eternally yours

Eight

You pull him inside and shut the door with your foot.

"Dabi." You say, trying to adjust your grip on him as best you can. He doesn't answer as you drag him over to the bathroom and a sinking feeling starts to settle in your stomach. "Dabi." You try again to which he groans quietly, "Stop yelling."

He's burning up. The purple of his scars on his chest and arms are bloody and blistering and his forehead is damp with sweat, his skin paler than it usually is and hot to the touch. You help him into the tub and start pulling off his jacket and easing him out of his shirt and when both items are in a pile on the floor, he has the audacity to try and smirk. "Still trying to get me out of my clothes?"

"If you're fine enough to be cracking jokes then you don't need my help."

"No, wait."

You give him a pointed look and turn on lukewarm water to fill up the tub. As soon as it touches him, he flinches. "It's cold."

"It's not that cold, you're fine. And take off your pants." You hold up a finger as soon as he opens his mouth to say something inappropriate and cut him off. "No dirty jokes, no snarky comments. Just do what I tell you. Can't do my job properly if you keep them on." As you speak, you turn away from him and start gathering things you might need, making sure not to look at him in order to give him some semblance of privacy.

"You got some nerve." You grumble as you pull out a towel and forcibly throw it on the space next to the sink before rummaging through your shower products. The water in the tub sloshes.

"Showing up here like nothing happened last night and expecting me to help you." You find some aloe vera gel, some hair care products and a clean cloth and throw them on top of the towel. "I mean... yeah. I would, but still." When you look back at him you see that he has rested his head back against the edge of the tub, his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling in short gasps as the water fills the space around him.

Much of your initial, and rather unnecessary, aggression starts to melt away and you turn off the water when it's high enough, grab his pants which are floating in front of him and rinse them out before throwing them in the sink.

"Who did this to you?" It's hard to keep the emotion from seeping into your voice when he looks as pale and sickly as he does.

When he finally decides to speak, his voice is a low, raspy whisper. "I did this to myself." His gaze is trained on the tile of the wall opposite him. "My body can't handle my quirk. When I use it too much, this happens." He sighs. "Hawks and Endeavor sure helped, though."

Hm.

Having a debilitating drawback to a quirk is something you're all too familiar with.

You take the clean cloth, run it under the cold water and sit on the covered toilet seat right beside him. "Why do I always end up having to patch you up?" You mutter as you gently press the cloth to the side of his face. His tired eyes find yours and you brush the hair away from his face, your fingers trailing down to rest against his cheek as you move the cloth to his forehead. "Just relax, okay? I'll take care of you."

He nods ever so slightly without looking at you and you get to work in cooling him down and getting him cleaned up, the water becoming soiled with blood and dirt as you clean his wounds. You try to be as gentle as possible, especially with his arms since they've taken the most damage, and try really hard not to think about how he's sitting here in just his underwear.

Occasionally, you have wondered if his scars went down to his legs and your thoughts are confirmed as you clean up the blood around the staples on his legs, the scarring traveling down the side of his thighs before wrapping completely at his calves just below the knee. The scar on his shoulder from the damage taken by Hawk's feathers looks a lot better, but the line of staples  joining the scarred and unscarred shin together is bent and deformed where you had to take the damaged metal out.