Archive of Our Own

Perhaps the real secret to a long life is wanting to die more than anything else.

At least it has always been that way for him, because if there still was a god, then he must've had a sickeningly cruel sense of humor for not letting him just die already. Most people would not survive burning from the inside out while setting the entire world around them on fire rivaling only the sun in heat even once, much less twice. He did, somehow.

Maybe these are the wages of his sins, a punishment specifically tailored for him. For daring to interfere with life, his own just like any others, now eternally chained to existence as whatever disgusting creature and caricature of a human he is now.

It's a fate worse than death, because death would be the kindest thing he could have ever experienced. And he doesn't deserve kindness. Not this one, not any. He's too far gone for anything else than hate or disgust, the occasional sympathetic glances he gets from certain medical staff or family members only making him want to vomit. Not that he physically could, but the sensation remains the same. He still wants to vomit all their feelings right back at them, if only so they would rethink their life choices and stop with having any sort of compassion for him already.

How fucking batshit that sounds, missing the ability to vomit. But he does, in a very strange way. He misses puking his guts out during the worst hangovers known to man when he doesn't even remember what drug cocktails he downed this time. He misses the taste of his mother's cooking, and the cigarettes he shared with Jin and their stupid debates about which brand was the best. He misses whatever idiotic personality tests Himiko would put him through, and Magne always making sure to sneak the good hair dye and actually non-flammable hairspray for him in her hauls, and Sako definitely cheating on every single game they ever played even if he had yet to figure out how exactly the older man had done it this time, and Spinner absolutely losing his shit when he'd unplug the console in the middle of his game again. He misses Kurogiri's exhausted sighs at their antics. He misses Tomura.

He misses a lot, actually. He misses the life he could've had, if only things had been different. A life where his dad had just looked at him again, where he hadn't been thrown away to die as a useless child, a wasted existence, where he'd made his father proud and his mother not afraid of her children and they had all been just a little more like a real family. A life where he'd gotten over his fear and just allowed himself to be happy, to show what he really felt for those he cared about, where he had allowed himself to think of tomorrow and every day after that and had realized that he's already found everything he'd ever been looking for.

Those two lives cannot coexist, he knows that. A life with his family would not have led him down the path he took to become a part of the League, and a life with the League would not have existed without the horror of his youth.
He knows, and he still misses them both.
Now he has neither.

It must only be fair, he reasons. It must be what he deserves.

His family has lost interest in him again, just like they had before. Natsuo didn't visit his older brother again- not that he'd blame him, he couldn't. Not after all that had happened. The young man would start his own family and be a better father than any of them had gotten, he was sure of it. Fuyumi and Shoto had both come pretty regularly for a while, but even their visits were slowly becoming less and less frequent, both rightfully caught up in their own lives outside of this pungently sterile palliative care unit he was bound to.

His mother hasn't come to see him again after the last time either- no, no that's not right. She did come, just not alone, only ever in the presence of her darling dearest husband while somebody stood guard at the door to scrutinizingly monitor her every movement. It's not that she isn't allowed to come alone, of course, because this is a free country and they have such a progressive society, nobody would ever force someone in a position like hers to obey orders by threatening to strip them of even more of their scarce freedom. Really, who'd do that? This is all her free will, it's what she prefers, the pure joy just radiating off of her each time she pushed her abuser around in his wheelchair so he'd get to reconnect with his undead oldest child.

She never made any noise, didn't even look at her son, just stood quietly behind the man, her eyes fixated on the ground while he attempted to have a meaningful conversation with his child. If only she would refuse to look at him because she's disgusted by the sight, maybe then it would be easier. But no, her face never carries any trace of revulsion, her face is that of somebody desperately holding themselves together so they don't break down crying. He doesn't know which one is worse.

It's a scene he's seen enough times in his life already, and it seems that no matter how much time has passed, how many things have happened, she will always be trapped in her role. He gets his final confirmation when she keeps refusing to meet his eyes once more, and his soft "Mom..?" rips a heart-wrenchingly painful sob from her before she immediately presses her hands over her mouth and tries keeping her legs straight, afraid of what will happen if she breaks character again. He doesn't push any more after that. If it's the only thing he can still do for his mother, then he'll at least not force any more pain and trouble onto her, she already has enough for more lifetimes than anybody could live.

And just like that, they're back to the way it was at the start, as if everything he did has never mattered at all. As if he has never mattered. The world continues seeing Endeavor as their hero who defeated villains until he was forced to retire, with his picture perfect wife to welcome him back home. His perfect son on his way to become a hero just like his father, the other children just having moved out to start their own lives, should anybody even remember their existence. They're nothing but toy figures in a dollhouse, not a single organic interaction has ever happened behind their walls. He's wasted his life trying to burn it all down only to find that it's always been useless, he could never achieve anything more than destroying himself in the process. Fire needs oxygen to survive, and their family provides none of that, it's all fake; dead eyes and plastic smiles.

He stopped answering their questions a while ago, and so they stopped asking. It's not exclusively him not wanting to talk- because he does, he did-, but more so that their questions are all dreadfully identical, unwaveringly revolving around the same old topics like planets unable to leave their orbit.

It feels weird, finally having all the attention he has always craved more than the air he breathes and yet despising it with every fiber of his rotten being. He hates it. He hates it because their interest, their dedication and affection isn't genuine, none of them chose to be here, all that made them look at him was being left with no other choice. What good is any of their compassion if he had to get to this state to finally be deserving of it, to rip himself to shreds once more and force his fangs into their flesh so they'd always be wearing the scars of his pain and couldn't possibly ignore him any longer? There is no bravery in standing before him now that he's caged, with his claws and teeth ripped out, sedated to hell and back to make him as docile as a wild creature like him could possibly be.

He doesn't burn like he used to anymore, no raging inferno to blaze through his veins, not even a warm fireplace gradually dying down, more like the last few ungraceful drags of a cigarette before it inevitably gets stumped out. He's so tired. He couldn't fight back anymore even if he tried. It's too late now. Maybe if somebody had gotten through to him when he was still an eager little match just waiting to strike, a powder keg of emotions with kerosine spilling out of his eyes, maybe then... but now? The damage had been done, one way or another. It doesn't matter anymore. Their attention is worthless now, and oh, the spirits that he summoned; he cannot rid himself of again.

In that sense, Natsuo had done the most respectable thing. He'd gone in hopes of not tainting the good memories he had of his older brother, leaving whatever monster he'd turned himself into behind and not letting any emotions clash and morph themselves together in a carnage of blood, tears and regret. He's trying to draw a pretty sharp line between his brother Touya and the villain Dabi, whereas the others are more nebulous with their distinction. They ask about Touya, and they ask about Dabi. He doesn't know which one he is now.
Both.
Neither.
Something different.
Nothing at all.

He can't quite place what Shoto sees him as, but Shoto asks normal questions. He doesn't mind answering most of those. There's something about them, some childlike innocence they carry that makes him feel less like whatever he is and more like what he could have been. Even if in the end they all just put more nails into his coffin all the same.

Shoto had asked many things, but he can barely remember half of them, much less his own answers, or if he has responded with anything at all. The hospital has drastically changed his medication since that last little incident of his, and ever since then he's barely had a singular clear moment. If life is merciful to him, he gets to sleep, or at least he's passed out and not taking notice of anything around him. Most of the time he's not being granted that mercy, eternally caught in a maddening in-between state of "sort of conscious but not really"; hypnagogia ad infinitum.

Turns out whatever bad trip straight from the seventh circle of hell that is and near constant sleep paralysis have royally fucked with his perception of time, really, who could have expected that one? His room is void of any clocks, calendars or windows, and the staff is always too uniform to make any proper differentiation between their shifts so he'd have at least a sliver of timing left for his dwindling sanity. But no, he doesn't get that, he's in this permanent state of existence without the illusion of time while life passes him by way too quick and much too slow at once.

He doesn't know how long it has been, whether it's been days, weeks, months, or even years. Maybe it has only been hours. There's no telling. Sometimes it's bright, brighter than he can stand, and sometimes it's dark, when the artificial light is turned off and his eyes get a break at last. That's all he can rely on, and he clings to it with all he has. It's dark now, the dreadful silence that haunts his death row cell only broken by monotonous beeping and his own strained breathing. The bright colors from the monitor displaying his vitals faintly reflect on the tile, shining like little stars in the night sky. He hasn't seen the stars in so long.

And amidst the infinite darkness, a bright light suddenly appears on the other side of the room, quietly wavering in place with its odd, distorted shape, yet refusing to move otherwise. Great, another sleep paralysis motherfucker to creepily stare at him while he can't fucking move, the man groans in annoyance, rolling his eyes and instead casting his gaze back towards the red and green specks at his feet.

He doesn't get too far with observing those, because from the corner of his eye he can see that bigger light starting to twitch, almost jerk as it grows in size and morphs into an eerily humanoid form before it carefully, slowly, glides across the room towards him with featherlight steps. Congrats, this demon tonight is especially weird, he's gonna have the time of his life with that thing. Would it start running around, climbing walls or stand right in front of him and randomly start screaming bloody murder? There is honestly no telling with them sometimes. On the bright side, maybe he can convince that creature to mess with some of the equipment jammed into him and get all of this over with already, having a heart attack as his official cause of death wouldn't seem too far off anyway.

The rational part of his brain- small, but still existent-, wants him to close his eyes, try to sleep, what he can't see can't hurt him. In the back of his mind, he knows that would probably be the smartest thing to do in this situation. But besides not being all that great at rational thinking, there's something else yelling at him to finally look at whatever entity has come into his space, something much more instinctual than logic, deeper than he can put into words. If he didn't know any better, he might say that thing is subconsciously calling out to him, and to make things even worse, he isn't necessarily scared of it either. Not as scared as he had been of others, not as scared as he should be of this.

Really, what's there to still lose anyway? Like he'd have gotten any sleep either way, let's see how fast that weird light could really send him into cardiac arrest and-

No.

It does not send him into cardiac arrest immediately, but then it might have as well, considering how he can feel his blood running colder than it has ever been in this life, freezing in his veins as he stares at the apparition across from him while the ECG monitoring all but short-circuits, to the point even the figure quickly whips their head around to the acute noise before turning back to him with looks full of concern.

The entity isn't just humanoid, it's human. A human form, softly glowing like stardust, ever so faintly translucent and utterly silent as it steps towards him, but a human nonetheless. Not just any human, no, oh god no. They look at him with the very same face that he is so, so terrified to forget eventually as time passes him mercilessly and his brain keeps shutting down in its last attempts to keep his most vital organs running for just a little longer, which comes at the expense of memories vanishing and reappearing as they please without ever being the same again when they do. He's tried to preserve them as best as he could, to not let the one thing he's treasured more than anything else in this world fall victim to oblivion yet again, but as the apparition now stands in front of him, he realizes that this is the clearest vision his mind had ever come up with.

Frantically, his eyes scan every single feature of the ghostly figure, from the posture to the clothes, the hip-length hair, dazzling white and seeming to ever so faintly float without the slightest breeze present, those soft, youthful features adorned with silver scars and the dainty mole right below those gently smiling lips. And then, finally, he meets those big, gorgeous eyes shining at him in a shade so vibrant he's fully convinced of never having seen any color in his entire life before, red like roses, rubies, blood, bravery and love as it all comes rushing back to him because how could he, how dare he forget what the other had looked like in excruciating detail.

Utterly entranced by the sheer veracity of the vision, he almost doesn't catch the way the other furrows his brows while carefully examining the blue-eyed man and everything that won't let him die, his dismay for the surroundings and the state of the other man evident on his pale face. He's seen his fair share of inhuman experiments, revoltingly developed homunculi just begging to be put out of their misery and medical devices closer to torture equipment than anything else, and still, this entire situation seems so unnecessarily cruel it makes him wonder just whether the Doctor or those people here had been more considerate of human rights.

And despite all of it, Dabi looks like the entire world could just go up in flames around him once more in its final Armageddon, and it wouldn't matter to him in the slightest. Maybe it really wouldn't, not with how he simply continues gazing at the unholy creature he believes to be an angel when it couldn't be further from the truth. There's nothing holy about him, and if he had ever been pure then he hasn't been in such a long time it feels revolting to even think about, his innocence stripped away from him when he was just a child. He is no savior, and he never claimed to be. He was never supposed to be. He hates, he destroys, he takes life; baptized in blood he can never wash off his hands again.

How the other man could ever look at him with such an unfathomable softness in his eyes, how he could even think about touching something so vile and rotten, contagious evil in its purest form that would spread like the plague, how he could treat him as if he weren't had always been beyond him- and it still is. Dabi is no saint either, none of them were. But Dabi is still human, more than the younger man could ever dream of being. And in the dark, quiet comfort of his own mind, he might just allow himself to admit that in continuing with his pure stubbornness, refusal to follow any orders given to him and not listen to any futile warnings, the other had made him feel just slightly more human as well.

To now see him like this, so stripped of the humanity that he could never lose in the eyes of his former leader, it hurts in so many more ways than he could've ever thought.

"Oh god, what have they done to you?",he speaks into the silence, his low voice echoing stronger than physically possible, only for the other man to suddenly stop his fond gaze to instead stare at the radiating figure in something between pure terror and absolute disbelief, breath caught in his throat.

This isn't how any of this is supposed to go.
This isn't how any of his other dreams have gone.

They meet everywhere, places they have been to before just like worlds which don't exist, lives they never had and cannot have any more, but not once had the younger man come even close to truly seeing the harsh reality that was Dabi's existence from now on. Never had this fancy coffin with its cold and sharp edges followed him into his few moments of false rest. That was something exclusively reserved for his more conscious phases, where he couldn't possibly escape his own mind or flee from his dying body, forced to suffer through every single infinite second with more time to think about his life and the choices made than he had ever wanted.

The other never speaks to him like this either. He's being too soft when there's not the slightest reason for him to. He needs to yell at Dabi, he needs to rage at his past right-hand man for leaving him to fight alone, he needs to be furious at ever letting him into the League, letting him get so close if the fire-user would just stab him in the back anyway, wasting his time with such a failure not in control of his own damn emotions and quirk. That's what he's supposed to be doing, not... whatever this bullshit is. He doesn't deserve to be treated so gently, not out of fake compassion but because somebody genuinely cared about him and his well-being, who hated seeing him overuse his quirk for the billionth time and had later hurled quality burn cream- which they damn sure couldn't afford-, at his head on more than one occasion. He doesn't deserve that sort of kindness, not any of it. He already hadn't back then, but he especially doesn't now, not after what he's done; what he hasn't done.

No matter how his dreams of them begin, they always end the same: suddenly everything goes up in flames and he can hear the other man cry out for Dabi through the fire, cry out for help, help that will never come because no matter how many times he tries to, Dabi can never get to him fast enough before his dearest leader inevitably gets torn to shreds in the blink of an eye, with nothing but his bloodcurdling screams echoing through the air because there is nothing left of him.

The hallucination on the other side of the glass is terrifying for the very reason he's so in awe of it, nothing like the man in his dreams in sight, act, and sound as it suddenly dawns upon him that none of the appearances he recalls have ever been even remotely consistent, always slightly off and somehow so fundamentally wrong in ways he hadn't truly realized until this very moment, this very moment where he's looking at the clearest and most accurate depiction he's ever seen despite the translucent, white glow, and his voice is finally right despite the eerie reverberation, and either there has been a drastic change in his medication and he's experiencing previously unforeseen side effects like severe schizoid psychosis that would be the death of him at last, or this apparition right in front of him, this entity, this man, this is-

"Tomura..."

And Tomura smiles at him with such an unspeakable softness as he takes the last steps forward and stands right in front of him. "That's me...",he chuckles, unable to fully conceal how heavy his heart feel at his own words, "But how do I call you? Are you still Dabi? Or do you prefer Touya?"

The man tries to return the smile, but his face isn't much more than bone and charred muscle tendon, and with his lips seared off and teeth bared it's a miracle he's even getting any articulation done at all. He hopes his eyes are expressive enough to convey the intensity of his feelings which stumble out of his mouth when he can't afford to hold them back any longer, "I don't care, call me any name you want and I will follow."

A pale hand comes to rest on the cold glass as the white-haired man meets his eyes in playful challenge, head cocked and lips formed to a toothy grin, "Ah, still the same sweet-talker as always. I'm glad they couldn't take that from you."

Maybe he means for his words to be mocking, sarcastic, insulting even. If he does, it doesn't register that way to the other, not with how the man's expression makes that idiot heart of his feel so unbelievably warm in ways which have nothing to do with his quirk and don't hurt, for once. Maybe he's missed those crimson eyes even more than he had thought- and oh, he's missed them so much. He doesn't want to miss them anymore.

"I love you."

The grin is wiped off the pale face in an instant. "What?",Tomura questions sternly, unbelieving of the declaration and simultaneously begging the man to repeat it while also urging him to reconsider all of what he just said. How could he say such a thing? And to him, out of all people. It's a cruel joke, he decides, it has to be one of his sick jokes, but Dabi's eyes lack any malice as they glow at him like he's all there is worth looking at in this world.

He's held himself back and repressed all of his feelings for far too long already, far longer than he should ever have, so he does just what he always does and lays himself bare for Tomura, unveiling all he has to offer as he guts himself how he never dared to when it would've still mattered.

"I love you!",his voice breaks, "I tell you every night and each time you're gone by the morning!"

The white-haired man continues to stare at him, mouth slightly agape as he blinks repeatedly before quickly turning his head to the side to look anywhere but those big, blue eyes. "Oh...",he breathes almost embarrassed and brushes a strand of dazzling white hair behind his ear, revealing the ever so faintly flushed face beneath it.

It's an endearing sight, something so sweetly innocent about the reaction, and yet it fills Dabi with nothing but dread. "You... didn't know?",he dares to ask while his heart bleeds out with bitter premonition of the inevitable truth. Tomura remains as kind as he had always been when he takes that very heart into his own hands, trying to still the bleeding as best as he can when he turns back to the other, smiling softly in encouragement, "Well, I know now, don't I?"

His kindness is the other's doom, those gentle words slicing like blades through his chest and ripping the air from his heaving lungs, and he sobs.

Shigaraki unwittingly takes a step back in surprise, shocked at the raw emotion the man suddenly displayed when he had always made such an effort to hide anything that could even potentially make him be found out for anything but invincible. All of him, the way he presented himself, how he walked, talked, and breathed was an elaborate performance, nothing but a carefully crafted act.

Dabi was indestructible, a spirit of vengeance who only lived purely out of spite and madness. His fire hotter than hell could ever be, his eyes colder than ice had ever been, leaving nothing but suffering and misery on his way to eternity. Unbreakable, because he refused to let himself be broken, because he refused to let anything come so close to the seams of the hard, grim armor that shielded his most vulnerable parts he hadn't been able to kill after all.

Tomura had come close enough, closer than anybody else. Or it's what he likes to believe, at least. He'd seen the other man in moments so vulnerable and intimate he doesn't believe anybody else to have made it out alive. But it went both ways. Their little secret, proof of the utmost trust and loyalty. That's what they had called it, nothing more than that- but nothing less either. A strange connection, and maybe that's why they had even ended up the way they did, because nobody else could ever understand them how they instinctively understood each other. Something only they could understand; two broken pieces from different lives that, against all odds, made a whole again.

But they never did.

They never mended their shards into a beautiful mosaic of hope and rebirth, only placing them close to each other and admiring how well they would fit together, what they could be if it weren't for the circumstances, for the world around them. But that world kept turning, and on their own those pieces just kept shattering over and over again, until they eventually didn't fit together anymore and any attempt at holding close what once belonged together only resulted in bleeding hands and sharp curses fired into the night.

Of course Shigaraki wouldn't know how unspeakably strong Touya's heart has always beaten for him- he'd never told his leader, had never gotten over so many things which never mattered in the end, hadn't held him close when it would've mattered the most. He knows it damn well, has spent the last eternity haunted by it, the guilt eating away at his rotting flesh and decaying soul in every single waking moment. And still; he'd hoped, prayed, begged for Tomura to have known his feelings better than he did, to have died knowing that he was, at least for one time in his life, so utterly loved the death Dabi has always longed for suddenly seemed so much scarier when faced with the cruel reality of what he'd irrevocably leave behind, a sudden desire for life sparking in his cold chest every time crimson eyes met cerulean ones.

He'd snuffed it out before it became a flame too strong to stop. He'd never thought it could end like this, had never imagined his own conviction of returning to ashes would damn the one he loved to be reduced to dust instead.

The last remnants of his walls break down, final ruins of a man once so proud blown to smithereens, an audible crack tearing through the ice fortress he'd hidden himself in as everything falls apart and crushes him beneath the weight of his own actions.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, Tomura!",Dabi's raw cries echo through the room, crashing and shattering against the walls while the sharp edges of things left unsaid and the road not taken slice his throat open, acid tears streaming down what's left of his face just as blood seeps from his tracheostoma and the machines attached to him scream in panic, "This shit is all my fault, I- I should've never pretended like nothing matters to me, I shouldn't have fought my dad if it meant leaving you alone, I- fuck, I'm so sorry for running away again; from you, us, everything! I should've fought at your side like I always did, I should've protected you from all those bastards and kept you safe and then maybe you'd still be alive and-"

A ghostly hand suddenly touches his face on the small part of exposed flesh not covered by metal, more pressure than sensitivity with how irrevocably fucked his nerve endings are, but the action rips all air from his burning lungs nonetheless. Breathlessly, he stares at the other man now standing right in front of him, who seems entirely unbothered by the fact he'd apparently just diffused through various layers of fire-resistant security glass with his weirdly translucent arm now halfway stuck in the viewing window to Touya's tomb, and more relieved for the pained wails to have stopped as soon as he did.

The skin where Tomura's palm rests is numb- not burning, not freezing, just numb. Painless. It's the most wonderful he's felt in his entire life.

He doesn't get much further with basking in the feeling before the rest of his body kindly sends a reminder of just how much agony everything but half of his jaw is currently in, lungs rattling when he inhales as deeply as possible before an ugly coughing fit rips through him and the pathetic gasps of air in between feel more suffocating than relieving. It's humiliating, to have his leader see him like this; a husk of his former self, barely even human anymore if at all, and certainly nothing like the man he'd once fallen in love with on their short-lived highway to hell. Still, the younger man doesn't shy away, stays right where he is without so much as flinching in disgust as he patiently waits for the other to finish retching and choking on all those godforsaken tubes stuck in his throat, only daring to speak once he's made sure Dabi's heart has returned beating in what appears to be a normal pace for him. A few of those arrhythmic beats pass before red eyes look deeply into equally tired blue ones.

"I'm not mad about that stuff. I promise",his voice is as gentle as it is defeated, pale hand ever so faintly tracing down the charred skin to wipe some of the blood he'd coughed up off his chin, "It's not like you could've changed anything anyway. None of us could've... nobody could have anymore."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?",the white-haired man retorts, because he already despises that dull, glassy look Tomura's eyes have taken on at his own words, even as the other keeps his gaze down like his eyelids are too heavy to look up. The comment doesn't rile him up like it would have before, doesn't even provoke an annoyed scoff or an eye twitch or really anything at all, and for a terribly long moment Touya is convinced his leader has suddenly slipped away from him once more, until the man takes a shallow breath at last, "Some things are just... entirely out of our control. They happen whether you like it or not, doesn't even matter if you know about them or not. They just... do, I guess. And there's nothing you can do about it."

That answer does nothing but piss off the older one even more, the few facial muscles he still has somewhat control over morphing into a deep scowl because truthfully, he would've much preferred getting yelled at like in his dreams than seeing the nightmare which has become reality again. Shigaraki hovers there entirely apathetic, his eyes lifeless and voice without any strength behind it, like it's taking every bit of energy left in him to even keep himself together and not break down right this moment if he so much as thinks about the world around him. He looks dead- of course he does, he is dead, Touya knows that part well enough to never need another reminder again for as long as he isn't allowed to join him-, but Tomura has looked dead for longer than he's ultimately been dead. For those last few weeks on earth, where their fate had long been sealed but the wax hadn't fully dried yet, something had crawled into their leader's chest and eaten away at his soul until nothing but a shell was left, a tumor growing in his brain and stealing consciousness whenever it pleased, a parasite feasting on its dying host until the very end. They'd all known, something so horrific hard to miss when you cared about each other, but they were still powerless to do anything but watch their friend slowly fade away in his own body.

Dabi hadn't even tried.

He'd watched over the sleeping carcass like he'd always done for Tomura, had gently run his trembling fingers through those long, white strands of hair one last time and bowed deeply when he bid him farewell; but he had never so much as even attempted to stop the inevitable. He hadn't fought or even pleaded with All For One to give Tomura back- not out of some futile sense of pride or shame, for once, but because the sheer possibility that in some unforeseen and senseless turn of events it might have worked, that his sort-of-friend and leader and love of his life would be free of that bastard and back to his old self was so unbelievably terrifying, because Dabi didn't know if he could still leave if it were the case. Sure, the sight of what was happening with the other man's body made him want to vomit and claw his eyes out, but it also served as the final nail in the coffin. His Tomura was gone, which meant Dabi could finally go and fulfill his death wish, because now there was nothing he could go back for anymore.

In that sense, he's always been selfish, but words can't describe how deeply he regrets it.

"So that's it? You come back here after all this time to watch me pathetically wither away and then try to tell me some bullshit?",he spits into the space between them and grins in delight when the white-haired man's sparse eyebrows twitch ever so faintly, "You're not the Shigaraki I knew. Where's your fighting spirit, huh? Where's the insane guy who never let anything get in the way of what he wanted? That's the one I pledged loyalty to, not whatever sorry excuse you are, all miserable and beaten down. The fuck did that Midoriya kid do in your head- did he finally manage to break you?"

Tomura's eye twitches.
Once, then twice.
Then his face gradually hardens to a scowl, hand tensing up and four fingers pressing into sore flesh before he rips his head up to glare at the other man with furious red eyes, the way his breath hitches when he opens his mouth swallowed by the venom of his tone.

"You don't get to tell me shit, Touya. You don't know me, just like I never knew you. All you ever did was run when things got too real. Midoriya did what he had to kill All For One, and you know what? I'm glad he did. I'm glad that motherfucker can never get his hands on anybody again and nobody will ever feel pain like this. He's gone, forever, that's the important part. Who cares if I was collateral damage, it's not like I'd even be here without him! Hah, this world had every right to reject me, and they're all better off without me... even if-... Forget it. You weren't there, nobody was- and nobody else gets to tell me how to endure all this shit. So don't you dare act all high and mighty now, you have no fucking idea what I went through!"

Pale lips tremble, while whatever is left of once mismatched ones wrings itself into the ghost of a smug grin he'd recognize in any shape, no matter how horrific it must look like to others now. Anger turns to confusion in the blink of an eye.

"Then tell me",Dabi speaks, soft as a mouthful of nails, tears welling up in sapphire eyes, "Tell me everything you've always wanted to: cry, shout, curse me, doesn't matter. I'm right here, I'll listen, and I won't ever run away again. Please..."

That fucker. The same fucker he's always been and apparently still is, neither the promise of death nor the torture of never dying enough to cast out his immortal love for driving Tomura off the walls at any given and not given opportunity. From the moment he'd stepped foot into their old bar and decided to commence his job interview by insulting the other to the day he'd escorted their leader into the Doctor's laboratory, carefully fastened the mask around the younger man's face and told him not to swim out too far in that creepy tank, the fire-user had never grown tired of the incessant teasing and bickering between the two. Which was oddly comforting in a way, a life full of chaos and uncertainty where everyday could've very well been their last, but the small interaction remained as their only constant that they hadn't lost each other in the storm yet. The storm should remain nonetheless, because that was the life each of them had chosen, but as long as Handjob and Patchwork still found a way to piss each other off the tempest had spared them all once more.

He missed it. He missed it so much more than he thought, even if he isn't entirely willing to admit that much yet, especially not when he's still pouting because the asshole had instantly figured out all his cheat codes again and actively triggered the reaction to save him from being permanently stunlocked in his own misery. Fucker.

Shigaraki slowly moves his arm back to wrap around himself, frowning at the crescent-shaped indents his nails left on the scarred flesh even as cerulean eyes follow his hand with a painfully yearning gaze. He could tell the other all about the absolute agony his last living moments had been and how he could still physically feel himself shattering just like everything he'd ever believed in did, sure he could. He doesn't doubt Dabi will hang onto his every word, he's a surprisingly good listener when he wants to be, but it's less about him and more about whether Tomura can take reliving all of it again in this moment and then spell it all out for somebody else too, somebody who'd undoubtedly ask questions and comment on everything, which would inevitably make him regard things in a way he hadn't before. Because despite all their petty fighting, he has always greatly valued the older man's input on his plans, wouldn't have missed it for anything- but this is different.

"No. Now's not the time.",he settles on eventually, hugging himself a little tighter as if he'd disintegrate if he doesn't concentrate on the right things. Touya's eyes meet his in silent understanding, no trace of blame or anger, just the ever-present knowledge of bone-chillingly deep regret. For a while it's silent again- as silent as it can be with someone at the end of his rope forcibly tied to more life-prolonging measures than thought possible, every breath a fight against collapsing lungs-, before a small chuckle escapes the younger man, at which he looks at the other with the straightest face he can manage, "Well, I did see my father and Sensei almost making out when all of our memories merged in a very weird way. Which, uh, which was... something."

Tongue-tied is not exactly a fitting description for Dabi, has never been and will probably never be. If there is one thing he's always been good at besides setting shit on fire, being an annoying asshole who doesn't listen to anybody, and apparently also dancing, it's running his mouth and constantly adding his two cents to everything- usually a combination of those. The fact he's suddenly been rendered speechless fills Tomura with a sense of pride, no matter how brief the dumbfounded expression lasts before the other man suddenly roars with laughter. It's a decidedly ugly sound, painful and much closer to a severe case of pertussis than the raspy warmth the fire-user's voice once carried, but his laugh is as infectious as always and Shigaraki gladly joins him with a much too hollow sounding one.

"What the fuck, man? Eww!",the blue-eyed man wheezes with tears in his eyes, metal rods slicing deeper into his flesh when he dares move too much, and silently he's so grateful the other doesn't cut in but instead patiently waits for Touya to finish fighting for air and then continuing his sentence, "I knew you had to get it from somewhere- but those two? Really? Hah, who'd come up with this shit?"

A plaintive, drawn-out groan leaves Tomura as he buries his head in his hands and then runs them though his hair. "I know! And it was, like, first-person from Sensei's point too, so it just- uargh!",his statement gets punctuated with dry heaving, disgust evident on the pale face while a shiver runs through him. The malicious glee over the white-haired man's suffering gets even worse after the addition, but this time said man doesn't resist the urge to kick against the iron coffin in retaliation for the horrendously bad, and quite frankly gross joke Dabi makes, grin not wavering regardless.

Monotonous beeping and strained breathing continue being the only sounds in the bleak room as their laughter gradually fades out into a silence as comfortable as can be expected under these circumstances. Ghostly fingertips trace over the cold wires and needles rammed into the man in an attempt to fixate someone who was never born to rest, sharply sticking out from his body like a crown of thorns; just as cerulean eyes softly trace the pale face, as if to make sure he hadn't forgotten even a single one of those scars ever so faintly shimmering against the translucent form, his expression despite the smile carrying an exhaustion so deep even eternal sleep could not cure it.

There's an unspoken insinuation hanging in the air between them, more of a vaguely educated guess on Touya's side, and he already knows he'll hate the answer. He still opens his mouth anyway, forming the words carefully and quietly so the silence doesn't quite get broken, more lightly scraped, "Probably doesn't mean anything good if they've met, right?"

Shigaraki's fingers still, then slowly curl in towards his palm into a loose fist, thumb tucked in for good measure while the young man takes a shallow, defeated breath, all movement stilling for a few unbearable beats before he purses his chapped lips into a tight line and silently shakes his head.

The fire-user lets out an undefined noise, stuck in his throat as something between a sigh and a groan with hatred for the whole world, commiseration for his lover, and uncertainty for himself, because how on earth is anybody supposed to respond to that? He doesn't even have any of his usual snide remarks or witty comments, and even if he did then he'd bite his fucking tongue off before ever spitting them in the face of the man bleeding out in front of him. Dabi isn't kind by any means, not in the way anybody understands it, but there's a line he doesn't cross, especially not when he knows what's on the line.

Still not looking up once, those painfully dreary, crimson eyes continue staring into nothing before even that becomes too much and his eyelids fall closed. For the faintest moment the older one could swear he sees the other's lip trembling, but it's much too dark and he's as good as blind and then it's gone in the blink of an eye without leaving any trace of its existence.

Tomura opens his mouth, words only escaping him a couple beats later. "He always knew what he wanted, and how to get it. Took my original quirk and later gave me Decay knowing what would happen...",he breathes so quietly, like any louder would have him shatter beneath the weight of his words, then suddenly meets the other man's eyes with a laugh void of any humor and his hands held out in front of him like a sacrifice, "It's not even mine."

What the hell could Shigaraki possibly have done wrong in a past life to be deserving of this? How many lives had he ruined for his own to be doomed before he'd even taken his first steps? How much pain would've been enough to wash him clean from the sin of another existence, and how much was just divine vendetta? To think there had been a whole other life waiting for him, without any suffering, fighting, grieving and instead with- god forbid-, just a little happiness perhaps, where a smile wouldn't have gotten requited with a punch to the gut, and no shackles could've stopped him from soaring in freedom. Cruel is horrendously euphemistic for what All For One has done; for what Touya knows of, at least. There's more, so much more, because there always is. Some things so evident none of them have to utter those into existence, others hidden deep in the earth with nothing but fresh soil to bespeak something had been buried recently.

The older one would dig out every single piece, uncovering them from any shame, fear or anger which had beaten the other down, until his hands bleed and Tomura would never be burdened by anything again- but he can't do it now. He can't rip them all out without irrevocably hurting the white-haired man more than he already has been, and god knows neither of them could take it.

Blood-red rubies don't waver, looking sharp and steady into the empty parts of him, almost pleading to find some answers for his entirely cursed existence in those sapphire skies. Touya cannot give him anything he's looking for, no matter how much he wishes he could. But he's nothing if not great at improvising, "Remember what you told me about my eyes?"

Entirely caught off-guard by that response, the younger man frowns slightly when he cocks his head in question, "That they glow in the dark?"

"Fuck you, they do not!"

"They do! You've just never woken up in the middle of the night to those things flashbanging you! Why were you staring at me anyway, freak...",his claim is met with grumbled complaints of disbelief, more of an ego thing at this point because Shigaraki's opinion is decidedly set in stone despite the less-than-ideal line of evidence, and the fire-user doesn't exactly have any means to defend himself- in dubio pro reo his ass.

"Well aside from that-",he scoffs and rolls his eyes hard because that's the only part of his body still able to move freely, "Remember that time when we snuck onto the rooftop with a swiped bottle of some cheap, godawful liquor? Was it shochu or vodka...? Either way; we killed the bottle and you were so fucking wasted you thought everything was hilarious, and then we did all that super gay stargazing shit. Does that ring a bell?"

Unfortunately it does, a pale hand quickly coming up to shield his eyes and softly flushed cheeks from the other's cheeky gaze as he can't help but replay said event in his memory. The general gist at least, because the following day he'd woken up with a disgusting hangover, miraculously brushed teeth and detangled hair, the faint scent of smoke continuing to linger on his body, so he can only assume he'd made an absolute fool of himself during the scenes still missing from his memory.

A soft chuckle accompanies his embarrassment before the other man falls quiet in a pregnant silence, eyes cast down and voice tenderly raw once he continues, "In a moment of splendidly inebriated sentimentality, I... let slip how I hate the color of my eyes. Reminds me too much of my dad and the whole shitshow surrounding my existence. How my mom can't look at them and all that. But then you looked at me and-... you had your head on my shoulder, and I had my arm right behind you because I didn't dare wrap it around you, and you-... you looked at me so earnestly and told me it didn't matter who I got them from, that you liked them because they were the same color as my flames and you liked those too. How you only knew me, so they'd always be just mine to you. And I wanted to kiss you so badly but I-"

Touya fights for air, chest heaving painfully while Tomura eyes the cardiac monitors both suspiciously and with a heavy heart, swallowing down the lump in his throat to no avail. He cannot blame the other man, and he never would, not when he himself had never taken much initiative to drive them all away from the road into their own doom and instead lead them into a truly brighter future. He'd never seen himself as part of such, only paving the way for others by leveling the ground and in doing so providing them with a clean slate to create their own, kinder world- his mission would be finished then. His friends would do the actual rebuilding part, with nothing but his full trust on what a great job they would undoubtedly do. But he wouldn't be needed for that, wasn't designed for that anyway, wasn't born for it, he knows it now more than ever. It's ironic in the saddest way: a volcano on the brink of eruption and the incarnation of destruction and ruin, Dabi and him had always been out for death, just two psychos hellbent on self-destruction. It couldn't have ended any other way, Tomura knows it, and yet even the faintest sliver of a chance that in some other universe it might have- just not this one-, is enough to break his heart all over again. Touya's heart only breaks even further than it already is. His favorite "what if", his best "I'll never know".

Slowly, the white-haired man nods in reply, arms wrapped around himself once more as he silently urges the other to keep going. The man gives the machines attached to him a few more moments to shut up again and makes a horrible noise when he clears his throat, "It's like that with your Decay, too. Doesn't matter what All For One did or didn't do."

Fingers tense on instinct, his brows furrowed instantly, "That's not nearly the same-"

"It is!",the older one shoots back quicker than he can finish his thought, "I don't give a shit what that old fart said, when's he ever told you the truth about anything, huh? Who's saying he didn't just make something up on the spot to beat you down completely? Not like you could really prove him wrong anyway. And even if he wasn't lying- which I highly doubt, just for the record-, but even then: you've made it yours. Decay belongs to you like your scars, your mole, or your charming personality do. Nobody else could've made it part of themselves like you did. Ever seen me be afraid of your quirk? Or one of the others? Believe me, if Decay belonged to anybody but you, we would be. But it doesn't- it's your quirk, only yours. Deal with it."

The words hit like bullets, impress like a seal, a heavy blanket of silence wrapping itself around the two at once. Somewhere in the back of his mind Touya can recall one of many conversation with Shoto, their slightly awkward- and rationally speaking just so goddamn depressing-, attempt at catching up, but notably how his youngest brother had once been told something along those lines by a person he cares about in a similarly emotionally charged situation, which subsequently turned his entire worldview upside down and saved him from himself. Good for him- no really, the fire-user is proud of him for figuring that one out and growing into a kind young man beloved by pretty much everyone, even if the older one isn't exactly the greatest fan of the guy who'd helped Shoto come to said realization.

Touya himself doesn't really care about Midoriya, but he's got a couple of bones to pick with the kid for daring to always preach about salvation and second chances and other pseudo-motivational therapy claptrap if in the end, all he really did was beating a mentally ill man to death just like everybody else had attempted to before; the only difference between all those other heroes and him being that he actually succeeded- but he'll give him that much: Midoriya's line of argument works if it's what you need to hear. Shoto needed to hear it, apparently. And if the way Shigaraki's eyes widen ever so slightly before flicking down is anything to go by-, not fixated on anything in particular but still so very focused and deep in thought-, then so did he.

The man stands there in all his ghostly beauty, biting on his marred bottom lip as he replays and analyses Dabi's words in his mind, thoughts drifting somewhere far away from all that is here and now.

He could've probably continued staring holes into the air for who knows how long, but if there's anything the current circumstances in all their grotesque have shown to everybody, it's that the blue-eyed man doesn't exactly do well with deprivation of attention, which hasn't changed even since he's been put on display for god and the world to inspect and monitor at every singular second he isn't allowed to die yet. An interesting bend of his right to privacy, he'll say, but there's probably about a hundred legal arguments on why a 24/7 surveillance system amongst other things is absolutely necessary to ensure his own safety and national security or some shit, aside from villains being notoriously exempt from any fundamental rights of personality because of similar reasons, and because nobody really cares about them anyway. Always fascinating how he keeps getting treated more like a defective object rather than a human being throughout various points of his life, but he guesses he must simply deserve it then.

"Is it nice where you are?"

Both the careful voice echoing through the quiet as well as the question in itself catch Tomura off guard, and he blinks rapidly a couple of times until he's back to reality again. His eyes meet the other's while he considers for a moment, but then just shrugs, "It's... nice, I guess. You can't be hurt more than you already are, and things are easier. Much more than someone like me would deserve, so I can't complain too much."

"Woooow, really convincing, boss. The enthusiasm is just gushing out of you.",the sneer pulls an annoyed groan and hard eye-roll from the white-haired man, which in turn makes his companion chuckle. Shigaraki fiddles with the tattered hem of his sleeve for a moment before his hand instinctively finds his neck again, the words almost hurting more than the nails in his skin, "What I want is for my friends to be happy, to live however they want to in a world that won't reject them. Nothing's changed about that. The status quo is... well, nothing like I would've imagined, that's for sure, but... it's good, you know? We're all together and the others are happy too, despite the circumstances, and that's what matters most. I'm glad we get this at least- beggars can't be choosers and all that stuff... Hah, although Kurogiri somehow manages to drag home another kitten every single day, I swear there's gotta be a spawner somewhere because it's getting insane."

Tomura's face lights up instantly at the mention of the former barkeeper, and so does Dabi's. "He's back with us?",he enquires with genuine joy, ignoring the pain it causes him to smile now in favor of basking in the brightness of his leader's beaming smile, and the way his dazzling white hair just continues floating in the air while he nods vigorously.

Regardless of how short their time together has been in the end, during those few months of company the mist-man had somehow ended up taking on a caregiver role for pretty much all of the League, intentional or not. Maybe that's kinda given with a kind but ultimately mysterious man behind the only bar available to them, the estuary for all their worries who would listen more than speak himself yet always knew the right words when he did, but they were all grateful for his presence and comfort nonetheless. Still, it was undeniable that him and Shigaraki were closest to each other and cared about one another deeply, even without any grandly emotional gestures or the like. Kurogiri often stated how his sole purpose was to protect and ensure the wellbeing of Shigaraki Tomura, who must've silently found the closest and best attempt at a father figure in him after all those years together. Third time's the charm, apparently. No wonder things slowly started falling apart after he got captured- not just within the League, but within Tomura as well. A hard cut in his already hard life, suddenly thrown into the cold water of adulthood without the only lifeline he'd ever had. He had adapted, of course he had, because he wouldn't have survived as long as he did otherwise, but a survival strategy changed nothing about the gaping wound in his heart which the loss of Kurogiri had caused.

Red eyes sparkle like stars he hasn't seen in so very long, and he doesn't know when he's last seen his love so happy either.

"Yeah, we've finally got him back- and he seems pretty happy about it too, not even mad about dying again. He was with me while I died, when I was dead- like, actually dead. My memory sucks, and it was all just too much, but... I remember him holding me, and I know I wasn't scared anymore",a strand of white hair absentmindedly twisted around a pale finger, his honest smile slowly takes on a bittersweet note, "Clung to him and cried like a little bitch into his chest for god knows how long- time's pretty weird there, by the way. Just full-on sobbing, ugly and gross with snot and puffy eyes and all. He didn't even mind, just held me until I'd tired myself out... He looks different now, less smoky Nomu and more human, got some interesting new dialogue options too, but other than that he's pretty much the same as always- including the positively cat-infested bar we still all hang out at."

Tears well up in sore eyes, not blood any longer but real fluid of ice melting from heat and slowly running down his face, the one thing he would have always killed for and has indeed killed himself over; now nothing but a constant reminder of unspeakable pain he cannot blink away, "The gang's all back together, huh?"

Maybe he attempts for it to be a playful comment, one of Dabi's many sarcastic jokes to conceal true emotions behind a firewall of lies, but his weak, wavering voice rips any and all grandeur away from his words, leaving Touya's feelings bare while he fights back his sobs. Tomura bites his lip, quickly stepping forward to the other once more before the dreadful screeching of various machines makes him stop dead in his tracks and he instinctively holds his breath as another horrid coughing fit rattles through the man. Thick, deep red blood seeps from where the external fixator's pins are jammed into his skull and the tracheostoma lets him breathe more poorly than properly, yet to the red-eyed man's surprise, at this point he just seems to be more annoyed by the state of his body and the consequences than anything else.

The fire-user rapidly pants and gasps for air until he seems to have enough in his lungs to yell at the vast medical equipment. "FUCK OFF!",his voice reverberates off the cold walls like thunder, mighty and fierce before it breaks off into sad wheezing which should have no business costing him this much strength. If nothing else, the act of absolute desperation works, somehow, whatever machines taking part in the cacophony suddenly becoming sentient to shush as they were told. Tiredness outweighing any possible relief, Touya manages to get one deep sigh as he closes his eyes while his breathing gradually calms more, heart monitor returning to its rather interesting resting pressure.

"What the hell are they even pumping into you?",the younger man questions under his breath, skeptically eyeing the IV bag calmly drip and the fluid inside some other tanks bubble, uncaring of how their quiet yet steady noises could very well be classified as a form of psychological torture.

Touya sighs with a worn grin, and it takes him too long to open his eyes again, "'m not too sure, honestly. Can't really tell the side effects apart anymore. Carfentanyl? Acetorphine? Shit could knock out a horde of elephants, just enough to keep me docile, hah."

Four slender fingers rest on the cold door to the makeshift coffin, crimson eyes gazing into sapphire ones for a little eternity before scrutinizingly tracing down the entirety of the contraption he's been bound to in all its morbid glory. When Shigaraki speaks again, he cannot bring himself to look at the other, voice heavy with all the sincerity his eyes would've carried, "I'm sorry."

"The fuck are you apologizing for? I wanted this, remember, boss?",the tentatively morale-boosting quip does not land as such, a scowl quickly forming on the man's sorrowful face before his head snaps back up and red eyes bore into Dabi's soul.

"You wanted death, not... this.",Tomura declares, vaguely gesturing to all of him.

The older one sighs deeply, hums weakly. His leader isn't wrong, rarely is... was. This state is the furthest from anything he has ever imagined for himself; including the childish scenarios about a happy family where unconditional love does not come with conditions and his dad is always looking at him and saying just how proud he is of his son and he never saw his siblings as competition. This isn't what he wanted: this is sadistic torture, a continuous humiliation ritual every single time the doctors ogle and examine him or nurses change his bandages and clean his portacath while he's incarcerated and completely drugged-up at their mercy. It's not like he doesn't know that himself, but there simply comes a point in time where you learn to adjust to the things you don't have the power to change anyway, even if you never wanted to. And then there are those things you could never come to terms with, no matter how much time has passed.

"Yeah, well, guess I never get what I truly want. Always too stupid to realize...",the smirk which should go with that answer dies before it even reaches his lips, sapphire eyes intertwining with scarlet ones in a look so full of regret, pain, and sorrow it could swallow them both whole, "...even when it's right in front of me."

Shigaraki opens his mouth to speak, but a few beats pass and he closes it again without saying anything. It takes another few beats before he takes the last couple steps missing, until he's face to face with the other like before, carefully tracing his knuckles along whatever flesh is left of the man's cheek. Touya heaves a sigh of relief and closes his eyes as the wonderful numbness of such a gentle touch blooms on his face, only frustrated with how he cannot truly lean into it like he wants to.

The white-haired man watches his partner indulge in such a soft moment shared between them like they hadn't been able to in a dreadfully long eternity. Eventually, the other would always end up pressing featherlight kisses to Tomura's wrist and palm, sweet nothings for something that couldn't be, and perhaps it's just those memories overlapping and mixing with pure desperation, but the sheer knowledge that Dabi can't do so anymore even if he wanted to pulls at the younger one's heartstrings.

"The others miss you.",he chooses to tell instead, swallowing down his own emotions in favor of offering the other something comforting to hold onto, because a good leader takes care of his teammates. He smiles when the fire-user responds with an inquisitive grin and a hum urging him to elaborate, "Mhm, they do. That reminds me, I'm supposed to tell you: Himiko thinks you're stupid for charging into battle like that, Magne loved your extravagant outfit change and the whole flashy performance, and Jin said something along the lines of you being the perfect new marketing campaign for those Blue Heat Takis- don't quote me on that, please. Oh and you still owe him a pack."

Laughing shouldn't hurt as much as it does now, but this would be the first time pain has ever truly stopped him from something. What a bunch of losers, all of them, even the two still walking in the land of the living and missing from whatever ghostly afterlife shenanigans the rest is apparently up to. It's... unexpectedly nice to know they still think about him like he thinks about them, especially considering he never made it particularly easy for anybody to like him. That plan has miserably backfired, so much is obvious, and now he's fucking got people caring about him beyond death, for some inexplicable reason. And still waiting on repayment for some bummed cigarettes. Actually, on that note- do cigarettes even exist in the afterlife? Does alcohol? Then again, it'd be a pretty pathetic bar if they didn't have at least some liquor, and it would surely drive the Kurogiri the white-haired man knew nuts if all he could do now was mixing multivitamin juices and milkshakes all day. He just didn't really expect such old vices to be allowed after death, always thought they'd sort of stay within your body while your soul wanders off to wherever, because dealing with withdrawal in death sounds like a fucking nightmare. Almost as nightmarish as the medically induced cold turkey he's been put on, as if a little nicotine would really be the most damaging thing to his train wreck of a body. Ah, who cares, he'll start smoking again once he's dead. Hell yeah, sharing a cigarette with his friend, an ice-cold beer in one hand and Tomura lying in his arm, oh, he could really go for that right now.

Touya fights his heavy eyelids open to look at his leader meeting his tired gaze so gently, mind slowly going fuzzy with how unspeakably wonderful the tender touch to his face feels, but he doesn't let himself drown in the feeling just yet, not before he gathers all his strength- and maybe courage as well-, to softly ask, "Do you miss me too?"

For a brief moment the younger man doesn't answer, only looking deeper into teary, azure blue eyes until his own fill with tears as well, smile growing impossibly wider as his voice almost breaks, "I wouldn't be here if I didn't."

The words have barely left his mouth before he suddenly throws himself around Touya and holds him as tightly as physically possible, hands shaking from the intensity only for him to tighten his grip even more while the other cries out from the sheer overwhelming relief from pain that comes with Shigaraki's embrace, unfathomably exhilarating numbness spreading through his body on any part the man touches, like flowers planted in his veins and blooming underneath his skin. He cannot move, cannot return the embrace or even rest his head on Tomura's to let him know what he feels, all he can do is quietly sob until even that becomes too much eventually. The hold on him doesn't lessen as the white-haired man presses his face into the charred neck in silent understanding.

He doesn't know how long they stay like that. Seconds, minutes, hours, it's all the same. Time has long lost all meaning, and he doesn't care for it either. He's got all he could ever want, right here, right now. For the first time in forever, nothing else matters: not the body parts he can't feel, not the constant pain in those he can, not the needles and skewers slicing into his flesh, not the beeping of machines, not the staccato drip of fluids, not the acidly sterile smell, nothing. Nothing but the man he's irrevocably sworn his heart to holding him like he sees worth in an entirely flawed existence, the most mesmerizing thing he could dream of, the purest Elysium imaginable. And even if the touch were to be more fleeting than it feels; a whole minute of bliss, is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?

"There's so many stars in the sky tonight.",the soft whisper eventually breaks the silence after who knows how long. "Yeah?",Touya asks with a soft grin, blissful when he feels the other nod into his neck. Breathing doesn't hurt anymore, but he still cannot get as much air into his lungs as he'd need to.

It's quiet again then, but this silence is different. Not soft and comforting like before, but suddenly heavy with the shared knowledge of something neither of them wants to acknowledge. Unfortunately, it's nothing they could simply ignore either, every passing second weighing down heavier on them.

Slowly, painfully, the fire-user opens his eyes again, the dark room that is his reality still looming right in front of him, white hair faintly floating at the edge of his vision. "You need to go now. Right?",he speaks calmly, simply stating what Shigaraki has been dreading to utter into existence.

The younger one squeezes his eyes shut as he breathes in deeply, "I'm sorry. I can't stay much longer-"

"Take me with you."

"What?"

The red-eyed man stares at Dabi, dumbfounded by his reaction, both at the speed and gravity of such a statement. He blinks a couple of times, trying to reboot his system and regain control over his expressions, but the other's resolution remains decidedly unchanged, "Take me with you. That's what you came here for in the first place anyway, didn't you? Well, here I am. Go ahead, boss. I'm all yours, as long as you still want me."

God, when has he not wanted him? How could the older one even think for a single moment that something had changed about his feelings? There's nothing Shigaraki wants to do more than keep him by his side forever, take him away from this horrible place to somewhere considerably better than this torture in every aspect, one step closer to having all the people he loves and cares about back together how it should be- but this isn't about him. It's about Touya.

His visit has a purpose, yes, but ultimately this choice isn't his to make; not entirely, at least. And it's certainly not his right to deny the blue-eyed man of something he's been striving for his entire life, he wouldn't dare cutting the remaining time with his family shorter than it already is.

"You don't have to go now. I can come back another time.",the young man explains calmly, slender hands sliding back down from Dabi's neck to lay on his chest where their translucency only sticks out even more against the cold metal, fingertips almost vanishing entirely.

"Tomura don't you fucking dare leave me here like this for even a second longer. I'm done. I'm tired. Take me home with you, please.",the words burn in his throat, another reminder of his body having been pushed way past its breaking point once more as he can feel his overworked vocal cords hemorrhaging, because god forbid he wants to hold a proper conversation. Why on earth would he choose to keep this up when the sweetest salvation is offered to him on a silver platter? He doesn't want to keep fighting anymore. He's said his goodbyes a long time ago, both as Touya and Dabi and himself, and even if he didn't; the threat of sending Shigaraki away now because he'd rather keep dwelling on the past than even look into what a future could hold, only for him to never return is much too real- it's a risk he took once already, one he'll never take again.

It takes a long time before the white-haired man looks up again, soft curls framing his eternally young face still haunted by worry, scars shimmering like moonlight. Mesmerizingly red eyes look deeply at the other, deeper than words could reach, his voice gentle despite the war he's fighting with himself, "Are you certain? This death will be final."

Touya holds his gaze, sharp and steady, his soul laid bare in utmost devotion.

"There's nothing left for me in this world if it doesn't have you in it."

Ah, there is his sweet-talker again. Battered and bruised yet his heart still beating like it has never been broken before, not even afraid of flirting with death. What he's asking for is a morbid honor, but it's an honor nonetheless. Maybe a better man would reject such a claim, call upon sanity and hope, convince the other of how much else there is surely worth living for- but Shigaraki has never claimed to be such. And then again, who would he be to deny his lover of what he so fervently wants?

Ghostly hands come to rest on either side of the older man's head to cradle his face, and his expression just as his determination never wavers for even a split second.

"Well then...",Tomura smiles softly, so close their lips ever so faintly graze each other as he breathes against them, "Join me in death."

A supernova explodes inside Touya's chest as their lips meet, a feeling so wonderful flowing through every cell of his being he doesn't remember ever feeling pain in his entire life. He's floating, spinning, dreaming, doesn't know where he ends and Tomura begins or if they're an entirely new incorporeal being, crimson and cerulean melting into shades of purple the world has no names for and might never have.

In a moment, half a dozen doctors and other medical staff will barge into the room to rip him away from his love and force him back into damnation.

But he won't let them.

Because Tomura kisses him deeper, and Touya wraps his arms around him so tightly nothing could ever get between them again, no matter what anybody tries.
Their kiss successfully drowns out the pandemonium of frantic orders shouted back and forth, glass shattering and metal crashing against cold tiles, and the final orchestra of sharp and piercing alarms reverberating through the air.

They hold each other, and within their hold the world around them vanishes into irrelevance.