My Memories Etched In Snow

@bluecremation

Natsuo had managed to find the criminal 'Dabi' and still barely believed it himself. Could this man truly be Touya?

"If you are who you claim, then tell me why- Why didn't you let me know you were still alive? We had a funeral for you and I refused to believe you were dead, I thought maybe you just ran away... But when they found it, I knew that he must have had something to do with it," he admitted, referring to what had been left of his sibling's jaw bone. The only evidence that Touya Todoroki had, indeed, existed before he was proclaimed deceased.

The look in the other man's eyes makes him flinch, like he's being skewered by twin needles filled with venomous bile. Feeling the heat roiling from the flames gathered within palms that were little more than scar tissue, surgical staples, and pieces of grafted skin.

So much rage. So much pain.

"You've never been weak. You're the strongest person I know, Touya. You shouldered so much and I didn't listen. None of us paid enough attention to how badly you were hurting and I just... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry that I wasn't there for you when you needed me and I know I don't deserve it, I don't-" he trails off, roughly scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his right hand.

@iwillburnitalldown

"I give a shit, you idiot. What do you think life's been like for me this whole time, what bullshit fantasy world do you even live in?"

He tries to calm himself, hands trembling as crystalline frost begins to form in the surrounding air.

🌌 ⸺ ;  With his emotions at a 𝑯𝑰𝑮𝑯 and added confusion because he doesn’t understand his feelings. Most of the time Dabi feels 𝑵𝑶𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑵𝑮 and holds little regard for himself. Fuck, he goes out of his way to just fucking feel something. Dabi’s 𝑺𝑯𝑶𝑪𝑲𝑬𝑫 about the blooms of emotions Natsuo is yanking from him.

Something deep within Dabi snaps when he’s watching Natsuo collapsing before him. It’s a sense of 𝑷𝑹𝑶𝑻𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑰𝑽𝑬𝑵𝑬𝑺𝑺 that Dabi hasn’t felt since his childhood. Now he doesn’t know where to put his rage.

Why does Natsuo have to be the one to 𝑨𝑩𝑺𝑶𝑹𝑩 Dabi’s rage 𝑨𝑳𝑶𝑵𝑬? Dabi’s anger surrenders to Natsuo’s greif. 

“I’d never hurt you Natsuo.” Dabi 𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑵𝑲𝑺 he means that…. Regardless he reassures his brother, but not fully understanding how family dynamics work. Dabi knows how to make friends and keep them at a distance, but he’s not able to do that with Natsuo. Not with someone so important to him. 

Dabi uses the back of his hand to wipe his own face from the tears. 

“Do you mean it?” Cautiously Dabi steps forward to his brother. Dabi watched Natsuo’s quirk flicker with the need for built up energies. “Anything I asked?” Dabi is terrified… He hasn’t been this 𝑽𝑼𝑳𝑵𝑬𝑹𝑨𝑩𝑳𝑬 in years. 

“Don’t cry Natsuo. I’ll look after you for the meantime. Everything will be over soon and there will be a calm.”

Natsuo’s eyes are puffy and reddened from his crying, guilt and shame making him lower his gaze to stare uselessly at the pavement. 

“Even if you did, we both know that I’d deserve it...” he admits, sniffing loudly and using the sleeve of his jacket to daub at the streaks of tears and frost clinging to his face. 

When Dabi exhibits trepidation, he stares back into those familiar blue eyes and nods firmly.

“Yeah- Yeah, of course I would! This whole time I never really believed that you were gone. I mean, we had the funeral and everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to...” he trails off, looking almost fearful that if he uttered the words aloud, then Touya might disappear again or crumble into ashes for real.

“Fuyumi, she- She tried to get us all to play at being a happy family together, not that I blame her for just wanting us to not be so fucked up, but... I couldn’t stand there and act like you didn’t have a say in things, too. Everyone wanted to pretend like the forest at the peak didn’t burn down, or that you didn’t exist. Shouto was just too young to really remember you at all, but I’ve been waiting- This whole time, I knew that you had to be alive somewhere.”

It felt so strange, yet natural to fall back into their sibling roles- Touya always managing to get a confident handle on the situation while Natsuo floundered and struggled. Not that his elder brother hadn’t fallen victim to his emotions before, but he tended to try and hold himself together too strongly- Until everything just reached a deafening high note and went off the rails. He’d always managed to just keep pushing his own limitations.

Good night. Good night. Good night. Welcome home…

Get reckless, and it’s goodbye- Go quicker and further away than anyone else! There’s no going back from here- After all, there’s no consequences!

@bluerage​:

🌌 ⸺ ;  Dabi keeps a distance between them, but he can hear Natsuo’s words. It’s like a gentle hand just touched him and 𝑻𝒐𝒖𝒚𝒂 wakes. It feels like 𝑩𝑬𝑻𝑹𝑨𝒀𝑨𝑳 to have feelings wake up and bubble up to the surface. Had Touya really belonged and not a failure to his namesake... Maybe he shouldn’t have been so focused on Enji...

In another world where Touya is saved, would Dabi even exist? A sudden panic comes crashing over him. Dabi can’t lose his identity. He won’t go back to being a child begging for attention from anyone.

𝑯𝑬❜𝑺 𝑳𝒀𝑰𝑵𝑮!! 𝑫𝑶𝑵❜𝑻 𝑻𝑹𝑼𝑺𝑻 𝑯𝑰𝑴!! He doesn’t realize the blood is flowing down his face. Dabi’s too focused on glaring at Natsuo with rage.

𝙃𝙊𝙒 𝘿𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝙉𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐𝙊 𝙂𝙄𝙑𝙀 𝙃𝙄𝙈 𝙁𝘼𝙇𝙎𝙀 𝙃𝙊𝙋𝙀.

“I love you very much, Natsuo... but you’re getting on my last fucking nerve.”

𝑰❜𝑴 𝑻𝑶𝑶 𝑭𝑨𝑹 𝑫𝑬𝑬𝑷. 𝑰❜𝑴 𝑻𝑶𝑶 𝑭𝑨𝑹 𝑮𝑶𝑵𝑬.

If Dabi no longer has his hate, then what does he have? It’s been 𝒀𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑺 alone and only looking out for himself. He barely understands what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like.

“What if I 𝑪𝑨𝑵❜𝑻 give you Touya, huh?”

He can feel the warmth of unshed tears as his vision blurs, but tries to hold them back. Natsuo’s lower lip is trembling, so he presses his lips together tightly, front teeth digging into the flesh hard enough to bleed. 

It’s not enough. 

He watches the red, red streaks and rivulets of blood drip down his brother’s face and can’t help but see Touya- Kneeling there in the dark of their shared room, eyes so wide and filled with confusion and pain it was like a cold knife sinking through his chest.

“Why won’t he let me try, I can handle it- This is nothing! It doesn’t even hurt! I read about it, see... If you train your mind a certain way, you can block it out and it’s TRUE! Not just for pain, neither. It’s EASY, once you get the hang of it-”

For Gods sake, they were just kids... And yet Natsuo still carried the weight of his guilt around like a trawl ship dragging it’s anchor. He should have done something, tried to tell someone- But he’d been afraid, so afraid. And he let his own fear take precedence over the well-being of someone he cared about, had been practically attached at the hip with before... 

“What if I 𝑪𝑨𝑵❜𝑻 give you Touya, huh?”

The question cuts through the chaotic jumble of his thoughts and memories, like a spear thrown straight into his heart. What had he hoped to achieve, saying all this? Again, he was only thinking of himself- His own benefit, what HE wanted. 

“Then...”

His fingers dig hard into his cargo pants, blunt nails scraping against his upper thighs even through the fabric. His face is damp (when did he finally allow himself to cry?), frost crystallizing on the surface of his skin. The air around them becomes heavier, tiny flakes of snow fluttering to the ground in an aura around him. He’d never been good at controlling his Quirk when he got this upset.

“Then what can I do...? If there’s anything- Anything at all, I just... I want to be able to help you.”

If I contributed to Touya’s death, then...

“Don’t bring that in here! Are you TRYING to get us cursed?” Natsuo backs away from the Ouija board, visibly uncomfortable. 

He still remembered the night when he and Touya played ‘Hide and Seek Alone’ and his brother seemed to get temporarily possessed when it was his turn to hide from the doll. At least one of them had been able to burn it, while Natsuo emptied all the salt they had in various areas of the house once the ‘game’ was over.

Sometimes he even had nightmares about waking up with a doll standing at the foot of his futon.

Despite being scared, he pouts a little and sits down cross-legged.

That night seemed somewhat hollow Even innocent respect and affection, as simple as pouring water Started seeming so absurd Let’s crawl on the earth in hatred I, inferior as a human, am a corpse

Natsuo carries his guilt around like a cross on his back, even though there was only so much he could do for Touya as a kid- Even though they were CLOSE, their relationship became strained by the increasingly obsessive circular logic Touya started to display and Natsuo’s limited capacity to understand what he was going through.

He does still hold Enji accountable for Touya’s death (of sorts), but he also is ashamed of himself for not being a better emotional rock for his brother. He had no gifts nor special skills that made him ‘important’ or ‘noticeable’ enough to get much attention from anyone, so the one thing he felt he could do RIGHT was be there for Touya and share part of his pain.

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