Chapter Text
Touya Todoroki has been dead for eight years.
Honestly, he doesn’t think he’s ever felt more fucking alive.
There’s a feral grin on his face and he can feel it, really feel it, feel the stretch of a mouth littered with scars and the tips of elongated canines grazing the piercings in his bottom lip. His arm cracks forward again, and again, and again, the crunch of splintering bone and the squelch of blood both fresh and old only fuelling the adrenaline in burning muscles.
Does bone crunch? He thinks it does — feels it crackle beneath his split knuckles, feels the splattering of blood: a mixture of his own, spilling from between his fingers and his cut lip, smearing with the toxic red of the degenerate that’s unfortunate enough to meet his fist, today.
He can hear the man beneath him (an old beta, in his forties maybe, definitely not happy about his position — fucking reeks, it’s disgusting), moaning and groaning and gurgling out unintelligible words through a bile-clogged throat, and not dead yet, unfortunately. He shuffles in his position, straddling the man’s hips, resolutely ignoring the comfort of the two broken legs twisted at odd angles behind him. His own chest heaves, breaths ragged through a lilted mouth.
He doesn’t know what the man did to end up here. He couldn’t care less even if he tried.
“Dabi.” The voice behind him is whiny, high, scratched. Annoying. Followed by a giggle elsewhere. “That’s enough.”
And just as quick as the aggression came, it’s wiped away.
Dabi pushes out a sigh, raises himself to his feet. He collects the metal pipe that he’d traded in for his fist when the man had fallen to the floor — it’s disgusting, sticky with blood and god knows what else, but it feels at home in his hands.
Shigaraki, the pompous asshole, all wild hair and childishly psychotic eyes, drops down to his haunches by the man’s head, flicking out his coat behind him and tossing light hair over his shoulder. The goddamn drama queen. He’s one of those with a flair, a certain eccentricity, the kind of cartoon villain character that’d be labelled quirky, maybe. Misunderstood. That’s never really been Dabi’s style.
“So? You wanna answer my questions now?”
A choked laugh from a broken face, a mouth filled with a vile mixture of snot, spit, blood. The stupid twat seems to be under the belief that he’s valuable alive. How pathetic. Dabi cracks his knuckles, shuffles the pipe in his hand, and panicked brown eyes flick to where he’s standing.
Shigaraki scoffs, flicks his tongue over chapped lips. He scratches at the space beneath his jaw in a way that almost seems nonchalant, uncaring — but it’s frantic, the way his fingers move. He’s annoyed, his stupidly strong alpha scent of rotting leather is heavy and thick in the room.
“Fine. Whatever,” he snaps, standing and giving a swift kick to the bald’s head — his nose crunches. Dabi thinks that maybe it is the bones that crunch. “Toga, Twice, the useless prick’s all yours.”
Two more dive from the corner of the room, both betas, both riddled with the kind of insane bloodlust that makes Dabi cringe in annoyance. Their faint scents are happy, he can hear Twice babble about something nonsensical while pulling at the man’s fingers. Toga’s laughing.
Dabi drops his pipe, wipes away a drop of blood from his cheek.
Shigaraki approaches him, aiming to look domineering, maybe. Aiming to be in charge. A child trying to fill the position of a pack alpha; Dabi resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“You’re done for the night,” he snaps, he’s a couple inches shorter than Dabi is. That must be one hell of a kick in the face. “Be on—”
“Be on call, don’t go too far,” Dabi finishes, rubbing at his jaw — it’s beginning to ache, his fangs have been out for too long and his mouth isn’t quite sitting correctly. “The usual, boss, I get it.”
“Watch your mouth,” the alpha bears his own teeth behind dry lips, squares his chest in a way that demands dominance, and the dark red in his eyes sparks with annoyance. Shigaraki’s not really a fan of sarcasm. “You’re still new. Don’t forget your place.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dabi drags a palm down his neck, ignoring the blatant fuck you, submit in the other man’s scent. His Alpha doesn’t take the obvious challenge, it never does, lounging around in the base of his skull like some kind of dozing panther. Perhaps that’s what makes him so appealing to people like Shigaraki, in their positions of power — despite his apparent ‘attitude’ and tendency to drift off alone, there’s attraction in the way he doesn’t indulge in violence to appease his own Alpha’s appetite for it; that appetite is damn near non-existent. It must be comforting, in a way, to know that there’s an alpha subordinate who won’t want to tear your throat out at every opportunity — that his aggression, his violence, is because he wants to, not because of instinct. His Alpha doesn’t tend to care about much.
He doesn’t bother throwing Shigaraki’s pack a goodbye as he leaves the room: Toga, the psycho little bitch, is laughing like a damn maniac, wildly swinging around a little hatchet that he’s never seen her without. Twice is sat cross-legged, seemingly unbothered by the way his counterpart nearly takes off his head multiple times, dislocating each joint in the man’s left arm and talking to himself softly, toying with limbs like a ragdoll.
He’s glad he was smart enough to not take the pack’s bite.
The building he’s in — old, some kind of headquarters for Shigaraki and his devout followers — creaks as he walks through it. It was once a family home, he thinks; it’d be homey if it wasn’t so tragic. He passes by boarded windows and shards of glass, broken picture frames and a row of dusty coats still hanging on the wall, kicks at an empty whiskey bottle with mild annoyance. He’s learned not to glance at the mirror in the hall, on his way out; as cracked as it may be, it still displays his face from a thousand different angles that he’s never wanted to see, hangs out his own stoic hollowness like a damn painting.
Touya Todoroki discovered very quickly that it’s easier to live if you don’t exist — Dabi was the one who learned how. He learned to live as a person not written into words when stories get told, learned to live in the blank spaces between the print, in the gaps between the pages. He lives as a speck of ink smudged between the lines of writing — a name created from ash with an indistinguishable meaning, a single word without true shape, one you hear whispered in the wind and forget until you hear again, a face that’s so familiar but so unfamiliar.
There’s something so freeing about not really being alive anymore. Teetering along the edge of existence like a tightrope over a cliff, knowing that you are the one in full control over whether or not you take the drop. Never being fully involved in anything. Never caring about anything. No commitments, no marks, not a trace of his actuality.
The front door creaks when it opens. The keys, forgotten in the lock with an assortment of pink keychains, jingle as they sway. The air outside is cold.
He cracks his knuckles, and the little sigh of breath he lets out curls around him in soft fog.
There’s a crick in his neck, an ache in his muscles as he rolls his dark coat’s sleeves down. He’d managed to avoid being covered by his punching bag’s vile bodily fluids but there’s still blood coating his hands, he can feel it drying beneath his fingernails, flaking on the skin of his knuckles. His lip’s stopped bleeding, but he thinks there might be some blood on his chin, too.
The street’s deserted. It’s around midnight, he thinks, but not quite one o’clock: the streetlamps are flickering, dimming, but not off yet, laying their sickly yellow light over a blanket of cold fog. They don’t really illuminate much other than a few cars with missing tires and smashed windows, the odd patch of graffiti, boarded up doors for buildings that’ve been cleared out. Shigaraki’s territory is one of those fit for an apocalypse movie — all empty, dust-ridden once-homes and broken down vehicles that’ve long since been looted, the odd patch of suspiciously coloured stains on cracked concrete. The people here live in shadows.
Dabi prefers Stain’s place. At least it’s fucking clean, there. He kicks at a can, hears a cat squawk.
Up ahead, someone — the only movement on the street besides him, the silhouette of a person who’s small, in baggy clothing. They stutter in their steps, nearly fall to the floor directly into the darkness of an alley that Dabi knows is marked heavily with Shigaraki’s scent. They don’t seem to notice him. He stops walking.
Whatever, not really his problem. Idiots tend to venture into this territory often enough that fresh blood splatters aren’t exactly unusual — nor is seeing someone beaten half to death, staggering into somewhere they probably shouldn’t be. Shigaraki’s territory is inhabited by a number of alphas or betas that’ve proved they can fight their way through life; anyone who can’t is meat for the dogs. It’s ruthless, here. If you aren’t strong, you don’t survive.
But it’s Compress that deals with the idiotic turf wars and childish inner-pack fights, not him. He continues on his way — the figure will probably be found in a few days when the smell of rotting corpse becomes too much of an inconvenience.
The scent doesn’t hit him until he’s around a metre from the alleyway’s entrance.
It stops him dead in his tracks — it’s only faint but it’s there enough to be noticeable: something sweet, just barely tangible in the crisp night’s air, caramel heated to the point of bubbling. It’s warm, piercing, rich and sweet and thick with anger, thick with fear.
It’s an omega.
His Alpha — the little bitch is still dozing around like some kind of well-fed housecat — perks its head. Dabi’s not too surprised; this is the first omega it’s caught a sniff of in a while. Omegas are rare in Shigaraki’s place. Their status varies from pack to pack, their level of equality differs between territories, and Dabi’s been to places where they’re treated like damn royalty but here, for definite, they’re nothing more property: something valued as a possession, with little to no rights as a person. Treasure, might be the right word. It’s odd to find one alone.
He stops at the alley’s mouth and sniffs at the air a little more, humming a little in thought. The scent is a lot thicker here, swirling through the air like some kind of mist: it’s like sugar, but burnt, sweet and intoxicating but sickly with omegan distress. His Alpha’s beginning to growl — with aggression or possession, he can’t really tell. Maybe a mix of both.
Dabi takes a quick glance around him. He’s the only one here now, but he won’t be soon. Not with a scent like that. Alphas are bound to be drawn in like a moth to a flame.
What’s one little look?
And if he rubs the inside of his wrist across the entrance of the alley, to mark his scent there, to deter another alpha from the area, who’s around to judge?
He approaches as quietly as he can, further into the dark, a dead-end alley where the only way to see is a single flickering streetlamp, eyes lazily scanning ahead for the figure he saw. At first, he doesn’t even spot the little thing — if it weren’t for the scent burning a lot stronger in the air than it was before and the fact that he’d seen someone enter, he probably wouldn’t have thought there was anyone in here. That is, until he hears a small sniffle, sees the twitch of a dark sneaker, down to the left.
Dabi isn’t sure what he expected, but he knows it certainly wasn’t this.
The first thing he notices: the omega’s small. The tiny figure of a boy, curled in the space between a stack of old plastic boxes and a large trash can, huddled beneath a canopy of cardboard, hugging his knees to his chest. He’s shaking like a damn leaf, eyes wide and trained on his fingers, fiddling with something in small hands between tightly packed knees. His hood’s pulled up but Dabi can see thick blond hair jutting out over his forehead from beneath it, spiking softly over the brightest carmine eyes he’s ever seen. He doesn’t look particularly old, maybe in his late teens — he looks like a fucking doll, pristine and smooth. Pointedly innocent. Naive.
There’s splatters of blood on his face, it’s a bright contrast against pale skin and nowhere near the impressive shade of those eyes. Dabi can make out enough on his temple that he suspects there’s some kind of injury there, but he can’t distinguish one beneath the matted clump of stained red hair, yet. The clothing he’s dressed in is dark, but there’s visible patches of blood on the jacket he has zipped to his chin. The metallic scent of it is a stain on the burnt sugar in the air.
The boy’s eyes look watery. He sniffs, heaves a shaky breath through soft parted lips — and, fuck, that does something to Dabi’s chest that he isn’t quite sure he likes. He hasn’t noticed Dabi’s soft approach, yet, quivering like a baby deer, holding whatever little object he has clasped in his hands close to his body. There’s two high-grade scent patches stuck against his neck but they’ve both been ripped, they’re useless — the omega’s scent permeates the air around him like some kind of fog, sour with distress and upset, but still so sweet.
And, shit, Dabi’s Alpha’s never really cared about much — it cares about this omega. It prowls around in his mind like it’s suddenly been kickstarted back to life, snarling and barking and causing one hell of a shitstorm. His instincts are going haywire — he stops himself from getting any closer when he’s around a metre away, but his Alpha absolutely does not support that decision: it’s roaring, and his head is filled with thoughts of protect protect protect.
Dabi sucks in a breath of biting air — the omega’s scent is everywhere, and all he wants is to take the fearful quiver away from those little shoulders.
“Someone did a real number on you, huh?” he hums out a low drawl, low and rough and he curses the monotonous drone that his voice has taken on when those wide eyes flit to him, bright with fear and spiking with panic. He doesn’t want such beautiful, sparkling eyes to be so afraid when they look at him. “You look awful beat up, doll.”
“Fuck off,” the omega snaps his teeth, innocent eyes flickering with something pointedly aggressive. The blond tenses from head to toe, harsh, shaky tone filled with a faux bravado. An attempt to show less weakness in the face of an unknown alpha. Dabi feels his eyebrows raise, his cracked lip pull into a small smirk.
Huh. Kid’s got balls.
Dabi’s never met an omega that’s snarled at him before.
“Easy there, tiger,” Dabi lets a lazy grin slip onto his face, shoves his bloody hands and split knuckles deep into his trenchcoat’s pockets in an effort to hide them. He doesn’t want the little thing to get more scared and start really lashing out, after all. “I’m not looking for a fight.”
“You’re an alpha,” the blond’s voice is like honey — it’s soft, deep with a forced roughness, and Dabi’s Alpha nearly fucking purrs at the sound of it. The omega curls further in on himself, clutches whatever item he has in his hands closer to his chest. His brows are furrowed, pretty mouth turned down into something like a snarl, and those eyes of his are fucking burning. “You’re all looking for a fucking fight.”
“Not all.”
The boy growls at him — it’s weak and omegan, distinctly pathetic through tiny fangs that could do no more damage than a damn kitten’s. His eyes are so bright, so wide — so innocent and yet so violent. It’s a contradiction that makes Dabi’s head spin, aggression and softness, hostility and hesitation. But the omega’s still shaking; Dabi’s not fooled by a few curse words.
He drops to a squat. Even on his haunches, their size difference is apparent.
God, he looks so scared, curled into his little box, even with Dabi still a metre or so away. He’s tense, muscles locked, clearly terrified but also very clearly ready to fight should the need arise. His eyes flick down Dabi’s form, taking in the inked wrists and the piercings and the clothing, the fucking blood drying beneath his mouth — it’s all pretty telling, and the way those pupils of his widen slightly with a determined kind of fear says that he doesn’t think he could win, should he attempt anything violent.
Dabi’s filled with the urge to take whoever made him so untrusting and break their fucking spine.
“Come with me, kid,” he’s trying for soft, but that’s quite difficult, he doesn’t think he’s ever had to make himself seem harmless before. He doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to make himself seem harmless before. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Fuck you,” another snap, limbs curling even tighter into themselves, pushing further back into the wall. “As if I’d go anywhere alone with some random alpha.”
Dabi hums. He can’t help but feel a little on edge: the longer they stay, the more likely it is that the boy’s scent will carry further. The tinge of a distressed omega bears a universal weight — if the boy’s scent becomes so heavy that it leaves the alley, the kid’ll be fucked. Both metaphorically and, probably, literally. Omegas on Shigaraki’s streets are highly sought-for property if they aren’t claimed, first come first served, especially around here: an unmarked one, sitting pretty and defenceless like this, isn’t going to stay unmarked for long.
Dabi’s Alpha snarls at the thought. He’s inclined to agree with it.
He drops backwards to sit against the wall opposite the little blond, shuffles sideways to place himself between the omega and the alley’s mouth. Extends his legs, stretches them, hums a little. He pushes out his scent as much as he physically can, with as much calm as he physically can, without making himself lightheaded, and the omega eyes him warily as the small space between them becomes overriden with the smell of ash and fire. It doesn’t tend to be particularly overwhelming, his scent, but he thinks it’ll be enough to make any approaching idiots hesitate.
“The fuck are you doing?” the blond snaps, shaky, baring his little teeth again, sharp crimson eyes glinting beneath dimming streetlamps. But the alpha’s scent is clearly having its effect; he looks a lot calmer. A lot less likely to bolt. He blinks at Dabi through long lashes and, God, he still looks so innocent, despite the harsh words.
“I wouldn’t complain if I were you, doll,” Dabi drawls, dropping his head backwards against the wall and trying to inhale his own scent rather than the omega’s — he’s getting dangerously close to drooling. “With those useless patches of yours, my scent’ll be the only thing keeping every alpha on the block from poking around.”
There’s quiet, for a few moments.
“You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Leave and find out.”
The omega looks at him, still wary, still afraid, and he’s still softly quivering like a deer caught in a hunter’s snare, but he’s clearly not stupid. He chews his bottom lip between his teeth, shuffles a bit, but relaxes into the wall behind him. His eyes are trained to his knees and Dabi can practically see the cogs turning in his head — weighing the pros and cons, maybe. Measuring the risk of danger. His hands move from being so tightly compact against his body — he fiddles with whatever small thing he was playing with before, eyes glued to it. Dabi can’t quite make out what it is.
“What’s your name, kid?” he busies himself with a cigarette, flicks his lighter a few times just for the sake of it, avoids the boy’s gaze in an effort to not come across as provocative, or intimidating.
“I’m not a fucking kid.”
“Oh, yeah?” he ventures, biting his cigarette between his teeth and letting the scent of it through his nose as a distraction from the omega’s caramel. “How old are you?”
“Why the fuck should I tell you, old man?”
“So,” he snorts, “A kid.”
The boy bares his teeth — his little omegan fangs glint under soft yellow light, small and not particularly threatening. Dabi’s Alpha huffs an amused, affectionate little chuff in his head. It’s grown a lot calmer now that the omega’s calming, too.
“Who the fuck even are you?” the blond’s voice isn’t quite so hostile anymore. Still cursing, still defensive, but not hostile, and not quite so fearful. Simply… cautious. Dabi counts that as a win.
“People call me Dabi,” he sticks out his hand even though he knows the boy won’t take it, slipping a slight grin onto his face with the cigarette propped between his lips. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“‘People call you’?” the boy repeats, narrowing his eyes at the outstretched hand, gaze flicking over the licks of ink that’re only just visible beneath the cuffs of his sleeves. His own hands stay clasped together around his little object. “The fuck’s that mean? That not your real name?”
“Of course it isn’t,” a yawn threatens to slip through his mouth — he pulls his hand back, the omega watches it warily. “It’s about as real as I am, doll. Means I’m whoever I damn want to be.”
“Dabi,” the little blond twists the name around his mouth, brows scrunching in a way that’s so damn soft. “You come up with that?”
“A friend did.” It’s not a half truth, but not a full truth — if the omega needs to ask a few questions to feel more inclined to trust, Dabi doesn’t care what he has to answer. “I… adopted it, per se.”
“Adopted it,” the blond whispers. His eyes are unfocused; wide and carmine and sparkling with a soft kind of hope.
The boy’s eyes flick upwards. “Who were you before?”
Dabi doesn’t answer, this time, just takes a long drag from his smoke, keeping his eyes on the omega’s with a lazy, thoughtful stare. The kid didn’t recognise Dabi’s name. That, in itself, speaks volumes — as well as his clear lack of knowledge of the territory he’s in. Something so clearly naive, sheltered, doesn’t belong in a place like this. Dabi wonders how he made it here.
“You’re not from around here,” he says after a short pause, as soft as he can muster — his voice is rough, deep, dark, and he curses it. It doesn’t particularly scream safety. “What’s a little thing like you doing in this territory, doll?”
Red eyes flick back up to meet his, once, briefly, before dropping back down. The omega’s fingers toy with the little object in his possession, small mouth turned into a slight pout, and he seems to shrink into the large jacket he’s wearing — he looks the picture perfect part of a soft little omega, and Dabi can’t think of a single thing the world could throw at him that would ever tear his eyes away.
“You looking to become someone else, kid?” he asks, shuffling a little closer, subtly.
“’M not a kid,” is the reply, again, but it’s quieter, softer.
“Mm?”
“I’m almost eighteen,” the blond says, gaze flicking upwards to eye him sceptically.
“Jesus fuck - you really are a kid,” he throws out a smirk, teases for the sake of teasing — he was on the streets at fifteen. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his bent knees. The floor’s damn uncomfortable, but he’s closer to the blond this way.
“Maybe you’re just fuckin’ old,” and the omega teases right back; he’s defensive, still, but there’s a certain lilt to his mouth that wasn’t there before, a certain looseness to his tense knees.
“Oh I am, huh?”
A growl, off to the left: both Dabi and the boy’s heads fly to the side. He shrinks further into his little box and he’s really shaking, now, scent riddled with fear — the noise was far enough away that it was muffled, but close enough that Dabi’s Alpha spikes with anger, protectiveness. He moves a little closer, pushing himself between the alley’s entrance and the little omega that his Alpha seems so keen to protect, barely manages to stifle the rumble that threatens to leave his throat. His eyes flick back to the blond’s, sharp and predatory.
“It’s a bad idea to be out here, doll. Especially at dark.” There’s a sharp intake of breath at the petname, and the rough growl darkening his voice that accompanies it, and the omega’s eyes meet his — wide, sparkling. Fucking beautiful, even when they’re licking with fear. “You’re going to end up in worse shit than whatever it is you’re running from.”
The blond drops his chin on his knees, scowls, but doesn’t answer. His eyes don’t leave Dabi’s: they’re gorgeous, under the flickering light, a bright, glinting carmine, swimming with fear and distrust and anger. Anger so ferocious that it seems like a damn fire. He’s never seen an omega look quite that enraged.
“Let me get you back home, doll.” There’s urgency in his tone, now.
“I’m not going home,” the boy whispers, fiddling once again with whatever he’s holding in his hands but not looking at it. As a comfort, maybe.
“You should.”
“I don’t want to.” I can’t. Dabi knows that struggle.
“Where are you going, then?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know.”
“You’re gonna spend the night here?”
“I’m working on it,” the omega’s talking so softly. Dabi’s Alpha’s almost fucking purring, the stupid bastard — it probably would be, actually, but the imminent threat of another alpha poking around is making it suffer through being equal parts angry and affectionate.
Another growl, louder, more of a snarl. A lot closer than it was before, at the alley’s entrance. This time, the omega jumps, a tiny squeak leaving his mouth. He tenses, legs looking seconds away from sprinting, face like prey that’s been caught in a snare.
Dabi can barely hold back the growl.
“Come home with me,” Dabi holds out his hand, ignoring the ache of his jaw when his canines decide to elongate, again. He wants to snarl, wants to bear his teeth, wants to throw himself over the damn kid and protect him from everything. He schools his face into nonchalance.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” The omega’s breaths seem a lot shallower.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it already,” he’s trying not to snap, really, but that’s so difficult — he doesn’t think he would ever so much as scratch a hair on this little thing’s head, but they need to go now. “I have a little apartment, just a short drive away. With a couch. Has to be more comfortable than your cardboard box.”
“How do I know I can trust you?” he whispers, but his eyes say he knows he doesn’t have a choice.
“You don’t. But in a few minutes there’s going to be more than just me here.”
Dark eyes glint at him. This omega has the kind of presence that consumes you — Dabi most definitely feels consumed. And when he says, “I’ll keep you safe.” and the blond looks up at him with such naivety, such innocence, he knows he means it.
“It’s a lot deeper into town, on the cusp of a few different territories.” And if he lets a little of his possessive growl slip into his voice as he speaks, who’s there to judge him for that? “With me, no one will be able to so much as touch you, doll.”
The omega’s breath hitches again. He swallows, chews a lip beneath his teeth.
“Are you—” His eyes are so damn wide, and, as though he knows exactly which of Dabi’s buttons to press, they fill with building tears, his fearful little voice cracks. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dabi’s reply is almost immediate, and he knows it’s not a lie. “And I’ll beat the shit out of anyone that tries.”
And then, slowly, with the quiver of a baby deer approaching a predator, the boy takes his hand. Dabi’s Alpha rumbles in a pleased fashion at the sliver of contact, at the way the hand feels so damn small in his own. The blond shivers when he’s pulled to stand, tenses a little when Dabi pulls him tightly into his side — his eyes are level with the alpha’s collarbone, which puts him at perfect height to be tucked under his chin. He fits there like a puzzle piece. Like he’s meant to be there.
Dabi wraps an arm around his waist, tucks the omega’s face into the crook of his neck, and growls at the footsteps making their way down the alley. The blond seems to understand; either that or he simply caves into his fear; he buries his face into the fabric of the alpha’s shirt, shudders a small breath, a soft whimper leaving his mouth. Dabi pushes out more of his scent, heavy and possessive and angry in the air.
One of the boy’s hands moves to curl into his white shirt tightly, and in the other, clutched between slim fingers, sits the little figurine of an owl, carved in dark stone.