Chapter 8 Saint Status
To say I was pissed would be the understatement of the century.
I tried to give Hawks the silent treatment. I really did. But my rage overpowered me. I suddenly knew what Twice felt like when his other half decided to speak up.
"How fucking dare you!" I yelled.
I never yell, really. I let that up to Bakugou, but he wasn't here, and that traitor Hawks was. Anyway, it was cathartic.
"Harpy, let me-"
"Fuck off!" I interrupted, not wanting to hear his excuses. Maybe later, but not that second.
"C'mon, baby, just-"
"I swear to fuck, if you do not turn yourself around and march yourself out of my room, I'm going to murder you."
"Ha! Murder! Like crows and I'm a bird…" he trailed off when he saw my stare. I hope he felt bad when he noticed the bags under my eyes. In that moment, I didn't care what his intentions were, because the result ended up increasing my stress levels and further decreasing my energy levels because I couldn't seem to sleep.
"Okay, okay. I'm leaving. Just try to get some sleep now, yeah?"
"Don't tell me what to do," I snapped while whipping my pillow in his direction.
He swiftly avoided being hit by it by closing the door just in the nick of time. I watched the pillow hit the door and fall to the floor.
I stared at the pillow for probably about an hour before I actually forced myself up to go get it. I wanted it and I was so tired and I wanted to rest my head on the fluffy goodness, but it was all the way over there. And no matter how many times I said to myself, 'okay, on 3. 1, 2, 3!' all I got out of myself were false starts.
When I finally got the pillow and slapped it back onto my bed, I soon followed, flopping onto the bed myself.
I didn't toss and turn. I got close to sleeping, actually. But you know that feeling where you feel like you're falling, or you just tripped on something, and suddenly you're jolting awake? That happened every single time I got close to sleeping. I knew that by this point, it was getting pretty dangerous for me to still be awake, but I didn't know what else to do. If Hawks and Toga hadn't already tried getting me to drain my energy supply, I probably would have suggested it myself by now.
How long had it been since I slept? I couldn't remember. The days were blurring together, especially since I couldn't recall how many sunrises or sunsets I've seen due to the windowless shelter that these villains call home.
I sat up in bed, resigned to the fact that I would not be sleeping any time soon, and pulled myself out of bed. I sluggishly made my way to the door, dragging my feet, and just trying to stay upright and not disorient myself more than I was already.
A big hint that I was losing my clarity and awareness of my surroundings came when I wandered out into the living room area. Everything was quiet. No one was around. Did they seriously all leave me here by myself? Was I that pathetic that I didn't register as a threat at all? Even with my quirk restored since they haven't replaced the cuffs on my arms since I healed Hawks, they didn't see me as someone to worry about? What normally would have me bouncing off the walls because they underestimated me, and I could use that to my advantage, was suddenly making me feel bad about myself. They'd never leave someone like Bakugou alone in their hideout, even if his quirk were nullified.
Bakugou would be so ashamed of me. He'd feel embarrassed that I was literally no threat at all to these people.
As I wallowed in self-pity and my eyes started to tear up, I heard a crash come from behind me, followed by a muttered, "shit."
I spun around to see Shigaraki coming out of a supply closet that was next to one of the bathrooms in the hallway carrying cleaning supplies.
Was I finally asleep and dreaming? I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself and looked again.
My eyes did not deceive me.
"Oh, hey. I was hoping you'd be sleeping. I'm glad that noise didn't wake you up, though," Shigaraki said, while juggling the cleaning products in his arms, taking care not to touch anything will all five fingers.
I moved forward to help him, taking half of the supplies out of his arms, allowing him to shut the supply closet behind him.
"Thanks," he said, giving me a nod of acknowledgement.
"What are you doing?" I asked, curious, as I followed behind him as he walked toward the living room.
"I promised Kurogiri that I'd clean up the mess so that he didn't have to. He really prefers not to clean up blood, Shigaraki explained as he lied out the cleaning supplies near the huge blood stain on the carpet. When he saw the confusion clearly displayed on my face, he continued, "Anything else is fine, and if he was the only one who could do it, he would. So, I sent him away with the rest of the group for training in harsh climates to keep them on their toes… and to also punish them for that stunt they pulled with you."
I listened as I followed his lead and put my share of the cleaning supplies next to the ones that Shigaraki had put down.
"Kurogiri is the master of schadenfreude, so I'm sure everyone is feeling quite remorseful right about now," Shigaraki continued, smirking to himself as he imagined what kind of climates Kurogiri might be warping them to.
"Can I help?" I offered, gesturing toward the cleaning supplies.
Shigaraki hesitated, probably thinking that I should get some sleep instead, but probably realizing that if I could, I would. After the slight pause, he agreed.
I started with the setting spray while Shigaraki filled the buckets with warm, soapy water from the kitchen. We were careful to blot instead of rub, but it still took forever. Cleaning up blood is not fun. It's even worse when it's carpet you are trying to get it out of.
We mostly remained quiet as we cleaned. The intense scrubbing mixed with the exhaustion made me into a sweating, huffing mess, but it felt pretty good to be doing something instead of just lying in bed trying to sleep.
We did talk some, though. He asked me about working for Bakugou. I answered but kept it vague. I couldn't tell if he was actually interested or if he was trying to take advantage of my sleep-deprived self enough to gather some intel. I stuck to talking about traits of Bakugou that were publicly known anyway, and what I liked about them.
I asked him if he were training, where would Kurogiri take him that would give him his schadenfreude kick.
"Chuck E. Cheese," Shigaraki answered without hesitation.
At that unexpected response, I paused in my scrubbing and looked up to see that Shigaraki was already looking at me. He was trying to force the smile slowly spreading across his face to go away, and I was doing the same. Eventually, the smiles became laughter, which then became howling while rolling around on the floor trying to catch our breaths. Every time one of us started to calm down, the other would burst out laughing again, and the process would have to start from the beginning.
It was kind of gross. The blood was coming up out of the carpet, thanks to our efforts, and while howling with laughter, we didn't exactly watch where we were rolling. We looked like a couple of lunatics, laughing maniacally and covered in blood.
Once we had calmed down and finished blotting the few remaining splotches of blood, we went our separate ways to shower the blood off of ourselves. I stood in the steamy shower longer than necessary and rolled out my shoulders and neck that were stiff from the cleaning. I inhaled the steam, even after I shut the shower off and was getting dressed in jeans and a knit sweater.
By the time I finished, Shigaraki was already dressed comfortably in black sweatpants and a black hoodie. When he looked over at me, he rolled his eyes, walked past me into his own room, and came back out with a set of identical sweats to his own.
"You can wear these if you'd like," he offered. "It figures that they wouldn't give you anything comfortable to wear."
"They did, but I ruined them when I saved Hawks," I explained, before accepting the clothes he was offering and retreating to my room to change.
After changing, I dug around in the bathroom for a comb. My hair had definitely seen better days. All that tossing and turning turned my hair into one big, knotted mess. After locating what I assumed to be Toga's purple, wide-toothed comb, I padded my way barefoot to the living room where Shigaraki sat, sprawled out on the couch. He had the news on but didn't seem too invested in it. I took a seat on the opposite end of the couch and got to work on my hair.
I hissed as I snagged a with the comb. Shigaraki looked over to me and looked like he was about to say something before thinking better of it and turning back to the television. As I slowly worked through the knots at the bottom of my hair, my shoulders started cramping up, still not completely comfortable after the intense scrubbing. As I rolled my shoulders out, Shigaraki looked over at me again. This time, he didn't stop himself when he spoke.
"Do you want me to help you?" he asked. "It's only fair since you helped me clean up."
I perked up immediately. "Yes, please," I answered without hesitation, handing him the comb and moving to sit in front of him on the floor. It did not go unnoticed the way he flinched away before our fingers could touch while I was holding the comb, but I chose not to mention it. What would I say anyway? What would I accomplish except reminding him to put the quirk-cancelling cuffs back on?
He was very slow and very gentle. It was very relaxing being taken care of like that. It didn't matter, in that moment, that my back was turned to a villain. It really wasn't a pressing concern. I was already at his mercy, anyway, being his hostage. Anything he could do to me with my back turned he could do to me anyway, and who was I to stop it? I was right to be relaxed because he was nothing but the perfect gentleman.
It was so serene and quiet and peaceful and relaxing that I jumped when he spoke up.
"I want to touch you," he said bluntly.
After a pause, "I mean, can I touch you?" he corrected himself.
I turned to face him, looking up at him from my spot on the floor, puzzlement clear on my face.
"You aren't afraid?" I asked him.
"Me? Afraid of you? Aren't you afraid of me?" he asked.
"Your quirk doesn't work on me, but mine could definitely work on you," I reasoned.
"That would be stupid. And you're not," he responded like it was the most simple thing in the world.
"Okay," I said, shrugging.
"Okay?" he asked, seeking clarification.
"You can touch me. I'm not stupid enough to use my quirk against you."
He twirled his finger around to nonverbally order me to turn back around. I did so, and leaned back against his legs. I gasped when I felt his fingertips brush against my scalp, but didn't pull away. Shivers racked up and down my body as his hands brushed through my drying hair and his fingers traced swirling patterns onto my scalp.
I sighed as I relaxed further against his legs, focusing on the feeling of tingles and shivers that followed his fingertips. After a few minutes, his hands traveled lower to knead at my neck and shoulders.
I groaned, my eyes rolling back into my head. He paused his movements but didn't remove his hands. I tilted my head backwards until I met his eyes and saw a small smirk gracing his lips.
"I knew I was good, but not that good," he joked.
"If you ever lost your quirk, you could rest assured that you would have job security," I laughed out, breathily.
His laugh was abrupt but short. It caught me off guard how his eyes sparkled as a laugh burst from him unwillingly.
"As it stands," he teased, "you're the only one who will ever get to experience my secret skill."
I hummed in response as he started kneading again, gently working out the knots and tension from my shoulders.
I don't remember falling asleep.
I don't remember Shigaraki calling Kurogiri to warn everyone to be quiet when they came back.
I don't remember Dabi gliding in through the portal with red cheeks, icicles hanging off of his coat, and shaking icy water out of his hair. Or Toga and Twice coming through, sweaty and covered in desert sand from the windstorm they were warped in the middle of. Or Hawks and Spinner picking the seaweed off of themselves.
I don't remember Kurogiri telling Shigaraki that he did well, purposefully not specifying if he was talking about cleaning up the mess or getting me to fall asleep.
I don't remember Shigaraki angrily whispering at Dabi to go change out of his frozen clothes before he was allowed to pick me up to carry me to my bed. Or Hawks giving me a kiss on the forehead, leaving trace amounts of sea salt behind, before he left to take a well-deserved shower.
I don't even remember any dreams that I might've had. Or how I snuggled further into Shigaraki's hoodie in the middle of the night.
It was the best sleep I've had in years.