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satancopilotsmytardis · 3 days ago

Text

Shape of You

Pairing: Shigadabi

Rating: Explicit, 18+ only

Summary: Commissioned by @zehei. Dabi is a shapeshifter who has spent nearly a decade on the run. Each time he moves it’s to try to find a place for himself and gather the resources he needs to survive and eventually get his revenge on his father. He wears a lot of different faces so he never has to suffer looking at the one he was born with and he certainly wasn’t expecting to be seen as an illusionist by the owner of the Shattered Hand tavern. He thought being clocked as an illusionist wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but unfortunately for him, it turns out that Tomura Shigaraki’s eyes are sharper than he’d thought.

Contents: Fantasy AU, Changeling!Dabi, magic, size kink, edging, anal sex, oral sex, (brief) spanking, rough sex, tender sex, praise kink, non-human anatomy, multiple orgasms, prostate milking, piercings, vomiting/chronic illness.

Word Count: 22,785

Music is interspersed with the sounds of conversation at this point in the night. The raucous banter of travelers and the celebration of the work week ending for most has come and gone. Now all that's left are people like him who are looking for work of their own. Dabi is wearing the face of an elf today. His hair is black and drooping down instead of spiked in the style he usually prefers. This body is one of his more regular ones, an elf, the long ears leaving him more room to decorate himself with piercings and an additional two going up either side of his cheeks. His skin is pale but not pasty and he has opted for clothing that will make him look more buttoned-up and polished than he would have picked for himself. The Shattered Hand, so named because the owner's magic is apparently quite destructive if he manages to hold onto something for long enough, takes clientele of all kinds, but Dabi needs a bigger job to make it through the month, and that means that he wants to attract the types who want their business dealt with by a professional. Elves, because of their longevity and ability to shape public perspective around those long lives, are often immediately misconstrued as being wiser than others. He wants someone who will buy into that stereotype and book him for a job because they will believe him when he says he has seventy years of experience in this field even if he only looks to be in his mid-twenties.

It takes the better part of three hours for him to find the appropriate work that he wanted, but the assassination he's been paid to carry out will be exceedingly simple for someone with his skillset, even if he keeps that tight to his chest.

When he has his advance and is ready to go back to his current abode for the night, he moves up to the bar to settle his tab. The bartender, he believes, is also the owner of the establishment based on the fact he is wearing black gloves that only cover three of his fingers on each hand. His long white hair is half tied up in a bun, handsome features framed by the fringe that is still falling free, his magic seeming to leave cracks over his eyes and lips where scars mingle with them and dip down his neck to the open collar of his white shirt, a dark leather vest overtop that is secured with thick straps down the front. His build is more than that of someone who might only claim to know arcana, muscle corded along his arms where his sleeves are pushed up.

"Two gold," The man tells him as he reaches for his coin purse.

Dabi hesitates, "I only had two drinks." Two cheap pints, he shouldn't be spending more than eight silver.

"You booked a job in my establishment." The man tells him. "House takes a fee to help keep the guards out of this place so people like you can do your business." He doesn't have eyebrows, the cracks around his eyes seem to have chased away the hair, but Dabi gets the sense that both of them would be up expectantly.

This is apparently the best place to book his kind of work in the city and Dabi isn't in the position to leave town so soon after arriving, so he huffs softly and hands over the gold. It is barely two percent of the advance that he was given for this job anyway. If that helps to make sure he doesn't get caught and his target doesn't catch wind of his impending end, then that is a fair fee.

"Thank you." He slides the coins into his pouch, "Tomura Shigaraki. You're new."

Definitely the owner, "I travel a lot." Dabi says without blinking. "Any other rules I should know about before I keep conducting my business?"

"Don't bring trouble here and trouble won't find you." Is all the man says, looking him up and down. Dabi doesn't bristle. He's spent all of his adult life being sized up by different criminals. He knows that posturing is simply something that he has to put up with to ensure that he's making the impression that he wants. "Welcome to Zogas, mister..?"

"Just 'Dabi'."

"Dabi. Will you be looking for work often?"

"Will that be a problem?"

"No, but if you'd like to make a charitable donation to the tavern, I might be inclined to keep my ear to the ground for you."

"How charitable?" Normally he wouldn't bother. He can make his own connections and find work, but establishing himself in the city as a new person will take time and energy that he just doesn't feel ready to give right now. He hasn't been able to scrape together enough to survive comfortably in months now, and he just wants to be able to get an apartment of his own for a little while instead of camping or living out of hostels the way he has been since he had to leave Threlkell.

"Ten percent finder's fee on any jobs you book with my referral."

It's more that Dabi is happy about giving, but if it means that he has more work then it may be worth it. If Shigaraki can't deliver, he can always go elsewhere. "Fine."

The bartender pours him a fresh pint, "Sit down. I need to know what skills you can offer if I'm going to find jobs that suit your abilities."

Dabi drops into the seat and asks, "How old are you?" Because he looks young. He can't see the tips of his ears behind his hair, but they're not poking out so that means he definitely isn't a full-blooded elf, though he could be a half-elf he supposes.

"Twenty. And you?"

"Two-hundred and twenty-four."

"No you're not. It's a very good illusion, but elves who are actually that old tend to have vocal tics from their centuries of living." Shigaraki tells him. "Are illusions something that I can rely on you being able to provide your clients?"

"...Only pertaining to my appearance." He doesn't tell people the type of magic he uses for that. "I'm good with a blade and skilled with pyromancy."

He sees that spark interest in the other's eyes. "How good?"

"I could burn every inch of this bar and still have a cold pint sitting right here." He taps the edge of his stein.

"Well, I think I can work with that. Is this the face that you'll be wearing to do your business with clients?"

"I'll change it to suit my needs." He says flatly.

"Then I won't tell them to expect an elf when I have someone to send your way. Will you have any identifying features that I will be able to tell them to look out for?"

Dabi didn't expect to get clocked as an illusionist so quickly, nor did he expect the other man to be so nonchalant about it. Normally he hides his abilities well, trying to ensure that no one knows what he is lest he get run out of another town. Even though it's a useful skill and criminals tend to give more leniency for it because of its usefulness, they also grow wary of it after a bit of time. People don't like to think that he could be anyone around them, paranoia spiking higher and higher until they believe they have to get rid of him to protect themselves. Hopefully he can make enough money while Shigaraki is brokering him some work before that paranoia sets in again. "Tell them I have a lot of facial piercings." He usually doesn't feel quite like himself unless he has some kind of them on his person, so he supposes that will be as good a marker as any.

"Alright. And how long do you think you'll be in town for?"

"As long as I can find work."

"Well then, I better find you plenty."

"Why? That desperate for your finder's fee? Seems like this place is already doing well enough."

"No, I just want to see more of you. Maybe if you hang around here long enough," the other man gives him a slow, easy smile, "I'll get to see what you really look like."

Dabi snorts. He hasn't shown anyone that in eight years. "Don't count on that." He tells the other, finishing the drink.

"A man can hope. How old are you actually?"

He pushes up from the bar and turns to leave, "Twenty-four."

"Human then?"

Dabi doesn't deign to answer. Curious is better than paranoid. Maybe he can keep Shigaraki on the hook long enough to actually save up his money for a while. Maybe he can get enough to move elsewhere and live comfortably for a little while. It would be a nice change of pace. Maybe this could be a place he comes back for work when he needs it instead of one of nearly two dozen cities he knows he can never walk again without fearing someone will step behind him and slip a knife between his ribs.

///

Dabi has a variety of faces he keeps to during his daily life. His white-haired elf, a black haired Sanguine-born with blue horns, a cat-kin with big blue eyes and sooty salt and pepper fur, a rabbit-kin with dense white fur that makes him look soft and small, a blue-scaled dragon-kin with jewelry hanging off of the holes he's had carved into his horns-- but the one that he only wears while he's working is that of an elemental-born. His skin is black cracked lava rock, those portions of his body always shifting as the blue fire flows beneath the surface and erupts like a candle flame from the top of his head. He doesn't want anyone who might see him to actually place him as a person, and this more extreme elemental-born appearance makes him look like a will-o'-wisp or a summoned fire elemental from a distance. He would rather people think he's conjuring spirits or elementals for his jobs, that means they will be looking for signatures of conjuration instead of evocation magic.

He takes care of the first job that he booked at the Shattered Hand, making sure to execute it perfectly. He receives the rest of his pay for the work, and it's a relief that within the next few days, other people start looking to book him as well. Zogas is a major city with a population in the hundreds of thousands-- but it is a waypoint. The coast is another half a day's travel and the next major port city three. This is the only city on the main road between the capital and that port, forcing most people to pass through it as they go on their way to bigger things in this country or as they are trying to flee for the open sea, hoping to send someone to cut off anyone who might be pursuing them. It makes for a lot of people and a lot of changing faces that have nothing to do with his abilities, but that makes it so much easier for him to find work without anyone seeming to notice that he's the same person unless one of his specific personas is asked after

Tomura Shigaraki asks after him each time he comes into his establishment though. The human isn't always working at the bar. Some nights, when he seems to have enough staff on hand to take care of whatever he needs them to, he will mingle with the people there. Sometimes Dabi sees him holding court in the back of the bar and he'll leave surreptitiously and return in his rabbit-kin form so he can hear what he's saying from across the room. He seems to be as composed as he is doing business with others as he was speaking to him. There is a strangeness to some of the things he says, things that tell Dabi that he has learned to socialize from holding this post rather than creating this bar because he had the connections and enjoyed the work first. He also must be highly educated, though he can't tell if he's a scholar, healer, or some other combination of mage and warrior. All he knows is that the other can't be a witch like him without the metal sunk into his skin to keep his magic grounded. He's a strange man, but one who is clearly well-loved by the criminals he surrounds himself with. When he isn't working, his table is open for people to come and play games at and the other man doesn't seem to have a gambling problem, never betting anything that he can't do without, but he does love the games. He will play, and he plays such a wide variety of games that it doesn't surprise Dabi that he is often teaching people the rules of games from different prefectures or different countries entirely, able to go behind the bar and bring out game pieces, cards, and boards whenever anyone expresses an interest in learning.

Dabi doesn't think he's done that while he's hanging around the bar not doing much that night. No new contracts came his way and no one seemed to be looking to do business with him. But Shigaraki comes over to the table he's been haunting for an hour or so and sits down. Dabi is wearing his Sanguine-born appearance today, dark hair, bright eyes, blue horns, and a thin blue tail with a spade at the end, but the metal in his skin still a clear indicator to the other man of who he is.

"Do you know how to play Visitor's Rumors?" The human asks as he approaches the table. His hair is half tied back again today, but he's wearing his long-sleeved white tunic underneath a deep red coat that, from the way the scales seem to shimmer with an internal glow, tell Dabi that it is made of actual red dragon scales. He seems so young, but maybe he was a successful adventurer before he settled down in this life. Or maybe he just has the money to buy expensive things. Must be nice.

"No, and I'm not looking to give you even more money losing at gambling with you as I learn."

"Visitor's Rumors isn't played by betting money." Shigaraki slips into the chair across from him. "It's a game of deception and the winner of each round is able to ask the other person a question and, ideally, get an honest answer from the person they're playing with. It's a popular game in Sostra." Dabi snorts and that gets the other man to smile a bit. The collection of islands that make up Sostra are well-known to be pirate and crime infested because the territory has been caught in skirmishes between countries and trade routes dozens of times throughout the past three centuries. Without a stable government able to control what happens there, between those skirmishes, pirates swooped in and carved up territories there for themselves. It's no surprise that Sostra would create a game like this, not when it's a common refrain that only honest men hang on those islands. "I would love to get to know you a little more."

Dabi doesn't usually let people get that close to him, but right now Shigaraki has the power to bring him more work, and that could be worth the minor annoyance of spilling some harmless truths about himself. "If you ask me something I don't want to answer, I'm not going to."

"That's fair. I hope you'll extend me the same courtesy." Shigaraki says with a smile as he passes Dabi a wooden cup with a collection of dice inside.

///

The game itself isn't that different from Ship, Captain, Crew with the two of them apparently supposed to be doing all their lying around the dice throws and open themselves for honesty at the end of the rounds, the winner of each asking their question and their bets being for topics rather than coin. Shigaraki lets him start first with that, and Dabi would like to avoid the other man going for his throat so he starts with innocuous things. When was the Shattered Hand founded? Does Shigaraki have a favorite drink served at the bar? If he had to be trapped in a caravan with one of his employees which one would he rather it be? Simple things that the other answers very straight-forwardly. The tavern has existed for twenty years, but he only bought it and renamed it about three years ago after his father passed away and he wanted a fresh start with his inheritance. He prefers a mid-tier scotch but he usually says something a little more expensive because if he vouches for it, it sells better. His best friend, a green dragon-kin man, works in the kitchen and he has happily taken trips with him out of town when they have to go talk to the tavern's suppliers in person. He is also a big fan of collecting different games from anywhere he travels and the two of them are quite close. Shigaraki tells him these things with that easy smile as they play a few rounds and Dabi gets the hang of it.

He was expecting the hustle when all of the sudden he finds himself losing, and losing badly as their play continues. Shigaraki starts off with easy questions too; how long is he planning on staying in town? How did he get into this line of work? Is he a witch and, if so, what kind of magic is he a practitioner of. He answers those vaguely, but honestly. He is here for as long as the work is good. He didn't have any other pursuits when he reached adulthood and fell into this to make ends meet like so many others. He is a witch and he practices all kinds of magic. And then Shigaraki starts asking harder questions. "Where are you from?"

"No."

"Alright. Are you actually human?"

"I'm not answering questions about my race."

"Why not?"

"Why does it matter?"

"I would like to get to know you. Faux pas between races can vary wildly. I'd prefer not to offend."

Dabi snorts slightly. He has no idea how in-depth those can be for his kin. "Treat me like you would any other stranger. I don't care. As long as you're bringing me drinks or finding me work, it doesn't matter."

"Do any of the forms you take look anything like your real body?"

Dabi considers that question for a long moment, but he has already admitted to being a witch, it tells him nothing to acknowledge, "I always have iron in my skin." Shigaraki doesn't look impressed by that, knowing it gives him nothing he couldn't have extrapolated for himself. Dabi balances a die on top of another. "...I usually maintain my height. It makes fighting easier."

Satisfied he's finally gotten a real answer for this round, Shigaraki picks up his cup and puts his dice back into it and they both shake and roll their dice. They play another four rounds, Dabi just barely letting the other man have any knowledge about who he is before he clams up. He doesn't think that anyone he used to know will find him here, but he doesn't want to tempt fate either. He wants to stay here long enough to earn the money he needs to disappear again. Maybe go to port and cross the sea to a new land to make certain that his father won't ever see him coming before he returns to kill him.

He thinks, maybe, it's how completely he's been dodging the other man's questions that makes it such a sharp surprise when Shigaraki decides to stop trying to ask him things that one might to get to know someone new, to asking if, "Are you interested in men?"

Dabi fumbles his dice, his tail flicking, and his face going hot. "Wh-- What?" There aren't that many people left in the bar anymore. Just the bartender, a few stragglers being shooed outside, and one of the servers who is wiping down tables, so it's not like he could have misheard him. But Dabi thinks he must have.

Shigaraki's eyes are crinkled with mirth as he asks again, "Are you interested in men? Ideally sexually, but romantically as well would be a bonus." When Dabi can't get his brain rebooted enough to actually find his words after a minute, Shigaraki rests his elbow against the table and his cheek against his knuckles, still smiling at him. "See? If I had known your race, I would have known how direct I could be with that question without offending."

Dabi wants to protest that, but unfortunately he's right. Even though so many of the races intermingle here, each one has their own culture around courtships of any kind. If he were really an elf, he would likely have been highly offended to be propositioned if it wasn't a celestial event like a full or new moon, equinox, solstice, or eclipse. If he were a dragon-kin then he probably would have thrown his drink in his face if he had tried without offering him a piece of jewelry or other form of tribute. Being propositioned like this is still an insult to his race, but Dabi has spent a very, very long time fighting every part of what he is, so he avoids giving him that kind of reaction.

"You're the one who controls how much work gets sent my way, there isn't a direct or indirect manner in which you could ask this and not make it slightly offensive." Dabi tells the other man as dryly as he can.

Shigaraki's smile finally falls and it leaves him looking as serious as he had when he overheard him discussing a potential reform of the guard that would have put his interests at risk. "I was hoping that what you've observed of my character when you've been eavesdropping on me would have assuaged some of those concerns. You're welcome to tell me 'no', for this, for any job that I offer you that you don't want, without fear of retaliation. The only thing that could cause me to hurt you is if you ask for it very sweetly and we discuss your limits first, or if you do something to put my business here at risk."

Dabi eyes him. He doesn't really know Shigaraki that well and isn't entirely sure how much he can trust the other man's words. But it has been a while, he is attractive, and Dabi thinks that the reputation he's started to make for his various forms will be enough for him to try and get work in other venues around the city if this one becomes a problem. "I can be whatever you want-- as long as you don't want a woman." He can be if he needs to, plenty of his race switch their genders and sex as fluidly as they do their forms, but that doesn't feel right for him when he tries it. He thinks that if he were forced to try to maintain that while trying to have sex, he would probably not be able to enjoy a single second of it.

"I just want you."

"Boring." Dabi tells him dryly. "Don't tell me a guy who starts with asking about safe words is going to be so bland in bed."

Shigaraki's eyes are bright again, amused, full of challenge, as he stands up from the table, letting Dabi follow his lead. "I'll need to know those safe words before we get adventurous."

"'Stop' means 'stop', 'slow down' means 'slow down', 'harder'," Dabi intones dryly, "means 'fuck me better or I'm gonna tell the whole world your dick is awful'."

"You won't have to ask for it harder, pretty boy." He offers a hand to help Dabi up from the booth, and instead Dabi makes sure that he's finished his drink before pushing up from the table himself. Shigaraki is pretty and he is interested enough to actually go through with this. But he's not the one who went asking for it. He's sure that the other man has had people kissing his ass for years now, he isn't going to simper for him in bed just because he's the one sending work his way.

The bartender doesn't seem to mind the attitude at all, and brings him up the side staircase. Dabi knows that the other side of the building has the small inn that's attached to it, but to his understanding, all of the rooms for public rent are over there. Which must make this the other man's apartment that is housed over the bar. Shigaraki doesn't even have to unlock the door when he goes into the room, clearly feeling secure enough, even running a bar full of criminals, to not feel the need to guard his space. The apartment itself is fairly bare bones. They enter a room with a small table set up to one side where the other man can take his meals, the kitchen off to the other side, and a short hallway opposite the front door that appears to have three doors. Shigaraki lets him inside and shuts the door behind him, opening his mouth like he is going to offer him a drink, say something about the barren emptiness of his space even though he's been here for years, and Dabi doesn't really care about making small talk. If he's going to get fucked, he would rather get started now and figure out if this is worth his time or if he's going to be getting out of here before his skin is sticky with cum.

So he curls his tail around Shigaraki's ankle and starts to move it up higher as he moves in closer. "You're sure you don't want something else?" He asks on a purr. Some people don't want to take Sanguine-born people to bed, worried that they'll damn themselves to the lake of blood if they associate with the devil-blooded folk. Some people just worry about getting gored on horns and rended with claws and fangs. But Shigaraki doesn't look cowed at all as Dabi rests his clawed hand over his chest. He definitely feels as muscled as he expected from the cut of his clothes, though his skin has a natural chill to it. Hmm, he does use magic. Maybe elemental like himself? Ice? Or, he supposes as his tail moves up to his thigh, it could be necromantic. He certainly is as pale as a corpse, though the strong heartbeat under his palm at least tells him that he's not a vampire or something.

Shigaraki curls his hands around Dabi's hips and pulls him closer. "I want whatever makes you the most comfortable, Dabi." He reiterates. "All that matters to me is that you're able to enjoy this as much as I'm going to enjoy having you."

"How many times has a cheesy fucking line like that actually worked?"

"As long as I mean it? Every time, though normally I'm not contending with a mysterious shape-shifter who can't answer a direct question to save his life."

Dabi wants to retort but Shigaraki brushes their noses together, giving him the option of mouthing off or actually getting this started. He wants to get onto the parts about this that he's hoping feel good, so he gives up having the final word at this moment and presses his lips to the other's. Shigaraki doesn't rush the kiss, but he does shift Dabi's body, turning them and backing him up against the door so he knows that the human is in charge right now. He isn't going to complain. He wasn't looking for this when he decided to come out tonight, so if he can just let the other have his way with him while he leans back and enjoys the ride, then that would be a pretty good way to end this encounter.

Lips moving against each other doesn't immediately tell him that this is going to be completely worth his time, but at least the kiss isn't bad. His mouth has to warm Shigaraki's as it moves against him, his lips chapped and broken with the strange texture that covers them and sits around his eyes. Dabi doesn't know what that is and he doesn't want to ask. If he starts asking questions about things like that, then that could spell the end of whatever this entanglement is as the other man might want him to reciprocate by telling him more about his own body. What matters now, anyway, is that Shigaraki's tongue is slick and cool as it teases along the seam of his lips, and that when he lets him inside, it only takes a few seconds for him to be sighing softly. The tension leaves his body a little more because Shigaraki's mouth tastes like the drinks they've been sharing and his tongue knows how to curl against his own to make the kiss hotter and start to stir pleasure in his veins. He moves his tail up to feel along his crotch, wanting to tell the other that he isn't going to need too much to warm up. He doesn't like to go slowly when he hooks up with people. Normally, he doesn't have any trouble holding any form that he takes, but when he goes slowly and lets himself soak in the pleasure of what's happening to his body, it gets harder. His skin sometimes starts to blotch with white and purple, his eyes flicker, and Shigaraki is already so curious about what exactly he is that Dabi doesn't want to invite more scrutiny by going slowly and giving him more opportunities for the other man to see anything that he's been trying to hide.

It just so happens that as his tail presses against the front of the human's pants, that Dabi forgets that he has a very good reason for wanting to move quickly that is grounded in logic, because it is all lust that floods it away as he feels the shape of the other man against his tail. He's not hard yet, but he's solid. Thick, long, tucked into his pants comfortably, but now that his tail is pressed against him, he can feel the shape of his cock and he knows, before he's gotten his pants open, that he is big. Dabi presses himself more tightly against his front, his hand going down Shigaraki's chest to try and confirm what he felt with his tail. He loves getting fucked on big cocks. It's not something that he gets as often as he wishes he would, but it is a delight whenever it happens. Nothing feels better than to be so stretched open that he can hardly breathe. It's grounding in the same way the iron pierced through his skin tethers his magic together.

Shigaraki catches his wrist though and stops him, parting their lips for long enough to chuckle, "Slow down, pretty boy. We have all night."

"Who said I was staying the night?" Dabi's mouth runs before he can even consider it a bad idea. He might if Shigaraki is as big as he felt and can get it up enough to give him a few rounds of being fucked full. But he can't resist the urge to be contrary. Shigaraki doesn't seem to mind that though, still seeming amused before he's got his mouth back on Dabi's and a hand around his wrists. He holds them both tightly and pins them to the door above Dabi's head and that puts a pulse of heat through him as well. It's been a while since anyone tried to dominate him. He isn't incredibly tall or masculine in any of his forms, just averagely so, but especially in his dragon-kin, sanguine-born, and human forms, people tend to see the metal pierced through nearly every inch of his skin and think that he must be the kind who wants to take them apart. He'll do that, not a problem really, but he never has to worry about his form slipping when he does that because it never feels as good as it does when he lets someone else take him apart instead. He moans softly into the other's mouth as he's caged against the door, his tail moving up to Shigaraki's waist and tightening, doing his best to pull him into his body so he can get more of him.

"Stay," Shigaraki murmurs as his mouth moves from his so he can nip along his jaw. "So I can make sure that every inch of you is feeling good before you go."

Hard to argue with that but Dabi probably would have tried to find a way if he weren't biting his lip to keep the immediate sound of his need from slipping out when Shigaraki's teeth are moving along his neck, licking and sucking at his skin with the determination of leaving a mark. Dabi doesn't let him. He makes his skin go from pink to unblemished right before his eyes. He watches the other's eyes light up with challenge, and he's very glad to see that means whatever intentions he had of going so slowly and being so doting seem to be thrown away. Dabi doesn't need slow and doting. If he's going to have a good time tonight, he wants to do it by being absolutely wrecked on the other's cock.

Shigaraki's teeth bite harder, his other hand moving over Dabi's body, feeling the many bumps of metal through his clothes, and finding the man straps, buckles, and belts that Dabi is wearing today. Long leather coat that he has to let go of his wrists to make him shed to the floor. Dabi uses the opportunity to try and move away from the door, and Shigaraki lets him dance out of his reach once before he catches him by one of the straps of his leather vest and pulls him back in for another searing kiss as he starts to work those open to make him shrug it off. He keeps trying to move away, but Shigaraki seems to be happy to play this game with him. He pulls him back in, pulls at his clothes roughly so that his dagger is falling from his thigh and thudding heavily against the floor. The tie of his shirt is pulled roughly until it's open and falling off of his shoulders, but he can't take it off of him because Dabi moves each time he tries to get his wrists. Shigaraki nearly growls at him over that, settling for shoving a hand underneath the fabric instead and finding the piercing set into his sternum and the ones through his nipples, teasing those roughly as he traps Dabi's hips against his kitchen counter with his own. The rough touches are heating his blood far more quickly than the softer ones were. His tail shoves itself into Shigaraki's belt in turn, pulling the strap loose, but he has to use his hands to fumble to actually get the buckle open.

He can't help moaning loudly when he has Shigaraki's mouth moving down across his collar bone so he can replace the fingers on his nipple with his lips and tongue. He gets the belt open and goes straight for the ties on Shigaraki's pants. He's allowed to, allowed to make himself breathless with his want when he feels that the other is half hard now and that he really is as big as he thought he would be when he first reached for him.

"Fuck me," he demands immediately as he palms his length through his undergarments.

"So impatient, baby." Shigaraki's voice is amused and warm as he nips at his skin. "Spend the night." His breath is just barely warm as he runs his nose up the side of his neck so he can nibble along the shell of his ear.

"Show me you're worth losing sleep over."

It earns him another laugh and hands moving to the laces of his pants. He pulls them open and Dabi lets the other man lift him onto the counter, sitting on the edge as he kicks his boots off and lets the human pull his pants down his thighs, exposing his half-hard cock to the cool air. Shigaraki sees the line of piercing along the underside of his cock and huffs another laugh. "Even here?"

"Magic has to be grounded everywhere." For people like him. For people who want it so badly and can't get it through prayer, study, or natural talent. They have to forcibly open their magic channels and then keep them open and grounded with the iron in their bodies.

Shig hums in the back of his throat and strokes his hand along his cock and Dabi is very glad that he doesn't seem all that interested in making any other small talk about that. Instead he seems to be trying to find out if those piercings make him more or less sensitive and Dabi is showing him the answer as he rapidly hardens the rest of the way in his hand. He hisses out a spell, short and a low-level conjuration, that has oil pooling on the other's palm so that the next touch has his toes curling as it slides smoothly over him.

"What a good boy," Shigaraki teases him as he keeps moving his hand over him, lips trailing over his skin. "Lean back, baby. Going to give you what you want. Make you crave getting into my bed."

Dabi opens his mouth to take another shot at his ego, aiming to get those hands on him more roughly again, but when he doesn't comply immediately, Shigaraki is pushing him back with his other hand, his wrist twisting around his head on the upstroke, and taking his breath away as his back hits the counter and his hips are dragged forward so his lower body is hanging off of the surface. Shigaraki shrugs out of his red coat, letting the expensive fabric fall to the floor like it's worthless, and losing his shirt in a similar fashion before he's moving back between Dabi's legs. He wraps them over the other's hips. At this angle, his tail can't press up along his back to make him open for his partner's cock, so instead it flicks out and grabs hold of his thigh, trying to pull him in tighter so he can get him inside as quickly as possible and make sure he stays there until he feels like he's been bred full.

Shigaraki's hand moves from his cock over his balls, cupping and stroking there too which has him moaning, his cock drooling pre against his stomach and the muscles in his thighs jumping, as his other hand pushes Dabi's shirt up under his arms so he can dip his head to lavish his chest with more attention. But his hand doesn't linger there long either, trailing lower to find his hole and whispering that same spell against his skin to bring more oil to his palm so he can slick his skin as his fingers trail around the tight ring of muscles there. Normally Dabi doesn't take very much prep. He prefers to have his partners fuck into him slowly enough to make him stretch on their cocks alone, but it has been a while and if Shigaraki is as big as he thinks he is, then he probably needs a little prep first this time. He still shows how impatient he is for more, though, as he immediately tries to rub against his fingers, rocking against them and tangling his fingers in Shigaraki's hair as he pulls him up for another kiss. The tie slips free from his hair and curtains them in as the other man pushes his first finger inside as their mouths meet again.

The probing touches inside of him feel so good, putting more of that sweet, sickening heat in his veins, the piercings on his skin going a little hotter as they try to keep his magic in check as he gets more worked up. The oil wets his walls as Shigaraki strokes inside of him with a practiced ease that tells Dabi that he's definitely had plenty of other people up here and pinned just the same way. Good, maybe that means that he'll actually be worth it when he finally gets inside. But he doesn't want to wait for that, and he has sharp teeth and talons that he uses to prick at Shigaraki's skin as he hisses,

"Hurry up."

"I'm going to have to teach you some patience, baby boy." He reprimands him by shoving another finger inside and crooking them roughly up against his prostate as his other hand goes to the base of Dabi's tail and he presses his thumb against the underside where it connects to his spine. The pressure there sends stars exploding across his vision as a loud moan tears out of his chest, his cock aching from how hard he finds himself from the sensation of that pressure. He doesn't normally have people touch his tail when he's like this, but Shigaraki's hand fists around the part as close to his spine as possible and he starts to move his hand over him like he's stroking his cock, and it feels almost as good. The pressure around that appendage, so close to his hole, that it's tightening his muscles and making him feel even fuller even just on his fingers. "But not tonight. Tonight I'm going to show you why I'll make it worth the wait next time."

"'Next time'? Getting awfully full of yourself."

But Shigaraki just smiles and presses against his sweet spot as he strokes the base of his tail again and Dabi is losing any other snarky comments on a moan.

It doesn't take much longer for Dabi's sharp claws to catch on the other's wrist to force his fingers out. He doesn't want to be fully stretched open. He wants to feel every inch of how big Shigaraki is as he fucks him open. The other lets go of him and takes his fingers out for long enough to pull himself free from his pants and Dabi chitters, a sound that is entirely Sanguine as he spreads his legs wider because Shigaraki is absolutely huge and he wants nothing more than to have him inside. He barely wants to wait for the human to slick his cock with oil, his tail almost a vice around his thigh with how hard he's trying to pull him back in. When his blunt head rubs over his hole, he goes completely breathless with how thick he feels even just giving him the tease of being inside.

The second that Shigaraki starts to stretch him open so wide on his cock, Dabi knows that he's going to be trying to celebrate every good job with his cock sunk inside of him like this. Dabi thinks that Shigaraki might be the biggest he's ever had and the purrs that start to leave his throat involuntarily are from the race he's wearing now. He can't help it though. It feels so good to be stretched so wide. He is nearly limp against the counter, his body trembling slightly from how much his nerves are making this feel like. He isn't sure how he's going to keep it together when the other man starts to thrust, already having to fumble for his control over this form just from how very full he is.

When Shigaraki draws his hips back just enough to rock into him slowly, Dabi has to choke out, "Wait--" as the pleasure wracks through him.

He stills immediately, "What's wrong, baby? Too much?"

It is, but that's not his gripe. He wants more, still wants it hard, but he can't have it like this. At least he already has black hair right now. He can let that part of his illusion slip, can let his eyes go white, can let his fangs recede so all he has to focus on maintaining is his tail, horns, and healthy skin color-- but not in this position. "On my stomach?" He begs. He needs that if he's going to be able to let himself enjoy this when his whole body feels like it's about to shatter apart.

Shigaraki's expression warms from the worry that was pressing in at the edges before and he leans down to give Dabi another soft kiss. "Okay, baby boy, whatever makes you more comfortable." He pulls out and Dabi forces his tail to let go of his leg so he can turn over, fingers gripping the edge of the counter and holding on tight as his tail curves up along his spine and he spreads his legs wide, his toes just brushing the floor. Shigaraki doesn't waste time then, sinking back into his body and Dabi loses control over his teeth and eyes as he moans so loudly as he's filled again.

"Hard," he demands, his voice already thready just from the pressure inside of him and from his own cock being pressed against the countertop.

"Demanding, " the reprimand is light, but the hand that comes down against his ass isn't. The sound of flesh against flesh rings through the air before Dabi feels the sting of it and humiliates himself by not only clenching down on his cock harder, but moaning even louder as his hips jump back to get more. Shigaraki doesn't hit him again, but he does give him more. He rolls his hips again and fists his hand around the base of Dabi's tail. Dabi loses his claws. It's just his blunt natural nails biting into the edge of the counter as the other man draws his hips back and fucks him so full that he sees stars.

///

He still managed not to stay the whole night. Shigaraki fucked him on the counter and when he had rolled him over at the end of the first round, Dabi had to shift to a human too so that he wouldn't have to focus on the extra appendages that had been distracting him before. The other man hadn't seemed bothered by that at all and had just picked him up and carried him into the bedroom, putting him down on his plush mattress and had moved down his body to swallow his cock until he was ready to fill his hole again.

Dabi might have passed out after his third orgasm, but he needs far less sleep than a human does, and he'd been able to slip out of the bed after a few hours, gathered his clothes, and head out. He almost wishes that he'd chanced bathing at Shigaraki's place because his own cheap apartment only has about five minutes worth of hot water. Still. It was a better fuck than he was expecting, and the next time he goes to the bar to do business, Shigaraki doesn't treat him any differently. None of the contacts he speaks to treat him strangely either, which Dabi hopes means that they haven't heard that he fucked the kingpin.

When he's flush with cash from his next job, he buys a bottle of the scotch Shigaraki said was actually his favorite and waits for a lull in the crowd before he catches the bartender's eye and moves towards that back stairwell that leads up to his apartment. Shig's eyes are hot on him as he turns to say something to his staff before waving him on. Dabi has only just managed to find what cabinet he keeps his glasses in before Shigaraki enters the apartment and pulls him in for a kiss.

///

Things have been so good in Zogas that it really shouldn't surprise him when one day he wakes up and it's bad again. Dabi barely manages to roll over before he is vomiting out a stream of bile, blood, and the remnants of his meal from the night before. Fuck. He can't keep his shape and Dabi watches his skin bleed the mottled purple of his burns all along it that he wishes he didn't have to see. He stumbles up out of bed, the apartment thankfully so small that he doesn't have to go far before he can get to the kitchen cabinet. He wasn't able to buy much honey, being worried that someone would see him getting a fair amount of it and put together too much about the strange witch that rolled into town, but he does have a jar. He doesn't have an enchanted ice box in this apartment though, so he doesn't keep any milk on hand. That would sustain him more than just the honey and figs that he does have, but he hopes some of the heavy, creamy cheese he'd splurged on will help as well.

He cuts open the rind on the cheese and splits the figs down the center before upending the honey on all of it. He doesn't want to eat after just being so sick, but he will have to if he doesn't want it to get any worse. So he starts to shove the food into his mouth, the sweetness and richness filling him and making it easier for him to breathe past the agony that is screaming through his skin at every single point of connection in his body. It's been so long since he's felt this terribly, but he's been using his magic more than he's had to in months of travel and work. It's really no surprise. Iron is poisonous to fey after all.

///

It takes hours after his meal for him to feel slightly better and when he is, he has to clean up the sick on the floor by hand to avoid chancing hurting himself by pushing his magic right now. He cleans up and then goes and takes a freezing shower, actually enjoying the chill when he feels like each piercing is a brand that is trying to further mar his skin. Dabi lets the water rush over him and does his best not to curse the life he was given. No use in doing that. All he needs is to work towards strengthening his body enough to withstand the magic he'll need to curse Enji's.

He wonders sometimes, who the fey who sired him really was. Why his mother was so desperate to stay married to a man like Enji Todoroki that she went to a faerie ring and struck a deal with the one who granted her wish. She and Enji were married three years before he was born and she hadn't been able to have a child. So she found a fey who said he would give her the ability if she carried his first. Dabi thinks his mother might be the only woman in the world to have willingly carried a changeling to term without even a thread of deception in the mix. Probably the last too, because the stress of seeing him when he was born, too soon for a human pregnancy, his skin white as paper and eyes just as stark, had frightened her. When she had tried to nurse him he would sink his inhuman needle-like baby teeth into her skin and suck out blood and milk until she started to put honey on her skin instead. That had made him start to look more human most of the time, and when Enji came back from his duties as a warrior, she had presented him with his premature son. It was instinctive and not something he'd had any control over, but Dabi had immediately taken on his 'father's' features to ensure he wasn't rejected. Rei was able to have three more children after him, but each pregnancy drained away more and more of her vitality until her skin was nearly as pale as Dabi's was untransformed, and she seemed one strong wind away from snapping.

Enji was that wind but it was Dabi's fault. He wasn't actually born of the other man, a warrior mage who had command over flames that had not been seen even in great scholars in generations-- but still not as powerful as one of the others in his guild who had been selected as the next head of it. Dabi tried and tried, but the magic that humans wield and the magic that fey do is different. He was a changeling. Illusions and transmutation of his own flesh were easy, but everything else was impossible. He kept pushing, Enji kept pushing. Beat him black and blue, had gone after Fuyumi and Natsuo next, but she only had weak magic, and he'd had the aptitude to be a healer instead of a warrior. Shoto was the only one of them who seemed to have gotten it right, but his birth sapped the last of her strength. She had clawed at her hair, had confessed to him what he was when he kept trying to push his body to do the magic he couldn't over and over again, and he had spit barbs at her, called her a whore that should rot away to nothing for bringing him into this world and letting him be raised with the hope of a future that was being torn away from him. She'd lost her mind after that. Had used her own weaker magic to try and freeze Enji's blue eye out of Shoto's skull and had been sent away. With her gone and Enji still away most days to do his work, and spending the ones he had at home training Shoto, Dabi had been able to comb their home library until he read about witches.

He knew salt and iron could do damage to fey, but he had hoped that he would be able to endure the iron with the magic that would be forced into his body from the ritual. It took him a year or two after his mother was sent away to get the resources he needed to do the ritual himself, and he had gone to the mountain where his mother had made her deal, hoping to draw on whatever threads of power might linger there, and he had pierced the metal into his skin. He hid those piercings as they healed, though that took such a long time and was agony all throughout it, but when they had, he was able to cast the way Enji had always wanted him to. He was so excited. He made his father come to the mountain and showed him how strong his fire conjuration was now. Enji's expression hadn't lit up, he hadn't told him that he was proud. He looked at him with rage and horror and Dabi only realized as he suddenly collapsed, bloody vomit spilling from his lips, that his skin was paper white again. That at some point as he overexerted himself through the casting, he had shown his father his true form.

Enji had raged at him, demanding to know what he'd done to his son, and when Dabi choked out that he never had a son before him, he was told that he wasn't any son of his. That he wasn't a Todoroki, that he was nothing but a bastard and he would not care for him any longer. Dabi tried to show him again. He'd tried to tell him that he made himself everything that he could have wanted, but he was left alone on the mountain as his magic thinned and the poison spread through him. He couldn't control the fire enough to put it out and he had burned.

Dabi thinks, maybe, his biological father had come through from Fayundell and took him out of the flames, because when he woke many years later, it was in a hospital that was half a continent away from the mountain and he was wearing a talisman that kept him in the form of a human for the time it took for him to wake. Large sections of his body were warped with purple burns, but he was alive and he was able to cast still. He had to start smaller, had to start doing things that keep fey healthy instead of doing things that humans and other races need. Milk and honey is practically a healing potion for him. It revitalizes him and staves off the effects of the iron in his skin. Figs, berries, cheese, some mushrooms, bread, all of that helps too. Cured meats can be a special indulgence, but they don't give him nearly as much sustenance as he gets from other things.

When he gets out of the shower, he realizes it's only barely nine in the morning. He only needs two or three hours of sleep each night, and he must have woken at before four for it to be so early after how long he spent sitting on his kitchen floor feeling so awful after his meal. He needs more fey food. It's agony to get dressed in his leathers. He has iron sunk into his cheeks, chin, tongue, ears, in seven points down his spine, through his nipples, his sternum, over each hip, through his belly button, on the backs of each wrist, and a row of three down the backs of each of his calves. Each one helps to keep the magic he's forced into his body from tearing him into pieces, and they're all too hot and tender from how his fey-born body is trying to reject them. He really doesn't want to go walk to the market when he's gotten dressed, already exhausted again, but he has to.

He goes slowly, but he walks to market and finds a shop that has everything he needs. He buys himself a large sack of flour, yeast, a gallon of milk, a pint of honey, butter, more fruit and cheese, and a few jars of local jams. When the woman at the stall asks him what he's making, he tells her that it's his mother's honey bread recipe. Honey bread is a common staple that he could just buy from a baker, but saying it's his mother's recipe gives him the guise of nostalgia to hide how his purchases give him everything he needs to help him feel better.

As soon as he's back in the privacy of his home, he pours a full glass of milk and dollops in two hefty spoonfuls of honey. Drinking that down settles away the last of the fatigue and sickness in his stomach and he considers the massive amount of flour that he has now. Bread can help and it will keep longer than the milk will. He might not bake often, but this is something that he can manage.

///

It takes a few hours for the bread to be done and he ends up making three loaves of it and he still ends up drinking another two cups of the milk and honey to finish off the milk. The overindulgence has made him feel much better though, his clothes no longer a stark and uncomfortable reminder that he is killing himself slowly with every spell that he uses. It doesn't matter. Going that low and recovering each time allows him to call up more and more magic each time afterwards. He just needs to give his magic channels time to adjust to how much use they've gotten over the past few weeks and then he'll be fine. But for the next couple, he needs to slow it down. So he wraps up one of the loaves of bread in a clean towel that he chances a tiny burst of power to enchant to keep it warm and fresh for the walk over, before he heads back out at around three in the afternoon.

The Shattered hand doesn't actually open until six in the evening, but Dabi goes around to the back entrance and takes the stairs up to Shigaraki's side-door. He knocks lightly, a little worried that a human who keeps the late hours that he does might still be sleeping even though it's well past morning, but there's only a momentary pause before this lock is sliding open and Shigaraki is pulling open the door. He's wearing leather breeches in the same deep red as his favorite coat and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Dabi," he doesn't sound or look upset by the surprise visit, and before Dabi can open his mouth, he's stepping out of the doorway, opening it wide for him, "Come in."

He supposes that this is a conversation he would rather have somewhere that no one else will be able to overhear, so he moves into the now-familiar apartment. Shig shuts the door behind him.

"What brings you here so early?"

"Wanted to talk to you about the jobs you've been sending my way." He says, making his way down the hall past the bedroom and bathroom and into his living area. He absolutely won't be able to hold it together if Shigaraki were to pin him down and fuck him as well as he normally does right now so he doesn't want to give either of them that temptation by staying in the narrow hallway or having this conversation in the bedroom.

"Have there been any issues?" Shigaraki's voice shifts slightly as he follows after him. It doesn't become hostile, just focused on their work and Dabi appreciates that. No matter how many times he's found his way into Shigaraki's bed, he never slips with his professionalism when Dabi needs to talk business instead of pleasure.

"No, I like the work, I've been completing my jobs as asked. But I've been taking on a lot of them." He explains. He barely has to lie about this part. Witches can combust if they use their magic too much too quickly, not like scholars or healers who can simply fall into a coma. When a witch pushes too far, they burn, Dabi has done that once-- not that Shigaraki knows that-- and he doesn't want to do it again. "I think for at least the next couple of weeks, I only want to take on one or two of the higher paying jobs. Since you've been screening most of them for me, can you--"

"Of course." Shigaraki says so easily. "You can make your own schedule and set how much work you want to take, firefly." He's been calling him that more often now, once he caught wind that Dabi really does burn all of his clients' problems to cinders. "I'm just here to help make that easier."

"Good. Consider this a 'thanks' instead of a bribe." He pushes the loaf of bread across the counter to him and prepares to stand.

"Did you make this?" He isn't expecting Shigaraki's voice to sound so... softly astounded.

"Yeah? It's no big deal. I ended up having too much milk." An easy lie to keep up so no one wonders about this.

"I can't cook to save my life." Shigaraki tells him. "It's impressive to me."

"You have low standards." Dabi tells him. "It's a recipe that's more common up north."

"From your home?"

He hesitates. It's been months, but he hasn't told Shigaraki almost anything about where he's from or who he was before this. But he supposed that 'north' is thousands of miles of land. It won't give the other man too much to work with if he doesn't tell him anything else. "Yeah. Family recipe."

"Eat with me?"

Dabi considers protesting, but Shigaraki turns to his cabinets and takes out some honey before he turns to his ice box and takes out some jam, butter, and an apple. He sets it on the counter with the bread before he retrieves some knives and a plate. It's practically a compulsion to not pass up food when it's been offered to him. Something fey inside that keeps him rooted to his stool. "Okay."

Shigaraki smiles at him and Dabi takes one of the knives and cuts the bread as Shigaraki cores and slices the apple. He drizzles honey over it and lets Dabi smear butter and even more honey over the slices of bread that he eats. By the time they're finished, Dabi is very glad that he didn't wear the face of the cat-kin or he might have started purring. Shig catches a drop of honey on the plate and lets Dabi lick it off of his finger and his lips are sweet too when they seal over his. It's probably from the overindulgence in fey food and the fact everything but the bread became an offering that Dabi even has the energy to stay human after the other carries him into his bed again.

///

The next job that he takes is supposed to be a relatively simple one: One of the competitors to a local industrial smith has opened a new factory that has already been getting in trouble for not being safe for workers yet, but the moment it is, the new factory will take over all of the business that the other smiths have been relying on. They might have emptied their savings for this job, but if the factory burns, their competitor won't have the funds either to try this again. Dabi is just supposed to go to the factory at night and set a fire from the inside. The forge is already having problems. The idea of it sending out a stray spark after cooling incorrectly isn't that unlikely. He just has to set a fire. That's easy and his specialty and he isn't worried about doing it.

Not until he gets there and breaks in to find that the bastard hired security to make sure that something like this doesn't happen. Dabi doesn't usually have a problem killing people, but he doesn't necessarily want the scrutiny that this job will get him if it comes up with a body count. So he has to be very strategic with how he starts the fires to make them believable and make it so that he doesn't get caught. That takes much greater command of his magic than his fire usually does, and as he's crouched between machines, disguised as a cat-kin for his darker fur and sharper ears, he is desperately trying to bring the embers in the forge back to life without letting the flames creep blue. It takes so long to manage, and when he does, he is trembling from the overexertion and there is sweat on the beans across the palms of his hands. But the forge relights, and then it's a much easier manner of putting a container of machine oil in the way of one of the guards who calls out about it and rushes over to try to figure out how to put out the flames. He stumbles over the container and sends its contents spilling across the floor and Dabi lets a spark jump from the forge. The man all but skitters back as the flames lick over the floor quickly and decisively, others calling out to make sure that the other is alright and to try to coordinate efforts to put the flames out. But Dabi keeps the fire spreading, a little faster than it should, the smoke starting to fill the area thick and black as chemicals burn too.

It's not long before they are all fleeing, deciding their lives are more important than their jobs. Dabi stays for a bit longer though, turning into his elemental-born form to ensure the fire won't be able to lick at his skin, before he makes sure to bring the flames hotter and hotter, ensuring the metal of every machine is badly warped and that there will be nothing salvageable of even the foundations of this building. He's still ensuring that when all of the sudden, pain spikes through his body again and he's doubling over, lava spilling past his lips and dimming the fire beneath his skin as his magic subjects him to a burning that he can't make himself impervious to. Fuck. Too much magic, too much focus. He needs to get out of here.

He flows through the fire and smoke and slips out into the night, hearing people calling for casters and anyone who can carry a bucket to try to put out the flames before they can spread to the other buildings. Dabi gets far enough away to stumble into an alley to change to his human form before he starts to walk deeper into the city. He needs his pay for this job and then he needs a week of rest.

He goes straight towards the Shattered Hand, but he doesn't bother to enter the brightly lit tavern. He is weak and exhausted, something that even his human visage won't be able to hide, and he doesn't want anyone to see how much that took out of him and start to believe that he can't be trusted to handle work like this. He needs more work like this to get the money he needs to grow his funds, he just needs to space out the jobs. Dabi goes up the back staircase and digs out the lockpicking kit that he hasn't had to make use of in nearly four years. But Shigaraki's door is warded, of course it is, against using spellwork to unlock it. He isn't surprised that it also shimmers when he manages to pick the lock and push it open, a silent alarm that the bartender will hear in the back of his mind and will alert him that someone is in his space. That's fine. He can apologize for entering the apartment unannounced when he comes upstairs.

Dabi's legs feel weak and he pulls the door shut before he lets himself slide down it, sitting on the other's floor so he can try to catch his breath and stop trembling from the overexertion of his muscles and magic. He isn't in danger of burning himself up right now, but he is absolutely not going to have a good time if he doesn't feed his real body again soon.

Maybe he's more out of it than he thought he was, because the next thing he knows, Shigaraki is kneeling in front of him, bringing a cup to his lips. Dabi means to push it away, not wanting water or any liquor, but he smells the honey a second later and lets out a soft sound of surprise before he's getting his hand around the cup and greedily drinking down the mixture of milk and honey. There's too much honey in it, but Dabi can't complain. For one blissful moment, all he knows is that his body is getting what it needs to feel better. And then the cup is empty and he's gasping for breath as his mind catches back up to him. As he looks up and sees red eyes staring back unwaveringly and he realizes that the human knows.

Dabi waits for the punch. Waits to have salt and iron shavings poured over his skin, waits to be threatened, to be hurt, for the human to demand a deal with him that he can't give, but Shigaraki's hand just comes up to his cheek and he strokes his thumb very gently around the piercing sunk into his cheek to check their temperature. "Do you need more? I've been keeping it on hand since you visited last. I have some figs and cheese too."

The terror of discovery has closed up his throat so completely that Dabi is surprised that breath can make it into his lungs. It's really no wonder that words can't make it out. When he doesn't say anything, when the human must be able to see every fearful shadow that is dancing over his features and behind his eyes, his eyes soften and he gives him a soft, tentative smile.

"Stay here. I have an offering for you." He says. Shigaraki takes the cup and stands, and Dabi tries to get his legs under him. He needs to leave. He has to get back to his apartment and get what he can, get out of town on what little he's managed to save up because if he doesn't now, he's not going to take anything with him when Shigaraki sends people after him or lets it slip that a Changeling has come into Zogas. People are too afraid of him. Husbands and wives terrified that he'll slip into their homes and take their children to replace them with ones of his own. Workers and bosses afraid that he'll become them and sneak into businesses to rob them blind. Even if he hadn't been the cause of the fire tonight, Dabi knows that would still be blamed on him. All bad things, every fight that anyone has gotten into with a loved one since he arrived, he will be blamed for it all and they'll come after him with pitchforks and torches and the city guards will come after him with loaded crossbows, darts soaked in saltwater, and iron blades so they'll know every cut they land on him will poison him more and more until they've weakened him enough to pin him down and cut his head from his neck. He won't be given a trial. He won't be arrested. Fey are too wild and too dangerous. He will be killed for the crime of existing--

Dabi pushes himself up and fumbles for the doorknob, but as soon as it opens, he hears Shigaraki's voice and the spell slams it shut again, locking it in place as the other man comes back down the hall with a bowl of the fruit and another glass of the milk and honey. "Please," he begs immediately, his chest aching so sharply. He's had to run so many times before, but this hurts more than the others. He hasn't spent so long in one place for such a long time, has never taken a partner throughout that either. He doesn't want to turn and see the blackness that he's sure is marring Shigaraki's features now that he's confirmed what the human must have suspected. He doesn't know how long he's suspected. It could have been since the first night he asked him about his illusions, it could have been one of the many nights they've spent in bed together. "You can keep all of the money from this job. Just let me leave."

"Dabi," he hears the sound of the ceramic clicking against the floor as the bowl and cup are set aside. "I'm not going to take your money and you can leave as soon as you don't look like you're going to collapse. But your apartment is a long walk. You already had one tonight. I have plenty of food for you, eat whatever you need to feel better and then you can leave." His hand catches his shoulder and Dabi can't help the tiny, fearful sound he makes as he shifts forms abruptly to his elemental-born body, the patches of skin that he has lava rock and so hot that he immediately sears Shigaraki's flesh and causes him to rear back with a hiss. Dabi tries to focus his magic enough to undo the ward the other man placed on the door, but he's too weak, the potential of flame too close to the surface of his skin.

It's only half a threat when he says, "Let me leave, or I'm going to burn your entire building to the ground." He would burn with it. He's too close to combusting.

There's a long pause and then the ward falls. Dabi immediately turns the handle and stumbles out into the night, tuning into his cat-kin form so he can run as fast as possible to get home. He has more resources than he's ever had available to him before, he doesn't want to have to run away from the city without those.

Dabi has only just stepped into his apartment when the strain his body has been under sends another wave of sick streaked with blood and ash up from his throat, expelling all of the milk and honey that the other man gave him. The loss makes him even weaker and he's still fumbling with the jar of honey in his kitchen when black rushes in through his vision and the world falls away from him.

///

When he wakes next, it's in his bed with a little glass being tipped to his lips. The mixture is a little less overwhelmingly sweet with honey this time, and he manages to take small sips. It takes a few before he can manage to open his eyes, seeing that it's very bright in his room. Daylight. No. He was supposed to run under the cover of night. He wasn't supposed to rest. He tries to push himself up from the bed, but a gentle hand pushes him back down so easily. He whimpers and the touch retreats and brings the glass back to his lips instead.

"Rest, firefly. You're safe."

Dabi feels his eyes burn and a few bitter tears slip over his cheeks. He's never been safe in his life. But he's too weak to even lift a hand from the bed. He doesn't have a choice but to subject himself to whatever happens to him next.

///

When he wakes again it's dark outside of his window, but someone has lit a couple of his oil lamps that Dabi barely bothers with from how strong his eyes are in the dark. His whole apartment smells like warm milk and honey, fresh bread, ripe fruit, and a thin smell of stress and sweat. The sweat smell is coming from him, the odor acrid and unpleasant as it is tinged with fear and the sulfur of his magic that tried so desperately to burn through him the night before. But the stress smell is coming from Shigaraki. He's sitting over on the windowsill, looking out over the edge of the city that is visible from there. He is wearing the same clothes as the night before, but there are dark circles under his eyes that Dabi hasn't ever seen him with before, freshly scabbed scratches over his neck from where his nails must have bitten into the skin, and his hair is more wild than he's ever seen it, like he couldn't keep his hands out of it when he wasn't too busy clawing at his skin.

Dabi's chest feels tight when he manages to speak, "Why are you here?"

"Dabi," Shigaraki's voice is too relieved. He moves quickly off of the sill and crosses the room to the stove, moving past the counter that Dabi now sees is covered in food that he most certainly didn't have in his apartment before. Custard tarts heaped with berries and drizzled with honey, fresh bread, flower buds, mushrooms, and nuts, and a warm pot of milk simmering on his stove that Shigaraki picks up with a cloth wrapped around his bandaged hand before he pours half of it into Dabi's only mug before he takes a small bottle of what Dabi immediately smells is cow's blood before he fills it the rest of the way with that, mixing the two together with a spoon before he brings the steaming contents over to him. It smells so good, but he doesn't want to take it until he knows the catch.

"I won't make a deal with you, mortal." He hasn't had to reach for this persona in a very long time, but pretending to be a fey who knows what they're doing tends to give him a better reaction than just bluntly telling the humans that he genuinely can't actually do the things that get demanded of him.

"I don't want to make a deal," Shigaraki frowns. "I didn't think changelings could do that anyway."

Dabi stares at him, his mouth dry. He hasn't said what he is... ever. His mother called him that, Enji called him a monster, other people have hurled that word at him like an accusation, but he hasn't ever used it for himself outside of his own head. He still can't claim it now when he manages hoarsely, "What do you know about changelings?"

Shigaraki sits on the edge of the bed and offers him the mug of milk, honey, and blood and Dabi's stomach tightens sharply with his need. Shigaraki must have cleaned up the sick on the floor because there's no puddle of it that he has to move around to get to him. "Not too much," he says gently, offering him the mug again, "My father did business with some Threadwalkers when he was alive. They had interests in Feyundell and traveled there somewhat infrequently. A few of their clients were changelings who went there to escape the prejudice here." His expression tries not to pinch, but there is something unhappy in the set of it when he asks, "Is that why you've been focusing on taking bigger jobs? To get the money to hire a Threadwalker to take you there?"

"No." Dabi has never been interested in traveling to any of the other planes let alone Feyundell which is home to the kingdom of elves and courts of fairies that survive an environment so harsh and ruthless that even their plants sometimes try to devour them. Dabi would not survive there when he is already slowly dying to the poison he has in his skin. He turns his eyes away from Shigaraki's before he answers again, "I have things to do here before I consider anything else."

"Okay," there's no mistaking the relief that comes from the other's voice. "...Are you really a witch?" Shigaraki asks, reaching one hand for his face. Dabi realizes that, despite how horrible and exhausted he feels, he somehow managed to keep his human form intact even unconscious, this one so common and used from such a young age that he was able to cling to it with the barest scrap of his natural abilities.

He manages a slight nod.

"... I thought iron was poisonous?"

Dabi doesn't respond to that at all and Shigaraki's thumb rubs over the grounding iron again.

"I won't tell anyone," Shigaraki promises him. "This is your secret, your life, you can wear whatever forms you choose, come to me for work, for--" he hesitates, his voice softer when he continues, "anything. I won't tell anyone else what you are."

"...How long have you known?" He's tried so hard--

"I suspected after the first night," Shigaraki tells him, "After you shifted from a sanguine-born to human so effortlessly. I have a friend who is a master illusionist and even he can't cast without using a word or gesture to do so. You were nearly naked, I knew you couldn't be wearing a talisman for the effect either. When you brought me the bread and got more drunk off of honey than any drink we've shared before, I knew for certain then."

"Just because I can't steal away your child doesn't mean I couldn't take your place if I so choose." He snaps, trying to make himself seem more threatening when he is so weak now that he thinks reaching for even the barest thread of his magic will have his body burning on the sheets.

"You don't want that." Shigaraki tells him. "You want to live your life freely. That's why you use a dozen different names with everyone else in town, why you barely let yourself eat the way you need to to keep from drawing attention to yourself. You are deadly when it comes to your work," his hand is still so gentle as it cups his cheek. "But you are not a threat to the identities of any person in this city. You won't even take espionage work even though it would be such a simple matter for you."

Dabi doesn't know if he's felt so achingly small and seen since Enji Todoroki was condemning him to burn on that mountain top, but any other words that he might have tried to find are lost to him. Discovered and being offered the chance to continue existing? Oh, if ever there were a fairytale for his kind. But if Shigaraki doesn't intend to show his viciousness yet, he needs to take the opportunity that he can to get stronger now. He takes the concoction and brings it to his lips. He doesn't think he's imagining that the smell of relief in the air is coming off of them both when he finally begins to drink deeply.

///

He's bedridden for days for the first time in years. But Shigaraki comes to his apartment each day in the early afternoon. He brings him fresh milk, more cow's blood, more of the tarts, custards, and fruits. He makes sure that all of it is drizzled in honey and makes sure that Dabi is eating a lot more than he normally would allow himself. Shigaraki brings his payment for his last job, he makes sure to open the window to let in fresh air, even brings him some books from his own collection to keep him company if he needs the entertainment. It takes days for him to recover, but when he has, he knows that his magic is stronger than it was before because the skin all around each of his grounding points feels tight. He has to dig out his kit and stand in the bathroom, looking at his body, trying to find a new place to help keep the magic settled. He ends up placing a row of three dermals along the inner side of each forearm. The iron sinks in, burning slightly as it does, but the new magic swells around the fresh groundings and takes away some of the feverish heat living under his skin. That, at least, leaves him more comfortable and feeling like he can actually move. Shigaraki already left for the day, and he goes to the counter and makes himself pack away the leftovers from the abundant meal he'd brought him today. If he's going to leave now, then he won't be able to go to market to get supplies before he goes. This will last him a while, especially if he turns to an earth elemental-born. His stomach will take longer to feel empty. Long enough to make this portion last him to the coast. It's not much money that he has saved away, but he can get on a boat, maybe he'll even be able to convince one of the crews to take him on as an extra worker in exchange of cutting some of his cost of being there.

He packs up the few things in his apartment and leaves the books that Shigaraki brought for him neatly on his bed. He could have gotten him killed at any point since he came to Zogas. The least he can do to show gratitude that he hadn't is by not stealing from him.

It's been a very, very long time since Dabi has ever felt saddened to leave somewhere. The little places that he's carved out for himself as he's traveled never feel quite like homes. But he... likes Zogas. He liked going to the Shattered Hand and soaking in the atmosphere. He liked that his many personas were all starting to gather good reputations and to be recognized on the street as someone to greet with a smile or nod. He liked... the way it felt to celebrate a job gone right with a drink and then as much pleasure as he could get while he was laying in Shigaraki's bed. He always planned on moving on, but he thought that this time he would have more of a choice about when that would happen. He didn't expect that he would have to run again. Didn't expect that this time it would hurt without the pulse of adrenaline through his veins that made him run harder and faster to avoid the mob that was on his heels.

There is no mob this time. Just Shigaraki. Just one person. If it were anyone else, Dabi thinks that he would be able to slip into his house, would go to bed with him again and slit his throat as he slept. A murderer would be looked for, but he could ensure that it wasn't any of his faces that they were seeking. But Shigaraki is a master criminal with half of the guard and the entire underground on his side. Not only would it be foolish to assume that he would be able to kill him without a fight, but it would be even worse to do so thinking that he might not have a backup plan in place that will get him caught.

Dabi sits on the edge of his bed, looking at his pack, looking at this apartment that was a shithole, but belonged to him, would still belong to him for another six months because he chose to sign a long-term lease instead of living month-to-month for the first time in years. Dabi reaches into the purse that Shigaraki left him with the rest of his payment and he does something that he hasn't since he was a very small child and his mother and father made him-- he prays. There is a wide pantheon of gods, none of which, he thinks, have ever turned a kind eye towards him. He selects Gidona, goddess of good fortune, and asks for guidance, before he flips the coin. He holds it cupped in his hand. Heads and he may have gotten her blessing. Heads and maybe for once in his life some greater power might let something work out in his favor. Tails and Zedos the god of misfortune might have turned his eye to him again. Dabi stands, holding the coin against his skin for a long time before he lets it fall to the floor. He grabs his bag and the coin purse and moves swiftly to the door. The gods may have cursed him from his first breath, but he is not beholden to their whims now.

The evening air is cool and fresh as he wears his elven visage as he makes his way towards the Shattered Hand.

///

He makes sure his bag is hidden on the landing of the back door behind a planter, and then he uses his lockpicks to break in again. He can hear the music coming up from below, but he has no doubts that Shigaraki will find a way to leave the bar to come see what's going on in his apartment. It only takes a few minutes for the front door to swing open and let him in. As soon as he sees him sitting at his table, he sighs softly and flicks his fingers, a strange dull shimmer of energy dissipating as he does so.

"If you're going to keep doing this, then I'm going to have to key you into my wards." Not 'stop breaking into my house'. 'Stop pulling me away from my work by breaking into my house and making me think that there's a threat in my space'.

"What do you want from me?" Dabi asks, his chest tight. "I can't make deals, but you must want something. If anyone found out I was here and you knew-- even all of your contacts wouldn't protect you from the backlash. No one would trust you again." His bar is entirely built on the trust that he has with his clients. If he loses that, then he won't have anything anymore.

"I want you," Shigaraki says, closing the door behind him and moving slowly over to the table, "To believe me when I say that I want you to stay here. I want you to feel comfortable enough to build a life here because I want to stay in your life. I enjoy your company, Dabi. I don't want to lose that."

"Why? All I've done since we met was lie to you."

"You've hardly ever told me a lie," Shigaraki says. "You omit things," he concedes, "but you never hide it when you are. You make it perfectly clear that you don't want to talk about that subject. I never push because if you ever do want to talk to me, then I want you to do it of your own accord. You never have to tell me anything about your past or how you got here, Dabi. I'm just happy that I've gotten to know you now."

Dabi's eyes search his face for any ounce of deceit, but it's hard to find anything but the sincerity that Shigaraki has treated him with for all of the time they've known each other. He should still leave. He should go right now before the human realizes how bad this will be for him if someone else finds out about this.

He's never noticed how tired he is of running until he tries to get his legs under him again. "You'll change your mind."

"Even if I do," and Shigaraki doesn't sound convinced that he will, "I won't tell anyone what you are. I've been able to make a name for myself by keeping my client's secrets and never wavering. You won't be the person I start with." He promises.

Dabi doesn't say anything as he turns to leave the way he came. He doesn't know if he'll be back.

But he only makes it about an hour out of the city limits before he's letting a few desperate, frustrated tears slip over his cheeks as he turns around and makes his way back home.

///

Shigaraki knocked on his door tentatively the next afternoon, and when Dabi opened it, his expression had gone from worn and worried to elated in a second. He had curled his hands around Dabi's hips and pulled him in to kiss him so sweetly. He offered Dabi two more jobs and he had declined both and sent him away. Shigaraki came back the next day with a fresh offering instead, whipped cream filled pastries with fresh strawberries that Dabi had wanted to take so badly, but that he had rejected as well. And the day after that Shigaraki brought him new books. Dabi gave back the ones he already loaned him and told him,

"Don't come back." He watched his face fall, watched Shigaraki swallow down whatever words were caught in his throat, and the human had just nodded stiffly and left. He didn't come back for a week after that, and Dabi kept waiting for the scorned man to lash out. To reveal his secret or come to his home to force himself on him or kill him himself. But nothing happened. He got letters, ones encoded with the language of criminals that were other job offers, but those weren't written in Shigaraki's hand save for his address. Proposals for jobs that clients were still looking to book and that Shigaraki was making sure made it to the right address even though each of his personas pretended to live elsewhere. He took a few of those, telling his clients to send the kickback to the Shattered Hand, but never going to the bar himself. He stayed away. He waited.

After two months, he heard someone bragging about being bedded by the owner. They were in for a rude awakening when Shigaraki didn't give them any kind of special treatment afterward and Dabi's chest had been sharp with his spite. He has no right to jealousy, but he feels it anyway. The person he'd bedded was a man nearer to Shigaraki's age. He had freckles, tan skin, curly bronze hair, flecks of gold in his eyes, and the small point to his ears that spoke of sun elf blood in his veins. Dabi always favored moon elves for the basis of his look. He always leaned pale because pale mortal flesh was closer to his real skin that was the color of curdled cream. He tried not to think of it too hard, but he found himself standing in front of his bathroom mirror. He tried to make himself younger, prettier, softer. Gave himself skin that was kissed by the sun and eyes bright green instead of blue. He gave himself birthmarks and freckles to give his skin more life. He made his hair warm brown instead of stark white or black, orange, pink, lavender, blue, the colors of the sky as the sun moves across it as he flickered through every race that he's always been able to make himself so effortlessly. He gave himself a fuller figure that wouldn't look so gaunt and starved as he went back to eating so little of what he needed to avoid drawing attention to his diet. He practiced and practiced until he thought that all of the new forms he could make for himself were more beautiful than the ones that he'd been showing Shigaraki up to this point and he ached with hatred for himself when he glimpsed bits of his real form slipping through as he exhausted his abilities.

He doesn't know why he's doing this. He's been trying so hard to keep Shigaraki away from him. To make sure that he wouldn't break his promise of keeping his secret safe even if Dabi slipped out of his life. He hasn't. It's been months and he hasn't. He hasn't come to his home again, he's kept all of his jobs coming to his home for him. He hasn't ever once gone back on his word. But Dabi wasn't asking him to wait for him, to prove himself before he would crawl back into his bed. He doesn't have any right to jealousy. He doesn't have any right to ask him for his attentiveness and care back. Why would he even want to give it to him-- he turns into the man who he slept with before and touches the pretty features that don't belong to him-- when he could have someone like this? When he could have someone better? Dabi's stomach sours sharply and he changes his face again. Thicker lashes, prettier features, softer hair. He could have anyone he wants, but Dabi can be anyone he does. He can at least make it a fraction more appealing to let him slip back into his bed now if he can use his abilities to show the other man that he can be worth the trouble.

///

Dabi goes back to the Shattered hand the next night, wearing one of his new forms, but allowing the metal of his piercings to glitter in the light. He wears a tunic that is open across his chest and a coat that hangs off of his shoulders artfully. His legs are encased in tight pants that cling to the more defined and softer curves of his legs, trailing up to a fuller ass that he hopes the other man will find appealing. He thinks other people are finding this form appealing, plenty of them coming over to introduce themselves and offer to buy him drinks. He puts on an accent. That's not that hard to do, he can mimic voices very easily and taking on the lilting tones of further east makes his requests for whisky mixed with milk, a Snow Drift as it's called there, allows him to drink the alcohol in a way that makes it actually able to sustain his body as well. It will still take him far more of these to get to the point of overindulgence than it would one of the mortal races, but he can drink and give his body the fuel it needs to wear this form for as long as he needs or to change it to whatever else Shigaraki might want. He lets people flirt with him as he makes his way around the room until he is finally passing by Shigaraki's table. He isn't working tonight, he's sitting in his favorite booth, his favorite red coat hanging off of his shoulders. He hasn't cut his hair since Dabi saw him last, the white locks even more wild, even with a portion of it tied back again. And those intense red eyes are tracking him around the room.

He makes his way closer and closer until one of the people at his table takes notice of him too and invites him to sit.

"There are no more chairs," He says in his thick accent.

"That's alright, you can sit on my lap, doll." The man speaking must have orcish blood in his veins-- it's the only explanation for his size. Dabi glances at Shigaraki and the other man is doing a very good job of keeping his expression neutral. But he's given Dabi so many offerings at this point. He can smell him much more clearly than he's ever been able to pick up on anyone else's scent before. He can smell the jealousy, the bitterness as he watches his companion ease him down into his lap, his large hand cupping Dabi's ass as he does, which he doesn't call out. "Never seen you around before, you new in town?"

"Yes," he surrenders himself to small talk, letting the other man ask him who he is, where he's from, what he wants to drink-- that is what pushes Shigaraki's smell from bitter jealousy to anger and he tells the two companions that he wants the table to himself for a moment.

"Oh come on, Shigaraki, you always steal the cute ones--"

"If--" He sees the other man almost slip with his name, "Cyran wants to court your company further after our conversation, then he'll be welcome to do so." But his tone is hard enough for the other men to move away from the table and let Dabi slip into the booth alongside Shigaraki.

"Should I sit in your lap, sir?" He asks sweetly with his accent still firmly in place. But Shigaraki is having none of that and he moves the cards and chips that were on the table, but haven't been played since he sat down, aside so he can hit the rune at the center of the table which closes off the booth in a bubble of silence that no one else will be able to hear past.

"What are you doing?"

"...Reintegrating myself into the city." He says, dropping the accent, but nothing of the ditzy persona that he's been cultivating since he first entered the bar.

Shigaraki takes a slow breath and seems to try to get a hold of his emotions. "Right."

"Am I not welcome to do so here anymore?" Maybe he should have appeared as one of his other forms first. Maybe he underestimated how bitter his abandonment of the other man would make him even if it never got to the point of him wanting to reveal his secret.

"You're welcome to do business or make merriment here however you see fit. I was just surprised. It's been... months."

Dabi reaches for one of the curls falling around his face, but doesn't meet his eyes. "And you didn't go back on your word."

Shigaraki stiffens slightly beside him. "If this was a test," he says waspishly. "All you've done is tested my patience-- not my word. Nothing short of you betraying me or my other clientele will make me betray your secret, Dabi-- Cyran, fuck--" he tries to regain his composure and that makes that place in his chest ache again. Dabi pushes in close, pressing his chest to Shigaraki's arm and tangling his fingers in the other man's coat.

"You can call me whatever you want." He says, hating how quickly the desperation comes into his voice. He sees Shigaraki's hand clench against the table out of the corner of his eye and then he loosens it so he can reach for Dabi's face again like he's done so many times before. His thumb rubs over the piercing through his cheek and then he's pulling him in. Dabi goes readily. His lips are softer than his mouth was before, but he doesn't know if it's that change or how long it's been since they did this that has Shigaraki's tongue pushing so hungrily into his mouth. He just knows that he wants the other hungry for him.

"Take me upstairs," he demands against his lips when it seems like the human is tempted to have him right here in the bar. "Or I'll just break in again."

Shigaraki doesn't have to be tempted further, pulling him up from the table and bringing him back towards the side stairwell. He heard a heavy thump against the bar and glances back to see the orcish man's head against the surface and his friend patting his back and ordering them another round as they pass on the way to the stairs. They stumble into the apartment and Dabi finds that not much has changed since he was here last. But he doesn't care about that. He's too busy shrugging out of his coat and kicking out of his boots.

"Dabi," Shigaraki catches him again, pulls him back in and kisses him like he's been starving for the taste of his lips. He is more than happy to throw himself into this kiss. He made himself shorter, to make himself even more cute, and it's different to have to stand on his tiptoes to get the other's kiss comfortably against his lips, but he isn't going to complain. Shigaraki doesn't seem to like it as much though because he pulls back, red eyes searching his new face. "Let me see you."

"Which one?" He shifts to one of the other new ones he's made for himself, a sanctuary-born with olive skin an opalescent sheen to it, and natural coily black hair a halo around his head. "I have so many."

"You," Shigaraki insists, his hands moving over the new body, touching him like he's scared that if he lets go, Dabi might disappear forever. "I just want you, Dabi."

That's... a little disappointing. He spent so much time practicing all of these different bodies. "I can be anything you want," he insists. "I can make myself perfect for you. Anything you could ever want. An ex? An unrequited love? A famous courtesan? I can be it all. You'll never have to pick," Dabi insists. "I can be all of them." He turns himself into the man he heard bragging and Shigaraki's expression pinches, the hands on his hips not holding him as tightly as he was before.

"That's not what I want, Dabi." He tells him, his hands shifting to his face again, rubbing his thumbs over his piercings like those are the only things grounding him in the moment instead of the things that are keeping Dabi together. "I don't want you to change your appearance to suit my tastes. I want you to be comfortable showing me who you really are. I want to see you, firefly, what you really look like."

Dabi's stomach sours and he shifts, instinctively, back to one of his more practiced human forms. The one that he's been interacting with Shigaraki with for months. "... I can be beautiful for you." His voice is too small, too weak, but there are only a small number of people who have ever seen what he looks like. His mother, Enji, presumably his biological father if he really was the one who pulled his body from the ashes. All of them had condemned him or abandoned him. He'd never even let Natsuo know what he was or see him plain. He didn't think he would be able to stand the way he would look at him when he saw his sibling-- not even his real sibling-- was so different from him.

"I already think you're beautiful," Shigaraki tells him, "And it doesn't matter if you're a human, cat, sanguine, or anything in between. It's your company that I want to indulge in. How you look when it happens doesn't matter to me."

Dabi has to bite back the bitter tears that he feels trying to well behind his eyes. "If that doesn't matter then why do I have to be anything else to get you to touch me?"

Shigaraki looks at him in a way that Dabi can't make sense of. It's something heavy and sad, but he does draw him closer. He kisses him softer and slower. For one minute, Dabi thinks that he's going to be turned away. That he got it all wrong when he offered Shigaraki everything, that he waited too long, and that he'll be sent away, but Shigaraki keeps kissing him. He reaches down to the backs of Dabi's thighs and he knows the way he grips him now. He hops up, wrapping his legs around the other's waist, his arms around his neck and tangling his hands in his hair so he can angle their heads to make the kiss desperately hotter again. Shigaraki lets him as he carries him to the bedroom.

Dabi is warming again, able to put away some of his trepidation as he is placed so gently on the familiar bed. Shigaraki shrugs out of his coat, kicks off his own boots, and then has his hands back on Dabi's clothes. He unthreads the few ties that are keeping his shirt in place and pulls the fabric away, kissing across each inch of the revealed skin as he does.

"I'll touch you, firefly. I'll never turn you away. I'll never tell your secret." His hands move over his skin, and his mouth gets distracted as he licks over his nipple piercings. Pleasure stirs through his body even as he feels a slight trepidation. He threads his fingers through the human's hair. It's soft and wild, and he sets it free of its tie so it can tickle his skin as the other presses their bodies closer together. He tried to make his hair as soft as Shigaraki's when he mimicked so many of his different forms. "I'll make sure that you have all of the milk and honey that you could ever want and that no one ever looks at you strangely for demanding it. I'll let the entire city think I'm bankrupting myself so I can bathe my beautiful witch in it every night to make your skin even softer--"

Dabi whimpers slightly as he feels a blush rise to his cheeks. He's never had anyone talk to him like this. Never had anyone know what he is and try to take care of him without resenting him on some level as well. But Shigaraki's voice and touches are so sweet as he gives them.

He moves his hands down his waist, over his hips so his thumbs can rub against the barbells pierced through his skin there as red eyes meet his, so aching and earnest that Dabi forgets how to breathe. "I'll love you for as long as you let me-- even if you never show me your true form."

He promises this to him. He's never gone back on his promises before, but Dabi's whole body is a horrible tangle of desperate arousal and aching sadness. He wants to believe him so badly, wants to be loved for once in his life, "It's ugly," He says, and his voice cracks as tears slip over his temples.

Shigaraki leans down and kisses away a track of his tears. "No part of you will ever be ugly to me, Dabi."

"It's broken," he tries to tell him, a fresh sob working out of his chest. "I-- I already burned once. That body-- it's horrible," it's his. It's the one that he was born with, the only one that doesn't cost him effort to exist in, and he won't even live in it in the privacy of his own home so he can avoid looking at it. He hates it. Hates himself. "You won't want it. You'll change your mind."

Shigaraki pulls him closer, cradling him against his chest as he strokes his hand through his hair. "I would have hoped," he says softly, his breath tickling his hair, "That after all that you've observed of my character in the past few months, that you would know by now that I never go back on my word, Dabi. I couldn't stop loving you after months of being told that you didn't want anything to do with me. Nothing about your appearance could change that." He holds Dabi as he tries desperately to make the frustrated, bitter tears stop slipping across his cheeks. "Show me once," he says, "and if you want, you'll never have to show me again. I won't ever ask. You'll be able to be anyone else you want to be while you're in my bed, firefly."

He lets Dabi think that over for a few minutes, his hands so gentle over his skin. But he doesn't rush him. Once. Just once. He can show him how awful it is one time, and then he can spend the rest of his days in this warm embrace, can have his offerings and sweet words. He can have one person in the whole world who cares for him as deeply as he wants to care about someone else. He didn't know that was something that he wanted, but he can't stop wanting it now that the thought has been dangled in front of him like a carrot. He has been alone his whole life, even when he was a child. Even when he didn't understand why he was different from his siblings, he knew that he was. He knew there was a distance that he couldn’t cross between them no matter how hard he and Natsuo used to try. He just didn't understand people the way he should, just didn't know how to behave correctly unless he was mimicking others which they always found alien and insincere. Shigaraki is the only person who has reached with hands that knew what he was and that wanted to grasp him anyway.

"...Once."

"Once, baby." He promises. "Unless you get comfortable enough to be like that around me more afterward. I'm never going to resent seeing you in any of your bodies, firefly."

Shifting forms is supposed to be natural, supposed to be easy, but as Dabi tries to let his form go, he finds himself flickering instead. Too many nerves, his fear instinctively trying its absolute hardest to keep him looking like one of the other visages he's used for years. He needs to do this to keep himself safe. He has to, his instincts scream, and more frustrated tears slip over his cheeks as he is made to be so impossibly weak.

"You don't have to force it, baby." Tomura tells him. "Lay down," he tells him, lowering him back to the bed from his embrace. He cups his cheek in his hand and doesn't flinch even though Dabi's appearance is flickering between all of the ones he's worn before and all of the new ones he's been practicing. "I know it's hard to hold when you're feeling so good, let me help make it easier?"

Dabi will take whatever he can get from the other man before he sees him and decides that this is one promise that he just can't keep, so he nods weakly and Shigaraki sighs softly. He smells soft too. Warm even though his magic makes his skin perpetually chilled. Affectionate, Dabi realizes distantly as his hands start to move over his skin again, trying to soothe him into holding one form, even if that's not his real one. He's never had someone smell like affection for him before.

Tomura's mouth moves gently over his skin, lavishing every spot he knows is sensitive on Dabi's body. When his tongue moves over his belly button, licking at the stud there as his fingers move to the ties of his pants, Dabi gasps softly and his body shudders as he unintentionally grounds himself in the form of the moon elf he wore the first night they spoke. Tomura kisses across to his hip, his teeth tugging teasingly at the grounding iron and then licking around the sensitive point as he lifts Dabi's hips enough to let him peel the leather from his legs and expose him to the cooler air of the room. His emotions are still such a mess that he's still soft, but he reaches down to thread a hand in the human's hair so he knows that he doesn't want him to stop.

The other man understands, but doesn't push for him to find words. He sucks a bruise over his hip as his hands stroke over the tops of his thighs and then up along the inside, spreading them wide so that he can settle more comfortably between his legs. He kisses and nibbles at his skin there too, making sure that each one leaves a little mark against this form's skin as he moves up. Dabi is starting to harden when his cool breath ghosts over his skin, his lips following immediately as red eyes flick up to look at him as he does. It's such a light touch, but it has him squirming and biting his lip all the same. Always so embarrassing when Tomura watches his face so closely as he puts his mouth on the most intimate parts of his body. It's part of the reason that he always insists the other man fuck him on his knees or stomach. He never faces him, always too scared of something bleeding through across his facial features when he's lost to the pleasure that the other man is able to give him so easily. But Tomura is trying to let him find that peak so he can slip and let the other see.

His mouth is cool, soft, and wet as he takes his cock between his lips, licking around his head before he is moving his tongue further down so he can tease each point of his ladder as well. It's been months since he's been touched-- he hasn't even touched himself since he was last in Tomura's bed, and he can't help but harden rapidly as he's reminded how good this can be. The suction and softness of his mouth moving down him, feeding him deeper and deeper each time as one of his hands shifts from his thigh to cup his balls instead makes him breathless. His fingers massage him, pulling just enough to make his toes curl against the sheets, in time with each soft suck and flick of his tongue over his head, and soon Dabi is biting his lip, trying to ground himself with that little spike of pain but knowing it's no use. It's been long enough, and his emotions are so thin, that he feels especially sensitive now. He doesn't think he'll be able to hold on for much longer and his balls give that away as they tense in the other's hand the closer he gets to his orgasm.

But just before he crests that edge, Tomura pulls off of his cock, watching as he, so hard now, immediately is pressing up against his stomach and leaking pre as he whines. "Tomura--" Never called him that aloud before and it earns red eyes going even hotter on him as he pulses out the smell of his arousal as his mouth moves back to the skin of his thighs.

"Not yet, pretty boy. Not until you show me."

That earns him another pitiful sound. It's so hard to concentrate, and when he tries to switch forms again, he instinctively tries to avoid the one he knows will get him hurt. His tail sprouts from his back and wraps around Tomura's wrist instead as he goes sanguine-born, the appendage trying to get the other to bring his hand to his cock to pump him through to his completion. But Tomura won't. He just chuckles softly before he moves his mouth against him again, tongue laving along his balls in such a teasing lick that Dabi is growling and cursing as his hips try to jump up to get more anything as such a sharp ache centers itself on his groin as his orgasm starts to slip completely back from the edge he was so close to.

Tomura's hand shifts to his hips as he kisses down over his balls and to his hole. Dabi keens as his breath tickles him there before he's laving his tongue over him. Dabi can't help throwing his head back as he moans and he hears fabric tear on his horns as it catches and sends feathers spilling across the bed. His tongue flicks around him, teasing the nerves that haven't gotten to feel like this in mouths, getting him slick and wet, but not nearly enough to take the thing he's been missing so badly. As masterful as the human can be with his tongue, it is nothing compared to the ecstasy that comes when he's so achingly full of the other's cock. But this is still good, still more than he's had in so long and making it even harder for him to focus as his tongue presses into his body and licks along his walls like he's been starving for him as one hand goes to the base of his tail to stroke it the way he always does. Doesn't miss a beat when his forms change and he never has. Always tries to find the things that each of his bodies crave.

His tongue moves inside of him, one hand over his tail, and Dabi is aching and leaking again so soon. He keeps one hand in Tomura's hair, trying to keep him as occupied as he can with his mouth, so that he won't notice as he unclenches his other hand from the sheets. He reaches down to his cock and starts to stroke himself. He was so close before and the movements of the other's tongue inside of him are only bringing him there even faster. He is going to fall apart and he needs to do so before the other realizes what he's doing and stops him.

But he can't make it before Tomura's other hand reaches and catches his wrist, pulling it away from his body and leaving him thrusting up into nothing, and withdrawing his tongue when he tries to grind down on that instead with a sob. "Please, please, please--" he normally gets as many orgasms as he wants when he's in the human's bed. He's the most indulgent partner that he's ever had in his life. His body doesn't know how to handle it now that he's not being allowed to get them.

His breath cools the spit that's dripping out of his hole as he speaks, "No, baby. Not until you show me." He won't stroke his tail anymore, won't lick him again, doesn't touch his cock at all as it is flushed and aching against his stomach. Instead he kisses his skin so gently and sweetly. "It's okay, firefly," he promises. You can let go. I'll make sure that you keep feeling so good. You just have to let yourself relax. Don't you think it will feel even better if you give yourself over to the pleasure completely?"

Dabi whimpers, but he can't find any real words as his whole body is left vibrating, so desperate for a relief to the ache in his cock, and unable to let go of the fear that keeps him rooted in one of his false bodies as he turns to a human instead.

Tomura sighs softly. "That's okay, baby boy. I know what helps to make you even hotter." He strips away his shirt and moves off of the bed for long enough to grab the bottle of oil he has in the nightstand and slip out of his boots and pants. Dabi doesn't know if he's ever been so desperate for pleasure that just the sight of the other's body and his thick, perfect cock, could bring him so close to the edge that his balls visibly tighten as a fresh gush of pre brings him closer to his orgasm without actually giving him the satisfaction. But that just means that Tomura doesn't immediately move back between his legs. Instead he presses soft, sweet kisses to each of the new grounding irons that are set into his forearms, to the one in his sternum, the ones at his wrists. Little touches places that won't bring Dabi over, but make it hard for him to settle too.

But he must know how desperately Dabi likes to be stuffed full of him, because he decides that isn't enough to cool him down and keep him from coming right away if he tries to get him wetter with lube. Instead he chills his palm further with his magic and makes Dabi keen brokenly when he cups the cold flesh around his balls. It makes his erection flag sharply enough that he thinks that he'll be able to hold on until he shatters, and the hand goes away and is a more moderate temperature when the slick fingers make sure to wet him in a way his saliva never could. Dabi is near full hardness again, his lips swollen and sore from the kisses that Tomura has been giving him as he makes sure he's open enough to take his cock.

It takes so much effort to make his heavy limbs move enough to wrap his legs around his waist, his heels biting into the small of his back to try to get his body full faster. "Tomura," he whines.

"I know, firefly. Never happier than when I'm filling you up," the human's voice is also thick with his desire as he moves his hand over himself enough to ensure that he's soaked with oil too. Dabi moans so loudly he wouldn't be surprised if the people downstairs could hear him through the ceiling as Shigaraki's cock presses inside, stretching him open so wide that Dabi's control starts to tremble. Instinctive to want to roll on his back so he can hide, but this is what Tomura wants. He wants to see. But Dabi is still fighting the transformation as he's made so full. Tomura's cock presses in along every inch of him in that perfect symphony of pressure that makes him see stars and has him aching again. Never fucked Tomura on his back before. His cock is rubbing up against the cut lines of muscle across his stomach and smearing both of their skin with more pre as he goes breathlessly needy for his release. He needs it so badly. He just has to let go and he'll get it.

But he's fighting it still as Tomura starts to fuck him so slowly. The sounds of his pleasure spill out between them and he is so breathless with his want. And once again, this time barely a few thrusts in, as his muscles tighten around the human's cock, he pulls out until only his head is inside, letting most of Dabi's walls clench down hard on nothing as he steals away his orgasm again and Dabi sobs like he might die without it.

It takes him smelling blood in the air and hearing the sharper intake of Tomura's breath for him to realize that his form has fallen. He is a changeling, the unburned portions of his skin white as bleached bone, and eyes damaged so badly from the fire that ate away at his skin that he can only cry crimson now. He is scared that means that he's not going to get anything else because Tomura will surely be too disgusted to keep wanting to touch him, but in the next second he is being filled to the brim again.

"That's it, firefly. There. I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy that you let me see. You're still beautiful, baby boy." He says the words and they are sweeter than any offering of honey he's given him. Dabi is crying harder, sounds of his pleasure mixed in with everything else. Tomura kisses the blood from his face as readily as he kissed away his tears. "Not going to love you any less if you look like this all of the time. It's all just you, Dabi. I just want you." He tells him again as he rolls his hips in that same, slow, agonizing rhythm that isn't bringing his pleasure high enough fast enough to give him his release.

"Please, please, please," he showed him. He wants to feel good at least one more time before Tomura really does change his mind. He's going to have to. No one could ever want a changeling. That's why his kind have to sneak their babies into cribs or disguise themselves to take partners. Smart people don't even want full-blooded fey and they, at least, are beautiful.

"You're so sweet, precious." Tomura tells him as he shifts to make sure that his cock is putting pressure on his prostate each time it brushes over it as he sinks in deeper. "You can cum now. Let me see. I've wanted to watch how your face twists with pleasure since the first night I took you to bed, firefly." But he won't touch his cock. He even shifts between his legs so that he is only bouncing with each thrust, but can't grind against his stomach like he did before. Not going to give him friction. Only going to make him cum from how good it feels to be stuffed so full of his thick cock the way he's been craving for so many months. That lack of friction is the thing that makes him last longer than he wants to. He's aching so badly, his cock convinced that he's going to have all of the good sensation in his body taken away just like it was the first time. Each movement inside has his nails biting harder into Shigaraki's back, and he answers that needy desperation by moving harder, but never faster. He makes Dabi creep up to his orgasm. Makes him hurt so much that the pain loops back around to the sharpest, sweetest pleasure he's ever felt in his life as he sobs and moans as his cock finally, finally kicks and gushes his cum up over his chest and stomach. His mind whites out entirely and for a second he wonders very distantly if he was wrong about this being his real body, because he thinks he's going to melt apart completely against the sheets. Maybe he wasn't made to have any physical body at all because he doesn't think that this one will last as he's brought sharply up against the edge of a second orgasm from his prostate impossibly fast as he savors how full he is as Tomura focuses on finding his own completion in his body too.

Dabi is crying so hard, another very thin stream of milky cum forced out of his limp cock as he's fucked completely full as Tomura peppers his skin with kisses. His mouth doesn't hesitate over the unnatural pale sections or the warped, ugly burns. The smell of his arousal never wavers. Red eyes don't shut to pretend he's something else as he moves so deeply inside of him until his hips sink in one more time and he floods his insides with his release. Then it's just his soft, trembling sobs in the dark of the room and Tomura's sweeter breaths as he pulls out.

A keen ache goes through his chest, so scared that the human will pull away completely and tell him to get his things and go-- but he doesn't. Doesn't go back on his word. His eyes are still too soft and warm as he pulls him close to his chest again and goes right back to kissing his lips and kissing his tears away.

"Shh, it's alright, firefly. You did such a good job. So perfect for me, baby. I'm so proud of you." He murmurs as his hands stroke over his skin. He holds onto him as the tears come harder and faster now that they're not muted by the pleasure the other was putting into his body. He can't stop them from coming, but it takes him a long, long time to realize that he's not just crying because he was scared of losing this completely, but because he's weeping for all of the years of his life he's spent being utterly convinced that he would never be allowed to have this at all.

///

"Welcome back!"

Dabi's head snaps up from the drink he was pouring, a little furious that Himiko spotted his lover returning before he did. He and Iguchi are still making their way through the crowded bar, but the dragon-kin is already having his attention pulled by some of the other regulars. Everyone else knows better than to stop Tomura on his way to the bar, on his way straight to him. Dabi passes off the drink and immediately moves out from behind the bar, abandoning Himiko to keep up with demand as he moves to meet his lover halfway.

Three weeks. It's the longest they've been apart since Dabi came back into his life a year and a half ago. Since he showed him what he was and Tomura carved out a place in his life and used every ounce of influence he had in Zogas itself so that he would never have to hide that again. Three weeks since, to pay one of those debts he took on to make a life for them, he had to travel like an adventurer again to slay some monster that was wreaking havoc in the countryside. He promised he would come home and this time when Dabi had been scared, when he'd doubted, it was because he knew that the world might conspire to keep his lover away, not any worry over the sincerity of Tomura's words.

"Dabi," he doesn't have to ask. Dabi is letting the form of the elf fall away as he presses himself into the other's chest. If anyone else cares what he looks like, they've learned to hold their tongues or risk his lover's wrath. "There's my firefly." He says, eyes warm and lips twisted into a smile that he borrowed a few times when he was missing him so badly while he was gone. Tomura lets him taste it fresh when he tangles his hands in the mess of hair that he still refuses to cut and pulls him to his mouth.

"I missed you," He says against his skin when he has to part lest the jeering and peanuts being thrown at them turn into Himiko or one of the other staff throwing a pitcher of ice water on them.

"I missed you too, precious. Brought you something," he says as he lets his bag down from his shoulder so he can get a hand in it. He pulls out a jar of honey that is a deeper, darker amber than anything he's seen sold in the city. "Buckwheat honey, the seller said that it's malty and spicy."

Dabi would purr if he had the right parts for it now. "Come feed it to me?"

"Absolutely, pretty boy." Threads his fingers through the strap that holds his swords to his back and pulls him towards the stairs, towards their apartment.

"Wha-- hey! He's working!" Magne cries out.

"Not anymore." Tomura says with finality. "Have Jin make a shade. "

He doesn't ever take his eyes off of him as he pulls him up the stairs, not even as his clients, employees, and friends jeer at them as they leave.

Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed consider dropping an ask/reply!

#shigadabi #my writing

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