Ever since moving into the rooms above the bar, you'd never been alone.
Even when Dabi disappeared alone, with Shigaraki, and sometimes even one of the other workers Shigaraki had hired since you both had moved in, you were always left with Kurogiri, helping him do little jobs. Sometimes Dabi would silently hand you a worksheet to keep you busy while he was away, and Kurogiri would help you out where you needed it. You were okay with Japanese, but did struggle a bit with English and math.
You'd help Kurogiri clean, and sometimes he let you help him cook, too. You weren't allowed to handle anything sharp, but you were allowed to mix things and break the eggs and add seasoning. You really enjoyed your time with him.
Since moving into Shigaraki's bar, you'd met a funny man who wore a really tight full body latex suit, who had been introduced to you as 'Twice', but he was insistent that you call him Jin.
He always made you giggle, because he'd say one thing, and then another deeper voice would leave him and say something completely opposite to what he'd said before.
At first you'd been a little nervous of him because he was strong looking and taller than Dabi, but it didn't take too long for you to realize you didn't need to be scared of him at all. He was silly, and liked to talk to you about Giran, as well as trying to make you laugh with silly jokes.
Dabi would shoot him the odd glare whenever a curse word would slip past his lips, but it always made you laugh, and that seemed to ease Dabi's mood with him, even if it was only a little bit.
Sometimes when Jin came to the bar, he'd sit with you in one of the booths and try to teach you how to play card games. You weren't very good at poker, there were too many rules, but you liked bluff, and go fish.
Sometimes, the other person who now lived above the bar with you, Shigaraki and Dabi, joined in too.
Her name was Toga, and she was a little scary too. She was a little older than you and had sharp teeth like a cat, and her eyes were a sharp yellow that made everything she did seem a little threatening. She had been nothing but friendly and almost a little too adoring of you, but you were still a little nervous of her. More so than you were Jin, but less nervous than you were of Shigaraki.
Toga liked to give you clothes, but you have no idea how she managed to get so much of them. They always still had tags on them as though she'd brought them for you, and it made you feel really guilty. You'd even tried to stop accepting them from her at one point, but that made her more upset than she seemed to be when you did take her gifts, so you just gave in, even when she brought you a matching outfit to what she wore most of the time.
Sometimes when Dabi went off at night to work, and you were left with no-one but Kurogiri and Toga, she'd play make-over with you, where she'd put makeup on you and try to style your hair. She'd always swoon about how cute you were as though you were one of those pageant kids from TV and she was the mom that had forced you into taking part.
Dabi didn't seem to like how she'd dress you up like some kind of doll whenever he was away, so you tended to be taken to Giran again when he needed to go out and work.
Sometimes Jin would be there, although without the full-body suit, you hadn't recognised him at first. He'd almost scared you off before Dabi had lazily greeted him as 'Twice'.
He was blonde, strong like you knew he would be, and he looked tired, with a long scar running down his forehead. But he was Jin! And you liked Jin a lot.
He would sit and watch you draw, making funny contradictory statements about what it was you were doing. Whenever his deeper voice insulted what you had done he'd apologize profusely, but he didn't need to, you knew that you could happily ignore whatever the deep voice said.
One of the days you'd drawn a little version of him smoking, and he'd clutched it in his hand with sheer adoration in his eyes the whole remainder of the time you were left at Girans, you could even see him staring at it as he smoked at the bottom of the stairs, abiding by Dabi's rules of not smoking around you unlike Giran did.
You were beginning to feel comfortable and happy in your new living space, as long as Shigaraki wasn't around.
You tended to avoid each other for the most part, it was probably better off that way as Dabi didn't seem to like it when you two were too close to each other. You'd feel his eyes on you even across the room, as if the look alone was warning you silently to move away.
Sometimes Shigaraki would talk to you, although it would never be anything too interesting. Sometimes he'd insult you quietly under his breath when you struggled with a worksheet at the bar counter with Kurogiri leaning over it with you. This would always get a warning call of his name from Kurogiri, or a half-annoyed chirp from Toga if she was around.
Sometimes he'd entertain playing a game with you if no-one else was available, although he'd get pretty irritated at you if you weren't any good at whatever it was he wanted to play, which happened a lot. He'd quickly learned you were no good at any kind of shooting game, but could handle platformers and games akin to Mario Kart.
And sometimes he'd just grunt a greeting at you.
He and Dabi seemed to be getting along somewhat okay, though. The first few days had been tough between them both, a few glares and what seemed to be a battle of the egos, but now they were able to speak somewhat civilly with one another, and the glares had lessened.
Sometimes you'd pad downstairs in the middle of the night to spot them drinking together at the bar, speaking quietly to one another.
You tried not to bother Dabi too much at night. If you had a nightmare about mom, you'd try to brave it out on your own, having slowly realized that you didn't need to worry about Shigaraki coming into your room, and Dabi seemed to be getting a little annoyed every time you'd gone downstairs to find him.
He tried to hide it, but you knew.
You didn't really get to see him anymore. Shigaraki tended to keep him busy on jobs at night, and Dabi slept through most of the day because of it.
Sometimes you'd sneak into his room and just fill out the worksheets there, listening to his quiet breaths as you tried to figure the problems out alone.
It was nice when his hair started to fade to a gray and he asked you to help him redye it. It was fun basically painting his hair, and helping him wash it all out, giggling at how the black dye made the water look dirty like he hadn't washed for weeks as you washed it out.
Today, you'd made your way down the stairs to the bar to walk into another new person sitting at the bar with Shigaraki, who was wearing that horrible hand mask again, playing some shooting game together.
Your mouth hangs open when you realize it's some kind of lizard person.
"Star." Dabi hisses as soon as he sees you, and motions for you to close your mouth with his hand silently.
You do, just in time thankfully, as the new person seems to hear Dabi's voice, and looks over at you momentarily, his scales furrowing where a normal person's eyebrows would be.
"A kid?" He asks curiously, turning to look at Shigaraki.
"That's Dabi's."Â Shigaraki replies in a bored manner.
You climb onto the stool next to Dabi, thanking Kurogiri when he immediately sets a glass of apple juice in front of you, he was used to your daily routine by now and always gave you apple juice when he first saw you.
"We're having onigiri. Would you like some, Miss Star?" Kurogiri asks, his yellow eyes flickering like a candle as he pushes another worksheet towards you. It's another Japanese one. Easy.
"Mhm!" You reply enthusiastically as you sip your drink, looking over the worksheet quickly.
You can't stop yourself from staring at the new guy though, even between filling in your worksheet.
"Stop it." Dabi whispers at one point, nudging you ever so slightly with his elbow.
Luckily, Shigaraki and this potential new staff member were too enthralled with their game and riling each other up that Dabi's whisper goes unnoticed by them both. You give him an apologetic look and lower your head, hoping that if you fill your sight completely with the characters on the paper in front of you that you wouldn't get distracted and stare at Shigaraki's new companion any more.
Dabis hand places itself upon your hair, gently rubbing your skull with his thumb.
It's nice that he's awake and present today, a scarred arm appearing in your limited peripheral sight as he leans across the bar, looking over your worksheet too, his glacial blue eyes scanning the page.
Like this, he blocks out the view of Shigaraki and the newbie at the other end of the bar.
"How're you gettin' on with these?" Dabi asks, tapping the sheet with his forefinger softly. His eyes make contact with your own.
"These ones are okay." You reply quietly, secretly trying to listen in to whatever the two at the other end of the bar are discussing. "I'm not very good at English and math though..."
Dabi nods a little, his eyes falling back to the paper. "English and math are hard. I getcha."
There's a brief cheer from the other end of the bar, making you jolt. Dabi lazily moves out of the way of your line of vision, looking over at the rowdy gamers lazily.
Shigaraki seems pissed off, but his lizard companion is laughing heartily, the sound oddly comforting in comparison to how emotionless the bar usually is without Toga being her usual enthusiastic self, or Jin around being loud through no fault of his own.
You're staring again, but you can't help yourself. You're fascinated by the look on his face, the way his eyes glittered, and the way that his scales seemed to flex and glimmer ever so slightly with every movement.
The feeling of Dabi's burning gaze pulls your attention away again, and you look back down at the page in front of you again, despite you having finished it within no time at all.
"Spinner, this is Dabi's party member. Star." Shigaraki finally introduces as he motions lazily towards you both.
Spinner looks over at you both properly, a one sided grin pulling at what passes for his mouth.
You stare again, your eyes wide. If Spinner notices, he doesn't really seem to mind too much. He nods at Dabi as though it's his first time properly acknowledging him before running his eyes over you.
Your face heats up a little, but you're unsure why.
"Star, huh? Pretty name." Spinner says, looking at Dabi when he says it. "You look too young to have a kid."
Dabi snorts. "She ain't mine. Jus' lookin' after her. She's alone."
Spinner's brows raise and he gives a slow nod, one of his taloned hands going to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. "That makes more sense."
You watch in fascination, looking at his less-human features. The small beak that seemed to form his mouth, the glittery scales, the claws on his hands, and you wish you could see below the countertop to see if he has a tail, too.
Spinner laughs a little awkwardly at the blatant attention, and Dabi sighs.
"Sorry, man. Must be her first time seein' a heteromorph." Dabi apologizes, nudging you in the ribs gently to distract you again.
Thankfully, Kurogiri appears with the onigiri, providing a good distraction from Spinner once more.
You bow your head politely as you take one from the tray he'd outstretched towards you and Dabi, excited.
You always get excited about Kurogiri's cooking. He was a really good cook, way better than mom had ever been, and you had yet to eat anything that he'd prepared that wasn't well done. You'd managed to put on the weight you'd lost on the streets within no time at all thanks to how attentive he was to feeding everyone good, proper meals.
"Didn't you teach her manners?" Shigaraki sneers from the other side of the bar, carefully taking one of the onigiri from the outstretched tray as Kurogiri approaches.
Spinner follows suit, and you try to subtly watch how his clawed fingers take it, wondering how gentle he had to be in order to not accidentally poke the rice too hard and make the whole structure of the riceball crumble.
"It's alright." Spinner says, smiling gently at you, clearly trying to be friendly and approachable. The smile does nothing but make your face burn again. "There weren't any others like me where I grew up, either."
Dabi begins to look at you with a weirdly knowing grin, immediately making you flush even more, and look away in embarrassment, earning a low chuckle from him.
You hop off the bar stool with your onigiri, leaving the worksheet there for Kurogiri to look over when he has some free time.
"Thank you for the food!" You call, hurriedly rushing off to your room to avoid any further nudges, knowing smirks or embarrassment.
*â¢*
You don't get much of a break in your room to yourself, sitting cross legged on your bed with your teddy in between your legs as 'company' as you eat your onigiri.
You were thinking about Spinner, about how pretty the light looked shining off his scales, and thinking about how he said that there were more people like him, just not where he grew up.
You wondered about that, about what kinds of animal people there were out there. You always liked animals. You wondered if there were cat people out there. Maybe even dog people. Your young mind even went a little mad with imagining what a rat-person would look like.
A light knock on your door draws your attention.
"S' me." Dabis voice comes through the door. "Can I come in?"
"Okay..." You call back with a little uncertainty.
He never typically came into your room, you always went into his.
The door opens slowly, as though he was trying to buy time for something. Soon enough, his mass of unruly black hair peeks from around the door, closely followed by the rest of his body.
The first thing he looks at is the pile of drawings near your lamp from all the times you'd been left at Girans, and then he takes a little glance around your room. It was as tidy as it could be, the clothes from Toga folded up in different piles to the ones you got from Giran.
You preferred the clothes from Toga, but there was something special about the clothes that Giran gave you, so you tended to wear those when you were feeling a little unsettled. You usually wore them to bed, the faint smell of cigarettes reminded you of Dabi and mom, and helped you feel soothed enough to try your hardest not to climb into his bed after your nightmares.
"What'd ya go runnin' off for?" Dabi asks with that same knowing smirk as he returns his attention back to you, slowly approaching your bed.
"You were embarrassing me." You reply, your face burning up again as you look away from him.
He chuckles a bit, and appears to sit on the edge of your bed from the feeling of the mattress dipping slightly on one side.
"Aw. I'm sorry kid. Was just cute how you got all blushy like that." He teases, pinching one of your burning cheeks gently. "D'ya like Spinner?"
"No!" You deny instantly, even more embarrassed. "He's not even a proper person!"
"Hey, now." Dabi says, his voice dropping an octave, sounding as serious as Dabi ever did. "None'a that. He may be a little different from you an' me, but he's still a person. Don't go saying sh-stuff like that. That's not nice at all, little Star."
"You know what I meant." You mumble, somehow getting even more humiliated from the slight telling-off.
Dabi's hand appears in your hair, petting it like he seemed to do more and more recently.
"Imagine you looked a lil' different from everyone else. Would'ya like people sayin' you weren't a proper person because of it?" Dabi asks, seeming to try a softer approach.
You sigh. "No."
Dabi gives your hair another pet, rubbing his thumb against your scalp again. He doesn't say any more, and he doesn't need to. His point was made.
"I didn't mean like that..." You feel the need to defend, but he hushes you softly.
"Dun' matter how you meant it, kid. It'd still hurt his feelin's, yaknow? He's just as human as us here." He says, tapping your chest a couple times, right above where your heart would be. "The way he looks is 'cause of his quirk. Jus' like how I look is 'cause of mine."
This was the first time he'd really mentioned anything about his scars, and it piques your attention.
You turn to look at him. He doesn't look angry, or disappointed, he's just looking at you patiently, seeming to be waiting for some kind of sign or acknowledgement from you that you understood what he was saying.
You did, and you were humiliated with what you'd said, which was why you were trying to save the situation, but to no avail.
Reluctantly, you sigh, deciding that trying to deny it had gotten you nowhere.
"...His scales are pretty." You admit with rapidly heating up cheeks again.
Dabi chuckles once more, ruffling your hair playfully.
"You're cute." He teases, earning a pained groan from you in response.
You continue eating what's left of your onigiri, hoping that the distraction will lead to your face cooling down, and Dabi continues sitting next to you in silence, reaching to the drawings left on the side and quietly going through them.
"You're so clever, kid." He says with a little sigh. "These are great."
Your mood lifts instantly with the compliment, your shoulders perking up as you look over at him with glittering eyes. He's looking at a drawing you'd started and not finished. It wasn't one you had particularly liked, it was just some blue flowers you'd seen Dabi looking at for a little longer than he tended to pay attention to things one time when you'd been wandering the streets together.
Giran had taken note of how much time you spent using his pens and paper while you were left with him, and had eventually brought you some markers, so you'd actually been able to colour them in precisely how you remembered them.
He'd also gotten you a sketchbook, but you were too nervous of going wrong in it and messing up the whole thing, so you'd left it in his office untouched. You'd use it... One day.
"Haven't really been seein' ya much, huh kid?" Dabi says, putting the drawings back where they were before. He looks at you with an apologetic look in his eyes.
You shake your head silently. You hadn't minded too much, you had Toga, Jin and Kurogiri keeping you company for the most part. You missed him a little, sure, but you were trying to be understanding about it.
"Got a free day today. Wanna go do somethin'?" He asks, reaching to pet your hair again.
"Like what?" You ask, unable to fight the look of excitement that takes over your face the second he promises some alone time with you again.
You get a soft smile in return as he ruffles your hair yet again.
"Whatever you want, kid. My treat." He promises.