Stay with me at dawn, hide me away at dusk

4. Shouto

Of all the people to meet by his grave, Dabi was least expecting Shouto, holding an ice daffodil, the flower of rebirth, frozen and carved to a perfect point. It had been two weeks since his almost-laughable encounter with Natsuo, and the previous flowers were long gone, disintegrated by the merciless flames of time.

As Shouto stopped beside Dabi, he placed his ice-daffodil where the poppies had been, shoulders relaxed and definitely not what the villain had been expecting from his youngest brother. After the whole kidnapping ordeal, he had expected at least a wound shoulder or a defensive position, not small smile or mirthful eyes that had never been present in the Shouto Touya knew.

"You don't seem to want to kill me." Dabi stated. He half-hoped provocation would spur his brother's bloodlust, half-hoped it wouldn't.

"Fuyumi says that violence is not allowed in front of Touya's grave." Shouto said.

"Not even with a S-class villain?" He teased in a gentle way that was too much brotherly and not enough villainly.

"Well, it would be especially rude to attack the inhabitant of said grave." And Dabi's heart stopped. Hawks was understandable, Fuyumi was natural, Natsuo was disappointing, but Shouto, well, this was unexpected. Even with the little memories that Shouto did have of Touya, none would be enough to see him in Dabi, especially if the trauma kicked in and tried to erase those certain memories.

He went for a neutral look to disguise his initial shock and dying heart. "Did Fuyumi tell you?" Because there was no other explanation.

"No, I have a sixth sense that can detect possible relationships." There was one possible other explanation.

He was kind of relieved though, because if Natsuo ever found out... he was hoping the man would go his whole life believing that Dabi was Touya's drug dealer, because humour.

He was villainous that way.

"Ah." He said. What else was he supposed to say?

Somehow, the ice flower was still intact. It sat ever so frozen on the grave and Dabi had to hold back the temptation to burn it like everything else in his life.

He wondered what sort of silence he would leave the graveyard in this time. But he never left. Because as Shouto walked away, he was reminded of what he had left behind. The grave in front of him that represented his failures. The brother he couldn't embrace or apologize to because his brother didn't remember him enough to be mad in the first place.

He couldn't cry, so instead he sat and stared and thought over choices in his life until sleep took away the thoughts and replaced them with a broken slumber filled with voices from the past.

...

I need a therapist. And a life. And fewer siblings. I need a lot of things.