peril; dabi x reader

ii.

quick sidebar: this starts SLOW. there is a lot of exposition but i promise ol' staple stud will arrive eventually. for now, enjoy some heavy erasermic and everybody's favorite bird boy.

happy reading! x - lo.

The world seemed to have stopped entirely. No, it hadn't stopped. She had just disappeared. It was if she no longer existed, her corporeal body dead and gone as she stared at the corpses in front of her. She fell to her knees, a pair of striking red wings appearing behind her almost immediately.

"They were alive, Keigo. I swear to God, they were alive..." She choked, numbness taking over her throat. His hand rested on her shoulder as he, too, stared at the nightmare ahead of them. He lifted his radio to his lips. "We have casualties-" he whispered, forehead leaning against the receiver as soon as his thumb had left the button.

Everything happened so slowly after that. She was whisked away to the hospital to treat the gashes on her legs and arms, Keigo never leaving her side. He held her hand in between his own, looking on pensively.

"I know what you're probably thinking," he began as he turned to her. She was emotionless as the suture went through her skin, stitching up her release wounds.  Usually, she wouldn't need this- it was the one place on her body that she could heal herself, but this time, she chose to feel the ache.  She felt that she deserved to feel it.  Somehow, despite the thickness of the needle puncturing into her wounds over and over again to bring the tissue back together, there was pain, no discomfort... just guilt. "You didn't know, (y/n)." He picked up her chin to look at him, golden eyes filled with the most pure understanding one could offer. "You didn't know." He was firm, and she nodded as she looked away, taking a deep swallow.

No, she didn't. She didn't know. She assumed, so she pulled, so she moved them, she yanked them. It was shock, that's why the woman was still talking... she killed them. Something else may have pierced them, but it was her fault. She murdered them.

But she couldn't tell Keigo that, not yet, so she nodded again while he kept talking.  He was good at that- Keigo had a way of speaking a whole lot of words without saying anything at all.  It reeked of a false persona, but she knew that he didn't like to get into that. The seemingly empty words weren't penetrating her thoughts at all. Her mind was clouded with guilt, like her neurons were entirely disconnected from her brain as the vicryl went through her skin, over and over again.

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Despite her older brother's protests, (Y/N) would not allow him and Shouta to take her home.  She would make her own way, spirit bruised as much as her body was as she ambled from the taxi up the steps.  Ivy was starting to grow up the side.  She wondered if she could convince Hizashi to keep it this time, insisting that it added character to the house. When she arrived at that morning, Hizashi had made sure her sheets were clean and all her laundry was done. Shouta had told him that he would need to give her space- he had a tendency to be overbearing at the best of times.

 She was able to be slightly more honest around her ever sleep-deprived friend. Shouta had always been an excellent listener and he was rational, yet validating. They had a system between the two of them- Hizashi was the one who helped someone feel better the more outward way, Shouta was the one who helped them untangle their thoughts.

 "Sho." She whispered from the opposite side of the shower curtain. She was sitting on the floor of the shower, soaked with remorse as the water flowed over her. Her knees were tucked up against her chest, her forehead pressed against them.  This wasn't the first time that they'd been like this- Hizashi tended to distance himself whenever (Y/N) got into one of her 'spirals', whereas Shouta stuck by her.  He felt almost as if she was a sister, too, having known her since they were all but children.