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thebomb-thebird-andtheburntbitch · 3 years

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A World-- Certain

dabi / f.reader

genre: real world to parallel world au? (is that an au? it’ll make sense dw), angst, romance, pinning, fools to lovers? (or dabi is stubborn/scared as all get out), longing/yearning (teehee)

warning(s): uhh, dabi hits a point where he’s determined to find a way back home or burn the city to the ground trying (is that a warning?), cursing, violence (or dabi punches one cop and sets another on fire- as he should), touya spoilers included? (like kinda minor ones, but you know, just in case), guns/dabi gets shot, sickly-sweet ending don’t worry, tiny mention of death

w.count: 9.8k

synopsis: the last thing he remembers, dabi had stepped in to join a rather nasty bar brawl that erupted at your pub one night. he along with a group of other villains who sided with you against a group of villains who weren’t exactly fans of your unground work. when he woke up, he wasn’t in the medical basement like he expected, nor was he at his apartment or yours. he was in a room he hadn’t seen before. when he leaves to your pub to get some answers, you’re not there. in fact, the entire building was abandoned and rotting. just what the fuck happened and where was he exactly, because this wasn’t exactly the city he knew anymore.

a/n: this is the second part to my two parter series, A World--, so be sure to read the first part A World-- Unsure, or else this really won’t make sense LOL. The concept can be kinda confusing already, but trust me- it’ll make sense aldfkasd. Enjoy!

also! since @lildockel asked to be tagged when part two went up, here is it!!

After seeing his white hair, and feeling how healthy the strands felt between his fingers, instead of the damaged, overly dyed black mess it all used to be, Dabi raced back into the bar. Rushing up the steps into the abandoned apartment as he looked around. Rushing to a mirror still hanging just barely on a nail, he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe it of dust and cobwebs before ripping off his jacket entirely and tossing it to his feet.

He hadn’t realized it before since he never kept a habit of looking at his scarred and damaged body, but now as he stood in front of the mirror in the shirt he woke up in, he noticed the scars that he knew crawled over almost every inch of his body had changed.

The scars didn’t run up his whole right arm and stopped just at his elbow. His entire left side wasn’t engulfed in purple and staples, but instead ran up his forearm and then just around his shoulder and a patch on his neck. He reached up over his head and behind his shoulders to grab the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head and off to join his jacket on the floor before he looked at his chest. The scars that wrapped around his chest before weren’t nearly as bad and turning around to his back, he could see more skin than scars now.

He could feel the draft of the empty apartment on his skin, something he hadn’t been able to do in a long time.

He knew that each time he over used his quirk he would cause himself harm. His tolerance to the cold took a harsh toll on him since his quirk was heat based- he wasn’t built to handle heat as well as he should be with a quirk like his father’s.

He brushed his hand through his hair again as he stumbled around, head spinning to keep up with what the hell could be happening. The world was almost the same, but everything just felt different because of things that weren’t supposed to be. He snatched his phone from the pocket of his discarded jacket, trying again to call your number. It was there, clearly imputed with his information and call history, but just as before he was met with an automated message.

Your apartment wasn’t here, your bar wasn’t either and your phone number was nonexistent. It was like you didn’t exist at all.

Dabi moved back to sit against the wall that was across the room from the mirror, just so he could keep an eye on his reflection to help process exactly what was happening. He was no fool, and he could figure out that the world he knew was different from this one.

He sat on the ground as he thought. His hand came to rest over his neck, thinking back to the dart that was shot into him back at the bar. It was too convenient that he got shot with it then woke up in some weird- what he can only assume is- parallel world. A world exactly like the other, with just a few things altered.

Rather, the longer he sat in thought, the longer he thought that maybe it wasn’t a parallel world he was in, but actually a dream. The last thing he remembered was passing out covering you, so maybe the needle he was shot with put him into a dream.

He tested out his quirk, letting his hand be engulfed in fire before diminishing it, finding it worked exactly like it had before; so, he was in a world where quirks still existed at the very least. He wondered if the him he had become was still a villain, and if he was, then was he with the league? What was the actual year he woke up in? Was it parallel to the original timeline, or was it ahead? Delayed maybe?

The date on his phone lined up to the next day after the bar fight, but his phone also still had your number in it that didn’t seem to exist, so he didn’t trust his phone as much as he wanted to be able to.

Thumbing through his phone’s contacts, he wondered if he should try calling a different number. There was always a league member, but which one. He wouldn’t be caught dead calling Twice for answers and he didn’t really trust Toga’s tendency to go off on a tangent to get a straight answer out of her. Spinner wouldn’t have been a bad idea since he kept shit short, but he didn’t answer his phone for fuck. Maybe Magne? Though, he didn’t really want to call her, felt like if he did, he’d be imposing on her ‘me’ time.

By the end of his mental checklist, he was stuck between Shigaraki or Compress. He didn’t think Kurogiri even owned a phone, or else he’d dial him first. Sighing, he pushed his thumb against Compress’s contact. He didn’t want to deal with Shigaraki if he could avoid it- at least not yet.

The line rang out loud when Dabi put the phone on speaker and with a few more rings, the line picked up. It was a strange wave of relief when he heard the man with a thing for theatrics address Dabi by name when he picked up.

“Oh, thank fuck,” he sighed. There was an air of silence before Dabi spoke again, hearing Compress on the other line clear his throat in anticipation. “Okay, this may sound like complete bullshit, but hear me out for a second.”

Dabi unloaded the entire situation he suddenly found himself in to Compress as well as asked any questions he felt he needed to know the answers to, to get up to speed on exactly what kind of dream he ended up in. He was on the phone with the masked villain for almost an hour before the call ended with Dabi understanding things just a bit more.

In this world, he was still indeed a villain, but his face was kept under wraps. Dabi wasn’t presumed dead as Touya Todoroki, but rather disregarded his birth name for the alias just because he wanted to. His real name wasn’t a secret like it was in reality, that was why he didn’t have black hair- because if his identity wasn’t a secret, there was no point in dying it to stay hidden. But, he wasn’t as flashy a villain here, so no one really know who he was anyway.

In this dreamscape, Touya Todoroki never died, but ran from his home and betrayed his family after finally having enough of his father. Working now as a criminal, he stayed on the downlow side of society.

Things were more or less still the same otherwise. It was just his background and you that was truly different. Dabi sat and stared at his reflection wondering if you really existed here- and if you didn’t he wondered if that was partially his fault.

When he was at the bar, he had previously resolved himself into drifting away from you and the feelings you had towards him. Was it his stubbornness to get away from you what caused you to not be here? Or were you here in this world, but as someone completely different than the Y/n he knew? Could you exist with a whole different personality? Were you a hero? A villain? Or maybe still just a regular citizen?

Dabi immediately wanted to start looking for you, but with everything linked to you not even existing, he didn’t know where to start. Typing your name into his phone’s searching engine did nothing to help as nothing about you was listed anywhere. Okay, so you weren’t famous, or infamous in any sense so you had to be just a regular, everyday person? Right?

Sighing, he dropped his head back and closed his eyes, trying to think. He could always ask one of his connections to start looking for you in his stead. Then, his eyes opened again as he scowled- once again growing irritated. Why was he putting your whereabouts above trying to figure out how to get back- or wake up? He had unconsciously put you above how to get out of this dream.

Bringing a curled fist to rest against the side of his head, he hissed through his teeth.

“God dammit.”

-x-x-x-

It was Dabi’s second day in this dreamscape he started calling it. It was a strange feeling, being inside of a dream yet still having the ability to fall asleep and wake up again. He sat on his bed of his apartment he owned in this dreamscape and sighed. It was a far cry from his place in reality, tucked and hidden away from main streets and curious eyes. This place was just off a busy street and when he hung out the window to smoke, people were walking two stories below- just minding their day.

Puffing out a plume of cigarette smoke, he heard his phone ping from inside on the desk sat in the bedroom. He would always mentally correct himself into saying ‘his’ instead of acting like this place was some random hole in the wall. It was his- as far as he knew. He left his cigarette perched on the window sill, going to his phone and yanking it off the charger to see a text from Shigaraki.

Compress had blabbed to the leader of this dream’s League of Villains about Dabi’s little breakdown of what he believed was a dream. Seeing the text of ‘you still high, or you coming to work or not?’ made his lips twitch. He wasn’t high and he hadn’t been high; then again, it wouldn’t be any version of Shigaraki unless he was mocking Dabi for something. In this case, it was Dabi’s die hard claim of this dreamscape being a false reality.

When Dabi stopped to think about it, he could understand where everyone was coming from. For all he knew, this body- the body of Touya- was a completely different person in this reality and Dabi’s personality just manifested into it. He ran his fingers through his white hair and groaned, annoyed at the situation.

“Fucking parallel universes and their stupid ass rules.”

He sent a reply back to the leader- well, it was just a middle finger emoji- and abandoned his phone to go finish his cigarette before it burned away on its own, unattended.

Once he burned through the toxic stick, he snuffed it out on a glass ashtray he kept on the small balcony just outside the window and retreated back inside his room. Reaching up and over his head behind him, he gripped the back of his shirt and tugged it off, shaking his already messy hair out before he started to change.

It was odd seeing a full closet of clothes instead of like the five whole outfits he would interchange on a day-to-day basis before cleaning them and repeating the process. In reality, he had no use for everyday clothes since he was always wearing his villain gear or lounging around in close to nothing at his apartment. Though, he did remember that you had bought him clothes to keep at your place, so he did have more- just never wore them because he thought it was weird you were buying clothes for him.

You claimed it was so he would stop walking around in nothing but boxers or tank tops in your house, but he didn’t buy that excuse. He saw it as something to intimate; too close to a bond he was too afraid to acknowledge.

Pulling on a grey shirt and black pants- him being the most comfortable in his safe feeling monochromatic wardrobe- he tugged on a jacket and flipped the hood up. At this point it was a habit to try and conceal himself now- even if he probably didn’t need to in this dreamscape reality.

Leaving the room and soon the apartment, he was soon pulling his phone from his jacket pocket and seeing an incoming call from the hand-freak himself. Groaning, he contemplated denying the call, but if this Shigaraki was anything like the one he knew, he'd just blow up his phone in retaliation. So, reluctantly, he picked up.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. Where are you?” His tone was impatient and gruff. “You need to get to the bar, we have work to do, dammit.”

“I’m workin’ on it, calm the hell down.” The low murmurs of the daily street this early in the morning with people making their daily commute to wherever the hell they were on their way too was just enough to make Dabi’s scarred skin crawl. He always tried to avoid crowded areas in the past for numerous reasons, not just for the sake of his identity.

However, it was easy to navigate the streets since they were exactly the same as he remembered from his reality. The more he was here, the more he came to the realization that everything was the same besides him and you- or lack thereof.

Hearing Shigaraki bitch and moan on the other end of the line, Dabi sighed and pulled the phone from his ear and promptly hung up the call before he shoved his phone back into his pocket- but not before putting it on ‘do not disturb’, so even if the annoyance he calls a boss calls him back, he wouldn’t know.

Not too long later, the pyro was walking into the bar, seeing the leader annoyingly tapping his fingers on the bar one at a time in succession as he seemed to be calming down from a temper tantrum. A temper tantrum that Dabi was most certainly the cause of.

“It’s about time,” the leader hissed as Dabi promptly ignored him, only giving him a tut in response to his neediness. Flipping off his hood and messing around his hair to feel less matted from the hood’s previous pressure, he moved to the back of the bar and plopped himself down into a booth. “I said we need to get to work,” Shigaraki started complaining, “not take a breather because you couldn’t show up on time.”

“Spare me the bitching, oh-so-fearsome-leader,” Dabi waved off lazily with his hand flopping back and forth on his wrist. If Shigaraki hadn’t had his father’s hand on his face, Dabi probably would have seen the scowl painted beneath it.

It was silent for a beat, with the two of them and Kurogiri only being present in the bar at the moment.

“Is your attitude still shitty because you’re convinced this is one big fever dream? Because, if you’re stoned or drunk, I’d really rather you not mess up our jobs and go away.”

“If this is your form of concern, you’re shitty at it,” Dabi rebutted. “I already told you, I’m as sober as a rock, so hop off. If you were in my place, you wouldn’t be slap-happy either.”

All day long, Dabi had to deal with orders being barked at him before he eventually went out on his own to look for possible new villains to recruit for the cause. He was hardly being mindful, low-level thugs weren’t cut out to join the ranks and anyone else just annoyed him. When he finally had enough and called Shigaraki that he was finishing up for the day, he just hung up without getting a proper ‘okay’ and stared at himself in the reflection of a window in an alleyway.

He raised his lip in annoyance as his reflection that he wasn’t familiar with anymore. Who he was looking at wasn’t Dabi, but Touya. The Touya who was dead until he decided otherwise, the Touya who looked too much like his parents. His previous red hair that faded to match his mother and his eyes that were copies of his fathers.

On his way back to the apartment he stopped by a general store and picked up two boxes of hair dye. That evening, when he finished showering, he ran his hand across the width of his steam fogged mirror and looked at his new reflection. He let an awkward smile breach his face as he looked at his pitch-dyed hair.

“That’s better,” he mused, walking out of the bathroom to just put on a pair of boxers, lay in bed and think. Think more about how he could leave this dreamscape all before he passed out, closing his eyes on his second day in a dream. Maybe he’d ask the league members to keep their eyes and ears out tomorrow for you, since the sooner he can figure out what’s happened with you in this place, the sooner he’ll be to a solution… probably?

-x-x-x-

Day after day passed and Dabi found himself less and less sure of anything. When he first came here, he was aware that everything was fabricated and fake- nothing was truly real since he distinctly remembered his life before all this happened.

Now, a month has passed and everyday when he wakes up, he feels more fussy than the day before. His mind and memories feel like their blurring and he started waking up and writing down small memos on post-it notes just to try and get a semblance of reality again. He wondered if one day he’d wake up and see all his notes, just to throw them away because they would have no meaning to that ‘him’.

The thought irked him. He was himself, Dabi knew that, but he felt like he was losing it.

He had woken up today with his head pounding. Leaning over the side of his bed, he held his forehead in his palms as he squeezed his eyes shut. Pushing the heels of his palm into his eyes, he could see the splotches of darkness coat his closed eyes from the presssure. He groaned, head even more hazier than the day before.

Dabi felt like he was forgetting something.

Getting up, he threw on whatever was hanging on the back of his chair in his room and flipped on the hood of whatever jacket he grabbed and left. He wasn’t called to the league just yet, so who knows if he even needed to go today, but maybe being at the bar would jog his memory. Just maybe it would clear his mind- somehow.

When he walked into the bar, he immediately made a beeline to the booth in the back as he laid down, sprawling out across the red velvet booth and covered his eyes with his forearm. One of his legs propped up on the booth while the old hung lazily to the floor, his other arm rest on his chest, feeling his stomach rise and fall with each breath.

If he just lay here long enough, something was bound to spark something in him, right? After all, he was in a bar.

A bar? What does a bar have to do with anything?

He grit his teeth when he heard the door to the bar open, someone walking in. Whoever it was, they had decided to waltz over to Dab and sit themselves on the short coffee table in front of the booth.

“The fuck do you want?” He growled, a small whistle and the smell of smoke greeted him in the form of a hearty chuckle, one that made him irk.

“My, someone’s grumpy today, isn’t he?” Hearing Giran’s smoke laden voice first thing after laying down really wasn’t how Dabi wanted to start his day. Moving his arm just enough to peer over his arm with a glare, the villain broker raised his hands in mock surrender, a half smoked cigarette between his lips. “Easy there, I’m not looking for a scuffle this early in the morning.”

“Yeah? Then leave me alone or else I’m going to set you on fire.” With another chuckle from the broker and no movement of him leaving his place on the table, Dabi groaned. Moving his arm, he ran his hand over his face before he reluctantly sat up and rubbed the back of his head, his tangles of unbrushed black hair snagging between his fingers. He glared at the tooth-gapped man with a smoking habit worse than his own. “What?” He growled.

Giran dug around in the inside pocket of his tacky blazer before he presented Dabi with a pocketbook. The scarred pyro looked at the blank book before looking back up to Giran’s face, his brows turned up in questioning.

“The fuck is that for?”

“That, my dear Touya,” hearing the broker sing-song Dabi’s real name made him bark at him in warning to never do it again, one that Giran promptly ignored, “is everything I could dig up on that little lady you asked me about a couple weeks ago.”

“Lady?” Dabi’s brows furrowed, his headache spiking again.

“I gotta say, I’m not usually one for such slow work, but with the villain count spiking, I’m a busy man. I got a lot on my plate, so I had to put your little search on the back burner.” Tossing the pocketbook onto Dabi’s lap, one of his scarred hands immediately held it to his leg to keep it from bouncing off his leg onto the floor. Giran then stood, stuffing his hands into his equally tacky trousers. “A man as busy as me has things to do, so I’ve gotta bounce. Talk to me again if you need anything else.” Giran turned but stopped short, swiveling to look at Dabi once more. ”Oh and as for that woman’s whereabouts, don’t be so bummed when you read about it.”

Dabi watched Giran leave the bar about as quickly as he came in, the smell of smoke the only lingering thing indicating that he was even there to begin with Well, that and the pocketbook Dabi held in his hands. He eyed it with narrow eyes and knit brows.

“Lady? What lady was I-?” He cut himself off as he just shut his eyes and tossed the book onto the coffee table where Giran had previously sat.

All morning, Dabi kept to himself on his booth, just lounging and laying around. Every time someone went towards him he’d growl at them, not like it did anything to deter them away regardless. However, if someone even though about touching the pocketbook, he’d sit up and snatch it away and stuff it under his legs or his back or his head- just away from their grabby hands. Whatever info was in there, they didn’t need to pry into his business.

It was well into the afternoon when Dabi had his fill of the noise that only got louder over time in the bar and dismissed himself, leaving as he heard Toga calling out behind him before going back to whatever the hell she had been doing.

The pocketbook was in his hands folded to rest against the inside of his wrist as he walked around the streets, not wanting to go home, but not wanting to be nowhere. His desire to be somewhere, along with his annoyance accompanying that desire- but, not having any idea on where to be- unconsciously lead him down roads and through alleys to a run down, abandoned building.

“A bar?” He questioned himself out loud, not knowing why this place seemed familiar to him. He felt like he should know this place, but it felt like the way it was right now- run down and in shambles- was wrong. His head ached and he found himself climbing through a busted window to get inside.

Dust plumed under his boots when he landed inside the place. He began to wander around, dragging his hands along walls, kicking rubble with the toes of his boots, scanning the falling apart shelves that barely hung on the walls. Moving to the back room past the vacant kitchen covered in dust and smelling like the inside of a mechanical pencil, he placed his hand on a wall next to a staircase that led upwards away from the other empty rooms.

“This wall,” his eyes narrowed in both pain from his pounding head and his fuzzy recollection, “shouldn’t be here. Isn’t there supposed to be a door?” His palm that was flat against the wall curled into a fist, his knuckles pushing against the cold stone. “A door? Why would I-”

Dabi silenced himself as he snatched his hand away from the wall as if the structure was suddenly covered in some sort of burning acid.

“Fuck this,” he growled. He turned his back to the wall, ready to leave and clear his head, but stopped as soon as he went to take a step out. He glanced up the stairs before his feet started taking him up them, entering the would-be apartment through the rotting, crooked door.

He stood in the middle of the space that would be a small living room, his headache dulling, but just faintly. The feeling in the pit of his stomach clawed and deep in his head screamed that he was forgetting something; something important.

He pushed the pad of his thumb into the crease of his forehead, between his furrowed brows. Something was missing, wrong, just not fucking right here. Pushing his thumb harder against his skull, he tried blocking everything out and picking at every corner of his brain he could to think for a moment.

‘You keep doing that, you’ll put a dent in your head’

Dabi’s eyes shot open, breath catching in his throat as he swallowed back a cough from the sudden intake of breath. His hands dropped from his head to hover in front of him, elbows tucked by his sides. His senses were alert as he whipped around, looking around the empty apartment space.

“Who’s there?!” He shouted, his echoing voice bouncing back to him as he listened for any sounds to give away who he may have heard.

He heard someone- a woman- as clear as day. It seemed to echo- but given the empty room, it wouldn’t be shocking for voices to carry and bounce like that, after all his did. Standing in silence, he heard absolutely nothing. No breathing, no sounds of movement, no more voices. Just silence surrounded him- and a slight ringing in his ears.

The moment he started to settle down, thinking it was all in his head- which thrilled him- again, the same voice echoed around the room.

‘Don’t just take up space you- actually, take up as much space as you want if you heat the place up. My heater just went out, so come on Space-Heater, hop to it’

He started to think a league member was toying with him. Did someone from the bar follow him? Was this a quirk to dick him around for a lark? Then, he remembered the pocketbook.

It had been in his free hand the whole time, but he had forgotten about it. He quickly flipped it open and inside were small clippings and photos of a woman taped inside. Like some cryptid profile in a recluses dairy; much like Giran’s shady, handiwork to be expected.

The more he flipped through the pages and read, the more his head pounded.

‘Dabi’

The voice called him by name as he dropped the pocketbook. Spinning around with a waft of blue fire coming out of his arm in sheer instinct to protect himself from whatever may be around him. The voice ignited his fight or flight and Dabi was never one to run, ever a fighter. Fleeing wasn’t in his nature- not even when he was a child.

‘Was it too trouble to keep remembering?’

“Who the fuck are you? Where are you hiding?!”

‘You rejected me to this extent? That you forgot me entirely? Is this really your dream?’

… Dream?

His eyes widened before he looked back down to the open pocketbook at his feet. It lay pages facing up, open on a page he hadn’t yet read. His fire simmered and he starred down at the open spread. Slowly kneeling, he gently ran his fingers over the clippings and the single picture on the opposing page.

It was a photo of a gravestone.

The date of death wasn’t that far back; rather, it was pretty damn recent. This person, this woman, was dead?

Dabi felt small flames lick at the scars under his eyes as he stared down unblinking.

“Y/n?”

It all hit him like a bus. The memories he had slowly forgotten about came back to him and it knocked the breath from his chest. He stood to his feet and rushed downstairs, leaving the pocketbook in the empty apartment he finally remembered was supposed to be yours. On the way down to the bar, he nearly tripped on the stairs before he stood behind the bar top and looked out into the room.

Was it always this hard to breath?

Was all this his fault?

He remembered the emotions he used to push all the way down into his gut. Did his want to put distance between the two of you kill you in this dreamscape? This fake reality?

For a time, he forgot about time itself as he sat on the floors of the once lively bar he remembered. He ran you- your name, your face, your voice, your stupidly good heart, everything- on repeat in his head to ensure his memory wouldn’t slip away from him again. He was just a breathing corpse, or so he felt like. He didn’t even feel like smoking for once, even if his stress was through the roof.

His eyes flicked up when the rusted, busted doors of the trashed building opened to see two figures enter. The sun had long since set and the only light in the room now was two bright flashlights searching and finding his slouched body under the bar, facing the door.

From the shadows casted by the flashlights and the figures outlines, he could see two policemen in front of him. His eyes traveled away from them down to his palms, irritation flooding his head at their intrudance to his safe space.

“Hey!” One cop called to him, making their way towards his floor-slumped body, careful not to trip.

Was it his fault?

“This is private property.”

Did you end up a dead stranger because he kept pushing you away?

“Sir, you need to leave immediately.”

Why was this bothering him so fucking much?

“Can you hear me?”

He was brought out of his self pity when the cop who now stood next to him had gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet. Dabi’s body was still slack, not putting in too much effort to keep himself upright. He felt his back dig into the bar behind him, the only thing beside the cop tightly gripping his arm, holding him up.

Had he ever felt his miserable before, beside back when-

“Sir!” Dabi winced when the cop damn near shouted in his ear. He wasn’t some old man. He could hear perfectly fine. His scarring on his ears hadn’t made him deaf.

“-off me,” Dabi muttered. The cop not hearing him, asked him to repeat himself. Dabi’s lethargic face tensed in fury as he ripped his arm out of the policeman’s grasp and brought his other arm up to knock his fist into the cop’s jaw. “Get the fuck off me!” He yelled.

The cop dropped his flashlight as he fell to the ground, half out of it from the way Dabi punched his jaw- nearly knocking him completely out. The other was quick to draw his gun and point it at the villain, but it wasn’t quick enough.

Dabi was no fool. The moment he knocked the first cop on his ass, he knew the second would act. Grabbing the wrist of the second one as he tried pointing his gun towards him, Dabi twisted the policeman's wrist, disarming him and shoving his head through the small window in the front entrance.

He didn’t need light to see that the cop he held against the door, head just barely through a window, was bleeding. Dabi had turned him around, keeping one of his hands on one of the cop’s arms behind his back and the other on his head, keeping him uncomfortably pushed against the glass frame, nou doubt cutting up his skin further.

“You think you scumbags can just waltz in here and disrupt me? I happened to be in the middle of fuckin’ something.”

“B-but,” the cop he held captive began to try and argue, “this is private property!” He gasped.

Dabi’s eyes rolled in annoyance. “I don’t give a shit,” he seethed before his palms ignited. The policeman’s head was soon engulfed in blue fire as well as his wrist before his clothes ignited as well and the entire man was on the ground, a dead, burning mess.

The smell was familiar to him- the first familiar thing he’s felt in a while. He left the bar behind him, the space being intruded by law enforcement made it feel different. It wasn’t his space anymore. As he made his way down the street at the dead of night, he soon heard sirens and screeching of tires making their way down streets. Looking behind him, in the dark, clouded night sky, he saw outlines of smoke and fire in the distance.

“Looks like the building is gonna burn down,” he spoke to himself before he made his way further down the street. Passing a random building he didn’t even know, he reached his hand out and ignited it, setting drapes and signs on fire.

As he made his way down roads, he set building after building, house after house on fire. Soon, he stood at the end of the main street, blue on either side of the road and screaming from inside the buildings. People scrambling to get into the open, the panic of being in the middle of a blazing area with no idea on how the fire started.

It was pure hysteria.

People ran past him standing still on the sidewalk. Everyone was terrified and panicked as he didn’t seem at all bothered by anything happening. He stared blankly, uninterested with his hands in his pockets as he just gazed at his flames that ate everything it touched and spread like a plague.

As he stared, losing track of time once more, he felt something push against the back of his neck. He smiled, knowing the feel of a gun all too well.

“I guess not knocking you out worked in your favor, huh?” He knew it was the cop he clocked in the jaw at your bar.

By the time the firey lump of his coworker started eating the building, he probably regained enough sense to leave the building and chase him down. Not in time to spare the buildings and homes being eaten alive by his fire, but in time to threaten him just when he was ready to start enjoying the show.

“Sorry about your pal,” Dabi chided, “but he said a lot of shit that just pissed me off? I mean, private property? Come on.” The villain didn’t turn to look at the cop, just felt the man push the gun’s tip against his scarred neck further. “Don’t tell me you’re gun shy? Come on, pull the trigger.”

His self-destructive words were absolutely insane, urging the man with a gun at his neck to shoot him? It wasn’t like Dabi expected the cop to not have the balls, he knew cops and they didn’t care what they had to do to keep villains at bay. Dabi had just set fire to everything, the entire world in his vision burning as he spoke- that only was enough proof to the cop he was indeed a villainous man.

“It’s not my place to judge-”

“The fuck it isn’t!” Dabi laughed, whirling around and taking hold of the front of the gun and pushing it against his chest. “Pull the trigger you pathetic excess of a protector of the public!”

Maybe it was his words, his temptation to espcae this fake reality oozing out, his insane smile that pulled at the staples across his face or maybe it was just the policeman’s sudden decision- but the trigger was pulled and Dabi, felt for just a moment, a bullet tear through his chest.

-x-x-x-

Dabi’s eyes cracked open, vision blurry as he stared at a ceiling. His mind was fuzzy and his head pounded with a headache he immediately took to noticing, even if he had just opened his eyes moments ago.

He felt something behind his head, something covering his body and heard noises of machines humming besides where he was laying. Annoyed he was on his back, he groaned, but found his throat drier than desert sand and grumbled to clear it. His body felt heavy and weak as he started to slowly move around on the bed he rested on.

His knees lifted, feet moving as his heels dug into the mattress to push his weak feeling legs up and his arms moved to brace into the mattress to try and lever his body up. After a bit of a fight with his own body, he managed to sit up and his eyes finally focused from their blurriness.

He looked around seeing equipment attached to his arm and patches on his chest that linked to a machine that showed his heartbeat. His chest was bare as he wasn’t wearing his normal jeans, but grey sweats that he didn’t remember actually owning before.

He groaned, his hand coming to push against his head. The headache combined with his confusion was making him feel nauseous. What happened? Had he been somewhere before this? Where was he?

Looking around the small room he was in by himself again, he started to slowly remember. He remembered the dream- his dream- and the dream he had forgotten wasn’t actual reality. Dabi remembered being shot. His heartbeat started to quicken when he started to finally take in the familiarity of the room and it’s concrete walls.

Pulling the patches off his chest, he fumbled with whatever was in his arm and took it out. The scars he was familiar with ran across his body in large proportions and the bangs that hung in front of his eyes were a dark, dyed black.

He felt around his staples on the back of his hands and felt around his stomach and chest, tracing the large scars he knew were the real ones. He pushed his hand through his hair and felt the strands just as he truly remembered.

“Holy shit,” he breathed, moving to swing his legs over the bed and lean into his knees, hunching over as he brought his hands to his forehead- relieved. “I’m back.”

He sat in his own silence and relief to be in a world that finally felt right as he tried regaining himself. He remembered the dream he was stuck in and remembered the lack of your presence- your death in that place. His eyes widened as he stared at the ground before he lifted his head up.

You.

He stood to his feet quickly, but immediately teetered and fell to his ass on the floor. He hissed, angry at how weak his legs felt. He must’ve been sleeping for way too long if his damn legs didn’t want to work.

Dabi growled as he used the bed to get back to his feet and took more cautious steps towards the door to leave the room he was in. The open basement waiting area was empty and dim, not currently being in use.

Using the wall, he ambled the perimeter of the room to come to the stairs that lead to the bar- the bar he was sure was there. The bar that he missed and that bar that didn’t exist in his previous dream without you.

It took Dabi far longer than he’d like to admit to get his legs to climb the stairs, even if they were starting to gather more strength the longer he was awake and the longer he forced them to move and do as he commanded. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as when he originally woke up.

Getting up to the door, he unlocked it before he practically fell through the frame when it opened. Stumbling in, he shut it behind him and leaned his back against it to catch his breath. He stopped and stood still, seeing the doorway into the bar’s kitchen and beyond it. He had to make sure, he had to confirm this was real.

Ambling his way through the space he knew so well, he came out of the back and smirked when he leaned against the doorframe and looked out into your bar. The tables were empty and polished, chairs pushed in neatly and booths clean. He saw the rec room beyond its own doorway and sighed.

“It’s here,” laughed weakly to himself. “It’s all back.” His legs felt tired as he moved around the bar to slide into the barstool he always sat in. Letting his legs rest, he rested his elbow on the bar top and pushed one hand into his hair to hold his head and the other arm stayed on the bar. He began to replay all the memories he had here that he almost completely forgot in his dream.

What would happen if he let that dream consume him? What if he eventually accepted that dream as reality? Would he have forgotten about you like he almost did? would he had died or just slept until he was old and grey? He didn’t know and he didn’t honestly want to think about it.

He missed the polished scent of your pub instead of the dusty, rotten one of the abandoned building in his dream. He felt his shoulder tense when he heard the pub entrance open behind his back. Swiveling just a bit to view the door under his hand that partially covered his vision and his black bangs, his eyes widened at seeing you enter.

You were carrying bags in your arms, head down as you worked on shutting the door and relocking it. You hadn’t even seen him yet, eyes focusing on other things and the task of shutting your door and relieving your arms of the weight of whatever you had just gone out and bought.

He heard you sigh and he mimicked the sound silently. It felt like it had been so long since he heard you. You dropped the bags to your feet, rotating your shoulders to give your arms a break from how long you were carrying them. Dabi could tell from the way you stretched and rolled your neck that you were tired.

His breath stuttered when you turned and your chin came up, eyes finally finding the body sitting at your bar. It took you just a beat to realize that it wasn’t just some stranger who had broken into your closed pub in broad daylight.

You were about as frozen as he was as your jaw dropped, making your mouth go slightly agape. He couldn’t blame you, he guessed. He lifted his head from his hand and gave you a weak, tired smirk.

“Cat got your tongue, sweetheart?”

You were soon tripping over your bags and rushing to his place at the bar, your hands grabbing his shoulders and pushing him from his slouched position into one that was straighter. You twisted his stool and made him face you as you leaned him back to rest on the bar and inspected him.

Dabi inspected you in the same manner.

He watched as you silently, but frantically pushed your hands across his body. His bare chest was warm and every touch of your fingers made him feel hot. it was like you were confirming that he was real and not some delusion you had made up from stress. He would do that same after the you-less dream he had been succumbed to for fuck-knows how long now, but your warm touch was too comforting- too real to be a just another dream.

Dabi could see your eyes slick over as you just kept trying to silently convince yourself he was in front of you. He furrowed his brows- you hadn’t looked at his face since you saw him and you weren’t saying anything. It irritated him.

The pyro snatched your roaming wrists in his hands as you jolted and went completely still.

“Fuckin’ look at me,” he demanded, his impatience getting the best of him. Slowly, your head lifted and you did. He could see the tears brimming your eyes and he briefly wondered if you could even see him clearly with all those tears in the way of your vision. “Now, talk to me.”

Your mouth fell open, but snapped shut again. Only small sounds coming out. What could you say? You had no idea how to form words in the given situation. What should you say? Ask him how he feels, ask him how he woke up and if he was okay? Ask him why the hell the first thing he did was get up out of bed and come to the bar?

“Let me make this easy,” he told you, a scowl still on his scarred face. He brought one of his hands up to the cup under your jaw, his thumb and fingers pushing your cheeks to make your lips purse , your chin rest in his palm. “Can’t talk? Fine; then just say my name, it should be easy.”

You swallowed. One word, just two short syllables long, that’s it. It really should be easy. Opening your mouth, you did your best to force your locked up voice out.

“Dabi?” You questioned, your brows quirking up as he chuckled, smirking down at you.

“Atta girl,” he whispered before he brought his lips down onto the ones he had pushed out so invitingly to himself. You found your head spinning when Dabi’s hand that held your cheeks and under your jaw, pulled your mouth open so he could push his tongue inside to tangle around yours.

The entire time he roamed your mouth, his eyes stayed open and on yours. Your small huffs of shock dwindled as your wide eyes started to narrow and drop to a lid as your tense body finally slackened.

This is what woke him up- what had him remember, not being shot. His want to be around you, to taste you for the first time and to smell your scene again. Drawing his tongue out of your mouth, he peppered your flushed cheeks and the corner of your lips with small pecks, before greedily taking your lips again. Every time you tried pulling away from him- to get some answers no doubt- he didn’t let you get far as he kept chasing after your lips.

Your taste was so fuckin’ addicting, he almost growled.

Lifting himself up from his barstool, he had forgotten that his legs were weak and he found himself immediately releasing your lips and losing his balance. Grabbing your shoulder and arm to try and keep his balance, you squawked, not ready to hold his weight and you both tumbled to the tile.

You groaned as the man lay on top of you, his arms laying outstretched on either side of your head with his chin next to your neck. When he didn’t move, you brought one of your hands to his back and tapped him gently.

“Uh, Dabi?” You felt his breathing against your own as he just hummed signally that he didn’t just pass out.. “Think you can get off me?” Your voice was weak and without even looking at you, Dabi could imagine the flush that most definitely painted your cheeks a vibrant red.

“No, I don’t think I can,” he chuckled. He felt you fight under him, your arms pushing against his side before you lifted him just a bit before pushing him and sliding yourself out from under him. He groaned. “Fuck, you should treat a patient with more care.”

“Oh, sorry,” you panicked as you were soon grabbing his arm and throwing it over your shoulder and heaving him up. You looked back to your bags of groceries before deeming Dabi’s overall health top priority. You were ready to take him back downstairs to the basement when he stopped you, his free hand shooting out to grab a door frame and keep you from proceeding.

“No,” he denied. “Upstairs. I want to be in your place instead.”

“What? But, Dabi, you’re-”

“I’m fine,” he bit. He couldn’t just outright say that he missed your apartment, especially right to your face. “Just, take me up there instead.” In the end, that stupidly good heart of yours relented and obeyed his request.

Dabi felt like he just reached nirvana when you helped sit him down on your couch. His arms lifted to the back of the couch instinctive and he dropped his head back and shut his eyes, taking in the newfound comfort. He could feel you stand in front of him before he felt the cushion next to him dip, informing him that you had just sat next to him. He could feel your concerned eyes burn into the side of his face.

“You don’t need to stare.”

“Well, you still need to answer some questions.”

Dabi peeled his eyes open, as he tilted his head that still rested back on the cushions to look at you. “Ask away.”

“Okay,” you breathed, not expecting him to be as cooperative. “Well, how do you feel?”

“Better than ever,” your pointed look at his legs made him clear his throat with a chuckle. “Better than ever with a bit of a balance problem.”

“And your neck? Does that hurt?”

“Nope.”

“What about your head, any headaches or eye strain?”

“Had a headache when I woke up, pretty much gone now.”

You ran him back and forth about questions of if he was in pain or any discomfort, and while he normally would have found the entire process annoying, he couldn't help but smile through it. Listening to you talk so much made him feel remarkably better.

“Alright, now for unprofessional questions,” you told him. “Why the hell did you think it was a good idea to go up to the bar as soon as you woke up? I was gone no more than 20 minutes and you somehow climbed your way up there. What if you fell back down the stairs or something?”

“I don’t know about you, sweetheart, but when I wake up in a basement, I’d like to get out of it,” he joked. “I wanted to see the bar anyway.”

“It’s the same as it’s always been.”

“Not to me.”

“What?” Your twisted face that had been chewing him out the past several minutes had softened at his tone. His joking smirk fell as he looked back at the ceiling and his mouth pressed into a line. Just remembering that awful dream really pissed him off.

“What was the quirk I was under?”

“You,” you started, “you knew you were under the effects of a quirk?”

“Of course I did, I’m not stupid.”

“Well, the guy with the needle fingertips is the one who got you in the neck during that brawl, remember?” Dabi nodded. “His needles contain a type of sedative that sends the affected body to sleep and their mind into a created reality of their dreams. I guess you had a dream, huh?”

“Yeah. A fucking stupid dream where everything was the same expect the important stuff.”

“Important stuff? Like what exactly?”

Glancing at you from the corner of his eye, he decided not to tell you about his identity. To you he was still just plain Dabi- the Dabi who took Stain’s words to heart and hated this hero-praised society. If he told you who he really was, what if you looked at him differently? So, he kept it to himself.

“You weren’t there.” You were silent at his side, his gaze moving to focus back on the light fixtures that were turned off above him since the sun was bright enough through the windows to light the living room up. “When I woke up in that dream, you weren’t there. The bar wasn’t there either, it was just some run down building owned by the city. You didn’t know me in that dream, and you died as a stranger to me in that dream too.” His eyes lidded as a grim shadow cast over his face.

“I died? But how-”

“I really don’t want to get into the details.”

“Oh,” you pushed yourself. “That makes sense. Sorry for prying.” It was silent for a beat. You looked away from Dabi, glancing around your living room as he watched you from the corner of his vision. You had stood up from the couch, making him twitch. “I’m going to get you something to drink, you’re probably thirsty. Since you’re recovering though, I’m gonna make you drink a lot of water.”

He was content on letting you do what you wanted, but the thought of you leaving his sight for just a moment made his skin crawl. If you went to the kitchen, you’d be going around a corner and behind a wall, he couldn’t see through walls.

You got one step from the couch when he snatched your wrist and yanked you over. Falling back on the cushions, your back was against Dabi’s side where he had snaked his arm around you, keeping you hostage.

“What are you-?!” Your voice stopped when he dropped his forehead to your shoulder and squeezed you.

“Don’t leave my sight yet.”

“Did my disappearance in your dream really bother you that much?” He cursed you for being so perceptive on why he was suddenly so handsy with you. In the past, he tried to be as mindful of your feelings as possible. He didn’t want to take advantage of your emotions back then, but now it wasn’t quite like before.

“Yeah, it did.” His honesty shocked you. There was no joking undertone and no sound of a smirk on his lips. It was sincere and it was sad.

You relaxed against him, raising one of your hands to push through his hair that tickled your neck and cheek. You wished you had a book or your phone to keep you busy at the very least, but you didn’t. You just traced the design of your apartment’s wallpaper with your eyes, sitting in silence for a while.

“Hey,” you softly called after a while to test if he had fallen asleep. You heard him hum behind you. “Is the reason you did what you did in the bar, because I didn’t exist in your dream?”

Oh fuck.

He had nearly forgotten that he practically shoved his tongue down your throat not that long ago. In the past, maybe he would’ve felt bad about doing that; to you in particular- you being his best friend and the same friend who patched him up on the regular and the friend who got rejected by him. But now, he didn’t feel any regret looking back on the deed.

In fact, the only regret he felt int his moment was the memory of his rejection.

“Can I take it back?”

“The kiss?” You croak? “Well, of course you can. I-”

“Not that, you idiot.”

“What?”

“That time I told you that I didn’t do relationships, when I rejected you. Can I take that back?” Your silence made his stomach churn. God, this is why he hated relationships, why he hated fuckin’ feelings. This is the sole reason he squashed what he felt towards you down into the pit of his stomach. Now it’s all coming back up to burn his throat like a case horrible heartburn.

“Dabi, this isn’t a joke to me.”

“I know, I’m not that much of a prick.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Not to you, I’m not.” The moment you opened your mouth to argue against him again, he bit into your neck, making you squawk and kick your legs out before bopping the top of his head with your hand that had been previously brushing through his hair. Which didn’t help your case, since all it did was knock his teeth into your skin more before he unlatched from you. “Hey,” he spoke as he moved to push his cheek against the top of your head so there was no way you could even get a glance at his face. “If you think you still like me, then I think I like you too.”

Dabi felt you start laughing before he heard it. He felt like he was going to burst into flames as you squirmed around in his arms, laughing like he just told the world's worst dad joke. He pinched into your sides, making you yelp between laughs. When you settled down, you just rested against him willingly and hummed.

“That’s not how you ask a someone out, Dabi.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

“Neither is that.”

“That’s it,” he finalized with himself as he planted his chin on top of your head with enough force to make you whine in dull pain. “Just for that, I’m not taking you on any good dates. It’s just concrete basements and empty fridges for you.”

Yu gasp. “That is not how you treat your girlfriend!”

“I don’t remember asking you to be that to me?”

“You son of a-”

He pushed a hand over your mouth, muffling you as he felt you smile against his palm. Tiling your head back to look up and back at him, he pulled his hand away from your lips and pushed a finger in front of his own, shushing you.

“You sure you want me?” He asked. “Last chance to back out of it.”

“Well,” you answered, “do really you want me?”

Dabi rolled his eyes. Like he would flake out after all this, you should know better than to ask him something like that. He was meticulous, he wouldn’t be so certain of something like this if he hadn’t thought it over first. He’s had his time without you and now he’s gonna make certain that it never happens again.

“Oh, baby, I only want you.” Your face flushed and he kissed the end of your nose- since your lips were too far away from this angle to reach. “Now turn around dammit, I want to kiss you properly.”

That stupidly good heart of yours never fails to listen.

-END-

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