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radioactivity on the radars tonight

Summary:

Tomura’s parents have not been home since they first met, on Tomura’s eighth birthday. Tomura has always said they’ve cut ties with him, they’ve moved on and left him behind, but he always speaks of them acidically, like a poisonous frog had hopped into his mouth and died on his tongue. Like he’s never really forgotten how they’ve wronged him. Dabi doesn’t know what they’ve done, and he does not dare ask. Because, again-- he is cowardly.

Notes:

surprised at how i was able to bang this out in one night! go seimei!

the premise here, if i were to fit it into canon, is that this is an au where dabi doesn't survive to escape the todoroki household and tomura grows up under just the doctor rather than afo.

this fic is a love letter to the last waltz album by world's end girlfriend since i had it on as bgm the whole time writing this. i love you so dearly maeda-san

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

It’s been a long time since he’s seen a mirror. Hence, it’s been a long time since he saw what he looked like. There aren’t any mirrors downstairs where Dabi stays, and Tomura says he hates to look at himself, so he doesn’t push. Even in the bathroom, there is nothing but a medicine cabinet with the outside painted over. If Dabi were a bit more paranoid and schizophrenic than he already is, he’d say someone purposely painted it. Just so he’d be stuck in this limbo forever.

Tomura is kind to him, though. Tomura fixes his staples when he pops them out and Tomura checks that all his organs are all in their right places underneath all those grafts. Dabi doesn’t need to eat anymore, since Tomura took his tummy out awhile back. He doesn’t know where his throat leads to anymore, but Tomura says he doesn’t need to worry about it. Maybe it’s like an abyss, he thinks to himself. Maybe there’s nothing in there but darkness.

Still, he must drink, to keep his body from falling apart at the seams. Tomura gave him a whiskey flask that he keeps in his back pocket now, filled with tap water rather than spirits. There is an engraving on the bottom, but Dabi does not recognize the initials N.S. Nor does he recall the year of 1971, beside the name. He hadn’t existed in 1971. Neither had Tomura-- his parents probably hadn’t even married yet. Still, the flask reads as an heirloom, and neither of Tomura’s parents are in the picture to give this down to him. Dabi wonders where he got it.

It happens late one day, after Tomura has done Dabi’s nightly checkup and confirmed that all his moving pieces are slotting together nicely. Dabi takes a swig from his flask and it goes down his throat into the abyss below, or it just gets sucked on by all his internal organs, or something. Maybe it goes right through his small intestine, but he doesn’t need to piss. Maybe it disappears.

Anyway, the point is that Dabi asks a stupid question. Dabi asks, “Hey, boss.” Tomura says, “What is it?” And Dabi, because Dabi is stupid, because his brain doesn’t work as properly as Tomura’s does, asks, “Why ain’t there any mirrors down here?”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees from the way Tomura’s eye twitches. “Because I don’t want to have to see myself when I don’t have to.” He answers firmly, and adds, “Just like I already told you.”

"Huh. That so.” Dabi wonders aloud, because honestly Tomura is probably right. Dabi’s brain doesn’t hold onto conversations well. He wouldn’t be surprised if this was the third time they’d had this conversation, but something is telling him it will go different this time. Because he needs to know. He can’t live like this, but Tomura can. So it probably won’t matter that much. And because Dabi knows this, deep in his patchwork heart, he goes, “Do ya not wanna see me either?”

Tomura turns to look at him, and there’s melancholy in his gaze, coating his pupils like the grafts that tug Dabi’s body tight together. “You’re the only thing I want to see, Dabi.” He says with incredible finesse, and Dabi feels himself flush a little bit. But Tomura isn’t done, he draws close again, and he grabs Dabi’s hand, locking it betwixt his own. His eyes are like blood, stained into the white dress shirt of his corneas, and Dabi’s vision is beginning to dye. Tomura is staring into him like there’s nothing else in the world, and Dabi is fully under his spell. “You are the most perfect thing in this world.” He murmurs fiercely, like he’s daring Dabi to disagree. “You are all that there is. And you are mine.” He pauses for a moment, hesitating with his words, as if he can’t decide if Dabi is worthy of them or not. “I’m yours, too.” He says, quieter, and Dabi wishes this were different, and he were allowed to claim Tomura as Tomura has done the opposite. Instead, he brings up his other hand to cup Tomura’s cheek, and smooth his thumb over the dark circles below Tomura’s gory eyes. “I’m all yours, boss.” He chokes out, because the words get caught in his throat, because where are they coming from? Who is he to think he’s worthy of being Tomura’s property? Who is he to believe he’s enough for Tomura, even if he says he is?

For a moment, Tomura leans closer, and Dabi wonders belatedly if he’s going to kiss him and finally cross the line they’ve been toeing since Dabi woke up for the first time in years. But he doesn’t-- doesn’t break that boundary, doesn’t even tap the glass-- and he pulls back again, but his gaze is soft around the edges, like the smooth layer of fat that’s made a home around Tomura’s waistline. When Dabi first woke up, Tomura was gaunt, like he was carved from marble and being chipped away day by day. Dabi could count the ribs in his chest, and could feel his organs through his skin. Now he has regained his flesh, and he looks like he’s come into himself. Like he has grown, if only through Dabi.

And because Dabi is Dabi, and he is still the same person when he was born twenty nine years ago despite anything that’s ever paid rent in his bones, because he is still the boy that laid in the snow on bad days rather than icing his wounds, because he is still the man Tomura pulled from his grave and revived with his own never-ceasing heart, he says nothing. Because he is cowardly. Because Dabi has lived down here since he woke up on the metal table, to a face full of a man he’d only known as a child, imperceptibly the same yet inexplicably different, and because Dabi does not ask the questions he thinks he knows the answers too. Tomura’s parents have not been home since they first met, on Tomura’s eighth birthday. Tomura has always said they’ve cut ties with him, they’ve moved on and left him behind, but he always speaks of them acidically, like a poisonous frog had hopped into his mouth and died on his tongue. Like he’s never really forgotten how they’ve wronged him. Dabi doesn’t know what they’ve done, and he does not dare ask. Because, again-- he is cowardly.

Tomura’s hands drop away from Dabi’s, and immediately, the moment has dissipated, broken into little shards like the last of Dabi’s sanity, when he died. He steps away and runs a hand through his hair, before he says, “I’ll be back in an hour,” and heads upstairs.

Dabi does not hate Tomura. Dabi could never hate him, because Tomura is all that he has, no matter if he actually wanted to wake up again. No matter if he had hoped he’d been stuck in the dirt forever. There is no world outside of Tomura. There is the damp concrete on the floor, and there are the musty shelves of Tomura’s repertoire, but there is nothing left for him, were there no Tomura. Yet. Yet. Upstairs-- what a concept, for Dabi! To feel the air, to see the snow, to lie there like he felt nothing again. To interact with people he had no intention of seeing again. To, maybe even to reconnect. To show that their father was not all there is-- that even him, even someone like Dabi can come back to prove him wrong.

The light from the windows upstairs leaks through the crack at the bottom of the door at the top of the steps, and it is like an addiction to Dabi. Sometimes he can smell something good wafting down to his nose, too accustomed to dust and humidity. Something like food. Even though Dabi does not need to eat anymore, because there is nowhere for it to stay anymore, his mouth grows full of spit. But it is as gone as quickly as it came, and there is a faint sound of plastic being crushed in someone’s fist. Dabi is not sure if Tomura really lives alone, but he’s pretty sure he does. He has never heard echoes of any more than one pair of footsteps at a time.

Tomura is not merciless, and he leaves novels downstairs for Dabi to read when he grows tired of dissociating into almost-sleep. Classics, some of which Dabi even recognizes from his own childhood, the bits he can still recall. The Spider’s Thread, and other bitchin’ tales.

The one he picks up today is one he’s been on for a while, something by a guy named Murakami. There’s a guy in a sheep costume hopping around, and the world doesn’t really make much logical sense in here. Everyone seems to be dancing, at every turn.

But today, in the novel he’s been reading for a few days already, slow as a snail to absorb every last syllable, a withered post it flutters to the floor from where it was wedged against the back cover, when Dabi turns a page. It lays on the floor like an autumn leaf, awaiting its inevitable fate of being crushed into nothing. But Dabi reaches for it, despite himself-- he picks it up, and flips it over, and right there in ballpoint pen, smudged on some characters, it reads,

i hope there will always be room to dance for you. congrats on the baby boy, i wish you both the best.

mom (grandmom?)

Dabi isn’t quite sure what he’s looking at. Probably a note, one that was given with the book. One that someone saved, tucked against the back cover where no one would give it a second glance. Once, Dabi lived like that, hiding things away where nobody was liable to look. Look where it got him.

Still, he tries to make some sense of it in his muddled brain, that feels like it’s growing fuzzier by the day. Like all the commercials and programs have faded until faint, and all you can hear is the scream of static. He tries his best. Maybe this was a gift to Tomura’s… mom or dad? It couldn’t be a gift to Tomura, because Tomura doesn’t have kids. Tomura has Dabi, his pet project. He wishes the mom slash grandmom had left a name. Maybe her initials are N.S. Maybe something happened in 1971 and he’s been ignorant this entire time.

The door to the stairs slams open and the note falls from his fingers. Dabi rushes to snatch it up and stick it in the book again, playing an act of being only mildly interested in the novel and lamely flipping a page when Tomura glances over at him as he descends. Dabi’s mind is running a mile a minute, but he stays cool, and he doesn’t even sweat. Tomura asks him, “What are you reading?”, but he’s just being polite. Dabi doesn’t budge an inch. “Jus’ somethin’ on the shelf.”

Tomura looks over at the cover, and Dabi flashes it at him to be polite right back. His face does something funny when he sees it-- his brow furrows a slight bit, and his mouth twists into an imperceptible scowl. But Dabi sees it. Dabi knows how to pick out the different pieces of Tomura’s expression and translate them. He’d better, by now. Still, he turns away towards the worktable, and he says, “Any good?” Dabi, because he’s still trying to hold down the anxious shakes of Tomura nearly catching him with contraband, not that he can even be blamed, says, “Nah. Too abstract.”

Tomura snorts. He seems pleased with this answer. Dabi has a terrible feeling, deep in his guts with a stomach-shaped hole.

Late at night, when Tomura has retired upstairs again to go to sleep for a few hours, at least, Dabi theorizes. Tomura had looked unhappy to see the book, like he was looking at something he thought he’d already thrown away. There is no trace of anyone but Tomura and Dabi down here, none other than the note he’d found. There’s probably never been anyone else down here to leave a trace. Yet here is that post it note, like there’s a life that’s been had outside of this basement. Like there’s more to Tomura than meets the eye. Maybe his eyes have been dyed by the life he lived while Dabi was six feet under. Maybe something had happened.

1971 isn’t much of an indicator of anything, but now that Dabi has established that Tomura had a mother and a father and a grandmother at one point, ones that had never even seemed to exist when Tomura was young, he assumes it was the year one of the parents was born. He isn’t sure if the initials belong to the grandmother or perhaps grandfather, but he figures it wasn’t a baby. But if Tomura’s parents had never been around even when he was younger, how did it end up in his hands? They hadn’t thought to take an heirloom, wherever they had drifted off to? It rings as missing a piece in Dabi’s head.

Still, there is a story here, and Dabi has always been too scared to write the endings himself, so he has to resort to a method other than thinking about it when Tomura’s not around. Perhaps he can just… ask? It’s not like Tomura would be anything other than miffed at being reminded of his parents again. He’ll probably give a noncommittal answer like it’s nothing, and move on. What does Dabi have to be afraid of? Is there something to be afraid of? Is this uncharted territory, from now on? Dabi crosses his fingers as tight as he can, and dozes off.

Tomorrow, Tomura has come downstairs to tinker before Dabi’s even up. He stirs to the rhythmic clinking of medical tools. If he cranes his neck when he manages to sit up, he’ll see a somewhat juvenile cat spread out with its skin flayed against the worktable. But Dabi gets a little queasy about guts-- yeah, yeah, with his body, yeah, he gets it-- so he forces his eyes to the side. He can’t even see the cat’s face. Its tail is limp, hanging over the side of the table lifelessly.

When Tomura finishes whatever he’s been trying to do to it, and one of his jars of formaldehyde is filled with weird and pink things, Dabi pipes up. “Hey, boss.” He calls out, a little louder than he intended, and Tomura looks up over his shoulder and leans around in his swivel chair. “What?”

Dabi clenches his fist at his side, invisible to Tomura. It’s now or never. “Did you ever actually have parents?” He asks, casually, as if he’s asking about the weather outside today, information that Tomura divests routinely anyway. Tomura doesn’t freeze, he doesn’t tense, his expression just sours. “Unfortunately.” He says, bitter. “But I wasn’t good enough for them.”

See, that just doesn’t track with Dabi’s train of events, because based on that note and the fact that Tomura had procured the flask after his parents had likely had it and not straight from his grandmother, Tomura’s parents must’ve liked him at least a little bit. He just can’t figure out why it seems that way from so little evidence, so he thinks against fighting Tomura’s words. “Why not, anyway? Kind of fucked up thing to say to a kid, right?"

Tomura, having looked away for a second, glances at Dabi out of the corner of his eye. “They never liked me from the moment I was born.” He says with finality, his tone signalling he’s ready to quit this conversation, because he probably has better things to do, like dismember more stray cats. Dabi can’t let his chance slip away like this. “Did you not like them either?” He blurts out. His hands are shaking, the absolute tiniest bit. Tomura notices, because Dabi is Tomura’s pet project of seven years. Because they’ve been together this long.

He turns around fully in his chair, looking straight through Dabi with his bloodstained napkin eyes. “What are you asking, Dabi?” He asks, and his face is just daring Dabi to lie. Because Tomura will know, because he always knows. Because he was the one who put Dabi’s brain back together from the sludge it became in only nine months. So Dabi fesses up, and he says, “Didja kill your parents, boss? Before we even met?” He licks his lips. “Didja kill mine too, when I was still dead?” His voice is desperate. “Please, boss, I gotta know.” His tongue feels like sandpaper. “Did any of ‘em make it out alive?”

Tomura sighs and stands, walks over to the end of the surgical table that Dabi’s sitting on and sits beside him. He raises his hand up, and he threads his fingers through Dabi’s hair, coming down to rest his palm against Dabi’s cheek. “There aren’t any more Todorokis, Dabi.” It feels like he should be saying Touya, but he doesn’t. He uses the name he gave Dabi, the one he gave him the day he woke up. Because Touya had died. He hadn’t brought back Touya. And he’d dragged the rest of them six feet under, too. Family graves and all that jazz.

Dabi’s hand comes up to grasp his wrist. “Do ya promise, boss?” He asks, and his tone is shaking so slightly it’s like his throat is vibrating, scared to slow down. “You promise? Tomura?”

Tomura mimics his action from yesterday, and smooths his thumb over the grafts beneath Dabi’s eye. It runs across tough scar tissue and staple and dry, human skin. “I would never lie to you.” He murmurs, and his eyes feel like pity and empathy. His eyes look like he longs to wrap Dabi in his arms and refuse to let him go. But he won’t, because his brain knows better. Tomura has always known what’s best.

Dabi’s hand falls away. Tomura adds, “You’re all alone now. But you’re with me, so you can live.” He speaks it like a sermon. Like a prayer. A few decades ago when Dabi got baptized, he thinks it went something like this. He can’t cry, but Tomura has allowed him something better-- the seam between his scars and skin begin to bleed, below his eyes. “Oh, Dabi.” Tomura looks at him gently, and smears the blood across his cheek. “You don’t have to think about it anymore. It’s been too long.” His voice sounds like the only warm blanket Dabi will ever receive.

And it is. Dabi has spent seven years in this basement, and he has never once said a word of wanting to leave. Because Tomura killed his parents, so he doesn’t really have anyone left either. Because there’s no one left to reconnect with outside. Because everyone that knew him couldn’t accept that he came back as easily as Tomura could.

Relief wells up in him like a fountain. It spews everywhere, and Dabi feels just a little bit in love.

Notes:

apologies if this got a bit long winded at times. i was not sober when i wrote this

a bit of a timeline:
dabi age 10 + tomura age 8 meet
dabi at age 20 dies and stays dead for nine months
tomura age 19 excavates dabi's corpse and brings him back
dabi spends seven years in the basement and is aged 29 at the time of the fic

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