Convalescence || Dabi x Reader

Chapter 1: A Great Start to Winter Vacation

Warnings: none

___

Third Person POV

The city in the wintertime can be treacherous. When it snows, driving is impossible and with the New Year's festival approaching quickly, crime rates have significantly risen. A much greater number of civilians are either out and about shopping or elsewhere on vacation, so heroes are all working overtime to curb the increasing quantity of villainous acts.

Today, the temperature is 4°C, just above freezing, so the cloudy sky deposits a cold rain onto the houses below rather than the long awaited first snow. The world radiates a gloomy air; despite this, the students of UA are alive with anticipation for winter break.

One of the better students of class 3-A, a seventeen-year-old (h/c) girl with a powerful fire quirk, rushes out the front door the moment the final bell rings through the halls. She ducks to avoid an obnoxious first year who flies out the door on his red wings, but she pays little mind to it. Walking through that front gate to freedom is the only thing on her mind.

Nakajima (y/n) knows that her parents left the country for an anniversary vacation earlier that day, so she would have the entire house to herself for the entire break. That means spending time with whomever whenever she wants, waking up without an alarm, and not needing to complete a scrap of homework. Lucky for her, considering she hadn't checked the weather that morning and had forgotten to bring an umbrella, the rain seems to have stopped for the time being.

(y/n) speed-walks down street after street, hoping to get home before the rain started up again. As she leaves the central city area, the space between the buildings appears and grows – not that she paid any mind to this. A few blocks away from her home, one of these alleys echoes with the crashing of metal against the concrete ground, which startles the young girl into instinctively raising her arms into a defensive stance. (y/n) uses her fire quirk to better illuminate the dark passage searching for the cause of that racket. She spots a metal trashcan that had been knocked over halfway down the alleyway, but the reason for its oversetting lies limp upon the cold damp ground beside it: a body.

(y/n)'s POV

"Oh god," I say to myself as I rush over to the collapsed figure. My eyes scan them from head to toe trying to collect as much context information as possible. Aside from their snow-white hair, the most obvious piece of the puzzle is the burn marks covering almost every inch of their body; they appear to be old and not well treated since many of the areas of convergence between the scorched and healthy skin are infected. I turn them over onto their back and check to see if they are still breathing or conscious. The former appears to be true, but I notice something more shocking: they're just a kid!

They – or rather 'he' now that I can see his face – seem a little younger than me. From the looks of his ragged dirtied clothes and his ... concerningly thin figure, he must have been out on the streets for a while now, which shatters my heart. How have they been able to survive alone like this, and for how long?

Before I can delve into this line of questions any further, my thoughts are interrupted by the boy's opening eyes. His tired turquoise orbs look around weakly as if he's drifting in and out of consciousness, so I take this opportunity to try to talk to him.

"Hey, hey, stay with me here. Talk to me if you can. What's your name?" I ask as a starter to perhaps tether his mind to the present moment, but he doesn't give me a response of any form.

"Alright, you need immediate medical care, so I'm going to take you to the ER at the hospital. Can you-," he cuts me off with his hand and grips my forearm weakly. The boy frantically shakes his head 'no' to me without uttering a word; however, that action must have used up what little energy he had left because he almost immediately passes out after doing so.

As his hand falls limp to the ground, I speed through my options, but a few drops of cold water interrupt my thought process. It's starting to rain. I can't leave him here to die and he doesn't want professional help – he must have a good reason behind it from the terrified look in his eyes – so what should I do? What can I do? The rain begins to fall harder upon my back, so I follow my gut instinct, pick the boy up – he feels like he weighs the same amount as my bookbag – and start racing toward my house. I shiver as the icy cold rain seeps through my uniform, so I use my quirk to keep the two of us as warm as possible.

The moment I unlock the door to enter the house, I slam the door behind me and take in the warmer air. Oh right, where do I put him? I don't want to upset his condition any further by making him rest on the couch, so I carry him upstairs to my family's guest room. When I lay his figure upon the bed, I realize that I can't leave him in his drenched clothing or else his blood pressure and circulation will be affected. The thought of undressing a boy in their sleep makes me uncomfortable, but as a future hero, I will do what is necessary.

After making it so that the boy is dry and in clean clothes, I work through a list of what I can do next to keep him stable enough for him to eventually come to: raise the temperature of the room, put a warm washcloth over his forehead, layer blankets over top of him, and prepare light food and water for him to consume when he awakens. Thank you, UA, for requiring that ridiculously in-depth first aid class in our second year. Regardless, when he wakes up, I will need to be here, awake, and well-prepared, so I decide to do more research regarding burn and infection care while I wait.

He will need antibiotic pills and ointment, a clean razor to assist in any pus removal, moisturizer, possibly some painkillers, lots of bandages, and some vitamin and protein supplements. Thank All-might and any god out there that my parents are gone and left me with an unnecessarily grand amount of money on my debit card to keep myself alive in their absence. And being able to order store-to-doorstep delivery online is a gift from the heavens because I certainly don't want to leave a completely helpless stranger alone in my house – at least not until I am convinced of his trustworthiness.

What even is my plan here? The healing process is lengthy, and if I send him back into the world anytime soon, he will surely return to the horrendous state he is currently in. What am I going to tell my parents? Hey mom, hey dad. I invited a homeless stranger into our house for a couple weeks and spent a bunch of money on medical supplies, I hope that's okay with you. No, I can't do that. How would they even react? I've got almost three weeks until they return for me to formulate a plan, so I don't need to worry about that right now.

My phone buzzes on the corner table I'm sitting at in the guest room, and I find a text alert from one of my classmates. Apparently, they've organized a winter break party tomorrow night for all of class 3-A and 3-B at their house, or rather their mansion. My gaze washes over the sleeping form on the other side of the room, and I semi-reluctantly decline the offer. With that many people there, I doubt that I would enjoy most of it anyways. As I continue scrolling through different apps and notifications on my phone, my ears catch some rustling from beneath the covers.

___

A/N: If you haven't read my writing before, know that I enjoy writing things at the end of each chapter, typically regarding plot structure, easter eggs, or random though processes I have during the writing of the chapter. I just have a lot to say all the time.

I also am going into pre-med, so I will be doing an unnecessarily large amount of research and will be extra descriptive when it comes to medicinal processes / scenes. It might be a hobby; It might be an obsession. Either way, I'm going to have fun with this, so deal with it.

Word Count: 1475