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The echo of car horns hits Shigaraki’s ears as he carefully pulls himself out of the skylight and onto the roof, coat billowing in the cold winds. He’s irritable and tired and sick of having to be leader, but there’s no privacy in this temporary hideout, nowhere to hide himself away- except the roof.
As far as he knows, no one else has figured out how to get up here yet, so he’s relatively safe. He himself only found it due to a fit of rage and a decayed lock tinged with get out, I have to get out, an all-consuming aggression he’s never been able to deal with. As hiding places go, the roof is mostly ideal; it’s high enough that passers-by won’t see him, but not so high that he can’t see them. Although there are drawbacks, like the cold and the wet and lack of lights on dark nights like this, it’s still somewhere to go, to get away.
He never knew being a leader would be this hard.
He just wishes Sensei had more time to teach him these things. He doesn’t know half of what people expect him too. He barely even knows what he’s doing half the time, when they’re packing up whatever stuff they have left and moving somewhere new, somewhere safer, only to have to do the same thing the next week because they saw a cop car too close for comfort and their faces are broadcasted all over Japan, on the news and police shows.
Slowly, Shigaraki runs four fingers up his neck, not scratching, just…just feeling the old, closed scabs. He’s avoided them after his first week of being alone, when he scratched all the skin away and couldn’t move his neck while the new skin grew, as any sudden movement could result in opened wounds and blood and white hot pain racing up his neck.
Those times were the worst, when he had no clue what to do or where to led them, or how to leave them, and all he could think was maybe Sensei was-
The trapdoor to the roof slams open.
Shigaraki scrambles to his feet, painfully aware of his own vulnerability, preparing for the worst, thoughts tinged by panic and the fury of not again, this can’t happen again.
“Relax, creep. It’s just me.”
Panic is replaced by relief, before Shigaraki drowns it out with as much anger as he can gather from his strung-out emotions “Dabi.”
“Did I scare you?” Dabi teases, digging a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of the worn black coat he never seemed to take off.
Rather than answer, Shigaraki drops back onto the roof, trying to pretend his cheeks aren’t burning with embarrassment and past fear. Ignoring Shigaraki’s obvious frustration, Dabi continues to talk, dropping to squat beside him “D’you have any clue how fuckin’ long it took to find you?”
Shigaraki snorts “An hour at most.” Dabi may be annoying, but he’s not incompetent; if it took him any longer, Shigaraki may have seriously over-estimated him.
“Close.” Dabi says, slightly muffled by the cigarette hanging from his lips. He takes a drag, glancing at Shigaraki out of the corners of his eyes “45 minutes.”
“And?”
“And?” Dabi reclines back, supporting himself with his lower arms as he exhales smoke into the starless dark of the sky “It was as pointless as always. A load of no-hopers. Most of them couldn’t tell their ass from their elbow.”
Shigaraki draws his knees up to his chest, staring at the distant motorways so he doesn’t have to look at Dabi. Something about him makes Shigaraki’s chest feel too tight, makes his skin crawl and itch.
He hates him.
But he hates missing him even more.
So Shigaraki lets him stay on the roof. Beside him. It’s a mistake, Sensei would call it a distraction but he can’t bring himself to force Dabi away. Even if he wanted to, Dabi would never let him.
He’s not sure what’s going on between them, but they’ve been dancing around something ever since the destruction of the bar, ever since tears of frustration and forehead kisses and softness Dabi shouldn’t be capable of and Shigaraki never deserved.
They’re not dating (how can you date if you’ve never been on one, anyway?) but it’s becoming more and more obvious that they’re no longer just colleagues. And they never were friends. And Shigaraki doesn’t want them to be.
He doesn’t know what exactly he wants, he just wants more.
So he lets Dabi shuffle closer to him, and tries to pretend he’s not taking greedy glances at him from the corner of his eyes at every chance he gets.
They have no clocks to tell them how much time passes, just the ash building up on the end of Dabi’s cigarette and the regression of people, of noise. Soon, there’s no chatter of voices from the streets below, and the lights around the town are going out, one by one, until everything is as dark as the sky above. Shigaraki slowly lets himself recline until he’s flat on his back, the flat stone hard and cold against his back, digging into his head.
He’s so tired.
“Hey.” Dabi says, suddenly breaking the silence that’s built up around them. He’s on his third cigarette, chain-smoking like there’s no tomorrow, like smoke replaced oxygen and it’s keeping him going.
Maybe it has.
“D’you-“ Dabi starts, before breaking himself off. It’s the most unsure Shigaraki’s ever seen him look.
“Go on.” He prompts, focusing all his attention on Dabi. Waiting.
“D’you ever feel like you’re living the wrong life?”
“No.” Shigaraki says before he even has time to process the question. How can someone live the wrong life? This life is what he was born for, raised for, as Sensei always told him. This has all been planned for him, with him in mind; how could he ever be living the wrong life?
Dabi turns to him, pushing himself up on one arm, and Shigaraki determinedly avoids the x-ray of his bright blue eyes “For real?”
Shigaraki looks away until Dabi rolls away again, sighing “I do. All the time.” It’s more to himself than Shigaraki, so he stays silent, waiting for the next part, for everything to be explained.
“Y’know, sometimes I’m just sat there and I just- I just look at myself and it’s like ‘holy fuck I’m not meant to be here’, like- like an out of body fuckin’ thing, I don’t know-”
“What else would you be doing?” Shigaraki interrupts “If you weren’t living this life, then what would you be doing?”
Dabi rubs two purple hands over his face, pushing up and into his hair until Shigaraki’s worried he’s pushed too hard, too much.
“I don’t know.” He says, muffled by his hands, hiding his face “I’d just be- someone else. Somewhere else. And I wouldn’t be talking to- to you about how shitty my life is. I’d be…”
“Someone else.” Shigaraki finishes for him.
Someone else. Shigaraki would be lying if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind at least once. And there was a time when he didn’t want this life, his life, when he just wanted…
“I never had the choice.” Dabi says, painfully casual as he hits on the same thought as Shigaraki. His hand shakes as he lights his next cigarette. “It was this or nothing.”
“But if you had the choice-“ Shigaraki says, half wishing he could just stop thinking about this, half wishing he had forced Dabi away from him when he had the chance so he didn’t have to face this feeling in his chest. It was as if his heart was trying to break free of his ribcage, beating wildly and aching more than he’d ever known it to.
But he can’t stop now.
They have to see this through to the end.
“In another world?” Dabi asks, and their eyes meet for one painful second. He takes a deep drag, eyes closed, and Shigaraki watches him think with bated breath. He’s not even sure what he’s waiting for, but he is.
“Maybe music?” He says finally, with the tentativeness of someone who’s never let themselves think about alternatives, fear of pain preventing consideration. “You?”
“This is stupid.” Shigaraki says instead of answering, because his heart is beating a painful chorus in his chest and it’s hurting so much he’d rather forget “We don’t have a choice. There’s no point even talking about it, because we’ll never have one. They took it from us.”
There’s no need to clarify who they is. Dabi knows as well as he does what heroes have done to them, have taken from them.
Dabi shrugs, pulling himself to his feet in one fluid motion “They took it from me, maybe. Not you.”
The skylight shuts behind him before Shigaraki can ask what he means.
The quiet returns, but Shigaraki can’t escape from the box Dabi has opened.
In another world.
Once he’s sure he’ll meet no one on his way down, Shigaraki staggers to his feet, walking down the stairs with slow, quiet steps. He stops outside his room, staring at the door that hangs off the hinges.
His room is the only one with a door; the rest have all been lost to decay and ruin, like the half of the building they don’t go into, in case it collapses, taking the rest of the building with it.
They’ll have to move on soon. They’ll always be moving, until this is seen through to its last. There is no alternative for them.
There is no other world.
Shigaraki turns away from his door, quick strides making sure he doesn’t have time to change his mind. He heads through one of many empty doorways, shedding his coat and shoes onto the cold floor and kicking the soft, slumped mattress with one bare foot.
“I’m getting in.”
“Buy me dinner first.” Dabi groans, rolling over to make room for Shigaraki in his small single and dragging him close against his warm chest as soon as Shigaraki’s pulled the blankets over himself.
It’s going to get too hot, he can feel it. He can’t bring himself to pull away.
“I’d draw.” Shigaraki mutters, curling his fingers into fists to avoid any sleep-damage “In another world.” A world without his quirk, without All Might and heroes and villains and without Sensei. Just pencils and watercolours that he can’t use in this world, and Dabi by his side, and he’d never have to be afraid of hurting him and he could reach up and kiss him without fearing rejection.
“I thought you said it’s stupid.”
Shigaraki can practically hear his smirk. “It is.”
“Mmm.” Dabi hums as scarred fingers travel over Shigaraki’s face “But there’s no harm in dreaming.”