Work Text:
Dabi returns home to you on a Thursday afternoon. He carries a beat-up overnight bag not filled with much since most of his wardrobe now lives in your closet, his toothbrush sits next to your sink, and his stash of fancy chocolates lies inside one of the drawers in your kitchen.
He drops the bag at his feet as he steps through the door, the key you made for him hanging around his pointer finger as he slams it shut with one foot, opening his arms for you to greet him with a hug.
His arms wrap around you tightly, walking you backward as he buries his face in your neck. He’s been gone for a little longer than a week, off on a mission for the league in a few cities over, a mission that you are completely unaware of. As far as you know, Dabi was visiting his family.
“Missed you.” You murmur against his neck. Dabi lets out a deep breath, preparing to pull away to look at your face. He cups your cheeks in his hands and grins.
“Really?” He questions. You reach your hands up to rest over his wrists.
“Mhm,” you nod, “did you miss me?”
“What do you think?” He rolls his eyes, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. When he pulls away, he drops one hand to your waist and pinches your cheek with the other. You swat his hand away, glaring at him, but it only makes him smile.
“I think maybe you did.” You shrug in his arms, “You know, judging from all of the random pictures of cats you saw on the street, and the constant messages asking what I was doing, and all the times you asked for pictures–”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” He shushes you again with another kiss to your lips, deeper and hungrier than before. You’re breathless when he pulls away.
“You totally missed me.” You tease, pulling away from him and walking past him to the door. He sends a slap to your ass that makes you jump as you walk by, shoving him away so that you can pick up the bag he abandoned when he arrived.
“Doesn’t look like there’s much in here.” You comment, judging by the weight.
Dabi hadn’t packed much for the mission, just enough to get by in the shitty hideout that Shigaraki had set up for him. But you aren’t meant to know about that, so Dabi lies.
“I dropped some stuff at my place.” He shrugs as you look inside. You pull out a cheap box of black hair dye, looking up at him.
“Your roots are showing?” You question, and he nods.
“You cover them up the best.”
“Oh? How do you know that? Do you have other girls dying your roots for you?” You cross your arms over your chest. Dabi wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you in.
“Maybe.” He smirks. You let your jaw fall open, pushing on his chest. But Dabi keeps a tight grip on you.
“Have them dye your hair then!” You resist, but Dabi pushes your arms down at your sides, trapping you there. He shakes his head, placing kisses across your face as you try to stifle the giggles that threaten to bubble from your throat.
“C’mon,” He rasps, resting his forehead against yours, “you know there’s only you. I don’t think I could find anyone else to put up with me.”
“I’m not putting up with anything.” You say, softly. Dabi pulls away to look at you. “‘Course, I’ll help you with your roots.”
The process is easy enough, one you’ve gone through many many times with him, something Dabi considers important to him. It’s nice to be taken care of and to trust someone at the same time. Dabi can’t remember what that feels like.
In the beginning, Dabi resisted you. He hated that wanting feeling and tried to ignore the burning in his chest when he looked at you. You came along and threw his priorities all out of whack, and Dabi was furious with himself for even considering you.
But at some point, the want became need, and there was no longer any doubt about keeping you in his life. Even if it meant hiding things from you. He never planned on not telling you about his villainous activities. He thought about getting it out of the way for a long time. He would tell you and maybe you would scream or cry or call the heroes. Or you’d tell him you hated him, and that had always seemed much worse than being locked up. So want was need, and Dabi was not Dabi he was just yours, and you were something he couldn’t stand to lose.
“Are you sure you’re not secretly way older than you look?” You question him, washing his hair over your tub. Black swirls around your drain as he chuckles.
“I’m pretty sure.” He says, before pausing to look up at you “Unless…do you maybe have a thing for older guys?”
“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, shoving his head back under the running water.
“I mean, I am getting up there. I’ll be twenty-five soon. Does that turn you on?” He teases.
“You are the worst. Wash your own hair.” You groan. You watch him run his fingers through his hair to get the rest of the dye out, thinking about his words again. “How soon?”
“Huh?” He asks, turning off the water and taking the towel that hung over the tub. You watch him scrub his hair with his brows furrowed.
“How soon will you be twenty-five?” A smile stretches across his face, and he wraps the damp towel around his neck to free his hands. He reaches for you, pulling you towards his chest.
“God, you totally can’t wait ‘till I'm old and gray, can you?” You roll your eyes at him, pushing at him lightly.
“I’m asking about your birthday.” You stare at him. Dabi looks away from you for a moment, letting out a sigh.
“Yeah, cause you’re counting the days.” He smirks. You hook your hands around the towel around his neck and pull him down to your level.
“Dabi.” You warn, touching your forehead to his.
“You know, you really can’t get this close to me and expect me not to kiss you.” He speaks, bumping his nose against yours. Your eyes flicker to his lips, and you slowly begin to lean in. Dabi leans forward, pressing his lips to yours, but you don’t let him linger for long. He follows after you, eyes still closed, satisfied with moving to your jaw once you’ve pulled away.
“When is your birthday?” You ask him, a little breathless. He places a soft bite at the side of your neck that makes you shudder before speaking.
“It’s Wednesday.” He speaks against your neck. You freeze, moving your hands up to his head to pull him from your neck.
“This Wednesday? As in a few days from now?” You ask, your hands still in his wet hair.
“I don’t want to make a big deal of it.” He tells you. Dabi doesn’t remember the last time he celebrated a birthday. He most likely would have missed it if you hadn’t brought it up.
For Dabi, birthdays are a reminder of time working against him, of the clock ticking on all of his plans, everything he’s working towards. He’s also reminded of how those plans seem so small now, compared to waking up with you in his arms every morning.
“We don’t have to make a big deal of it.” You tell him. You move your hands from his head down to rest on his chest. “Can I just…make you dinner or something? Or I can order from that one place you like?”
“Just dinner?” He questions.
“Well…” You trail off. Dabi squeezes your hips, making you yelp and bury your head in his neck. “Dinner and one gift?”
“No gifts.” He shakes his head, bringing his hand to the back of your head. You look up at him.
“What if it’s the greatest gift ever?” You ask. He smiles softly and shakes his head, leaning down to kiss you.
You let him deepen the kiss, though you know it’s a way to distract you, pressing you into the bathroom counter as he traces your lips with his tongue. Your hands tangle in his newly dyed hair, arching into him as he moves his lips against yours. He lifts you onto the counter, pulling away from your lips to place kisses against your neck.
“C’mon,” You try, your breath catching in your throat, “just one.”
He bites down on your shoulder hard, earning a soft moan from your throat. He kisses over the mark, leaving more kisses down your chest, “No gifts.”
He runs his hands up your thighs as he lowers himself to the ground. He draws circles on the inside of your thighs, looking up at you. “Yeah?”
“No gifts.” You say, running a hand through his hair. He grins at you, kissing your thighs. “Just come at six okay?”
“I’ll be here.” He promises, biting your skin and making you shiver. “Now shut up. I missed you.”
….
Wednesday arrives quickly. You send a happy birthday text to Dabi paired with a scandalous photo of the blue underwear you’re wearing underneath one of his shirts, and he answers immediately. You remind him of what time he’s supposed to come by before leaving your phone behind on your bed to get ready for the day.
You go to the store for the ingredients you need to cook for him tonight. You pick up the small cake you ordered from the bakery down the street. You wrap the vintage leather jacket you found for him at a thrift store despite his insistence upon no gifts. Everything is going according to plan, for the most part.
That is until you hear his name from the mouth of the news anchor on your television as she describes the events of a villain attack somewhere in the city. From where you stand at the stove, you freeze, listening to the report. You’re too afraid to turn and look at the screen, knowing that if you see him, you’ll break.
The League of Villains, the anchor calls them, a name you find vaguely familiar. You don’t pay much attention to the news at all, but you can recall hearing of the group in passing. You don’t expect to hear your boyfriend's name in relation to them. You, at the very least, have half a mind to turn the stove off before you sink to the floor, bringing your knees to your chest. A villain. Dabi is a villain. For some reason, it doesn’t scare you as much as it should. More than anything, you’re upset about being lied to.
You know that the smart thing to do is call someone, the police, a hero, get someplace safe. You don’t want to do any of that though. You want to stare at the cabinets in front of you, and you want Dabi to come home.
You can’t think of anything but him, not the damage he’s done or the people he’s done it to, just him and the promise of his presence at your door at six o’clock. You can figure out the rest later.
He isn’t there at six, though, or seven or eight or any hour after that. You sit on the floor with the buzzing of voices on your television for hours before you pick yourself up. You pack up dinner numbly, placing things into tupperware that you put in the fridge without thinking. You turn the TV off, and you don’t change out of the dress you wore tonight specifically for him, and you don’t wash your face either. You just pull back the covers to your bed and clutch Dabi’s pillow tight. You don’t fall asleep.
Dabi comes home at around two a.m. He stumbles through your front door and leaves his key in the lock, slumping against the counter. He hears you come out of the bedroom, stopping at the end of the hallway and staring at him. He looks up at you for a moment but averts his gaze in shame. He’s a mess, staples missing and bleeding from his seams. His skin is raw and irritated against his clothes, and he’s sure some of his ribs are bruised.
And you, you look gorgeous, in that dress that Dabi’s always liked on you, your mascara lightly smeared underneath your eyes. Have you been crying? He can’t tell. He hopes you weren’t, not for him.
You walk toward him slowly, a little cautious, caught in between yelling at him or holding him. You can yell later, you think. Right now, you just want to stop the bleeding from his face and ice whatever injury he’s clutching at his side.
Approaching him, you bring your hands to rest at the side of his neck, urging him to look at you. He won’t. You sigh and push yourself closer to him. He doesn't move away. He nuzzles his cheek against yours, blood smearing across your skin, and you bring a hand down to his.
Silently, you pull away, tugging lightly on his hand for him to follow you. He stumbles for a moment before catching himself, walking behind you into the bathroom. He sits on the edge of the tub and thinks about when you dyed his hair for him, how long ago that feels now, how you might never do it again after tonight.
He watches you pull a first aid kit out from beneath your sink, rummaging through the supplies and setting them on the counter. You wash your hands and dampen a cloth, before leaning down to gently clean up the blood on his face. You do it all in silence, gently pulling away any staples that are near falling out, careful not to hurt him more than he already is. You remove his jacket from his shoulders and pull his shirt over his head, examining the rest of the seams in his skin. The ghost of a bruise is forming on his ribs, and you stand up to find something to ice it. Touya grabs your wrist before you can leave, his grip limp, tired. You could pull away easily if you wanted.
“Why are you doing this?” He rasps. You pause, turning around to look at him.
“You’re hurt.” You tell him.
“I’m late.” He says. “And I’m–”
“I don’t care.” You don’t care about what you saw on TV, or how late he was. You don’t even really care about the lying anymore, not when he’s bleeding on your bathtub.
Dabi stands with a groan, and you reach toward him to steady him. He takes the cloth from you and rests a hand on the back of your neck. He gently wipes your cheek in the place where his blood is smeared. You close your eyes, feeling the tension in your shoulders leave your body.
“Things are never going to be how they are now ever again, you know.” He speaks, setting the towel down on the counter. He caresses your cheek with his thumb. “You’ll know everything because I’m not going to hide it from you anymore, all of the gory details, everything I’ve done, everything I’m going to do.”
“Dabi.” You try to speak, but he doesn't let you. His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, keeping you focused on him.
“I’m not a good man, and I don’t deserve you. And if I was better, I would let you walk out of here. But I’m not. I’ve always been weak, and I’m not losing you.” He’s desperate, so afraid that you’ll walk away, leave him, tell him he’s too much. “So you have to tell me now if you don’t want this.”
“I want it.” You speak, almost frantically. “Maybe something is wrong with me, but the only thing that mattered to me tonight was that you’d come home.”
“I am home.” He speaks, pulling you tight against his chest. He winces at the pressure on his ribs, but when you try to pull away, he only squeezes tighter. “I’m home.”
You wrap your arms around him, “Sorry your birthday sucked so bad.”
“We’ll try again next year.”