Dabi was a sarcastic jerk who couldn’t be nice to anyone to save his life, right?..right? Maybe. But he also used to be Toya Todoroki, older brother of 4; Fuyumi, Natsuo, Shoto, and You. He used to be the one to protect his siblings from the neglect of their father, almost taking on the role himself. Of course, he had left those days far behind him, in literal flames, or at least he had thought so. But then you joined the league; his little sibling. Every feeling he’d attempted to drink away, and was almost sure was stomped down far enough not even a surgeon could get to them if they tried, came rushing back to his heart like a train hitting a rat who decided to take the wrong turn on the wrong day.

His hand gripped the worn-down armrest of the ‘cushioned’ couch he was sitting in, which had enough tears in its fabric that he was sure Shigaraki had let an eclipse of starving moths go ham on it, as he practically stared holes in the back of your head. He could see the traces of the kid he last saw you as, the kid he parented because their bullshit excuse of a father couldn’t be damned too. He stared at you with a pain in his soul, like a machete had torn through it as if it was a physical object; he could see all the scars, the hatred and pain your eyes held, how they now lacked the slight shine they used to have when you were a kid- when you were so happy and carefree- he could see everything but the little kid he used to know so well. He missed that little shit.