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Dabi first learns about the fans when he comes across them one night, around the back of a bar snuffing out his cigarette.
Heroes have fans by default, their faces are plastered on billboards and flyers as the city’s symbols. People idolise them and for good reason--heroes are heroes, after all. That’s why villains are villains. Two sides of a coin, extracted from the same beginnings, thrown different hands in life. Hawks is the only exception he’s ever known, and even then the lines are blurred so finely that trust is thin as wire.
It never occurred to him that villains could have fans too. Not in the way the thugs Shigaraki recruited are, they’re nobodies. Disposable, replaceable, mindless bidding with money weighing down their pockets. Then there’s this.
Dabi stares at her with his hand halfway to his face, smoke wisping around his cheeks as the cigarette burns itself to ash. Outside the alley, past the bar entrance and to the street, the world keeps moving: people rush past, car headlights send flickers of raindrops and flashes of amber running across the walls, but he’s still. The kid watches him and he watches the kid.
Then: “You’re Dabi.”
His hand finishes its path and takes the butt from between his lips, followed by a cloud of smoke billowing into the night. Long black hair hidden under a hat, bright green eyes, ripped jeans, and three nose piercings. He doesn’t have to look to know that her ears are decorated with silver rings.
Dabi’s not sure how to answer. Aside from Hawks approaching him with the confidence only an idiot has, he’s never been addressed by a stranger. He should run, or demand why she’s in some shitty alleyway behind an equally shitty bar, but what comes out is, “‘Sup.”
Beneath the canopy of rooftops and guttering, even through the lights and the ajar backdoor, her eyes glitter. A forest, bright with curiosity, not an ounce of fear. He takes another drag of his cigarette. “What d’you want?”
Her gaze finally breaks, dropping to his hand when he flicks ash to the ground and holds it leisurely. It snaps back up again. “Your autograph.”
Dabi barks a laugh. This whole conversation is the wrong side of fucked, and he can’t decide which stands out more: is this morally or ethically wrong? Morally, because who in their right mind would give a kid a villain’s autograph, ethically because why would she want it?
This time, when he blows out smoke, it twirls around her hair and hat and she flinches.
“You got a pen?”
His sarcasm is a stretch, he doesn’t actually expect her to flip out a notepad and a pen from her pocket. It’s the hammer that hits him upside the head, the gravity of where he is, what he’s doing, who he’s with, flickering into focus like a lightbulb.
Now Dabi’s eyebrows furrow, a straight, thin line across the mesh of skin, and he drops the cigarette butt, crushing it under his heel. She holds his gaze, fierce like fire on fire and strong as steel, pad and pen outstretched. He’s never been one for caring about morals and ethics, but this is several shades of screwed. Why would a kid want his autograph and not All Might’s? Why would she approach him without a speck of fear, knowing who he is? Knowing he’s killed people?
She falters when his expression changes, and her hands drop a little. Her eyebrows draw together too, her jaw tight. “Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean--”
“Your name.”
“Huh?”
“Your name. What is it?”
She blinks, those brilliant eyes scattering like a mosaic when another car hurries past. “Sara.”
Something indescribable settles in his chest. A knot, strung tight and thick; discomfort that’s palpable and horrible. It’s resurfacing something buried inside him, too deep to break the tension but transparent through the surface. He’d forgotten how different kids are to adults. UA isn’t full of children, they’d seen more horrors than most do in their lifetime. They’re adults stuffed into pint-sizes, but this one is still a kid, defensive and impressionable. She gave her name without thinking.
“Sara.” He wishes he’d never left the bar. “Why in the fuckin’ world would you want my autograph?”
“I--” Sara recoils, hands drooping. “I admire you?”
“Are you asking or telling?”
“Are you going to give me your autograph or not?” She snaps, and the confusion and hurt behind the venom makes him pause again. He knows he should kick her to the kerb. He knows he should laugh in her face and wash the memory away with several bottles of whiskey. Sara knows that too, because she switches the pen to her left hand with the pad, and lifts her right. A moment later, the tiniest flame sprouts on the tip of her index finger, centre burning blue and crimped orange. A flame that’s been nursed, kept from the wind, allowed to grow stronger; like a deadly flower. Warmth burns beneath his palms.
“I’m like you,” Sara says softly, watching the flame sway and spit. “You have blue, like me. I want to learn how to use it, because it burns.”
Fear isn’t something he’s felt often. His childhood was full of displacing it to anger and tantrums and fire crawling across his skin, and it shocks him when the sourness of fear settles on his tongue. Not because he’s scared of her--that’s ridiculous--but her words are enough to ignite kindling in his chest. Dabi knows, and he understands. The burn in his gut and beneath his palms scratch at him, the need to consume with flames, the need to watch the sky blaze orange and yellow and red--
A feeling only a villain should have. This girl can’t be older than fourteen.
The light dims and fizzles, and she stares up at him with round, kid eyes, and Dabi knows exactly how this conversation is going to go.
“C’mon.” He turns away from her, his back to the traffic petering out at the opening to the alley, and begins walking. The click of his boots echo with raindrops from puddles, joined after a moment by smaller, quicker steps. There’s that blind trust again. His jaw clenches.
Dabi takes her through the maze of backstreets, keeping his pace slow for her to speed after him like a sheep following a wolf. The route he knows by heart is dark and dreary, wet and damp, and it does nothing to quench the angry fire that’s eating him from the inside out. Chipping away beneath his skin, bit by bit.
By the time they reach the final dead-end, the moon is high and bright. The ghostly glow stretches over the tin rooftops and lights the gravel beneath his feet, and everywhere: silence. Sara’s panting, out of breath from running after his long legs, and it’s only then that he looks over his shoulder to regard her.
She hesitates. “Where are we?”
Dabi doesn’t answer right away, instead reaching over her head to bring down a collapsible ladder. It hits the ground with a metallic ring, so loud in the deafening silence that Sara winces, and he jerks his head. “Up.”
Something flashes across her face. Not fear, not just yet, but a deeper hesitation; she’s second-guessing herself. Just when Dabi thinks she’s finally seen reason, Sara steels her expression and brushes past him, pulling herself up the ladder and onto the emergency exit above in glittering railings and mesh floors. He follows.
She’s out of breath again when they reach the roof, clearly not used to the exertion, but he can pinpoint the moment she sees the view. There’s the slightest hitch and, just like he was the first time he came here, he knows she’s enamoured.
This isn’t the tallest building in the city, nor the prettiest. It’s so far East that it welcomes the sun first and the moon last, but, in all the years Dabi’s been wandering these streets, this is the only block in Tokyo that has this view. In the distance is the towering maelstrom of fire that is the Tokyo Tower, below the flickering lights and neon billboards of Minato City. The moon is nestled sweetly on top of a highrise, crescent like a cradle with the stars in its arms, the inky black of the night so stark the fluorescents of life give each shape a silhouetted glow.
Dabi’s faster to recover because he’s been here so many times. It’s the place he comes when he needs to think, when he needs space to breathe, when he’s sure that no one in the world can find him. Not even Hawks. He glances at her and watches those lights shine like the Aurora Borealis in a sea of green, then he says, “Pretty, huh?”
“Yeah,” she agrees, voice low and breathy in wonder. “How did you find it?”
He doesn’t answer that. They’re not here for small talk. “You wanna be a villain, do you?”
Sara blanches. “I didn’t say I--”
“Cut the bullshit.” He fishes in his pocket for another cigarette, hooking it in his mouth and nurses a flame on his fingertip. His is a pale, vibrant blue instead of studded with orange. She’s not as strong as he is, but she will be. “You want me to put in a good word for you.”
The silence rings as loud as words.
Dabi snaps out the flame and brings his fingers to his mouth instead, blowing out a long, grey cloud that billows into the night air. Then, he fixes her with his sharpest, coldest stare. “Do you have any idea how shitty it is?”
“I don’t care.” The words are out faster than Dabi expects, and it’s his turn to hesitate. “Anything’s better. I don’t care how bad it is. I can’t stay where I am. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t.”
Her hands clench into fists, and it’s such a childish gesture he scoffs. “Really.” Dabi regards her again, slotting the cigarette back and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “What could be so bad that you want to be a villain?”
Sara pauses again, a stronger hesitation than before. Dabi feels his blood boil all over again as she sucks in a breath. “Mum drinks. Dad’s never home. I have a baby brother that I can’t stand, and I have him all the time. I can’t do all that and go to school. I need an escape and--and you can help me. You can teach me. I want to learn, I’ll be good! I’m a good student, and I can help you and be your assistant and--”
“You’d leave someone depending on you alone.”
There’s another second of silence, her eyes bulging and unsure, then “It’d be a better life.”
He snaps. The cigarette drops to the ground, rolling across the gravel and into a puddle as Dabi shoves past her, grabbing her arm in an iron grip as he passes. Sara yelps and stumbles after him, half-heartedly trying to pull away as he steps over wall partitions and debris and planks of wood linking the rooftops.
“Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
“You wanna be a villain, don’t you?” Dabi hisses, the fire in his chest exploding molten. “It’s gotta be so much better as a villain, so much simpler. You’d rather throw everything away to burn and kill.”
For the first time since he met her, there’s a sourness like rotting strawberries. A smell he knows, one often mixed with iron and sweat and tears: fear. “I--I didn’t say I--”
Dabi all but launches her forward when he finds them, and she hits the overhanging railing with a shout. When her head snaps around, her eyes are wide and shining; brimming with unshed tears and bitterness that makes his skin crawl. Sara opens her mouth again, but Dabi presses a finger to his lips as he joins her, leaning heavily on his forearms so he can see the alley below. She slowly, begrudgingly, does the same.
Toga never strays far from the League’s headquarters. She’s under strict rules, always accompanied, because it’s no secret that Shigaraki trusts her the least. Dabi had never met anyone that fell under the category of batshit crazy until he met the two of them, and his opinion’s never changed, neither has Toga’s routine. She’s with Twice tonight, chatting idly as she digs around in her bag and removes a needle; eyes bright and excited even from several stories above.
It doesn’t take long for Sara to notice the person by her feet. A young schoolgirl, blood dabbling from the side of her mouth, out cold. This week’s victim, probably snatched up on her way back from school, and neither Toga nor Twice are fazed. Dabi either. But Sara’s breath hitches again, and the sourness grows stronger; lingering like the tailwind from a rotting corpse. “Who’s that? What are they doing?”
“Watch.”
It’s a few minutes before Toga’s ready, pouncing into a crouch; head tilted like a curious kitten. They’re too far away to hear their conversation properly, but the octaves of their voices echo in the dim:
Is that needle gon’ be big enough? Boss said he wanted a whole bunch.
Oh! Yeah, maybe, maybe. A bigger needle? No, the knife--where’s my knife? There’ll be so much more!
Dabi’s attention drifts. He’s seen this so many times he could recreate it by heart. Toga has her routine, has her jars and needles and knives, and the victim will be left for death or discovery, whichever came first. She’s careless like that.
But, rather than his thoughts carouselling alongside his eyes, his focus goes to Sara. Her posture has changed; it’s stiffer, more rigid. Her hands on the railings are tight, bone-white, pale as her cheeks and the pinpricks of irises in a green that’s darker. The sourness is stronger than ever.
“She needs a new one every week,” Dabi drawls, propping his chin on his palm and watching her, narrow and calculating. “It’s how she survives. If you join us, she won’t need to find young girls anymore.”
He’s exaggerating. Toga would get bored after a month and would need a new disguise, but Sara doesn’t need to know that. By the way her expression whips around to him, it’s obvious she doesn’t want to know either. It’s like she’s seen a ghost.
Dabi gestures downwards in a long, vague sweep, grinning. “You wanna be a villain because life is so terrible? Wait until you meet Shigaraki Tomura.”
It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She flinches from his stare, white as a sheet and nauseous. Her hands are shaking as she retracts them like she’s touched hot coals, followed by a step backwards, then another. The angry fire burning in Dabi’s chest extinguishes the second she flees back the way they came, panting and frantic and ripping out the piercings in her nose and ears.
He watches her until she’s out of sight, then sighs.
“Daaaaaaab iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Is that you up there?”
The voice that reverberates along the alley and his skull makes him wince. He leans over the railing and gives Toga and Twice a sloppy salute, heart dropping with a weird combination of satisfaction and guilt.
Toga’s beam is as radiant as ever, teeth white and sharp as she uses her whole body to wave. “We’re going back, I’m cold! Come with us!”
“Yeah, in a minute,” he replies, standing straight. The moon is lower than it was before, and the horizon is already turning prussian blue. Sunrise isn’t far off.
Out comes a cigarette and, just like before, he lights it with his index finger and lets it hang from his lips. This time, he’s relaxed as he leans on the railing and watches the city run around between the wisps of smoke and oncoming rain.
He hates messing with kids. He hates bullying them, but he’d saved her. The life of a villain isn’t a life at all; it’s imprisonment. Like a birdcage with freedom just out of their reach. As pissed off and upset as she is, there are still people who depend on her; her parents, a baby brother.
Sure, Dabi can go into the morals and ethics of what happened all over again, but he’s quite content to blow smoke and observe the Endeavour Agency in the distance. Orange and obnoxious, just like the little bird he’s meeting at dawn.
“How’s that for being a bad guy?” He tells it, knowing only the moon, wind, and his cigarette will hear him.