LOVE ME TENDER [t. keigo]

5.0

Had he been any sooner, he probably would have died.

According to you, Dabi had just been there only a few minutes before; he had come to check up on you and make sure your body was recovering. Sounded rich coming from him, but it made sense with the information you had given him.

You weren't dead; you were only 'hyper-mating,' as you explained. Regardless of your pronunciation, he got the idea. It was more like an induced coma in which your body rested to recover all the energy used through the process of healing. It seemed like you had collected enough energy to put you in a state of complete exhaustion, and Dabi had wasted no time in taking advantage of it. You kept repeating that you didn't want to, "make him mad," as if that was any way of justifying why he did this to you. He knew he had to be more understanding; it's not like you've ever been taught how to tell right from wrong. That wouldn't be in anyone's benefit.

In finding out that this was a normal occurrence, he immediately wanted to fly to wherever that scumbag was and murder him right then and there. Never did he want to kill someone so desperately as he did now; hell, he's never even had the desire to hurt anyone as much as he wished he could now. Again, that was only a wish.

He was much more sane now that he had you in front of him, alive. He had jumped to conclusions, and let himself break down over your death like you were his child in a war. Even then, he probably wouldn't have reacted so much if he were anyone else in the world; it was like his body had been waiting for a chance to simply. Let. Go.

And he really did. He felt, somewhat, normal for once: the stress of the world was lighter on his shoulders now, and he felt he could fly higher than ever before. His head was pounding, and his hands were still shaking, but he felt like he could finally move faster; act quickly. He was ready for anything... he could handle it.

"... [Name]," he knew you didn't like that name, but he needed to get a reaction out of you: anything that showed you weren't as numb as you were now. He saw you flinch a little, but it wasn't enough to get your eyes off the floor, "remember how you said you had more to your quirk?... Do you think you can tell me now?"

Your body reacted slowly; your head slightly lifting and looking up at him with fearful, worried eyes that made him feel like he was a threat.

You were distressed to the point where there was a disconnect between you and the world. You had been through so much already, and with Dabi added along, you were bound to be traumatized in some way. You had been all over him, apologizing for as long as you could until the feeling of his hands hugging you made you uncomfortable enough to back away, not wanting to look at him. It was scary; you weren't yourself. You were a personification of every emotion you had gone through in those horrible moments, and he wasn't ready to process them. He had to remind himself that this wasn't you, but when you would cry out in physical pain, yelling that, "it hurts," it was difficult to not cry out with you, too. He felt every bit of you, and yet, wanted so badly to be with the [Name] he met that fateful day. The one that made him feel like a traitor; the one that he wanted to save. It took him a while, but he soon realized that you weren't present in this moment; you were stuck within a memory, and it showed in your glass eyes.

It felt wrong to want, but he wished that you could be with him and hear him cry out like this, too. Ever since he met you, he knew he had somewhat of a connection with you. That there was more to his interrogations; that there was something that made you two meet. He thought it might be the physical appearance (the wings) that made him feel like you two were similar, but as time went on, he had realized that there was more to what made you you. And he wanted every bit of it.

But this is all a projection. It's like he's so lonely that, despairingly, he's trying to 'trauma bond' with someone who can't even understand that, what they have, is trauma. He needs to understand that, no matter how much digging he does, this is not you. He doesn't truly know you. Maybe, he never will. If he only focuses on what he wants, he'll be no better than Dabi.