Chapter Text
It was routine now. Spinner would spend his days wasting, but when night came, he and the man next door would commiserate about their loneliness over some drinks. Well — it was more like the man next door did all of the commiseration and Shuichi listened empathetically.
The man pierced, scarred and tatted to no end was 32, not old enough to sport wrinkles or something of the like, but old enough to be called a “hag”. Hag, though, was commonly reserved for women and while the word just felt so bitter on his tongue, it felt right for him, oddly. Touya Todoroki, his alias: “Dabi” for no good reason. He was estranged from his family and presumably the family fuck-up.
Their talks started with cordial “hellos,” obligatory “how are yous” but followed this devolution process; small-talk became rants about Touya’s daddy issues and how he felt he wasted his stupid youth hating his stupid family, trying to prove he could be more than the golden child could ever be back at home. Trying to prove to his dear old dad that he was worth something, or that his expectations meant nothing — he didn’t know. The fact of the matter was that Touya’s youth wasn’t over seeing as he had 8 years till 40, but Touya, however, didn’t want to hear it out of spry 21 year old Shuichi.
When he really got drunk, he’d stop talking about his dumb family, and it’d finally bridge into wallows of loneliness, and Touya, trying to be coy, would slip over somewhere right next to Shuichi. He’d toss a drink back, get in his space and rub on his thighs until coy became horny and sweaty and desperate. After a while, Touya would lick his lips and pounce, get him on the floor and kiss him; he’d kiss him on the mouth, kiss down his neck, bite down until Shuichi kicked and squealed — and then he’d stop, apologize, and leave.
Shuichi could complain, it’s in his grounds to complain. He certainly would complain anyway if not for the fact that this was the only form of human contact he had with someone so attractive. He craved intimacy, the warmth of skin-to-skin contact with someone truly human and if it meant he’d be blue-balled every twelfth hour of the night, he didn’t mind it. He wanted this, wanted more actually, and maybe it was bitingly greedy or perverse, but it took an embarrassingly long while for Shuichi to realize Touya was all he was and more.
—
It was night when it happened, a creak of the door so quiet, he would’ve missed it at any other hour — except at this time of the night, he was stirred by gnarly hunger pains. There was a shuffle in the darkness next, and shortly after, a silent exit. The whole time his room hosted an unwanted guest, Shuichi didn’t move, he didn’t breathe either, it felt like his heart seized its own cadence with his mouth that went dry. His eyes from beneath his blanket spied a familiar set of hands rummaging through the pile of dirty laundry at his bedside. Burns biting up long, wiry arms that moved in no real hurry, in fact, they carried a sort of reliant comfortability that made Shuichi wonder just how many times Touya had done this. Were there predecessors, or was he the first? Was he a repeat offender? Has he done this to Spinner before? How many times?
The next day Spinner asked when he came over to Dabi’s that night if he’d been in his room yesterday — as if he’d admit to an actual crime. It was hardly surprising when he denied. What was surprising though, was the manner in which he answered, firing quickly with room for nonchalance, “No? I’ve got no reason to be in there. Your home’s your home.” With narrowed eyes, Shuichi felt it was only right he pried,
“Someone was in my room last night, and I could’ve sworn it was you I saw rummaging through my laundry.” Then Touya’s face scrunched up like the mere notion of that was disturbing. Whether the “notion”, though, was the idea that Shuichi entirely conjured up this imaginative scenario where Touya — the same guy that palmed him all the way to a whiny almost-orgasm some nights back because he “looked like [he] needed it” (and SURE, maybe he did need it) — would rummage through his personal belongings in the dead of night for god knows what.
Spinner received his advances, but selfishly never reciprocated. Some part of him believed Touya liked it that way anyway. That he had this need or want to exist only to touch and service Shuichi in all of his naughty places, to make him squirm under the fairly innocent guise of loneliness or some pitiful need for connection. That must make Spinner sound conceited, but Touya shared that conceit with him. He wanted to feel like he was in control, like Shuichi was the scaly mutt on his short leash, a prized pet that takes whatever he gives and more because it made him feel desirable. That’s who Touya was. That’s what Shuichi thought of him anyway.
It was that, or — assuming Touya’s innocence — the possibility of a stranger breaking in to wade through his laundry to begin with. No part of Touya’s testified innocence dampered the belief that he was the culprit to begin with, but he felt an almost reflexive bout of doubt in the back of his mind snuggled up with the most sincerest fester of irritation at his blatant denial. He saw him, heard him — his thick, ragged, filthy breaths last night. Hushed, but oozing with a sort of decadence as he carded through dozens of Shuichi’s own garments, huffing all of its sweaty (and other conspicuous) parts in. He was in no position to play innocent when Shuichi caught his morbidity red-handed.
Yet Touya still took a swig from his glass and answered slowly, “You’ve got quite the imagination, Shuu-chan. I was nowhere near your place last night.” Despite the lingering skepticism, he figured it was good for the both of them not to push it. At least he knew Shuichi knew — he wouldn’t try anything funny after that knowledge.
In retrospect, he didn’t, but Touya made another, separate blunder. Spinner used his toilet later that night, and of course, the only way to get to the toilet was through his room. Dabi’s fault lied in the trust he placed upon Spinner; bedrooms were personal sanctums, and living alone, that much was further emphasized being home to sexual deviancy, lust, and every other vice you could count on fingers. Still, in the world of Shuichi, sleep was almost secondary. The point was that Spinner would have never under any circumstances allowed Dabi to enter his room no matter how many times they stripped each other almost-bare, his room was home to secrets that not even Dabi had the right to know.
It made sense then, that Shuichi had encountered one of Touya’s dirty secrets amid the daunting sea of too-cute plushies. A delinquent, familiar secret that involved some delinquent, familiar boxers on his bed. Shuichi’s boxers. Upon initial inspection, it wasn’t damp, per se, but it looked like it used to be, and unwinding the bundled mess it once was revealed stains that weren’t there before. “Oh.” Shuichi finds himself saying to this violation by proxy.
“Oh.” A voice says behind him, “You weren’t supposed to see that.” because that alone was guilt admission.
Spinner almost screams, and when he looks behind, Dabi’s there. He’s staring blankly, “Touya— those are my undies.”
”They are.” He answers matter-of-factly, Spinner quirks a brow incredulously.
”You said you didn’t visit my room last night.”
”That doesn’t prove anything.”
He sighs. Then he breathes, and sighs again. Ridiculous. This was ridiculous, because of course rummaging through someone’s clothes without reason is worse than being caught with your something’s underwear on the fucking bed. Spinner holds out a palm, gestures to the bed again where his underwear sat. ”Okay, fine. Tell me, what are those stains from?”
Touya scratches his scarred chin, and deliberately avoids Shuichi’s gaze; he seems caught in his own lie before he says ”That’s on a need-to-know basis, Shuu-chan.”
”Oh, fuck you. And don’t call me that.” Finally, Spinner decides he’s tired of this, he wishes so badly the world would stop spinning so he can process all of this nonsense. He has to physically pause and rub the tension from both temples before he makes his next decisive move, approaching the bed. With a pinch of two fingers, he scoops up his boxers, Dabi looks like he wants to wince, but he doesn’t. So Spinner lifts it slowly to his nose, reluctantly, but trying to make a point — until, Scar Face before him takes a step forward and throws his hands up in pathetic surrender,
”Okay, stop. Just— stop. I don’t wanna tell you, and you don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I did things with it.” The lizard is still unsatisfied, but he drops them at his admission.
Good. Not “good because Touya admitted to soiling his favorite boxers” good, but “good because Touya isn’t so reptile (ironically) that he doesn’t feel guilt” good.
“It’s not piss, though.” Spinner’s eyes blow wide at the sheer possibility, he answers shortly after,
”Good to know.”
”Or shit.” Oh boy.
”Of-fucking-course not? Jeez.”