Flea

Chapter Thirty Four

Dunno why but I find the height disparity between the two hilarious. Probably why I'll mention it so much in my writing.

"So these were a precaution, I suppose?" Dabi rasped above Maeve, showing her one of the pill sleeves with one hand and keeping the other arm wrapped around the slip of a girl. She shrugged, coughing.

"I had a gut feeling. I've learned to just trust them from experience. And yeah, better safe than sorry."

They rounded another corridor and she let out a small groan, cuffed hands hugging herself.

"What's wro-" Dabi asked, but she just shook her head quickly and hissed,

"Where's the toilet?"

He hesitated but seeing her begin to dry heave gestured to a door. Maeve staggered through it, using cracked walls for support and breaking into a clumsy slide to reach the bowl just in time. Dabi leaned on the doorway, crossing his arms and wincing as the girl wretched up what sounded like the contents of her stomach, plus a sumo wrestler's weight in food. From a few brief glimpses, he could tell it was purple.

After what felt like an age, she flushed with an accompanying groan. Maeve collapsed against a wall and brought her knees to her chin, pulling the shirt over to cover herself completely. She looked even smaller like that. The bathroom was disgusting, everything was cracked and grimy, with random piles of dust where Shigaraki had accidentally touched things with five fingers. Maeve seemed too exhausted to care.

"Feeling better?" He asked, with a small smirk.

Maeve didn't respond, face buried in her knees. Dabi felt a tiny pang of... Something... When he realised she was quite possibly crying.

Oh, fuck. Maybe I should've brought someone else. I don't trust any of them though.

"Were there any fatalities?"

Her question was small in its delivery, but it carried the weight of the world. It was obvious she'd been dying to ask ever since they came through the portal, but was also terrified of what the answer would be. Dabi hesitated. Did he tell her the truth? If she thought her students or father had died, would she be more willing to cooperate or less?

"No," he replied quietly. "Shigaraki had a kill list, but the main goal was to retrieve you and the boy if possible. That and causing panic were the things I made the group focus on. Murdering children without a clear cause doesn't particularly interest me."

She exhaled slowly, arms loosening around her legs, and sighed, "Yeah, you're a real plethora of human virtue."

"At least I have beliefs and stick to them. Heroics are nothing but a cesspool of hypocrisy," he commented, tugging on his hoodie strings.

"And obviously the best way to heal society is to commit mass genocide, blah blah blah. I've heard it all before, don't need to remind me. Now, I know that I just produced a frankly impressive amount of vomit, but I still need to pee. Are you going to stand and watch that as well, or...?"

He blinked, but got the message and made to exit.

"Wait, you need to take off these," Maeve called to him tiredly, holding up her cuffs. They fully covered up the girl's hands, so she had no use of her fingers. Dabi tilted his head like a highly disfigured crow, considering.

"You'll manage," he decided, with a laugh. The sound was less harsh than Maeve had been expecting. Dabi stepped outside and closed the door until only a crack remained, pretending not to hear her groan, "you realise gloves would do EXACTLY THE SAME THING."