watch me burn || BNHA DabiHawks

12. promise

Dabi hisses sharply, shaking his hand in hopes of alleviating the piercing shot of pain. The man whose face he's just hit lets out his last 'ugh' as blood bursts from his nose and he finally topples down to the ground, unconscious. Which seems like a fucking miracle, seeing as Dabi's been trying to achieve that for about ten minutes at this point. Honestly, he was starting to think this guy had a hidden endurance quirk or something. There are only so many times a normal person can take a punch to the head and not pass out.

Still bemoaning his hurting hand, Dabi turns to the victim, a lanky teenager, who for some reason is still here, and grimaces. "There must be some truth to calling people thick-headed. No idea what his scull is made of but it sure as hell ain't bone."

The young boy has been standing just slightly out of the way for the entire fight – probably way too close to be considered safe, honestly – and is now staring at his fallen attacker with an unhealthy amount of glee. Dabi doesn't doubt that it's nice to see the person who was intending to hurt you knocked down a peg – in fact, he knows for a fact it's fucking fantastic – but there's something particularly disturbing about this boy's expression that just rubs him the wrong way. He would not be surprised if he ended up having to fight him too.

Which would be on par with how his night has been going so far. Luck has definitely not been on his side today. First, he was trying to help a nice homeless guy get a little warmer, but somehow got distracted by a cat – Aizawa's wretched influence, no doubt – and ended up setting half of the guy's things on fire instead. He apologized profusely, of course, and pushed enough money into the guy's hands to cover twice what he destroyed, but still. It wasn't his proudest moment. After that disaster, he got involved in a nasty fight with a pair of minor gangsters, and he won, sure, but he also broke a nail and ripped open his clothes in several places while doing it, so does it really count as winning? And now he can't even knock out some dickhead without getting his hand hurt in the process.

Naturally, it's all Endeavor's fault. That conversation from earlier today has left Dabi unusually rattled – and also super fucking pissed. To the point that he ended up throwing his bedroom window open and smoking four cigarettes in a row, despite having promised himself he wouldn't do it in the house, and the worst part is it didn't even calm him down that much since he's been worried about getting caught the entire time. No wonder it ended up reflecting badly on his performance once he eventually decided to go out and take his frustrations out on the local assholes. Endeavor somehow always manages to fuck up everything good in his life, even unintentionally.

"I, uhm, thank you?" the strange teenager says, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. He can't be older than fifteen or sixteen, with bright hair and bright eyes, and clothes way too fancy for a sketchy back alley in a sketchy part of town. "You didn't have to do that."

Dabi quirks an eyebrow. "You don't say?" And then, seeing the boy get flustered, he barks out a laugh. "No need to thank me. It was my pleasure."

Intent on walking away before anyone can get too interested – he didn't bump into Aizawa at any point during his misadventures, meaning it's most likely the man's day off, meaning there's nobody around to save him if he gets himself in trouble again – Dabi turns around to leave, but is stopped by a sudden grip on the sleeve of his hoodie.

"Wait!" the boy pleads, weirdly desperate. When Dabi twists his head to shoot him a questioning look, he immediately gets assaulted by some aberrant kind of puppy eyes.

He sighs, but reluctantly stops trying to get away. "What?"

If he's about to get stabbed again, he's going to be so pissed.

"I just... I mean..." the boy stutters, oddly shy all of the sudden. "You're... you're Dabi, right?"

"Does it matter?" he asks coolly, but inside he's freaking out a little. Because what the fuck? Why would some random kid know his name? What could he possibly want from him?