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“If you make me crash into something, I’m gonna burn your whole place down, old man,” Dabi says with his eyes screwed shut, letting Giran walk him through the apartment for what he’d said was supposedly a surprise.
“Just bear with me, kid,” Giran says, glancing over Dabi’s shoulder to check if they’re actually going in the right direction. “Almost there.”
“You just walked me into the doorframe,” Dabi says indignantly, pushing back against Giran’s hands. “My toe, you bastard-”
“Swear jar, Dabi-”
“I owe my life savings to the fucking swear jar. And I’ve got no money anyway.”
Giran stops Dabi from walking any further with a kind yet firm grip on his shoulder. He can feel the confusion radiating off of him and to be perfectly honest, he's surprised Dabi even agreed to this and hasn’t sneakily tripped Giran up and run off somewhere.
"Okay," Giran says, stepping out from behind him and next to the table. "You can open your eyes now."
“I might just keep them shut,” Dabi says mockingly, rolling back and forth on his heels with his eyes still closed. “I’ll keep them shut all day. Just out of spite. And villainy.”
Dabi’s resolve breaks after about ten seconds, simply because he’s a teenager, and he’s bored.
There’s a cake on the table, messily iced with Dabi’s name and slightly smudged around the edges, a little squished at the side.
It’s his seventeenth birthday.
Giran had gotten it while he was still asleep in the morning without him knowing and the look on his face is nothing short of shocked; the silly grin he’d had on from teasing Giran is completely gone and he looks up at him, looks back down at the table like he’s checking this is actually happening.
“Sorry it looks like I sat on it. But I couldn’t not do anything.”
It’s a poor explanation but Dabi looks on the verge of tears nonetheless.
He’s completely frozen where he stands; Giran can’t even see him breathing and he just stares at the cake like it’s going to suddenly disappear or grow legs and run away. He watches it like it’s a ghostly apparition instead of just a basic act of kindness. It’s his birthday, Giran thinks. Why shouldn’t he have a cake?
After he had taken him in, Giran remembers asking Dabi when his birthday was. He barely knew anything about the boy, save from his name and anything that was already obvious (like his hair colour, or his quirk). And Dabi had shrugged before offering up the date, wrapping his arms around himself like it hurt to think about.
“January 18th,” he’d said quietly. “I’ve missed the last few, I don’t… My last one was my thirteenth. And then…”
“And then?” Giran had gently prompted.
Dabi bit the inside of his cheek. “Went into a coma. I just missed three whole years of my life and then people expected me to get up and start living again, they just expected me to be okay. I- I don’t know how to live, Giran. I’m still thirteen. How was I asleep for three years-? I don’t feel sixteen, of course I don’t, how could I feel sixteen when I was thirteen a few months ago?"
And it was then that Giran had properly held him for the first time, when even the prospect of his birthday had made him burst into tears. It made him feel so much worse for Dabi- because sure, technically he’s taking in a sixteen-year-old who legally can’t live on his own. But Dabi hasn’t felt sixteen a day in his life because a good chunk of his teenage years were just missing.
He had run a hand through Dabi’s rough, snowy hair and tried to reassure him that he would feel alright, in time. And Dabi had cried and cried and cried because even though he tells Giran he’s going to be a villain someday, he’s still a child. He’s still lonely. And he still feels thirteen.
“There’s a little gift in the bag there,” Giran says encouragingly, nudging it towards him and trying to knock Dabi out of any bad thoughts he might be having.
“Giran…” Dabi says under his breath, and the way his hands reach out for it just seems scared. Like accepting anything will cement the fact that he really is seventeen. Like accepting the gift will mean he owes him something.
Instead of watching his hands, Giran watches his face - and he knows Dabi’s trying not to cry. He knows the signs of it because, for all his talk about being mysterious and having secrets, Dabi actually cries a lot. And he knows that Dabi, cautiously unwrapping the meagre gift Giran has gotten him, is close to tears.
It’s just a jacket. But Dabi complains all the time about being cold and he talks about wanting to look cooler and he can’t really look cool and ‘villainous’ in loungewear.
Sure, the loungewear is more comfortable and practical for the burn scars, but Dabi is adamant on looking cool. For who, Giran has no idea, because he barely ever leaves the apartment - but Dabi is a teenager. He missed three years of his life and since he went into his coma in his rebellious phase, Giran supposes he came out of it in his rebellious phase too.
But Dabi freezes. He looks at the clothing clutched in his hands and he’s standing completely frozen still.
Giran’s currently regretting all of his life decisions. Should he have taken Dabi’s conversation about his birthday as a warning? Is it a trigger for him and Giran didn’t even think to realise? Should he have not gotten him anything or should he have just ignored it all together, not even said a word to Dabi about it?
Maybe he hates cake. Maybe he hates jackets. Maybe, Giran thinks to himself, he should’ve just gone and asked Dabi what he wanted because they’re literally living in the same place and it would’ve taken him literally five seconds to clear everything up.
“I can take it back if you want, kid,” he tries to backpedal instantly. Anything to get that distressed look off of his face. “Actually I can’t because I stole it, but I meant don’t think you’ve gotta keep it. We can throw it to the curb and never mention it again.”
Dabi doesn’t say anything, just holds the fabric in between his fingers and thumbs like it’s something precious. His fingers are bony and frighteningly pale against the dark material and he holds it like he’s never had anything to his name, like he’s never had something to cherish this dearly.
His hands are trembling. He's been having dexterity issues recently, what with the nerve damage throughout his entire body - but Giran has a feeling it's not that, not now. The shaking isn't involuntary, it's scared.
“You’re so nice to me,” Dabi says in a choked up whisper, his eyes fixated on the jacket. “This- it’s too nice, Giran, it’s-”
“Hey, kid, did you listen? I stole it. It’s no trouble. You’re no trouble.”
With a stifled and embarrassed kind of whimper, Dabi rubs the fabric gently with his fingertips like nobody has ever been kind to him in his entire life. His eyes fixate on folds of the cloth and the stitching on the hood like it’s a measure of how much he’s worth, a symbol that somebody actually likes him, a reassurance that the entire world isn’t against him.
Happy birthday, the gift was meant to say. But it also says I’m here for you and I’m on your side.
“I can’t pay you back for this,” Dabi whispers, and Giran pretends not to notice the tear that falls onto the material where Dabi’s head is bent over looking at it, eyes expertly hidden from view. “For any of this.”
He means the jacket, sure, but also the kindness. He means the birthday cake but also the place to stay and the warm meals and the actual bed and the late night comfort when he can’t sleep and the spontaneous, almost paternal dynamic Giran’s taken on with him.
“Kid, it’s your birthday. You’re not meant to.”
Dabi just bursts into tears.
Giran hugs him without even thinking, walking closer and wrapping his arms around him like his body just moved by itself. Dabi’s fingers stop gripping the jacket and start grasping at Giran instead in a pitiful attempt to return the hug while he cries.
He knows birthdays aren’t all that important, especially not to villains. And, he muses, it’s probably not the birthday itself that’s making Dabi upset - it’s the proof that Giran actually cares for him. That Giran cares for him, maybe more than his father did. That Giran cares for him and he’s allowed to accept it.
“We’ve gotta make up for all the ones you missed, alright?” He speaks in a calming tone now Dabi’s cries have quietened, just to soothe him now he’s able to hear over all the sobs. “Happy birthday.”
Even on his birthday, Dabi doesn’t want to go out - he’s scared of being recognised, of being exposed to the world before he’s ready - and so Giran cuts them both a slice of cake, ushers Dabi to the couch to put a movie on or something of the sort.
(Okay, maybe he does have ulterior motives. But those ulterior motives only go as far as he wanted to eat most of the cake himself, because damn, there isn’t enough time for cake being a villain broker).
Giran can’t exactly say he does this often - lounge around in his apartment and eat cake. But Dabi seems notably happier now they’re sat together in the quiet, mindlessly watching the TV. It’s nice to have company and it’s nice to see Dabi actually smiling, even if he is slowly picking at his cake, lost in his own head and not really focusing on the screen.
Without a word, he leans his head on Giran’s shoulder, slouching back into the couch cushions to make himself comfortable. It’s a domestic gesture, a comfortable one, one that says thank you without saying it.
“Why do you do this for me?” Dabi asks, out of the blue. “Why don’t you hate me?”
He asks it like it’s a given. Like he expects Giran to hate him just because it’s him.
“Of course I don’t hate you.”
“My dad did. I would get it,” Dabi kicks his legs up on the table like he hasn’t just said something emotionally devastating in the same tone he’d use to talk about the weather. “I think at some point I’m just expecting it, ‘cause you do so much for me. I’m sure both my parents loved me at first, but after a while…”
“Dabi,” Giran murmurs, unsure of what to say. What is he supposed to say to that?
He knows what he wants to say. He wants to say I’m so sorry you weren’t brought up the way you deserved to have been. I’m so sorry you weren’t given the love you should’ve had. I’m so sorry that you can say these alarming things and think nothing of it.
Dabi deserves a thousand apologies for the hand he was given in life.
Dabi is a child. And it isn’t fair.
“You didn’t deserve that,” Giran says gingerly, not wanting to accidentally send him to tears again. “And I can promise you now that I won’t hate you in the future, either.”
Dabi pokes at his slice of cake with his finger like the incessant prodding is going to make it disappear, and then he won’t owe Giran as much.
Nothing happens to it, obviously. He wipes the icing off on his jeans and there’s still just as much cake as there was a minute ago, only now there’s a finger shaped hole in the middle of what he hasn’t eaten. Giran’s sure he didn’t not eat it on purpose, but he knows he’s still struggling with accepting anything that could be construed as help.
Anything. Even a shoddy birthday cake that’s worth close to nothing.
Dabi goes back to poking his food and Giran just watches the snow-white hair fall over his eyes as he does, seeking comfort in the repetitive motion.
“You know you could hurt me,” he stares vacantly at the plate in his lap, “And I wouldn’t mind.”
He doesn’t stop messing with his food and Giran’s heart stills, both at the action and his words - because that wasn’t even a hard thing for Dabi to say. He offered up his own pain to Giran like a gift while he was still playing with his food and he’s so horribly aware of how Dabi is seventeen while he's saying these things.
“Don’t say things like that. I would mind,” Giran says immediately, quick to shut down the train of thought because in no circumstance does he want Dabi thinking that he’d hurt him, that he’d want to hurt him. “And I know you would too. Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t just because you think you owe me something.”
With a gentle hand, he takes the plate of half-uneaten birthday cake off of Dabi and sets it on the table, because this doesn’t feel like a birthday cake conversation.
Dabi wipes his hands on his jeans again and stares sort of longingly at the slice, but he doesn’t make any move to get up. Giran can tell he knows this has moved into a more serious conversation because he averts his eyes down to the ground and pointedly doesn’t look at him.
He covers as much of him with his hair as he can, though Giran can see the shame etched into his face.
“But I don’t get it,” Dabi says, voice suddenly far too quiet. “I don’t get what you want from me.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Giran says in a hasty attempt to explain. “I want to get a kid off the streets. I want to sleep at night knowing I didn’t leave you to die out there. I want to be better than the sack of shit you had for a father.”
Dabi huffs a quiet laugh, but he still doesn’t look at him. Giran can’t find a way to describe how he looks, because there’s not really an emotion there - Dabi just sits beside him and looks, not particularly at anything, his eyes empty and far away.
Dabi has just turned seventeen. Dabi is hurting and has hurt for a long time. Dabi should never have had to suffer as much as he did.
They’re just facts, in and of themselves, that hold their place in the universe. And he wishes that Dabi would believe that he deserves to not be hurt, like any other child.
“I couldn’t have just left you out there, alright? I like knowing you’re not sleeping rough. There are too many kids left to fend for themselves who turn into bad people, Dabi. You aren’t one of them and I couldn’t watch you turn into one knowing I could've stopped it.”
Giran had met Dabi a fair few times before he took him in. He’d bought him lunch on a couple of occasions, not wanting him to go hungry since the baggy clothes he wore never did much to hide how he was starving. He had chatted with him, though the conversations were mostly one-sided - Giran always started talking and Dabi never offered much back.
The boy had clearly long since stopped trusting. But Giran wasn’t going to just give up knowing that he had a spare room in his apartment and enough money to support somebody else.
It had taken a while. Dabi had outright refused at first. But then the summer was ending and it was getting colder and Giran had actually grown some sort of fondness for the boy and Dabi-
Dabi needed help. As much as he hated to admit it.
“I am a bad person,” Dabi says, in a desolate tone that matches the expression on his face.
“You’re not,” Giran ruffles his hair. “I think you know that more than anyone.”
Dabi jerks back from his touch in a way he hasn’t done before and his breathing starts to quicken. He looks, finally looks at Giran, and while some emotion has sprung back into his face it’s a strange mix of fear and confusion.
“Don’t,” he says shakily, hunching over his shoulders and putting his head in his hands. Giran can see the frightened tremble of his shoulders through his shirt as he tries to breathe in deeply and stave off the oncoming panic. “Shit, Giran, don’t- don’t be nice to me.”
“Swear jar, Dabi,” Giran chides, trying to lighten the mood to calm him down, and-
It’s the wrong thing to say. It’s definitely the wrong thing to say.
“That’s what I’m fucking talking about,” Dabi practically spits the words out at him as he stands up from the couch, and the loss of warmth by Giran’s side is palpable. “Saying shit like ‘swear jar’ and pretending I’m a normal kid because I’m not, you found me on the street and you want to play fucking house with me and pretend you’re my dad or some shit and throw me a birthday party-”
“Touya,” Giran tries, and Dabi stops right in the middle of his sentence, face dropping immediately.
He hadn’t planned on telling Dabi he knew his name. He’d planned on keeping it a secret forever, but he needed something that would get him to stop before he got himself too worked up and burnt Giran’s entire place down. Don’t get him wrong, he’s all for Dabi getting his emotions out, but not in a way that could be dangerous for both of them.
He knows that Dabi has left Touya in the past but at the same time, it had been Dabi himself that confessed his old name.
No, Giran hadn’t found out through blackmailed information or any shady means at all - Dabi had confided in him after Giran had taken him in, while he was suffering an awful fever and the man was trying his best to comfort a sick child with no experience. Dabi had blurted out Touya, my name was Touya while he was lying on Giran's couch with cold towels pressed to his head and arms, slightly delirious from his fever-
-And the sudden shock of the admission had sent him plummeting back to reality.
I didn’t mean to say that, he had said, voice not far from a sob. Shit, make me forget that. Don’t tell me about it. Oh my god, shit, I didn’t mean to tell you.
Giran couldn’t refuse him. He’d used his quirk without hesitation and then Dabi’s terrified cries ceased, and he woke up later on thinking he’d passed out from exhaustion.
He didn’t tell him. Dabi had told him not to, after all.
And now, the look on Dabi’s face is flat-out terrified, because he has no idea Giran even knew his name. He has no idea how or when or why Giran found out his name.
“Hey,” Giran says quietly, trying to backtrack. With slow and obvious movements so Dabi doesn’t startle, he gets up from the couch and takes a few tentative steps towards him. “It’s alright-”
“...That’s why you took me in, isn’t it?” A manic and disbelieving sort of smile spreads across his face, and he steps back away from Giran’s advance. “Because I’m his son?”
“It’s not,” Giran says simply. He halts his movements and Dabi seems to do the same now Giran has stopped getting closer to him. He wants to hug him, wants to make him feel better, but it’s not the time for it.
“It fucking is,” Dabi shrieks back, his voice raised. “Don’t lie to me. I’m just some- sad charity case to you, huh? You’re gonna take poor little Todoroki Touya and make him all better ‘cause he’s a lost kid and his daddy hated him and you eat that shit up, right? Apparently you’re the only fucking one who cares because you’ve got a weird saviour complex or some shit-”
“Dabi, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Giran says, noticing the steam rolling off of his hands. He doesn’t call him Touya again, he doesn’t dare. Dabi doesn’t want to hear it and Giran sort of feels like he’s betrayed his trust, like he doesn’t deserve to call him Touya at all.
“Exactly!” Dabi shouts and shoves Giran in the chest. He’s sure he means it to hurt but Dabi’s physically weak, less than half Giran’s age, at least two (maybe even three) inches shorter than him, and even though Giran has tried to feed him well after taking him in, there’s only so much he can do. Giran is afraid that he accidentally hurt Dabi when he was pushed.
“You’re right, I’m gonna hurt myself,” he holds his arms up in front of him for both him and Giran to stare at, covered in reddened burn marks and still radiating smoke. “I’m not some terrified little boy who needs protecting. I hurt myself and I hurt other people and I’m not- not the perfect little victim you want me to be, not a little street rat who you can just take in and magically fix.”
Giran wants to intervene so badly. But Dabi carries on.
“I’m broken,” he says, more of a shriek. “I tried to kill my brother when he was a baby, you know. And I burnt myself all up and didn’t care a single bit. And- and you just threw me this stupid fucking birthday party and I’m here having a fit over it. Is this what you wanted when you took me in? Some horrible, bratty kid who isn’t grateful for any of it?”
He stops then, gasping a little for air.
The steam dissipates and Giran can tell that he’s overexerted himself, because his heavy breathing isn’t from panic anymore, but tiredness. He’s known Dabi long enough and cared about Dabi long enough to know the signs of his fatigue by now and- sue him, he does care for the kid.
The only language Dabi seems to understand is violence; Giran sees it in him shoving and swearing and yelling, he sees it in the way he doesn’t know how to accept kindness, in the way he thinks Giran wants something from him, wants to hurt him - he sees it in the way Dabi is so completely and utterly broken by his childhood and doesn’t know how to accept love if it doesn't hurt.
Giran has already decided that he doesn’t care how much he wants Dabi to listen, how much he wants to get through to him - he’s never going to use it.
He doesn’t care that the only language Dabi knows is violence. He’ll just teach him a new one.
“Is that really what you think of yourself?” He asks softly.
“That’s your fucking takeaway from this?” Dabi says, trying to match the same ferocity his voice held before - but he’s tired. He’s upset and he’s tired.
“Yes,” Giran says easily, and it’s clear that Dabi doesn’t know what to say to that.
He falters visibly and the fight disappears from his eyes, the tension vanishes from his bones. His shoulders fall flat and it’s almost like a knot unravelling, the way he just gives up and slowly falls apart.
“I just need you to listen to me, kid,” Giran says, not stepping any closer to him and making sure he knows he has space. “I don’t see you as a charity case. I don’t see you as just Endeavor’s son. And I definitely, definitely don’t see you as a horrible, bratty kid. Okay?”
Dabi shrugs noncommittally.
“I’m gonna be there for you, understand? And it doesn't matter to me if you get angry, if you lash out, because you’re seventeen and you’re hurt. I didn’t even know he was your father when we met - but kid, I would’ve taken you in whatever. You deserve to be helped. And to be safe.”
The words sit tensely in the air and Dabi trembles, his mouth opening and closing silently like he wants to say something, but he isn’t sure what.
Instead, he just watches Giran with those terrified blue eyes and shakes like a leaf where he stands.
“It’s okay,” Giran says.
“My dad pushed me to the floor, once. When I had an outburst like that,” Dabi says faintly, like saying it quieter will somehow make it less real, less severe. “I sprained my shoulder.”
Screw giving him space. Giran really, really wants to hold him.
(And he really, really wants to kill Endeavor).
“Dabi…”
“My mom didn’t like them either,” he blurts out. “She thought I was crazy. She told me she didn’t but I- I knew that she did. I used to pull my hair out and shit and I wasn’t the gentle little Touya they knew when I was small, 'cause I pushed them away and I didn't listen and I was violent and I was so obviously ill but I got punished for it anyway.”
He tries to subtly wipe away a tear. Giran sees it anyway.
Before he carries on, he takes a wobbly, frightened breath. “I don’t understand why you do this for me. Why you got me a cake and a present and let me stay in your apartment and why you just let me have a fit like that and you’re just fine with it, because even my own parents weren’t. There’s something wrong with me, Giran, I don’t-”
“I’m never going to be angry at you for that,” Giran reiterates. “And Dabi- I’m not a bad guy, alright? I know I live in a shady area and I work with villains but I’ve at least got morals, kid. I don’t want anything from you except for the knowledge that you’re safe.”
The floodgates open then, and Dabi goes back to crying.
"You're weird," he sobs to Giran. "You're so fucking weird."
Giran opens his arms and Dabi walks into them almost immediately, burying his head in his shoulder and gripping onto him as tightly as he can.
"Happy birthday, Dabi."
“Thank you,” Dabi- Todoroki Touya- Dabi, seventeen and feeling as small as he can be- whispers, and leans his head into Giran’s shoulder, trying to accept that he can let himself be safe. Maybe even loved.