And Yes, Now I'm Here With You And I Would Like To Think That You Would Stick Around—

and yes, now i'm here with you and i would like to think that you would stick around—

dabi x reader

wc: 11k+

warnings: 18+, explicit language, angst, dabi is really bad at feelings, referenced sexual content, referenced alcohol and substance use, dabi is just a bully, reader has a quirk

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The first thing you need to know about Dabi, not Touya, is that he isn't your friend.

Okay, so yeah, you know he's alive. Doesn’t mean he’s gonna pop in and out of your apartment, joining you for dinner or bringing you flowers or something equally as humiliating. Not that you ever say anything about it, but he knows you want him to come around more, can tell by the little frown on your face whenever he insists he has to leave. The towel in your linen closet practically has his name on it, the couch always made up with a suspicious amount of pillows and a casual throw blanket (which is embarrassing—you couldn’t be more obvious). It makes him uncomfortable, seriously.

That's why he’s been such a good little boy and hasn’t come around that often (doesn’t even follow you anymore), maybe has stopped by when seeing you was an itch he just had to scratch. Dabi can count the number of times he’s knocked on your front door on one, scarred hand of his because it’s awkward now, you knowing his death was a ruse. Those beady little eyes of yours, always fixed on him, running over the ridges of his face like you were cementing the sight of him to the inside of your lids, like you were trying to peek through the gaps in his skin.

Gross.

It’s been six weeks since he’d seen you last, in the dark of your apartment as you moved around, cleaning up the mess he’d made. Sometime after 3:23 in the morning, he’d conveniently showed up, just as you were microwaving food you ended up offering him (even if it had been for yourself), and he’d fallen asleep in the middle of the painfully uninteresting recount of your shift. With his mouth all open, drool dripping down the side of his lips, head thrown back against the couch—the simple sound of you must have woken him up only a handful of minutes later. The lights had been turned off, that blanket over his lap, and you were in the kitchen, washing out his cup and plugging your laptop into its charger.

It had been a little nostalgic, him getting to watch you through lidded eyes, without you knowing.

When the light from your bathroom flashed in the hallway, just before the lavender smell of your body wash overwhelmed the entire place, he’d finally slipped away. Nearly busted his ass jumping out the window.

The second thing you need to understand about Dabi, not Touya, is that he’s a big fucking liar.

And if you keep asking him stupid questions, (where do you live? what do you do for a living? are you busy tomorrow? how’s your mom doing? ), he’s gonna get real fucking mad, and he’s gonna keep lying. For some reason, you don’t seem to believe he’s a door-to-door vacuum salesman—fuck knows why you can’t buy that—or that his mom changed her name and moved out of the country, works as a prostitute in Germany.

“That’s the last I heard of her, swear.”

The look you’d given him had been laughable, the deadpan expression on your little sunshine face. “I’m serious.”

Yeah, he knows, you always are. But, get this smarty-pants, he ain’t gonna fucking tell you, so stop asking.

The only questions you don’t ask him are the important ones, the ones he can tell you really wanna know, and that pisses him off even more somehow. Come on, sweetheart, just fucking ask already, why do you look like that now? why aren’t you a hero, like you wanted to be? since when did you become such a fucking asshole? That look in your eyes, the one you always fix him with, must be disgust or something, because it makes his rugged, burnt flesh crawl.

Sometimes you sit across from him at your kitchen table, as he tries not to devour the leftovers in your fridge like the starved animal he is, and tell him all about the stupid shit he already knows. Your brainless friends, why you work at the hospital, how many classes you’re taking online in the spring, what your favorite movies are—Dabi just grunts in response like this is all news to him and, if he’s feeling really soft, he’ll even ask a few pointed questions to keep you rambling.

“We should go to the cinema together, on my next day off.” With your chin in your palm, you’d said it under the dim light of your kitchen, smiling a little when he started choking. Water sloshed out of your glass when you slid it to him.

“Sounds great, doll, I’ll make sure to wear my Sunday best.”

“I’m serious—tsk, Dabi.” The free hand, the one not holding your head, reached across the table to slap lightly at his unmarked skin when he’d made a face and mocked you. “You don’t wanna go out with me?”

Whatever way you’d meant it, why you phrased it like that, and the little puppy dog look in your eyes: it all made him just start choking again. Stupid questions, all the damn time—which is why he needs you to understand he’s not your friend, which is why he can’t keep coming around your apartment. Awkward. Gross.

Don’t imply shit like that.

Another thing you need to know about DabiNotTouya, is that he’s not going to talk about it. In fact, don’t even bring up that day in the motel. As far as he’s concerned, it never happened. The little scar on your head has always been there, he would know.

Now he really wishes you’d give the sweatshirt back, though, because the first time he’d come to your apartment after the whole ordeal, you’d opened the door with messy hair and it draped over your body. What the fuck you were thinking, answering the door in such tiny shorts, is totally beyond him, but everytime he thinks about you rolling around in your bed, the fabric of his clothes rubbing against your tits, it gives him a really unfortunate boner.

It had that day, also, which is why he'd slipped out your bathroom window after starting the shower, leaving that fucking towel on your sink. Embarrassing, the reactions of the male body (because it didn't really have anything to do with you in particular—men get hard all the time).

There is still a little knot on your head, one that probably won’t ever go away, and—apparently—another blow to your brains like that could be instantly fatal. Dabi doesn’t really care, honestly, because if you get whacked in the middle of the night again, you deserve it—for walking home so late. If he had any money, he’d probably buy you a pink, sparkly little helmet just to rub it in your face. Maybe even dress you in some elbow pads, shin guards, give you some idiot-proof armor.

But then you might think the two of you are friends, so it’s a good thing he doesn’t have a cent to his name.

It’s been six weeks since he’d seen you last, since the smell of lavender made him shudder and ache, and he knows by now that you’ve seen the broadcast.

For some goddamn, stupid, motherfucking reason, you keep trying to get in contact with him—on his burner phone. Of all those movies you chatter about, none of them must be crime documentaries or gang related, because you call him by his stupid name in the fleeting little texts you send him, probably have Touya with little emojis saved to your contact list. Three times he’s screened a call from you—once in the middle of the day, another early in the morning (probably after you finished your shift), and the last, right before he’d started fucking celebrating.

By the time he realizes that it really is you, standing near the bar of the club he’s been in, almost 48 hours have passed since he’d hit ‘ignore’. Dabi has no idea how much alcohol he’s downed at this point, no idea what substances are making his bloodstream fucking sing, so when he thinks he sees your little sunshine face looking at him, he just assumes it’s an illusion.

(Here’s something Dabi doesn’t want you to know: sometimes he thinks about you. In the dead of night, when he showers, in the middle of conversations with Spinner—he thinks about what you must be doing at that exact moment. Somewhere, out there in the city, scrunching up your nose because you’re frustrated or smiling so wide because you’re laughing, doing your damndest to be a hero at work, sweating with all your effort. Thinking about him in return, wondering what he’s doing, worrying about it. Smiling and getting all hot, thinking about his hands on your body under that shitty water.)

(That last part is bullshit; you don’t remember anything from that day, had told him as much, just that the motel room seemed familiar and that’s why you’d shown up there after the hospital. Because something about it promised the sight of a kid you used to know, one from your class.)

There is a tight, little cat girl on his lap and she has been for hours, blowing smoke in his mouth, whispering filthy shit in his ear, but he’s been thinking about you—again—and pretending it’s your fingers popping the button on his jeans. It’s been relatively easy; the club is packed and so fucking loud, even though his head is pounding, he can close his eyes and pretend anything he wants.

That the blaring noise reverberating in his skull is just sounds from the movie on the screen, that the theater is empty—just the two of you sitting in it, somewhere at the back—and the weight on his lap is from you. You must be a little kinky, licking the hoop in his ear like that, and you giggle when his hips jerk as you slide your hand down the front of his pants. It’s so fucking hot, to be with you like this in an empty movie theater, because he’s wanted it for what feels like a goddamn eternity and now he can drop the act and sigh your name as you—

“What?”

The cat girl keeps purring, even keeps her tail wrapped around his leg when she pulls back to look down at him. It’s clear the name has been lost to her, because she doesn’t look pissed, just confused—as if she genuinely didn’t understand what he said—which only kills the new high he’d been chasing. Dabi is drunk as shit and he can feel his dick go limp under her hand, just as the rush of disappointment and reality rise up in him like a stomachache.

He can still see your face though, as if it’s watching on a couple feet from him, but all the sunshine has set on it. There isn’t a pout on your lips, but they’re open just a bit, brows furrowed and, oh fuck, your eyes. There is no puppy dog look in them, not even the kind you send him in the quiet of your apartment—they’re just wide and big and sad. Like you’re the one with the gaps in your skin, like they’ve been ripped open.

It makes his body cold all at once (which is fucking weird), this feeling like he’s a piece of shit boyfriend that’s ghosted the woman of his dreams for days, and now she’s caught him with a cat girl on his lap. As if she’s been trying to get ahold of him after the demons of his past had been revealed to the entire world—probably because she genuinely cares or something—and she’s even gone so far as to track him down in the dingiest of places. And she’s looking at him like she’s put her heart on a platter and given it to him, just for her ugly motherfucker, sorry goddamn excuse of a boyfriend to throw it on the ground and stomp it to bits, because he doesn’t know how to do anything but ruin.

The woman of his dreams knows she doesn’t deserve that shit, which is why she turns on her heel and begins to leave.

“Gettha’ fuck off’a me.”

By the time he manages to get to his feet, the girl is on the floor and hissing at him, but Dabi doesn’t care, because he’s busy doing what he’s always done—chasing you down, too many steps behind. Every one he takes is unsteady and he’s blinking rapidly with how hard he’s trying to focus, on the sight of your yellow dress, on the shine of your hair in the neon lights, of the curl of your little fist. It seems like all the substances in his system surge in his bloodstream, come up his throat (and go back down, as he stops and leans against someone so he can swallow), and nauseate him with every body he pushes through.

It all gets drowned out, though, by the anger he’s inherited from the man he despises most in this world—when someone grabs you by the arm and halts you in your tracks.

Of course it’s some big fucking guy, a tree trunk of a man that could crunch you in his fingers if he wanted to, pick his teeth with your bones.

(Look, Dabi totally has an eight pack—and he could show you, if you don’t believe him—but he’s not even half as wide as Enji. Fucking Natsuo has broader shoulders than him, and every muscle in Touya’s body is lean, probably a little malnourished. He’s never come across a fight that required his fists alone and that, coupled with the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a crowded club, when he can’t decide which vision of you is the real one, makes for a big fucking problem.)

Something comes out of his mouth, something completely unintelligible, but it’s lost along the music as he tries to close the distance between the two of you. Just as he starts to shout something again, you completely stun him; that fist uncurls, flattens out into a firm palm, and it slaps across the face of the man grabbing onto you. It actually gives Dabi a bit of a chub, makes him smirk as he sways back into the body behind him and mutters something that sounds like “fuck yeah”.

But then you’re getting backhanded into the floor and Dabi is launching his wiry body through the air before red finishes settling in front of his eyes.

If the two of you will ever stop getting into situations like this, when your precious, stupid little life is on the line, he doesn’t know—but he sure as fuck would like to. This is different than the time in the alley, because he’s the one on the ground, getting the shit knocked out of him, but he’s batshit insane anyway, so he just laughs the whole time. It’s like armor, this sick craziness he can wield, and though it’s dented and broken and dull, it still makes that tree fucker look nervous. Somehow he manages to get the upper hand once, manages to maneuver his lithe body on top of the guy, but then he realizes you’re screaming his name and grabbing for him.

It stuns him again, when his elbow rockets back and hits you square in the nose, when he watches with wide eyes as tears well up in yours, as blood starts spurting down over your lips.

And then staples are coming loose in his face as knuckles crack across his cheek.

Maybe you already know this about Dabi and Touya, maybe you don’t: sometimes, that fire of his burns so hot, it makes his skin peel away from his bones. The burning pain and sting of it all is starting, welling up in him like an ugly vice when he’s finally had enough of this little game, but then something pricks in his neck and it’s like a bucket of water has been dumped over him.

The flames die out in his hand so fast, it makes his head spin, and Dabi somehow manages a breath before he looks back at you, before a cold panic sobers him up when he sees the club owner with a gun pointed at your chest. It almost makes him piss himself, but a little tack just comes out the end of the barrel and he watches your lips form around an 'ow’ before you tug it out of your skin. A loud groan of relief is released from his mouth at the realization you haven’t been shot to death before his eyes and it even makes him forget about the fight, until a heavy hand is twisting in his hair and his feet are dragging across the dance floor.

The quiet night air almost hurts his ears with its silence, the cold nips at his sweaty face as the concrete rushes up to meet him. More staples come loose with the bust of his head against the ground and he can’t tell what on him is blood or perspiration, maybe some of it is even alcohol or his vomit. It makes him think of how disgusting you’d been in that motel room, almost makes him laugh at the irony of it all—how the two of you always end up like this. The night sky is empty, much plainer than the walls of the club had been, but that somehow just hurts his head as a myriad of colors and shapes swirl in his vision.

The only thing he’s sure of is your face leaning over his, that the look in your eye isn’t as sad as it once had been. It’s a good thing he’s already on the ground, because it might have knocked him to his knees, and he says something questionable that only makes you shake your head.

“Touya,” When you sigh, a bead of blood drips from your nose, down your chin, and onto his lips.

The trek back to you apartment is fucking awful and damn near impossible.

At one point in time, during his youth, Touya had been shorter than you. Not by a lot, but it didn’t matter, it was just as embarrassing, and there is some kind of juvenile glee he gets now that his frame is towering over yours (even if he's still not as tall as his younger brother). Despite the blow to his skull and the fear you were gonna get blasted to Hell, there is still so much crap swimming in his head, he doesn’t care that the two of you are touching; your arm is wrapped around his thin waist, his is draped over your shoulders as you help him stumble down the sidewalk.

Blood is staining your little dress, turning the white flowers red, but you hug him close regardless. Sometimes he steps too wide or unsteady and it takes all your effort to keep the two of you upright, him on the inside of the sidewalk, away from the streetlamps, and it makes him laugh as you grunt his name.

Out there, in the night, it feels like the two of you are the only ones in the world, like the only ones in a dark theater. Something warm spreads in his chest at that thought, that maybe this is even romantic, but then he just starts sputtering out a cackle again because holy fuck, is that embarrassing.

Dabi doesn’t even realize you’ve stopped and are standing a little in the street, that his mouth is against your hair as he mutters, “I’m tall, huh?”

“Yes, Dabi, you are tall.” You sound a little annoyed with him, but it doesn’t bother him as much as it should. At least not for the moment.

When you raise your hand a little and wave it around, he thinks you’re trying to get his attention and he grunts at you, slouching down further, breathing in the smell of your shampoo, and it’s only then that he realizes a car is pulling up in front of the two of you. Dabi whips his head back so fast, his stomach lurches.

“Come on, get in.”

“What’re ya’ doing?”

With a huff, you try to usher him into the cab. “I can’t carry you all the way home.”

“’m not gettin’ in that fucking thing.”

The driver swivels around in his seat, glancing between the two of you, probably wondering what the hold up is. Even drunker than shit, Dabi wants to ask what the fuck you’re thinking, if you’re even thinking at all, as he instinctively tries to slink back into the dark. That feisty hand of yours latches onto his at lightning speed to stop him.

This is something he thought you already knew about him, that he can’t just go waltzing around in public, as if his face hadn’t been blasted all over the television, as if he wasn't a known and wanted criminal. There are a lot of choice words forming on his tongue, ones that he wants to say because he knows they’ll hurt your feelings, but you’re already slipping in the leather seats, tugging him hard enough that he nearly hits his head on the roof of the car.

The minute you can, you buckle his seatbelt and give the driver your address, even lean all up against him as his entire body goes rigid.

“Relax,” You try to tell him, but he absolutely does not do that.

First of all, Dabi hates seeing the streetlights pass him by like that, especially with his head reeling, and it makes him feel sicker than he already does. Yellow and black, yellow and black, yellow and black, lights and then darkness; it’s a damn nightmare for his headache. Second of all, why the hell are you so cramped up on him, anyway? Blocking him in, shoving your shoulder against his chest, trapping him like the cab is speeding to the hospital, so you can check his crazy ass into the nut house.

Fucking traitor.

For a brief moment, he looks down at your face, tries to read the tired sheen in your eyes, watches the gentle way you dab at your nose, to see if he can find any truth to this theory. There is a small bead of sweat at your temple and his eyes narrow at it suspiciously. If his heart wasn't beating out of his chest at the fear of being in a public cab, a lot of accusations would start flying, but if he opens his mouth, vomit will probably come out and get all in your fucking hair. If he needs to use that to distract you so he can escape in the near future, then he better hold onto his guts.

The glare he's sending you must be burning a hole in the side of your face, because you angle it up at him, get even more in his personal space, blow your minty breath on his lips as you ask him if he's alright.

And then things start spinning again, start making him feel warm like before. As if the darkness of this backseat and the flash of the streetlights are all just scenes in the movie, the ambiance in the theater, and the two of you are the only ones that exist. Only two tickets got sold for the showing of this crap—something girly and cheesy, something about a witch and her broomstick and a cat—and the whole room is dark enough that you can’t see the burns on his skin, the gaps in his face.

Dabi is such a fucking pussy, so he slurs something like, "oh, shit," as you stare at him like that.

But then the cab driver flips around in his seat with a surprised gasp and you’re shoving yourself even further into him, pressing the back of your head into his face and holding up your hands.

“Please keep driving.”

All Touya smells is lavender, all he feels is the warmth of your back against his chest. It’s too warm. When he shifts his head, the tip of his nose bumps against the shell of your ear and he thinks about you in that shower again. The copper of your breath, the faraway look in your eyes. How easily you'd let him hold you like that, even looking like he does, even after so much time. For some crazy reason, the muscles in Dabi's hands twitch and his fingers tighten on the fabric of your ruined dress.

“I know what you’re thinking, but please keep driving and I’ll pay you extra not to say anything to anyone.”

You stay like that for the remainder of the ride, only looking back at his face once, nose brushing against his as you check his eyes to make sure he’s alright—and the whole action sends his stomach into his fucking throat. One of your hands pats his, the one fisted in your dress, and your fingers even run over his knuckles softly, in a way that makes him want to lean his head back and pass out in this cab.

Or die. The plushy, sick softness of it all makes him want to just fucking die.

Another thing: Dabi can only do this like this, if you're wondering at all. Can only be quiet like this, can only touch you like this, when he can't feel your eyes on his face. If you're not looking at him, maybe you don't know. Maybe it's like before, when he could sit in the dark of your bedroom and count your quiet breaths as you slept, when he could close his eyes and pretend that it would be normal for him to crawl in with you, if he wanted to.

When you fish a (probably) outrageous amount of money out of your purse and toss it to the driver, he just keeps his head down, partially in shame, because his anger had come and gone so fast after you'd just looked at him, and partially because his neck is fucking tired. After you push him out of the cab does he realize the two of you are not in front of your apartment building, that you lied about your address just in case.

The walk up the block is a little less painful and Dabi doesn’t let you touch his hands this time, just wobbles around on his own.

It takes longer than it should for him to get up the stairs; every time he starts to fall, a reflexive laugh comes out of him as he throws his arms in the air, and you have to plant your feet into the ground, push your back up against his in order to further him along.

On the second floor landing, you say the line, you say, “Dabi, I’m serious,” when he pushes back against you, which only expels an exaggerated, exasperated groan from his throat, and then he lets you lean him against the wall while you unlock your front door. The couch isn’t made up and that surprises him, almost makes him a little mad, makes him instantly come to the conclusion you’d had company over, but he slumps down on it all the same. He starts to make a half-hearted inquiry about who you fucked on the cushions he’s sitting on when he realizes you’re not even next to him, that you’re piddling around in your kitchen. The absence of you gives him a small bit of reprieve and he tries to get himself the fuck together.

“Are you hot?”

When he opens his eyes—that he hadn’t realized he’d closed—you are holding an ice pack against his forehead, using some of the wetness to wipe at the blood there. There are two dried, crimson rings around your nostrils and a small, budding bruise right at your cupid’s bow, one that is just a little indigo in the shitty light of your apartment. The skin of his jaw is rough and he’s so caught up in looking at your swollen lip that he doesn’t realize you’re touching him there, doesn’t register the pressure of your fingers right away, but he smacks your hand away when he finally does.

“‘m fine, don’t touch me.”

The look you send him is surprisingly irritated and, now that the stillness of your apartment is shrouding him in peace, he can feel the laxity in his cheek when he grins. The staples are still in his face, just stretched out too far, so he tries to dig his fingers into his mouth to pinch them back together, but you stop him.

“Your hands are dirty!” You cry, like a little bit of bacteria is gonna kill him.

Get this, smarty-pants, a lot of things have tried to kill him, it ain’t gonna be some germs that take him out.

"Don' touch me."

With a sigh, the ice pack drops to your lap, eyes traveling over his face in that too-studious way you always do. Dabi has this urge, to grab the loose part of his cheek and pull at it so you can see his skin stretch, see all his ugliness up close, but the look in your big, Bambi eyes tells him you can already see it, without even trying. Your tongue comes out to lightly run over the puffiness of your lip, which grabs his attention (and you totally do that shit on purpose), and the absence of the ice on his forehead makes him realize just how hot he's running, like the heat is on in your apartment or something.

"You mad at me?" He doesn't know why he asks, maybe because some part of him thinks it's funny—he's seen your face for 11 years and none of your weak anger has ever been directed at him—and because some part of him really wants to know. If it's this easy to get under your skin, then you're in for a rough ride, princess.

Almost instantly, you open your mouth and start shaking your head, but, after a moment of looking at him, you close it and sigh—as if you actually might be. It makes him sputter out a silent laugh.

"No, Touya, I'm not mad at you." Is what you say, and it's so soft and distracting that he doesn't care when you put that ice pack on his forehead again. “I just—” It looks like you’re sad, ashamed even, the way you stare down at the couch cushions. “I wish I knew, that—I just wonder if there was something I could have said or done to—”

The broadcast, him, you’re talking about him; Dabi is drunker than shit, but it’s still sitting at the forefront of his mind, that fucking hilarious look on Enji’s face, how Shouto’s voice had gone hoarse from yelling so hard. All the dirty laundry in the Todoroki family, aired out for the world—you included—to see.

Whatever the hell you’re trying to say pisses him off.

“My bad,” Dabi rolls his eyes and knocks your hand away again, because you apparently don’t know anything about personal space. “Sorry I didn’t stop during our games of pretend to tell you my dad was a total fuckstick.”

The ice pack goes to your lip as you slump into the couch, looking defeated (which is funny), and you bring it away from your mouth two times like you’ve got some kind of rebuttal, but it just ends with a shake of your head. When you look at him again, Dabi realizes you’ve seen him without a shirt on, over the television, which is what he’d wanted, but you’re looking at his neck and his ears and his hands, and you must be envisioning what you saw then, wherever you were when it came across the screen.

“Say something,” he mutters, feeling perspiration drip down the back of his neck, “don’t just stare at me all stupid like that.”

A flat, unamused look flashes over your face just before you shift your body completely in his direction, laying your head on the couch to look straight at him. It makes his lips curl, especially the little smile on your annoying face. “Do you remember that game of tag we used to play? When I would touch you—”

And Touya would have to stand stone still, wherever he was, only could start moving freely again—out of your Mind Freeze—if he successfully completed a dare of your choice (and they were all stupid: "do a cartwheel” or “hang upside down in the tree” or “run three times around the playground”). If he caught up to you during the game, touched your arm or leg, you were forbidden from using it for one full round, because it was “burned”.

Embarrassing.

“No.” His eyes are on the hole in his jeans, the small one right above his knee. “I don’t ‘member any’a that shit.”

“Hmm,” There is a smile on your face, he can tell without even looking at you, because you’re always so fucking obvious. “I remember—always winning, of course.”

It’s bait and he’s not that stupid. Nice try, smarty-pants.

“Doesn’t really sound like the you I ‘member.” Dabi risks a glance out of the corner of his eye, sees the lump on your lip darkening a bit, sees the way your cheek squishes against your hand when you tuck it between your face and the couch. “Couldn’t even use your quirk without losing your guts.”

The small kick against his shin isn’t accidental.

When you shift a little closer to him, he sits back, further into the cushions. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you don’t remember, then.” You make a teasing sound as you stick your tongue out at him.

The long-sleeve he’s wearing is sticking to him, clinging to the textured skin of his back. Sweat drips down behind his ears and it’s not from the ice pack—which has melted down to water—like he had originally thought. It’s fucking burning up in this apartment of yours, what the fuck? If he closes his eyes, he can almost envision it’s crawling all over his skin, that blue fire, peeling back all the layers of his stapled face.

It’s almost like you’re waiting to see it, looking at him like that. Like you’re waiting to see what hides in all the ugliness, in the meat of his muscles and the char of his bones.

“You know,”

Maybe if Dabi didn’t feel like he was melting into a puddle of human goo, he would feel a bit cold as you start saying this soft bullshit.

“You were the first boy I ever had a crush on.”

A sick fucking freak, that’s what you are. Waiting on his reaction, trying to dissect the way sweat is drenching him, watching every breath he tries to pant out. It must be why you’ve got the heat on—it must be—trying to trap him and force him to come out of his skin, to see all the hatred that’s kept him burning all these years. What you want with it, what you want him to say to that, he has no clue.

It’s like you’re using that loser, piece of crap quirk of yours, digging your fingers into the staples just to pull them out, just to see him unfurl into pieces.

Dabi feels hot, like really hot. Hot like he does when his skin burns, hot like he had hugging Shouto, hot like he had at Sekoto. Hot like he had under that tree.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” You sigh, finally turning your face away to close your eyes, furrowing your eyebrows as you run your tongue over that swollen bruise on your lip again. “I lit incense for you, too, at the grave.” The words come out a little stuttered, a little different, like you’re the embarrassed one. “One thing I realized about death is that—well, of course it’s never easy, it always hurts, but there’s something about being a kid and—and one day your friend just stops showing up to play.”

There is a faraway look on your face, staring absentmindedly at the television, as if you’re remembering. The little version of you he’d known comes to his mind, the one he tagged, the one he kissed (or kissed him, really), and he tries to imagine you on the playground alone.

It’s never been something he’s thought about, never something he had the luxury of thinking about. A few weeks had passed before he screwed his head back on right, before he found you again, and you must have figured it out by then.

Maybe if Dabi cared about anything other than himself, maybe if he could cry, his eyes would be a little swollen right about now.

“At school, they never told us, you know, no one. Even after the paper came out, even after we asked about it, no one would say anything. It was—” One of your hands goes into your hair and you tug at it, like the memory still stresses you out or something. “—frustrating. And the entire time, we’re all just waiting, stuck as kids no one listens to, just trying to find out what happened to our friend and if—”

To his absolute horror, your voice cracks.

“I just wanted to know if you were coming back.”

Out of the corner of his eye—because he’s sure as fuck not going to look at you—he can see you wipe your tears, hears you sniff up a bunch of snot. The spot beneath his palm on the couch has gone dark with his sweat, he can feel what’s gathered in the collar of his shirt. If he still dyed his hair, it would be running down his face, the way your mascara is.

“It had a monumental impact on my life, being young and losing you like it.”

There’s one last thing you need to understand about Touya. If you peeled back the layers of his skin, took all his staples out, dug through all the ugliness—

“It still does have a monumental impact on me, you did in the alleyway that day. You do now.”

—there’d be a little version of you, standing under a tree, blood on your lips.

It’s buried so far in there, in the tendons and hot blood of him, you’ll probably be stuck there forever. Not even his own hands could dig it out, no matter how hard he tries, or has tried. It’s a curse, a terrible, sweaty sickness. A chink in the crazy armor he thought he’d forged.

It’s his only weakness, the only thing that could ruin him. Maybe it already has.

There’s a question simmering on his tongue, one he’s always had, and Dabi can feel himself fucking losing it, so he tries to cling onto the only emotion that makes sense. “Then how did you find out?”

When you swivel your head to finally look at him, you see the mess he’s melted into and sit up in a hurry. “Touya, you’re—I think you should get in the shower.”

Before you can spring to your feet, he’s beaten you. Fists clenched, the answer he already knows, all the emotions he’s tried to bury—all thrumming in him like the headache behind his eyes. “How did you find out what happened?”

“We can have this conversation later, after you cool off.” You step toward him and he steps back, until he’s slipping against the wall. “Take your shirt off, it’s soaked, Touya, we—”

This time, when you reach for him, he grabs your hands in his and squeezes, wants to turn your fingers to ash under his palms with how pissed off you’re making him. Rage is twisting his face the way it always does, the way he hadn’t wanted you to see once. “Answer my fucking question. Now.”

“I asked Enji.” It’s obvious that you’re saying the wrong thing, he can see the way awkward regret is blooming on your face (there’s a bitter part of him that is giddy about that—welcome to his world, where saying the wrong thing is only natural). “They wouldn’t tell us what happened, I had no choice! I cared about you, I deserved to—”

“You’re crazy!” Dabi shoves you—hard, because you fucking deserve it—and his hands fly to his damp hair. “What the hell is wrong with you? Asking him? Why the fuck would you do that?” The tone of his voice is hysterical, almost two octaves higher than it usually is, and panic makes you sweat. Another wave of heat rolls over him and almost makes him heave.

“You were my friend, Touya, what else was I supposed—”

“Fuck! You’re nothing but’a huge problem for me, you know that?”

Everything Dabi has ever needed to be, everything he has the chance to be, comes crashing down at the simplest bat of your stupid fucking eyelashes, and it’s finally driven him insane.

Did that mean Enji knew? Or Shouto?

Only days ago, when he’d shown them the man he’d become—how heartless and bitter, how strong and unbreakable—did they watch on with that stupid look, knowing what had happened underneath that tree? Did they know the fucking weakling, the fucking coward, he had once been in your mere prescence?

Wrapped around your stupid finger, turning red and dreaming about you at night, imagining himself—fuck—imagining all the things the two of you would be when you were older.

Rei had to keep popping out kids for a man that forced her into a fake, bullshit marriage; Touya didn’t know what love was, wouldn’t know it if it slapped him in his stupid, chubby face, but there was something he had felt at school, when he saw a girl, when she played tag and talked about their future as heroes—there was something that felt real good about that.

It was distracting, you were (still fucking are), and the last thing he needed during all his training was a damn girl to steal his mind to other possibilities, to other futures—but you had regardless.

And Enji wasn’t supposed to know. Not then, not now, not ever.

“We weren’t friends! We were never friends, I—I hated your annoying ass.”

Finally, he hurts your stupid feelings; your nostrils flare and another flat look tries to shine over the sadness in your eyes. “You don’t need to talk to me like this.”

“Fuck, you were pathetic!” The laugh he lets out is all Dabi, all crazy and furious and fire. “I should have killed you, just like I wanted to!”

“Touya, stop.”

Dabi takes a step towards you, another one when you back up from him, and grabs the front of your shirt. Any minute now, it’s going to burst into flames and maybe, if he’s lucky, you’ll fuck out of his life forever. “I wanted to dig your eyes out with a spoon while your parents were sleeping. I wanted you to scream and cry and—”

“No, you didn’t.”

“—while you asked me why, why, why me? so I could finally tell you how much I hated you.”

It only infuriates him more, the look on your face, which isn’t as scared as he wants it to be. Which isn’t really scared at all.

“I daydreamed about it every day, I fucking jacked it to the thought of your dead, rotting body laying six feet—”

“I’ve been inside your head.” Your hands come to wrap around his, which prompts him to yank them back. “In the alleyway, trying to find out who you were. I know, Touya, I know that you’re lying, so please,” with a sigh, you squeeze your eyes shut, “stop talking to me like that.”

Every part of you is sick and soft and quiet, from the look on your pinched face to the shaking hands that reach for him again, and Dabi realizes it is something he has never known. What does all of it even mean, anyway? The tone of your laugh when he makes an ugly face at you, when he mocks the stupid questions you ask, when he rolls his eyes at your fucking implications. All of you, every last piece of you, has always been a mystery to him, one he wasn’t able to leave unsolved.

When he yells at you like this, you’re supposed to turn away and you are supposed to cry. When he raises his hands to strike you, to burn you into fucking nothing, you are supposed to be afraid, you are supposed to fear the scorch of his flames against your skin, the ones that will turn you into him. When he ignores your calls and doesn’t come around as often as you want him to, you are supposed to get it. You are supposed to know you’ve been replaced—by a cat girl, one that is more talented than you, one that fucks better—and he is supposed to turn away and forget you existed.

But none of that ever seems to fucking happen.

“What?” His voice has gone hoarse, “You don’t know anything.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Though he’s the one with the fist raised, though he’s the one with sweat slicking his hair to his neck, though he’s the one that’s put that bruise on your lip, an apology is evident in every word you speak. “I just wanted to know who you were, I didn’t mean to see it all.”

The only response he gives you is the thunderous beat of his heart in his chest, the wide-eyed look on his ugly mug.

“I wanted to tell you and talk to you about it, but you come around so rarely and you never answer when I—” You shake your head, “I’m not blaming you, I’m sorry. But then everything happened and—” In the black screen of the television, he sees how trapped he looks when you gesture to it. How small he looks. How Touya-like he looks. “—and I just never got the chance to, before now.”

Every thought he’s ever had about you makes him sway on his feet. Every lustful thought, every remembrance of the jokes you’d told him as kids, of the games you played, of the looks you’d given him. Every horrible thought he’s ever had about you—sincere and in an attempt to stuff his feelings back down his throat. All the wanting he’d ever done, for the future, for the past, for now. It’s all laying out in front of him, between the space on the carpet between the two of you. Like he’d vomited it all up. Like you’d peeled back the layers of his skin and dug it all out of him.

“You’re full of shit.”

“No, Touya, I’m—” Frustration flashes over your face again and you rub at the crease between your eyebrows, dab at your nose, tongue the bruise on your lip. “I would never lie to you, I need you to know that.”

“Yes you are,” Pressing himself further into the wall behind him, he whispers, “Yes, you are lying. I know you are.”

“What makes you think I’m lying about this?”

“In the alleyway, that wasn’t the first time you’ve ever put your fingers inside my brain.” The first time he’d met you, at that fucking private school, when you told him about your quirk, he hadn’t believed you. Some kind of mind game bullshit? How was that fair? A nobody-girl, one that wasn’t even from a prominent family, like Touya was, would rise through the ranks as a Pro in no time flat, with an OP quirk like that.

When he asked you to tell him what he was thinking, to prove it, you’d gone quiet, flinched a little, and told him that the burns on his shoulders were hurting him. It was the first day he’d met you, wearing a school uniform, one that covered him up in a way that hid it all—from his teacher, from Enji, from a nobody, smarty-pants girls like you; there was no way for you to know that kinda shit.

Whatever he wants to say next doesn’t come out, not even when he opens his mouth and gasps like a dying, stinking fish. Maybe if Dabi could cry, he would be.

If you could read his mind in half a second, in the alleyway, to know, then how did you not know then? In the classroom, peeking inside his mind, knowing about the burns and somehow not knowing about it all. About Enji. About the Hell he was living.

It all seems to dawn on you, all your petty, stupid fucking lies, and you take a step forward. “I didn’t know back then because I didn’t know how to use it yet. I—I still don’t! Because I can’t, Touya!”

“It doesn’t make sense, no matter what you say. Because you’re lying.”

“If I had known what you were going through, don’t you think I would have—” For some reason, you start crying, like you’re the victim here. Like you’re the one with the gaps in your skin and the burns on your body and the hate in your stomach. Like you’re the one that fucking lost it. “I didn’t know how to use my quirk back then, in order to see more than what you were thinking. I cared about you, I still do! If I had known—”

“Shut up!” Dabi raises his hands, curls them in the way he does when he wants to burn everything around him. He grabs you then and he doesn’t care about the gentle way you’re touching him, doesn’t care about the hands on his or the breath on his face when he drags you closer. “You’re a liar!”

“You’re burning up, you have to calm down!” Still, you aren’t scared of him, just trying to wipe the sweat pooling all over his face and neck. Pleading and crying, just like he wants, but the worry dancing in your eyes isn’t for yourself.

“I’m going to kill you, right now!”

You can’t know. You can’t know all the things he’s thought about you. You can’t know him like that because no one does, not even Dabi knows all the things about Touya like that.

“If you don’t calm down, you’re going to roast yourself alive, Touya, you’re overheating!”

“Right now, I’m going to do it! Just like I’ve always wanted!” He’s going to shove his thumbs in your eyes, he’s going to snap your pretty little neck, he’s gonna cut you up—just like you’ve done to him. Hands on your jaw, fingers cradling your face: he’s ready.

Any minute now.

Any second, he’s going to finally do it.

They’ll close that movie theater down. No one will ever go there again. It will all be reduced to ashes.

“Touya, please.”

Any moment now. He can do it, no problem. Absolutely no problem.

But your fingers cradle his face, and then you push them up his nose and in his ears and everything gets cool, just for a little while. Just enough that he can finally lean his head back against the couch you’ve made up for him, just enough so that he can finally sleep.

The first thing Dabi knows when he wakes up is that he’s in your bed (it takes him a long time to figure this out—what with the migraine and sour taste in his mouth and all that), and he knows this because the mattress is way too soft to be his, there are too many pillows all around him, and your smell is invading every piece of him.

The second thing he knows is that he’s wearing the sweater again—and that you must have put it on him, which means you’d seen—and then that the sheets are a little damp from all the towel-wrapped bags of ice near his neck, his hands, his thighs. It all comes painfully flashing back to him, the night before, and it’s a testament to how tired he is—seriously—because he doesn’t really do anything, just lays there like a dead, stinking fish.

There are two piles of sheets balled up on your floor, stained with blood, stained with (what is obviously) his vomit, and he can faintly hear your washer banging across the apartment. For a minute, he wonders if this is how you felt, laying for 30 minutes in that bathtub—somehow alive, but feeling like death—fading in and out from the world around you, thoughts coming and going like the breeze from the ceiling fan above him.

Today, whatever time it is (late afternoon, maybe?), Touya is too exhausted to put up the act.

It’s embarrassing, the way he wraps his arms over his face and breathes you in, the soft little groan he lets out when the smell of lavender subdues his headache for a moment. His tight jeans are still on, though they’ve been unbuttoned, zipper down, and—with all the wiggling he’d done in his sleep—they’ve come down uncomfortably around his ass. It takes a long time before he moves his arms, before he pulls them back on right and rolls out of bed.

The idea of you makes his stomach hurt, so he doesn’t go there just yet.

Peeking out of your room, there is no sign of anyone else in the apartment, and Touya quickly pads across the hall and into your bathroom, leans against the door when he closes it and holds his breath, just in case you’re gonna pop out somewhere.

It’s hard to meet himself in the mirror, always is.

Somehow, the burns under his eyes look worse, darker, and two of the staples in his cheek are more crooked than usual. Part of his hair is flattened against his head and the other parts are wild, a little crimped and folded, and running a hand through it all doesn’t do a fucking thing, which makes him snort. It’s strangely domestic, the rugged sight of him in your bathroom, wearing a sweater that was originally his, that he’d seen on you, that you’d put back on him.

The bristles on your toothbrush are stained pink, but he brushes the sour taste of puke out of his mouth anyway—no, he’s not gonna tell you about that.

When there’s nothing left to do but face you, Touya wonders what else you’ve seen in this crazy head of his. In between the time since you’d read his mind in the alleyway and last night, he’d worried about you, thought about the future the two of you were supposed to have. He’s wanted you, and a date at the cinema, jacked off to the thought of your tits under his sweater (and a bunch of other things, honestly), cursed himself for being such an asshole by ignoring you, and hated you. Every part of you he couldn’t understand, every part of you he wanted to.

That laptop of yours is open, the headset around your neck as something dull and boring drones on quietly, and you look at him for a long time before hitting your spacebar, before taking off the headphones and standing up to approach him.

The bruise on your lip has fully settled and it’s ugly.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” You’re whispering, which is nice for his headache. When he shrugs, you turn back to the table and grab a piece of buttered toast from your plate, the piece that isn’t bitten, and offer it to him.

And he’s too tired to fight, so he just takes it and moves around you, away from the way you’re looking at him—soft, like fucking always—and slumps down on your couch. It’s been made up, with the blanket and the pillows; you must have slept on it last night.

The toast crunches real loud, gets crumbs all over him that he swipes onto the carpet, and some are clinging to your cheek when you eventually come to sit beside him. Dabi thinks it’s too close, Touya thinks it’s too far away, and all three of you just stare at the empty television screen. Out of the corner of his eye, you’re opening and closing your mouth, sighing quietly, and it almost makes him laugh, it would if it didn’t require so much effort.

Then the apologies start.

“I’m sorry for knocking you out like that.” All the words are still whispered. “I don’t know if you remember,”—he does—“but they shot us with suppressants, at the bar, and you were overheating.”

Suppressants. That Yakuza fuck.

It makes you sound real small and sad, with your Bambi eyes and sunset face. “I was afraid you were gonna cook yourself alive, so I—”

“‘s’fine.” Touya grunts, and you just nod in response.

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it earlier, I should have made time to find you.” The huff you let out is a little bitter, too harsh for someone like you. “I did it just fine yesterday, I should have tried harder before then.”

None of this really means anything to him, so he shifts a little bit—cringes—and looks at you. “How did you find that place?”

“You’ve been there before,” Even though it’s all out in the open, you seem shy about admitting it, which is real fucking hilarious. “It’s the second place I looked.”

The image of you, in that yellow dress, wandering down streets and sidewalks, looking in the places he hangs around, makes him want to throw up. What the fuck are you thinking? Another blow to the head will kill you, stupid, so why are you walking around like a ripe little peach, around people that would love to take a bite?

(There is a small, uncaged part of him that feels warm about it, that makes Touya feel like he did at school with you; the idea that you had searched high and low, slapped guys that grabbed you, tried to talk to him about his embarrassing fucking feelings—it all makes you seem like a mystery again.)

You’re quiet after that, thoughts flashing over your face as you lightly touch the bruise on your lip, and it pisses him off suddenly. All of his memories and daydreams, all of his fears and wants and desires, all of his plans and secrets have all been strewn out before him like a disemboweled pig, and you get to sit quietly with all your own feelings.

“Tell me what you’re thinking. Now.” When you raise your eyebrows at him, his face scrunches up like that of a child, like it probably did back then. “I deserve to know.”

Because you’re an annoying little goody-goody, you just shrug.

“I think that’s fair.” You shift to face him, the way you had last night. “I’m thinking that I’m still worried about you overheating. I’m thinking that I’m tired, that I’m upset with myself.” A frown pulls on your lips. “I’m thinking that...you’re going to leave, and I’m worried you won’t come back this time.”

Not in some you’re-gonna-die-out-there kinda way, but in some you’ll-never-talk-to-me-again kinda way. It’s as plain as day on your face and he, Dabi, thinks it’s good that you feel that way, that you should. Because he, Dabi, shouldn’t ever speak to you again because he’s been compromised, he’s been found out. All the secret inside shit you aren’t supposed to know has come to the surface—in fact, you dived into that water to find it yourself—and, by the rules of the street, he shouldn’t come around you again. He should kill you, actually, to prevent anything from happening to him or his mission.

“I’m thinking that I regret not trying to find you sooner, when we were kids. I maybe could have done it, I don’t know,” You shrug again and it becomes obvious how tired you are. It must have been a long night, for the both of you, after you’d finally shut him up. “But I’m also thinking there is no use regretting, because it won’t change the past. I’m thinking that,” Bambi eyes, big and worried and sad and gentle. “I just have to keep trying, for the future.”

For once, he doesn’t know what to say. Or think. Or do.

Because nobody has ever tried for him, for Touya, not like you have.

A little chuckle comes out of you, brings his eyes back to your face, and he’s surprised to find it a little shy. “I’m also thinking that it’s a little silly for me to be sad, because I should have known there were other women in your life, after all this time.”

And that confuses the hell out of him, makes him roll his eyes and shake his head—painfully—as he tries to figure out what the fuck you’re talking about.

“What?” It’s absurd, really, this idea that he’s the kinda guy worried about other women, that he’s the kinda guy that has a multitude of them stored in his back fucking pocket or something. Toga? He wouldn’t call her a woman, more like a noisy little brat that could go to Hell, for all he cared. “What other women?”

The smile on your face wavers, like you want to drop it into a frown, but you hold it steady. “I don’t know, just, whoever. Like the one from last night.”

Are you kidding?

Your stupid ass quirk has reached into the recesses of his mind and broken open that seal, spilled his guts all over the floor of your apartment and cleaned it up with your sheets, and you still think—

“The cat girl? I don’t even—I couldn’t tell you her name if my life depended on it.”

“Oh,” The laugh you let out is a little surprised, but your face still looks pinched and upset. “I don’t—uh—I don’t know if that’s better or worse, actually.”

“There are no 'other women', smarty-pants.” Touya scoffs and leans closer to you, sneers in your face so you fucking get the point. “Use that brain of yours, Miss College Classes, there ain’t no one else, just—”

When he cuts himself off, you raise your eyebrows, lean closer to him in response—which sends him back to the other end of the couch. “Just?”

This is so stupid, makes him cross his arms in annoyance as a wave of embarrassment heats up his whole body. “If you wanna know so damn bad, just read my mind again. You seem to have a real affinity for that!”

“Touya,” You chide, “I’m serious. Just—?”

Here’s one last thing to know: he isn’t going to say it. Absolutely not. If you wanna cough up blood and dig through the gaps of him to find out, be his fucking guest, but he is not going to say it. Not even if you scoot closer, not even if you put your hand on his—not even if he lets you—and certainly, not even if you run your tongue over that bruise on your lip.

You do that shit on purpose and he knows it.

“Get out of my face.”

But you don’t.

It makes his head crane back, the way your minty breath hits his lips again, the way your nose nudges his like it had in the cab, and—even though any and all thoughts from last night are painful—it has the same fucking effect. Everything about you is soft and touchy, your fingers over his cheekbone, your eyes watching him, your lips on his.

Touya hasn’t ever done anything softly, doesn’t even know how to, but he tries. Because he’s too exhausted to put up the act anymore, too eager for this to finally happen, too distracted to care about the gaps in his skin. He tries because he’s been ready to cross this boundary with you for a long time, too long, maybe because the two of you did that day in the motel. Touya tries for you because you’re the only one that tries for him.

When he pushes his lips back in response, a little breath comes out of your nose and fans across his face, makes him stop pulling his head away from you so he can move his chapped lips against yours, so he can nip lightly at your bottom lip and so he can dig one of his hands into your hair. A little sigh of relief is exhaled between the two of you and he moves in closer, presses his lips a little harder, so he can lick into your mouth, the hand on the back of your neck pulling you into him. The metal in his tongue must surprise you, because a little sound squeaks out of you; it isn’t one of arousal or pleasure, but just the mere fact that your lips are slotted together, that you’re making little noises against him, finally gives him the energy to nearly push you back into the couch.

“Ow,” The word murmurs around his lips and he pulls back instantly, eyes wide and zero-ing in on the purple bruise marring your face.

It’s fucking hilarious; he’s finally getting the chance to kiss you, for the second time in his pitiful life, and—of course—your lips would be too tender for him, with the injury he gave you. Fucking great. So fucking funny, in retrospect.

If he backs out now, he might lose his wits and jump through your window again, so Touya just adjusts his head and presses another kiss into the corner of your mouth. It makes you laugh, how hard he tries not to smash into that bruise, and he keeps pressing his lips to yours, keeps licking into them, digging his fingers into your scalp, even as you say his name.

“What?” He grunts, finally pulling away from you when you laugh again. Your hands follow him, lay gently on his cheeks—and he lets you, even if it makes him sweat a little—and settle your forehead against his.

You press another soft kiss to him, just to be a fucking tease and pull back when he chases you. “No other women?”

“Does it look like I’m—”

“Touya!”

“No, damn it!” As annoyed as he’s trying to sound, one of his arms is wrapping around you, pulling you closer to him as one of yours goes behind his neck. It makes him a little tense, the unfamiliarity of it all, like you’re gonna dig your nails into him or choke him out when you get the chance. But your eyes are big and wide and shining with something that embarrasses him, shining the way they always do when you look at him.

And you better not fucking tell anyone about the little kiss he gives your bruise.

“Ain’t no one else but you.”

The smile you give him makes him pull back his head, or he tries to, but you keep your forehead against his, and give his nose a little kiss in return. It makes him groan—in embarrassment and not because he likes it—so he presses another kiss against your lips, lets it get a little passionate and heavy, hands running from your back to your thighs, from his hair to his chest, before he purposely nips at your lip again. All this cutesy shit makes him queasy, but it’s the first time he’s seen you really smile since he’d been in your apartment, since before last night, since six weeks ago, when you let him fall asleep on your couch.

And for some reason, you look just about as happy touching him.

“You aren’t gonna leave and never come back?” Even through all the sugary sweet kissing, he can hear the concern in your voice, can feel the heat from the burn in your eyes against his own.

It makes him laugh, actually; get this, smarty-pants, he tried that shit for 11 years. It didn’t work then and it sure as Hell isn’t gonna work now, not when he’s touched you like this, not when you’ve seen the inside of his skin the way you have.

And, come on, you should know better than to ask a stupid question like that.