Work Text:
I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what I choose is my choice
What's a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
I send this smile over to you
Disarm you with a smile.
The Smashing Pumpkins - "Disarm".
Dabi woke up feeling lightheaded, a fog clouding his mind. His skull also throbbed painfully on one side, and he grimaced when he touched it, the area felt tender and sore.
"You okay?"
He jerked at the sudden voice, unaware he wasn't alone when he woke up, "the fuck you doin' in my room?" He muttered, "my head's killing me."
Shigaraki huffed, rolling his eyes, "well, fainting and smacking your head on the counter will do that. You're lucky you don't have a concussion."
Dabi shook his head, igniting a stronger surge of pain. He didn't remember passing out, and a flush of embarrassment heated his face.
"Why aren't you eating, Dabi?" Twice asked, sorrow in his voice, "We have food now, so why won't you eat?"
"I do eat," he said, feeling like he was being scolded, talked down to, like he was a child under his Father's disapproving stare, "it's not… It isnt like I'm…"
"Isn't like you're what? Starving yourself? Because you are. we aren't blind, Dabi, we notice things." Tomura said, his voice was firm but forced, strained. Maybe he was angry?
"You need to eat, Dabi." Jin said, "you're too small, you're wasting away."
Too small. Just like Endeavor had said. Too frail and weak, never be a strong hero if you're this small. You can't even defend yourself! Are you doing this on purpose, to avoid training? Because that will not work. I'll make you eat if you have to sit there all day with the food in front of you!
He wasn't doing it on purpose at that time. He didn't know why he wasn't built strong like his Father, why he was wasting away, and Enji would be so furious with him about it, berating him and beating him for something he had no control over. Forcing him to eat until way after he was full and criticizing him the entire time.
Food never felt safe or comforting for him. He hated it.
"You've lost way too much weight, Dabi. You probably weigh less than me by now!" Toga said.
"Yeah, and it's quite concerning. It appears to be affecting your quirk too, weakening you even further and making it cause more damage to your body." Compress spoke up, trying to put reasoning behind it, trying to convince him.
His hands clenched into fists, they were lecturing him now? Really? "I can still use my quirk. Im fine. I'm still useful. I'm not… I'm not weak."
He wanted to be useful, good enough. He didn't want them thinking he was weak and throwing him aside. He tried so damn hard to hide it. Being sure he patched up new burns before they could notice, careful to use when he wasn't around them so they wouldn't discover his dependency, wearing baggy clothes to hide the weight loss. He didn't want them to know…
"Dabi," Tomura said, "Look at me."
His eyes darted over, blue meeting red, and he couldn't read what exactly was in his Leader's eyes.
"You aren't useless and we won't throw you aside, we've told you this time and time again, but this…" Tomura looked away, rubbing his temples, "this is scaring the hell out of all of us. We can't just watch you do this to yourself anymore... You can't continue going like this, you'll die."
"You say that like it's a bad thing." Apathy and sarcasm were go to defense mechanisms, the only way to cope with being in an uncomfortable situation.
Why would they even care?
"Don't say that!" Jin yelled, "don't ever say shit like that! We don't want to lose you, we can't lose you."
He felt bad then, looking down at his hands. He insisted he was fine, they didn't need to worry about him. He wasn't a burden, wasn't going to be a useless member of them.
"You aren't fine." Compress said, "you need help, Dabi. These episodes you have are getting more frequent, we know you're burning when you fight, you've lost so much weight… we're afraid one day we'll come home and find you…" his voice faded off, "none of us want to lose you."
So much for hiding. They had him so figured out it was infuriating. Dabi didn't like being vulnerable. He worked so hard at perfecting his mask it caught him off hairs when they were able to see through it.
He didn't want them to know …
Tomura sighed after a few minutes, "You can't use your quirk anymore, and we won't let you go recruiting or on missions until you're healthy. You're a risk to yourself."
Dabi looked up, eyes wide, "Wait, what?! You can't do that! Im fine, really, I'm fuckin fine! I can still be useful, I can still-"
"Dammit Dabi you aren't here to be useful, you aren't here for us to just use ! You're one of us, we want you to be healthy !" Twice yelled, at the verge of tears.
"Yeah, we're tired of seeing you like this!" Toga added.
"It's simple fact that the more you keep this up the higher risk you have of endangering yourself or us. You have barely eaten in weeks, your paranoia is worse than it's ever been, Jin found the needles and pills in your room and-"
"Those aren't mine."
Jin sighed, "Dabi, we aren't dumb."
"It's for pain management."
"It's an addiction is what it is and you're going to kill yourself at this rate! We all talked about it after you passed out and we can't let you do it anymore, you need help. You need to eat more, you need to talk about this, you need to get off the drugs and put on some weight. We won't stand back and watch you do this to yourself anymore… so you aren't leaving our sight until you're healthy and able to take care of yourself." Shigaraki explained, stern and unmoving in his decision.
Dabi couldn't help but laugh, they were all fucking crazy. "So, what? You guys gonna keep me on lock down until I take better care of myself? You can't be serious."
.
Oh, but Dabi soon came to find out they were all quite serious.
One of them was always there with him, or right outside the room. They'd check on him often, and help him with things he realized he was having trouble doing with how weakened he became from malnutrition. He hated it, despised it.
He hated to think of himself as weak. Weakness was something that he was born with and tried so hard to overcome. His Father tried for years to make him overcome his weaknesses, years and years of experimental therapies, torturous training, constant exposure to extreme heat as if the man could burn the weakness from his body but it all was for nothing, and only broke him down and damaged him even more.
Dabi knew he was a lost cause.
"You need to eat." Spinner pressed, "seriously man, you need to eat something or you're gonna pass out again."
"It isn't gonna work, Lizard, give up." Maybe he was being stubborn, or just an ass to frustrate them, or maybe that familiar paranoia crept up his spine whenever he looked at the food and made him feel sick.
When he was a boy, Touya used to fear his Father poisoned his food to get rid of him, one less failure on his hands.
He was beginning to get a headache, chills coming back.
"Dabi, you need to eat. This is outrageous. You passed out yesterday, you'll pass out again if you don't eat something."
"You can't force me," God, he sounded bratty even to himself. "Bigger men than you have tried to force feed me and get me out of these habits and it never worked no matter how bad he punished me."
Compress frowned, "what do you mean?"
"You're so pathetic. Quit that sniffling and eat."
The food was getting cold, and Touya was near tears by then. He couldn't finish it. He tried, he really did try. But he couldn't. He felt sick.
"Eat your food, boy. I won't ask again."
"Im full." Touya said quietly and it earned him a smack in the back of his head. He blinked back the tears.
"Bullshit," Enji snarled, a hand gripping the nape of his neck, pressing on pressure points, "stop being a stingy brat. You need to eat more, you're too weak."
"Father, please…" he whined, pain so intense it almost paralyzed him. it hurt so bad but he couldn't squirm out of the t
Iron grip.
Tears began to fall. "Please. I can't. I feel sick."
The hand let go of the back of his neck, the pain still lingering, added onto by his hair being gripped harshly and head pulled backwards at an uncomfortable angle.
Cold blue eyes stared down at him, lacking any mercy. "You'll finish what's on your plate in ten minutes, or we are going back to the Dojo and I'll punish you. Understand?"
Touya nodded hopelessly, letting out a sob when he was shoved forward. His hands shook as he grabbed the fork. Watchful eyes burned into the back of his head. He hoped he finished in time without throwing up, or he knew his punishment would be even worse.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it."
The other two villains exchanged looks.
"You're shaking… did we trigger you?" Compress asked cautiously.
Dabi bit his tongue. "Didn't trigger shit. Drop it."
Spinner sighed, "Dabi, we aren't going to literally force feed you… or… hurt you if you don't eat. That's messed up, whoever did that was messed up… we're doing it 'cause we're concerned about you. It's cause we care."
Dabi wasn't exactly familiar with care.
.
"You guys really expect me to eat all that?" He asked, staring at the steaming meal in Toga's hands, "I literally just ate four hours ago. I won't even get hungry until at least tomorrow."
She rolled her eyes, placing the food down on the table anyway, "We'll duh, Dabi. The whole reason you don't get hungry is because you never eat. Your stomach strunk. Normal people eat three times a day, silly."
"Well I ain't normal."
"Wrong wording, I guess, my bad. healthy people eat three times a day." She corrected herself. "We want you to be healthy. Just eat a little bit, pretty please?"
Dabi got pretty familiar with the streets by the time he was seventeen. He knew his way around well, and was familiar with a few of the drifters and homeless. Mostly the kids. Maybe it was his older brother instincts, but he kept close to them incase anyone tried to hurt them. They were so young and defenseless bastards would prey on them. Dabi had to overuse his quirk several times defending them, but he didn't regret the scars.
"It ain't much." He said, passing out the loaves of bread he was able to snag from a vendor. "Split it up eveningly against each other. Don't fight over it."
He stood against the alley wall, lighting up a cigarette as he watched the kids shovel down their food. Most of them were preteens or younger. They needed to food to grow but Dabi wasn't able to steal enough for them. It made him feel guilty.
"But what about you?" The little girl with pale hair and crooked glasses asked, she reminded him of Fuyumi… "aren't you gonna eat?"
"I ate a few days ago. Not hungry. You guys can split up my portion."
He groaned in annoyance, staring at the food. He wasn't hungry at all. He could barely finish breakfast and they expected him to eat again only a few hours later?
"You know," Spinner began thoughtfully, "I hear it's easier for skinnier people to eat six small meals instead of three regular sized ones, cause they're stomach shrunk too much."
Togas face lit up, "Oh! That's a neat idea! I can make him little mini meals then!"
Dabi stared down at the food, something stuck in his throat at the realization they were putting so much thought into helping him, into preparing meals and trying to find ointments that would ease the discomfort of his scars, into making sure he was comfortable. They were putting so much thought into him , and he wasn't used to it.
.
The worst of it came that evening when withdrawal kicked in hard, and the sickness and pain became too unbearable to hide. He thought he hid his drug addiction pretty well, but they seemed unsurprised and all too prepared when he began going through withdrawal.
He was shaking in a cold sweat, vomiting up the little amount of food he ate and barely coherent.
Still, they were all right there throughout the restless night, holding his hair out of the way and rubbing his back as he vomited, bringing him cold water and damp wash clothes to ease the ill feeling, shushing him when he began babbling and ranting, supporting him when he started crying incoherently.
"Such a fuck up." He mumbles, digging his nails into his arms as he dry heaved, "gods, if he could only see me now."
There were involuntary tears in his eyes from the puking, his throat burned, vision and mind blurry with haze and confusion. A hand kept rubbing his back in circles, trying to calm him.
"You're not a fuck up." Twice told him.
"Oh I am." He tried to laugh but it sounded so pitiful instead, his words slurred. "I'm a failure. A useless, weak disgrace like my Father always said."
"He was wrong." Shigaraki said.
His head was spinning, aching, pounding so hard he couldn't think straight, could hardly process where he was anymore. "No, no. He was right. I'm a mistake. I was never useful or strong enough no matter how hard he trained me, how much he made me eat, how bad he beat me, I was still so fucking weak. Never good enough for the Todoroki name… just a worthless bastard he discarded so easily… this won't work either. Just give up on me."
There was a long silence, nothing but the buzzing in his ears as he tried to stop heaving.
Shigaraki cleared his throat, "Todoroki name? You're a Todoroki?"
"Yeah can you believe it?" He cried, "fucker never wanted me though, no good for anything but a way to vent his frustrations. He did all this, used me then gave up on me, turned me into this …"
"A Todoroki… as in Endeavor…"
His sleep deprived, hazy mind slowly caught up to the shit he had been spewing, had he not been so ill he would have tried to deny it, or prepare to defend himself. He was too tired to do either, so he just spat in the bucket and waited.
"Makes sense when you think about it." Compress said, and Dabi could hear aggression in his voice.
"No it doesn't!" Twice said, then added, "it all does add up."
If they weren't gonna abandon him before, they definitely will now. They wouldn't trust the son of a hero, especially after he lied for so long. They wouldn't want him.
He looked up, tired, aching all over, too weak to fight or try to explain himself, "gonna kill me?"
They were looking at him, his blurry vision darted to each of their faces, studied them. They were angry, furious expressions on their faces. He just sat there, trying to figure out who would attack him first.
"Just do it… I'm… I'm so tired."
Tomura swallowed, clenched his teeth, "did he do this to you? The scars and the nightmares and eating disorders, all the suicide attempts? Is it because of him?"
He was even more confused.
"We'll kill him." Compress said, barely able to contain his rage, "he'll suffer for hurting you."
"Imma cut out his heart!" Toga yelled.
"He'll pay for this." Spinner joined in.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Jin asked, "You could have told us…"
He finally caught up to them, realized their anger wasn't towards him, that they weren't… They weren't going to hurt him.
He broke down after that, let it all go, all that anger and fear and hurt and loneliness pouring out after so many years. He cried for the first time since his Mom was hospitalized, and they sat with him the entire time.
.
It took a while, a long while before he could look at food without feeling an overwhelming sense of dread. It was a long while before he could eat without being sick. It took time before the itch to use began to fade and the urge to hurt himself decreased. He still had bad days, but they were so patient with him.
Toga made her wacky mini meals, a different thing each day which was usually just random ingredients she threw together.
Spinner came by often to listen to old records with, finding the rarest gems at little record stores to bring back.
Compress would distract him with magic tricks and interesting stories.
Jin kept an ear out for him all night, and always rushed to his side when he woke up screaming to sit with him until he calmed down.
Tomura and Dabi talked about their pasts together, and helped each other understand what happened. They were different and their pasts were too, but they could understand and relate to each other.
For the first time since Touya was a child, since before he got his quirk, he felt safe. He felt like he wasn't ignored and people cared for him. For so long he was existing without a purpose aside from revenge, he wasn't even living in the true sense of the word, so disconnected and alone he wondered if he were to disappear if anyone would even notice or if he'd be forgotten again. They pulled him in and gave him that deeper purpose.
It was odd being a part of something, being cared about and shown affection. It was odd to be part of a family, and they were a strange little group, but they felt like home.