Dabi Fic - Blog Posts

Dabi hcs part 2 (random)

Late night ramble (barely proofread lol). I tried to put together some Dabi head canons, I tried to keep them realistic as possible. Not much fluff or angst to be honest, just random thoughts 💭!

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-When he’s been out for a while without doing his hair. He would come over to your place to try and use your bathroom to retouch his roots.

-Every time he does this, he would definitely leave random specks of black dye all over your sink and wall. (He tries to deny that he makes a mess every time)

-Steals random trinkets for you, but 90% of them are pretty useless and random. When he gives you these trinkets he would say something on the lines of, “I thought it looked cool” or “I found something cool”. Realistically he wanted to try to impress you on his finds.

-When the two of you hangout, he would bring you to the most shadiest/secluded places ever. He’ll somehow make the most of it for you, and the two of you genuinely enjoy your time out together. The two of you would mostly spend your time talking together about news,drama(within the league), and random conversations that have no correlation whatsoever.

-doesn’t smoke at ALL, especially with his critical condition. If someone is smoking near him he would get all dramatic and start (fake)coughing profusely.

-when his scars begin to spread around hard to reach areas. he would ask you to move his stables in the corresponding areas that needs it. Most of the time, you do help him but sometimes it can get real icky especially in deeper areas. Every time you help him, he’d crack jokes about his stables and health(these jokes were never that funny).

-chronically online when it comes to social media drama/hero drama. He pretends to not care about hero media but then spends hours on end on his phone catching up on it.(definitely a Instagram reels user)

-the driest texter ever, he would take hours, days, or even weeks to respond to messages(which is surprising since he seems to be glued to his phone). When he does respond, he’d tried to brush it off and say that he was ‘busy’. He definitely texts with at least 5 words or less depending on the situation.

-Following up with the dry texter idea, he’d also have dry jokes. He would say the most twisted jokes with a dead pan face(honestly this would make the joke funnier than it actually was).

-Do not leave food around him or he will take it and eat it. He’s not extremely picky with his food but if the food looks and smells good, he’s definitely going to take at least a bite.

<he was definitely a picky eater in the past before the Sekoto peak incident.

-He probably isn’t a fan of super sour or spicy foods. He probably has a secret sweet tooth. He got caught having a sweet tooth when the league began to notice that he’d always had some sort of sweet with him, which further exposed his little obsession with sweets.

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I hope you guys enjoy! If you have any headcanons for Dabi please share them, I’d love to hear them! <3

The Mischaracterization of Dabi (side rant lol)

I’m just going to do a mini rant on this topic because this has been on my mind for awhile now. All I got say is that I hate, hate, hateeee how people characterize Dabi in certain fanfics. Like I’m sick and tired of the “playboy” and slutty Dabi fics,like this mf does NOT get any play. He’s canonically a loser and doesn’t have the esteem or energy to be having 50 baby mamas and random side pieces!!! We need to have more dabi fics where this mf is just being himself without the extra stuff. (But honestly atp it isn’t just Dabi being misread by the fandom)

Dabi hc’s

side note: This isn’t going to have any fluff to it, these are just some realistic hc’s I have for him. Most of these are going to be pretty angst. I hope you guys enjoy!

-He is NOT going to use pet names or cutesy nicknames. Don’t expect him to call you “doll” or “baby”, this mf is a straight-up loner and can barely understand flirting. He’s only going to use your name or a shorter version of it THAT’S IT!

-Kinda similar to the first one but if you try to create cute nicknames for him, I guarantee you that he would dip IMMEDIATELY. Calling him anything other than Dabi is a huge ick of him.

- He’s definitely not oblivious to sexual stuff but he’s probably not going to participate in it what so ever. He simply doesn’t have interest in it and definitely doesn’t have the energy for it.

-If he somehow does participate in sexual activities, it’s going to be very vanilla. Nothing flashy or fancy. He won’t mind being top or bottom. During it he’ll be pretty quiet, depending on the mood.

-In a relationship, he is going to be very lowkey and distant. He’s not going to put a whole lot of effort in the relationship but he will stay loyal if you’re loyal to him.

-He’s not going to take you out on romantic dates or spend cuddle time with you. The most he can do is hangout at your place or at a tucked away spot where the two of you can just talk.

-His way of affection is spending quality time with you. Physical affection for him is some hand holding, hugs, and occasional kisses. The kisses would be sort of awkward too, like let’s be for real.. he not going full French kiss on you (it would be shocking if he even knew how to do that). The most he can do is a side kiss or a little boop on the lips LMFAO.

-His way of joking with is you is by pissing you off. It’s pretty obvious that Dabi isn’t the nicest person so it’s expected for him to be a tease. The sly comments are constant with him.

Alternate part: This part is going to follow the scenario of if you were apart of the L.O.V. The first part was more of a broad following of hc’s.

-On missions with him he will not be interacting with you in a lovey dovey way. He’s going to be straightforward and focused on the task.

-If the fight gets too heated he would step in to at least make sure that nobody, including you, doesn’t die.

-He’ll try to watch your back as much as he can. Just in case if anything goes wrong or off track.

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So sorry that this post is pretty short lol, this is my first time ever posting. More will posted soon <3

splintered machinations - pts one & two

Mer!Dabi x fem!Princess!Reader (SFW)

Hi guys! I've never done anything for MerMay before--I've never written any mer!characters/content before--but @meliapis graduated, I wanted to write something for her, and she mentioned mer!dabi...so, I just had to write a (not so) little something. This is still ongoing and will be updated periodically throughout May, but this is just a fun little idea I got from her and I wanted to share it as a graduation gift! Go check out her MerMay requests, too! <3

Synopsis: Boarding a ship per your father's orders, you begin the voyage across the deep blue sea toward Haliware Island. Despite the easy sailing the first few days, it seems the last isn't going to be the smoothest sailing.

Warnings: descriptions of spooky sea creatures in the deep ocean, descriptions of drowning, a hint of sailor!hawks, story will also contain: lots of future nsfw content, sexual tension, mer!dabi being a teasing & dirty talking kinda rogue, courting, idk what to call it but it kinda has regency era vibes but in a fantasy setting and not as stuffy, political stuff/politics between nations, a bit of reader x OC (but it's for the plot, I promise), and more (tbd as I write)

Word Count: 4.2k

A/N: This is my first time writing mer!stuff. I hope y'all like it! This is for you, @meliapis!!

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. No wind. No birds. Just sun. Beautiful, warm, wonderful sun. A soft creaking came as the boat beneath you gently bobbed; the nails holding it together stayed firm amongst the calm waters. One more day.

You’d be at the castle in one day. 

Your dress fluttered in an unmistakable breeze as the crew maneuvered around you. Ropes were pulled, sails were checked, a wheel was steered. Crates were secured firm to the deck, a thick cannon had its wheels stopped so it pointed out at sea regardless of the waves' strength, and songs were sung around bottles of liquor.

“Your Highness,” a smooth voice said, a head almost blocking the sun. “Care to join us?”

The blond, with cheeks that always seemed to burn and gain freckles than ever tan, peered down at you with a cheery smile. He wiggled a mug of beer that sloshed at the brim, his playfully slurred words fell across the empty span of where you sat. Two protective guards stood behind you. As if you were some treasure meant to be protected, not cargo. 

“I’d prefer to have my wits about me when at the mercy of the ocean,” you cooed, pushing up to your forearms. “You should know that, Keigo.”

“Mhm.” He raised his glass and glanced back at the group chugging down theirs below him. “But, surely, you ought to have a little fun before we arrive.”

Behind you, the guards shifted. A warning to him. His sharp golden eyes quickly stared back at them. A shhhh came as a sword was pulled partially out of a sheath, but Keigo remained. His sharp canines showed in his smile.

“Hence why I decided to look for shapes in a cloudless sky.”

You motioned up, but your point went unproven. A few puffy white clouds crept onto the scene. One looked like a barrel from a shootout, the cloud breaking the wood as bullets shot through the sky; another resembled your castle back home. Tall peaks, overlapping points with red and white flags attached, a door that often stayed closed until ceremonies. 

Keigo’s eyes narrowed at the sky.

“Well, Your Highness,” he said with a teasing bow. His slender frame curved, his oversized white shirt dropped down to expose his chest, and the tight fit of his brown pants stretched. “Enjoy the show, then.”

You threw up a sarcastic wave before sinking back down. The flash of skin was nothing new on the ship—the crew walked around only caring if their skin burned beyond repair. And as a few more clouds joined the castle in the sky, even more shirts were opened while beer was spilled, humidity rose, and laughter shot across the open air.

Keigo raised his glass when your eyes danced from the sky to the group. Some sat on barrels, others on the edge of the ship, more on the floor. The clinking glasses sounded like the chains around your wrists. The chortle was met with gruffs behind you. Under the breath comments idiots and pigs. Their royal breastplates had refused to be removed unless it was underneath the hottest suns. 

Breakfast could’ve been cooked on them—sprays of water sizzling as they were propped up on the side of the boat. 

“I rather think you two are,” you murmured, glancing back at the two soldiers. “They’re drinking while you think I’m somehow going to jump ship in the middle of the ocean.” They stared daggers at you like always. “What? Where am I going to go?”

You shoved up despite the eyes from the crew turning your way. A playful hint joined your tone as you spun, shade casting itself across the desk. The soldiers, sunburnt and peeling, glowered and tightened their grips on their swords. Just like the concept of you jumping ship, there wasn’t a chance they’d raise a blade to you. You were precious cargo. No harm could come to you before you got to the castle. They simply just had to make sure you got to the castle. 

“We’re still a day out; there’s nothing here.” 

You ignored the grumbled version of your name and their stiff movement toward you as you trotted to the edge. Carefully yet swiftly, you hopped up on the thick edge and threw your arms out, the blue ocean sloshing against the boat just behind you. A gust of wind caught your thin dress, throwing the thin skirt up. Despite the decorum—or lack thereof—on the ship, all eyes were glued to the glimpse of your legs. 

“Get down,” one of the soldiers—Hyatt—said. His hand tightened on his blade. “Now, princess.”

You bowed slightly with a smile that made a few of the crew holler and laugh. More glasses clinked together, and more chattering crawled across the dark deck. The loud thump of your feet hitting the thick wood made Hyatt and Thorne–the other soldier–both relax slightly. But, still, their hands remained on their blades. 

“Have you always been so defiant?” Thorne grumbled to himself as he shifted, peering out over the ocean. 

“Yes,” Hyatt muttered softly. 

“No,” you corrected, walking over and looking over the bow. A soft sigh snuck out at the sight. The vast ocean was a rich, dark, deep blue. Bluer than you’d seen during the past three days. “But waking up and being told I’m going on an involuntary trip tends to make the demure vanish.” A soft sigh snuck out as you closed your eyes and took in the salty air. “The sea is beautiful, though.”

Wait.

Something caught in your chest as you cracked your eyes open. The low rumble crawled up the back of your neck. It seemed to make the boat shake, yet the water remained undisturbed. The dark water turned into an unknown shadow beneath you—what creatures swam below made your hair stand on the back of your neck—but you were safe on board. 

Another low rumble.

The clinking of glasses got a little louder and laughter grew heavier.

“Hey, Princess, get away from the edge,” Hyatt said behind you, but your eyes remained down on the ocean.

You couldn’t normally see the bottom the far out, but this felt different. Maybe there was no bottom. Maybe the rich dark blue found itself attached to a creature ten times the size of the ship. In moments, it would open its eyes and blink up at you, encompassing the whole expanse of the color. One flip of its tail would split the boat into two. Or maybe thousands of splintered pieces. 

Your heart thumped faster.

“Princess,” Thorne tried.

The ocean remained undisturbed as something wet splattered against your skin. No. Not undisturbed. By living creatures, yes. There weren’t any eyes blinking back at you or massive jaws unhinging to swallow the ship whole. No dangerous tentacles to rip you to shreds or even carnivorous fish aiming to nip at your legs. 

But there were waves. White-capped waves.

You made the mistake of shooting your eyes upward. Dark clouds had gathered into a dangerous conglomeration. Where they’d come from remained unknown, and that bright sky felt permanently out of sight. The sudden movement of your head, accompanied with a strong wave below, knocked you backward. Even Thorne and Hyatt lost their sea legs, staggering away from the boat’s side and trying to regain their stances. Hyatt, still, called for you, his hand finally leaving his sword.

Air was thrown from you as your back collided with the floor. There was that low rumble again—it crawled across the sky like a serpent waiting to strike. Lightning flashed bright in the sudden darkness. Gone was the sun, and pouring, pelting, painful rain swallowed everything. The sound became too loud to bear while blinking up at the sky, and as Hyatt and Thorne loudly cursed, it went unheard.

It all went unheard, even when they stepped toward you and yelled at you. 

But you couldn’t move. The way the boat jerked, the thought of it falling apart at its seams came far too easily, and those creatures that could be lurking below would devour you the second you were overboard. Their sharp teeth would sink easily through your skin and tear you apart without hesitation.

“Princess,” a familiar voice whispered. It drew you from your sudden choke-hold in your throats while a hand went to your wrist and hoisted you up. “We need to get you inside.”

Keigo’s gold eyes blinked down at you, his smile unwavering even as yours twisted in fear. You nodded. 

“Move carefully and quickly,” he said loud enough for you to hear, both hands going to your waist. In otherwise less life-endangering scenarios, Keigo would’ve been reprimanded for even considering touching you, let alone on your waist. A sailor putting his hands on the Princess? Blasphemous. Yet you leaned into him as he balanced you and guided you down the stairs. All you had to do was get inside the Captain’s quarters, then you’d be safe. You both knew that. “Keep going, Princess. We’re almost there.” 

But almost there wasn’t a simple turn around a corner and through a sturdy door. Multiple steps descended onto the deck as water gathered upon everything. It slickened the boards that normally kept you steady; it weighed your dress down and made it cling to your legs; it pushed a ringing in your ears that sounded so high-pitched, it hurt. 

Your eyes went overboard as the ringing got worse. It was unwise to never heed a sailor’s warning. Just as it was unwise to never heed any warning from anyone so well-trained, experienced, and skilled in their field. You wouldn’t tell a world-renowned chef how to cook. You wouldn’t ignore a soldier’s careful heed before going out on the battlefield. You certainly wouldn’t ignore the stories told around the crew that the ocean was as beautiful as it was untrusting. It could be a person’s life and so obviously their death. Whether the fins and tentacles they saw after days of travel were real, it was always smarter to not take the chance.

So when Keigo braced you against his chest as the ship jolted, you leaned into him more. When he muttered to hold still for the next few seconds, you did. And when he told you to go, you trusted him. His gut. 

But he was still only a man. One without the blessing of foresight. 

The wave hit the boat harder than the others while a gust of wind knocked you back as if you were nothing more than a piece of paper. A slippery board caused your demise as Keigo’s grip struggled on your wet skin. They skated over you, his short nails barely scraping, until he threw his other hand out for you. Desperation clawed at him the way it did you, but his fingers only got a grasp on your dress. And that silky material was hell in his grip–slippery and betraying without a moment’s thought. 

There was fear and panic in those golden eyes as the thick banister meant to keep you safe dug into your back. The unkempt splinters snagged on your clothing as the world went upside down, and there was no ground beneath your feet. 

Was the rain coming from the ocean or the sky? Which dark sea was which? 

It felt like falling onto the floor when Keigo became a small speck on the boat. The air was knocked from your lungs so ineloquently, and you barely managed a gasp before you knew what was coming next. 

Darkness.

Soaking wet, impenetrable darkness. 

A sharp pain caught your back, then your arms, down into your legs. Cold. It was cold. Perhaps shock? Swim. You felt yourself sink deeper as you blinked through the salty water. The ache got worse, your body threatened to stop, and farther away the boat got. Swim, (Y/N). The surface distorted the image as you tried to see if anyone would save you, but alas—you couldn’t even get yourself back up to the surface. 

A burst of bubbles caught your attention to the right, heart rate spiking. You blinked into the abyss looking for those massive eyes, the tentacles, the carnivorous predators. Something touched your foot beneath you, and you screamed, the sound lost a mere inch in front of you.

Another splash of bubbles got you as you threw your arms up, kicking your feet and praying what’d touched you had been your imagination. Please. A silent plea that burned your lungs. I don’t want to die. Although, it’d be fitting, wouldn’t it? You clawed at the water until your nails would’ve bled. You kicked until the current simply laughed in your face. A harsh swirl that tore you further down like an anchor chained to your ankle. 

Please. If your eyes weren’t burning from the salt water, you were sure you were crying. I don’t want to die. I don’t. 

A gulp of water entered your mouth when you begged for oxygen. The fear skyrocketed as a barrel fell into the sea, sinking just low enough to get caught in the edge of the current. It smacked against your arms as you tried to reach for it, but as it bounced back up, you were shoved down. Another breath of water sent death knocking on your door.

Colder. The water got colder.

Your body stopped moving as you replayed the only pivotal moment that mattered, your father’s words pressing for you to get on the boat without a fight. Do what must be done, or you are not truly my daughter. A shove from Hyatt as you boarded the ship while the crew stared, never once having royalty aboard their boat. But your father had needed the royal sailors for his voyage. It’s a three-day trip; see her there safe.

You felt a sickening smile as the world went blurry. Safe. If he only knew.

- ch two -

There was once, when you were younger, you got to see snow. A family “vacation” to visit some Duke. A business meeting your parents often tried to pretend wasn’t that. You’ll get to meet his children. They’ll show you around the estate. But the prospect of something other than the dead winter so known in your kingdom was what drove you to be one of the firsts inside the carriage that morning. 

But it’d been a long trip into the mountains; your father switched between talking with your mother about the necessary duties upon arrival and departure and discussing with the soldiers to maintain protocol. And, desperately, even as you tried to maintain some composure, the long, exhausting, impatient ride could only keep a child still for so long. The second the doors opened and you saw the snow, you were off. 

The snowy scape had been otherworldly. You’d known nothing that beautiful before and all you knew was that you had to touch it. See it. Taste it. Follow it to what other beauties it could produce.

They yelled your name, but there’d been a little white rabbit hopping through the forest outside of the mansion. It called to you as the snow did, beckoning you further as cold seeped through your fur-lined shawl. With only about ten years of knowledge then, you hadn’t known why, as you tripped and fell into the icy tundra, tumbling down a hill and out of sight, how dangerous the chill was. Only that when it turned warm and your eyes got heavy, something was wrong. 

The soldiers—a young, sixteen-year-old Hyatt with his superior—found you hours later. It’d felt like an eternity, a hurt arm that was the first to go numb in the snow and a spiraling warmth shooting over your skin. But when you felt like you were close to falling asleep beneath a warm blanket, they appeared at the top of the snowy cliff you’d fallen down. 

Hyatt carried you back to the mansion, wrapped in his coat, while his superior ran ahead. A fire was started in one of the living spaces where your mother and father stood. You barely heard the scolding from your father as you sat in front of the burning flames and given a cup of warm milk. Stay by the soldiers’ sides from now on. Do you understand me? You merely nodded so softly and politely, the tone pressing its way inside your head as you kept your eyes down. 

Demure. It felt stuffy. But still, you nodded.

That cold. That was different than the one violently permeating your bones. Were you shivering? Your vision going dark made bubbles around you move. Your arms wouldn’t reach, your legs wouldn’t kick. And that rumbling, vibrating every part of you, was it above or below? Was an eye about to open, or maybe some jaws aiming to end it quickly? The pressure pushed hard against your head, and that was all you could take as seawater went down your throat again.

The surface disappeared behind closed eyes. What would get you first–the Reaper or a hidden predator on the brink of starvation? 

Perhaps both.

Warmth.

Were you dead? Where there was warmth, as your father so woefully explained, there was death. In the cold, at least. Perhaps the Reaper had found you and tore you down to his level, your soul rising—rising? You tried to open your eyes, but all you were met with was pale contrasting the darkness. 

Had you been able to move, you would’ve done something other than peer up. There were arms wrapped around you, shoulders in front of you, the curve of a neck, hair that blended in with the sea, but those eyes. You blinked yours hard at the rushing movement. It made the pressure in your head dissipate far too quickly, and bile rose in your throat. But those eyes, outlined by sharp features, a mouth pressed into a fine line, spiky dark hair pushed back from the momentum; they were so bright they nearly glowed. Never had turquoise look so beautiful.

And when he dared to glance down, taking what felt like a dreamy moment before death and making you remember that your heart could still beat, he smiled. One of secrets. Of knowing. Of saving as you suddenly broke through the surface and the rain pelted your sore skin.

Your pulse ticked higher while those eyes stayed on you; the sudden gasp for oxygen became you barreling over, vomiting into the sea. Puke and mouth-drying seawater mixed into the darkness as your guts heaved, lungs burned, and throat tore with every hack. What the hell was going on? Who– Again, the world spun as the stranger moved, and your eyes widened as you tried not to vomit once more. 

He wasn’t from the crew, even delirious, you knew. Two days with them, you knew most of them. Not all by name, but you knew them. Their faces, their demeanor, their connection to your home. And this stranger…he moved you closer to the boat at a speed unfathomable to you, even on your best days in the water. 

You tried to speak, but as your vision grew blurry and your eyelids heavy, the pain in your throat became a blockage. 

Who are you?

“Don’t,” his cool voice murmured. It would’ve shocked you had there been any feeling left in your body. He spoke. “Save it for your real rescue party.”

For some reason, you did as he said. He held you closer, arms swallowed in areas of dark ink you couldn’t make out. Glinting jewelry that managed to shine through the storm clouds. Over his fingers which pressed firmly into you, on his nose in a little trio to create a triangle, and over his ears. And his entire upper body—bare. 

Had your guts not been twisting into a fine tornado and you stopped tasting the salty mix of your lunch on your tongue, you would’ve been scandalized. But as you were draped over that devilish barrel, the wood managing to bob in the water, you felt nothing but grateful as his hands slid down over your back, waist, hips. 

“Scream,” he whispered beneath the rain, and all you could do was glance back. Those otherworldly eyes were all that poked out of the water for a moment as he slinked back. He kept them locked on you, burning with an intensity you could barely understand. He popped up just enough to speak again. “I won’t save you again.”

His grin revealed sharp canines before he disappeared beneath the water. A beat, two, three of piercing rain dropped down around you. Then it surfaced. A sparkling tail of black scales, a mix of blues were dulled without sunlight, and a silver ring on one side of the arcing flipper. 

The silence roared in your ears as you stared at where he’d disappeared. Tail. But as you tried to call a thought, tried to piece together a puzzle so desperately right in front of you, you hacked up another breath of water. 

Tail.

A scream followed it as black started to dot your vision. The cold water froze your body stiff, and you clawed to stay on the barrel through another wave. It was broken and choppy, no way audible through the storm, but the boat was right there. You could almost touch it.

You screamed again.

Louder. 

Until you tasted something metallic in your mouth.

Hyatt, Thorne, Keigo. One of them had to be looking for you.

A splash in the water gathered your attention as you started to slip off of the barrel. Your nails ached as they pressed into the fine wood. Stay afloat. But as your body went limp, that water crept higher toward your mouth. Weakly, you screamed again.

This time, as a wave threw you off the barrel, it was met with two arms and two legs going out for you.

“Gotcha, Princess,” Keigo’s voice whispered in your ear. “You’re safe. I gotcha.”

A thick rope was tied around your waist and wrapped as skillfully as possible around your legs. A seat of sorts was created as Keigo swam you back toward the side of the boat, dragging you with your head never dipping back into the water. Those golden eyes were sharp first at the ship and then softer down at you. 

The world went dark as Keigo tugged on the slack of the rope and yelled upwards. His mouth was pulled away from your ear, yet his volume should’ve carried. How your scream was heard all the way up to them, you weren’t sure. Keigo’s was nearly drowned in the violent pitter-patter of the storm.

“Hey, hey. Stay with me, Princess.” 

His lean arms were strong as they gripped you. The rope went taut, and everything moved. But the world, as you blinked one last time, never returned to the gray-scaled color scheme the storm created. 

“Princess. Stay with me.”

There was sun. A cot. A blanket. A dress that reeked of sea, storm, and something clean. The ceiling looked familiar. The blinds on the window were cast open to shine the sun on your cheeks. Clouds shot across the sky in the opposite direction the whole room seemed to lurch toward. 

A wrap of gause went around your right forearm. 

One blink. Two. Three. Four. Pain throughout your whole body burned as you sat up, a thin blanket falling from your upper body. Dress. It was dry. The thin material bunched up and wrinkled in places that pressed the same patterns into your skin. Storm. You tried for a long breath and were met with the same burning sensation in your throat. Overboard. Sea. Drowning. 

Outside, there was commotion. Some yelling, hollering, excitement. Orders were shouted. The captain, some burly guy whose name was out of reach, yelled to slow. Again, the boat lurched. 

“Oh, finally, Princess.” Hyatt’s voice came through from the corner. Thorne was asleep next to him, both in a change of clothes, their weapons discarded. Worry pressed into Hyatt’s tanned and peeling skin. “Are you okay?”

Turquoise. You stared at Hyatt’s rich green eyes and turned back toward the window. Anchor was dropped as you coughed, hacking up something sweet in the back of your mouth. Your fists tried to rub sleep from your eyes, but it barely helped. Yawning only accentuated the pain in your throat. 

“The medic gave you some medicine to assist you in sleeping. I think the bastard misjudged the amount.” Hyatt nudged Thorne’s foot. “Wake up, idiot.”

You coughed again, eyes stuck on the window. The cold of the water stayed with you in a shiver, the smell clinging to your dress and seeping through your skin. Thorne said something half-asleep and under his breath. Are we there? Your gaze, stuck outside, watching the sky grow into an island. A castle that stretched larger than your father’s. A town filled with buildings of every color of the rainbow. A spread of docks with ships docked within and a harbor waiting for new arrivals to shop and sell.

A tail.

“Yeah,” you croaked, the word tearing at your throat. 

A sense of purpose and dread coursed through you as the boat came to a halt. 

“We’re here.”

Without Consent

Permission to use the art granted by the artist. Please refrain from using the art without permission. Shar's too cute of a button to deal with that.

Dabi x fem!Reader

⇢ word count: roughly 2.3K

⇢ plot: you (more or less) accidentally bump into Dabi and are in for a big surprise

⇢this is kind of the SFW version. I still recommend NOT reading it with others around, especially not your boss hehe

⇢ warnings: 18+, minors DNI, Dabi being the flirty tease we all love, (somewhat) consensual restraining of the reader, steamy makeout session (ok ok, mostly just kissing) but also some dry-humping resulting in a wet spot on Dabi's pants—oops!

⇢ personal note: I've always wanted to write something inspired by @sharlockart ´s art. I got her permission to go ahead and booooooom! Here we are!  Thanks to @blankexpressions-and-falsefires for being my beta this time. You're the best!

It was then that you felt it. The lingering feeling of someone watching you. You looked up to find two incredibly piercing azure irises pointed sharply at you.

Shit.

The bright blue of his eyes turned dark as he continued to side-eye you with an unmoving expression. Your face went ablaze and you instantly dropped your gaze, shoving your phone with trembling hands back in the pocket of your jacket. Cursing inwardly a few times for having been caught staring, you hastily turned to make your way through the crowd across the intersection. You took a peek over your shoulder, a wave of relief washing over you when you didn't see him among the people behind you. 

By "him" you meant one of the most dangerous villains in the country, Dabi.

You would have recognized him anywhere– the usual bored expression on his face, that all too familiar messy raven hair with bangs falling over his brows. The mauve scarred skin—

—and the piercing blue eyes. 

It still sent chills up your spine recalling the moment they met yours. He had stood there, one hand holding a cigarette, the other a phone to his ear while he talked to someone. The way his black pants clung to his thighs way too alluringly, his beige sweater and a black leather jacket complementing his features even more.

And even though a warm, comforting fuzziness still clouded your head after that short encounter, you started to regret having visited this part of town which was known to be the home of some sketchy outcasts and– villains. 

You'd always been fascinated by the less than savory figures— not the overhyped heroes of your hometown. It's been a hobby of yours to study them, especially the members of the League of Villains. And your particular obsession had been with Dabi.

You had been spending your afternoons after college strolling around those areas in hopes of finally meeting him, finally being able to snap a picture of him.

And this time you did—

—and weren't at all prepared for your reaction. The instant jolt of fire coursing through your veins as soon as your eyes met his. The feeling of wanting to lose yourself in their depths. Endorphins rushing through your system, triggering a blistering heat in your core and making your panties stick to you in ways they usually only did during late night hours, with your hands down your panties while thinking of him.

Again—shit.

With your emotions all stirred up and still unable to focus, you had taken a wrong turn. The next bus stop being several blocks away meant you just had to keep walking, your eyes squinting as light became increasingly sparse. It was getting darker outside, the sun slowly setting behind the concrete mass of the city, the long shadows of the tall buildings slowly caging you in. Dainty street lamps sparingly lined the streets, their thin yellow rays fighting to reach the ground, failing to penetrate the overwhelming darkness.

A musty breeze was blowing, sending leaves and pieces of garbage dancing noisily across the cracked concrete floor. The sky was painted in hues from flame to azure, yet here in the depths of the street between the buildings you didn't see much, only growing shadows creeping in on you. 

The breeze picked up and you shivered, regretting your choice to only wear a loose sweat-dress and a pair of thin, skin-colored tights. You pulled up the zipper of your cropped jacket, and sighed, hoping that you would soon get to a bus stop.

A loud ping startled you out of your train of thought, your phone vibrating urgently. Your heart nearly jumped out of your chest as you stopped in your tracks, sliding your hand in your pocket to retrieve it. 

The display shone bright in the dim light of the street alley as you unlocked the screen with a swipe. A message popped up—your friend. 

Where are you, expecting you to be home by now. 

You groaned, thinking back on how you wouldn't have had to walk home if it weren't for the distracting encounter with that devious blue-eyed villain earlier on.

"That damn bastard—" You started.

A voice suddenly spoke close by. “I hope you're not talking about me.”

A large hand appeared out of the darkness from beside you, wrapping around both of your wrists and gripping them tightly, causing your phone to slip from your grip. A weak whimper fell from your lips, while it was caught mid air by another purple scarred hand, the dim light of the far away street lamp reflecting weakly in the silver staples adorning it.

Your body froze as you were shoved against the wall, hands being jerked up and pinned over your head against the rough bricks to hold you in place. Your breath hitched as you elevated your face, your gaze instantly locking with a pair of icy blue eyes boring into you.

Dabi.

He casually glanced at the unlocked screen of your phone, scrolling through your chat. Slipping the phone into his own pocket, his gaze drifted back up, lazy blue eyes flicking up to yours. 

"So, you're taking pictures of me without my consent?" he tipped his head, an eyebrow cocked.

You let out a little breathy moan, squirming in his hold, surprised at how thrilling it felt to be manhandled like this.

"At least you think I look fine. That earns you bonus points." His lips curled up into a devilish smirk. 

"Sir, you don't want to do this!" you swallowed nervously, his intimidating aura making you squirm. "Just please, let me go."

"C'mon, doll." He chuckled darkly, "You know my name. Use it."

"D-Dabi—" it came out as a mere whimper. "Please, I need to get home."

"God, my name sounds so fucking hot on your tongue." He cooed, his voice deep and husky, enough for your heartbeat to quicken.

Up close, he was even more attractive than you came to learn from the blurred images you've seen online or in the news. His scent was overwhelming, a mixture of warm skin and smoke. It had an effect on you unlike anything you've ever experienced. Your nerves were on fire, the heat between your legs blistering as you clenched your thighs together.

Dabi seemed to notice, because his smirk grew wider as he closed the gap between you. The staples on his face scraped along your cheek as his lips brushed your earlobe and your body felt hot all of a sudden.

"But still– maybe I should do something to you without your consent?" His low, sultry voice being so close sent instant shivers up your spine. "What do you think, doll– you gonna be a good girl for me?"

It was like your body reacted on its own, as you slowly nodded, making him chuckle against your ear. It was enough to make your stomach somersault while you felt his mismatched lips brush back over your cheekbones, leaving a trail of nibbles here and there, making you gasp with the forbidden pleasure. You could feel him grinning against your skin at your reaction as he slowly made his way toward your lips. 

You had forgotten how to speak– how to move. When his lips brushed the corner of your lips, a scorching heat shot right through your body, clouding your mind with indecent thoughts. Without thinking, you parted your lips in anticipation.

A pleased sound rumbled deep in Dabi's chest. But he simply paused there, just breathing against the corner of your lips. It was torture and he was obviously greatly enjoying your reaction as you felt him smirk again.

Suddenly, he straightened up, eagerly taking you in with smoldering turquoise eyes.

"You're cute." You heard him say under his breath as he kept taking you in, tracing his long finger along the line of your cheek.

You were biting your lower lip, unsure where to look, too distracted by your body slowly burning up. With him still holding you in place by your wrists, you watched his free hand retrieve your phone from his pocket. Swiping across the dark screen it came to life, instantly unlocking.

"Pfft, how naive," he noted, laughing under his breath. "Not using a password…"

Oh shit, you berated yourself for always forgetting to set one up.

His thumb flew over the display and when he was done, he looked up at you, and with a wide grin he slipped your phone back into the pocket of your jacket. 

He adjusted his grip on your wrists, keeping you in place as he leaned in. You swallowed your breath, heart thrumming loudly against your chest. 

"Unfortunately, this is where we have to part, doll." His free hand started playing with loose strands of your hair. "But I think you still owe me an apology."

Your eyes flicked to his lips and back but it was too late. His mouth curled suspiciously at the corner, having caught your wandering gaze.

"I think you know what I mean—" He tilted his head, his eyes slowly dropping down to your mouth.

He trapped your chin between his thumb and index finger, pulling your face up and closer. As he angled his mouth above yours, you could feel the heat of his breath on your lips, and instinctively your eyelids fluttered shut.

Time seemed to stand still at his close proximity; the warmth of his body against yours and his breath on your lips became your entire existence. You couldn’t even think, let alone move. You were completely at his mercy.

“Just like that…” you heard him whisper before he eased his lips over yours.

It struck you like lightning when you found his tongue slipping inside to explore your mouth. Your mind short-circuited as he sensually worked your mouths together giving you ample time to catch up and start to kiss back eagerly. He was the best thing you've ever tasted, and the scent of his smoky, warm skin drugged your senses. You let yourself fall into his kiss, his hand sliding behind your neck to pull you deeper into it.

His mouth was so hot on yours, leaving you lightheaded and with buckling knees. You would’ve sunk to the ground already if it wasn't for his tight grip on your wrists.

As if he knew, his thigh pried open your legs and slipped between them, pinning you in place. You gasped into his mouth, goosebumps exploding all over your body.

There was so much heat between your legs, your panties were soaked and the thin fabric of your tights didn't do anything to hide it from him.

You were starting to lose your mind as you continued to kiss, his thigh pressing right against your dripping core. You needed more, more of him down there. So without thinking, you started grinding down on his leg, the rough fabric of his jeans grazing against you, giving you ample friction to satisfy your growing need. Back and forth, you worked your hips until you were a trembling mess in his hold. You were so close to feeling the tension release, your body was ready to explode with pleasure.

Suddenly, he pulled away from you a little, groaning deeply– his eyes, dark and hooded with lust, boring into yours. 

“So innocent,” he hummed appreciatively. “But such a big tease."

He straightened back up, sliding his thigh out from between yours. A strained whimper broke free from your lips at the loss of pressure. Releasing you from his hold, your arms dropped uselessly to your side. You started soothing the fresh ache by massaging your slowly bruising skin. Your eyes, following his thigh after it left you wanting, noticed a damp spot on his pants where you had ground against it. A blazing heat bloomed in your cheeks, your gaze dropping down onto the mucky ground.

"That was fun." He said, followed by a short chuckle as he stepped back.

You looked up at him from under your lashes, still too embarrassed to look him straight in the face.

"But– gotta go." And with that he adjusted the bag around his shoulder and strutted off. "See ya, doll—"

He stopped to shoot you a glance over his shoulder. His deep turquoise eyes met yours, lingering on you for a few moments before he took another step and was swallowed up by the darkness.

The moment he was gone had you hyperventilating, toppling against the scratchy brick wall for any sense of stability. Your palm clasped your chest as you tried to regain control of your breathing. 

What the hell just happened?!?!

It was then that your phone vibrated, a text tone alerting you of a new message. With trembling fingers you pulled it from your pocket to see a message from an unknown number.

Holy shit…

To be continued...

if he's a serial killer, then what's the worst that could happen to a girl who's already hurt?—

dabi x reader

wc: 9.5+

warnings: 18+, ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT, explicit/crude language, reader is not doing well, angst, dabi is bad at feelings, also yandere by accident?

if he's as bad as they say, then i guess i'm cursed, looking into his eyes, i think he's already hurt—

The two of you hadn’t even been friends, not really.

It had been by some ridiculous coincidence that you attended Shizuoka Private School at the same time, in the same class and had the same peers. There was always an idiotic smile on your face; it made you seem so damn friendly that the other kids fought over you at lunch—who would you sit with today? But you sat with them last time! When was it my turn?

Even then you were pulled in different directions.

The two of you hadn’t been friends, only classmates. Sometimes he sat with you, sometimes he didn’t; more often than not he spent his time outside, counting out his breaths so he didn’t burn his stomach or his hands or his face—which is pretty fucking funny, in retrospect—but you talked to him, just like you did everyone. It wasn’t anything special.

A smile and a wave. How’s it going, Touya? Sure are working hard!

An offering, some of the leftover rice in the bento your dear mommy made you. Ugh, I’m so full! You need the energy, want it?

A chin perched on your knee, pulling them close to your chest as you watched him. That’s super cool! I bet you’ll be even better than your dad!

So fucking sweet. So fucking idiotic.

(He didn’t think that then. Nah, not back then.)

It always made you throw up, using that quirk of yours. Underneath the tree, the one in the front of the fence on the side of the school, he’d told you,

“You can be my sidekick! I’ll get them with Prominence Burn, and you get ‘em with Mind Freeze!”

There was blood in your teeth when you responded. “We’ll get the bad guys together!”

It’s not until after everything that he realizes what the problem is, not until you take that job in the hospital and put needles in veins and take temperatures and clean up shit that he realizes you can’t take it. Something about it ruining your own neurological whatever; if you had tried to be a hero, you wouldn’t have made it to your late-twenties. Brain would have ate itself, or something.

(In retrospect, he guesses that’s a good thing. If he ever ran into you out there, if he had to turn your bones to ash in an alleyway while you wore some cheesy spandex, you might not have recognized him—but you would have figured it out just before he carbonized you. You would have probed his mind all different ways, found everything out, even those things he shoves behind the door in his head.)

(Of course he could do it, smite you into fucking nothing, absolutely, no problem.)

Somehow you got blessed with good parents, the kind that supported whatever path you wanted, the kind that only exists in the movies. They said things to you like, “only if you want to” and “you can be just as much of a hero without your quirk”—which was a load of shit and you knew it. He knew it, too.

Those kids by the fence were supposed to be partners.

In retrospect, it’s pretty fucking funny. Every last bit of it.

The two of you hadn’t even been friends, not really, but you lit incense for him at least once a year. Most of the time on his birthday (he wasn’t sure how you figured that out; the idea that you went to his house to ask Enji was horrifying), but sometimes you wouldn’t show up that day. Sometimes you did it at Christmas, sometimes on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes on any random Saturday of the month.

Sometimes you showed up for a few weeks in a row.

So fucking sweet. So fucking idiotic.

Who the fuck even are you, anyway? Acting all sad and heartbroken because some kid from your class went and got himself incinerated to Hell. Acting like you cared, as if those conversations under the tree ever really meant anything. As if the future was ever gonna be up to him, as if he had any say. Acting as if you could ever do the Hero Thing, as if you had any say. As if the blood on your lips didn’t stain his when he kissed a girl at age ten, for the first time.

Grow up. Kids say shit they don’t mean all the time.

And without him, you had—grown up. After a while you stopped talking about him, stopped saying, “Oh, my friend Touya,” as if he was still there, waiting for you at the front of the school. You were an honor student, every year, and your parents bought you a car when you started high school. A normal one, not U.A. No one had figured it out yet, that your bouts of illness and fatigue, the Twice-sized migraines you got were all due to that quirk of yours, but you knew something was wrong. Even then.

Somehow you got blessed with good parents, the kind that paid your way through college, the kind that bought you a stethoscope as if you were gonna be some hot-shot doctor. So fucking stupid, in a world of quirks; someone could do what would take you hours, in seconds, but you still chose that job. Because you still wore that idiotic smile and people still flocked to you and you wanted to please everyone, just like always.

Yeah, he knew where you lived, but it’s not like he was a creep.

When he managed to unscramble his brain enough to use it, it was easy to find you. You lived in the same house you always did and he’d been over once, as Touya, and the curtains covering your windows were still pink, still had stars on them, when you were ten and when you were eighteen. Those parents of yours had to make a big ol’ deal of you moving out, to some shitty apartment closer to the hospital, closer to downtown, so it wasn’t hard for him to follow that moving truck.

And you still had those fucking curtains. Why wouldn’t you throw them away? Move on. Grow up.

To his complete horror, you kept a photo of him in the third drawer in your kitchen, the same photo Enji stared at. It was pathetic, all of it, how you kept him around and in your space. Sometimes you would open that drawer and see it and act surprised, as if you hadn’t put it there yourself, and you would say something stupid like, “How’s it going, Touya?” before grabbing what you needed and putting him back in the dark.

The two of you hadn’t even been friends, not really, and it was all so idiotic.

When one of your nurse friends asked about the picture, you told them everything. About the bento boxes and the tree, about the Hero to your Sidekick, about the one and only time he felt like a kid, in someone else’s home, while he watched some girly movie about a witch and her broomstick and a cat.

“—and my mom made me salmon, but he hates fish, so we threw it at a car in the school parking lot.”

Hates. As if he was still alive. As if you still cared. As if you could tell he was sitting against the wall in your dark bedroom, listening to every sip of that beer you took.

The worst part of it all was that you walked to and from work, like a big fucking fool. Mom and Pop bought you a car for a reason, stupid, and if you wanted to stay in shape so bad, you could just join a fucking gym, like the rest of the world. But no. You insisted, even when that cunt from the hospital cafeteria offered to drive you himself. “Fresh air is good for me,” you told him, which was a terribly lame response—one fit for you.

So fucking stupid, trying to be so perfect all the time.

The way you curled your hair and the careful hand you used to put on your makeup. If a bum on the street asked you for money, you’d come back from a coffee shop across the road with water and a sandwich, maybe even throw him a bill or two. People stopped you to ask for directions and you gave them, sometimes you would pay for the person in line behind you at some takeout place. If litter was on the ground, you’d carry it to the nearest trash can.

They told you that if you’d tried to do the Hero Thing, you’d be dead by twenty-three, and yet there you were, holding open the door for four people in a row with that smile, playing the good guy.

Grow up.

There were plenty of other women in his life better than you, women that understood his motivation, his rage, ones that left the door unlocked when he needed to get his rocks off. Some of those women had pierced nipples and wore spandex—not the cheesy kind—and let him do the whole BDSM thing because they liked it just as much as he did. They didn’t expect anything of him, they didn’t talk about him like he was still there or pretend to care. They liked him, Dabi (most of them, anyway, some of those fucking bitches couldn’t get over his appearance, but he didn’t care about them).

He didn’t care about any of that, least of all you. Least of all the skimpy dress you wore when that cafeteria cuck finally got your number, finally got the balls to take you out. Who cares that he brought you flowers and that you kissed him for it? It’s not some big, grand deal that a man took notes from a shitty romance flick to impress you. He didn’t care at all, because he was balls-deep in a girl he’d picked up at the bar, and it wasn’t some big deal that he pretended it was you moaning his name.

Yeah, you were kinda attractive. Whatever.

The two of you hadn’t even been friends, not really, and it wasn’t a big deal he watched you after that twelve hour shift you always pull. The walk home in the first place is dumb, but it’s nearly 3am and you’re stumbling on your feet (it’s your third night in a row, because, of course it is). The alleyways gets real dark, he knows this, and all it takes is for him to tip his head down and breathe in his nicotine for you not to notice.

There’s blood on your scrubs and you look tired, a different kind of tired than the one you usually wear, a sad-tired. All the mascara is gone from your eyes. Probably lost some poor bastard in the ER because you didn’t have a quirk that mattered, not in your profession, and now you’re crying because you’re soft.

People die. Touya did. Grow up. Throw away the picture.

It’s all so boring and lame, weariness eating at the edges of his own eyes, but he isn’t ready to go back to that shitty motel room he’s living out of. Toga is on his last damn nerve at the moment and Shigaraki is messing around with some losers, so he doesn’t care, not right now. The motel bed is broken and it creaks when he moves and he’s fucking over it, so that’s why he leans against the wall when you walk by, why he closes his eyes and lets the cigarette smoke swirl into the sky, and it’s why he doesn’t follow right behind you, not yet.

One would think he’d be familiar with the sound of a tire iron against a skull, but that isn’t really his style, so it’s only when you start coughing that he realizes something is weird. When he rounds that corner and looks down the sidewalk, the last thing he sees is the curtain of your hair disappearing into an alleyway too far from him.

“Fuck.”

He almost says your name out loud, he almost calls it out, but someone actually has the nerve to grab you right out from underneath him, so he’s shoving his hands in his pockets and hurrying down the sidewalk. The first thing he sees is one of your teeth (he kicks the other one and it clicks down the concrete, skittering over the curb and into the street) and then he sees the tiny pool of blood you’d spit up when you hit the ground.

Dabi isn’t some fucking pussy, so he really isn’t sure why it happens so slowly, why he lets it go so far. By the time the sound of your cries reach him, some fucker already has your scrub pants around your ankles and he’s slotting himself up against your ass, but you’re too out of it to really realize what’s happening. Blood is pouring over your eye and half your face is already bruised and knotted from where the metal struck you, but you’re awake.

Which is why he thinks this idiot hit you where he did, nowhere truly lethal, because some guys like when girls squirm.

You’re just moaning in pain, lying there while he looks at you in shock (someone is really doing this to you? Just out in the street like a fucking tool?) but you’re trying to drag yourself away, pretty nails scraping against the pavement without any real effort. When the alleyway begins to glow blue, you look up at him, and he sees the fear in your eyes when you meet his.

It’s ugly, but it’s over soon.

That alleyway fucking stinks now, with the smell of melted skin and hair and it’s too smokey for either of you to breathe. For some reason, you aren’t even screaming, which is absurd, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when someone attacks you, idiot. Your entire face is covered in ash and dirt and blood, sticking to the sweat pooling from you, and you’re still just rolling around like a headless chicken.

And for a moment, he isn’t really sure what to do.

For a moment, he has some idiotic thought, about gathering you up in his—

Nah, fuck that, he won’t even finish it.

There is a hospital up the street, your hospital, and they would probably find you soon enough. If he leaves right then, as you try and fail to reach for your pants, he could even run up there and call out about a woman in the alleyway. People flock to you; they love perfect, little, you, and they’ll find you. They’ll call the doctor with the quirk you don’t have and they’ll heal you. They’ll take care of you.

The two of you weren’t even friends, not really, but he won’t forget the way he felt when you used that shitty quirk of yours on him. As if someone was reaching in through his ears and his nose and poking around, trying their damndest to touch his brain with their fingers, and then it’s like a switch is turned on, one he didn’t realize was turned off.

Just before you vomit enough blood to knock you out, you gasp and reach a shaking hand out to him and then you say it. You say his name.

You say, “Touya, please.”

And then he has no choice but to entertain that fucking thought from before, because you’ve used that quirk and you’ve unlocked that door in his head and he’s the kid by the fence, under the tree, all over again.

At best, he should have left you for someone to find. Possibly should have left you for dead because he’s not ready yet, not for the big reveal. There is a timeline he’s working with, one that will hit Enji the hardest, and tonight isn’t the night for it to all start. You know the incense you’ve been burning has been for nothing, that the picture in your drawer is about as stupid as he’s always thought it was, and you know that Touya isn’t dead.

And no one is supposed to know, not yet.

Yeah, he knows where you live, but he can’t exactly climb the steps to your apartment with you, half-dead and covered in your own blood and grime, in his arms and expect none of the do-gooders in your building not to call the cops. The motel is gross, but it’s in a bad part of town; this sight sure isn’t the worst they’ve ever seen, will ever see.

Maybe he’ll get lucky and you’ll just die in this creaky bed. Then he can blame the blood stains and the smell for the reason he needs to change rooms. Nothing about you seems alive, except for the pulse racing in your neck, for the heartbeat in your chest that nearly comes out of your skin. For once in your life, you aren’t wearing that fucking smile, not looking with those bright eyes or batting your eyelashes. For once you’re finally quiet.

Dabi has patched himself up enough times to do this, but he hardly has anything with him that can help whatever the fuck is going on with you. Will you die from the wound to the head? Have a concussion? Are you gonna puke blood all over the sheets, like he wants you to? After he pulled your pants up, your underwear were still on and intact, no blood on your thighs, so he doesn’t think that asshole actually got anywhere with you.

It’s kinda pissing him off, how long it took for him to do anything.

Not that he cares.

The towels in the motel are shitty and scratchy. The water is lukewarm and never cold, but he wets a hand towel all the same and tries his best to wash the blood off your face, off your mouth and your neck. There is probably blood in your teeth, just like there always had been, but he’s not about to pry your lips open and brush them with his only toothbrush, so you’ll just have to figure that out whenever you wake up.

There is a sorry excuse for a first-aid kit under the leaking sink and thank fuck you’re knocked out, because he’s got to cauterize that wound on your forehead (you still stir a little bit and tears escape your closed eyes), but he puts a somewhat sticky band aid over it.

In retrospect, it’s pretty fucking funny; your perfect little face, finally marred.

When there is nothing left to do but wait for you to wake up, he just stares at you. For a long time. Longer than he’ll ever admit, even to himself. Because he hasn’t been this close, not since the tree or that time he sat next to you in your living room, while you shared onigiri and watched that dumb movie. Enji didn’t even know—he’d been too busy with Shoto to realize he hadn’t gone outside to train. He’d been too busy to realize Touya had slipped out of the yard and down the street, into a girl’s house for the first and last time.

When he thinks about you, sitting beside him and touching the white of his hair, with your soft hands and your shy little face, he leaves to go get water from the store around the corner. There’s hardly any money in his pockets, but he uses it all to buy as many bottles of water he can, and when he gets back, you haven’t moved an inch.

“Are you dead yet?” He doesn’t look at you when he asks, only sets the water on the wood-chipped table by the door and waits. It’s nearly 5 in the morning and he’s dead tired, but he just sits on the ground and waits some more. About an hour goes by and he checks your pulse again, just to be sure.

He’s half awake when your fingers start twitching, when you start whimpering in your sleep. The bed creaks when you shift on your back, moving your legs in discomfort as you start rolling around again, just like you did in the alley. When your eyes finally open, you blink at the ceiling for a long time (he doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath), before touching your head gingerly. At the first feel of the band aid on your forehead, tears immediately well up in your eyes and you let out a gasp, looking away from him and to the shitty bathroom.

Dabi is sitting beside the mattress on the ground, looking at you when you turn your head to him. Maybe you should scream, if you had the energy, maybe you should do what most people do when they see him and his fucking skin, the staples holding him all together. But you’re a big idiot, so you don’t. You only scan his face and look into his eyes (and he’s a man now and not a fucking kid, so he stares back), blink at him, just like you did the ceiling, and you don’t say anything for a long time.

It looks like there are a million thoughts running through your head and it’s pissing him off.

“Say something,” He spits, “Don’t just fucking stare at me like that.”

“Touya.”

“Don’t call me that.” No one has, not since the Hero and Sidekick days, not since Shizuoka Private School, not since Sekoto Peak. “And don’t ever fucking poke around in my brain again!”

"Am I dead?"

So fucking idiotic. "Unfortunately for me, no."

Your head is so heavy that when you try to sit up, it just lolls back on your shoulders, looking like it's gonna fall off and onto the sheets. After a minute of trying, you give up. "Are you dead?"

All your words are slurring. Maybe you are dying, after all.

"Unfortunately for me, no."

"Where am I?"

And you're still not screaming or freaking out, even though you'd been nearly whacked to death, nearly raped into the concrete. Even though a kid from your class—one you weren't even friends with—is alive right next to you, looking like someone left him in the oven too long.

Does he tell you where you are? Chances are, if you survive this thing, you'll report him to the police since you're such a goody-goody. A wannabe hero and all that. Once, he'd seen you carry an empty fast food bag for three fucking blocks because every trash can you found before then was full. Fucking pathetic.

On the bed, you're still shifting your legs and twitching. It doesn't seem like you realize it.

"Are you alright in there?" Maybe if he hits you upside the head, you'll stop. "'Cause you almost got your brains knocked out."

More tears. The skin on your forehead is real tight with that knot and your brows only pull down a hair. A big, fat pout. "What? What happened? Where am I?"

The scrub top is tucked into your pants because he'd been in a hurry to yank them up your legs, but you don't seem to notice. There's a good chance you don't even remember getting whacked, and the last thing he wants to do is pretend he cares enough to console you. So fucking soft, you'll definitely start crying if he tells you what nearly happened to you (seriously, what the fuck was he doing? Supposed to be some badass and it took him a solid six seconds to act. So annoying), so he won't.

"Some guy stole your purse."

That's not true, it's behind the toilet.

"What? Where is he?"

Dabi snorts and his eyes relax into an unimpressed stare. "Oh, well after he bludgeoned you, I thought I'd entertain a game of Shogi with him—where the fuck do you think he is? I lit him up like the Chinese New Year."

"Oh." Is all you say and then you're quiet. When he looks up from the stained carpet and back at your face, your eyes are closed and he snaps his fingers until you reopen them. "Am I dead?"

"No, now quit askin'."

Your equilibrium must be way off, because you try to raise your hand to touch your face but it just waves around near your right ear like you're drunk off your ass. When you try to sit up again, you manage it, but you still sway back and forth.

He still has no idea what to do. Finish the job already? Put you out of your misery?

The bed creaks every time you lean back and you swivel around dumbly to look down at it, down at him. That perfectly curled hair of yours is a wreck, all tangled in the back like some sort of bad sex hair, and in the light of the barely rising sun, he can see parts of blood he missed. You don't smile that smile, so he doesn't know if it's in your teeth. Probably is.

Maybe you aren't gonna croak right then, because you look at the door, the chipping paint on the walls, the who-knows-what colored stain on the carpet. You look at the water on the table, at the shitty desk, the flickering light outside the bathroom. Then him.

"Can I have some water, please?"

Please.

Oh, shut the fuck up.

Dabi gives it to you anyway, even unscrews the cap for you like some kind of gentleman, like some kind of hero you or he could never be. Half of it spills out of your mouth and runs all down your shirt, like you have no idea how to work your lips anymore. When it dribbles down your chin, he can see it's pink.

Every time you blink your eyes, they get heavier and heavier, one closing and opening before the other.

Maybe you are really dying, right there in some shitty motel room with the ghost of a kid you kinda knew. Those parents of yours will probably lose it, maybe your mom will even off herself when they find your body, decaying on this creaky bed. But he'll be long gone by then. And he doesn't care.

In retrospect, it's pretty fucking funny. Touya will come back and you won't.

It takes you three attempts to stand, holding yourself up with a weak hand on the bed. The second attempt has you nearly falling on your face back into the mattress, ass all up in the air like it had been in the alleyway. When you take an unsteady step forward, he jumps up, just in case you're faking it and are gonna make a run for the door.

But you don't, you just look at him and say it again. "Touya."

"Don't call me that."

"Am I dead?"

It takes him three steps to cross the distance between you and him, and he grabs your face in his hand, squishing your cheeks together and making you look at all the burnt parts of him. "I wouldn't be here if you were dead, you idiot. Stop asking."

More tears. That pout again.

Oh boo fucking hoo, he's being mean. Grow up.

Thoughts are flashing in your eyes again but you're not saying anything, you might not even know how to anymore. He shakes your face a little before letting go and you stumble into him, like the grip of his hand had been the only thing keeping you upright.

"I miss you."

The two of you hadn't even been friends, not really, not at all. The tree had been cut down, Shoto was the hero he was supposed to be, and you were fucked up, dying out in the middle of nowhere. Nothing is how it was supposed to be.

Maybe if he cared about anything other than himself, he would be worried about you, drooling like that because you can't keep your mouth closed. Maybe if he cared, he would give a shit about seeing your face up close and he would admit he's been watching it for too long, seeing how it changes and gets prettier every year, seeing the woman you grew up to be. Maybe if he cared, he would even say something stupid, like that it meant something to him that he meant something to you. Maybe he'd even smile, let you touch him, maybe he'd even bury his face in your neck and tell you he missed you, too.

But Dabi doesn't care, not a bit.

So he holds you at an arm's length, face twisting into that crazy snarl he gets sometimes. Miss, like he was still alive. Like you were the dead one, imagining it all in whichever layer of Hell you ended it up. What a load of shit.

"Get off me!"

When he steps back away from you, you catch yourself on the wall, turning so that your back is leaning against it. Your eyes close again, but he can see that they're rolling behind your lids, even as you slump down to the ground. All the blood left on you has dried and it comes off in flakes when you itch at your hairline, at your jaw, underneath your chin. There is dirt and maybe some leftover skin, a little bit of gravel, all embedded under your nails and pressed against your neck, which you finally seem to realize.

"I'm...disgusting."

"Yeah."

That pretty little head of yours looks like it weighs a ton, but you raise it so your eyes can meet his, and, he's not close enough to tell, but is one of your pupils dilated? That band aid is hardly clinging to your forehead and at the touch of your fingers, it just gives up, falls off and into your lap. It stretches between your fingers and you look at it like you've never seen one before.

"I don't feel good."

No fucking shit. That first aid kit has a small package of expired Acetaminophen—whatever the fuck that is—and he gives it to you, though you choke while trying to swallow it.

It takes you another few attempts to get to your feet, but you finally do and he steps out of your reach again. "I need to shower."

A laugh actually barks out of him. "This water'll probably poison you."

Maybe your ears are clogged with blood or something, because you just repeat yourself. "I'm gross, I need to take a shower, please."

Please.

Fine, if you want to die with a yeast infection, go right ahead.

Dabi has seen your tits before—not on purpose—but you don't know that, so he tries to be a gentleman and at least act like he's not looking when you peel that dingy scrub top off, when you nearly fall down trying to get out of your sports bra.

He does look when you ask him for help, though.

There is no way you can stand up by yourself in the fucking shower, and you want this UTI so damn bad, so he just runs a lukewarm bath. The water splutters and comes out at all different kinds of pressure, but you don't slip when you step in, so he just leaves you to it.

Maybe you'll drown in there—though this shitty tub isn't really big enough for you to do that—and it will all be over painlessly. Then he won't have to hold a pillow over your face or burn your flesh off while you scream and writhe.

No problem, he could absolutely do it.

Maybe he'll just come back and you'll finally be done twitching, looking as peaceful as you do when you sleep, underneath that blood-tinged water.

After it happened, Dabi wanted to kill you. Like actually kill you. A whole lotta people, everyone he knew, really, but you were somewhere near the top of the list.

Maybe because you made him feel something once, maybe because the little charm bracelet you gave him was the first thing that turned to ash at Sekoto Peak. Maybe because, if he couldn't rise up and do the Hero Thing, then he didn't want you to do it, either.

(Which, in retrospect—)

There wasn't gonna be any big show, no flames or anything, just him and his hands. It lulled him to sleep most nights, out there on the street, thinking of the ways he would do it. He planned to slip through those pink star curtains of yours and wake you up—because he wanted to see the light leave your eyes—and then he'd wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze until your eyes fucking popped. Maybe he'd even kiss your gasping lips again.

There was a time when he wanted it so bad, that it was almost hard to distinguish that desire from reality. Some days he would wake up and he wouldn't think about shoving his thumbs in your eyes, because, he'd already done it, hadn’t he? They'd already buried you, the world had already moved on without perfect, little you. Dabi sure had, Touya sure had.

Guess that's why you're still alive (well, somewhat) in that bathroom and he's just sitting against the door, waiting for the sound of you to start gurgling or something. Somehow he just forgot to kill you, became too wrapped up in a plan for Enji. If he pictures that list in his mind, you were number 4 or 5, but he'd never made it past the first name.

It kinda pisses him off.

There hasn't been any sounds, none. Not even of you moaning or crying, no water splashing as you drowned or even washed yourself. Just silence, from the minute you sat down in that tub. It's been at least 30 minutes and that lukewarm water must finally be cold, but you haven't said anything. You've got to be dead. You've got to be.

Maybe he can cross your name off that list, after all.

The scene from the alleyway keeps replaying in his mind and he's finally figured out why it makes him feel so sick: if he had followed behind you in the first place, you wouldn't have gotten whacked. And if you hadn't gotten whacked, he wouldn't have needed to bring you back to his base of operations here, in the fucking decaying motel room, and you wouldn't know he was alive. There would be no chance for his plan to be ruined because you'd be at home, in bed or actually taking a shower or something, and things would be safe. His plan would be safe.

That's why the sight of you there, bloody and beaten, half naked on the ground, makes his stomach hurt and twist in all different ways.

That's why the sight of you in here, disoriented and fading, blood hemorrhaging in your brain, makes him nervous.

That's why. No other reasons.

Still doesn't explain why he hesitates with his hand on the door, thinking of seeing you naked with far away glassy eyes, but, fuck it, Dabi doesn't have time to figure that out, too. Now he's got to get rid of your body, throw it in the dumpster out back or something before people start to notice you've gone missing.

When he opens that door, his lungs seize up as he looks at you.

But after a few, still moments, your still-filthy head swivels to look at him and he breathes (in disappointment, damn it).

"What the fuck?" He says, but your expression doesn't change. "I thought you needed a bath."

There is still a layer of dirt and grime on your chest and face, all the places the water didn't rise to meet because you didn't sink down underneath it. It's been a big fucking waste of time, leaving you in there, because now it's after 6 and you're as wrinkly as a fucking raisin and still alive and he still doesn't know what to do.

"I do." When you swallow, it sounds like your throat is as dry as his skin. Probably left your mouth open this whole time, just staring at the peeling paint on the wall.

"Then why didn't you take one?"

"My arms are heavy."

"Mother of—fuck!"

So fucking stupid. So fucking idiotic. The water is an ugly color, similar to the stain out on the carpet, and he reaches his hand right down in between your legs to pull the plug. It's the first time he's felt the water being cold and, so close to you, he realizes you're shivering. Teeth chattering, shoulders shaking, lips turning a little blue, all because you'd just sat in the damn tub for too long.

"Get the fuck—stand up." Though he says it, he knows you aren't gonna do it, so he just puts his hands under your armpits and hauls you to your feet. The second he lets go, you nearly tumble sideways out of the tub and he doesn't want to clean up anymore blood, so he stops you from bashing your head on the tile.

But he should have let you, oh boy, he should have let you do it. Then he wouldn't be in this stupid situation anymore.

This fucking situation, where he's standing in a grimy tub as water swirls around his feet, as you dampen all of his clothes with your pruned body. Dabi has been in a lot of bad situations, but this one takes the fucking cake.

"Like taking care of a fucking baby," He mutters, and he's looking at the shower-head and the knobs, he's looking at the water draining in the tub and feeling the coldness seeping into his socks, into his skin from his wet clothes.

It's fucking pointless now, might as well.

The rings of the shower curtain rattle when he pulls it closed, the water is lukewarm when it sprays him directly in the face and he jerks back, blinking it out of his eyes as you sigh against his chest. It doesn't stop you from shivering, but the little bit of heat against your back has you curling, arching like a cat and nearly purring at the warmth of it.

It's pathetic.

Almost as pathetic as him standing fully clothed, holding up a half-dead girl in the shower, some girl from his class. One he wasn't even friends with.

"Touya."

"I said don't call me that."

The two of you stand in silence for a while, your cheek against his chest, his hands under your arms. The front of his hair has flattened against his forehead and every now and then, a dark drop of water drips down on your nose and leaves an inky trail. Dabi has this thought, a scary one, that a lot of things are going to come clean in this shitty shower.

The giant sighs you heave are the only way he knows you aren't dead. And you're a fucking liar, because those oh so heavy arms of yours are raising, he can feel your hands at his hips, dragging up over his tightened stomach and at his chest. Then you loop your feather-light arms around his back and shuffle just a bit on your feet, like the two of you are just hugging, like friends.

"Why’re you wearing clothes?"

Dabi snorts and rears his head back, but you don't look up at him. "Because I've got a massive hard on and you're not in there"—he taps his finger against the top of your sopping wet head—"enough for me to fuck."

That's not true, he's not the slightest bit aroused by you.

In this state, at least; okay, so yeah, maybe he didn't look at your tits on purpose, but it was in the spank bank now. Get over it.

The last thing he wants is to be naked with you, anywhere near you. Maybe if he cared about something other than himself, he could admit that the very idea terrified him. Not even in this failing state of mind would you laugh at him, or be grossed out or scared. You'd probably still put your hands in his hair, still touch his face, put yours against his chest.

And no one has ever touched him that way, not the way you would.

"Then don't." You say, like it's the simplest thing in the world.

"Yeah, so," For some reason he feels awkward now, thinking of it all and it's so stupid. "I'm not taking my clothes off."

That knot is still budding on your forehead, so your brow still doesn't pull down very far when you look up at him. A big pout is on your lips, though. "No, I—I mean, then don't take them off."

"Yeah...I'm not gonna."

"Wait," One of your hands leaves his back to rub at your rolling eyes. Maybe he should keep talking to you; it makes you use your brain and maybe it will pull you out of this state.

Not that he really wants that, of course.

"No, I meant, you don't have to have sex with me."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna." Fuck, he knows you got your brain turned upside down, but you can't comprehend anything, it seems. You must realize you're having a hard time making sense because you give a little sigh, like you're giving up, and just wrap yourself back around him, a little closer this time.

The two of you are both soaked, no matter how far he tries to lean out of the water, and he wonders if you can feel the texture of his skin underneath his wet clothes. For a moment his brain shuts off, just like yours is currently doing, and he wonders what you think of him like this. Doesn't really matter though, he tells himself, you're going in the dumpster all the same.

The water from the shower-head is starting to get a little colder and he's not perfect, little Shoto, doesn't know how to use the fire for anything other than killing and melting, doesn't know how to use it just to warm you up. There's no telling how much time has passed with the two of you just standing there, like idiots.

"Gotta wash my hair." You say.

"So, wash it." He says.

"My arms are heavy."

"You're so full of shit."

Dabi thinks, he thinks, that he feels your lips shift against his shirt, like they're curling into a smile because you know you're a liar, too. And you must be using your quirk or something (though he doesn't feel any fingers in his nose or ears, not like before) because he does what he shouldn't and would never do, which is bend around you and grab the snot green bottle of motel shampoo that's sitting in the corner of the tub.

Eucalyptus, it says. That's all.

It should be called Push Over or Pathetic, maybe Burnt Idiot, Not Really Friends, Sorry I Looked At Your Ass, Too.

Maybe Nervous.

When he dumps all of it onto your hair and starts digging his fingers against your scalp, you tilt your head enough so that he can see that smile of yours, the bloody one.

"I'll wash yours," You say, with copper breath and dark red gums.

When he kissed you under the tree, your breath smelled the same. He had been so afraid then, of a multitude of things: getting caught by his teacher or his dad, classmates seeing, messing up or embarrassing himself, you, mostly you. There were other kids in his class he talked to, sure, but none of them sat outside with him when he trained on his own. None of them shared their rice and threw salmon at cars or held his hand while he turned his face—red as his fucking hair—at the grass because he couldn't look you in the eye.

Sometimes Enji kissed his mother. Sometimes she looked like she liked it. Back then, he thought maybe you would, too. He didn't know he had blood on his bottom lip until he got home and Enji asked him about it, until Rei inspected it like he'd bit it by accident. But he couldn't tell them, didn't tell them that all of it, every moment with you, had been on purpose.

Dabi feels a lot like he did then, when you smile at him.

“Ain’t none left.” For some reason, it croaks out of him, like he’s the one with the issue keeping his mouth closed. Maybe blood is still in your ears because you don’t answer, you only keep your face titled towards him as he massages your scalp, lips open just slightly with closed eyes. As if to prove it, he throws the tiny, empty bottle back towards the corner of the tub and it clatters, loudly, the way all things do in the shower. When you open your eyes and look at him, unfocused and half-lidded, he thinks maybe he could fuck you in this bathroom, if you wanted him to.

He hopes you don’t ask.

There isn’t any soap on your hands, but they leave his back to go into his hair. A ghost of a laugh puffs out of your lips and into his face, like it’s the funniest thing in the world, you, pretending to wash his hair while he washes yours.

A bunch of idiots, the both of you.

“Stop,” Dabi tries to yank his head away from you, but you sway a little bit. You don’t push him, though because you’re a goody-goody, and when you run a hand across your face, there is a light gray smudge over your nose. All his hair dye is washing down the drain, lightening him up, making him Touya again. The soap washes off one of his hands as he rinses it directly under the water and he wipes the smudges from your face, a little rough, too rough, so rough that your head easily moves from the left to the right with each swipe of his fingers. Underneath his hands, you’re really soft. Too soft.

The walls of the shower are closing in on him and that sick feeling is building in his stomach again, the one that swirls every time he thinks about what could have happened to you in the alleyway if he’d waited another stupid fucking minute. Such a baby, so fucking soft, what that kind of aggression would do to you. How it would impact you. How it would impact him. That dopey, bloody smile wouldn’t appear on your face for a long time, he might not have even seen it again before everything with Enji finally went down.

It’s probably too drying for your face, but he uses the shampoo to wash yours, rubbing against the blood stains on your chin and your neck. They come away easily, the texture from his hands perfect for scrubbing it all away.

The way he can finally be of use to you, as a fucking loofa.

“Touya,” You say again, but he doesn’t correct you this time. “Am I dead?”

That sick feeling builds, really builds, until it feels like he’s holding his breath (he probably is). There is a settling wave that washes over him, just like the cold water from the shower-head, and he realizes, holy fuck, you’re dying.

Right there in his arms. Blood is probably pooling in your brain, killing you every moment that he waits. The hour he spent watching you writhe on the bed, the 30 minutes he spent outside the bathroom, the few blocks it took to get from the alleyway to the motel room. The time he’s wasting here with you, now. All of it is just him, opening that dumpster, digging a deeper hole to put you in. The star curtains will come down, the cafeteria fucker will drive himself to work alone, the homeless guy will shrivel into nothing, and litter will fill the streets.

Just like the doctor said; if you tried to do the Hero Thing, you’d be dead by twenty-three.

When he’d unscrambled his brain enough to think straight, he planned to take Enji down. Since then, he’s lulled himself to sleep with the idea of it, the downfall of Endeavor, and, if he lets you go, it will just be the downfall of crazy, batshit insane Touya. All of it will crash and burn with him. It’s probably too late for you anyway, too much time has been wasted, and it would all be for nothing.

All the fucking pain, all the rage and the planning, all the blood and sweat and tears would swirl down a shitty motel drain like his hair dye. And you’d end up in that dumpster all the same.

“No,” He answers, tipping your head back so the shampoo can wash out of your hair, off your forehead and chest. There’s more words in his mouth, like not yet and almost and i’m sorry, but his throat feels all croaky again, so he doesn’t say anything.

Dabi only has one change of clothes. Water is dripping off him and all over the floor when the two of you step out, when he wraps that shitty towel around you and rubs up and down your arms, like some kind of idiot out of a romance movie. He even runs it over your head a few times, hair getting all ruffled up, and he grabs the spare sweater by the bed when you smile lazily at him.

He wonders how much time he has. Maybe if he knew, he would say something. But he doesn’t, so there’s no fucking point.

The air in the motel room is stuffy and has never been cold, but, drenched in shitty, piss-water, it chills him to the bone. Now he’s the one shivering while you lay back down on the bed, creaking and shit, and he just stands over you and watches you blink, one eye at a time. One of your pupils is definitely dilated.

The two of you hadn’t even been friends, not really, but you fix those fading eyes on him and open your arms, inviting him to lay with you.

(When he came over to watch that movie, he’d been nervous, but you had a blanket on your lap and you opened it to him, patting the space beside you with that smile until he felt comfortable enough to scoot closer to you, to share that blanket.)

He wonders how much time he has, but he’s got no fucking idea, so he just does it.

Yeah, he’s soaking wet and you’ve just put on his warm sweater, but this is his first chance, his last chance, to be this close as the man he grew up to be. He’s just Touya and you’re just you, lying in a shitty motel, waiting for the end. There’s a vision in his head, of you and him, of what might have been. There isn’t a mark on him, all smooth skin and soft, just like you, and you’re lying in a motel room, the both of you, naked. Maybe you’re still young, in high school, hiding from his parents just like he had been that day under the tree. Maybe you’re adults, this age, getting away for the weekend, away from the Hero Thing.

It’s a disgusting thought, one that has his lips curling down, one that has him choking on the ugliness of it all. It’s no use wanting like that, when your body is getting quieter and quieter, when you try to say his name again but can’t get the words around your lips. Maybe you’ve forgotten it.

When you're silent for a long time, he lifts his head from where he’s buried it in your neck, but your mouth is open, staring at the ceiling.

“Finally,” He pants, “Finally you’re fucking dead. Finally you’re out of my fucking hair and my life.” When you don’t respond, he snaps his fingers in front of your face. “Hey!”

But now you’re just a corpse. Now he’s just clinging to the body of a kid he used to know, one from his class, one he hadn’t even been friends with.

The picture he sets up is one from the hospital website, your employee picture. At some internet cafe, he’d printed it off, paid the extra change just to get it in color, and he’s lighting the incense (and his cigarette) with the blue tip of his finger. There are a bunch of pink flowers around this place, though most of them are fake, and he can sit out in front of the grave without a hood on. It’s so far at the back that someone would have to want to come back there to find him, which is why he’s sitting there in the first place.

Dabi isn’t really all that interested in the cigarette; he’s just leaving it between his lips, letting the smoke swirl in front of his face, letting the ash fall into his lap.

“How’s it going?” He grunts, just like you would say.

Every time he thinks of you in that shower, his stomach hurts again. How close you’d been, how real you felt under his fingers. The smudge of his hair dye across your face, claiming you in a way, like you were his. As if you’d always been, ever since Shizuoka.

Maybe he’s got it all wrong, maybe he’d always been yours. Every time he sat in the tree outside your window, every time he slipped through it, every time he followed you after work, lingering back like an ugly shadow. All that time, he’d always been yours. In the shower, in the bed, breathing you in as you died.

Always yours.

It’s a big, fat weight that should be lifted from his shoulders. Now he’s back with the League, that plan for Enji is in motion, and he doesn’t have to make up an excuse to Twice about why he’s gotta slip out at night, why he’s gotta head across town, why he suddenly wants takeout. There’s no following anymore, that’s been given up. And yet, now he feels like he’s got too much time on his hands, too much space in his chest. Scars on his body feel too rough, there is an insecurity he can’t beat back anymore, he spends too much time thinking about the what-if’s, which is too dangerous for a man in his profession.

It’s all making him soft, just like you had been. It feels like a fucking sickness.

Toga notices, because she’s so love-drunk on everyone that she can read his face as plain as day.

“Ooooh, you’re thinking about a girl!”

Yeah, maybe, but it's still annoying; he’d always been thinking about this girl, Toga wasn’t special for just now figuring it out.

Sometimes he wishes he’d gotten that sweater back. Not because it was comfortable or fit over his chest just right, but maybe because it might smell like you. Or the Eucalyptus shampoo. He’s a pathetic piece of shit, thinking crap like this, but it feels like a somewhat sticky band aid has fallen off, like that door in his head is open just a crack. Like it’s stuffed with too much stuff to get closed again.

It’s a fucking sickness, seriously. All those years away, too many steps behind, had kept the germs from him, made him feel like he was immune to it all, to your charm.

(That’s a load of shit, truly; he’d followed you for 11 fucking years after all. Dabi wasn’t immune to squat.)

The grave is so far at the back that someone would have to mean to come find him and he hears the footsteps far before they reach him, which should send him running, but it doesn’t. His hair is still white because he hadn’t found the energy to re-dye it, and if Toga says one more fucking thing about it—

There isn’t a blanket to hold open, no need to pat the space beside him; you sit so close, you’re nearly on his lap.

“How’s it going, Touya?”

Okay, so yeah, maybe he’d run out of that motel room like a man possessed, cradling you in his arms and whining like a fucking pussy, but whatever.

That doctor with the quirk you don’t have loves you, just like all your little nurse friends do, and they must have dropped everything for you. Not that he stayed inside or anything, just had to yell a little and lay your body on the front desk before hauling ass back outside, but you were knocking on the motel room door that night. Looking for him, actually looking, with focused eyes, pupils that were the same size.

The scar on your head was small (which is a load of shit; just a little bitty one? Come the fuck on) and shaped a little bit like a strike of lightning against your skin. Probably needed to stay home and in bed for a few days, not make any sudden movements or flip the light switch on too quick, but you were standing there, in that sweater, before he’d fallen asleep.

No, he didn’t fuck you.

He would’ve though, if you’d asked. Kinda wished you had.

Dabi has seen you twice a week for 11 embarrassingly long years, but you’ve seen him for half a day. There’s a lot for you to understand, a lot of things to catch up on, which he thinks is why you hadn’t gone to the police. Not such a goody-goody after all; when he’d told you that, you looked confused and a little hurt.

“What makes you think I’d give you up so easily?”

He doesn’t really mention it after that.

There are a lot of things you don’t understand, a lot of things you won’t understand. Lots of things he won’t tell you, but you’ll be there. Yeah, he knows where you live, and yeah, you said you’d leave the door unlocked (probably shouldn’t though).

You’ll be there whenever he decides to show up, or rather, he’ll be there, for you, whenever you want him. Because he’s yours.

Always has been.

Ruined Series Masterlist

Ruined (Prequel, 4.7K words)

you are more than surprised when number one hero Enji Todoroki proposes that you marry his son Shouto. A pair of cerulean eyes witness the deal and decide to ruin it.

Salvation (7.2K words)

having birthed the perfect child to Shouto and Enji, you should call yourself happy. But you aren’t, keeping a secret that could mean ruin. But then a public revelation sends your life spiraling into chaos.

Related Asks:

Headcanons on what happens after Salvation

Names for their daughter

Househusband Dabi

Resistance

Summary: Dabi returns to retrieve the sweatshirt he mistakenly left in your apartment,

Genre: angst with comfort, fluff

CW: mentions of sex, mentions of choking, cursing (?), Dabi is in denial about his feelings (surprise, surprise), smoking

Word Count: 1,126

Pairing: Dabi x gender-neutral reader

Dabi falls for you slowly, dragging his feet as his heart leads him back to you time and time again, despite how he protests.

And protest he does. Forces himself to stay away for weeks at a time, forces himself to avoid your part of town, just in case he can’t resist the pull of your smile.

But inevitably, he gets a little too high, a little too drunk, and he finds himself tapping that soft pattern on your window. It’s suspiciously close to the melody of the song playing when he first kissed you, laying in the middle of your living room all those months ago, but you’d never dare to ask.

Everytime he gives in is the same, whether he’s drunk or sober, with lots of whispered apologies and confessions of how he missed you. He pretends not to care what the answer is when he asks if he can kiss you, and you never fail to see the way his eyes light up when you tell him yes.

For a while, things will return to normal, where he’ll sneak in late at night, hold you in ways no other man has ever been allowed to. It’s sweaty skin pressed together, dark strands sticking to your face when he presses his forehead against yours, and whispered praises against your throat right next to his palm circling it.

And then one morning, he’ll be gone again, without a trace. It’s comfortable for him, leaving like a ghost. He’s sure it’ll make things easier when he inevitably leaves for good.

Except he’s bound to make a mistake eventually. He just wishes it’s not in the form of his favorite sweatshirt left crumpled on your couch where he’d let you tug it off him, hands slipping over his skin.

For a week straight, he debates leaving it, but eventually decides there’s no reason he can’t sneak in and take it back, missing its warmth and the anonymity it provided when he went out.

He waits until the light shuts off behind your curtains, smoke billowing from his lips as he sits on the rooftop edge of the building across from your apartment, mentally mapping out the location of your furniture so he can slip in and slip out quickly in the dark.

Your living room window is unlocked like usual when he tries it, and he shakes his head in disapproval, muttering under his breath about all the trouble you could invite into your life with your bad habits.

The irony isn’t lost on him, but he swallows the guilt quickly before it can overwhelm him and convince him to see you, opting to search your living room instead.

He’s frustrated to find it’s not in the exact spot he left it, but not surprised, given how much time has passed. He’s silent as he creeps along the hall to your room, the door open as if you knew he’d be coming by. 

Or maybe just hoping.

The light from the city washes you in a white haze, and he’s surprised to see you curled up into yourself rather than sprawled out like usual, your hands tucked in close to your face.

He risks a closer look, eyes scanning over your sleeping form, and surprise ripples through him when he finally realizes you’re wrapped in his sweatshirt, the black material baggy on you.

He sucks in a breath at the sight, feet shuffling closer until he’s standing directly over you, and it’s only then that he notices the tear tracks that streak down your cheeks, and the way your brows are furrowed unhappily even in sleep.

He feels a pang in his chest as he wonders if this is because of him, if this is his affect on your life. He wants to be able to shrug and leave, wants to roll his eyes and huff at you for being so emotional, but he can’t bring himself to pretend.

Instead, he crouches down to eye level with you, resting his arm on the edge of the bed as his chin settles on it. He watches you for a moment, the way your breath puffs out between your lips, the way your frown seems to deepen occasionally and you press deeper against the material of his clothes.

Finally, he can’t take it anymore, and he lifts his other hand, knuckles running lightly over the swell of your cheek. You’ve never been a light sleeper, but it doesn’t take long before your eyes are fluttering open and you’re peering at him in confusion.

“Dabi?” Your voice is low, and emptier than he can ever recall it being in his presence.

His lips purse for a moment before he gives a simple nod, knuckles continuing to smooth over your skin, a feeble attempt to wipe away tears that have long since dried. “Hey, doll.”

You stare at him for a moment longer, blinking slowly, as if you’re sure the next time you open your eyes, he’ll be gone. But he isn’t.

“Seems like you’ve had a rough day.” he comments quietly, and your eyes widen almost imperceptibly for a moment before they’re closing tightly and you’re leaning into his touch, fingers wrapping around his wrist to keep him there.

Your lip press into a tight line, and all you do is nod once, tilting your head to press your lips against his pulse. He hopes you can’t feel it jump under your mouth, pulling away gently so he can stand once more, leaning over to press a gentle kiss into the crown of your head.

You glance up at him sadly, disappointment flooding your gaze as you wait for him to leave again, brows drawn low on confusion when he moves to take off his shoes instead.

His shirt goes next, hooking his thumbs into the collar and tugging it over his head before throwing it somewhere in the dark. He pauses then, second guessing himself as he runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in odd angles.

But the way you’re watching him has him softening, jerking his chin towards the center of the bed as his knee sinks into the mattress net to you. “Scoot, I’m not letting you shove me off again,” he grumbles, but there’s no malice in his words.

If anything, he’s glad you can’t see the way his face heats in the dark over how he lets affection bleed into timbre of his voice when he next speaks, sinking into the softness of your bed as he pulls you into his chest.

“Missed you.”

A Burnt Rose (Complete)

✿ You and Touya parted on bad terms. Six years later, he spots you visiting his father, a red-headed kid in tow. He’s determined to find out what you’ve been up to while he’s been gone.

Touya x Fem!Reader ✿ Single parent

Updated Tuesdays and Fridays, any times indicated are in PST

Overall themes of angst. If you’ve read any of my other work, angst with a happy ending is my usual MO. Warnings marked at the beginning of applicable chapters: violence, child loss, implied drug use

⁕ Chapter 0 (Prequel)

⁕ Chapter 1

⁕ Chapter 2

⁕ Chapter 3

⁕ Chapter 4

⁕ Chapter 4.5

⁕ Chapter 5

⁕ Chapter 6

⁕ Chapter 7

⁕ Chapter 8

⁕ Chapter 9

⁕ Chapter 10

⁕ Chapter 11 (Epilogue)

Tag list: @mmmochi-art @jems-all-in-a-wood @boosyboo9206 @dani-d0rk @kunaigirlx44 @myriadis @northsideprincess @cutiebear45 @prettypuppy1563 @fandomsgotmefucked @txixy @whore-for-anime @isabel2you @haitanihime @callmelucas @askerror87 @devilsbooksworld @mikasackrmann @xnorthstar3x @undefined--person @bubblegum-bee-otch @h0wab0utw3d0ntd0that @eijis-stuff @cinnamon-n-roses @theequeenofcurses @bananasquash @aizawasfemdom @cascade-away @dabi-sunflower

Reblogs and comments are appreciated

Blue

Dabi angst fic, not really proof read, doesn’t contain any strong topics aside from strong hatred.

Cold. Cold was all you felt, a feeling you had almost forgotten. Forgotten how cruel it was how it was as it enveloped your bruised and beaten body. Snowflakes fell from the dark, chilly sky as wind weaved through the buildings.

Sitting atop the snowy ground you were leaning against the hard mossy brick of the LOV building a shadow cast along your face as you held your body together despite the pain from the burns and bruises. With labored breathing you raised your head to look at his face. Turquoise eyes stared back, the way they looked at you made the snow beneath your feet feel almost warm in comparison.

You had predicted this day long ago and knew it was only a matter of time before it came. You had played your role for the league you had performed admirably, it earned you praise among them. Now that you had done your part you were to be disposed of because you were no longer of worth.

You knew this was coming, you knew you wouldn’t be around for too long, you were almost hyper aware of it. Yet you cracked just a bit, you let yourself smile a little too genuinely at his snide comments and rude remarks, relished a bit too much at the feeling of his rough and burnt skin. Relaxed a tad bit more than you should have at the familiar burnt smell from him.

Doomed from the beginning, you knew that you were and no matter how many heinous crimes you committed, no matter how much blood you covered your hands in... You found yourself to be unable to rid yourself of the human feeling of love despite society seeing you as no longer human.

Though on this snowy day in January, you remembered why you should have ridden yourself of this emotion. Giving a cold-eyed appraisal of the situation, he stepped forward though you could not bring yourself to even uselessly try pushing back farther into the wall. Your body ached and started to go numb starting from your legs. The wounds ached a bit more when he squatted down to your eye level.

You knew you were fighting back tears finally met with the despair of death you both had cruelly tormented others with. His hand reached out to caress your face, his touch was disgustingly gentle, quite different to the harsh and hot hands he had beat you with just a few seconds earlier.

Staring back at him with red watery eyes you were sure you looked pathetic for someone who was infamous for being such a cruel and powerful villain. Everything you had once felt for the black-haired man before you were nothing more than a wistful memory. All that was left was a very bitter feeling that seemed to bubble over in the moment. Gathering what little strength you had left you spat at his face the glob landing on his cheek, his eyes flashed for a split second with amusement.

The hand he had placed on your cheek swept over a wound to collect the blood which in turn made you hiss in pain. “You really don’t know when to knock it off do you?...Always hated that about you, you know?” His croaky voice that you once enjoyed filled you with nothing but abhorrence now, your eyes were no longer teary, instead they stared into his cold ones with malevolence.

Not that you cared anymore but you still found yourself searching for an inkling of emotion in his lackluster eyes, but you found nothing.

The slightly warm palm that had been held to your cheek without moving much had begun to heat up slowly but surely. He started talking once more his tone casual not befitting the current situation at hand “hey you had that really dumb nickname for me...What was it again...Oh...Blue.” It was a nickname you had given him when you first joined the league, and you did not know his name.

Everything you had done led right up to your demise but what you regretted most was letting that emotion even if it was just a little. You should have known a man like himself lost the ability to love another long ago leaving only the hollow shell where a soul once resided. Perhaps it would have made this moment less bitter, perhaps if he loved you in return, it could have been bittersweet.

His hand continued to heat up while his other hand stroked your hair. It was in an almost mocking manner like he was trying to comfort his partner after a grueling day. Even as his hands heated up to an excruciating degree he did not cease his action.

Oh, how you resented him.

But oh, how you resented yourself more for being a fool.

His vile smirk was the last thing you saw before your body went up in a hot flash and your vision was taken over by one color.

Blue.