A Lost Creation

Ohana

When you wake up again, the room is dark, and you can feel the familiar warmth of Dabi's back against your own.
The more you come around, the clearer the mumbling in the room, his mumbling, becomes. Muttering something about his dad looking at him again, with a little broken whine and flinch here and there.
You really must have been dreaming, the dream so real that you actually feel tired as you awaken, as though you'd been doing exercises before your eyes had opened.
You turn around, cuddling into Dabi, your face pressed tightly against his back.

"Pawpaw?" You call quietly, not wanting to wake him too abruptly and get burned again.

He'd been really sad after that had happened before, after all.

He doesn't respond, his body stiffening as you press yourself against him. The sleepy murmuring stops, too.

"Dabi?" You call again, not even questioning why he was in your bed when you'd been sleeping separately recently.

You just assume it's because of his dreams. Maybe he had sought you out for comfort like you did when you had bad dreams. Especially now Tomura was rarely home, he probably didn't feel he had anyone else to come to.
He was always so... distant with the others.

He groans, turning over and throwing an arm over you to pull you closer to him.

"Shh." He replies sleepily.

"I had a bad dream." You inform him as though he's fully compos mentis.

You feel his chest rise and fall with a deep sigh, his breathing becoming a bit more regular and his hand moving to rub your back slowly as he seems to draw himself from sleep.
You remain wordless while he recollects himself, listening to him yawn and partially stretch himself out, while still making sure to hold onto you.

"What happened?" He asks after a while, his already raspy voice even more gravelly with sleep, making it sound as though the words were crackling in his throat.

"Some mean men took me and Giran away and took all of his fingers off!" You reply more enthusiastically now that he's awake. "And then Uncle Jin was making clones of you, 'Mura and Compress to come and save us!"

"Star..." Dabi sighs, his arm pulling you impossibly closer.

His face presses into the top of your head, his metal sutures catching in your hair in a way that tells you you're definitely awake this time.

"You're safe now." He soothes with his crackling words. "Ain't never gonna let you be taken again, darlin'."

"But it was just a dream, pawpaw." You reply. "Right?"

"Go ta sleep." He yawns. "We can talk about it in the mornin'."

"Okay, sorry..." You whisper, wishing you could see his expression, to see if he was mad at you or just tired.

You pause, fully awake now, even though it looks quite late at night from how dark the room is. Dabi still continues to rub your back, even though he seems to forget he's doing so occasionally and slows to a stop, it seems to take a small snore from Dabi for him to start picking it back up again.
You giggle quietly after the third snore that wakes him up again.
You feel his lips pull upwards slowly against your head.

"Sleep, twerp." He grumbles, squeezing you immediately after as if to reassure you nothing is meant by that word.

"Were you having a bad dream too, Dabi?" You ask quietly. "You were talking about your dad..."

"Sleep." He repeats, more bluntly this time.

You take the hint, shutting up immediately, instead focusing your attention to counting his staples through his shirt, using your finger to run over each one.
It doesn't take him long to fall back to sleep, little soft breaths fanning over your hair while he slumbers.
You're still wide awake though, counting the staples you can reach over and over again until your eyes feel heavy enough for you to fall asleep again.