Convalescence || Dabi x Reader

Chapter 4: A Mind-Reading Quirk? (No)

Warnings: descriptive medical terminology

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Touya's POV

My instincts scream at me to refuse her help, to not let her touch me again, but one look at how disgusting my arms are convinces me otherwise. Yet again, (y/n) speaks truthfully and respectively while also being able to pick up on my mood instantly. As frustrated as I am, I know I cannot refuse her aid.

But do I deserve it? Do I deserve any of the mercy gifted to me? After everything that happened, every disappointing effort, I was supposed to die that day cold and forgotten. Then why am I still here? I know the answer is because (y/n) saved me, but why would she be sent to do so? What have I done to make fate change its mind?

Well, perhaps I did die, just not entirely. I'm not sure what part of me did, but (y/n) has never spoken a lie to me and can peer right into my being; if someone so intelligent yet compassionate believes that I am worth saving, then they must be right. In this moment, I finally find the nerve to give her a slow consenting nod.

Calmly and smoothly, that is how she moves. She leaves for a few minutes and returns with gloved hands, several towels, and a few water bottles. Taking these and the small container from the floor, (y/n) lays out a few of the towels, sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed, and holds out her hand to me. A moment passes before I move forward enough for her to reach me comfortably and place my left wrist into her patient hand.

Her eyes, shining a calming shade of (e/c), are close enough for me to look into them deeply; their gaze is strikingly solemn yet soft, and it overwhelms the gaze that I return. I can almost feel her looking into every nook and cranny within my mind, so I quickly snap my attention to the familiar hardwood floor beside the bed.

From the corner of my eye, I watch her work with precision and focus. Pouring the water and catching it with a dry washcloth, (y/n) cleans the wound, and then around it with the now-damp cloth. She wipes down a pair of tweezers with alcohol next, returning to my wrist to start removing all the remaining dirt and crud. She moves gradually around the converging section of healthy and dead skin, leaving a tolerable stinging in her wake; however, when she finishes with that, she moves on to a blister on the side of my hand and the several pockets of pus around the rest of it. Without any type of numbing solution or anesthesia, the razor cuts through every piece of skin painfully. It is nothing compared to when I got these burns, but the sensation still makes me grasp the bedsheets forcefully with my opposite hand, hopefully out of her view.

My ear then catches a soft melody: a humming coming from (y/n). It sounds semi-similar to a lullaby, but it certainly has the same effect. I sense my body unconsciously relax to the sweet sounds and my mind is carried away by the tune. Then, (y/n) looks around my back to look at something before smiling and continuing her work and her song. After everything is clean, she rubs some antibiotic ointment over the entire area and wraps it up using a wet dressing and the first of many thin wrapping bandages. For some reason, she doesn't bandage the rest of my arm, but I don't mention it.

"The charred skin can hold well on its own – so something like a shirt or loose jacket wouldn't affect its condition – but something as close and tight as a bandage would cause it to flake and peel off. And with this much scarring and the extended period of time between whatever incident caused it and now, more harm than good would come of it," she says, answering my question.

Could she have a mind reading quirk? Is that why she's been able to read me like one of her books; she's inside my head? If you are, and you can hear this, tell me! Stop playing pretend and reveal yourself. (y/n) gives no response, verbal or otherwise, and simply moves her supplies to the other side of me to work on the next area. I find my own hand no longer stiffly gripping the bedsheets. Was that what she had noticed?

"While I'm on the topic of your scarring," she starts before momentarily focusing on the bottle of alcohol. Please do not ask about how I got them; I don't want to think about it ever again.

"As I suspected, because the scar is so old, it is beginning to peel away from the healthy skin, which is obviously something we don't want to happen. The bandages are tight enough to hold them together for a while, but you'll need a more permanent solution. I've been researching a few options – I'll go over what I've been considering to you later – but regardless of what we use, these infected areas need to heal first. Make sense?"

Nodding again in response, she returns to her work. The entire process takes several hours, spilling into the early morning. The borders sting incessantly by the end, and both of us are exhausted by the procedure. (y/n) was kind enough to bring me another round of the analgesics – she took some herself for the headache she had – but she stubbornly did not have the energy to get up a second time and fell asleep on the floor. This would be the first night of sleep that she's had in this room, but after struggling through the past few hours, I am far too tired to care much about it.

I have the human decency to put one of the throw blankets over her before I lay down. My back is tender and putting more pressure on it turns the stinging to a burning, but the exhaustion quickly takes over my body, drifting me into a numbing slumber.

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A/N: Most of this story is what I would categorize as a slow burn, and as much as I love nearly every single piece of it, I will admit that trying to do so with ADHD/Bipolar brain is difficult. This issue also comes with reading slow burn – and just reading in general.

I do hope that I'm doing this well, and let me know if something could be done better because I love feedback – even if it's just a quick 'that was cute' or 'it would read better if you phrased this sentence this way'. So if you have any thoughts or criticisms, comment and let me know. Either way, I hope you're enjoying the story thus far. Not much has happened, but it gets better, I swear.

Word Count: 1156