Into the Fire - a Shigadabi Fanfic

20 - Coffee

Something warm nudges me from my sleepy state into wakefulness. Not something - someone - Dabi. He picks me up gently, lifting me up with one arm while he adjusts his bed with the other. I can't muster the energy to open my eyes. He lowers me back to the mattress, pulling the quilt over me with a rustle of sheets, and then his arms curl around me again. I mumble something incoherent into the darkness.

"Sorry. You were shivering, so I moved you under the blankets. Go back to sleep, Chapstick."

I nestle closer to his heat, tucking my head into the warm, dark space between his neck and shoulder. His hand strokes smooth circles on my back; that touch is the last thing I know before I slide back into soft sleep.

A rap of knuckles on wood and a voice.

"Dabi? Dabi-"

I open my bleary eyes just in time to see Himiko Toga skip in and squeal on seeing me curled up in his bed. I'd forgotten I was in Dabi's room.

"I KNEW IT-"

"Shut up!" Dabi hisses from where he stands by the window, hurriedly rushing to Toga and shutting the door. Wide awake, I sit up in his bed, my clothes rumpled from sleeping. This is another reason that we need locks on the doors. Shit.

"Tomura, didn't I tell you that day, didn't I tell you - ah, I knew it I knew it I knew it!" she giggles, jumping up and down like an overexcited toddler on sugar. Dabi's turquoise eyes meet my red ones in the dusky room, dark but for the light streaming in through the gaps in his curtains. He's dressed in fresh clothes and his eyes are bright: I wonder how long he's been awake before me, careful to be quiet not to wake me. I tear my eyes away from him and to the blushing teenager prancing around. A bolt of fear goes through me at the thought of her knowing about Dabi and me, about the other villains knowing about us, when even I haven't properly figured out what 'us' looks like, what I want it to look like. My toes curl and I fight the urge to scratch my neck.

"Toga, you know how to keep a secret, don't you?" Dabi asks her, his hands casually in his pockets, but I see the wariness lingering in the slight narrowing of his eyes and the tension in his body. I thought he didn't care who knew... but he knows I do. I would walk into hell for you. I sit up properly.

"Of course I can keep a secret! I'm amazing at keeping secrets-" She babbles on, her shining amber eyes darting continuously between Dabi and me like she's trying to take in as many details as she can. Creep.

"Then get out, Toga, don't enter any more rooms without knocking, and don't tell anybody," I say tiredly. She grins widely at me, displaying her pointed canines, and then skips out of the room with fresh spring in her step. Dabi closes the door behind her, and sits on the bed next to me, twining his fingers through my hair. I rest my head on his shoulder, needing a few more minutes before I can muster the will to get up and get on with my day. Even twelve hours of sleep is somehow never enough to make me into a morning person.

"Hey, you ever had coffee before?"

"Of course I have-"

"Caffeinated?"

No. I don't say anything. He laughs in disbelief. "I knew it. Come on. Get ready and meet me in the main room in ten minutes. Just you wait for real coffee - your life will never be the same."

I yawn and stand up, moving across the corridor and one door down to my room. We villains have some privacy with the UA kid locked in a different room. I'll get to him later, but for now it's time for a quick shower, and then one of Dabi's weird 'real' coffees. Maybe it'll help me forget about the growing heaviness in my gut, the reminder that Himiko knows. I raise my hand and start scratching fiercely at my neck.