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greytoiletpaper · 4 years ago

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Bathe Me in the Purest Water (I Don’t Feel Clean)

Yeah, so I wrote this like a couple months ago and i only just caught up with the manga and just... wow. I loved it, and I guess I just want this solidified here :). And yes, this fic was originally inspired by this comic, I love it so.

AO3 link

It is a shrieking wail bouncing off the walls of the Todoroki household at ungodly hours of the morning that has Touya bolting upright drenched in a cold sweat. Briefly, he wonders how fucked up it is that he thought he was hallucinating the sound. It is nothing like the cries of his siblings he has long since memorized. Yet, something about the sounds is so raw and so young, that refuting them as little Shouto’s cries is impossible.

Touya finds himself sprinting from his room, searching all over for the source of Shouto’s wails. The awful noise rings from every room and in his eardrums that he even considers whether the youngest Todoroki somehow developed a second quirk. Enji would have a field day with that. His mind is compartmentalizing, but joking is the only way he can stay sane when Shouto’s wailing turns into screaming. When he stumbles into the kitchen, he wishes that the joke was reality rather than the sight that greets him.

There is a kettle in the shaking hand of his mother while she mutters her husband’s name under her breath. Her eyes dart around every part of the room except the screaming face of her youngest son. A raw burn is on Shouto’s face, marred and angrily red as if a scalding liquid has run over it. There is evidence abound to figure out what happened, but that is yet to be Touya’s concern. For the rest of his life, no sound will ever haunt him as much as his baby brother’s screams turning into a weak gurgle.

He misses the way that Rei flinches when he moves closer, how his mother shrieks her husband’s name even though Enji only returns home from his mission tomorrow. Instead, all his attention is on the brother who looked up at Touya like he hung the stars curl up in a ball and shake. It is five seconds later when his other siblings rush into the room that Touya snaps out of his fugue. He gathers Shouto in his arms, whispering frantic platitudes in his ears and praying for the health of his baby brother.

Todoroki Touya is twelve when he has to bandage half of his five-year-old brother’s face. Their mother is sent to a mental health ward the next day, and their already-burning family peels more at the edges.

---

It is beautiful, the way that its form crinkles and curves at the edges. In all of his time with Cremation, he has never seen the azure flames seem so… gentle. Endeavour’s fire is like his rage, pure concentrated firepower that is only broken by small, consistent licks of flames at the edges. Touya’s flames are akin wildfire, they lash and lance and branch out in a chaotic collage that only he seems to be able to tell discern the individual licks of flame. Yet, in his hand, the flames seem so docile in their current shape, made of small bits of fire that skirt and weave themselves in a trance-inducing pattern.

Their shape is simple, but the forget-me-nots that his flames have formed are the product of the past three weeks of hard work and practise. Since Enji has stopped training Touya in favour of Shouto, he has had so much more time to focus on fine-tuning his quirk. His father taught him how to make his flames hotter and so much more destructive but here before his eyes is the proof that his fire can be used to make something instead.

He tries not to be guilty at the fact he gets to have this while his baby brother is beaten black and blue the floor below him.

Across him, his mother’s face lights up in her scarce, genuine smile that reminds him that even with all her cracking pieces, Rei Todoroki is still a mother that loves just as much as she is hurt. (She is so very hurt and there is nothing he can do to take it all away). It is thanks to her that he even learned controlling his quirk is possible.

It seems ironic, that he learned how to destroy with his flames from his pro hero father but is learning fine control from his civilian mother.

“That’s a beautiful flower Tou-chan,” He blushes at the nickname, but his mother is rarely happy, so he does not protest. “I hope one day all of you can do this with your quirks, it’s such beautiful artwork we can make with what we have been given.”

With her ice, his mother forms a beautiful, twinkling rindou flower and cups it in her hand. It is breathtaking to look at, seemingly ethereal with the frost emanating and little flecks of snow dancing in the lamplight. It is rare for Rei to use her quirk and every time, Touya is lost in the way that the ice seems to flow and skirt as if a small part of a blizzard appeared and made her craft. If he looks closer, the movement of his mother’s ice is familiar, shifting and undulating in ways so, so similar to how his fire is in his hand right now.

The quirk doctors said Touya inherited his mother’s constitution, everyone assumed it meant he was weak. He can apparently control his fire as if it were an ice quirk. Using Cremation for too long makes him feel like he is physically melting. In hindsight, he should have realised just how literal the quirk doctors were being.

---

He read in a textbook once that sometimes twins can swap their intended quirks in the womb. Fuyumi grabs the kettle from its undoubtedly searing bottom without even a wince, even though she has an ice quirk that freezes her arm at just a second’s usage. For the time being, it was the furthest thing from his mind. Shouto only barely breathing and all Touya wants is to hold someone so young and already so scarred in his arms and take all his tears for himself.

---

A week later, Enji puts Shouto back into training. Everyone protests this, but there is hardly anything they can say that can sway their father when he pulls his Endeavour face and disregards them in his own way of lovingly shoving his other children to the ground. Does Touya feel some satisfaction that the old man hesitated for a second before he lays his hand on Fuyumi? A little, but it fades as quickly as it came when there is still nothing stopping the prick from forcing their baby brother from being put back into what is no doubt extra hours to make up for “valuable training time gone to waste”.

Enji’s words, not his.

Frustration, anger and pain – so much pain – is what spurs Touya into action. He leaps onto Endeavour’s back, furiously trying to pry Shouto from the sick bastard’s hands and earns a knee to the gut for his efforts. Enji leaves him in the hallway and even though his other siblings are moving him to his room all he can think is how his baby brother looks so afraid as if he knows this time there will not be a mother to comfort any of them afterwards.

---

He wakes to the sound of Shouto’s tears slightly muffled in the central courtyard. The sun is only on the cusp of rising but sleep had eluded him for hours regardless. In the morning rays, his baby brother’s face is a mess of tears and aborted hiccups. A pang sounds in his chest, Shouto is so young (they all are) and he already has to learn how to make himself silent in fear of the flaming shadow that is their father. There is a small patch of ash by Shouto’s feet and soot on his face. Touya has a hunch as to what happened, but it never hurts to see his brother’s perspective.

“What’s wrong, Shou?” His question is met with silence, so he pushes on. “Did you burn yourself?”

Only an idiot would ignore how Shouto flinches at the question, so Touya crouches gently to make himself seem as non-threatening as possible. His baby brother does not relax, but a soft mumble just barely escapes him.

“It’s scary.”

“What’s scary?”

“His half.”

Touya frowns, just because Enji is why Shouto has fire, does not make it solely their father’s fire. Even then, no child should live in fear of their quirk. Although, looking down at the skin grafts on his wrists, Touya is in no place to judge his baby brother’s fear.

“Why do you think it’s scary?”

Another silence stretches out, and Touya can see his baby brother’s struggle to process the words. He almost changes the topic when the rest of Shouto’s confession spills out.

“It looks too much like his. I don’t want to burn myself too much and I still can’t control it. But dad keeps pushing me and- and I don’t want to-.”

Shouto looks like he is going to explode with tears, the wicks of flame and ice coming off him signal how close he is to a meltdown that would no doubt bring their father in screaming. Without thinking, he pulls his brother close, enveloping his tiny shoulders with his arms and making soothing motions on his back. While Shouto quietly sobs into his shoulder, Touya ruminates on how to comfort the boy with how to control his fire, which is the exact train of thought that makes him huff a laugh.

“Hey Shou, I’m going to try teach you something Mom taught me. You wanna see?” Looking at the soft, tentative smile Shouto gives him when Touya pulls away, he cannot help but be drawn by how much it reminds him of their mother’s. He holds out his hand palm up before his brother. “She taught me how to control the pieces so that it hurts a little less.”

The courtyard is thrown in shadows highlighted by the blue of Touya’s flames, and he can see just how enamoured Shouto’s face is in the azure light. He has the curls of his fire shift and form the forget-me-not that he has been practising making for so long.

“See Shou? Fire is not always that scary.”

Shouto only makes a small noise of assent, his eyes still entranced by the small dancing movements of his eldest brother’s fire. He reaches out, hesitantly, and tries to cup his hands around the flames.

“Can I learn how to make one?” The change in attitude throws off Touya for only a moment, but the shy, almost hopeful look in his brother’s eye would never have him say no even at gunpoint. He smiles.

“’Course Shou,” It is still a gamble trying to see if Shouto can use his fire this way, but Touya cups his brother’s hands anyway. “Try making a little fire first.”

The flame in Shouto’s hands starts off as little embers before igniting into a small flame just about the size of the boy’s fist.

“If you start off small and make all the pieces of your fire slow down even just a little, you can make things with them.”

Shouto frowns at the words, mulling them over in his head as the fearful parts of his face fade away into the focus he is exhibiting now. Slowly, the licks of flame seem to move in a blend of wild, yet seemingly calculated movements as they form into a stem. Shouto giggles even as it holds the form for all of five seconds before they give out. Touya laughs at the adorable pout that crosses Shouto’s face and holds his hand out for a high five.

“That was a great job, Shou!” It is. Touya took way longer to have that kind of focus and he held the stem for only half the time. He says as much. “Don’t worry that you can’t make the full flower right now. Mom and I can teach you. One day, your flames make a shape that means a lot to you and you only.”

As he ruffles Shouto’s hair and the boy gives him that look like he hung the very stars, Touya sees the shadow of his father crossing the walkway above them. Moment over, Touya picks his brother up and faces him away from Enji while staring the man down.

“You want something to eat?” Shouto makes a mumble that roughly translates to ‘cold soba’ and Touya laughs in spite of himself. “Come on buddy, I’ll take you to mom and fix some up for you.”

---

The water scalds his skin and his thoughts are a jumble of painmakeitstopmompleaseimsorry on half of his face. It is not just the water that hurts, but the knowledge that that can be reminded to him is how half of him has fire just like his father’s. As the searing pain finally starts to die down, little but important pieces of him (memories of nights huddled with a mother to see his fire as his own, his brother making those shapes with his hands) seem to leak out with his tears.

---

Touya dies in a fire starting from his seventh attempt to pull Shouto from training with Enji. Touya dies when his wildfire swarms him and his skin blisters and melts. Touya dies as the skin grafts are stapled on to his body and even without nerves in those places, he can still feel the flames as they enveloped him. Touya dies… and Dabi rises from his ashes.

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