Hmm... alright. I think it’ll be angsty, though, so you might regret asking. But then again, it’s Dabi/Touya, what do we expect? :^) I’m thinking this up on the fly btw, so here I go
Touya is a little younger than Dabi. In the dimension he came from, he didn’t run away. He didn’t fake his death. He endured everything. Even when other dimension Dabi finally lost his patience, lashed out when he was younger at the pivotal moment that landed him the burns that Enji was oh so willing to give at the time, Touya stayed silent. He protected his younger siblings as best as he could, and he didn’t say anything against his father otherwise, up until that one fateful day several years later, when he finally cracked.
So now the white bandages wind around his neck, all the way up to his chin. Because of the scarring/burns around the lower half of his face, he wears a black face mask, leaving it so only the top half of his face, which remains unscarred, is visible.
He’s paranoid, defensive, and since he manifested outside the League’s hideout in a parallel dimension only a few days after he’d gotten the bandages on, his voice is still sore and achy. His selective mutism doesn’t help his case either. All he wants is to feel safe, to be loved and understood.
Dabi, who’s had to fend for himself for much longer, is very much willing to give him all of that.
It’s Dabi who finds him in the first place, curled up in a ball and passed out behind the dumpster, as if he’d just been dropped out of the sky like a broken angel.
He recognises him instantly, eyes widening, and the man doesn’t show the slightest sign of waking up even as Dabi swears and bundles him into his arms, kicks the door down to the hideout and brings him in to settle him down on the couch. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he can’t leave someone who looks almost exactly how he used to a few years ago laying outside without doing anything.
He inspects him, eyes roving over his familiar features, the mouth mask, the bandaged neck. He’d had to wear those himself when he was far younger, but these looked new. Almost like the pain he’d had to experience all those years ago was far more recent to this stranger. But who was he?
His clothes are pristine, like he hadn’t even been there long, and though the stench of waste permeates the air, it’s not the heavy kind that’s been festering in fabric for days nor weeks. It had barely even settled into his skin.
After what seems like hours of Dabi pacing nervously, waiting for the other members to come back and tell him what the fuck he‘s supposed to do, what sort of messed-up nightmare prank this is, the man finally groans in his sleep.
Dabi freezes in his steps, peering at the familiar stranger slowly rousing from the sofa. His eyes are still shut in pain, and he hisses quietly through the mask as a hand lifts to rub at his temple as if he had a hangover. But it can’t be, because Dabi smelled no alcohol on him, and in any case, drunken men are the least of his worries when the man looks almost exactly like his past self.
Then at last, the hissing stops. The masked man seems to feel the surface he’s on, realising he’s not where he was before. And then, his eyes snap open, hand coming down to grab at the side of the couch, at the arm of it. Not recognising anything, he stands up and turns, defenses set high and ready for attack.
And panicky blue eyes meet curious blue ones.
