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Jin’s whistle is half broken, more an airy attempt than a piercing sound, but it doesn’t stop him from alternating through a handful of holiday songs. His mask’s a constant reassurance against the contours of his face and no matter how sweaty or gross it sometimes makes him, he takes comfort in the snug fit. He’s perched precariously on tiptoe with only his right foot on the arm of the couch while he leverages himself forward, the flat of his left palm braced against the wall. His free hand strains for the curtain rod — not to take it down, which would have been easier, but to continue wrapping multi-colored fairy lights around the pole. He’s been at it for almost ten minutes, a series of grunts sounding as he struggles not to slip and fall flat on his face.
It’d already happened once. He’d misstepped and unexpectedly lost his footing with a muffled shout of “Wheeee!” instead of the blood-curdling scream he’d been aiming for. He’d pinwheeled backwards off the couch and crashed into the coffee table behind him. The impact had snapped a table leg and cracked it down the middle like a peach, slanting the surface sharply into two alternating directions. His back had screamed in protest, waves of pain arcing up his spine when he landed in the crevice between, his ass cradled in the broken arch. It’d temporarily stunned him, but once he’d caught his breath it hadn’t stopped him from crawling out and getting back to work.
“When I’m done,” Jin says to himself, a smile evident in his voice as he plugs an extension cord into the fairy lights, “everyone’s going to be so impressed!” Or so he hopes, but Jin can’t help but envision the mixed reactions he’s realistically going to encounter in his mind’s eye. Morale has been low lately and with everyone splitting up during the upcoming holidays to wreak a special kind of havoc, Jin’s hoping to draw them together for just a night. A little bonding goes a long way and it's not like there’s a rule saying he can’t throw a Christmas party for his friends!
It’s Toga’s smile that Jin’s looking forward to the most. She always finds a way to brighten the room and, as Jin leaps down from the couch and bounds over to fix the skirt of the tree, he just knows that she’ll help make sure everyone important attends. He’s spent the last four hours meticulously decorating the living room of their current hideout and it’s not a surprise when someone catches him before he’s finished. Dabi idles in the doorway, the rotting wood of the frame creaking as he digs his fingers into it. He takes one look at the garish explosion of red and green and bares his teeth like a cornered dog making one last stand against an inevitable visit to the vet.
“Hey!” Jin says, a little pep in his step as he darts over to him. He can smell the beginnings of smoke, but he ignores it as he spins himself around in the middle of the room and presents his hard work, arms thrown up with exaggerated deliberateness. He laughs a little breathlessly, pride swelling alongside excited anticipation. He’s never gotten to celebrate Christmas (or any other holiday) with someone else before. Growing up as he had in an impoverished state institution hadn’t been conducive to anything but bruises and broken teeth. There’d never been enough of anything, crowded as they were with children spitting for a fight to hide the ever-expanding blackholes growing inside of them. “What do you think? It’s not done yet, but — ”
“It looks like ‘Santa’s’ asshole combusted and left a ripe, stinking mess,” Dabi says bluntly, his cold features slamming closed and shuttering into something blank and empty.
Jin’s eyes light up, hidden as they are behind his mask. He nods in agreement, scanning the room as a grin tugs at his lips. “It does, doesn’t it?” he says dreamily. He’d blown the majority of his savings on Christmas decorations — everything from a giant inflatable reindeer parked in the corner of the room (and it’d be a lie to say he hadn’t tried to give it a ride just to see if he could) to delicate porcelain figurines scattered across every available surface. There’s a giant Santa hat rug under the mangled coffee table and streaks of fairy lights, garland, and popcorn strings strung up across the walls. Jin’s pride and joy is an overly large fake pinetree that’d fought his attempts to put it together every step of the way. It’s strung up with silver and gold tinsel and personally designed glass bobbles he’d made weeks earlier splattered with paint, glue, and candid photos of each of the League’s members.
“I even bought us Christmas cake,” Jin says, gesturing to the opposite end of the couch than what he’d been utilizing as a stepping stool. There’s a slightly crushed box sitting there and the window on it shows a mostly intact sponge cake with strawberries and whipped cream. Dabi looks decidedly unimpressed, but Jin doesn’t mind; that’s just how his face always seems to look around him. “Toga’s the one who suggested it,” Jin continues, clapping his gloved hands together. A sprinkle of rainbow paint stains the v of his fingers and the digits themselves thanks to his exploits a few weeks earlier. “So it must be delicious.”
There’s a tic in Dabi’s jaw. The muscle twitches and pulls at the staples holding his face together; a bead of blood wells up and drips down his cheek. Jin watches it distractedly as his mouth is co-opted. “Disgusting!” he says and it’s half a shriek, his voice pitched low and gravelly. “Foul!” He’s largely unbothered by his own outburst, his lips still upturned as he watches the other man. He picks at the wrinkled bunches of fabric between his gloved fingers for a few seconds before determinedly turning on his heel and heading to the Christmas tree.
Jin picks up one of the few presents tidily stacked on the tree’s red skirt and hurries back to Dabi with it stuffed under his arm. It’s wrapped in a deep, saturated purple paper that gleams in the light. “You know,” he says knowingly, a tickle of good humor infused in his tone, “I get the feeling that you’re someone who’d rather open his gift in private.” He holds it aloft for Dabi, his palms slightly sweaty as he waits for him to take it.
Dabi stares at Jin as if he’s cheerfully offering him a shot of the bubonic plague. He narrows his eyes at the present, his lips pressed together so tightly that they pale a grayish white. Jin encouragingly nudges the present in his direction and Dabi finally lifts a hand, wraps his fingers around the medium-sized box, and takes it from him. It shoots up in blue flames with a soft whoooosh almost immediately after it’s out of Jin’s grip. The box warps, bowing inward under the intense heat as it smolders and turns to ash; it litters the floor with gray and black speckles and Jin immediately stamps on it to prevent it from lighting up the rest of the room.
“Let that be a lesson, Twice,” Dabi says as he watches Jin with something like grim satisfaction, his eyes turbulent and unhappy even as his face contorts into an ugly rictus. “Keep that shit away from me. I’m not here to make ‘friends’ and the only thing I want is Endeavor’s broken, bleeding face beneath my boot.” He sneers at Jin before he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room, his fists clenched and a smear of blood against his throat.
“Noted!” Jin calls after him brightly, cupping his hands around his mouth to make sure his voice carries. He’s not too put off by the aggressive display — it’s not like he’s never met the other man before — and he knows what he’s like. Jin also knows that most of the other villains think he’s childish or insane or stupid — and they’re not altogether wrong; he’s an amalgamation of all of those things on occasion, but he’s also perceptive. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Dabi had waited until Jin had let go of the gift to torch it. He’d decided against hurting him for whatever reason and that alone as him chuckling fondly. He glances over his shoulder at the Christmas tree and the identical purple present nestled up behind all the others. Yeah, so maybe he’d expected that reaction, but that was why he made sure to have a back-up.