Dabi's POV:
'Let me use you.'
He smiled to himself as the words replayed in his mind once again. He couldn't help it. It was too amusing.
"I'm going to bed," you called from your doorway.
Dabi looked up. "Try not to be too loud whenever you dream of me tonight, princess."
As expected, you flipped him off, a gesture he'd grown very familiar with within the days the two of you had lived together. Your bedroom door shut, leaving him alone on the couch once again. Hopefully, with everything that had happened that night, you would fall asleep relatively quickly. There was a phone call he needed to make.
He dimmed the lamp standing in the corner beside him and looked back down. Use him. Sure, he'd let you think that's what you were doing.
He hadn't expected it to happen so quickly, but it wasn't all that surprising. He'd given you a small taste of the pleasure he could provide in the bathroom the night before, and already you'd begun longing for more. Maybe achieving his goal wouldn't be quite as difficult as he thought.
The only issue was that you were still holding on to that god-forsaken pride of yours. Somehow, you'd managed to maintain most of the control throughout the entire experience. Even when he'd thought that he'd managed to put himself in a position to dominate you completely, you'd managed to pull him back. His desire had made him succumb to your ploy.
It didn't matter, though, because he'd felt it. The way your body reacted to his, it was as if it had been designed to take him perfectly. Every curve, every dip, everything about your body felt molded specifically for his touch. It had made him hungry. Enough so that there had been a single instant, where, lost in the euphoria of his release, he'd forgotten that he was merely toying with you. Entertaining the attraction purely for his physical enjoyment.
Dabi brushed away the thought. The moment had been a fluke, a result of the overwhelming pleasure he'd sought for so long. And it had been short-lived. As soon as he'd looked down and caught your eyes studying him so thoroughly, he'd snapped back to reality.
He was used to the stares. Every girl he'd been with had studied him like that. Regardless of the pleasure he'd given them, they could never see past the scars that marked him as a monster. Since you hadn't asked about them, Dabi had unintentionally deluded himself into thinking that you were different than the others. That, maybe, you'd been labeled a freak so much in your own life that you didn't care about the differences of others.
Of course, it was a stupid thought. All people were the same. And with scars that made him so noticeably different than others, how could he expect anyone to look past them? Why did he even care? People's opinions didn't matter. Ever since he'd left his old life behind, he'd vowed never to look up to anyone ever again, to never care about what people thought of him. Such things only caused misery. Because in the end, people never lived up to your expectations of them. Everyone was simply... disappointing.
To his side, his phone buzzed. Dabi picked it up, squinting from the brightness of the screen, and read the message that had appeared.
-------
Number Unavailable:
It will happen two weeks from now. We will meet two days before to finalize our preparations.
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He placed the device down and sighed. The League of Villains always had such tedious tasks for him. Why would they need him now, of all times, when he finally had a lead that could bring him closer to the weapon he sought?
In all fairness, though, this particular mission had been his idea. So, there wasn't much use in complaining.
The phone began buzzing again, and he expected it to be another message from the League, but it turned out to be a call. Dabi looked at your doorway, trying to figure out whether you would be asleep now or not.
"I told you to wait for my call." He spoke softly after answering.
"Oh, right." The person on the phone said. "My fault, but you can't be too mad at me because I figured out a way to get access to those case files you've been looking for."
Dabi sat up. Luckily, this was a conversation that he didn't mind you overhearing. "How?"
"The higher-ups at the hero commission are coming to visit next week. I don't know how long they're planning on staying, but there's going to be a party held in their honor about two weeks after they get there. So, three weeks from now."
"How is a party going to give us access to police files?" He asked.
"I was getting there." The person cleared their throat. "The party is going to be filled with high-ranking officials and almost every employee of the commission is going to be there. There's gonna need to be a shit-ton of security. Almost every member of the police force is going to be guarding the place in case there's a villain attack, which will leave the files relatively unguarded. All you need to do is get in there, get what you need, and get out. Easy peasy."
He thought about that. Not a horrible plan. There were a good amount of things that could go wrong, but he had two weeks to prepare himself. "Do you know where the files are kept?"
"They're gonna be in a room inside of the main police headquarters where all of the sealed records are kept. I'll be able to send over a map of the place to you. But other than that, it's up to you to figure out how to get what you need."
"I can handle that."
A yawn came through the speaker. "Alright, and by the way, you owe me for this. The information wasn't easy to get."
"Sure it wasn't," Dabi responded dryly. "I'll call you whenever-"
A scream cut him off, the sound immediately causing him to sit up. His instinct took over and he was running to the bedroom, dropping the phone to the floor.
Was someone hurting you? That had to be it, the echo of helplessness and fear ringing through the air was the same as he remembered from when he was a boy. From the nights when his father had come home and his mother had been the target of his anger.
His body was moved before his mind could process and logical thoughts. It was automatic, a habit he'd buried for so long ago that he'd believed it to have died with the rest of his old life. Dabi flung the bedroom door open, a ball of blue flame already growing in the palm of his hand, but there was no one there. No one besides the girl in her bed.
He extinguished the flame just as your eyes opened in surprise. You blinked a few times, looking around as the rise and fall of your chest began to slow back to a normal pace. Dabi stared, unsure of what had just happened. His mind had caught up with his body, but the two still failed to work in sync with one another.
"Why are you in my room?" You asked, the question pulling him from his stupor.
"You screamed," he responded. "I thought something could have happened." Is that why he had come? Had it been out of worry for you, or because instinct had taken over?
"Oh," you looked away. "Just a nightmare."
Dabi leaned against the door, attempting to look like none of his composure had been lost. "Must have been a hell of a nightmare to have you so freaked out. It sounded like someone was hurting you." Like you were dying.
"If someone gets close enough to hurt me, I'm not gonna give them the satisfaction of making me scream."
His eyebrows lifted in amusement. "Good to know."
You pointed to the doorway. "Yeah, you can leave now."
"You're shaking, princess." He could see it, even in the dark of the room. Something had rattled you hard enough to cause a physical reaction.
"It's cold," you replied.
"Oh? Is that also why you're covered in sweat? Do I need to turn the heater even higher than it already is?" He was prying, he couldn't help it. It was obvious that your pride had been wounded, and he was only making it worse. But he was curious. What kind of nightmare could elicit such a purely terrifying reaction?
Memories, he realized. The most horrifying nightmares were those that forced you to relive your darkest moments. Nothing imaginary could ever be as haunting as reality.
You looked back up, irritation shining brightly in your eyes. "Dude, keep talking and you're sleeping in the alley."
"Remember the last time you tried to make me do that?"
"I'm giving you three seconds to get out of my room before I pull the knife out from under my pillow."
Dabis' eyes glanced down. He wouldn't put it past you. Raising his hands in mock surrender, he turned and stepped into the hallway. "Hopefully, that nightmare was the last one for the night. Because you are seriously not an enjoyable person whenever you're tired. Don't need anything else keeping you awake."
Something that sounded oddly similar to a blade hit against the door just after he'd shut it.
Although the interaction had been short, and it had turned out to be fine, his nerves still buzzed. Looking at the ground, he noticed that the call was still active on the phone. Dabi picked it up and pressed it to his ear. "Why are you still here?"
"Oh, look who's back. I told you not to answer the phone if you're gonna be murdering people in the middle of our conversation! I don't like the sound of their screaming interrupting me. For once in your life could you politely respect people's wishes?"
He rolled his eyes. "That happened one time. And I wasn't technically the one doing the killing. Those screams were courtesy of a girl with a bit of an obsession with blood."
"I don't care about the details. It's very rude to be doing that while talking to someone on the phone."
"Apologies," Dabi spoke sarcastically.
The subject drifted back to the original point of the conversation. "I'll send you the information. And remember, you owe me one now. I already repaid you by spying on that girl over the weekend. Who, by the way, is much more attractive than I'd anticipated."
"Don't say that too loudly," he said. "She'll hear you and let the words go straight to her ego."
"Hey, a confident woman isn't something I'll ever complain about. I mean, she-"
His voice lost all sense of humor. "Stop talking."
Junichiro had been right when speaking of his possessiveness. It was an uncontrollable urge that settled over him any time he desired someone. And after the night's events, that urge had befallen him once again. People could admire you, fall in love with your personality, whatever bullshit feelings they wanted, but your body was his now, even the people he was closest to could piss him off by making even the smallest comment.
Hesitant words could be heard through the phone. "Ok, um, sorry. I'll send you the information and call you when-"
"No," Dabi interrupted again. "I will call you."
"Oh, you are incredibly annoying when you switch and get all dark and angsty. Alright, you will call me. I'll just wait around here, twiddling my thumbs until you do."
"Don't act like you don't have plenty of tasks you could be completing in the meantime."
"Couldn't hear ya. Sorry. Bye now." The call ended.
Dabi loosed a long breath and set the phone down before walking into the kitchen. Overhead, one of the lights had started to flicker in an annoyingly disruptive way. Someone would need to fix that.
He opened the fridge and peered inside. Although he'd gone grocery shopping, there still weren't many things to choose from in terms of a meal. In all honesty, he'd never actually had to buy food like that before. He was used to instant ramen and cans of soup that he could grab from whatever convenience store was closest to him at the time. When buying food that could go into a fridge and be made into things, he'd found himself at a loss.
He wasn't going to admit that, though. He'd find a way to make this random assortment of foods into something. And next time, he'd just pay close attention to the things you brought back from the store, subtly, of course. Admitting to you that he didn't know how to grocery shop would be a harsh blow to his pride, and would likely lead to endless amounts of taunting.
Fuck, he was hungry. He looked deeper into the fridge, there had to be something that could serve as a snack of some kind. Otherwise, he'd just have to endure another night filled with complaints from his stomach.
Being a functional member of society sucked. Who would want to constantly have to think of ingredients and foods to buy? Instant meals were so much easier.
He'd been standing with his head in the fridge for too long now to give up, he'd figure something out.
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Y/N's POV:
After grabbing the blade from where it had embedded itself in the door, you flipped on the lights and sat back down in bed. The throw hadn't been aimed to hit him directly, it only would have flown close beside him, a warning shot of sorts.
You sighed. Why did the guy have to be so confusing? Going from being pissed off, to fucking you on the floor, to claiming you still annoyed him, and ending the night by checking on you after your nightmare.
"Why him, of all people?" You asked, turning to the photo of Ami sitting on your nightstand. "Out of all of the villains, you had to go with the hot, confusing, asshole?" You loosed an exasperated breath. "And you can't judge me for anything that happened tonight or last night. You can't just choose a super hot villain to come and live here, and then not expect me to act on it. You know my type."
In your head, you could hear her responding with something like. "I'd just assumed your type wouldn't include murderers." To which you had no good response.
Well, you thought, rolling back over, there was no way you'd be going back to sleep at any point tonight. You'd hoped that maybe after such an exhausting evening, you would be tired enough to keep your mind quiet, but it seemed that wasn't the case. Now you just needed to decide how to spend the rest of the night.
As if on queue, a growl from your stomach reminded you of the fact that you hadn't eaten anything since your lunch break at work. The fridge would be a good first stop for the hours you had to spend awake.
You slowly pulled yourself out of bed and threw on the nearest pair of pajama pants from the floor. While sleeping, you always managed to kick them off at some point, and now there were random pairs of them surrounding each side of your bed. At least right now it was sort of convenient.
The lights in the hallway flickered as you stepped out of your room, something that didn't phase you anymore after living in the crappy apartment building for so long now. What did catch your attention was the fact that the lights were even on at all. Had Dabi not just gone back to the room he was staying in after he'd come to check on you?
He hadn't. When the kitchen came into view, you saw Dabi standing in front of the fridge, a soft, white glow surrounding him as a result of the bright light coming from inside. His head was tilted to the side, and his fingers drummed against the door as his eyes scanned the contents of the fridge.
You almost laughed. "Starting to realize what an awful grocery shopper that you are?"
At the sound of your voice, Dabi looked up quickly. A little too quickly, though, and you couldn't help but laugh this time as he hit his head against the edge.
He turned toward you, and you could see the smallest flush of embarrassment spreading across his face, even as he schooled his expression and attempted to act unphased. "Why are you sneaking up on me in the middle of the night? Or..." he looked over at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. "I guess it's technically morning."
You shrugged and walked fully into the kitchen. "I didn't expect you to be out here, and I figured your supervillain senses would notice me before I said anything." Stepping beside him, you reopened the fridge. "I guess you're not that cool though."
"Why are you even up?"
"Same as you, I'm assuming. I'm hungry and I can't sleep. I'm gonna make something if you want some." You reached into the chilled air, pushing aside various items that he'd brought from the store. You'd been able to tell as soon as you'd started unpacking the bags that the man had not gone grocery shopping even once in his life.
"I already ate," he stated. "But I think I used most of the good ingredients. Not sure what's left."
"Lying to me isn't going to work, you know. Remember how you came back here yesterday in a pissy mood and I had to be the one to put the food away? I think we both know that there were no 'good ingredients' to begin with."
"You told me to go shopping," he made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "I went shopping."
"Yeah, with a blindfold on. Why didn't you just text me and ask what we needed?"
"Because I didn't need help."
"Sure you didn't." You shut the fridge door and walked to the pantry, hoping there would be something worth eating in there. If you remembered correctly, there'd been one or two things he'd bought that could be made into a snack of some sort. "Ok, there's rice. We can start with that."
Dabi came up behind you. "See, that's a good ingredient."
"It is one of the most basic things to buy. I would be extremely worried if you hadn't even gotten rice." You took the bag under your arm and rummaged through the other contents of the pantry. Snagging a bottle of vegetable oil and soy sauce, you turned and headed to the stove. "You turn on the rice cooker, I'll get the other stuff."
You set the items down on the counter and reached to grab a pan from the cabinet above. Dabi didn't move, and you looked at him impatiently. "Hello?"
"I'm not hungry."
Right, like he hadn't had half of his body in the fridge searching for something to eat. "Don't tell me you don't know how to cook rice." He looked away, crossing his arms over his chest, and your jaw opened slightly. "There's no way. Weren't you making eggs the first morning you were here? How do you not know how to cook rice?"
"Eggs are easy."
"Rice is easier." Dabi didn't have an answer for that, and you sighed. "Here, I'll teach you."
"What? Why? I don't need to know that sort of stuff."
"I'm not going to have a roommate who doesn't pay rent and doesn't know how to cook. If you want to stay with me, you need to know that sort of stuff." You went to a drawer and sorted through the inside until you found the measuring cup. After pouring the right amount of rice, you handed the cup to Dabi, who reluctantly took it. "Ok, just rinse it off in the sink."
He gave you a puzzled look. "Rinse it? The stuff came in a bag, it isn't like it's dirty."
Wow, the guy was even more hopeless than you'd thought. It was a bit funny, but it also deepened your curiosity. What kind of life could he have had growing up where he was never shown such basic things? "It makes it better, trust me."
Dabi glanced down at the rice, and tentatively walked to the sink and turned the water on. You watched to make sure nothing went wrong, but he grasped the concept pretty well. Not like it was an easy thing to mess up.
While he was finishing up, you plugged the rice cooker into the outlet next to the stove, having to push it in with extra force since the outlet was annoyingly too large to comfortably fit any plug. "Ok, when you're done just pour it into here."
"I'm guessing that when the water starts running clear that means the rice is clean."
"Look at you. Already catching on so well."
You saw him roll his eyes, and a hint of a smile pulled at your lips. Seeing such an intimidating-looking man doing such a mundane task was much more entertaining than you would have imagined. It was something you never would have pictured. When thinking of a villain, it was rare for a person's mind to see them doing anything as simple as preparing food.
Dabi walked over and poured the rice into the cooker, and you topped it off with a little bit of water. Then, you placed the lid over top, selected the correct setting, and laid a napkin out beside it. "Ok, I think it takes like three minutes to cook."
He began walking away. "Call me when it's ready."
"Ah ah ah, we aren't finished."
"Huh? Don't we just eat it once it's finished?" He stopped underneath the kitchen light, which had begun to flicker, you noticed.
"We're not just eating it plain. What kind of person do you take me for? I take my nighttime snack very seriously. When it's finished cooking, we're gonna make it into rice balls."
"That seems unnecessary," he said with an exasperated look.
"Hey, you don't have to have any."
As you'd expected, he walked back over and leaned against the counter without a word. Whenever the rice was finished cooking, you waited for it to cool down slightly before washing your hands and beginning to shape it into the correct shape. Dabi watched with resigned interest.
You looked at him, and then down at the rice. "You should try it. Just take a good handful and mold it with your hands until it's in the shape that you want."
He shrugged. "Seems pretty easy. I didn't want to bother, but I guess I'll do one."
"Uh-huh." You were very familiar with the whole 'acting confident while having no clue what you're doing' act, and Dabi was refusing to dismiss it at all. You watched as he fumbled with the rice, some of it even dropping to the floor, and placed your finished rice ball onto the napkin as he let out a mumbled curse.
"Pretty easy, huh? Here," you reached over and felt his entire body tense when you placed your hands over his. "You have to hold it firmly, and use one of your hands to press against the sides until it makes the triangular type shape."
"Oh, right."
It took a moment, and the shape was far from perfect, but it was good enough. Some of the tension had eased from Dabi's arms, and he'd begun to mold the rice without completely relying on your help. "See? Not too bad."
"Yeah." His voice had taken on a different tone. He no longer sounded annoyed, or arrogant, there was a bit of a daze surrounding him. And the look on his face wasn't something you recognized.
Pulling away, you reached and turned on the stove. A hiss went through the room as you poured a small amount of oil onto the pan. "Now, we just cook them until they're a little brown and crispy on the outsides, but still soft on the inside. You'll be in charge of putting the soy sauce on them while they cook."
He did as you said, taking a spoon and gently rubbing the sauce along the outside as they cooked. The comforting scent filled the air, and for a heartbeat, things felt normal. The sizzling sound of the rice cooking was the only thing you could hear. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine that Ami was in the living room, waiting for you to finish so she could turn on whatever crappy movie the two of you had picked out.
"I think you're burning that one." Dabi pointed to a rice ball that you had forgotten to flip, and you were shaken out of your head.
"Shit."
Casually, as if the heat didn't bother him at all, Dabi reached and picked up the semi-burnt riceball and placed it on its other side. He did not react, not even the slightest inclination that he'd felt anything.
"Does that not hurt?" You asked, eyes wide.
"Physical pain doesn't affect me," he answered. "Trust me, I've been burned by something much hotter than a pan that's on medium heat."
"I guess that makes sense."
Dabi stared at you expectantly, almost like he was waiting for you to say something else, but you didn't. After another few seconds, you turned off the stove and moved the riceballs back to the napkin.
"Don't you want to use a plate?" He asked.
"You're welcome to do so, but I will not be doing any dishes."
"It's a single plate, I can rinse it off when we finish." He reached over and grabbed one of your smaller plates from a cabinet.
"Ok," you chuckled softly. "I won't complain."
"That's a shock," he took his food, not bothering to wait for it to cool. "You complain about a lot of things."
"Maybe," you said. "But I'll never try and make a problem out of someone else doing the dishes."
After Dabi had already eaten half of his, your riceball had finally cooled down. You picked it up and held it out. "Cheers."
"Huh?" He swallowed his bite.
"We are going to bump our foods together to celebrate the fact that you now know how to make more than one meal."
"Why?"
You rolled your eyes. "Dude, come on."
"Fine, fine." He lightly tapped his half-eaten riceball against yours. "Cheers. Now let me finish my food in peace."
"See? It isn't bad for a snack that I had to make without a lot of ingredients to work with." Your eyes shifted. "I think I'll be in charge of the grocery lists from now on."
"Sure, whatever."
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Ahh. Sorry, this took so long. I have been working so much and have been so tired every day when I get home I just have not been able to write much. But next week should be my last week of back-to-back ten-hour shifts, so, yay!
Also, I kinda just realized that I turned a single night into almost three chapters. Whoops. I promise things are gonna get more interesting, but they've gotta build up, and I guess this night was a pretty important one in terms of that. I've dropped some subtle hints throughout the recent chapters that some of you may or may not pick up on hehe.
Happy holidays everyone! And if you don't celebrate anything, happy Friday! Hope you people are doing well. It's like eighty degrees where I live, which is bullshit, so I hope you guys at least have some nice winter weather wherever you are.