Chapter Text
There's so much pain. Everywhere and it hurts so, so bad. Touya doesn't think it'll ever stop hurting. Even with all the drugs and medicine the doctor has pumping through him at all times. All he can feel is pain. He can't figure out how he's even still alive.
There's large chunks of flesh missing, the muscle and tissue under it exposed and bloody. Other areas are burned and raw, leaking and blistered. Some of Ujikos work has already been done, just one of his legs and half of his arm, under one of his eyes.
He hates looking at what Ujiko has done. Ujiko calls it beautiful, says he's going to be a masterpiece, but the patches of scars held there with staples are horrifying and disgusting. The skin doesn't even look like skin anymore, it's a blackish purple thick scar, hideous. He doesn't want to look at his ruined body anymore, but Ujiko always leaves him exposed like this, hes hardly ever clothed and not bandaged. He says the air is good for the wounds, but Touya thinks he does it just to upset him.
Touya has begged Ujiko to kill him a million times, pleaded to be allowed to die, even behaved himself and took every sick thing the doctor did to him for false promises of freedom and death he ripped out of Touya's hands when he finished.
He's lying there strapped to that metal table like always, the room spinning around him, morphing and changing colors. His ears are ringing,it's so quiet but he fears the moment he'll hear those dress shoes coming down the hall, knowing once the doctor comes in the pain will get worse. He'll scream and scream until his voice gives out but no one will ever come.
He still hopes though, that one day someone will save him. Heroes will bust in the lab and take him away, or his family will find him. Sometimes he swears in his drugged and confused state he hears them calling out to him. He'll call back but he knows it isn't real.
Maybe one day… one day they'll save him. He has to hang onto that hope, without it he'll go insane.
"Touya"
His eyes force themselves open, head throbbing, nerves screaming.
"Touya…"
His throat is too dry and sore to call back this time, hot tears roll out of his one good eye, they sting against the fresh burns on his jaw.
"Touya… where are you?"
It sounds like his mother… it sounds just like his mother. God, he misses her. How did she get out of the hospital? Did Father let her leave now?
"Touya…"
How long since he saw her? Since he's seen Yumi or Nat of Sho? Weeks? Months? Years? How long has he been down here?
He wants to go home…
He opens his eyes again, familiar faces above him. His Mother, Natsuo… he whimpers and cold fingertips run over his cheek.
"Plea…"
Rei strokes his knotted hair, her cold fingers so relieving against his overheated skin. "It's okay, Touya… we'll go home…"
"He won't hurt you anymore, neither will Father." Natsuo says, undoing his bindings, "No one will hurt you again."
He shouts at the feeling of the leather straps against his wrists, rubbing against the scars and open burns. He squirms until his mother keeps stroking his hair, "take me away… please, please… it hurts..."
"I know, baby, I know. The heroes are coming."
He looks up at her, so beautiful and pale just like he remembered, like the snow in the courtyard yard he used to play in before he got caught up in this. She smiles, like she used to before Father began training him, before she began getting bruises on her face and burns around her frail wrists. Her skin is unmarred, perfect like it should be.
"You're going to be okay. No one will hurt you again."
He begins sobbing in relief, the pain somewhat more manageable knowing it's done, knowing he'll go home, knowing the doctor won't hurt him and cut him up and take advantage of him anymore,knowing it's finally over.
Everything faded away and he feels at peace…
That peace is shattered when he wakes up again, his mind no longer numbed with drugs, his broken body screaming in agony.
The cold metal table under him…
The leather straps around his wrists…
The sound of dress shoes clicking across the floor…
"Ma… Mother… Mama…" he cries out, bright light shining in his face, he can't see. Where is she? Where's Natsuo? They were right there a minute ago. Where… why's he still here?
Latex hands brushed the side of his face and his vision cleared, "My, my, Touya… did you have a good dream?"
"No… Mom! Natsuo! Someone, please hel-"
"Don't scream, you'll hurt yourself." A hand covered his mouth and tears welled up in his eyes, "silly boy… no one's coming to save you, they think you're dead, they aren't even looking for you."
He could hear the sound of the metal tools clanking as Ujiko dug through them, preparing another torturous session of experiments and modifications.
Touya pulled viciously at the bindings, squirming on the table.
"No one's coming for you."
It was a dream again…
It wasn't real…
They aren't coming for him…
…
His hands gripped the at the brick walls of the back alley he stumbled into, tripping over his feet trying to keep himself upright. The concrete beneath his boots was spinning, his ears ringing, vision blurred.
Everything hurt. He burned from the inside out, his muscles ached, the patchwork torn, bloody abd burnt around the seams, missing staples. His left arm was torn open, the seams ripped back and scar tissue hanging off, exposing the tissue underneath. His head was definitely bleeding and pounding from whatever he got hit with, and the stabwounds in his stomach were gushing blood. He wasn't even sure how he was still conscious and walking around at that point. He needed to get back, needed to see Ujiko.
Fear drove into his ribcage like a spike. That familiar terror he had grown so accustom to knowing what would happen to him once he got into that lab and was alone with that doctor, knowing he couldn't do a thing to stop it, any of it. He'll be drugged, cut open, ripped apart, stapled back together, and then the doctor will take another part of him as payment for his debt. He already took and took, he'll keep taking until there's nothing left of Dabi at all… then… maybe then he'll finally let him die…
His head is still buzzing from the mixture of pain, blood loss, shock, and cocaine coursing through him. He stumbled until he tripped, but he couldn't remember even hitting the ground. He just laid there, face pressed against the cold concrete, eyes heavy. He fucked up this time… He really fucked up this time…
Recruiting had gone bad before, it wasn't the first time he got jumped and wouldn't be the last but it was definitely one of the worst times. There were too many, and they came in too fast. He couldn't fight them all, had to wait for an opening while they beat him mercilessly. He got the opening but took a lot of damage first.
Maybe he killed all of them, maybe some got away… He wasn't sure anymore but he had to get up and keep moving. The thugs could find him, heroes could find him, his Father could find him.
Fear clawed at his insides again, the dim yellow street lamp casting orange light against the walls moved and danced like flames. He could see the shadows grow and change form, morph and transform into all of his fears.
He laughed and blood gushed out of his mouth, he choked on it. He was gonna die like this, wasn't he? Alone in a dark and cold alley surrounded by trash. It was… almost fitting, almost a prophecy. He always knew he'd die alone.
Someone was touching him. Cold hands shaking his shoulders, a voice speaking to him. His eyes stayed closed. He cringed and wanted to avoid the touch, touch only ever meant pain and violation, but he was too weak to pull away, too weak to even lift his arm and incinerate the person. The vulnerability hit him like a dozen bricks on the head, he was helpless to stop whatever this stranger was about to do to him. And, to his own disgust, he was terrified.
The hands turned him over into his back, the voice swore under their breath. Dabi barely forced his eyes open.
Everything was spinning and fading in and out but he could make out a blurry mass of white. His vision cleared little by little, revealing a head of spikey white hair, a square face wrinkled with worry and disgust, gray eyes… the person looked almost like…
"Not this again…" Dabi laughed and more blood bubbled over his lips as he closed his eyes again, "not real… You ain't real…"
The person… The illusion… looked like
Natsuo
…