watch me burn || BNHA DabiHawks

15. once bitten twice shy

"I'm not playing monopoly with her," Dabi proclaims loudly, his arms stubbornly crossed across his chest as he stares down an equally persistent Fuyumi.

"You're just scared you're going to lose," she mocks, narrowing her eyes. "Again."

Dabi splutters. "I only lost because you cheated!"

She smirks at him, tilting her head. "Isn't that the point of that game?"

The rest of their family – Rei, Natsuo and Shouto – are all sitting on the couch, watching them with various levels of amusement. Dabi and Fuyumi are standing on opposite sides of the carpet, right in front of them, obscuring the view of some soap opera quietly playing on TV – to the great displeasure of their youngest brother, who got really invested in that one lady cheating on her partner with four different people, two of them being her partners' twin siblings. Their mother and Natsuo, on the other hand, don't seem to mind, entertained enough by the vicious argument he and Yumi are currently engaged in. Natsu is even munching on popcorn.

It's been a few days since Dabi's conversations with his parents and, so far, things have been going surprisingly well. Endeavor has barely interacted with any of them, still, but when he did, it's mostly been civil, albeit incredibly awkward. No violence though, which is a plus. Dabi considers buying some 'good job' stickers to reward Endeavor for every day he manages to refrain from yelling/hitting/setting anyone on fire. They say positive reinforcement is a great training tool, right?

He also suspects his father must have had some heart-to-heart conversations with the rest of his siblings as well, judging by the shifts in their behaviour. His brothers' attitude towards Endeavor has mostly gone from fearful to guarded but curious, although at least Natsu seems to still be holding a grudge, much to Dabi's vindication. As for Fuyumi, she couldn't stop smiling for an entire day after leaving his office one afternoon and has been unusually cheerful ever since. Dabi remains doubtful, of course, but finds it hard to begrudge his siblings this hope, no matter how doomed it might be.

As for Rei, she got in contact with a psychologist specializing in domestic abuse survivors Aizawa recommended, the same one they decided to send Himiko to, and although she's only attended one meeting thus far, it seems to already have planted some positive seeds in her. Her own talk with Endeavor also visibly affected their relationship – she's been way more confident with him (although not without a lot of tensing and sporadic flinching), as though challenging him to try anything, most likely a part of her strategy of evaluating whether he deserved to have his demands met in their impending divorce. Endeavor has been taking it all in stride, for all intents and purposes transforming into a stereotype of a henpecked spouse. Dabi's not sure what Rei's conclusions about this are at this point, but her smile has been a tad more real recently, so he assumes she's enjoying her newfound power over her husband.

At first, Dabi was worried that revealing his true identity would drastically change the way his mother interacted with him as well, but, to his shock, she kept treating him almost exactly the same, save for occasional meaningful glances they exchanged when nobody else was looking. He is pretty sure he's heard her crying in her room the night after their talk, most likely grieving the version of her son that's no longer here, but if she feels any kind of resentment towards him for taking Touya away, she's never let it show. He's not sure if it's her repressing the knowledge to save her sanity or if she's simply decided he's her son whether he's five or fifty and there's no point in dwelling on it, but either way he's not going to look a gifted horse in the mouth.

"Can't we just play cards?" Dabi asks, rolling his eyes.

"No!" Fuyumi protests, stomping her foot.

This fight has been going on for a while now. With how Endeavor's last idea for family bonding activity turned out, Dabi took it upon himself to find something else for them to do together. However, when he proposed game night as a cool alternative, he wasn't expecting that choosing a game everyone agrees to play would be so fucking difficult.