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The last time Shigaraki Tomura was able to fully touch someone without hurting them, he was 4. He doesn’t remember the details, but he remembers holding his father's hand without a care in the world. He misses that. The first time Shigaraki realizes he’ll never be able to touch anything, he’s 5. He’s sitting on his bedroom floor, carelessly playing with toys. It's not until he picks up an action figure of his favorite hero that he realizes it's cracking, crumbling into dust that collects on the floor. He's terrified.
Shigaraki is 6 when he realizes he'll never be able to touch another human in fear of hurting them. He keeps his hands to himself. The kids at school call him a freak for the way he holds stuff, but he's learned if he keeps at least one finger off of the item he's holding, he won’t be able to destroy it. It’s hard for him to adjust to his new lifestyle, but he thinks as long as he’s careful he won’t hurt anyone. That doesn’t stop anyone from hurting him though.
He’s still 6 when his family is ripped away from him and he doesn’t feel bad about destroying his action figure when he was 4 anymore.
Shigaraki Tomura is 17 when he knows he’ll never find love. He stares at his reflection longer than he cares to admit, going over every flaw multiple times. He hates how he looks, the scars adorning around his eyes and mouth, on top of his deadly quirk. Who would love that? He doesn’t notice when he starts to scratch his neck when his anxiety rises.
Shigaraki is in his twenties when he meets Dabi. They don’t shake hands. Shigaraki keeps his distance.
But Dabi isn’t afraid of Shigaraki’s quirk and he’s not sure how he feels about it.
The first time someone touches Shigaraki, he’s scared. He’s survived without human contact for as long as he can remember, he doesn’t need it now; but it’s so good. He feels like he’s gotten a taste of water that’s barely quenched his dry throat. All over a lingering hand on his shoulder.
The second time someone touches Shigaraki, it’s his hands being removed from his neck. He doesn’t even realize how badly he’s scratched up his neck until he feels Dabi tugging on his wrists. Dabi tells him to be careful and places a kiss so light on the back of his hand, he isn’t sure if he imagined it or not.
The third time someone touches Shigaraki, it’s their fingers ghosting across his face after a kiss. The touch is gone almost as soon as it comes. He craves so much more.
It’s stupid. It’s so fucking stupid. The day Dabi brings home a half hand glove as a suggestion to counterattack Shigaraki’s quirk. He’s hesitant to put it on. He knows how his quirk works, you don’t think he’s tried for years to see if there’s a way he can control it? He can’t. It’s terrifying. Dabi still is telling him to at least give it a shot, there’s no harm in trying besides disintegrating a glove. Shigaraki hesitates.
But it works.
It actually works. Shigaraki almost cries when he picks up the glass of whiskey with all five fingers and it doesn’t crackle into dust like so many others have.
It takes him a while to touch Dabi with more than a few fingers. They never have fully held hands or cuddled for Shigaraki’s fear of hurting someone.
The first time Shigaraki holds Dabis hand, he holds his breath. He knows the gloves will protect Dabi from the dangers of his fingertips, but there’s still the fear lurking in the back of his mind. He only lets the breath out when Dabi’s hand doesn’t fall apart under his touch. He smiles for the first time in a long time. Dabi kisses him.
It goes on like that for a while. He’s still careful even with the glove, his brain is wired to watch his hands. He only takes the gloves off for battle and quickly puts them back on as soon as he knows he’s safe. Shigaraki learns quickly just how touch deprived he was. He always finds himself leaning on Dabi, a hand on his arm, his thigh, anything he could get his hands on. Dabi sure as hell wasn’t against it.
It’s a nice change from his previous life. Shigaraki never thought he would ever be able to love someone let alone have someone love him back. Dabi is just as fucked up as he is, just as scarred, but almost as dangerous though. At least Dabi can control the blue fire that burns in his palms. That might be the only thing he’s jealous of. But it’s nice, and Shigaraki wouldn’t change anything even if he had the chance.
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The first time Shigaraki hurt Dabi. It broke him.
It was ignorant, such an incredibly ignorant mistake. He forgets the gloves one time. One single time. He got too comfortable. He let all his guards down. Now Dabi’s nursing a nasty wound on the top of his hand and Shigaraki can’t look him in the eye. Dabi on the other hand, isn’t too mad about it, he knew the consequences of being with Shigaraki and he was willing to accept them. He knew something like this would happen sooner or later. He’s just thankful Shigaraki let go before the damage was too severe.
Shigaraki hasn’t touched Dabi in almost two weeks. If it were up to him, he’d end things. Make Dabi stay far, far away from him because if anything like that happened again... But it’s useless, he knows Dabi won’t do that. Dabi wouldn’t end them just because of one careless slip up, he trusts him more than that. It still doesn’t stop Shigaraki from isolating himself as much as possible no matter how much it hurts.
Dabi gives him the space he needs. He allows Shigaraki to be by himself while keeping a close eye on him. He notices the amount of new scratches appearing on his neck and it hurts him to watch his boyfriend suffer in silence. He tells him constantly that he’s always here for him and that he needs to talk things out, but Shigaraki’s always suffered in silence. He doesn’t know how to talk.
It’s not until a drunken night he overhears Shigaraki muttering by the bar to Kurogiri. He hears Shigaraki calling himself a monster, a waste of space, a painful burden to Dabi; but it’s not until he hears the glass shatter in his hand that he’s moving on autopilot, grabbing his wrist, and suddenly he’s yelling at Shigaraki. Dabi’s words should’ve had the power to comfort the drunken man but they seemed to sting more as they came out of his mouth in harsh jabs.
Dabi only stops his semi-loving ranting when he feels Shigarakis head lean onto his chest, his shoulders heaving. He’s muttering repeated apologies to him and all Dabi can do is pet his hair with his free hand, trying to give some reassurance to him. Shigaraki’s hand stings but the hand tangling in his hair is more comfort than he could ever ask for. His head is spinning from the buzz of the alcohol and the tiny shards of glass in his hand but he breathes in Dabi’s cologne and it feels like everything might be okay.
Shigaraki finally shifts out of his position, loosening his wounded hand from Dabi’s grip as he tries to sit up straight. Any sounds that tried to escape his throat were caught instantly as Dabi cups his face, kissing him. He doesn’t even care that Shigaraki tastes like a bad combination of whiskey and vodka. Kurogiri had left the couple at the bar alone some time ago, so it was just them in that moment. When they do finally break apart, one last apology is breathed out, Dabi’s shaking his head.
Dabi takes the time to pick every piece of glass out of his reckless lovers' hand, patching him up with as much care as possible. They have matching hand bandages, one of them points out. It would be cute if they didn’t already know Kurogiri would have their heads for getting bloody shards of glass all over the bar. It’s still cute nonetheless.
It’s almost an hour later when the two finally crash in their bed. Shigarakis gloves on his hands so he can lay sprawled out over Dabi’s body, arms thrown everywhere, legs tangled together. It’s hard to tell whos body is whose.
The first time Shigaraki realizes he’s found love and can safely touch people, he’s 27. He thinks about his 17-year-old self a lot. He wishes he could go back in time and tell himself that he’s going to be okay, he does find someone and he does find a way to counteract to his quirk, but he can’t. All that matters now is he is okay. Better late than never.