You wake up drenched in sweat, your chest heaving as you take audible gasps of air. Your hair is stuck to your face thanks to the sweat, and it's making you feel even more suffocated.
You take no time in trying to pretend you were brave enough to handle it all by yourself tonight. You weren't, and you couldn't.
This nightmare was a new one. It started off the same as the others with you sleepily walking down the stairs, your little feet padding down the stairs echoing throughout the empty house as you're calling for your mom. And then you found her, the tie around her arm seeming to make her arm blue, the needle still poking into it.
You'd called for her again, trying to wake her up. It wasn't the first time you'd found her like this. She would be sleepy for a little while, but she always came around eventually.
Except she wasn't waking up, and her eyes were open.
You called her again, quietly this time, as you crouched by her sprawled out body, poking her cheek to see if this would garner a reaction.
In real life, nothing had happened.
In tonights nightmare, her mouth dropped open, and millions of bugs began crawling out of her mouth, nose and eyes, filling the room and scaring the life out of you.
You were thankful you were scared enough to wake up before the dream went any further than that.
You practically launch yourself out of your bed as you begin sniffling, your little feet thumping loudly on the floor as you make a hasty exit of your room, paranoid that somehow the bugs will follow you through your nightmare into real life.
You rush across the hallway, with very little concern for being quiet like you usually tried desperately to be all the time to keep Shigaraki placated.
You open Dabis door in a hurry, jumping onto his bed with an audible thud and an impact that shakes the bed slightly. You do it with enough urgency that it's almost as though you thought the floor was going to swallow you up whole.
The sudden noise seems to wake him up, his body shooting upright and bursting into blue flames that illuminate the room and make you squeal in surprise.
The rise in heat thanks to his quirk doesn't help the sweat covering your body, but the flames only last a second before they disappear just as quickly as they came and Dabi rubs his eyes tiredly.
"Star? What're you doin'?" He asks sleepily. "Don't sneak up on me like that kid, you coulda been toast."
You begin bawling. You're unsure even why. You'd managed to hold it together until he spoke, but now you're shaking, fat tears rolling down your cheeks, and desperate, shuddered breaths racking your body.
This seems to wake Dabi up instantly, his blue eyes widening in the dim light in the room. His hand reaches out to cup your face in the dark.
"Hey, hey, hey... What's wrong, little Star?" He asks, sounding a little panicked, his thumb gliding along your wet cheek softly.
"M-mom." You manage to choke out. "B-bugs..."
Dabi's thumb stops as he seems to soak in your words, his previously silent room completely disrupted by the sound of your wailing.
After a brief pause, he sighs, gently pulling you into his arms, and forcing you to lay back with him as he quietly hushes you and pets your hair with the palm of his hand.
You move as close to him as you possibly can, burying your face into his chest and immediately soaking the vest he wore to bed with your tears as you clutch his shirt in your little fists.
You can tell he's desperately trying to get you to quieten down, even with his voice being hushed and no outward anger being shown. But the more he 'shushes' you, the more worried you become that he'll get mad at you for not being able to stop yourself from crying, so you cry harder.
It's a never ending cycle.
Eventually his door slowly creaks open, you hear the hinges, but cannot force yourself away enough from Dabi to look at whoever it was that had entered.
You feel Dabi move, and hear him mouth something at whoever it is, but cannot hear what it was he was saying over the sounds of your own pained cries.
Soon, the light from the crack in the door disappears again, delving you into the dark.
"Hey, remember what I told ya about what 'Yumi used to do when she got all scared at night?" Dabi asks quietly as he continues to pet your hair.
"Yumi?" You sniffle, not recognising the name. The distraction ceases your crying for a moment.
"My lil' sis." Dabi re-explains quietly. "Y'know when you were all scared in that shelter? An' I told you about how she used to re-imagine her dreams an' make 'em funny?"
You carry on sniffling, and still have to take ragged breaths from how much you'd been hyperventilating and sobbing, but try to follow his suggestion.
You struggle finding a funny side though, and begin whimpering a little again.
Dabi sighs once more and holds you even closer to him.
"Need some help?" He asks, dropping what feels like a little kiss on the top of your head.
You nod a little, gripping his shirt even tighter at the idea of having to explain your dream to him for him to be able to help you think of a way to make it less scary.
He rubs your back a little, the warmth and firmness of his touch soothing you a little more.
You give him the bare minimum details of what had happened in your dream, not wanting to remember too many details of it, sniffling as well as tightening and loosening the grip you have on his shirt as you do so.
He goes quiet for a moment, his hand returning back to your hair as he presses his cheek against the top of your head.
"Okay, how about this?" He begins, quietly. "Your mom had been eatin' bugs. You know like that ol' story about the woman who ate a fly?"
"What?" You ask, completely confused.
"Y'know! The woman that ate the fly an' then she had to eat a spider to kill the fly, an' then she had to swallow a bird to catch the spider... Hey! Don't laugh at me! It's totally a thing!"
You'd never heard that story before, and it was the silliest thing you'd heard. Dabi had pretended to sound offended, but you could feel the fact he was smiling thanks to his cheek being pressed against your head.
The staples are a little uncomfortable pressed against your skull, but it's kind of nice to be held like this, so you don't complain as your hysterical crying turns into slightly unhinged giggling.
If it's annoying, Dabi doesn't tell you about it, he just continues to smile a little, holding you tight and petting your hair with his hand softly and rhythmically.
Soon, your giggles die out, and you're left silently clinging onto his shirt as his hand slowly begins to stop petting your hair.
You can't bring yourself to tear yourself from him. He was warm, safe, comfortable. Everything you needed to stop yourself from spiralling into your fears and memories of mom and her boyfriends again.
His hand eventually stops petting your hair all together, and you feel his face go lax too, his hold on you loosening.
You realise he's fallen back to sleep, and for some reason, this is relieving to you. If he's asleep, he won't ask you to leave.
Not that he ever did tell you to leave. Whenever you ended up in his room at night, he always allowed it, even if you could tell he was a little irked that you'd woken him up, or gone to find him and interrupted his hushed conversations with Shigaraki late at night at the bar.
You loosen your grip on his shirt, moving away from him ever so slightly, just to get away from the excess heat he gives off during his sleep as much as possible. You'd already sweated, cried and likely snotted all over his shirt, so you should probably try your hardest not to get his shirt any dirtier.
You lay there in the dark, listening to his quiet breaths as he sleeps, and try to make out his features in the dark of the room to stop yourself from worrying that somehow you were still in a nightmare and he may morph into someone else when you least inspect it.
You begin counting the staples that line his face to keep your brain occupied, but not too occupied that you'd stop yourself from going to sleep.
The moonlight leaking through the shoddy curtains shine off the metal sutures, helping you see them even in the dark.
You count about twenty before your own eyelids begin drooping, although you do try fighting it off at first.
Eventually, you embrace your tiredness and allow yourself to fall to sleep slowly, knowing that you were safe nestled in Dabi's arms.