore. He can be so much better off than any of the others. He shouldn't have even come here. But he keeps moving closer to the door, his body moving the same way that it did when he heard his father's voice down the hall from his altar. He didn't want to go there. He didn't want to see with his own eyes that he had been so completely replaced, but his body kept moving. He hadn't been able to stop himself. When his hand curls around the door handle, he wants to draw it back. He wants to push his palm flat against the door. He can hear the others chattering beyond it. They don't have anyone keeping watch. He could burn hot enough to shatter the concrete and bury them inside. He could sit on top of the rubble and make sure that every last one of them stopped breathing for what they did to him. He could–

He pushes the door open, and Toga looks up from the pile of costume jewelry on the floor in front of her. "Welcome back! Look at this, doesn't it make me look like a real lady?"

"You look great! Nah, you look like an old lady!"

She doesn't seem to think it's strange that he's back. Dabi takes his eyes away from her and Twice, and he finds that Compress is leaning back against a table in the corner, his mask keeping his expression inscrutable, while Spinner leans over the back of the couch so he can watch whatever game Shigaraki is playing on his handheld. Shigaraki doesn't even look up at him. His fingers don't even still on the keys.

They don't know. Dabi's stomach lurches. Everything else. They knew about every other horrible thing Shigaraki did to him when they were at the old base, but they didn't know that Shig kicked him out. Maybe Compress sent that message because he had a hunch, but Shigaraki gives nothing away, as if he's completely unsurprised that Dabi would find them here.

"Where've you been?" Spinner asks, barely looking up at him.

"Working, unlike the rest of you." It's a miracle he can speak at all, let alone use the opportunity to immediately level them with the same attitude they always expect.

Toga sticks her tongue out at him and goes back to the pile of jewelry that she has, and the conversations that they were having before he arrived continue to flow around him as if he isn't even there. Dabi waits as the sun goes down. No food today. That's not a surprise. If they went out to steal that jewelry and turn a profit, then Compress must have realized what it all was too late. Dabi has money now from running his own jobs while he was away from them. But he can't help wishing that there was something to eat, not even just to satisfy his hunger, but because he wants to know what Shigaraki would do about their meals.

///

The next morning continues to prove that the others know nothing about the fight that led to his absence. Shigaraki just continues to ignore him, or rather, just addresses the group, so he is no more ignoring him than he might be any of the others. Dabi wonders who he'll punish if he figures out that he got the coordinates from Twice's phone. He'll know that it wasn't Twice; he'll know that punishing Twice is the same bad idea as it was when he let Dabi take the fall for Magne. He'll probably come to the conclusion it was Compress just like Dabi did. But what if he's wrong? Would that be enough to get the others to understand just how fucked up this whole thing has been from the start?

He doesn't get to see how Shigaraki deals with any of that because they're going after the weapon now. It's something that was stashed in this area and that Shigaraki needs to take control of to get access to more of his teacher's resources. And as soon as they're up and ready, they're exiting the building and heading in that direction. Dabi doesn't think he's the only one who is surprised to find a blubbering baby of a man with the size and complexion of a mountain that Shigaraki is expected to tame by showing his physical strength. And when he hears that it's a bout of physical prowess that will win the creature's loyalty, Dabi doesn't hesitate.

"Let's put the baby down for his nap then." He hurls a blast of fire at the other creature that would crack stone, which has before, and it does nothing to the brute of the man who then comes at them with speed and strength that would rival All Might at his prime, and Dabi realizes how ill-prepared they all are for fighting this thing.

Thankfully, Dr. Ujiko seems to come to that conclusion quickly as well, using another nomu with a teleportation quirk to bring them to the largest nomu lab that Dabi's seen. Toga can't help teasing him about his failure as Shigaraki tries to explain what he wants out of taking over All For One's legacy, and Dabi isn't surprised. He wants to be king; he wants to take the constant rage that he feels inside of him and spill it out across Japan until the world cracks beneath his touch. It's a temper tantrum that will span continents if he's allowed to get that far.

"Aw, but won't that mean that all of my favorite things would be destroyed too?"

Dabi bites down on the inside of his cheek hard, having to force himself not to laugh as he realizes how serious Toga is. Yeah, of course she is only worried about the things she likes. She's a child.

"No, my companions should also be able to do whatever they like."

Ujiko does laugh when he says that, as Toga cheers. But it earns them some additional funds and the opportunity for them to go back and keep fighting Gigantomachina. Dabi opens his mouth to beg off doing that, given the beast is fireproof. He isn't going to stick around and make Shigaraki any stronger. He shouldn't have come back here. He needs to get back to Fukuoka and make sure that he keeps Hawks on the hook. The guy is willing to do just about anything for him. He wonders if he could get the bird to steal something with Endeavor's DNA on it. If he could get something for a paternity test, then he would have the final nail in his coffin, and he would finally be ready to get his revenge.

"Give us two days to prepare. If the beast doesn't sleep except for a handful of hours every few days, we need to get our other jobs in order." Shigaraki tells the doctor, who agrees and even takes the coordinates that Shigaraki gives him to use.

When they've finished choking on sludge, Dabi finds himself looking up at a mansion that he doesn't recognize, but that has Spinner asking,

"What are we doing back here?"

"We'll need a home base. I'll take care of the bodies."

Which really doesn't help Dabi to prepare for the reek of blood and death that comes from the corpses that they walk in and find spread all throughout the lower level of the building. The robes and iconography do help him put together that this was a CRC base that the others must have hit within the past week. And if no one has come to check on any of these people, then yeah, this is probably as good of a safehouse as they're going to get.

Shigaraki does go around and touch each body, turning it to dust, but there is still blood, flies, and other mess to clean up. Maybe it's just the fact that they're back in a proper building, but the others all scatter into the mansion to start working on preparing it for them to actually stay in for the foreseeable future. Spinner and Twice track down a broom, vacuum, and mops to start to get the main hall cleared out as Compress goes around opening windows and stripping beds so that they can have fresh sheets when they do finally get to sleep. Toga finds the kitchen and takes stock of everything that is still good, throws out the rest, and makes a list of things they can use the money for. A lot of it is stuff that is too expensive and too unimportant for them to actually get, but that's not his problem. None of this is his problem. But he doesn't leave yet. Shigaraki hasn't told him to do anything, and none of the others seem to find it strange that he just haunts the edge of every room he wanders through.

Shigaraki goes over the list that Toga made before he takes out a fresh sheet of paper. "You can each use some of the funds for one personal item. The rest of this will be used on practical resources. Compress will pick up what you order, along with our supplies for our stay here."

Toga hems and haws, but she does eventually settle on getting a new coat from some department store that she likes. Dabi can't blame her. It's still early fall, but up in the mountains, it's much colder than it would be in the city, and if they're going to be out fighting that monstrosity constantly, he's glad she's actually picking the practical choice. Spinner also gets some clothes to wear with his costume to make it a bit more weather-resistant. Compress a small repair kit for his prosthetic. Twice wants a carton of cigs so he doesn't keep running out for a while, and when he passes the list over to Dabi, Shigaraki doesn't take it away from him.

He stares down at the pad, but he is already waiting for this to blow up. He doesn't want to push his luck any further, and the truth is, he doesn't need anything from Shigaraki in the first place. He's doing fine on his own. A spiteful little voice in the back of his mind unhelpfully reminds him that he's only doing fine because he's coasting on the League's reputation. If people found out that he wasn't part of it anymore, then things would be different. That leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but he just passes the list back to Shigaraki, and the other man writes down something before he gives that over to Compress along with the grocery list. It's only mid-morning after their short hike and chat with the doctor, so the other man tucks the lists away and heads past the continuing biohazard at the front of the building to go get everything for them. It'll be early evening by the time he gets back and as the others continue to clean the mansion from top to bottom, not only getting rid of the awful corpse reek, but making an effort to get the mansion sparkling the way the bar used to. Dabi claims one of the side rooms, waiting for Shigaraki to come either scream at him or try to kill him. He lies down on the bare mattress, coat and boots on, in anticipation of having to make a hasty exit, but Shigaraki doesn't appear. Dabi wasn't anticipating just being in a bed again after months without leaving him so susceptible, but before he knows it, he's asleep.

///

The knock at his door is mild, just a soft tap of knuckles twice, but after being on edge for weeks, Dabi finds himself sitting bolt upright, fire immediately leaping to his palms and filling the room with light– as he realizes that the sun has set behind the trees and bathed the world in darkness. Shit.

"Food's ready." It's Spinner's voice that comes through the door, likely alerted to his abrupt waking from the flicker of flame that must have shone underneath the door frame. But the gecko keeps going down the hall after that. Dabi takes a few breaths and then pushes himself out of the bed, going to the door himself. He was curious what Shigaraki would do about the food the night before, but he is going to get his answer today.

He heads downstairs and sees that Compress picked up takeout, and that he and the others are in their more casual clothes instead of their uniforms. If he had to guess, he's pretty sure they haven't had other clothes to wear in a long time. Those are all probably in the wash now. The others all seem a bit stunned into place as they wait to see what Shigaraki will do, too. Everything before was always order, and tonight, Shigaraki tells them, "Eat," and that's it, rather than calling them out in any specific order. Dabi wonders if this is just to hide his reaction to him, or if this is his new strategy to change how the others see things, as he begins to talk them through his current plan for how they will be tackling fighting the baby.

Dabi listens as the conversation goes on, but he is never acknowledged directly by Shigaraki. Fine. He can ignore him all he wants. Dabi will eat, rest for the night, and then head out when the others are distracted tomorrow. He knows where they'll be until Shigaraki manages to overcome that behemoth, so that will give him plenty of time to get what he can out of Hawks before anyone else figures out what the League is up to. And as the meal winds down and the others start to steer the conversation to other topics, Dabi stands up and tosses his trash, meaning to head back to his room. The only showers he's had lately were when he dipped into love hotels for an hour to get cleaned up, and those frantic moments as he tried to make sure to be in and out as quickly as possible in case anyone might recognize him as he went into the building, made the experience generally unpleasant. He would like to be able to actually enjoy some hot water and check on his staples more thoroughly.

"Dabi," Shigaraki's voice is flat and even, the same way it always is when he's doling out his orders. And even with half a room between them, Dabi still can't help how his entire body tenses as the danger he's been so blatantly courting finally comes to fruition. "I'd like to speak with you privately."

Dabi doesn't turn to acknowledge him; he just makes himself put one foot in front of the other and continues out of the room the way he'd intended before. If Duster wants to have this out with him, then the bastard can come to him. Dabi can rub it in his face that his people, whom he thought were so perfect and loyal, went behind his back and let him in on their location. He can make sure Shigaraki knows there are already fractures in the organization, and maybe when he tries to hold onto them tighter, he'll shatter them the same way that they let Shigaraki break him.

He makes it halfway up the stairs before Shigaraki does follow him, and Dabi resists the urge to run back to his room and throw the door shut. A locked door isn't going to stop Shigaraki in the first place. But he does need to get back to his room. His stuff is in there, and he's not going to leave without it. So he lets Duster follow him, pausing outside his bedroom door as he waits for the other to catch up. A hallway is a good bottleneck for his quirk to lash out and turn Shig to ash before he can reach him; an enclosed room is a deathtrap.

He crosses his arms and leans against the door, knowing that the others are, for the first time ever, actually too far away from them now to be able to hear them if they do actually get into it. That sends his heart thudding faster in his chest. He wants to know what Shigaraki will be when no one else will be able to overhear him. The other man stays about a meter from him as he takes in Dabi's posture. His skin crawls with Shigaraki looking at him like that. There was always a sickness in him with everything that happened before that the other somehow saw through him. Dabi is not full of pride for his appearance– that was never something that anyone in his family cared about because there were other things his father was focused on, and his mother had survival as hers. But Dabi knows he's ugly from these burns. He hasn't had anyone who wasn't near blackout drunk actually make a pass at him. Shigaraki deciding that he would make a good dog and using that to get himself hard just so he could torture him was another way to leave Dabi's pride in ribbons. He knows that, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still sting.

"If you want to stay, then there will be new conditions." Shigaraki's voice is sure and even, his gaze unflinching.

Dabi scoffs and reaches down to his doorknob. "Who the fuck said I wanted back in, you creep? I wouldn't be here if your people were as loyal as you think they are."

Shigaraki doesn't react to that the way that Dabi expects him to. "My people are very loyal to me. You're the only one I've ever had any problems with."

"Sure." He rolls his eyes. Whatever. If he's already hit the point where he believes that he's some kind of infallible god, then there really isn't hope for any of the others at all. "Good luck with that, but I'm not about to come back to this freakshow."

"Fine." Shigaraki doesn't stop him as Dabi opens the door to the bedroom. "I would avoid going back to Fukuoka then. I don't imagine that Hawks will be as lenient with your presence once he knows that you're no longer part of my organization."

Dabi stills with his body halfway through the door. Shigaraki says nothing as understanding rushes through his mind too quickly. Giran. He must have called Shigaraki, too, even after he told him not to. He must have told him about the meeting with the bird. Shigaraki kicked him out and still can keep him under his thumb by taking away how he's been able to use the League's reputation to further his goals. Dabi's stomach sinks. It wasn't Compress. Shigaraki must have sent that message. He must have wanted to see if Dabi would still come running like a–

"Fuck you, I'm not your fucking dog." He tries to throw the door shut behind him as he storms into the room, but it doesn't thud against the frame in any satisfying way. Shigaraki catches it with four fingers against the wood as he steps up to block the threshold.

"No. You made it very clear that you didn't like that. But if you're going to keep holding onto my coattails, then there will be new conditions for doing so."

"Fuck off. I don't need you."

That black rage from before flits across the other's face before Shigaraki smooths his expression again. "You do, or you wouldn't be deceiving the number two hero in the country by pretending that you still belong to me. No pretending anymore, Dabi. Either you're mine, and you get the benefits of that, or you leave and suffer those consequences on your own."

"You're not going to hold me hostage here." Dabi snarls back. "And no matter how much control you think you have over the others, they're not going to come after me–"

"They won't have to. I don't need to send anyone after you, Dabi. I just have to disown you, and you'll have plenty of your own enemies coming for your blood. I never told you you had to kill the people you couldn't recruit."

Dabi opens his mouth to retaliate, to say something, but he did that all on his own. He had to. It was the best way for him to get more attention for his reputation and to make certain that his father would be even further disgraced when he finally got to reveal his identity. He just... hadn't really considered the amount of armor that he would be utilizing from the League and what might happen if that went away before he was ready to face him. "I can take care of myself." He moves over to his bag and pulls it onto his shoulder, fully intending on trying to get back to the city and away from the places he caused the most trouble before his information on hero patrols goes bad, the second it will when Hawks realizes that he's never going to get what he wants from him. Shit. How is he going to get DNA for the paternity test? How is he going to find a lab that will run that for him if he doesn't have access to Giran anymore, either? Maybe he can head to Esuha. He thinks that's where Simon Says went to set up shop as a broker as well. He might be able to get Dabi what he wants.

He means to push past Shigaraki, with flames if necessary, but the other man grabs him around the bicep, the four fingers that hold him tight as they grip onto him. "Or," he says before Dabi can snarl at him to let go. "We can make some new conditions, and you can go on planning whatever you've been up to while I'm busy winning back my inheritance."

"And would those conditions include letting you rape me? I'll pass." He tries to pull his arm free, but the grip only goes bruising as Shigaraki takes a step forward, pushing Dabi back into the room.

"You would like it if you let it happen. You just can't help fighting everything that I try to give you."

Dabi wants to scream at the other, but he doesn't think that there is any way that he can tell Shigaraki he's insane, that would actually sink in for him. He just increases the temperature of his skin until he knows it will start to burn the other if he doesn't let go soon. "No."

"Whatever you're doing, you need the League. You need me." Shigaraki tells him with a vehemence that Dabi hates. It's too assured. "You wouldn't have crawled out of the woodwork if you didn't need someone to keep the eyes on them while you're scheming and plotting in the background." Shigaraki ignores the discomfort that must be stinging his palm as he tightens his grip further until Dabi can feel his heartbeat pulsing beneath his skin.

"You don't know–"

"No, I don't. So if you want to stay here, if you want to keep using my name to keep out of trouble, then you're going to tell me what's so important about yours."

Dabi's next retaliation turns to ash on his tongue, and that's the worst thing he could have done as Shigaraki becomes even more certain of the thread he's pulling.

"You're going to give me your name, you're going to be mine, and you're going to stop trying to incite chaos when you're here." He says that like any of those things are reasonable.

"No."

Shigaraki lets go of him and steps out of the doorway. "Fine. Then our business is done. If you come after us, know that I won't let that stand."

Dabi hesitates. Part of him doubts that the other man will actually let him move past him through the doorway. He expects him to grab him, to let that horrible cold sting of Decay tear through his body and leave him crumbling into pieces before he can see the end of his goals come to fruition. And there is a worse part, something cowardly and sick inside of him that tells him he... can't make this happen without the League. He never had a clear path to revenge before Stain, before the Hosu Incident gave him the building blocks of his plan. He needs the world on the brink. He needs the public to already mistrust the heroes, for them to be so ready to believe the worst of them, that they won't even hesitate to turn Enji into a villain when Dabi lights their funeral pyres.

"...I'm not going to stop what I'm doing." He can't. He needs to keep moving forward. He needs to find a way to not give any more power over him to Shigaraki when he's been nothing but his puppet since he stepped out of the shadows.

"When have I ever stopped any of you from doing whatever you wanted?"

Dabi lets out a bark of laughter, his eyes starting to burn. Don't cry. "What about not letting me sleep? Not letting me eat? Not letting me tell you no?"

Shigaraki keeps watching him, but his head tilts slightly to the side. "I expect you to live by my rules when you're mine. You have to be punished if you don't live up to those expectations. As long as you do, and as long as your goals don't interfere with the League or put us in danger, I wouldn't stop you from pursuing your own, Dabi." He says it all in that same too-even tone that screams to Dabi that Shigaraki believes every word that he's saying.

"That is not how this works." Dabi growls, his stomach starting to twist.

"Why not?" And finally, some of that composure slips. "I'm your leader, you're expected to follow what I tell you. Do you think any other organization would take you if you constantly gave them this kind of attitude? My teacher would have had you skinned alive and turned into a nomu." Shigaraki takes a breath, stretching his fingers at his sides like he's trying to loosen the grip that surge of anger put through him.

Dabi doesn't say anything. He is just left, staring at the other man as he turns over those words in his mind again and again. He was never cut out to join the Yakuza or any other gang that he saw running around. He knew that. But there is something in Shigaraki's words. He thought... that the other man was being cruel for cruelty's sake. He thought that every step of the way, he was looking for new pain points that he could exert his control over. Shigaraki was a spoiled brat who had never been told no and whose first followers were so eager to have a home that he simply never learned he wouldn't always get his way. He lashed out capriciously when Dabi didn't play that game. That's why he had hurt him so much more than any of the others. He was making a point. He wanted Dabi to hurt for disobeying him.

"Would your teacher have starved you or not let you sleep if you didn't do what he expected of you?"

"Of course he did," Shigaraki tells him, an edge of exasperation in his voice. "Misbehavior has to be punished, loyalty and hard work rewarded. That's how an empire is built."

Dabi almost asks what else AFO did to Shigaraki, but he doesn't want to know. Not when there is a hollowness inside of him that leaves him feeling gut-punched and breathless, no matter how hard he tries to suck in fresh air. Any of them. It could have been any of them because this is just how Shigaraki thinks things work. Dabi wants to scream. He wants to get in Shigaraki's face and make him explain. He needs to know the exact line where his knowledge and understanding and his violence meet so he can understand how much of this was malicious and how much of it was matter-of-fact.

"That isn't how other people run their organizations."

Shigaraki scoffs softly. "No. But in the end, when we're the only ones left standing, that won't matter anymore." He eyes him, and Dabi is sure that he must understand what he's doing. He's not a child. He has to. "And when the world is in chaos, when we've won our war, you can go do whatever you want. I'll be king, but I know that there's nothing that you can do alone that would put my world in jeopardy. Because you don't know how to rally people to your side, not without me to clear your way."

It cuts him to the quick to hear the other man speak the doubt that has been living in the back of his mind so clearly. Don't cry. Dabi moves to the door. There's no making Shigaraki see how wrong this is.

Don't cry. It's so hard to hold onto that resolve as all others crumble, and his hand shakes terribly as he pulls the door shut and encloses himself in this room with Shigaraki.

The other man moves into his space, and Dabi holds onto the knob, white-knuckled as he tries to find a way out. He has been trying to find a way around all of the League's resources, even at their lowest point. He has been trying to make this work– "What's your real name, Dabi?"

And he hasn't gotten anywhere without the entire country believing that he was a member of the League of Villains first and foremost. He'll have the bird in a cage, handing over anything on the other top ten he wants for a chance to meet Shigaraki. He'll have Ujiko to run the DNA test for him if Shigaraki can earn back his position as AFO's successor. He'll have Endeavor running to fight them the moment they step back out into the public eye because Shigaraki is public enemy number one.

The words feel like they're dragging needles up his throat as he manages to choke out, "Toya Todoroki."

And of all the ways that Dabi expected anyone to react when they discovered that, laughing was not his first thought. But Shigaraki is quiet for a short beat, and then he lets out a soft breath of laughter that grows until he sounds almost manic with his glee as he gets Dabi to give up the most important part of himself that he still has left. He can't even find it in him to be angry. His quirk doesn't even rush to his skin in righteous indignation. He just feels an emptiness inside of himself where he was holding that name so tightly, the space filling up with the repeated mantra, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

Shigaraki manages to quiet his laughter after a moment, shaking his head slightly, his mouth still twisted with mirth. "Did he burn you?"

"No. I was just born wrong." He doesn't recognize his own voice as it comes out of his mouth, his hand still tight around the door.

"No, you weren't, firefly." Shigaraki reaches for him, four fingers, as he gently prys his hand from the knob before he brings it up to his lips and presses them to his knuckles. "You wanted to burn down the heroes more than anyone else, didn't you? You want to start with him? You want to tell the whole world whatever he did to you? I didn't even know he had four kids. Must have been bad. I'll let you do it all, baby boy. I never would have stopped you if you had just come to me and been honest. This could have been so much easier. We could have taken your brother from the camp. I would have let you pull him apart and let you walk him around as a nomu on a leash."

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry. Dabi's hand is shaking in Shigaraki's, and he can't do anything to hide it. His whole body is shaking so badly. His breath is short and thin, the pounding of his heart in his ears is an overstimulating agony that makes him want to turn off his brain entirely. But he doesn't have any escape as Shigaraki gives him another soft kiss.

"You can make him suffer, precious. I'll make sure of it." That's what he wanted. That's all he's wanted for so long– "Take off your clothes, baby."

Shigaraki lets go of him, and Dabi's head is dizzy as he makes himself let go of the backpack strap, the object thumping against the ground roughly before he reaches his hands up to his coat. He tries not to think about anything but the pressure behind his eyes as he pulls off that layer, and the one beneath that, and the one after that, until he's stripped bare and shaking like he's freezing cold instead of bleeding smoke from how his quirk keeps trying to find a way of defending himself. He moves to get on his hands and knees, but Shigaraki catches him around his arm again, his gloves on, so he doesn't have to be careful with him anymore.

"What are you doing, baby? We agreed that you won't have to be a dog anymore. You don't like it, and I think I know what you need instead."

Dabi doesn't have room in him for any more dread. It doesn't matter anyway, nothing could have prepared Dabi for Shigaraki pressing his lips against his temple and murmuring,

"After everything you've been through, I'm not surprised that you would rather get all of that attention from Daddy instead." His hands shift down and curl around Dabi's hips, guiding him back towards the bed until he's no longer just off-kilter from the comment, but falling back onto the bed.

Dabi only manages to shake his head as the other man makes him spread his legs open so he can move between them.

"It's okay, firefly. Daddy isn't going to tell anyone else what you need. This can be just for us. Daddy will make sure that everything is better than it was before as long as you're sweet for him."

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

Shigaraki leans down and presses his lips just to the edge of Dabi's own, his hands moving over Dabi's skin. They tease his chest, like they have before, moving lower to the scar across his stomach, and then down to his thighs. His thumbs pet along the insides, above where his skin becomes gnarled, the movements so gentle and soft, as Dabi tries to put his mind back on that mountain. He squeezes his eyes tight, hoping that will help him to block things out, but Duster just clicks his tongue before he murmurs, "Don't do that, firefly. Daddy wants you to stay right here."

And that word makes it so hard for him to find that agony again. Endeavor is wrapped up in the memory of the mountain. He was able to separate him from the fire before, but with Shigaraki calling himself that, Dabi can't focus on burning without everything else leaking into it, and he thinks he might be sick if he is imagining Enji while Shigaraki touches him. And with the sanctuary of pain taken away from him, Dabi is left with nothing but what is happening in the moment when Shigaraki decides that none of the violations he's forced on him before are enough, and he shifts so that he can slant his mouth over Dabi's.

His lips feel like broken stone, his flesh cold and dead against the inferno beneath Dabi's skin, but the kiss doesn't force his mouth open. It's as soft as Dabi thinks Shigaraki is capable of, as his hands run higher up between Dabi's legs until he's curling his fingers around Dabi's cock again. The thin whimper that escapes him is so pathetic that Dabi almost wishes he were a dog again. At least then, he would be held face down as Shigaraki uses him. At least animal rutting is violent and hurts. It's easier to slip away when that happens.

"Shh, it's okay, baby boy. Daddy is going to make it all better." He strokes his cock, and Dabi can't escape the friction this time, just this side of too rough from the dryness of their skin, as he hisses softly between his teeth. "You're so pretty," Shigaraki murmurs as he shifts so he can run his thumb between the ladder of piercings that line the underside of his cock. Dabi's breath catches in the back of his throat, and Shigaraki smiles at him softly. "Always are, precious. Ever since I saw those pretty blue eyes, I knew I wanted you just like this." His mouth dips down, and Dabi manages to turn away from him, pressing his cheek tight against the mattress to escape the kiss. And Shigaraki doesn't punish him for that. "It's okay if you're shy, sweetheart. Daddy is going to be here until you feel good."

Dabi's stomach sinks, but the other man doesn't wait for a response before he presses his lips back against his cheek, trailing the kisses down his neck, his tongue following with the occasional grazing of his teeth. And without the fire to lick across his skin and blind his nerves with agony, he finds his nipples pebbling and a twinge of unwanted warmth bleeding through his veins.

"You're always so quiet, but Daddy knows it's just because you're shy. It's okay, you can tell Daddy what you like. Do you want me to keep playing with you?" Shigaraki strokes him again from root to tip, the leather half-gloves soft against his skin despite the dryness. "Or does it make you happier to have a soft cock? Like you're a little girl with a tiny clit instead of a boy?"

The words tear through his body and leave him with a thin whine slipping out of his throat as his cock twitches against Shigaraki's hand. Mortification bleeds smoke out of his seams as he barely manages to rasp, "No–" just a bit too late.

Shigaraki pauses over him, that stillness leaving him feeling like he might be better off decaying right here rather than having to face what happens next. And then the other strokes him again, his other hand catching Dabi's chin so he's forced to look him in the eyes. It's dark with the door closed, but Dabi can see the delight in his eyes as he levels him with such an exacting stare. "Is that what you need? Do you want to be Daddy's little girl? Is that why you hated everything else so much? You didn't want to be a dirty little bitch getting his pussy bred," Dabi doesn't want any of the words that spill out of Shigaraki's mouth so readily, but he can't escape the other man this time as they drag relentlessly over his skin. "You just wanted to be a sweet little princess who was getting spoiled rotten? I'll spoil you, baby girl. Daddy just wants you to be happy."

The weight of panic that crushes his chest makes Dabi dizzy, but he can't make it stop as Shigaraki shifts on the bed, hands pulling away from him so he can strip out of his own shirt before he reaches into his pocket and leans back down to press more kisses along Dabi's neck, devouring his skin without waiting to see how else Dabi might protest. He knows there's nothing that Dabi could do to stop him, and as his hand wraps back around him, it's with his palm slicked with lube, and that takes away that one lingering bit of friction that he thought might save him. He finds himself instead letting out another whine, this one too human and desperate, as he wants to fight the rush of heat in his body. It's not supposed to feel good. He's supposed to burn when he has Shigaraki's hands on him. He's not supposed to–

"That's it, princess. Look at you. You're starting to blush so prettily. I've been wanting to see what you would look like all flushed and needy for so long. Show me what you look like when you're feeling good."

"D-don't, Shig–" the words hiccup on the thin breaths that he manages to take, trying to stop the way that his body does start to heat as the other man teases his hands over him. The other man squeezes along his length a little tighter, and the pressure has the muscles in his thighs jumping as Dabi claws at the other man's arms as he tries to pull him away without any real strength behind the movement.

"Don't be petulant, princess." He doesn't even sound angry. He just keeps touching him as he gives him another kiss. Dabi bites at his lips, the taste of blood blooming through his mouth, and Shigaraki doesn't care. He deepens it anyway, puts his tongue between Dabi's teeth because he knows that... no matter what he does to him, Dabi isn't going to hurt him. His chest feels like it might collapse in on itself as he stops fighting Shigaraki so he can put all of his focus on keeping the pressure behind his eyes at bay instead. Don't cry. He chose this. He stayed. He should have burned them both the first time Shigaraki tried something like this. "You don't have to be scared, baby girl. Daddy is going to be right here." His hand moves deliberately along Dabi's length, jerking him slowly as he licks his blood off of Dabi's lips. "I'm going to make sure that you have everything you want. I'll get you your revenge. I won't ever abandon you. Firefly, I'll make you happy. You just have to let me."

The pleasure that eats a sour-sick hole in his gut only gets worse as he listens to the other man speak. He needs to make this stop, he needs to back out, he needs to just go straight to the Endeavor Agency and end this all–

"You know how much Daddy adores you, don't you, princess?"

Don't– He can't stop it this time. It's the first time in over a decade that he's heard a sob break inside of his throat as his vision blurs red and bloody tears start to stream down his face. Dabi's nails bite into Tomura's arm, but the other man still doesn't flinch. He shushes him softly, and his hand keeps moving, and the shattering of everything inside of his chest and whatever was left of his head latches onto that sensation as something good when the rest of his world falls to pieces around him. "D-Daddy–"

"It's okay, baby girl." Daddy leans down and kisses some of his tears away, the strokes going faster and making Dabi whimper and moan around the hiccuping sobs that keep slipping out of his throat. "Daddy forgives you for being so naughty before. I know that you're going to be such a good girl for me now."

He can't really make sense of those words when his orgasm is racing up to the edge of his nerves, his balls tightening, and his hips twitching up to try and get more of that friction. Dabi doesn't fight it, every movement brings the leather and skin around him tighter, the friction sending his toes curling as Daddy kisses back along his neck, to the place he bruised him with the collar the first time that he made him a dog– But he's not that anymore. Not an animal who only exists for his master's purpose anymore. He's... Daddy's girl. Daddy is going to take care of him. Daddy makes him feel good–

"Daddy!" He can't fight it as white bursts across his vision, his back bowing beneath the other man, as his clit twitches in his hand as Dabi's body trembles with pleasure for the first time in... months? A year? He hasn't even touched himself since the first time Shigaraki used him. But this is good. This feels so, so good even as he continues to sob on the bed. Maybe better because the tears release something that the splatter of cum across his stomach couldn't.

"Oh, princess," Daddy's voice is dark and different from what it was a moment ago. "I didn't realize what a dirty little whore you were going to be the second that you felt good."

Dabi yelps as the other man gives him another rough stroke as if he were still hard, his nerves stinging from the overstimulation, as Tomura's eyes shine with mirth as he does it again, as if even more delighted by Dabi's reaction.

"Felt good just for a minute, and your legs immediately fell open like you just couldn't wait to have your dirty little cunt stuffed up."

There are still tears on his cheeks, and his head is foggy from the endorphins that rushed through him as he tries to make sense of the change in tone the other is using now. "I–"

Daddy kisses him again to take away his words, letting go of his clit and wiping his cum across his thigh before he shifts between his legs. Dabi holds onto him, confused, as he tries to kiss him back, his tongue trying to soothe the hurts from before, only to have Daddy bite him instead and leave him whimpering as a fresh pang of heat goes through him. Daddy moves to kneel between his legs, his hands going to the button and fly on his pants as he continues to speak,

"You were a stray for so long. How many other cocks did you have breeding your tight little pussy, baby? Are you even going to be tight for Daddy?"

His whole body goes warm with his humiliation as he tries to shake his head, the thickness in his throat making it hard for him to form words.

"No? Daddy's going to have to punish you then. Lock you up until he's sure you're clean and that you only get excited when he's the one touching your filthy body."

"No," Dabi tries to stop crying, tries to focus through the mess in his head. Daddy was being so sweet before. What did he do wrong? "No one else," he manages, his face so hot. "I- I haven't let anyone touch me, Daddy."

"Yeah? Let me see, princess. Spread your legs." There is still delight in his eyes, and that's the only thing that keeps Dabi's head hazy instead of fearful as he leans back against the bed and bends his legs so he can roll his weight up onto his back a bit more, opening himself up wide as the heat of embarrassment burning through him starts to make the nerves he thought were spent start to ache for pleasure again. Shigaraki has made him do so many things that have been so humiliating, but this is the first time that it didn't leave him feeling sick. Instead, as Daddy's eyes go between his legs as he takes his hard cock out of his jeans, Dabi finds his clit twitching as he catches his lip in his teeth. Oh. Maybe... maybe he is a slut for Daddy. He didn't like it before, but seeing how hard Daddy is as he looks at him, just from making Dabi feel good before, that makes his body warm back up again as he manages to sniffle and quell some of the tears slipping down his cheeks. He wasn't supposed to enjoy this, but he's already ruined. If Tomura will enjoy him anyway, if he'll give him everything else that he promised him, he can be his slut.

Dabi's throat is still thick, a lingering sickness still inside of him as he makes another choice he can't take back. "I– I want your cock in my pussy, Daddy." The words are so quiet as they fall off his lips, but they still rearrange his world again as Tomura laughs.

"Of course you do, baby girl. You always have," Tomura finishes slicking his cock with lube and then wraps his hands around the backs of Dabi's thighs. He pulls him in roughly, lifting his hips so that his weight is resting on the other's legs, before he lines himself up. "But I'm glad that you're finally ready to be Daddy's pretty little cum dump."

The muscles in his stomach tighten in anticipation and arousal as blood starts to pool hot in his clit again as Daddy's head begins to press into his tight, unstretched hole. He could tear him open. Daddy's cock is so big that he's always been scared of it before, but Daddy has been able to change Dabi's perception of so many things. He does it again as he tells him,

"Daddy's going to fill up your cunt, baby girl. Going to make you so dirty and full of cum that by the time I go back to my work, you're going to be leaking it all the way back to Fukuoka. And by the time I'm finished here, you'll finally be tight enough for me to ruin again."

He's never heard that kind of mewl out of himself before, but as Daddy sinks into him slowly, drawing out whenever his muscles tighten too much, only to give it to him again and again, Dabi doesn't think he's ever been fucked like this before. Not even when he was being a good dog. He was just a dumb animal when that happened. He couldn't appreciate his master's cock, but as his body is stretched and his prostate is teased again and again, Dabi can't escape the pleasure he used to hide from as his breaths grow short and his hand rushes down to palm his clit.

It makes Daddy laugh at him again, and the mockery in his voice makes Dabi leak against his hand as he strokes himself. He pulls him in harder to his next thrust, and Dabi can't quiet the moan that tears out of his throat as his insides are pressed open and ache with that pleasure. "If I had realized that you were so eager to spread your legs for your daddy, I would have had you in a skirt at the bar, warming my cock while you were trying to do your work. It would have been so cute to see you rubbing your clit raw as you got so distracted thinking with your pussy."

Awful, disgusting. It was bad enough that the others heard him being a dog. He couldn't have survived them hearing how much he likes it when he moans, "Daddy!" Again, as he's fucked even harder, even deeper, until he spills into his hand again as Tomura pulls him into another kiss.

He keeps kissing Dabi, and he does try to kiss his Daddy back as he keeps making his body feel so good, but he doesn't manage it every time as the tears come again and again. That's okay, because Daddy still holds him and kisses them away as he touches him until he's moaning just as much.

///

Dabi doesn't really have time to think about what this means for him, because Daddy keeps him in bed, only stopping to make sure the others are occupied and that Dabi isn't going to keel over from overheating or dehydration over the rest of the two days they received from Ujiko. And then, the morning of, Shigaraki is ready to dole out his orders to the rest of them.

"We'll fight the beast in shifts. I'll be there constantly, but you all will be on a rotation, using this as our safe house. The doctor has a test with one of the new nomu that he wants to run, and given Dabi has his own work with a potential new recruit to see to, he will be assisting with that and will be out of the building."

Dabi is still a little hazy when he hears that and tries to focus again. It's been a long two days. A lot of sex, sure, that has left his whole body aching and tired. But he's also been... crying a lot. He didn't cry the first time Shigaraki raped him or any of the times after that, not until the other night. But now, when Daddy isn't near him, or when it's too quiet, or when his head gets too loud, Dabi finds himself bursting into tears. He blinks and looks up at the words. Right. He had his own plans. He can see what the doctor wants, and maybe he can use that to further his own goals. He's... allowed to do that now. He doesn't have to hide and scheme away from Shigaraki's eyes. He's not going to be told to stop.

All of the others give their affirmatives, but of course they do. Why wouldn't they? They've always done everything that Shigaraki has ever asked them to. Which is why, even though his shoulders are tense and Compress exudes an air of discomfort, he immediately presents Shigaraki with a blue marble at the end of the meeting.

"As you requested."

"Good. Thank you." But Shigaraki doesn't make him stay, waving the others off to decide how they want to break up their shifts before they head back to the giant baby as Dabi lingers to hear more about the nomu test. Duster doesn't bring that up, though, not even waiting until Compress is out of earshot before he says, "Come here, baby girl."

Dabi's face heats, his head ducking low as shame coils through his gut. He got to be angry at the others before, for letting this happen to him. But he's chosen this now. He can't be furious with them anymore; he can only ask, "...Not in front of other people, Daddy? Please?" His voice is so weak as he says it, and Shigaraki sets the marble on the table. They took this little meeting in one of the lounges, and Daddy catches him around the waist and gently presses the small of his back to the surface as he cages him in.

Tomura's eyes are warm and bright as he brings his knuckles to brush against Dabi's hot cheeks, which he has been informed do not hide his blush the way he had hoped they might. "Are you shy, princess?"

It's easier to just nod weakly. Duster is smart. He knows why Dabi would want to hide as much of this as possible from the outside world.

"Don't worry, firefly. The heroes are only ever going to know what you show them." It's not the assurance he wants, but Dabi can't ask for anything else. Shigaraki will always have his way in the end. "Let me see your clit, baby girl."

He's still sore from how many times Tomura has made him cum and how often he's taken his cock, but Dabi reaches down and unthreads his belt as a soft flash of light tells him the marble has been cast away so its contents can be accessed. They have to leave soon, so he doesn't fully disrobe, just pulling his pants low enough on his hips that he's out for his Daddy to see.

"You have such a pretty clit, baby girl, but Daddy needs to make sure that you're not playing with it anymore while he's busy. Take out your piercings."

Trepidation bites at his nerves, but Shigaraki only ever hurts him when he is being punished. He doesn't think that he's being punished now. So he... he should be okay. His hands still start to shake a little as he starts to take out his ladder, and by the third, his vision is blurring red and he can't breathe right anymore as his panic and fear build and build in his body, his heartbeat so loud in his ears as he realizes Daddy isn't wearing his gloves– Daddy stills his hands and pulls him closer, the way he keeps doing every time Dabi has burst into tears for the past few days. He wraps his arms around him and presses a kiss to his temple.

"D-Don't," he thinks he sounds younger now than he ever did when he was actually a child, as he clings to Tomura's shirt and hides his face against his neck. "Don't h-hurt me. Please, please! I'll be good, D-Daddy."

"Oh, sweetheart, shh, it's okay." His hands don't bring pain as he rubs soft circles against his back and strokes his hair to try to soothe his sobs. "When we have time, Daddy is going to show you that pain doesn't have to be bad. But we're not going to do that right now, baby, and you're not in trouble. You like it when Daddy calls your clit cute, don't you?"

There is too much in those words, and all of it tells him that he needs to pull his head together enough to actually make sense of it from start to finish, but all he actually manages to do is nod weakly against his chest.

"Well, Daddy wants you to be even cuter the next time that he gets to play with you. So Daddy got you something special to wear until we get to see each other again. It's not going to hurt, it's just going to make sure that you aren't a naughty little slut playing with yourself and will make you even cuter for Daddy over time."

It's so petulant and pathetic when he barely manages to sniffle, "Promise?"

Tomura presses another kiss to the top of his head. "I promise, baby girl." Then he lets Dabi go and waits.

He knows what he's expected to do, and even though his hands still shake, he manages to take out the rest of his piercings with only a few more tears slipping down his cheeks. Tomura reaches to the table again and comes back with a metal device that looks like a bird cage, a larger metal ring hooked onto it, and held together with a small padlock.

"Do you know what this is, baby?"

His face heats even worse as he shakes his head weakly, but that just makes Daddy smile.

"This is a cage for your pretty clit. It's going to make sure you can't touch it while I'm gone. This is a special one, too. I had a friend make it for you. It will make you even cuter the next time we get to play together." Daddy doesn't wait for him to say anything. He decides what happens to Dabi's body now that he's truly given himself up to the League. It's fine, he reminds himself as the cold metal goes over his clit and the ring hugs his balls, not painfully, but tight enough for him to notice it, before the cage is locked into place. It doesn't hurt, and it makes Daddy smile at him when it's in place, so it's alright. "While I'm busy, you need to be good. No getting caught, no being a slut."

"I'll be good, Daddy." He waits, anticipation holding him on a knife's edge. But that's it. After all of his fighting, his scheming, after all of it, he only needs to give Shigaraki that reassurance before the other man presses a last kiss to his forehead, before he steps out of his space and checks the time on one of the ornate clocks on the wall.

"Good. I'll call you for a check-in when I've finished with Gigantomachina."

"Okay," his throat, he hopes, only still sounds hoarse from his crying. Regardless, Shigaraki leaves things at that and lets Dabi put his clothes back in order before they both exit the room. The doctor fills their lungs with teleportation sludge a few minutes later, and not half an hour after that, Dabi is staring down the reality of what kind of animal he could have been turned into if he hadn't escaped AFO's hospital the first time, and he doesn't have room in his head for Shigaraki anymore.

It's a week later, Tomura calling to check in only when the giant baby is sleeping, and the High-End test has solidified Endeavor as the country's true number one hero, before Dabi asks Ujiko if he can run a paternity test for him using his father's blood. And when Duster checks in and Dabi tells him it happened, not wanting it to get to him from the doctor instead, he hears the warmth and truth of the words in his Daddy's voice when he tells him,

"I'm so proud of you, baby girl."

///

Dabi doesn't feel right in the head. He doesn't think he's actually been sane since he was five years old, but he learned to cope with whatever flavor of crazy he was throughout the years afterward. He was functional. Even after all of the things with the League, he was still working towards his goals. He is still doing that now, but there is something inside of him that he's pretty sure broke irreparably when he went back and let Shigaraki fuck him like that. He has his evidence, he knows that his father has never been higher in the public polls, and when he's finished with Hawks, and the bird has proven he's not a trustworthy ally, he made sure to go back to the hideout and record everything. He has put all of Enji's crimes on tape, and he did it shirtless so that the world would see even more of what his cruelty did to his body, and with Shigaraki's cage around his dick as a reminder of everything else Dabi has chosen to give up in pursuit of his revenge. He could take it. He has everything ready now. He just has to find a way of getting that video on air, and then he would be able to go into his final fight– But Dabi doesn't look into bribing workers at news outlets. He doesn't see if any of his contacts can get something like this online and keep it from being taken down like Stain's manifesto, which seems like the police won't ever be able to take it down for any longer than a few hours. He just waits. It doesn't feel like it's time yet. He wants the world to be on the brink. He wants to... know that when he fights Endeavor, there won't be other heroes crawling out of the woodwork to end it early or derail what this is about. Not the way that Hawks and the rabbit did with Hood. He needs Shigaraki to keep his path and battlefield clear first and... his Daddy will do that as long as he's good. So he takes Duster's calls every three days when he gets to rest, as the fight with Machina stretches into a month, and he keeps on top of whatever the doctor asks him to do in the meantime.

He picks up his phone on the first ring when Tomura calls him today. It's a rest day, and he's already made sure that food is ready and that his bed is made and there are fresh towels for him, knowing the other man needs to take the time to recover as best he can before he has to go back to the beast in just a few hours.

"Dabi," there's a glee in his voice that makes Dabi stand up straighter, his heart starting to race.

"Did–"

"Someone irrelevant has decided to blackmail the League of Villains and kidnapped our broker. We're going to Deika to show them what a mistake that was. Meet us there."

"Yes, sir." The line goes dead, and Dabi still doesn't feel like himself, but he certainly feels more useful when he thinks about turning their enemies to ash over just waiting to wash Tomura's clothes.

None of them are prepared for the Metahuman Liberation Army, though, or the fact that Deika is an entire city full of enemies. But he and Twice more than pull their weight when Toga gets laid out, Spinner proves once again to be useless against large crowds, and Compress's prosthetic arm breaks. And Shigaraki, well, Dabi always thought it was strange that the other man was able to command such a presence before, especially when he didn't think he had any charisma at all, but as the other stands, bleeding and broken, laughing, as the evidence of his destruction lies bare for all of them to see, his chest seizes. He feels the wave that goes through the crowd and all of them, the eyes of strangers who were their enemies just minutes ago glazing over as Shigaraki's shadow falls over all of them and changes the course of their future. Dabi is glad that he made sure things with his Daddy are better than they were at the start, because he doesn't know what will happen now as the members of the MLA hear their maimed boss's words and the League of Villains becomes the organization that they will follow now.

///

"I know that you're always doing so much work, princess," Tomura is hurt. Dabi knew that most of the other members were hurt, but every time he goes to see Duster and finds that he's recovering from his surgeries, that he's bandaged, his foot in a cast, and that there are machines hooked up to him to make sure he stays doing well, Dabi is freshly horrified by just how hurt he really is. "But you can't be the number two in the organization now."

The words sting his pride, but he doesn't argue, keeping his head down as he sits at his side. "Yes, sir."

"This is for the best, baby girl. You'll be happier where I put you."

"Yes, sir." He doesn't know if that's true, but this isn't something he has any control over. He just has to move forward and do what his Daddy is asking of him. Besides, no matter what, he will still have access to all of the resources that the PLF has made available for them. And with that, he'll be able to do what he needs to ensure that the battlefield is cleared for his final fight against Endeavor. He can have his message broadcast with the PLF's satellites. He'll make sure–

Daddy reaches out with his least injured hand and wraps his fingers around Dabi's, giving them a light squeeze, "Not yet, baby. There's more to do before I'm ready to lose you."

He thinks that just a few weeks ago, those words would have made him rage. This is what he's given himself over for. Shigaraki said he wouldn't take it away; he said that he could do whatever he wanted, and he would help, but there isn't any of that emotion now. It's not time yet, but it will be. When Shigaraki isn't hurt, when the rebranded and revitalized organization is ready for it. When the heroes are overwhelmed and outnumbered, that's the time. Dabi can be patient for that if it means that he'll succeed in his goals, no matter what else comes.

"...Okay."

Tomura strokes his thumb over his knuckles and then instructs, "Take off your clothes, baby."

His face heats. Shigaraki always has him do this. He wants to see, even when he doesn't have time to find the satisfaction of his orgasm, he always wants to see that Dabi is behaving himself and hasn't withdrawn back into himself and become obstinate again. So Dabi doesn't even bother to pull the blinds shut on the hospital window before he takes off the coat first.

The PLF is going to be very different from the League; they both know that. But Tomura is already pleased that they followed Re-Destro with such a fanatical drive and that the other man, even maimed as he is now, has already started to look at him with such reverence. Dabi thought that the League had been strange and cult-like, but he knows now that the PLF will be the most dangerous organization that has ever existed in Japan. And as they prepare for the debut of the new name and restructuring, Dabi knows his Daddy wants to start to plant the seeds of what will be expected of their new people. So even though Dabi knows that Re-Destro is supposed to be coming by for a meeting too, even though it makes his face go hot and his body tremble with humiliation, he doesn't hesitate to strip bare, until the only thing on his body is the cock cage that is clinging to him. Daddy wants to make an example of him. He can be that if it gets him what he wants. Right now, that's split from his need to have the cage off and.... knowing that he isn't going to do this to anyone else. Shigaraki wasn't spoiled for choice the way he will be now, and there is a pit in Dabi's stomach when he thinks that Duster might decide to have more of them for his own amusement and satisfaction. He needs to make sure that he stays Daddy's one and only because– because–

Dabi has a hard time articulating why he has to be the only one being treated like this. He shies away from that part of his mind, and he can't make himself look at it. Just like he's tried to look less and less at his cock trapped inside the cage as the 'custom' modifications that Shigaraki had his friend make have become more and more obvious as the metal device has slowly tightened and shrunk around his genitals over the past few weeks, until his flesh had no choice but to match.

"You're doing so well, baby girl. Your clit is getting so cute and small. Daddy is going to have so much fun playing with you when he's out of this hospital bed."

"...Can it come off?" He asks weakly, his face so hot as he feels his blood starting to try to get lower and being cut off by the metal. Having Daddy's eyes on him now keeps making that happen because as long as Shigaraki is his Daddy, he can't make his mind go back to burning to fight it off. He doesn't think that he used to have to fight off his arousal, not when he was with anyone else, but his stomach gets sick when he considers that it's because other people didn't make him call them that and have the power over him to make it stick. Dabi feels the pressure coming beneath his seams, and he knows that those kinds of thoughts will make him shatter apart again if he lets them, so he tries to stop thinking at all.

"No, baby. Not until Daddy's ready to make sure that you're only a whore for him. Now come here."

The hospital bed is small, but Daddy makes sure that Dabi can climb into it with him. He doesn't have to say anything about the heat of Dabi's body or how he clings to his least injured side as he curls up on top of the thin, scratchy sheet. They both know, all too well now, that Dabi needs this. He doesn't want to, but the things that Shigaraki kept palming inside of him are shattered irreparably now, even when he can leave the other's side. So he stays. He lets his Daddy press a kiss to the crown of his head, and he stays good and quiet even when the knock at the door comes, and Daddy lets Re-Destro in and lets him see what Dabi is for him outside of his work.

Dabi sees a frantic jealousy in the other man's eyes instead of the pity or disdain that he got used to with the League, and that makes it easier for him to stay where he is and be content with where Shigaraki's machinations will take them next.

///

Even with the doctor's strange and unethical medical practices, Twice's arms are still broken, Toga is bandaged up, and Tomura is on crutches the day they make the announcement of the rebranding for the PLF. And it doesn't matter. As Duster explains their new goals, the entire crowd lets out a cheer that rattles the building and shows Dabi that he was wrong. He has known that in small ways since he first joined the League, but he sees now that Shigaraki is a force to be reckoned with, a leader, a man who will not be stopped and who others will follow even at the cost of their own souls. He just still doesn't understand why. The others bought into it so much sooner than he himself had, and Shigaraki made the MLA believers in the middle of a fight that should have destroyed the League completely. But even with the casual way he speaks, even when he's broken, other people still flock and listen to him.

Dabi doesn't like how true and real that is when Hawks tries to move through the crowd to get near the stage when the announcement is over. Dabi moves before the rest of them can. He didn't invite Hawks here, but that must mean that the other man found out about the MLA from one of their other hero double-agents, and if he's here now, then that is a problem. Hawks has wanted to meet all of the others since the very beginning, and even though Dabi was hiding that he was no longer actually a part of the League at that time, he knows even more that this is not something he should allow. Dabi only gets about a step away from Tomura before the other man reaches out and catches him around his wrist, the prosthetic fingers hidden under his glove a much firmer texture than Dabi expects.

"Come sit on my lap, firefly."

His face heats, a protest wanting to fall off his lips, but Daddy is in charge, and so long as Dabi does what he wants, then he'll make sure that he gets his revenge in the end. He just has to be good. It's only after he's managed to climb onto the throne with Tomura, the other man resting his hand around Dabi's waist and coaxing him to put his head on his shoulder, that Dabi manages to think again. That keeps happening. It's like Shigaraki plucked out his brains when his sanity shattered around his cock. Hawks is here. There is a leak. The bird isn't trustworthy. But killing him now doesn't get them what they want. They need time and fodder for the League to get better and for the doctor to finish growing their stock of weapons. If Hawks is too busy worrying about the human army that they've managed to assemble, then they will probably stave off an immediate attack for the time they need to make their real plans come to fruition. And when that happens, Dabi will just have to roast a chicken to make certain that they don't end up with any additional loose ends to deal with. This is fine. This will work. He just has to keep trusting Daddy to stay on top of everything else.

And when Hawks sees him in Shigaraki's lap, when Tomura turns to press a kiss to Dabi's temple, the softness of the action soothes those shattered pieces inside of him, the bird's eyes widen, and his feathers fluff. He takes half a step back, and then he chooses to mingle with other people around the room instead. Dabi wonders if that's how off-kilter he looked when he first joined the League, and then is glad that he trusts Shigaraki to keep his word now. He's better at reading people than Dabi ever would have thought, and he's pretty sure that this display just bought them all the time they need for their nomu to cook and has made the entire PLF even more eager to serve as they imagine what it would be like to be on this stage as part of the inner circle.

///

It takes another three weeks before Daddy is out of his cast and able to fully participate in the work of each day without needing breaks to rest or take his medicine. And throughout that time, Dabi is doing his job. He's not allowed to be the number two anymore because that might get them into trouble if those who are still primarily loyal to Re-Destro decide to rebel. But that's alright. Dabi keeps proving to the quirk supremacists and to their soldiers that he is not just a decoration on Shigaraki's arm; he earned that spot even if it wasn't ever something he was intentionally seeking out. And as he gets to train their soldiers, he sees that Shigaraki is still making good on his word. He's ensuring that Dabi is able to direct their people, to ensure that when they're on the field, they leave the heavy-hitters to him and the other members of the League. They would rather the League members take on the top ten than have dozens of their soldiers go out to them instead. It's reasonable, logical, and it will ensure that Dabi ends up on the field against his father with no other distractions.

And by the time Tomura is finished healing, Dabi doesn't feel as though he is thinking constantly of how he will reach his goals anymore. Duster's done what he promised him when he came back. He's ensured it. He'll let Dabi do whatever he wants on the field, so long as he stays his good girl everywhere else.

It's embarrassing what that entails now that the League is not just funded, but has truly frivolous amounts of money to spend on things. Daddy wants him in panties every day because a clit should be in cute panties. He wants Dabi's body waxed, exfoliated, and lotioned, waiting in his bed every night for him, even when he's still too injured to do anything with Dabi's nakedness. And he wants Dabi's cage on so he can ensure that he's not being a whore, the other man also making him spread his legs every day so he can see that no one else has touched his cunt. As if anyone in the entire compound would ever think of doing something to Dabi when they know that Dabi belongs to Tomura. But Dabi does it. He's a good girl, and so long as he is, things go well. It's a strange weakness in him that feels insurmountable when he realizes that the reassurance, that his humiliation, doesn't hurt the way it did before, and that Daddy never raises a hand to him again, either, and somehow that makes all the times it happened before feel like they were his fault. He could have just accepted this sooner, and he wouldn't have ever been in that position before. But he was too stubborn, too prideful, too scared to realize what Tomura was offering him, even back when he was nothing but his dog.

"What's wrong, princess?" Daddy asks as he comes into the bedroom. The villa is so big, but they share one now. Dabi didn't make that choice; Shigaraki chose it for him, and things have been fine, so he didn't protest. Tomura pauses where he's sitting at the foot of the bed, his knees pulled up to his chest again, and he presses a kiss against the top of his head. Dabi keeps finding that, like his tears, his body keeps trying to make itself smaller each time he pauses and finds himself waiting for the next thing to do, even if that next thing is only to wait for Tomura to come and see him again.

"I don't know." He doesn't. He's just different from how he was before this. The world is different now than it was when he joined the League. That's going to be a good thing; that's going to make it easier for him to destroy his father the same way that he dreamed of back when he was first starving on the streets with no clear path in front of him.

Duster pats his head before he moves away from the bed and into the closet. Maybe Daddy doesn't have time for him tonight. But he might tell him to go to sleep instead. It's easier to sleep when Tomura tells him to do it. Dabi waits on the edge of the bed until Tomura comes back into his line of sight, and he's different, too. Like in the space between blink,s he's turned from that scrawny, rude brat that Dabi first met, and now he's solid. His back is straight, his muscles have filled out, his hair is long and bleached white, and his body is littered with scars. Experience layered into every inch of him that has not just given him the power that Dabi always wanted for himself, but that he has figured out how to wield to be worthy of the man who will destroy Japan.

Tomura doesn't say anything at first as he climbs naked into the bed with Dabi, and it's only then that he realizes that there aren't any bandages lingering on his body for the first time in weeks. It's only when Daddy curls his fingers around Dabi's chin to pull him into a kiss that he realizes so much has changed, as Decay fails to spread out across his skin as their lips meet. Tomura kisses him softly and sweetly, his hands no longer bringing with them that threat of oblivion that Dabi was so scared of before. He coaxes Dabi onto his back, and Dabi spreads his legs. He's only in a set of pale pink panties, and he knows that Daddy will want to see his pussy. He needs to show him so he can be a good girl.

"I'm so proud of you, princess." The words are a balm against the breaks left inside of him, but rather than repairing the dam, they seem to encourage the overflow as Dabi's eyes mist red again. Daddy never chastises him for crying. He just gives him another soft kiss before he reaches to pull away Dabi's panties. "You're everything I thought you could ever be and more. I can't imagine what kind of idiot would throw you away when you just needed a Daddy's care and attention to become so perfect."

The words overstuff his head with things he doesn't want to think about. Things that, if he follows the threads of them to their conclusion, might bring him to a noose before he's had his revenge. He doesn't want those, so he just lets his body go warm as Daddy's hands move along his body, his lips following.

"I think that it's about time I get you some new jewelry, baby. Maybe a pretty necklace?"

Dabi tenses a little. He didn't have to wear the collar often, but he didn't like it when he did. He doesn't want people to think he's an animal again.

"Something that can hold up to your flames, maybe with a pretty charm, hmm? I know you've been picking at your staples again when I'm busy. Wouldn't it be nice if you had something to play with when Daddy has to work?"

"Okay." He doesn't think it will matter. The only thing that's going to fix him is getting to his goals. He can't think of anything else that would make him better, and even then, he doesn't think burning is going to fix him; it's just going to make it so he doesn't have to think about anything anymore.

"I'll pick out something that's as pretty as you, firefly," Daddy tells him before he reaches down to the padlock between his legs. "But for now, it's time for you to show Daddy what a good girl you are."

Be good. "I'll be good, Daddy." It's an automatic refrain, and he spreads his legs open and tilts his hips back so that Daddy can see that he's clean and tight, just the way he's supposed to be.

"I know you will be, princess. I'm so proud of how good you are." Daddy murmurs as he holds onto that little lock. "And tonight, you're going to be even better since Daddy can finally play with you again."

Dabi's body goes warmer as Daddy unlocks his cage and takes it off of him. His... clit is littler than it was when he was first put into it. But that's how Daddy wanted him to be, and the last time he was out, Tomura made him feel good. Be good. So he lets himself melt back against the sheets so that Daddy can do whatever he wants to his body.

"That's it, princess. You only have to do one thing for me tonight, and Daddy will make sure to take care of everything else."

"Okay, Daddy." He hasn't had to suck Daddy's cock since he was a puppy, but he thinks he would like it better now than he did back then. He can–

"You were such a needy little whore last time, so tonight," Daddy runs his finger along Dabi's clit, and the touch sends electricity through his veins that he can't begin to describe. His cock was never so sensitive, but now his back arches off of the bed with an immediate gasp as he's given sensation there that he hasn't gotten in two months. "You're not going to cum." Daddy tells him, a smile on his face. "You're going to prove that you're being good for me and you're just going to let Daddy use your naughty body to have fun."

Dabi whimpers as blood finally gets to rush to his clit, the swell of it barely making him any bigger at all, and that makes the blush on his cheeks even worse as his whole body longs for release before things have even started.

"I know that it will be hard for you to behave, so if it gets to be too much, you just have to tell Daddy, alright? Daddy will help you be good, the same way he always does." Daddy presses a kiss to Dabi's forehead, and that makes it a little easier for him to breathe as Daddy keeps rubbing his fingertip against Dabi's head.

"T-thank you, Daddy." Be good. He can do that. He can hold on. He used to fight his orgasm every time he had to be Daddy's puppy. But he doesn't have burning to stave off his arousal anymore, and as Daddy leans down to bring his lips to Dabi's chest as he murmurs,

"Good, now let's see how sensitive your pretty tits really are." He knows that being good is going to be so much harder than anything else has been for a long time now.

Tomura presses kisses to his chest, teasing at his nipples until they're both hard and his breaths are shallow. But every one pushes the muscle higher again, and Daddy flicks his tongue over the buds. He catches the piercings between his lips and tugs on them softly, biting just enough to make Dabi keen and his skin turn pink and swollen. And every sensation races from his chest through his body and right between his legs, where his clit can't get any harder. It's not big enough to bob up against his stomach anymore, and the more sensations that his Daddy teases him with, the more noticeable the ache in his balls becomes. He hasn't cum since he agreed to become Daddy's little girl, and with how busy and messy things have been since, he wasn't thinking about how he might need to again. But now that his body is being allowed to feel his arousal without the choking pressure of his cage anymore, Dabi can't focus on anything but how full and tight they are. What's worse is how his clit starts to drool as his tits are made a little bigger from the lovebites that Daddy layers over them. Every little gush of pre that drools from his tip makes him want to cum even more. But Daddy said not to, and Dabi knows, in the back of his mind, that he would have been so embarrassed that just having someone touching his chest would get him so close.

Daddy's hands wrap around Dabi's thighs, and he lets him bring his knees up to his chest as Tomura leans over him, his eyes dark with his want to, as his hair falls around their faces. "Pretty little girl. You want me in your pussy?"

Dabi trembles, the suggestion making his breath even rougher as he remembers how good it felt last time when he got lost in it. It takes him a second to swallow the thickness in his throat and croak, "Don't–"

Tomura frowns at him, and that is awful. Dabi hasn't had Daddy look at him with that kind of disappointment in so long, not since he was a dog, not since he was a stray, not since he trained without–

"I– I want to cum, Daddy." He manages to gasp out, taking his thoughts from that place. "My... clit is so wet. I want to cum."

That look of dissatisfaction melts away into that soft affection that Dabi needs again, and Tomura leans down to press a kiss to his cheek. His lips come away with a smear of blood on them, and Dabi didn't even know he was crying before. "My poor little girl. Getting that excited already? Let me feel how wet you've made your thighs, princess."

Dabi can't spread his legs with Daddy holding him in this position, but that's not what the other man wanted. Instead of pushing his cock into his cunt, Daddy presses between his thighs, his hard, hot cock moving through the pre that has leaked all over Dabi's thighs and sliding so that his head can bump against Dabi's over-full balls. A heady rush goes across his nerves again as Daddy pulls back to do it again, stars dancing across his vision as that light friction still makes his whole body feel so much better than he thought it could. "Ah, no, no, Daddy!" He tries to squeeze his legs tighter together, tries to find some muscles that he can possibly tighten to keep himself from going over the edge. Be good, be good, be good! "Daddy!"

"Oh, princess." Tomura coos as he rocks between his legs again, even though he must be able to feel how much wetter he's already gotten from how his clit is drooling so badly. "I didn't realize that you would be so needy after being locked up for so little time. Daddy is going to have to spend even more time training your slutty body if you're going to survive four months without me." Daddy gives him a few more languid thrusts, Dabi biting his lip hard throughout them as tears stream down his face and he digs his fingers into the seams across his palms to try and stave off the orgasm that he wants so, so badly. But he does stop and let Dabi go limp against the sheets, his body shaking as he holds onto his arousal as tight as he can in an effort to keep it from boiling over. He can't. He can't be naughty. He has to be good. If he's good, Daddy will make sure that he gets everything he wants.

"I want to cum, Daddy," he begs. He wants it. That should be enough–

"I know you do, baby girl, but you're not allowed to. Not until Daddy gives you permission." Daddy leans over to his nightstand and pulls out a bottle of lube and a little leather case. "But Daddy has another way to make sure that you're following the rules."

Dabi sobs, wanting to argue, but he knows better. He's Daddy's like this. He only gets what he wants if he can be good here, not the other way around. If Daddy doesn't want him to use his clit to cum, then he's not allowed to, no matter how he feels that need battering against the tattered remnants of his sanity. He has to be a good girl for Daddy, so when he opens the leather and withdraws a little metal ring with a thin chain that connects it to another small metal rod, and he says,

"Let me see your clitty, princess," Dabi opens his legs again dutifully. Daddy gets the metal piece all wet, and then he reaches down to slip the ring just under his head. The constriction there makes the heat of his blood seem all the more intense, but no more pre leaks out of him as his breaths get so heavy that there is smoke leaking into the air as he tries to behave himself. "Daddy is going to make sure that you don't disobey."

And before he can get the other to stop, he picks up the little piece of metal and brings it to his tip. Daddy starts to push it inside, and that pressure is unlike anything that Dabi has ever felt before; every part of his body tenses as he feels it open a place that has never been forced to stretch. It's such a small piece of metal, but it doesn't matter. It's still big enough that he is forced to feel every centimeter as it is fed into his clit, the bit ending just below his head, where the pressure from the ring outside and the rod inside keeps him so full and tight that Dabi doesn't think he would be able to cum even if his cock were still as hard as it was before Daddy make him put this device on his body.

"Shh, shh," it's only when Daddy leans in to pepper more kisses across his face that Dabi realizes just how badly he's sobbing now as his clit aches terribly with the metal inside. "Daddy just gave you help to stay his good girl. What should a good girl say to that?"

It's so hard for him to even suck in enough breath to say anything at all, but he does manage to blubber, "T-thank you, D-Daddy," after a moment.

"That's it, princess. Now that your clit is nice and full, Daddy wants to see how much your cunt can take, too. Give me your hands."

Be good. It hurts, the metal in him, the pressure of his balls. But if Daddy wants this to ache, then that's okay. It's not like how it hurt before. This isn't agony, humiliation, or violence like what was done to him before. Daddy is using pleasure to make Dabi feel so out of control now, and that's better. That's okay. He can be this if it makes Daddy happy. He gives Tomura his hands, and the other man uses velcro cuffs to lock them to either side of the bed above his head before he reaches beneath it and takes out a spreader bar. Daddy has locked his legs in place before, just to get Dabi used to stretching wide around it as he watched his hole twitch in memory of how good it felt to be filled before. But this time, after the bar is in place and Dabi is helpless along every line of his body, Daddy's cock is hard, and his pussy isn't going to stay empty.

"You're such a pretty little toy, precious," Daddy tells him as he strokes his long, thick cock until it's glistening with lube. "Aren't you so happy that you decided to become mine, princess? If you hadn't, then you wouldn't have gotten to feel like this."

"I'm happy." He's used to telling Daddy what he wants to hear when he's like this. But he didn't think that... he would mean it. He didn't think it was possible for him to mean anything like that. But he is... happier now than he was at the beginning. Or maybe 'happy' isn't something he ever thought he could measure his existence against. Maybe he just is glad that he's not tired the way that he was before. He was always fighting, always exhausted, always desperate to scrape together enough resources to make it to the next step of his plans. But he doesn't have to do that now. He has a path forward because he's not going it alone now. Because he is letting Tomura help him limp through every step after he's been shattered by everything he's faced before. He is aching and desperate right now, not because he doesn't know if he'll even survive until his fight against his father, but because his Daddy is playing a game with him. He's paying attention to him. He's looking at him. Dabi sniffles softly as the last of his tears dries on his cheeks, and he curls his fingers around the straps of the handcuffs keeping him in place. "I'm happy, Daddy."

Tomura smiles at him. He smiles a lot, and Dabi wasn't sure that those smiles were real before. He thought they might be another calculation, like all of the other manipulations that he has used to get himself into such a position of power. But when he sinks into his cunt and leans down to give him a long, slow kiss, Dabi believes it. He thinks that Tomura is just as happy with this. He thinks that the other man was trying to make him happy even back when he was just a dog. He thinks that he's trying to be a good leader, the only way he knows how. Maybe in another world, Dabi could have made him a different kind of leader, but that's not what happened, and he can live with that. He made his peace with it, but as Daddy fills him up with his cock and Dabi moans so loudly as his insides are spread and the pressure in his clit gets so great that he can feel it like a heartbeat, he thinks he can be happy and Tomura can really mean it when he says he will take care of him, that he's proud of him, that–

"Fuck, princess. Such a good girl. Such pretty sounds. Been waiting so long to have you like this again. Love you so much, baby girl."

He mewls, his legs twitching against the bonds as his cunt is stuffed up and he's made to stretch. He's so full, and the words are too much for him. His clit pulses and aches around the plug, but he can't resist the metal. It keeps him on that edge as Daddy starts to roll his hips into his body again and again. He kisses him, strokes his skin, spreads him open even wider so he can make sure that Dabi's body is perfect for him. And it feels so good. Dabi might melt. He might fall apart completely. He might explode as he gasps,

"Daddy, Daddy! I- I'm gonna–"

"You won't, baby. You can't. You're going to keep being a good girl." He sounds so sure, but his cock is rubbing against his prostate, and there is smoke filling the air between their bodies as Dabi thinks he might combust from the overwhelming sensation that keeps him on the very edge of his pleasure.

He moans and mewls, his legs struggling against the bar as he tries to get away like he can crawl out of his body and escape his orgasm. Be good, be good, be good– but he can't. Dabi cries out as Daddy keeps thrusting into his cunt, and the pressure tips over the edge.

He's punished immediately as the rush of pleasure that he wanted is overtaken by a sharp agony that pulses through his clit and builds there more and more until Dabi is left screaming as his orgasm turns into a curse and he begins to sob again. No, no, no! All of that pressure that was in his balls is being released– but it's not. There's nowhere for it to go when he has that metal plugging up his clitty. It leaves the shrunken length of him overfilled and aching as Daddy groans and fucks his pussy even harder, ever thrust against his prostate only making the sensation so much worse as he keeps going.

"That's it, princess. You only get to feel good when Daddy gives you permission, and if you can't follow the rules, you have to be punished." But he's enjoying it more as Dabi's walls cling to his cock from how tense and tight his whole body has gone. That agony makes Dabi's head so messy that he barely notices when he is suddenly very wet inside as Daddy cums, because all he can think is how his clit hurts so badly and he still feels too full. There are stars dancing across his vision from how his breaths hitch and catch, too thin to help him clear his head.

And then Daddy makes it even worse as his hand snakes between their bodies so he can palm Dabi's clit and balls. Having any touch there feels like sandpaper against an open wound, and Dabi is left howling incoherently as the other man keeps rubbing at him. No, no, no, he shakes his head wordlessly as the sensation has his body straining against his bonds as his flesh threatens to split open across all of his seams just so he can crawl out of his skin to escape the sensation. He's still hard. His clit, even pulsing with so much agony, is a furious red against the metal, and he is still hard.

"That's it, princess. You're going to make such a mess when we take this out. But I think you'll be fine until you're actually leaking again."

"No, no, Daddy, please, please! It hurts–"

"I know it does, princess. But Daddy needs to make sure you can behave. You're going to behave, aren't you?"

Dabi sobs and sobs, but he doesn't try to twist away from the hand that keeps teasing his clit as Daddy hardens inside of him again and keeps fucking his cunt.

It takes a while; that initial pressure never really goes away, but soon, his insides are just as agonizingly sensitive as Daddy fucks him through his first orgasm, to his second, and is in the process of going for his third as the conflicting sensations in Dabi's body overwhelm him time and time again. He's a good girl, but he's sobbing and screaming, loud enough that he's sure the entire wing can hear him, as the repeated pressure against his prostate and the stroking of his clit sends him over the edge again. But he can't cum. The orgasm happens, he thinks, but it so immediately turns into such overwhelming agony that Dabi doesn't get any satisfaction from it, just sobbing louder as he fears he might explode if he isn't given some kind of relief soon.

Daddy doesn't give it to him until he's filled him with so much cum that every fresh thrust has his cum leaking out against the sheets. He fills Dabi until he's hissing himself from how sharply oversensitive his cock must be, and Dabi would take the other man fucking his pussy until he was bleeding if it meant that the pain in his clit would stop. He can't even make words to beg for relief, but the moment that his hands are set free from the cuffs, Dabi's reaching for his Daddy. He paws at his skin, his fingertips so hot they leave little shiny pink burns across his body as he sobs.

"Shh, you did such a good job, princess. Now Daddy's going to make it all better."

There have been so few people in his life who can ever actually do that for him, but Daddy doesn't mind the burns as Dabi clings to him desperately as he takes the spreader bar from between his legs and carries him into the bathroom. He sets Dabi down in the tub, the cool porcelain helping to lower his body temperature marginally, but not saving him from the agony in his clit. Daddy teases his fingers along him again as he murmurs,

"You look so pretty, blushing like this, princess. We're going to have to do this more often." It's only when Dabi whimpers again that Daddy actually reaches down and first eases the ring over his head, holding onto the chain so that the rod stays in place. His eyes are bright and delighted as he extracts it slowly from Dabi's clit, a rush of fluid coming with it as Dabi mewls and sobs as all of the fluid his orgasms might have given him is let out against the tub, not a drop of his pleasure salvaged as he is instead overwhelmed with relief and left absolutely exhausted as is clit rapidly softens, long before the last drop of semen spills down the drain.

His head is still spinning when Tomura catches him by the chin, and he asks, "You would do this again, wouldn't you, baby girl?"

Even with the pressure relieved, his clit still hurts more now than Dabi can ever remember it hurting in his life. Be good. He nods anyway. If it makes his Daddy happy.

Tomura smiles and presses another kiss to his forehead before he turns the tap on to cool, using the shower head to wash away the fluids from the bottom of the tub before he plugs it and starts to let the bath fill around Dabi's body. He keeps the water cool to help him lower his temperature before the dizziness turns to heat stroke, as he sits on the edge of the tub and runs his hand gently through Dabi's hair until the tub is full and he's managed to calm down and think more clearly past the agony that is still lingering in thin threads all across his body.

They're both quiet for a long time before Dabi finally manages to ask, "Why?" Why that, why him, why bother now that he has thousands of other people to toy with?

Tomura pushes back Dabi's sweaty fringe and kisses his forehead. "I told you, firefly: I love you."

Dabi doesn't believe that either of them actually knows what love is, but he's not going to argue with the other man about that. He doesn't care. "...Am I not allowed to cum anymore?" He asks instead.

"Not for now," Tomura tells him as he dips his hand in the water and finds that Dabi's heat has leached into it enough to make it a comfortable enough temperature for him to slip into as well. "I want you to be pent up and desperate when I get back from my treatments. And then we'll be too busy with the war. And if you die during your fight, then I guess that you won't ever have it again." There's a sureness in his voice as he relaxes against the edge of the tub, and Dabi tries to think straight again.

He sees the threads that Shigaraki is weaving, the other man not bothering to be subtle with them when he knows that Dabi isn't capable of burning them away anymore. "I'm not going to give up my revenge for an orgasm."

"And I would never ask you to, sweetheart," Tomura says, cracking one of his eyes open again to level him with an even look. "But it was hard to be good tonight, wasn't it? It will be even harder once I've finished my treatments and unlocked all of my teacher's quirks. Wouldn't it be easier if you didn't have to wait for four months, and if you could be on nearly an even playing field with me at the end of them? Wouldn't you like to see what can be unlocked past an awakened quirk? You might not even have to die to get your revenge like that, and afterwards, the two of us could spend lots of time together. I could take care of my princess while I'm king."

Dabi hadn't even considered that Tomura's treatments to become something beyond a High-End could be replicated. But as they sit together in the tub, Dabi wonders. He rolls the words around his head and through every burnt and broken piece of him. He's done so much just to get to his fight. He's let Tomura make him so many things: a soldier, a pariah, a dog, a scapegoat, a stray, a princess, but is he willing to be an experiment again? He's trying to burn down his father for siring him for that very purpose. Should he burn Shigaraki for suggesting the same thing?

He doesn't. He sits quietly in the tub until the itchiness of sweat and lube on his skin is uncomfortable, and he starts to wash off properly. Tomura doesn't press him for an answer, but when Dabi reaches to wash his hair, the other man pulls him closer and helps. If he did it... Dabi thinks that it would be different. His father experimented with his very birth to achieve his own goals, and he abandoned him when Dabi couldn't be what he wanted. His Daddy is different. His Daddy would take care of him. He's letting him choose.

Dabi is glad that he isn't expected to give an answer yet, though, as Daddy helps to wash his body, only sighing fondly and giving him another sweet kiss when Dabi's clit starts to harden again.

"Not until after you win, princess. We're going to have to put your cage back on."

"Okay, Daddy. I'll be good." He will. He has to be to get his revenge. But what about after? There never has been an ‘after’ in his mind before. But what if there were? He thinks that if anyone were able to make a future happen, it would be Shigaraki.

He's not sure if that's good or bad, but he also believes that Duster could make him want it if he let him.

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