[It was worth a shot. He's not sure there's a force on this earth strong enough to keep Dabi from using his quirk to it's fullest potential when Enji had spent much of his son's youth convincing him that he shouldn't, or that he couldn't handle it. Reverse psychology, however unintentional, could be a bitch.]
I don't want to see it.
[The statement is half dismissive, and half warning. It's one of the things he'd rather work up to. He's still not able to separate the man standing half naked in front of him right now from the round faced child in that picture he stares at at night sometimes when he can't sleep. They're one in the same, and he's failed them both. Dabi making light of Enji's hope that maybe he could heal just underscores how broken he is. How much he broke him--]
Clearly you find some sick pleasure in knowing that I do, so do what you want with it. I don't care. Just don't let me catch you doing anything stupid to hurt yourself while I'm around, or I'll hurt you myself.
[There's little sense in offering violence as a solution to self-harm, but Endeavor was never trained to deal with this kind of thing, and violence is most of what he's good at. He's being baited, though. Dabi doesn't try to hide that he's pushing at Enji's buttons, but he's old and set in his ways, he doesn't know how to just ignore it. That's part of his problem and why change is so hard.]
I don't have any friends, and you know that. [Only co-workers. Well, maybe Hawks on a good day, but somehow only having a single friend is worse than being so socially inept that he chooses not to keep any.
Dabi isn't pulling away from his touch this time, and Enji decides not to back down either. His hand ghosts over the curve of his shoulder, up the side of his son's neck to ultimately rest his hands against his jaw. He can't help but be curious. All they found of Touya on that mountain was a jaw bone. So was the one in there now artificial? Or did it belong to someone else. Maybe the jaw bone on the mountain belonged to someone else entirely, and Touya left burnt but with his skeleton in tact? At some point Enji became lost enough in his thoughts that he thought nothing of how his thumb came to drag over Dabi's upper lip.]
I didn't do that to him. His mother did. [A pause.] But no, I've never had that kind of relationship with him.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 11/29/21 22:02 (UTC)I don't want to see it.
[The statement is half dismissive, and half warning. It's one of the things he'd rather work up to. He's still not able to separate the man standing half naked in front of him right now from the round faced child in that picture he stares at at night sometimes when he can't sleep. They're one in the same, and he's failed them both. Dabi making light of Enji's hope that maybe he could heal just underscores how broken he is. How much he broke him--]
Clearly you find some sick pleasure in knowing that I do, so do what you want with it. I don't care. Just don't let me catch you doing anything stupid to hurt yourself while I'm around, or I'll hurt you myself.
[There's little sense in offering violence as a solution to self-harm, but Endeavor was never trained to deal with this kind of thing, and violence is most of what he's good at. He's being baited, though. Dabi doesn't try to hide that he's pushing at Enji's buttons, but he's old and set in his ways, he doesn't know how to just ignore it. That's part of his problem and why change is so hard.]
I don't have any friends, and you know that. [Only co-workers. Well, maybe Hawks on a good day, but somehow only having a single friend is worse than being so socially inept that he chooses not to keep any.
Dabi isn't pulling away from his touch this time, and Enji decides not to back down either. His hand ghosts over the curve of his shoulder, up the side of his son's neck to ultimately rest his hands against his jaw. He can't help but be curious. All they found of Touya on that mountain was a jaw bone. So was the one in there now artificial? Or did it belong to someone else. Maybe the jaw bone on the mountain belonged to someone else entirely, and Touya left burnt but with his skeleton in tact? At some point Enji became lost enough in his thoughts that he thought nothing of how his thumb came to drag over Dabi's upper lip.]
I didn't do that to him. His mother did. [A pause.] But no, I've never had that kind of relationship with him.