Skin

Mercy

Since the altercation with Yoku, Dabi had become more distant with his comrades. As if he wasn't like that already. He went from sometimes showing up to meetings, to now getting a quick text from Twice or Toga updating him on their next move, or if they had any new recruits and running it by him before letting them join. Dabi just started replying with simple "whatevers" as the days went on. His focus on the League blurred out into background scenery, the phone calls from them was white noise, their goals had become nothing more than dreams lost in the sea of impossible wishes.

"What are y-" Endeavor cleared his throat, "I wasn't expecting you." Dabi wore a scowl on his face as he met eyes with his father. Endeavor scratched the back of his neck not knowing where to go from here.

"Not even gonna ask how I found your new house, huh?"

Endeavor snapped himself back into things and looked back in the house, seeing many boxes that still needed to be unpacked. "Oh, well I'm sure you have your ways."

Dabi rolled his eyes following it up with a scoff. "Listen, coming here is the last thing I wanted to do."

"So why did you?" Endeavor asked coldly. "If you're here to ask about Shouto, I don't have any answers for you. Your brother hates me as much as you do." He paused, looking up and down at the disguised man in the tattered hoodie. "Dabi."

For a split second, Dabi could have sworn his father just called him- no that can't be right, he thought. There's no way. That wasn't his real- well yes it was. But he couldn't decide if- yet he made up his mind. "Hold on. Are you messing with me right now?"

"What? That is your name now, right?"

"Yeah but-"

"Then what's the problem?"

Dabi clenched his jaw and exhaled harshly as his fists shook, "Who do you think you are?" There was a long list of things that Dabi hated, and one of those things was being patronized. Especially coming from his father of all people. "You're still a piece of shit father regardless of what you owned up to, so don't stand there and think you get to look down on me!"

"You chose your path!" Endeavor shouted back, "Me, Shouto, your mother, we all tried getting you to make the right choice but you didn't."

"You don't get to tell me what's right and wrong!" Dabi argued, "You lost that privilege a long time ago!"

Endeavor crossed his arms, "You're right. I'm not your father. My son burned in flames years ago. He's been dead for a long time and I lived with a shrine of him in my house to remind me of it." He lowered his head down to meet eyes with the man on his doorstep, "His name was Touya."

There was something about someone else saying that Touya Todoroki was dead that messed with Dabi's head. When he said it, it was like having a sense of power and a new found persona. When his own father said it, it felt like he was being abandoned and forgotten all over again. There was no way he'd ever long for the affection of Enji now, but knowing that he came to terms on the situation and who his not-so-son decided to be, Dabi felt like he lost total control of the very thing he brought to the light. The truth.

People always say there's three truths. Your truth. The other persons truth. And the actual truth. Dabi wanted his truth to be the only one that existed. In a perfect world where things weren't too complex, he would be in the right. Unfortunately, nothings that simple.

Dabi stared on blankly. Then he realized, he really did lose full control of the situation. He went from being the puppet master to just a mere onlooker in the crowd. This couldn't be happening.

"So that's it?" Dabi swallowed the lump in his throat and scoffed to make it seem as if he wasn't hurting. "Just gonna shrug me off and leave me in the past along with the rest of your mistakes, huh?"