Work Text:
He regrets looking for the hero's eyes. It's a useless habit but analyzing the looks in an opponent's eyes in the middle of a confrontation usually helps his heart settle back into his stomach. The hate fuels him, zaps him into focus.
Usually.
(It's not a guarantee, he needs to know, has to just HAS to-)
Maybe it's the hue of his fire, maybe it's his resigned terror, but he sees blue. Brilliant blue. Ocean blue. Blue like look how pretty the sky is when it snows, darling blue. Blue raspberry shaved ice on your tongue and swimming pools and blue blue blue blue-
(Whose blue is it anyway?)
The word forms on his tongue but morphs into something shorter, more foreign, more bitter.
More bluer.
His mouth cracks open.
A knee cracks into his skull.
(Crackling like the stove, like paper shriveling, like bubble wrap slipping under chubby fingers-)
The world flips and the blue disappears for a moment before a hand collides with his head and drives it into the ground with agonizing yet familiar force. His skin prickles where he knows the legs will straddle him in place and deepen the impression left there.
Wait.
No.
No!
I was good! I was good, I held my fire, I was good, I was so good, I did good, He said so, He said I did good, good work, good job, good technique, good strength, good boy, good son, good, good, anything but not good, please I'll be good just not this, please-
Something's tying him down, pinning his shoulders together in some sort of unbreakable bond that won't let him breathe. When did Dad grab a rope?
"You just don't get it, do you? Do you, Touya? I keep having to punish you like this because you don't get it-stop crying, you goddamn fairy, I'm trying to teach you a lesson!"
(His face is warm. Unusually warm. Why this registers above everything else his subconscious doesn't really fucking know.)
But then the slim digits slowly uncurl from his hair and flit over his shoulder. The only thing he can hear is his own hiccupping sobs and Dad's harsh breathing, an erratic thing that veers on the verge of a cough. He knows better than to break the peace but his tongue flaps uselessly anyway, the word stumbling on slippery copper in its attempts to escape. Enji's legs stiffen around his torso, prompting a pathetic whine from his pathetic mouth that loosens it enough to give an opening for the letters to fall into one another.
"Dad?"
The body shifts.
"No no no I'm sorry I'm sorry I swear I'll be good I'll be so good you can do anything else I'll do anything! Anything! Anythinganythingpleasedon'tdoitithurtsithurtssobadpleasepleaseithurtsithurtsithurtsI'llbegoodI'llbeaheroI'llbeaherojustdon'thurtmeDadpleasepleaseplease!" he screams, voice pitching into hysteria. Blood oozes out of his eyes when he arches his back, adrenaline taking control and squirming what's left of his body as far into the ground as he can.
Suddenly, Enji dismounts and unties the rope. The air hits his back and Dabi shudders, breaths still heavy and disjointed, lying as still as he can.
"Do-,"
The voice makes him scramble to his feet and stagger away. Fingertips brush against his, propelling him even further away from the dark figure. Sweet smoke slithers into his throat. Through his bloody vision, he makes out the person is holding their hands out.
"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm all the way over here. I can't hurt you, okay?"
It's not Dad.
He doesn't understand.
"Y-you hurt m-me," he croaks, repeatedly rubbing his shoulders where the rope bit into them. "Only D-dad h-hurts me. B-but you're n-n-n-not D-dad. Whu-why'd you h-hurt m-m-me?"
The man hesitantly steps forward.
Yellow. A jaundice yellow. A sickly, oozing pus yellow, swallowed by clean, bright white. Then brown. The sickness recedes. His clammy palms heat up once more. "What's your name?" he breathes, sounding like terror is slowly climbing up his throat like a parasite.
He finally sees the scarf and registers the stench of shivering hero in the air.
"M-mom always su-su-su-said I h-had D-dad's e-e-eyes."
He can't help it.
The yellow-turned brown eyes follow his slimy residue as it crawls over his bloodstained cheeks, making for a hasty goodbye.
There was never any hate in his eyes, he realizes. Even if they looked sick.