Work Text:
The days after Magne was killed, Himiko was unusually quiet and barely moved from the shitty couch in their hideout. The leather is torn in most of its surface, the stuffing is almost completely flattened and there's quite a few springs poking out. If Magne was still here, she would make a joke out of it and say “Oh, but the patchwork looks exactly like yours, Dabi!” and he would stifle a chuckle, refusing to laugh. It's funny as it is mean but Magne didn't need him to egg her on. Either way, the couch is so hideous Dabi is almost afraid to sit on it on most days, but right now, Himiko lays there. She's curled up around a beat up pillow and her hair isn’t up this time around, she seems to forgo doing it recently. The pale blonde streaks cascading on her shoulders and looking worse for wear.
They’ve all been a little off the radar lately, especially now that they're ever so slowly running out of money. Most of their income comes from Sako, Iguchi and Bubaigawara, but Dabi isn't really in on the specifics on how they get their hands on the cash. They all seem to be spending more time outside for whatever reason, but when they meet back at their place, no one seems to be collected enough to try and talk to Himiko, not even Jin. Dabi isn’t entirely sure if he should be worried or not. Not that he had the time to worry about idle things like these. He has his own business to tend to, a little birdie to catch. He purses his lips to refrain from smirking.
While Himiko sits up a little, Dabi watches her with intent. He often finds himself doing that too, even if he doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t like staring at people like this unless it’s for the sake of intimidation, although unnecessary, since his appearance does the job by itself. This type of staring, though, the kind that it’s observant with the purpose of finding, makes him think too much. He’s never been a fan of that, of putting pieces together. He would prefer to know less than he does now, to unlearn quite a few things. He realized long ago that knowing more makes you weaker in the long run and he’s been weak enough since birth.
Himiko rubs her eyes and sighs before leaning on the backrest and setting her sight on the ceiling. Like this, the dark circles below her eyes seem to be more noticeable. Himiko’s eyes have always been bright with mirth and mischief ever since she joined the League, manic everytime she spoke. What he sees right now is nothing of the sort. If anything, she looks half-asleep, like she’s barely there with the rest of them. Her gaze is so distant and her irises are dull where sparkling gold would be if the circumstances were different. She might look like what the others think he does. Not exactly present, but not completely gone. Dabi thinks she looks like what she is, a child. A child that’s been robbed of the smallest bit of innocence and wonder left in them, along with their best friend. An unpleasant sensation surges in his stomach at the thought, like a far off memory he can't shake off completely. It's become a thing. It's the root of why he vehemently tries not to look at her. Ever since he met Himiko, there's not a day that passes without Dabi feeling sick to the stomach.
They had met through Giran. It was a weird first impression, to say the least. The first thing that stood out was her uniform, which made him arch an eyebrow. Not in a judgemental way or anything of the sort. At that point in life, he hadn’t known for how many days he had been wearing the same clothes. But seeing her walk and hop around in clothes that seemed a bit small and too worn out to still be in one piece, made it hard for Dabi to not think about how long she has been away from home, a seventeen year old girl of many disguises, always on the run. The way she enthusiastically spoke, almost crazed, made the hair on his nape stand on end. “You’re gonna let this crazy woman in?” is what he said. He must say, rather than crazy, she seemed delusional. They both held tight to Stain, but in the most different ways possible. To Dabi, it felt like she had an idealistic conception of what the League would be, what its existence entailed, what they would do and what it would bring upon them sooner or later. For the lot of them, it's either prison or death, nothing else. Toga might’ve not been as aware of this as him. For Dabi, it was something he couldn’t not think about, something he mulled over for a while before taking up Giran’s offer to meet Tomura.
The universe had brought him to a world where he was always alienated, born a waste of powerful quirk. One he would never survive for long. He was put into a house whose occupants didn’t care for him. Just a bunch of walls put together trying to resemble a home that would eventually become the place where he got to know pain of all kinds. There’s nothing in the world that ties him to it. The world never gave him anything other than mockery to his face. Only painful and burning, sizzling reminders that he was lucky he stayed alive this long, that there was no place for him to belong, not even in his own body. As it turns out, maybe he didn’t need to think about it too much. He really had nothing to lose, maybe Himiko didn’t either. The world never gave them anything, not even hope, but they would give the world something to remember them by. And the League was the start of it all.
All said and done, Himiko wasn’t so bad. She did her job, not as efficiently as he would’ve preferred, although he wasn’t really expecting much in the first place. With time, he learned that she just got too excited when meeting people. Being set aside and almost contained for years could do that to you, he guesses. After a while, she seemed to get a better grasp of herself, her surroundings, and the whole situation they’ve been thrust into, and the missions Tomura sent her in went smoother. She had done a good job in the Shie Hassaikai slugfest even when she still seemed shaken by the whole ordeal of their introduction. But after that was over and a resemblance of calm came to their lives, Magne’s death seemed to be haunting them more than it ever did before. It shows on their recent endeavors, when taking people out seems to take longer than it would have having her around. And when the rain came, when they understood that death was just around the corner, that was when Himiko started to act differently. The fact Dabi feels too close to dying already, as young as he is, didn’t mean she would. Death, he thinks, has been trying to catch up to him for many years. He’s been near the brink of it a lot of times, he’s been ready for quite a while. Doesn’t mean the realization couldn't have come in a different way for Himiko. One that didn’t entail having a sort-of-friend be killed in front of your very eyes. Dabi can’t blame her, but she would've come to realize it eventually, sooner or later.
The low whir of the fridge snaps him out of his pondering. Over his time with the League, he’s gotten himself used to the low murmur that lulls him to sleep sometimes. He liked it, it was almost soothing like white noise, but the perpetual silence that has been hanging heavy for days makes the place stuffy and weigh down on his shoulders. There’s a difference, Dabi thinks. It’s the type of silence that feels more like a void, one that his brain desperately tries to fill with thoughts that he’d rather stayed in the back of his head. All of them come rushing to the forefront of his mind and make him restless. It’s strange for him to feel this uneasy.
Himiko stands up, dragging her socked feet towards their fridge in the corner of the room. She takes a packaged pastry and a juice box and just stands there for a few minutes, contemplating, before she's closing it again. She shoves the straw in the juice box and starts drinking. From where he’s sitting he can’t tell but he’s sure it’s peach flavored. It’s the only flavor she drinks, anyway.
He’s still staring, he’s painfully aware of this fact, but Himiko doesn’t seem to notice. Actually, she doesn’t seem to react to anything at all, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. He knows where she’s looking, and he really tries not to. He doesn’t want to but ends up following her line of vision to the one spot that everyone seems to be looking at and avoiding at the same time these days. The spot in front of the window where Magne’s magnetic weapon is still resting against the wall. She snaps out of it after a few seconds and reaches for her bag, taking it to the couch and rummaging through it.
“Dabi?” He sharply turns to Himiko again, nodding in acknowledgement. She holds a pink brush in her hands, and it makes his breath hitch for some reason. “Would you help me with my hair?” She asks, her tone soft and light like she’s never seen the evil of the world. Like she isn't part of it herself. He wants to say no. He knows Himiko can do it on her own. If anything, Dabi is the last person she would think to ask. Yet, the way she looks makes him feel something akin to pity. She’s looking down to the brush, the gesture dejected in the way she’s slouching. He is familiar with the feeling of being so tired your body can't hold up, and right now there’s no one else at the hideout but him.
Instead of saying anything, he takes one more glance at Himiko’s eyes before standing up and walking to the couch. He's barely managed to ignore the way it grosses him out by the time he's sitting on it, reaching for the brush in Himiko’s hands. “Face that way.” He says, and she does. He takes a strand of hair and starts brushing from the ends and upwards, careful of not catching her ears.
“I’m sorry. Magne used to help me. I told her I could do it on my own but she liked to do it anyway.” Himiko’s voice is low but Dabi hears just fine. There’s a little chuckle at the end. It’s the most she’s spoken in the last few days.
“Nothing to say sorry for, maniac.” He thinks, out of all of the members of the League, he’s the one that spends more time out of the hideout right now. He notices now that even if they both were the first ones to join Tomura, they never seem to be in the same space at the same time. Busy detangling a piece of hair, he wonders if that’s just how it is or if there’s something else that keeps her out of his sight on most days.
The constant up and down of the brush seems to put Dabi in a daze. His brain starts doing that thing again, where it makes him feel like he’s disconnecting from his body, losing himself in the motions. Fragmented pieces of distorted images playing in his mind like a TV that’s losing signal, and his ears filling with static noise.
“Ow! You’re tugging too hard!” The little girl whines. She’s little, around six years old, maybe. He’s almost a head taller than her. They’re standing in front of a vanity mirror but he can’t see their reflection on its surface, just warped spots of color. There’s a brush in his hands, trying to comb out knots.
“Sorry! How’d you get your hair so tangled up anyways?” A voice similar to his own, but younger and without the rasp caused by too many cigarettes.
“I didn’t brush it before going to bed last night.” The girl's voice it's echoey and it chills him.
“Mom is gonna scold you if you don’t brush your hair…” It’s him talking, he realizes. He can’t be sure because the mirror it's gone now, but he knows.
“She won’t! She told me she was going to help me but I fell asleep. She took too long!”
He shakes his head. The images scatter around him.
“You got any hairbands?”
“Yeah, here.” Dabi takes the bands from Himiko’s hand, gathering hair on one side of her head to start making a bun. “You know how to make ’em?”
“Shut it, brat. I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m running out of these. I should get more soon.” She says, looking at the little plastic bag and taking the bands out to count them. There’s nine of them in the palm of her hand.
“How do you even lose them?”
“They’re cheap. They rip after a few uses. I think I wrap them too tight, but if I don’t then the buns don’t hold.” Dabi follows as she puts them all back in the bag and into her backpack. He can’t help but be a bit curious about what she carries in it. No one in the League looks like they own much, and if they do they keep it somewhere else. Like Jin, who has his own apartment somewhere but still prefers to spend the majority of his time in the hideout.
“What do you have in there?” He asks anyway.
“Hm? Not much. A few spares of clothes.” And by spares she probably means a majority of socks and two shirts at most. She fishes out of the backpack that one knife-holder she got from Giran long ago. "Got this here too. Haven't had a chance to use it lately." There's also a pouch in there that she doesn’t even bother taking out. He assumes he shouldn’t pry about it. "I own a few make-up items but I don’t use them too much. Just the mascara. I’m running out of that too.”
“If you don’t feel like going out you can ask someone to get your stuff for you.”
“I don’t want to be annoying. Sulking here and then asking you guys to buy me things like make-up as if we can allow ourselves to spend any money.” He can hear the pout in her words without even looking.
“I’m sure Jin wouldn’t mind sparing you some of his cash. Even Shuichi would do it, he uses those things for his hair too. I don’t know about mascara, though.”
“Hm… You’re right.” Himiko busies herself putting her stuff away.
"Either way, you say that like we're actually paying for those things instead of shoplifting it."
"That's true. I'd rather we spent the money on food that's not canned." Dabi hears Himiko giggle. He would feel a little relieved if the sound of it didn't pace back and forth in his mind, sending his pulse into a frenzy.
“Give me the hairband.” He extends a hands towards the girl.
“What are you going to do this time?”
“Just pigtails. I know you like them.”
“Thank you. Mom looked tired at breakfast. I didn’t want to annoy her.”
“You know you could never annoy mom.” Her gray eyes are teary when he sneaks a glance, but she smiles nonetheless.
"I'd rather be annoying you, anyways!" A giggle comes out of hermouth full of milk teeth. He can’t see it from the back, but he knows it's there. He knows what the smile looks like, he could never forget.
“Ow.”
“Stop complaining.” Himiko keeps moving in her seat and making it hard for Dabi to make the other bun even with the other.
“You’re too rough with the brush!”
“I wouldn’t be if you stayed still, dipshit.” He puts the band between his teeth to stretch it out and wraps it around the bun, one, two, three times. It ends up looking a bit lopsided. He stares at it for a few seconds before he decides to take the band out and doing it again.
“It’s like the third time you've done it, Dabi.” Her tone is light and teasing. Dabi would never admit it, but the words do ease him a bit.
“I said shut it.” The bun is done, finally. He inspects his work for a bit and notices they don’t look like Himiko’s buns usually do, but they look fine to him. Well, not fine exactly. More like this is how he’s always thought they should look. It annoyed him how they looked messy but she didn’t seem to care. Looking at Himiko’s back now, hair clean and the uniform a bit wrinkled, brings a sudden tightness in his chest that he doesn’t particularly like. His hands still in mid air for a moment before he settles them back into his lap. “Turn around.”
She takes her phone out of a pocket on the bag before stuffing the rest of her things back in and then turns to face him. He doesn’t like looking at Himiko, for reasons that he can’t quite explain but only then, seeing Himiko's face makes him breathe a little easier. It makes his tense shoulders relax a little, gives his heart a chance to let up, subdues the cautionary flames growing beneath his scarred skin. Her bangs are still messy. He grabs the brush and busies himself with that.
“Turn around, now.” There’s two ribbons on his hands and the little girl turns to him. It’s still blurry. His brain does that sometimes, conjures images with few details of memories it hasn’t managed to block out completely. He sees a face but not features, white and small splotches of red on what he assumes is her hair.
“It’s late! Hurry up!” They both startle at the loud voice coming from down the hall. He wraps the ribbons around each pigtail, doing a knot and then a bow.
“Is it done?” She asks, bringing a small thumb to her mouth to nip at it.
“Almost.” He quickly takes the brush and starts to comb through the hair on her forehead to make it flat. “Okay...!”
Himiko has started to munch on the pastry, her other hand busy tapping away on her phone. Dabi doesn't know who she's texting, or if she's texting at all. All in all, it's not like he should care about it. He doesn’t. Dabi shifts the shorter strands of hair around before combing down more times and decides he's finished. “All done, Fuyumi.”
“Huh?”
Dabi stills. Himiko isn’t looking at him, he knows it’s her right in front of him but what he sees now is someone entirely different. Her ash blonde hair turning red at the tips like they’re sucking up blood.
"Nothing." He says. His voice doesn't sound like him now. Instead, it sounds like it would if he had never picked up smoking for the second time. It's foreign to his ears. Like something he hasn't heard in years. It sounds small, cautious, vulnerable. He's barely registered the tight grip he has on the brush when the smell of burning wood hits his nose. The quiet hiss of it reaching his ears. Only the slight pain on his fingertips is what pulls him back to the present moment. He puts the brush down on the couch, eyes fixated on it, afraid of looking up at Himiko’s back again.
"Hm, okay." Himiko doesn't pry. She's never actively trying to stick her nose where she shouldn't and for that Dabi is incredibly and quietly grateful. What she is, though, is insanely curious about things that catch her interest. There's subtle confusion written in the entirety of her face. Dabi can make an idea of what he looks like right now, already feeling the nausea creep upon him.
“Who 's Fuyumi?” Himiko’s voice makes him feel like he’s two seconds away from actually throwing up.
He doesn't. He's fully brought back to himself and saved from the embarrassment by the sound of the door opening, Atsuhiro's slender form crossing the threshold with a bag of chinese takeout.
"Himiko, dear! Glad to see you up, I've brought your favorite." He greets, making a show of it, reverence and the whole thing. "You look radiant!"
"Thank you, Atsuhiro! Seems like the insane amount of time Dabi spends at the hair salons has finally paid off."
"Is that so?" There's a shit-eating grin on Atsuhiro's face that Dabi knows is directed at him.
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I'm going out." He says, while taking a coat from the rack on the hallway.
"You're not eating with us?" Himiko seems to have forgotten about Dabi’s little slip, but it doesn’t change the fact that the tone in which she asks the question settles heavy on his stomach.
"Just leave some for me, brat. I'll be back soon. Unlike some of you, I got important shit to do." He heads towards the door.
"If it's so important I better see you bring some money to this household when you come back!" Atsuhiro shouts over his shoulder, not even looking back at Dabi's retreating form. Dabi laughs, because it's funny how Atsuhiro current worries revolve around just money. He walks out the door and as soon as it shuts close, he takes a deep breath. Then he realizes just how hot his hands feel when he tries rubbing the sweat off on his trousers.
In the end, it's not Himiko's fault that the sight of her makes him want to vomit sometimes. He doesn't hate her, he could never actually hate her. That also rings true for the rest of the League. Not after all they've been through. It has to do more with something he's been trying to repress and bury deep down within himself. Something that keeps trying to claw and dig its way out where Dabi has pushed it into, making him feel like he’s ripping at the seams.
Now, in a moment of clarity, he realizes that this is the reason why he's always been trying to keep his distance. There's so much about Himiko that reminds him of the things he has nightmares about every night. Things that make his scars burn and itch and hurt like all those times he wakes up from dreams of red hair and deep blue eyes. Dreams of a life he's given up long ago, one he will never be able to actually forget, of a family that he could never feel like a part of. A feeling of yearning deeply rooted in his core, his stomach and lungs. A feeling of dread that never stops growing, rising up on his throat and tasting like bile when he thinks of people whose faces he can barely remember now, of names that he had forced himself to forget until he entered the League with a new purpose for his miserable life.
He hears laughter from inside the door to their home. He pushes himself off the door and sighs as he begins to make his way out of the building. There’s a tug in the seams of his mouth.
Home, huh? The word tastes foul in his mouth. He runs it back and forth in his mind, long enough for it to sound nonsensical again.
It doesn’t work.
He soon reaches a phone booth, pressing digits that he has memorized by now. He's been contemplating making this call for a few weeks, the piece of paper where the number had been written has long since been turned to ashes by his own flames. For a moment he convinced himself to not make this call, that's why he got rid of the note in the first place, but the prospect of the potential proximity he could get to one of his goals made him consider it again. The line connects, and a smug voice greets him.
"Took you a while, didn't it?" They say, as if they're the one doing Dabi a favor, when the reality of his plans is more complex than that.
"Yeah, well, it's not often the Number Two reaches a lowlife street rat offering deals."
"Don't sell yourself short, Dabi. I believe we can make quite the team." Dabi smirks. "Although I'd prefer if we had this conversation in person."
"Sure, Hawks. You already know where to find me."
"Catch you later." Dabi hangs up, a frown already forming on his face. He's gambling right now, he knows, that's why he's going in on this by himself. It not like Tomura would allow of Dabi going after something like this in the first place, but he doesn't have a record of sticking to Tomura's orders.
He'd leave that to Himiko and the others.