Work Text:
Liberosis
the desire to care less about things, a want to let go
It was still difficult to see any of them face to face even after three or four of these mandatory therapy sessions. Not to mention it was kind of strange. Surprising, really, that any of Touya's siblings even wanted to see him after he tried to kill them, but they're oddly understanding.
He didn't really talk the first session, and most of it was his therapist explaining things to Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shouto. The second session they'd done most of the talking. The third session they'd mostly discussed family issues and stuff with their parents.
"I think it would be good for you to talk about some of the time you spent away from your family this session," The therapist said, "it had been over a decade, correct?"
Dabi nodded, trying to appear nonchalant. "There ain't really much to talk about. I didn't do shit for the first ten years, and I'm not talking about the coma. I've told you that."
"No one's gonna make you talk about anything, bro," Shouto insisted, "We just wanna know where you were, why you never reached out to us."
"I told you already, I went back home. There wasn't anything left for me there, you guys moved on without me, forgot I existed–"
Natsuo cut him off, shaking his head, "We didn't, Touya, I swear I thought about you every day–"
"Let him talk and express himself." The therapist said, putting her hand up. "Then when he's finished you can tell him, we don't need to interrupt."
Natsuo leaned forward, head down as he nodded, "Right, right. Sorry."
Dabi waved him off, couldn't help but still have a soft spot for Natsuo especially even after all that time passed.
"Were you okay?" Fuyumi asked, her voice soft, "I mean… You had nowhere to go, I don't know how you did it out there, especially with your conditions and issues with your quirk."
"I got by." He said, keeping his face neutral.
A silence stretched for a few moments, and the therapist was looking at him. She knew how exactly he "got by" but he'd yet to tell his siblings.
"Would you feel comfortable telling them about that, Touya?" She asked, and his mind flashed back.
—
Touya didn't really know how he got himself into this situation. He'd only been on the street for a few weeks by then, had nothing to his name, no medical supplies, worn out clothes, and hadn't eaten in about a week by then. He was pretty sure he'd die at this rate.
He caught the attention of this older man, and the guy offered him to come back to his apartment for a hot meal and a shower, insisting that he should get out of the rain and get something warm in his belly.
One thing led to another, and next thing Touya knew he was naked on his back on the guy's bed. The man ignored his pleas for him to stop, ignored him asking to at least slow down, and covered his mouth when he started crying too loud.
"Just calm down," he kept saying, panting harshly into Touya's ear, "I'll be done in a minute, stop crying. You're making it hard to finish. I'll be done in a minute."
He wasn't done in a minute though, and it must have been Touya's fault for crying too much and making the guy have trouble keeping it up. It took what felt like forever until the man groaned and Touya felt something warm and disgusting fill him up inside.
Touya lied there trying not to cry too loudly as the guy redid up his pants then tossed a towel at him. "Hey, it's not that serious, kid. Damn, you're dramatic, aren't you?"
Touya sniffled as he cleaned the cum and blood from between his legs, but he still felt disgusting. He almost wanted to ask for another shower, but more than anything wanted to get away from this man.
When he looked up, the guy was holding out a few folded bills towards him, a toothy grin on his face. "For your time."
—
"...He thought I was a prostitute. I guess I led him to think so, I dunno… But I was sixteen, I didn't even know what he meant by that." Dabi kept his eyes down, his voice even and dull as if it didn't bother him. He didn't look up, but he could feel them staring at him.
Fuyumi had her hand over her mouth, eyes wide and teary already. She didn't even want to imagine something like that happening to her brother. Everything Touya suffered through at home was horrific enough, and what little she knew about him being kidnapped and experimented on while in a coma at that facility run by All For One sounded like a nightmare, and to think he'd been victimized on the street on top of all of that was almost too painful to process.
"But it was enough to get me through the next few days. Got some food, bandages, hygiene stuff. All I had to do was lie down and spread my legs. It wasn't… It wasn't that bad." He said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself as much as convince them. "So when I ran out of money, I did it again. And again. And again."
"Wh… What the fuck? Why? Why would you let people do that to you? Oh my god." Natsuo said, trying not to get angry but it was hard. He wanted names and descriptions, addresses if Touya had them, wanted to find every perverted creep that took advantage of Touya's situation and make them pay for it.
"I didn't have any other options." Touya hissed through his teeth, "I didn't wanna go anywhere where people could recognize me, had to lie low. I was legally dead, so I couldn't get an actual job. I didn't wanna steal then neither, that'd just be risking drawing attention to myself. It was the only way I could get money to survive. You guys don't get it– If I didn't sell myself, I woulda died out there."
"You don't need to get all defensive, Touya. We're not… We're not trying to judge you or anything, it's just… We didn't know." Shouto said, trying not to feel on edge by Dabi's cagey attitude. It was just a lot to process. He shouldn't really be surprised, one look at Touya made it pretty obvious he had some trauma that went beyond their family issues and Endeavor's abuse … But this? This was a lot, and Shouto felt bad even thinking about it.
"See, no one's going to judge you, Touya. They're your family, they're just trying to understand." The therapist said, giving everyone a minute to process, "Street kids turning to sex work is not uncommon, and it doesn't make you bad. Just like you said, you did what you had to to survive."
Dabi shrugged again, still feeling really defensive and trying to keep his cool, kept a poker face. "Don't gotta patronize or pity me. It's fine… I managed."
"How?" Fuyumi almost blurted out, "You shouldn't have had to deal with that, how'd you deal with that?"
"I found my ways. Drugs, mostly, they helped me turn my brain off during it." He explained, "Learned how to do this thing where I could make my thoughts go blank, let my body go on auto-pilot."
—
White lines on the hotel room night table, he'd already got one line up his nose before he started, and Dabi kept his focus on the remaining two like they were a reward.
His ass up and arms hugging a pillow, staring at the reward with an empty mind as large hands gripped his hips and pummeled him into the mattress.
His body moved on its own, head full of cotton and decomposing flowers as he moved his hips back in time with the John's thrusts. It made them finish faster, even if it made him feel sick.It meant he could get away from the guy sooner.
"Yeah, that's fucking good."
He wished he wouldn't talk. He hated these mens' idea of dirty talk. It always pulled him back into reality, back onto his body where he could feel way too much.
"For a fuckin' whore, you're not all that bad, huh? Most sluts overdo it, moaning way too much like they're in a cheap porno," the man said between pants and groans, "But you, you're good. You know to keep your mouth shut and lie there like a good little fucktoy, huh? You're a good little fucktoy, aren't you?"
He nodded, only half processing what the man was saying. Everything kind of went in one ear and out the other, and by now he had learned to tune out what his clients said, it was always something gross and humiliating or vile and insulting. Guys got off on that shit, he knew that they were just saying shit to get off. It was just worse when they expected him to respond or say shit back. He was no good at that.
This particular client was a talker, on and on and on while he fucked him into the streets, calling him a whore, a toy, a slut, saying that it was "good that he knew what he was good for" and making remarks about his body and face.
Dabi stared at the cocaine and let static fill up his mind, eyes glazed over as the pain in his body dulled to a mild ache. Sometimes if he zoned out enough and got himself high enough he wouldn't feel it at all, like he was disconnected from this hellish body and all this disgusting stuff was being done to someone else.
When it was over he could take more, take more and more until he forgot it even happened…
—
"So, yeah, your big brother is a junkie whore. What do you think about that?" Dabi challenged, but his tone was losing its bite. He just sounded tired.
"You used drugs to cope… That doesn't make you a junkie, or a whore." Shouto said softly, shoulders heavy and hunched forward as he looked at Touya with sad eyes. It must have been awful, living like that.
He felt bad about sitting around the house, enjoying ac and heat and an abundance of food while Touya was out suffering on the street being taken advantage of just to afford to live. The Todoroki household was nothing good, and he and his siblings suffered a lot under Endeavor's abuse and neglect, but Touya… Touya didn't even have his basic needs met, he didn't have anywhere safe to even rest, and was being hurt, raped, and abused on top of it for years. No wonder he went crazy.
"Don't talk about yourself like that." Natsuo said, "It's like you said, you did what you had to in order to survive. You didn't ask for that…"
The therapist looked at Dabi for a reaction, then scribbled something down on her clipboard.
"I just wish we knew, wish we could have helped…" Fuyumi said, messing with the hem of her blouse. She'd been trying so hard not to cry, but teardrops fell onto her lap anyway. "Did… Did anyone know? Did you deal with that all alone for all that time?"
"I mean… The league found out, after a really rough night with a client… I told them about as much as I could stomach them knowing… They weren't… Cruel or nothin' about it… Never looked at me the same though." Touya glanced up, seeing all three of his siblings eyes set on him, their expressions drawn. "Just like y'all will probably never look at me the same."
"It's not–" Shouto stopped, shaking his head as he gathered his thoughts, "We won't, like, judge you. You had to do that to get by. Yeah, we're gonna see you differently because it's… it's a terrible thing to go through, but it's not like we think you're gross or anything like that."
Touya laughed humorlessly, "Sure. If only you knew, baby brother, all the disgusting things I let people do to me just for some quick cash." His voice was strained now, cracking and too fucking emotional, it sounded pathetic to his own ears. "How do you not think I'm gross?"
"Why would they think you're gross?" The therapist asked, looking at him intently.
—
He hated seeing this client in particular. He was violent and cruel, but he paid Dabi really good since he always wanted to do some fucked up shit that most of the other prostitutes weren't down for. He had a record of being refused service by most of the people in Dabi's line of work, and he was one of the only people that would take his requests. He hated it, hated every second of it, but the money was good enough to cover him for a while.
He needed the money real bad too. He hadn't eaten in a while and had gotten a very bad infection in his arm. He needed medicine and medical supplies. He could either do several jobs for a few days, as sick, hungry, and tired as he was. Or, he could deal with this client for one night and get enough to cover everything he needed and have some left over. So Dabi grit his teeth and bear it, get real high and drunk first so hopefully it wasn't as bad.
It was always bad.
The guy had a couple of buddies with him this time, and paid extra for the group to take turns on him. He wasn't very happy with the idea, he didn't like doing groups, but they were pushy about it.
About a half hour of this and Dabi was already done with it, already zoning out completely as blood and cum ran down his legs. They fucked him on the floor, sometimes more than one at a time, thoroughly using his cunt, ass, and mouth. Whenever he zoned out too much for their liking they slapped him or hit his head on the hardwood floor.
"This bitch is so fucking ugly, how are you even paying for him?" One of the men asked, turning him into his stomach so he wouldn't have to look at his face, smacking him upside the head. "Fuckin scam artist, ain't you?"
"None of those other whores will let me buy time from them, so I gotta settle for this ragdoll looking freak." The main client said casually, "At least he's good with his mouth though, and he'll let me do whatever I want to him."
"Maybe he's good with his mouth, but he's all used up. Not even enjoyable." One of the other men commented, "He ain't worth much."
His face burned with shame. No matter how much he tried to ignore the things clients said about him, it still got under his skin and hit him where it hurt, in all those weak spots and insecurities about being not enough. Damaged goods. Worthless.
He tolerated it though, sank his teeth into his bottom lip and did his best not to react. He could just lie there and take it, get the money he needed, then it'll be over and he didn't need to think about this ever again. The fingers digging into his hips, the cock tearing him open, and the pain blooming in his lower body with every thrust tied with the insulting words made it difficult to just detach and dissociate from what was happening to him.
But he can be done soon. They'll let him be done soon. He felt disgusting and dirty, but he'll be done soon.
Once it was over, they really didn't bother with formalities or even giving him the decency to get redressed before shoving the other half of the money at him like he was wasting their time when they weren't fucking him.
"Hold on," He called after them, recounting the bills a second time to be sure, "This is less than we agreed on."
The client tilted his head to the side, mockingly, "Is it?"
"Yeah. You're short several hundred yen, man. I told you the prices, and that it's more for groups." He explained, narrowing his eyes when the men began to laugh, "You've been buyin' time from me long enough to know this. Don't try to rip me off."
"Rip you off?" The man said between laughs, raising his eyebrows, "Honestly you're ripping me off. You're not anything special. You're loose, you're ugly, and half the time you lie there like a corpse whenever I fuck you. You should be glad I'm giving you anything."
Dabi's mouth formed a hard line, that feeling of shame burning in his chest again but he tried to keep his voice even. "We agreed on a certain amount beforehand. None of the other people in my line of work will even work with you, that's why I charge as much as I do. You can't just change it."
"Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?" The guy walked forward, crowding his space with the other two men behind him.
Could fucking kill them, and he should– honestly. But he was a returning client that gave Dabi a lot more than he usually made from his work, and he'd never pulled this before, as much as he wanted to burn all three of them to charred bone… But it wasn't worth it. And he needed the money…
"Nothin'." He forced out through his teeth.
"Mmhm. That's what I thought, whore. Looks like we didn't fuck you completely senseless, huh?" The man pinched his cheek none-too-gently, digging fingers into one of his staples. "Now, my buddies and I are gonna be on our way."
He had his cry in the motel shower before he left, did his best to mask whatever oversensitive bullshit he was on now before he went back out there.
—
"I'm a goddamn murderer, a fucking terrorist, and I went around whoring myself out on top of it. I honestly dunno how you guys haven't walked out and sworn me off by now."
"Cause you're family, Touya." Fuyumi exclaimed, fresh tears rushing down her cheeks, "No matter how much time has passed, what you've done or had done to you, you're our family , and we don't want you to feel abandoned and alone again."
Natsuo nodded in agreement, too choked up to really say much. "She's right. You're my brother, that's not gonna change."
Touya bent forward, grasping at his hair. It should. He felt like they should be disgusted with him. He was disgusted with him. He couldn't understand why they wouldn't be.
"Can I touch you?" Shouto asked, and it was insane he even wanted to. The revolting things Touya did aside, he was terrible to his baby brother. Why would he want to touch him?
He nodded anyway though, and Shouto put his hand on his shoulders, rubbing careful circles. His eyes burned with the urge to cry, but he tried to swallow it down, didn't want to get blood everywhere. It was just overwhelming, confusing…
He thought this would be the final straw. He felt like they should be angry with him like he was angry with himself, but they were crowded around, supporting him. He didn't know what to make of it... But maybe it would make more sense with time.